We had a much belated dinner, and then all went ashore to make inquiries and to get supplies at a house that stood on a bluff above the bend in the stream. It proved to be a very old building and quite a landmark. It was called the Kittewan house. There, we learned that the tomb we were looking for was on the bank almost opposite where our houseboat lay.

We found it close to the creek. It was an altar-tomb, broken and timeworn and almost covered with an accumulation of earth and moss and leaves. One corner support and one side of the caving base were gone, letting ferns and lichens find a home within, tender green fronds touching the shadowing slab above them.

The strange, unremembered grave was that of a woman. For, when we had scraped clear a little of the slab, we came upon the name Elizabeth. Our floating home was near enough to lend shovel and broom; and we undertook to free the tomb (that was itself being slowly buried) and to bring to light again the chiseled story of the long-ago Elizabeth who lay in this lonely place.

When the granite slab was uncovered and swept clean, we were able to read most of the words upon it, although the stone was cut almost as deep by the little fingers of rain and of frost as by the graver's heavy hand that had itself gone to dust long ago. Slowly we found the words telling that there rested the body of Elizabeth Hollingshorst, whose husband, Thomas Hollingshorst, was a shipmaster; that her father was Mr. Piner Gordon of the family of Tilliangus in Aberdeenshire, Scotland; and that she died November 30, 1728.

The father's name, Gordon (so proud a one in Aberdeenshire), and the use before it of the prefix Mr. (a term then synonymous with "gentleman" and never lightly given in those days of well-defined rank) show that this Elizabeth was of gentle birth. The words "Ship Master" tell of how the breath of the old North Sea had called Thomas Hollingshorst from the banks and braes and led him to point the bow of his merchant ship across seas, bound for England's far-away colony. Little would he dream—crowding canvas to speed his cargo to the Virginia plantations—that his gentle-born Elizabeth was to find a grave in that feared American wilderness.

The longer we worked over the ancient stone the more we came to feel the pitiful meaning of it.

We felt that this Elizabeth was a true heart and a brave one, who ventured the perilous sea-voyage of the early days with her shipmaster husband. She did not come as other women came—to make a home in the new land and to have friends and neighbours there. She came, a passing stranger, upon her husband's trading ship; a ship that would anchor but to exchange its English wares for the planter's tobacco, and then turn prow again to the perils of the sea. When illness came in the new, wild land, how distant must have seemed Aberdeenshire in those days of the little ship and the slow sail! And here, longing for one more sight of Scottish heather, this Elizabeth died.

Seeking for her a last resting-place, the stranger ship moved up the river and came to anchor at the mouth of this creek. They lowered her gently over the ship's side into a long-boat and then rowed up the stream into the forest. Here by the creek's side they buried her, and (doubtless by the ship's own compass) they orientated the forest grave. Then again the ship sailed across seas and bore sad tidings to some family of Gordons in Aberdeenshire.

In those days it must have been long before the returning vessel could sail up the James, this time bearing the graven tomb from Scotland. For a little while, the stillness of the forest was once more broken, startling the timid woodland folk; and then these strangers from overseas were gone. Again the great silence fell and the wilderness took the grave to itself. Slowly it set upon the tomb its seal of moss and lichen and vine. Unmindful of the mark of human loss and grief, the wild folk came and went. Joyously the cardinal flashed his crimson wing above the darkening stone; the deer came to drink from the stream and lifted their heads to scent the breeze that came with the dawn through the cypress trees, across a forgotten grave; hard and incurious, the Weyanoke Indians slipped by like darker shadows in the forest gloom; and only the little night birds seemed to know or to care as they called plaintively in the marshes at twilight.

As we were about to leave the tomb, we bethought us that the anniversary of the death of this Elizabeth was drawing near. We heaped the holly with its glowing berries above the crumbling stone. And still we lingered; for the Gordons of Tilliangus seemed very far away from this daughter of their house. As the sunset lights were fading, we saw a new moon pale on the tinted sky; and we thought of how for almost two centuries crescent moons had trembled from silver to gold above this forlorn grave on the bank of the Kittewan.

A short row in the dusk out upon the stream, and we stepped aboard Gadabout. She never seemed more cozy and homelike. A great bowl of pink and yellow chrysanthemums from Brandon's old garden and trailing cedar and ferns and red-berried holly added to the cheer. Soon our home-lights streamed from the broad windows out across the water, and some faint glow must have touched that lonely tomb on shore.



CHAPTER XV

NAVIGATING AN UNNAVIGABLE STREAM

In the morning the sun and the mist filled our little harbour with a golden shimmer, and all the marsh reeds were quivering in the radiance. The blue herons were winging out to the river, and the doves were weaving spells round and round the dormer-windowed cottage on the hill.

Gadabout's household was early astir ready for the run up Kittewan Creek. We had only to get a chicken or two at the house on the bluff, and then we should be ready to start at the turn of the tide. Imagine, then, our chagrin when the sailor returned with not only the chickens but the information also that we could not get the houseboat any farther up the stream, on account of numerous shallows and submerged cypress stumps.

Once more the charts were got out and spread upon a table. We still felt that if the sounding-marks were right Gadabout could navigate the stream. However, at two places islands were shown where there seemed scarcely room in the creek for islands and Gadabout too; and if we had also to throw in a few cypress stumps for good measure, our prospects for visiting Weyanoke by the chickens-and-geese route were indeed not promising.

But we knew Gadabout and how we had taken the craft almost everywhere that people had told us she could not go. For, to our minds, one of the chief charms of houseboating lay in poking about in such out-of-the-way places.

Let the yacht reign supreme as the deep-water pleasure craft, that trails its elegance perforce ever up and down the same prescribed channels. The ideal houseboat is the light-draft water gypsy, that turns often from the buoyed course and wanders off into the picturesque world of little waters; along streamlets that lead in winding ways to quaint bits of nowhere, and into quiet shallows of forgotten lagoons that have fallen asleep to the lullaby of their own rushes.

So it was settled that our houseboat was to try to go up the creek to Weyanoke's back door, and again we were waiting only for the turn of the tide. When sticks and straws and frost-tinted leaves, floating down past us toward the James, changed their minds and started back up the Kittewan, Gadabout went with them.

After a while the creek began to shallow rapidly and we kept the sailor on ahead in a shore-boat sounding, while we tried to keep the houseboat from running over him. The southerly breeze was gradually freshening and Gadabout began to show a corresponding partiality for the northern bank of the stream. But, on the whole, she was behaving very well and apparently the mutinous spirit of the day before had entirely disappeared. We had to stop just before coming to an island standing in a sharp turn of the little waterway.

"Looks like we can't make this bend, sir," called the sailor from the shore-boat. "There's a sure enough bar 'cross here."

By keeping at it, he managed to find a channel for going round on the port side of the island. Then he came aboard, started an engine, and we moved on again. But Gadabout had been deceiving us; she still had no notion of going up the creek. We were just starting to go around the island when she suddenly transferred her allegiance from the steering-wheel to the wind, and sidled off in the marshes till she brought up hard aground. There was nothing to do but to wait for the rising tide.

Nautica got out the chart again to see where we were. At Weyanoke there are two plantations, an upper one and a lower one; and for a while she was busy measuring between the stream and the little black dots that indicated the plantation buildings. At last, after a final counting up on her fingers, she announced, "If we can get around six more bends of this curly stream, we shall be within less than half a mile of the house at Lower Weyanoke."

As the water rose around the houseboat, we threw out a kedge anchor, hauled off, and got under way again. Now, Gadabout started at once to go around the island—but (mutiny again!) she was going around on the wrong side. The Commodore and the sailor, with long poles, pushed frantically in the mud striving to set the unruly craft in the way she should go; but she was determined to take the wrong channel and was slowly getting the better of us.

"She's gittin' away from us, sir," called the sailor.

"I see she is," said the Commodore, "and I don't believe she can get around the island on this side."

But away she went, wind and tide carrying her up the wrong channel. Laughing at the amusing persistence of the craft, all we could do was to keep her away from the marshes and let her go.

The creek rapidly narrowed; the marsh gave way to woodland; and just ahead was but a small passage between island and mainland for us to go through. We pushed in between waving walls of autumn foliage. Branches tapped on our windows, and crimson sweet gum leaves pressed against the panes as if to make the most of their little moment for looking in.

Gadabout passed through the narrow opening without a stop, though carrying twigs and bright leaves away with her. We ran the next straight stretch of the creek, and at the bend came upon another island. Here shoals and cypress stumps quite blocked the channel. In a good, old landlubberly manner we hitched Gadabout to a tree and waited to see if the rising tide would make a way for us.



Houseboating was taking us into strange places. And yet what a comfortable way to journey into the world in the rough! Many are the advantages of houseboating over camping or any other form of outing. In a floating home one goes into the wild without sacrificing the comforts or even the essential refinements of life. For women it is an ideal way to visit Dame Nature.

But now the houseboaters upon Gadabout were becoming fearful lest Dame Nature had closed her doors on ahead of them and would not receive them up the Kittewan. It was good news when the sailor called from his rowboat that he had found a channel for going on around the island.

This tune Gadabout showed a willingness to go just where we wished her to go, but insisted upon doing it stern-foremost or broadside. We ran her forward and backward and poled most vigorously; but after all had the humiliation of drifting around the island wrong end first.

After that there was little trouble in going up the stream. Before long an old homestead came in sight on a hill to our left, and we knew that it must be Lower Weyanoke. But an impassable marsh stretched along the stream, and there was no sign of a landing or of a roadway that might lead to the house. We kept on, curious now to see how far our houseboat could go. Suddenly we found out. She turned a bend and, there ahead, hummocks and stumps occupied about all there was left of Kittewan Creek.

The head of navigation had been reached for even our presumptuous craft. An anchor was cast; whereupon Gadabout swung to one side, bumped against a tree, and then settled herself comfortably in the marshes to await our pleasure. It would not do to let the falling tide catch us in that place. Fortunately, there was a marshy cove on one side of us, and by backing into that we got turned around and headed down stream again. We found a deep place that would do for an anchorage nearly opposite Lower Weyanoke, and close beside a little company of trees that showered Gadabout with red and yellow leaves.

When the tide fell, it disclosed many roots and stumps in the channel; and the sight of each one added to our sense of importance in having successfully navigated the stream. Later, some of the men from the Kittewan farm came along in a rowboat.

"Well, you did make it after all," they said. "We've been looking for you all along the creek, expecting to find you hung up on a cypress stump."



CHAPTER XVI

IN WHICH WE GET TO WEYANOKE

As Gadabout lay moored in Kittewan Creek, the houses of Weyanoke were not very far from us, and one of them was in plain sight; but the question was how to get to them. Wide stretches of marsh bordered the stream and a wire fence ran along the reedy edge. We began to be impressed with the advantage of approaching such a plantation in the customary way, by the river front.

But we had not lost zeal for the unconventional, and fortune favoured us. A man passing in a skiff told us that a road leading to the Weyanoke houses could be reached by rowing up a tiny bayou that joined the creek a short distance above us.

This bayou, he explained, was not one of those ordinary waterways that you can travel on just any time. In fact, for a good deal of the time it was not a waterway at all. But usually, when a half tide or more was in, a rowboat could be taken up to the landing near the road.

So, one afternoon an untenanted houseboat was left lying in the sunshine and the marshes, all aboard having taken to the shore-boats and gone in search of the more solid portions of Weyanoke. Weyanoke is an Indian name and means "land of sassafras." In 1617 the Indian chief, Opechancanough, gave this land of sassafras to Sir George Yeardley, afterward governor-general of the colony; and his ownership gave early prominence to the place, though he did not live upon the plantation that he had here.

After several transfers of title, Weyanoke came into the possession of Joseph Harwood in 1665. Through many generations both the upper plantation and the lower one remained in the Harwood family; and Upper Weyanoke is still owned by descendants of Joseph Harwood, the family of the late Mr. Fielding Lewis Douthat.



In our search for this land of sassafras, a short row up the creek took us to the opening into the bayou. Here, there was a break in the wire fence along the creek guarded by a queer water-gate that hung across the entrance to the side stream. Holding the water-gate open and pushing our boats through, with what skill might be expected from persons who had never seen a water-gate before, we started up the tiny, winding channel.

On either hand the reeds were so tall that we were quite shut in by them; but reeds are never so beautiful as when outlined against the sky. Here and there, a stump or a cypress tree stood out in the water almost barring the way. Ducks were swimming about or absurdly standing on their heads in the shallows, and at our coming went paddling off into the sedges quacking their disapproval. Before the water quite gave out, we reached the little landing. Now our way led up from the lowland between hazy autumn fields where crows were busily gleaning and insects shrilled in shock and stubble.

The road ended in front of the house at Lower Weyanoke. The building is a large frame one and very old. It has had its full share of distinction, being for so many generations the home of the colonial family of Harwoods and of their descendants, the Lewises and the Douthats. Some years ago the plantation passed to strangers. From the riverward portico, we saw traces of an old garden whose memory is kept green by the straggling box that long ago bordered the fragrant flower-beds. On beyond was a glint of the sun-lit river. A group of towering cottonwood trees, standing in the dooryard, is so conspicuous a feature of the landscape that it serves as a guide for the pilots on the river boats.

Leaving the sailor here to do some foraging in the neighbourhood, we went on to Upper Weyanoke. We followed a road that skirted corn fields and pasture lands, busy plantation life on every hand. One could but think of the very different scene that was here in the days of the Civil War. Few places suffered at that time more than did Weyanoke. Here, part of Grant's army crossed the James in the march upon Petersburg. While bridges were building, the Federal forces were scattered over the plantation; and when at last they crossed the river, they left devastation behind.

As we came upon the outbuildings of the upper plantation, we heard singing and laughter. Corn-husking was going on in the big barn. The doors were open, and from the distant roadway we could see the negroes at work, bits of their parti-coloured garb showing bright against the dark interior.

And at last, truly enough, our pathway led among the chickens and the geese. Indeed, one blustering gander "quite thought to bar our way." But, taking courage from the stirring old couplet,

"We routed him: we scouted him, Nor lost a single man."

There were other fowl in sight too; fowl that had a special significance just then. For, despite the bright, warm days, the last Thursday in November was near at hand; and we wondered whether our Thanksgiving dinner could be found in this flock of plump, bronze birds.

The early plantation house at Upper Wey-anoke was long ago destroyed by fire, and a modern house of brick now stands upon the old site. A broad, shaded lawn slopes to the river. Here one gets an impressive view of the James as it broadens into a curving bay below Windmill Point.

When we entered the home, our interest centred in its mistress, the little lady of old-time grace and courtesy sitting by the open fire. It was later that we noticed the two portraits hanging near her—one of Chief-Justice Marshall and one of a beautiful dark-eyed young woman.

The relationship of these three—Mrs. Douthat, the Chief-Justice, and the beautiful young woman—added to the charm of our talk. For the great John Marshall had a son John who married Elizabeth Alexander, a descendant of the colonial house of Thomas; and that Elizabeth Alexander was the girl in the picture. John and Elizabeth had a daughter, and that daughter was the sweet little lady sitting there beneath the portraits. Her grandfather, the Chief-Justice, named her Mary Willis in memory of his cherished, invalid wife.

This Mary Willis Marshall married Fielding Lewis Douthat, of the Harwood family, and went as a bride to Lower Weyanoke when the home there yet spoke bravely of colonial dignity, and the garden was still fragrant with trim bordered beds of bloom. Some years later, they moved to Upper Weyanoke where Mr. Douthat died. In the family circle as we found it were Mrs. Douthat, three daughters, and two sons.



While the conversation ranged wide, from seventeenth century plantation grants to twentieth century houseboats, we found our attention drawn most to the reminiscences of Mrs. Douthat, told in the charming speech of a day that had time for the art of conversation. She had childhood recollections of the great Chief-Justice, and had treasured the family traditions concerning him. We got all too little both of the personal recollections and of the traditions; but they made it seem a very real John Marshall that this granddaughter of his was talking about.

Mrs. Douthat could not add much to the little that we already knew about a small brick building on the plantation that has long been pointed out from the steamers' decks as one of the oldest buildings in the country. It stands on the river bluff near the present home. If as old as is usually supposed, it is doubtless one of the early garrison houses, and must have seen desperate days on this Indian-harassed peninsula.

In this house, up to the time of her death a few years ago, lived the old mammy of the family. She was one of the last of a type developed through generations of plantation life, and now disappearing with it. Her place was at the end of a long line of dusky nurses, the first of whom landed nearly three centuries ago at James Towne, and crooned to the children of the royal governors the weird minor lullabies of jungle-land.

At present, Elias, a gray-haired negro, lives in the little old house. Every morning he goes to see Mrs. Douthat; and he seldom varies the greeting: "How is you dis mawnin', Miss Mary? I sut'n'y is glad to see you able to be up an' 'roun'. You know you an' me is chil'en of de same day."

Weyanoke, like most of the large plantations on the James, has a postoffice in the house. Our visit over, we gathered up quite a promising lot of mail and started homeward with the Commodore looking like a peripatetic branch of the rural free delivery. Evening was gathering in as we walked back along the field roads. The air was warm, a gentle breeze went rustling through the corn, and the autumn haze just veiled field and marsh and distant woods.

Upon reaching our shore-boat, we pushed out upon the marsh waterway. In our absence the tide had been slowly creeping up on reeds and rushes, had reached its height, and (leaving a brown, bubbly line upon each slender stalk to show that the law had been fulfilled) had started slowly down again.

But the ebb had only begun. The marsh was yet almost tide-full, and all its channels were water-lanes. Each little way was like every other, and one could well wander amiss down between those winding walls of sedges.

We paddled very slowly, often stopping to let the boat drift on the ebb tide. Why might we not find out the secret of the marshes if we went very softly through the heart of them?—that secret of which the slender reeds are always whispering; that mystery that keeps them always a-shiver. Is it something they have hidden from the searching tide? Is it known to the little marsh-hen that cunningly builds her nest at the foot of the sedges? Is it guessed by the restless finny folk that slip and search beneath the brown waters?

Holding our boat quiet in the ebbing bayou, we looked and listened. There were sounds of sibilant dripping in the dim sedges; of alewives jumping by the side of our boat; of a sudden rush of blackbird wings; and of the evening breeze as it freshened in the bending blades. We could see the many rivulets, wine-red now in the sunset light; and the graceful swaying of great grasses, pale green and silver and tan; and the red and golden sky above: ebbing rivulets, rippling reeds, drifting clouds, and sunset shades. And that was all. Nor had we guessed the secret of the marshes.

Yet, we should have been content still to look and to listen, down in the hidden tiny ways of the marshland, but for the fading light that warned us homeward. What would night be among the sedges with the wandering rivulets full of twinkling stars, with the soft calling of wakeful birds, and with the skurrying of little creatures in their shadowy forest of reeds?

Slowly we paddled on in the twilight; on through the little water-gate and out upon the Kittewan, where images of the bordering trees lay sharp and black on the strangely purple water. From down-stream where Gadabout waited, came such a fervent burst of song that we knew that the entire crew was urging its soul to be on guard—

"Te-en thou-san' foes ah-rise."



CHAPTER XVII

ACROSS RIVER TO FLEUR DE HUNDRED

The next day we determined to run around to the river front of Weyanoke. We were yet charmed with the idea of being back-door neighbours of the old plantation; but not at quite such long range. When the tide served, Gadabout dropped down the twisting Kittewan. Though she paused involuntarily in trying to round the island where the sweet gum flamed against the pines, and caught her propeller on a cypress stump as she sighted the dormer windows of the old house on the hill, yet she came in good time to the clear channel and, passing the tangled underwood that hid the forsaken tomb, she reached the mouth of the creek before the tide turned and started up the James on the last of the flood.

Weyanoke plantation is a peninsula lying in a sharp elbow of the river, so that it was a run of a few miles from the mouth of Kittewan Creek, on one side of the peninsula, around to the Weyanoke pier on the other side.

Upon reaching the sharp bend in the river at the point of the peninsula, we could see one reason anyway why Grant should have chosen this as a place for crossing the James. Here, the banks of the river suddenly draw close so that the stream is less than half a mile wide. However, it makes up in depth what it has lost in width, the channel at this point being from eighty to ninety feet deep. Even at the last of the tide the water here flowed swiftly and with ugly swirls and oily whirlpools that made the river seem vicious.

Now, we ran toward the southern shore to look at the ruins of a fort built in the War of 1812. The sun was setting beyond the high bluff that backed the fort, and the place lay blurred in the shadow; but apparently time, and perhaps the hard knocks of war, had not left much of Fort Powhatan. Two creeks that enter the James near the old fort received our close scrutiny, for every side stream tempted us. We would wonder how far Gadabout could follow each winding way, and what she might find up there.



A short run farther up the river took us abreast the pier at Upper Weyanoke; and, passing around it, we cast anchor within a stone's throw of the plantation home.



We sat out in the cockpit a long time that night enjoying the strangely quiet mood of the Powhatan. The old river flowed so peacefully that it mirrored all the sky above; and we looked down into a maze of stars with the sea-tide running through. Then a blinding light put out all our stars as the night boat from Richmond came down the river and trained her searchlight so that it picked Gadabout out of the darkness. Our whistle saluted with three good blasts. The searchlight responded by making three profound bows—so profound that they reached from the high heavens down to the water at our feet. Then, it suddenly whipped to the front to pick out the steamer's course again through the darkness of the night.

While lying at anchor in front of Upper Weyanoke, we made further visits at the plantation home. Despite the ravages of war and of two destructive fires, relics of old-time life are at this plantation too. It was pitiful, but amusing as well, to hear how some of these escaped the war-time vandalism. The soldiers who had stripped the home—even of carpets—when they left the plantation to cross the James, would have been chagrined could they have looked back over the river and have seen old family treasures coming out from secret nooks and old family silver from a hollow tree.

Mrs. Douthat told us how Nature favoured Grant in the crossing of the James. Though comparatively the river is so narrow at the point of the Weyanoke peninsula, yet to get to the stream at that point it was necessary for the Federal forces to traverse an extensive swamp. Apparently the swamp was impassable; but the officers found, running through it, a most peculiar formation—a natural ridge of solid earth. It was a ready-made military roadway upon which the troops could pass through the swamp and reach the river. Mr. Douthat always declared that "The Almighty had built it for them."

Across the James from Weyanoke lies Fleur de Hundred. One day, with a daughter and a son of the Weyanoke household aboard, we sailed over to visit the old plantation. We knew that we should find nothing in the way of plantation life there, as the estate has long lain idle; and we knew also that no mark was left on the broad acres to tell of the life of colonial days. But the broad acres themselves were there, and they would remember the old times no doubt; and perhaps, lying in the sunshine and with nothing in the world to do, they might tell us things.

We knew somewhat about Fleur de Hundred ourselves. In 1618 Sir George Yeardley, governor of the colony (the same who owned Weyanoke), patented these lands and gave them the name that has scarcely been spelled twice alike since. Sir George sold the plantation to Captain Abraham Piersey.

We sought to trace the successive owners on beyond Abraham; but they married and died at such a rate that we got lost in the confusion somewhere between the altar and the tomb, and gave the matter up. Two well established customs among the early colonists seem to have been to die early and to marry often. Perhaps they usually reversed the order; but, at any rate, dying in middle age after having married "thirdly" or "fifthly"—yes, even "sixthly"—makes top-heavy family trees and puzzling lines of descent.

In this instance, we were quite content to skip to the opening of the nineteenth century when Fleur de Hundred became the property of John V. Willcox, in whose descendants it has ever since remained.

Landing upon a pebbly beach beside the ruins of a pier, we took a long walk inland to the present-day home. While historic Fleur de Hundred is now allowed to lie idle, its plantation life all gone, yet its home life continues and the old-time hospitality remains, as we found in that afternoon visit. And when we set our faces toward Gadabout again, Nautica had roses and lavender and violets from an old garden that refused to stop blooming with the rest of the plantation, and the Commodore treasured a rare pamphlet upon early Virginia that only Virginia courtesy would have entrusted to a stranger.

Through the quiet of the sleeping plantation, we took our way toward the river. Some bees had found late sweetness along the overgrown roadway. The air was still and sweet with the scent of sun-drying herbs. A lagging sail was on old Powhatan. About us on every hand lay the historic soil of Fleur de Hundred. We wondered where the manor-house had stood in those early colonial days when Sir George Yeardley, the governor, made his home here, with many indented servants and half the negroes in the colony to serve him; and where had been the several dwellings and store-houses, stoutly palisaded, that had formed quite a village for his day.



It is not recorded that the Governor was a great smoker, but he was an enthusiastic grower of tobacco and may almost be said to have been the father of the industry. Doubtless, in his time, most of these fertile acres were covered with the strange weed that the Englishmen had got from the village gardens of the red man.

But here were grown maize and wheat also; and to grind these Sir George built—over there on the point of the plantation—the first windmill in America.

In the eyes of the savages, he must have waxed to the stature of a great medicine man, when he made of wood the long arms that beckoned to the winds and made them come to grind his grain. Through all time, had not their fathers (or rather their mothers) had to steep grain for twelve hours; then laboriously pound it in stone mortars; and then sift it through baskets woven of river reeds?

Less matter for wonderment was that long-armed creature on the point of land to Hans Houten and Heinrich Elkens, sailing up the James in the White Dove with good Holland sack for barter. These sturdy mariners from the dyke-and-windmill country would regard the contrivance with more critical eyes than could the red man from the bow-and-arrow wilderness.

But we saw nothing of windmill or of palisaded village or of royal governor; and field and meadow and woodland all seemed too sleepy to tell us much about them. They only served to recall the tantalizing, broken bits that the records give of the picturesque life that was here—of colonial pomp and savage dignity, of London trade and Indian barter, of English games and merriment, of colonial trials and tragedies: all this of which we know, yet know so little.

And so we left the old plantation dreaming in the autumn sunshine—left it to the poets and to the story-tellers, who seem to have adopted it. They know how to weave the spells that bring back old manor-houses and gallants and ladies and tall London ships and the vanished scenes of love and of war. The place belongs to them; old Fleur de Hundred—half real and half ideal—an old-time bit of story-land.



CHAPTER XVIII

GADABOUT GOES TO CHURCH

It was the day before Thanksgiving when the houseboat Gadabout, with her good-byes all said, fished up her anchor from the river bottom in front of Weyanoke, and started off to find another place to drop it farther up the stream. She was ready for the holiday. The material for her Thanksgiving dinner was all aboard: part of it canned and boxed as the steamer had just brought it from Norfolk; and the rest of it, and the best of it, plump and gobbling on the stern.

But Gadabout's preparations for the day had not stopped here. Not only had she provided the season's feast, but she had diligently inquired of her chart and of her neighbours where she might take her family to church. The chart had told her of a little stream, called Herring Creek, a few miles farther up the James, and had shown her a mark upon the bank of the creek that it called Westover Church. The neighbours had said that the chart was right; and had added that the church was a colonial one still in use, and doubtless Thanksgiving services would be held there. Fortunately, Herring Creek was a stream that Gadabout had intended running into anyway, as it would be the anchorage most convenient to the next colonial estate that she should visit—the plantation of Westover from which the church had taken its name.

From Weyanoke to the old church was not very far; but, as Gadabout had one or two things to stop for on the way and as she might be delayed by the tide, this bright Wednesday morning found her bustling up the river almost afraid that she would be late for service.

Doubtless, in her haste, she was quite put out when we threw the wheel to starboard as she was passing Court House Creek, and carried her somewhat out of her way. All that we did it for was to run in close to look at some "stobs" just showing above the water. At the mouths of most of the creeks along the James are such "stobs" or broken pilings. They are the ruins of old-time piers, the last vestige of a vanished, picturesque river trade.

Ancient pilings have lasted well in the James; and these evidently once belonged to the piers of up-creek colonial planters. They tell of the day when ships from England, Holland, and the Indies sailed up the river for barter with the colonists. While the planters whose estates fronted directly on the James received their importations upon wharves before their doors and delivered their tobacco in the same convenient manner, the planters up the creeks were at more trouble in the matter. The bars at the mouths of the streams kept the ships from entering; and they had to wait outside while the planters brought their produce down upon rafts and in shallow-draft barges, pirogues, and shallops.

Some of the most picturesque of the colonial river trade was at these little creek-mouth piers. Here came not only the tall ships from England bearing everything used upon the plantations from match-locks and armour to satin bodice and perfumed periwig, from plow and spit to Turkey-worked chairs and silver plate, from oatmeal, cheese, and wine to nutmegs and Shakespeare's plays; but here came also tramp craft—broad, deep-laden bottoms from the Netherlands, and English and Dutch boats from the West Indies. These picturesque vagrant sails sought their customers from landing to landing, and sold their cargoes at comparatively low prices. Such a ship was assort of bargain boat for these scattered settlers up the creeks of the James; a queer, transient department store at the little cross-roads of tidewater.

There would be exchange of news as well as of commodities, and a friendly rivalry in the matter of tales of adventure—the planter's story of Indian attacks being pitted against the captain's yarn of the "pyrats" that gave him chase off the "Isle of Devils." Then up the masts of the trading ship the sails would go clacking, and the prow that had touched the warm wharves of the Indies would point up the river again, bound for the next landing. And the shallops of the planter—after loading from the little pier with casks and bales still strong of the ship's hold, of the tar of the ropes, of the salt of the sea—would disappear up the forest stream.

A short distance above Court House Creek, Gadabout stopped at a landing to get some oil. She was rather hurried and flustered about the matter, as the steamer from Petersburg was coming around the point above and would soon be making this same landing, and a schooner that was loading was right in the way, and the first line that was thrown out broke, and the engine stopped at the wrong time, and—all those people looking on! Besides, this was supposed to be an interesting fishing point; but how was a little houseboat to get a look at it, lying there alongside a big schooner that she couldn't see over? Altogether, Gadabout fumed and fussed so much here, pitching about in the choppy water, jerking her ropes, and battering her big neighbour, that it was a relief to all concerned when she got her oil aboard, cast off her ropes, and, giving the schooner a last vindictive dig in the ribs, set off up the river.

Even after getting away from the schooner there was not much to be seen at the landing. Yet, in season, the little place would be quite quaint and bustling; for it was one of the many fishing hamlets along the river.

The James has always been a favourite spawning-ground for sturgeon. Those first colonists, writing enthusiastically of the newfound river, declared "As for Sturgeon, all the World cannot be compared to it." They told of a unique and spirited way the Indians had of catching these huge, lubberly fish. In a narrow bend of the river where the sturgeon crowded, an adroit fisherman would clap a noose over the tail of a great fish (a fish perhaps much larger than himself) and go plunging about with his powerful captive. And he was accounted "cockarouse," brave fellow, who kept his hold, diving and swimming, and finally towed his catch ashore.

The colonists early turned their attention to sturgeon fishing. The roe they prepared and shipped abroad for the Russians' piquant table delicacy. The grim irony of it—half famished colonists shipping caviar!

To-day the coming of the sturgeon puts life into the little hamlets like the one we had just passed, and dots their sandy beaches with the bateaux and the drying nets of the fishermen.



We passed the down-bound steamer near Buckler's Point and her heavy swell came rolling across toward us. Almost instinctively we turned our craft crosswise to the river to face the coming waves; for to take them broadside meant a weary picking up of fragments from the cabin floors, and a premature commingling of the contents of the refrigerator. Just beyond Buckler's Point we came to the opening into Herring Creek and, passing readily over the bar, went on up the little stream. As we sailed along we caught glimpses to port of the warm, red walls of a stately building that we knew to be Westover.



We found Herring Creek a good, lazy houseboating waterway; a brown ribbon of marsh stream wandering aimlessly among the rushes. Turn after turn, and the marshes still kept us company—the quiet, lone marshes that had come to have such a charm for us. Evidently, they were beginning to feel that the year was growing old. Greens were sobering into browns, and near the water's edge were tips of silvery white. The frowsy-looking grassy bunches, here and there, were ducking blinds, where hunters soon would be in hiding with their wooden decoys floating near.

Like some great marsh creature herself, Gadabout followed the winding way, puffing along contentedly. Sometimes, when the turns were too sharp for her liking, she swung to them lazily, with a long purr of water at bow and stern, and seemed about to wallow off through the rushes.

Now something of a bank developed along our starboard side. It grew into a bluff covered with pines and thick-coated cedars and white-trunked sycamores and gray beeches. This woodland too had the year writ old. The surviving green of cedar and pine could not hide the telltale leafless trees that stood between. But more significant than leafless trees was the luxuriant holly with its ripe, red berries, gayly ready for Christmas decorations and to grace the birth of a new year.

And yet, these were among the most glorious days for houseboating: tonic days with a hint of winter in the chill, crisp air, and dreamy days with a lingering of summer in the sun's warm glow. The enervating heat was over, and the worrisome insects were gone. In peace we could sail in the marsh stream or climb the banks for ferns and holly. Gadabout moved with masses of pale reeds, spicy boughs of cedar, bay branches, and glowing holly nodding on her bow. The air was no longer filled with the song of birds; but it was alive and cheerily a-twitter with their fat flittings from seeds to berries, from marsh to woodland. Heartily we declared that it was better to go an-Autumning than a-Maying.

After a while there were signs of people about. Little boats were nosing into the bank here and there, and occasionally a white farmhouse would peep over the bluff above our water-trail.



It was along toward dinner time when, according to our count, the houseboat had rounded as many bends as the chart seemed to require, and ought to be near Westover Church. So, upon catching sight through the trees of a brick building up on the bluff, we concluded that Gadabout had reached her journey's end, and an anchor was dropped.

Toward evening Nautica and the Commodore went ashore. At the top of the hill was a little graveyard, and standing in it was the old church that we had come to see. It was a small building and plain, but of historic interest. As originally built, about the middle of the seventeenth century, it stood not here but down on the shore of the James at Westover. One of the earliest churches in the country, and then standing on one of the greatest estates in Virginia, it was a typical centre of colonial life; and gathered about it, in the little graveyard by the river, were the tombs of noted colonial dead.

About the middle of the eighteenth century the church was moved to its present site. Enclosed within a brick wall and with the tombs of generations of worshippers again clustering about it, Westover Church had settled down once more to revered old age when the ravages of war swept over the land. In that sad war of brothers over a union that this church had seen formed, over soil that it had seen won from Great Britain, the humble old House of God was left dismantled, its graveyard walls thrown down, and its tombs broken. After the war, the church was repaired, and it is still the place of worship for the countryside.

The rectory stood on a bluff near by, overlooking the wide stretch of marsh and the far windings of the stream. We found that the latest of the long line of rectors and equally important rectors' wives that Westover Church has known were the Reverend and Mrs. Cornick, who told us of the hopes of the little community that the Government would yet pay indemnity for the injury done by Federal soldiers to the old church.

The next morning brought so fine a Thanksgiving Day that our gratitude rose up with the sun—though the rest of us awaited a more convenient hour. The air was crisp; the sky was unclouded. When, in good time for morning service, we went up the hill to the old brick church, we saw horses and carriages lined along the fence. Inside the building some of the people who had come early were having neighbourly confidences over the backs of the pews.

Naturally our thoughts went wandering between service and sermon and church. Sometimes (and through no fault of the good rector either), we would find ourselves far back in the story of that colonial house of worship, and full two hundred years away from the text. We would see this old church as it stood at first on the wild bank of the James, and the families of those early planters gathering in. They would come from up and down the river; some in pirogues and pinnaces and sloops, and some on horseback with the fair dames on pillions behind. Or, somewhat later, lordly coaches would roll to the door bearing colonial grandees.

The plain little church had seen brave attire in those days, when the parish worshipped in flowered silks and embroidered waistcoats and laced head-dresses and powdered periwigs. Then, after the services, would come the social hour, when dinner invitations went round, parties were planned, and there was a general changing about of the guests that were always filling Virginia homes. Doubtless, the lavish hospitality of the master of Westover, who attended this church, caused quite a Sunday pilgrimage to that mansion of his that we had glimpsed through the trees as Gadabout entered Herring Creek.

We went out past chatting groups (stopping for the greeting of the rector and his wife); past horses that were being unhitched and vehicles that were cramping and creaking; on down to the stream where geese were paddling in the marshes, and overhead the rectory doves were wheeling in the sunny air. Rowing down the creek toward the houseboat, we stopped here and there to gather reeds and holly.

"This is the first time that we have ever gone to church by boat," said the Commodore.

"Yes," answered Nautica, "and it was just the way to do it. We have attended a colonial church in a quite colonial way."

When we sat down to our Thanksgiving dinner, we felt almost like landlubbers again; for while our home acre was a watery one and Gadabout, boat-like, swung and swayed, yet we had real neighbours up on the bluff and there was even a church next door. Later, we saw coming down the stream some good after-dinner cheer—our rowboat with mail that had been accumulating for days at Westover. Letters and papers and packages and magazines were welcomed aboard. Comfortably we settled down for an evening of catching up with the world.

Next morning Gadabout made an uneventful run down the stream, anchored just within the mouth of the creek, and sent Henry off into the country foraging.

Of course certain provisioning arrangements followed Gadabout from harbour to harbour. Boxes of groceries came up from Norfolk or down from Richmond by steamer; and also every few days a big cake of ice arrived in a travelling suit of burlap lined with sawdust. But that still left many things to be obtained along the way. As most of the country stores were back from the river, the sailor, on horseback or in a cart, made many a long provisioning trip.

Toward evening when there came a gentle bump upon Gadabout's guard and the rattle of a chain upon her cleat, we went out to see what the supply boat had brought. As soon as we heard the troubled sputtering, "An' I mos' give up gittin' anything," we knew that the little shore-boat was a nautical horn of plenty. And so she proved as her cargo came aboard to an accompaniment of running comment.

"I don' know where I been, an' if I had to go back, I couldn' do it. That's butter there—that'll do till the nex' box comes. The store didn' have much of anything; an' I struck out into the country, I did, an' mos' los' myse'f. But the horse he knowed the way. I got another turkey, anyhow. I'm cert'nly glad we jes' begun to eat 'em if we got to eat 'em steady. The man had done sold him; but I used my silver tongue, I did, an' he let me have him. There's some apples an' turnips an' sweet potatoes. I got them at the store. An' where I got them eggs at, I could get a couple of chickens nex' week if I could jes' fin' the place."

So the fruits of the foraging came tumbling aboard—a promising, goodly array. And Gadabout had no troubled dreams that night of a wolf swimming up to her door.



CHAPTER XIX

WESTOVER, THE HOME OF A COLONIAL BELLE

On the following day, Gadabout scrambled across the flats out into the James again, intent upon a visit to Westover.

Unlike Brandon, Westover stands within sight from the river; and we had a good view of the old homestead as we passed by to make our landing at the steamer pier which is a little above the house.

There was a break in the tree-fringe on the north bank of the James. A sea-wall extended along the water's edge, and from either end of it a brick wall ran far inland. Within the spacious enclosure, the grounds swept back and up from the river, with noble trees and close-cut lawn; and crowning the slope stood the beautiful old mansion. A stately central building of red brick, with dormer windows in its steep-pitched roof, rose between low flanking corridors and wings like some overlord with his faithful vassals in attendance. In neutral brown the quiet river, in shadowy green the sloping lawn, in dull red and gleaming white the lofty, many-windowed front of Westover—a picture that drew Gadabout in close to the shoals that day.

The bit of history that goes with the picture gives us many glimpses of old-time elegance and romance, and helps us to a good idea of some of the pretentious phases of colonial life. It runs in this way.

Back in the beginnings of things American, when the dissatisfied planters at James Towne were starting out to establish their estates along the river, these lands by Herring Creek attracted attention. Under the name of Westover they soon became the property of the Byrd family, and rose to prominence among colonial estates in connection with the fortunes of that distinguished house.

The golden age of Westover was in the days of the second William Byrd, who was one of the most striking figures of colonial times. Handsome, learned, witty, and capable; with exquisite taste and elegant culture fashioned in the friendship of English noblemen; with almost endless acres and boundless wealth—a cavalier of cavaliers was this London-bred Virginian.



It is surprising that this beau-ideal should have remained spouseless for two years after coming into his estate. He must have been considered the most fascinating matrimonial possibility in the colony. One can imagine how in a gathering of Virginia maidens intent upon their tambour embroidery, when the name of Westover's young master came up, a circle of eyelashes went down and a circle of tender hearts went both up and down. The prize was finally won by Lucy Parke, daughter of Colonel Daniel Parke whose portrait hangs at Brandon.

Some years later, family litigation called Colonel Byrd to England, where his wife and little daughter, Evelyn, joined him, and where his wife soon died. The residence in London continued for a number of years; and resulted in giving the Colonel a new wife in the person of a rich young widow, and in giving social finish and a broken heart to Evelyn Byrd.

Under the guidance of her father, she was educated after the manner of the fashionable life of that day. It must have been a time quite to the elegant Colonel's liking when London turned in admiration to his daughter; when, but sixteen and already crowned with social successes, the cultured beauty from the plantation on the James was presented at the English Court.

The stories of Evelyn Byrd's London experiences bring many noted names into the train of those who did her honour: the Lords Chesterfield and Oxford, and Pope at the height of his glory, and the cynical Lord Hervey, and Beau Nash, the autocrat of Bath. There should be mentioned too that old courtier (whoever he was) whose admiration was expressed in the rather mild witticism, "I no longer wonder that young men are anxious to go to Virginia to study ornithology, since such beautiful birds are to be found there."

It was in the midst of this London gayety that Evelyn Byrd so literally met her fate in meeting the grandson of Lord Peterborough, Charles Mordaunt. The story of that unhappy love affair—the devoted pair, the opposition of the maiden's father, and the separation of the lovers—has become an oft-told but ever attractive romance.

About 1726, Colonel Byrd returned with his family to Virginia; and it was then, it seems, that he built the present mansion at Westover, and entered upon the almost sumptuous life there that was to make the plantation famous.

And Westover was a worthy setting for the worthy Colonel. Without the home, were lawns and gardens beautiful with native and imported trees, shrubs, and vines; and within the home, spacious rooms with rich furnishings and art treasures gathered in England and on the Continent. Here too was one of the largest and most valuable collections of books in the colonies. As a matter of course, this home was a distinguished social centre, drawing to itself the most brilliant colonial society.

Colonel Byrd died in 1744, and was buried in the old garden when it was in all its summer glory. In the next generation, Westover passed to strangers, having been for a century and a quarter the home of the Byrds, who for three successive generations had held proud position in colonial America.

Since then, the plantation has suffered from many changes of ownership, and from the Civil War. The mansion was held several times by the Federal forces, being used as headquarters and as an army storehouse. Among the war injuries it sustained was the destruction of one wing. The destroyed portion has been rebuilt recently by the present owner of the estate, Mrs. C. Sears Ramsay. Under her ownership, Westover has had added interest, especially for lovers of the colonial, on account of such extensive restoration as has made the old home one of the finest examples of eighteenth century architecture and furnishing in America.

Surely while we have been telling the story of Westover, Gadabout has had time to reach the steamboat pier above the house; and we may take it that she is safely tied to the pilings.

Once ashore, Nautica and the Commodore found that a short walk along the river bluff brought them to an entrance to the Westover grounds. Gates of wrought iron, with perhaps a martlet from the Byrd coat of arms above them, swung between tall pillars in the wall. From this entrance, a pathway approached the homestead diagonally, and afforded charming views of the house and its surroundings. To our right as we walked, the lawn, thick set with trees, sloped gently to the river wall. To our left, the views came in broken, picturesque bits; a stretch of shrubbery, a reach of garden wall, some quaint outbuildings in warm, dull red, a glimpse of courtyard beyond a corner of box, and then the old home itself.



The riverward portal of Westover stands tall, white, and finely typical of its day. Above squared stone steps, the double doors with the fanlight above them are framed by two engaged columns supporting an elaborate pediment that has the symbolic pineapple in the centre.

We stood before the fine entrance, fancy painting the old-time scene within; that scene of eighteenth century elegance which is the traditional picture of colonial Westover. The door opened, and we entered upon perhaps quite as charming an eighteenth century scene, which is the Westover of to-day.

A panelled hall extended through the house, the double doors at the farther end opening upon a glass-enclosed vestibule. About midway, and from beneath a heavy crystal chandelier, the stairway of carved mahogany rose to a landing, where an ancient clock stood tall and dark, then turned and wound to the rooms above.

To the right of the hall was the drawing-room. Passing over its threshold, we thought of those old colonial days, the days of Colonel Byrd. As in his time, the light came subdued through the deep-casemented windows. It fell upon the walls that he had so handsomely panelled, upon the ceiling that he had ornamented in the delicate putty-work of his day, and upon furniture in carved mahogany that was of the period of his ownership of Westover.

At the farther end of the room was the noted mantelpiece imported from Italy by Colonel Byrd. It is an elaborate creation of Italian marble with relief design in white upon a black background. In front of it, on either hand, stood handsome brass torcheres, with their suggestion of the mellow candle-light that was wont to fall in this same room upon the courtly Colonel, the lovely Evelyn, and those brilliant assemblages of colonial times.

Opening also from the hall are the dining-room with its high colonial mantel and typical Virginia buffet, the French morning-room with its gray green tints and its touches of gilt, and the library with its old chimney-piece, high black fire-dogs, and quaint fire-tending irons. All the rooms have their colonial panelling, deep window-seats, and open fireplaces.



In the dining-room our interest was quickened upon our being told that the handsome sideboard had belonged to the Byrd family. It is believed to be a Hepplewhite, though similar in lines to a rare design of Sheraton's. Above the sideboard a circular, concave mirror of elaborate eighteenth century type accentuates the period furnishing of the room.



Up-stairs even more than below, we felt the atmosphere of the olden time. Perhaps passing the ancient clock on the landing helped to set us back a century or two. We were quite prepared for the quiet, old-fashioned upper hall, with its richness half lost in the shadows and with its sleepy night-stand holding a brass house lantern and a prim array of candles in brass candlesticks.

In the bedrooms were four-posters and the things of four-poster days. Wing-cheek chairs of cozy depths told of old-time fireside dreams; a work-table with attenuated legs called to mind the wearisome needlework of our foremothers; and a brass warming-pan carried us back to the times when only such devices could make tolerable the frigid winter beds of our ancestors.

One of the riverward bedrooms is the romantic centre of Westover. It now belongs to the little daughter of the house; but nearly two centuries ago it was the room of Evelyn Byrd. Doubtless, in a sense, it will always be hers. The soft toned panelled walls, the old fireplace opposite the door, and the cozy little dressing-room looking gardenward, all seem to speak of her; and the imaginative visitor can quite discern a graceful figure in colonial gown there in one of the deep window seats that look out upon the pleasance and the river.

Here the unfortunate colonial beauty lived and died with the grief that she brought from over the sea. Here she laid away the rich brocade, the old court gown of brilliant, bitter memories that was shown to us at Brandon. Through these windows she looked with ever more wistful eyes out upon the river, her thoughts hurrying with its waters toward the ocean and the lover beyond. And one day, it is said, a great ship from London came, and it touched at the pier before her windows, and Charles Mordaunt plead his cause with the stern father once more. But he plead in vain, and the ship and the lover sailed away. For a while longer, the colonial girl waited and looked out upon the river, then she too went away and the romance was over.



In the family circle at Westover to-day are Mrs. Ramsay, two sons, and the little daughter, Elizabeth. Among well-known families appearing in Mrs. Ramsay's ancestry are the Sears and the Gardiners of Massachusetts, she being a descendant of Lyon Gardiner of Gardiner's Island. She also claims kinship with the Randolphs and the Reeveses of Virginia, and a collateral and remote connection with the Byrds.

When we returned to the steamer pier after our visit at Westover, we found quite a wind on the river and the houseboat fretfully bumping the pilings. We hastened aboard, ran down stream before a stiff wind, and skurried back into our harbour in Herring Creek, where Gadabout settled to her moorings as contented as a duck in the marshes.



CHAPTER XX

AN OLD COURTYARD AND A SUN-DIAL

For some time that little anchorage was our watery home acre. We came to call it our sunrise harbour. The opening where creek and river met faced to the east; and it was well worth while, if the morning was not too chill, to have an eye on that opening when the sun came up. Breaking through the mist veil that hung over the James, he cast a golden pontoon across the river, and then came over in all his splendour. He made straight for the mouth of our little creek, flooding wood and marsh with misty glow, and fairly crowding his glory into the narrow channel.

One morning, quite in keeping with the splendid burst of dawn, a loud report rang out over the marshes like the sound of a sunrise gun. But it was no salute to the orb of day. Somebody was poaching. More shots followed; and ducks, quacking loudly, fluttered up out of the marshes. Later, when we were at breakfast, a long rowboat, containing a man and a pile of brush and doubtless some ducks with the fine flavour of the forbidden, came out from a break in the marshes and went hurriedly up the stream.

As we lay in our harbour, we found ourselves almost unconsciously listening for a sound that seemed to belong to those chill, gray days. At last, from somewhere high up in the air, it came ringing down to us—the stirring "honk, honk" of the wild goose. Though our eyes searched the heavens, we could see nothing of the living wedge of flight up there that was cleaving its way southward with the speed of the wind. But we felt the thrill of that wild, stirring cry and were satisfied.

Whether the geese brought it or not, bad weather came with them. Half a gale came driving the rain before it down the river. Gadabout lay with her bulkheads closed tight about her forward cockpit, and must have looked most dismal. But inside, dry and warm, she was a very cheery little craft. We listened quite contentedly to the uproar, looking out from our windows upon windswept marsh and scudding clouds and the fussy little wavelets of our harbour. It added to our sense of coziness to look through a stern window out upon the river where the waters piled and broke white, in their midst an anchored schooner with swaying masts, tipsy between wind and tide.

One day when the heavens had gone blue again, though tattered clouds were still racing across, we hoisted anchor for another visit to Westover. When Gadabout poked her head out of the creek, she saw a queer looking craft busy on the James. It was a government buoy-tender, an awkward side-wheeler with a derrick forward, and big red sticks and black ones lying on deck.

As we passed the tender, it was moving the red buoy at the mouth of our creek farther out into the river. Evidently the shoals were encroaching upon the channel. Gadabout showed little interest in the strange boat and its doings; and, unconcernedly turning her back, headed up the river. Of course buoys were all very well and she found them quite a help in getting about; but all this fussy shifting of them by a few feet mattered little to her, for she was on the wrong side of them most of the time anyway.

However, we thought of how differently the watchful buoy-tender would be regarded by the heavy laden freighters that would pass that way, their rusty hulls plowing deep. To them how important that each buoy, each inanimate flagman of the river route, should stand true where danger lies and truly point the fairway.

Reaching the little cove below the steamboat pier, Gadabout ran close in and cast anchor. She may well have been proud of the quite perceptible waves that she sent rolling to the shore and of the quite audible swish that they made on the beach.

That morning we saw the landward front of Westover, and straightway forgot all about the more pretentious river front. You step from the house down into an old-time courtyard. At first you do not see much of the courtyard itself, for you have heard of its noted entrance gates, perhaps the first example of ornamental iron-work in the colonies, and they stand quite conspicuously in front of you. These gates were imported from England by Colonel William Byrd, whose initials, W.E.B., appear inwrought in monogram.

Two great birds standing on stone balls top the gate-posts. With a fine disregard of both ornithology and heraldry these birds have often been spoken of as martlets—the martlet appearing in the Byrd coat of arms. They are evidently eagles, and pretty well developed specimens. American eagles, we might call them, if they had not lighted upon these gate-posts before the American nation adopted its emblem—indeed before the American nation was born. When, in the days of the Civil War, the Federal troops came along, the soldiers seem to have stood strictly upon chronology, and to have determined that these fine prerevolutionary birds were not entitled to any immunity as national emblems nor even as kinsfolk of "Old Abe." And so their tough feathers flattened many a bullet, and one eagle had to be sent to Richmond to get some toes and a new tail.

Turning from the gates, your eyes follow down the courtyard toward the garden. Walls, outbuildings, the quaint cellar-hut, even the diamond-shaped stepping-stones along the way, all help to make up a characteristic colonial scene.

And for what striking bits of colonial life has this old courtyard been the setting! Now the exquisite Colonel and his ladies would visit the little capital of Williamsburg; so, at his door, stands ready his "lordly coach and six with liveried outriders in waiting." Again, the great gates are thrown open to guests arriving on horseback and in chariots and chairs. Pompous, beruffled dignitaries vie with gay gallants in obeisances and compliments to the ladies, and in assisting them to alight without harm to brocades and laces and rich cloaks and wide-hooped petticoats. And, yet again, all is a-bustle here with scarlet-coated horsemen and baying hounds and hurrying black boys and all that goes to

"Proclaim a hunting-morning."

When the ancient courtyard is left empty again—the colonial coaches rolled off through the gates; the colonial huntsmen up and away and now but distant points of red, fading to the music of hounds and horns—we fall to wondering about those early Virginians.

Such, largely, was their life—abundant leisure, elegant display, exuberant merrymaking. Just such a life, by all the rules, as would produce a useless race devoid of any solidity of mind or of character. Just such a life as in fact produced a race of high-minded, intelligent, and capable men; a race that gave us Washington, Jefferson, Henry, Madison, Marshall, Monroe, and the scarcely lesser names on down the long list of those wonderful sons of the Old Dominion.

It would do no good to ask even that colonial courtyard for an explanation of all this. It simply recalled what it had seen and heard. Nor could we of to-day understand the explanation were we to get it. Unable to reconcile industry and leisure, we underrate the real work that went with the idling of those early Virginians; and as to the gayety, we long ago lost sight of the fact that merrymaking is man-making.

Turning from the gateway, we went down the old courtyard. We followed a walk that led past the kitchen and the dairy, skirted a wall, and then turned through a box-shaded gateway into the garden.

Those December days were not the season of gardens, even in Virginia. The paths led us not where bloom was, but where bloom had been. Yet, truly all times are garden times where warm red walls shut you in with shadowing trees and shrubs, and where ancient box and ivy hedge the prim old ways.

How much our colonial forefathers thought of their gardens! and how much their English forefathers thought of theirs! It was in the blood to have a garden, and to have it walled, and to sit and to walk and to talk in it.



Walking and talking that day with Westover's mistress in Westover's garden, we soon came upon the tomb of the noted William Byrd. Representative as was this master of Westover of all that was most elegant in the colonial life of his day, he was much more than merely a man of the fashionable world. Ability of a high order went with the beauty and the ruffles and the powder. He was statesman, scholar, and author; and in England he had been made, for his proficiency in science, a fellow of the Royal Society.



We owe a great deal to this old-time grandee for the glimpses his writings give us of colonial life in the South during the generation just preceding that of Washington. Unlike the Northern colonists, the Southern ones left little record of themselves. So much the more valuable, then, the accounts given by this remarkable man of the times.

We seemed turning from an impressive text as we left the tomb; left the old grand seignior in his little six feet of earth—six feet out of 175,000 acres! But, after all, it was a rueful text; not one for morning sunshine and blue sky, for hearts that yet beat strong, that yet gloried in a boundless estate—all the bright world ours. And the birds were holding carnival over by the stone basin under the ram's head on the wall; and the river was dancing in the sunlight; and besides, we had caught sight of a sun-dial there in that old colonial garden by the banks of the "King's River"! To he sure we were told that this was not an ancient timepiece of the sun. We were much too late to see the original sun-dial of this garden. That old colonial worthy had found time too long for its marking. Worn with the years that it had told, it had leaned and dozed, and lost count, and was gone.

But it is not so much that a garden should have an old sun-dial, as that it should have a sun-dial. For the matter of that, they are all old. Venerableness is their birthright. Whoever thinks of youth in a sun-dial? Were you unboxing one just from the maker would you not expect to find it moss-grown?

Indeed, are these timepieces of sun and shadow made at all, or do they just occur here and there like hoary rocks and mossy springs? And what a charming provision of Nature it is that they so often occur in gardens! Sun-dials and gardens! Sunshine-and-shadow time for plants to grow by; sunshine-and-shadow time for flowers to bloom by. Surely this is the only time by which a morning-glory should waken, by which a four-o'clock should know its hour, by which an evening primrose should time its fragrant bloom.

Sun-dials and gardens! Sunshine-and-shadow time for birds to sing by; sunshine-and-shadow time for mortals to laze and dream by. Beautiful, silent, peaceful time; where no clocks strike the passing hours, no whistles scream the round of toil. What time like that of the noiseless, scarce-moving shadow upon the dial for a sleepy old garden and a day-dreamer in the sunshine? And if, perchance, the garden-lover is not building castles in Spain, but has crept into the garden only for brief rest from the fray, or to give a weary clock-driven soul an hour with its Maker, then truly again—sun-dials and gardens! Sun-dial time to rest the fainting heart by; sun-dial time for the troubled soul to reach up to God by. Sun-dials and gardens!

Be the garden-lover what he may—day-dreamer, fainting heart, troubled soul—how gently the shadow-finger on the dial points the time for him! How softly, almost lingeringly, it lets the moments slip from gold to gray, seeking to give him, to the full and unfretted, his little hour in the sunshine!

And yet, the gentlest marker of time must mark. It may mark very softly those passing moments of life's lessening span; but when we come to look again, the shadow has moved on. Nor can childish interference avail. Spread your rebellious hands upon the dial; you shall only see the shadow come stealing through your fingers. Stand defiantly in the path of the sunlight, and blot out the telltale dial shadow with your own; it but waits until you step aside, then leaps across the moments you have wasted. Not for you shall the boon to the sick and penitent King of Judah be repeated; not for you shall the shadow turn backward on the sun-dial of Ahaz.



CHAPTER XXI

AN UNDERGROUND MYSTERY AND A DUCKING-STOOL

For a day or two Gadabout lay out in the James in front of Westover. One evening it turned cold and a strong wind set in, coming straight at us across the river. As usual, when Gadabout was anchored on a stormy night near a lee shore, we cast a lead out ahead, so as to be able to tell (after it should become too dark to see the land) whether or not we were dragging anchor.

That is, we called it casting a lead, though in reality the process consisted in throwing out into the river (as far ahead of us as we could) a piece of old iron with a string tied to it. Then, at any time, by gathering up the loose end of the string that lay in the cockpit, one could detect by the outgo of the line any tendency on the part of Gadabout to run away with her anchor. It was a very simple device and not exactly original, having doubtless been used a little earlier by Christopher Columbus and Noah and those people. But we never permitted any question of priority to dampen our interest in the thing.

As the evening wore on the storm held steadily; steadily and rapidly the barometer kept counting backward; and we took the river's width in wind and sea for half the night. We could not sleep, and sat bolstered up in our chairs. The Commodore quite likely did breathe audibly now and then; but Nautica was wide awake, as shown by her announcing with feeling and frequency that "she knew we were dragging anchor and were just about to be horribly wrecked upon rocks or 'stobs' or something or other."

The Commodore arose and busied himself about cockpit and cabin mysteriously. When he finished his labours, the string from the piece of iron out in the river came into the cabin through a hole in the wall made for an engine bell cord. It ran along the ceiling to the after end of the cabin, where a weight kept it taut. A handkerchief that could be plainly seen even in the dim light, was fastened to the string just where it passed above Nautica's head. By this time, the Commodore's mystery was a mystery no longer; and Nautica was laughing.

"So that is to put an end to all my anxieties, is it?"

"Just so," said the Commodore. "When that anxious feeling comes, watch the handkerchief. If it is moving toward the door, you may know that your fears are better grounded than the anchors; but if it is not, try to get a wink of sleep."

And the wind howled and the boat pitched; but Nautica gazed in such relief at the immovable handkerchief that she fell asleep in her chair. When she wakened with a start and looked anxiously at the handkerchief, it was too late—the storm was over.

In the morning there was nothing to show for all that night's commotion. Smooth, peaceful, and lazy, old Powhatan was loitering in the sunlight to the sea. But Gadabout was not to be soothed into forgetfulness of those night hours. As soon as she had her morning work done up, she hoisted anchor and headed again for her quiet harbour in Herring Creek. After that, when we had a mind to go to Westover, we usually had no mind to take Gadabout with us. Instead, we were more likely to row up the river or to walk up the beach at low tide.

On the occasion of our last visit to the manor-house, we determined to go "beachway." We ran our rowboat on a sandy point jutting into the mouth of the creek, and took our way along the narrow strip of solid land that lay between river and marsh. White-limbed sycamores and tangled undergrowth went along with us, and sometimes inclined to take up more than their share of the narrow way. Brilliant berries gleamed on some bare, brown bushes, and the green leaves of the smilax pretended that they grew there too. Along the beach, tall bunches of reeds stood out against the brown of the river and the blue of the sky in their waving slenderness.

Looking backward across the marshes, we could see the white railing on Gadabout's upper deck and could catch the flutter of her flags through the openings in the trees. As we neared Westover, a slope led to higher land and to a riverward, side entrance to the grounds. Passing through this, a tangle of vines swinging with the great iron gate, we followed the walk toward the house.

Just before reaching the ballroom wing, we paused in front of a small brick outbuilding to have a few appropriate shivers over what was under it. From reading and from our talks at Westover, we knew about the mysterious subterranean chambers down there. To be sure, we had not seen them yet (one thing and another having got in the way of our making a visit to them); but surely one need not always wait to see; one can shiver a little anyway upon hearsay.

And the hearsay was like this. Somewhere underneath that brick outbuilding was an opening down into the earth, like a dry well, some fifteen or twenty feet deep. At the bottom, arched doorways on opposite sides of the shaft opened into two small square rooms. The walls of the well and of the rooms were cement; and the floors were paved with brick. A round stone table used to stand in one of the rooms. From this well once ran two passages or tunnels, large enough for people to go through; one connecting with the house by a curious stairway in the old wing that was destroyed in the war, and the other leading to the river.

We stood looking blankly at the closed outbuilding trying to imagine the hidden rooms and passages beneath it. Tradition told us that they were for refuge from the Indians. That explanation seemed well enough at first. But before we could get into the spirit of it enough to catch even the faintest bit of a warwhoop and to scuttle for the subterranean chambers, we made up our minds that that was not what the things were for anyway. There had ceased to be much danger from Indians along that part of the James by the time even this old home at Westover was built.

So, casting about for a better explanation, we hit upon the idea that William Byrd had constructed the underground rooms in imitation of Pope's famous grotto, which the Colonel and his daughter Evelyn must have seen when entertained by the poet in his villa at Twickenham. But even after we had pictured the mysterious chambers all hung round with mirrors, just like Pope's, and candles everywhere, we could see that so tame a thing as the grotto theory would never do.

There were so many nice, awful things that such a place would be good for. Spurring our jaded fancy with bits from Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, we got on famously for a while with a pirates' den. We had a long, low, rakish ship lying in the river just off the tunnel's mouth; black-bearded ruffians, with knives between their teeth, stealing ashore and disappearing within the dark underground passage; the great stone table down there heaped with Spanish gold; good Jamaica rum pouring down wicked throats; the dark tunnels ever echoing the rollicking chorus, "Six men sat on the dead man's chest"—when suddenly it occurred to us that we were somewhat compromising the old colonial grandee, Colonel Byrd. With that we gave the matter up. We quit staring at a closed brick outbuilding with unseeable things down under it, and went on our way. And, as it turned out that we never visited the underground rooms after all, this was as near as we ever came to solving the colonial mystery.

That day, sitting about the fireplace in Colonel Byrd's library, we listened to a pleasant chapter in the story of an old manor-house—the account of the recent restoration of Westover. As in most cases where extensive rehabilitation of colonial homes has been attempted, an interesting part of the work was the opening up of goodly old-time fireplaces that the changing fashions of changing generations had filled in with brick and mortar. Sometimes they had shrunk to the dimensions of a modern grate; sometimes even to that of a stovepipe hole. Indeed, what chronological mile-stones are the various forms of our American fireplaces! As the historic dates grow larger, the fireplaces grow smaller.

Of course Westover never had the hugest of fireplaces. Even when this old home was built, the shrinkage in chimney-pieces had been going on for some time. No longer was most of the side of a room in a blaze. No longer was the flame fed by a backlog so huge that "a chain was attached to it, and it was dragged in by a horse."

How far removed Westover was from the day of such things, is shown by the noted mantelpiece in the drawing-room. Only with the coming of smaller fireplaces came those elaborate mantelpieces. But the great fireplaces of our ancestors yielded slowly, inch by inch, as it were; and something of the goodly proportions they yet had in Colonel Byrd's day, the hammer and chisel have shown at Westover.

If the exquisite Colonel's doubtless exquisite ghost haunts this home, we can imagine his pleasure when, one wintry night, he found reopened this fine old library fireplace, and sat him down to toast his shapely calves (even ghostly, they must yet be shapely) in the genial old-time glow.

Some of the most interesting features of the work of putting an old homestead back into a period from which it has strayed, grow out of the very limitations. At Westover, while conformity to colonial times is carried far, even to the exclusion of rocking-chairs, yet there has been no shrinking from anachronisms that comfort or convenience demand.

Eighteenth century fireplaces may blaze and crackle, and quite imagine themselves to be still heating the old house; but somewhere down below is a twentieth century furnace that is quietly doing most of the work.



And what a shock it must be to the colonial ghosts when they stumble in the dark over great claw feet, cold even as their own; the feet of monstrous hollow things, white and awesome as themselves—the things that moderns call bathtubs!

Over in the kitchen, unfortunately for the picturesque, all has to be modern. There the eighteenth century furnishing breaks down altogether. Not from the glowing heart of the old chimney-place, but from a huge, homely range comes the gastronomic hospitality of present-day Westover.

No devotion to the eighteenth century can bring the colonial kitchen back again; send the roaring blaze up the wide chimney; swing the crane with the great kettle into the glow; and rebuild the quaint row of skillet and gridiron and broiler, perched on their little legs over the hot embers of the old hearthstone.

Westover has an interesting reminder of the colonial in a copy of an old survey of the plantation that we saw that day. Our eyes quickly caught the suggestive name given on the map to the low, sandy point at the mouth of Herring Creek, where we had left our shore-boat to wait for us. We had not known that it was a place of such associations as the words "Ducking-stool Point" indicated.

Upon first landing there, we had been impressed with the unusual depth of water just off that point; but we had not suspected how, in colonial tunes, many a too-talkative woman had also been impressed with it. It was the law, made and provided, that a ducking-stool should be set up "neere the court-house in every county." So, doubtless, in accordance with that law, a long pole used to reach out from our sandy point, having a seat on the end of it, right over the deep water. And, also in accordance with law, the end of the pole sometimes went down into the water, and a shivering woman went with it. But what would you, when "brabbling women slander and scandalize their neighbours, for which their poore husbands are often brought into chargeable and vexatious suits and cast in great damages"?

The survey showed, also, where Westover Church stood in colonial days. Near the river a little way above the house, stood not only the church but a court-house and a brewing-house, all in sociable and suggestive proximity. We walked up the river bank to visit the spot.



It is still marked by a few gravestones that remain in the deserted churchyard. Among these is the altar-tomb of Evelyn Byrd. It stands with an iron band about it, holding the aged stones in place. The time-dimmed inscription tells us to "be reminded by this awful Tomb" of many dismal things with which we refuse to associate our thoughts of this lovely colonial girl.

Rather, we recall the story of her intimacy with Mrs. Anne Harrison of Berkeley, and of the compact the two friends made, that whichever should die first should appear at some time to the other. The tale goes on to tell that Mrs. Harrison, after the death of her friend, was walking over to Westover one evening, and as she passed the churchyard she saw the ethereal figure of Evelyn Byrd there by the altar-tomb, smiling in happy fulfilment of the strange tryst.

It was late afternoon when we were ready to take our way for the last time down the strip of sandy beach that led from William Byrd's old home to ours. The sun slanted low over the Powhatan; in its glow the old manor-house stood out in all its stateliness. We reflected that just as Westover looked then, it had looked when Colonel Byrd himself used to step out from the marble portal to saunter among his trees and flowers, or to take his faultless self out upon the pier perhaps to watch the unloading of the ship from London Towne. Just so the old house had looked through all those days when it was the scene of a luxurious colonial life not excelled by that of the patroons of the Hudson.

Looking from the home out upon the river we saw a low-laden vessel, all sail spread to the soft, faltering breeze, coming slowly up stream on the last of the tide. How she fitted into the old-time setting! She was one of Colonel Byrd's freighting ships just in from overseas. After a tempestuous voyage, and a narrow escape from the Spanish too, she had safely entered Chesapeake Bay and now, the wind serving but ill, she was slowly drifting up the river.

Soon she would touch at the old colonial pier swarming with plantation negroes. To the rhythm of African melodies the cargo would come out of the hold—mahogany furniture, a new statue for the garden, cases of wine, casks of muscovado sugar, puncheons of rum, plantation machinery, sweetmeats and spices, and some bewildered Irish cows. Quite likely, picking their way daintily in the midst of the exciting scene, would come the lady of the manor and Mistress Evelyn to make anxious inquiry for boxes of London finery. And then—but, no! that vessel out on the James, without stopping at all, had sailed on past the old plantation front. Just a common fishing schooner of to-day bound for Richmond! We turned and closed behind us the ancient iron gate of Westover.



CHAPTER XXII

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.