and buttresses into purple, and green, and bistre by the storms of three
hundred years; on the south side, smooth turf, with islands in it of
bright flower-beds, sloped down to a broad, slow stream, where grave,
stately swans were always sailing to and fro, and moor-hens diving among
the rushes; on the other sides, a park, extensive, but somewhat
rough-looking, stretched away, and, all round, lines of tall avenue
radiated--the bones of a dead giant's skeleton--for Kerton once stood in
the centre of a royal forest.

You entered into a wide, low hall, the oak ceiling resting on broad
square pillars of the same dark wood; all round hung countless memorials
of chase and war, for the Livingstones had been hunters and soldiers
beyond the memory of man.

Often, passing through of a winter's evening, I have stopped to watch
the fitful effects of the great logs burning on the andirons, as their
light died away, deadened among brown bear-skins and shadowy antlers, or
played, redly reflected, on the mail-shirt and corslet of Crusader or
Cavalier.

There were many portraits too; one, the most remarkable, fronted you as
you came through the great doorway, the likeness of a very handsome man
in the uniform of a Light Dragoon; under this hung a cavalry sword, and
a brass helmet shaded with black horse-hair. The portrait and sword were
those of Guy's father; the helmet belonged to the Cuirassier who slew
him.

It was in a skirmish with part of Kellermann's brigade, near the end of
the Peninsular war; Colonel Livingstone was engaged with an adversary in
his front, when a trooper, delivering point from behind, ran him through