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.