Cotton, and was reputed to be a widow, and I was her only child.
Whether she had ever been married, the gossips of the place considered
very doubtful. At that period of my life this important fact was a
matter to me of perfect indifference.
I was a strong, active, healthy boy, quite able to take my own part, and
defend my own rights, against any lad of my own age who dared to ask
impertinent questions.
The great man of the village--Squire Carlos, as he was called--lived in
a grand hall, surrounded by a stately park, about a mile from F----, on
the main road leading to London. His plantations and game preserves
extended for many miles along the public thoroughfare, and my mother
kept the first porter's-lodge nearest the village.
The Squire had been married, but his wife had been dead for some years.
He was a tall, handsome man in middle life, and bore the character of
having been a very gay man in his youth. It was whispered among the
aforesaid village gossips, that these indiscretions had shortened the
days of his lady, who loved him passionately; at any rate, she died in
consumption before she had completed her twenty-fourth year, without
leaving an heir to the estate, and the Squire never married again.
Mr. Carlos often came to the lodge,--so often, that he seldom passed
through the gate on his way to and from the Hall without stepping in to
chat with my mother. This was when he was alone; accompanied by
strangers he took no notice of us at all. My mother generally sent me to
open the gate. The gentlemen used to call me a pretty curly-headed boy,
and I got a great deal of small change from them on hunting-days. I
remember one afternoon, when opening the gate for a large party of
gentlemen, with the Squire at their head, that one of them tapped my
cheek with his riding whip, and exclaimed--
"By Jove! Carlos, that's a handsome boy."
"Oh, yes," said another; "the very picture of his father."
And the Squire laughed, and they all laughed; and when I went back into
the lodge I showed my mother a handful of silver I had been given, and
said--
"Mother, who was my father?"
"Mr. Cotton, of course," she answered gravely. "But why, Noah, do you
ask?"
"Because I want to know something about him."
But my mother did not choose to answer impertinent questions; and,
though greatly addicted to telling long stories, she seemed to know very
little about the private memoirs of Mr. Cotton. She informed me,
however
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