76 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, v 



on the west of the house and a large lawn, which sloped 

 slightly upwards, so that the flower-beds made a brilliant 

 effect from the windows. The house became covered with 

 creepers, and shrubberies and orchards sheltered it, except 

 from the south, where there was an open field. A group of 

 walnuts, cherries, and Scotch firs grew in the field near the 

 house, and a few ashes and other trees further off. There 

 was no extensive view, only a little peep of distant wood- 

 land. It stood high on the rolling cultivated chalk downs, 

 and must have been bleak enough at first. In south-west 

 gales one could sometimes taste the salt on the drawing- 

 room window-panes, although the sea was forty miles away. 

 An immense pollarded beech of a peculiar mushroom-like 

 shape, which grew in our boundary hedge, was a charac- 

 teristic landmark. 



Many gardens are more beautiful and varied but few 

 could have a greater charm of repose, and nowhere do I 

 know one where it was so pleasant to sit out. The flower- 

 beds were close under the drawing-room windows. They 

 were often untidy but had a particularly gay and varied 

 effect. On the lawn were two yew-trees where the children 

 had their swing, and behind a bay-tree there was a large 

 heap of sand for them to dig in. Beyond the row of lime- 

 trees was the orchard, and a walk bordered with flowering 

 shrubs led to the kitchen-garden and thence to the " Sand- 

 Walk." This consisted of a strip of wood planted by my 

 father; many of the trees were wild cherries and birches, 

 and on one side it was bordered with hollies. At the end 

 there was a little summer-house and an old pit, out of which 

 the sand was dug which gave it its name. The walk on one 

 side was always sheltered from sun and wind, whilst the 

 other was sunny, with an outlook over the quiet valley on to 

 the woods beyond. The view had the characteristic and 

 somewhat melancholy charm of a chalk country waterless 

 uninhabited valleys, bleak uplands, with occasional yews 

 in the hedges, and here and there a white chalkpit. My 

 brother in his Life of my father wrote : ' The Sand-Walk 

 was our play-ground as children, and here we continually 

 saw my father as he walked round. He liked to see what 

 we were doing, and was ever ready to sympathise with any 

 fun that was going on. It is curious to think how, with 

 regard to the Sand- Walk in connection with my father, my 

 earliest recollections coincide with my latest : it shows how 

 unvarying his habits have been. . . . He walked with a 

 swinging action using a stick heavily shod with iron which 



