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.