Sir Walter Scott, in his description of Cumnor Place, speaks of woods closely adjacent, full of large trees, and in particular of ancient and mighty oaks, which stretched their giant arms over the high wall surrounding the demesne, thus giving it a secluded and monastic appearance. He describes its formal walks and avenues as in part choked up with grass, and interrupted by billets, and piles of brushwood, and he tells us of the old-fashioned gateway in the outer wall, and of the door formed of two huge oaken leaves, thickly studded with nails—like the gate of an old town. This picture of the approaches to the old mansion where Anthony Foster lived was no doubt a more faithful representation than the one he gave of the character of the man himself. At any rate, it is one which would in many respects apply to old Willey Hall and its surroundings at the time to which the great novelist refers. Everything was old and old-fashioned, even as its owners prided themselves it should be, and as grey as time and an uninterrupted growth of lichens in a congenial atmosphere could make it. Hollies, yews, and junipers were to be seen in the grounds, and outside were oaks and other aged trees, scathed by lightning’s bolt and winter’s blast. Here and there stood a few monarchs of the old forest in groups, each group a brotherhood sublime, carrying the thoughts back to the days when “from glade to glade, through wild copse and tangled dell, the wild deer bounded.” Trees, buildings, loose stones that had fallen, and still lay where they fell, were mossed with a hoar antiquity. Everything in fact seemed to say that the place had a history of its own, and that it could tell a tale of the olden time. From the lawn and grounds adjoining a path led to the flower-gardens, intersected by gravel walks and grassy terraces, where a sun-dial stood, and where fountains, fed by copious supplies from unfailing springs on the high grounds of Shirlot, threw silvery showers above the shadows of the trees into the sunlight. Willey, augmented by tracts of Shirlot, which was finally disafforested and apportioned two centuries since, came into possession of the Foresters by the marriage of Brook Forester, of Dothill Park, with Elizabeth, only surviving child and heiress of George Weld, of Willey; and George Forester, “the Squire of Willey,” was the fruit of that marriage. CHAPTER VI. THE WILLEY SQUIRE. Squire Forester—His Instincts and Tendencies—Atmosphere of the Times favourable for their Development—Thackeray’s Opinion—Style of Hunting—Dawn of the Golden Age of Fox-hunting, &c.