Virginia: the Old Dominion Part 9

Nautica hurried to a window, and now saw a blur of light through the fog, showing that the steamer had safely pa.s.sed us; but, though she called joyously, she was not in time to stay the Commodore, who had already dashed into the c.o.c.kpit beating the tongueless bell with her curling-irons.

When he was at last caught and silenced, we could hear voices on the steamer, orders being given, and then the rattle of running chain. She had given up trying to make headway in the fog, and was coming to anchor just above us.

We heartened up the hickory fire and dressed after a fas.h.i.+on; and sat down to talk things over. The steamer did not ring her bell, so we did not summon the sailor to apply dressing-table accessories to ours.

Going to a window now and then, we noticed that the fog was thinning; and at one place there seemed a luminous blur, indicating perhaps where the steamer lay. We wondered whether running so close upon Gadabout was what had determined the captain to cast anchor. And then we wondered other things about fogs and mists and bewildered s.h.i.+ps.

Nautica sat studying the firelight (not exactly in a dreamy old fireplace, but through a damper-hole in the stove), and at length voiced the inspiration that she got.

"If only one could see things in a fog, it wouldn't be so bad," she said conclusively.

"No," came the answer dryly, "a fog that one could see in would be quite an improvement."

"Wait a moment," laughed Nautica. "I mean it isn't merely the dangers lurking in a fog, but the way you go into them that is so terrible. The dangers of a storm you can meet, looking them straight in the face; but those of a fog you have to meet blindfold."

"I thought of that when I got up to-night and stood by the window,"

said the Commodore. "As the steamer's whistle kept sounding nearer, I could imagine the great, blinded creature slowly groping its way up the river. I think I quite agree that it would be nicer to have fogs that people could see in."

And we felt that Gadabout would be of the same way of thinking. Indeed, could we not hear her joining in as we talked, and good naturedly grumbling that if we couldn't have that kind of fogs, why then we ought to get close in sh.o.r.e among the crabs and the sand-fiddlers, where the big boats could not come; or else go into a quiet little creek with a sleepy little houseboat.

But by this time no one was listening to Gadabout. Any further fussy complaining of this little craft was drowned by the Commodore reading aloud. He had bethought him of a book containing some chapters on Brandon that we had got from the manor-house. And reading made us hungry; and there were two apple tarts on the upper shelf of the refrigerator (for had not the cook provided them "in case an' you should wish 'em befo' you retiah"?); and by the time the tarts were gone, so was the fog; and the steamer headed again for Richmond and we for Dreamland.

CHAPTER XIII

OLD SILVER, OLD PAPERS, AND AN OLD COURT GOWN

Toward the last of our stay in Chippoak Creek, the weather was bad; but it was surprising how agreeable disagreeable days could be at Brandon.

It was dark and gloomy that afternoon when we got to looking at the old family silver, and even raining dismally by the time we were carefully unfolding the faded court gown; but on we went from treasure to treasure oblivious of the weather.

Fine and quaint pieces of old silver are among the family plate. Many of them bear the Harrison crest--a demi-lion rampant supporting a laurel wreath. And who would know what the weather was doing, when those ancient pieces were pa.s.sing from hand to hand, and the fascinating study of hall marks was revealing dates more than two centuries past? There is even some ecclesiastical silver in the old home--the communion service once used in the Martin's Brandon Church, a building no longer standing. The inscription tells that the service was the gift of Major John Westhrope, and the marks give date of about 1659.

But no one form of the antique can hold you long at Brandon. From out some drawer or chest or closet, another treasure will appear and lure you away with another story of the long ago. With the inimitable sheen of old silver still in our eyes, our ears caught the crackle of ancient parchment; and we turned to the fascinations of venerable records and dingy red seals and queer blue tax stamps. The papers were delightfully quaint and yellow and worn, but from their very age a little awesome too.

The most valued one of them all is the original grant of Martin's Brandon bearing date 1616--four years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. The grant covers a page and a half of the large sheets of heavy parchment, and the ink is a stronger black than that on records a century younger.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TREASURED PARCHMENTS, INCLUDING THE ORIGINAL GRANT OF 1616.]

On a worn paper dated 1702 is a plat of Brandon plantation. It shows that at that time the central portion of the manor-house had not been built as only two disconnected buildings (the present wings) are given.

A part of the sketch is marked "a corner of the garden." So, for two hundred years (and who knows how much longer?) there has been that garden by the river. Off at one side of the old map, we found our landing-place in the woods beside some wavy lines that, a neat clerkly hand informed us in pale brown ink, were the "meanderings of Chippoak Creek."

Poring so intently over those ancient papers with their great Old English capitals, their stiff flourishes, their quaint abbreviations, we should scarcely have been startled to see a peruked head bend above them and a hand with noisy quill go tracing along the lines of those long-ago "Whereases" and "Be it knowns."

But, instead, something quite different came out of the past: something very soft and feminine fell over the blotched old papers--the treasured silk brocade in which Evelyn Byrd was presented at the Court of George I. Like a shadowy pa.s.sing of that famous colonial belle, was the sweep of the faint-flowered gown. A fabric of the patch-and-powder days is this, with embroidered flowers in old blues and pinks cl.u.s.tered on its deep cream ground. Its fas.h.i.+oning is quaint: the Watteau pleat in the back with tiny tucks each side at the slim waist line, the square low neck, the close elbow sleeves, the open front to display the quilted petticoat.

Mingled feelings rise at sight of the soft brocade whose bodice once throbbed with the happy heartbeats of this Virginia maiden, making pretty curtsy in rosy pleasure, the admiration of the English Court.

Perhaps in this very gown she danced the stately minuet with young Charles Mordaunt; perhaps hid beneath its fluttering laces his first love sonnet. So, in those far colonial days it knew the life of her.

The grace of the young body seems still to linger in the pale, s.h.i.+mmering folds; and the clinging touch of the old court gown is like a timid appeal for remembrance.

After that rainy afternoon at the manorhouse, we were storm-bound aboard Gadabout for a few days. At last the weather cleared and we again thought of a trip ash.o.r.e. There was yet a brisk wind; and for some time our rowboat rocked alongside, industriously b.u.mping the paint off the houseboat, while we sat on the windla.s.s box enjoying the fresh breeze in our faces and watching the driftage catch on our anchor chain. Of course one can sit right down on the bobby bow itself with feet hanging over, and poke with a stick at the flotsam. But that is only for moments of lazy leisure, not for a time when one is about to visit Brandon.

At last, we were ash.o.r.e and again in the "woods-way." That was the day we got into trouble, all owing to Nautica's pa.s.sion for ancient tombstones. We were half way to Brandon when she concluded that it was not the manor-house that she wished to visit first, but the old graveyard. We stopped at the manager's house to inquire the way. The road led inland. It soon dipped to a bridge over a little stream, where the banks were ma.s.ses of honeysuckle whose fragrance followed us up the slope beyond. On a little farther was a field with a grove in the centre of it that we knew, from the directions given us, contained the cemetery.

We entered the field, and had got almost to the grove when Nautica suddenly stopped, stared, and turned pale. The Commodore's glance followed hers; whereupon, he uttered brave words calculated to rea.s.sure the timid feminine heart, and in a voice that would have been steady enough if his knees had kept still. The bull said nothing.

Very soon, and without his moving at all, that bull was far away from us. We recognized at once that the field was properly his preserve and that we really had no right there; but we trusted that our intrusion in coming in would be atoned for by our promptness in getting out.

In the absorbing process of putting s.p.a.ce between the bull and the houseboaters, the restlessness of the Commodore's knees was really an advantage. They moved so fast that he was able to keep in advance of Nautica, and so be ready to protect her if another bull should appear on ahead. When he felt satisfied that he need no longer expose himself in the van (and, incidentally, that the bull in the rear had been left out of sight), he slackened his pace. We managed to get down to a walk in the course of half a mile or so; and at last approached Brandon at a quite decorous gait.

There, we learned that we had gone to the wrong cemetery anyway--to the one that had belonged to the old Brandon Church whose communion service we had seen. The Harrison burying-ground was not far from the home.

So, with members of the household, we went out across the lawn and around a corner of the garden to the family graveyard. The first Benjamin Harrison, the emigrant, who died about 1649, is not buried here. His tomb stands near the great sycamore tree in the churchyard at James Towne. However, the tombs of his descendants, owners of Brandon, are (with one exception) in this old plantation burying-ground.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ANCIENT GARRISON HOUSE.]

In the walk back to the house, we stopped to see what is probably the oldest, and in many respects the most interesting, building on the plantation. It is just an odd stubby brick house with a crumbling cellar-hut at one end. But family tradition says that it is one of the old garrison houses, or "defensible houses," built in early times for protection against the Indians. It certainly looks the part, with its heavy walls, its iron doors and shutters, and the indications of former loopholes. Upon those first scattered plantations, a characteristic feature was such a strong-house or "block-house" surrounded by a stockade or "palisado" of logs.

While this strong-house at Brandon must have been built after the terrible Indian ma.s.sacre of 1622, yet it doubtless served as a place of refuge in later attacks. Many a time that dread alarm may have spread over this plantation. We thought of the hurrying to and fro; of the gathering of weapons, ammunition, bullet-molds, food, and whatever necessities there may have been time to catch up; and of the panic-stricken men, women and children fleeing from field and cabin to the shelter of the stockade and of the strong-house.

Back again in the manor-house, we spent our last hour at Brandon; for Gadabout was to sail away next day. It was a colonial hour; for Brandon clocks tick off no other, nor would any other seem natural within those walls.

Sitting there in the old home, we slipped easily back into the centuries; back perhaps to the day of the great mahogany sofa that we sat upon. It all seemed very real. The afternoon sun--some eighteenth century afternoon sun--came in through deep-cas.e.m.e.nted windows. It lighted up the high, panelled room, falling warmly upon antique furniture about us, upon by-gone worthies on the wall, and (quite as naturally, it seemed) upon a colonial girl, who now smilingly appeared in the doorway. Bringing the finis.h.i.+ng touch of life to the old-time setting, she came, a curl of her dark hair across a white shoulder and her gown a quaintly fas.h.i.+oned silk brocade.

This eighteenth century presentment was in kindly compliance with a wish that we had expressed on that rainy day when we were looking over Brandon treasures. It was Brandon's daughter in the court gown of her colonial aunt, Evelyn Byrd. And we thought in how few American homes could this charming visitor from the colonies so find the colonial waiting to receive her.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MISS HARRISON IN THE COURT GOWN OF HER COLONIAL AUNT, EVELYN BYRD.]

Nowhere in the world, it is said, are there so many new, comfortable homes built for the pa.s.sing day as in America; but also in no civilized country are there so few old homes. More and more, as this fact comes to be realized, will Americans who care for the permanent and the storied appreciate such colonial homesteads as Brandon, the ancestral home of the Harrisons.

CHAPTER XIV

A ONE-ENGINE RUN AND A FOREST TOMB

By the time we had finished our visit at Brandon, we were in the midst of the beautiful Virginia autumn. Though much of the warmth of summer was yet in the midday hours, the mornings were often crisp and the evenings seemed to lose heart and grow chill as they saw the sun go down.

Part of the houseboat was heated by oil stoves, but the forward cabin had a wood stove, and above it on the upper deck was our little sheet-iron chimney. It had a hood that turned with the wind and creaked just enough for company. So, during mornings and evenings and wet days, Gadabout smoked away, cozy and comfortable.

She was smoking vigorously on the day that we bade good-bye to Chippoak Creek. That was a glorious morning--one of those mornings when the sun tries to warm the northwest wind and the northwest wind tries to chill the sun, and between the two a tonic gets into the air and people want to do things. We wanted to "see the wheels go round" (not knowing then that only one would go round); and we prepared to start for Kittewan Creek, a few miles farther up the James.

Kittewan Creek is no place in particular, but near it are two old plantations that historians and story-writers have talked a good deal about. These two estates, Weyanoke and Fleur de Hundred, having no longer pretentious colonial mansions, are often overlooked by the traveller on the James, who thereby loses a worthy chapter of the river story.