e few steps we made a long plunge down the years of
history, and passed far away from old James Towne. None of the
colonists ever saw those walls of earth. They are the remains of a
Confederate fort. But, modern as they are, they have done what they
could to put themselves in harmony with the ancientness all about. The
slopes are grass-grown and even tree-grown. Within the walls is the
caretaker's cottage in the midst of such a wealth of trees, flowering
shrubs, and vines as makes a greenwood retreat. The grass-grown
embrasures and the drooping branches over them form frames for river
views that seem set there in place of the rusty cannon pieces.

It was toward evening when we started back across the island,
houseboatward. We sauntered slowly at first, turning for a backward
glance at the old church tower and pausing again to look out over the
water at the island's outer sentinel, the "Lone Cypress." We paused yet
another time down where the marsh reeds lined the way. Grasping
handfuls of the coarse grass, the Commodore started to illustrate how
the colonists bound thatch, doubtless from that very marsh, to make
roofs for their flimsy cabins. But the marsh furnished something
besides grasses; and before the Commodore's explanation had gone far,
his auditors had gone farther. He valiantly slew the snake, the whole
six inches of it, and hastening forward found those more progressive
houseboaters safely ensconced in the shore-boat.

As the little skiff moved out upon the river, a carriage rattled across
the bridge. Sightseers who had driven over from Williamsburg were
returning. However satisfied they may have felt with their short visit,
we could only pity them. Yet such a visit, of a few hours at most, is
all that is possible here except for one who brings his home with him,
for there is no public house on the island. Stepping aboard Gadabout,
we congratulated ourselves that she enabled us to live indefinitely
right in the suburbs of old James Towne.

However, as days went on, Lady Fairweather became somewhat daunted by
the dire predictions of chills and fever as a result of our long lying
in the marshes; and one day she deserted the ship and sailed away on a
bigger one. We thought she was to be gone only a little while, but she
proved a real deserter and Gadabout saw no more of her to the end of
the cruise.

But chills and fever never came to Gadabout's household, though the
dog-day sun beat upon the waste of reeds