Page:The youth of Washington (1910).djvu/113

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

not over fifteen feet square, where he slept, and, as he said, very ill. It was his custom, however, to join me at supper, and then to remain smoking, which I never learned, and taking his punch. He was either full of talk or so silent that we would not exchange a word while he sat staring into the fire. Sometimes, when tired, I fell asleep, and, on waking, found him gone to bed. When disposed for conversation, he was apt to be bitter about his native land, and once said that the best part of it had come away.

My brother Lawrence and he were the only persons of our own class I ever knew in those days who, to my surprise, foresaw serious trouble from the selfish policy of the crown and the greed of English merchants, who desired to keep us shut out of the natural way of sea trade. I should have been most ungrateful, which I never was, had I not felt my obligations to Lord Fairfax. His great wealth and high position kept even my mother satisfied that what pleased my patron could never be complained of, and so, for a season, I was let to go my own way.

He led me to feel sure that, soon or late,