CHAPTER VII
Inside, Greenway Court was not devoid of comfort, and even of luxury. The main hall was open to the roof, and, like all the rooms in the house, the rafters were left bare, and the walls rough cast in a sort of brown plaster not unpleasing to the eye. In every room there was a huge fireplace with great iron fire-dogs. In some of the guest-chambers were the vast curtained beds of the period, but in Lord Fairfax’s own room was a small iron bedstead that he had used in his campaigns when a young man. His library communicated with his bedroom, and was by far the most luxurious room in the whole quaint building. It was lined with books from the door to the low ceiling—George had never seen so many books in all his life before. There were also a few portraits and one or two busts. Over the mantel two swords were crossed—one a cavalry sword, and the other a delicate rapier such as officers in the foot regiments used at that day. George’s eyes fell upon them as soon as he and the earl entered the room.
“The sword was the one I had the honor to use in my campaigns under Marlborough, and the rapier”—here Lord Fairfax smiled a little—“I had concealed about me when I entered Bouchain in disguise.”
After supper was over Lance showed George into a room with one of the gigantic four-posters in it. The floor was covered with bear-skins, and Billy was instructed to roll himself up in them for a bed, which he did with much satisfaction, with Rattler on top of him, as soon as George was in bed, which was not long in being accomplished.
Next morning George was up and around early, looking about the place. He had never seen the mountains before, and was deeply impressed by their grandeur, but in his heart he preferred blue water.
The scenery was even more striking in the blaze of the morning light than he had supposed. On every side, beyond the valley, giant peaks rose into the blue air, covered with vegetation to the very top. He understood then the profusion of bear-skins in the house, and thought what fine sport might be had in tracking big game through the deep gorges and dark forests of the region. Lance came up to him as he stood on the broad stone steps drinking in thewild beauty of the scene, and inhaling the keen, sharp air, so unlike the softness of the lowland atmosphere.
“There is great sport hereabouts, Lance,” cried George.
“Yes, sir; bears and Injuns, mostly—and rattlesnakes in season. Did you ever eat bear meat, Mr. Washington?”
“No,” answered George; “but I have been told it is fine.”
“I’ve got some, sir, for supper to-night. The bears have been feeding on persimmons and chinquapins and walnuts, and that always makes the meat of a good flavor.”
“And how about the Indians?” asked George, smiling.
“Injuns and rattlesnakes have their seasons together,” answered Lance, with a grim smile in reply. “They and their French friends generally keep pretty close this time of year. I don’t know which I would rather receive—the French and Injuns coming as friends or enemies. Sometimes half a dozen of ’em turn up, usually in the summer—the French always pretending to be traders or something of that sort—and they bring two or three Injun bucks with them, to carry their luggage, they say; but whoever saw an Injun carrying anything but a firelock—ifhe can get one? They always profess to belong to a peaceable tribe; but that’s all in my eye, sir. They hang about for a day or two, asking for fresh meat or vegetables, and making out that they don’t know how to get across the mountains, and all the time the French are drawing maps in their note-books and the Injuns making maps in their heads; for, Mr. Washington, your Injun is full of horse-sense about some things. He can’t look ahead, or plan, or wait—all the Injuns in North America couldn’t have taken Bouchain—but for killing people, quick and sure, I don’t know of any soldiers quite so good as Injuns. The French, sir, have a regular plan in all their expeditions here. The last party that turned up got me to talking about the way we had repulsed the redskins—for we have stood a siege or two, sir. For answer I took the Frenchmen inside the house. I showed them that we had water, the source of which was hidden; I showed them a regular magazine, all bricked up in the cellar, and an arsenal next my lord’s room, and another cellar-room full of dried provisions; and then I showed them two swivels with a plenty of suitable shot, and I said to them, very plain spoken:
“‘If you come to Greenway Court, you’ll have to bring artillery with you; you can’t starve usout, and to take it will cost you more than it comes to, for while it is very good in defence, it is nothing for attack.’
“So I think the Frenchies know better than to trouble us. But I am not so sure of the Injuns. They have not good heads on their shoulders about campaigns, and they don’t see that it is not worth their while to trouble us; and I would not be surprised any night to find a lot of skulking savages around here, trying to burn us out, as they have tried before.”
George was deeply interested in this account, but at that moment breakfast was announced, and he went in-doors.
The large, low hall was used as a dining-room, the table being drawn close to the fire. Lord Fairfax was already there, and breakfast was soon despatched.
“I hope, George,” said the earl, as they rose from the table, “that you have the excellent habit of learning something every day. As a beginning, you may have Lance’s services every morning for two hours to teach you fencing—not only with the rapier, but the sword-exercise on horseback and afoot. It is not only well for you, as you intend entering a military life, to know this, but it is the finest exercise possible for the muscles and the eye, and also in the artof keeping one’s temper. I shall expect you to become proficient in this noble art.”
“I’ll try, sir,” was George’s modest answer.
Lord Fairfax then led the way to the room which Lance had called the arsenal. Here were all manner of arms: quaint old arquebuses and matchlocks, every sort of pistol then in use, fowling-pieces, and on a rack in a corner two dozen serviceable modern muskets, shining and polished, and evidently ready for use; then there were rapiers and small swords and broadswords and claymores and strange curved Turkish scimitars. George’s eyes glittered with delight as he examined all these curious and interesting things. Presently Lance entered, and Lord Fairfax left the room. George soon found that this room and its contents were the old soldier’s pride. He had some interesting story to tell about every weapon in the collection, but George cut him short with a request to begin his fencing-lesson. Lance took down the foils and masks, and, while examining them, said:
“Mr. Washington, what do you think is the first and greatest thing a man must have to learn to be a good fencer?”
“Courage,” replied George.
“Courage is necessary; but no man ever learned fencing by being courageous.”
“Swiftness, dexterity, keeping your eyes wide open—”
“All of them are necessary too, sir; but the great thing is good temper. If you lose your temper and fly into a passion, your adversary has you at his mercy. I never saw a man with an ungovernable temper that I couldn’t knock the blade out of his hand in five minutes.”
George’s face fell at this.
“I am afraid, Lance,” he said, “that I have a very quick temper, and a very high temper.”
“Do you let it run away with you, sir?” asked Lance, passing his foil through his fingers.
“Sometimes,” answered George, dejectedly; “though I have never fallen into a passion before my mother, or any woman, since I was a little boy, because it is certainly not gentlemanlike to be violent where ladies are—’tis a gross insult to them, of which I would not be guilty.”
“Well, sir,” continued Lance, still critically examining his foil, “if you can do so much out of respect for ladies, I should think you could do a little more out of respect for yourself, and keep your temper always.”
The red blood poured into George’s face at this, and his angry eyes seemed to emit blue sparks. Lance, who was really nothing but a servant, daring to speak to him like that! Hestraightened himself up and, in a manner that showed he had not belied himself, fixed on the old soldier a look of concentrated rage. Lance returned the look steadily. Though nominally a servant, he was a tried and trained soldier, and not to be awed by the wrath of this splendid stripling. As Lance continued to gaze at him the expression in George’s face slowly changed; the color died away, leaving him paler than usual, and his eyes softened. He said nothing, but after a pause, which meant a struggle and a victory over himself, he held out his hand for the foil. Lance, with a respectful bow, handed it to him and began the lesson.
The old soldier found his pupil just what might have been expected—powerful, alert, with a wonderful quickness of the eye, and of great natural grace and agility, but impetuous and passionate, and quite unable to stand on the defensive. His temper rose, too, at the first lunge he made, and although he controlled it perfectly as regarded his words, never showing the slightest chagrin in his language, yet Lance could see that his pupil was angry from the beginning. It placed him at an immediate disadvantage. His foil flew out of his hand when he determined to grip it the hardest, and for the first time in his life he attempted a manly exercise and failedin it. This did not sweeten his temper, and when the lesson—a long one—closed, he was mortified and vexed to the last degree. Nevertheless, he thanked Lance, and, seizing his jacket and hat, rushed out-of-doors, feeling that he must be alone with his wrath and chagrin. Lance put up the foils and masks with a queer look in his eyes.
“He will learn something besides the use of the sword in fencing,” he said to himself.
Outside George pursued his way along a path up the mountain-side, his rage cooling, and growing more and more ashamed of himself. He thought highly of Lance, and was troubled at showing before him so much anger over a trifle; for trifle it was he realized. An hour’s brisk walking brought his pulses down, and he presently retraced his steps down the mountain. He was not in the mood to observe much, though he walked back rather slowly. He reached the house at one o’clock, just as Lord Fairfax came out of his study to dinner. The table was laid as usual in the hall. Behind the earl’s place stood Lance, while Billy’s head just peered above George’s chair.
“And how did you get on with your fencing-lesson?” was Lord Fairfax’s first question.
“Very poorly, sir, I am afraid,” answeredGeorge, blushing a little. “I lost my temper, and felt as if I were fighting instead of exercising, and so I did not succeed very well.”
Lord Fairfax laughed one of his peculiar, silent laughs.
“You are not the first young man who has done that. When I was a youth I was a very ungovernable one, and I remember chasing a fencing-master, who was giving me a lesson, through the streets of London until I came to myself, and was glad to call a hackney-coach and hide. A skilful adversary will very often test your temper in the beginning, and make some exasperating remark, which, in effect, renders your sword-arm powerless; for an angry man may be a fierce swordsman, but he can never be a skilful one.”
George’s eyes opened very wide indeed. He glanced at Lance, but the old soldier wore a perfectly impenetrable front. So that was why Lance made so free in his remarks! George reflected some moments, and came to the private conclusion that one could learn a great deal more in fencing than the art of attack and defence.
In the afternoon saddle-horses were brought, and Lord Fairfax and George started for a long ride over the mountains. Although the earl wasnot, and never had been, so familiar with the woods and fields, and the beasts and birds, and every living thing which inhabited them, as his young companion, he displayed stores of information which astonished and delighted the boy. He explained to him that the French and the English were engaged in a fierce contest for a great empire, of which the country around them was the battle-field; that the lines of demarcation, north and south, were very well defined; but that neither nation would commit itself to any boundaries on the east and west, and consequently the best part of the continent was in dispute. He gave George the geography of the country as it was then understood, and showed him what vast interests were involved in the planting of a single outpost of the French. For himself, the king had granted him all the land between the Potomac and the Rappahannock, and as far west as his majesty’s dominions went, which, as Lord Fairfax said, with a smile, were claimed to extend to the Pacific Ocean. Only a small part of these lands had been surveyed. He felt anxious to have the tract across the Alleghany Mountains surveyed, as it was of importance to guard against the advance of the French in that direction. He asked George if he had ever studied surveying, and on George’s saying that hehad given considerable time to it, and was fond of it, the earl told him that there were fine opportunities for a surveyor in this new country, and it would be a good profession for George, provided he did not succeed in his ambition to join the army or the navy.
“I will join either one, if I can, sir, in preference to any other profession,” was George’s reply.
They reached home at dark, and found the cheerful welcome of a roaring fire in the great hall awaiting them. At supper Lance, with a great flourish, handed a dish to Lord Fairfax which George thought the most uninviting he had ever seen—huge lumps of something burned black; but the aroma was delicious. Seeing Lord Fairfax take one of the black lumps, George courageously followed his example, and, attacking it, found it perfectly delicious.
“Bears’ paws generally taste better than they look,” remarked Lord Fairfax; and George remembered that Lance had told him there would be bear meat for supper.
The evening was spent in the library, the earl reading and writing. He pointed out a smaller table than his own, in a corner, saying, “That is for you to read and write at, and to keep your books and papers on.” George found writing-materialson it, and, seating himself, wrote a long letter to little Betty, and then wrote in his journal for his mother, describing Billy’s expedition, and that the boy was safe with him. He then took a volume of theSpectator, and soon became absorbed in it. Presently Lord Fairfax, who was watching him with pleased eyes, asked:
“What paper interests you so much, George?”
“I will read it to you, sir, if you care to hear it,” George replied.
Lord Fairfax liked to be read to, and listened very gravely to the reading. George laid down the book when the paper was finished, saying, “There is no name at the end of it, sir. Most of them have Mr. Addison’s or Captain Steele’s or Mr. Arbuthnot’s or Mr. Pickell’s or some other name at the bottom, but this has none.”
“I wrote that paper,” remarked the earl. “I had the honor of contributing several papers to theSpectator; but while appreciating the honor, I did not seek the notoriety of an author, and so, except to a few persons, my writings are unknown.”
George nearly dropped the book in his surprise, but he regarded Lord Fairfax’s attainments with greater respect than ever.
The next day and the next and the next were passed in much the same way, only that Georgeno more lost his temper in fencing or in any other way. The instant he became cool and self-controlled he learned the science of the sword with great rapidity. Every morning for two hours he and Lance practised—sometimes in the arsenal, sometimes out-of-doors, when they would go through the sword-exercise on horseback.
Every day George grew fonder of the old soldier. He was a man of great natural intelligence, and could talk most sensibly upon every subject connected with the profession of arms. One thing he said remained fixed in George’s mind, and was recalled many years afterwards at a very critical time. They were one morning at the stables, which were directly at the back of the house, and were resting after a bout on horseback with swords.
“Whenever there is a regular war against the Injuns, Mr. Washington, the British troops will have to learn a new sort of fighting. Before this they have never had to fight an enemy they could not see; but when it comes to fighting Injuns in a country like this, where there is a man with a gun behind every tree and rock, and where a thousand men can march so that when you look at the path you would think less than a hundred had passed over it, and whenyou are fighting an enemy that has no ammunition-wagons or baggage-wagons or anything that travels on wheels—I say, Mr. Washington, there will be a good many British soldiers that will bite the dust before they find out how to fight these red warriors—for warriors they are, sir. And though it is not for me, that never was anything but a private soldier, to talk about officers, yet I know that the English officers have got more to learn about fighting in this country than the men have.”
THE DAILY LESSON IN ARMSTHE DAILY LESSON IN ARMS
THE DAILY LESSON IN ARMS
THE DAILY LESSON IN ARMS
The hour came when all this returned to George with terrible force.
Within a few days after his arrival he had an opportunity to send his letter to Betty and his journal to his mother. He was very anxious to know how his mother would act on hearing of Billy’s having taken French leave. But it must be admitted that Billy was of small value to anybody except George; and although Madam Washington when she wrote denounced Billy’s disobedience, laziness, and general naughtiness in strong terms, she promised amnesty when he returned. George read this part of the letter to Billy, whose only comment was very philosophic.
“Missis ain’ gwi’ trouble me, but I ’spect mammy and daddy will gimme a whuppin’.”
The prospect of the “whuppin’,” however, did not materially affect Billy’s happiness, who, having much to eat and little to do, and the presence of Rattler and his beloved “Marse George,” had all that was essential to his happiness.
The life was so altogether new to George, and the companionship of Lord Fairfax so unlike any he had ever known before, that the boy’s mind grew and developed more in the weeks he spent at Greenway than in all his previous life. For the first time he was treated as a man by a man, and all at once it made a man of him. He began to think and act like a man instead of a boy.
Lord Fairfax did not join him in his sports and hunting expeditions, but he delighted to hear of them when George would return after a hard day’s tramp over the mountains in search of game. Proud was he the day he returned after having shot his first bear—a splendid black specimen, measuring over five feet from snout to tail. Old Lance, who had become a skilful trapper, took the skin off, and cured it so cleverly that not an inch of it was lost. This trophy George intended for his mother.
Every evening he spent in the library with Lord Fairfax, reading. Sometimes it was a bookof his own choice, and sometimes he read aloud to the earl, whose eyes were beginning to fail. Many of the books thus read were classical authors and scientific treatises, neither of which George had any natural fancy for. But he had the capacity to learn something from everything, and the most valuable lesson he got from his varied reading was the vast number of things of which he was ignorant compared with the small number of things he knew. This made him perfectly modest at all times.
As for Lord Fairfax, he felt himself daily growing more passionately fond, in his quiet and restrained way, of the boy. He began to look forward with apprehension to the time when he must again be alone—a feeling he had never had before. He would gladly have kept George with him always, and provided for his future; but he knew well enough that Madam Washington would never give up this noble son of hers to anybody in the world. And so the two lived together, drawing closer and closer to each other, each of a silent, strong nature—the man of the world wearied of courts and camps, and the boy in his white-souled youth knowing nothing but the joy of living and the desire of living rightly, and both were happy in their daily and hourly companionship.