Philip Winwood. Robert Neilson Stephens
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.
He might now have returned to England with safety; but his resentment against the people who had exiled him when they might have compounded with justice otherwise, extended even to their country, which he no longer called his, and he abode still by the condition of his emigration. He married a woman who had her own special reasons for inimical feelings toward the English authorities, which any one may infer who is familiar with one phase (though this was not as large a phase as English writers seem to think) of the peopling of Virginia. Although she turned over a new leaf in the province, and seems to have been a model wife and parent, she yet retained a sore heart against the mother country. The feeling of these two was early inculcated into the minds of their children, and their eldest son, in whom it amounted almost to a mania, transmitted it on to his own successor, our Mr. Faringfield of Queen Street.
The second Faringfield (father of ours), being taken with a desire for the civilities and refinements of a town life, moved from Virginia to New York, married there a very worthy lady of Dutch patroon descent, and, retaining his Virginia plantation, gradually extended his business, so that he died a general merchant, with a European and a West Indian trade, and with vessels of his own. He it was that built the big Faringfield house in Queen Street. He was of an aspiring mind, for one in trade, and had even a leaning toward book-knowledge and the ornaments of life. He was, moreover, an exceedingly proud man, as if a haughty way were needful to a man of business and an American, in order to check the contempt with which he might be treated as either. His large business, his pride, his unreasonable hatred of England (which he never saw), and a very fine and imposing appearance, he passed down to our Mr. Faringfield, by whom all these inheritances were increased. This gentleman, sensible of the injustice of an inherited dislike not confirmed by experience, took occasion of some business to make a visit to England, shortly after his father's death. I believe he called upon his English cousins, now some degrees removed, and, finding them in their generation ignorant that there were any American Faringfields, was so coldly received by them, as well as by the men with whom his business brought him in contact, that he returned more deeply fixed in his dislike, and with a determination that no Faringfield under his control should ever again breathe the air of the mother island. He even chose a wife of French, rather than English, descent; though, indeed, the De Lanceys, notwithstanding they were Americans of Huguenot origin, were very good Englishmen, as the issue proved when the separation came.
Miss De Lancey, however, at that time, had no views or feelings as between the colonies and England; or if she had any, scarcely knew what they were. She was a pretty, innocent, small-minded woman; with no very large heart either, I fancy; and without force of character; sometimes a little shrewish when vexed, and occasionally given to prolonged whining complaints, which often won the point with her husband, as a persistent mosquito will drive a man from a field whence a giant's blows would not move him. She heard Mr. Faringfield's tirades against England, with neither disagreement nor assent; and she let him do what he could to instil his own antagonism into the children. How he succeeded, or failed, will appear in time. I have told enough to show why Master Ned's threatening boast, of knowing how to get to England, struck his father like a blow in the face.
I looked to see Mr. Faringfield now stride forth at all risk and inflict upon Master Ned some chastisement inconceivable; and Ned himself took a backward step or two. But his father, after a moment of dark glowering, merely answered, though in a voice somewhat unsteady with anger:
"To England or the devil, my fine lad, before ever you enter my door, until you change your tune!"
Whereupon he motioned the rest of us children to follow him into the house, leaving his eldest son to turn and trudge defiantly