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 the wild 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--if he 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 us out, 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 art of 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! He straightened 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 failed
in 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,” answered George, 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
was not, 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
he had 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-materials on 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 the _Spectator_, 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 the _Spectator_; 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 George no 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 when you 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.”
[Illustration: 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 book of 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.