A BAD START AND A VIEW OF BERKELEY
On the next morning, we exercised one of the most enjoyable
prerogatives of the houseboater, one that belongs to him as to but few
other travellers--that of changing his mind and his destination. We sat
down to breakfast with the intention of moving on up the James to Eppes
Creek; we rose from the table with the determination to make a run up
Powell's Creek, which was a little above us on the other side of the
river.
We always enjoyed these changes of mind. They added so much the more to
our sense of freedom and independence. There were no bits of cardboard
with the names of stations printed on them to predestine our way; no
baggage checks to consign our belongings to fixed destinations. Even at
the last moment a change of mind, a change of rudder, and a new way and
a new destination would lie before us.
Now, our thoughts headed toward Powell's Creek, because up that stream
was another colonial church, called Merchants' Hope Church; and the
next day would be Sunday.
Necessarily, such houseboat voyagers as we, that the Sundays usually
found up forgotten bits of tidewater, were a trifle irregular in the
matter of church-going. Our houseboat would have had to have a
church-boat for a consort to make it otherwise. Yet, as Sunday after
Sunday Gadabout lay in her quiet creek harbours, the spirit of the day
seemed to find her there without the call of church chimes.
Though it was morning when we changed our minds and determined to seek
a high-backed pew in old Merchants' Hope Church, it was evening by the
time we got under way. And in this case, changing our minds did not
work well. We should have come just as near getting to a church and
should have saved ourselves trouble, if we had clung to our first
intention and had spent that Saturday in moving on up the James.
As we crossed the river on the way to Powell's Creek, a closer study of
the sounding-marks on the chart showed a depth of but one half foot at
several places on the flats at the mouth of the stream. Evidently,
getting into that creek was bound to be a problem in fractions; and
Gadabout was not good at fractions and the day was waning and the tide
was setting out.
It seemed that the way to get the best depth of water would be to go to
the lower side of the wide, shallow creek-mouth, and then to enter the
stream in that affectionate style of navigation called "hugging the
shore."
And that is the way we did it. But with all the affection that could be
put into the matter, we could not find along that shore any such water
as the chart indicated; and Gadabout was beginning to need it sorely.
So, we sent the sailor out to see where it had gone to. He found it
over on the other side of the creek. Our confidence in the chart had
been betrayed. Depending upon it, we had been hugging the wrong shore.
At first, we thought little of the matter; for, our side of the stream
having played us false, we felt no hesitancy in transferring our
affections to the other side. But we found that poor Gadabout took
things much more seriously. She could not so lightly "off with the old
love and on with the new." For her the affair had already gone too far;
already, for the side she was now on, she had formed a serious, a
hopeless, a lasting attachment.
Our craft aground, our prospects of attending church next day vanished.
Slowly the tide went down; slowly the moon came up; and Nautica made
some candy. By the time it was ready to be put out on the guard to
cool, even what little we had found of Powell's Creek had
disappeared--all about us was just moonlight and mud. And ahead of us
and behind us (sticking down a little way in the mud, but sticking up
more in the moonlight) were the two anchors that we had put out to hold
us in position when the tide should rise in the night. They looked like
great crabs sitting there and watching us.
Of course, sometime in the darkness, Gadabout rose on the flood tide,
and perhaps was even ready to cross to the other side of the creek and
proceed to church. But nobody else was ready then; and so, finding all
asleep, she slowly settled down once more, and we found her in the
morning again hard aground. The good minister of Merchants' Hope Church
must surely have reached "Seventhly, my brethren," before our houseboat
was afloat.
Now, we moved her out in deeper water (for it would not do that she
should be aground next day when we ought to be starting for Eppes
Creek); and it was gratifying this time when we cast our anchors, to
see them go plumping out of sight as anchors should, instead of looking
so distressingly unnautical with flukes sticking up in the air.
But mooring a boat (securing her between two anchors, one ahead and one
astern) is rather unsatisfactory at the best. Often it is necessary so
to hobble your floating home where there is danger of her swinging upon
hidden obstructions; but it is hard on the poetry of houseboating. To
be held in one position, with unvarying scenes in your windows, is too
much like living in a prosaic land home set immovable in sameness.
Your gypsy craft should ride to a single anchor; free to swing to wind
and tide in the rhythm of the river. It is of the essence of home life
afloat to sit down to dinner heading up-stream, and to rise from table
heading down-stream; to open a favourite book with a bit of shore-view
in the casement beside you, and to close the chapter with the open
river stretching from under your window, your half-drawn shade perhaps
cutting the topsail from a distant schooner.
Monday morning dawned bright and fair (as we afterward learned from the
sailor); and bright and fair it certainly was when we made its
acquaintance. The day was yet young when everything was ready for the
trip up the river, and the shores of the little creek were echoing the
harsh clicks of our labouring windlass.
"She's hove short, and all ready to start whenever you are, sir,"
announced the sailor at the bow door.
Nautica snipped a thread and laid down her sewing; the Commodore tossed
his magazine aside. A moment more and we were off. When well out in the
river, we headed toward the left bank, for we were to make a landing at
the pier above Westover to take on two boxes of provisions that had
been left there for us by the Pocahontas. The steamer had gone;
everybody about the wharf had gone; but we had arranged to have the
boxes left out for us, and there they stood on the end of the pier.
Aboard Gadabout was the stir and bustle usually incident to the making
of a landing. Clear and sharp rose the voice of the Commodore; now
issuing his orders, now taking them back again. When he could think of
nothing more to say, he went below and relieved Nautica at the wheel as
our good ship swung beautifully in toward the wharf.
It must be remembered that a houseboat does not come up to piers like a
steamboat, always finding men waiting to catch lines and to help in
making landings. Often, as was the way of it that morning, the
wandering houseboat comes along to find only an empty pier; and if she
wishes to establish any closer relations with it, she must make all the
advances herself.
The wind may be blowing strong; the tide running strong--everything
strong but the qualifications of the commanding officer; in which case,
it is well that preparations for the landing begin early. There should
be a coil of rope made ready at either end of the boat, and also a
light line with a grapnel attached to It. What is a grapnel? How
strange that question sounds to us now, mighty mariners that we have
become! But of course we should remember that there was a time when we
did not know ourselves. Well, a grapnel is much like one of those
fish-hooks that have five points all curving out in different
directions, only it usually weighs several pounds.
[Illustration: "OFTEN ... THE WANDERING HOUSEBOAT COMES ALONG TO FIND
ONLY AN EMPTY PIER."]
The value of the grapnel was shown that day at the pier above Westover.
Though Gadabout swung to the landing finely, a strong off-shore wind
caught her; our ropes fell short; and we should have made but sorry
work of it if a grapnel had not shot out into the air and saved the
day. As it fell upon the wharf, the line attached to it was hauled in
hand over hand; and though the grapnel started to come along with it,
sliding and hopping over the pier, soon one of its points found a crack
or a nail or a knot-hole to get hold of; and the houseboat was readily
drawn up and made fast to the pilings.
The boxes aboard, our lines were cast off and Gadabout moved on up the
James.
[Illustration: A TRAPPER'S HOME BY THE RIVERBANK.]
Soon we were approaching one of the most historic points on the river.
We could tell that by a deserted old manor-house occupying a fine,
neglected site on the left bank of the stream.
While the main structure still stood firm, and would for generations to
come as it had for generations gone, yet the verandas about it had been
partially burned and had collapsed, and the place looked dilapidated
and forlorn. In front, the spacious grounds, once terraced gardens,
stretched wild and overgrown down to the river, where the straggling
ruins of a pier completed the picture of desolation.
But, even neglected and abandoned, this sturdy colonial home, nearly
two centuries old, still wore a noble air of family pride; still looked
bravely out upon the river. And why should it not? What house but old
Berkeley is the ancestral home of a signer of the Declaration of
Independence and of two Presidents of the United States?
This plantation became the colonial seat of the elder branch of the
Harrison family about the beginning of the eighteenth century. It
passed to strangers less than half a century ago.
From its founding, Berkeley was the home of distinguished men. Here
lived Benjamin Harrison, attorney general and treasurer of the colony;
and his son, Major Benjamin Harrison, member of the House of Burgesses;
and his son, Benjamin Harrison, member of the Continental Congress and
signer of the Declaration of Independence; and his son, William Henry
Harrison, famous general and the ninth President of our country; whose
grandson, Benjamin Harrison, became our twenty-third President--a
striking showing of family distinction, and including the only
instance, except that of the Adamses, of two members of the same family
occupying the presidential chair.
[Illustration: BERKELEY. (The ancestral home of a signer of the
Declaration of Independence and of two Presidents of the United
States.)]
Very different from the Berkeley that we saw, was that fine old
plantation of colonial times. Imagine it, perhaps upon a summer's day
in that memorable year of 1776. There are the great fields of tobacco
and grain, the terraced gardens gay with flowers, the boats at the
landing, and the manor-house standing proudly, "an elegant seat of
hospitality."
The master of Berkeley, that tall, dignified colonial, Colonel Benjamin
Harrison, is not at home. He is at Philadelphia attending the
Continental Congress. Perhaps even now he is affixing his signature,
with its queer final flourish, to the Declaration of Independence. In
the meantime, in front of the old home, a pretty woman in quaint
taffeta "Watteau" and hooped petticoat and dainty high-heeled slippers
is playing with a little boy, among the sweet old shrubs and the
English roses upon the terraces.
That little boy is to bring added honour to old Berkeley; and one day,
as General William Henry Harrison, president-elect of the United
States, his love for this mother shall bring him back to this home of
his boyhood to write, amidst the tender associations of "her old room,"
his inaugural address.
After passing Berkeley, we left the buoyed course and ran the rest of
the way to Eppes Creek in a narrow side channel that threads among the
shallows close along shore. It is what the river-men call a "slue
channel"; and we had to take frequent soundings to follow it. Looking
back at dejected old Berkeley, we were glad to know that a new owner of
the place was about to restore it.
Gadabout soon approached an opening in the river bank that we knew was
the wide mouth of Eppes Creek. We were going to turn into this stream,
not merely for the stream itself, but for a convenient anchorage from
which to reach the last of the noted river homes that we should
visit--Shirley, the colonial seat of the Carters. Our chart showed the
mansion as standing just around the next bend of the James. But we were
not going around that bend, because the chart showed also this little
creek cutting across the point of land lying in the elbow of the river
and apparently affording an inside route to Shirley. We should soon
learn whether or not Gadabout could navigate it and how near it would
take her to the old home.
As we moved slowly into the creek it was between banks in strange and
attractive contrast. The starboard side (that from which we hoped to
find a way to Shirley) was high and covered with trees of many kinds.
The bank to port was low and covered with a marsh forest of cypresses.
It was a dark and gloomy forest, but the spell of its sombre depths
drew our eyes quite as often as the cheerfuller charm of the woodland
on the other side; and so was equally responsible for the zigzag course
that Gadabout was taking.
But it was the high bank that, after a while, was responsible for
Gadabout's ceasing to take any course at all. We came about a bend and
saw, just ahead, a little cove. There were trees crowding close, rich
pines and cedars and bright-beaded holly. One tree leaned far out over
the water, and beneath it two row-boats were drawn up to the bank. We
thought it must surely be the landing-place for Shirley. Gadabout
sidled to starboard, and grapnels were thrown up into the trees to hold
her alongshore.
Stepping out on the bank we went up the hill through the woods. On the
way we turned and glanced down upon the houseboat. She looked pretty
enough, little white and yellow cottage, snuggling close to the bank
with a holly tree at her bow and her flags stirring gently in the warm
sunny air.
At the top of the hill, we came out upon the edge of a cornfield.
Everything was cornfield as far as we could see. No house, no road in
sight. Back aboard Gadabout, we got under way again. But the creek soon
lost even its one solid bank and, finding ourselves running between two
lines of marsh woods, we turned about and headed back for the place
where we had stopped, "Leaning Tree Landing," as we called it.
We had gone but a little way when our rudder-cable snapped, the
steering-wheel turned useless, and Gadabout headed for the marsh woods.
She minded none of our makeshift devices to shape her course; and we
were forced to stop the engine and resort to a more primitive motive
power.
The sailor dropped an end of a long pole into the water at the bow of
the houseboat and, bending heavily upon the other end, slowly pushed
her forward as he walked aft along the guard. Steadily back and forth
he paced the rail; steadily, silently, we floated down the stream.
And the silence of our going took hold of us, as we sat lazily in the
bow. How in keeping it all seemed with the quiet of the day, the calm
of the stream, and the stillness of the woods! And how out of keeping
now seemed Gadabout's noisy entrance into that tranquil scene!
"I feel quite apologetic," said Nautica. "Look at these great solemn
trees, just like an assemblage of forest philosophers in the hush of
silent deliberation."
"We must have stirred them up a bit," replied the Commodore, "with our
puffing and ringing. But I don't think they are deliberating. I believe
they are asleep. It seems more like the hush of poppy-land in here to
me."
"Yes, that is just it." And the answer really came quite dreamily.
"This is the hush of poppy-land, and we are drifting on the quiet brown
waterway that leads through the sleepy, endless afternoon."
And the notion pleased, and so did the languor and the heavy content.
Slowly and steadily the sailor and the long pole went up and down the
guard; slowly and steadily the houseboat moved down the stream.
Now we were skirting the bolder bank where the pines bent heavy heads
over the water, the holly crowded close to the shore, and pale tinted
reeds made border at the water's edge. Now in rounding a curve, we
passed close to the cypress wood fringed with bush and sedge. Delicate
brown festoons of vines hung from the branches; and, high out of reach,
mats of mistletoe clung. It seemed one with our mood and our fancy when
two round yellow eyes stared out of the shadows, two wide lazy wings
were spread, and the bird of daylight slumber took soft, noiseless
flight. We were just getting fully in the humour of our new way of
travel, drifting on in the world of laze-and-dream, when the whole
thing came to an end. A familiar voice from the world of up-and-do was
in our ears, and there was Leaning Tree Landing just ahead.
We anchored out in the channel until low tide; then, after sounding
about the landing and finding a good depth of water and no
obstructions, we drew Gadabout in, bow to the bank, and made fast. We
felt almost as though she were a real, true cottage, with that solid
land at her door and her roof among the branches.
When we looked from Gadabout's windows next morning, a dense fog had
blotted out all of our creek country except that which was close in
about us. But what was left was so beautiful as to more than make up
for the loss. Nature, like most other women, looks particularly well
through a filmy veil. We feared that the mist would soon clear away,
but it did not and we sat down to breakfast with our houseboat floating
in one of the smallest and fairest worlds that had ever harboured her.
A beautiful white-walled world with some shadowy bits of land here and
there, a piece of a misty stream that began and ended in the clouds,
and everything most charmingly out of perspective and unreal. Some
ghostly trees were near us, delicate veils of mist clinging about their
trunks and floating up among the bare branches. Nearer yet, a blur of
reeds marked the shore-line. From somewhere out along the river,
probably from the lighthouse at Jordan's Point, came the tolling of a
fog-bell.
As we watched the scene, a faint glow filtered in through the
whiteness, and made it all seem a fairy-land. Indeed, was it not? And
were not the little swaying mist-wreaths that wavered in at our windows
some dainty elves timidly come to give us greeting? All day the fog
held, and the sad tolling of the bell went on. Now and then, the calls
of the river craft would come to our ears.
Toward evening the fog thinned and let the moonlight in. Then we were
quite sure that Gadabout had indeed come to Fairy-land. Now, if only
there were a way leading from Fairy-land to Shirley! And it turned out
that there was.