“I am twenty,” I replied.
“Pardon me—of twenty, who is his cousin. That is the real point I would make. You have the best of it. You were right, quite right; but, by St. George, you are a hard hitter! Mr. Wynne would have come in person, but he is hardly fit to be seen, and a sign-painter is just now busy painting his eyelids and cheek, so as to enable him to appear out of doors.”
The colonel treated me with the utmost respect, and, as a young fellow naturally would be, I was embarrassed more than a little, but not at all dissatisfied with the condition of my cousin. I said awkwardly that il he was willing to forget it I supposed I ought to be.
“I think so,” said the colonel. “Suppose you leave it with me, and in a day or two talk it over with him. Indeed, he is a most charming gentleman, and a worthy member of a good old house.”
I said I would leave it with the colonel, and upon this he said, “Good-by, and come and dine with the mess some day, but don’t hit any more of us;” and so, laughing, he went away, leaving me flattered, but with the feeling that somehow he had gotten the better of me.
My mother declared it was a beautiful letter, writ prettily, but ill-spelled (neither George the king nor our own George could spell well). She would not let me see it. I did years afterward. In it he spoke of me as a boy, and she was cunning enough to know that I should not like that.
It was a week before we saw Mr. Arthur Wynne. My father had meanwhile vented his first wrath on me, and I was slowly getting over the strong sense of disgust, shame, contrition, and anger, and had settled down earnestly to my work. I hardly recognised the man who came in on us after supper, as my mother and I sat in the orchard, with my father in a better humour than of late, and smoking a churchwarden, which, you may like to know, was a long clay pipe. The smoke sailed peacefully up, as I sat looking at its blue smoke-rings. How often since have I seen them float from the black lips of cannon, and thought of my father and his pipe!
We discussed the state of trade, and now and then I read aloud bits from the Boston “Packet” of two weeks back, or my mother spoke of their September voyage, and of what would be needed for it, a voyage being looked upon as a serious affair in those times.
“I found your doors hospitably open,” said the captain, appearing, “and the servant said I should find you here; so I have taken my welcome for granted, and am come to make my most humble excuses to Mrs. Wynne.”
We all rose as he drew near, my mother saying in my ear as he approached, “It is Arthur Wynne. Now, Hugh, take care!”