A train-band captain eke was he.
JOHN GILPIN.
At the extremity of the cape or headland which formed the lower or more
seaward point of the crescent-shaped harbour, was erected the Fort of
St. Mary's, where it threatened equal defiance to such as might
meditate disturbance either by sea or land. A few hundred paces in the
rear of the fort, stood the ample dwelling-house of the Lord
Proprietary with its gables, roofs, chimneys and spires, sharply
defined against the eastern sky. A massive building of dark brick, two
stories in height, and penetrated by narrow windows, looking forth,
beyond the fort, upon the river, constituted the chief member or main
body of the mansion. This was capped by a wooden, balustraded parapet,
terminating, at each extremity, in a scroll like the head of a violin,
and, in the middle, sustaining an entablature that rose to a summit on
which was mounted a weathercock. From this central structure, right and
left, a series of arcades, corridors, and vestibules served to bring
into line a range of auxiliary or subordinate buildings of grotesque
shapes, of which several were bonneted like haycocks--the array
terminating, on one flank, in a private chapel surmounted by a cross,
and, on the other, in a building of similar size but of different
figure, which was designed and sometimes used for a banqueting room.
The impression produced on the observer, by this orderly though not
uniform mass of building, with its various offices for household
comfort, was not displeasing to his sense of rural beauty, nor, from
its ample range and capacious accommodation, did it fail to enhance his
opinion of the stateliness and feudal importance, as well as of the
hospitality of the Lord Proprietary. The armorial bearings of the
Baltimore family, emblazoned on a shield of free-stone, were built into
the pediment of an arched brick porch which shaded the great hall door.
In the rear of the buildings, a circular sweep of wall and paling
reached as far as a group of stables, kennels and sheds. Vanward the
same kind of enclosures, more ornate in their fashion, shut in a grassy
court, to which admission was gained through a heavy iron gate swung
between square, stuccoed pillars, each of which was surmounted by a
couchant lion carved in stone. Ancient trees shaded the whole mass of
dwelling-house, court and stable, and gave to the place both a lordly
and comfortable aspect. It was a pleasant group of roof and bower, of
spire and tree to look upon from the city, towards sunset, when every
window-pane flung back the lustre of a conflagration; and magnificently
did it strike upon the eye of the liegemen as they sat at their doors,
at that hour, gazing upon the glorious river and its tranquil banks.
Nor less pleasant was it to the inmates of the baronial mansion to look
back upon the fair village-city, studding the level plain with its
scattered dwellings which seemed to sleep upon the grassy and shaded
sward.
A garden occupied the space between the proprietary residence and the
fort, and through it a pathway led to a dry moat which formed one of
the defences of the stronghold, into which admission was obtained from
this quarter by a narrow bridge and postern gate. A palisade of sharp
pickets fringed the outer and inner slopes of the ditch,--or, to speak
more technically, guarded the scarp and counter-scarp. The fort itself
sat like a square bonnet on the brow of the headland. Its ramparts of
earth were faced outwardly by heavy frame-work of hewn logs, which, on
the side looking askant towards the town, were penetrated by an arched
gateway and secured by heavy doors studded thick with nails. This
portal opened upon a road which lay along the beach beneath the cliff,
all the way to the upper extremity of the town. Several low buildings
within, appropriated to barracks and magazines, just peered above the
ramparts. A few pieces of brass cannon showed like watch-dogs against
the horizon, and, high above all, fluttered the provincial banner
bearing the cross of England, and holding the relation of a feather to
the squat bonnet which the outline of the work might suggest to one
curious to trace resemblances.
The province, it may be surmised, was belligerent at this day. For
although the Lords Barons of Baltimore, absolute Proprietaries of
Maryland and Avalon, would fain have encouraged a pacific temper, and
desired ever to treat with the Indians upon terms of friendly bargain
and sale, and in all points of policy manifested an equitable
disposition towards the native men of the forest, the province,
nevertheless, had its full share of hard blows. There was seldom a
period, in this early time, when some Indian quarrel was not coming to
a head; and, young as the province was, it had already tasted of
rebellion at the hands of Clayborne, and Ingle,--to say nothing of that
Fendall who was fain to play Cromwell in the plantation, by turning the
burgesses out of their hall, and whose sedition hath still something to
do with my story.--However peaceable, therefore, the Lord Proprietary
might incline to be, he could not but choose stand by his weapons.
In the view of these and kindred troubles, the freemen of the province
had no light service in their obligations of military duty. One of the
forms in which this service was exacted, in addition to the occasional
requisition, on emergency, of the whole population fit to bear arms,
and in addition also to a force of mounted rangers who were constantly
engaged in scouring the frontier, was in the maintenance of a regularly
paid and trained body of musqueteers who supplied the necessary
garrisons for the principal forts. That of St. Mary's, which was the
oldest and most redoubtable strong-hold in the province, was furnished
with a company of forty men of this class who were, at the date of this
tale, under the command of a personage of some note, Captain Jasper
Dauntrees, to whom I propose to introduce my reader with something more
than the slight commendation of a casual acquaintance.
This worthy had been bred up to the science of arms from early youth,
and had seen many varieties of service,--first, in the civil wars in
which he took the field with the royal army, a staunch cavalier,--and
afterwards, with a more doubtful complexion of loyalty, when he
enlisted with Monk in Scotland, and followed his banner to London in
the notable exploit of the Restoration. Yielding to the bent of that
humour which the times engendered, and in imitation of many a hungry
and peace-despising gallant of his day, he repaired to the continent,
where, after various fortunes, he found himself in the train of Turenne
and hard at loggerheads with the Prince of Orange, in which passage of
his life he enjoyed the soldierly gratification of lending a hand to
the famous ravage of the Palatinate.
Some few years before I have presented him in these pages he had come
over to Maryland, with a party of Flemings, to gather for his old age
that harvest of wealth and ease which the common report promised to all
who set foot upon the golden shores of the Indies--Maryland, in vulgar
belief, being a part of this land of wonders. The captain neither
stumbled upon a gold mine, nor picked up an Indian princess with a
dowry of diamonds; but he fared scarce worse, in his own estimation,
when he found himself, in a pleasant sunny clime, invested with the
rank of captain of musqueteers, with a snug shelter in the fort, a
reasonably fair and punctual allowance of pay--much better, than had
been his lot under former masters,--and a frank welcome at all times
into the mansion of the Lord Proprietary. Add to these the delights
more congenial to the training of his past life, a few wet companions,
namely, to help him through an evening potation, and no despicable
choice of wines and other comforts at the Crow and Archer, where the
Captain with due alacrity became a domesticated and privileged guest,
and it may still better be comprehended how little he was likely to
repine at his fortune.
His figure had, in youth, been evidently remarked for strength and
symmetry--but age and varied service, combined with habits of irregular
indulgence, had communicated to it a bluff and corpulent dimension. His
port nevertheless was erect, and his step as firm as in his days of
lustihood. His eye still sparkled with rays but little quenched by
time, although unseasonable vigils sometimes rendered it bloodshotten.
A thick neck and rosy complexion betokened a hale constitution; and the
ripple of a deep and constantly welling humour, that played upon his
strongly marked features, expressed in characters that could not be
misread, that love of companionship which had been, perhaps, the most
frequent shoal upon which his hopes in life had been stranded. His
crown was bald and encircled by a fair supply of crisp, curly and
silvery hair, whilst a thick grey moustache gave a martial and veteran
air to his visnomy.
His dress served to set off his figure to the best advantage. It
consisted of the doublet and ruff, short cloak and trunk hose, the
parti-coloured stocking and capacious boot proper to the old English
costume which, about the period of the Restoration, began to give way
to the cumbrous foppery of the last century. This costume was still
retained by many in the province, and belonged to the military
equipment of the garrison of St. Mary's, where it was fashioned of
light green cloth garnished with yellow lace.
Arrayed in this guise, Captain Dauntrees had some excuse for a small
share of vanity on the score of having worn well up to a green old age;
and it was manifest that he sought to improve this impression by the
debonair freedom with which he wore a drab beaver, with its broad flap
looped up on one side, leaving his ample brow bared to wind and
weather.
This combination of the martinet and free companion exhibited in the
dress of the Captain, was a pretty intelligible index to his character,
which disclosed a compound, not unfrequent in the civil wars of that
period, of the precisian and ruffler,--the cavalier and economist. In
the affairs of life,--a phrase which, in regard to him, meant such
matters principally and before all others, as related to his own
comfort--he was worldly-wise, sagaciously provident, as an old soldier,
of whatever advantages his condition might casually supply; in words,
he was, indifferently, according to the occasion, a moralist or
hot-brained reveller--sometimes affecting the courtier along with the
martialist, and mixing up the saws of peaceful thrift with the patter
of the campaigns.
As the occasions of my story may enable me to illustrate some of these
points in the character of the worthy Captain, I will not forestall the
opinion of my readers, regarding him, by further remark,--preferring
that he should speak for himself, rather than leave his merits to be
certified by so unpractised an adept, as I confess myself to be, in
unriddling the secret properties of a person so deserving to be known.