I recall now the pleasure this formal appointment gave me. Although I was then but seventeen years old, I was much trusted and was soon busily employed, because of my exactness, and because it was known 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 England, and tried to please his lordship by reading Shakspere and other books of verse. But although I had by hard labor managed to lay out and plot verses to certain young women, I never found much pleasure in the use of the imagination, nor in what others made of it. It seemed to me tedious and without practical value, nor did it amuse me except when it was in a play. For days at a time I sometimes saw nothing of this kind but eccentric nobleman. A woman in England was said to have wounded his life, and it was rare that we had any female guests at Greenway Court, except Anne Cary, the sister of George William Fairfax’s wife. I found it not good for me to be in her company, for in some way she brought to my mind a boy love, which I had resolved no more to entertain, but which I found it difficult to master. Miss Cary stayed no long time, and others came and went, but for the most part I had his lordship to myself. There were days when he was absent in the woods with a servant, or alone. At others he would remain all day shut up in a small log house, not over fifteen feet square, where he slept, and, as he said, very ill. It was his custom, however, to join me at supper, and then to remain smoking, which I never learned, and taking his punch. He was either full of talk or so silent that we would not exchange a word while he sat staring into the fire. Sometimes, when tired, I fell asleep, and, on waking, found him gone to bed. When disposed for conversation, he was apt to be bitter about his native land, and once said that the best part of it had come away.