“Why do not you join our army? A commission were easily had.”
I replied that he knew my sentiments well, and that his question was
absurd.
“No,” he said; “I am your friend, although you do not think so. By
George! were I you, I would be on one side or the other. I like my
friends to do what is manly and decisive.” “Holloa!” thinks I; “has
Darthea been talking? And why does he, an officer of the king, want me
to go?”
“I shall go some day,” I replied, “but when, I know not yet. It seems to
me queer counsel to give a good rebel. When does Miss Peniston return?”
I said.
“What the deuce has that got to do with it? Yes, she is coming back, of
course, and soon; but why do not you join your army?”
“Let us drop that,” I said. “There are many reasons; I prefer not to
discuss the matter.”
“Very good,” he said; “and, Hugh, you heard a heap of nonsense last
night about Wyncote. Tarleton had too much of your father’s rum-punch.
Your people were lucky to lose the old place, and how these tales of
our being rich arose I cannot imagine. Come and see us some day, and you
will no longer envy the lot of beggared Welsh squires.”
All of this only helped the more to make me disbelieve him; but the
key to his lies I had not, and so I merely said it would be many a day
before that could happen.
“Perhaps,” he returned; “but who knows? The war will soon be over.”
“When will Miss Peniston be in town?” said I.
He was not sure; but said I put it in his mind to say something.
“Well?” said I, on my guard.
He went on: “I am a frank man, Cousin Hugh.”
At times he was, and strangely so; then the next minute he would be
indirect or lie to you. The mixture made it hard to understand what he
was after.
“I trust,” he went on, “that you will pardon me if I say that in England
custom does not sanction certain freedoms which in the colonies seem to
be regarded as of no moment. I am not of this opinion. Miss Peniston is,
I hope, to be my wife. She is young, impulsive, and--well, no matter.
Some men take these things coolly; I do not. I am sure you will have the
good sense to agree with me. When a woman is pledged to a man, it is fit
that she should be most guarded in her relations with other men. I--”
Here I broke in, “What on earth does all this mean?”
“I will tell you. Your aunt writes now and then to Miss Peniston.”
“Certainly,” said I.
“Yes; she says, too, things concerning you and that lady which are not
to my taste.”
“Indeed!”
“I have been so honoured as to see some of these famous epistles. I
think Darthea is pleased to torment me at times; it is her way, as you
may happen to know. Also, and this is more serious, you have yourself
written to Darthea.”
“I have, and several times. Why not?”
“These letters,” he went on, “she has refused to show to me. Now I want
to say--and you will pardon me--that I permit no man to write to a woman
whom I am to marry unless I do not object.”
“Well?” I said, beginning to smile, after my unmanageable habit.
“Here I do object.”
“What if I say that, so long as Miss Peniston does not seem displeased,
I care not one farthing who objects!”
“By George!” cried he, leaping up in the boat.
“Take care; thou wilt upset the skiff.”
“I have half a mind to.”
“Nonsense! I can swim like a duck.”
“This is no trifle, sir,” he returned. “I will allow no man to take the
liberty you insist on. It amazes me that you do not see this as I do. I
am sorry, but I warn you once for all that I--”
“I am at your service, sir,” I broke in.
“Pshaw! nonsense! I am a guest in your father’s house. I have thought it
my duty, for your sake and my own, to say what I have said. When I know
that you have again disobeyed my reasonable and most earnest wish, I
shall consider how to deal with the matter. I have been forbearing so
far, but I cannot answer for the future.”
“Cousin Arthur,” I replied, “this seems to me a silly business, in which
we have both lost our tempers. I have no hope that Miss Peniston will
ever change her mind, and I am free to say to you that I think it
useless to persist; but nevertheless--”
“Persist!”
“I said ‘persist.’ Until Miss Peniston is no longer Miss Peniston, I
shall not cease to do all that is in my power to make her change her
mind.”
“And you call that honourable--the conduct of a gentleman and a
kinsman?”
“Yes; I, too, can be frank. I would rather see her marry any other man
than yourself. You have sought to injure me, why I shall tell you at
my own time. I think you have been deceiving all of us as to certain
matters. Oh, wait! I must have my say. If you were--what I do not think
you--a straight-forward, truthful man, I should think it well, and leave
Miss Peniston to what seems to be her choice. You have been frank, and
so am I, and now we understand each other, and--no; I heard you to an
end, and I must insist that I too be heard. I am not sorry to have had
this talk. If I did not care for her who has promised you her hand, I
should be careless as to what you are, or whether you have been an enemy
in my home while pretending to be a friend. As it is, I love her too
well not to do all I can to make her see you as I see you; and this,
although for me there is no least hope of ever having a place in her
heart. I am her friend, and shall be, and, until she forbids, shall
claim every privilege which, with our simpler manners, the name of
friend carries with it. I trust I am plain.”
“Plain? By heavens! yes. I have borne much, but now I have only to add
that I never yet forgave an insult. You would be wiser to have a care. A
man who never yet forgave has warned you. What I want I get; and what I
get I keep.”
“I think,” I said, “that we will go ashore.”
“With all my heart.” And in absolute silence I pulled back. At the
slip he left me without a word, and I secured the boat and walked
away, having found ample subject for reflection. Nor was I altogether
discontented at my cousin’s evident jealousy.
The afternoon of this memorable day I rode out on poor Lucy, whom I had
put for safety in our home stables. I went out High to Seventh street,
and up to Race street road, where there was better footing, as it had
been kept in order for the sport which made us call it Race street, and
not Sassafras, which is its real name. I was brought to a stand about
Twelfth street, then only an ox-path, by the bayonet of a grenadier,
the camps lying about this point. I turned to ride back, when I heard a
voice I knew crying:
“Holloa, Mr. Wynne! Are you stopped, and why?”
I said I knew no reason, but would go south. I was out for a ride, and
had no special errand.
“Come with me then,” he said pleasantly. “I am now the engineer in
charge of the defences.” This was my Aunt Gainor’s old beau, Captain
Montresor, now a colonel.
“I am sorry your aunt will see none of us, Mr. Wynne. If agreeable to
you, we will ride through the lines.”
I asked nothing better, and explaining, awkwardly I fear, that my
aunt was a red-hot Whig, we rode south to Spruce street, past the
Bettering-house at Spruce and Eleventh streets, where the troops which
had entered with Lord Cornwallis were mostly stationed. The main army
lay at Germantown, with detachments below the city, on the east and west
banks of the Schuylkill, to watch our forts at Red Bank and the islands
which commanded the Delaware River and kept the British commander from
drawing supplies from the great fleet which lay helpless below.
As we went by, the Grenadiers were drilling on the open space before the
poorhouse. I expressed my admiration of their pointed caps, red, with
silver front plates, their spotless white leggings and blue-trimmed
scarlet coats.
“Too much finery, Mr. Wynne. These are a king’s puppets, dressed to
please the whim of royalty. If all kings took the field, we should have
less of this. Those miserable devils of Mr. Morgan’s fought as well in
their dirty skin shirts, and can kill a man at murderous distance with
their long rifles and little bullets. It is like gambling with a beggar.
He has all to get, and nothing to lose but a life too wretched to make
it worth keeping.”
I made no serious reply, and we rode westward through the governor’s
woods to the river. As we turned into an open space to escape a deep
mud-hole, Mr. Montresor said:
“It was here, I think, you and Mr. Warder made yourselves agreeable
to two of our people.” I laughed, and said it was a silly business and
quite needless.
“That, I believe,” he cried, laughing, “was their opinion somewhat late.
They were the jest of every regimental mess for a month, and we were
inclined to think Mr. Washington had better raise a few regiments of
Quakers. Are you all as dangerous?”
“Oh, worse, worse,” I said. “Jack Warder and I are only half-fledged
specimens. You should see the old fellows.” Thus jesting, we rode as
we were able until we reached the “banks of the Schuylkill, picketed
on both shores, but on the west side not below the lower ferry,
where already my companion was laying a floating bridge which greatly
interested me.
“We have a post on the far hill,” he said, “I am afraid to Mr.
Hamilton’s annoyance. Let us follow the river.”
I was able to guide him along an ox-road, and past garden patches across
High street, to the upper ferry at Callowhill street. Here he pointed
out to me the advantage of a line of nine forts which he was already
building. There was to be one on the hill we call Fairmount to command
the upper ferry. Others were to be set along to the north of Callowhill
street road at intervals to Cohocsink Creek and the Delaware.
The great trees I loved were falling fast under the axes of the
pioneers, whom I thought very awkward at the business. Farm-houses were
being torn down, and orchards and hedges levelled, while the unhappy
owners looked on in mute despair, aiding one another to remove their
furniture. The object was to leave a broad space to north of the forts,
that an attacking force might find no shelter. About an hundred feet
from the blockhouses was to be an abatis of sharpened logs, and a mass
of brush and trees, through which to move would be difficult.
I took it all in, and greedily. The colonel no doubt thought me
an intelligent young fellow, and was kind enough to answer all my
questions. He may later have repented his freedom of speech. And now I
saw the reason for all this piteous ruin. Compensation was promised and
given, I heard, but it seemed to me hard to be thus in a day thrust out
of homes no doubt dear to these simple folk. We went past gardens and
fields, over broken fences, all in the way of destruction. Tape-lines
pegged to the earth guided the engineers, and hundreds of negroes were
here at work. Near to Cohocsink Creek we met the second Miss Chew,
riding with her father. He was handsome in dark velvet, his hair clubbed
and powdered beneath a flat beaver with three rolls, and at his back
a queue tied with a red ribbon. He had remained quietly inactive and
prudent, and, being liked, had been let alone by our own party. It is
to be feared that neither he nor the ribbon was quite as neutral as
they had been. Miss Margaret looked her best. I much dislike “Peggy,”
by which name she was known almost to the loss of that fine, full
“Margaret,” which suited better her handsome, uptilted head and
well-bred look.
On the right side rode that other Margaret, Miss Shippen, of whom awhile
back I spoke, but then only as in pretty bud, at the Woodlands. It was a
fair young rose I now saw bowing in the saddle, a woman with both charm
and beauty. Long after, in London, and in less merry days, she was
described by Colonel Tarleton as past question the handsomest woman in
all England. I fear, too, she was the saddest.
“And where have you kept yourself, Mr. Wynne?” she asked. “You are a
favourite of my father’s, you know. I had half a mind not to speak to
you.”
I bowed, and made some gay answer. I could not well explain that the
officers who filled their houses were not to my taste.
“Let me present you to Mr. Andre,” said Mr. Shippen, who brought up the
rear.
“I have the honour to know Mr. Wynne,” said the officer. “We met at
Lancaster when I was a prisoner in ‘76; in March, was it not? Mr. Wynne
did me a most kind service, Montresor. I owe it to him that I came to
know that loyal gentleman, Mr. Cope, and the Yeates people, who at least
were loyal to me, I have not forgotten it, nor ever shall.”