narch great service during his
wars in France, especially at Agincourt, where his skill and bravery was
so conspicuous, and used to so great advantage, that King Henry, on his
return to England, rewarded his faithful follower with a grant of land
in Devonshire, on which he was enabled, with the spoils he had acquired
and the ransoms received from his French prisoners of note, to erect a
magnificent chateaux, which he called Vellenaux, after Francois, Count
De Vellenaux, a French noble, whose ransom contributed largely to its
construction. Here he continued to reside until his death, which
occurred several years after.

It was now an irregular edifice, having been partially destroyed and
otherwise defaced during the contests which ensued between the cavaliers
and roundheads at the time of the Commonwealth. Since then alterations
and additions had been made by his successors, and, although of
different styles of architecture, was now one of the handsomest and most
picturesque structures that could be met with throughout the length and
breadth of the shire.

A broad avenue of noble elms led from the lodge at the entrance of the
domain and opened upon a beautiful carriage drive that wound round the
velvet lawn, which formed a magnificent and spacious oval in front of
the grand entrance.

Beneath the outspreading branches of the venerable oaks, with which the
home park was studded, browsed the red and fallow deer, who, on the
approach of any equestrian parties, or at the advance of some
aristocratic vehicle bearing its freight of gay, laughing guests towards
the hospitable mansion, would toss their antlered heads, or, startled,
seek the cover of those green shady alleys leading to the beech woods
which adjoined the park and stretched away towards the coast of Devon.

Sir Jasper, who was still a bachelor, and on the shady side of sixty,
retained much of the fire and energy of his earlier years, although at
times subject to an infirmity which the medical faculty describe as
emanating from disease of the heart. He had served with great
distinction during the Peninsular war, under the iron Duke, but, on
succeeding to the Baronetcy, left the service and retired to his present
estate, where he spent most of his time at this his favorite residence,
as hunting, shooting and field sports generally had for him a charm
that no allurements of city life could tempt him to forego; besides he
had, in the earlier part of his military ca