After the departure of her unfortunate spiritual adviser and chaplain,
Madam Esmond and her son seemed to be quite reconciled: but although
George never spoke of the quarrel with his mother, it must have weighed
upon the boy's mind very painfully, for he had a fever soon after the
last recounted domestic occurrences, during which illness his brain
once or twice wandered, when he shrieked out, “Broken! Broken! It never,
never can be mended!” to the silent terror of his mother, who sate
watching the poor child as he tossed wakeful upon his midnight bed.
His malady defied her skill, and increased in spite of all the nostrums
which the good widow kept in her closet and administered so freely to
her people. She had to undergo another humiliation, and one day little
Mr. Dempster beheld her at his door on horseback. She had ridden through
the snow on her pony, to implore him to give his aid to her poor boy. “I
shall bury my resentment, madam,” said he, “as your ladyship buried your
pride. Please God, I maybe time enough to help my dear young pupil!” So
he put up his lancet, and his little provision of medicaments; called
his only negro-boy after him, shut up his lonely hut, and once more
returned to Castlewood. That night and for some days afterwards it
seemed very likely that poor Harry would become heir of Castlewood; but
by Mr. Dempster's skill the fever was got over, the intermittent attacks
diminished in intensity, and George was restored almost to health again.
A change of air, a voyage even to England, was recommended, but the
widow had quarrelled with her children's relatives there, and owned with
contrition that she had been too hasty. A journey to the north and east
was determined on, and the two young gentlemen, with Mr. Dempster as
their tutor, and a couple of servants to attend them, took a voyage to
New York, and thence up the beautiful Hudson river to Albany, where they
were received by the first gentry of the province, and thence into the
French provinces, where they had the best recommendations, and were
hospitably entertained by the French gentry. Harry camped with the
Indians, and took furs and shot bears. George, who never cared for
field-sports, and whose health was still delicate, was a special
favourite with the French ladies, who were accustomed to see very few
young English gentlemen speaking the French language so readily as our
young gentlemen. George especially perfected his accent so as to be able
to pass for a Frenchman. He had the bel air completely, every person
allowed. He danced the minuet elegantly. He learned the latest imported
French catches and songs, and played them beautifully on his violin,
and would have sung them too but that his voice broke at this time, and
changed from treble to bass; and, to the envy of poor Harry, who was
absent on a bear-hunt, he even had an affair of honour with a young
ensign of the regiment of Auvergne, the Chevalier de la Jabotiere, whom
he pinked in the shoulder, and with whom he afterwards swore an eternal
friendship. Madame de Mouchy, the superintendent's lady, said the mother
was blest who had such a son, and wrote a complimentary letter to Madam
Esmond upon Mr. George's behaviour. I fear, Mr. Whitfield would not
have been over-pleased with the widow's elation on hearing of her son's
prowess.
When the lads returned home at the end of ten delightful months, their
mother was surprised at their growth and improvement. George especially
was so grown as to come up to his younger-born brother. The boys could
hardly be distinguished one from another, especially when their hair was
powdered; but that ceremony being too cumbrous for country life, each
of the gentlemen commonly wore his own hair, George his raven black, and
Harry his light locks tied with a ribbon.
The reader who has been so kind as to look over the first pages of the
lad's simple biography, must have observed that Mr. George Esmond was
of a jealous and suspicious disposition, most generous and gentle and
incapable of an untruth, and though too magnanimous to revenge, almost
incapable of forgiving any injury. George left home with no goodwill
towards an honourable gentleman, whose name afterwards became one of the
most famous in the world; and he returned from his journey not in the
least altered in his opinion of his mother's and grandfather's friend.
Mr. Washington, though then but just of age, looked and felt much older.
He always exhibited an extraordinary simplicity and gravity; he had
managed his mother's and his family's affairs from a very early age, and
was trusted by all his friends and the gentry of his county more than
persons twice his senior.
Mrs. Mountain, Madam Esmond's friend and companion, who dearly loved the
two boys and her patroness, in spite of many quarrels with the latter,
and daily threats of parting, was a most amusing, droll letter-writer,
and used to write to the two boys on their travels. Now, Mrs. Mountain
was of a jealous turn likewise; especially she had a great turn for
match-making, and fancied that everybody had a design to marry everybody
else. There scarce came an unmarried man to Castlewood but Mountain
imagined the gentleman had an eye towards the mistress of the mansion.
She was positive that odious Mr. Ward intended to make love to
the widow, and pretty sure the latter liked him. She knew that Mr.
Washington wanted to be married, was certain that such a shrewd young
gentleman would look out for a rich wife, and, as for the differences of
ages, what matter that the Major (major was his rank in the militia)
was fifteen years younger than Madam Esmond? They were used to such
marriages in the family; my lady her mother was how many years older
than the Colonel when she married him?--When she married him and was so
jealous that she never would let the poor Colonel out of her sight.
The poor Colonel! after his wife, he had been henpecked by his little
daughter. And she would take after her mother, and marry again, be
sure of that. Madam was a little chit of a woman, not five feet in her
highest headdress and shoes, and Mr. Washington a great tall man of
six feet two. Great tall men always married little chits of women:
therefore, Mr. W. must be looking after the widow. What could be more
clear than the deduction?
She communicated these sage opinions to her boy, as she called George,
who begged her, for Heaven's sake, to hold her tongue. This she said she
could do, but she could not keep her eyes always shut; and she narrated
a hundred circumstances which had occurred in the young gentleman's
absence, and which tended, as she thought, to confirm her notions. Had
Mountain imparted these pretty suspicions to his brother? George asked
sternly. No. George was her boy; Harry was his mother's boy. “She likes
him best, and I like you best, George,” cries Mountain. “Besides, if I
were to speak to him, he would tell your mother in a minute. Poor Harry
can keep nothing quiet, and then there would be a pretty quarrel between
Madam and me!”
“I beg you to keep this quiet, Mountain,” said Mr. George, with great
dignity, “or you and I shall quarrel too. Neither to me nor to any one
else in the world must you mention such an absurd suspicion.”
Absurd! Why absurd? Mr. Washington was constantly with the widow. His
name was forever in her mouth. She was never tired of pointing out his
virtues and examples to her sons. She consulted him on every question
respecting her estate and its management. She never bought a horse
or sold a barrel of tobacco without his opinion. There was a room at
Castlewood regularly called Mr. Washington's room. “He actually leaves
his clothes here and his portmanteau when he goes away. Ah! George,
George! One day will come when he won't go away,” groaned Mountain, who,
of course, always returned to the subject of which she was forbidden
to speak. Meanwhile Mr. George adopted towards his mother's favourite a
frigid courtesy, at which the honest gentleman chafed but did not care
to remonstrate, or a stinging sarcasm, which he would break through as
he would burst through so many brambles on those hunting excursions
in which he and Harry Warrington rode so constantly together; whilst
George, retreating to his tents, read mathematics, and French, and
Latin, and sulked in his book-room more and more lonely.
Harry was away from home with some other sporting friends (it is to be
feared the young gentleman's acquaintances were not all as eligible as
Mr. Washington), when the latter came to pay a visit at Castlewood. He
was so peculiarly tender and kind to the mistress there, and received by
her with such special cordiality, that George Warrington's jealousy had
well-nigh broken out in open rupture. But the visit was one of adieu, as
it appeared.
Major Washington was going on a long and dangerous journey, quite to the
western Virginia frontier and beyond it. The French had been for some
time past making inroads into our territory. The government at home,
as well as those of Virginia and Pennsylvania, were alarmed at this
aggressive spirit of the Lords of Canada and Louisiana. Some of our
settlers had already been driven from their holdings by Frenchmen in
arms, and the governors of the British provinces were desirous to stop
their incursions, or at any rate to protest against their invasion.
We chose to hold our American colonies by a law that was at least
convenient for its framers. The maxim was, that whoever possessed the
coast had a right to all the territory inland as far as the Pacific; so
that the British charters only laid down the limits of the colonies from
north to south, leaving them quite free from east to west. The French,
meanwhile, had their colonies to the north and south, and aimed at
connecting them by the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence and the great
intermediate lakes and waters lying to the westward of the British
possessions. In the year 1748, though peace was signed between the
two European kingdoms, the colonial question remained unsettled, to be
opened again when either party should be strong enough to urge it. In
the year 1753, it came to an issue, on the Ohio river, where the British
and French settlers met. To be sure, there existed other people besides
French and British, who thought they had a title to the territory about
which the children of their White Fathers were battling, namely, the
native Indians and proprietors of the soil. But the logicians of St.
James's and Versailles wisely chose to consider the matter in dispute
as a European and not a Red-man's question, eliminating him from the
argument, but employing his tomahawk as it might serve the turn of
either litigant.
A company, called the Ohio Company, having grants from the Virginia
government of lands along that river, found themselves invaded in their
settlements by French military detachments, who roughly ejected the
Britons from their holdings. These latter applied for protection to Mr.
Dinwiddie, Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia, who determined upon sending
an ambassador to the French commanding officer on the Ohio, demanding
that the French should desist from their inroads upon the territories of
his Majesty King George.
Young Mr. Washington jumped eagerly at the chance of distinction which
this service afforded him, and volunteered to leave his home and his
rural and professional pursuits in Virginia, to carry the governor's
message to the French officer. Taking a guide, an interpreter, and a
few attendants, and following the Indian tracks, in the fall of the year
1753, the intrepid young envoy made his way from Williamsburg almost
to the shores of Lake Erie, and found the French commander at Fort le
Boeuf. That officer's reply was brief: his orders were to hold the place
and drive all the English from it. The French avowed their intention of
taking possession of the Ohio. And with this rough answer the messenger
from Virginia had to return through danger and difficulty, across lonely
forest and frozen river, shaping his course by the compass, and camping
at night in the snow by the forest fires.
Harry Warrington cursed his ill-fortune that he had been absent from
home on a cock-fight, when he might have had chance of sport so much
nobler; and on his return from his expedition, which he had conducted
with an heroic energy and simplicity, Major Washington was a greater
favourite than ever with the lady of Castlewood. She pointed him out
as a model to both her sons. “Ah, Harry!” she would say, “think of you,
with your cock-fighting and your racing-matches, and the Major away
there in the wilderness, watching the French, and battling with the
frozen rivers! Ah, George! learning may be a very good thing, but I wish
my eldest son were doing something in the service of his country!”
“I desire no better than to go home and seek for employment, ma'am,”
says George. “You surely will not have me serve under Mr. Washington, in
his new regiment, or ask a commission from Mr. Dinwiddie?”
“An Esmond can only serve with the king's commission,” says Madam, “and
as for asking a favour from Mr. Lieutenant-Governor Dinwiddie, I would
rather beg my bread.”
Mr. Washington was at this time raising such a regiment as, with the
scanty pay and patronage of the Virginian government, he could get
together, and proposed, with the help of these men-of-war, to put a more
peremptory veto upon the French invaders than the solitary ambassador
had been enabled to lay. A small force under another officer, Colonel
Trent, had been already despatched to the west, with orders to fortify
themselves so as to be able to resist any attack of the enemy. The
French troops, greatly outnumbering ours, came up with the English
outposts, who were fortifying themselves at a place on the confines of
Pennsylvania where the great city of Pittsburg now stands. A Virginian
officer with but forty men was in no condition to resist twenty times
that number of Canadians, who appeared before his incomplete works. He
was suffered to draw back without molestation; and the French, taking
possession of his fort, strengthened it, and christened it by the name
of the Canadian governor, Du Quesne. Up to this time no actual blow of
war had been struck. The troops representing the hostile nations were in
presence--the guns were loaded, but no one as yet had cried “Fire.” It
was strange, that in a savage forest of Pennsylvania, a young Virginian
officer should fire a shot, and waken up a war which was to last for
sixty years, which was to cover his own country and pass into Europe, to
cost France her American colonies, to sever ours from us, and create the
great Western republic; to rage over the Old World when extinguished in
the New; and, of all the myriads engaged in the vast contest, to leave
the prize of the greatest fame with him who struck the first blow!
He little knew of the fate in store for him. A simple gentleman, anxious
to serve his king and do his duty, he volunteered for the first service,
and executed it with admirable fidelity. In the ensuing year he took the
command of the small body of provincial troops with which he marched to
repel the Frenchmen. He came up with their advanced guard and fired upon
them, killing their leader. After this he had himself to fall back
with his troops, and was compelled to capitulate to the superior French
force. On the 4th of July, 1754, the Colonel marched out with his troops
from the little fort where he had hastily entrenched himself (and which
they called Fort Necessity), gave up the place to the conqueror, and
took his way home.
His command was over: his regiment disbanded after the fruitless,
inglorious march and defeat. Saddened and humbled in spirit, the
young officer presented himself after a while to his old friends at
Castlewood. He was very young: before he set forth on his first campaign
he may have indulged in exaggerated hopes of success, and uttered them.
“I was angry when I parted from you,” he said to George Warrington,
holding out his hand, which the other eagerly took. “You seemed to
scorn me and my regiment, George. I thought you laughed at us, and your
ridicule made me angry. I boasted too much of what we would do.”
“Nay, you have done your best, George,” says the other, who quite forgot
his previous jealousy in his old comrade's misfortune. “Everybody knows
that a hundred and fifty starving men, with scarce a round of ammunition
left, could not face five times their number perfectly armed, and
everybody who knows Mr. Washington knows that he would do his duty.
Harry and I saw the French in Canada last year. They obey but one will:
in our provinces each governor has his own. They were royal troops the
French sent against you...”
“Oh, but that some of ours were here!” cries Madam Esmond, tossing her
head up. “I promise you a few good English regiments would make the
white-coats run.”
“You think nothing of the provincials: and I must say nothing now we
have been so unlucky,” said the Colonel, gloomily. “You made much of me
when I was here before. Don't you remember what victories you prophesied
for me--how much I boasted myself very likely over your good wine? All
those fine dreams are over now. 'Tis kind of your ladyship to receive a
poor beaten fellow as you do:” and the young soldier hung down his head.
George Warrington, with his extreme acute sensibility, was touched at
the other's emotion and simple testimony of sorrow under defeat. He was
about to say something friendly to Mr. Washington, had not his mother,
to whom the Colonel had been speaking, replied herself: “Kind of us to
receive you, Colonel Washington!” said the widow. “I never heard that
when men were unhappy, our sex were less their friends.”
And she made the Colonel a very fine curtsey, which straightway caused
her son to be more jealous of him than ever.