Richard Carvel | Page 6

him the news was
a pleasure to see. And Grafton turned to revenge; he went to Mr. Carvel
with the paper he had taken from the strong-box and claimed that my
mother was of spurious birth and not fit to marry a Carvel. He
afterwards spread the story secretly among the friends of the family. By
good fortune little harm arose therefrom, since all who knew my
mother loved her, and were willing to give her credit for the doubt;
many, indeed, thought the story sprang from Grafton's jealousy and
hatred. Then it was that Mr. Carvel gave to Grafton the estate in Kent
County and bade him shift for himself, saying that he washed his hands
of a son who had acted such a part.
But Captain Clapsaddle came to the wedding in the long drawing-room
at the Hall and stood by Captain Jack when he was married, and kissed
the bride heartily. And my mother cried about this afterwards, and said
that it grieved her sorely that she should have given pain to such a
noble man.
After the blow which left her a widow, she continued to keep Mr.
Carvel's home. I recall her well, chiefly as a sad and beautiful woman,
stately save when she kissed me with passion and said that I bore my
father's look. She drooped like the flower she was, and one spring day
my grandfather led me to receive her blessing and to be folded for the
last time in those dear arms. With a smile on her lips she rose to heaven
to meet my father. And she lies buried with the rest of the Carvels at
the Hall, next to the brave captain, her husband.
And so I grew up with my grandfather, spending the winters in town

and the long summers on the Eastern Shore. I loved the country best,
and the old house with its hundred feet of front standing on the gentle
slope rising from the river's mouth, the green vines Mr. Carvel had
fetched from England all but hiding the brick, and climbing to the
angled roof; and the velvet green lawn of silvery grass brought from
England, descending gently terrace by terrace to the waterside, where
lay our pungies and barges. There was then a tiny pillared porch
framing the front door, for our ancestors never could be got to realize
the Maryland climate, and would rarely build themselves wide
verandas suitable to that colony. At Carvel Hall we had, to be sure, the
cool spring house under the willows for sultry days, with its pool
dished out for bathing; and a trellised arbour, and octagonal summer
house with seats where my mother was wont to sit sewing while my
grandfather dreamed over his pipe. On the lawn stood the oaks and
walnuts and sycamores which still cast their shade over it, and under
them of a summer's evening Mr. Carvel would have his tea alone; save
oftentimes when a barge would come swinging up the river with ten
velvet-capped blacks at the oars, and one of our friendly
neighbours--Mr. Lloyd or Mr. Bordley, or perchance little Mr.
Manners-- would stop for a long evening with him. They seldom came
without their ladies and children. What romps we youngsters had about
the old place whilst our elders talked their politics.
In childhood the season which delighted me the most was spring. I
would count the days until St. Taminas, which, as you knew, falls on
the first of May. And the old custom was for the young men to deck
themselves out as Indian bucks and sweep down on the festivities
around the Maypole on the town green, or at night to surprise the guests
at a ball and force the gentlemen to pay down a shilling, and sometimes
a crown apiece, and the host to give them a bowl of punch. Then came
June. My grandfather celebrated his Majesty's birthday in his own jolly
fashion, and I had my own birthday party on the tenth. And on the
fifteenth, unless it chanced upon a Sunday, my grandfather never failed
to embark in his pinnace at the Annapolis dock for the Hall. Once
seated in the stern between Mr. Carvel's knees, what rapture when at
last we shot out into the blue waters of the bay and I thought of the long
summer of joy before me. Scipio was generalissimo of these

arrangements, and was always at the dock punctually at ten to hand my
grandfather in, a ceremony in which he took great pride, and to look his
disapproval should we be late. As he turned over the key of the town
house he would walk away with a stern dignity to marshal the other
servants in the horse-boat.
One fifteenth of June two children