CHAPTER XII

HARBOUR DAYS AND A FOGGY NIGHT

Day after day, we lay in our beautiful harbour of Chippoak Creek as the last of the summer-time went by and as autumn began to fly her bright signal flags in the trees along the shore.

Sometimes we moored in the little depression that Nature had scooped out for us close by the Brandon woods; sometimes we scrambled out from it at high tide and went across and cast anchor by the Claremont shore. Now and then we would go for a run up the creek, or out for a while on the broad James.

It is well to stay in a pretty harbour long enough to get acquainted with it. By the time we could tell the stage of the tide by a glance at the lily pads, and could get in and out over the flats in the dark, and could go right to the deep place in Brandon cove without sounding, we had learned where the late wild flowers grew, that the washing would get scorched on one side of the creek and lost on the other, that the best place for fishing was around behind the island, and that the Claremont "butcher" had fresh meat on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Gradually, our neighbours of marsh and woodland lost their shyness, and some of them paid us the compliment of simply ignoring us. Most of the blue herons flew high or curved widely past Gadabout--long necks stretched straight before, long legs stretched straight behind. But the Tragedian (he was the longest and the lankest) minded us not at all. At the last of the ebb, a snag over near the shore would suddenly add on another angle and jab down in the water, coming up again with a shiver and a fish. Then, it would approach the houseboat and stalk the waters beside our windows. The stage stride of the creature won for it the name of the Tragedian. Knowing the shyness of his kind we felt especially pleased by a still further proof of his confidence. One morning, in response to a cautious whisper from the sailor, we stole stealthily upon the after deck and saw that the Tragedian was, truly enough, "settin' on an awnin'-pole pickin' hisself."

There was a dead tree on our Brandon shore-line. It stood among tall pines and sweet gums and beeches as far up as they went, after that it stood alone in the blue. We called it Old Lookout. A bald eagle used it for a watch-tower. Lesser birds dared plume themselves up there when the king was away: crows cawed and sidled along the smooth branches; hawks and buzzards came on tippy wing and lighted there; and even little birds perched pompously where the big eagle's claws had been.

But when the snowy head above the dark, square shoulders tipped Old Lookout, the national emblem had it all to himself. Occasionally he preened his feathers; but he did it in a bored, awkward way, as if forced on account of his valet's absence into unfamiliar details of toilet quite beneath his dignity. Now and then he would scream. It is hard to believe that such a bird can have such a voice. He always lost caste in our eyes when he had his little, choked-up penny whistle going.

The attractions of harbour life did not keep us away from the old manor-house. Once when Gadabout ran around to the river front, she found a yacht from Philadelphia at the pier; and so passed on a little way and cast anchor in a cove opposite the garden.

Few other notable houses in America, still used as homes, are the objects of so many pilgrimages as the historic places on the James. Indeed, few people but the hospitable Virginians would so frequently and so courteously fling wide their doors to strangers.

When the yachting visitors were gone that day and we were at the old home engrossed in the architecture of the Harrison colonial cradle, there came the long blasts of the steamer Pocahontas blowing for the Brandon landing. Not that she had any passengers or freight for Brandon perhaps, or Brandon for her, but because all these river estates are postoffices and the Pocahontas carries the river mail. After a considerable time (for even the United States mail moves slowly through the sleepy old garden), a coloured boy brought in a bag with most promising knobs and bulges all over it.

The postoffice at Brandon is over in the south wing where there are pigeon-holes and desks and such things. But the family mail is brought into the great dining-room and there, in the good plantation way, it is opened on the old mahogany.

The mail that morning made a very good directory of the present-day family at Brandon. There were letters and packages for the mistress of the plantation and for the daughter and the son living in the manor-house with her, and also for the other daughter and her husband, Mr. Randolph Cuyler, who live across the lawn in Brandon Cottage with its dormer windows and wistaria-draped veranda. Mrs. Harrison is the widow of Mr. George Evelyn Harrison, and the daughter of the late William Washington Gordon, who was the first president of the Central Railroad of Georgia and one of the most prominent men in that state.

Brandon to-day keeps up correspondence with relatives and friends in England and on the Continent, reads English papers and magazines, sends cuttings from rosebushes and shrubs across seas, makes visits there and is visited in turn. So, it was pleasant to have the reading of our own welcome letters diversified by bits of foreign news that came out of the bag for Brandon. We could imagine an expression of personal interest on the handsome face of Colonel Byrd, as he stood in court costume on the wall above us, when the wrappings were taken from a volume containing the correspondence of his old friend, the Earl of Orrery, and sent by the present Earl to Mrs. Harrison. In it were some of the Colonel's letters written from his James River home, and in which he spoke of how his daughters missed the gaieties of the English Court. The torn wrappings and bits of string were gathered up and a little blaze was made of them behind the old fire-dogs. Then we were shown more of Brandon.

Up quaint staircases in the wings we went to the roomy bedrooms with their ivy-cased windows, mellow-toned panelling, and old open fireplaces. As daily living at Brandon is truly in the paths of ancestral worthies, so, at night, there are venerable four-posters, richly carved and dark, to induce eighteenth century dreams in the twentieth century Harrisons. Massive mahogany wardrobes, bureaus, and washstands are as generations of forebears have used them.

Some of the bedrooms once had small rooms opening off from them, one on either side of the fireplace, each having a window. An English kinswoman of the family says that such rooms were called "powdering rooms." Through holes in the doors, the colonial belles and beaux used to thrust their elaborately dressed heads into these rooms, that they might be powdered in there without the sweet-scented clouds enveloping silks and velvets too.

From bedrooms to basement is a long way; but we would see the old stone bench down there where used to sit the row of black boys to answer bells from these rooms above. Just over the bench hangs still a tangle of the broken bell wires. When colonial Brandon was filled with guests, there must often have been a merry jangle above the old stone bench and a swift patter of feet on the flags. Standing there to-day, one can almost fancy an impatient tinkle. Is it from some high-coiffured beauty in the south wing with a message that must go post-haste--a missive sanded, scented, and sealed by a trembling hand and to be opened by one no steadier? or is it perhaps from some bewigged councillor with knee-buckles glinting in the firelight as he waits for the subtle heart-warming of an apple toddy?

Now, we were ready to go home; but we did not start at once. A stranger going anywhere from Brandon should imitate the cautious railways and have his schedule subject to change without notice. At the last moment, some new old thing is bound to get between him and the door. In our case, two or three of them did.

Somebody spoke of a secret panel. That sounded well; and even though we were assured that nothing had been found behind it, we went to the south wing to look at the hole in the wall. At one side of a fireplace, a bit of metal had been found under the molding of a panel in the wainscoting. It was evidently a secret spring, but one that had long since lost its cunning; stiff with age and rust, it failed to respond to the discovering touch. In the end, the panel had to be just prosaically pried out. And, worst of all, the dim recess behind it was empty.

When we had peered within the roomy secret space and had wondered what had been concealed there and what hands had pressed the hidden spring, we might really have started for the houseboat if it had not been for the skull story. But there, just underneath a window of the secret-panel room, was another place of secrets. It was a brick projection from the wall of such peculiar form as to have invited investigation. When some bricks had been removed and some earth taken out, a human skull showed white and ghastly. Then, at the touch of moving air, it crumbled away. That was no story to start anywhere on, even in broad daylight; so we had another.

We were taken into the drawing-room and there, sharing honours with the portraits, was a little gold ring hanging high from the chandelier rosette. While not a work of art like one of the canvases on the wall, it has its own sufficient charm--it is a mystery. The dainty gold band has hung above the heads of generations of Harrisons, and somewhere in the long line its story has been lost. Who placed the ring where it hangs, and whether in joy or in grief, nobody longer knows. But it will swing safely there while Brandon stands, for in this ancient house, down the ages undisturbed, come the mysteries and the ghosts.

That evening a wind came up and rain set in from a depressing dark-blue-calico sky. Gadabout did not take the trouble to run back into her creek harbour; but put down a heavier anchor and made herself comfortable for the night in the cove above the Brandon pier. The cradling boat and the patter upon the roof soon put us to sleep. Then something put us very wide awake again. We listened, but there was nothing to hear. The wind had died out and the boat had stopped rolling. In a moment, the long blast of a steamer whistle told what was the matter. In blanket-robe and slippers, the Commodore got quickly to a window, and found the river world all gone--swallowed up in fog.

Another weird, warning call out of the mysterious, impenetrable mist; the steamer for Richmond was groping her way up the river. To be sure, anchored as we were so far inshore of the channel, we were well clear of the steamer's course; but in such heavy fogs the river boats often go astray. As succeeding blasts sounded nearer, the Commodore became anxious and, without waiting to turn out the crew, he started for the fog-bell.

But where was the fog-bell? Not where it ought to be, we well knew. Some changes in the cockpit had crowded it from its place, and for some time it had been stowed away--but where? The Commodore scurried from locker to locker.

"Couldn't we just as well whistle?" asked Nautica.

"No, no. A boat under way whistles in a fog, but one at anchor must ring a bell."

One more locker, and, "I've found it!" triumphantly cried the Commodore; but then, in dismay, "There goes the tongue out of the thing."

Suddenly came another blast from the steamer. She sounded almost atop of us, and the whistling was followed by a swashing of water as though her propeller had been reversed.

"Why don't you call Henry?" asked Nautica.

"No time now," said the Commodore. "I must find something to pound this bell with."

Of course there seemed nothing available. The Commodore seized a whisk broom, but dropped that in favour of a hair-brush; and then in the excitement some harder object was thrust into his hand and he started for the door.

Nautica hurried to a window, and now saw a blur of light through the fog, showing that the steamer had safely passed us; but, though she called joyously, she was not in time to stay the Commodore, who had already dashed into the cockpit beating the tongueless bell with her curling-irons.

When he was at last caught and silenced, we could hear voices on the steamer, orders being given, and then the rattle of running chain. She had given up trying to make headway in the fog, and was coming to anchor just above us.

We heartened up the hickory fire and dressed after a fashion; and sat down to talk things over. The steamer did not ring her bell, so we did not summon the sailor to apply dressing-table accessories to ours.

Going to a window now and then, we noticed that the fog was thinning; and at one place there seemed a luminous blur, indicating perhaps where the steamer lay. We wondered whether running so close upon Gadabout was what had determined the captain to cast anchor. And then we wondered other things about fogs and mists and bewildered ships.

Nautica sat studying the firelight (not exactly in a dreamy old fireplace, but through a damper-hole in the stove), and at length voiced the inspiration that she got.

"If only one could see things in a fog, it wouldn't be so bad," she said conclusively.

"No," came the answer dryly, "a fog that one could see in would be quite an improvement."

"Wait a moment," laughed Nautica. "I mean it isn't merely the dangers lurking in a fog, but the way you go into them that is so terrible. The dangers of a storm you can meet, looking them straight in the face; but those of a fog you have to meet blindfold."

"I thought of that when I got up to-night and stood by the window," said the Commodore. "As the steamer's whistle kept sounding nearer, I could imagine the great, blinded creature slowly groping its way up the river. I think I quite agree that it would be nicer to have fogs that people could see in."

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.