But the great war had not yet cast its shadow over the mellowed opulent English country. Changes were at work all round to affect the life mirrored in its fair chart of hall and farm, village and market-place, park and wood and meadow, even without that great catastrophe looming ahead. But the life still went on, essentially unchanged from centuries back. From the squire in his hall to the labourer in his cottage, they were in relation to each other in much the same way as their forefathers had been, living much the same lives, doing much the same work, taking much the same pleasures. For the end of these things is not yet. Wilborough was a great square house of stone, wrapped round by a park full of noble trees, as most of the parks in that rich corner of Meadshire were. Its hall door stood widely open, and there was constant coming and going between the hospitalities within and the activities without. On the grass of the park and the gravel of the drive stood or moved the horses which generations of care and knowledge had brought to the pitch of perfection for the purpose for which they would presently be employed, and their sleek well-tempered beauty would have gladdened the eye of one who knew least about them. The huntsman and whips came up with the hounds--a dappled mob of eager, restless or dogged, free-moving muscle and intelligence, which also filled the eye. There were motor-cars, carriages and smart-looking carts, and a little throng of people of all sorts and conditions. The scene was set, the characters all on the stage, and there was England, in one of its many enchanting time-told aspects. Old Sir Alexander Mansergh, in a well-worn pink coat of old-fashioned cut, was in front of the house as the party from Abington Abbey rode up. He was welcoming his guests with a mixture of warmth and ferocity peculiarly English. He was an old bear, a tyrant, an ignoramus, a reactionary. But his tenants respected him, and his servants stayed with him. There was a gleam in his faded old eyes as he greeted the Grafton family, with the same gruffness as he used towards everybody else. He liked youth, and beauty, and these girls weren't in the least afraid of him, and by their frank treatment brought some reflection of the happy days of his youth into his crusty old mind--of the days when he had not had to wrap himself up in a mantle of grumpiness as a defence against the shoulders of the world, which turn from age. He had laughed and joked with everybody then, and nobody had been afraid of him. "My son Richard's at home," he said. "Want to introduce him to you girls. All the nice girls love a sailor, eh?" This was Sir Alexander's 'technique,' as the Graftons had it. Nice girls must always be running after somebody, in the world as the old bashaw saw it. But it did not offend them, though it did not exactly recommend 'my son Richard' to them.