ADVERTISEMENT.
The Tales which follow have been the accumulation of
several years. They were mostly written for the annuals,
—an expensive form of publication which kept them from
the great body of readers. In this form, however, they met
with favour, and it is thought that their merits are such as
will justify their collection in a compact volume. The material
employed will be found to illustrate, in large degree,
the border history of the South. I can speak with confidence
of the general truthfulness of its treatment. The life of the
planter, the squatter, the Indian, and the negro—the bold and
hardy pioneer, and the vigorous yeomen—these are the subjects.
In their delineation, I have mostly drawn from living
portraits, and, in frequent instances, from actual scenes and
circumstances within the memories of men. More need not
be said. I need not apologize for the endeavour to cast over
the actual, that atmosphere from the realms of the ideal,
which, while it constitutes the very element of fiction, is neither
inconsistent with intellectual truthfulness, nor unfriendly
to the great policies of human society.
