"I fear you are a very bold young man," she answered pensively, and when
I would have proved the truth of her assertion, sent me packing.
So the week passed, the day came when we were to leave Williamsburg, and at six o'clock one cool October morning, the great coach of the Washingtons rolled westward down the sandy street, the maples casting long shadows across the road. And on the side where Mistress Dorothy sat, I was riding at the window.
CHAPTER VIII
A RIDE TO WILLIAMSBURG
I was received civilly enough at Riverview, and soon determined to remain there until Major Washington returned from the west. My aunt treated me with great consideration, doubtless because she feared to anger me, and I soon fell into the routine of the estate. My cousin James, a roystering boy of fourteen, was not yet old enough to be covetous, and he and I were soon friends. Dorothy treated me as she had always done, with a hearty sisterly affection, which gave me much uneasiness, 't was so unlike my own, and I was at some pains to point out to her that we were not cousins, nor, indeed, any relation whatsoever. In return for which she merely laughed at me.
By great good fortune, I found among the overseers on my aunt's estate a man who had been a soldier of fortune in the Old World until some escapade had driven him to seek safety in the colonies, and with my aunt's permission, I secured him to teach me what he knew of the practice of arms, a tutelage which he entered upon with fine enthusiasm. He was called Captain Paul on the plantation,—a little, wiry man, with fierce mustaches and flashing eyes, greatly feared by the negroes, though he always treated them kindly enough, so far as I could see. He claimed to be an Englishman,—certainly he spoke the language as well as any I ever heard,—but his dark eyes and swarthy skin bespoke the Spaniard or Italian, and his quickness with the foils the French. A strain of all these bloods I think he must have had, but of his family he would tell me nothing, nor of the trouble which had brought him over-sea. But of his feats of arms he loved to speak,—and they were worth the telling. He had been with Plelo's heroic little band of Frenchmen before Dantzic, where a hundred deeds of valor were performed every day, and with Broglie before Parma, where he had witnessed the rout of the Austrians. For hours together I made him recount to me the story of his campaigns, and when he grew weary of talking and I of listening, we had a round with the rapier, or a bout with the sword on horseback, and as the weeks passed, I found I was gaining some small proficiency. He drilled me, too, in another exercise which he thought most important, that of shooting from horseback with the pistol.
"'T is an accomplishment which has saved my life a score of times," he would say, "and of more value in a charge than any swordsmanship. A man must be a swordsman to defend his honor, and a good shot with the pistol to defend his life. Accomplished in both, he is armed cap-a-pie against the world. The pistol has its rules as well as the sword. For instance,—
"'When you charge an adversary, always compel him to fire first, for the one who fires first rarely hits his mark.
"'At the instant you see him about to fire, make your horse rear. This will throw your horse before you as a shield, and if the aim is true, 't will be your horse that is hit and not yourself. The life of a horse is valuable, but that of a man is more so.
"If your horse has not been hit, or is not badly hurt, you have your adversary at your mercy, and can either kill him or take him prisoner, as you may choose. If he be well mounted, and well accoutred, it is usually wisest to take him prisoner.