Richard Carvel | Page 7

sat with bated breath in the pinnace,
--Dorothy Manners and myself. Mistress Dolly was then as
mischievous a little baggage as ever she proved afterwards. She was
coming to pass a week at the Hall, her parents, whose place was next to
ours, having gone to Philadelphia on a visit. We rounded Kent Island,
which lay green and beautiful in the flashing waters, and at length
caught sight of the old windmill, with its great arms majestically
turning, and the cupola of Carvel House shining white among the trees;
and of the upper spars of the shipping, with sails neatly furled, lying at
the long wharves, where the English wares Mr. Carvel had commanded
for the return trips were unloading. Scarce was the pinnace brought into
the wind before I had leaped ashore and greeted with a shout the Hall
servants drawn up in a line on the green, grinning a welcome. Dorothy
and I scampered over the grass and into the cool, wide house, resting
awhile on the easy sloping steps within, hand in hand. And then away
for that grand tour of inspection we had been so long planning together.
How well I recall that sunny afternoon, when the shadows of the great
oaks were just beginning to lengthen. Through the greenhouses we
marched, monarchs of all we surveyed, old Porphery, the gardener,
presenting Mistress Dolly with a crown of orange blossoms, for which
she thanked him with a pretty courtesy her governess had taught her.
Were we not king and queen returned to our summer palace? And Spot
and Silver and Song and Knipe, the wolf-hound, were our train, though
not as decorous as rigid etiquette demanded, since they were forever
running after the butterflies. On we went through the stiff,
box-bordered walks of the garden, past the weather-beaten sundial and
the spinning-house and the smoke-house to the stables. Here old
Harvey, who had taught me to ride Captain Daniel's pony, is equerry,
and young Harvey our personal attendant; old Harvey smiles as we go
in and out of the stalls rubbing the noses of our trusted friends, and
gives a gruff but kindly warning as to Cassandra's heels. He recalls my

father at the same age.
Jonas Tree, the carpenter, sits sunning himself on his bench before the
shop, but mysteriously disappears when he sees us, and returns
presently with a little ship he has fashioned for me that winter, all
complete with spars and sails, for Jonas was a shipwright on the Severn
in the old country before he came as a king's passenger to the new.
Dolly and I are off directly to the backwaters of the river, where the
new boat is launched with due ceremony as the Conqueror, his
Majesty's latest ship- of-the-line. Jonas himself trims her sails, and she
sets off right gallantly across the shallows, heeling to the breeze for all
the world like a real man-o'-war. Then the King would fain cruise at
once against the French, but Queen Dorothy must needs go with him.
His Majesty points out that when fighting is to be done, a ship of war is
no place for a woman, whereat her Majesty stamps her little foot and
throws her crown of orange blossoms from her, and starts off for the
milk-house in high dudgeon, vowing she will play no more.
And it ends as it ever will end, be the children young or old, for the
French pass from his Majesty's mind and he runs after his consort to
implore forgiveness, leaving poor Jonas to take care of the Conqueror.
How short those summer days? All too short for the girl and boy who
had so much to do in them. The sun rising over the forest often found
us peeping through the blinds, and when he sank into the bay at night
we were still running, tired but happy, and begging patient Hester for
half an hour more.
"Lawd, Marse Dick," I can hear her say, "you an' Miss Dolly's been on
yo' feet since de dawn. And so's I, honey."
And so we had. We would spend whole days on the wharves, all bustle
and excitement, sometimes seated on the capstan of the Sprightly Bess
or perched in the nettings of the Oriole, of which ship old Stanwix was
now captain. He had grown gray in Mr. Carvel's service, and good Mrs.
Stanwix was long since dead. Often we would mount together on the
little horse Captain Daniel had given me, Dorothy on a pillion behind,
to go with my grandfather to inspect the farm. Mr. Starkie, the overseer,

would ride beside us, his fowling-piece slung over his shoulder and his
holster on his hip; a kind man and capable, and unlike Mr. Evans, my
Uncle Grafton's overseer, was seldom known to