Rich, he was generous;
strong, he was merciful; independent, he was arrogant; used to his
own way, he was fierce and cruel when crossed in that way. Not
much difference, then, lay between this master of Tallwoods and the
owner of yonder castle along the embattled Rhine, or the towered
stronghold of some old lord located along an easy, wandering,
English stream; with this to be said in favor of this solitary lord
of the wilderness, that his was a place removed and little known.
It had been passed by in some manner through its lack of appeal to
those seeking cotton lands or hunting grounds, so that it lay
wholly out of the ken and the understanding of most folk of the
older states.
If in Tallwoods the owner might do as he liked, certainly he had
elected first of all to live somewhat as a gentleman. The mansion
house was modeled after the somewhat stereotyped pattern of the
great country places of the South. Originally planned to consist
of the one large central edifice of brick, with a wing on each side
of somewhat lesser height, it had never been entirely completed,
one wing only having been fully erected.
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