After this my days went by more peacefully. The help and example of Jack assisted me greatly in my lessons, which I did little relish. I was more fond of reading, and devoured many books as I sat under our orchard trees in the spring, or nestled up to the fire on the long winter evenings, coiled on the settle, that its high back might keep off drafts. My aunt lent me an abundance of books after that famous “Travels” of Mr. Gulliver. Now and then my father looked at what she gave me, but he soon tired of this, and fell asleep in the great oak chair which Governor Penn gave my grandfather.
Many volumes, and some queer ones, I fell upon in my aunt’s house, but, save once, against the naughtiness of Mrs. Aphra Behn, she never interfered. We liked greatly a book called “Peter Wilkins,” by one Paltock, full of a queer folk, who had winged “graundees,” a sort of crimson robe made of folds of their own skin. None read it now. My dear Jack fancied it much more than I.
I was nigh to fifteen before we read “Robinson Crusoe,” but even earlier I devoured at my aunt’s “Captain Jack” and “The History of the Devil.” The former book filled us with delight. Jack and I used to row over to Windmill Island, on the great Delaware, and there at the south end we built a hut, and slew bullfrogs, and found steps on the sand, I being thereafter Friday, and Jack my master. We made, too, a sail and mast for my boat, and, thus aided, sailed of Saturdays up and down the noble river, which I have always loved.
A still greater joy was to go in our chaise with my mother to the governor’s woods, which extended from Broad street to the Schuylkill, and from Callowhill to South street. There we tied the horse, and under the great trees we found in spring arbutus, even beneath the snow, and later fetched thence turkey-foot ferns, and wild honeysuckle, and quaker-ladies, with jack-in-the-pulpits and fearful gray corpse-lights hid away in the darker woods. In the forest my mother seemed even younger than at home, and played with us, and told us quaint tales of her French people, or fairy stories of Giant Jack and others, which were by no means such as Friends approved.
In our house one same stern, unbending rule prevailed. I have been told by my aunt, Gainor Wynne, that when he was young my father was not always so steadfast in conduct as to satisfy Friends. When I was old enough to observe and think, he had surely become strict enough; but this severity of opinion and action increased with years, and showed in ways which made life difficult for those near to him. In fact, before I attained manhood the tinted arms and the picture of Wyncote were put away in the attic room. My mother’s innocent love of ornament also became to him a serious annoyance, and these peculiarities seemed at last to deepen whenever the political horizon darkened. At such times he became silent, and yet more keen than usual to detect and denounce anything in our home life which was not to his liking.
The affairs of a young fellow between the ages of childhood and younger manhood can have but meagre interest. Our school life went on, and while we worked or played, our elders saw the ever-increasing differences between king and colonies becoming year by year more difficult of adjustment. Except when some noisy crisis arose, they had for us lads but little interest.
Most people used the city landings, or lightered their goods from ships in the stream. We, however, had a great dock built out near to the mouth of Dock Creek, and a warehouse. Hither came sloops from my father’s plantation of tobacco, near Annapolis, and others from the “permitted islands,” the Cape de Verde and the Madeiras. Staves for barrels, tobacco, and salt fish were the exports, and in return came Eastern goods brought to these islands, and huge tuns of Madeira wine. Rum, too, arrived from New England, and salted mackerel. What else my father imported, of French goods or tea, reached us from England, for we were not allowed to trade with the continent of Europe nor directly with India.
Once my father took me with him to Lewes, near Cape Hinlopen, on one of his ships, and to my joy we were met there by Tom, our black slave, with horses, and rode back during two days by Newcastle and Chester. As I rode ill, of course, and was sore for a week, my father thought it well that I should learn to ride, and this exercise I took to easily. Just before I was sixteen my aunt gave me a horse, and after we had separated abruptly a few times, and no harm to any, I became the master, and soon an expert rider, as was needful in a land where most long journeys were made on horseback.
It seems to me now, as I look back, that the events of life were preparing me and my friend Jack for what was to follow. Our boating made every part of the two rivers familiar. Now that I had a horse, Jack’s father, who would always do for him readily what my Aunt Gainor did for me, yielded to his desire to ride; and so it was that we began, as leisure served, to extend our rides to Germantown, or even to Chestnut Hill. Thus all the outlying country became well known to both of us, and there was not a road, a brook, or a hill which we did not know.
Until this happy time I had been well pleased to follow my aunt on a pillion behind her servant, Caesar, but now I often went with her, perched on my big horse, and got from my aunt, an excellent horsewoman, some sharp lessons as to leaping, and certain refinements in riding that she had seen or known of in London.
A Captain Montresor—he who afterward, when a colonel, was Howe’s engineer—used to ride with her in the spring of ‘69. He was a tall, stout man of middle age, and much spoken of as likely to marry my Aunt Gainor, although she was older than he, for, as fat Oliver de Lancey said years after, “There is no age to a woman’s money, and guineas are always young.” My aunt, Gainor Wynne, was still a fine gentlewoman, and did not look her years. As concerned this question of age, she was like a man, and so in fact she was in some other ways. She would tell any one how old she was. She once informed Mr. de Lancey that she was so much more of a man than any British officer she knew that she did not see how she could decently marry any of them.
I think it was about this time that I saw a little scene which much impressed me, and which often recurs to my memory. We—that is, Mr. Montresor, and my Aunt Gainor and I—of a Saturday afternoon rode over by the lower ferry and up Gray’s Lane, and so to Mr. Hamilton’s country-seat. “The Woodlands,” as it was called, stood on a hill amid many beautiful trees and foreign shrubs and flowers. Below it ran the quiet Schuylkill, and beyond, above the governor’s woods, could be seen far away Dr. Kearsley’s fine spire of Christ Church. No better did Master Wren himself ever contrive, or more proportioned to the edifice beneath it.
On the porch were Mr. Hamilton and Mrs. Penn, with saucy gray eyes, and Mrs. Ferguson. A slim young girl, Rebecca Franks, was teasing a cat. She teased some one all her days, and did it merrily, and not unkindly. She was little and very pretty, with a dark skin. Did she dream she should marry a British soldier—a baronet and general—and end her days in London well on in the century yet to come?
Andrew Allen, whose father, the chief justice, took his wife, Margaret, from this house, sat on the steps near Miss Franks, and beside her little Peggy Shippen, who already gave promise of the beauty which won for her so pitiful a life. Nothing in this garden of gay women and flowers foretold the tragedy of West Point. I think of it now with sad wonder.
In one or another way these people became known in our annals. Most of them were of the more exclusive party known as the governor’s set, and belonged to the Church of England. With the Galloways, Cadwaladers, Willings, Shippens, Rawles, and others, they formed a more or less distinct society, affecting London ways, dining at the extreme hour of four, loving cards, the dance, fox-hunting, and to see a main of game-cocks. Among them—not of them—came and went certain of what were called “genteel” Quakers—Morrises, Pembertons, Whartons, and Logans. They had races too,—that is, the governor’s set,—and one of my delights was, on the way to the academy, to stop in Third street, above Chestnut, and see the race-horses in the Widow Nichols’s stables at the sign of the Indian Queen.
But I have left the laughter of the last century echoing among the columns of Andrew Hamilton’s home. The guests were made welcome, and had a dish of tea or a glass of punch; and those desiring no more bohea set a spoon across the cup, and fell into groups. My aunt opened the velvet bag which hung at her waist, to pay Mrs. Ferguson a small gambling debt of the night before.
“Ah, here!” she cried gaily, “Mr. Montresor, this is for you. One of Mr. Grenville’s stamps; I kept two. I was lucky enough to get them from Master Hughes, the stamp officer—a great curiosity. You shall have one.”
Mr. Montresor bowed. “I will keep it,” he said, “until it comes into use again.”
“That will be never,” said Andrew Allen, turning.
“Never!” repeated Miss Wynne. “Let us hope, sir, it may be a lesson to all future ministers.”
“A man was wanted in New York in place of Mr. Gage,” cried Mrs. Ferguson. “As to those New England Puritans, they were in rebellion before they came over, and have been ever since.”
“And what of New York, and this town, and Virginia?” said my Aunt Gainor, with her great nose well up.
“I would have put an end to their disloyal ways, one and all,” cried Mrs. Ferguson.
“It is curious,” said Mr. Galloway, “that the crown should be so thwarted. What people have more reason to be contented?”
“Contented!” said Miss Wynne. “Already they talk of taxes in which we are to have no voice. Contented! and not a ship dare trade with France. It amazes me that there is a man in the plantations to sit quiet under it.”
“I am of your opinion, madam,” said Mr. Macpherson, “and I might go still further.”
“They consider us as mere colonials, and we may not so much as have a bishop of our own. I would I had my way, sir.”
“And what would you do, Mistress Wynne?” asked Mr. Chew.
“I would say, ‘Mr. Attorney-General, give us the same liberty all the English have, to go and come on the free seas!’”
“And if not?” said Montresor, smiling.
“And if not,” she returned, “then—” and she touched the sword at his side. I wondered to see how resolute she looked.
The captain smiled. “I hope you will not command a regiment, madam.”
“Would to God I could!”
“I should run,” he cried, laughing. And thus pleasantly ended a talk which was becoming bitter to many of this gay company.
Destiny was already sharpening the sword we were soon to draw, and of those who met and laughed that day there were sons who were to be set against fathers, and brothers whom war was to find in hostile ranks. A young fellow of my age, the son of Mr. Macpherson, sat below us on the steps with the girls. He was to leave his young life on the bastion at Quebec, and, for myself, how little did I dream of what I should get out of the devil-pot of war which was beginning to simmer!
Very soon I was sent with Rebecca Franks and Miss Chew to gather flowers. Miss Franks evidently despised my youth, and between the two little maids I, being unused to girls, had not a pleasant time, and was glad to get back to the porch, where we stood silent until bidden to be seated, upon which the girls curtseyed and I bowed, and then sat down to eat cakes and drink syllabub.
At last my aunt put on her safeguard petticoat, the horses came, and we rode away. For a while she was silent, answering the captain in monosyllables; but just beyond the ferry his horse cast a shoe, and went so lame that the officer must needs return to Woodlands leading him, there to ask a new mount.
For yet a while my aunt rode on without a word, but presently began to rally me as to Miss Chew. I had to confess I cared not for her or the other, or, indeed, for maids at all.
“It will come,” said she. “Oh, it will come soon enough. Peggy Chew has the better manners. And, by the way, sir, when you bow, keep your back straight. Mr. Montresor has a pretty way of it. Observe him, Hugh. But he is a fool, and so are the rest; and as for Bessy Ferguson, I should like to lay a whip over her back like that,” and she hit my horse sharply, poor thing, so that I lost a stirrup and came near to falling.
When the beast got quiet I asked why these nice people, who had such pleasant ways, were all fools.
“I will tell you,” she said. “There are many and constant causes of trouble between us and the king. When one ends, like this Stamp Act, another is hatched. It was the best of us who left England, and we are trained to rely on ourselves, and have no need of England. You will live to see dark days, Hugh—just what, God alone can tell; but you will live to see them, and your life will have to answer some questions. This may seem strange to you, my lad, but it will come.”
What would come I knew not. She said no more, but rode homeward at speed, as she liked best to do.
Thus time went by, until I was full sixteen, having been at the college a year later than was usual. I had few battles to fight, and contrived to keep these to myself, or to get patched up at my Aunt Wynne’s, who delighted to hear of these conflicts, and always gave me a shilling to heal my wounds. My dear, fair-haired Jack, Aunt Gainer thought a girl-boy, and fit only to sell goods, or, at best, to become a preacher. His father she used and disliked.
Meanwhile we had been through Horace and Cicero,—and Ovid for our moral improvement, I suppose,—with Virgil and Sallust, and at last Caesar, whom alone of them all I liked. Indeed, Jack and I built over a brook in my Aunt Gainor’s garden at Chestnut Hill a fair model of Caesar’s great bridge over the Rhine. This admired product of our ingenuity was much praised by Captain Montresor, who was well aware of my aunt’s weakness for a certain young person.
My father’s decisions came always without warning. In the fall of 1769 I was just gone back to the academy, and put to work at mathematics and some Greek under James Wilson, at that period one of the tutors, and some time later an associate judge of the Supreme Court. This great statesman and lawyer of after-days was a most delightful teacher. He took a fancy to my Jack, and, as we were inseparable, put up with my flippancy and deficient scholarship. Jack’s diary says otherwise, and that he saw in me that which, well used, might make of me a man of distinction. At all events, he liked well to walk with us on a Saturday, or to go in my boat, which was for us a great honour. My father approved of James Wilson, and liked him on the holiday to share our two-o’clock dinner. Then, and then only, did I understand the rigour and obstinacy of my father’s opinions, for they ofttimes fell into debate as to the right of the crown to tax us without representation. Mr. Wilson said many towns in England had no voice in Parliament, and that, if once the crown yielded the principle we stood on, it would change the whole political condition in the mother-land; and this the king would never agree to see. Mr. Wilson thought we had been foolish to say, as many did, that, while we would have no internal taxes, we would submit to a tax on imports. This he considered even worse. My father was for obedience and non-resistance, and could not see that we were fighting a battle for the liberty of all Englishmen. He simply repeated his opinions, and was but a child in the hands of this clear-headed thinker. My father might well have feared for the effect of Mr. Wilson’s views on a lad of my age, in whose mind he opened vistas of thought far in advance of those which, without him, I should ever have seen.
John Wynne was, however, too habitually accustomed to implicit obedience to dream of danger, and thus were early sown in my mind the seeds of future action, with some doubt as to my father’s ability to cope with a man like our tutor, who considerately weighed my father’s sentiments (they were hardly opinions), and so easily and courteously disposed of them that these logical defeats were clear even to us boys.
Our school relations with this gentleman were abruptly broken. One day, in late October of 1769, we went on a long walk through the proprietary’s woods, gathering for my mother boughs of the many-tinted leaves of autumn. These branches she liked to set in jars of water in the room where we sat, so that it might be gay with the lovely colours she so much enjoyed. As we entered the forest about Eighth street Mr. Wilson joined us, and went along, chatting agreeably with my mother. Presently he said to me: “I have just left your father with Mr. Pemberton, talking about some depredations in Mr. Penn’s woods. He tells me you boys are to leave school, but for what I do not know. I am sorry.”
Jack and I had of late expected this, and I, for one, was not grieved, but my friend was less well pleased.
We strolled across to the Schuylkill, and there, sitting down, amused ourselves with making a little crown of twisted twigs and leaves of the red and yellow maples. This we set merrily on my mother’s gray beaver, while Mr. Wilson declared it most becoming. Just then Friend Pemberton and my father came upon us, and, as usual when the latter appeared, our laughter ceased.
“I shall want thee this afternoon, Hugh,” he said. “And what foolishness is this on thy head, wife? Art thou going home in this guise?”
“It seems an innocent prettiness,” said Pemberton, while my mother, in no wise dismayed, looked up with her big blue eyes.
“Thou wilt always be a child,” said my father.
“Je l’espere,” said the mother; “must I be put in a corner? The bon Dieu hath just changed the forest fashions. I wonder is He a Quaker, Friend Pemberton?”
“Thou hast ever a neat answer,” said the gentle old man. “Come, John, we are not yet done.”
My father said no more, and we boys were still as mice. We went homeward with our mirth quite at an end, Jack and Wilson leaving us at Fourth street.
In the afternoon about six—for an hour had been named—I saw my aunt’s chaise at the door. I knew at once that something unusual was in store, for Mistress Wynne rarely came hither except to see my mother, and then always in the forenoon. Moreover, I noticed my father at the window, and never had I known him to return so early. When I went in he said at once:
“I have been telling thy aunt of my intention in regard to thee.”
“And I utterly disapprove of it,” said my aunt.
“Wait,” he said. “I desire that thou shalt enter as one of my clerks; but first it is my will that, as the great and good proprietary decreed, thou shouldst acquire some mechanic trade; I care not what.”
I was silent; I did not like it. Even far later, certain of the stricter Friends adhered to a rule which was once useful, but was now no longer held to be of imperative force.
“I would suggest shoemaking,” said my Aunt Gainor, scornfully, “or tailoring.”
“I beg of thee, Gainor,” said my mother, “not to discontent the lad.”
“In this matter,” returned my father, “I will not be thwarted. I asked thee to come hither, not to ridicule a sensible decision, but to consult upon it.”
“You have had all my wisdom,” said the lady. “I had thought to ask my friend, Charles Townshend, for a pair of colours; but now that troops are sent to Boston to override all reason, I doubt it. Do as you will with the boy. I wash my hands of him.”
This was by no means my father’s intention. I saw his face set in an expression I well knew; but my mother laid a hand on his arm, and, with what must have been a great effort, he controlled his anger, and said coldly: “I have talked this over with thy friend, Joseph Warder, and he desired that his son should share in my decision as to Hugh. Talk to him, Gainor.”
“I do not take counsel with my agent, John. He does as I bid him. I could shift his opinions at a word. He is a Tory to-day, and a Whig to-morrow, and anything to anybody. Why do you talk such nonsense to me? Let me tell you that he has already been to ask me what I think of it. He feels some doubt, poor man. Indeed, he is disposed to consider. Bother! what does it matter what he considers?”
“If he has changed his mind I have not. Joseph hath ever a coat of many colours.”
“I shall tell him,” she cried, laughing. The Quaker rule of repression and non-resistance by no means forbade the use of the brutal bludgeon of sarcasm, as many a debate in Meeting could testify. She rose as she spoke, and my mother said gently:
“Thou wilt not tell him, Gainor.”
Meanwhile I stood amazed at a talk which so deeply concerned me.
“Shall it be a smithy?” said my father.
“Oh, what you like. The Wynnes are well down in the world—trade, horseshoeing. Good evening.”
“Gainor! Gainor!” cried my mother; but she was gone in wrath, and out of the house.
“Thou wilt leave the academy. I have already arranged with Lowry, in South street, to take thee. Three months should answer.”
saying, “It is only for a time, my son.”
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