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Philip Winwood by Robert Neilson Stephens

R >> Robert Neilson Stephens >> Philip Winwood




"Go to your room, sir," said Mr. Faringfield, in his sternest tone,
looking his anger out of eyes as hard as steel. This meant for Master
Ned no supper, and probably much worse.

"Please, sir, I didn't do anything," answered Ned, with ill-feigned
surprise. "She fell and hurt her arm."

Fanny did not deny this, but she was no liar, and could not confirm
it. So she looked to the ground, and clasped her left wrist with her
right hand. But in this latter movement she again exposed her brother
by the very means she took to protect him; for quick-seeing Madge,
observing the action, gently but firmly unclasped the younger sister's
hand, and so disclosed the telltale marks of Ned's fingers upon the
delicate wrist, by squeezing or wrenching which that tyrant had
evinced his brotherly superiority.

At sight of this, Mrs. Faringfield gave a low cry of horror and
maternal pity, and fell to caressing the bruised wrist; and Madge,
raising her arm girl-wise, began to rain blows on her brother, which
fell wherever they might, but where none of them could hurt. Her
father, without reproving her, drew her quietly back, and with a
countenance a shade darker than before, pointed out the way for Ned
toward the veranda leading to the rear hall-door.

With a vindictive look, and pouting lips, Ned turned his steps down
the walk. Just then he noticed Philip Winwood, who had viewed every
detail of the scene with wonder, and who now regarded Ned with a kind
of vaguely disliking curiosity, such as one bestows on some
sinister-looking strange animal. Philip's look was, of course,
unconscious, but none the less clearly to be read for that. Ned
Faringfield, pausing on his way, stared at the unknown lad, with an
expression of insolent inquiry. Not daring to stay for questions, but
observing the valise, he seemed to become aware that the newcomer was
an already accepted guest of the house; and he thereupon surveyed
Philip a moment, inwardly measuring him as a possible comrade or
antagonist, but affecting a kind of disdain. A look from his father
ended Ned's inspection, and sent him hastily toward his imprisonment,
whither he went with no one's pity but Fanny's--for his mother had
become afraid of him, and little Tom took his likes and dislikes from
his sister Madge.

And so they went in to supper, disappearing from my sight behind the
corner of the parlour wing as they mounted the rear veranda: Mr. and
Mrs. Faringfield first, the mother leading Fanny by the wounded wrist;
the big dog next, wagging his tail for no particular reason; and then
Philip Winwood, with his cat in his basket, Madge at one side of him
and pretending an interest in the kitten while from beneath her lashes
she alertly watched the boy himself, little Tom on the other side
holding Philip's hand. I stood at the gateway, looking after; and with
all my young infatuation for Madge, I had no feeling but one of
liking, for this quiet, strange lad, with the pale, kind face. And I
would to God I might see those three still walking together, as when
children, through this life that has dealt so strangely with them all
since that Summer evening.




CHAPTER II.

_The Faringfields._


Having shown how Philip Winwood came among us, I ought to tell at
once, though of course I learned it from him afterwards, all that need
be known of his previous life. His father, after leaving Oxford and
studying medicine in Edinburgh, had married a lady of the latter city,
and emigrated to Philadelphia to practise as a physician. But whether
'twas that the Quaker metropolis was overstocked with doctors even
then, or for other reasons, there was little call for Doctor Winwood's
ministrations. Moreover, he was of so book-loving a disposition that
if he happened to have sat down to a favourite volume, and a request
came for his services, it irked him exceedingly to respond. This being
noticed and getting abroad, did not help him in his profession.

The birth of Philip adding to the doctor's expenses, it soon came
about that, in the land where he had hoped to make a new fortune, he
parted with the last of what fortune he had originally possessed. Then
occurred to him the ingenious thought of turning bookseller, a
business which, far from requiring that he should ever absent himself
from his precious volumes, demanded rather that he should always be
among them. But the stock that he laid in, turned out to comprise
rather such works as a gentleman of learning would choose for company,
than such as the people of Philadelphia preferred to read.
Furthermore, when some would-be purchaser appeared, it often happened
that the book he offered to buy was one for which the erudite dealer
had acquired so strong an affection that he would not let it change
owners. Nor did his wife much endeavour to turn him from this
untradesmanlike course. Besides being a gentle and affectionate woman,
she had that admiration for learning which, like excessive warmth of
heart and certain other traits, I have observed to be common between
the Scotch (she was of Edinburgh, as I have said) and the best of the
Americans.

Such was Philip's father, and when he died of some trouble of the
heart, there was nothing for his widow to do but continue the
business. She did this with more success than the doctor had had,
though many a time it smote her heart to sell some book of those that
her husband had loved, and to the backs of which she had become
attached for his sake and through years of acquaintance. But the
necessities of her little boy and herself cried out, and so did the
debt her husband had accumulated as tangible result of his business
career. By providing books of a less scholarly, more popular
character, such as novels, sermons, plays, comic ballads, religious
poems, and the like; as well as by working with her needle, and
sometimes copying legal and other documents, Mrs. Winwood managed to
keep the kettle boiling. And in the bookselling and the copying, she
soon came to have the aid of Philip.

The boy, too, loved books passionately, finding in them consolation
for the deprivations incidental to his poverty. But, being keenly
sympathetic, he had a better sense of his mother's necessities than
his father had shown, and to the amelioration of her condition and his
own, he sacrificed his love of books so far as to be, when occasion
offered, an uncomplaining seller of those he liked, and a dealer in
those he did not like. His tastes were, however, broader than his
father's, and he joyfully lost himself in the novels and plays his
father would have disdained.

He read, indeed, everything he could put his hands on, that had, to
his mind, reason, or wit, or sense, or beauty. Many years later, when
we were in London, his scholarly yet modest exposition of a certain
subject eliciting the praise of a group in a Pall Mall tavern, and he
being asked "What university he was of," he answered, with a playful
smile, "My father's bookshop." It was, indeed, his main school of
book-learning. But, as I afterward told him, he had studied in the
university of life also. However, I am now writing of his boyhood in
Philadelphia; and of that there is only this left to be said.

In catering to his mind, he did not neglect bodily skill either. His
early reading of Plutarch and other warlike works had filled him with
desire to emulate the heroes of battle. An old copy of Saviolo's book
on honour and fence, written in the reign of Elizabeth, or James, I
forget which, had in some manner found its way to his father's
shelves; and from this Philip secretly obtained some correct ideas of
swordsmanship.[2] Putting them in practice one day in the shop, with a
stick, when he thought no one was looking, he suddenly heard a cry of
"bravo" from the street door, and saw he was observed by a Frenchman,
who had recently set up in Philadelphia as a teacher of fencing,
dancing, and riding. This expert, far from allowing Philip to be
abashed, complimented and encouraged him; entered the shop, and made
friends with him. The lad, being himself as likable as he found the
lively foreigner interesting, became in time something of a comrade to
the fencing master. The end of this was that, in real or pretended
return for the loan of Saviolo's book, the Frenchman gave Philip a
course of instruction and practice in each of his three arts.

To these the boy added, without need of a teacher, the ability to
shoot, both with gun and with pistol. I suppose it was from being so
much with his mother, between whom and himself there must have existed
the most complete devotion, that notwithstanding his manly and
scholarly accomplishments, his heart, becoming neither tough like the
sportsman's nor dry like the bookworm's, remained as tender as a
girl's--or rather as a girl's is commonly supposed to be. His mother's
death, due to some inward ailment of which the nature was a problem to
the doctors, left him saddened but too young to be embittered. And
this was the Philip Winwood--grave and shy from having been deprived
too much of the company of other boys, but with certain mental and
bodily advantages of which too much of that company would have
deprived him--who was taken into the house of the Faringfields in the
Summer of 1763.

The footing on which he should remain there was settled the very
morning after his arrival. Mr. Faringfield, a rigid and prudent man,
but never a stingy one, made employment for him as a kind of messenger
or under clerk in his warehouse. The boy fell gratefully into the new
life, passing his days in and about the little counting-room that
looked out on Mr. Faringfield's wharf on the East River. He found it
dull work, the copying of invoices, the writing of letters to
merchants in other parts of the world, the counting of articles of
cargo, and often the bearing a hand in loading or unloading some
schooner or dray; but as beggars should not be choosers, so
beneficiaries should not be complainers, and Philip kept his feelings
to himself.

Mr. Faringfield was an exacting master, whose rule was that his men
should never be idle, even at times when there seemed nothing to do.
If no task was at hand, they should seek one; and if none could be
found, he was like to manufacture one. Thus was Phil denied the
pleasure of brightening or diversifying his day with reading, for
which he could have found time enough. He tried to be interested in
his work, and he in part succeeded, somewhat by good-fellowship with
the jesting, singing, swearing wharfmen and sailors, somewhat by
dwelling often on the thought that he was filling his small place in a
great commerce which touched so distant shores, and so many countries,
of the world. He used to watch the vessels sail, on the few and
far-between days when there were departures, and wish, with inward
sighs, that he might sail with them. A longing to see the great world,
the Europe of history, the Britain of his ancestors, had been
implanted in him by his reading, before he had come to New York, and
the desire was but intensified by his daily contact with the one end
of a trade whose other end lay beyond the ocean.

Outside of the hours of business, Philip's place was that of a member
of the Faringfield household, where, save in the one respect that
after his first night it was indeed the garret room that fell to him,
he was on terms of equality with the children. Ned alone, of them all,
affected toward him the manner of a superior to a dependent. Whatever
were Philip's feelings regarding this attitude of the elder son, he
kept them locked within, and had no more to say to Master Ned than
absolute civility required. With the two girls and little Tom, and
with me, he was, evenings and Sundays, the pleasantest playfellow in
the world.

Ungrudgingly he gave up to us, once we had made the overtures, the
time he would perhaps rather have spent over his books; for he had
brought a few of these from Philadelphia, a fact which accounted for
the exceeding heaviness of his travelling bag, and he had access, of
course, to those on Mr. Faringfield's shelves. His compliance with our
demands was the more kind, as I afterward began to see, for that his
day's work often left him quite tired out. Of this we never thought;
we were full of the spirits pent up all day at school, Madge and Fanny
being then learners at the feet of a Boston maiden lady in our street,
while I yawned and idled my hours away on the hard benches of a Dutch
schoolmaster near the Broadway, under whom Ned Faringfield also was a
student. But fresh as we were, and tired as Philip was, he was always
ready for a romp in our back yard, or a game of hide-and-seek in the
Faringfields' gardens, or a chase all the way over to the Bowling
Green, or all the way up to the Common where the town ended and the
Bowery lane began.

But it soon came out that Phil's books were not neglected, either. The
speed with which his candles burnt down, and required renewal, told of
nocturnal studies in his garret. As these did not perceptibly
interfere with his activity the next day, they were viewed by Mr.
Faringfield rather with commendation than otherwise, and so were
allowed to continue. My mother thought it a sin that no one interfered
to prevent the boy's injuring his health; but when she said this to
Phil himself, he only smiled and answered that if his reading did cost
him anything of health, 'twas only fair a man should pay something for
his pleasures.

My mother's interest in the matter arose from a real liking. She saw
much of Philip, for he and the three younger Faringfields were as
often about our house as about their own. Ours was not nearly as fine;
'twas a white-painted wooden house, like those in New England, but
roomy enough for its three only occupants, my mother and me and the
maid. We were not rich, but neither were we of the poorest. My father,
the predecessor of Mr. Aitken in the customs office, had left
sufficient money in the English funds at his death, to keep us in the
decent circumstances we enjoyed, and there was yet a special fund
reserved for my education. So we could be neighbourly with the
Faringfields, and were so; and so all of us children, including
Philip, were as much at home in the one house as in the other.

One day, in the Fall of that year of Philip's arrival, we young ones
were playing puss-in-a-corner in the large garden--half orchard, half
vegetable plantation--that formed the rear of the Faringfields'
grounds. It was after Phil's working hours, and a pleasant, cool,
windy evening. The maple leaves were yellowing, the oak leaves turning
red. I remember how the wind moved the apple-tree boughs, and the
yellow corn-stalks waiting to be cut and stacked as fodder. (When I
speak of corn, I do not use the word in the English sense, of grain in
general, but in the American sense, meaning maize, of which there are
two kinds, the sweet kind being most delicious to eat, as either kind
is a beautiful sight when standing in the field, the tall stalks
waving their many arms in the breeze.) We were all laughing, and
running from tree to tree, when in from the front garden came Ned, his
face wearing its familiar cruel, bullying, spoil-sport smile.

The wind blowing out Madge's brown hair as she ran, I suppose put him
in mind of what to do. For all at once, clapping his hand to his
mouth, and imitating the bellowing war-whoop of an Indian, he rushed
upon us in that character, caught hold of Madge's hair, and made off
as if to drag her away by it. She, screaming, tried to resist, but of
course could not get into an attitude for doing so while he pulled her
so fast. The end of it was, that she lost her balance and fell, thus
tearing her hair from his grasp.

I, being some distance away, picked up an apple and flung it at the
persecutor's head, which I missed by half an inch. Before I could
follow the apple, Philip had taken the work out of my hands.

"You are a savage," said Phil, in a low voice, but with a fiery eye,
confronting Ned at close quarters.

"And what are you?" replied young Faringfield promptly. "You're a
beggar, that's what you are! A beggar that my father took in."

For a moment or two Phil regarded his insulter in amazed silence; then
answered:

"If only you weren't her brother!"

Here Madge spoke up, from the ground on which she sat:

"Oh, don't let that stop you, Phil!"

"I sha'n't," said Phil, with sudden decision, and the next instant the
astounded Ned was recoiling from a solid blow between the eyes.

Of course he immediately returned the compliment in kind, and as Ned
was a strong fellow, Phil had all he could do to hold his own in the
ensuing scuffle. How long this might have lasted, I don't know, had
not Fanny run between, with complete disregard of her own safety,
calling out:

"Oh, Phil, you mustn't hurt Ned!"

Her interposition being aided on the other side by little Tom, who
seized Ned's coat-tails and strove to pull him away from injuring
Philip, the two combatants, their boyish belligerence perhaps having
had enough for the time, separated, both panting.

"I'll have it out with you yet!" said Master Ned, short-windedly,
adjusting his coat, and glaring savagely.

"All right!" said Phil, equally out of breath. Ned then left the
field, with a look of contempt for the company.

After that, things went on in the old pleasant manner, except that
Ned, without any overt act to precipitate a fight, habitually treated
Phil with a most annoying air of scorn and derision. This, though
endured silently, was certainly most exasperating.

But it had not to be endured much of the time, for Ned had grown more
and more to disdain our society, and to cultivate companions superior
to us in years and knowledge of the world. They were, indeed, a smart,
trick-playing, swearing set, who aped their elders in drinking,
dicing, card-gambling, and even in wenching. Their zest in this
imitation was the greater for being necessarily exercised in secret
corners, and for their freshness to the vices they affected.

I do not say I was too good for this company and their practices; or
that Philip was either. Indeed we had more than a mere glimpse of
both, for boys, no matter how studious or how aspiring in the long
run, will see what life they can; will seek the taste of forbidden
fruit, and will go looking for temptations to yield to. Indeed, the
higher a boy's intelligence, the more eager may be his curiosity for,
his first enjoyment of, the sins as well as the other pleasures. What
banished us--Philip and me--from Ned's particular set was, first,
Ned's enmity toward us; second, our attachment to a clan of boys
equally bent on playing the rake in secret, though of better
information and manners than Ned's comrades could boast of; third,
Phil's fondness for books, and mine for him; and finally, our love for
Madge.

This last remained unaltered in both of us. As for Madge, as I had
predicted to myself, she had gradually restored me to my old place in
her consideration as the novelty of Philip's newer devotion had worn
off. We seemed now to be equals in her esteem. At one time Phil would
apparently stand uppermost there, at another I appeared to be
preferred. But this alternating superiority was usually due to casual
circumstance. Sometimes, I suppose, it owed itself to caprice;
sometimes, doubtless, to deep design unsuspected by either of us. Boys
are not men until they are well grown; but women are women from their
first compliment. On the whole, as I have said, Phil and I were very
even rivals.

It was sometime in the winter--Philip's first winter with the
Faringfields--that the next outbreak came, between him and Master
Edward. If ever the broad mansion of the Faringfields looked warm and
welcoming, it was in midwinter. The great front doorway, with its
fanlight above, and its panel windows at each side, through which the
light shone during the long evenings, and with its broad stone steps
and out-curving iron railings, had then its most hospitable aspect.
One evening that it looked particularly inviting to me, was when Ned
and the two girls and I were returning with our skates from an
afternoon spent on Beekman's pond. Large flakes were falling softly on
snow already laid. Darkness had caught up with us on the way home, and
when we came in sight of the cheery light enframing the Faringfields'
wide front door, and showing also from the windows at one side, I was
not sorry I was to eat supper with them that evening, my mother having
gone sleighing to visit the Murrays at Incledon, with whom she was to
pass the night. As we neared the door, tired and hungry, whom should
we see coming toward it from the other direction but Philip Winwood.
He had worked over the usual time at the warehouse. Before the girls
or I could exchange halloes with Phil, we were all startled to hear
Ned call out to him, in a tone even more imperious than the words:

"Here, you, come and take my skates, and carry them in, and tell
mother I've stopped at Jack Van Cortlandt's house a minute."

And he stood waiting for Phil to do his bidding. The rest of us
halted, also; while Phil stopped where he was, looking as if he could
not have heard aright.

"Come, are you deaf?" cried Ned, impatiently. "Do as you're bid, and
be quick about it."

Now, of course, there was nothing wrong in merely asking a comrade, as
one does ask a comrade such things, to carry in one's skates while one
stopped on the way. No one was ever readier than Phil to do such
little offices, or great ones either. Indeed, it is the American way
to do favours, even when not requested, and even to inferiors. I have
seen an American gentleman of wealth go in the most natural manner to
the assistance of his own servant in a task that seemed to overtax the
latter, and think nothing of it. But in the case I am relating; apart
from the fact that I, being nearer than Phil, was the proper one of
whom to ask the favour; the phrase and manner were those of a master
to a servant; a rough master and a stupid servant, moreover. And so
Philip, after a moment, merely laughed, and went on his way toward the
door.

At this Master Ned stepped forward with the spirit of chastisement in
his eyes, his skates held back as if he meant to strike Phil with
their sharp blades. But it happened that Philip had by now mounted the
first door-step, and thus stood higher than his would-be assailant. So
Master Ned stopped just out of Philip's reach, and said insolently:

"'Tis time you were taught your place, young fellow. You're one of my
father's servants, that's all; so take in my skates, or I'll show
you."

"You're wrong there," said Phil, with forced quietness. "A clerk or
messenger, in business, is not a personal servant."

"Take in these skates, or I'll brain you with 'em!" cried Ned, to
that.

"Come on and brain!" cried Phil.

"By G----d, I will that!" replied Ned, and made to swing the skates
around by the straps. But his arm was, at that instant, caught in a
powerful grip, and, turning about in surprise, he looked into the
hard, cold eyes of his father, who had come up unseen, having stayed;
at the warehouse even later than Phil.

"If any blows are struck here, you sha'n't be the one to strike them,
sir," he said to Ned. "What's this I hear, of servants? I'll teach you
once for all, young man, that in my house Philip is your equal. Go to
your room and think of that till it becomes fixed in your mind."

To go without supper, with such an appetite, on such a cold night, was
indeed a dreary end for such a day's sport. I, who knew how chilled
and starved Ned must be, really pitied him.

But instead of slinking off with a whimper, he for the first time in
his life showed signs of revolt.

"What if I don't choose to go to my room?" he answered, impudently, to
our utmost amazement. "You may prefer an outside upstart over your
son, if you like, but you can't always make your son a prisoner by the
ordering."

Mr. Faringfield showed little of the astonishment and paternal wrath
he doubtless felt. He gazed coldly at his defiant offspring a moment;
then took a step toward him. But Ned, with the agility of boyhood,
turned and ran, looking back as he went, and stopping only when he was
at a safe distance.

"Come back," called his father, not risking his dignity in a doubtful
pursuit, but using such a tone that few would dare to disobey the
command.

"Suppose I don't choose to come back," answered Ned, to whose head the
very devil had now certainly mounted. "Maybe there's other places to
go to, where one doesn't have to stand by and see an upstart beggar
preferred to himself, and put in his place, and fed on the best while
he's lying hungry in his dark room."

"If there's another place for you, I'd advise you to find it," said
Mr. Faringfield, after a moment's reflection.

"Oh, I'll find it," was the reply; and then came what Master Ned knew
would be the crowning taunt and insult to his father. "If it comes to
the worst, I know how I can get to England, where I'd rather be,
anyway."

There was a reason why Mr. Faringfield's face turned dark as a
thunder-cloud at this. You must know, first, that in him alone was
embodied the third generation of colonial Faringfields. The founder of
the American branch of the family, having gone pretty nearly to the
dogs at home, and got into close quarters with the law, received from
his people the alternative of emigrating to Virginia or suffering
justice to take its course. Tossing up his last sixpence, he
indifferently observed, on its coming down, that it lay in favour of
Virginia. So he chose emigration, and was shipped off, upon condition
that if he ever again set foot in England he should be forthwith
turned over to the merciless law. His relations, as he perceived,
cherished the hope that he would die of a fever likely to be caught on
the piece of marshy land in Virginia which they, in a belief that it
was worthless, had made over to him. Pondering on this on the voyage,
and perhaps having had his fill of the flesh and the devil, he
resolved to disappoint his family. And, to make short a very long
story of resolution and toil, he did so, becoming at last one of the
richest tobacco-planters in the province.

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