Richard Carvel | Page 2

stove mocks the gilded ceiling. Children
romp in that room with the silver door-knobs, where my master and his
lady were wont to sit at cards in silk and brocade, while liveried blacks
entered on tiptoe. No marble Cupids or tall Dianas fill the niches in the
staircase, and the mahogany board, round which has been gathered
many a famous toast and wit, is gone from the dining room.
But Mr. Carvel's town house in Annapolis stands to-day, with its
neighbours, a mournful relic of a glory that is past.
DANIEL CLAPSADDLE CARVEL.
CALVERT HOUSE, PENNSYLVANIA, December 21, 1876.

RICHARD CARVEL
CHAPTER I
LIONEL CARVEL, OF CARVEL HALL
Lionel Carvel, Esq., of Carvel Hall, in the county of Queen Anne, was
no inconsiderable man in his Lordship's province of Maryland, and
indeed he was not unknown in the colonial capitals from Williamsburg

to Boston. When his ships arrived out, in May or June, they made a
goodly showing at the wharves, and his captains were ever shrewd men
of judgment who sniffed a Frenchman on the horizon, so that none of
the Carvel tobacco ever went, in that way, to gladden a Gallic heart. Mr.
Carvel's acres were both rich and broad, and his house wide for the
stranger who might seek its shelter, as with God's help so it ever shall
be. It has yet to be said of the Carvels that their guests are hurried away,
or that one, by reason of his worldly goods or position, shall be more
welcome than another.
I take no shame in the pride with which I write of my grandfather,
albeit he took the part of his Majesty and Parliament against the
Colonies. He was no palavering turncoat, like my Uncle Grafton, to cry
"God save the King!" again when an English fleet sailed up the bay. Mr.
Carvel's hand was large and his heart was large, and he was respected
and even loved by the patriots as a man above paltry subterfuge. He
was born at Carvel Hall in the year of our Lord 1696, when the house
was, I am told, but a small dwelling. It was his father, George Carvel,
my great-grandsire, reared the present house in the year 1720, of brick
brought from England as ballast for the empty ships; he added on, in
the years following, the wide wings containing the ball-room, and the
banquet-hall, and the large library at the eastern end, and the offices.
But it was my grandfather who built the great stables and the kennels
where he kept his beagles and his fleeter hounds. He dearly loved the
saddle and the chase, and taught me to love them too. Many the sharp
winter day I have followed the fox with him over two counties, and lain
that night, and a week after, forsooth, at the plantation of some kind
friend who was only too glad to receive us. Often, too, have we stood
together from early morning until dark night, waist deep, on the duck
points, I with a fowling-piece I was all but too young to carry, and
brought back a hundred red-heads or canvas-backs in our bags. He
went with unfailing regularity to the races at Annapolis or Chestertown
or Marlborough, often to see his own horses run, where the coaches of
the gentry were fifty and sixty around the course; where a negro, or a
hogshead of tobacco, or a pipe of Madeira was often staked at a single
throw. Those times, my children, are not ours, and I thought it not
strange that Mr. Carvel should delight in a good main between two

cocks, or a bull-baiting, or a breaking of heads at the Chestertown fair,
where he went to show his cattle and fling a guinea into the ring for the
winner.
But it must not be thought that Lionel Carvel, your ancestor, was
wholly unlettered because he was a sportsman, though it must be
confessed that books occupied him only when the weather compelled,
or when on his back with the gout. At times he would fain have me
read to him as he lay in his great four-post bed with the flowered
counterpane, from the Spectator, stopping me now and anon at some
awakened memory of his youth. He never forgave Mr. Addison for
killing stout, old Sir Roger de Coverley, and would never listen to the
butler's account of his death. Mr. Carvel, too, had walked in Gray's Inn
Gardens and met adventure at Fox Hall, and seen the great
Marlborough himself. He had a fondness for Mr. Congreve's Comedies,
many of which he had seen acted; and was partial to Mr. Gay's Trivia,
which brought him many a recollection. He would also listen to Pope.
But of the more modern poetry I think Mr.