acres.

A careless but not ungrateful monarch, rejoicing doubtless to see his
faithful soldier and servant so well provided for, bestowed on him a
baronetcy, a portrait by Vandyck of the late king, his father, and the
promise of a handsome sum of money, for the payment of which the
new baronet forebore to press his royal patron. His services thus
recognized and rewarded, old Sir Peter Crewys settled down amicably
with his brother at Barracombe.

Presumably there had always been an excellent understanding between
them. In any case no question of divided interests ever arose.

Sir Peter enlarged the old Elizabethan homestead to suit his new
dignity; built a picture-gallery, which he stocked handsomely with
family portraits; designed terrace gardens on the hillside after a
fashion he had learnt in Italy, and adopted his eldest nephew as his
heir.

Old Timothy meanwhile continued to cultivate the land undisturbed,
disdaining newfangled ideas of gentility, and adhering in all ways to
the customs of his father. Presently, soldier and farmer also passed
away, and were laid to rest side by side on the banks of the Youle, in
the shadow of the square-towered church.

Before the house rolled rich meadows, open spaces of cornland, and
low-lying orchards. The building itself stood out boldly on a shelf of
the hill; successive generations of the Crewys family had improved or
enlarged it with more attention to convenience than to architecture.
The older portion was overshadowed by an imposing south front of white
stone, shaded in summer by a prolific vine, which gave it a foreign
appearance, further enhanced by rows of green shutters. It was
screened from the north by the hill, and from the east by a dense
wood. Myrtles, hydrangeas, magnolias, and orange-trees nourished
out-of-doors upon the sheltered terraces cut in the red sandstone.

The woods of Barracombe stretched upwards to the skyline of the ridge
behind the house, and were intersected by winding paths, bordered
by hardy fuchsias and delicate ferns. A rushing stream dropped from
height to height on its rocky course, and ended picturesquely and
usefully in a waterfall close to the village, where it turned an old
mill-wheel before disappearing into the Youle.

If the Squire of Barracombe overlooked from his terrace garden
the inhabitants of the village and the tell-tale doorway of the
much-frequented inn on the high-road below--his tenants in the valley
and on the hill