Such a story would naturally take hold of the fancy of a lover of
romance, and kindle his zeal for an enterprise to learn something
more about it; and I may reasonably suppose that this short sketch
has already stirred the bosoms of the novel-reading portion, at
least, of my readers with a desire that I should tell them what, in
my later researches, I have found to explain this legend of the Cave.
Even the outline I have given is suggestive of inferences to furnish
quite a plausible chapter of history.
First, it is clear, from the narrative, that Talbot was a gentleman
of rank in the old Province,--for he was kinsman to the Lord
Proprietary; and there is one of the oldest counties of Maryland that
bears the name of his family,--perhaps called so in honor of himself.
Then he kept his hawks, which showed him to be a man of condition,
and fond of the noble sport which figures so gracefully in the annals
of Chivalry.
Secondly, this hawking carries the period of the story back to the
time of one of the early Lords Baltimore; for falconry was not common
in the eighteenth century: and yet the date could not have been much
earlier than that century, because the hawks had been seen by old
persons of the last generation somewhere about the period of our
Revolution; and this bird does not live much over a hundred years.
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