rld was subtly altered by his
birth. One could not always trace him, but with stone axe and spear
point he had won savage lands in savage ways, and so ruled them that,
leaving them to other hands, their march towards less savage life could
not stay itself, but must sweep on; others of his kind, striking rude
harps, had so sung that the loud clearness of their wild songs had rung
through the ages, and echo still in strains which are theirs, though
voices of to-day repeat the note of them. The First Man, a Briton
stained with woad and hung with skins, had tilled the luscious greenness
of the lands richly rolling now within hedge boundaries. The square
church towers rose, holding their slender corner spires above the trees,
as a result of the First Man, Norman William. The thought which held its
place, the work which did not pass away, had paid its First Man wages;
but beauties crumbling, homes falling to waste, were bitter things. The
First Man, who, having won his splendid acres, had built his home upon
them and reared his young and passed his possession on with a proud
heart, seemed but ill treated. Through centuries the home had enriched
itself, its acres had borne harvests, its trees had grown and spread
huge branches, full lives had been lived within the embrace of the
massive walls, there had been loves and lives and marriages and births,
the breathings of them made warm and full the very air. To Betty it
seemed that the land itself would have worn another face if it had not
been trodden by so many springing feet, if so many harvests had not
waved above it, if so many eyes had not looked upon and loved it.

She passed through variations of the rural loveliness she had seen on
her way from the station to the Court, and felt them grow in beauty as
she saw them again. She came at last to a village somewhat larger than
Stornham and marked by the signs of the lack of money-spending care
which Stornham showed. Just beyond its limits a big park gate opened on
to an avenue of massive trees. She stopped and looked down it, but
could see nothing but its curves and, under the branches, glimpses of a
spacious sweep of park with other trees standing in groups or alone
in the sward. The avenue was unswept and untended, and here and there
boughs broken off by wind.

Storms lay upon it. She turned to the road again and followed it,
because it enclosed the park and she wanted to see more of its evident
beauty. It was very beautiful