RICHARD CARVEL
By Winston Churchill
CONTENTS
Volume 1.
I. Lionel Carvel, of Carvel Hall
II. Some Memories of Childhood
III. Caught by the Tide
IV. Grafton would heal an Old Breach
V. “If Ladies be but Young and Fair”
VI. I first suffer for the Cause
VII. Grafton has his Chance
Volume 2.
VIII. Over the Wall
IX. Under False Colours
X. The Red in the Carvel Blood
XI. A Festival and a Parting
XII. News from a Far Country
Volume 3.
XIII. Mr. Allen shows his Hand
XIV. The Volte Coupe
XV. Of which the Rector has the Worst
XVI. In which Some Things are made Clear
XVII. South River
XVIII. The Black Moll
Volume 4.
XIX. A Man of Destiny
XX. A Sad Home-coming
XXI. The Gardener's Cottage
XXII. On the Road
XXIII. London Town
XXIV. Castle Yard
XXV. The Rescue
Volume 5.
XXVI. The Part Horatio played
XXVII. In which I am sore tempted
XXVIII. Arlington Street
XXIX. I meet a very Great Young Man
XXX. A Conspiracy
XXXI. “Upstairs into the World”
XXXII. Lady Tankerville's Drum-major
XXXIII. Drury Lane
Volume 6.
XXXIV. His Grace makes Advances
XXXV. In which my Lord Baltimore appears
XXXVI. A Glimpse of Mr. Garrick
XXXVII. The Serpentine
XXXVIII. In which I am roundly brought to task
XXXIX. Holland House
XL. Vauxhall
XLI. The Wilderness
Volume 7.
XLII. My Friends are proven
XLIII. Annapolis once more
XLIV. Noblesse Oblige
XLV. The House of Memories
XLVI. Gordon's Pride
XLVII. Visitors
XLVIII. Multum in Parvo
XLIX. Liberty loses a Friend
Volume 8.
L. Farewell to Gordon's
LI. How an Idle Prophecy came to pass
LII. How the Gardener's Son fought the Serapis
LIII. In which I make Some Discoveries
LIV. More Discoveries.
LV. The Love of a Maid for a Man
LVI. How Good came out of Evil
LVII. I come to my Own again
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 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, 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 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.