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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
Winston Churchill's "Richard Carvel 'Äî Complete" offers a masterful blend of historical fiction and adventurous narrative, characterized by its vivid prose and rich characterization. Set in the vibrant landscapes of 18th-century England and the American colonies, the novel follows the passionate journey of its titular character, Richard Carvel, as he navigates the tumultuous waters of society, love, and historical upheaval. Churchill's writing exemplifies the influences of Romanticism, using a style that combines dramatic tension with lyrical descriptions, all while weaving historical events into the fabric of personal struggle and triumph. The illustrious Winston Churchill, best known as a statesman and leader during pivotal moments in history, was also an accomplished writer whose literary pursuits were deeply rooted in his experiences and interests. Drawing on his rich background, Churchill crafted "Richard Carvel" during a time when his political career was burgeoning, reflecting the complexities of leadership and the resilience of the human spirit amid adversity. This compelling novel is highly recommended for readers who appreciate a poignant historical tale enriched by romance and adventure. Churchill'Äôs narrative mastery invites readers to not only witness Richard Carvel'Äôs endeavors but to reflect on the broader themes of destiny and individual courage, making it an essential read for enthusiasts of both history and literature.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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Richard Carvel — Complete
Table of Contents
Introduction
Charting the moral education of a young colonial gentleman against the gathering storm of revolution, Richard Carvel explores how private loyalties and public ideals collide as a nation and a character come of age, tracing the tensions of honor, class, and affection that press a sheltered youth toward perilous choices and a hard-won sense of self within a world poised between inherited authority and emerging independence, and inviting readers to consider how convictions are formed, tested, and affirmed when the familiar order gives way to uncertainty, risk, and the exhilarating, often costly promise of change.
Winston Churchill’s Richard Carvel is a historical novel set chiefly in colonial America on the eve of the Revolutionary era, written by the American novelist of the same name (not the later British statesman). First published in 1899, it belongs to the wave of turn-of-the-century American fiction that revisited the nation’s origins through romance, adventure, and carefully staged period atmosphere. The narrative moves through mansions, courtrooms, docks, and assembly rooms, capturing both provincial rhythms and imperial pressures. Its popularity upon release signaled a broad appetite for stories that blend personal development with national prehistory, viewed through a polished, accessible lens.
The book offers a coming-of-age journey in which a well-born youth learns to read the shifting codes of loyalty, courage, and integrity as political tempers rise. Without relying on sensational twists, the story builds momentum through trials of character, social frictions, and the lure and danger of public life. Churchill’s style is expansive and clear, attentive to manners and setting while steering an adventurous pace. The voice carries the stately cadence of nineteenth-century prose yet favors vivid incident over abstraction, giving readers a balanced experience of reflective narration, spirited dialogue, and evocative scenes that illuminate the stakes of choice in unsettled times.
Themes of identity, allegiance, and honor dominate, framed by the larger question of what it means to belong to a place on the cusp of transformation. The novel considers how class expectations shape and constrain youthful ambition, how affection and duty may pull in opposing directions, and how rhetoric can both inspire and mislead. It also weighs the moral responsibility of individuals within widening circles of community, from household to province to emerging nation. These concerns are explored not as distant civics lessons but as lived pressures, felt in friendships, mentorings, rivalries, and the sometimes ambiguous obligations of patronage and reputation.
Appearing at the end of the nineteenth century, Richard Carvel reflects an American literary moment fascinated by the Revolutionary past and the origins of civic character. Churchill engages that interest by foregrounding social texture—costume, custom, and conversation—alongside political currents, inviting readers to inhabit the ordinary rhythms that history often overlooks. The result is a portrait of colonial life that feels human and situated rather than merely illustrative. Its careful pacing allows historical forces to emerge organically from daily choices, while the narrative retains the warmth and verve of a romance, ensuring that the pull of story never yields to pedantry.
For contemporary readers, the novel’s questions remain strikingly relevant: How do we form convictions amid competing loyalties? What does courage look like when consequences fall on family as well as self? How do privilege and responsibility intersect in public life? Richard Carvel does not lecture; it dramatizes these issues through character and circumstance, encouraging reflection on civic identity, the ethics of leadership, and the cost of independence—personal and collective. Its appeal lies in the combination of narrative sweep and moral inquiry, offering both the pleasures of a richly staged historical world and the stimulation of ideas that still matter.
Approach this complete text as you would a long, satisfying voyage: the prose is period-appropriate yet welcoming, the episodes varied, and the emotional arc cumulative rather than abrupt. Attend to the nuances of speech and setting; they are not ornament but argument, revealing how a society understands itself. Expect a blend of elegance and momentum, with characters tested less by mystery than by decision. Readers who enjoy historical fiction that privileges character formation over spectacle will find much to admire, and those curious about America’s founding temper will encounter a story that treats beginnings with both affection and clear-eyed scrutiny.
Synopsis
Richard Carvel — Complete recounts the first-person story of a Maryland gentleman coming of age on the eve of the American Revolution. Raised at Carvel Hall by his indulgent grandfather, Richard grows amid Annapolis’s lavish social life, horse races, and assemblies, while absorbing the era’s political quarrels. His cousin-guardian Grafton Carvel, ambitious and smooth, hovers over the family estate, while Richard’s companionship with the spirited Dorothy Manners deepens. The colony’s divisions between Tory loyalists and rising Whigs shape dinners, duels, and debates, giving the young narrator a view of both imperial loyalty and provincial grievance without yet committing him to either side.
Richard’s boyhood is marked by generous tutelage, impulsive courage, and brushes with Annapolis bravos that reveal his stubborn sense of honor. Social visits bring him into contact with officers of the Crown and colonial reformers alike. As imperial measures harden, committees and town meetings gain force, and an episode over taxed tea leads to a dramatic protest in the harbor, signaling the city's temper. Richard’s grandfather counsels prudence, while Grafton’s influence grows behind closed doors. Richard’s regard for Dorothy encounters barriers of class, ambition, and guardianship, setting a personal thread that runs parallel to the widening political rift.
Family tensions sharpen into legal maneuvers and covert threats. Richard’s refusal to bend to schemes concerning the estate culminates in a sudden abduction, and he is carried to sea under false colors. The voyage exposes him to brutality, endurance, and the raw commerce that links colony and metropole. Put ashore in England, he confronts poverty and anonymity before chance allies help restore his footing. Through resourcefulness and the good will of strangers, he gains entrance to London’s drawing rooms and coffeehouses, where debate over America’s discontent is animated and personal. From this vantage, the imperial crisis appears both intimate and immense.
In London, Richard finds a patron in Lord Comyn, whose friendship opens doors and imposes tests. He observes party rivalries, meets leading figures sympathetic and hostile to colonial claims, and learns the uses of influence and restraint. Dorothy appears abroad under careful protection, her prospects intertwined with politics and rank, and Richard’s loyalty is measured against prudence. Challenges to his honor bring him to the verge of dueling, while quiet efforts seek to unravel the plot that displaced him. His name, future, and affections depend on navigating salons, courts, and alleyways without forfeiting the simplicity that formed him.
As the quarrel ripens into open war, Richard’s path turns seaward. He joins the squadron of John Paul Jones, finding in naval service a disciplined channel for courage and conviction. Shipboard life teaches command, obedience, and the tyranny of weather and chance. Raids along the British coast and a fierce fleet action test endurance and ingenuity, while the captain’s audacity offers a model of relentless purpose. Amid smoke and splinters, Richard measures the stakes of rebellion and the costs borne by friend and foe. The sea campaign broadens his allegiance from local grievance to a cause demanding sacrifice.
After the rigors of the cruise, Richard returns to the American theater to face responsibilities at home. Maryland, like the other states, reorganizes under committees, regiments, and new laws, and private loyalties are strained by public necessity. Old acquaintances have chosen sides, and fortunes have shifted. Richard renews contact with allies from Annapolis and the countryside, seeking lawful remedies where possible and firmness where required. The distance between colonial gentility and revolutionary austerity becomes palpable, and personal hopes must accommodate shortages, alarms, and the constant presence of war. Yet the habits of home lend him steadiness amid change.
The lingering issue of the Carvel estate resurfaces as a central concern. Grafton’s position, strengthened by time and appearances, confronts Richard with obstacles in chancery, in society, and in the court of opinion. Evidence must be gathered, witnesses found, and reputations weighed. Dorothy’s choices, constrained by duty and expectation, intersect with these disputes, and her judgment influences doors that open or close. Friends risk influence on Richard’s behalf, while adversaries counter with subtlety and force. The conflict presses beyond papers into threats to safety, drawing household, tenants, and townspeople into a controversy that has moved from whispers to public notice.
Threads from sea, city, and plantation converge in a sequence of confrontations that force decisions. The war’s momentum alters calculations, and a contested past faces sudden daylight. Journeys are undertaken, alliances cemented, and perils narrowly avoided as Richard seeks to reconcile honor, love, and justice. The resolution of plots demands courage without bravado and patience without passivity. Public revelations place characters in stark relief, and private reckonings reshape futures. Without foreclosing outcomes, the narrative brings its central conflicts to a crisis that tests every allegiance Richard holds, leaving the consequences to emerge from choices made under unmistakable pressure.
Across its sweep, the book presents a portrait of an American gentleman fashioned by upheaval. It combines social chronicle, maritime adventure, political debate, and restrained romance, following Richard from sheltered youth to a tempered public man. The central message emphasizes integrity under strain and the forging of identity within a changing nation. By tracing quarrels in parlor and quarterdeck and the measured courage of friends and foes, it conveys the complexity of a revolution experienced in homes and harbors. The narrative’s progression mirrors the era’s transition from deference to self-government without declaring final verdicts beyond the protagonist’s growth.
Historical Context
Richard Carvel is set chiefly in the British North American colonies, with Annapolis, Maryland, as a focal point, between the 1760s and the early 1780s. Annapolis, the provincial capital on the Severn River, embodied Chesapeake gentry culture built on tobacco, maritime trade, and enslaved labor. Maryland was a proprietary colony under the Calvert family, restored in 1715 and administered in the 1760s under Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore. The novel also moves across the Atlantic to London, reflecting the tightly bound imperial world in which colonial elites were educated, patronage was negotiated, and politics were contested. This dual setting mirrors the Atlantic crisis that culminated in the American Revolution.
The novel unfolds amid the imperial crisis triggered by the end of the Seven Years War in 1763. Burdened by debt and newly won territories, Britain tightened enforcement of the Navigation Acts and imposed new measures such as the Sugar Act of 1764 and the Quartering Act. The Townshend duties of 1767 and customs board reform followed. These policies stirred colonial resistance, nonimportation agreements, and a rhetoric of rights rooted in English constitutionalism. The book draws on this political ferment by depicting tensions among Maryland gentry, merchants, and artisans, dramatizing the erosion of deference as imperial authority collided with provincial assemblies, county courts, and committees of correspondence.
The Stamp Act crisis of 1765 catalyzed protest across the colonies, and Maryland offered a famous episode: stamp distributor Zachariah Hood was forced to resign after crowds targeted his property, driving him from Annapolis. Throughout the province, courts experimented with proceeding without stamped paper, and printers defied the requirement. Parliament repealed the act in 1766, but the Declaratory Act asserted its authority. In the novel, the climate of agitation and crowd action frames the young protagonist’s political education, mapping a transition from dutiful British subject to Maryland patriot while showing the divisions between cautious elites and radical organizers who mobilized townsfolk.
The Tea Act of 1773 and the Boston Tea Party intensified confrontation. News travelled down the seaboard to Annapolis, where, in October 1774, the brig Peggy Stewart was burned for importing East India Company tea liable to the hated duty. Owner Anthony Stewart, under community pressure in a mass meeting at the city dock, set the ship afire. Local leaders such as Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll of Carrollton were central to organizing resistance in Maryland, though debate persisted over methods and legality. The novel draws on this Annapolis milieu, placing its characters amid wharves, coffeehouses, and provincial assemblies where loyalty, commerce, and conscience collided, and where public ritual of protest shaped reputations and alliances.
Maritime warfare and American naval audacity form another backbone. The career of John Paul Jones, notably the battle off Flamborough Head on 23 September 1779, when Bonhomme Richard seized HMS Serapis before sinking, captured the revolutionary spirit at sea. Earlier cruises of Ranger in 1778 to the Irish Sea and raids on British coasts fed transatlantic legend. Privateering out of Chesapeake ports bound the war to commerce, prize law, and insurance. The novel closely associates its hero with the American naval struggle, reflecting the tactical realities of boarding, gunnery, and the international diplomacy that secured ships like Bonhomme Richard from France, thereby embedding personal adventure within the broader Franco-American alliance.
Institutional revolution followed, as colonial coordination matured into the Continental Congress at Philadelphia in 1774 and 1775. Maryland delegates William Paca, Samuel Chase, Thomas Stone, and Charles Carroll of Carrollton advanced the province’s interests while its Convention at Annapolis managed local mobilization. On 28 June 1776 the Maryland Convention authorized its delegates to vote for independence, clearing the way for the Declaration on 4 July. A new state constitution installed Thomas Johnson as the first governor in 1777. The novel mirrors these transformations in scenes of county elections, militia musters, and debates over oaths and associations that redefined allegiance from proprietor and crown to state and people.
Beneath high politics lay deep social structures. Maryland’s plantation economy depended on enslaved Africans and African Americans; the port of Annapolis facilitated sale and shipment, while manumission and free Black communities expanded slowly after the war. Anglican establishment dominated public life, yet a Catholic elite, exemplified by the Carrolls, wielded influence despite long-standing disabilities. Entail, primogeniture, and creditor networks reinforced a hierarchical gentry world policed by honor culture and occasional duels. The book engages these realities, juxtaposing genteel manners and patronage with urban artisans, sailors, and servants, showing how revolutionary rhetoric about liberty and property sat uneasily alongside slavery, debt imprisonment, and the precarious status of women.
As a social and political critique, the book exposes imperial patronage, provincial corruption, and class pretensions by filtering them through Annapolis salons, courtrooms, and quarterdecks. It questions inherited authority by dramatizing how assemblies, committees, and juries wrestled power from proprietors, royal officers, and arrogant creditors. Scenes of naval combat and commercial blockade indict metropolitan policies that treated colonists as instruments rather than citizens. Equally, the narrative highlights the hypocrisy of revolutionary elites who defended property while profiting from bondage. By staging encounters in London and Maryland, it contrasts oligarchic privilege with emergent republican virtue, pressing readers to judge the costs of empire, slavery, and deference in a new political order.
Richard Carvel — Complete
FOREWORD
My sons and daughters have tried to persuade me to remodel these memoirs of my grandfather into a latter-day romance. But I have thought it wiser to leave them as he wrote them. Albeit they contain some details not of interest to the general public, to my notion it is such imperfections as these which lend to them the reality they bear. Certain it is, when reading them, I live his life over again.
Needless to say, Mr. Richard Carvel[1] never intended them for publication. His first apology would be for his Scotch, and his only defence is that he was not a Scotchman.
The lively capital which once reflected the wit and fashion of Europe has fallen into decay. The silent streets no more echo with the rumble of coaches and gay chariots, and grass grows where busy merchants trod. Stately ball-rooms, where beauty once reigned, are cold and empty and mildewed, and halls, where laughter rang, are silent. Time was when every wide-throated chimney poured forth its cloud of smoke,[1q] when every andiron held a generous log,—andirons which are now gone to decorate Mr. Centennial's home in New York or lie with a tag in the window of some curio shop. The mantel, carved in delicate wreaths, is boarded up, and an unsightly 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
Volume 1.
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[2] 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. Gray's Elegy pleased him best. He would laugh over Swift's gall and wormwood, and would never be brought by my mother to acknowledge the defects in the Dean's character. Why? He had once met the Dean in a London drawing-room, when my grandfather was a young spark at Christ Church, Oxford. He never tired of relating that interview. The hostess was a very great lady indeed, and actually stood waiting for a word with his Reverence, whose whim it was rather to talk to the young provincial. He was a forbidding figure, in his black gown and periwig, so my grandfather said, with a piercing blue eye and shaggy brow. He made the mighty to come to him, while young Carvel stood between laughter and fear of the great lady's displeasure.
“I knew of your father,” said the Dean, “before he went to the colonies. He had done better at home, sir. He was a man of parts.”
“He has done indifferently well in Maryland, sir,” said Mr. Carvel, making his bow.
“He hath gained wealth, forsooth,” says the Dean, wrathfully, “and might have had both wealth and fame had his love for King James not turned his head. I have heard much of the colonies, and have read that doggerel 'Sot Weed Factor' which tells of the gluttonous life of ease you lead in your own province. You can have no men of mark from such conditions, Mr. Carvel. Tell me,” he adds contemptuously, “is genius honoured among you?”
“Faith, it is honoured, your Reverence,” said my grandfather, “but never encouraged.”
This answer so pleased the Dean that he bade Mr. Carvel dine with him next day at Button's Coffee House, where they drank mulled wine and old sack[3], for which young Mr. Carvel paid. On which occasion his Reverence endeavoured to persuade the young man to remain in England, and even went so far as to promise his influence to obtain him preferment. But Mr. Carvel chose rather (wisely or not, who can judge?) to come back to Carvel Hall and to the lands of which he was to be master, and to play the country squire and provincial magnate rather than follow the varying fortunes of a political party at home. And he was a man much looked up to in the province before the Revolution, and sat at the council board of his Excellency the Governor, as his father had done before him, and represented the crown in more matters than one when the French and savages were upon our frontiers.
Although a lover of good cheer, Mr. Carvel was never intemperate. To the end of his days he enjoyed his bottle after dinner, nay, could scarce get along without it; and mixed a punch or a posset as well as any in our colony. He chose a good London-brewed ale or porter, and his ships brought Madeira from that island by the pipe, and sack from Spain and Portugal, and red wine from France when there was peace. And puncheons of rum from Jamaica and the Indies for his people, holding that no gentleman ever drank rum in the raw, though fairly supportable as punch.
Mr. Carvel's house stands in Marlborough Street, a dreary mansion enough. Praised be Heaven that those who inherit it are not obliged to live there on the memory of what was in days gone by. The heavy green shutters are closed; the high steps, though stoutly built, are shaky after these years of disuse; the host of faithful servants who kept its state are nearly all laid side by side at Carvel Hall. Harvey and Chess and Scipio are no more. The kitchen, whither a boyish hunger oft directed my eyes at twilight, shines not with the welcoming gleam of yore. Chess no longer prepares the dainties which astonished Mr. Carvel's guests, and which he alone could cook. The coach still stands in the stables where Harvey left it, a lumbering relic of those lumbering times when methinks there was more of goodwill and less of haste in the world. The great brass knocker, once resplendent from Scipio's careful hand, no longer fantastically reflects the guest as he beats his tattoo, and Mr. Peale's portrait of my grandfather is gone from the dining-room wall, adorning, as you know, our own drawing-room at Calvert House.
I shut my eyes, and there comes to me unbidden that dining-room in Marlborough Street of a gray winter's afternoon, when I was but a lad. I see my dear grandfather in his wig and silver-laced waistcoat and his blue velvet coat, seated at the head of the table, and the precise Scipio has put down the dumb-waiter filled with shining cut-glass at his left hand, and his wine chest at his right, and with solemn pomp 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 craft and not overladen she weathered the gale with the loss of a jib, and was about making topsails again when a full-rigged ship was descried in the offing giving signals of distress. Night was coming on very fast, and the sea was yet running too high for a boat to live, but the gallant captain furled his topsails once more to await the morning. It could be seen from her signals that the ship was living throughout the night, but at dawn she foundered before the Sally's boats could be put in the water; one of them was ground to pieces on the falls. Out of the ship's company and passengers they picked up but five souls, four sailors and a little girl of two years or thereabouts. The men knew nothing more of her than that she had come aboard at Brest with her mother, a quiet, delicate lady who spoke little with the other passengers. The ship was 'La Favourite du Roy', bound for the French Indies.
Captain Stanwix's wife, who was a good, motherly person, took charge of the little orphan, and arriving at Carvel Hall delivered her to my grandfather, who brought her up as his own daughter. You may be sure the emblem of Catholicism found upon her was destroyed, and she was baptized straightway by Doctor Hilliard, my grandfather's chaplain, into the Established Church. Her clothes were of the finest quality, and her little handkerchief had worked into the corner of it a coronet, with the initials “E de T” beside it. Around her neck was that locket with the gold chain which I have so often shown you, on one side of which is the miniature of the young officer in his most Christian Majesty's uniform, and on the other a yellow-faded slip of paper with these words: “Elle est la mienne, quoiqu'elle ne porte pas mou nom.” “She is mine, although she does not bear my name.”
My grandfather wrote to the owners of 'La Favourite du Roy', and likewise directed his English agent to spare nothing in the search for some clew to the child's identity. All that he found was that the mother had been entered on the passenger-list as Madame la Farge, of Paris, and was bound for Martinico. Of the father there was no trace whatever. The name “la Farge” the agent, Mr. Dix, knew almost to a certainty was assumed, and the coronet on the handkerchief implied that the child was of noble parentage. The meaning conveyed by the paper in the locket, which was plainly a clipping from a letter, was such that Mr. Carvel never showed it to my mother, and would have destroyed it had he not felt that some day it might aid in solving the mystery. So he kept it in his strongbox, where he thought it safe from prying eyes. But my Uncle Grafton, ever a deceitful lad, at length discovered the key and read the paper, and afterwards used the knowledge he thus obtained as a reproach and a taunt against my mother. I cannot even now write his name without repulsion.
This new member of the household was renamed Elizabeth Carvel, though they called her Bess, and of a course she was greatly petted and spoiled, and ruled all those about her. As she grew from childhood to womanhood her beauty became talked about, and afterwards, when Mistress Carvel went to the Assembly, a dozen young sparks would crowd about the door of her coach, and older and more serious men lost their heads on her account.
Her devotion to Mr. Carvel was such, however, that she seemed to care but little for the attention she received, and she continued to grace his board and entertain his company. He fairly worshipped her. It was his delight to surprise her with presents from England, with rich silks and brocades for gowns, for he loved to see her bravely dressed. The spinet he gave her, inlaid with ivory, we have still. And he caused a chariot to be made for her in London, and she had her own horses and her groom in the Carvel livery.
People said it was but natural that she should fall in love with Captain Jack, my father. He was the soldier of the family, tall and straight and dashing. He differed from his younger brother Grafton as day from night. Captain Jack was open and generous, though a little given to rash enterprise and madcap adventure. He loved my mother from a child. His friend Captain Clapsaddle loved her too, and likewise Grafton, but it soon became evident that she would marry Captain Jack or nobody. He was my grandfather's favourite, and though Mr. Carvel had wished him more serious, his joy when Bess blushingly told 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 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 use his firearms or the rawhide slung across his saddle. The negroes in their linsey-woolsey jackets and checked trousers would stand among the hills grinning at us children as we passed; and there was not one of them, nor of the white servants for that matter, that I could not call by name.
And all this time I was busily wooing Mistress Dolly; but she, little minx, would give me no satisfaction. I see her standing among the strawberries, her black hair waving in the wind, and her red lips redder still from the stain. And the sound of her childish voice comes back to me now after all these years. And this was my first proposal:
“Dorothy, when you grow up and I grow up, you will marry me, and I shall give you all these strawberries.”
“I will marry none but a soldier,” says she, “and a great man.”
“Then will I be a soldier,” I cried, “and greater than the Governor himself.” And I believed it.
“Papa says I shall marry an earl,” retorts Dorothy, with a toss of her pretty head.
“There are no earls among us,” I exclaimed hotly, for even then I had some of that sturdy republican spirit which prevailed among the younger generation. “Our earls are those who have made their own way, like my grandfather.” For I had lately heard Captain Clapsaddle say this and much more on the subject. But Dorothy turned up her nose.
“I shall go home when I am eighteen,”—she said, “and I shall meet his Majesty the King.”
And to such an argument I found no logical answer.
Mr. Marmaduke Manners and his lady came to fetch Dorothy home. He was a foppish little gentleman who thought more of the cut of his waistcoat than of the affairs of the province, and would rather have been bidden to lead the assembly ball than to sit in council with his Excellency the Governor. My first recollection of him is of contempt. He must needs have his morning punch just so, and complained whiningly of Scipio if some perchance were spilled on the glass. He must needs be taken abroad in a chair when it rained. And though in the course of a summer he was often at Carvel Hall he never tarried long, and came to see Mr. Carvel's guests rather than Mr. Carvel. He had little in common with my grandfather, whose chief business and pleasure was to promote industry on his farm. Mr. Marmaduke was wont to rise at noon, and knew not wheat from barley, or good leaf from bad; his hands he kept like a lady's, rendering them almost useless by the long lace on the sleeves, and his chief pastime was card-playing. It was but reasonable therefore, when the troubles with the mother country began, that he chose the King's side alike from indolence and contempt for things republican.
Of Mrs. Manners I shall say more by and by.
I took a mischievous delight in giving Mr. Manners every annoyance my boyish fancy could conceive. The evening of his arrival he and Mr. Carvel set out for a stroll about the house, Mr. Marmaduke mincing his steps, for it had rained that morning. And presently they came upon the windmill with its long arms moving lazily in the light breeze, near touching the ground as they passed, for the mill was built in the Dutch fashion. I know not what moved me, but hearing Mr. Manners carelessly humming a minuet while my grandfather explained the usefulness of the mill, I seized hold of one of the long arms as it swung by, and before the gentlemen could prevent was carried slowly upwards. Dorothy screamed, and her father stood stock still with amazement and fear, Mr. Carvel being the only one who kept his presence of mind. “Hold on tight, Richard!” I heard him cry. It was dizzy riding, though the motion was not great, and before I had reached the right angle I regretted my rashness. I caught a glimpse of the Bay with the red sun on it, and as I turned saw far below me the white figure of Ivie Rawlinson, the Scotch miller, who had run out. “O haith!” he shouted. “Hand fast, Mr. Richard!”—And so I clung tightly and came down without much inconvenience, though indifferently glad to feel the ground again.
Mr. Marmaduke, as I expected, was in a great temper, and swore he had not had such a fright for years. He looked for Mr. Carvel to cane me stoutly: But Ivie laughed heartily, and said: “I wad yell gang far for anither laddie wi' the spunk, Mr. Manners,” and with a sly look at my grandfather, “Ilka day we hae some sic whigmeleery.”
I think Mr. Carvel was not ill pleased with the feat, or with Mr. Marmaduke's way of taking it. For afterwards I overheard him telling the story to Colonel Lloyd, and both gentlemen laughing over Mr. Manners's discomfiture.
CHAPTER III. CAUGHT BY THE TIDE
It is a nigh impossible task on the memory to trace those influences by which a lad is led to form his life's opinions, and for my part I hold that such things are bred into the bone, and that events only serve to strengthen them. In this way only can I account for my bitterness, at a very early age, against that King whom my seeming environment should have made me love. For my grandfather was as stanch a royalist as ever held a cup to majesty's health. And children are most apt before they can reason for themselves to take the note from those of their elders who surround them. It is true that many of Mr. Carvel's guests were of the opposite persuasion from him: Mr. Chase and Mr. Carroll, Mr. Lloyd and Mr. Bordley, and many others, including our friend Captain Clapsaddle. And these gentlemen were frequently in argument, but political discussion is Greek to a lad[7].
Mr. Carvel, as I have said, was most of his life a member of the Council, a man from whom both Governor Sharpe and Governor Eden were glad to take advice because of his temperate judgment and deep knowledge of the people of the province. At times, when his Council was scattered, Governor Sharpe would consult Mr. Carvel alone, and often have I known my grandfather to embark in haste from the Hall in response to a call from his Excellency.
'Twas in the latter part of August, in the year 1765, made memorable by the Stamp Act[4], that I first came in touch with the deep-set feelings of the times then beginning, and I count from that year the awakening of the sympathy which determined my career. One sultry day I was wading in the shallows after crabs, when the Governor's messenger came drifting in, all impatience at the lack of wind. He ran to the house to seek Mr. Carvel, and I after him, with all a boy's curiosity, as fast as my small legs would carry me. My grandfather hurried out to order his barge to be got ready at once, so that I knew something important was at hand. At first he refused me permission to go, but afterwards relented, and about eleven in the morning we pulled away strongly, the ten blacks bending to the oars as if their lives were at stake.
A wind arose before we sighted Greensbury Point, and I saw a bark sailing in, but thought nothing of this until Mr. Carvel, who had been silent and preoccupied, called for his glass and swept her decks. She soon shortened sail, and went so leisurely that presently our light barge drew alongside, and I perceived Mr. Zachariah Hood[5], a merchant of the town, returning from London, hanging over her rail. Mr. Hood was very pale in spite of his sea-voyage; he flung up his cap at our boat, but Mr. Carvel's salute in return was colder than he looked for. As we came in view of the dock, a fine rain was setting in, and to my astonishment I beheld such a mass of people assembled as I had never seen, and scarce standing-room on the wharves. We were to have gone to the Governor's wharf in the Severn, but my grandfather changed his intention at once. Many of the crowd greeted him as we drew near them, and, having landed, respectfully made room for him to pass through. I followed him a-tremble with excitement and delight over such an unwonted experience. We had barely gone ten paces, however, before Mr. Carvel stopped abreast of Mr. Claude, mine host of the Coffee House, who cried:
“Hast seen his Majesty's newest representative[6], Mr. Carvel?”
“Mr. Hood is on board the bark, sir,” replied my grandfather. “I take it you mean Mr. Hood.”
“Ay, that I do; Mr. Zachariah Hood, come to lick stamps for his brother-colonists.”
“After licking his Majesty's boots,” says a wag near by, which brings a laugh from those about us. I remembered that I had heard some talk as to how Mr. Hood had sought and obtained from King George the office of Stamp Distributor for the province. Now, my grandfather, God rest him! was as doughty an old gentleman as might well be, and would not listen without protest to remarks which bordered sedition. He had little fear of things below, and none of a mob.
“My masters,” he shouted, with a flourish of his stick, so stoutly that people fell back from him, “know that ye are met against the law, and endanger the peace of his Lordship's government.”
“Good enough, Mr. Carvel,” said Claude, who seemed to be the spokesman. “But how if we are stamped against law and his Lordship's government? How then, sir? Your honour well knows we have naught against either, and are as peaceful a mob as ever assembled.”
This brought on a great laugh, and they shouted from all sides, “How then, Mr. Carvel?” And my grandfather, perceiving that he would lose dignity by argument, and having done his duty by a protest, was wisely content with that. They opened wider the lane for him to pass through, and he made his way, erect and somewhat defiant, to Mr. Pryse's, the coachmaker opposite, holding me by the hand. The second storey of Pryse's shop had a little balcony standing out in front, and here we established ourselves, that we might watch what was going forward.
The crowd below grew strangely silent as the bark came nearer and nearer, until Mr. Hood showed himself on the poop, when there rose a storm of hisses, mingled with shouts of derision. “How goes it at St. James, Mr. Hood?” and “Have you tasted his Majesty's barley?” And some asked him if he was come as their member of Parliament. Mr. Hood dropped a bow, though what he said was drowned. The bark came in prettily enough, men in the crowd even catching her lines and making them fast to the piles. A gang-plank was thrown over. “Come out, Mr. Hood,” they cried; “we are here to do you honour, and to welcome you home again.” There were leather breeches with staves a-plenty around that plank, and faces that meant no trifling. “McNeir, the rogue,” exclaimed Mr. Carvel, “and that hulk of a tanner, Brown. And I would know those smith's shoulders in a thousand.” “Right, sir,” says Pryse, “and 'twill serve them proper. when the King's troops come among them for quartering.” Pryse being the gentry's patron, shaped his politics according to the company he was in: he could ill be expected to seize one of his own ash spokes and join the resistance. Just then I caught a glimpse of Captain Clapsaddle on the skirts of the crowd, and with him Mr. Swain and some of the dissenting gentry. And my boyish wrath burst forth against that man smirking and smiling on the decks of the bark, so that I shouted shrilly: “Mr. Hood will be cudgelled and tarred as he deserves,” and shook my little fist at him, so that many under us laughed and cheered me. Mr. Carvel pushed me back into the window and out of their sight.
