had elected to restrict himself. He seemed completely serious, to have
been so always, to have been born half grown up, to have been dowered at
the start with too keen a consciousness of the burdens and
responsibilities of life. Coltishness, even by a retrospect of fifty
years, it was impossible to attribute to him. You imagined him as having
been caught early, broken to harness at once, and kept between the shafts
ever since. It was easy to figure him as backing into position with a
sweet and reasonable docility--a docility which saw no other course or
career for a properly minded young horse, and which looked upon the
juvenile antics of others in the herd as an unintelligible and rather
reprehensible procedure. He knew what he was for, and his way was before
him.

He had acted on his knowledge, and now, at sixty, he seemed still to be
travelling over the same long straight road, blinders at his eyes, a high
wall on either side, no particular goal in the dusty distance, and an air
of patient, self-approving resignation all about him. His burden, too,
had increased with the years--just as his rut had grown deeper. Counting
his family and his poor relations, and his employes and _their_ families
and poor relations, five or six hundred people were dependent on him.
Many of these, of course, had seats so low that they were almost choked
by the dust of the roadway; but others, more pleasantly situated, were
able to overlook the enclosing walls and to enjoy the prospect beyond.
Among these last was his younger son, who sat in the highest place of
all, and thence surveyed the universe.

The Marshall house had been built at the time of the opening of the War,
and as far "out" as seemed advisable for a residence of the better sort.
In those days no definite building-line had been established, so that it
was quite a walk from the front gate to the foot of the front steps.