It was not only
just like what I had pictured it to be, but it had a delicate and
natural grace of its own as well. The house was larger and more
beautiful, the garden smaller and not less beautiful, than I had
imagined. I had not thought it was so shy, so rustic a place. It is
very difficult to get any clear view of the Manor. By the road are
cottages, and a big building, half storehouse, half wheelwright's
shop, to serve the homely needs of the farm. Through the open door
one could see a bench with tools; and planks, staves, spokes,
waggon-tilts, faggots, were all stacked in a pleasant confusion.
Then came a walled kitchen-garden, with some big shrubs, bay and
laurustinus, rising plumply within; beyond which the grey house,
spread thin with plaster, held up its gables and chimneys over a
stone-tiled roof. To the left, big barns and byres--a farm-man
leading in a young bull with a pole at the nose-ring; beyond that,
open fields, with a dyke and a flood-wall of earth, grown over with
nettles, withered sedges in the watercourse, and elms in which the
rooks were clamorously building.
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