The walls were covered with mirrors lent for the occasion, and the room I commanded was beautifully draped with flags and hangings. Young blacks stood at the doors, or came and went with refreshments. These servants were clad in blue and white, with red turbans and metal collars and bracelets. The six Knights of the Blended Roses, or some like silliness, had cast their queer raiments and were in uniform. Their six chosen ladies were still in party-coloured costumes, which were not to my taste. Most of the women—there were but some threescore, almost all Tories or Moderates—were in the gorgeous brocades and the wide hooped skirts of the day. The extravagance of the costumes struck me. The head-dresses, a foot above the head with aigrets and feathers and an excess of powder, seemed to me quite astonishing.

I stood motionless, caught by the beauty of the moving picture before me. I have ever loved colour, and here was a feast of it hard to equal. There were red coats and gold epaulets, sashes and ribboned orders, the green and red of the chasseurs of Brunswick, blue navy uniforms, the gold lace and glitter of staff-officers, and in and out among them the clouds of floating muslin, gorgeous brocades, flashing silk petticoats, jewels, and streaming ribbons. The air was full of powder shaken from wig, queue, and head-dress; spurs clinked, stiff gown skirts rustled. The moving mass of colour, lovely faces, and manly forms bent and swayed in ordered movement as the music of the grenadier band seemed to move at will these puppets of its harmony.

They were walking a minuet, and its tempered grace, which I have never ceased to admire, seemed to suit well the splendour of embroidered gowns and the brilliant glow of the scarlet coats. I began to note the faces and to see them plainly, being, as I have said, not fifteen feet away from the window. Sir William Howe was dancing with Miss Redman. I was struck, as others have been, with his likeness to Washington, but his face wanted the undisturbed serenity of our great chief's. I dare say he knew better than to accept as his honest right the fulsome homage of this parting festival. I thought indeed that he looked discontented. I caught glimpses of Colonel Tarleton bowing to Miss Bond. Then I saw Miss Franks sweeping a deep curtsey to Lord Cathcart as he bowed. There were the fair Shippen women, the Chews, the provost's blonde daughter with Sir John Wrottesley, Mrs. Ferguson, my aunt's "Tory cat," in gay chat with Sir Charles Calder, Galloways, Allens—a pretty show of loyal dames, with—save the officers-few young men I knew.

I started as Darthea moved across the window-space on the arm of Andre, while following them were Montresor and my cousin. I felt the blood go to my face as I saw them, and drew back, letting the parted branches come together. With this storm of love and hate came again the sudden reflection that I had no right to be here, and that I was off the track of duty. I stood a moment; the night was dark; lights gleamed far out on the river from the battleships. The strains of their bands fell and rose, faintly heard in the distance.

I saw as it were before me with distinctness the camp on the windy hill, the half-starved, ragged men, the face of the great chief they loved. Once again I looked back on this contrasting scene of foolish luxury, and turned to go from where I felt I never should have been. Poor old Joseph Wharton! I smiled to think that, could he have known to what worldly use his quiet Quaker home had come, he would have rolled uneasy in his unnamed grave in the ground of the Arch Street Meeting.

Turning, I gave a few moments of thought to my plans. Suddenly the music ceased, and, with laughter and pretty cries of expectation, gay gown and fan and hoop and the many-coloured uniforms trooped out from the doors, as I learned later, to see the fireworks, over which were to be set off for final flattery in fiery letters, "Tes Lauriers Sont Immortels." I hope he liked them, those unfading laurels! The shrubbery was at once alive with joyous women and laughing men.

I had not counted on this, and despite my disguise I felt that any moment might put me in deadly peril. The speedy fate of a spy I knew too well.

They were all around me in a minute, moving to and fro, merry and chatting. I heard Andre say to Darthea, "It must please the general; a great success. I shall write it all to London. Ah, Miss Peniston! how to describe the ladies!"

"And their gowns!" cried Darthea, "their gowns!"

"I am reduced to desperation," said Andre. "I must ask the women to describe one another; hey, Wynne?" They were now standing apart from the rest, and I, hid by the bushes, was not five feet away.

"A dangerous resource," returned Wynne. "The list of wounded vanities would be large. How like a brown fairy is Miss Pranks! Who shall describe her? No woman will dare."

"You might ask Mr. Oliver de Laneey," said Miss Darthea. "She would be secure of a pretty picture."

"And you," said Wynne—"who is to be your painter?"

"I shall beg for the place," cried Andre.

"I think I shall take some rebel officer," said Darthea, saucily. "Think how fresh we should look to those love-starved gentlemen whom Sir William has brought to such abject submission."

Andre laughed, but not very heartily. As to Wynne, he was silent. The captain went on to say how sad it was that just as the general was ready to sweep those colonials out of existence—

"Why not say rebels, Andre?" Wynne broke in.

"Better not! better not! I never do. It only makes more bitter what is bad enough. But where are the fireworks?"

Meanwhile I was in dire perplexity, afraid to stir, hoping that they would move away.

"There is a seat hereabouts," said my cousin.

"You must be tired, Miss Peniston."

"A little."

"I will look," said Wynne. "This way."

As I was in possession of the seat, I got down at once, but in two steps Arthur was beside me, and for an instant the full blaze from the window caught me square in the face. He was nearest, but Darthea was just behind him, and none other but Andre close at hand.

"By heavens!" I heard, and my cousin had me by the collar. "Here, Andre! A spy! a spy! Quick!"

I heard a cry from Darthea, and saw her reel against my cousin's shoulder.

"Help! help! I am—ill."

Arthur turned, exclaiming, "Darthea! My God!" and thus distracted between her and me, let slack his hold. I tore away and ran around the house, upsetting an old officer, and so through the shrubbery and the servants, whom I hustled one way and another. I heard shouts of "Spy!" "Stop thief!" and the rattle of arms all around me. Several waggons blocked the roadway. I felt that I must be caught, and darted under a waggon body. I was close to the lines as I rose from beneath the waggon.

At this instant cannonry thundered out to north, and a rocket rose in air. The grenadiers looked up in surprise. Seeing the momentary disorder of these men, who were standing at intervals of some six feet apart, I darted through them and into the crowd of spectators. I still heard shouts and orders, but pushed in among the people outside of the guard, hither and thither, using my legs and elbows to good purpose. Increasing rattle of musketry was heard in the distance, the ships beating to quarters, the cries and noises back of me louder and louder. I was now moving slowly in the crowd, and at last got clean away from it.

What had happened I knew not, but it was most fortunate for me. When a few yards from the people I began to run, stumbling over the fields, into and through ditches, and because of this alarm was at last, I concluded, reasonably safe.

Page 376 Hugh Wynne

[Transcriber's Note: Three men stand side by side, as a woman, her back to the viewer, appears to swoon or fall.]

I had run nearly a mile before I sat down to get my breath and cool off. Away to north a great flare of red fire lit up the sky. What it was I knew not, but sat awhile and gave myself leave to think. My cousin had instantly known me, but he had hesitated a moment. I knew the signs of indecision in his face too well to be misled. I had felt, as he seized me, that I was lost. I could not blame him; it was clearly his duty. But I do not think I should have willingly recognised him under like circumstances. My very hatred would have made me more than hesitate. Still, who can say what he would do in the haste of such a brief moral conflict? I could recall, as I sat still and reflected, the really savage joy in his face as he collared me. How deeply he must love her! He seemed, as it were, to go to pieces at her cry. Was she ill? Did her quick-coming sense of my danger make her faint? I had seen her unaccountably thus affected once before, as he who reads these pages may remember. Or was it a ready-witted ruse? Ah, my sweet Darthea! I wanted to think it that.

The blaze to northward was still growing brighter, and being now far out on the marshes south of the town, I made up my mind to use my pass at the nearer ferry, which we call Gray's, and this, too, as soon as possible, for fear that orders to stop a Quaker spy might cause me to regret delay.

When I came to Montresor's bridge my thought went back to my former escape, and, avoiding all appearance of haste, I stayed to ask the sergeant in charge of the guard what the blaze meant. He said it was an alert.

A few days after, McLane related to me with glee how with Clowe's dragoons and a hundred foot he had stolen up to the lines, every man having a pot of tar; how they had smeared the dry abatis and brush, and at a signal fired the whole mass of dried wood. He was followed into the fastnesses of the Wissahickon, and lost his ensign and a man or two near Barren Hill. The infantry scattered and hid in the woods, but McLane swam his horse across the Schuylkill, got the help of Morgan's rifles, and, returning, drove his pursuers up to their own intrenchments. He said it was the best fun he had ever had, and he hoped the Tory ladies liked his fireworks. At all events, it saved my neck.

As I walked through Gray's Lane I fell to reflecting upon Andre's behaviour, of which I have said nothing. I came to the conclusion that he could hardly have recognised me. This seemed likely enough, because we had not met often, and I too, apart from my disguise, had changed very greatly. And yet why had he not responded to an obvious call to duty? He certainly was not very quick to act on Arthur's cry for help. But Darthea was on his arm, and only let it go when she fell heavily against my cousin.

I had a fine story for Jack, and so, thinking with wonder of the whirl of adventure into which I had fallen ever since I left home, I hurried along. It is a singular fact, but true, that certain men never have unusual adventures. I am not one of these. Even in the most quiet times of peace I meet with odd incidents, and this has always been my lot. With this and other matters in my mind, resolving that never again would I permit any motive to lead me off the track of the hour's duty, I walked along. I had had a lesson.

I sought my old master's house, and reached it in an hour. Here I found food and ready help, and before evening next day, May 19, was at the camp. I spent an hour in carefully writing out my report, and Jack, under my directions, being clever with the pencil, made plans of the forts and the enemy's defences, which I took to headquarters, and a copy of which I have inserted in these memoirs. I had every reason to believe that my report was satisfactory. I then went back to discourse with Jack over my adventures. You may see hanging framed in my library, and below General von Knyphausen's sword, a letter which an orderly brought to me the next day:

"Sir: It would be an impropriety to mention in general orders a service such as you have rendered. To do so might subject you to greater peril, or to ill treatment were you to fall into the hands of the enemy. I needed no fresh proof of your merit to bear it in remembrance. No one can feel more sensibly the value of your gallant conduct, or more rejoice for your escape.

"I have the honour to be "Your obed(t) Hum(e) Serv(t), "G(e) Washington.

"To Lieut. Hugh Wynne, etc."

[Transcriber's Note: A hand-drawn map is placed at this point in the print copy. It depicts such locations as "Bartram's garden," "Mr. Hamilton," "The Wooodlands," "Schuylkill River," "Middle Ferry," "Blue Hills," "Wind Mill Island," "Delaware River," etc.]

This was writ in his own hand, as were many of his letters, even such as were of great length. The handwriting betrays no mark of haste, and seems penned with such exactness as all his correspondence shows. It may be that he composed slowly, and thus of need wrote with no greater speed than his thought permitted. I at least found it hard to explain how, in the midst of affairs, worried, interrupted, distracted, he does at no time show in his penmanship any sign of haste.

When I handed this letter to Jack I could not speak for a moment, and yet I was never much the victim of emotion. My dear Jack said it was not enough. For my own part, a captain's commission would not have pleased me as well. I ran no risk which I did not bring upon myself by that which was outside of my duty; and as to this part of my adventure, I told no one but Jack, being much ashamed of the weakness which came so near to costing me not only my life, but—what would have been worse—the success of my errand.



XXI

The warm spring weather, and General Greene's good management as quartermaster, brought us warmth and better diet. The Conestoga wains rolled in with grain and good rum. Droves of cattle appeared, and as the men were fed the drills prospered. Soldiers and officers began to amuse themselves. A theatre was arranged in one of the bigger barns, and we—not I, but others—played "The Fair Penitent." Colonel Grange had a part, and made a fine die of it; but the next day, being taken with a pleurisy, came near to making a more real exit from life. I think it was he who invited Jack Warder to play Calista. Lady Kitty Stirling had said he would look the part well, with his fair locks and big innocent blue eyes, and she would lend him her best silk flowered gown and a fine lot of lace. Jack was in a rage, but the colonel, much amused, apologised, and so it blew over. His Excellency and Lady Washington were to see the play, and the Ladies Stirling and Madam Greene were all much delighted.

"The Recruiting Officer" we should have had later, but about the latter part of May we got news of the British as about to move out of my dear home city. After this was bruited about, no one cared to do anything but get ready to leave the winter huts and be after Sir Henry. In fact, long before this got out there was an air of hopeful expectation in the army, and the men began, like the officers, to amuse themselves. The camp-fires were gay, jokes seemed to revive in the warm air, and once more men laughed. It was pleasant, too, to see the soldiers at fives, or the wickets up and the cricket-balls of tightly rolled rag ribbons flying, or fellows at leap-frog, all much encouraged by reason of having better diet, and no need now to shrink their stomachs with green persimmons or to live without rum. As to McLane and our restless Wayne, they were about as quiet as disturbed wasps. The latter liked nothing better this spring than to get up an alert by running cannon down to the hills on the west of the Schuylkill, pitching shot at the bridges, and then to be off and away before the slow grenadiers could cross in force. Thus it was that never a week went by without adventures. Captain McLane let neither man nor horse live long at ease; but whatever he did was planned with the extreme of care and carried out with equal audacity.

The army was most eager for the summer campaign. We had begun, as I have said, to suspect that Sir Henry Clinton, who had succeeded Howe, was about to move; but whither he meant to march, or his true object, our camp-fire councils could not guess as yet.

Very early in the evening of June 17, I met Colonel Hamilton riding in haste. "Come," he said; "I am to see Wayne and the marquis. Clinton is on the wing, as we have long expected. He will very likely have already crossed into the Jerseys. Will you have a place in the foot if his Excellency can get you a captaincy?"

I said "Yes" instantly.

"You seem to know your own mind, Mr. Wynne. There will be more hard knocks and more glory."

I thought so too, but I was now again in the full vigour of health, and an appointment in the foot would, as I hoped, bring me nearer to Jack.

And now joy and excitement reigned throughout the camps. The news was true. On the 18th of June Sir Henry Clinton, having gotten ready by sending on in advance his guns and baggage, cleverly slipped across the Delaware, followed by every Tory who feared to remain; some three thousand, it was said.

Long before dawn we of McLane's light horse were in the saddle. As we passed Chestnut Hill I fell out to tell my aunt the good news. I was scarce gone by before she began to make ready to follow us. As we pushed at speed through Germantown, it became sure that the evacuation had been fully accomplished. We raced down Front street at a rate which seemed reckless to me. McLane gave no orders, but galloped on ahead in his usual mad way. The townsfolk were wild with Joy. Women stood in tears as we went by; men cheered us and the boys hurrahed. At Arch and Front streets, as we pulled up, I saw a poor little cornet come out of a house half bewildered and buttoning his red jacket. I pushed Lucy on to the sidewalk and caught him by the collar. He made a great fuss and had clearly overslept himself. I was hurriedly explaining, amid much laughter, when McLane called out, "A nice doll-baby! Up with him!" And away he went, behind a trooper. At Third street bridge were two other officers who must have been tipsy overnight and have slept too late. At last, with our horses half dead, we walked them back to Front and High streets, and got off for a rest and a mug of beer at the coffee-house. Soon came a brigade of Virginians, and we marched away to camp on the common called Centre Square.

The streets were full of huzzaing crowds. Our flags, long hid, were flying. Scared tradesmen were pulling down the king's arms they had set over their signs. The better Tory houses were closed, and few of this class were to be seen in the streets.

Major-General Arnold followed after us. Unable, because of his wound, to accept a command in the field, he took up his abode as commandant of the city in Mr. Morris's great house at the northeast corner of Front and High streets. I saw this gallant soldier in May, at the time he joined the camp at the Forge, when he was handsomely cheered by the men. He was a man dark and yet ruddy, soldierly looking, with a large nose, and not unlike his Excellency as to the upper part of his face. He was still on crutches, being thin and worn from the effects of the hurt he received at Saratoga.

As soon as possible I left the troop and rode away on Lucy down High street to Second and over the bridges to my home.

I was no longer the mere lad I had left it. Command of others, the leisure for thought in the camp, the sense that I had done my duty well, had made of me a resolute and decisive man. As I went around to the stables in the rear of the house it seemed to me as if I must in a minute see those blue eyes, and hear the pretty French phrases of tender love which in times of excitement used to rise to my mother's lips. It is thus as to some we love. We never come to feel concerning them that certainty of death which sets apart from us forever others who are gone. To this day a thought of her brings back that smiling face, and she lives for me the life of eternal remembrance.

No one was in the stable when I unsaddled the tired mare. At the kitchen door the servants ran out with cries of joy. With a word I passed them, smelling my father's pipe in the hall, for it was evening, and supper was over.

He rose, letting his pipe drop, as I ran to fall on his great chest, and pray him to pardon, once for all, what I had felt that it was my duty to do. I was stayed a moment as I saw him. He had lost flesh continually, and his massive build and unusual height showed now a gaunt and sombre man, with clothes too loose about him. I thought that his eyes were filling, but the habits of a life controlled him.

He held to a chair with his left hand, and coldly put out the right to meet my eager grasp, I stood still, my instinct of tenderness checked. I could only repeat, "Father, father, I have come home."

"Yes," he said, "thou hast come home. Sit down."

I obeyed. Then he stooped to pick up his pipe, and raising his strong gray head, looked me over in perfect silence.

"Am I not welcome," I cried, "in my mother's home? Are we always to be kept apart? I have done what, under God, seemed to me His will. Cannot you, who go your way so steadily, see that it is the right of your son to do the same? You have made it hard for me to do my duty. Think as seems best to you of what I do or shall do, but have for me the charity Christ teaches. I shall go again, father, and you may never see me more on earth. Let there be peace between us now. For my mother's sake, let us have peace. If I have cost you dear, believe me, I owe to you such sad hours as need never have been. My mother—she—"

During this outburst he heard me with motionless attention, but at my last word he raised his hand. "I like not thy naming of thy mother. It has been to me ever a reproach that I saw not how far her indulgence was leading thee out of the ways of Friends. There are who by birthright are with us, but not of us—not of us."

This strange speech startled me into fuller self-command. I remembered his strange dislike to hear her mentioned. As he spoke his fingers opened and shut on the arms of the chair in which he sat, and here and there on his large-featured face the muscles twitched.

"I will not hear her named again," he added. "As for thee, my son, this is thy home. I will not drive thee out of it."

"Drive me out!" I exclaimed. I was horror-struck.

"And why not! Since thou wert a boy I have borne all things: drunkenness, debauchery, blood-guiltiness, rebellion against those whom God has set over us, and at last war, the murder of thy fellows."

I was silent. What could I say! The words which came from my heart had failed to touch him. He had buried even the memory of my mother. I remembered Aunt Gainor's warnings as to his health, and set myself at once to hear and reply with gentleness.

He went on as if he knew my thought: "I am no longer the man I was. I am deserted by my son when I am in greatest need of him. Had it not pleased God to send me for my stay, in this my loneliness, thy Cousin Arthur, I should have been glad to rest from the labours of earth."

"Arthur! My cousin!"

"I said so. He has become to me as a son. It is not easy for one brought up among dissolute men to turn away and seek righteousness, but he hath heard as thou didst never hear, nor wouldst. He hath given up dice and cards, and hath asked of me books such as Besse's 'Sufferings' and George Fox's 'Testimony.'"

This was said so simply and in such honest faith that I could not resist to smile.

"I did not ask thee to believe me," said my father, sharply; "and if because a man is spiritually reminded and hath stayed to consider his sin, it is for thee but cause of vain mirth, I will say no more. I have lost a son, and found one. I would it had been he whom I lost that is now found."

I answered gravely, "Father, the man is a hypocrite. He saw me dying a prisoner in jail, starved and in rags. He left me to die."

"I have heard of this. He saw some one about to die. He thought he was like thee."

"But he heard my name."

"That cannot be. He said it was not thee. He said it!"

"He lied; and why should he have ever mentioned the matter to thee—as indeed he did to others—except for precaution's sake, that if, as seemed unlike enough, I got well, he might have some excuse? It seems to me a weak and foolish action, but none the less wicked."

My father listened, but at times with a look of being puzzled. "I do not think I follow thy argument, Hugh," he said, "neither does thy judgment of the business seem favoured by that which I know of thy cousin."

"Father, that man is my enemy. He hates me because—because Darthea is my friend, and but for her I should have rotted in the jail, with none to help me."

"Thy grandfather lay in Shrewsbury Gate House a year for a better cause, and as for thy deliverance. I heard of it later. It did seem to Arthur that the young woman had done more modestly to have asked his help than to have been so forward."

My father spoke with increase of the deliberateness at all times one of his peculiarities, which seemed to go well with the bigness of his build. This slowness in talk seemed now to be due in part to a slight trouble in finding the word he required. It gave me time to observe how involved was the action of his mind. The impression of his being indirect and less simple than of old was more marked as our talk went on than I can here convey by any possible record of what he said. I only succeeded in making him more obstinate in his belief, as was always the case when any opposed him. Yet I could not resist adding: "If, as you seem to think, Arthur is my friend, I would you could have seen his face when at that silly Mischianza he caught me in disguise."

"Did he not do his duty after thy creed and his?"

"It was not that, father. Some men might have hesitated even as to the duty. Mr. Andre did not help him, and his debt to us was small. Had I been taken I should have swung as a spy on the gallows in Centre Square."

"And yet," said my father, with emphatic slowness, "he would have done his duty as he saw it."

"And profited by it also," said I, savagely.

"There is neither charity nor yet common sense in thy words, Hugh. If thou art to abide here, see that thy ways conform to the sobriety and decency of Friends. I will have no cards nor hard drinking."

"But good heavens! father, when have I ever done these things here, or indeed anywhere, for years?"

His fingers were again playing on the arms of Mr. Penn's great chair, and I made haste to put an end to this bewildering talk.

"I will try," I said, "to live in such a way as shall not offend. Lucy is in the stable, and I will take my old room. My Aunt Gainor is to be in town to-morrow."

"I shall be pleased to see her."

"And how is the business, father?" I said. "There are no ships at sea, I hope. The privateers are busy, and if any goods be found that may have been for use of the king's people, we might have to regret a loss."

"I might," he returned sharply. "I am still able to conduct my own ventures."

"Of course, sir," I said hastily, wondering where I could find any subject which was free from power to annoy him. Then I rose, saying, "There is an early drill. I shall have to be on hand to receive General Arnold. I shall not be back to breakfast. Good-night."

"Farewell," he said. And I went upstairs with more food for thought than was to my liking. I had hoped for a brief season of rest and peace, and here was whatever small place I held in my father's heart filled by my cousin.

When, not long after, for mere comfort, I had occasion to speak to the great Dr. Rush of my father, he said that when the brain became enfeebled men were apt to assign to one man acts done by another, and that this did explain the latter part of my father's talk about cards and drinking. Also he said that with defect of memory came more or less incapacity to reason, since for that a man must be able to assemble past events and review them in his memory. Indeed, he added, certain failures of remembrance might even permit a good man to do apparent wrong, which seemed to me less clear. The good doctor helped me much, for I was confused and hurt, seeing no remedy in anything I could do or say.

I lit the candles in my old room and looked about me. My cousin had, it appeared, taken up his abode in my own chamber, and this put me out singularly; I could hardly have said why. The room was in the utmost confusion. Only that morning Arthur Wynne had left it. Many of the lazier officers had overslept themselves, as I have said, and came near to being quite left behind. Lord Cosmo Gordon, in fact, made his escape in a skiff just before we entered.

The bed was still not made up, which showed me how careless our slaves must have become. The floor was litered with torn paper, and in a drawer, forgot in Arthur's hurry, were many bills, paid and unpaid, some of which were odd enough; also many notes, tickets for the Mischianza, theatre-bills, portions of plays,—my cousin was an admirable actor in light parts,—and a note or two in Darthea's neat writing. I had no hesitation in putting them all on the hearth.

There was nothing in me to make me take advantage of what I found. I kept the Mischianza tickets, and that was all, I have them yet. On the table were Fox's "Apology," "A Sweet Discourse to Friends," by William Penn, and the famous "Book of Sufferings." In the latter was thrust a small, thin betting-tablet, such as many gentlemen then carried. Here were some queer records of bets more curious than reputable. I recall but two: "Mr. Harcourt bets Mr. Wynne five pounds that Miss A. will wear red stockings at the play on May 12th. Won, A. Wynne. They were blue, and so was the lady." "A. W. bets Mr. von Speiser ten pounds that he will drink four quarts of Madeira before Mr. von S. can drink two; Major de Lancey to measure the wine. Lost, A. W. The Dutch pig was too much for me."

Wondering what Darthea or my father would think of these follies, I tossed the books and the betting-tablet on the pile of bills on the hearth, I have since then been shown in London by General Burgoyne the betting-book at Brooks's Club. There are to be seen the records of still more singular bets, some quite abominable; but such were the manners of the day. My cousin, as to this, was like the rest.

In a closet were cast-off garments and riding-boots. I sent for Tom, and bade him do with these as he liked; then I set fire to the papers on the hearth, ordered the room put in order, and after a pipe in the orchard went to bed.



XXII

My father was out when, the next day at noon, I found in the counting-house our old clerk, Thomas Mason. He, like myself, had seen with distress my father's condition; but he told me, to my surprise, that he was still acute and competent in most matters of business.

"Look at this, Mr. Hugh," he said, showing me careful entries in the day-book, in my father's hand, of nearly one thousand pounds lent to my Cousin Arthur. My father had spoken to Mason of an intention to alter his will. He never did alter it, but, believing me dead, tore it up and made no new one. None of our ships were at sea. Most of them had been sold as transports to the British quartermaster. My sole comfort at home was in the absence of Arthur Wynne, and in the fact that Darthea was in the city, as I learned from Mason.

After this I went at once to see my aunt, but could give her only a few minutes, as I knew McLane would need my knowledge of the neighbourhood. In fact, I was busy for two days looking after the Tory bands who were plundering farms to west of the city.

As soon as possible I went again to see my Aunt Gainor. The good old lady was lamenting her scanty toilet, and the dirt in which the Hessians had left her house. "I have drunk no tea since Lexington," she said, "and I have bought no gowns. My gowns, sir, are on the backs of our poor soldiers. I am not fit to be seen beside that minx Darthea. And how is Jack? The Ferguson woman has been here. I hate her, but she has all the news. If one has no gowns, it is at least a comfort to hear gossip. I told her so, but Lord! the woman does not care a rap if you do but let her talk. She says Joseph Warder is smit with Darthea's aunt, and what a fine courtship that will be! Old Duche, our preacher, is gone away with Sir William; and now we have my beautiful young man, Mr. White, at Christ Church."

So the dear lady rattled on, her great form moving among her battered furniture, and her clear voice, not without fine tones, rising and falling, until at last she dropped into a chair, and would hear all my adventures. It was dangerous to wait long when my aunt invited replies, and before I had time to think she began anew to tell me that Darthea had come at once to see her, and of how respectful she was. At this I encouraged my aunt, which was rarely needed, and then heard further that Mrs. Peniston would remain in town, perhaps because of Friend Joseph Warder.

Darthea had also spoken eagerly of Arthur. His people in Wales had written to her: Arthur's father and his brother, who was so ill. "I could not but thank her," said my aunt, "for that brave visit to the jail, as to which she might have written to me. I told her as much, but she said I was a Whig, and outside the lines, and she did not wish to get her aunt into trouble. 'Stuff!' said I; 'how came it Mr. Arthur never knew Hugh?' 'How could he? You should have seen him,' says my little lady, 'and even after he was well. I did not know him, and how should Mr. Wynne?'

"But," said my aunt, "I made such little additions to his tale as I dared, but not all I wanted to. I promise you they set my miss to thinking, for she got very red and said it was sheer nonsense. She would ask you herself. She had a pretty picture to show me of Wyncote, and the present man was to be made a baronet. Can a good girl be captured by such things? But the man has some charm, Hugh. These black men"—so we called those of dark complexion—"are always dangerous, and this special devil has a tongue, and can use it well."

I listened to my aunt, but said little. What chance had I to make Darthea credit me? She had a girl's desire for the court and kings' houses and rank; or was this only one Darthea? Could that other be made to listen to a plain lieutenant in a rebel army? Perhaps I had better go back and get knocked on the head. Would she love me the better for proving Arthur a rascal?

I said as much to Aunt Gainer. At this she got up, crying, "Good heavens! there is a Hessian cock-roach! They are twice as big as they were. What a fool you are! The girl is beginning to be in doubt. I am sorry you have driven the man away. A pretty tale your mother had in French of her dear Midi, of the man who would have Love see, and pulled the kerchief off his eyes, whereon the boy's wings tumbled off, and he sat down and cried because he could no longer fly. When a scamp loves a good girl, let him thank the devil that love is blind."

Here was Aunt Gainor sentimental, and clever too. I shook my head sadly, being, as a man should be, humble-minded as to women. She said next she would see my father at once, and I must come at eight and bring Mr. McLane. Darthea would be with her, and a friend or two.

I went, but this time I did not bring my commanding officer. Miss Peniston was late. In all her life she was never punctual, nor could she be. While we waited my aunt went on to tell me that Darthea wished me to know how glad Mr. Wynne was I had escaped at the Mischianza. An impulse of a soldier's duty had made him seize upon me, and he had been happy in the accident which aided my escape. I had done a brave thing to venture into the city, and she and Mr. Wynne felt strongly what a calamity my capture would have been. Darthea's friends were his friends. "And he is jealous too," says my lady, "of De Lancey, and Montresor—and—of Mr. Hugh Wynne."

You must have known Mistress Wynne to comprehend what scorn she put into poor Darthea's sad excuses, and her explanations of what could not be explained. I felt sorry for the little lady who was absent and was getting such small mercy. It was vain to try to stop my aunt. That no man and few women could do. I did at last contrive to learn that she had said no more of the visit of Arthur to the jail than that I did not seem satisfied.

I had rather my aunt should have let my luckless love-affair alone. I had been in a way to tell her of it, but now I wanted no interference. I feared to talk even to Jack Warder of my dear Darthea. That he saw through me and her I have, after many years, come to know, as these pages must have shown. If to speak of her to this delicate-minded friend was not at this time to my taste, you may rest assured I liked not my aunt's queer way of treating the matter as she would have done a hand at piquet. She ended this wandering talk with her usual shrewd bits of advice, asking me, as she stopped short in her walk, "Have you a little sense left?"

"I hope so."

"Then get your head to help that idiot your heart. Leave Darthea to herself. Bide with Miss Chew or Miss Bedman. Women are like children. Let them alone, and by and by they will sidle up to you for notice."

When the town was in Sir William Howe's hands, my aunt had rejected all her Tory, and even her neutral, friends. But now that Sir Henry Clinton was flying across the Jerseys, harassed by militia, and our general was on the way to cross the Delaware after them, things were different. Her Tory friends might come to see her if they pleased. Most of these dames came gladly, liking my aunt, and having always had of her much generous kindness. Bessy Ferguson was cross, and Mistress Wynne had been forced to visit her first. What manner of peace was made I did not hear; but no one else was a match at piquet for my Aunt Gainor, and doubtless this helped to reconcile the lady. I grieve that no historian has recorded their interview.

When I wrote of it to Jack, he was much delighted, and just before the fight at Monmouth wrote me a laughing letter, all about what my aunt and Mrs. Ferguson must have said on this occasion. As he knew no word of it, I could never see how he was able to imagine it. Once, later, when their war broke out anew, my aunt told me all about her former encounter; and so much like was it to what Jack had writ that I laughed outright. My aunt said there was nothing to grin at. But a one-sided laugh is ever the merrier. I could not always tell what Mistress Wynne would do, and never what she would say; but Jack could. He should have writ books, but he never did.

I had heard my aunt's wail over her wardrobe, and was struck dumb at her appearance when, in the evening, I returned as she desired. The gods and the china dragons were out, and, the Hessian devils having been driven forth, the mansion had been swept and garnished, the rugs were down, and the floor was dangerously polished.

My Aunt Gainor was in a brocade which she told me was flowered beautiful with colours very lively. I thought they were. As to the rest of her toilet, I am at a loss for words. The overskirt was lute-string silk, I was told. The hoops were vast; the dress cut square, with a "modesty-fence" of stiff lace. A huge high cap "with wings is the last thing," cried the lady, turning round to be seen, and well pleased at my admiration. She was an immense and an amazing figure. I did wonder, so big she was, where she meant to put the other women—and I said as much.

"Here is one," she whispered, "who will like your uniform more than will the rest. Mr. Wynne of the army, my nephew, Miss Morris. And how is Mr. Gouverneur Morris?"

We fell to talking, but when others came and were presented or named by me to the Whig lady, my young woman said, "Are there none but Tories?" And she was short, I thought, with Mrs. Ferguson, who came in high good humour and a gown of Venice silk. I saw Aunt Gainor glance at her gold-laced handkerchief.

I was glad to see them all. Very soon the rooms were well filled, and here were Dr. Rush and Charles Thomson, the secretary of Congress, who stayed but a little while, leaving the great doctor to growl over the war with Miss Morris, and to tell her how ill read was our great chief, and how he could not spell, and had to have his letters writ for him to copy like a boy. Mr. Adams had said as much. I ventured to remark, having by this time come to understand our doctor, that we knew better in camp, and that at least our chief understood the art of war. The doctor was not of this opinion, and considered General Gates the greater man.

Then I left them to welcome Mrs. Chew and the lovely Margaret, and Miss Shippen, and last my Darthea with her aunt, who was as thin as a book-marker.

"Aunt," I said slyly, "what is this? Tories again?"

"Be quiet, child! You have pulled their teeth. You will see they are meek enough. The dog on top can always forgive, and I must have my cards. Behave yourself! How handsome you are! Here they come." And now there was a cross-fire of welcomes and "We have missed you so much," and "How well you look!" and fine sweep of curtseys, very pretty and refreshing to a war-worn veteran.

I bent to kiss Mrs. Shippen's hand. Mrs. Ferguson tapped me on the arm with her fan, whispering I was grown past the kissing-age, at which I cried that would never be. I took Darthea's little hand with a formal word or two, and, biding my time, sat down to talk with the two Margarets, whom folks called Peggy, although both were like stately lilies, and the pet name had no kind of fitness.

The ombre-tables were set out and ready, and it was all gay and merry, and as if there might never have been war, either civil or social. "It is all as meek as doves' milk," whispered Mistress Wynne over my shoulder. "Gossip and cards against the world for peacemakers, eh, Hugh?" Assuredly here was a beautiful truce, and all the world amiable.

The powdered heads wagged; brocade and silk rustled; the counters rattled. Fans huge as sails set little breezes going; there was wise neutrality of speech, King Ombre being on the throne and everybody happy.

Meanwhile I set my young women laughing with an account of how a Quaker looked in on them through the window at the redcoat ball, but of the incident in the garden I said nothing, nor was it known beyond those immediately concerned. The two Margarets were curious to hear what Mr. Washington looked like, and one miss would know if Mr. Arnold was a dark man, hearing with the delight of girls how his Excellency gave dinners in camp and sat on one side, with Mr. Hamilton or Mr. Tilghman, at the top, and for diet potatoes and salt herring, with beef when it was to be had, and neither plates nor spoons nor knives and forks for all, so that we had to borrow, and eat by turns.

Miss Morris, just come to town with good Whig opinions, was uneasy in this society, and said, "We shall have enough of everything when we catch Sir Henry Clinton." In a minute there would have been more war had not my aunt risen, and the party turned to drink chocolate and eat cakes.

After a world of little gossip they settled their debts and went away, all but Mrs. Peniston and her niece, my aunt declaring that she wanted the elder lady's advice about the proper mode to cool blackberry jam. For this sage purpose the shadow-like form of Darthea's aunt in gray silk went out under cover of my aunt's large figure, and Darthea and I were left alone.

How pretty she was in fair white muslin with long gloves, a red rosebud in each sleeve, and only a trace of powder on her hair, smiling, and above all women graceful! She had seemed older when we met in the Provostry, and now to-day was slim and girl-like. I do not know where she got that trick of change, for in after-days, when in the fuller bloom of middle age, she still had a way of looking at times a gay and heedless young woman. She had now so innocent an air of being merely a sweet child that a kind of wonder possessed me, and I could not but look at her with a gaze perhaps too fixed to be mannerly.

"Darthea," I said, as we sat down, "I owe my life to you twice—twice."

"No, no!" she cried. "What could I do but go to the jail? Miss Wynne was away."

"You might have told my father," I said. Why had she not?

"Mr. Wynne is grown older, and—I—There was no time to be lost, and Arthur was gone on duty for I know not what." She was seeing and answering what further might have seemed strange to me. "Aunt Peniston was in a rage, I assure you. My aunt in a rage, Mr. Wynne, is a tempest in a thimble. All in a minute it boils over and puts out the little fire, and there is an end of it, and she asks what ought to be done. But now I am penitent, and have been scolded by Arthur. I will never, never do it any more. My aunt was right, sir."

"I think you gave me more than life, Darthea, that day. And did you think I would take the parole?"

"Never for a moment!" she cried, with flashing eyes. "I would have taken it, but I want my friends to be wiser and stronger than I. I—I was proud of you in your misery and ragged blanket." And with this the wonderful face went tender in a moment, and for my part I could only say, "Darthea! Darthea!"

She was quick to see and to fear, and to avoid that which was ever on my lips when with her, and which she seemed to bid to live, and then to fly from as if she had never tempted me.

"Ah, you were a droll figure, and Arthur could not but laugh when I described this hero in a blanket. It was then he told me more fully what before he had wrote, how in the hurry of an inspection he saw many men dying, and one so like you that he asked who it was, and was given another name; but now he thought it must have been you, and that you had perhaps chosen, why he knew not, a name not your own, or you had been misnamed by the turnkey. It was little wonder where men were dying in scores and changed past recognition; it was no wonder, I say, he did not know you, Mr. Wynne. He was so sorry, for he says frankly that just because you and he are not very good friends—and why are you not?—he feels the worse about it. After he had scolded me well, and I made believe to cry, he said it was a noble and brave thing I had done, and he felt he should have been the one to do it had he known in season. He did really mean to get the parole, but then you ran away. And you do see, Mr. Wynne, that it was all a frightful mistake of Arthur's, and he is—he must be sorry?"

I would then and there have said to her that the man was a liar, and had meanly left me to die; but it was my word against his, and Delaney had long ago gotten out and been exchanged and gone South, whither I knew not. As of course she must trust the man she loved, if I were to say I did not believe him we should quarrel, and I should see her no more.

"My dear lady," I said, keeping myself well in hand, "the moral is that women should be sent to inspect the hungry, the ragged, the frozen, and the dying."

I saw she did not relish my answer. Was she herself quite satisfied? Did she want to be fortified in her love and trust by me, who had suffered? A shadow of a frown was on her brow for a moment, and then she said, "He will write to you. He promised me he would write to you. And that dear old Sister of Charity!—you must go and thank her at the little convent beside St. Joseph's, in Willing's Alley. You upset her as you went out in that rude fashion. Any but a Quaker would have stayed to apologise. Mr. Wynne was pleased I went to the jail with the dear sister. I believe the man really thought I would have gone alone. And I would; I would! When he told me it was clever and modest to get the sweet old papist for company, I swept him a mighty curtsey and thanked him and puzzled him, which is what men are for."

Sitting in the open bow-window above the garden, my Darthea had most of the talk, while, when I dared no longer stare at her changeful face, I looked past her at the June roses swaying in the open window-space.

"Yes," I laughed, "that is what men are for; but I have not done with you. I have also to thank you for my escape in the garden—you and Mr. Andre. He has a good memory, I fancy."

"Oh, the fainting—yes," said Miss Peniston, lightly. "It was fortunate it came just then. And Mr. Wynne was glad enough of it later. He said it had saved him from the most horrible regret life could bring. If he had but had time to think—or had known—"

"Known what?"

"No matter; I was in time to stop myself from saying a foolish thing. Let me give thanks for my escape. I have a restless tongue, and am apt to say what I do not mean; and I do faint at nothing."

"It was very opportune, my dear Miss Peniston."

"La! la! as aunt says, one would think I went faint on purpose, in place of its being the heat, and a providential accident, and very annoying too; not a woman anywhere near me."

"It saved a worthless life," I said; "and but for it I should have had short shrift and the gallows on the Common."

"Hush!" she returned. "That is not pretty talk. Your cousin is unlucky, he says, to have had you fall in his way when it was impossible to escape from arresting you. He told me Mr. Andre assured him he could have done no other thing, and that it was vain to regret what was the inevitable duty of a soldier. I think Arthur was the most pleased of all when you got away. I must say you went very fast for so grave a Quaker."

"And could you see?" said I, slyly.

"No, of course not. How should I, and I in a dead faint? Mr. Andre told me next day he thought that dreadful rebel, Mr. McLane, saved your life when he was mean enough, just in the middle of that beautiful ball, to set fire to something. At first we took it for the fireworks. But tell me about Miss Gainor's girl-boy—our own dear Jack."

"He can still blush to beat Miss Franks, and he still believes me to be a great man, and—but you do not want to hear about battles."

"Do I not, indeed! I should like to see Mr. Jack in a battle; I cannot imagine him hurting a fly."

"The last I saw, at Germantown, of Jack, he was raging in a furious mob of redcoats, with no hat, and that sword my aunt presented cutting and parrying. I gave him up for lost, but he never got a scratch. I like him best in camp with starving, half-naked men. I have seen him give his last loaf away. You should hear Mr. Hamilton—that is his Excellency's aide—talk of Jack; how like a tender woman he was among men who were sick and starving. Hamilton told me how once, when Jack said prayers beside a dying soldier and some fellow laughed,—men get hard in war,—our old Quaker friend Colonel Forest would have had the beast out and shot him, if the fool had not gone to Jack and said he was sorry. Every one loves the man, and no wonder."

"He is fortunate in his friend, Mr. Wynne. Men do not often talk thus of one another. I have heard him say as much or more of you. Mistress Wynne says it is a love-affair. Are men's friendships or women's the best, I wonder?" I said that was a question beyond me, and went on to tell her that I should be in town but a few days, and must join my regiment as soon as General Arnold could do without us, which I believed would be within a week.

She was as serious as need be now, asking intelligent questions as to the movements of the armies and the chances of peace. I had to show her why we lost the fight at Germantown, and then explain that but for the fog we should have won it, which now I doubt.

Mr. Andre had told her that it was because of our long rifles that the enemy lost so many officers, picked off out of range of musket, and did I think this was true? It seemed to her unfair and like murder.

I thought she might be thinking of my cousin's chances, for here, after a pause, she rose suddenly and said it was late and that the strawberry jam must be cool, or the discussion over it hot, to keep Mrs. Peniston so long. My aunt would have had me stay for further talk, but I said I was tired, and went away home feeling that the day had been full enough for me.

A little later, one afternoon in this June, I found my aunt seated so deep in thought that I asked her the cause.

"Presently," she said. "I have meant to tell you, but I have delayed; I have delayed. Now you must know." Here she rose and began to stride restlessly among the furniture, walking to and fro with apparent disregard of the china gods and Delft cows. She reminded me once more of my father in his better days. Her hands were clasped behind her, which is, I think, a rare attitude with women. Her large head, crowned with a great coil of gray hair which seemed to suit its massive build, was bent forward as if in thought.

"What is it, Aunt Gainor?"

She did not pause in her walk or look up, and only motioned me to a seat, saying, "Sit down. I must think; I must think."

It was unlike her. Generally, no matter how serious the thing on her mind, she was apt to come at it through some trivial chat; but now her long absence of speech troubled me.

I sat at least ten minutes, and then, uneasy, said, "Aunt Gainor, is it Darthea?"

"No, you fool!" And she went on her wandering way among the crackled gods. "Now I will talk, Hugh, and do not interrupt me. You always do;" but, as Jack Warder says, no one ever did successfully interrupt Miss Wynne except Miss Wynne.

She sat down, crossed one leg over the other, as men do when alone with men, and went on, as I recall it, to this effect, and quite in her ordinary manner: "When the British were still here, late in May I had a note through the lines from Mr. Warder as to the confusion in my house, and some other matters. He got for me a pass to come in and attend to these things. I stayed three days with Mrs. Peniston and Darthea. While here the second day I was bid to sup at Parson Duche's, and though I hated the lot of them, I had had no news nor so much as a game of cards for an age, and so I went. Now don't grin at me.

"When I was to leave no coach came, as I had ordered, and no chair, either. There was Mrs. Ferguson had set up a chaise. She must offer me to be set down at home. I said my two legs were as good as her horses', and one of them—I mean of hers—has a fine spavin; as to Mrs. Mischief's own legs, they are so thin her garters will not stay above her ankles.

"I walked from Third street over Society Hill, thinking to see your father, and to find a big stick for company across the bridges."

She was given to going at night where she had need to go, with a great stick for privateersmen, the vagabond, drunken Hessians, and other street pirates. I can see her now, shod with goloe-shoes against mud or snow, with her manlike walk and independent air, quite too formidable to suggest attack.

"I went in at the back way," she continued; "not a servant about but Tom, sound asleep at the kitchen fire. I went by him, and from the hall saw your father, also in deep slumber in his arm-chair. I got me a candle and went upstairs to look how things were. The house was in vile disorder, and dirty past belief. As to your own chamber, where that scamp Arthur slept, it was—well, no matter.

"As I went downstairs and into the back dining-room I heard the latch of the hall door rattle. 'Is it Arthur?' thought I; and of no mind to see him, I sat down and put out my candle, meaning to wait till he was come in, and then to slip out the back way. The next moment I heard Arthur's voice and your father's. Both doors into the front room were wide open, and down I sat quietly, with a good mind to hear. It is well I did. I suppose you would have marched in and said, 'Take care how you talk; I am listening.' Very fine, sir. But this was an enemy. You lie, cheat, spy, steal, and murder in war. How was I worse than you?"

"But, dear Aunt Gainor—"

"Don't interrupt me, sir. I sat still as a mouse." My aunt as a mouse tickled my fancy. There may be such in my friend Mr. Swift's Brobdingnag.

"I listened. Master Wynne is pleasant, and has had a trifle too much of Mr. Somebody's Madeira. He is affectionate, and your father sits up, and, as Dr. Rush tells me, is clear of head after his sleep, or at least for a time.

"My gentleman says, 'I may have to leave you soon, my dear cousin. I want to talk to you a little. Is there any one in the back room?' As there is no one, he goes on, and asks his cousin to tell him about the title to Wyncote as he had promised. His brother was ill and uneasy, and it was all they had, and it was a poor thing after all. Your father roused up, and seemed to me to fully understand all that followed. He said how fond he was of Arthur, and how much he wished it was he who was to have the old place. Arthur replied that it was only in his father's interest he spoke.

"Then they talked on, and the amount of it was pretty much this. How many lies Arthur got into the talk the Lord—or the devil—knows! This was what I gathered: Your grandfather Hugh, under stress of circumstances, as you know, was let out of Shrewsbury jail with some understanding that he was to sell his estate to his brother, who had no scruples as to tithes, and to go away to Pennsylvania. This I knew, but it seems that this brother William was a Wynne of the best, and, as is supposed, sold back the estate privately to Hugh for a trifle, so that at any time the elder brother could reclaim his home. What became of the second deed thus made was what Arthur wanted to know.

"Your father must have it somewhere, Hugh. Now says Arthur, 'We are poor, cousin; the place is heavily encumbered; some coal has been found. It is desirable to sell parts of the estate; how honestly can my father make a title?' Your great-uncle William died, as we know, Hugh, and the next brother's son, who was Owen and is Arthur's father, had a long minority. When he got the place, being come of age, some memoranda of the transaction turned up. It was not a rare one in older Roundhead days. Nothing was done, and time ran on. Now the occupant is getting on in years, and as his second son Arthur is ordered hither on service, it was thought as well that he should make inquiry. The older squires had some vague tradition about it. It was become worth while, as I inferred, to clear the business, or at need to effect a compromise. Half of this I heard, and the rest I got by thinking it over. Am I plain, Hugh?" She was, as usual. "Your father surprised me. He spoke out in his old deliberate way. He said the deed—some such deed—was among his father's papers; he had seen it long ago. He did not want the place. He was old and had enough, and it should be settled to Master Arthur's liking.

"Your cousin then said some few words about you. I did not hear what, but your father at once broke out in a fierce voice, and cried, 'It is too true!' Well, Hugh," she went on, "it is of no use to make things worse between you."

"No," I said; "do not tell me. Was that all?"

"Not quite. Master Arthur is to have the deed if ever it be found, and with your father's and your grandfather's methodical ways, that is pretty sure to happen."

"I do not care much, Aunt Gainor, except that—"

"I know," she cried; "anybody else might have it, but not Arthur."

"Yes; unless Darthea—"

"I understand, sir; and now I see it all. The elder brother will die. The father is old, the estate valuable, and this lying scamp with his winning ways will be master of Wyncote, and with a clear title if your father is able to bring it about. He can, Hugh, unless—"

"What, aunt?"

"Unless you intervene on account of my brother's mental state."

"That I will never do! Never!"

"Then you will lose it."

"Yes; it must go. I care but little, aunt."

"But I do, sir. You are Wynne of Wyncote."

I smiled, and made no reply.

"The man stayed awhile longer, but your father after that soon talked at random, and addressed Arthur as Mr. Montresor. I doubt if he remembered a word of it the day after. When he left and went upstairs your father fell into sleep again. I went away home alone, and the day after to the Hill Farm."

"It is a strange story," I said. "And did he get the deed before the army left?"

My aunt thought not. "Mason says all the papers are at the counting-house, and that up to this time your father has made no special search. It was but two weeks or less before they left town."

It was a simple way to trap an over-cunning man, and it much amused me, who did not take the deed and estate matter to heart as did my aunt. When she said, "We must find it," I could but say that it was my father's business, and could wait; so far, at least, as I was concerned, I would do nothing. Of course I told it all to Jack when next we met.



XXIII

On Sunday, the 21st of June, while our chief was crossing into the Jerseys, I was hearing at Christ Church, for the first time, the words of prayer in which William White commended Congress and our armies and their great leader to the protecting mercy of Almighty God. General Arnold was already busy with the great household and equipage which soon did so much to involve him in temptations growing out of his fondness for display. The militia were unwilling to act as a body-guard, or to stand sentries beside the great lamp-posts at his door. Nor did McLane and the rest of us fancy the social and guard duties which the general exacted; but we had to obey orders, and were likely, I feared, to remain long in this ungrateful service.

On June 30 we heard of the glorious battle at Monmouth, and with surprise of General Lee's disgrace. On the 3d of July came Jack with a bayonet- thrust in his right shoulder and a nasty cut over the left temple. He was able to be afoot, but was quite unfit for service. I heard from him of the splendid courage and judgment shown by his Excellency, and of the profane and terrible language he had used to that traitor Lee. Jack said: "I was in the midst of a lot of scared men, with a leader who wanted only to get away. And then the general rode up, and all was changed. I think, Hugh, he was like an angry god of war. I should have died of the things he said to Mr. Lee."

When, long after this, in July, '79, his Excellency issued that severe order about swearing, how it was against all religion, decency, and order, Jack was much amused. Like the army in Flanders, our own army solaced their empty stomachs with much bad language. But, as Jack observed, "There is a time for everything; Mr. Lee did catch it hot."

McLane soon left us, glad to get away. Had he stayed much longer there would have been one more sad moth in the pretty net into which fell all who were long in the company of our fatal Darthea. I too applied for active duty, but some influence, probably that of General Arnold, came in the way and kept me in the city.

Very soon, to my pleasure, I received a letter from Mr. Hamilton, inclosing my commission as captain in the Third Regiment of the Pennsylvania line, and with it, not to my pleasure, an order to recruit in and near the city. Rather later the general asked me, as I was but little occupied, to act as an extra aide on his staff, a position which might have been my ruin, as I shall by and by relate.

Jack's hurts turning out worse than was anticipated, he was of no use in camp, and remained at home to be petted and fussed over by my Aunt Gainor. After a month or two he was able to go about with his arm in a sling, and to be greatly noticed by the Whig women. Very soon he was caught, like me, in a ceaseless round of all manner of gaieties. He shortly grew weary of it, and fell back on his books and the society of the many who loved him—above all, that of my aunt and Darthea. For me there was no escape, as my own dissipations were chiefly those of official duty, and in company with my chief.

Congress was still in session, but from it were missing Adams, Franklin, Henry, Jay, and Rutledge, who were elsewhere filling posts of importance. It had no fully recognised powers, and the want of more distinct union was beginning to be sadly felt. Had not the ruin of the Conway cabal and the profound trust of the people lifted Washington into a position of authority, the fears and predictions of men like my friend Wilson would have been fully justified. Intrigues, ruinous methods of finance, appointments given to untried foreign officers who were mere adventurers— all these and baser influences were working toward the ruin of our cause.

Our own city went wild that winter. The Tories were sharply dealt with at first, but, as many of them were favoured by the general in command, they soon came back in mischievous numbers. The more moderate neutrals opened their doors to all parties. The general began to be at ease in the homes of the proprietary set, and, buying the great house of Mount Pleasant, made court to the lovely Margaret Shippen, and was foremost in a display of excess and luxury such as annoyed and troubled those who saw him hand and glove with the Tory gentlemen, and extravagant beyond anything hitherto seen in the quiet old city of Penn.

At this time the Congress often sat with but a dozen members. It was no longer the dignified body of seventy-six. Officers came and went. Men like Robert Morris and Dr. Rush shook their heads. Clinton lay in New York, watched by Washington, and in the South there was disaster after disaster, while even our best men wearied of the war, and asked anxiously how it was to end.

Recruiting in the face of such a state of things was slow indeed. I had little to do but wait on the general, read to my aunt, ride with her and Darthea, or shoot ducks with Jack when weather permitted; and so the long winter wore on.

With Darthea I restrained my useless passion, and contented myself with knowing that we were day by day becoming closer friends. If Arthur wrote to her or not, I could not tell. She avoided mentioning him, and I asked no questions.

I shall let Jack's diary tell—at this time it was very full—what chanced in midwinter. Alas, my dear Jack!

"It has," he wrote, "been a season of foolish dissipation. While the army suffers for everything, these fools are dancing and gambling, and General A——- the worst of all, which seems a pity in so good a soldier. He is doing us a mighty harm.

"To-day has been for me a sad one. I shall think ever of my folly with remorse. I set it down as a lesson to be read. We had a great sleighing-frolic to Cliveden. There were all the Tories, and few else—the general driving Peggy Shippen, and I Darthea. Mistress Wynne would have none of it. 'We were no worse off under Howe,' she says; 'Mr. Arnold has no sense and no judgment.' It is true, I fear. Mrs. Peniston, half froze, went along in our old sleigh. We drove up to the stone steps of Cliveden about seven at night—a fine moonlight, so that the stone vases on the roof, crowned with their carved pineapples, stood out against the sky. The windows were all aglow, and neither doors nor shutters were as yet fully repaired.

"We had a warm welcome, and stood about the ample fires while the ladies went merrily upstairs to leave their cloaks. I looked about me curiously, for there were dozens of bullet-marks on the plaster and the woodwork. It had been a gallant defence, and cleverly contrived. Soon came down the stairs a bevy of laughing girls to look, with hushed voices, at the blood-stains on the floor and the dents the muskets had made. They did think to tease me by praising Colonel Musgrave, who had commanded the British; but I, not to be outdone, declared him the bravest man alive. Darthea smiled, but said nothing, and for that I loved her better than ever.

"Then we fell to chatting, and presently she said, 'Madam Chew, Mr. Warder is to show me where the troops lay, and Mr. Wayne's brigade; and who will come too?' There were volunteers, but once outside they found it cold, and Darthea, saying, 'We shall be gone but a minute,' walked with me around the stone outbuilding to northwest. She was very thoughtful and quiet this night, looking as sweet as ever a woman could in a gray fur coat against the moon-lit drifts of snow. 'Over there,' I said, 'across the road, were our poor little four-pounders; and beyond yonder wall our chief held a brief council of war; and just there in the garden lay my own men and Hugh, and some Maryland troops, among the box where we used to play hide-and-find.'

"On this Darthea said, 'Let me see the place,' and we walked down the garden, a gentle excitement showing in her ways and talk; and I—ah me, that night!

"'I must see,' she said, 'where the dead lie; near the garden wall, is it?'

"'Here,' said I—'ours and theirs.'

"'In the peace which is past understanding,' said Darthea. Then, deep in thought, she turned from the house and into the woods a little beyond, not saying a word. Indeed, not a sound was to be heard, except the creak and craunch of the dry snow under our feet. A few paces farther we came to the summer-house, set on circular stone steps, and big enough to dine in. There she stood, saying, 'I cannot go back yet; oh, those still, still dead! Don't speak to me—not for a little while.' She stayed thus, looking up at the great white moon, while I stood by, and none other near.

"'I am better now, Jack, and you will not tell of how foolish I was—but—'

"I said there was some sweet folly, if she liked so to call it, which was better than wisdom. And then how it was I know not, nor ever shall. I felt myself flush and tremble. It is my foolish way when in danger, being by nature timid, and forced to exercise rule over myself at such seasons.

"She said, 'What is it, Jack?' for so she often called me when we were alone, although Hugh was Mr. Wynne. The ways of women are strange.

"I could not help it, and yet I knew Hugh loved her. I knew also that she was surely to marry Mr. Arthur Wynne. I was wrong, but, God help us! who is not wrong at times? I said: 'Darthea, I love you. If it were to be Hugh I should never say so.' I cared nothing about the other man; he hates my Hugh.

"'Oh, Jack, Jack! you hurt me!' Never was anything so sweet and tender. Her great eyes—like Madam Wynne's that were—filled and ran over. 'Oh, Jack!' she cried, 'must I hurt you too, and is it my fault? Oh my dear Jack, whom I love and honour, I can't love you this way. I can't—I can't. And I am sorry. I must marry Arthur Wynne; I have promised. You men think we women give our hearts lightly, and take them again, as if they were mere counters; and I am troubled, Jack, and no one knows it. I must not talk of that. I wish you would all go away. I can't marry you all.' And she began to be agitated, and to laugh in a way that seemed to me quite strange and out of place; but then I know little about women.

"I could but say: 'Forgive me; I have hurt you whom I love. I will never do it more—never. But, dear Darthea, you will let me love you, because I cannot help it, and this will all be as if it had never been. To hurt you—to hurt you of all the world! I had no right to ask you.'

"'Don't,' she said, with a great sob, which seemed to break my heart.

"'Darthea,' I said—'Darthea, do not marry that man! He is cruel; he is hard; he does not love you as my Hugh loves you.'

"'Sir,' she said, with such sudden dignity that I was overcome, and fell back a pace, 'I am promised; let that suffice. It is cold; let us go in. It is cold—it is cold!'

"I had never seen her like this. I said: 'Certainly; I should not have kept you. I was thoughtless.' And as she said nothing in reply, I went after her, having said my say as I never intended, and more than was perhaps wise. At the door she turned about, and, facing me, said abruptly, with her dear face all of a flush: 'Do not let this trouble you. I am not good enough to make it worth while. I have been a foolish girl, discontented with our simple ways, wanting what I have not. I have cried for toys, and have got them, and now I don't care for them; but I have promised. Do you hear, sir? I have promised—I have promised.'

"She stayed for no answer, but went in. It seemed to me a singular speech, and to mean more than was said. The repeating of one phrase over and over appeared meant to reinforce a doubtful purpose. I think she cares little for Mr. Arthur Wynne, but who can say? Darthea is full of surprises.

"Can it be that she loves Hugh and knows it not, or that she has such a strong sense of honour that it is hard for her to break her word? She does not believe this man to be bad. That is sure. If ever I can make her see him as I see him, he will hold her not an hour. I shall disturb her life no more. Had she taken me to-day, I know not what would have come of it. I am not strong of will, like Hugh. God knows best. I will ask no more."

I was an old man when I, Hugh Wynne, read these pages, and I am not ashamed to say they cost me some tears.

So far as I remember, neither Jack nor Darthea betrayed by their manner what I learned naught of for so many years. Neither did my Aunt Gainor's shrewdness get any hint of what passed at Cliveden. I recall, however, that Jack became more and more eager to rejoin his regiment, and this he did some two weeks later.

My father's condition was such as at times to alarm me, and at last I proposed to him to see Dr. Rush. To my surprise, he consented. I say to my surprise, for he had a vast distrust of doctors, and, to tell the truth, had never needed their help. The day after the doctor's visit I saw our great physician, whom now all the world has learned to revere, and who was ever more wise in matters of medicine than in matters of state.

He told me that my father was beginning to have some failure of brain because of his arteries being older than the rest of him, which I did not quite comprehend. He had, he said, losses of memory which were not constant. Especially was he affected with forgetfulness as to people, and for a time mistook them, so that for a while he had taken Dr. Rush for his old clerk Mason. The doctor said it was more common to lack remembrance of places. In my father's condition he might take one man for another, and to-morrow be as clear as to his acquaintance as ever he had been; but that as to business, as was in such eases rare, his mind continued to be lucid, except at times, when his memory would suddenly fail him for a few minutes. The doctor saw no remedy for his condition, and I mention it only because my father's varying peculiarities came in a measure to affect me and others in a way of which I shall have occasion to speak.

My sense of his state did much to make me more tender and more able to endure the sad outbreaks of passion which Dr. Rush taught me were to be looked for. Nor was my aunt less troubled than I. Indeed, from this time she showed as regarded my father all of that gentleness which lay beneath the exterior roughness of her masculine nature. I observed that she looked after his house, paying him frequent visits, and in all ways was solicitous that he should be made comfortable.

Near about the 1st of March—I am not quite sure of the date—I was asked in the absence of Major Clarkson, chief of the staff, to take his duties for a few days. I then saw how needlessly the general was creating enmities. His worst foe, Mr. Joseph Reed, had become in December president of the Council of State, and we—I say we—were thenceforward forever at outs with the body over which he presided. When at last, thoroughly disgusted, General Arnold was about to resign from the army, those unpleasant charges were made against him which came to little or nothing, but which embittered a life already harassed by disappointed ambition and want of means, and now also by the need to show a fair face to Mr. Shippen, whose daughter's hand he had asked.

General Arnold's indifference as to privacy in his affairs amazed me, and I saw enough to make me both wonder and grieve. The friend of Schuyler and of Warren, the soldier whom Washington at one time absolutely trusted, attached me to him by his kindness and lavish generosity, and as an officer he had my unbounded admiration. Surely his place was in the field, and not at the dinner tables of Tories, whose society, as I have said, he much affected. It was a sign of weakness that he overesteemed the homage of a merely gay and fashionable set, and took with avidity the dangerous flattery of the Tory dames.

He was withal a somewhat coarse man, with a vast amount of vanity. It was a blow to his self-estimate when he was unjustly passed over in the promotions to major-general. He felt it deeply, and was at no pains to hide his disgust. I did not wonder that the Shippens did all they could to break off this strange love-affair. They failed; for when a delicate-minded, sensitive, well-bred woman falls in love with a strong, coarse, passionate man, there is no more to be said except, "Take her."



XXIV

As the spring came on my father's condition seemed to me to grow worse. At times he had great gusts of passion or of tears, quite unlike himself; for a day he would think I was my cousin, and be more affectionate than I had ever seen him. Once or twice he talked in a confused way of our estate in Wales, and so, what with this and my annoyance over the irregularities at our headquarters, I had enough to trouble me.

The office duties were, as I have said, not much to my taste, but I learned a good deal which was of future use to me. It was a dull life, and but once did I come upon anything worth narrating. This, in fact, seemed to me at the time of less moment than it grew to be thereafter.

Neither I nor Major Clarkson, his chief of staff, had all of the general's confidence. Men came and went now and then with letters, or what not, of which naturally I learned nothing. One—a lean, small man, ill disguised as a Quaker—I saw twice. The last time he found the general absent. I offered to take charge of a letter he said he had, but he declined, saying he would return, and on this put it back in his pocket, or tried to; for he let it fall, and in quick haste secured it, although not before I thought I had recognised Arthur Wynne's peculiar handwriting. This astounded me, as you may imagine. But how could I dream of what it meant? I concluded at last that I must have been mistaken, and I did not feel at liberty to ask the general. It was none of my business, after all.

The fellow—I had always supposed him one of our spies—came again in an hour, and saw the general. I heard the man say, "From Mr. Anderson, sir," and then the door was closed, and the matter passed from iny mind for many a day.

Jack very soon after left us, and Darthea became more and more reserved, and unlike her merry, changeful self.

On March 25, '79, I came in late in the afternoon and sat down to read. My father, seated at the table, was tying up or untying bundles of old papers. Looking up, he said abruptly, "Your cousin has been here to-day." It was said so naturally as for a moment to surprise me. I made no reply. A few minutes later he looked up again.

"Arthur, Arthur—"

I turned from a book on tactics issued by Baron Steuben. "I am not Arthur, father."

He took no notice of this, but went on to say that I ought to have come long ago. And what would I do with it?

I asked what he meant by it, and if I could help him with his papers.

No, no; he needed no help. Did I ever hear from Wyncote, and how was William? I made sure he had once again taken me for my cousin. I found it was vain to insist upon my being his son. For a moment he would seem puzzled, and would then call me Arthur. At last, when he became vexed, and said angrily that I was behaving worse than Hugh, I recalled Dr. Rush's advice, and humouring his delusion, said, "Uncle, let me help you." Meanwhile he was fumbling nervously at the papers, tying and untying the same bundle, which seemed to be chiefly old bills and invoices.

"Here it is," he went on. "Take it, and have a care that thou hast it duly considered by James Wilson, or another as good. Then we will see."

"What is it, uncle?" I returned.

He said it was the reconveyance of Wyncote to my grandfather; and with entirely clear language, and no fault of thought that I could observe, he stated that at need he would execute a proper title to Godfrey, the present man.

I was struck dumb with astonishment and pity. Here was a man acting within a world of delusion as to who I was, and with as much competence as ever in his best days. I did not know what to say, nor even what to do. At last I rose, and put the old yellow parchment in my coat pocket, saying I was greatly obliged by his kindness.

Then, his business habits acting as was their wont, he said, "But it will be proper for thee to give me a receipt."

I said it was not needed, but he insisted; and at this I was puzzled. I did not want the deed, still less did I want it to pass into Arthur's hands. I said, "Very good, sir," and sitting down again, wrote a receipt, and? calmly signing my own name, gave it to him. He did not look at it, but folded and indorsed it, and threw it into the little red leather trunk on the table.

I went away to my aunt's without more delay, a much-astounded man. The good lady was no less astonished. We read the deed over with care, but its legal turns and its great length puzzled us both, and at last my aunt said:

"Let me keep it, Hugh. It is a queer tangle. Just now we can do nothing, and later we shall see. There will be needed some wiser legal head than mine or yours, and what will come of it who can say? At all events, Mr. Arthur has it not, and in your father's condition he himself will hardly be able to make a competent conveyance. Indeed, I think he will forget the whole business. I presume Master Wynne is not likely to return in a hurry."

In the beginning of April General Arnold married our beautiful Margaret Shippen, and took her to the new home, Mount Pleasant, above the shaded waters of the quiet Schuylkill. Tea-parties and punch-drinking followed, as was the custom.

Mr. Arnold, as my aunt called him, after a fashion learned in London, and also common in the colonies, gave his bride Mount Pleasant as a dowry, and none knew—not even the fair Margaret—that it was hopelessly mortgaged. Hither came guests in scores for a week after the marriage to drink tea with madam, the men taking punch upstairs with the groom, while the women waited below, and had cakes and gossip, in which this winter was rich enough to satisfy those of all parties.

It was a year of defeat, and again the weaker folk, like Joseph Warder and some much better known,—I mention no names,—were talking of terms, or, by their firesides with a jug of Hollands, were criticising our leader, and asking why he did not move. Meanwhile the army was as ill off as ever it had been since the camping at Valley Forge, while the air here in the city was full of vague rumours of defection and what not. I was of necessity caught in the vortex of gaiety which my chief loved and did much to keep up. He liked to see his aides at his table, and used them as a part of the excessive state we thought at this time most unseemly.

I remember well an afternoon in April of this year, when, the spring being early, all manner of green things were peeping forth, while I walked to and fro in the hall at Mount Pleasant, that I might receive those who called and excuse the absence of the host. I wandered out, for as yet none came to call. The air was soft like summer, and, sweeter than birds overhead or the fragrant arbutus on the upland slopes, came Darthea in virgin white, and a great hat tied under her chin with long breadths of blue ribbon. My aunt walked with her from her coach, and close after them came a laughing throng of men and women, for the most part of the governor's set. There was bad news from the South, which was by no means unwelcome to these people, if I might judge from their comments. My aunt walked with them in silent wrath, and after I had met them at the door, turned aside with me and bade me go with her on the lawn, where the grass was already green.

"I have held my tongue," she said. "These people have neither manners nor hearts. I told Mr. Shippen as much. And where does your general get all his money? It is vulgar, this waste. Look!" she said; "look there! It is well to feed the poor after a wedding; I like the old custom; but this is mere ostentation." It was true; there was a crowd of the neighbouring farm people about the detached kitchen, eager for the food and rum which I saw given daily in absurd profusion. My Aunt Gainor shook her head.

"It will turn out badly, Hugh. This comes of a woman marrying beneath her. The man may be a good soldier,—oh, no doubt he is,—but he is not a gentleman. You must get away, Hugh." Indeed, I much desired to do so, but until now had been detained, despite repeated applications to my chief.

My aunt said no more, but went into the house, leaving me to await the coming of the many guests, men and women, gentlemen of the Congress, with officers in uniform, who flocked to this too hospitable mansion. I had just heard from Jack, and the contrast shown by his account of the want of arms, clothing, and food seemed to me most sad when I reflected upon the extravagance and useless excess I had seen throughout the winter now at an end. I did not wonder at my aunt's anger. Her fears were but the vague anticipations of a wise old woman who had seen the world and used good eyes and a sagacious brain. How little did she or I dream of the tragedy of dishonour into which the mad waste, the growing debts, the bitterness of an insulted and ambitious spirit, were to lead the host of this gay house!

As I turned in my walk I saw the general dismount, and went to meet him. He said: "I shall want you at nine to-night at my quarters in town—an errand of moment into the Jerseys. You must leave early to-morrow. Are you well horsed?"

I said yes, and was, in fact, glad of any more active life. Before nine that night I went to headquarters, and found a number of invitations to dine or sup. It may amuse those for whom I write to know that nearly all were writ on the white backs of playing-cards; but one from Madam Arnold was printed. I sat down, facing the open doorway into the general's room, and began to write refusals, not knowing how long I might be absent.

Presently looking up, I saw the general at his desk. I had not heard him enter. Two candles were in front of him. He was sitting with his cheeks resting on his hands and his elbows on the desk, facing me, and so deep in thought that I did not think fit to interrupt him. His large, ruddy features now were pale and sombre, and twice I saw him use his kerchief to mop his brow as if it were moist from overheating.

At last he called me, and I went in. His forehead and the powdered hair about it were in fact wet, like those of a man who is coming out of an ague. Indeed, he looked so ill that I ventured to ask after his health. He replied that he was well. That infamous court-martial business annoyed him, and as to Mr. Reed, if there were any fight in the man, he would have him out and get done with him—which seemed imprudent talk, to say no more.

"Captain Wynne," he went on, "early to-morrow you will ride through Bristol to the ferry below Trenton. Cross and proceed with all haste to South Amboy. At the Lamb Tavern you will meet an officer from Sir Henry Clinton. Deliver to him this despatch in regard to exchange of prisoners. He may or may not have a letter for you to bring back. In this package are passes from me, and one from Sir Henry Clinton, in case you meet with any Tory parties."

"I shall be sure to meet them in west Jersey. Pardon me, sir, but would it not be easier to pass through our own lines in the middle Jerseys?"

"You have your orders, Mr, Wynne," he replied severely.

I bowed.

Then he seemed to hesitate, and I stood waiting his will. "The despatch," he said, "is open in case it becomes needful to show it Perhaps you had better read it."

This sounded unusual, but I opened it, and read to the effect that the exchanges would go on if Sir Henry did not see fit to alter his former proposal, but that some time might elapse before the lists on our side were made out. "The officer charged with this letter will be unable to give any further information, as he has no powers to act for me.

"I have the honour to be "Your obedient, humble servant, "BENEDICT ARNOLD, "Major-General in command of Philadelphia and the western Jerseys."

I looked up. "Is that all?"

"Not quite. If it chance that no officer appears to meet you at Amboy, you will return at once."

Very glad of relief from the routine of rather distasteful duties, I rode away at dawn the next day up the Bristol road. I was stopped, as I supposed I should be, by a small band of Tory partisans, but after exhibiting my British pass I was permitted to proceed. Between Trenton and Amboy I met a party of our own horse, and had some trouble until I allowed their leader, a stupid lout, to read my open despatch, when he seemed satisfied, and sent on two troopers with me, whom I left near Amboy.