Van Braam was assigned to me as my French interpreter, and I gathered my outfit of provisions, blankets, and guns at Alexandria, and horses, tents, and other needed matters at Winchester, and was joined near Wills Creek—where now is the settlement called Cumberland—by Mr. Gist and an Indian interpreter, one Davidson.
The same day, November 13, to my pleasure, Lord Fairfax rode into camp and spent the night. It was raining and at times snowing, but Gist soon set up a lean-to, and with our feet to the fire we talked late into the night, his lordship smoking, as was his habit.
I have many times desired to be able to make drawings of the greater trees, but, although I could plot a survey well, beyond this I could never go. I speak of this because of my remembrance of that night, and how mighty the trees seemed by the campfire light around the clearing. It was his lordship who called my attention to the trees. He had a way, most strange to me, of suddenly dropping the matter in hand before it was fully considered. He would be silent a space and speak no more, or turn presently to another matter most remote. All of this I learned to accept without remonstrance, out of respect for this great gentleman, as was fitting in one of my years. I never got accustomed to his ways, for it has been always my desire to deal with the subject in hand fully and to an end. Nor did I see this wilderness as his lordship saw it; for, while I made note of trees for what logs they would afford, and as to the soil and the lay of the land, his lordship I have seen stand for ten minutes looking at a great tree as though he found much to consider of it. In like manner I have seen him stop when the hounds were in full cry, a thing most astonishing, and sit still in the saddle, looking down at a brook or up at the sunrise.
As we lay by the fire he remained without speaking for a long while, until the men, having found some old and dried birch logs, cast them on the fire, and a great roaring red flame lighted the woods and was blown about by the cold wind. His lordship said, “See, George, how the shadows of the trees are dancing”—a thing very wild, that I never should have much noticed had not he called on me to observe it. After this he was silent until suddenly he began to ask questions as to my men and my route, and what I meant to do and say in the French camps. At last he said, “You are going to stir up a nest of hornets,” and, finally, that the former messenger, Trent, was a coward.
When he had again been silent a long while, he said that this time, at least, he was not responsible for my appointment, and Dinwiddie was a fool to send a boy on a man’s errand. This was my own opinion, but I made no reply. At last he filled his pipe again, and called for a coal, and said, “But by George, George, you never were a boy, not since I knew you.” I ventured to say that but for his former influence this office would not have come to me. To this he made no answer, but bid me distrust every Indian, especially the Half-King, who was not treacherous but uncertain, and not less every Frenchman, and added that I was so young that they would think that I could be easily fooled. I said that might be an advantage, for I meant to see all there was to see, and had told Van Braam to keep his ears open.
His lordship laughed, and said I might thank Heaven there were no women in the business, and with this, bidding me have the fire made up for the night, we lay down to sleep in the lean-to.
I find it interesting now in my old age to discover myself thus able to recall, little by little, what his lordship said. I was pleased at the notice he took of me, but a lad, and lay long awake under the lean-to, thinking upon such counsels as his lordship had been pleased to give.
XIX
As I turn over the diary in which I recorded my journey through this wilderness, I find myself remembering many little incidents which I never set down.