Soon after the Restoration the Hutte would seem to have been relinquished as a place of residence by the local family. A new one at all events was built in 1674--the Hale Hall of the present day--mentioned above as the seat of Colonel Blackburne. Like many another first-class country-house, in style it is substantially domestic, extremely comfortable to look at, and no doubt well appointed within; but still neither in outline or physiognomy can it be said to preserve the traditions of any particular school of art. The park is spacious, full of fine trees, including many lindens, so valuable wherever men are sagacious enough to set up beehives. It supplies, also, many a delightful prospect, especially when the eye crosses the water and rests upon the opposite distant hills of North-West Cheshire, which are said to resemble very strikingly the rising grounds about Bethany and Bethphage. The gardens have great historic interest, since it was to Hale that the famous collection of plants once existing at Orford Mount was transferred, these including vines now two or three centuries old, but still prolific of grapes. Vines in this healthful village seem comfortable anywhere, mounting, as in the south, to the cottage eaves, and outstripping in their beautiful green ambition even the honeysuckles. [Illustration] Footnote [29: Liverpool was omitted even so late as 1635. _Vide_ Selden's "Mare Clausum, seu de Dominio Maris," p. 239, Chetham Library, Manchester.] [Illustration] CHAPTER XVIII. THE LOCAL ORNITHOLOGY. 'Twas then we heard the cuckoo's note Sound sweetly through the air, And everything around us looked Most beautiful and fair. OLD SONG. All lovers of the woods and fields are interested in our native birds. Many of their sincerest pleasures are associated with birds; they listen for the song of the thrush in early spring; for the note of the cuckoo, inestimable herald of the summer, voiceful when all else is voiceless, magnet of the heart in quiet evenings as we tread the rising grass or scent the new-cut hay;--and when the corn is awaiting the sickle, for the _crec crec_ of the land-rail. So with the sweet spectacle of the little nests, hidden away in the hawthorn or ancient ivy-bush. So again with the graceful movements of very many, The thin-winged swallow skating on the air; the lengthened undulations of the yellow wagtail; the flutter of the goldfinch about the thistle-stems; the rich and massive sailing of the rooks when homeward bound, so grand, in particular, as they descend to their night covert in the trees. "Who was it," asks Mr. Bright, who so happily applied to rooks the lines in the sixth Æneid, where Virgil, speaking of the descent of Æneas and his guide upon the Elysian plains, says, Devenere locos lætos, et amoena vireta Fortunatorum nemorum, sedesque beatas? And down they came upon the happy haunts, The pleasant greenery of the favoured groves, Their blissful resting-place.[30]