CHAPTER IV
Beforedaybreak the next morning George came down-stairs, Billy following with his portmanteau. Madam Washington, little Betty, and all the house-servants were up and dressed, but it was thought best not to waken the three little boys, who slept on comfortably in their trundle-beds. The candles were lighted, and for the last time for two months,—which seems long to the young, George had family prayers. His mother then took the book from him and read the prayers for travellers about to start on a journey. She was quite composed, for no woman ever surpassed Madam Washington in self-control; but little Betty still wept, and would not leave George’s side even while he ate his breakfast. There had been some talk of Betty’s going to Mount Vernon also for Christmas, and George, remembering this, asked his mother, as a last favor, that she would let Betty meet him there, whence he could bring her home. Madam Washington agreed, and this quickly dried Betty’stears. Billy acted in a mysterious manner. Instead of being in vociferous distress, he was quiet and even cheerful, so much so that a grin discovered itself on his countenance, which was promptly banished as soon as he saw Madam Washington’s clear, stern eyes travelling his way. George, feeling for poor Billy’s loneliness, had determined to leave Rattler behind for company; but both Billy and Rattler were to cross the ferry with him, the one to bring the horse back, and the other for a last glimpse of his master.
The parting was not so mournful, therefore, as it promised to be. George went into the chamber where his three little brothers slept, who were not wide-awake enough to feel much regret at his departure. The servants all came out and he shook the hand of each, especially Uncle Jasper’s, while Aunt Sukey embraced him. His mother kissed him and solemnly blessed him, and the procession started. George mounted his own horse, while Betty, seated pillion-wise behind him, was to ride with him to the ferry. Uncle Jasper and Aunt Sukey walked as far as the gate, and Billy, with Rattler at his heels and the portmanteau on his head, started off on a brisk run down the road. The day was breaking beautifully. A pale blue mist lay over the river and the woods. The fields, bare and brown, werecovered with a white hoar-frost, and harbored flocks of partridges, which rose on whirring wings as the gray light turned to red and gold. In the chinquapin bushes along the road squirrels chattered, and a hare running across the lane reminded George of his hare-traps, which he charged Betty to look to. But although Betty would have died for him at any moment, she would not agree to have any hand in the trapping and killing of any living thing; so she would only promise to tell the younger boys to look after the traps.
“And it won’t be long until Christmas,” said George, turning in his saddle and pressing Betty’s arm that was around him as they galloped along briskly; “and if I have a chance of sending a letter, I will write you one. Think, Betty, you will have a letter all to yourself; you have never had one, I know.”
“I never had a letter all to myself,” answered Betty. For that was before the days of cheap postage, or postage at all as it is now; and letters were rare and precious treasures.
“And it will be very fine at Mount Vernon—ladies, and even girls like you, wearing hoops, and dancing minuets every evening, while Black Tubal and Squirrel Tom play their fiddles.”
“I like minuets well enough, but I like jigs and rigadoons better; and mother will not let me wear a hoop. But I am to have her white sarcenet silk made over for me. That I know.”
“You must practise on the harpsichord very much, Betty; for at Mount Vernon there is one, and brother Laurence and his wife will want you to play before company.”
Mistress Betty was not averse to showing off her great accomplishment, and received this very complaisantly. Altogether, what with the letter and the white sarcenet, she began to take a hopeful rather than a despairing view of the coming two months.
Arrived within sight of the ferry, George stopped, and lifted Betty off the horse. There was a foot-path across the fields to the house which made it but a short walk back, which Betty could take alone. The brother and sister gave each other one long and silent embrace—for they loved each other very dearly—and then, without a word, Betty climbed over the fence and walked rapidly homeward, while George made for the ferry, where Billy and the portmanteau awaited him. One of the small boats and two ferry-men, Yellow Dick and Sambo, took him across the river. The horse was to be carried across for George to ride to the inn where Lord Fairfax awaited him, and Billy was to take the horse back again.
GEORGE BIDS BETTY GOOD-BYEGEORGE BIDS BETTY GOOD-BYE
GEORGE BIDS BETTY GOOD-BYE
GEORGE BIDS BETTY GOOD-BYE
The flush of the dawn was on the river when the boat pushed off, and George thought he had never seen it lovelier; but like most healthy young creatures on pleasure bent, he had no sentimental regrets. The thing he minded most was leaving Billy, because he was afraid the boy would be in constant trouble until his return. But Billy seemed to take it so debonairly that George concluded the boy had at last got over his strong disinclination to work for or think of anybody except “Marse George.”
The boat shot rapidly through the water, rowed by the stalwart ferry-men, and George was soon on the opposite shore. He bade good-bye to Yellow Dick and Sambo, and, mounting his horse, with Billy still trotting ahead with the portmanteau, rode off through the quaint old town to the tavern. It was a long, low building at the corner of two straggling streets, and signs of the impending departure of a distinguished guest were not wanting. Captain Benson, a militia officer, kept the tavern, and in honor of the Earl of Fairfax had donned a rusty uniform, and was going back and forth between the stable and the kitchen, first looking after his lordship’s breakfastand then after his lordship’s horses’ breakfasts. He came bustling out when George rode up.
“Good-morning, Mr. Washington. ’Light, sir, ’light. I understand you are going to Greenway Court with his lordship. He is now at his breakfast. Will you please to walk in?”
“No, I thank you, sir,” responded George. “If you will kindly mention to Lord Fairfax that I am here, you will oblige me.”
“Certainly, sir, certainly,” cried Captain Benson, disappearing in the house.
The travelling-chariot was out and the horses were being put to it under the coachman’s superintendence, while old Lance was looking after the luggage. He came up to George, and, giving him the military salute, asked for Mr. Washington’s portmanteau. George could scarcely realize that he was going until he saw it safely stowed along with the earl’s under the box-seat. He then determined to send Billy off before the earl made his appearance, for fear of a terrible commotion, after all, when Billy had to face the final parting.
“Now, Billy,” said George to him, very earnestly, “you will not give my mother so much trouble as you used to, but do as you are told, and it will be better for you.”
“Yes, suh,” answered Billy, looking in George’s eyes without winking.
“And here is a crown for you,” said George, slipping one into Billy’s hand—poor George had only a few crowns in a purse little Betty had knitted for him. “Now mount the horse and go home. Good-bye, Rattler, boy—all of Lord Fairfax’s dogs, of every kind, shall not make me forget you.”
Billy, without the smallest evidence of grief, but with rather a twinkle in his beady eyes, shook his young master’s hand, jumped on the horse, and, whistling to Rattler, all three of George’s friends disappeared down the village street. George looked after them for some minutes and sighed at what was before Billy, but comforted himself by recalling the boy’s sensible behavior in the matter of the parting. In a few moments Lord Fairfax came out. George went up the steps to the porch, and, making his best bow, tried to say how much he felt the earl’s kindness. True gratitude is not always glib, and was not with George, but the earl saw from the boy’s face the intense pleasure he experienced.
“You will sit with me, Mr. Washington,” said Lord Fairfax, “and when you are tired of the chariot I will have one of my outriders giveyou a horse, and have him ride the wheel-horse.”
“Anything that your lordship pleases,” was George’s polite reply.
The earl bade a dignified farewell to Captain Benson, who escorted him to the coach, and in a little while, with George by his side and the outriders ahead, they were jolting along towards the open country.
The earl talked a little for the first hour or two, pointing out objects in the landscape, and telling interesting facts concerning them, which George had never known before. After a while, though, he took down two books from a kind of shelf in the front of the coach, and handing one to George, said:
“Here is a volume of theSpectator. You will find both profit and pleasure in it. Thirty years ago theSpectatorwas the talk of the day. It ruled London clubs and drawing-rooms, and its influence was not unfelt in politics.” The other book, George saw, was an edition of Horace in the original. As soon as the earl opened it he became absorbed in it.
Not so with George and theSpectator. Although fond of reading, and shrewd enough to see that the earl would have but a low opinion of a boy who could not find resources in books,what was passing before him was too novel and interesting, to a boy who had been so little away from home, to divide his attention with anything. The highway was fairly good, but the four roans took the road at such a rattling gait that the heavy chariot rolled and bumped and lurched like a ship at sea. So well made was it, though, and so perfect the harness, that not a bolt, a nut, or a strap gave way. The country for the first thirty miles was not unlike what George was accustomed to, but his keen eyes saw some difference as they proceeded towards the northwest. The day was bright and beautiful, a sharper air succeeding the soft Indian summer of the few days preceding. The cavalcade made a vast dust, clatter, and commotion. Every homestead they passed was aroused, and people, white and black, came running out to see the procession. George enjoyed the coach very much at first, but he soon began to wish that he were on the back of one of the stout nags that rode ahead, and determined, as soon as they stopped for dinner, to take advantage of Lord Fairfax’s offer and to ask to ride.
They had started soon after sunrise, and twelve o’clock found them more than twenty-five miles from Fredericksburg. They stopped at a road-side tavern for dinner and some hours’ rest. Thetavern was large and comfortable, and boasted the luxury of a private room, where dinner was served to the earl and his young guest. The tavern-keeper himself carved for them, and although he treated the earl with great respect, saying “My lord” at every other word, according to the custom of the day, there was no servility in his manner. Like everybody else, he was struck with George’s manner and appearance on first seeing him, and, finding out that he was the son of the late Colonel Augustine Washington, made the boy’s face glow with praise of his father. When the time came to start George made his request that he be allowed to ride a horse, and he was immediately given his choice of the four bays. He examined them all quickly, but with the eye of a natural judge of a horse, and unerringly picked out the best of the lot. “Do not feel obliged to regulate your pace by ours,” said the earl. “We are to sleep to-night at Farley’s tavern, only twenty miles from here, and so you present yourself by sundown it is enough.”
George mounted and rode off. He found the bay well rested by his two hours’ halt and ready for his work. He felt so much freer and happier on horseback than in the chariot that he could not help wishing he could make the restof the journey in that way. But he thought it would scarcely be polite to abandon the earl altogether, and determined to make the first stage in the coach every day. He rode on all the afternoon, keeping the high-road with ease, although towards the end it began to grow wilder and rougher. He reached Farley’s tavern some time before sundown, and his arrival giving advance notice of the earl, everything was ready for him, even to a fine wild turkey roasting on the kitchen spit for supper. Like most of the road-houses of the day, Farley’s was spacious and comfortable, though not luxurious. There was a private room there, too, with a roaring fire of hickory logs on the hearth, for the night had grown colder. At supper, when there was time to spare, old Lance produced a box, out of which he took some handsome table furniture and a pair of tall silver candlesticks. The supper was brought in smoking hot, Lance bearing aloft the wild turkey on a vast platter. He also brought forth a bottle of wine of superior vintage to anything that the tavern cellar could produce.
The earl narrowly watched George as they supped together, talking meanwhile. He rightly judged that table manners and deportment are a very fair test of one’s training in the niceties of life, and was more than ever pleased thecloser he observed the boy. First, George proved himself a skilful carver, and carved the turkey with the utmost dexterity. This was an accomplishment carefully taught him by his mother. Then, although he had the ravenous appetite of a fifteen-year-old boy after a long day’s travel, he did not forget to be polite and attentive to the earl, who trifled with his supper rather than ate it. The boy took one glass of wine, and declined having his glass refilled. His conversation was chiefly replies to questions, and were so apt that the earl every moment liked his young guest better and better. George was quite unconscious of the deep attention with which Lord Fairfax observed him. He thought he had been asked to Greenway out of pure good-nature, and rather wished to keep in the background so he should not make his host repent his hospitality. But a feeling, far deeper than mere good-nature, inspired the earl. He felt a profound interest in the boy, and was enough a judge of human nature to see that something remarkable might be expected of him.
Soon after supper occurred the first inelegance on George’s part. In the midst of a sentence of the earl’s the boy suddenly and involuntarily gave a wide yawn. He colored furiously, butLord Fairfax burst into one of his rare laughs, and calling Lance, directed him to show Mr. Washington to his room. George was perfectly willing to go; but when Lance, taking one of the tall candlesticks, showed him his room, his eyes suddenly came wide open, and the idea that Lance could tell him all about the siege of Bouchain, and marching and starving and fighting with Marlborough, drove the sleep from his eyes like the beating of a drum.
Reaching the room Lance put the candle on the dressing-table, and, standing at “attention,” asked:
“Anything else, sir?”
“Yes,” said George, seating himself on the edge of the bed. “How long will it be before my Lord Fairfax needs you?”
“About two hours, sir. His lordship sits late.”
“Then—then—” continued George, with a little diffidence, “I wish you would tell me something about campaigning with the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene, and all about the siege of Bouchain.”
Lance’s strong, weather-beaten face was suddenly illuminated with a light that George had not seen on it before, and his soldierly figure unconsciously took a more military pose.
“’Tis a long story, sir,” he said, “and I wasonly a youngster and a private soldier; it is thirty-five years gone now.”
“That’s why I want you to tell it,” replied George. “All the books are written by the officers, but never a word have I heard from a man in the ranks. I have read the life of the great Duke of Marlborough, and also Prince Eugene, but it is a different thing to hear a man tell of the wars who has burned powder in them.”
“True, sir. And the Duke of Marlborough was the greatest soldier of our time. We have the Duke of Cumberland now—a brave general, sir, and brother to the king—but I warrant, had he been at the siege of Bouchain and in the Low Countries, he would have been licked worse than Marshal Villars.”
“And Marshal Villars was a very skilful general too,” said George, now thoroughly wide-awake.
“Certainly, sir, he was. The French are but a mean-looking set of fellows, but how they can fight! And they have the best legs of any soldiers in Europe; and I am not so sure they have not the best heads. I fought ’em for twenty-five years—for I only quitted the service when I came with my Lord Fairfax to this new country—and I ought to know. My time of enlistment was up, the great duke was dead, andthere had been peace for so long that I thought soldiers in Europe had forgot to fight; so when his lordship offered to bring me, I, who had neither wife nor child, nor father nor mother, nor brother nor sister, was glad to come with him. I had served in his lordship’s regiment, and he knew me because I had once—but never mind that, sir.”
“No,” cried George. “Go on.”
“Well, sir,” said Lance, looking sheepish, “I shouldn’t have spoke of it; but the fact is, that once when we were transporting powder from the magazine the wagon broke down and a case exploded. It was a miracle that all of us were not killed; three poor fellows were marked for life, and retired on two shillings a day for it. There were plenty of sparks lying around, and I put some of them out, and we saved the rest of the powder. That’s all, sir.”
“I understand,” answered George, smiling. “It was a gallant thing, and no doubt you saved some lives as well as some powder.”
“Maybe so, sir,” said Lance, a dull red showing under the tan and sunburn of more than fifty years. “My Lord Fairfax made more of it than ’twas worth. So, when he had left the army, and I thought he had forgot me, he wrote and asked if I would come to America with him, andI came. Often, in the winter-time, the earl does not see a white face for months except mine, and then he forgets that we are master and man, and only remembers that he is my old commander and I am an old soldier. The earl was a young cornet in 1710-12, and was with the armies in the Low Countries, where we had given Marshal Villars a trouncing, and he gave Prince Eugene a trouncing back, in exchange. So, sometimes, of the long winter nights, the earl sends for me and reads to me out of books about that last campaign of the Duke of Marlborough’s, and says to me, ‘Lance, how was this?’ And, ‘Lance, do you recollect that?’ Being only a soldier, I never did know what we were marching and countermarching for, nor so much as what we were fighting for: but when the earl asks me what we were doing when we marched from Lens to Aire, or from Arleux to Bachuel, I can tell him all about the march—whether ’twas in fine or rainy weather, and how we got across the rivers, and what rations we had; we often did not have any, and the mounseers were not much better off. But, Mr. Washington, a Frenchman’s stomach is not like an Englishman’s. They can sup on soup maigre and lentils after a hard day’s march, and then get up and shake a leg while another fellow fiddles.But an Englishman has to have his beef, sir, and bacon and greens, and a good thick porridge with beans in it. I think all the nourishment the Frenchmen get goes into their legs, for they will march day and night for their Grand Monarque, as they call him, and are always ready to fight.”
“I hope we shall not have to fight the French up in Pennsylvania to make them keep their boundaries,” said George, after a while, in a tone which plainly meant that he hoped very much they would have to fight, and that he would be in the thick of the scrimmage. “And now tell me how the Duke of Marlborough looked in action, and all about Prince Eugene, and the siege of Bouchain, until it is time to go to the earl. But first sit down, for you have had a hard day’s travel.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Lance, sitting down stiffly, and snuffing the candle with his fingers.