to Popham Lane ran at a
sufficient distance from the front to allow a carriage drive, through
turf and trees. On the south side the ground rose gently, and was
occupied by one of those old-fashioned gardens in which vegetables and
flowers are combined, flanked and protected on the east by one of the
thatched mud walls common in that country, and overshadowed by fine elms.
Along the upper or southern side of this garden, ran a terrace of the
finest turf, which must have been in the writer's thoughts when she
described Catharine Morland's childish delight in 'rolling down the green
slope at the back of the house.'

But the chief beauty of Steventon consisted in its hedgerows. A
hedgerow, in that country, does not mean a thin formal line of quickset,
but an irregular border of copse-wood and timber, often wide enough to
contain within it a winding footpath, or a rough cart track. Under its
shelter the earliest primroses, anemones, and wild hyacinths were to be
found; sometimes, the first bird's-nest; and, now and then, the unwelcome
adder. Two such hedgerows radiated, as it were, from the parsonage
garden. One, a continuation of the turf terrace, proceeded westward,
forming the southern boundary of the home meadows; and was formed into a
rustic shrubbery, with occasional seats, entitled 'The Wood Walk.' The
other ran straight up the hill, under the name of 'The Church Walk,'
because it led to the parish church, as well as to a fine old
manor-house, of Henry VIII.'s time, occupied by a family named Digweed,
who have for more than a century rented it, together with the chief farm
in the parish. The church itself--I speak of it as it then was, before
the improvements made by the present rector--

A little spireless fane,
Just seen above the woody lane,

might have appeared mean and uninteresting to an ordinary observer; but
the adept in church architecture would have known that it must have stood
there some seven centuries, and would have found beauty in the very
narrow early English windows, as well as in the general proportions of
its little chancel; while its solitary position, far from the hum of the
village, and within sight of no habitation, except a glimpse of the gray
manor-house through its circling screen of sycamores, has in it something
solemn and appropriate to the last resting-place of the silent dead.
Sweet violets, both purple and white, grow in abundance beneath its south
wall. One may