The Virginians | Page 2

we both fight and run

away XCI Satis Pugnae XCII Under Vine and Fig-Tree

THE VIRGINIANS


CHAPTER I
In which one of the Virginians visits home
On the library wall of one of the most famous writers of America, there
hang two crossed swords, which his relatives wore in the great War of
Independence. The one sword was gallantly drawn in the service of the
king, the other was the weapon of a brave and honoured republican
soldier. The possessor of the harmless trophy has earned for himself a
name alike honoured in his ancestors' country and his own, where
genius such as his has always a peaceful welcome.
The ensuing history reminds me of yonder swords in the historian's
study at Boston. In the Revolutionary War, the subjects of this story,
natives of America, and children of the Old Dominion, found
themselves engaged on different sides in the quarrel, coming together
peaceably at its conclusion, as brethren should, their love ever having
materially diminished, however angrily the contest divided them. The
colonel in scarlet, and the general in blue and buff, hang side by side in
the wainscoted parlour of the Warringtons, in England, where a
descendant of one of the brothers has shown their portraits to me, with
many of the letters which they wrote, and the books and papers which
belonged to them. In the Warrington family, and to distinguish them
from other personages of that respectable race, these effigies have
always gone by the name of "The Virginians"; by which name their
memoirs are christened.
They both of them passed much time in Europe. They lived just on the
verge of that Old World from which we are drifting away so swiftly.
They were familiar with many varieties of men and fortune. Their lot
brought them into contact with personages of whom we read only in

books, who seem alive, as I read in the Virginians' letters regarding
them, whose voices I almost fancy I hear, as I read the yellow pages
written scores of years since, blotted with the boyish tears of
disappointed passion, dutifully despatched after famous balls and
ceremonies of the grand Old World, scribbled by camp-fires, or out of
prison; nay, there is one that has a bullet through it, and of which a
greater portion of the text is blotted out with the blood of the bearer.
These letters had probably never been preserved, but for the
affectionate thrift of one person, to whom they never failed in their
dutiful correspondence. Their mother kept all her sons' letters, from the
very first, in which Henry, the younger of the twins, sends his love to
his brother, then ill of a sprain at his grandfather's house of Castlewood,
in Virginia, and thanks his grandpapa for a horse which he rides with
his tutor, down to the last, "from my beloved son," which reached her
but a few hours before her death. The venerable lady never visited
Europe, save once with her parents in the reign of George the Second;
took refuge in Richmond when the house of Castlewood was burned
down during the war; and was called Madam Esmond ever after that
event; never caring much for the name or family of Warrington, which
she held in very slight estimation as compared to her own.
The letters of the Virginians, as the reader will presently see, from
specimens to be shown to him, are by no means full. They are hints
rather than descriptions--indications and outlines chiefly: it may be,
that the present writer has mistaken the forms, and filled in the colour
wrongly: but, poring over the documents, I have tried to imagine the
situation of the writer, where he was, and by what persons surrounded.
I have drawn the figures as I fancied they were; set down conversations
as I think I might have heard them; and so, to the best of my ability,
endeavoured to revivify the bygone times and people. With what
success the task has been accomplished, with what profit or amusement
to himself, the kind reader will please to determine.
One summer morning in the year 1756, and in the reign of his Majesty
King George the Second, the Young Rachel, Virginian ship, Edward
Franks master, came up the Avon river on her happy return from her

annual voyage to the Potomac. She proceeded to Bristol with the tide,
and moored in the stream as near as possible to Trail's wharf, to which
she was consigned. Mr. Trail, her part owner, who could survey his
ship from his counting-house windows, straightway took boat and came
up her side. The owner of the Young Rachel, a large grave man in his
own hair, and of a demure aspect, gave the hand of welcome to Captain
Franks, who