s very large. There was a butler, and a housekeeper, and various
footmen, and a cook with large wages, and maidens in tribes to wait upon
each other, and a colony of gardeners, and a coachman, and a head-groom,
and under-grooms. All these lived well under the old Earl, and knew the
value of their privileges. There was much to get, and almost nothing
to do. A servant might live for ever at Scroope Manor,--if only
sufficiently submissive to Mrs. Bunce the housekeeper. There was
certainly no parsimony at the Manor, but the luxurious living of the
household was confined to the servants' department.

To a stranger, and perhaps also to the inmates, the idea of gloom about
the place was greatly increased by the absence of any garden or lawn
near the house. Immediately in front of the mansion, and between it and
the park, there ran two broad gravel terraces, one above another; and
below these the deer would come and browse. To the left of the house,
at nearly a quarter of a mile distant from it, there was a very large
garden indeed,--flower-gardens, and kitchen-gardens, and orchards; all
ugly, and old-fashioned, but producing excellent crops in their kind.
But they were away, and were not seen. Oat flowers were occasionally
brought into the house,--but the place was never filled with flowers
as country houses are filled with them now-a-days. No doubt had Lady
Scroope wished for more she might have had more.

Scroope itself, though a large village, stood a good deal out of the
world. Within the last year or two a railway has been opened, with a
Scroope Road Station, not above three miles from the place; but in
the old lord's time it was eleven miles from its nearest station, at
Dorchester, with which it had communication once a day by an omnibus.
Unless a man had business with Scroope nothing would take him there; and
very few people had business with Scroope. Now and then a commercial
traveller would visit the place with but faint hopes as to trade. A
post-office inspector once in twelve months would call upon plethoric
old Mrs. Applejohn, who kept the small shop for stationery, and was
known as the postmistress. The two sons of the vicar, Mr. Greenmarsh,
would pass backwards and forwards between their father's vicarage and
Marlbro' school. And occasionally the men and women of Scroope would
make a journey to their county town. But the Earl was told that old Mrs.
Brock of the Scroope Arms could not keep the omnibus on the road