CHAPTEE III. 



Magnificence and money. Watertoii's mode of life and personal expenses. 

 Sleeping on planks. His visits to the chapel. The " morning gun." 

 The razor and the lancet Keduction of the family estates. His 

 work at Walton Hall. Natural advantages of the place. The wall 

 and its cost. Bargees and their guns. Instinct of the herons. Herons 

 and fish-ponds. Drainage of the ponds. The moat extended into a 

 lake. Old Gateway and Ivy-Tower. Siege by Oliver Cromwell. 

 Tradition of a musket- ball. Draw-bridge and gateway in the olden 

 times. Tradition of a cannon-ball. Both ball and camion discovered. 

 Sunken plate and weapons. Echo at Walton Hall West view of 

 lake. How to strengthen a bank. Pike-catching. Cats and pike. 

 Spot where Waterton fell. 



WATERTON AT HOME, and, what a home ! 



It was not magnificent in the ordinary sense of the word. 

 Such magnificence may be the result of mere wealth, with- 

 out either taste, imagination, or appreciation. The veriest 

 boor in existence, who happens by some turn of fortune to 

 be put in possession of enormous wealth, need only give 

 the word, and he may revel in more than royal 

 magnificence. 



As for the house itself, no expenditure could give it the 

 least pretence to beauty or stateliness. It is one of the 

 worst specimens of the worst era of architecture, and is 

 nothing but a stone box perforated with rows of oblong- 

 holes by way of windows. 



I tried on all sides to obtain a view of it which would 

 soften down its ugliness, but could not succeed. The 



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