LIFE AT "MINNIE'S LAND" 237 



add that at this tune Audubon was in his fifty-eighth 

 year, and not over sixty, as this writer surmised. After 

 passing beyond the outposts of the city of that day, and 

 turning into a rustic road which led directly to the river, 

 his walk 



soon brought a secluded country house into view, — a house not 

 entirely adapted to the nature of the scenery, yet simple and 

 unpretending in its architecture, and beautifully embowered 

 amid elms and oaks. Several graceful fawns and noble elk 

 were stalking in the shade of the trees, apparently unconscious 

 of the presence of a few dogs, and not caring for the numerous 

 turkeys, geese, and other domestic animals that gabbled and 

 screamed among them. . . . 



"Is the master at home?" I asked of the pretty maid-ser- 

 vant who answered my tap at the door, and who after inform- 

 ing me that he was, led me into a room on the left side of the 

 broad hall. It was not, however, a parlor, or any ordinary re- 

 ception-room that I entered, but evidently a room for work. In 

 one comer stood a painter's easel, with a half-finished sketch of 

 a beaver on paper; in the other lay the skin of an American 

 panther. The antlers of elks hung upon the walls, stuffed 

 birds of every description of gay plumage ornamented the man- 

 tle-piece; and exquisite drawings of field-mice, orioles, and 

 woodpeckers were scattered promiscuously in other parts of 

 the room, across one end of which a long rude table was 

 stretched to hold artist materials, scraps of drawing paper and 

 immense folio volumes filled with the delicious paintings of 

 birds taken in their haunts. 



The master, who soon appeared, 



was a tall, thin man, with a high arched and serene forehead, 

 and a bright penetrating gray eye ; his white locks fell in clus- 

 ters upon his shoulders, but were the only signs of age, for 

 his form was erect, and his step as light as that of a deer. The 

 expression of his f^ce was sharp, but noble and commanding, 



