"FATHER ABBOT"

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS


Woodlands, near Midway, the half-way stop between Charleston and
Augusta, was a little kingdom of itself in the years of its greatness
when William Gilmore Simms was monarch of the fair domain. It was far
from being a monastery, though its master was known as "Father Abbot."
The title had clung to him from the pseudonym under which he had
written a series of letters to a New York paper, upholding the view
that Charlestonians should not go north on health-seeking vacations
when they had better places nearer home, mentioning Sullivan's Island
where the hospitable Fort Moultrie officers "were good hands at
drawing a cork." Of course, he meant a trigger.

Rather was Woodlands a bit of enchanted forest cut from an old
black-letter legend, in which one half expected to meet mediæval knights
on foaming steeds--every-day folk ride jogging horses--threading their
way through the mysterious forest aisles in search of those romantic
adventures which were necessary to give knights of that period an
excuse for existence. It chanced, however, that the only knights known
to Woodlands were the old-time friends of its master and the youthful
writers who looked to "Father Abbot" for literary guidance.

Having welcomed his guests with the warmth and urbanity which made him
a most enjoyable comrade, Father Abbot would disperse them to seek
entertainment after the manner agreeable to them. For the followers of
old Isaac Walton there was prime fishing in the Edisto River, that
"sweet little river" that ripples melodiously through "Father Abbot's"