it very inferior to the valley of the Thames
at Henley. Yet the neighbourhood had its beauties of rustic lanes and
hidden nooks; and Steventon, from the fall of the ground and the
abundance of its timber, was one of the prettiest spots in it. The
Rectory had been of the most miserable description, but George Austen
improved it until it became a tolerably roomy and convenient habitation.
It stood 'in a shallow valley, surrounded by sloping meadows, well
sprinkled with elm-trees, at the end of a small village of cottages,
each well provided with a garden, scattered about prettily on either
side of the road. . . . North of the house, the road from Deane to Popham
Lane ran at a sufficient distance from the front to allow a carriage
drive, through turf and trees. On the south side, the ground rose gently
and was occupied by one of those old-fashioned[15] gardens in which
vegetables and flowers are combined, flanked and protected on the east
by one of the thatched mud walls common in that country, and
overshadowed by fine elms. Along the upper or southern side of the
garden ran a terrace of the finest turf, which must have been in the
writer's thoughts when she described Catherine Morland's childish
delight in "rolling down the green slope at the back of the house."

'But the chief beauty of Steventon consisted in its hedgerows. A
hedgerow in that country does not mean a thin formal line of quickset,
but an irregular border of copse-wood and timber, often wide enough to
contain within it a winding footpath, or a rough cart-track. Under its
shelter the earliest primroses, anemones, and wild hyacinths were to be
found; sometimes the first bird's nest; and, now and then, the unwelcome
adder. Two such hedgerows radiated, as it were, from the parsonage
garden. One, a continuation of the turf terrace, proceeded westward,
forming the southern boundary of the home meadows; and was formed into a
rustic shrubbery, with occasional seats, entitled "The Wood Walk." The
other ran straight up the hill, under the name of "The Church Walk,"
because it led to the parish church, as well as to a fine old
manor-house of Henry VIII's time, occupied by a family named Digweed,
who for more than a century rented it, together with the chief farm in
the parish.'

The usefulness of a hedgerow as a place where a heroine might remain
unseen and overhear what was not intended to reach her ears must have
impressed itself early on the mind of our author; a