"LORD BETTERSON'S."
On a sort of headland jutting out from the high timber region into the low prairie of the river bottom, stood a house, known far and near as "Lord Betterson's," or, as it was sometimes derisively called, "Lord Betterson's Castle," the house being about as much a castle as the owner was a lord.
The main road of the settlement ran between it and the woods; while on the side of the river the land swept down in a lovely slope to the valley, which flowed away in a wider and more magnificent stream of living green. It was really a fine site, shaded by five or six young oaks left standing in the spacious door-yard.
The trouble was, that the house had been projected on somewhat too grand a scale for the time and country and, what was worse, for the owner's resources. He had never been able to finish it; and now its weather-browned clapboards, unpainted front pillars, and general shabby, ill-kept appearance, set off the style of architecture in a way to make beholders smile.
"Lord Betterson took a bigger mouthful than he could swaller, when he sot out to build his castle here," said his neighbor, Peakslow.
The proprietor's name—it may as well be explained—was Elisha Lord Betterson. It was thus he always wrote it, in a large round hand, with a bold flourish. Now the common people never will submit to call a man Elisha. The furthest they can possibly go will be 'Lisha, or 'Lishy; and, ten to one, the tendency to monosyllables will result in 'Lishe. There had been a feeble attempt among the vulgar to familiarize the public mind with 'Lishe Betterson; but the name would not stick to a person of so much dignity of character. It was useless to argue that his dignity was mere pomposity; or that a man who, in building a fine house, broke down before he got the priming on, was unworthy of respect; still no one could look at him, or call up his image, and say, conscientiously, "'Lishe Betterson." He who, in this unsettled state of things, taking a hint from the middle name, pronounced boldly aloud, "Lord Betterson," was a public benefactor. "Lord Betterson" and "Lord Betterson's Castle" had been popular ever since.
The house, with its door-posts of unpainted pine darkly soiled by the contact of unwashed childish hands, and its unfinished rooms, some of them lathed, but unplastered (showing just the point at which the owner's resources failed), looked even more shabby within than without.
This may have been partly because the house-keeper was sick. She must have been sick, if that was she, the pale, drooping figure, sitting wrapped in an old red shawl, that summer afternoon. She looked not only sick, but exceedingly discouraged. And no wonder.
