GARDENS OLD AND NEW. 



lofty hill, 

 crowned with 

 wood, and form- 

 ing a fine con- 

 trast with tha 

 luxuriant and 

 level meadows 

 extending along 

 the banks of 

 the Kennet. 

 Radiance, sweet- 

 ness, and natural 

 attraction are 

 everywhere to 

 ha found. 



Littlecote 

 was long the 

 seat of the 

 Uarells,and here 

 lived, in tha six- 

 teenth century, 

 William Darell, 

 t'.ie last of the 

 line of its 

 builders, whose 



stormy career is still recounted by the neighbouring peasants, 

 when they tell the tale of "Wild Dareli." The story gees 

 that one dark and st >rmy night a hasty messenger arrived 

 on horseback at the cottage of a Berkshire midwife, demanding 

 her services for a lady. Plenteous was the reward, but he 

 strange condition was that the woman should be blindfolded, 

 and be carried on the horseman's pillion to her duties. Her 

 scruples were overcome, and the pair rode on until they 

 reached a lonely mansion, where the midwi.e, still blindfolded, 

 v.as conducted to an upper room. She performed her duties 

 to a lady, whom tradition avers to have been masked, but 

 scarcely had the new-born infant been thus strangely ushered 

 into the great world, when a man of ferocious aspect entered, 

 and brutally extinguished its new-budded life by flinging it 

 on the back of a great fire which roared on the hearth, amid 

 the shrieks of the mother and the cries of the woman. 



THE NORTH LAWN. 



Then the 

 midwife, again 

 blindfolded, was 

 mounted on the 

 pillion, and, 

 hurriedly riding 

 in the breaking 

 c'ay with her 

 silent c o in - 

 panion, was put 

 within her own 

 doors ; but the 

 strangeness of 

 the summons 

 had aroused her 

 curiosity, and, 

 en reaching the 

 house, she had 

 counted the 

 steps and had 

 cut a piece 

 out of the lady's 

 bed-curtain. 

 Thus ultimately 

 was the horrid 



deed brought home to its cruel author, and palpable was 

 the proof of his guilt. Yet Darell escaped the penalty 

 of his crime. Old Aubrey avers that a dark transaction 

 wrought his freedom. " The knight was brought to his 

 tryall; and, to be short, this judge had his noble house, parke, 

 and mannor, and (1 thinke) more, for a bribe to save his life." 

 The judge in question was Sir John Popham, Chief Justice 

 of the King's Bench, a sound lawyer, but a severe man, 

 who presided at the trials of Sir Walter Raleigh and Guy 

 Fawkes. The story, it must be confessed, seems improbable, 

 though it is not to be denied that Darell lived, and that 

 Popham possessed his estate, but it would appear that Darell 

 sold the reversion to him in 1586, and that he entered into 

 possession when the murderer died in 1589. The manner of 

 his death is stated by tradition to have been consonant With 

 his desperate and passionate life. He had always been a. wild 



THE WESTERN COURT. 



