Page:The youth of Washington (1910).djvu/111

 that I could not be bribed; and thus for over two years I pursued this occupation. His lordship had long since this time left his cousin's house of Belvoir and gone to live in the valley, in his steward's house, which now he bettered and enlarged for his own use, meaning soon to build a great mansion-house, which he never did.

His home was a long, low stone dwelling, with a sloped roof, and many coops where swallows came, and bird-cotes under the eaves, and around it on all sides a wide porch, with, in every direction, the great forest of gum and hickory and oaks, and the tulip-trees. I found the roads much improved on my first visit, and many outbuildings for slaves and others, with kennels for the hounds his lordship loved to follow. My own room was ever after kept for me. It had a wide dormer-window, and next to it a room with more books than I had ever seen before, except at Westover, Colonel Byrd's great mansion.

I never passed the time more agreeably. When not absent laying out land, we hunted and shot game, especially wild turkeys, which abounded; and when the weather served us ill I read the history of