The next day we went to our farm in Merion. My father said no word of
the Meeting, nor did I. The summer of ‘73 went on. I rode in to my work
daily, sometimes with my father, who talked almost altogether of his
cattle or of his ventures, never of the lowering political horizon. He
had excused himself from being a consignee of the tea, on the score of
his voyage, which was now intended for September.
My aunt lived in summer on the farther slope of Chestnut Hill, where,
when the road was in order, came her friends for a night, and the usual
card-play. When of a Saturday I was set free, I delighted to ride over
and spend Sunday with her, my way being across country to one of the
fords on the Schuylkill, or out from town by the Ridge or the Germantown
highroad. The ride was long, but, with my saddle-bags and Lucy, a new
mare my aunt had raised and given me, and clad in overalls, which we
called tongs, I cared little for the mud, and often enough stopped to
assist a chaise out of the deep holes, which made the roads dangerous
for vehicles.
Late one day in August, I set out with my friend Jack to spend a Sunday
with my Aunt Gainor. Jack Warder was no w a prime favourite, and highly
approved. We rode up Front street, and crossed the bridge where Mulberry
street passed under it, and is therefore to this day called Arch street,
although few know why. The gay coats of officers were plentiful, farmers
in their smocks were driving in with their vegetables, and to the right
was the river, with here and there a ship, and, beyond, the windmill on
the island. We talked of the times, of books, of my father’s voyage, and
of my future stay with my aunt.
Although Jack’s father was a Quaker, he was too discreet a business man
not to approve of Jack’s visits to my aunt, and too worldly not to wish
for his son a society to which he was not born; so Mrs. Ferguson and
Mrs. Galloway made much of Jack, and he was welcome, like myself, at
Cliveden, where the Chews had their summer home.
The Tory ladies laughed at his way of blushing like a girl, and, to
Jack’s dismay, openly envied his pink-and-white skin and fair locks.
They treated him as if he were younger than I, although, as it chanced,
we were born on the same day of the same year; and yet he liked it
all--the gay women, the coquettish Tory maids, even the “genteel” Quaker
dames, such as Mrs. Sarah Logan or Mrs. Morris, and the pretty girls
of the other side, like Sarah Lukens and the Misses Willing, with their
family gift of beauty. These and more came and went at my aunt’s, with
men of all parties, and the grave Drs. Rush and Parke, and a changing
group of English officers.
In the little old house at Belmont, the Rev. Richard Peters was glad to
sit at cards with the Tory ladies, whose cause was not his, and still
less that of Richard, his nephew. At times, as was the custom, sleighing
parties in winter or riding-parties in summer used to meet at Cliveden
or Springetsbury, or at a farm-house where John Penn dwelt while engaged
in building the great house of Lansdowne, looking over trees to the
quiet Schuylkill.
We rode out gaily this August afternoon, along the Germantown road,
admiring the fine farms, and the forests still left among the cultivated
lands. Near Fisher’s Lane we saw some two or three people in the road,
and, drawing near, dismounted. A black man, who lay on the ground,
groaning with a cut head, and just coming to himself, I saw to be my
aunt’s coachman Caesar. Beside him, held by a farmer, was a horse with a
pillion and saddle, all muddy enough from a fall. Near by stood a slight
young woman in a saveguard petticoat and a sad-coloured, short camlet
cloak.
“It is Miss Darthea Peniston,” said Jack.
“Miss Peniston,” I said, dismounting, “what has happened?”
She told me quietly, that, riding pillion to stay with my aunt, the
horse had fallen and hurt Caesar, not badly, she thought. She had
alighted on her feet, but what should she do? After some discussion,
and the black being better, we settled to leave him, and I proposed that
Jack, the lighter weight, should ride my Aunt Gainor’s horse, with Miss
Peniston on the pillion behind him. Upon this Jack got red, at the idea,
I suppose, of Miss Darthea’s contemplating the back of his head for four
miles. The young woman looked on with shy amusement.
At this moment Caesar, a much pampered person, who alone of all her
house dared give my aunt advice, declared he must have a doctor. Jack,
much relieved, said it was inhuman to leave him in this case, and put an
end to our discussion by riding away to fetch old Dr. de Benneville.
Miss Darthea laughed, said it was a sad thing a woman should have no
choice, and pretended to be in misery as to my unfortunate lot. I said
nothing, but, after looking Caesar’s horse over, I gave my saddle to
be kept at the farmer’s, and put the coachman’s saddle on my mare Lucy,
with the pillion behind made fast to the saddle-straps arranged for this
use. Then I looked well to the girths, and mounted to see how Lucy would
like it. She liked it not at all, and was presently all over the road
and up against the fence of the old graveyard I was to see again in
other and wilder days.
I saw the little lady in the road watching me with a smiling face, by
no means ill pleased with the spectacle. At last I cried, “Wait!” and
putting Miss Lucy down the road for a mile at a run, soon brought her
back quite submissive.
“Art thou afraid?” I said.
“I do not like to be asked if I am afraid. I am very much afraid, but
I would die rather than not get on your mare.” So a chair was fetched,
Miss Peniston put on her linen riding-mask, and in a moment was seated
behind me. For ten minutes I was fully taken up with the feminine
creature under me. At last I said:
“Put an arm around my waist. I must let her go. At once!” I added; for
the mare was getting to rear a little, and the young woman hesitated.
“Do as I tell thee!” I cried sharply, and when I felt her right arm
about me, I said, “Hold fast!” and gave the mare her head. A mile
sufficed, with the double burden, so to quiet her that she came down to
her usual swift and steady walk.
When there was this chance to talk without having every word jolted out
in fragments, the young person was silent; and when I remarked, “There
is now an opportunity to chat with comfort,” said:
“I was waiting, sir, to hear your excuses; but perhaps Friends do not
apologise.”
I thought her saucy, for I had done my best; and for her to think me
unmannerly was neither just nor kind.
“If I am of thy friends--”
“Oh, Quakers, I meant. Friends with a large F, Mr. Wynne.”
“It had been no jesting matter if the mare had given thee a hard fall.”
“I should have liked that better than to be ordered to do as your
worship thought fit.”
“Then thou shouldst not have obeyed me.”
“But I had to.”
“Yes,” I said. And the talk having fallen into these brevities. Miss
Peniston was quiet awhile, no doubt pouting prettily; her face was, of
course, hid from me.
After a while she said something about the milestones being near
together, and then took to praising Lucy, who, I must say, had behaved
as ill as a horse could. I said as much, whereon I was told that mares
were jealous animals; which I thought a queer speech, and replied, not
knowing well how to reply, that the mare was a good beast, and that
it was fair flattery to praise a man’s horse, for what was best in the
horse came of the man’s handling.
“But even praise of his watch a man likes,” said she. “He has a fine
appetite, and likes to fatten his vanity.”
She was too quick for me in those days, and I never was at any time very
smart at this game, having to reflect too long before seeing my way. I
said that she was no doubt right, but thus far that I had had thin diet.
Perhaps saying that Lucy was gay and well bred and had good paces was
meant to please the rider. This woman, as I found later, was capable of
many varieties of social conduct, and was not above flattering for the
mere pleasure it gave her to indulge her generosity, and for the joy she
had in seeing others happy.
Wondering if what she had said might be true, held me quiet for a while,
and busied with her words, I quite forgot the young woman whose breath I
felt now and then on my hair, as she sat behind me.
Silence never suited Miss Peniston long in those days, and especially
not at this time, she being in a merry mood, such as a little adventure
causes. Her moods were, in fact, many and changeful, and, as I was to
learn, were too apt to rule even her serious actions for the time; but
under it all was the true law of her life, strongly charactered, and
abiding like the constitution of a land. It was long before I knew the
real woman, since for her, as for the most of us, all early acquaintance
was a masquerade, and some have, like this lady, as many vizards as
my Aunt Gainor had in her sandalwood box, with her long gloves and her
mitts.
The mare being now satisfied to walk comfortably, we were going by the
Wister house, when I saw saucy young Sally Wister in the balcony over
the stoop, midway of the penthouse. She knew us both, and pretended
shame for us, with her hands over her face, laughing merrily. We were
friends in afterlife, and if you would know how gay a creature a
young Quakeress could be, and how full of mischief, you should see her
journal, kept for Deborah Logan, then Miss Norris. It has wonderful
gaiety, and, as I read it, fetches back to mind the officers she
prettily sketches, and is so sprightly and so full of a life that must
have been a joy to itself and to others, that to think of it as gone and
over, and of her as dead, seems to me a thing impossible.
It was not thought proper then for a young woman to go on pillion behind
a young man, and this Miss Sally well knew. I dare say she set it down
for the edification of her young friend.
“The child” (she was rather more than that) “is saucy,” said my lady,
who understood well enough what her gestures meant. “I should like to
box her ears. You were very silent just now, Mr. Wynne. A penny is what
most folks’ thoughts are bid for, but yours may be worth more. I would
not stand at a shilling.”
“Then give it to me,” said I. “I assure thee a guinea were too little.”
“What are they?”
“Oh, but the shilling.”
“I promise.”
“I seem to see a little, dark-faced child crying because of a boy in
disgrace--”
“Pretty?” she asked demurely.
“No, rather plain.”
“You seem to have too good a memory, sir. Who was she?”
“She is not here to-day.”
“Yes, yes!” she cried. “I have her--oh, somewhere! She comes out on
occasions. You may never see her; you may see her to-morrow.”