Pennon

“ As the mist parted and the sun broke through, it gleamed and shimmered with dazzling brightness upon the armour and head-pieces of a vast body of horsemen who stretched across the barranca from one cliff to the other, and extended backwards until their rearguard were far out upon the plain beyond. Line after line, and rank after rank, they choked the neck of the valley with a long vista of tossing pennons, twinkling lances, waving plumes and streaming banderoles, while the curvets and gambades of the chargers lent a constant motion and shimmer to the glittering many-coloured mass. ”

“ XXXIX. PENN AND THE INDIANS.
In the meantime, the Friends in England had greatly increased in number. There were now many rich and clever people among them besides William Penn, who was a scholar and a preacher. He had become a Quaker in spite of all his father's efforts to make him a courtier, for the elder Penn was an admiral, and a great friend of Charles II., to whom he lent large sums of money. As the king could not repay this money, William Penn suggested, after his father's death, that Charles should give him, instead of all other payment, a large tract of land in the New World. ”

“ Penn, a young gentleman well known for his eccentricities, walked from Hyde Park Corner to Hammersmith, for a wager of one hundred guineas, with the Honourable Butler Danvers, several gentlemen who had witnessed the contest spoke of it to the Duchess of Gordon, and added, It was a pity that a man with so many good qualities as this Penn had, should be incessantly playing these unaccountable pranks. It is so, said her grace, but why don’t you advise him better? He seems to be a pen that everybody cuts, but nobody mends. ”

“ Penne had been informed that, in consequence of his earnest intercession, the King had been graciously pleased to grant a free pardon to the Taunton girls, and if I had attempted to deprive the Quaker of the credit of that intercession on the ground that his name was not Penne, the very persons who now complain so bitterly that I am unjust to his memory would have complained quite as bitterly, and, I must say, with much more reason.—— I think myself, therefore perfectly justified in considering the names, Penn and Penne, as the same. ”

“ CHAPTER XII Penn goes to America Again
King William had taken the government of Pennsylvania away from William Penn probably because he thought that a colony governed by a Quaker friend of James Stuart might easily become a prey to French greed. But when the king and Penn became reconciled, the province was given back to Penn, in August, 1694. Although he was anxious to see his new city of Philadelphia again, it was not until five years later that Penn was able to cross the Atlantic. ”

“ The new Philadelphian may be a finer creature far than in my hopes for him, finer far than the old Philadelphian I have known—but then he will not be that old Philadelphian whom I do not want to lose and whom it would be a pity to lose in a country for which, ever since Penn pointed the way to the constitution of the United States, he has probably accomplished more than any other citizen. ”

“ But Jack Penny had a smile of his own, a weak inane sickly smile that irritated instead of pleasing you, and made you always feel as if you would like to punch his head for being such a fool, when all the time he was not a fool at all, but a thoroughly good-hearted, brave, and clever fellow—true as steel—steel of the very elastic watch-spring kind, for the way in which he bent was terrible to see. ”

“ But—so blind sometimes are parents—neither Mr. nor Mrs. Palfrey suspected that Penny would have anything to say to a tradesman of questionable rank whose youthful bloom was much withered. Young Towers, they thought, had an eye to her, and that was likely enough to be a match some day; but Penny was a child at present. And all the while Penny was imagining the circumstances under which Mr. Freely would make her an offer: perhaps down by the row of damson-trees, when they were in the garden before tea; perhaps by letter—in which case, how would the letter begin? “Dearest Penelope?” ”

“ Pen told him, and an end was put to their famishing state by a surprise of the dragoons’ haversacks.
About half an hour later the led horses entered the camp, and the boy’s hearts were gladdened by the cheery notes of a cavalry call.
“Ah,” whispered Punch, as he leaned over from his seat in the saddle to whisper to Pen, “that seems to do a fellow’s heart good, comrade. But ’tain’t so good as a bugle. If I could hear that again I should be just myself.” ”

“ A gust of wind caught Penny’s felt hat, carrying it cartwheeling down the beach. She and Jerry raced in pursuit, colliding as they pounced on it together. They laughed, and as the reporter pulled the hat over Penny’s flying hair, he kissed her quickly on the cheek.
Then before she could reprimand him, he exclaimed: “Wow! That wind really is getting strong! Let’s get back to the car before we blow away!” ”

“ Penelope felt as if she would dearly like to solve the mystery of her cousin Lionel's present. She went back to the breakfast table very grave, and so preoccupied in manner that she had to explain herself at once; and then all the young people were fired by the story. What did it mean? Penny grew absolutely mournful trying to understand it, but it was finally resolved to write to Lionel, who, in a few weeks at least, would let them have the history of the screen, so far as he knew it. ”

“ Then I thought him obstinate; now I suspect that while the Professor had given Penelope to my care, he must have ordered Nathan to watch over us both. The mule looked right through that hill. He saw the threatening army charging the other slope. He turned. The bushes opened, and we plunged into a narrow path which skirted the base of the ridge. In vain I tried to pull him back. In vain Penelope addressed to him her appeals. He was fixed in his purpose neither to hear nor to obey, and struck into a steady canter. I clung to his mane; Penelope, to me. The earth swung around us. ”

“ The king willingly agreed to this, and the Duke of York, who had a strong liking for Penn, added the present State of Delaware to the grant, in which, as has been stated, the Swedes had made a number of settlements.
William Penn was one of the best and wisest rulers that had to do with the settlement of our country. The king, more as a piece of pleasantry than otherwise, insisted upon naming the province "Pennsylvania," in honor of the proprietor, much to the good man's dismay. ”

“ Two inches lower, Master Penny, and he would have been a dead man.”
“I couldn’t help it!” drawled Jack Penny. “I thought he was a savage coming to kill us. I’m always doing something. There never was such an unlucky chap as I am!”
“Oh, you meant what you did for the best!” said the doctor, laying his hand on Jack Penny’s shoulder.
“What did he want to look like a savage for?” grumbled Jack. “Who was going to know that any one dressed up—no, I mean dressed down—like that was an Englishman?”
“It was an unfortunate mistake, Penny; you must be more careful if you mean to handle a gun.” ”

“ Are you Bob, and I a bishop? Where is Spilsborough? Is there a Spilsborough?"
"Steady on!" said Bob. "I say, you're excited!"
"I am," replied the bishop. "I am excited; I feel peculiar. I think I can originate a new philosophy. Why are we doing this?"
"We are trying to find out where Penelope is," said Bob.
"Penelope, Penelope," said the bishop. "Penelope is a vortex. Yes, she is a vortex. Men and women are vortices. I shall study mathematics and apply it to theology."
"Hello!" said Bob, and he stopped almost dead. For Geordie's dust had suddenly died down. ”

“ Penn remained shut out from the world, and deprived of opportunity to serve the cause of truth and righteousness, and his brethren of the same faith, except by his pen, for more than two years; his character stained in the estimation of some, and his valuable services forgotten by many others, who, perhaps, thought he had indeed fallen to rise no more. But there were men of eminence who had never believed William Penn guilty of the crime laid to his charge, and were awaiting the right opportunity to have justice done to his position and character. ”

“ In his dealings with the Indians and their chiefs, Penn manifested his accustomed magnanimity and justice. The capital city, Philadelphia, was planned on a scale commensurate with Pennsylvania's expected greatness. Penn's family was in England. Hearing that his wife was ill and that his friend Algernon Sidney had perished on the scaffold, he sailed for England. During the reign of James II. Penn was continually at court. James had been his father's friend, and he had always been glad and prompt to help Penn himself. The overthrow of James was in more than one respect a misfortune for Penn. ”

“ To Jack Penny the captain was always saying:
“I say, young ’un, how you’ve growed too; not uppards but beam ways. Why, hang me if I don’t think you’ll make a fine man yet!”
And so he did; a great strong six-foot fellow, with a voice like a trombone. Jack Penny is a sheep-farmer on his own account now, and after a visit to England with my staunch friend the doctor, where I gained some education, and used to do a good deal of business for my father, who is one of the greatest collectors in the south, I returned home, and went to stay a week with Jack Penny. ”

“ Admiral Sir William Penn, Father of William Penn.
From the portrait by Peter Van Dyke.
The people of the court and town in the England of Charles II. were a very dissipated and [Pg 29] unprincipled set. Most of the fashionable people were proud of their lack of morals, and the plays, the writings, and even the speech of the ruling class were coarse and vulgar beyond belief. William Penn saw all this, and his nature, being on a higher plane and more serious than that of his father's friends, turned instinctively to those who were living clean and respectable lives. ”

“ PENNANT’S ANTIPATHY TO WIGS.
Mr. Pennant had an unaccountable antipathy to wigs. Dining at Chester with an officer who wore a wig, when they had drunk pretty freely, he, after much impatience, and many wistful looks, started up, seized [2] the wig, and threw it into the fire. It was in flames in a moment, and so was the officer, who ran to his sword. Down stairs flew Pennant, and the officer after him, through all the streets of Chester. But Pennant escaped from superior local knowledge. This a wag called Pennant’s Tour in Chester. ”

“ After Penn's father died, the King gave Penn a grant of land in payment of a debt owed to his father. Penn invited all persecuted Christians to the colony. He gave the colonists the right to choose their own rules and to make their own laws. He also gave them land for their houses and farms.
The next act will be Penn making a treaty with the Indians.
(Indians in row—Penn and people) .
Penn: (Talks to Indians) . We are the same as if one man's body were divided into two parts. ”

“ Pennie picked it up, and her godmother, replacing it gently, shut the cupboard door and took up her wool again. Her face was very grave, and the frown on her forehead had deepened, but Pennie knew by this time that Miss Unity was not cross when she looked like that, but sad. So, although there was something she wanted to say very much, she kept silence for a little while. Her thoughts went back to the day when Ethelwyn had broken the mandarin, and then to her plan for getting another, and how it had failed. ”

“ There was something about the murky dimness of the cloisters which filled Pennie with a sort of pleasant awe. She shivered a little as she walked through them, not with cold, but because she fancied them thronged with unseen presences. ”

“ William Penn arrived in Pennsylvania in 1682, and in that year and the two following fifty vessels came into the Delaware River, bringing several thousand emigrants; the most of them from Great Britain, and some from Germany. Nearly all of them were professors with Friends, and many substantial, consistent members, who came under a sense of religious duty, and made the practice of the religion they had embraced the primary object of life. ”

“ As Penn approached, the oldest sachem rose and bade him welcome, adding that the nations of the Delaware were ready to listen to his words.
“We meet,” replied Penn, as he stood a little in advance of the chief of his colonists, “on the broad pathway of good works and good will; no advantage shall be taken on either side, but all shall be openness and love. I will not call you children, for parents sometimes chide their children too severely; nor brothers only, for brothers differ. ”

“ Penny assured him hastily.
“How may I ask?”
“Maybe by catching a Headless Horseman,” Penny grinned mischievously. “It seems that one is galloping wild out Red Valley way.”
[12]
“Red Valley? Never heard of the place.” Mr. Parker began to show irritation. “Penny, what are you talking about anyway?”
“This,” explained Penny, spreading the clipping on the desk. “An old fellow who looked like Rip Van Winkle gave it to me. Then he disappeared before I could ask any questions. What do you think, Dad?”
Mr. Parker read the advertisement at a glance. “Bunk!” he exploded. “Pure bunk!” ”

“ And I see myself, when, in answer to our ring, the servant had opened the inner one as well, entering in a fresh access of shyness the wide lofty hall, with the front and back parlours to the right; Philadelphians had no drawing-rooms then but were content with parlours, as Penn had been who knew them by no other name. ”