Colonel Shaler was our first friend in this part of the world. My father and he were distantly related, and had had a week's acquaintance at the house of a common friend when my father was a very young man and the Colonel a middle-aged one. On the third day after our arrival here, my father somewhat nervously put into my hand a note which had taken some time to write, and asked me to find the way with it to Colonel Shaler's plantation, which lay somewhere within ten miles of us in a southeasterly direction. As I was to go on horseback, I liked the adventure very much, and undertook it heartily. I was first made conscious that it had a shady side, when I found myself in the hall of the great, strange house, waiting to be ushered into the presence of its master.
"Hallo!" exclaimed a voice beside and far above me, as I stood with eyes fixed on the ground, expecting that serious moment of entrance. "You are Ned Colvil's son!" And my hand was lost in a capacious clasp, well proportioned to the heart it spoke for. I looked up to see a massive head, shaggy with crisp curls of grizzled hair, and to meet quick, bright blue eyes, that told of an active spirit animating the heavy frame. The Colonel did not expect me to speak. "We are to be neighbors! Good news! Your horse cannot go back at once, and I cannot wait. You must take another for to-day, and we will send yours home to you to-morrow."
Colonel Shaler's stout gray was soon led round, and presently followed, for me, a light-made, graceful black, the prettiest horse I had ever yet mounted. As soon as I saw it, I knew that it must be his son's, and visions of friendship already floated before me.
"One of Charles's," said the Colonel; "he is out on the other. I wish he was here to go with us, but we cannot wait."
I did not keep the Doctor and Harry long in the house. It was the plantation they wanted to see. We spent several hours in walking over it. I tried to do justice, not only to the plans and works of my friend, but to his father's schemes of agricultural improvement, and also to the very different labors of his uncle, Dr. George Shaler, who, utterly abstracted from matters of immediate utility, took the beautiful and the future under his affectionate protection. Through his vigilance and pertinacity, trees were felled, spared, and planted, with a judgment rare anywhere, singular here. If he gave into some follies, such as grottos, mimic ruins, and surprises, after the Italian fashion, even these are becoming respectable through time. They are very innocent monuments; for their construction gave as much delight to those who labored as to him who planned, and the completed work was not less their pride than his. His artificial mounds, which, while they were piling, were the jest of the wider neighborhood,—as the good old man himself has often told me,—now, covered with thrifty trees, skilfully set, are a legacy which it was, perhaps, worth the devotion of his modest, earnest life to bequeath.
Charles Shaler has piously spared all his uncle's works,—respecting the whimsical, as well as cherishing the excellent.
We went last to the quarters of the work-people. A few of the cabins were left standing. Most of them had been carried off piecemeal, probably to build or repair the cabins of other plantations. Those that remained seemed to have been protected by the strength and beauty of the vines in which they were embowered. I was glad to find still unmolested one which had an interest for me. It had been the home of an old man who used to be very kind to me. I lifted the latch and was opening the door, when I became aware of a movement inside, as of some one hastily and stealthily putting himself out of sight. If this was so, the purpose was instantly changed; for a firm step came forward, and the door was pulled open by a strong hand. I stepped back out of the little porch, and addressed some words to the Doctor, to make known that I was not alone; but the man followed me out, and saluted me and my companions respectfully and frankly. I offered him my hand, for he was an old acquaintance.
"Senator, why are you here?"
"Because I ought to be here."
"There is danger."