more recent times the house had been enlarged, and the old courtyard
walled in and made part of the hall. Over one of these windows is the
inscription, "_Post tenebras lux_." The part I liked best, however, was
the old-fashioned passage, with its lattice windows and musty dungeon
savour, leading to the ancient kitchen and to a little oak-panelled
sitting-room: but, knocking my head severely against the oak beam in the
doorway, I nearly brought the whole ceiling down, a catastrophe which
they tell me has happened before now in this rather rickety old manor
house. Opening a door on the other side of the house, I passed out into
the garden. How characteristic of the place!--a broad terrace running
along the whole length of the house, and beyond that a few flower beds
with the old sundial in their midst Beyond these a lawn, and then grass
sweeping down to the edge of the river, some hundred yards away. Beyond
the river again more grass, but of a wilder description, where the
rabbits are scudding about or listening with pricked ears; and in the
background a magnificent hanging wood, crowning the side of the valley,
with a large rookery in it. I was much struck with the different tints
of the foliage; for although autumn had not yet begun to turn the
leaves, the different shades of green were most striking. A gigantic ash
tree on the far side of the river stood out in bold relief, its lighter
leaves being in striking contrast to the dark firs in the background.
Then walnut and hazel, beech and chestnut all offered infinite variety
of shape and foliage. The river here had been broadened to a width of
some ninety feet, and an island had been made. The place seemed to be a
veritable sportsman's paradise! Dearly would Isaac Walton have loved to
dwell here! From the windows of the old house he would have loved to
listen to the splash of the trout, the cawing of the rooks, and the
quack of the waterfowl, while all the air is filled with the cooing of
doves and the songs of birds. At night he could have heard the murmuring
waterfall amid a stillness only broken at intervals by the scream of the