d looks,
convincing ways, and a certain bold, half-defiant manner, which went far
with his Lordship and those like him, who thought Mr. Allen excellent
good company. With the rector, as with too many others, holy orders were
but a means to an end. It was a sealed story what he had been before he
came to Governor Sharpe with Baltimore's directions to give him the best
in the colony. But our rakes and wits, and even our solid men, like my
grandfather, received him with open arms. He had ever a tale on his
tongue's end tempered to the ear of his listener.

Who had most influenced my way of thinking, Mr. Allen had well demanded.
The gentleman was none other than Mr. Henry Swain, Patty's father. Of
her I shall speak later. He was a rising barrister and man of note among
our patriots, and member of the Lower House; a diffident man in public,
with dark, soulful eyes, and a wide, white brow, who had declined a
nomination to the Congress of '65. At his fireside, unknown to my
grandfather and to Mr. Allen, I had learned the true principles of
government. Before the House Mr. Swain spoke only under extraordinary
emotion, and then he gained every ear. He had been my friend since
childhood, but I never knew the meaning and the fire of oratory until
curiosity brought me to the gallery of the Assembly chamber in the Stadt
House, where the barrister was on his feet at the time. I well remember
the tingle in my chest as I looked and listened. And I went again and
again, until the House sat behind closed doors.

And so, when Mr. Allen brought forth for my benefit those arguments of
the King's party which were deemed their strength, I would confront him
with Mr. Swain's logic. He had in me a tough subject for conversion.
I was put to very small pains to rout my instructor out of all his
positions, because indolence, and lack of interest in the question, and
contempt for the Americans, had made him neglect the study of it. And
Philip, who entered at first glibly enough at the rector's side, was
soon drawn into depths far beyond him. Many a time was Mr. Allen fain
to laugh at his blunders. I doubt not my cousin had the facts straight
enough when he rose from the breakfast table at home; but by the time he
reached the rectory they were shaken up like so many parts of a puzzle in
a bag, and past all straightening.

The rector was especially bitter toward the good people of Boston Town,
whom he dubbed Puritan fanatics. To him Mr. Otis was bu