Not far from Greenfield was a place called "Rustic Lodge."
This house surrounded by a forest of grand old oaks, was not large or
handsome. But its inmates were ladies and gentlemen of the old English
style.
The grandmother, about ninety years of age, had been in her youth
one of the belles at the Williamsburg Court in old colonial days. A
daughter of Sir Dudley Digges, and descended from English nobility, she
had been accustomed to the best society. Her manners and conversation
were dignified and attractive.
Among reminiscences of colonial times, she remembered Lord Botetourt,
of whom she related interesting incidents.
The son of this old lady, about sixty years of age, and the proprietor
of the estate, was a true picture of the "old English gentleman." His
manners, conversation, thread-cambric shirt frills, cuffs and long
queue tied with a black ribbon, made the picture complete. His two
daughters, young ladies of exquisite refinement, had been brought up by
their aunt and grandmother to observe strictly all the proprieties of
life.
This establishment was proverbial for its order and method, the most
systematic rules being in force everywhere. The meals were served
punctually at the same instant every day. Old "Aunt Nelly" dressed and
undressed her old mistress always at the same hour. A gentle "tapping
at the chamber door"--not by the "raven," but the cook--called the
mistress to an interview at the same moment every morning with that
functionary, which resulted in the choicest dinners, breakfasts and
suppers; this interview lasting half an hour and never repeated during
the day.
Exactly at the same hour every morning the old gentleman's horse was
saddled, and he entered the neighboring village so promptly as to
enable some of the inhabitants to set their clocks by him.
This family had possessed great wealth in Eastern Virginia during the
colonial government under which many of its members held high offices.
But impoverished by high living, entertaining company and a heavy
British debt, they had been reduced in their possessions to about fifty
negroes, with only money enough to purchase this plantation upon which
they had retired from the gay and charming society of Williamsburg.
They carried with them, however, some remains of their former grandeur:
old silver, old jewelry, old books, old and well-trained servants, and
an old English coach, which was the curiosity of all other vehicular
curiosities. How the family ever climbed into it, or got out of it, and
how the driver ever reached the dizzy height upon which he sat, was the
mystery of my childhood.
But although egg-shaped and suspended in mid-air, this coach had
doubtless, in its day, been one of considerable renown, drawn by four
horses, with footman, postillion and driver in English livery.
How sad must have been its reflections on finding itself shorn of
these respectable surroundings, and after the revolution drawn by two
Republican horses, with footman and driver dressed in Republican jeans!
Strange that it could have lived on and on thus Republicanized!
A great uncle of this family, unlike the coach never would become
Republicanized, and his obstinate loyalty to the English crown, with
his devotion to everything English gained for him the title "English
Louis," by which name he is spoken of in the family to this day. An old
lady told me not long ago that she remembered when a child the arrival
of "English Louis" at "Rustic" one night, and his conversation as they
sat around the fire, how he deplored a Republican form of government,
and the misfortunes which would result from it saying:
"All may go smoothly for about seventy years, when civil war will set
in. First, it will be about these negro slaves we have around us, and
after that it will be something else." And how true "English Louis'"
prediction has proven.[4]
Doubtless this gentleman was avoided and proscribed on account of his
English proclivities. For at that day the spirit of Republicanism
and hatred to England ran high; so that an old gentleman--one of our
relatives whom I well remember--actually took from his parlor walls his
coat of arms which had been brought by his grandfather from England,
and carrying it out in his yard built a fire and collecting his
children around it, to see it burn, said: "Thus let everything English
perish!"
Should I say what I think of this proceeding, I would not be considered
perhaps a true Republican patriot.
* * * * *
I cannot forget to mention in the catalogue of pleasant homes,
Smithfield in Montgomery county, the county which flows with healing
waters.
Smithfield, like Greenfield, is owned by the descendants of the first
white family who settled there after the Indians, and its verdant
pastures, noble forests, mountain streams and springs, with the superb
cattle on its hills form a prospect, wondrously beautiful.
This splendid estate descended to three brothers, who equally divided
it; the eldest keeping the homestead, and the others building
attractive homes on their separate plantations.
The old homestead was quite antique in appearance. Inside the high
mantlepieces reaching nearly to the ceiling, which was also high, and
the high wainscotting together with the old furniture made a picture of
the olden time.
When I first visited this place, the old grandmother, then eighty years
of age, was living. She, like the old lady at "Rustic," had been a
belle in Eastern Virginia in her youth. When she married the owner of
Smithfield sixty years before, she made the "bridal jaunt" from Norfolk
to this place on horseback, two hundred miles. Still exceedingly
intelligent and interesting, she entertained us with various incidents
of her early life, and wished to hear all the old songs which she had
then heard and sung herself.
"When I was married" said she, "and came first to Smithfield my
husband's sisters met me in the porch, and were shocked at my pale and
delicate appearance. One of them whispering to her brother, asked, 'Why
did you bring that ghost up here?' And now," continued the old lady, "I
have outlived all who were in the house that day, and all my own and my
husband's family."
This was an evidence certainly of the health restoring properties of
the water and climate in this region.
The houses of these three brothers were filled with company winter and
summer, making within themselves a delightful society. The visitors at
one house were equally visitors at the others, and the succession of
dinner and evening parties from one to the other, made it difficult for
a visitor to decide at whose particular house he was staying.
One of these brothers had married a lovely lady from South Carolina,
whose perfection of character and disposition endeared her to every
one who knew her. Everybody felt like loving her the moment they saw
her, and the more they knew her the more they loved her. Her warm heart
was ever full of other people's troubles or joys, never thinking of
herself. In her house many an invalid was cheered by her tender care;
and many a drooping heart revived by her bright Christian spirit.
She never omitted an opportunity of pointing the way to heaven; and
although surrounded by all the allurements which gay society and wealth
could bring, she did not depart an instant from the quiet path which
leads to heaven. In the midst of bright and happy surroundings, her
thoughts and hopes were constantly centered upon the life above; and
her conversation--which was the reflex of her heart--reverted ever to
this theme, which she made attractive to old and young.