The academy was, and still is, a plain brick building, set back from
Fourth street, and having a large gravelled space in front and also at
the back. The main school-room occupied its whole westward length, and
upstairs was a vast room, with bare joists above, in which, by virtue of
the deed of gift, any Christian sect was free to worship if temporarily
deprived of a home. Here the great Whitefield preached, and here
generations of boys were taught. Behind the western playground was the
graveyard of Christ Church. He was thought a brave lad who, after school
at dusk in winter, dared to climb over and search around the tombs of
the silent dead for a lost ball or what not.
I was mightily afraid of the academy. The birch was used often and with
severity, and, as I soon found, there was war between the boys and the
town fellows who lived to north and east. I was also to discover other
annoyances quite as little to the taste of Friends, such as stone fights
or snowball skirmishes. Did time permit, I should like well to linger
long over this school life. The college, as it was officially called,
had a great reputation, and its early catalogues are rich with names of
those who made an empire. This task I leave to other pens, and hasten to
tell my own personal story.
In my friend Jack Warder’s journal there is a kind page or two as to
what manner of lad I was in his remembrance of me in after-years. I like
to think it was a true picture.
“When Hugh Wynne and I went to school at the academy on Fourth street,
south of Arch, I used to envy him his strength. At twelve he was as tall
as are most lads at sixteen, but possessed of such activity and muscular
power as are rarely seen, bidding fair to attain, as he did later, the
height and massive build of his father. He was a great lover of risk,
and not, as I have always been, fearful. When we took apples, after the
fashion of all Adam’s young descendants, he was as like as not to give
them away. I think he went with us on these, and some wilder errands,
chiefly because of his fondness for danger, a thing I could never
comprehend. He still has his mother’s great eyes of blue, and a fair,
clear skin. God bless him! Had I never known him I might perhaps have
been, as to one thing, a happier man, but I had been less deserving of
such good fortune as has come to me in life. For this is one of the uses
of friends: that we consider how such and such a thing we are moved to
do might appear to them. And this for one of my kind, who have had--nay,
who have--many weaknesses, has been why Hugh Wynne counts for so much to
me.
“We, with two other smaller boys, were, at that time, the only sons
of Friends at the academy, and were, thanks to the brute Dove, better
grounded in the humanities than were some, although we were late in
entering.”
I leave this and other extracts as they were writ. A more upright
gentleman than John Warder I know not, nor did ever know. What he meant
by his weaknesses I cannot tell, and as to the meaning of one phrase,
which he does not here explain, these pages shall perhaps discover.
Not long after our entrance at the academy, my father charged me one
morning with a note to my aunt, Gainor Wynne, which I was to deliver
when the morning session was over. As this would make me late, in case
her absence delayed a reply, I was to remain and eat my midday meal. My
father was loath always to call upon his sister. She had early returned
to the creed of her ancestors, and sat on Sundays in a great square
pew at Christ Church, to listen to the Rev. Robert Jennings. Hither, in
September of 1763, my aunt took me, to my father’s indignation, to hear
the great Mr. Whitefield preach.
Neither Aunt Gainor’s creed, dress, house, nor society pleased her
brother. She had early made clear, in her decisive way, that I was to be
her heir, and she was, I may add, a woman of large estate. I was allowed
to visit her as I pleased. Indeed, I did so often. I liked no one
better, always excepting my mother. Why, with my father’s knowledge of
her views, I was thus left free I cannot say. He was the last of men to
sacrifice his beliefs to motives of gain.
When I knocked at the door of her house on Arch street, opposite the
Friends’ Meeting-house, a black boy, dressed as a page, let me in. He
was clad in gray armozine, a sort of corded stuff, with red buttons, and
he wore a red turban. As my aunt was gone to drive, on a visit to that
Madam Penn who was once Miss Allen, I was in no hurry, and was glad
to look about me. The parlour, a great room with three windows on the
street, afforded a strange contrast to my sober home. There were Smyrna
rugs on a polished floor, a thing almost unheard of. Indeed, people came
to see them. The furniture was all of red walnut, and carved in shells
and flower reliefs. There were so many tables, little and larger, with
claw-feet or spindle-legs, that one had to be careful not to overturn
their loads of Chinese dragons, ivory carvings, grotesque Delft beasts,
and fans, French or Spanish or of the Orient. There was also a spinet,
and a corner closet of books, of which every packet brought her a
variety. Upstairs was a fair room full of volumes, big and little, as
I found to my joy rather later, and these were of all kinds: some good,
and some of them queer, or naughty. Over the wide, white fireplace was
a portrait of herself by the elder Peale, but I prefer the one now in my
library. This latter hung, at the time I speak of, between the windows.
It was significant of my aunt’s idea of her own importance that she
should have wished to possess two portraits of herself. The latter was
painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds when she was in England in 1750, and
represents her as a fine, large woman with features which were too big
for loveliness in youth, but in after-years went well with her abundant
gray hair and unusual stature; for, like the rest of us, she was tall,
of vigorous and wholesome build and colour, with large, well-shaped
hands, and the strength of a man--I might add, too, with the
independence of a man. She went her own way, conducted the business of
her estate, which was ample, with skill and ability, and asked advice
from no one. Like my father, she had a liking to control those about
her, was restlessly busy, and was never so pleased as when engaged in
arranging other people’s lives, or meddling with the making of matches.
To this ample and luxurious house came the better class of British
officers, and ombre and quadrille were often, I fear, played late into
the long nights of winter. Single women, after a certain or uncertain
age, were given a brevet title of “Mistress.” Mistress Gainor Wynne lost
or won with the coolness of an old gambler, and this habit, perhaps more
than aught beside, troubled my father. Sincere and consistent in his
views, I can hardly think that my father was, after all, unable to
resist the worldly advantages which my aunt declared should be mine. It
was, in fact, difficult to keep me out of the obvious risks this house
and company provided for a young person like myself. He must have
trusted to the influence of my home to keep me in the ways of Friends.
It is also to be remembered, as regards my father’s motives, that my
Aunt Gainor was my only relative, since of the Owens none were left.
My mother was a prime favourite with this masterful lady. She loved
nothing better than to give her fine silk petticoats or a pearl-coloured
satin gown; and if this should nowadays amaze Friends, let them but look
in the “Observer,” and see what manner of finery was advertised in 1778
as stole from our friend, Sarah Fisher, sometime Sarah Logan, a much
respected member of Meeting. In this, as in all else, my mother had her
way, and, like some of the upper class of Quakers, wore at times such
raiment as fifty years later would have surely brought about a visit
from a committee of overseers.
Waiting for Aunt Gainor, I fell upon an open parcel of books just come
by the late spring packet. Among these turned up a new and fine edition
of “Captain Gulliver’s Travels,” by Mr. Dean Swift. I lit first, among
these famous adventures, on an extraordinary passage, so wonderful,
indeed, and so amusing, that I heard not the entrance of my father,
who at the door had met my aunt, and with her some fine ladies of the
governor’s set. There were Mrs. Ferguson, too well known in the politics
of later years, but now only a beautiful and gay woman, Madam Allen, and
Madam Chew, the wife of the Attorney-General.
They were eagerly discussing, and laughingly inquiring of my father,
what colour of masks for the street was to be preferred. He was in no
wise embarrassed by these fine dames, and never, to my thinking, was
seen to better advantage than among what he called “world’s people.” He
seemed to me more really at home than among Friends, and as he towered,
tall, and gravely courteous in manner, I thought him a grand gentleman.
As I looked up, the young Miss Chew, who afterward married Colonel Eager
Howard, was saying saucily, “Does not Madam Wynne wear a mask for her
skin! It is worth keeping, Mr. Wynne.”
“Let me recommend to you a vizard with silver buttons to hold in the
mouth, or, better, a riding-mask,” cried Aunt Gainor, pleased at this
gentle badgering, “like this, John. See, a flat silver plate to hold
between the teeth. It is the last thing.”
“White silk would suit her best,” cried Mrs. Ferguson, “or green, with a
chin-curtain--a loo-mask. Which would you have, sir?”
“Indeed,” he said quietly, “her skin is good enough. I know no way to
better it.”
Then they all laughed, pelting the big man with many questions, until he
could not help but laugh, as he declared he was overwhelmed, and would
come on his business another day. But on this the women would not stay,
and took themselves and their high bonnets and many petticoats out of
the room, each dropping a curtsey at the door, and he bowing low, like
Mr. John Penn, as never before I had seen him do.
No sooner were they gone than he desired me to give him the note he had
written to his sister, since now it was not needed, and then he inquired
what book I was reading. Aunt Gainor glanced at it, and replied for me,
“A book of travels, John, very improving too. Take it home, Hugh, and
read it. If you find in it no improprieties, it may be recommended to
your father.” She loved nothing better than to tease him.
“I see not what harm there could be in travels,” he returned. “Thou hast
my leave. Gainor, what is this I hear? Thou wouldst have had me sell
thee for a venture threescore hogsheads of tobacco from Annapolis. I
like not to trade with my sister, nor that she should trade at all: and
now, when I have let them go to another, I hear that it is thou who art
the real buyer. I came hither to warn thee that other cargoes are to
arrive. Thou wilt lose.”
Aunt Gainor said nothing for a moment, but let loose the linen safeguard
petticoat she wore against mud or dust when riding, and appeared in a
rich brocade of gray silken stuff, and a striped under-gown. When she
had put off her loose camlet over-jacket, she said, “Will you have a
glass of Madeira, or shall it be Hollands, John? Ring the bell, Hugh.”
“Hollands,” said my father.
“What will you give me for your tobacco to-day, John?”
“Why dost thou trifle?” he returned.
“I sold it again, John. I am the better by an hundred pounds. Two
tobacco-ships are wrecked on Hinlopen. An express is come. Have you not
heard?”
“Farewell,” he said, rising. He made no comment on her news. I had an
idea that he would not have been unhappy had she lost on her venture.
Joseph Warder was her agent then and afterward. She rarely lost on her
purchases. Although generous, and even lavish, she dearly loved a good
bargain, and, I believe, liked the game far more than she cared for
success in the playing of it.
“Come, Hugh,” she said, “let us eat and drink. Take the book home, and
put it away for your own reading. Here is sixpence out of my gains. I
hope you will never need to trade, and, indeed, why should you, whether
I live or die? How would the king’s service suit you, and a pair of
colours?”