would simply walk up to the owner and pour the sum
in sovereigns into his hat. I saw this place, unfortunately, to small
advantage: I saw it in the rain. But I am rather glad that fine weather did
not meddle with the affair, for I think that in this case the irritation of
envy would have been really too acute. It was a rainy Sunday, and the rain
was serious. I had been in the house all day, for the weather can best be
described by my saying that it had been deemed an exoneration from
church-going. But in the afternoon, the prospective interval between lunch
and tea assuming formidable proportions, my host took me out to walk, and
in the course of our walk he led me into a park which he described as "the
paradise of a small English country gentleman." Well it might be: I have
never seen such a collection of oaks. They were of high antiquity and
magnificent girth and stature: they were strewn over the grassy levels in
extraordinary profusion, and scattered upon and down the slopes in a
fashion than which I have seen nothing more charming since I last looked at
the chestnut trees on the banks of the Lake of Como. It appears that the
place was not very vast, but I was unable to perceive its limits. Shortly
before we turned into the park the rain had renewed itself, so that we were
awkwardly wet and muddy; but, being near the house, my companion proposed
to leave his card in a neighborly way. The house was most agreeable: it
stood on a kind of terrace in the midst of a lawn and garden, and the
terrace looked down on one of the handsomest rivers in England, and across
to those blue undulations of which I have already spoken. On the terrace
also was a piece of ornamental water, and there was a small iron paling to
divide the lawn from the park. All this I beheld in the rain. My companion
gave his card to the butler, with the observation that we were too much
bespattered to come in; and we turned away to complete our circuit. As we
turned away I became acutely conscious of what I should have been tempted
to call the cruelty of this proceeding. My imagination gauged the whole
position. It was a Sunday afternoon, and it was raining. The house was
charming, the terrace delightful, the oaks magnificent, the view most
interesting. But the whole thing was--not to repeat the epithet "dull," of
which just now I made too gross a use--the whole thing was quiet. In the
house was a drawing-room, and in the drawing-room was--by which I meant