The full flood of the sun, now low in the heavens, poured through the
western windows upon the figure of the boy standing in the doorway.
The room was beginning to darken, and the ruddy firelight, too, fell
glowingly upon him.
The earl was instantly roused, and could scarcely persuade himself
that the boy before him was only fifteen; seventeen, or even eighteen,
would have seemed nearer the mark, so tall and well-developed was he.
Like all creatures of the highest breeding, George looked handsomer the
handsomer his dress; and although his costume was really simple enough,
he had the splendid air that made him always appear to be in the
highest fashion. His coat and knee-breeches were of dark-blue cloth,
spun, woven, and dyed at home. His waistcoat, however, was of white
brocade, and was made of his mother’s wedding-gown, Madam Washington
having indulged her pride so far as to lay this treasured garment aside
for waistcoats for her sons, while Mistress Betty was to inherit the
lace veil and the string of pearls which had gone with the gown.
George’s shoebuckles and kneebuckles were much finer than the earl’s,
being of paste, and having been once worn by his father. His blond hair
was made into a club, and tied with a black ribbon, while under his arm
he carried a smart three-cornered hat, for the hat made a great figure
in the ceremonious bows of the period. His dog, a beautiful creature,
stood beside him.
Never in all his life had the Earl of Fairfax seen so noble a boy. The
sight of him smote the older man’s heart; it flashed through him how
easy it would be to exchange all his honors and titles for such a son.
He rose and saluted him, as Madam Washington said, in a tone that had
pride in every accent:
“My lord, this is my son, Mr. Washington.” George responded with one
of those graceful inclinations which, years after, made the entrance
of Colonel Washington at the Earl of Dunmore’s levee at Williamsburg a
lesson in grace and good-breeding. Being “Mr. Washington” and the head
of the house, it became his duty to speak first.
“I am most happy to welcome you, my lord, to our home.”
[Illustration: “‘THIS IS MY SON, MR. WASHINGTON’”]
“And I am most happy,” said the earl, “to meet once more my old friend,
Madam Washington, and the goodly sons and sweet daughter with which she
has been blessed.”
“My mother has often told us of you, sir, in speaking of her life
during the years she spent in England.”
“Ah, my lord,” said Madam Washington, “I perceive I am no longer young,
for I love to dwell upon those times, and to tell my children of the
great men I met in England, chiefly through your lordship’s kindness.”
“It was my good-fortune,” said the earl, “to be an humble member of
the Spectator Club, and through the everlasting goodness of Mr. Joseph
Addison I had the advantage of knowing men so great of soul and so
luminous of mind that I think I can never forget them.”
“I had not the honor of knowing Mr. Addison. He died before I ever saw
England,” replied Madam Washington.
“Unfortunately, yes, madam. But of those you knew, Mr. Pope, poor
Captain Steele, and even Dean Swift, with all his ferocious wit, his
tremendous invective, his savage thirst for place and power, respected
Mr. Addison. He was a man of great dignity--not odd and misshapen,
like little Mr. Pope, nor frowzy like poor Dick Steele, nor rude and
overbearing like the fierce Dean--but ever gentle, mild, and of a most
manly bearing. For all Mr. Addison’s mildness, I think there was no man
that Dean Swift feared so much. When we would all meet at the club, and
the Dean would begin his railing at persons of quality--for he always
chose that subject when I was present--Mr. Addison would listen with
a smile to the Dean as he lolled over the table in his huge periwig,
and roared out in his great rich voice all the sins of all the people,
always beginning and ending with Sir Robert Walpole, whom he hated most
malignantly. Once, a pause coming in the Dean’s talk, Mr. Addison,
calmly taking out his snuffbox, and helping himself to a pinch,
remarked that he had always thought Dean Swift’s chiefest weakness,
until he had been assured to the contrary, was his love for people of
quality. We each held our breath. Dick Steele quietly removed a pewter
mug from the Dean’s elbow; Mr. Pope, who sat next Mr. Addison, turned
pale and slipped out of his chair; the Dean turned red and breathed
hard, glaring at Mr. Addison, who only smiled a little; and then
he--the great Dean Swift, the man who could make governments tremble
and parliaments afraid; who made duchesses weep from his rude sneers,
and great ladies almost go down on their knees to him--sneaked out of
the room at this little thrust from Mr. Addison. For ’twas the man,
madam--the honest soul of him--that could cow that great swashbuckler
of a genius. Mr. Addison abused no one, and he was exactly what he
appeared to be.”
“That, indeed, is the highest praise, as it shows the highest wisdom,”
answered Madam Washington.
George listened with all his mind to this. He had read the _Spectator_,
and Mr. Addison’s tragedy of “Cato” had been read to him by Mr. Hobby,
the Scotch school-master who taught him, and he loved to hear of these
great men. The earl, although deep in talk with Madam Washington, was
by no means unmindful of the boy, but without seeming to notice him
watched every expression of his earnest face.
“I once saw Dean Swift,” continued Madam Washington. “It was at a
London rout, where I went with my brother’s wife, Madam Joseph Ball,
when we were visiting in London. He had great dark eyes, and sat in a
huge chair, and called ladies of quality ‘my dear,’ as if they were
dairy-maids. And the ladies seemed half to like it and half to hate it.
They told me that two ladies had died of broken hearts for him.”
“I believe it to be true,” replied the earl. “That was the last time
the Dean ever saw England. He went to Ireland, and, as he said,
‘commenced Irishman in earnest,’ and died very miserably. He could not
be bought for money, but he could very easily be bribed with power.”
“And that poor Captain Steele?”
The earl’s grave face was suddenly illuminated with a smile.
“Dear Dick Steele--the softest-hearted, bravest, gentlest
fellow--always drunk, and always repenting. There never was so great
a sermon preached on drunkenness as Dick Steele himself was. But for
drink he would have been one of the happiest, as he was by nature one
of the best and truest, gentlemen in the world; but he was weak, and
he was, in consequence, forever miserable. Drink brought him to debts
and duns and prison and rags and infamy. Ah, madam, ’twould have made
your heart bleed, as it made mine, to see poor Dick reeling along the
street, dirty, unkempt, his sword bent, and he scarce knowing what he
was doing; and next day, at home, where his wife and children were in
hunger and cold and poverty, behold him, lying in agony on his wretched
bed, weeping, groaning, reproaching himself, and suffering tortures
for one hour’s wicked indulgence! Then would he turn gentleman again,
and for a long time be our own dear Dick Steele--his wife smiling, his
children happy. I love to think on honest Dick at these times. It was
then he wrote that beautiful little book, which should be in every
soldier’s hands, _The Christian Hero_. We could always tell at the
club whether Dick Steele were drunk or sober by Mr. Addison’s face.
When Steele was acting the beast, Mr. Addison sighed often and looked
melancholy all the time, and spent his money in taking such care as he
could of the poor wife and children. Poor Dick! The end came at last in
drunkenness and beastliness; but before he died, for a little while, he
was the Dick Steele we loved, and shall ever love.”
“And Mr. Pope--the queer little gentleman--who lived at Twickenham, and
was so kind to his old mother?”
“Mr. Pope was a very great genius, madam, and had he not been born
crooked he would have been an admirable man; but the crook in his body
seemed to make a crook in his mind. He died but last year, outliving
many strong men who pitied his puny frame. But let me not disparage Mr.
Pope. My Lord Chesterfield, who was a very good judge of men, as well
as the first gentleman of his time, entertained a high esteem for Mr.
Pope.”
“I also had the honor of meeting the Earl of Chesterfield,” continued
Madam Washington, with animation, “and he well sustained the reputation
for politeness that I had heard of him, for he made as much of me as if
I had been a great lady instead of a young girl from the colonies, whom
chance and the kindness of a brother had brought to England, and your
lordship’s goodness had introduced to many people of note. ’Tis true
I saw them but for a glimpse or two, but that was enough to make me
remember them forever. I have tried to teach my son Lord Chesterfield’s
manner of saluting ladies, in which he not only implied the deepest
respect for the individual, but the greatest reverence for all women.”
“That is true of my Lord Chesterfield,” replied the earl, who found it
enchanting to recall these friends of his youth with whom he had lived
in close intimacy, “and his manners revealed the man. He had also a
monstrous pretty wit. There is a great, lumbering fellow of prodigious
learning, one Samuel Johnson, with whom my Lord Chesterfield has become
most friendly. I never saw this Johnson myself, for he is much younger
than the men of whom we are speaking; but I hear from London that he
is a wonder of learning, and although almost indigent will not accept
aid from his friends, but works manfully for the booksellers. He has
described my Lord Chesterfield as ‘a wit among lords, and a lord among
wits.’ I heard something of this Dr. Johnson, in a late letter from
London, that I think most praiseworthy, and affording a good example to
the young. His father, it seems, was a bookseller at Lichfield, where
on market-days he would hire a stall in the market for the sale of his
wares. One market-day, when Samuel was a youth, his father, being ill
and unable to go himself, directed him to fit up the book-stall in
the market and attend it during the day. The boy, who was otherwise
a dutiful son, refused to do this. Many years afterwards, his father
being dead, and Johnson, being as he is in great repute for learning,
was so preyed upon by remorse for his undutiful conduct that he went
to Lichfield and stood bareheaded in the market-place, before his
father’s old stall, for one whole market-day, as an evidence of his
sincere penitence. I hear that some of the thoughtless jeered at him,
but the better class of people respected his open acknowledgment of
his fault, the more so as he was in a higher worldly position than his
father had ever occupied, and it showed that he was not ashamed of
an honest parent because he was of a humble class. I cannot think,
madam, of that great scholar, standing all day with bare, bowed head,
bearing with silent dignity the remarks of the curious, the jeers of
the scoffers, without in spirit taking off my hat to him.”
During this story Madam Washington fixed her eyes on George, who
colored slightly, but remarked, as the earl paused:
“It was the act of a brave man and a gentleman. There are not many of
us who could do it.”
Just then the door opened, and Uncle Jasper, bearing a huge tray,
entered. He placed it on a round mahogany table, and Madam Washington
proceeded to make tea, and offered it to the earl with her own hands.
The earl while drinking his tea glanced first at George and then
at pretty little Betty, who, feeling embarrassed at the notice she
received, produced her sampler from her pocket and began to work
demurely in cross-stitch on it. Presently Lord Fairfax noticed the open
harpsichord.
“I remember, madam,” he said to Madam Washington, as they gravely
sipped their tea together, “that you had a light hand on the
harpsichord.”
“I have never touched it since my husband’s death,” answered she, “but
my daughter Betty can perform with some skill.”
Mistress Betty, obeying a look from her mother, rose at once and went
to the harpsichord, never thinking of the ungraceful and disobliging
protest of more modern days. She seated herself, and struck boldly into
the “The Marquis of Huntley’s Rigadoon.” She had, indeed, a skilful
little hand, and as the touch of her small fingers filled the room with
quaint music the earl sat, tapping with his foot to mark the time,
and smiling at the little maid’s grave air while she played. When her
performance was over she rose, and, making a reverence to her mother
and her guest, returned to her sampler.
The earl had now spent nearly two hours with his old friend, and
the sun was near setting, but he could scarcely make up his mind to
leave. The interest he felt in her seemed transferred to her children,
especially the two eldest, and the resolve entered his mind that he
would see more of that splendid boy. He turned to George and said to
him:
“Will you be so good, Mr. Washington, as to order my people to put to
my horses, as I find that time has flown surprisingly fast?”
“Will you not stay the night, my lord?” asked Madam Washington. “We can
amply accommodate you and your servants.”
“Nothing would please me more, madam, but it is my duty to reach
Fredericksburg to-night, where I have business, and I am now seeking a
ferry where I can be moved across.”
“Then you have not to seek far, sir, for this place is called Ferry
Farm; and we have several small boats, and a large one that will easily
hold your coach; and, with the assistance of your servants, all of
them, as well as your horses, can be ferried over at once.”
The earl thanked her, and George left the room promptly to make the
necessary arrangements. In a few moments the horses were put to the
coach, as the ferry was half a mile from the house; and George,
ordering his saddle clapped on his horse, that was just then being
brought from the pasture, galloped down to the ferry to superintend the
undertaking--not a light one--of getting a coach, eight horses, and
eight persons across the river.
The coach being announced as ready, Madam Washington and the earl
rose and walked together to the front porch, accompanied by little
Mistress Betty, who hung fondly to her mother’s hand. Outside stood the
three younger boys, absorbed in contemplation of the grandeur of the
equipage. They came forward promptly to say good-bye to their mother’s
guest, and then slipped around into the chimney corner that they
might see the very last of the sight so new to them. Little Betty also
disappeared in the house after the earl had gallantly kissed her hand
and predicted that her bright eyes would yet make many a heart ache.
Left alone on the porch in the twilight with Madam Washington, he said
to her very earnestly:
“Madam, I do not speak the language of compliment when I say that you
may well be the envy of persons less fortunate than you when they see
your children. Of your eldest boy I can truly say I never saw a nobler
youth, and I hope you will place no obstacle in the way of my seeing
him again. Greenway Court is but a few days’ journey from here, and
if I could have him there it would be one of the greatest pleasures I
could possibly enjoy.”
“Thank you, my lord,” answered Madam Washington, simply. “My son George
has, so far, never caused me a moment’s uneasiness, and I can very well
trust him with persons less improving to him than your lordship. It is
my wish that he should have the advantage of the society of learned and
polished men, and your kind invitation shall some day be accepted.”
“You could not pay me a greater compliment, madam, than to trust your
boy with me, and I shall claim the fulfilment of your promise,”
replied Lord Fairfax. “Farewell, madam; the sincere regard I have
cherished during nearly twenty years for you will be extended to your
children, and your son shall never want a friend while I live. I do not
know that I shall ever travel three days’ journey from Greenway again,
so this may be our last meeting.”
“Whether it be or not, my lord,” said Madam Washington, “I can only
assure you of my friendship and gratitude for your good-will towards my
son.”
The earl then respectfully kissed her hand, as he had done little
Betty’s, and stepped into the coach. With a great smacking of whips and
rattle and clatter and bang the equipage rolled down the road in the
dark towards the ferry.
A faint moon trembled in the heavens, and it was so dark that torches
were necessary on the river-bank. George had dismounted from his horse,
and with quiet command had got everything in readiness to transport
the cavalcade. The earl, sitting calmly back in the chariot, watched
the proceedings keenly. He knew that it required good judgment in a
boy of fifteen to take charge of the ferriage of so many animals and
men without haste or confusion. He observed that in the short time
George had preceded him everything was exactly as it should be--the
large boat drawn up ready for the coach, and two smaller boats and six
stalwart negro ferry-men to do the work.
“I have arranged, my lord, with your permission,” he said, “to ferry
the coach and horses, with your own servants, over first, as it is not
worth while taking any risks in crowding the boats; then, when the
boats return, the outriders and their horses may return in the large
boat.”
“Quite right, Mr. Washington,” answered the earl, briskly; “your
dispositions do credit to you, and I believe you could transport a
regiment with equal ease and precision.”
George’s face colored with pleasure at this. “I shall go on with you
myself,” he said, “if you will allow me.”
The boat was drawn up, a rude but substantial raft was run from the
shore to the boat, the horses were taken from the coach, and it was
rolled on board by the strong arms of a dozen men. The horses were
disposed to balk at getting in the boat, but after a little coaxing
trotted quietly aboard; the ferry-men, reinforced by two of Lord
Fairfax’s servants, took the oars, and the boat, followed by two
smaller ones, was pulled rapidly across the river. After a few minutes,
seeing that everything was going right, George entered the coach, and
sat by the earl’s side. The earl lighted his travelling-lamp, and
the two sat in earnest conversation. Lord Fairfax wished to find out
something more about the boy who had made so strong an impression
on him. He found that George had been well taught, and although not
remarkable in general literature, he knew more mathematics than most
persons of twice his age and opportunities. He had been under the care
of the old Scotchman, Mr. Hobby, who was, in a way, a mathematical
genius, and George had profited by it.
“And what, may I ask, Mr. Washington, is your plan for the future?”
“I hope, sir,” answered George, modestly, “that I shall be able to get
a commission in his Majesty’s army or navy. As you know, although I am
my mother’s eldest son, my brother Laurence, of Mount Vernon, is my
father’s eldest son, and the head of our family. My younger brothers
and I have small fortunes, and I would like to see something of the
world and some service in arms before I set myself to increasing my
part.”
“Very creditable to you, and you may count upon whatever influence I
have towards getting you a commission in either branch of the military
service. I myself served in the Low Countries under the Duke of
Marlborough in my youth, and although I have long since given up the
profession of arms I can never lose my interest in it. Your honored
mother has promised me the pleasure of your company for a visit at
Greenway Court, when we may discuss the matter of your commission at
length. I am not far from an old man, Mr. Washington, but I retain my
interest in youth, and I like to see young faces about me at Greenway.”
“Thank you, my lord,” answered George, with secret delight. “I shall
not let my mother forget her promise--but she never does that.”
“There is excellent sport at Greenway, and I have kept a choice breed
of deer-hounds as well as fox-hounds. I brought with me from England
a considerable library, and you can, I hope, amuse yourself with a
book; but if you cannot amuse yourself with a book, you will always be
dependent upon others for your entertainment.”
“I am fond of reading--on rainy days,” said George, at which candid
acknowledgment the earl smiled.
“My man, Lance, is an old soldier; he is an intelligent man for his
station and a capital fencer. You may learn something from him with the
foils. He was with me at the siege of Bouchain.”
What a delightful vista this opened before George, who was, like other
healthy minded boys, devoted to reading and hearing of battles, and
fencing and all manly sports! He glanced at Lance, standing erect and
soldierly, as the boat moved through the water. He meant to hear all
about the siege of Bouchain from Lance before the year was out, and
blushed when he was obliged to acknowledge to himself that he had never
heard of the siege of Bouchain.