In the eighteenth century the march of public events was much more
eagerly followed than now by men and women of all stations, and even
children. Each citizen was ready, nay, forward, in taking an active part
in all political movements, and the children mimicked their elders. Old
William Farris read his news of a morning before he began the mending of
his watches, and by evening had so well digested them that he was primed
for discussion with Pryse, of the opposite persuasion, at the Rose and
Crown. Sol Mogg, the sexton of St. Anne's, had his beloved Gazette in
his pocket as he tolled the church bell of a Thursday, and would hold
forth on the rights and liberties of man with the carpenter who mended
the steeple. Mrs. Willard could talk of Grenville and Townshend as
knowingly as her husband, the rich factor, and Francie Willard made many
a speech to us younger Sons of Liberty on the steps of King William's
School. We younger sons, indeed, declared bitter war against the
mother-country long before our conservative old province ever dreamed of
secession. For Maryland was well pleased with his Lordship's government.
I fear that I got at King William's School learning of a far different
sort than pleased my grandfather. In those days the school stood upon
the Stadt House hill near School Street, not having moved to its present
larger quarters. Mr. Isaac Daaken was then Master, and had under him
some eighty scholars. After all these years, Mr. Daaken stands before me
a prominent figure of the past in an ill-fitting suit of snuff colour.
How well I recall that schoolroom of a bright morning, the sun's rays
shot hither and thither, and split violet, green, and red by the bulging
glass panes of the windows. And by a strange irony it so chanced that
where the dominie sat--and he moved not the whole morning long save to
reach for his birches--the crimson ray would often rest on the end of
his long nose, and the word “rum” be passed tittering along the benches.
For some men are born to the mill, and others to the mitre, and still
others to the sceptre; but Mr. Daaken was born to the birch. His long,
lanky legs were made for striding after culprits, and his arms for
caning them. He taught, among other things, the classics, of course,
the English language grammatically, arithmetic in all its branches,
book-keeping in the Italian manner, and the elements of algebra,
geometry, and trigonometry with their applications to surveying and
navigation. He also wrote various sorts of hands, fearful and marvellous
to the uninitiated, with which he was wont to decorate my monthly
reports to my grandfather. I can shut my eyes and see now that wonderful
hyperbola in the C in Carvel, which, after travelling around the paper,
ended in intricate curves and a flourish which surely must have broken
the quill.
The last day of every month would I fetch that scrolled note to Mr.
Carvel, and he laid it beside his plate until dinner was over. And then,
as sure as the sun rose that morning, my flogging would come before it
set. This done with, and another promised next month provided Mr.
Daaken wrote no better of me, my grandfather and I renewed our customary
footing of love and companionship.
But Mr. Daaken, unwittingly or designedly, taught other things than
those I have mentioned above. And though I never once heard a word of
politics fall from his lips, his school shortly became known to all good
Tories as a nursery of conspiracy and sedition. There are other ways of
teaching besides preaching, and of that which the dominie taught best he
spoke not a word. He was credited, you may well believe, with calumnies
against King George, and once my Uncle Grafton and Mr. Dulany were for
clapping him in jail, avowing that he taught treason to the young. I can
account for the tone of King William's School in no other way than to
say that patriotism was in the very atmosphere, and seemed to exude
in some mysterious way from Mr. Daaken's person. And most of us became
infected with it.
The dominie lived outside the town, in a lonely little hamlet on the
borders of the Spa. At two of the clock every afternoon he would dive
through School Street to the Coffee House, where the hostler would have
his bony mare saddled and waiting. Mr. Daaken by no chance ever entered
the tavern. I recall one bright day in April when I played truant and
had the temerity to go afishing on Spa Creek with Will Fotheringay, the
bass being plentiful there. We had royal sport of it that morning, and
two o'clock came and went with never a thought, you may be sure. And
presently I get a pull which bends my English rod near to double, and
in my excitement plunge waist deep into the water, Will crying out
directions from the shore, when suddenly the head of Mr. Daaken's mare
is thrust through the bushes, followed by Mr. Daaken himself. Will stood
stock still from fright, and I was for dropping my rod and cutting, when
I was arrested by the dominie calling out:
“Have a care, Master Carvel; have a care, sir. You will lose him. Play
him, sir; let him run a bit.”
And down he leaps from his horse and into the water after me,
and together we landed a three-pound bass, thereby drenching his
snuff-coloured suit. When the big fish lay shining in the basket, the
dominie smiled grimly at William and me as we stood sheepishly by, and
without a word he drew his clasp knife and cut a stout switch from
the willow near, and then and there he gave us such a thrashing as we
remembered for many a day after. And we both had another when we reached
home.
“Mr. Carvel,” said Mr. Dulany to my grandfather, “I would strongly
counsel you to take Richard from that school. Pernicious doctrines, sir,
are in the air, and like diseases are early caught by the young. 'Twas
but yesterday I saw Richard at the head of a rabble of the sons of
riff-raff, in Green Street, and their treatment of Mr. Fairbrother hath
set the whole town by the ears.”
What Mr. Dulany had said was true. The lads of Mr. Fairbrother's school
being mostly of the unpopular party, we of King William's had organized
our cohorts and led them on to a signal victory. We fell upon the enemy
even as they were emerging from their stronghold, the schoolhouse, and
smote them hip and thigh, with the sheriff of Anne Arundel County a
laughing spectator. Some of the Tories (for such we were pleased to call
them) took refuge behind Mr. Fairbrother's skirts, who shook his cane
angrily enough, but without avail. Others of the Tory brood fought
stoutly, calling out: “God save the King!” and “Down with the traitors!”
On our side Francie Willard fell, and Archie Dennison raised a lump on
my head the size of a goose egg. But we fairly beat them, and afterwards
must needs attack the Tory dominie himself. He cried out lustily to the
sheriff and spectators, of whom there were many by this time, for help,
but got little but laughter for his effort. Young Lloyd and I, being
large lads for our age, fairly pinioned the screeching master, who
cried out that he was being murdered, and keeping his cane for a trophy,
thrust him bodily into his house of learning, turned the great key
upon him, and so left him. He made his escape by a window and sought
my grandfather in the Duke of Marlboro' Street as fast as ever his
indignant legs would carry him.
Of his interview with Mr. Carvel I know nothing save that Scipio was
requested presently to show him the door, and conclude therefrom that
his language was but ill-chosen. Scipio's patrician blood was wont to
rise in the presence of those whom he deemed outside the pale of good
society, and I fear he ushered Mr. Fairbrother to the street with
little of that superior manner he used to the first families. As for Mr.
Daaken, I feel sure he was not ill-pleased at the discomfiture of his
rival, though it cost him five of his scholars.
Our schoolboy battle, though lightly undertaken, was fraught with
no inconsiderable consequences for me. I was duly chided and soundly
whipped by my grandfather for the part I had played; but he was inclined
to pass the matter after that, and set it down to the desire for
fighting common to most boyish natures. And he would have gone no
farther than this had it not been that Mr. Green, of the Maryland
Gazette, could not refrain from printing the story in his paper. That
gentleman, being a stout Whig, took great delight in pointing out that
a grandson of Mr. Carvel was a ringleader in the affair. The story was
indeed laughable enough, and many a barrister's wig nodded over it at
the Coffee House that day. When I came home from school I found Scipio
beside my grandfather's empty seat in the dining-room, and I learned
that Mr. Carvel was in the garden with my Uncle Grafton and the Reverend
Bennett Allen, rector of St. Anne's. I well knew that something out of
the common was in the wind to disturb my grandfather's dinner. Into
the garden I went, and under the black walnut tree I beheld Mr. Carvel
pacing up and down in great unrest, his Gazette in his hand, while on
the bench sat my uncle and the rector of St. Anne's. So occupied was
each in his own thought that my coming was unperceived; and I paused in
my steps, seized suddenly by an instinctive dread, I know not of what.
The fear of Mr. Carvel's displeasure passed from my mind so that I cared
not how soundly he thrashed me, and my heart filled with a yearning,
born of the instant, for that simple and brave old gentleman. For the
lad is nearer to nature than the man, and the animal oft scents a danger
the master cannot see. I read plainly in Mr. Allen's handsome face,
flushed red with wine as it ever was, and in my Uncle Grafton's looks
a snare to which I knew my grandfather was blind. I never rightly
understood how it was that Mr. Carvel was deceived in Mr. Allen;
perchance the secret lay in his bold manner and in the appearance of
dignity and piety he wore as a cloak when on his guard. I caught my
breath sharply and took my way toward them, resolved to make as brave a
front as I might. It was my uncle, whose ear was ever open, that first
heard my footstep and turned upon me.
“Here is Richard, now, father,” he said.
I gave him so square a look that he bent his head to the ground. My
grandfather stopped in his pacing and his eye rested upon me, in sorrow
rather than in anger, I thought.
“Richard,” he began, and paused. For the first time in my life I saw him
irresolute. He looked appealingly at the rector, who rose. Mr. Allen
was a man of good height and broad shoulders, with piercing black eyes,
reminding one more of the smallsword than aught else I can think of. And
he spoke solemnly, in a deep voice, as though from the pulpit.
“I fear it is my duty, Richard, to say what Mr. Carvel cannot. It
grieves me to tell you, sir, that young as you are you have been guilty
of treason against the King, and of grave offence against his Lordship's
government. I cannot mitigate my words, sir. By your rashness, Richard,
and I pray it is such, you have brought grief to your grandfather in his
age, and ridicule and reproach upon a family whose loyalty has hitherto
been unstained.”
I scarce waited for him to finish. His pompous words stung me like the
lash of a whip, and I gave no heed to his cloth as I answered:
“If I have grieved my grandfather, sir, I am heartily sorry, and will
answer to him for what I have done. And I would have you know, Mr.
Allen, that I am as able as any to care for the Carvel honour.”
I spoke with a vehemence, for the thought carried me beyond myself,
that this upstart parson his Lordship had but a year since sent among us
should question our family reputation.
“Remember that Mr. Allen is of the Church, Richard,” said my
grandfather, severely.
“I fear he has little respect for Church or State, sir,” Grafton put in.
“You are now reaping the fruits of your indulgence.”
I turned to my grandfather.
“You are my protector, sir,” I cried. “And if it please you to tell
me what I now stand accused of, I submit most dutifully to your
chastisement.”
“Very fair words, indeed, nephew Richard,” said my uncle, “and I
draw from them that you have yet to hear of your beating an honest
schoolmaster without other provocation than that he was a loyal servant
to the King, and wantonly injuring the children of his school.” He drew
from his pocket a copy of that Gazette Mr. Carvel held in his hand, and
added ironically: “Here, then, are news which will doubtless surprise
you, sir. And knowing you for a peaceful lad, never having entertained
such heresies as those with which it pleases Mr. Green to credit you, I
dare swear he has drawn on his imagination.”
I took the paper in amaze, not knowing why my grandfather, who had ever
been so jealous of others taking me to task, should permit the rector
and my uncle to chide me in his presence. The account was in the main
true enough, and made sad sport of Mr. Fairbrother.
“Have I not been caned for this, sir?” said I to my grandfather.
These words seemed to touch Mr. Carvel, and I saw a tear glisten in his
eye as he answered:
“You have, Richard, and stoutly. But your uncle and Mr. Allen seem to
think that your offence warrants more than a caning, and to deem that
you have been actuated by bad principles rather than by boyish spirits.”
He paused to steady his voice, and I realized then for the first time
how sacred he held allegiance to the King. “Tell me, my lad,” said he,
“tell me, as you love God and the truth, whether they are right.”
For the moment I shrank from speaking, perceiving what a sad blow to
Mr. Carvel my words must be. And then I spoke up boldly, catching
the exulting sneer on my Uncle Grafton's face and the note of triumph
reflected in Mr. Allen's.
“I have never deceived you, sir,” I said, “and will not now hide from
you that I believe the colonies to have a just cause against his Majesty
and Parliament.” The words came ready to my lips: “We are none the less
Englishmen because we claim the rights of Englishmen, and, saving your
presence, sir, are as loyal as those who do not. And if these principles
be bad,” I added to my uncle, “then should we think with shame upon the
Magna Charta.”
My grandfather stood astonished at such a speech from me, whom he had
thought a lad yet without a formed knowledge of public affairs. But I
was, in fact, supersaturated with that of which I spoke, and could
have given my hearers many able Whig arguments to surprise them had the
season befitted. There was silence for a space after I had finished, and
then Mr. Carvel sank right heavily upon the bench.
“A Carvel against the King!” was all he said.
Had I been alone with him I should have cast myself at his feet, for it
hurt me sorely to see him so. As it was, I held my head high.
“The Carvels ever did what they believed right, sir,” I answered. “You
would not have me to go against my conscience?”
To this he replied nothing.
“The evil has been done, as I feared, father,” said Grafton, presently;
“we must now seek for the remedy.”
“Let me question the lad,” Mr. Allen softly interposed. “Tell me,
Richard, who has influenced you to this way of thinking?”
I saw his ruse, and was not to be duped by it.
“Men who have not feared to act bravely against oppression, sir,” I
said.
“Thank God,” exclaimed my uncle, with fervour, “that I have been more
careful of Philip's associations, and that he has not caught in the
streets and taverns this noxious creed!”
“There is no danger from Philip; he remembers his family name,” said the
rector.
“No,” quoth Mr. Carvel, bitterly, “there is no danger from Philip. Like
his father, he will ever believe that which best serves him.”
Grafton, needless to say, did not pursue such an argument, but rising,
remarked that this deplorable affair had kept him long past his dinner
hour, and that his services were as ever at his father's disposal. He
refused to stay, though my grandfather pressed him of course, and with a
low bow of filial respect and duty and a single glance at the rector,
my uncle was gone. And then we walked slowly to the house and into the
dining room, Mr. Carvel leading the procession, and I an unwilling
rear, knowing that my fate would be decided between them. I thought Mr.
Allen's grace would never end, and the meal likewise; I ate but little,
while the two gentlemen discussed parish matters. And when at last
Scipio had retired, and the rector of St. Anne's sat sipping the old
Madeira, his countenance all gravity, but with a relish he could not
hide, my grandfather spoke up. And though he addressed himself to the
guest, I knew full well what he said was meant for me.
“As you see, sir,” said he, “I am sore perplexed and troubled. We
Carvels, Mr. Allen, have ever been stanch to Church and King. My
great-grandsire fought at Naseby and Marston Moor for Charles, and
suffered exile in his name. 'Twas love for King James that sent my
father hither, though he swore allegiance to Anne and the First George.
I can say with pride that he was no indifferent servant to either,
refusing honours from the Pretender in '15, when he chanced to be at
home. An oath is an oath, sir, and we have yet to be false to ours. And
the King, say I, should, next to God, be loved and loyally served by his
subjects. And so I have served this George, and his grandfather before
him, according to the talents which were given me.”
“And ably, sir, permit me to say,” echoed the rector, heartily. Too
heartily, methought. And he carefully filled his pipe with choice leaf
out of Mr. Carvel's inlaid box.
“Be that as it may, I have done my best, as we must all do. Pardon
me, sir, for speaking of myself. But I have brought up this lad from a
child, Mr. Allen,” said Mr. Carvel, his words coming slowly, as if each
gave him pain, “and have striven to be an example to him in all things.
He has few of those faults which I most fear; God be thanked that he
loves the truth, for there is yet a chance of his correction. A chance,
said I?” he cried, his speech coming more rapid, “nay, he shall be
cured! I little thought, fool that I was, that he would get this pox.
His father fought and died for the King; and should trouble come, which
God forbid, to know that Richard stood against his Majesty would kill
me.”
“And well it might, Mr. Carvel,” said the divine. He was for the
moment sobered, as weak men must be in the presence of those of strong
convictions. My grandfather had half risen in his chair, and the lines
of his smooth-shaven face deepened visibly with the pain of the feelings
to which he gave utterance. As for me, I was well-nigh swept away by a
bigness within me, and torn between love and duty, between pity and the
reason left me, and sadly tried to know whether my dear parent's life
and happiness should be weighed against what I felt to be right. I
strove to speak, but could say nothing.
“He must be removed from the influences,” the rector ventured, after a
halt.
“That he must indeed,” said my grandfather. “Why did I not send him to
Eton last fall? But it is hard, Mr. Allen, to part with the child of our
old age. I would take passage and go myself with him to-morrow were it
not for my duties in the Council.”
“Eton! I would have sooner, I believe, wrought by the side of any
rascally redemptioner in the iron mines of the Patapsco than have gone
to Eton.
“But for the present, sir, I would counsel you to put the lad's studies
in the charge of some able and learned man, that his mind may be turned
from the disease which has fed upon it. Some one whose loyalty is beyond
question.”
“And who so fit as yourself, Mr. Allen?” returned my grandfather, relief
plain in his voice. “You have his Lordship's friendship and confidence,
and never has rector of St. Anne's or of any other parish brought
letters to his Excellency to compare with yours. And so I crave your
help in this time of need.”
Mr. Allen showed becoming hesitation.
“I fear you do me greater honour than I deserve, Mr. Carvel,” he
answered, a strain of the pomp coming back, “though my gracious patron
is disposed to think well of me, and I shall strive to hold his good
opinion. But I have duties of parish and glebe to attend, and Master
Philip Carvel likewise in my charge.”
I held my breath for my grandfather's reply. The rector, however, had
read him, and well knew that a show of reluctance would but inflame him
the more.
“How now, sir?” he exclaimed. “Surely, as you love the King, you will
not refuse me in this strait.”
Mr. Allen rose and grasped him by the hand.
“Nay, sir,” said he, “and you put it thus, I cannot refuse you.”
The thought of it was too much. I ran to my grandfather crying: “Not
Mr. Allen, sir, not Mr. Allen. Any one else you please,--Mr. Fairbrother
even.”
The rector drew back haughtily. “It is clear, Mr. Carvel,” he said,
“that Richard has other preferences.”
“And be damned to them!” shouted my grandfather. “Am I to be ruled by
this headstrong boy? He has beat Mr. Fairbrother, and shall have no
skimmed-milk supervision if I can help it.”
And so it was settled that I should be tutored by the rector of St.
Anne's, and I took my seat beside my cousin Philip in his study the very
next day.