CHAPTEE V. 



THE PLANTATION HOUSE OF "FAR AWAY." 



" Ofttimes, in travelling through the west, 

 The stranger finds a Hoosher's nest : 

 In other words, a Buck-eye cabin 

 Just big enough to hold Queen Mab in." 



Jackson, the cattle-raiser, whose timely arrival had driven away 

 the phantom wolves, was a fair example of many a planter. He 

 was tall and slim in figure, sauntering in gait, wearing a black 

 moustache, and hair so long as to be confined behind his ears. 

 His hazel eyes were large and expressive, flashing with excite- 

 ment, or quizzical with mirth, his face was sallow, his lips thin 

 and stained with tobacco, his dress loose, and extravagant in colour 

 when he was where he could select it. His manners were courtly 

 and a little ornate. He was wealthy, after his kind ; that is to say, 

 he had dogs and horses without number, and " men-servants and 

 maid-servants were born in his house," and he owned, by inherit- 

 ance, acres of land enough to have made him a duke in Ehineland ; 

 and yet for ready money he was poor as Peter the Hermit. Debts 

 he had many, but they did not depress him ; friends by hundreds, 

 each ready to be his security for a million, yet could not have 

 loaned him a hundred dollars in a month. He lived in a low, 

 badly-built, wind-cracked, fenceless, vineless, paintless mansion 

 in the Pine Lands, yet the proudest chief of the McGregors could 

 not have equalled the courteous manner with which he welcomed 

 the stranger to his home, and made him his friend. No matter 

 for the rickety table ; he scorned to mend it, and no one saw its 

 defects, it was so well presided over. He never alluded to the 

 food he asked you to eat, and you never saw it was only pork, 

 sweet potatoes, and corn bread. He was bountiful with wine, 

 when he had it, and with whisky at all times, lavish of command, 



