Project Gutenberg's Bulldog And Butterfly, by David Christie Murray

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Title: Bulldog And Butterfly
From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray

Author: David Christie Murray

Release Date: August 8, 2007 [EBook #22273]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BULLDOG AND BUTTERFLY ***

Produced by David Widger

BULLDOG AND BUTTERFLY

By David Christie Murray

Author Of 'Aunt Rachel,' 'The Weaker Vessel,' Etc.

I

Castle Barfield, Heydon Hey, and Beacon Hargate form the three points
of a triangle. Barfield is a parish of some pretensions; Heydon Hey is a
village; Beacon Hargate is no more than a hamlet. There is not much that
is picturesque in Beacon Hargate, or its neighbourhood. The Beacon Hill
itself is as little like a hill as it well can be, and acquires what
prominence it has by virtue of the extreme flatness of the surrounding
country. A tuft of Scotch firs upon its crest is visible from a distance
of twenty miles in some directions. A clear but sluggish stream winds
among its sedges and water-lilies round the western side of the Beacon
Hill, and washes the edge of a garden which belongs to the one survival
of the picturesque old times Beacon Hargate has to show.

The Oak House was built for a mansion in the days of Queen Elizabeth,
but who built it nobody knows at this time of day, or, excepting perhaps
a hungry-minded antiquary or two, greatly cares to know. The place
had been partly pulled down, and a good deal altered here and there.
Stables, barns, cow-sheds, and such other outhouses as are needful to
a farm had been tacked on to it, or built near it; and all these
appurtenances, under the mellowing hand of time and weather, had grown
congruous, insomuch that the Oak House if stripped of them would have
looked as bare even to the unaccustomed eye as a bird plucked of its
feathers.

The house faced the stream, and turned its back upon the Beacon with
its clump of fir-trees. It had chimneys enough for a village--an
extraordinary wealth of chimneys--'twisted, fluted, castellated, stacked
together in conclave or poised singly about the gables. The front of
the house