I returned late in the evening, to order my horse to be saddled and
sent to me before breakfast next morning; for I kept it at no cost in my
aunt’s ample stable. To my horror, I found a sentinel at the door,
and the hall full of army baggage. In the parlour was a tall Hessian,
General von Knyphausen, and Count Donop and others, smoking, much at
their ease. They were fairly civil, but did not concern themselves
greatly if I liked it or not. I found my aunt in bed, in a fever of vain
anger.
She had the bed-curtains drawn, and when I was bid to enter, put aside
the chintz so as to make room for her head, which appeared in a tall
nightcap. I am unfit, I fear, to describe this gear; but it brought out
all her large features very strongly, and to have seen her would have
terrified a Hessian regiment.
“My house is full of Dutch dogs,” she cried. “As soon as they came they
ordered bones.” In fact, they had asked quite civilly if they might have
supper.
“I saw them at their feed,” says my aunt, “and the big beast, General
Knyphausen, spread my best butter on his bread with his thumb, sir--his
thumb! Count Donop is better; but Von Heiser! and the pipes! heavens!”
Here she retreated within her curtains, and I heard her say, “Bessy
Ferguson saw them come in, and must sail across the street and tell
Job--the page with the turban--to congratulate me for her, and to advise
me to get a keg of sauerkraut.”
I assured my aunt that fortunately these were gentlemen, but she was
inconsolable, declaring herself ill, and that Dr. Rush must come at
once.
“But,” I said, “he is gone with all the Congress to York.”
“Then I shall die,” moaned my aunt.
At last, knowing her well, I said, “Is it not too sad?”
“What’s that? What?”
“Mr. Howe has taken Mrs. Pemberton’s carriage and the pair of sorrels
for his own use.”
At this my Aunt Gainor’s large face reappeared, not as melancholic
as before, and I added, “Friend Waln has six to care for, and Thomas
Scattergood has the Hessian chaplain and a drunken major. The rest of
Friends are no better off.”
“Thank the Lord for all His mercies!” said Miss Wynne.
“And Mr. Cadwalader’s house on Little Dock street Sir William has.”
“A pity that, Hugh. The fine furniture will pay for it, I fear. I think,
Hugh, I am better, or I shall be soon.”
“They talk of the Meeting over the way for a barrack, Aunt Gainor.” Now
this was idly rumoured, but how could one resist to feed an occasion so
comic?
“I think I should die contented,” said Miss Wynne. “Now go away, Hugh.
I have had my medicine, and I like it.” She was quick at self-analysis,
and was laughing low, really happier for the miseries of her Tory
acquaintances.
After the bedroom comedy, which much amused me and out of which my
aunt got great comfort, she was inclined to be on better terms with the
officers so abruptly thrust upon her. For a while, however, she declined
to eat her meals with them, and when told that they had had Colonel
Montresor to dine, and had drunk the king’s health, she sent all the
glasses they had used down to the blacks in the kitchen, and bade them
never to dare set them on her table again. This much delighted Count
Donop, who loved George of Hanover no better than did she, and I learned
that she declared the bread-and-butter business was the worst of Von
Knyphausen, and was no doubt a court custom. As to Count Donop, she
learned to like him. He spoke queer French, and did not smoke. _“Je
ne foume pas chamais, madame,”_ he said; _“mais le Cheneral, il foume
touchours, et Von Heiser le meme,”_ which was true. The count knew her
London friends, and grieved that he was sent on a service he did not
relish, and in which later he was to lose his life.
My aunt fed them well, and won at piquet, and declared they were much
to be pitied, although Von Heiser was a horror. When he had knocked down
her red-and-gold Delft vase, the gods and the other china were put away,
and then the rugs, because of the holes his pipe ashes burned, and still
she vowed it was a comfort they were not redcoats. Them she would have
poisoned.
Captain Andre alone was an exception. When, in 1776, he was made a
prisoner by Montgomery in Canada, and after that was on parole at
Lancaster, I met him; and as he much attracted me, my aunt sent him
money, and I was able to ease his captivity by making him known to our
friends, Mr. Justice Yeates and the good Cope people, who, being sound
Tories, did him such good turns as he never forgot, and kindly credited
to us. Indeed, he made for my aunt some pretty sketches of the fall
woods, and, as I have said, was welcome where no other redcoat could
enter.
My aunt was soon easier in mind, but my own condition was not to be
envied. Here was Arthur Wynne at my father’s, the Hessians at my aunt’s,
the Tories happy, seven or eight thousand folks gone away, every inn and
house full, and on the street crowds of unmannerly officers. It was not
easy to avoid quarrels. Already the Hessian soldiers began to steal all
manner of eatables from the farms this side of Schuylkill. More to my
own inconvenience, I found that Major von Heiser had taken the privilege
of riding my mare Lucy so hard that she was unfit to use for two days.
At last my aunt’s chicken-coops suffered, and the voice of her pet
rooster was no more heard in the land. I did hear that, as this raid
of some privates interfered with the Dutch general’s diet, one of the
offenders got the strappado. But no one could stop these fellows, and
they were so bold as to enter houses and steal what they wanted, until
severe measures were taken by Mr. Howe. They robbed my father boldly,
before his eyes, of two fat Virginia peach-fed hams, and all his special
tobacco. He stood by, and said they ought not to do it. This, as they
knew no tongue but their own, and as he acted up to his honest belief
in the righteousness of non-resistance, and uttered no complaint, only
served to bring them again. But this time I was at home, and nearly
killed a corporal with the Quaker staff Thomas Scattergood gave my
father. The adventure seemed to compensate Miss Wynne for her own
losses. The corporal made a lying complaint, and but for Mr. Andre I
should have been put to serious annoyance. Our boys used to say that the
Hessian drum-beat said, “Plunder, plunder, plun, plun, plunder.” And
so for the sad remnant of Whig gentles the town was made in all ways
unbearable.
There are times when the life sands seem to run slowly, and others when
they flow swiftly, as during this bewildering week. All manner of things
happened, mostly perplexing or sad, and none quite agreeable. On the
28th, coming in about nine at night, I saw that there were persons in
the great front sitting-room, which overlooked Dock Creek. As I came
into the light which fell through the open doorway, I stood unnoticed.
The room was full of pipe smoke, and rum and Hollands were on the table,
as was common in the days when Friends’ Meeting made a minute that
Friends be vigilant to see that those who work in the harvest-fields
have portions of rum. My father and my cousin sat on one side, opposite
a short, stout man almost as swarthy as Arthur, and with very small
piercing eyes, so dark as to seem black, which eyes never are.
I heard this gentleman say, “Wynne, I hear that your brother is worse.
These elder brothers are unnatural animals, and vastly tenacious of
life.” On this I noticed my cousin frown at him and slightly shake his
head. The officer did not take the hint, if it were one, but added,
smiling, “He will live to bury you; unfeeling brutes--these elder
brothers. Damn ‘em!”
I was shocked to notice how inertly my father listened to the oath, and
I recalled, with a sudden sense of distress, what my aunt had said of my
father’s state of mind. The young are accustomed to take for granted
the permanency of health in their elders, and to look upon them as
unchanging institutions, until, in some sad way, reminded of the frailty
of all living things.
As I went in, Arthur rose, looked sharply at me, and said, “Let me
present my cousin, Mr. Hugh Wynne, Colonel Tarleton.”
I bowed to the officer, who lacked the politeness to rise, merely
saying, “Pleased to see you, Mr. Wynne.”
“We were talking,” said Arthur, “when you came of the fight at the river
with the queer name--Brandywine, isn’t it?”
“No,” said my father; “thou art mistaken, and I wished to ask thee,
Arthur, what was it thou wert saying. We had ceased to speak of the war.
Yes; it was of thy brother.”
“What of thy brother?” said I, glad of this opening.
“Oh, nothing, except Colonel Tarleton had news he was not so well.”
He was so shrewd as to think I must have overheard enough to make it
useless to lie to me. A lie, he used to say, was a reserve not to be
called into service except when all else failed.
“Oh, was that all?” I returned. “I did hear, Cousin Arthur, that the
Wyncote estate was growing to be valuable again; some coal or iron had
been found.”
“So my mother writes me,” said Tarleton. “We are old friends of your
family.”
“You know,” I said, “we are the elder branch.” I was bent on
discovering, if possible, the cause of my cousin’s annoyance whenever
Wyncote was mentioned.
“I wish it were true about our getting rich,” said Arthur, with the
relaxed look about the jaw I had come to know so well; it came as he
began to speak. “If it were anything but idle gossip, Tarleton, what
would it profit a poor devil of a younger son? They did find coal, but
it came to nothing; and indeed I learn they lost money in the end.”
“I have so heard,” said my father, in a dull way. “Who was it told me? I
forget. They lost money.”’
I looked at him amazed. Who could have told him but Arthur, and why?
Until a year back his memory had been unfailing.
I saw a queer look, part surprise, part puzzle, go over Tarleton’s face,
a slight frown above, as slight a smile below. I fancy he meant to twit
my cousin for he said to me:
“And so you are of the elder branch, Mr. Hugh Wynne. How is that,
Arthur? How did the elder branch chance to lose that noble old house?”
My cousin sat rapping with his fingers on the table what they used to
call the “devil’s tattoo,” regarding me with steady, half-shut eyes--a
too frequent and not well-mannered way he had, and one I much disliked.
He said nothing, nor had he a chance, for I instantly answered the
colonel: “My father can tell you.”
“About what, Hugh?”
“About how we lost our Welsh estate.”
My father at this lifted his great bulk upright in the old Penn chair,
and seemed more alive.
“It is Colonel Tarleton who asks, not I.”
“It is an old story.” He spoke quite like himself. “Our cousin must know
it well. My father suffered for conscience’ sake, and, being a Friend,
would pay no tithes. For this he was cast into jail in Shrewsbury Gate
House, and lay there a year, suffering much in body, but at peace,
it may surely be thought, as to his soul. At last he was set free on
condition that he should leave the country.”
“And the estate?” asked Tarleton.
“He thought little of that. It was heavily charged with debt made by his
father’s wild ways. I believe, too, there was some agreement with the
officers of the crown that he should make over the property to his next
brother, who had none of his scruples. This was in 1670, or thereabouts.
A legal transfer was made to my uncle, who, I think, loved my father,
and understood that, being set in his ways, he would defy the king’s
authority to the end. And so--wisely I think--the overruling providence
of God brought us to a new land, where we have greatly prospered.”
“And that is all?” said the colonel. “What a strange story! And so you
are Wynne of Wyneote, and lost it.”
“For a greater gain,” said my father. “My son has a silly fancy for
the old place, but it is lost--lost--sold; and if we could have it at
a word, it would grieve me to see him cast in his lot among a set of
drunken, dicing, hard-riding squires--a godless set. It will never be if
I can help it. My son has left the creed of his father and of mine, and
I am glad that his worldly pride cannot be further tempted. Dost thou
hear, Hugh?”
There was a moment of awkward silence. My father had spoken with
violence, once or twice striking the table with his fist until the
glasses rang. There was something of his old vehemence in his statement;
but as a rule, however abrupt when we were alone, before strangers he
was as civil to me as to others. My cousin, I thought, looked relieved
as my father went on; and, ceasing to drum on the table, he quietly
filled himself a glass of Hollands.
I was puzzled. What interest had Arthur to lie about the value of
Wyncote if it was irretrievably lost to us? As my father ended, he
glanced at me with more or less of his old keenness of look, smiling
a little as he regarded me. The pause which came after was brief, as I
have said; for my reflections, such as they were, passed swiftly through
my mind, and were as complete as was under the circumstances possible.
“I am sorry for you,” said Tarleton. “An old name is much, but one likes
to have with it all the memories that go with its ancient home.”
“That is true,” said I; “and, if my father will pardon me, I like still
to say that I would have Wyncote to-day if I could.”
“Thou canst not,” said my father. “And what we cannot have--what God has
willed that we shall not have--it were wise and well to forget. It is
my affair, and none of thine. Wilt thou taste some of my newly come
Madeira, Friend Tarleton?”
The colonel said “No,” and shortly after left us, my cousin going with
him.
My father sat still for a while, and then said as I rose, “I trust to
hear no more of this nonsense. Thy aunt and thy mother have put it in
thy foolish head. I will have no more of it--no more. Dost thou hear?”