CHAPTER I: THE VILLA



Captain Jamy. I wad full fain hear some question 'tween you tway.
HENRY V.


In one of those beautiful valleys, through which the Thames (not
yet polluted by the tide, the scouring of cities, or even the minor
defilement of the sandy streams of Surrey) rolls a clear flood
through flowery meadows, under the shade of old beech woods, and
the smooth mossy greensward of the chalk hills (which pour into it
their tributary rivulets, as pure and pellucid as the fountain of
Bandusium, or the wells of Scamander, by which the wives and
daughters of the Trojans washed their splendid garments in the days
of peace, before the coming of the Greeks); in one of those
beautiful valleys, on a bold round-surfaced lawn, spotted with
juniper, that opened itself in the bosom of an old wood, which rose
with a steep, but not precipitous ascent, from the river to the
summit of the hill, stood the castellated villa of a retired
citizen. Ebenezer Mac Crotchet, Esquire, was the London-born
offspring of a worthy native of the "north countrie," who had
walked up to London on a commercial adventure, with all his surplus
capital, not very neatly tied up in a not very clean handkerchief,
suspended over his shoulder from the end of a hooked stick,