ter day, year after year.

You could sit on the low churchyard wall in early summer under the shade
of the elms in the hedge, whose bushes and briars came right over, and
listen to the whistling of the blackbirds or the varied note of the
thrush; you might see the whitethroat rise and sing just over the hedge,
or look upwards and watch the swallows and swifts wheeling, wheeling,
wheeling in the sky. No one would pass to disturb your meditations,
whether simply dreaming of nothing in the genial summer warmth, or
thinking over the course of history since the prows of the Norman ships
grounded on the beach. If we suppose the time, instead of June, to be
August or September, there would not even be the singing of the birds.
But as you sat on the wall, by-and-by the pheasants, tame as chickens,
would come up the hedge and over into the churchyard.

Leaving the church to stroll by the footpath across the meadow towards
the wood, at the first gateway half-a-dozen more pheasants scatter
aside, just far enough to let you pass. In the short dusty lane more
pheasants; and again at the edge of the cornfield. None of these show
any signs of alarm, and only move just far enough to avoid being trodden
on. Approaching the wood there are yet more pheasants, especially near
the fir plantations that come up to the keeper's cottage and form one
side of the enclosure of his garden. The pheasants come up to the door
to pick up what they can--not long since they were fed there--and then
wander away between the slender fir trunks, and beyond them out into the
fields.

The path leads presently into a beautiful park, the only defect of which
is that it is without undulation. It is quite level; but still the
clumps of noble timber are pleasant to gaze upon. In one spot there
still stands the grey wall and buttress of some ancient building,
doubtless the relic of an ecclesiastical foundation. The present mansion
is not far distant; it is of large size, but lacks elegance. Inside,
nothing that modern skill can supply to render a residence comfortable,
convenient, and (as art is understood in furniture) artistic has been
neglected.

Behind the fir plantations there is an extensive range of stabling,
recently erected, with all the latest improvements. A telegraph wire
connects the house with the stable, so that carriage or horse may be
instantly summoned. Another wire has been carried to the nearest
junction with the general telegraphic system; s