enquiry, I learnt that long, long ago, before the present manor house
existed, this was the abode of the old squires of the place; but for the
last hundred years it had been the home of the principal tenant and his
ancestors--yeomen farmers of the old-fashioned school, with some six
hundred acres of land. The present occupants appeared to be an old man
of some seventy years of age and his three sons. Keen sportsmen these,
who dearly love to walk for hours in pursuit of game in the autumn, on
the chance of bagging an occasional brace of partridges or a wild
pheasant (for everything here is wild), or, in winter, when lake and fen
are frostbound, by the river and its withybeds after snipe and
wildfowl--for the Cotswold stream has never been known to freeze!

In this small hamlet I noticed that there were no less than three huge
barns. At first I thought they were churches, so magnificent were their
proportions and so delicate and interesting their architecture. One of
these barns is four hundred years old.

Fifty years ago, what with the wool from his sheep and the grain that
was stored in these barns year by year, the Cotswold farmer was a rich
man. Alas! _Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis!_ One can picture
the harvest home, annually held in the barn, in old days so cheery, but
now often nothing more than a form. Here, however, in this village, I
learnt that, in spite of bad times, some of the old customs have not
been allowed to pass away, and right merry is the harvest home. And
Christmastide is kept in real old English fashion; nor do the mummers
forget to go their nightly rounds, with their strange tale of "St.
George and the dragon."

As I walk down the road I come suddenly upon the manor house--the "big
house" of the village. Long and somewhat low, it stands close to the