One word more. Perhaps I have been unjust to Captain Mackay and his men. Time has done much to soften the bitterness with which their conduct filled me, and as I look back now across the score of years that lie between, I can appreciate to some degree their attitude toward our commander. Certainly it might seem a dangerous thing to intrust an enterprise of such moment to a youth of twenty-two, with no knowledge of warfare but that he had gained from books. It is perhaps not wonderful that veterans should have looked at him askance, and I would not think of them too harshly. He doubtless made mistakes,—as what man would not have done?—yet I believe that not even the first captain of the empire could have snatched victory from odds so desperate.
CHAPTER XI
DREAM DAYS AT RIVERVIEW
In the many summer evenings which followed, I played the part of that broken soldier, who, as Mr. Goldsmith tells us so delightfully,
"talked the night away, Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done, Shouldered his crutch and showed how fields were won."
Alas, I could show not how they were won, but only how they were lost, and how was one to clothe in romance a battle which had been fought in the midst of mud and rain, from behind a breastwork, and with scarce a glimpse of the enemy? But I had a rapt audience of two in James and Dorothy. They were not critical, and I told the story of Great Meadows over and over again, a score of times.
A hundred yards from the house, overlooking on one side the willow-draped waters of Occoquan Inlet, and on the other the broad and placid river, a seat had been fashioned between two massive oaks, and here, of an evening, it was our wont to go. Sometimes, by great good fortune, James did not accompany us, and Dorothy and I would sit there alone together and watch the shadows deepen across the water. Our talk would falter and die away before the beauty of the scene, and there would be long silences, broken only now and then by a half whispered sentence. I had never known a sweeter time, and even yet, when night is coming on, I love to steal forth to sit there again and gaze across the water and dream upon the past.
During the day, I saw but little of the other members of the family, and was left greatly to my own resources. My aunt was ever busy with the management of the estate, to every detail of which she gave personal attention, and which she administered with a thrift and thoroughness I could not but admire. The worry of incessant business left its mark upon her. The lines in her face deepened, and the silver in her hair grew more pronounced, but though she doubtless felt her strength failing, she clung grimly to the work. I would have offered to assist her but that I knew she would resent the suggestion, and would believe I made it to gain some knowledge of the income from the estate, of which I had always been kept in densest ignorance, and with which, indeed, I troubled myself but little. I think her old fear of my claiming the place came on her again, and though she always tried to treat me civilly, the effort in the end proved too great for her overwrought nerves, as you shall presently hear.
Upon Dorothy fell the duty of looking after the household, and she went about it cheerfully and willingly. Her mornings were passed in instructing the servants in their duties and seeing that their work was properly done. There were visits to the pantry and kitchen, and a long conference with the cook, so that noon was soon at hand. The afternoon was spent in the great workroom on the upper floor, into which I ventured to peep once or twice, only to be bidden to go about my business. But it was a pleasant sight, and I sometimes gathered courage to steal down the corridor for a glimpse of it. There sat Dorothy in a dainty gown of Covent Garden calico, directing half a dozen old negro women, who were cutting out and sewing together the winter clothing of fearnaught for the slaves. Two or three girls had been brought in to be taught the mysteries of needle-craft, and Dorothy turned to them from time to time to watch their work and direct their rebellious fingers. I would fain have taken a lesson, too, but when I proposed this one day, representing how great my need might be when I was over the mountains far away from any woman, Dorothy informed me sternly, amid the titters of the others, that my fingers were too big and clumsy to be taught to manage so delicate an instrument as a needle, and sent me from the room.
Young James had also much to occupy his time. His mother was as yet in doubt whether he should complete his education at William and Mary, as I had done, or should be sent to London to acquire the true polish. The boy greatly favored the latter course, as any boy of spirit would have done, and his mother would have yielded to him readily, but for the stories she had heard of the riotous living which prevailed among the young blades in London, and of which she had had ample confirmation from Parson Scott, who, I suspect, before coming to his estate at Westwood, had ruffled it with the best of them. Whether it should be Williamsburg or London, the boy was required to be kept at his books every morning, and was off every afternoon to the Dumfries tavern, where there was always a crowd of ne'er-do-wells, promoting a cock-fight, or a horse race, or eye-gouging contest. Sometimes, he elected to spend the evening in this company, and it was then that Dorothy and I were left alone together on the seat beside the river.