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 shore 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 passing 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.
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 passing 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 clustered on its deep cream ground. Its fashioning 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.