y bad) only long
stretches of rolling fields well tilled, and far beyond them a grove on
a high hill, where the mansion rested in proud seclusion amid its
immemorial oaks and elms, with what appeared to be a small hamlet lying
about its feet. Had he turned in at the big-gate and driven a mile or
so, he would have found that Elphinstone was really a world to itself;
almost as much cut off from the outer world as the home of the Keiths
had been in the old country. A number of little blacks would have opened
the gates for him; several boys would have run to take his horse, and he
would have found a legion of servants about the house. He would have
found that the hamlet was composed of extensive stables and barns, with
shops and houses, within which mechanics were plying their trades with
the ring of hammers, the clack of looms, and the hum of
spinning-wheels-all for the plantation; whilst on a lower hill farther
to the rear were the servants' quarters laid out in streets, filled
with children.

Had the visitor asked for shelter, he would have received, whatever his
condition, a hospitality as gracious as if he had been the highest in
the land; he would have found culture with philosophy and wealth with
content, and he would have come away charmed with the graciousness of
his entertainment. And yet, if from any other country or region than the
South, he would have departed with a feeling of mystification, as though
he had been drifting in a counter-current and had discovered a part of
the world sheltered and to some extent secluded from the general
movement and progress of life.

This plantation, then, was Gordon's world. The woods that rimmed it were
his horizon, as they had been that of the Keiths for generations; more
or less they always affected his horizon. His father appeared to the boy
to govern the world; he governed the most important part of it--the
plantation--without ever raising his voice. His word had the convincing
quality of a law of nature. The quiet tones of his voice were
irresistible. The calm face, lighting up at times with the flash of his
gray eyes, was always commanding: he looked so like the big picture in
the library, of a tall, straight man, booted and spurred, and partly in
armor, with a steel hat over his long curling hair, and a grave face
that looked as if the sun were on it. It was no wonder, thought the boy,
that he was given a sword by the State when he came back from the
Mexican War; no