“On’y ’bout a mile, young marster. Get dere werry soon now. Dis yere is all ole Marse John Clebe’s lan’.”
“Oh! is it?”
“Yas, sah. An’ dis woods usen to be called Wolfswalk in de ollen times, I’s heern says, ‘cause dar was mos’ as many wolfs as trees, an’ de station ober yonder was just named arter dese yer woods, an’ dats de trufe for a fac’.”
They jogged through the dark, mysterious-looking woods for some time in silence, Palma only once murmuring:
“It is like a dream, or a scene in a fairy tale. I feel as if we should come upon something soon—an ogre’s castle, an enchanted beauty’s palace, or something. Don’t wake me up, please, anybody.”
What they did come upon very soon was a glimmering light, that seemed to shoot here and there through the thick, leafless trees like a firefly, had it been summer instead of winter.
“It’s a lamp in de big hall; it shines right froo de fanlight ober de front do’, an’ it seems to flit about so ’caze sometimes de trees sho’ it an’ sometimes dey doan’t,” ’Sias explained. And as he spoke the ox cart slowly and clumsily drew up before a large, oblong building of the simplest and plainest style of architecture common among the wealthier class of that region at the time the house was planned.
Though the travelers could not, at that time of night, discern its features, yet this seems the best time for their historian to describe it.
The house was built in the rude, strong, plain style of the best old colonial mansions, of rough-hewn gray rocks of every variegated shade of red, blue, green, yellow, purple and orange, which gave a mosaic aspect to the walls. It was an oblong double house, with a broad double door, having two long windows on each side of the first floor, and five windows on the second floor, surmounted by a steep roof, with five dormer windows, and buttressed by four huge chimneys, two at each gable end. There were many old oak, elm and chestnut trees around the dwelling, and there were smaller houses, of rude construction, in the rear.
When the ox cart stopped before the door Stuart got off his seat and lifted down his wife and her attendant. He tucked Palma’s hand under his arm and led her up the few steps that went up to the front door. That door was open and full of light from a large lamp that hung from the ceiling of the spacious hall, and within the door stood the master of the house to welcome his coming relatives.