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They were so hospitable that, though I did not know it, Dundellan was quite full when I reached it, overflowing with young people. The house has nothing very remarkable about it: a grey, plain building, with remains of the chateau about it, and a high park wall. In the garden wall there is a small round tower, just like those in the precinct wall at St. Andrews. The ground floor is not used.
The houses nestled timidly behind time-worn walls; it was always very quiet within this limited precinct, and one wondered sometimes, by day, if the various secluded abodes were really inhabited, and by whom? An actress, said vague rumor; a few scribblers, a pair of painters, a military man or two.
It was a hot, muggy, August afternoon Wednesday in Pittsburgh. The broad rivers put moisture in the air, and the high hills kept it there. Light breezes were broken-up and diverted by the hills before they could bring more than a breath of relief. In the East Liberty precinct station the doors and windows were opened wide to snare the vagrant breezes.
Even so, I do not know what police precinct I am living in, the name of the captain in command, or where the nearest fixed post is at which an officer is supposed to be on duty. As I write I can name only five members of the United States Supreme Court, three members of the Cabinet, and only one of the congressmen from the state of New York.
Also, that his tendencies were revolutionary and that for all his fine clothes and hankering after table luxuries and the like, he cherished a spite against wealth which made his words under certain moods cut like a knife. But there was another man, known to us of the Precinct, who had very nearly these same gifts, and this man was going to speak at a secret meeting that very evening.
The town and the place have all their old charm, and even more for me; the "Piazza"; the huddled, narrow streets full of mystery, the Cathedral Close with its crowded entrance, its tall trees that try to hide cathedral glories from common eyes; its mellow Queen Anne and Georgian houses which group round in a pleasant, self-satisfied way, as if they alone were worthy of standing-room in that sacred precinct.
Knowing, as we do, that at various periods foreign deities were introduced into Babylonia and Assyria, it was necessary to make some provision for their cult; and, while no doubt most of these minor deities and foreign gods were represented only by statues placed in some temple or temple precinct, it is equally certain that some had a shrine or sanctuary of some kind specially erected in their honor.
From a distance it seemed as though the flowering giant were closely surrounded by the smaller trees and bushes; but if one stepped through the green hedge, one found in the centre of it a great open circle, like the hallowed precinct of a sacred tree; out of the ground rose massively the mighty trunk, showing in clear outline its flower-laden branches, of which the lower ones were far extended and dipped their fiery burden deep in the surrounding thicket.
Westward and southward from the Thespian glare are one or two streets where a Spanish-American colony has huddled for a little tropical warmth in the nipping North. The centre of life in this precinct is "El Refugio," a cafe and restaurant that caters to the volatile exiles from the South.
I had long since heard of the old gentleman as one of the most interesting residents of the precinct.
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