University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.

The Old and Young Courtier.

Bryan and Pereene.

Anthony Warden had resided in Maryland for
forty years before the period of this story. During
the greater portion of this time he performed the
duties of the Collector of the Proprietary's revenues
in the port. By the persuasion of Cecilius Calvert
he had become a settler in the New World, where
he had received from his patron the grant of a large
tract of land, which, in progress of time, under a
careful course of husbandry, rendered him a man of

easy fortune. One portion of this tract lay adjacent
to the town, and stretched along the creek of St.
Inigoe's, constituting an excellent farm of several
hundred acres. Upon this land the Collector had
dwelt from an early period of his settlement.

A certain sturdiness of character that matched the
perils of that adventurous colonial life, and a vigorous
intellect, gave Mr. Warden great authority over
the inhabitants of the province, which was increased
by the predominant honesty of purpose and plain,
unpretending directness of his nature. A bountiful
purse and jocund temper enabled and prompted him
to indulge, almost without stint, that hospitality which
furnishes the most natural and appropriate enjoyment
of those who dwell remote from the busy marts of
the world. His companionable habits had left their
tokens upon his exterior. His frame was corpulent,
his features strongly defined, his eye dark blue, with
a mastiff kindness in its glance. The flush of generous
living had slightly overmastered the wind-and-weather
hue of his complexion, and given it the tints
of a ripe pear. Seventy years had beaten upon his
poll without other badge of conquest than that of a
change of his brown locks to white;—their volume
was scarcely diminished, and they still fell in curls
upon his shoulders.

Two marriages had brought him a large family of
children, of whom the eldest (the only offspring of
his first nuptials) was Alice Warden, a maiden lady
who now, well advanced in life, occupied the highest
post of authority in the household, which had, for

several years past, been transferred to her by the
demise of the second wife. His sons had all abandoned
the paternal roof in the various pursuits of
fortune, leaving behind them, besides Mistress Alice,
a sister, the youngest of the flock, who, at the epoch
at which I am about to present her, was just verging
towards womanhood.

The dwelling of the Collector stood upon the high
bank formed by the union of St. Inigoe's creek and
St. Mary's river. It was, according to the most approved
fashion of that day, built of imported brick,
with a double roof penetrated by narrow and triangular-capped
windows. The rooms were large and
embellished with carved wainscots and a profusion of
chiseled woodwork, giving them an elaborate and
expensive aspect. This main building overlooked,
with a magisterial and protecting air, a group of
single-storied offices and out-houses which were clustered
around, one of which was appropriated by the
Collector as his place of business, and may still be
seen with its decayed book-shelves, a deserted ruin
hard by the mansion which yet survives in tolerable
repair. This spacious domicil, with its broad porch,
cottage-like appendages and latticed sheds, was embosomed
in the shade of elms and mulberries, whose
brown foliage, fanned by the autumnal breeze, murmured
in unison with the plashing tide that beat
against the pebbles immediately below. A garden in
the rear, with trellised and vine-clad gateways, and
walks lined with box, which the traveller may
yet behold in venerable luxuriance, furnished good

store of culinary dainties; whilst a lawn, in front,
occupying some two or three acres and bounded by
the cliff which formed the headland on the river, lay
open to the sun, and gave from the water an unobstructed
view of the mansion. The taste displayed
in these embellishments, the neatness of the grounds,
the low, flower-spangled hedge of thorn that guarded
the cliff, the clumps of rose trees and other ornamental
shrubs, disposed to gratify the eye in the
shifting seasons of their bloom, the various accessories
of rustic seats, bowers and parterres—all united
to present an agreeable and infallible index of that
purity of mind which brought into assemblage such
simple and attractive elements of beauty.

All around the immediate domain of the dwelling-house
were orchards, woodlands and cultivated fields,
with the usual barns and other structures necessary
in the process of agriculture;—the whole region presenting
a level plain, some fifty or sixty feet above
the tide, of singular richness as a landscape, and no
less agreeable to be looked upon for its associations
with the idea of comfortable independence in the
proprietor. This homestead had obtained the local
designation of the Rose Croft,—a name, in some degree,
descriptive of the predominant embellishment
of the spot.

In his attire, Master Anthony Warden, the worshipful
Collector (to give him his usual style of address
in the province) exhibited some tendency towards
the coxcombry of his day. It was marked by
that scrupulous observance of the prerogative of rank

and age which characterised the costume of the olden
time,—smacking no little of the flavour of the official
martinet. Authority, amongst our ancestors, was
wont to borrow consequence from show. The broad
line which separated gentle from simple was recognised,
in those days, not less strongly in the habiliments
of the person than in his nurture and manners.
The divisions between the classes of society were not
more authentically distinguished in any outward sign
than in the embroidered velvet or cloth of the man of
wealth, and the plain serge, worsted, or leather of the
craftsman. The Collector of St. Mary's, on festive
occasions, went forth arrayed much after the manner
in which Leslie has represented Sir Roger de Coverly,
in his admirable painting of that knight; and although
he was too vain of his natural locks to adopt
the periwig of that period, yet he had trained his
luxuriant tresses into a studied imitation of this artificial
adornment. His embroidered coat of drab velvet,
with wadded skirts and huge open cuffs, his lace
wristbands, his ample vest, and white lamb's-wool
hose rolled above his knees, his buckled shoe and
three-cornered hat—all adjusted with a particularity
that would put our modern foppery to shame—gave
to the worthy burgess of St. Mary's a substantial
ascendancy and an unquestioned regard, that rendered
him, next to the Proprietary, the most worshipful
personage in the province.

This pedantry of costume and the circumspect
carriage which it exacted, were pleasantly contrasted
with the flowing vivacity of the wearer, engendering

by their concourse an amusing compound,
which I might call a fettered and pinioned alacrity
of demeanour, the rigid stateliness of exterior seeming
rather ineffectually to encase, as a half-bursting
chrysalis, the wings of a gay nature.

Mr. Warden was reputed to be stubborn in opinion.
The good people of the town, aware of his pertinacity
in this particular, had no mind to make points
with him, but, on the contrary, rather corroborated
him in his dogmatism by an amiable assentation; so
that, it is said, he grew daily more peremptory. This
had become so much his prerogative, that the Lord
Proprietary himself gave way to it with as good a
grace as the rest of the inhabitants.

It may be imagined that so general a submission
to this temper would have the tendency to render
him a little passionate. They say it was a rich sight
to see him in one of his flashes, which always took
the bystanders by surprise, like thunder in the midst
of sunshine; but these explosions were always short-lived,
and rather left a more wholesome and genial
clearness in the atmosphere of his affections.

The household at the Rose Croft, I have hinted,
was regulated by Mistress Alice, who had, some
time before our acquaintance with her, reached that
period of life at which the female ambition for display
is prone to subside into a love of domestic pursuits.
It was now her chief worldly care and delight to promote
the comfort of those who congregated around
the family hearth. In the administration of this office,
it may be told to her praise, that she manifested that

unpretending good sense which is a much more rare
and estimable quality than many others of better acceptation
with the world. As was natural to her
tranquil position and kindly temper, her feelings had
taken a ply towards devotion, which father Pierre
did not omit to encourage and confirm by all the persuasions
enjoined by the discipline of the Romish
church. The gentle solicitude with which the ministers
of that ancient faith watch and assist the growing
zeal of its votaries; the captivation of its venerable
ceremonies, and the familiar and endearing tone
in which it addresses itself to the regard of its children,
sufficiently account for its sway over so large
a portion of mankind, and especially for its hold upon
the affections of the female breast.

Upon the thoughtful character of Alice Warden
this influence shed a mellow and attractive light, and
gave to the performance of her daily duties that orderly
and uninterrupted cheerfulness which showed
the content of her spirit. She found an engrossing
labour of love in superintending the education of her
sister. Blanche Warden had now arrived within a
span of her eighteenth year. Alice had guarded her
path from infancy with a mother's tenderness, ministering
to her enjoyments and instilling into her mind
all that her own attainments, circumscribed, it is
true, within a narrow circle, enabled her to teach.
The young favourite had grown up under this domestic
nurture, aided by the valuable instructions of
father Pierre, who had the guidance of her studies,
a warm-hearted girl, accomplished much beyond

the scant acquisitions ordinarily, at that day, within
the reach of women, and distinguished for that confiding
gentleness of heart and purity of thought and
word which the caresses of friends, the perception of
the domestic affections, and seclusion from the busy
world are likely to engender in an ardent and artless
nature.

Of the beauty of the Rose of St. Mary's (for so
contemporaries were wont to designate her) tradition
speaks with a poetical fervour. I have heard it
said that Maryland, far-famed for lovely women, hath
not since had a fairer daughter. The beauty which
lives in expression was eminently her's; that beauty
which is scarcely to be caught by the painter,—
which, changeful as the surface of the welling fountain
where all the fresh images of nature are for ever
shifting and sparkling with the glories of the mirror,
defies the limner's skill. In stature she was neither
short nor tall, but distinguished by a form of admirable
symmetry both for grace and activity. Her features,
it is scarce necessary to say, were regular,—
but not absolutely so, for, I know not why, perfect
regularity is a hinderance to expression. Eyes of
dark hazle, with long lashes that gave, by turns, a
pensive and playful light to her face, serving, at will,
to curtain from the world the thoughts which otherwise
would have been read by friend and foe; hair
of a rich brown, glossy and, in some lights, even like
the raven's wing,—ample in volume and turning her
brow and shoulders almost into marble by the contrast;
a complexion of spotless, healthful white and

red; a light, elastic step, responding to the gaiety
of her heart; a voice melodious and clear, gentle
in its tones and various in its modulation, according
to the feeling it uttered;—these constituted no
inconsiderable items in the inventory of her perfections.
Her spirit was blithe, affectionate and quick
in its sympathies; her ear credulous to believe what
was good, and slow to take an evil report. The innocence
of her thoughts kindled an habitual light
upon her countenance, which was only dimmed when
the rough handling by fortune of friend or kinsman
was recounted to her, and brought forth the ready
tear—for that was ever as ready as her smile.

I might tell more of Blanche Warden, but that
my task compels me to hasten to the matter of my
story.