James, without stopping at all, had sailed on past the old plantation
front. Just a common fishing schooner of to-day bound for Richmond! We
turned and closed behind us the ancient iron gate of Westover.

CHAPTER XXII

A BAD START AND A VIEW OF BERKELEY

On the next morning, we exercised one of the most enjoyable
prerogatives of the houseboater, one that belongs to him as to but few
other travellers--that of changing his mind and his destination. We sat
down to breakfast with the intention of moving on up the James to Eppes
Creek; we rose from the table with the determination to make a run up
Powell's Creek, which was a little above us on the other side of the
river.

We always enjoyed these changes of mind. They added so much the more to
our sense of freedom and independence. There were no bits of cardboard
with the names of stations printed on them to predestine our way; no
baggage checks to consign our belongings to fixed destinations. Even at
the last moment a change of mind, a change of rudder, and a new way and
a new destination would lie before us.

Now, our thoughts headed toward Powell's Creek, because up that stream
was another colonial church, called Merchants' Hope Church; and the
next day would be Sunday.

Necessarily, such houseboat voyagers as we, that the Sundays usually
found up forgotten bits of tidewater, were a trifle irregular in the
matter of church-going. Our houseboat would have had to have a
church-boat for a consort to make it otherwise. Yet, as Sunday after
Sunday Gadabout lay in her quiet creek harbours, the spirit of the day
seemed to find her there without the call of church chimes.

Though it was morning when we changed our minds and determined to seek
a high-backed pew in old Merchants' Hope Church, it was evening by the
time we got under way. And in this case, changing our minds did not
work well. We should have come just as near getting to a church and
should have saved ourselves trouble, if we had clung to our first
intention and had spent that Saturday in moving on up the James.

As we crossed the river on the way to Powell's Creek, a closer study of
the sounding-marks on the chart showed a depth of but one half foot at
several places on the flats at the mouth of the stream. Evidently,
getting into that creek was bound to be a problem in fractions; and
Gadabout was not good at fractions and the day was waning and the tide
was setting out.

It seemed that the way t