interesting feature of Shady Dale was the Clopton
Place. It had been the home of the First Settler, and in 1860, when Nan
and Gabriel were enjoying their happiest days, it was owned and occupied
by the son, Meriwether Clopton.

From the time of the First Settler, the Clopton Place had been dedicated
and set apart to the uses of hospitality. The deed in which General
McGillivray, in the name of the Creek Nation, conveyed the domain to
Raleigh Clopton, distinctly sets forth the condition that the Clopton
Place was to be an asylum and a place of refuge for the unfortunate and
for those who needed succour. During the long and bloody contests
between the white settlers and the Creeks, it was the pleasure of the
Creek chief to pay out of his own private fortune, which was a large one
for those days, the ransoms which, under the rules of the tribal
organisations, each Indian town demanded for the prisoners captured by
its warriors. Such was the poverty of the whites in general that only
occasionally was General McGillivray reimbursed for his expenditures in
this direction.

But no matter by whom the ransoms were paid, the prisoners were one and
all forwarded to the Clopton Place, where they were cared for until such
time as they could be transferred to the white settlements. In this way
hospitality became a habit at the Place, and in the years that followed,
no wayfarer was ever turned away from those wide doors.

In the pleasant weather, it was a familiar spectacle to see Meriwether
Clopton sitting on the wide lawn, reading Virgil and Horace, two volumes
of which he never tired. His favourite seat was in the shade of a
silver maple, through the branches of which a grapevine had been
trained. This silver maple, with the vine running through it, and the
seat in the shade, were a realisation, he once told Gabriel and Cephas,
of one of the most beautiful poems in one of the volumes, but whether
Virgil or Horace, the aforesaid Cephas is unable to remember.

There were days long to be remembered when the Master of Clopton Place
read aloud to the children, translating as he went along, and smacking
his lips over the choice of words as though he were tasting a fine
quality of wine. And the children felt the charm of these ancient
verses; and they soon came to understand why words written down
centuries ago, had power to take possession of the mind. They were
charged with the qualities that brought them home to the modern hour;
a