Gordon Keith | Page 2

the mansion rested in proud seclusion amid
its immemorial oaks and elms, with what appeared to be a small hamlet
lying about its feet. Had he turned in at the big-gate and driven a mile
or so, he would have found that Elphinstone was really a world to itself;
almost as much cut off from the outer world as the home of the Keiths
had been in the old country. A number of little blacks would have
opened the gates for him; several boys would have run to take his horse,
and he would have found a legion of servants about the house. He
would have found that the hamlet was composed of extensive stables
and barns, with shops and houses, within which mechanics were plying
their trades with the ring of hammers, the clack of looms, and the hum
of spinning-wheels-all for the plantation; whilst on a lower hill farther
to the rear were the servants' quarters laid out in streets, filled with
children.
Had the visitor asked for shelter, he would have received, whatever his
condition, a hospitality as gracious as if he had been the highest in the
land; he would have found culture with philosophy and wealth with
content, and he would have come away charmed with the graciousness
of his entertainment. And yet, if from any other country or region than
the South, he would have departed with a feeling of mystification, as
though he had been drifting in a counter-current and had discovered a
part of the world sheltered and to some extent secluded from the
general movement and progress of life.
This plantation, then, was Gordon's world. The woods that rimmed it
were his horizon, as they had been that of the Keiths for generations;
more or less they always affected his horizon. His father appeared to
the boy to govern the world; he governed the most important part of
it--the plantation--without ever raising his voice. His word had the
convincing quality of a law of nature. The quiet tones of his voice were
irresistible. The calm face, lighting up at times with the flash of his
gray eyes, was always commanding: he looked so like the big picture in

the library, of a tall, straight man, booted and spurred, and partly in
armor, with a steel hat over his long curling hair, and a grave face that
looked as if the sun were on it. It was no wonder, thought the boy, that
he was given a sword by the State when he came back from the
Mexican War; no wonder that the Governor had appointed him Senator,
a position he declined because of his wife's ill health. Gordon's wonder
was that his father was not made President or Commander-in-Chief of
the army. It no more occurred to him that any one could withstand his
father than that the great oak-trees in front of the house, which it took
his outstretched arms six times to girdle, could fall.
Yet it came to pass that within a few years an invading army marched
through the plantation, camped on the lawn, and cut down the trees;
and Gordon Keith, whilst yet a boy, came to see Elphinstone in the
hands of strangers, and his father and himself thrown out on the world.
His mother died while Gordon was still a child. Until then she had not
appeared remarkable to the boy: she was like the atmosphere, the
sunshine, and the blue, arching sky, all-pervading and existing as a
matter of course. Yet, as her son remembered her in after life, she was
the centre of everything, never idle, never hurried; every one and
everything revolved about her and received her light and warmth. She
was the refuge in every trouble, and her smile was enchanting. It was
only after that last time, when the little boy stood by his mother's
bedside awed and weeping silently in the shadow of the great darkness
that was settling upon them, that he knew how absolutely she had been
the centre and breath of his life. His father was kneeling beside the bed,
with a face as white as his mother's, and a look of such mingled agony
and resignation that Gordon never forgot it. As, because of his father's
teaching, the son in later life tried to be just to every man, so, for his
mother's sake, he remembered to be kind to every woman.
In the great upheaval that came just before the war, Major Keith stood
for the Union, but was defeated. When his State seceded, he raised a
regiment in the congressional district which he had represented for one
or two terms. As his duties took him from home much of the time, he
sent Gordon to the school of the noted Dr. Grammer, a