The river was always in order, but the highway on land was about the last thing to which the Virginian turned his attention. He accepted it as it was. If a section became impassable to the family chariot, drawn often by six horses, the outriders simply dismounted, and with axes cleared a passage around it for the vehicle to "turn out." Hence the necessity for these outriders. The family never went abroad unattended. At one dinner, described by our Froissart of the Northern Neck, eight servants accompanied the coach and chaise, namely: coachman, driver, two postillions, two servants for the master, one each to attend the two gentlemen on horseback--the chaise being driven by the master himself. There were no bridges across the rivers. Logs of wood placed side by side with planks nailed across formed a wide, floating bridge which sank several inches under the weight of the great coach, the horses splashing through the water. When the roads lay through level ground, after rains they were submerged for miles. Struggling through such a watery lane to visit John Augustine Washington, an English traveller lost heart, and called out to the postillion of the coach sent to fetch him, "Here, you fellow! How far out into the river does your unfortunate master live?" Nobody ever thought it worth while to drain the roads. When they ran through fields crossed and recrossed by "stake-fences" (stakes set at intervals and woven basket-fashion with "savin" or juniper boughs) the pauses were incessant. Bars had to be let down, gates opened and shut. Our Froissart counted thirteen gates in fifteen miles. "When the roads were too rough for carriages," says an old writer who remembered them, "the ladies used to ride on ponies, followed by black servants on horseback. In this way ladies, even when advanced in life, used to travel, clad in the scarlet riding-habits procured from England. Nay, in this way, on emergencies, the young ladies used to come to the balls, riding with their hoops arranged 'fore and aft' like lateen sails, and after dancing all night ride home again in the morning." A "neighborhood" included everybody within a day's journey, all the way from Westmoreland to Mount Vernon. Dinner-parties were going on as incessantly then in the Northern Neck as now in the metropolis. The nearest neighbors were invited to these every few days, while occasionally, in order to reach the whole community of several counties, balls were given to last five days! Of course, all this close and familiar intercourse was an important agent in the wonderful unanimity of the entire country when the hour of conflict had come. At these balls and dinners something was done besides dancing and card-playing--some hint or word from eloquent lips to keep alive the spark soon to burst forth in resistless, all-conquering flame. Historians speak of the period as "the lull before the storm." It was not by any means a "lull"--rather a carnival! CHAPTER XXII