ut which a part of my tale would be hardly comprehensible, while
the remarkable effect produced by the coincidence, if I may so express
myself, between the nature of the deed, and the nature of the place,
would be lost entirely.

In the first place, then, I must premise that the name of
Ditton-in-the-Dale is in a great measure a misnomer, as the house and
estate which bear that name, are situated on what a visiter would be
at first inclined to call a dead level, but on what is in truth a
small secondary undulation, or hollow, in the broad, flat valley
through which the father of the English rivers, the royal-towered
Thames, pursues, as Gray sang,

The turf, the flowers, the shades among,
His silver-winding way.

But so destitute is all that country of any deep or well defined
valleys, much less abrupt glens or gorges, that any hollow containing
a tributary stream, which invariably meanders in slow and sluggish
reaches through smooth, green meadow-land, is dignified with the name
of dale, or valley. The country is, however, so much intersected by
winding lanes, bordered with high straggling white-thorn hedges full
of tall timber trees, is subdivided into so many small fields, all
enclosed with similar fences, and is diversified with so many woods,
and clumps of forest trees, that you lose sight of the monotony of its
surface, in consequence of the variety of its vegetation, and of the
limited space which the eye can comprehend, at any one time.

The lane by which I was wont to reach the demesne of Ditton, partook
in an eminent degree of this character, being very narrow, winding
about continually without any apparent cause, almost completely
embowered by the tall hawthorn hedges, and the yet taller oaks and
ashes which grew along their lines, making, when in full verdure,
twilight of noon itself, and commanding no view whatever of the
country through which it ran, except when a field-gate, or cart-track
opened into it, affording a glimpse of a lonely meadow, bounded,
perhaps, by a deep wood-side.

On either hand of this lane was a broad, deep ditch, both of them
quite unlike any other ditches I have ever seen. Their banks were
irregular; and it would seem evident that they had not been dug for
any purposes of fencing or enclosure; and I have sometimes imagined,
from their varying width and depth--for in places they were ten feet
deep, and three times as broad, and at others but a foot or two
across, and co