Nothing
was visible of the owner of the distinguishing hat.
So Levin Dennis returned more slowly around the north wing of Teackle
Hall, looking at every window, as if Meshach might be there; but nothing
did he see except the dog, which, to Levin's eye, appeared uneasy, and
ran out of the gate to make friends with him.
"So, Turk!" Dennis muttered, patting the dog's head, "no wonder you're
scared, boy, to see old Meshach Milburn come in."
Teackle Hall, according to rumor, was built at the close of the
revolutionary war by an uncle, or grand-uncle, of Judge Custis, who came
from Virginia, somewhere between Accomac and Northampton counties, and
went into shipbuilding on the Manokin, adding some privateering and
banking, too, and once, going abroad, he brought back from some ducal
residence the plan of Teackle Hall, as Judge Custis found it on his
coming into the property.
It was nearly two hundred feet in length, and would have made three
respectable churches, standing in line, with their sharp gables to the
front, the bold wings connected with the bolder centre by habitable
curtains or colonnades, in which panels of slate or grained stone made
an attic story above the lines of windows, and lintels and sills of the
same stone, with high keystones, capped every window in the many-sided
surface of the whole stately block, all built of brick brought over in
vessels from the western shore, or possibly from the North, or Europe,
and painted a gray stone color.
Pages:
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137