The warm spring weather, and General Greene’s good management as quartermaster, brought us warmth and better diet. The Conestoga wains rolled in with grain and good rum. Droves of cattle appeared, and as the men were fed the drills prospered. Soldiers and officers began to amuse themselves. A theatre was arranged in one of the bigger barns, and we—not I, but others—played “The Fair Penitent.” Colonel Grange had a part, and made a fine die of it; but the next day, being taken with a pleurisy, came near to making a more real exit from life. I think it was he who invited Jack Warder to play Calista. Lady Kitty Stirling had said he would look the part well, with his fair locks and big innocent blue eyes, and she would lend him her best silk flowered gown and a fine lot of lace. Jack was in a rage, but the colonel, much amused, apologised, and so it blew over. His Excellency and Lady Washington were to see the play, and the Ladies Stirling and Madam Greene were all much delighted.
“The Recruiting Officer” we should have had later, but about the latter part of May we got news of the British as about to move out of my dear home city. After this was bruited about, no one cared to do anything but get ready to leave the winter huts and be after Sir Henry. In fact, long before this got out there was an air of hopeful expectation in the army, and the men began, like the officers, to amuse themselves. The camp-fires were gay, jokes seemed to revive in the warm air, and once more men laughed. It was pleasant, too, to see the soldiers at fives, or the wickets up and the cricket-balls of tightly rolled rag ribbons flying, or fellows at leap-frog, all much encouraged by reason of having better diet, and no need now to shrink their stomachs with green persimmons or to live without rum. As to McLane and our restless Wayne, they were about as quiet as disturbed wasps. The latter liked nothing better this spring than to get up an alert by running cannon down to the hills on the west of the Schuylkill, pitching shot at the bridges, and then to be off and away before the slow grenadiers could cross in force. Thus it was that never a week went by without adventures. Captain McLane let neither man nor horse live long at ease; but whatever he did was planned with the extreme of care and carried out with equal audacity.
The army was most eager for the summer campaign. We had begun, as I have said, to suspect that Sir Henry Clinton, who had succeeded Howe, was about to move; but whither he meant to march, or his true object, our camp-fire councils could not guess as yet.
Very early in the evening of June 17, I met Colonel Hamilton riding in haste. “Come,” he said; “I am to see Wayne and the marquis. Clinton is on the wing, as we have long expected. He will very likely have already crossed into the Jerseys. Will you have a place in the foot if his Excellency can get you a captaincy?”
I said “Yes” instantly.
“You seem to know your own mind, Mr. Wynne. There will be more hard knocks and more glory.”
I thought so too, but I was now again in the full vigour of health, and an appointment in the foot would, as I hoped, bring me nearer to Jack.
And now joy and excitement reigned throughout the camps. The news was true. On the 18th of June Sir Henry Clinton, having gotten ready by sending on in advance his guns and baggage, cleverly slipped across the Delaware, followed by every Tory who feared to remain; some three thousand, it was said.
Long before dawn we of McLane’s light horse were in the saddle. As we passed Chestnut Hill I fell out to tell my aunt the good news. I was scarce gone by before she began to make ready to follow us. As we pushed at speed through Germantown, it became sure that the evacuation had been fully accomplished. We raced down Front street at a rate which seemed reckless to me. McLane gave no orders, but galloped on ahead in his usual mad way. The townsfolk were wild with Joy. Women stood in tears as we went by; men cheered us and the boys hurrahed. At Arch and Front streets, as we pulled up, I saw a poor little cornet come out of a house half bewildered and buttoning his red jacket. I pushed Lucy on to the sidewalk and caught him by the collar. He made a great fuss and had clearly overslept himself. I was hurriedly explaining, amid much laughter, when McLane called out, “A nice doll-baby! Up with him!” And away he went, behind a trooper. At Third street bridge were two other officers who must have been tipsy overnight and have slept too late. At last, with our horses half dead, we walked them back to Front and High streets, and got off for a rest and a mug of beer at the coffee-house. Soon came a brigade of Virginians, and we marched away to camp on the common called Centre Square.
The streets were full of huzzaing crowds. Our flags, long hid, were flying. Scared tradesmen were pulling down the king’s arms they had set over their signs. The better Tory houses were closed, and few of this class were to be seen in the streets.
Major-General Arnold followed after us. Unable, because of his wound, to accept a command in the field, he took up his abode as commandant of the city in Mr. Morris’s great house at the northeast corner of Front and High streets. I saw this gallant soldier in May, at the time he joined the camp at the Forge, when he was handsomely cheered by the men. He was a man dark and yet ruddy, soldierly looking, with a large nose, and not unlike his Excellency as to the upper part of his face. He was still on crutches, being thin and worn from the effects of the hurt he received at Saratoga.
As soon as possible I left the troop and rode away on Lucy down High street to Second and over the bridges to my home.
I was no longer the mere lad I had left it. Command of others, the leisure for thought in the camp, the sense that I had done my duty well, had made of me a resolute and decisive man. As I went around to the stables in the rear of the house it seemed to me as if I must in a minute see those blue eyes, and hear the pretty French phrases of tender love which in times of excitement used to rise to my mother’s lips. It is thus as to some we love. We never come to feel concerning them that certainty of death which sets apart from us forever others who are gone. To this day a thought of her brings back that smiling face, and she lives for me the life of eternal remembrance.
No one was in the stable when I unsaddled the tired mare. At the kitchen door the servants ran out with cries of joy. With a word I passed them, smelling my father’s pipe in the hall, for it was evening, and supper was over.
He rose, letting his pipe drop, as I ran to fall on his great chest, and pray him to pardon, once for all, what I had felt that it was my duty to do. I was stayed a moment as I saw him. He had lost flesh continually, and his massive build and unusual height showed now a gaunt and sombre man, with clothes too loose about him. I thought that his eyes were filling, but the habits of a life controlled him.
He held to a chair with his left hand, and coldly put out the right to meet my eager grasp, I stood still, my instinct of tenderness checked. I could only repeat, “Father, father, I have come home.”
“Yes,” he said, “thou hast come home. Sit down.”
I obeyed. Then he stooped to pick up his pipe, and raising his strong gray head, looked me over in perfect silence.
“Am I not welcome,” I cried, “in my mother’s home? Are we always to be kept apart? I have done what, under God, seemed to me His will. Cannot you, who go your way so steadily, see that it is the right of your son to do the same? You have made it hard for me to do my duty. Think as seems best to you of what I do or shall do, but have for me the charity Christ teaches. I shall go again, father, and you may never see me more on earth. Let there be peace between us now. For my mother’s sake, let us have peace. If I have cost you dear, believe me, I owe to you such sad hours as need never have been. My mother—she—”
During this outburst he heard me with motionless attention, but at my last word he raised his hand. “I like not thy naming of thy mother. It has been to me ever a reproach that I saw not how far her indulgence was leading thee out of the ways of Friends. There are who by birthright are with us, but not of us—not of us.”
This strange speech startled me into fuller self-command. I remembered his strange dislike to hear her mentioned. As he spoke his fingers opened and shut on the arms of the chair in which he sat, and here and there on his large-featured face the muscles twitched.
“I will not hear her named again,” he added. “As for thee, my son, this is thy home. I will not drive thee out of it.”
“Drive me out!” I exclaimed. I was horror-struck.
“And why not! Since thou wert a boy I have borne all things: drunkenness, debauchery, blood-guiltiness, rebellion against those whom God has set over us, and at last war, the murder of thy fellows.”
I was silent. What could I say! The words which came from my heart had failed to touch him. He had buried even the memory of my mother. I remembered Aunt Gainor’s warnings as to his health, and set myself at once to hear and reply with gentleness.
He went on as if he knew my thought: “I am no longer the man I was. I am deserted by my son when I am in greatest need of him. Had it not pleased God to send me for my stay, in this my loneliness, thy Cousin Arthur, I should have been glad to rest from the labours of earth.”
“Arthur! My cousin!”
“I said so. He has become to me as a son. It is not easy for one brought up among dissolute men to turn away and seek righteousness, but he hath heard as thou didst never hear, nor wouldst. He hath given up dice and cards, and hath asked of me books such as Besse’s ‘Sufferings’ and George Fox’s ‘Testimony.’”
This was said so simply and in such honest faith that I could not resist to smile.
“I did not ask thee to believe me,” said my father, sharply; “and if because a man is spiritually reminded and hath stayed to consider his sin, it is for thee but cause of vain mirth, I will say no more. I have lost a son, and found one. I would it had been he whom I lost that is now found.”
I answered gravely, “Father, the man is a hypocrite. He saw me dying a prisoner in jail, starved and in rags. He left me to die.”
“I have heard of this. He saw some one about to die. He thought he was like thee.”
“But he heard my name.”
“That cannot be. He said it was not thee. He said it!”
“He lied; and why should he have ever mentioned the matter to thee—as indeed he did to others—except for precaution’s sake, that if, as seemed unlike enough, I got well, he might have some excuse? It seems to me a weak and foolish action, but none the less wicked.”
My father listened, but at times with a look of being puzzled. “I do not think I follow thy argument, Hugh,” he said, “neither does thy judgment of the business seem favoured by that which I know of thy cousin.”
“Father, that man is my enemy. He hates me because—because Darthea is my friend, and but for her I should have rotted in the jail, with none to help me.”
“Thy grandfather lay in Shrewsbury Gate House a year for a better cause, and as for thy deliverance. I heard of it later. It did seem to Arthur that the young woman had done more modestly to have asked his help than to have been so forward.”
My father spoke with increase of the deliberateness at all times one of his peculiarities, which seemed to go well with the bigness of his build. This slowness in talk seemed now to be due in part to a slight trouble in finding the word he required. It gave me time to observe how involved was the action of his mind. The impression of his being indirect and less simple than of old was more marked as our talk went on than I can here convey by any possible record of what he said. I only succeeded in making him more obstinate in his belief, as was always the case when any opposed him. Yet I could not resist adding: “If, as you seem to think, Arthur is my friend, I would you could have seen his face when at that silly Mischianza he caught me in disguise.”
“Did he not do his duty after thy creed and his?”
“It was not that, father. Some men might have hesitated even as to the duty. Mr. Andre did not help him, and his debt to us was small. Had I been taken I should have swung as a spy on the gallows in Centre Square.”
“And yet,” said my father, with emphatic slowness, “he would have done his duty as he saw it.”
“And profited by it also,” said I, savagely.
“There is neither charity nor yet common sense in thy words, Hugh. If thou art to abide here, see that thy ways conform to the sobriety and decency of Friends. I will have no cards nor hard drinking.”
“But good heavens! father, when have I ever done these things here, or indeed anywhere, for years?”
His fingers were again playing on the arms of Mr. Penn’s great chair, and I made haste to put an end to this bewildering talk.
“I will try,” I said, “to live in such a way as shall not offend. Lucy is in the stable, and I will take my old room. My Aunt Gainor is to be in town to-morrow.”
“I shall be pleased to see her.”
“And how is the business, father?” I said. “There are no ships at sea, I hope. The privateers are busy, and if any goods be found that may have been for use of the king’s people, we might have to regret a loss.”
“I might,” he returned sharply. “I am still able to conduct my own ventures.”
“Of course, sir,” I said hastily, wondering where I could find any subject which was free from power to annoy him. Then I rose, saying, “There is an early drill. I shall have to be on hand to receive General Arnold. I shall not be back to breakfast. Good-night.”
“Farewell,” he said. And I went upstairs with more food for thought than was to my liking. I had hoped for a brief season of rest and peace, and here was whatever small place I held in my father’s heart filled by my cousin.
When, not long after, for mere comfort, I had occasion to speak to the great Dr. Rush of my father, he said that when the brain became enfeebled men were apt to assign to one man acts done by another, and that this did explain the latter part of my father’s talk about cards and drinking. Also he said that with defect of memory came more or less incapacity to reason, since for that a man must be able to assemble past events and review them in his memory. Indeed, he added, certain failures of remembrance might even permit a good man to do apparent wrong, which seemed to me less clear. The good doctor helped me much, for I was confused and hurt, seeing no remedy in anything I could do or say.
I lit the candles in my old room and looked about me. My cousin had, it appeared, taken up his abode in my own chamber, and this put me out singularly; I could hardly have said why. The room was in the utmost confusion. Only that morning Arthur Wynne had left it. Many of the lazier officers had overslept themselves, as I have said, and came near to being quite left behind. Lord Cosmo Gordon, in fact, made his escape in a skiff just before we entered.
The bed was still not made up, which showed me how careless our slaves must have become. The floor was litered with torn paper, and in a drawer, forgot in Arthur’s hurry, were many bills, paid and unpaid, some of which were odd enough; also many notes, tickets for the Mischianza, theatre-bills, portions of plays,—my cousin was an admirable actor in light parts,—and a note or two in Darthea’s neat writing. I had no hesitation in putting them all on the hearth.
There was nothing in me to make me take advantage of what I found. I kept the Mischianza tickets, and that was all, I have them yet. On the table were Fox’s “Apology,” “A Sweet Discourse to Friends,” by William Penn, and the famous “Book of Sufferings.” In the latter was thrust a small, thin betting-tablet, such as many gentlemen then carried. Here were some queer records of bets more curious than reputable. I recall but two: “Mr. Harcourt bets Mr. Wynne five pounds that Miss A. will wear red stockings at the play on May 12th. Won, A. Wynne. They were blue, and so was the lady.” “A. W. bets Mr. von Speiser ten pounds that he will drink four quarts of Madeira before Mr. von S. can drink two; Major de Lancey to measure the wine. Lost, A. W. The Dutch pig was too much for me.”
Wondering what Darthea or my father would think of these follies, I tossed the books and the betting-tablet on the pile of bills on the hearth, I have since then been shown in London by General Burgoyne the betting-book at Brooks’s Club. There are to be seen the records of still more singular bets, some quite abominable; but such were the manners of the day. My cousin, as to this, was like the rest.
In a closet were cast-off garments and riding-boots. I sent for Tom, and bade him do with these as he liked; then I set fire to the papers on the went to bed.
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