s often left completely in the dark as
to what the uncertain meddler's wishes or plans really were.

At last, from being thus harassed in mind by these petty annoyances,
and worn in body by the hardships of such rough service, his health
failed him; and he was advised to repair to Mount Vernon, and there
remain until his disease should take a more favorable turn. Here he
lay for four long, weary months, before he could rejoin big regiment;
during much of which time, his friends, who nursed and watched him,
really regarded his recovery as doubtful. This is another instance of
what so often seems to us a matter of wonder,--the power of a
narrow-minded, mean-spirited, ill-tempered, false-hearted man to
inflict pain on a noble and lofty nature.

A short time before the close of the war, it becoming quite certain
that he had been putting public money, intrusted to his keeping, to
private or dishonorable uses, Gov. Dinwiddie was recalled, and another
sent over to fill his place. Being the man here described, and a petty
tyrant withal, nobody was sorry to see him go, except the needy
toadies who had hung about him, and who, seeing that nothing was
likely to turn up for them in the New World, packed off to Scotland
with their patron, as hungry and empty-handed as they came.

By the by, I must not forget to tell you of the heroic conduct of old
Lord Fairfax. Greenway Court, as you no doubt remember, was in the
Shenandoah Valley, not many miles from Winchester; and, situated on
the very edge of a vast forest, was quite open to the inroads of the
Indians, any one of whom, would have risked limb or life to get his
bloody clutches on the gray scalp of so renowned a Long Knife. To meet
this danger, as well as do his part towards the general defence, he
mustered his hunters and negro servants, to the number of a hundred or
thereabouts, and formed them at his own expense into a company of
horse, with which the keen old fox-hunter, now as daring a trooper,
scoured the country from time to time, and did good service.

XX.

A NEW ENTERPRISE.

And thus these melancholy years came and went, with all their dark and
painful experiences. A firm and self-reliant spirit like Washington's,
however, could not be long cast down by even severer trials than those
by which we have just seen his strength and manhood tested: so, from
that time forward, come what might, he resolved to hold right on, nor
bate a jot of heart or hope or zeal