--_Morte d'Arthur_.

In recalling my earliest impressions of the village of Aldington, near
Evesham, Worcestershire, the first picture that presents itself is of
two chestnut-trees in full bloom in front of the Manor House which
became my home, and their welcome was so gracious on that sunny May
morning that it inclined me to take a hopeful view of the inspection
of the house and land which was the object of my visit.

The village took its name from the Celtic _Alne_, white river; the
Anglo-Saxon, _ing_, children or clan; and _ton_, the enclosed place.
The whole name, therefore, signified "the enclosed place of the
children, or clan, of the Alne." There are many other Alnes in England
and Scotland, also Allens and Ellens as river names, probably
corruptions of Alne, and we have many instances of the combination of
a river name with _ing_ and _ton_, such as Lymington and Dartington.
The Celtic _Alne_ points to the antiquity of the place, and there were
extensive traces of Roman occupation to which I shall refer later.

The village was really no more than a hamlet ecclesiastically attached
to the much larger village of Badsey. In addition to Celtic, Roman,
and Anglo-Saxon associations, it figured before the Norman Conquest in
connection with the Monastery and Abbey of Evesham, the Manor and the
mill being mentioned in the Abbey records; and they were afterwards
set down in Domesday Survey.

The Vale of Evesham, in which Aldington is situated, lies at the foot
of the Cotswold Hills, and when approached from them a remarkable
change in climate and appearance is at once noticeable. Descending
from Broadway or Chipping Campden--that is, from an altitude of about
1,000 feet to one of 150 or less--on a mid-April day, one exchanges,
within a few miles, the grip of winter, grey stone walls and bare
trees, for the hopeful greenery of opening leaves and thickening
hedges, and the withered grass of the Hill pastures for the luxuriance
of the Vale meadows.

The earliness of the climate and the natural richness of the land is
the secret of the intensive cultivation which the Vale presents, and
year by year more and more acres pass out of the category of farming
into that of market-gardening and fruit-growing. The climate, however,
though invaluable for early vegetable crops, is a source of danger to
the fruit. After a few days of the warm, moist greenhouse temperature
which, inf