Richard Carvel | Page 4

driven his
black assistants from the room. Scipio was Mr. Carvel's butler. He was
forbid to light the candles after dinner. As dark grew on, Mr. Carvel
liked the blazing logs for light, and presently sets the decanter on the
corner of the table and draws nearer the fire, his guests following. I
recall well how jolly Governor Sharpe, who was a frequent visitor with
us, was wont to display a comely calf in silk stocking; and how Captain
Daniel Clapsaddle would spread his feet with his toes out, and settle his
long pipe between his teeth. And there were besides a host of others
who sat at that fire whose names have passed into Maryland's
history,--Whig and Tory alike. And I remember a tall slip of a lad who
sat listening by the deep-recessed windows on the street, which
somehow are always covered in these pictures with a fine rain. Then a
coach passes,--a mahogany coach emblazoned with the Manners's coat
of arms, and Mistress Dorothy and her mother within. And my young
lady gives me one of those demure bows which ever set my heart
agoing like a smith's hammer of a Monday.
CHAPTER II

SOME MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD
A traveller who has all but gained the last height of the great mist-
covered mountain looks back over the painful crags he has mastered to
where a light is shining on the first easy slope. That light is ever visible,
for it is Youth.
After nigh fourscore and ten years of life that Youth is nearer to me
now than many things which befell me later. I recall as yesterday the
day Captain Clapsaddle rode to the Hall, his horse covered with sweat,
and the reluctant tidings of Captain Jack Carvel's death on his lips. And
strangely enough that day sticks in my memory as of delight rather than
sadness. When my poor mother had gone up the stairs on my
grandfather's arm the strong soldier took me on his knee, and drawing
his pistol from his holster bade me snap the lock, which I was barely
able to do. And he told me wonderful tales of the woods beyond the
mountains, and of the painted men who tracked them; much wilder and
fiercer they were than those stray Nanticokes I had seen from time to
time near Carvel Hall. And when at last he would go I clung to him, so
he swung me to the back of his great horse Ronald, and I seized the
bridle in my small hands. The noble beast, like his master, loved a child
well, and he cantered off lightly at the captain's whistle, who cried
"bravo" and ran by my side lest I should fall. Lifting me off at length he
kissed me and bade me not to annoy my mother, the tears in his eyes
again. And leaping on Ronald was away for the ferry with never so
much as a look behind, leaving me standing in the road.
And from that time I saw more of him and loved him better than any
man save my grandfather. He gave me a pony on my next birthday, and
a little hogskin saddle made especially by Master Wythe, the London
saddler in the town, with a silver-mounted bridle. Indeed, rarely did the
captain return from one of his long journeys without something for me
and a handsome present for my mother. Mr. Carvel would have had
him make his home with us when we were in town, but this he would
not do. He lodged in Church Street, over against the Coffee House,
dining at that hostelry when not bidden out, or when not with us. He
was much sought after. I believe there was scarce a man of note in any

of the colonies not numbered among his friends. 'Twas said he loved
my mother, and could never come to care for any other woman, and he
promised my father in the forests to look after her welfare and mine.
This promise, you shall see, he faithfully kept.
Though you have often heard from my lips the story of my mother, I
must for the sake of those who are to come after you, set it down here
as briefly as I may. My grandfather's bark 'Charming Sally', Captain
Stanwix, having set out from Bristol on the 15th of April, 1736, with a
fair wind astern and a full cargo of English goods below, near the
Madeiras fell in with foul weather, which increased as she entered the
trades. Captain Stanwix being a prudent man, shortened sail, knowing
the harbour of Funchal to be but a shallow bight in the rock, and worse
than the open sea in a southeaster. The third day he hove the Sally to;
being a stout