The road which leads from Charlotte toward the south branches by the
Haunted Hollow, the right fork going to Carlisle and the left following
the rushing waters of the Way-Home River to the very gate-posts of
Ravenel Plantation, through which the noisy water runs.

Ravenel Mansion, which stands a good three miles from the north gate of
the plantation, is approached by a driveway of stately pines. The main
part is built of gray stone, like a fort, with mullioned windows, the
yellow glass of early colonial times still in the upper panes. But the
show-places of the plantation are the south wing (added by Francis
Ravenel the fourth), and the great south gateway, bearing the carved
inscription: "Guests are Welcome."

Long ago, when Charles II. was on his way to be crowned, a certain
English Ravenel--Foulke by name--had the good-luck to fall in with that
impulsive monarch, and for no further service than the making of a
rhyme, vile in meter and villainous as to truth-telling, to receive from
him an earldom and a grant of "certain lands beyond the seas."

Here, in these North Carolina lands, for nearly two hundred years,
Ravenel child had grown to Ravenel man, educated abroad, taught to
believe little in American ways, and marrying frequently with a far-off
cousin in England or in France.

They were gay lads these Ravenels, hard riders, hard drinkers, reckless
in living and love-making, and held to have their way where women were
concerned. Indeed, this tradition had ancient authority, for on the
stone mount of the sundial in the lilac-walk there had been chiselled,
in the year 1771, by some disgruntled rival perhaps: