While, throughout that sad summer, my Jack was slowly coming back to
health, even the vast events of the war now under way moved me but
little. My Aunt Gainor would think of no one but her young Quaker. Her
house was no longer gay, nor would she go to the country, until Mr.
Warder agreed that she should take Jack with us to the Hill Farmhouse,
where, in the warm months, she moved among her cattle, and fed the hens,
and helped and bullied every poor housewife far and near.
In a bright-tinted hammock I fetched from Madeira, Jack used to lie
under the apple-trees that June and July, with my aunt for company;
better could hardly have been. When I came from town in June, with news
of what the farmers and their long rifles had done at Bunker Hill, it
was a little too much for Jack’s strength, and he burst into tears. But
Dr. Rush declared that self-control was an affair of physical health,
and that he who had too little blood--and Jack was lily-white--could be
neither courageous, nor able to contain his emotions. I suppose it may
be true.
I went in and out of town daily, my father being unwilling to go to
Merion. At times I met James Wilson, who was steadily urging me to enter
the army. Wetherill had scarce any other words for me. But my father,
Jack’s condition, and my aunt’s depending on me, all stood in my way,
and I did but content myself with an hour’s daily drill in town with
others, who were thus preparing themselves for active service.
We were taught, and well too, by an Irish sergeant--I fear a deserter
from one of his Majesty’s regiments. As Jack got better, he was eager
to have me put him through his facings, but before he was fit the summer
was nigh over.
It had been a time of great anxiety to all men. The Virginia colonel
was commander-in-chief; a motley army held Sir William Howe penned up in
Boston, and why he so quietly accepted this sheep-like fate no man of
us could comprehend. My aunt, a great letter-writer, had many
correspondents, and one or two in the camp at Cambridge.
“My Virginia fox-hunter,” said my aunt, “is having evil days with the
New England farmers. He is disposed to be despotic, says--well, no
matter who. He likes the whipping-post too well, and thinks all should,
like himself, serve without pay. A slow man it is, but intelligent,”
says my Aunt Gainor; “sure to get himself right, and patient too. You
will see, Hugh; he will come slowly to understand these people.”
I smiled at the good lady’s confidence, and yet she was right. They took
him ill at first in that undisciplined camp, and queer things were said
of him. Like the rest, he was learning the business of war, and was
to commit many blunders and get sharp lessons in this school of the
soldier.
These were everywhere uneasy times. Day after day we heard of this one
or that one gone to swell the ever-changing number of those who beset
Sir William. Gondolas--most unlike gondolas they were--were being built
in haste for our own river defence. Committees, going from house to
house, collected arms, tent-stuffs, kettles, blankets, and what not,
for our troops. There were noisy elections, arrests of Tories; and in
October the death of Peyton Randolph, ex-president of the Congress,
and the news of the coming of the Hessian hirelings. It was a season
of stir, angry discussion, and stern waiting for what was to come;
but through it all my Jack prospered mightily in health, so that by
September 20 he was fit to leave us.
I still think pleasantly of all the pretty pictures of pale, fair-haired
Jack in the hammock, with Darthea reading to him, and the Whig ladies
with roses from their gardens, and peaches and what not, all for Jack,
the hero, I being that summer but a small and altogether unimportant
personage.
When my Jack went home again, we began at once to talk over our plans
for joining Mr. Washington; I made sure that now there was no greater
obstacle in my way than my father’s opinions. Alas! in November my aunt
took what Dr. Rush called a pernicious ague, and, although bled many
times and fed on Jesuits’ bark, she came near to dying. In January
she was better, but was become like a child, and depended upon me for
everything. If I but spoke of my desire to be in the field, she would
fall to tears or declare me ungrateful. She was morally weakened by her
disease, and did seem to have changed as to her character. I lamented to
Jack that it was my fate to stay, and he must go alone; I would follow
when I could.
It was far into April before my aunt was entirely her old self, but as
early as the close of January she had decided that she was well,
and that to be well you must get rid of doctors. She told the great
physician as much, and he left her in vast disgust. Society she would
now have had for remedial distraction, but the war had made of it a
dismal wreck. The Tories had been warned or sent away; the moderates
hardly fared better; and the old gay set was broken up. Nevertheless
it was not until far later, in July, ‘77, that Mr. Chew, Mr. Penn, and
other as important neutrals, were ordered to leave the city; until then
some remnants of the governor’s set kept up more or less of the pleasant
life they had once led. But there were no more redcoats in their
drawing-rooms, and our antagonists were of the last who had lingered.
Even before their departure, any gentleman of the king’s service was
sure to be told to leave, and meanwhile was apt to find a militiaman at
his door.
My aunt would have none of them that winter, and her old Tory friends
ceased to be seen at her house, save only Darthea, whilst continental
uniforms and gentlemen of the Congress were made warmly welcome; but
alas! among these was no match for her at piquet, and she felt that no
one had sacrificed more for the country than had she.
In February of ‘76 a double change took place among us, and to my great
discontent. I had seen much of Darthea in the fall and early winter of
‘75, and had come to know her better. She was fond of riding with my
aunt, who had a strong gray stallion full of tricks, but no master of
the hardy old lady, whom neither horse nor man ever dismayed. The good
spinster was by no means as vigorous as I could have wished, but ride
she would on all clear days whether cold or not, and liked well to have
Darthea with us. When ill she was a docile patient, but, once afoot,
declared all doctors fools, and would have no more of them “and their
filthy doses.”
We rode of sunlit winter days out to Germantown, or upon the wood roads
over Schuylkill, my Aunt Gainor from good nature being pleased to gallop
ahead, and leave us to chat and follow, or not, as might suit us.
One fine crisp morning in February we were breasting at a walk the
slippery incline of Chestnut Hill, when Darthea, who had been unusually
silent, said quite abruptly:
“I am going away, Mr. Wynne.”