ry large; it lay on the outside of the angle
formed by the village street, and stretched away on two sides without
apparent limit or boundaries visible from the village road or house.
Indeed, the ground on this side was so broken up into abrupt hills,
and conical-shaped, oak-covered excrescences, which were seen peeping
up through and over each other, that the true extent of the park was
much magnified to the eye. It was very possible for a stranger to get
into it and to find some difficulty in getting out again by any of
its known gates; and such was the beauty of the landscape, that a
lover of scenery would be tempted thus to lose himself.

I have said that on one side lay the kennels, and this will give
me an opportunity of describing here one especial episode, a long
episode, in the life of the existing squire. He had once represented
his county in Parliament, and when he ceased to do so he still felt
an ambition to be connected in some peculiar way with that county's
greatness; he still desired that Gresham of Greshamsbury should be
something more in East Barsetshire than Jackson of the Grange, or
Baker of Mill Hill, or Bateson of Annesgrove. They were all his
friends, and very respectable country gentlemen; but Mr Gresham of
Greshamsbury should be more than this: even he had enough of ambition
to be aware of such a longing. Therefore, when an opportunity
occurred he took to hunting the county.

For this employment he was in every way well suited--unless it was in
the matter of finance. Though he had in his very earliest manly years
given such great offence by indifference to his family politics,
and had in a certain degree fostered the ill-feeling by contesting
the county in opposition to the wishes of his brother squires,
nevertheless, he bore a loved and popular name. Men regretted that he
should not have been what they wished him to be, that he should not
have been such as was the old squire; but when they found that such
was the case, that he could not be great among them as a politician,
they were still willing that he should be great in any other way if
there were county greatness for which he was suited. Now he was known
as an excellent horseman, as a thorough sportsman, as one knowing in
dogs, and tender-hearted as a sucking mother to a litter of young
foxes; he had ridden in the county since he was fifteen, had a fine
voice for a view-hallo, knew every hound by name, and could wind a
horn with sufficien