The years of a man's life that count the most are often those which may
be passed quickest in the story of it. And so I may hurry over the first
years I spent as Mr. Swain's factor at Gordon's Pride. The task that
came to my hand was heaven-sent.
That manor-house, I am sure, was the tidiest in all Maryland, thanks to
Patty's New England blood. She was astir with the birds of a morning,
and near the last to retire at night, and happy as the days were long.
She was ever up to her elbows in some dish, and her butter and her
biscuits were the best in the province. Little she cared to work
samplers, or peacocks in pretty wools, tho' in some way she found
the time to learn the spinet. As the troubles with the mother country
thickened, she took to a foot-wheel, and often in the crisp autumn
evenings I would hear the bumping of it as I walked to the house, and
turn the knob to come upon her spinning by the twilight. She would have
no English-made linen in that household. “If mine scratch your back,
Richard,” she would say, “you must grin and bear, and console yourself
with your virtue.” It was I saw to the flax, and learned from Ivie
Rawlinson (who had come to us from Carvel Hall) the best manner to
ripple and break and swingle it. And Mr. Swain, in imitation of the
high example set by Mr. Bordley, had buildings put up for wheels and the
looms, and in due time kept his own sheep.
If man or woman, white or black, fell sick on the place, it was Patty
herself who tended them. She knew the virtue of every herb in the big
chest in the storeroom. And at table she presided over her father's
guests with a womanliness that won her more admiration than mine. Now
that the barrister was become a man of weight, the house was as crowded
as ever was Carvel Hall. Carrolls and Pacas and Dulanys and Johnsons,
and Lloyds and Bordleys and Brices and Scotts and Jennings and Ridouts,
and Colonel Sharpe, who remained in the province, and many more families
of prominence which I have not space to mention, all came to Gordon's
Pride. Some of these, as their names proclaim, were of the King's side;
but the bulk of Mr. Swain's company were stanch patriots, and toasted
Miss Patty instead of his Majesty. By this I do not mean that they
lacked loyalty, for it is a matter of note that our colony loved King
George.
I must not omit from the list above the name of my good friend, Captain
Clapsaddle.
Nor was there lack of younger company. Betty Tayloe, who plied me
with questions concerning Dorothy and London, but especially about the
dashing and handsome Lord Comyn; and the Dulany girls, and I know not
how many others. Will Fotheringay, when he was home from college, and
Archie Brice, and Francis Willard (whose father was now in the Assembly)
and half a dozen more to court Patty, who would not so much as look at
them. And when I twitted her with this she would redden and reply: “I
was created for a housewife, sir, and not to make eyes from behind a
fan.” Indeed, she was at her prettiest and best in the dimity frock,
with the sleeves rolled up.
'Twas a very merry place, the manor of Gordon's Pride. A generous bowl
of punch always stood in the cool hall, through which the south winds
swept from off the water, and fruit and sangaree and lemonade were on
the table there. The manor had no ball-room, but the negro fiddlers
played in the big parlour. And the young folks danced till supper time.
In three months Patty's suppers grew famous in a colony where there was
no lack of good cooks.
The sweet-natured invalid enjoyed these festivities in her quiet way,
and often pressed me to partake. So did Patty beg me, and Mr. Swain.
Perhaps a false sense of pride restrained me, but my duties held me all
day in the field, and often into the night when there was curing to be
done, or some other matters of necessity. And for the rest, I thought I
detected a change in the tone of Mr. Fotheringay, and some others, tho'
it may have been due to sensibility on my part. I would put up with no
patronage.
There was no change of tone, at least, with the elder gentlemen. They
plainly showed me an added respect. And so I fell into the habit, after
my work was over, of joining them in their suppers rather than the sons
and daughters. There I was made right welcome. The serious conversation
spiced with the wit of trained barristers and men of affairs better
suited my changed condition of life. The times were sober, and for those
who could see, a black cloud was on each horizon. 'Twas only a matter
of months when the thunder-clap was to come-indeed, enough was going on
within our own province to forebode a revolution. The Assembly to which
many of these gentlemen belonged was in a righteous state of opposition
to the Proprietary and the Council concerning the emoluments of colonial
officers and of clergymen. Honest Governor Eden had the misfortune to
see the justice of our side, and was driven into a seventh state by his
attempts to square his conscience. Bitter controversies were waging
in the Gazette, and names were called and duels fought weekly. For
our cause “The First Citizen” led the van, and the able arguments and
moderate language of his letters soon identified him as Mr. Charles
Carroll of Carrollton, one of the greatest men Maryland has ever known.
But even at Mr. Swain's, amongst his few intimate friends, Mr. Carroll
could never be got to admit his 'nom de guerre' until long after
'Antilon' had been beaten.
I write it with pride, that at these suppers I was sometimes asked to
speak; and, having been but lately to England, to give my opinion upon
the state of affairs there. Mr. Carroll honoured me upon two occasions
with his confidence, and I was made clerk to a little club they had, and
kept the minutes in my own hand.
I went about in homespun, which, if good enough for Mr. Bordley, was
good enough for me. I rode with him over the estate. This gentleman
was the most accomplished and scientific farmer we had in the province.
Having inherited his plantation on Wye Island, near Carvel Hall, he
resigned his duties as judge, and a lucrative practice, to turn all his
energies to the cultivation of the soil. His wheat was as eagerly sought
after as was Colonel Washington's tobacco.
It was to Mr. Bordley's counsel that the greater part of my success
was due. He taught me the folly of ploughing with a fluke,--a custom to
which the Eastern Shore was wedded, pointing out that a double surface
was thus exposed to the sun's rays; and explained at length why there
was more profit in small grain in that district than heavy tobacco. He
gave me Dr. Eliot's “Essays on Field Husbandry,” and Mill's “Husby,”
which I read from cover to cover. And I went from time to time to visit
him at Wye Island, when he would canter with me over that magnificent
plantation, and show me with pride the finished outcome of his
experiments.
Mr. Swain's affairs kept him in town the greater part of the twelve
months, and Mrs. Swain and Patty moved to Annapolis in the autumn. But
for three years I was at Cordon's Pride winter and summer alike. At
the end of that time I was fortunate enough to show my employer such
substantial results as to earn his commendation--ay, and his confidence,
which was the highest token of that man's esteem. The moneys of the
estate he left entirely at my order. And in the spring of '73, when the
opportunity was suddenly offered to buy a thousand acres of excellent
wheat land adjoining, I made the purchase for him while he was at
Williamsburg, and upon my own responsibility.
This connected the plantation on the east with Singleton's. It had been
my secret hope that the two estates might one day be joined in marriage.
For of all those who came a-courting Patty, Percy was by far the best.
He was but a diffident suitor; he would sit with me on the lawn evening
after evening, when company was there, while Fotheringay and Francis
Willard made their compliments within,--silly flatteries, at which Patty
laughed.
Percy kept his hounds, and many a run we had together' in the sparkling
days that followed the busy summer, when the crops were safe in the
bottoms; or a quiet pipe and bottle in his bachelor's hall, after a
soaking on the duck points.
And this brings me to a subject on which I am loth to write. Where Mr.
Singleton was concerned, Patty, the kindest of creatures, was cruelty
itself. Once, when I had the effrontery to venture a word in his behalf,
I had been silenced so effectively as to make my ears tingle. A thousand
little signs led me to a conclusion which pained me more than I can
express. Heaven is my witness that no baser feeling leads me to hint of
it here. Every day while the garden lasted flowers were in my room, and
it was Banks who told me that she would allow no other hands than her
own to place them by my bed. He got a round rating from me for violating
the pledge of secrecy he had given her. It was Patty who made my shirts,
and on Christmas knitted me something of comfort; who stood on the
horse-block in the early morning waving after me as I rode away, and at
my coming her eyes would kindle with a light not to be mistaken.
None of these things were lost upon Percy Singleton, and I often
wondered why he did not hate me. He was of the kind that never shows a
hurt. Force of habit still sent him to Gordon's Pride, but for days he
would have nothing to say to the mistress of it, or she to him.