Chapter 6 A BORDER CHIEFTAIN.

I have now to pursue the narrative of my story as I find the necessary material in the old Council Journal. I shall not incumber this narrative with literal extracts from these proceedings, but give the substance of what I find there, with such illustration as I have been able to glean from other sources.

Colonel George Talbot, whom we recognize as the first-named in the commission of the nine Deputy Governors and of the Privy Council, seems to have been a special favorite of the Proprietary. He was the grandson of the first Baron of Baltimore, the Secretary of State of James the First. His father was an Irish baronet, Sir George Talbot, of Cartown in Kildare, who had married Grace, one of the younger sisters of Cecilius, the second Proprietary and father of Charles Calvert. He was, therefore, as the commission describes him, the cousin of Lord Baltimore, who had now invested him with a leading authority in the administration of the government. He was born in Ireland, and from some facts connected with his history I infer that he did not emigrate to Maryland until after his marriage, his wife being an Irish lady.

That he was a man of consideration in the Province, with large experience in its affairs, is shown by the character of the employments that were intrusted to him. He had been, for some years before the departure of Lord Baltimore on his visit to England, a conspicuous member of his Council. He had, for an equal length of time, held the post of Surveyor-General, an office of high responsibility and trust. But his chief employment was of a military nature, in which his discretion, courage, and conduct were in constant requisition. He had the chief command, with the title and commission of Deputy Governor, over the northern border of the Province, a region continually exposed to the inroads of the fierce and warlike tribe of the "Sasquesahannocks."

The country lying between the Susquehanna and the Delaware, that which now coincides with parts of Harford and Cecil Counties in Maryland and the upper portion of the State of Delaware, was known in those days as New Ireland, and was chiefly settled by emigrants from the old kingdom whose name it bore. This region was included within the range of Talbot's command, and was gradually increasing in population and in farms and houses scattered over a line of some seventy or eighty miles from east to west, and slowly encroaching upon the thick wilderness to the north, where surly savages lurked and watched the advance of the white man with jealous anger.

The tenants of this tract held their lands under the Proprietary grants, coupled with a condition, imposed as much by their own necessities as by the law, to render active service in the defence of the frontier as a local militia. They were accordingly organized on a military establishment, and kept in a state of continual preparation to repel the unwelcome visits of their hostile neighbors.

A dispute between Lord Baltimore and William Penn, founded upon the claim of the former to a portion of the territory bounding on the Delaware, had given occasion to border feuds, which had imposed upon our Proprietary the necessity of building and maintaining a fort on Christiana Creek, near the present city of Wilmington; and there were also some few block-houses or smaller fortified strongholds along the line of settlement towards the Susquehanna.

These forts were garrisoned by a small force of musketeers maintained by the government. The Province was also at the charge of a regiment of cavalry, of which Talbot was the Colonel, and parts of which were assigned to the defence of this frontier.

If we add to these a corps of rangers, who were specially employed in watching and arresting all trespassers upon the territory of the Province, it will complete our sketch of the military organization of the frontier over which Talbot had the chief command. The whole or any portion of this force could be assembled in a few hours to meet the emergencies of the time. Signals were established for the muster of the border. Beacon fires on the hills, the blowing of horns, and the despatch of runners were familiar to the tenants, and often called the ploughman away from the furrow to the appointed gathering-place. Three musket-shots fired in succession from a lonely cabin, at dead of night, awakened the sleeper in the next homestead; the three shots, repeated from house to house, across this silent waste of forest and field, carried the alarm onward; and before break of day a hundred stout yeomen, armed with cutlass and carbine, were on foot to check and punish the stealthy foray of the Sasquesahannock against the barred and bolted dwellings where mothers rocked their children to sleep, confident in the protection of this organized and effective system of defence.

In this region Talbot himself held a manor which was called New Connaught, and here he had his family mansion, and kept hospitality in rude woodland state, as a man of rank and command, with his retainers and friends gathered around him. This establishment was seated on Elk River, and was, doubtless, a fortified position. I picture to my mind a capacious dwelling-house built of logs from the surrounding forest; its ample hall furnished with implements of war, pikes, carbines, and basket-hilled swords, mingled with antlers of the buck, skins of wild animals, plumage of birds, and other trophies of the hunter's craft; the large fireplace surrounded with hardy woodsmen, and the tables furnished with venison, wild fowl, and fish, the common luxuries of the region, in that prodigal profusion to which our forefathers were accustomed, and which their descendants still regard as the essential condition of hearty and honest housekeeping. This mansion I fancy surrounded by a spacious picketed rampart, presenting its bristling points to the four quarters of the compass, and accessible only through a gateway of ponderous timber studded thick with nails: the whole offering defiance to the grim savage who might chance to prowl within the frown of its midnight shadow.

Here Talbot spent the greater portion of the year with his wife and children. Here he had his yacht or shallop on the river, and often skimmed this beautiful expanse of water in pursuit of its abundant game,--those hawks of which tradition preserves the memory his companions and auxiliaries in this pastime. Here, too, he had his hounds and other hunting-dogs to beat up the game for which the banks of Elk River are yet famous.

This sylvan lodge was cheered and refined by the presence of his wife and children, whose daily household occupations were assisted by numerous servants chosen from the warm-hearted people who had left their own Green Isle to find a home in this wilderness.

Amidst such scenes and the duties of her station we may suppose that Mrs. Talbot, a lady who could not but have relinquished many comforts in her native land for this rude life of the forest, found sufficient resource to quell the regrets of many fond memories of the home and friends she had left behind, and to reconcile her to the fortunes of her husband, to whom, as we shall see, she was devoted with an ardor that no hardship or danger could abate.

Being the dispenser of her husband's hospitality,--the bread-giver, in the old Saxon phrase,--the frequent companion of his pastime, and the bountiful friend, not only of the families whose cottages threw up their smoke within view of her dwelling, but of all who came and went on the occasions of business or pleasure in the common intercourse of the frontier, we may conceive the sentiment of respect and attachment she inspired in this insulated district, and the service she was thus enabled to command.

This is but a fancy picture, it is true, of the home of Talbot, which, for want of authentic elements of description, I am forced to draw. It is suggested by the few scattered glimpses we get in the records of his position and circumstances, and may, I think, be received at least as near the truth in its general aspect and characteristic features.

He was undoubtedly a bold, enterprising man,--impetuous, passionate, and harsh, as the incidents of his story show. He was, most probably, a soldier trained to the profession, and may have served abroad, as nearly all gentlemen of that period were accustomed to do. That he was an ardent and uncompromising partisan of the Proprietary in the dissensions of the Province seems to be evident. I suppose him, also, to have been warm-hearted, proud in spirit, and hasty in temper,--a man to be loved or hated by friend or foe with equal intensity. It is material to add to this sketch of him, that he was a Roman Catholic,--as we have record proof that all the Deputy Governors named in the recent commission were, I believe, without exception,--and that he was doubtless imbued with the dislike and indignation which naturally fired the gentlemen of his faith against those who were supposed to be plotting the overthrow of the Proprietary government, by exciting religious prejudice against the Baltimore family.

[To be continued.]

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HUNTING A PASS

A SKETCH OF TROPICAL ADVENTURE.

[Continued.]