It was just after my tenth birthday. My mother and I were sitting together on the broad porch which overlooked the river. She had been reading to me from the Bible,—the parable of the talents,—in which and in the kind advice of Parson Fontaine she found her only comfort in the anxious days which had gone before, and which I knew nothing of. But the lengthening shadows finally fell across the page, and she closed the book and held it on her knee, while she talked to me about my lessons and a ramble we had planned for the morrow. The red of the sunset still lingered in the west, and a single crimson cloud hung poised high up against the sky. I remember watching it as it turned to purple and then to gray. A burst of singing came from the negro quarters behind the house, and in the strip of woodland by the river the noises of the night began to sound.
As the twilight deepened to darkness, my mother's voice faltered and ceased, and when I glanced at her, I saw she had fallen into a reverie, and that there was a shadow on her face. I have only to shut my eyes, and the years roll back and she is sitting there again beside me, in her white gown, simply made, and gathered at the waist with a broad blue ribbon, her slim white hands playing with the book upon her knee, her eyes gazing afar off across the water, her mouth drooping in the curve which it had never known till recently, her wealth of blue-black hair forming a halo round her head. Ah, that she were there when I open my eyes again, that I might speak to her! For the bitterest thought that ever came to me is one which troubles my rest from time to time even now: Did I love her as she deserved; was I a staff for her to lean upon in her trouble; was I not, rather, a careless, unseeing boy, who recked nothing of the impending storm until it burst about him? I trust the tears which have wet my pillow since have gladdened her heart in heaven.
I was awakened from the doze into which I had fallen by the sound of rapid hoof-beats down the road. We listened to them in silence, as they drew near and nearer. I did not doubt it was my father, for few others ever rode our way. He had been from home all day, as he frequently was of late, only he did not usually return so early in the evening. Something in my mother's face as she strained her eyes into the shadows to catch a glimpse of the advancing horseman drew me from my chair and to her side.
"It is your father," she said, in a voice almost inaudible, and as she spoke, the rider leaped from the shadow of the trees. He drew his horse up before the porch with a jerk and threw himself from the saddle. As he came up the steps, I saw that his face was strangely flushed and his eyes gleaming in a way that made me shiver. I felt my mother's arm about me trembling as she drew me closer to her.
"Well, it's over," he said, flinging himself down upon the upper step, "and damme if I'm sorry. Anything's better than living here in the woods like a lump on a log."
"What do you mean is over, Tom?" asked my mother very quietly.
"I mean our possession of this place is over. Since an hour ago, it has belonged to Squire Blakesley, across the river."
"You mean you have gambled it away?"
"If you choose to call it that," said my father ungraciously, and he turned his back to us and gazed gloomily out over the water.
For a moment there was silence.
"Since we no longer possess this place," said my mother at last, "I suppose you intend to forget your foolish anger against your father, and claim your patrimony?"
"Foolish or not," he cried, "I have sworn never to take it until it is offered to me, and I mean to keep my word!"
"You would make your boy a beggar to gratify a foolish whim!" retorted my mother, her voice trembling with passion. I had never seen her so, and even my father glanced at her furtively in some astonishment. "Very well. In that it is for you to do as you may choose, but his estate here, or what is left of it, shall be kept intact for him."
"What do you mean?" cried my father, and he sprang to his feet and slashed his boot savagely with his riding-whip.
"I mean," said my mother very quietly, "that since a gambling debt is not recoverable by law, we have only to live on quietly here and no one will dare disturb us."
"And my honor?" cried my father with an oath, the first I had ever heard him use. "It seems to me that you forget my honor, madam."
"You have been the first to forget your honor, sir," said my mother, rising to face him, but still keeping me within her arm, "in staking your son's inheritance upon a throw of the dice."
My father started as though he had been struck across the face, but he was too far gone in anger to listen to the voice of reason. Indeed, I have always found that the more a man deserves rebuke, the less likely is he to take it quietly.
"Come here, Tom," he said to me, and when I hesitated, added in a sterner tone, "come here, sir, I say."
I had no choice but to go to him, nor did my mother seek to hold me back.He caught me by the arms and bent until his face was close to mine.
"You are to promise me two things, Tom," he said, and I perceived that his breath was heavy with the fumes of wine. "One is that you are never to claim your inheritance of Riverview until it is offered to you freely by them that now possess it. Do you promise me that?"
"Yes," I faltered. "I promise you, sir."
"Good!" he said. "And the other is that you will pay my debts of honor after I am dead, if they be not paid before. Promise me that also, Tom."
His eyes were on mine, and I could do nothing but obey, even had I thought of resisting.
"I promise that also, sir," I said.
"Very well," and he retained his grasp on my arms yet a moment. "Remember, Tom, that a gentleman never breaks his word. It is his most priceless possession, the thing which above all others makes him a gentleman."
He dropped his hands and turned away into the house. A moment later, from the refuge of my mother's arms, I heard him heavily mounting the stairs to his room on the floor above. My mother said never a word, but she covered my face with kisses, and I felt that she was crying. She held me for a time upon her lap, gazing out across the river as before, and when I raised my hand and caressed her cheek, smiled down upon me sadly. She kissed me again as she put me to bed, and the last thing I saw before drifting away into the land of dreams was her sweet face bending over me. Had I known that it was the last time I was to see it so,—the last time those tender hands were to draw the covers close about me,—I should not have closed my eyes in such content.
Late that night I was awakened by the slamming of doors and hurried footsteps in the hall and up and down the stairs. I sat up in bed, and as I listened intently, heard frightened whispering without my door. It rose and died away and rose again, broken by stifled sobbing, and I knew that some great disaster had befallen. It seemed, somehow, natural that this should happen, after my father's recent conduct. With a cold fear at my heart, I threw the covers back, slid from the bed, and groped my way across the room. As I fumbled at the latch, the whispering and sobbing came suddenly to an end, as though those without had stopped with bated breath. At last I got the door open, and looking out, saw half a dozen negro servants grouped upon the landing. One of them held a lantern, which threw slender rays of light across the floor and queer shadows up against their faces. They stared at me an instant, and then, finding their breath again, burst forth in lamentation.
"What is it?" I cried. "What has happened?"
My old mammy had her arms around me and caught me up to her face, down which the tears were streaming.
"Oh, Lawd, keep dis chile!" she sobbed, looking down at me with infinite tenderness. "Oh, Lawd, bless an' keep dis chile!"
"But, mammy," I repeated impatiently, "what has happened?"
Her trembling lips would not permit her answering, but she pointed to the door of my father's room and her tears broke forth afresh.
"Is my mother there?" I asked.
She nodded.
"Then I will go to her," I said, and I had squirmed out of her arms and was running along the passage before she could detain me. In a moment I had reached the door, but all my courage seemed to fail me in face of the mystery within, and the knock I gave was a very feeble and timid one. I heard a quick step on the floor, and the door opened ever so little.
"Is it you, doctor?" asked my mother's voice.
"No, mother, it is only I," I said.
"You!" she cried, in a terrible voice, and I caught a glimpse of her face rigid with horror before she slammed the door. The sight seemed to freeze me there on the threshold, powerless to move. I have tried—ah, how often!—to put behind me the memory of her face as I saw it then, but it is before me now and again, even yet. And I began to cry, for it was the first time my mother had ever shut me from her presence.
"Are you there, Tom?" I heard her voice ask in a moment. Her voice, did I say? Nay, not hers, but a voice I had never heard before,—the voice of a woman suffocating with anguish.
"Yes, mother," I answered, "I am here."
"And you love me, do you not, Tom?"
"Oh, yes, mother!" I cried; and I thank God to this day that there was so much of genuine feeling in my voice.
"Then if you love me, Tom," she said, "you will go back to your room and not come near this door again. Promise me, Tom, that you will do as I ask you."
"I promise, mother," I answered. "But what has happened? Is father dead?"
"Mr. Fontaine will be here soon," she said, "and will explain it all to you. Now run back to your room, dearest, and go to bed."
"Yes, mother," I said again, but as I turned to go, I heard a sound which struck me motionless. No, my father was not dead, for that was his voice I heard, pitched far above its usual key.
"I shall never go back," he cried. "I shall never go back till he asks me."
I felt the perspiration start from my forehead.
"Have you gone, Tom?" asked my mother's voice.
"I am just going, mother," I sobbed, and tore myself away from the door. My mammy's arms were about me again as I turned, and carried me back to my room. This time I did not resist, but as she sat down, still holding me, I laid my head upon her breast and sobbed myself to sleep. When I awoke, I found that I was in bed with the covers tucked close around me, and through my window I could see the gray dawn breaking. I lay and watched the light grow along the horizon and up into the heavens. And while I lay thus, with heart aching dully, the door of my room opened softly, and with joy inexpressible I saw that it was my beloved friend who entered.
"Oh, Mr. Fontaine!" I cried, and stretched out my arms to him. He took me up as a mother might, and held me close against his heart.
"Do you remember, dear," he said, and his voice was trembling, "what you told me one day by the river—that you meant to be brave under trial?"
I sobbed assent.
"Well, the trial has come, Tom, and I want you to be brave and strong.You are not going to disappoint me, are you?"
Oh, it was hard, and I was only a child, but I sat upright on his knee and tried to dry my tears.
"I will try," I said, but the sobs would come in spite of me.
"That is right," and he was stroking my hair in that old familiar, tender way. "Your father is very ill, Tom."
Well, if that was all, I could bear it, certainly.
"But he will get well," I said.
He was looking far out at the purple sky, and his face seemed old and gray.
"I hope and pray so," he said at last. "He has the smallpox, Tom. There are some cases along the river near Charles City, and he must have caught it there. Doctor Brayle has done everything for him that can be done."
But I was not listening. There was room for only one thought in my brain.
"And my mother is with him!" I cried, and my heart seemed bursting.
He held me tight against him, and I felt a tear fall upon my head. This was the trial, then—for him no less than me.
"Yes, she is with him, Tom. She believes it her duty, and will allow no one else to enter. Ah, she has not been found wanting. Dear heart, I knew she would never be."
Of what came after, I have no distinct remembrance. Mr. Fontaine told me that my mother wished me to go home with him, so that I might be quite beyond reach of the infection. He had agreed that this would be the wisest course, and so, too stricken at heart to resist, I was bundled into his chaise with a chest of my clothes, and driven away through the crowd of sobbing negroes to the little house at Charles City where he and his sister lived.
The week that followed dwells in my memory as some tremendous nightmare, lightened here and there by the unvarying kindness of my friend and of his sister. I wandered along the river and gazed out across the changing water for hours at a time, with eyes that saw nothing of what was before them. Often I remained thus until some one came for me and led me gently back into the house. My brain seemed numbed, and no longer capable of thought. Mr. Fontaine took charge of our affairs, doing everything that could be done, keeping the frightened negroes to their work, and praying with my mother through the tight-closed door. He had no fear, and would have entered and prayed with her beside the bed, had she permitted.
I was sitting by the river-bank one evening, watching the shadows lengthen across the water, when I heard a step behind me, and turned to see my friend approaching. A glance at his face brought me to my feet.
"What is it?" I cried, and ran to him.
He took my hands in his.
"Your father died an hour ago, Tom," he said, and smoothed my hair in the familiar way which seemed to comfort him as well as me.
"And my mother?" I asked, for it was of her I was thinking.
"Your mother is ill, too," he said, and placed his arms about me and held me close, "but with God's grace we will save her life."
But I had started from him.
"If she is ill," I cried, "I must go to her. She will want me."
He shook his head, still holding to my hands.
"No, she does not want you, Tom," he said. "The one thing that will make her happy is the thought that you are quite removed from danger. I believed my place was at her bedside, but she would not permit it."
And then he told me, with glistening eyes, that my old mammy, who had been my mother's thirty years before, was nursing her and would not be sent away. She had burst in the door of the plague chamber the moment she had heard that her mistress was ill, and dared any one disturb her. Old Doctor Brayle had commanded that she be given her will, and declared that in this old negro woman's careful nursing lay my mother's great chance of life.
The scalding tears poured down my cheeks as Mr. Fontaine told me this,—the first, I think, that I had shed that week, for after that dreadful night, my sorrow had been of a dry and bitter kind,—and a stinging remorse seized me as I thought of the times I had been cross and disobedient to mammy. Ah, how I loved her now! It was the accustomed irony of my life that I was never to tell her so.
Ere daylight the next morning I was seated beside my friend as he drove me home. The river was cloaked in mist, and the dawn seemed inexpressibly dreary. As we approached the house, I wondered to see how forlorn and neglected it appeared. A crowd of wailing negroes surrounded the chaise when we stopped, and I would have got out, but Mr. Fontaine held me firmly in my seat.
"We must remain here," he said, and I dropped back beside him, and waited in a kind of stupor.
Presently they brought the coffin down, the negroes who carried it wreathing themselves in tobacco smoke, and placed it in a cart. We followed at a distance as it rolled slowly toward the Wyeth burying-ground in the grove of willows near the road. The thought came to me that my father should lie with the Stewarts, not with the Wyeths, and then suddenly a great sickness and faintness came upon me, and I remember nothing of what followed until I found Miss Fontaine lifting me from the chaise at the door. I was put to bed, and not until the next day was I able to crawl forth again.
Then came days of anguish and suspense, days spent by me roaming the woods, or lying face downward beneath the trees, and praying that God would spare my mother's life. Bulletins were brought me from her bedside,—she was better, she was worse, she was better,—how shall I tell the rest?—until at last one day came my dear friend, his lips quivering, the tears streaming down his face unrestrained, and told me that she was dead. I think the sight of his great sorrow frightened me, and I bore the blow with greater composure than I had thought possible. Had she sent me no message? Yes, she had sent me a message,—her last thought had been of me. She asked me to be a good boy and an honest man, to follow the counsel of Mr. Fontaine in all things, and to keep my promise to my father. So, even in death her love for him and for the honor of his memory triumphed, as I would have had it do.
Again there was a dismal procession through the gray morning to the willow grove, where we stood beneath the dripping branches, while afar off the rude coffin was lowered to its last resting-place. The negroes grouped themselves about, and my friend stood at my side, his head bare, his face raised to heaven, as though he saw her there.
"'I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.'"
I felt the threads of my life slipping from me one by one, even as the trees faded from before my eyes. Only that strong, exultant voice at my side went on and on.
"'Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.'" On and on went the voice; there was nothing else in the whole wide world but that voice crying out over my mother's grave. "'I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me. Write. From henceforth blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.'" And then the voice faltered and broke. "She was the light of my life and the joy of my heart," it was no longer the ritual of the church; "and yet had I to walk beside her and tell her naught. And now is she taken from me, for the Lord hath received her to His bosom to live in the light of His love forevermore."
I looked up into his face and saw the secret of his heart revealed,—the secret he had kept so well, but which his anguish had wrung from him. It was only for an instant, yet I think he knew I had read his heart—I, alone of all the world, understood. Had my mother known, I wonder? Yes, I think she had, and in the greatness of his love found help and comfort. Good man and lovely woman, God rest and keep you both.
I went home with him, remembering with a pang that the place I had called home was mine no longer. Those among my friends who know the history of my boyhood understand to some extent my loathing for the cards and dice. It is perhaps unreasonable,—I might be the first to deem it so in any other man,—but when I count up the woe they brought my mother,—father and husband slaves to the same frenzy,—how they wrecked her life and embittered it, my passion rises in my throat to choke me. Never did I hate them more than in the days which followed; for they had made me outcast, and what the future held for me, I could not guess. The question was answered of a sudden a week later, when there came from my grandfather a curt note bidding me be sent to Riverview. It was decided at once that I must go. I myself looked forward to the change with a boy's blind longing for adventure, and said farewell to the man who had been so much to me with a willingness I wince to think upon.
The rain was falling dismally as the coach in which I had made the journey rolled up the drive to Riverview, and I caught but a glimpse of the house as I was rushed up the steps and into the wide hall. A lady dressed in a loose green gown was seated in an easy-chair before the open fire, and she did not rise as I entered, doubtless because her lap was full of knitting.
"Gracious, how wet the child is!" she cried, looking me over critically. "Take him to his room, Sally, and see that he has a bath and change of clothing. I'm sure he needs both."
I turned away without a word and followed the negro maid. Of course the lady thought me a surly boor, but my heart was burning, for I had hoped for a different welcome. As I passed along the hall and up the broad staircase, the thought came to me that all of this would one day be mine, should I choose to claim it, and then, with crimson cheeks, I put the thought from me, as unworthy of my mother's son.
But my room looked very warm and cheerful even on this chilly day, and from the window I could see broad fields of new-planted tobacco, and beyond them the yellow road and then the river. I stood long looking out at it and wondering what my life here had in store. Half an hour later, word came from my grandfather that he wished to see me, and the same maid led me down the stairs and to his study, I stumbling along beside her with a madly beating heart. As I crossed the lower hall, I heard a burst of childish laughter, and saw a boy and girl, both younger than myself, playing near the chair where the lady sat. I looked at them with interest, but the sight of me seemed to freeze the laughter on their faces, and they gazed with staring eyes until I turned the corner and was out of sight. But I had little time to wonder at this astonishing behavior, for in a moment I was in my grandfather's office.
He was seated at a great table, and had apparently been going over some accounts, for the board in front of him was littered with books and papers. I saw, even beneath the disguise of his red face and white hair, his strong resemblance to my father, and my heart went out to him on the instant. For I had loved my father, despite the wild behavior which marred his later clays. Indeed, I always think of him during that time as suffering with a grievous malady, of which he could not rid himself, and which ate his heart out all the faster because he saw how great was the anguish it caused the woman he loved. That it was some such disease I am quite certain, so different was his naturally strong and sunny disposition.
My grandfather gazed at me some moments without speaking, as I stood there, longing to throw myself into his arms, and all the misery of the years that followed might never have been, had I buried my pride and followed the dictates of my heart. But I waited for him to speak, and the moment passed.
"So this is Tom's boy," he said at last. "My God, how like he is!"
He fell silent for a moment,—silenced, no doubt, by bitter memories.
"You wonder, perhaps," he said in a sterner tone, "why I have sent for you; but I could do no less. The letter from your pastor which announced the deaths of your father and your mother brought me the tidings also that your mother's fortune had been diced away down to the last penny, and that even the negroes must be sold to satisfy the claims against it. However undutiful your father may have been, I could not permit his son to become a charge upon the poor funds."
I felt my cheeks flushing, but I judged it best to choke back the words which trembled on my lips.
"I can read your thought," said my grandfather quickly. "You are thinking that the heir of Riverview could hardly be called a pauper. Do not forget that your father forfeited his claim to the estate by his ungentlemanly conduct."
"I shall not forget it," I burst out. "My father made sure that I should never forget it. I shall never claim the estate. And my father's conduct was never ungentlemanly."
"As you will," said my grandfather scornfully. "I am not apt at mincing words. I told him one thing many years ago which I should have thought he would remember, and which I now repeat to you. I told him that a gentleman ceased to be a gentleman when once he gambled beyond his means."
I waited to hear no more, but with crimson cheeks and head in air, I turned on my heel and started for the door.
"Damn my stars, sir!" he roared. "Wait to hear me out."
But I would not wait. After a moment's struggle with the latch, I had the door open and marched straight to my room. Once inside, I bolted the door, and throwing myself on the floor, sobbed myself to sleep.
What need to detail further? There were a hundred such scenes between us in the four years that followed, and as I look back upon them now, I realize that through it all I, too, showed my full share of Stewart obstinacy and temper. I more than suspect that my grandfather in his most violent outbursts was inwardly trembling with tenderness for me, as was I for him, and that a single gentle word, spoken at the right time, would have brought us into each other's arms. And I realize too late that it was for me, and not for him, to speak that word. It was only when I saw him lying in his bed, stricken with paralysis, bereft of the power of speech or movement, that I knew how great my love for him had been. His eyes, as they met mine on that last day, had in them infinite tenderness and pleading, and my heart melted as I bent and kissed his lips. He struggled to speak, and the sweat broke from his forehead at the effort, but what he would have said I can only guess, for he died that night, without the iron bands which held him fast loosening for an instant. Yet I love to fancy that his last words, could he have spoken them, would have been words of love and forgiveness, for my father as well as for myself, and such, I am sure, they would have been. With him there passed away the only one at Riverview whom I had grown to love.
And now a word about the others among whom I passed the second period of my boyhood. My father's younger brother, James, had married seven or eight years before a lady whose estate adjoined Riverview,—Mrs. Constance Randolph, a widow some years older than himself. She had one child living, a daughter, Dorothy, who, at the time I came to Riverview, was a girl of nine, and a year after her second marriage she bore a son, who was named James, much against the wishes of his mother. She would have called him Thomas, a name which had for five generations been that of the head of the house. But this my grandfather would by no means allow, and so the child was christened after his father. I think that ever since the day she had entered the Stewart family, my aunt had thought me a spectre across her path, for she was an ambitious woman and wished the whole estate for her son,—in which I do not greatly blame her. But she had brooded over her fear until it had become a phantom which haunted her unceasingly, and she had come to deem me a kind of monster, who stood between her boy and his inheritance. Her second husband died three years after their marriage,—he was drowned one day in January while crossing the river on the ice, which gave way under him,—and after that she became the mistress of Riverview in earnest, ruling my grandfather with a rod of iron, for though bold enough with men, and especially with the men of his own family, he would succumb in a moment to a woman's shrewish temper.
Only twice had he revolted against her rule. The first time was when she had announced her intention of naming her boy Thomas, as I have already mentioned. The second was when he decided to summon me to Riverview. This she had opposed with all her might, but he had persisted, and finally ended the argument by putting her from the room,—doubtless with great inward trepidation. So I came to be a phantom in the flesh, and do not wonder that she hated me, so sour will the human heart become which broods forever on its selfishness. Her children she kept from me as from the plague, and during the years preceding my grandfather's death, I had almost no communication with them. He required, however, that every respect be shown me, placed me on his right at table,—how often have I looked up from my plate to find his eyes upon me,—selected half a dozen negroes to be my especial servants, engaged the Rev. James Scott, pastor of the Quantico church, as my tutor, and even ordered for me an elaborate wardrobe from his factor in London.
Mr. Scott was a man of parts, and under him I gained some knowledge of Latin, Greek, and mathematics. Certainly I made more progress than I should have done under different circumstances, for finding myself without companions or other occupation, I applied myself to my books for want of something better. My grandfather possessed above a hundred volumes, and when he saw how my bent lay, he ordered others for me, so that his library came to be one of the largest on the Northern Neck, though but indifferently selected. Absorbed in these books, I managed to forget the disorder of my circumstances.
The remainder of my time I spent in riding along the river road on the mare my grandfather had given me, or wandering over the estate and in and out among the negro cabins. To the negroes I was always "Mas' Tom," and I am proud to remember that I made many friends among them, treating them always with justice and sometimes with mercy, as, indeed, I try yet to do. Once I came suddenly upon old Gump, the major-domo of the house servants, preparing to give a little pickaninny a thrashing, and I stopped to ask what he had done.
"He's done been stealing Mas' Tom," answered Gump. "Ain' goin' t' hab no t'iefs roun' dis yere house, not if I knows it."
"What did he steal, uncle?" I asked.
"Dis yere whip," said Gump, and he held up an old riding-whip of mine.
I looked at it and hesitated for a moment. Was it worth beating a child for? The little beady eyes were gazing at me in an agony of supplication.
"Gump," I said, "don't beat him. That's all right. I want him to have the whip."
Gump stared at me in astonishment.
"What, Mas' Tom," he exclaimed, "you mean dat you gib him de whip?"
"Yes," I said, "I give him the whip, Gump," and luckily the old man could not distinguish between the past and present tenses of the verb, so that I was spared a lie. The little thief ran away with the whip in his hand, and it was long before the incident was recalled to me.
So I returned again to my books, and to the silent but no less active antagonism toward my aunt. Yet, I would not paint her treatment of me in too gloomy colors. Doubtless I gave her much just cause for offense, for I had grown into a surly and quick-tempered boy, with raw places ever open to her touch. That she loved her children I know well, and her love for them was at the bottom of her dislike for me. I have learned long since that there is no heart wholly bad and selfish.
While my grandfather yet lived, I think she had some hope that something would happen to make me an outcast utterly, but after his death this hope vanished, and she sent for me one morning to come to her. I found her seated in the selfsame chair in which I had first seen him, and the table was still littered with papers and accounts.
"Good-morning, Thomas," she said politely enough, as I entered, and, as I returned her greeting, motioned me to a chair. She seemed to hesitate at a beginning, and in the moment of silence that followed, I saw that her face was growing thinner, and that her hair was streaked with gray.
"I have sent for you, Thomas," she said at last, "to find out what your intention is with regard to this estate. You know, of course, that your father forfeited it voluntarily, and that you have no moral claim to it. Still, the law might sustain your claim, should you choose to assert it."
"I shall not choose to assert it," I answered coldly, and as I spoke, her face was suffused with sudden joy. "I promised my father never to claim it,—never to take it unless it were offered to me openly and freely,—and I intend to keep my promise."
For a moment her emotion prevented her replying, and she pressed one hand against her breast as though to still the beating of her heart.
"Very well," she said at last. "Your resolution does credit to your honor, and I will see that you do not regret it. I will undertake the management of both estates until my son becomes of age. You shall have an ample allowance. Let me see; how old are you?"
"I am fifteen years old," I answered.
"And have about sounded the depths of Master Scott's learning, I suppose?" she asked, smiling, the first smile, I think, she had ever given me.
"He was saying only yesterday that I should soon have to seek another tutor."
"'T is as I thought. Well, what say you to a course at William and Mary?"
She smiled again as she saw how my cheeks flushed.
"I should like it above all things," I answered earnestly, and, indeed, I had often thought of it with longing, so lonely was my life at Riverview.
"It shall be done," she said. "The year opens in a fortnight's time, and you must be there at the beginning."
I thanked her and left the room, and ran to my tutor, who had arrived some time before, to acquaint him with my good fortune. He was no less pleased than I, and forthwith wrote me a letter to Dr. Thomas Dawson, president of the college, commending me to his good offices. So, in due course, I rode away from Riverview, not regretting it, nor, I dare say, regretted. In truth, I had no reason to love the place, nor had any within it reason to love me.
Of my life at college, little need be said. Indeed, I have small reason to be proud of it, for, reacting against earlier years, perhaps, I cultivated the Apollo room at the Raleigh rather than my books, and toasted the leaden bust of Sir Walter more times than I care to remember. Yet I never forgot that I was a gentleman, thank God! And previous years of study brought me through with some little honor despite my present carelessness. I had a liberal allowance, and elected to spend my vacations at Williamsburg or at Norfolk, or coasting up the Chesapeake as far as Baltimore, and did not once return to Riverview, where I knew I should get cold welcome. In fact, I was left to do pretty much as I pleased, my aunt being greatly occupied with the care of the estate, and doubtless happy to be rid of me so easily. So I entered my eighteenth year, and the time of my graduation was at hand. And it was then that the great event happened which changed my whole life by giving me something to live for.
It was the custom for the first class, the year of its graduation, to attend the second of the grand assemblies given by the governor while the House of Burgesses was in session, and we had been looking forward to the event with no small anticipation. Many of us, myself among the number, had ordered suits from London for the occasion, and I thought that I looked uncommon well as I arrayed myself that night before the glass. Such is the vanity of youth, for I have since been assured many times by one who saw me that I was a very ordinary looking fellow. Half a dozen of us, the better to gather courage, went down Duke of Gloucester Street arm in arm toward the governor's palace with its great lantern alight to honor the occasion, and mounted the steps together,—our trifling over our toilets had made us late,—and as we entered the high doorway, did our best to look as though a great assembly was an every-day event to us. A moment later, I saw a sight which took my breath away.
It was only a girl of seventeen—but such a girl! Can I describe her as I close my eyes and see her again before me? No, I cannot trust my pen, nor would any such description do her justice; for her charm lay not in beauty only, but in a certain rare, sweet girlishness, which seemed to form a nimbus round her. Yet was her beauty worth remarking, too; and I have loved to think that, while others saw that only, I, looking with more perceptive eyes, saw more truly to her heart. I did not reason all this out at the first; I only stood and stared at her amazed, until some one knocking against me brought me to my senses. There were a dozen men about her, and one of these I saw with delight was Dr. Price, our registrar at the college, a benign old man, who could deny me nothing. I waited with scarce concealed impatience until he turned away from the group, and then I was at his side in an instant.
"Dr. Price," I whispered eagerly, "will you do me the favor of presenting me to that young lady?"
"Why, bless my soul!" he exclaimed, looking at me over his glasses in astonishment, "you seem quite excited. Which young lady?"
"The one you have just left," I answered breathlessly.
He looked at me quizzically for a moment, and laughed to himself as though I had uttered a joke.
"Why, certainly," he said. "Come with me."
I could have kissed his hand in my gratitude, as he turned back toward the group. I followed a pace behind, and felt that my hands were trembling. The group opened a little as we approached, and in a moment we were before her.
"Miss Randolph," said Dr. Price, "here is a young gentleman who has just begged of me the favor of an introduction. Permit me to present Mr. Thomas Stewart."
"Why, 'pon my word," cried that young lady, "'t is cousin Tom!" and as I stood gaping at her like a fool, in helpless bewilderment, she came to me and gave me her hand with the prettiest grace in the world.
Now who would have thought that in three short years the red-cheeked girl whom I had left at Riverview, and of whom I had never thought twice, could have grown into this brown-eyed fairy? Certainly not I, and my hopeless astonishment must have been quite apparent, for Mistress Dorothy laughed merrily as she looked at me.
"Come, cousin," she cried, "you look as though you saw a ghost. I assure you I am not a ghost, but very substantial flesh and blood."
"'Twas not of a ghost I was thinking," I said, recovering my wits a little under the magic of her voice, which I thought the sweetest I had ever heard, "but of the three Graces, and methought I saw a fourth."
She gazed at me a moment with bright, intent eyes, the faintest touch of color in her cheek. Then she smiled—a smile that brought two tiny dimples into being—oh, such a smile! But there—why weary you with telling what I felt? You have all felt very like it when you gazed into a certain pair of eyes,—or if you have not, you will some day,—and if you never do, why, God pity you!
She laid her hand on my arm and turned to the group about us. "Gentlemen," she said, with a little curtsy, "I know you will excuse us. My cousin Tom and I have not seen each other these three years, and have a hundred things to say;" and so I walked off with her, my head in the air, and my heart beating madly, the proudest man in the colony, I dare say, and with as good cause, too, as any.
Dorothy led the way, for I was too blinded with joy to see where I was going, and with a directness which showed acquaintance with the great house, proceeded to a corner under the stair which had a bit of tapestry before it that quite shut us out from interruption. She sat down opposite me, and I pinched my arm to make sure I was not dreaming.
"Why, Tom," she cried, with a little laugh, as she saw me wince at the pain, "you surely do not think yourself asleep?"
"I know not whether 't is dreaming or enchantment," said I; "but sleep or sorcery, 't is very pleasant and I trust will never end."
"What is it that you think enchantment, Tom?" she asked.
"What could it be but you?" I retorted, and she smiled the slyest little smile in the world. "I swear that when I entered that door ten minutes since, I was wide awake as any man, but the moment I clapt eyes on you, I lost all sense of my surroundings, and have since trod on air."
"Oh, what do you think it can be?" she questioned, pretending to look mightily concerned, "Do you think it is the fever, Tom?"
But I was far past teasing.
"To think that you should be Dorothy!" I said. "I may call you Dorothy, may I not?"
"Why, of course you may!" she cried. "Are we not cousins, Tom?"
What a thrill it gave me to hear her call me Tom! Of course we were not cousins, but I fancy all the tortures of the Inquisition could not at that moment have made me deny the relationship. Well, we talked and talked. Of what I said, I have not the slightest remembrance,—it was all foolish enough, no doubt,—but Dorothy told me how her mother had been managing the estate, greatly assisted by the advice of a Major Washington, living ten miles up the river at Mount Vernon; how her brother James had been tutored by my old preceptor, but showed far greater liking for his horse and cocks than for his books; and how Mr. Washington had come to Riverview a month before to propose that Mistress Dorothy accompany him and his mother and sister to Williamsburg, and how her mother had consented, and the flurry there was to get her ready, and how she finally was got ready, and started, and reached Williamsburg, and had been with the Washingtons for a week, and had attended the first assembly, which accounted for her knowing the house so well, and had had a splendid time.
"And who was it you sat with here last time, Dorothy?" I asked, for I could not bear that she should connect this place with any one but me.
"Let me see," and the sly minx seemed to hesitate in the effort at recollection. "Was it Mr. Burke? No, I was with him on the veranda. Was it Mr. Forsythe? No. Ah, I have it!" and she paused a moment to prolong my agony. "It was with Betty Washington; she had something to tell me which must be told at once, and which was very private. But what a great goose you are, to be sure. Do you know, Tom, I had no idea that melancholy boy I saw sometimes at Riverview would grow into such a—such a"—
"Such a what, Dorothy?" I asked, as she hesitated.
"Such a big, overgrown fellow, with all his heart in his face. What a monstrous fine suit that is you have on, Tom!"
The jade was laughing at me, and here was I, who was a year her senior and twice her size, sitting like an idiot, red to the ears. In faith, the larger a man is, the more the women seem tempted to torment him; but on me she presently took pity, and as the fiddles tuned up in the great ballroom, she led the way thither and permitted me to tread a minuet with her. Of course there were a score of others eager to share her dances, but she was more kind to me than I deserved, and in particular, when the fiddles struck up "High Betty Martin," threw herself upon my arm and laughed up into my face in the sheer joy of living. But between the dances I had great opportunity of being jealous, and spent the time moping in a corner, where, as I reviewed her talk, the frequency of her mention of Mr. Washington occurred to me, and at the end of five minutes I had conceived a desperate jealousy of him.
"How old is this Mr. Washington?" I asked, when I had managed to get by her side again.
"Not yet twenty-two," she answered, and then as she saw my gloomy face, she burst into a peal of laughter. "He is adorable," she continued, when she had regained her breath. "Not handsome, perhaps, but so courtly, so dignified, so distinguished. I can't imagine why he is not here to-night, for he is very fond of dancing. Do you know, I fancy Governor Dinwiddie has selected him for some signal service, for it was at his invitation that Mr. Washington came to Williamsburg. He is just the kind of man one would fix upon instinctively to do anything that was very dangerous or very difficult."
"I dare say," I muttered, biting my lips with vexation, and avoiding Dorothy's laughing eyes. I was a mere puppy, or I should have known that a woman never praises openly the man she loves.
"I am sure you will admire him when you meet him," she continued, "as I am determined you shall do this very night. He is a neighbor, you know, and I'll wager that when you come to live at Riverview, you will be forever riding over to Mount Vernon."
"Oh, doubtless!" I said, between my teeth, and I longed to have Mr. Washington by the throat. "How comes it I heard nothing of him when I was at Riverview?"
"'Tis only since last year he has been there," she answered. "The estate belonged to his elder brother, Lawrence, who died July a year ago, and Major Washington has since then been with his mother, helping her in its management. Before that time, he had been over the mountains surveying all that western country, and then to the West Indies, where he had the smallpox, because he would not break a promise to dine with a family where it was. But what is the matter? You seem quite ill."
"It is nothing," I said, after a moment. "It was the smallpox which killed my father and my mother."
"Pardon me," and her hand was on mine for an instant. Indeed, the shudder which always shook me whenever I heard that dread infection mentioned had already passed. "He has the rank of major," she continued, hoping doubtless to distract my thoughts, "because he has been appointed adjutant-general of one of the districts, but somehow we rarely call him major, for he says he does not want the title until he has done something to deserve it."
"He seems a very extraordinary man," I said gloomily, "to have done so much and to be yet scarce twenty-two."
"He is an extraordinary man," cried Dorothy, "as you will say when you meet him. A word of caution, Tom," she added, seeing my desperate plight, and relenting a little. "Say nothing to him of the tender passion, for he has lately been crossed in love, and is very sore about it. A certain Mistress Cary, to whom he was paying court, hath rejected him, and wounded him as much in his self-esteem as in his love, which, I fancy, was not great, but which, on that account, he is anxious to have appear even greater, as is the way with men."
"Trust me," said I, with a great lightening of the heart; "I shall be very careful not to wound him, Dorothy."
"Pray, why dost thou smile so, Tom?" she asked, her eyes agleam. "Is it that there is a pair of bright eyes here in Williamsburg which you are dying to talk about? Well, I will be your confidante."
"Oh, Dorothy!" I stammered, but my tongue refused to utter the thought which was in my heart,—that there was only one pair of eyes in the whole world I cared for, and that I was looking into them at this very moment.
"Ah, you blush, you stammer!" cried my tormentor. "Come, I'll wager there's a pretty maid. Tell me her name, Tom."
I looked at her and gripped my hands at my side. If only this crowd was not about us—if only we were alone together somewhere—I would be bold enough.
"And why do you look so savage, Tom?" she asked, and I could have sworn she had read my thought. "You are not angry with me already! Why, you have known me scarce an hour!"
I could endure no more, and I reached out after her, heedless of the time and of the place. Doubtless there would have been great scandal among the stately dames who surrounded us, but that she sprang away from me with a little laugh and ran plump into a man who had been hastening toward her. The sight of her in the arms of a stranger brought me to my senses, and I stopped dead where I was.
"'Tis Mr. Washington!" she cried, looking up into his face, and as he set her gently on her feet, she held out her hand to him. He raised it to his lips with a courtly grace I greatly envied. "Mr. Washington, this is my cousin, Thomas Stewart."
"I am very happy to meet Mr. Stewart," he said, and he grasped my hand with a heartiness which warmed my heart. I had to look up to meet his eyes, for he must have been an inch or two better than six feet in height, and of a most commanding presence. His eyes were blue-gray, penetrating, and overhung by a heavy brow, his face long rather than broad, with high, round cheekbones and a large mouth, which could smile most agreeably, or—as I was afterward to learn—close in a firm, straight line with dogged resolution. At this moment his face was luminous with joy, and he was plainly laboring under some intense emotion.
"Where is my mother, Dolly?" he asked. "I have news for her."
"She is in the reception hall with the governor's wife," she answered."But may we not have your news, Mr. Washington?"
He paused and looked back at her a moment.
"'T is all settled," he said, "and I am to start at once."
"I was right, then!" she cried, her eyes sparkling in sympathy with his. "I was just telling cousin Tom I believed the governor had a mission for you."
"Well, so he has, and I got my papers not ten minutes since. You could never guess my destination."
"Boston? New York? London?" she questioned, but he shook his head at each, smiling evermore broadly.
"No, 't is none of those. 'T is Venango."
"Venango?" cried Dorothy. "Where, in heaven's name, may that be?" Nor wasI any the less at a loss.
"'T is a French outpost in the Ohio country," answered Washington, "and my mission, in brief, is to warn the French off English territory."
Dorothy gazed at him, eyes wide with amazement. There was something in the speaker's words and look which fired my blood.
"You will need companions, will you not, Major Washington?" I asked.
He smiled in comprehension, as he met my eyes.
"Only two or three, Mr. Stewart. Two or three guides and a few Indians will be all."
My disappointment must have shown in my face, for he gave me his hand again.
"I thank you for your offer, Mr. Stewart," he said earnestly. "Believe me, if it were possible, I should ask no better companion. But do not despair. I have little hope the French will heed the warning, and 't will then be a question of arms. In such event, there will be great need of brave and loyal men, and you will have good opportunity to see the country beyond the mountains. But I must find my mother, and tell her of my great good fortune."
I watched him as he strode away, and I fancy there was a new light in my eyes,—certainly there was a new purpose in my heart. For I had been often sadly puzzled as to what I should do when once I was out of college. I had no mind to become an idler at Riverview, but was determined to win myself a place in the world. Yet when I came to look about me, I saw small prospect of success. The professions—the law, medicine, and even the church—were overrun with vagabonds who had brought them so low that no gentleman could think of earning a livelihood—much less a place in the world—by them. Trade was equally out of the question, for there was little trade in the colony, and that in the hands of sharpers. But Mr. Washington's words had opened a new vista. What possibilities lay in the profession of arms! And my resolution was taken in an instant,—I would be a soldier. I said nothing of my resolve to Dorothy, fearing that she would laugh at me, as she doubtless would have done, and the remainder of the evening passed very quickly. Dorothy presented me to Mrs. Washington, a stately and beautiful lady, who spoke of her son with evident love and pride. He had been called away, she said, for he had much to do, and thus reminded, I remembered that it was time for me also to depart. Before I went, I obtained permission from Mrs. Washington to call and see her next day,—Dorothy standing by with eyes demurely downcast, as though she did not know it was she and she only whom I hoped to see.
"I am very sorry I teased you, cousin Tom," she said very softly, as I turned to her to say goodnight. "Your eagerness to go with Mr. Washington pleased me mightily. It is just what I should have done if I were a man. Good-night," and before I could find my tongue, she was again at Mrs. Washington's side.
I made my way back to my room at the college, and went to bed, but it seemed to me that the night, albeit already far spent, would never pass. Sleep was out of the question, and I tossed from side to side, thinking now of Dorothy, now of my new friend and his perilous expedition over the Alleghenies, now of my late resolve. It was in no wise weakened in the morning, as so many resolves of youth are like to be, and so soon as I had dressed and breakfasted, I sought out the best master of fence in the place,—a man whose skill had won him much renown, and who for three or four years past, finding life on the continent grown very unhealthy, had been imparting such of it as he could to the Virginia gentry,—and insisted that he give me a lesson straightway.
He gave me a half hour's practice, for the most part in quatre and tierce,—my A B C's, as it were,—and the ease with which he held me off and bent his foil against my breast at pleasure chafed me greatly, and showed me how much I had yet to learn, besides making me somewhat less vain of my size and strength. For my antagonist was but a small man, and yet held me at a distance with consummate ease, and twisted my foil from my hand with a mere turn of his wrist. Still, he had the grace to commend me when the bout was ended, and I at once arranged to take two lessons daily while I remained in Williamsburg.
It was ten o'clock when I turned my steps toward the house where the Washingtons were stopping, and, with much inward trepidation, walked up to the door and knocked. In a moment I was in the presence of the ladies, Mrs. Washington receiving me very kindly, and Dorothy looking doubly adorable in her simple morning frock. But I was ill at ease, and the sound of voices in an adjoining room increased my restlessness.
"Do you not see what it is, madam?" cried Dorothy, at last. "He has no wish for the society of women this morning. He has gone mad like the rest of them. He is dying to talk of war and the French and expeditions over the mountains, as Mr. Washington and his friends are doing. Is it not so, sir?"
"Indeed, I cannot deny it," I said, with a very red face. "I am immensely interested in Major Washington's expedition."
Mrs. Washington smiled kindly and bade Dorothy take me to the gentlemen, which she did with a wicked twinkle in her eye that warned me I should yet pay dear for my effrontery. Mr. Washington and half a dozen friends were seated about the room, talking through clouds of tobacco smoke of the coming expedition. There were George Fairfax, and Colonel Nelson, and Judge Pegram, and three or four other gentlemen, to all of whom I was introduced. The host waved me to a pile of pipes and case of sweet-scented on the table, and I was soon adding my quota to the clouds which enveloped us, and listening with all my ears to what was said.
It had been agreed that the start should be made at once, the party meeting at Will's Creek, where the Ohio company had a station, and proceeding thence to Logstown, and so on to Venango, or, if necessary, to the fort on French Creek. How my cheeks burned as I thought of that journey through the wilderness and over the mountains, and how I longed to be of the party! But I soon saw how impossible this was, for Mr. Washington's companions must needs be hardened men, accustomed to the perils of the forest and acquainted with the country. A bowl of punch was brought, and after discussing this, the company separated, though not till all of them had wrung Mr. Washington's hand and wished him a quick journey. I was going with the others, when he detained me.
"I wish a word with you, Mr. Stewart," he said. "I shall have to leave for Mount Vernon at once, and make the trip as rapidly as possible, in order to prepare for this expedition. May I ask if it would be possible for you to accompany my mother and Miss Dolly home when their visit here is ended, which will be in about a week's time?"
"Certainly," I answered warmly, "I shall be only too glad to be of service to you and to them, Mr. Washington," and I thought with tingling nerves that Dorothy and I could not fail to be thrown much together.
So it was arranged, and that afternoon he set out for Mount Vernon, whence he would go direct to Will's Creek. His mother cried a little after he was gone, so Dorothy told me, but she was proud of her boy, as she had good cause to be, and appeared before the world with smiling face. The week which followed flew by like a dream. I took my lesson with the foils morning and evening, and soon began to make some progress in the art. As much time as Dorothy would permit, I spent with her, and in one of our talks she told me that she had drawn from her mother by much questioning the story of my father's marriage and of the quarrel which followed.
"When I heard," she concluded, "how Riverview might have been yours but for that unhappy dispute,"—so Mrs. Stewart had not told the whole truth, and I smiled grimly to myself,—"I saw how unjustly and harshly we had always used you, and I made up my mind to be very good to you when next we met, as some slight recompense."
"And is it for that only you are kind to me, Dorothy?" I asked. "Is it not a little for my own sake?"
"Hoity-toity," she cried, "an you try me too far, I shall withdraw my favor altogether, sir. My cheeks burn still when I think what might have happened at the ball the other night, when you so far forgot yourself as to grab at me like a wild Indian. 'Twas well I had my wits about me."
"But, indeed, Dorothy," I protested, "'twas all your fault. You had plagued me beyond endurance."
"I fear you are a very bold young man," she answered pensively, and whenI would have proved the truth of her assertion, sent me packing.
So the week passed, the day came when we were to leave Williamsburg, and at six o'clock one cool October morning, the great coach of the Washingtons rolled westward down the sandy street, the maples casting long shadows across the road. And on the side where Mistress Dorothy sat, I was riding at the window.
I was received civilly enough at Riverview, and soon determined to remain there until Major Washington returned from the west. My aunt treated me with great consideration, doubtless because she feared to anger me, and I soon fell into the routine of the estate. My cousin James, a roystering boy of fourteen, was not yet old enough to be covetous, and he and I were soon friends. Dorothy treated me as she had always done, with a hearty sisterly affection, which gave me much uneasiness, 't was so unlike my own, and I was at some pains to point out to her that we were not cousins, nor, indeed, any relation whatsoever. In return for which she merely laughed at me.
By great good fortune, I found among the overseers on my aunt's estate a man who had been a soldier of fortune in the Old World until some escapade had driven him to seek safety in the colonies, and with my aunt's permission, I secured him to teach me what he knew of the practice of arms, a tutelage which he entered upon with fine enthusiasm. He was called Captain Paul on the plantation,—a little, wiry man, with fierce mustaches and flashing eyes, greatly feared by the negroes, though he always treated them kindly enough, so far as I could see. He claimed to be an Englishman,—certainly he spoke the language as well as any I ever heard,—but his dark eyes and swarthy skin bespoke the Spaniard or Italian, and his quickness with the foils the French. A strain of all these bloods I think he must have had, but of his family he would tell me nothing, nor of the trouble which had brought him over-sea. But of his feats of arms he loved to speak,—and they were worth the telling. He had been with Plelo's heroic little band of Frenchmen before Dantzic, where a hundred deeds of valor were performed every day, and with Broglie before Parma, where he had witnessed the rout of the Austrians. For hours together I made him recount to me the story of his campaigns, and when he grew weary of talking and I of listening, we had a round with the rapier, or a bout with the sword on horseback, and as the weeks passed, I found I was gaining some small proficiency. He drilled me, too, in another exercise which he thought most important, that of shooting from horseback with the pistol.
"'T is an accomplishment which has saved my life a score of times," he would say, "and of more value in a charge than any swordsmanship. A man must be a swordsman to defend his honor, and a good shot with the pistol to defend his life. Accomplished in both, he is armed cap-a-pie against the world. The pistol has its rules as well as the sword. For instance,—
"'When you charge an adversary, always compel him to fire first, for the one who fires first rarely hits his mark.
"'At the instant you see him about to fire, make your horse rear. This will throw your horse before you as a shield, and if the aim is true, 't will be your horse that is hit and not yourself. The life of a horse is valuable, but that of a man is more so.
"If your horse has not been hit, or is not badly hurt, you have your adversary at your mercy, and can either kill him or take him prisoner, as you may choose. If he be well mounted, and well accoutred, it is usually wisest to take him prisoner.
"'If your horse has been hit mortally, take care that in falling you get clear of him by holding your leg well out and so alighting on your feet. You can easily recover in time to pistol your adversary as he passes.
"'Above everything, learn to aim quickly, with both eyes open, the arm slightly bent, the pistol no higher than the breast. When the arm is fully extended, the tension causes it to tremble and so destroys the aim, and the man who cannot hit the mark without sighting along the barrel is usually dead before he can pull the trigger.'"
These and many other things he told me, and that I threw myself with eagerness into the lessons I need hardly say, though I never acquired his proficiency with either pistol or rapier. For I have seen him bring down a hawk upon the wing, or throwing his finger-ring high into the air, pass his rapier neatly through it as it shot down past him. Another trick of his do I remember,—une, deux, trois, and a turn of the wrist in flanconade,—which seldom failed to tear my sword from my hand, so quickly and irresistibly did he perform it. What his lot has been I do not know, for when the king's troops came to Virginia, he was seized with a strange restlessness and resigned from my aunt's service, going I know not whither; but if he be alive, there is a place at my board and a corner of my chimney for him, where he would be more than welcome.
In the mean time, not a word had been received from Major Washington—we called him major now, deeming that he had well earned the title—since he had plunged into the wilderness at Will's Creek in mid-November, accompanied only by Christopher Gist as guide, John Davidson and Jacob Van Braam as interpreters, and four woodsmen, Barnaby Currin, John M'Quire, Henry Steward, and William Jenkins, as servants. November and December passed, and Christmas was at hand. There had been great preparation for it at Riverview, for we of Virginia loved the holiday the more because the Puritans detested it, and all the smaller gentry of the county was gathered at the house, where there were feasting and dancing and much merry-making. One incident of it do I remember most distinctly,—that having, with consummate generalship, cornered Mistress Dorothy under a sprig of mistletoe, I suddenly found myself utterly bereft of the courage to carry the matter to a conclusion, and allowed her to escape unkissed, for which she laughed at me most unmercifully once the danger was passed, though she had feigned the utmost indignation while the assault threatened. So the holidays went and New Year's came.
It was the thirteenth of January, and in the dusk of the evening I was riding back to the house as usual after my bout with Captain Paul, when I heard far up the road behind me the beat of horse's hoofs. Instinctively I knew it was Major Washington, and I drew rein and watched the rider swinging toward me. In a moment he was at my side, and we exchanged a warm handclasp from saddle to saddle.
"I am on my way to Riverview," he said, as we again urged our horses forward. "I hope to stay there the night and start at daybreak for Williamsburg to make my report to the governor. Do you care to accompany me, Mr. Stewart?"
"Do you need to ask?" I cried. "And what was the outcome of your mission, sir?"
"There will be war," he said, and his face darkened. "It is as I foresaw. The French are impudent, and claim the land belongs to them and not to us."
Neither of us spoke again, but I confess I was far from sharing the gloom of my companion. Had I not determined to be a soldier, and how was a soldier to find employment, but in war? I looked at him narrowly as we rode, and saw that he was thinner than when he had left us, and that his face was browned by much exposure.
Right heartily was he welcomed to Riverview, and when dinner had been served and ended, nothing would do but that he should sit down among us and tell us the story of his mission. He could scarce have failed to draw inspiration from such an audience, for Dorothy's eyes were sparkling, and I was fairly trembling with excitement. Would that I could tell the story as he told it, but that were impossible.
He and his little party had gone from Will's Creek to the forks of the Ohio, through the untrodden wilderness and across swollen streams, struggling on over the threatening mountains and fighting their way through the gloomy and unbroken forest, and thence down the river to the Indian village of Logstown. There he had parleyed with the Indians for near a week before he could persuade the Half King and three of his tribesmen to accompany him as guides. Buffeted by unceasing storms, they toiled on to Venango, where there was an English trading-house, which the French had seized and converted into a military post. Chabert de Joncaire commanded, and received the party most civilly. Major Washington was banqueted that evening by the officers of the post, and as the wine flowed freely, the French forgot their prudence, and declared unreservedly that they intended keeping possession of the Ohio, whether the English liked it or not. Joncaire, however, asserted that he could not receive Dinwiddie's letter, and referred Major Washington to his superior officer at Fort le Boeuf. So, leaving Venango, for four days more the party struggled northward. The narrow traders' path had been quite blotted out, and the forest was piled waist-deep with snow. At last, when it seemed that human endurance could win no further, they sighted the squared chestnut walls of Fort le Boeuf.
The commander here, Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, also received them well, and to him Major Washington delivered his letter from Governor Dinwiddie, asking by what right the French had crossed the Lakes and invaded British territory, and demanding their immediate withdrawal. Saint-Pierre was three days preparing his answer, which he intrusted to Major Washington, and at the end of that time the latter, with great difficulty persuading his Indians to accompany him, started back to Virginia. They reached Venango on Christmas Day. Here their horses gave out, and he and Gist pushed forward alone on foot, leaving the others to follow as best they might. A French Indian fired at them from ambush, but missed his mark, and to escape pursuit by his tribesmen, they walked steadily forward for a day and a night, until they reached the Allegheny. They tried to make the crossing on a raft, but were caught in the drifting ice and nearly drowned before they gained an island in the middle of the river. Here they remained all night, foodless and well-nigh frozen, and in the morning, finding the ice set, crossed in safety to the shore. Once across, they reached the house of a man named Fraser, on the Monongahela,—a house they were to see again, but under far different circumstances,—and leaving there on the first day of January, they made their way back to the settlements without adventure. Major Washington had reached Mount Vernon that afternoon, and after stopping to see his mother, had ridden on to Riverview.