Wherefore we entered the region like a pair of
agnostics entering the great beyond: skeptical, but ready to be "shown."
It was with the generous purpose of "showing" us that a Baltimore friend
of ours called for us one day with his motor car and was presently
wafting us over the good oiled roads of Maryland, through sweet, rolling
country, which seemed to have been made to be ridden over upon
horseback.
It was autumn, but though the chill of northern autumn was in the air,
the coloring was not so high in key as in New York or New England, the
foliage being less brilliant, but rich with subtle harmonies of brown
and green, blending softly together as in a faded tapestry, and giving
the landscape an expression of brooding tenderness.
After passing through Ellicott City, an old, shambling town quite out of
character with its new-sounding name, which has such a western ring to
it, we traversed for several miles the old Frederick Turnpike--formerly
a national highway between East and West--swooping up and down over a
series of little hills and vales, and at length turned off into a
private road winding through a venerable forest, which was like an old
Gothic cathedral with its pavement of brown leaves and its tree-trunk
columns, tall, gray, and slender.
When we had progressed for perhaps a mile, we emerged upon a slight
eminence commanding a broad view of meadow and of woodland, and in turn
commanded by a great house.
Pages:
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69