But here we come to a strip of thick cover, part of our Squire's home
preserves, which it is impossible to fish, so closely do the boughs
cover the water. We will walk on through it towards the hall, and
there get--what we begin sorely to need--something to eat. It will
be of little use fishing for some time to come; for these hot hours
of the afternoon, from three till six, are generally the 'deadest
time' of the whole day.

And now, when we have struggled in imagination through the last bit
of copse, and tumbled over the palings into the lawn, we shall see a
scene quite as lovely, if you will believe it, as any alp on earth.

What shall we see, as we look across the broad, still, clear river,
where the great dark trout sail to and fro lazily in the sun? For
having free-warren of our fancy and our paper, we may see what we
choose.

White chalk-fields above, quivering hazy in the heat. A park full of
merry haymakers; gay red and blue waggons; stalwart horses switching
off the flies; dark avenues of tall elms; groups of abele, 'tossing
their whispering silver to the sun;' and amid them the house. What
manner of house shall it be? Tudor or Elizabethan, with oriels,
mullioned windows, gables, and turrets of strange shape? No: that
is commonplace. Everybody builds Tudor houses now. Our house shall
smack of Inigo Jones or Christopher Wren; a great square red-brick
mass, made light and cheerful though, by quoins and windows of white
Sarsden stone; with high-peaked French roofs, broken by louvres and
dormers, haunted by a thousand swallows and starlings. Old walled
gardens, gay with flowers, shall stretch right and left. Clipt yew
alleys shall wander away into mysterious glooms: and out of their