town.

faced outwardly by heavy framework of hewn logs, which, on the side looking askant towards the town, were penetrated by an arched gateway and secured by heavy doors studded thick with nails. This portal opened upon a road which lay along the beach beneath the cliff, all the way to the upper extremity of the Several low buildings within, appropriated to barracks and magazines, just peered above the ramparts. A few pieces of brass cannon showed like watch-dogs against the horizon, and, high above all, fluttered the provincial banner bearing the cross of England, and holding the relation of a feather to the squat bonnet which the outline of the work might suggest to one curious to trace resemblances.

The province, it may be surmised, was belligerent at this day. For although the Lords Barons of Baltimore, absolute Proprietaries of Maryland and Avalon, would fain have encouraged a pacific temper, and desired ever to treat with the Indians upon terms of friendly bargain and sale, and in all points of policy manifested an equitable disposition towards the native men of the forest, the province, nevertheless, had its full share of hard blows. There was seldom a period, in this early time, when some Indian quarrel was not coming to a head; and, young as the province was, it had already tasted of rebellion at the hands of Clayborne, and Ingle,-to say nothing of that Fendall who was fain to play Cromwell in the plantation, by turning the burgesses out of their hall, and whose sedition hath still something to do with my story. However peaceable, therefore, the Lord Proprietary might incline to be, he could not but choose stand by his weapons.

In the view of these and kindred troubles, the freemen of the province had no light service in their obligations of military duty. One of the forms in which this service was exacted, in addition to the occasional requisition, on emergency, of the whole popula

tion fit to bear arms, and in addition also to a force of mounted rangers who were constantly engaged in scouring the frontier, was in the maintenance of a regularly paid and trained body of musketeers who supplied the necessary garrisons for the prin cipal forts. That of St. Mary's, which was the oldest and most redoubtable stronghold in the province, was furnished with a company of forty men of this class who were, at the date of this tale, under the command of a personage of some note, Captain Jasper Dauntrees, to whom I propose to introduce my reader with something more than the slight commendation of a casual acquaintance.

This worthy had been bred up to the science of arms from early youth, and had seen many varieties of service,-first, in the civil wars in which he took the field with the royal army, a staunch cavalier,-and afterwards, with a more doubtful complexion of loyalty, when he enlisted with Monk in Scotland, and followed his banner to London in the notable exploit of the Restoration. Yielding to the bent of that humor which the times engendered, and in imitation of many a hungry and peacedespising gallant of his day, he repaired to the continent, where, after various fortunes, he found himself in the train of Turenne and hard at loggerheads with the Prince of Orange, in which passage of his life he enjoyed the soldierly gratification of lending a hand to the famous ravage of the Palatinate.

Some few years before I have presented him in these pages he had come over to Maryland, with a party of Flemings, to gather for his old age that harvest of wealth and ease which the com. mon report promised to all who set foot upon the golden shores of the Indies-Maryland, in vulgar belief, being a part of this land of wonders. The captain neither stumbled upon a gold mine, nor picked up an Indian princess with a dowry of diamonds; but he fared scarce worse, in his own estimation, when he found

himself, in a pleasant sunny clime, invested with the rank of captain of musketeers, with a snug shelter in the fort, a reasonably fair and punctually disbursed allowance of pay-much better, than had been his lot under former masters,—and a frank welcome at all times into the mansion of the Lord Proprietary. Add to these, the delights more congenial to the training of his past life, a few wet companions, namely, to help him through an evening potation, and no despicable choice of wines and other comforts at the Crow and Archer, where the Captain became a domesticated and privileged guest, and it may still better be comprehended how little he was likely to repine at his fortune.

His figure had, in youth, been evidently remarked for strength and symmetry-but age and varied service, combined with habits of irregular indulgence, had communicated to it a bluff and corpulent dimension. His port nevertheless was erect, and his step as firm as in his days of lustihood. His eye still sparkled with rays but little quenched by time, although unseasonable vigils sometimes rendered it bloodshotten. A thick neck and rosy complexion betokened a hale constitution; and the ripple of a deep and constantly welling humor, that played upon his strongly marked features, expressed in characters that could not be misread, that love of companionship which had been, perhaps, the most frequent shoal upon which his hopes in life had been stranded. His crown was bald and encircled by a fair supply of crisp, curly, and silvery hair, whilst a thick gray moustache gave a martial and veteran air to his visnomy.

His dress served to set off his figure to the best advantage. It consisted of the doublet and ruff, short cloak and trunk hose, the party-colored stocking and capacious boot proper to the old English costume which, about the period of the Restoration, began to give way to the cumbrous foppery of the last century. This costume was still retained by many in the province, and

belonged to the military equipment of the garrison of St. Mary's, where it was fashioned of light green cloth garnished with yellow lace.

Arrayed in this guise, Captain Dauntrees had some excuse for a small share of vanity on the score of having worn well up to a green old age; and it was manifest that he sought to improve this impression by the debonair freedom with which he wore a drab beaver, with its broad flap looped up on one side, leaving his ample brow bared to wind and weather.

This combination of the martinet and free companion exhibited in the dress of the Captain, was a pretty intelligible index to his character, which disclosed a compound, not unfrequent in the civil wars of that period, of the precisian and ruffler-the cavalier and economist. In the affairs of life-a phrase which, in regard to him, meant such matters principally and before all others, as related to his own comfort-he was worldly-wise, sagaciously provident, as an old soldier, of whatever advantages his condition. might casually supply; in words, he was, indifferently, according to the occasion, a moralist or hot-brained reveller-sometimes affecting the courtier along with the martialist, and mixing up the saws of peaceful thrift with the patter of the campaigns.

As the occasions of my story may enable me to illustrate some of these points in the character of the worthy Captain, I will not forestall the opinion of my readers, regarding him, by further remark, preferring that he should speak for himself, rather than leave his merits to be certified by so unpractised an adept, as I confess myself to be, in unriddling the secret properties of a person só deserving to be known.

CHAPTER III.

"In every creed,

"Tis on all hands agreed,
And plainly confest,

When the weather is hot,

That we stick to the pot
And drink of the best."

OLD SONG.

"Or all seasons of the year, autumn is the most voluptuous, and October the loveliest of months. Then may a man sit at his door-in the sun if he choose, for he will not find it too hot-or in the shade, if it liketh him, for neither will he find this too cool, and there hold converse with his own meditations: or he may ride or walk, dance or sing, for in this October time a man hath heart for any pastime, so rich is the air, and such pleasant imaginations doth it engender. And if he be poetical, therein will he be greatly favored; for surely never Nature puts on such gaudy attire, on earth or sky, as she wears in our October. The morning haze, which the hoar-frost flings up to meet the sun, hangs across the landscape as if made on purpose to enchant the painter; and the evening sunset lights up the heavens with a glory that shall put that painter-even Claude or Salvatorto shame at the inadequacy of his art. what pallet hath colors for the forest? year, commend me to October !"

And then the woods!

Of all the months of the

Some such rhapsody as this was running through the thoughts, and breaking forth in slight mutterings from the lips of the