Van Braam was assigned to me as my French interpreter, and I gathered my outfit of provisions, blankets, and guns at Alexandria, and horses, tents, and other needed matters at Winchester, and was joined near Wills Creek――where now is the settlement called Cumberland――by Mr. Gist and an Indian interpreter, one Davidson. The same day, November 13, to my pleasure, Lord Fairfax rode into camp and spent the night. It was raining and at times snowing, but Gist soon set up a lean-to, and with our feet to the fire we talked late into the night, his lordship smoking, as was his habit. I have many times desired to be able to make drawings of the greater trees, but, although I could plot a survey well, beyond this I could never go. I speak of this because of my remembrance of that night, and how mighty the trees seemed by the campfire light around the clearing. It was his lordship who called my attention to the trees. He had a way, most strange to me, of suddenly dropping the matter in hand before it was fully considered. He would be silent a space and speak no more, or turn presently to another matter most remote. All of this I learned to accept without remonstrance, out of respect for this great gentleman, as was fitting in one of my years. I never got accustomed to his ways, for it has been always my desire to deal with the subject in hand fully and to an end. Nor did I see this wilderness as his lordship saw it; for, while I made note of trees for what logs they would afford, and as to the soil and the lay of the land, his lordship I have seen stand for ten minutes looking at a great tree as though he found much to consider of it. In like manner I have seen him stop when the hounds were in full cry, a thing most astonishing, and sit still in the saddle, looking down at a brook or up at the sunrise. As we lay by the fire he remained without speaking for a long while, until the men, having found some old and dried birch logs, cast them on the fire, and a great roaring red flame lighted the woods and was blown about by the cold wind. His lordship said, “See, George, how the shadows of the trees are dancing”――a thing very wild, that I never should have much noticed had not he called on me to observe it. After this he was silent until suddenly he began to ask questions as to my men and my route, and what I meant to do and say in the French camps. At last he said, “You are going to stir up a nest of hornets,” and, finally, that the former messenger, Trent, was a coward.