and gravel drive. The monstrous boles, strangely curved and divided,
were coloured like green-rusted bronze; overhead the branches mingled
like the upper tracery of some ancient cathedral window. There were no
grass or flowers underfoot: the ground was covered thick with last
year's mast and withered leaves--"yellow and black and pale and hectic
red"; sometimes I saw a strange black and grey fungus, large as a fine
lady's fan.

The colouring was magnificent, and yet, looking from the palings at the
farther end (beyond which one sees a green and cheerful vignette) one
realized that something was lacking. The handsome coach-and-six with
white horses and postilions in scarlet coats and white breeches--an
equipage such as is depicted in the engraving of old Worksop
Manor--should always be present in this suggestive place; and even a
wheeled and curtained sedan of the kind fashionable at Marie
Antoinette's Court would not appear incongruous, drawn by one officious
purple-liveried lackey and pushed by another along the side paths. The
Beech Avenue is the only spot in the Dukeries that permits one to
recreate mentally the life of the eighteenth century. It should not
terminate in a roadway of comparatively slight interest, but should
instead reach a water-theatre with a hornbeam hedge, with rockwork
basins, and with tall silver fountains. There is something nobly
pathetic in this deserted avenue--even the trees themselves have a
mournful look, as though they repined because of the loneliness of
to-day. No living thing moves here--it might be a sacred grove, never to
be frequented by creatures of the woodland.

The village, or--not to wound local susceptibilities--the town of
Ollerton is quaint and richly coloured; even in the depth of winter it
has a warm and inviting aspect. Being situated on a loop of the Great
North Road, it possesses two fine old inns, the more conspicuous being
the "Hop Pole", a handsome formal place that might have been depicted in
an ancient sampler. This faces the open forest, separated only from it
by a small green, the placidly flowing Maun, and a few fields.

Near at hand is the brown, square-towered church, contrasting strangely
with the houses of ripe-hued brick and tile. The churchyard has an air
of sleepy comfort, but the interior of the building contains little of
any interest to the antiquarian. All the armorial glass has disappeared;
naught is left to carry one's mind back to ancient days.