VI

There must have been in this troubled country many such sad scenes as

I have tried to recall. Father and son were to part with hot words,

brother to take sides against brother. My unpleasant half-hour was but

prophetic of that which was to come in worse shape, and to last for

years.

My Aunt Gainor said, “Do not tell your mother,” and I assuredly did not.

“He will tell her. He tells her everything, soon or late. I must see

her at once. Your father is becoming, as the French say, impossible.

The times, and these wrangling Friends, with their stupid testimonies,

irritate him daily until he is like a great, strong bull, such as the

Spaniards tease to madness with little darts and fireworks. You see,

Hugh, events are prickly things. They play the deuce with obstinate

people. Your father will be better away from home. He has never been in

England, and he will see how many, like Mr. Pitt and Colonel Barre, are

with us. As for myself, I have been a bit of a fool about you, and your

father is more or less right. We must abjure sack and take physic.”

“What?” said I.

“To be plain, we must--that is, you must--play less and drink less, and

in your father’s absence look sharply, with my help, to his business.”

I was to need other doctors before I mended my ways. I said my aunt was

right, and I made certain good resolutions, which were but short-lived

and never reached adult maturity of usefulness.

My aunt walked with me north between the warehouses, taverns, and

ship-chandlers on the riverfront, and so across the bridge over Dock

Creek, and up to Third street. She said I must not talk to her. She had

thinking to do, and for this cause, I suppose, turning, took me down

to Pine street. At St. Peter’s Church she stopped, and bade me wait

without, adding, “If I take you in I shall hear of it; wait.”

There was a midday service at this time, it being Lent. I waited idly,

thinking of my father, and, as I before said, vexed and sorry and

ashamed by turns. Often now I pause before I enter this sacred edifice,

and think of that hour of tribulation. I could hear the fine, full voice

of the Rev. Dr. Duche as he intoned the Litany. He lies now where I

stood, and under the arms on his tomb is no record of the political

foolishness and instability of a life otherwise free from blame. As I

stood, Mrs. Ferguson came out, she who in days to come helped to get the

unlucky parson into trouble. With her came my aunt.

“I said a prayer for thee, Hugh,” she whispered. “No; no cards in Lent,

my dear Bess. Fie! for shame! This way, Hugh;” and we went east, through

Pine street, and so to the back of our garden, where we found a way in,

and, walking under the peach-trees, came to where my mother sat beneath

a plum-tree, shelling peas, her great Manx cat by her side.

She wore a thin cap on top of the curly head, which was now wind-blown

out of all order. “Come, Gainor,” she cried, seeing us; “help me to

shell my peas. Thou shalt have some. They are come in a ship from the

Bermudas. What a pretty pale green the pods are! I should like an apron

of that colour.”

“I have the very thing, dear. Shall it be the minuet pattern, or plain?”

“Oh, plain. Am I not a Friend? _Une Amie? Ciel!_ but it is droll in

French. Sarah Logan is twice as gay as I, but John does not love such

vanities. _Quant a moi, je les adore_. It seems odd to have a colour to

a religion. I wonder if drab goodness be better than red goodness. But

what is wrong, Gainor? Yes, there is something. Hugh, thy collar is

torn; how careless of me not to have mended it!”

Then my Aunt Gainor, saying nothing of my especial difficulty, and

leaving out, too, her London news, related with remarkable clearness the

reasons why my father should go overseas in the early fall and be gone

for a year. The mother went on quietly shelling the peas, and losing

no word. When Gainor had done, the bowl of peas was set aside, and my

mother put back her curls, fixed her blue eyes on her sister-in-law,

and was silent for a moment longer. At last she said, “It were best,

for many reasons best. I see it,” and she nodded her head affirmatively.

“But my son? my Hugh?”

“You will have him with you at home. Everything will go on as usual,

except that John will be amusing himself in London.”

At this the little lady leaped up, all ablaze, so to speak. Never had

I seen her so moved. “What manner of woman am I, Gainer Wynne, that I

should let my husband go alone on the seas, and here and there, without

me? I will not have it. My boy is my boy; God knows I love him; but my

husband comes first now and always, and thou art cruel to wish to part

us.”

“But I never wished to part you. Go with him, Marie. God bless your

sweet heart! Leave me your boy; he cannot go. As God lives, I will take

care of him!”

Upon this the two women fell to weeping in each other’s arms, a thing

most uncommon for my Aunt Gainor. Then they talked it all over, as if

John Wynne were not; when it would be, and what room I was to have,

and my clothes, and the business, and so on--all the endless details

wherewith the cunning affection of good women knows to provide comfort

for us, who are so apt to be unthankful.

It amazed me to see how quickly it was settled, and still more to learn

that my father did not oppose, but fell in with all their plans.

Now back of all my weaknesses and folly I had, as I have said, some

of the sense of honour and proud rectitude of my father, who strictly

abided by his creed and his conscience. I returned no more that day to

the counting-house, but, saying to my mother I had business, I went off,

with a hunk of bread, to my boat, and down the creek to the Delaware. I

pulled out, past our old playground on the island, and far away toward

the Jersey shore, and then, as the sun fell, drifted with the tide,

noting the ruddy lines of the brick houses far away, and began to think.

The scene I had gone through had made a deep impression. It has been

ever so with me. Drinking, gaming, betting, and worse, never awakened my

conscience or set me reflecting, until some sudden, unlooked-for thing

took place, in which sentiment or affection was concerned. Then I would

set to work to balance my books and determine my course. At such times

it was the dear mother who spoke in me, and the father who resolutely

carried out my decision.

The boat drifted slowly with the flood-tide, and I, lying on the bottom,

fell to thought of what the day had brought me. The setting sun touched

the single spire of Christ Church, and lit up yellow squares of light

in the westward-looking windows of the rare farm-houses on the Jersey

shore. Presently I was aground on the south end of Petty’s Island,

where in after-years lay rotting the “Alliance,” the remnant ship of the

greatest sea-fight that ever was since Grenville lay in the “Revenge,”

with the Spanish fleet about him. I came to ground amid the reeds

and spatter-docks, where the water-lilies were just in bud. A noisy

orchestra of frogs, with, as Jack said, fiddles and bassoons in their

throats, ceased as I came, and pitched headlong off the broad green

floats. Only one old fellow, with a great bass voice, and secure on the

bank, protested loudly at intervals, like the owl in Mr. Gray’s noble

poem, which my Jack loved to repeat.

At last he--I mean my frog--whose monastery I had disturbed, so vexed

me, who wanted stillness, that I smacked the water with the flat of an

oar, which he took to be a hint, and ceased to lament my intrusion.

I was now well on to twenty, and old enough to begin at times to deal

thoughtfully with events. A young fellow’s feelings are apt to be

extreme, and even despotic, so that they rule the hour with such

strength of sway as may be out of proportion to the cause. I might have

seen that I had no just cause to blame myself, but that did not help

me. The mood of distressful self-accusation was on me. I had no repeated

impulse to smile at what, in my father’s conduct, had appeared to me a

little while ago odd, and even amusing. I could never please him. I had

grinned as I always did when risks were upon me. He never understood me,

and I was tired of trying. What use was it to try? I had one of those

minutes of wishing to die, which come even to the wholesome young. I

was well aware that of late I had not, on the whole, satisfied my

conscience; I knew this quite too well; and now, as I lay in the boat

discontented, I felt, as the youthful do sometimes feel, as if I were

old, and the ending of things were near. It was but a mood, but it led

up to serious thought. There are surely hours in youth when we are older

than our years, and times in age when we are again young. Sometimes I

wonder whether Jack was right, who used to say it may be we are never

young or old, but merely seem to be so. This is the queer kind of

reflection which I find now and then in Jack’s diary, or with which he

used to puzzle me and please James Wilson. Of course a man is young or

is old, and there’s an end on ‘t, as a greater man has said. But Jack

has imagination, and I have none.

I asked myself if I had done wrong in what I had said. I could not see

that I had. With all my lifelong fear of my father, I greatly honoured

and respected him, finding in myself something akin to the unyielding

firmness with which he stood fast when he had made up his mind.

That this proud and steadfast man, so looked up to by every one, no

matter what might be their convictions religious or political, should

have been humiliated by a woman, seemed to me intolerable; this was the

chief outcome of my reflections. It is true I considered, but I fear

lightly, my own misdoings. I made up my mind to do better, and then

again the image of my father in his wrath and his shame came back anew.

I turned the boat, and pulled steadily across the river to our landing.

My father was in the counting-house in his own room, alone, although it

was full late. “Well?” he said, spinning round on his high stool. “What

is it? Thou hast been absent, and no leave asked.”

“Father,” I said, “if I was wrong this morning I wish to ask thy

pardon.”

“Well, it is full time.”

“And I am come to say that I will take the punishment here and now. I

did not run away from that.”

“Very good,” he replied, rising. “Take off thy fine coat.”

I wished he had not said this of my coat. I was in a heroic temper, and

the sarcasm bit cruelly, but I did as I was bid. He went to the corner,

and picked up a rattan cane. To whip fellows of nineteen or twenty was

not then by any means unusual. What would have happened I know not,

nor ever shall. He said, “There, I hear thy mother’s voice. Put on thy

coat.” I hastened to obey him.

The dear lady came in with eyes full of tears, “What is this, John, I

hear? I have seen Gainor. I could not wait. I shall go with thee.”

“No,” he said; “that is not to be.” But she fell on his neck, and

pleaded, and I, for my part, went away, not sorry for the interruption.

As usual she had her way.

I remember well this spring of ‘73. It was early by some weeks, and

everything was green and blossoming in April. My father and mother

were not to sail until the autumn, but already he was arranging for the

voyage, and she as busily preparing or thinking over what was needed.

When next I saw my Aunt Gainor, she cried out, “Sit down there, bad boy,

and take care of my mandarin. He and my great bronze Buddha are my only

counsellors. If I want to do a thing I ask Mr. Mandarin--he can only nod

yes; and if I want not to do a thing I ask Buddha, and as he can neither

say no nor yes, I do as I please. What a wretch you are!”

I said I could not see it; and then I put my head in her lap, as I sat

on the stool, and told her of my last interview with my father, and how

for two days he had hardly so much as bade me good-night.

“It is his way, Hugh,” said my aunt. “I am sorry; but neither love nor

time will mend him. He is what his nature and the hard ways of Friends

have made him.”

I said that this was not all, nor the worst, and went on to tell her my

latest grievance. Our family worship at home was, as usual with Friends

in those days, conducted at times in total silence, and was spoken of

by Friends as “religious retirement.” At other times, indeed commonly,

a chapter of the Bible was read aloud, and after that my father would

sometimes pray openly. On this last occasion he took advantage of the

opportunity to dilate on my sins, and before our servants to ask of

Heaven that I be brought to a due sense of my iniquities. It troubled

my mother, who arose from her knees in tears, and went out of the room,

whilst I, overcome with anger, stood looking out of the window. My

father spoke to her as she opened the door, but she made no answer, nor

even so much as turned her head. It brought to my memory a day of my

childhood, when my father was vexed because she taught me to say the

Lord’s Prayer. He did not approve, and would have no set form of words

taught me. My mother was angry too, and I remember my own amazement that

any one should resist my father.

When I had told my aunt of the indignity put upon me, and of the fading

remembrance thus recalled, she said, “John Wynne has not changed, nor

will he ever.” She declared that, after all, it was her fault--to have

treated me as if I were a man, and to have given me too much money. I

shook my head, but she would have it she was to blame, and then said of

a sudden, “Are you in debt, you scamp? Did John pray for me!” I replied

that I owed no one a penny, and that she had not been remembered. She

was glad I was not in debt, and added, “Never play unless you have

the means to pay. I have been very foolish. That uneasy woman, Bessy

Ferguson, must needs tell me so. I could have slapped her. They will

have thy sad case up in Meeting, I can tell thee.”

“But what have I done!” I knew well enough.

“Tut! you must not talk that way to me; but it is my fault. Oh, the time

I have had with your mother! I am not fit, it seems, to be left to take

care of you. They talk of leaving you with Abijah Hapworthy--sour old

dog! I wish you joy of him!”

“Good heavens!” I exclaimed; for among my aunt’s gay friends I had

picked up such exclamatory phrases as, used at home, would have

astonished my father.

“Rest easy,” said Mistress Wynne; “it is not to be. I have fought your

battle, and won it. But I have had to make such promises to your father,

and--woe is me!--to your mother, as will damn me forever if you do not

help me to keep them. I can fib to your father and not care a snap, but

lie to those blue eyes I cannot.”

“I will try, Aunt Gainor; indeed I will try.” Indeed, I did mean to.

“You must, you must. I am to be a sort of godmother-in-law to you, and

renounce for you the world, the flesh, and the devil; and that for one

of our breed! I shall be like a sign-post, and never go the way I point.

That was Bessy Ferguson s malice. Oh, I have suffered, I can tell you.

It is I, and not you, that have repented.”

“But I will; I do.”

“That is all very well; but I have had my whipping, and you got off

yours.”

“What do you mean, aunt?”

“What do I mean? Here came yesterday Sarah Fisher, pretty gay for a

Quaker, and that solemn Master Savory, with his sweet, low voice like

a nice girl’s tongue, and his gentle ways. And they are friends of thy

people, who are distressed at thy goings on; and Nicholas Waln has seen

thee with two sons of Belial in red coats, come out of the coffeehouse

last month at evening, singing songs such as are not to be described,

and no better able to take care of yourself than you should be. They did

think it well and kind--hang ‘em, Hugh!--to consider the matter with me.

We considered it--we did, indeed. There be five people whose consciences

I am to make you respect. And not one of them do I care for, but Mother

Blue-eyes. But I must! I must! It was all true, sir, what Friend Wain

said; for you had reason enough left to come hither, and did I not put

you to bed and send for Dr. Chovet, who grinned famously, and said,

‘_Je comprends_’ and went to call on your father on a hint from me, to

declare you were _enrhume’_, and threatened with I know not what; in

fact, he lied like a gentleman. You made a noble recovery, and are a

credit to the doctor. I hope you will pay the bill, and are ashamed.”