Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker | Page 9

solid house, this first day of
my going to school. One is apt to associate events with persons, and my
mother stood leaning on the half-door as I came running back. She was
some little reassured to see me smiling, for, to tell the truth, I had been
mightily scared at my new venture.
This sweet and most tender-hearted lady wore, as you may like to know,
a gray gown, and a blue chintz apron fastened over the shoulders with
wide bands. On her head was a very broad-brimmed white beaver hat,
low in the crown, and tied by silk cords under her chin. She had a great
quantity of brown hair, among which was one wide strand of gray. This
she had from youth, I have been told. It was all very silken, and so
curly that it was ever in rebellion against the custom of Friends, which
would have had it flat on the temples. Indeed, I never saw it so, for,
whether at the back or at the front, it was wont to escape in large curls.

Nor do I think she disliked this worldly wilfulness, for which nature
had provided an unanswerable excuse. She had serious blue eyes, very
large and wide open, so that the clear white was seen all around the
blue, and with a constant look as if of gentle surprise. In middle life she
was still pliant and well rounded, with a certain compliment of fresh
prettiness in whatever gesture she addressed to friend or guest. Some
said it was a French way, and indeed she made more use of her hands
in speech than was common among people of British race.
Her goodness seems to me to have been instinctive, and to have needed
neither thought nor effort. Her faults, as I think of her, were mostly
such as arise from excess of loving and of noble moods. She would be
lavish where she had better have been merely generous, or rash where
some would have lacked even the commoner qualities of courage.
Indeed, as to this, she feared no one--neither my grave father nor the
grimmest of inquisitive committees of Friends.
As I came she set those large, childlike eyes on me, and opening the
lower half-door, cried out:
"I could scarce wait for thee! I wish I could have gone with thee, Hugh;
and was it dreadful? Come, let us see thy little book. And did they
praise thy reading? Didst thou tell them I taught thee? There are girls, I
hear," and so on--a way she had of asking many questions without
waiting for a reply.
As we chatted we passed through the hall, where tall mahogany chairs
stood dark against the whitewashed walls, such as were in all the rooms.
Joyous at escape from school, and its confinement of three long, weary
hours, from eight to eleven, I dropped my mother's hand, and, running a
little, slid down the long entry over the thinly sanded floor, and then
slipping, came down with a rueful countenance, as nature, foreseeing
results, meant that a boy should descend when his legs fail him. My
mother sat down on a settle, and spread out both palms toward me,
laughing, and crying out:
"So near are joy and grief, my friends, in this world of sorrow."
This was said so exactly with the voice and manner of a famous
preacher of our Meeting that even I, a lad then of only eight years,
recognised the imitation. Indeed, she was wonderful at this trick of
mimicry, a thing most odious to Friends. As I smiled, hearing her, I
was aware of my father in the open doorway of the sitting-room, tall,

strong, with much iron-gray hair. Within I saw several Friends, large
rosy men in drab, with horn buttons and straight collars, their stout legs
clad in dark silk hose, without the paste or silver buckles then in use.
All wore broad-brimmed, low beavers, and their gold-headed canes
rested between their knees.
My father said to me, in his sharp way, "Take thy noise out into the
orchard. The child disturbs us, wife. Thou shouldst know better. A
committee of overseers is with me." He disliked the name Marie, and
was never heard to use it, nor even its English equivalent.
Upon this the dear lady murmured, "Let us fly, Hugh," and she ran on
tiptoe along the hall with me, while my father closed the door. "Come,"
she added, "and see the floor. I am proud of it. We have friends to eat
dinner with us at two."
The great room where we took our meals is still clear in my mind. The
floor was two inches deep in white sand, in which were carefully traced
zigzag lines, with odd patterns in the corners.