The nearest railway-station, Palinsbridge, is eight miles distant; the nearest town, South Kemms, four; the nearest village, Fifield, more than two; so that, although, as the crow flies, Berrie Down Hollow is not actually above thirty miles from London, it might be a hundred or two in point of accessibility. “Quite in the country, Mr. Dudley,” enchanted towns-people were wont to remark; whereupon, if the speaker chanced to be a man or one of his own kin, Mr. Dudley would answer, “Confoundedly in the country;” from which speech it will rightly be inferred that the owner of Berrie Down Hollow did not appreciate the advantages of his rural residence quite so highly as strangers had a way of doing. And it was a pity, for a more picturesque spot could not have been found had you searched the home counties through. It was a place which took every one’s fancy. The great men, who came down from London to stay with Lord Kemms when the season was over and the Row deserted, were wont to draw rein and turn a little round in their saddles as they passed The Hollow; after which they would ride slowly on, looking back often at the dear old house planted on the side of a sloping hill. But you shall not jump to the house in a minute after this fashion. You shall walk with me under the elm-trees; you shall go gently down the declivity whence you catch the first view of Arthur Dudley’s home; you shall look over the fields lying on the south side of Berrie Down Lane, where the corn, his corn, is ripening for the harvest; you shall pause and see in the distance, meadows where the haymakers, his haymakers, are at work; you shall watch the men, and the women, and the children mowing and tossing that which in due time will be converted into money, to buy bread for him and his; you shall descend the hill and cross the ford by means of a narrow foot-bridge, and, as you do so, you shall see his cows lying in the pasture lands chewing the cud, reflectively; you shall ascend more leisurely, if possible, the steeper hill beyond the brook; and, still pursuing your way onward, become conscious of hedges less picturesque, only because kept trim and closely cropped; of banks where the grass is smooth and even, by reason of constant cutting; where no brambles are allowed to trail their length along the ground; where even the honeysuckle has to submit to pruning and clipping; where the road is free from ruts; and now you know that to right as well as left lies Squire Dudley’s land, and that you are drawing close to his house, which is to be reached through those gates not more than half-a-dozen paces distant from where we stand. One moment, however, ere entering. Do you notice how the grey pillars on which the gates are hinged scarcely show through the branches of the two trees of pyracantha that have grown around them?