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The American Horse band was closely attached to a trading post, and its members in consequence were inclined to be friendly with the whites, a policy closely adhered to by their leader. When he was born, his old grandfather said: "Put him out in the sun! Let him ask his great-grandfather, the Sun, for the warm blood of a warrior!" And he had warm blood.
George Washington's father owned a large plantation on the western shore of the Potomac River. George's great-grandfather, John Washington, had settled upon it nearly eighty years before, and there the family had dwelt ever since. This plantation was in Westmoreland county, not quite forty miles above the place where the Potomac flows into Chesapeake Bay.
Before conceding it the Marquis sets him tasks: to level an inconvenient mountain, so that the sun may shine on the castle; to sow the site of the mountain with fruit trees, and gather the fruit of them in one day for dinner; to find a piece of plate which the Marquis's great-grandfather had dropped into the river; to catch and mount a horse which is no other than the Marquis himself; and to choose a bride from among the princesses, his daughters.
I said that was not my purpose, and pitched him a yarn about Prince Charlie and how my mother's great-grandfather had played some kind of part in that show. I told him I wanted to see the place where the Prince landed and where he left for France. 'So far as I can make out that won't take me into the passport country, but I'll have to do a bit of footslogging. Well, I'm used to padding the hoof.
"She shorely took you, Harry, for your great-grandfather, Henry Ware, the mighty woodsman and Injun fighter that later on became governor of the state. I guess you look as he did when he was near your age. I've heard her tell tales about him by the mile. Aunt Suse, you know, is more'n a hundred, an' she's got the double gift o' lookin' forrard an' back'ard.
His great-grandfather was just the same, and he fought the Putney Pet when he was five-and-twenty, and his parents thought he was sitting quietly at his desk in Fetter Lane.
So if the Prince of Wales should see fit to tread in the footsteps of his great-grandfather, he would have very different instruments from those "king's friends" whose existence and actions were so fatal to ministers in the early part of those days when George III. was king.
But no, of course not, we were too busy in the old days enjoying life to trouble to talk of such things! Well, it is rather strange in the last generation things very nearly came to an end and John has built it all up again. You are interested in heredity?" "Naturally what is the story?" "Our mutual great-grandfather was a tremendous personage in North Somerset the place Ardayre is there.
All the things from his former nest had been moved into it; the bed with the chintz curtains, covered with strange flowers and birds; the old bureau, with the many drawers inside the folding cover, in which he kept all his little treasures; the table at which he read books that were too big to hold, such as Raleigh's History of the World and Josephus; the old oblong mirror that hung on the wall, with an outspread gilt eagle at the top of it; the big old arm-chair that had belonged to his great-grandfather, who wrote his sermons in it for all the things the boy had about him were old, and in all his after-life he never could bear new furniture.
And they walked off together, Passepartout chatting volubly as they went along. "Above all," said he; "don't let me lose the steamer." "You have plenty of time; it's only twelve o'clock." Passepartout pulled out his big watch. "Twelve!" he exclaimed; "why, it's only eight minutes before ten." "Your watch is slow." "My watch? A family watch, monsieur, which has come down from my great-grandfather!
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