“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.”