“What’s that? What?”
“Mr. Howe has taken Mrs. Pemberton’s carriage and the pair of sorrels for his own use.”
At this my Aunt Gainor’s large face reappeared, not as melancholic as before, and I added, “Friend Waln has six to care for, and Thomas Scattergood has the Hessian chaplain and a drunken major. The rest of Friends are no better off.”
“Thank the Lord for all His mercies!” said Miss Wynne.
“And Mr. Cadwalader’s house on Little Dock street Sir William has.”
“A pity that, Hugh. The fine furniture will pay for it, I fear. I think, Hugh, I am better, or I shall be soon.”
“They talk of the Meeting over the way for a barrack, Aunt Gainor.” Now this was idly rumoured, but how could one resist to feed an occasion so comic?
“I think I should die contented,” said Miss Wynne. “Now go away, Hugh. I have had my medicine, and I like it.” She was quick at self-analysis, and was laughing low, really happier for the miseries of her Tory acquaintances.
After the bedroom comedy, which much amused me and out of which my aunt got great comfort, she was inclined to be on better terms with the officers so abruptly thrust upon her. For a while, however, she declined to eat her meals with them, and when told that they had had Colonel Montresor to dine, and had drunk the king’s health, she sent all the glasses they had used down to the blacks in the kitchen, and bade them never to dare set them on her table again. This much delighted Count Donop, who loved George of Hanover no better than did she, and I learned that she declared the bread-and-butter business was the worst of Von Knyphausen, and was no doubt a court custom. As to Count Donop, she learned to like him. He spoke queer French, and did not smoke. “Je ne foume pas chamais, madame,” he said; “mais le Cheneral, il foume touchours, et Von Heiser le meme,” which was true. The count knew her London friends, and grieved that he was sent on a service he did not relish, and in which later he was to lose his life.
My aunt fed them well, and won at piquet, and declared they were much to be pitied, although Von Heiser was a horror. When he had knocked down her red-and-gold Delft vase, the gods and the other china were put away, and then the rugs, because of the holes his pipe ashes burned, and still she vowed it was a comfort they were not redcoats. Them she would have poisoned.