mething
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. So
we fix a date not far from sixteen hundred and eighty for Talbot's
sojourn on the river.

Thirdly, the crime for which he was outlawed could scarcely have been
a mean felony, perpetrated for gain, but more likely some act of
passion,--a homicide, probably, provoked by a quarrel, and enacted in
hot blood. This Talbot was too well conditioned for a sordid crime;
and his flight to the wilderness and his abode there would seem to
infer a man of strong purpose and self-reliance.

And, lastly, as he must have had friends and confederates on the
frontier, to aid him in his concealment, and to screen him from the
pursuit of the government officers, and, moreover, had made himself
acceptable to the Indians, to whose power he had committed himself,
we may conclude that he possessed some winning points of character;
and I therefore assume him to have been of a brave, frank, and
generous nature, capable of attracting partisans and enlisting the
sympathies and service of bold men for his personal defence.

So, with the help of a little obvious speculation, founded upon the
circumstantial evidence, we weave the network of quite a natural
story of Talbot; and our meagre tradition takes on the form, and
something of the substance, of an int