He was frequently absent for weeks, especially in the bilious autumn season, and allowed his domestics to assemble their friends and the general race, at odd times, in the great hallway, for such rational enjoyments as they might select.
In truth, the owner of the house desired it to get a more cheerful reputation; for the negroes, in particular, considered it haunted.
The first owner, it was said, had amused himself in the great hall-room by making his own children stand on their toes, switching their feet with a whip when they dropped upon their soles from pain or fatigue; and his own son finally shot at him through the great northern door with a rifle or pistol, leaving the mark to this day, to be seen by a small panel set in the original pine. The third owner, a lawyer, often entertained travelling clergymen here; and, on one occasion, the eccentric Reverend Lorenzo Dow met on the stairs a stranger and bowed to him, and afterwards frightened the host's family by telling it, since they were not aware of any stranger in the house. The room over the great door had always been considered the haunt of peculiar people, who molested nobody living, but appeared there in some quiet avocation, and vanished when pressed upon.
This main door itself had a church-like character, and was battened or built in half, so that the upper part could be thrown open like a window, and yet the lock on this upper part was a foot and a half long, and the key weighed a pound.
This ponderous door, in elaborate carpentry, opened upon a flight of steps and on a flower-yard surrounded by elms, firs, and Paulownia trees, the latter of a beany odor and nature. A lower servants' part of the dwelling, in two stories, stretched to the fields, and had a veranda-covered rear.
Van Dorn called to a negro:
"Buck Ransom!"
"Politely, Captain," the negro's insinuating voice answered.
"Go to the front door and knock. As you enter, see that it is clear to fly open. Then, as you pass along the hall, throw the windows up."
"Politely, Captain;" the negro bowed and departed.