Luncheon over, Mr. Hossack conducted his damsel to the sunny greensward, where enthusiastic archers—seven-and-twenty ladies to five gentlemen—were stringing their Cupid bows for a grand match. Here he shunted her into the care of one of the five male archers, all of whom looked ineffably bored, and anon departed, whither he cared not—anywhere, anywhere out of this world of luncheons, croquet, flirtation, and frivolity. Wandering at random, he came by and by to an obscure outskirt of the Mardenholme grounds, given over to the cultivation of huge rhododendrons, where there was a little wicket-gate opening into a green lane. He made his escape from Mardenholme altogether by this gate, glad to get away from the polite world, as represented by the croquet-players and toxopholites, and above all by those exacting first cousins of his, Belle and Jessie. The green lane was rustic and secluded, well sheltered from the westward sloping sun by spreading boughs of chestnut and sycamore, with here and there the grander bulk of an oak, making an oasis of deep shadow in the afternoon sunlight. Altogether a pleasant lane, even for the indulgence of saddest thoughts. It was on the side of a hill. Right and left of him stretched undulating meadow-land, small enclosures between those straggling unkempt hedges which make the glory of English landscape, and below, almost at his feet as it were, lay a little village nestling in a cup-shaped valley, so snugly sheltered by those gently-sloping meads, so fenced from north and east by those tall screens of foliage, that one might fancy the bleak winds of winter must roll high above those modest roofs, ruffling no leaf in those simple gardens; that hails and snows and frosts must waste their fury on the encircling hills, and leave this chosen nook unassailed; that even the tax-gatherer must forget its existence. There were about half a dozen cottages, the perfection of rusticity—gardens running over with roses, beehives, honeysuckle; a village inn, so innocent and domestic of aspect that one would suppose nothing could be farther from the thoughts of its patrons than strong drink of any kind; a little high-shouldered old church, with a squat square tower and crumbly whitewashed wall; a green burial-ground, all ups and downs like the waves of the sea, overshadowed by two vast yews, whose never-withering foliage canopied those rustic graves from January to December. There was a little patch of greensward in the midst of the scattered houses, and some feet below the churchyard, no two edifices in this village being on the same level. Here a meditative donkey cropped the soft herbage at leisure, and here on the bosom of a crystalline pool swam half a dozen geese, untroubled by forebodings of Michaelmas. It was altogether a deliciously rustic picture, and Geoffrey, for the first time since his return to Hampshire, felt reconciled to Nature.