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 but a meddling fool, and Mr. Adams a traitor whose head only remained on his shoulders by grace of the extreme clemency of his Majesty, which Mr. Allen was at a loss to understand.  When beaten in argument, he would laugh out some sneer that would set my blood simmering.  One morning he came in late for the lesson, smelling strongly of wine, and bade us bring our books out under the fruit trees in the garden.  He threw back his gown and tilted his cap, and lighting his pipe began to speak of that act of Townshend’s, passed but the year before, which afterwards proved the King’s folly and England’s ruin.

“Principle!” exclaimed my fine clergyman at length, blowing a great whiff among the white blossoms.  “Oons! your Americans worship his Majesty stamped upon a golden coin.  And though he saved their tills from plunder from the French, the miserly rogues are loth to pay for the service.”

I rose, and taking a guinea-piece from my pocket, held it up before him.

“They care this much for gold, sir, and less for his Majesty, who cares nothing for them,” I said.  And walking to the well near by, I dropped the piece carelessly into the clear water.  He was beside me before it left my hand, and Philip also, in time to see the yellow coin edging this way and that toward the bottom.  The rector turned to me with a smile of cynical amusement playing over his features.