This at once made George an object of interest to them all, and he was closely questioned. He answered everything that was asked him with such intelligence and pith that his new acquaintances formed a high idea of his sense. He often referred to William Fairfax, who had been with him the first summer, and William made also a fine impression. They sat until midnight, talking, and Lance had to renew the fire and the candles twice before the company parted.
Next morning William came betimes and burst into George's room while that young gentleman was still in bed.
"Get up, man!" cried William, shaking him. "Here you lie sleeping like a log, when you ought to be having your breakfast and making ready to see the town."
George needed no second invitation, and in a very short time was making play with his breakfast in the sitting-room reserved for Lord Fairfax. The Earl was there himself, and the delightful anticipations of George and William, which were fully shared by Lance and Billy, brought a smile to his usually grave face.
Lance was simply beaming. A number of his old regiment were enrolled among the Governor's body-guard, and the sight of a redcoat did him, as he said, "a world of good." As for Billy, he had reached the state of nil admirari, and was determined to be surprised at nothing. On the contrary, when the tavern servants had assumed that he was a country servant, Billy had completely turned the tables on them. Nothing in the Raleigh Tavern was good enough for him. He pished and pshawed in the most approved style, treated Colonel Byrd's and Marshal Tyler's servants with infinite scorn, and declined to be patronized even by Sir John Peyton's own man, who had been to London. He called them all "cornfiel' han's," and, as the way generally is, he was taken at his own valuation, and reigned monarch of all he surveyed in the kitchen, where he gave more trouble than Lord Fairfax himself. However, one person could bring Billy down with neatness and despatch. This was Lance, who, although belonging to a class of white people that Billy despised, was yet capable of reporting him to "Marse George," so Billy was wary when Lance was around.
At three o'clock the coach came, and the Earl and George set forth with outriders to attend the Governor's levee. It was the first time George had ever seen the Earl in court dress. He wore a splendid suit of plum-colored satin, with ruby and diamond shoebuckles, with his diamond-hilted sword, and a powdered wig. George, too, was very elegantly dressed, and as they drove up to the palace, amid a crowd of coaches and chaises of all sorts, and dismounted, there were not two such distinguished-looking persons there. George felt decidedly flurried, although he had ample self-possession to disguise it.
They were met by the Governor's guard in the great entrance-hall, who passed them on to an anteroom, where half a dozen lackeys in gorgeous liveries bowed to the ground before them. A great pair of folding-doors led into the audience-chamber, and at a signal from within the doors were thrown wide, and they entered.
The room was large but low, and had on each side a row of mullioned windows. It was crowded with company, but a lane was at once made for the Earl and George, who advanced towards a dais covered with scarlet cloth at one end of the room, where Governor Dinwiddie stood, in a splendid court dress; for the Governors of Virginia assumed to be viceroys, and everything at the provincial court was copied, as far as possible, from the same thing at the Court of St. James. Ranged around the dais were the wife and daughters of the Governor with several ladies-in-waiting, also in court dresses with trains.
As the Earl and George made their reverences they attracted much attention; and when George stood back, silent and awaiting his turn while the Governor conversed with the Earl, there was a murmur of admiration for him. He was so manly, so graceful, his figure was set off with so incomparable an air of elegance, that other men appeared commonplace beside him. He seemed from his ease and grace to have spent his life at courts, while, in truth, he had never seen anything half so fine before.
The Governor, having finished his conversation with the Earl, motioned to George, who advanced as the Earl backed off, it being inadmissible to turn one's back on the Governor.