CHAPTER I.
TALBOT'S CAVE.
It is now many years ago,--long before I had reached manhood,--that,
through my intimacy with a friend, then venerable for his years and
most attractive to me by his store of historical knowledge, I became
acquainted with a tradition touching a strange incident that had
reference to a mysterious person connected with a locality on the
Susquehanna River near Havre de Grace. In that day the tradition was
repeated by a few of the oldest inhabitants who dwelt in the region.
I dare say it has now entirely run out of all remembrance amongst
their descendants, and that I am, perhaps, the only individual in the
State who has preserved any traces of the facts to which I allude.
There was, until not long ago, a notable cavern at the foot of a
rocky cliff about a mile below the town of Port Deposit. It was of
small compass, yet sufficiently spacious to furnish some rude shelter
against the weather to one who might seek refuge within its solitary
chamber. It opened upon the river just where a small brook comes
brattling down the bank, along the base of a hill of some magnitude
that yet retains the stately name of Mount Ararat.
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