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_ 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. 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, 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. _
Read next: VOLUME 1: CHAPTER II. Some Memories of Childhood
Read previous: Foreword
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