From Weyanoke to the old church was not very far; but, as Gadabout had one or two things to stop for on the way and as she might be delayed by the tide, this bright Wednesday morning found her bustling up the river almost afraid that she would be late for service.

Doubtless, in her haste, she was quite put out when we threw the wheel to starboard as she was passing Court House Creek, and carried her somewhat out of her way.  All that we did it for was to run in close to look at some “stobs” just showing above the water.  At the mouths of most of the creeks along the James are such “stobs” or broken pilings.  They are the ruins of old-time piers, the last vestige of a vanished, picturesque river trade.

Ancient pilings have lasted well in the James; and these evidently once belonged to the piers of up-creek colonial planters.  They tell of the day when ships from England, Holland, and the Indies sailed up the river for barter with the colonists.  While the planters whose estates fronted directly on the James received their importations upon wharves before their doors and delivered their tobacco in the same convenient manner, the planters up the creeks were at more trouble in the matter.  The bars at the mouths of the streams kept the ships from entering; and they had to wait outside while the planters brought their produce down upon rafts and in shallow-draft barges, pirogues, and shallops.

Some of the most picturesque of the colonial river trade was at these little creek-mouth piers.  Here came not only the tall ships from England bearing everything used upon the plantations from match-locks and armour to satin bodice and perfumed periwig, from plow and spit to Turkey-worked chairs and silver plate, from oatmeal, cheese, and wine to nutmegs and Shakespeare’s plays; but here came also tramp craft—­broad, deep-laden bottoms from the Netherlands, and English and Dutch boats from the West Indies.  These picturesque vagrant sails sought their customers from landing to landing, and sold their cargoes at comparatively low prices.  Such a ship was assort of bargain boat for these scattered settlers up the creeks of the James; a queer, transient department store at the little cross-roads of tidewater.

There would be exchange of news as well as of commodities, and a friendly rivalry in the matter of tales of adventure—­the planter’s story of Indian attacks being pitted against the captain’s yarn of the “pyrats” that gave him chase off the “Isle of Devils.”  Then up the masts of the trading ship the sails would go clacking, and the prow that had touched the warm wharves of the Indies would point up the river again, bound for the next landing.  And the shallops of the planter—­after loading from the little pier with casks and bales still strong of the ship’s hold, of the tar of the ropes, of the salt of the sea—­would disappear up the forest stream.