two years before, had thrown a shadow upon his spirit, and a succession 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 popula tion. 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 gray 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 jail.

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 distil 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 my self it is worthy of a better bonnet, and thou shalt have one, Arnold-the best we can 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. Truly, my Lord, he who wanders there at nightfall has need of a clear shrift."

"You give credence to these idle tales ?" "No idle tales, an please your Lordship. marvels have I witnessed with my own eves. blood upon that roof."

Some of these There is a curse of

"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 returning, 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 re