

9 76 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[DEc. 21, 1907. 

Christmas in Tidewater Virginia. 
THERE is apt to be a wide gap between antici- 
pation and reaiity, | reflected, as 1 made my way 
through the gray chi.l of a late December dawn 
to the landing. If there is anything 
more bone-and-marrow-piercing than the chill of 
a winter night in Virginia, may it never be my 
lot to experience it, even though it be followed 
by something as warm and glorious as a sun- 
shiny winter day in the same country. 
Only two days before I had accepted an invi- 
tation to spend Christmas with my friend Major 
Marvin, in Charles City county, that little oasis 
in the wilderness of modern Virginia where the 
remnants of the old tidewater aristocracy still 
cling to their-plantation homes, their oid cus- 
toms and traditions, and now as the fog and cold 
settled down thicker at every step, I was more 
than half regretful of my promise. 
[ had heard much of this delightful country. 
What reader of colonial history or of the late 
crop of romantic novels not own to a de- 
sire to see Westover, Shirley, Brandon and the 
rest—and my acceptance of the cordial invita- 
tion was rendered no less prompt by the picture 
steamboat 
does 
of an old-time Christmas as I had oftimes 
imagined it, roused up by the Major's “You-all 
will find us a bit old-fashioned, perhaps. We do 
things pretty much the same as we did way back 
yondah befo’ the wah.” 
Now my roseate visions were giving place to 
dismal anticipations of all sorts of miseries. Cold, 
gray fog enveloped us as the leisurely craft pulled 
away from the wharf, and my forebodings were 
heightened: by a cheerful: fellow passenger’s tales 
of the delights of grounding on a James River 
oyster bar. A hot breakfast and that brilliant, 
penetrating sunshine changed my point of view, 
and at each succeeding plantation wharf at which 
we touched I felt my spirits rising. 
Wyanoake, City Point, Shirley, Brandon, West- 
over, Berkeley—the very names carried me back 
out of the prosaic present, and as I watched the 
lusty, grinning negro roustabouts hustle the huge 
hay bales or the peanut bags, and heard their 
shouts, their laughter and their songs, the en- 
thusiasm of two days before came back, and I 
knew I was in the old Virginia of my fancy. 
At one of these long straggling plantation 
wharves with the red roof of its great house ris- 
ing above the trees I found my host awaiting me. 
As we walked up through the long avenue of 
sycamores I learned what the old-time plantation 
was like. There were partridges waiting to be 
shot, too, and a half hour later with two dogs, 
who it seemed could do anything but aim and 
pull the trigger, we were out tramping over the 
brown plantation fields in search of the lusty quail. 
We must shoot our supper, Major Marvin had 
said, and dusk found us hungry and with bule- 
ing pockets, headed for the hospitable mansion. 
That night, seated in the great library with a 




cheerful glow diffusing itself from the white oak 
logs in the huge fireplace, and surrounded by the 
portraits of eight generations of Marvins, be- 
wigged colonials, buff and blue soldiers of the 
Revolution, and gallant wearers of the gray, 
lawyers, statesmen, country gentlemen, but 
everyone a notable sportsman in his day, I 
learned that agreeably to time-honored custom 
the next day was to be marked by the annual 
neighborhood fox hunt with the usual Christ- 
mas festivities to follow. 
A start before dawn called for early hours, but 
before I consigned myself to the great four- 
poster I gazed long across the broad expanse 
of the river lying like a shield against the heights 
of Appomattox, necting the dark patches in the 
moonlight where the ducks lay in the shallows. 
There was just a suspicion of pearly pink in 
the eastern sky when a loud knock followed 
by the entrance of the gray-haired butler roused 
me. His appearance was coincident with the 
usual Christmas greeting of servant to master 
in Virginia: ‘Mornin’, marster, Christmas orth 
adding, “You all bes’ be gittin’ along-up ef you 
en de ole Majah goin’ fox huntin’. Ole Zeke 
down ter de stables gettin’ Charlie en dat Sallie 
laws ready, en Pete done call up de dawgs en 
em er snack. Deh seem pow’ful ambitious 
dis mornin’. Yass, sah, deh does.” 
The first slanting rays of the sun were lying 
ow on the eastern ridges, as after a substantial 
yreakfast my host and I mounted and rode to- 
ward Evelynton, where for years beyond number 
he countryside has met for its annual Christmas 
fox hunt. The frosty air put life into our rugged 
half-breed hunters, and putting them into a can- 
ter, we soon joined the company at the meet- 
ing place hard by the red-brown brick walls of 
historic Westover church. 
There was little of the pomp or circumstance 
of the English or Northern hunting field, but 
the company included men bred in the traditions 
of tidewater sport, the owners of the great plan- 
tations along the James where every man is a 
hard rider, mounted on those small-headed, clean- 
limbed Virginia-bred horses that despite their 
small size are splendid weight carriers, and at 
their best in broken country. 
The dogs of our own pack, all of the famous 
Bellwood breed, big, deep-chested fellows with 
powerful loins, were joined by some of a black 
and tan strain which have been kept at Westover 
and in its vicinity for generations. The pack 
kept close at the horses’ heels, save that occas- 
ionally one of the younger dogs would forge 
ahead with lowered muzzle as he scented the 
trail of “ole hyer,’ only to be recalled to his 
place by a sharp command from the master. 
The sun was getting higher, and his rays were 
beginning to melt the heavy white frost as the 
dogs were cast off. A half mile of jogging along 
the plantation road toward Westover and Twi- 
light, the pride of the Bellwood pack, who had 
give 



A FOX HUNTER AND HOUNDS IN TIDEWATER 
VIRGINIA. 
been trotting along the roadside with head and 
tail erect, began to sniff the leaf-covered ground. 
“Hold up, gentlemen; here’s a trail,’ cried 
Jack Forbes, our huntsman, The next moment 
Twilight opened up on the scent and the rest 
of the dogs crowded to her. Music, the acknowl- 
edged leader of the rival pack, scented a moment, 
then raised his head giving voice to a long drawn 
bass note. Twilight’s clear ringing note an- 
swered and then the whole pack chimed in as 
they took up the scent, working toward the 
marsh land lying along Herring Creek, the 
boundary between Westover and Evelynton plan- 
tations. 
The company crowded together in the narrow 
roadway while the master followed the dogs, now 
encouraging, now admonishing the close work- 
ing pack. The scent grew warmer. The young 
dogs began to break away only to be whipped 
back into place. Men and horses were getting 
impatient. Everyone was getting a firmer hold 
on curb or snaffle, and conversation died out as 
each gave undivided attention to the working 
of is dogs. The pack worked back toward the 
road. 
Suddenly their cry changed from the steady 
music of a pack working a trail to an excited 
yelp. A flash of red and a loud call from Jack 
Forbes proclaimed that the fox was up. Forbes’ 
cheery “hark to them boys” was answered from 
a dozen throats, as not 200 yards away the fox, 
a big red, with brush raised, dashed across the 
road. The ieaders of the pack reached the road 
just as the fox disappeared in the Kimmages 
woods. 
They were followed by the pack in full cry and 
a dozen riders. Rough going this, through the 
1,000 acre tract of woodland, full of tree tangles, 
fallen trunks and muddy runs. The fox was 
evidently a veteran, intent on losing the dogs 
in the wet ground. Straight across Riverside 
plantation he headed, across the Shirley low- 
lands with the pack in full view as he dashed 
through Ioo acres of corn stubble. 
Two stiff snake fences and a ditch barred the 
way, but the horses were still fresh, and took the 
jumps in safety, although the heavy clay of the 
stubble field made bad going. A crowd of yell- 
ing darkies near the old plantation quarters 
turned the fox, and he was off through the bot- 
toms again toward Berkeley. 
A run to try the mettle now with stiff three 
and four rail fences of heavy ‘split logs and a 
takeoff of oozy clay, then down a ravine with no 
more footing than a rabbit path. The pace was 
beginning to tell. Horses were lathered, and a 
touch of the spur was needed now and again 
to keep the dogs in sight. It was all plowed 
land, soft under the warm sun. 
The old red struck the main road close to 
“Shirley gate, and followed it giving the horses a 
chance to recover their wind, until he reached 
Carter’s Pond, where he turned off into the high 
weeds, leaving the dogs at fault for a few 
minutes until old Music picked up the scent once 
more. 
He threw the dogs off the scent a second time 
in a 200 acre sheep pasture, but the old hounds 
had followed too many foxes to be caught by 
this game, and followed the line of the fences 
until they struck the scent once more. Twilight 
and Music led off again, and with horses rested 
by the delay the pace was a hot one. Every 
man was still in the saddle and the hunt well 
bunched. There were no fancy redcoats, but 
every one knew the country and his mount, and 
was, grimly resolved to be in at the finish. 
Br’er Fox crossed the forest plantation, emerged 
into the old Williamsburg pike, and was in plain 
sight with easy going for a mile or more until 
he turned off sharply to the right and cut through 
the swampy land in an attempt to reach a certain 
favorite burrow on the lower side of Westover, 
five miles away. Some of the hounds and several 
of the riders were feeling the effects of the hard 
race over half the county. The Major had broken 
a girth and was out of it. Another’s horse had 
pitched into a stump hole and came up limping. 
The fox was running slowly, but the hounds 
were unable to pick up distance. 
The veterans of the pack were not to be shaken 
off, however. Twilight, Music, Reckless, Blazer 
were running close with lowered muzzles, bristles 

























































































































