but a farmhouse, faces to the south-west, and is built so low that
it might well be thought that the damp from the river Waveney, which
runs through the marshes close by, would rise in it. But this is not so,
for though in autumn the roke, as here in Norfolk we name ground fog,
hangs about the house at nightfall, and in seasons of great flood the
water has been known to pour into the stables at the back of it, yet
being built on sand and gravel there is no healthier habitation in the
parish. For the rest the building is of stud-work and red brick, quaint
and mellow looking, with many corners and gables that in summer are half
hidden in roses and other creeping plants, and with its outlook on
the marshes and the common where the lights vary continually with the
seasons and even with the hours of the day, on the red roofs of Bungay
town, and on the wooded bank that stretches round the Earsham lands;
though there are many larger, to my mind there is none pleasanter in
these parts. Here in this house I was born, and here doubtless I shall
die, and having spoken of it at some length, as we are wont to do of
spots which long custom has endeared to us, I will go on to tell of my
parentage.

First, then, I would set out with a certain pride--for who of us does
not love an ancient name when we happen to be born to it?--that I am
sprung from the family of the Wingfields of Wingfield Castle in Suffolk,
that lies some two hours on horseback from this place. Long ago the
heiress of the Wingfields married a De la Pole, a family famous in our
history, the last of whom, Edmund, Earl of Suffolk, lost his head for
treason when I was young, and the castle passed to the De la Poles
with her. But some offshoots of the old Wingfield stock lingered in the
neighbourhood, perchance there was a bar sinister on their coat of arms,
I know not and do not care to know; at the least my fathers and I are
of this blood. My grandfather was a shrewd man, more of a yeoman than
a squire, though his birth was gentle. He it was who bought this place
with the lands round it, and gathered up some fortune, mostly by careful
marrying and living, for though he had but one son he was twice married,
and also by trading in cattle.

Now my grandfather was godly-minded even to superstition, and strange as
it may seem, having only one son, nothing would satisfy him but that the
boy should be made a priest. But my father had little leaning towards
the priesthood and l