IX
The summer passed away in sport and in visits to William Fairfax, who lived below us on the river. Here I saw much good society, among others the Masons, Carys, and Lees, and formed an attachment to William Fairfax, the master of Belvoir, and his son George, which was never broken, although we came long after to differ in regard to our political views. But of this, and of his cousin, Lord Fairfax, more hereafter. In the fall of this year I returned to my mother, or rather, as before, I went to board across the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg, in the house of a widow of the name of Stevenson, which she pronounced Stinson. She had, by her two marriages, six sons, two of them Crawfords and four Stevensons. They were all well-grown fellows, and of great strength and bigness.
I am reminded, as I set down in a random way what interests me, that, as I expected, this act of attention brings to mindsome things which I seemed to have altogether forgotten. Among them is this, that, just before returning to my school, I went with Lawrence to pay my respects to Lord Fairfax, who was come for a visit to his cousin at Belvoir. We found the family, however, in sudden distress at the news, just arrived, of the death in battle of Thomas, the second son, who was killed in the Indies, in an engagement on board his Majesty’s shipHarwich. We made, on this account, but a short stay. I remember that, as we rode away, Lawrence said to me: “A great preacher called Jeremy Taylor wrote a sermon about death, and gave a long list of the many ways of dying. Which way, George, would you wish to die?” I said I did not wish to die at all.
Lawrence said: “But you will die some day. What way would you choose?” I said I thought to die in battle would be best, and I said this because I remembered with horror watching how my father died and how greatly he suffered.
Lawrence said: “The good preacher did not speak of that way to die.” Now, as I write, being in years, it seems that not in that way shall I die, nor does it matter.
After this I went back to my mother, or rather to the town of Fredericksburg. I liked it the more because Colonel Harry Willis lived there. He married first my aunt Mildred, and second my cousin Mildred, so that I had about me many cousins, with also Warners and Thorntons of my kindred.
I was here fortunate in my teacher, of whom I have spoken before. This gentleman, the Rev. James Marye, was very different in his ways from some of the clergy put upon us by the Bishop of London, hard-drinking, ill-mannered men. Mr. Marye was got for St. George’s parish, on a petition of the vestry to Governor Gooch. He was rector thirty years, and was succeeded by his son.
On Sunday, as was quite common in Virginia, the girls and boys were heard the catechism by the rector, and those who did well were rewarded from time to time—the girls with pincushions and the boys with trap-balls.
The sons of the widow in whose house I lodged during the week were, as I have said, rough, big fellows who damaged a great deal the pride I had in my strength,because among them, for the first time as concerned lads of near my years, I met my match in wrestling and jumping, and what we called the Indian hug. Almost all of them served under me in the war, and one, William Crawford, rose to be a colonel and perished miserably, being burned at Sandusky in the war with the Indians, after their cruel way.
The Rev. Mr. Marye concerned himself more than the ordinary schoolmaster with the manners of his scholars. I may have been inclined beyond most lads to value his rules of courtesy and decent behaviour, for I kept the book in which I was made to copy the one hundred and eighteen precepts he taught us. I conceive them to have been of service to me and to others. I find the mice have gnawed and eaten a part of these rules. When, of late, I showed them to my sister Betty, she said she hoped eating of them would make the mice polite, for she was dreadfully afraid of those little vermin.
In this manner my next two years passed by. During this time I became still further attracted by the exactness and interest of the surveying of land, which I carried on without present thought of gain. I used toride into the woods, and, leaving my horse tied, make use of Peter as a chain-bearer. Sometimes my cousins went with me, especially Lewis Willis, my schoolmate. But they soon grew tired and went to bird-nesting, or digging up of woodchucks, or to making the “praying-mantis” bugs fight one another. I never had much inclination towards games which had no distinct or lasting result. At any time I preferred for my play to fish or shoot, when allowed, or to measure lands and plot them.
Any work demanding strict method is good for a lad, and I found in surveys an education of value and one suited to my tastes, which never very much inclined to discover happiness in constant intercourse with my fellow-men, nor in much reading of books.