y. Not
much difference, then, lay between this master of Tallwoods and the
owner of yonder castle along the embattled Rhine, or the towered
stronghold of some old lord located along an easy, wandering,
English stream; with this to be said in favor of this solitary lord
of the wilderness, that his was a place removed and little known.
It had been passed by in some manner through its lack of appeal to
those seeking cotton lands or hunting grounds, so that it lay
wholly out of the ken and the understanding of most folk of the
older states.

If in Tallwoods the owner might do as he liked, certainly he had
elected first of all to live somewhat as a gentleman. The mansion
house was modeled after the somewhat stereotyped pattern of the
great country places of the South. Originally planned to consist
of the one large central edifice of brick, with a wing on each side
of somewhat lesser height, it had never been entirely completed,
one wing only having been fully erected. The main portion of the
house was of two stories, its immediate front occupied by the
inevitable facade with its four white pillars, which rose from the
level of the ground to the edge of the roof, shading the front
entrance to the middle rooms. Under this tall gallery roof, whose
front showed high, white and striking all across the valley, lay
four windows, and at each side of the great double doors lay yet
other two windows. On either side of the pillars and in each
story, yet other two admitted light to the great rooms; and in the
completed wing which lay at one side of the main building, deep
embrasures came down almost to the level of the ground, well hidden
by the grouped shrubbery which grew close to the walls. The
visitor approaching up the straight gravel walk might not have
noticed the heavy iron bars which covered these, giving the place
something the look of a jail or a fortress. The shrubs,
carelessly, and for that reason more attractively planted, also
stood here and there over the wide and smooth bluegrass lawn.

The house was built in the edge of a growth of great oaks and elms,
which threw their arms out over even the lofty gables as though in
protection. Tradition had it that the reason the building had
never been completed was that the old master would have been
obliged to cut down a favorite elm in order to make room for it;
and he had declared that since his wife had died and all his
children but one had followed her, the house