FLAT ROCK COMMUNITY 115 
had been hurt by man, when every stream was full of 
fish, and the surrounding forests were full of game. 
Flat Rock, at first consisting of only a few families, 
soon grew into a good-sized community of delightful 
homes, and there is still an air of elegance and seclu- 
sion about its old estates, with their mansions of a 
by-gone day set back behind the trees, and there are 
yet living a few who remember with tenderness and 
regret the old days when life at Flat Rock was a 
joyous round of visits and merrymakings, among 
which costume balls for the young people, and 
dinner-parties for their elders, are recalled with 
retrospective pleasure, while the boulevard of the 
time, the Little River Road, was thronged with car- 
riages and riders, all enjoying themselves in the 
wonderful air — exchanging greetings and making 
a gay scene in the midst of the wild nature that 
surrounded them. 
One of the most charming of these old places, 
"The Lodge," with its broad views, its avenues of 
big trees, its formal garden, its old-fashioned kitchen 
and commodious outbuildings, was owned and laid 
out by one of the English Barings, of banking fame, 
and here, following a certain path that leads through 
the grounds towards the road, one comes to a gate 
that appears to be closed by short bars, but when 
you touch one of these bars, down it falls and all the 
rest with it, allowing you to pass, when it closes 
again. It is a " tumble-down stile" like the one near 
Stratford-on-Avon, which your driver assures you is 
the very one where Will Shakespeare, poacher, was 
