Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker: Sometime Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel on the Staff of his Excellency General WashingtonMitchell, S. Weir (Silas Weir)
History
Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker: Sometime Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel on the Staff of his Excellency General Washington
Mitchell, S. Weir (Silas Weir)
Quakers -- Fiction; United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Fiction
He said to my father, “The boy favours thy people.” Then he added,
patting my head, “When thou art a man, my lad, thou shouldst go and see
where thy people came from in Wales. I have been at Wyncote. It is a
great house, with wings in the Italian manner, and a fine fountain in
the court, and gates which were gilded when Charles II came to see the
squire, and which are not to be set open again until another king comes
thither.”
Then I knew this was the picture upstairs, and much pleased I said
eagerly:
“My father has it in his bedroom, and our arms below it, all painted
most beautiful.”
“Thou art a clever lad,” said the young lieutenant-governor, “and I must
have described it well. Let as have a look at it, Friend Wynne.”
But my mother, seeing that William Logan and Friend Pemberton were
silent and grave, and that my father looked ill pleased, made haste to
make excuse, because it was springtime and the annual house-cleaning was
going on.
Mr. Penn cried out merrily, “I see that the elders are shocked at thee,
Friend Wynne, because of these vanities of arms and pictures; but there
is good heraldry on the tankard out of which I drank James Pemberton’s
beer yesterday. Fie, fie, Friend James!” Then he bowed to my mother very
courteously, and said to my father, “I hope I have not got thy boy into
difficulties because I reminded him that he is come of gentles.”
“No, no,” said my mother.
“I know the arms, madam, and well too: quarterly, three eagles displayed
in fesse, and--”
“Thou wilt pardon me, Friend Penn,” said my father, curtly. “These are
the follies of a world which concerns not those of our society. The
lad’s aunt has put enough of such nonsense into his head already.”
“Let it pass, then,” returned the young lieutenant-governor, with good
humour; “but I hope, as I said, that I have made no trouble for this
stout boy of thine.”
My father replied deliberately, “There is no harm done.” He was too
proud to defend himself, but I heard long after that he was taken to
task by Thomas Scattergood and another for these vanities of arms and
pictures. He told them that he put the picture where none saw it but
ourselves, and, when they persisted, reminded them sharply, as Mr. Penn
had done, of the crests on their own silver, by which these Friends of
Welsh descent set much store.
I remember that, when the gay young lieutenant-governor had taken his
leave, my father said to my mother, “Was it thou who didst tell the
boy this foolishness of these being our arms and the like, or was it my
sister Gainor?”
Upon this my mother drew up her brows, and spread her palms out,--a
French way she had,--and cried, “Are they not thy arms? Wherefore should
we be ashamed to confess it?”
I suppose this puzzled him, for he merely added, “Too much may be made
of such vanities.”
All of this I but dimly recall. It is one of the earliest recollections
of my childhood, and, being out of the common, was, I suppose, for that
reason better remembered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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