University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

Glengonar's Wassail.

The day was drawing near to a close, and the
Proprietary thoughtfully paced the hall. The wain-scoted
walls around him were hung with costly
paintings, mingled, not untastefully, with Indian war
clubs, shields, bows and arrows, and other trophies
won from the savage. There were also the ponderous
antlers of the elk and the horns of the buck sustaining
draperies of the skins of beasts of prey.
Musquets, cutlasses and partisans were bestowed on
brackets ready for use in case of sudden invasion
from that race of wild men whose stealthy incursions
in times past had taught this policy of preparation.
The level rays of the setting sun, striking through
the broad open door, flung a mellow radiance over

the hall, giving a rich picture-like tone to its sylvan
furniture.

Lord Baltimore, at the period when I have introduced
him, might have been verging upon fifty. He
was of a delicate and slender stature, with a grave
and dignified countenance. His manners were
sedate and graceful, and distinguished by that gentleness
which is characteristic of an educated mind
when chastened by affliction. He had been schooled
to this gentleness both by domestic and public griefs.
The loss of a favourite son, about two years before,
had thrown a shadow upon his spirit, and a successsion
of unruly political irritations in the province
served to prevent the return of that buoyancy of
heart which is indifferently slow to come back at
middle age, even when solicited by health, fortune,
friends, and all the other incitements which, in
younger men, are wont to lift up a wounded spirit
out of the depths of a casual sorrow.

Charles Calvert had come to the province in 1662,
and from that date, until the death of his father,
thirteen years afterwards, administered the government
in the capacity of Lieutenant-General. Upon
his accession to the proprietary rights, he found himself
compelled by the intrigues of a faction to visit
London, where he was detained nearly four years,—
having left Lady Baltimore, with a young family of
children, behind him, under the care of his uncle
Philip Calvert, the chancellor of the province. He
had now, within little more than a twelvemonth, returned
to his domestic roof, to mingle his sorrows

with those of his wife for the death of his eldest son,
Cecilius, who had sunk into the tomb during his
absence.

The public cares of his government left him scant
leisure to dwell upon his personal afflictions. The
province was surrounded by powerful tribes of Indians
who watched the white settlers with an eager
hostility, and seized every occasion to molest them
by secret inroad, and often by open assault. A perpetual
war of petty reprisals, prevailed upon the
frontier, and even sometimes invaded the heart of
the province.

A still more vexatious annoyance existed in the
party divisions of the inhabitants—divisions unluckily
resting on religious distinctions—the most fierce
of all dissensions. Ever since the Restoration, the
jealousy of the Protestant subjects of the crown
against the adherents of the church of Rome had
been growing into a sentiment that finally broke forth
into the most flagrant persecution. In the province,
the Protestants during the last twenty years had
greatly increased in number, and at the date of this
narrative constituted already the larger mass of the
population. They murmured against the dominion
of the Proprietary as one adverse to the welfare of
the English church; and intrigues were set on foot
to obtain the establishment of that church in the
province through the interest of the ministry in England.
Letters were written by some of the more
ambitious clergy of Maryland to the Archbishop of
Canterbury to invoke his aid in the enterprise. The

government of Lord Baltimore was traduced in these
representations, and every disorder attributed to the
ascendancy of the Papists. It was even affirmed
that the Proprietary and his uncle the Chancellor,
had instigated the Indians to ravage the plantations
of the Protestant settlers, and to murder their families.
Chiefly, to counteract these intrigues, Lord
Baltimore had visited the court at London. Cecilius
Calvert, the founder of the province, with a liberality
as wise as it was unprecedented, had erected his
government upon a basis of perfect religious freedom.
He did this at a time when he might have incorporated
his own faith with the political character of
the colony, and maintained it, by a course of legislation,
which would, perhaps, even up to the present
day, have rendered Maryland the chosen abode of
those who now acknowledge the founder's creed.
His views, however, were more expansive. It was
his design to furnish in Maryland a refuge not only
to the weary and persecuted votaries of his own sect,
but an asylum to all who might wish for shelter in a
land where opinion should be free and conscience
undisturbed. Whilst this plant of toleration was
yet young, it grew with a healthful luxuriance; but
the popular leaders, who are not always as truly and
consistently attached to enlightened freedom as we
might be led to believe from their boasting, and who
incessantly aim to obtain power and make it felt, had
no sooner acquired strength to battle with the Proprietary
than they rooted up the beautiful exotic and
gave it to the winds.

Amongst the agitators in this cause was a man of
some note in the former history of the province—
the famous Josias Fendall, the governor in the time
of the Protectorate—now in a green old age, whose
turbulent temper, and wily propensity to mischief
had lost none of their edge with the approach of
grey hairs. This individual had stimulated some of
the hot spirits of the province into open rebellion
against the life of the Proprietary and his uncle.
His chief associate was John Coode, a coarse but
shrewd leader of a faction, who, with the worst inclinations
against the Proprietary had the wit to
avoid the penalties of the law, and to maintain himself
in a popular position as a member of the house
of Burgesses. Fendall, a few months before this
era, had been arrested with several followers, upon
strong proofs of conspiracy, and was now a close
prisoner in the gaol.

Such is a brief but necessary view of the state of
affairs on the date, at which I have presented the
Lord Proprietary to my reader. The matter now in
hand with the captain of the fort had reference to
troubles of inferior note to those which I have just
recounted.

When Lord Baltimore descried Captain Dauntrees
and the ranger approaching the mansion from the
direction of the fort, he advanced beyond the threshold
to meet them. In a moment they stood unbonneted
before him.

“God save you, good friends!” was his salutation
—“Captain Dauntrees and worthy Arnold, welcome!

—Cover,”—he added in a tone of familiar kindness,
—“put on your hats; these evening airs sometimes
distill an ague upon a bare head.”

A rugged smile played upon the features of the old
forester as he resumed his shaggy cap, and said,
“Lord Charles is good; but he does not remember
that the head of an old ranger gets his blossoms like
the dog-wood,—in the wind and the rain:—the dew
sprinkles upon it the same as upon a stone.”

“Old friend,” replied the Proprietary,—“that
grizzly head has taken many a sprinkling in the service
of my father and myself: it is worthy of a better
bonnet, and thou shalt have one, Arnold—the best
thou canst find in the town. Choose for yourself,
and Master Verheyden shall look to the cost of it.”

The Fleming modestly bowed, as he replied with
that peculiar foreign gesture and accent, neither of
which may be described,—“Lord Charles is good—
He is the son of his father, Lord Cecil,—Heaven
bless his memory!”

“Master Verheyden, bade me attend your lordship,”
said Dauntrees; “and to bring Arnold de la
Grange with me.”

“I have matter for your vigilance, Captain,” replied
the Proprietary. “Walk with me in the garden
—we will talk over our business in the open air.”

When they had strolled some distance, Lord Baltimore
proceeded—“There are strange tales afloat
touching certain mysterious doings in a house at St.
Jerome's: the old wives will have it that it is inhabited
by goblins and mischievous spirits—and, in

truth, wiser people than old women are foolish
enough to hold it in dread. Father Pierre tells me
he can scarcely check this terror.”

“Your Lordship means the fisherman's house on
the beach at St. Jerome's,” said the Captain. “The
country is full of stories concerning it, and it has
long had an ill fame. I know the house: the gossips
call it The Wizard's Chapel. It stands hard by the
hut of The Cripple. By my faith,—he who wanders
there at nightfall had need of a clear shrift.”

“You give credence to these idle tales?”

“No idle tales, an please your Lordship. Some of
these marvels have I witnessed with my own eyes.
There is a curse of blood upon that roof.”

“I pray you speak on,” said the Proprietary,
earnestly; “there is more in this than I dreamed
of.”

“Paul Kelpy the fisherman,” continued Dauntrees,
—“it was before my coming into the province—but
the story goes—”

“It was in the Lord Cecil's time—I knowed the
fisherman,” interrupted Arnold.

“He was a man,” said the Captain, “who, as your
Lordship may have heard, had a name which caused
him to be shunned in his time,—and they are alive
now who can tell enough of his wickedness to make
one's hair rise on end. He dwelt in this house at St.
Jerome's in Clayborne's day, and took part with that
freebooter;—went with him, as I have heard, to the
Island, and was outlawed.”

“Ay, and met the death he deserved—I remember

the story,” said the Proprietary. “He was
foiled in his attempt to get out of the province, and
barred himself up in his own house.”

“And there he fought like a tiger,—or more like a
devil as he was,” added the ranger. “They were
more than two days, before they could get into his
house.”

“When his door was forced at last,” continued
the Captain; “they found him, his wife and child
lying in their own blood upon the hearth stone. They
were all murdered, people say, by his own hand.”

“And that was true!” added Arnold; “I remember
how he was buried at the cross road, below the
Mattapany Fort, with a stake drove through his
body.”

“Ever since that time,” continued Dauntrees,
“they say the house has been without lodgers—of
flesh and blood, I mean, my Lord,—for it has become
a devil's den, and a busy one.”

“What hast thou seen, Captain? You speak as a
witness.”

“It is not yet six months gone by, my Lord, when
I was returning with Clayton, the master of the collector's
pinnace, from the Isle of Kent; we stood
in, after night, towards the headland of St. Jerome's
bay;—it was very dark—and the four windows of
the Wizard's Chapel, that looked across the beach,
were lighted up with such a light as I have never
seen from candle or fagot. And there were antic
figures passing the blaze that seemed deep in some
hellish carouse. We kept our course, until we got

almost close aboard,—when suddenly all grew dark.
There came, at that moment, a gust of wind such
as the master said he never knew to sweep in daylight
across the Chesapeake. It struck us in our
teeth, and we were glad to get out again upon the
broad water. It would seem to infer that the Evil
One had service rendered there, which it would be
sinful to look upon. In my poor judgment it is matter
for the church, rather than for the hand of the law.”

“You are not a man, Captain Dauntrees, to be
lightly moved by fantasies,” said the Proprietary,
gravely; “you have good repute for sense and courage.
I would have you weight well what you
report.”

“Surely, my Lord, Clayton is as stout a man in
heart as any in the province: and yet he could
scarcely hold his helm for fear.”

“Why was I not told of this?”

“Your Lordship's favour,” replied Dauntrees, shaking
his head; “neither the master, the seamen nor
myself would hazard ill will by moving in the matter.
There is malice in these spirits, my Lord, which will
not brook meddling in their doings: we waited until
we might be questioned by those who had right to
our answer. The blessed martyrs shield me! I am
pledged to fight your Lordship's bodily foes:—the
good priests of our holy patron St. Ignatius were
better soldiers for this warfare.”

The Proprietary remained for some moments silent:
at last, turning to the ranger, he inquired—
“What dost thou know of this house, Arnold?”

“Well, Lord Charles,” replied the veteran, “I
was not born to be much afeard of goblins or
witches.—In my rangings I have more than once
come in the way of these wicked spirits; and then I
have found that a clean breast and a stout heart, with
the help of an Ave Mary and a Paternoster was more
than a match for all their howlings. But the fisherman's
house—oh, my good Lord Charles,” he added
with a portentous shrug, “has dwellers in it that it
is best not to trouble. When Sergeant Travers and
myself were ranging across by St. Jerome's, at that
time when Tiquassino's men were thought to be a
thieving,—last Hallowmass, if I remember,—we shot
a doe towards night, and set down in the woods,
waiting to dress our meat for a supper, which kept
us late, before we mounted our horses again. But
we had some aqua vitæ, and did n't much care for
hours. So it was midnight, with no light but the stars
to show us our way. It happened that we rode not
far from the Wizard's Chapel, which put us to telling
stories to each other about Paul Kelpy and the
ghosts that people said haunted his house.”

“The aqua vitæ made you talkative as well as
valiant, Arnold,” interrupted the Proprietary.

“I will not say that,” replied the ranger; “but
something put it into our heads to go down the bank
and ride round the chapel. At first all was as quiet
as if it had been our church here of St. Mary's—
except that our horses snorted and reared with fright
at something we could not see. The wind was blowing,
and the waves were beating on the shore,—and

suddenly we began to grow cold; and then, all at
once, there came a rumbling noise inside of the
house like the rolling of a hogshead full of pebbles,
and afterwards little flashes of light through the windows,
and the sergeant said he heard clanking chains
and groans:—it is n't worth while to hide it from
your lordship, but the serjeant ran away like a
coward, and I followed him like another, Lord
Charles.—Since that night I have not been near the
Black house.—We have an old saying in my country—`een
gebrande kat vreest het koude water'—
the scalded cat keeps clear of cold water—ha, I
mind the proverb.”

“It is not long ago,” said Dauntrees, “perhaps
not above two years,—when, they say, the old sundried
timber of the building turned suddenly black.
It was the work of a single night—your Lordship
shall find it so now.”

“I can witness the truth of it,” said Arnold—“the
house was never black until that night, and now it
looks as if it was scorched with lightning from roof
to ground sill. And yet, lightning could never leave
it so black without burning it to the ground.”

“There is some trickery in this,” said the Proprietary.
“It may scarce be accounted for on any
pretence of witchcraft, or sorcery, although I know
there are malignant influences at work in the province
which find motive enough to do all the harm
they can. Has Fendall, or any of his confederates
had commerce with this house, Captain Dauntrees?
Can you suspect such intercourse?”

“Assuredly not, my Lord,” replied the Captain,
“for Marshall, who is the most insolent of that faction,
hath, to my personal knowledge, the greatest
dread of the chapel of all other men I have seen.
Besides, these terrors have flourished in the winter-night
tales of the neighbourhood, ever since the
death of Kelpy, and long before the Fendalls grew
so pestilent in the province.”

“It is the blood of the fisherman, my good Lord,
and of his wife and children that stains the floor,”
said Arnold; “it is that blood which brings the evil
spirits together about the old hearth. Twice every
day the blood-spots upon the floor freshen and grow
strong, as the tide comes to flood;—at the ebb they
may be hardly seen.”

“You have witnessed this yourself, Arnold?”

“At the ebb, Lord Charles. I did not stay for the
change of tide. When I saw the spots it was as
much as we could do to make them out.—But at the
flood every body says they are plain.”

“It is a weighty matter, a very weighty matter,
an it like your Lordship's honour,” muttered forth the
slim voice of Garret Weasel, who had insinuated
himself, by slow approach, into the rear of the company,
near enough to hear a part of this conversation,
and who now fancied that his interest in the
subject would ensure him an unrebuked access to the
Proprietary—“and your Lordship hath a worthy care
for the fears of the poor people touching the abominations
of the Wizard's Chapel.”

“What brought thee here, Garret Weasel?” inquired

the Proprietary, as he turned suddenly upon
the publican and looked him steadfastly in the face—
“What wonder hast thou to tell to excuse thy lurking
at our heels?”

“Much and manifold, our most noble Lord, touching
the rumours,” replied the confused innkeeper,
with a thick utterance. “And it is the most notable
thing about it that Robert Swale—Rob o' the
Trencher, as he is commonly called—your Lordship
apprehends I mean the Cripple—that Rob lives so
near the Wizard's Chapel. There's matter of consideration
in that—if your Lordship will weigh it.”

“Fie, Master Garret Weasel! Fie on thee! Thou
art in thy cups. I grieve to see thee making a beast
of thyself. You had a name for sobriety. Look
that you lose it not again. Captain Dauntrees if the
publican has been your guest this evening, you are
scarce free of blame for this.”

“He has a shallow head, my Lord, and it is more
easily sounded than I guessed. Arnold,” said Dauntrees
apart—“persuade the innkeeper home.”

The ranger took Garret's arm, and expostulating
with him as he led him away, dismissed him at the
gate with an admonition to bear himself discreetly
in the presence of his wife,—a hint which seemed to
have a salutary effect, as the landlord was seen
shaping his course with an improved carriage towards
the town.

“Have you reason to believe, Captain Dauntrees,”
said the Proprietary, after Weasel had departed;

“that the Cripple gives credit to these tales. He
lives near this troubled house?”

“Not above a gunshot off, my Lord. He cannot
but be witness to these marvels. But he is a man of
harsh words, and lives to himself. There is matter
in his own life, I should guess, which leaves but little
will to censure these doings. To a certainty he has
no fear of what may dwell in the Black building.—
I have seldom spoken with him.”

“Your report and Arnold's,” said the Proprietary,
“confirm the common rumour. I have heard to-day,
that two nights past some such phantoms as you
speak of have been seen, and deemed it at first a
mere gossip's wonder;—but what you tell gives a
graver complexion of truth to these whisperings. Be
there demons or jugglers amongst us—and I have
reason to suspect both—this matter must be sifted.
I would have the inquiry made by men who are not
moved by the vulgar love of marvel. This duty
shall be yours, friends. Make suitable preparation,
Captain, to discharge it at your earliest leisure. I
would have you and Arnold, with such discreet
friends as you may select, visit this spot at night and
observe the doings there. Look that you keep your
own counsel:—we have enemies of flesh and blood
that may be more dreaded than these phantoms. So,
God speed you friends!”

“The man who purges the Black House of the
fiend, so please you, my Lord,” said Dauntrees,
“should possess more odour of sanctity than I doubt
will be found under our soldier's jerkins. I shall

nevertheless execute your Lordship's orders to the
letter.”

“Hark you, Captain,” said the Proprietary, as his
visiters were about to take their leave—“if you have
a scruple in this matter and are so inclined, I would
have you confer with Father Pierre. Whether this
adventure require prayer, or weapon of steel, you
shall judge for yourself.”

“I shall take it, my Lord, as a point of soldiership,”
said Dauntrees, “to be dealt with, in soldierly fashion—that
is, with round blows if occasion serves. I
ask no aid from our good priest. He hath a trick—
if I may be so bold as to speak it before your Lord-ship—which
doth not so well sort with my age and
bodily health,—a trick, my Lord, of putting one
to a fasting penance by way of purification. Our
purpose of visiting the Black House would be unseasonably
delayed by such a purgation.”

“As thou wilt—as thou wilt!” said the Proprietary,
laughing; “Father Pierre would have but an
idle sinecure, if he had no other calling but to bring
thee to thy penitentiary.—Good even, friends,—may
the kind saints be with you!”

The Captain and his comrade now turned their
steps toward the fort, and the Proprietary retired
into the mansion. Here he found the secretary and
Benedict Leonard waiting his arrival. They had
just returned from the town, whither they had gone
after doing their errand to the fort. Albert Verheyden
bore a packet secured with silken strings and
sealed, which he delivered to the Proprietary.

“Dick Pagan, the courier,” he said, “has just
come in from James Town in Virginia, whence he
set forth but four days ago—he has had a hard ride
of it—and brought this pacquet to the sheriff for my
Lord. The courier reports that a ship had just arrived
from England, and that Sir Henry Chichely the governor
gave him this for your Lordship to be delivered
without delay.”

The Proprietary took the pacquet: “Albert,” he
said, as he was about to withdraw, “I have promised
the old ranger, Arnold de la Grane, a new
cap. Look to it:—get him the best that you may find
in the town—or, perhaps, it would better content him
to have one made express by Cony the leather
dresser. Let it be as it may best please the veteran
himself, good Albert.” With this considerate remembrance
of the ranger, Lord Baltimore withdrew
into his study.