BIOGRAPHY. 09 



" The Squire," as he was invariably called, was, after his 

 usual fashion, too trustful when he thought that he was 

 doing a kindness to others. During his later years, the 

 privilege became shamefully abused, and when, after his 

 death, a party of picnic-makers set fire to the magnificent 

 yew hedge enclosing the stables, and destroyed a consider- 

 able portion of it. his son took the opportunity of pro- 

 hibiting picnics for the future. 



By the way, Waterton was scarcely ever mentioned by 

 name, and just as the Duke of Wellington was known as 

 "the Duke," so was Waterton known far and wide as "the 

 Squire." Even his nearest relatives invariably addressed 

 him as " Squire," and it would be perfectly possible for a 

 visitor to be at Walton Hall for a week and never hear the 

 name of Waterton. 



To EXHAUST all the objects of interest within the park 

 wall would require a large volume, and space is valuable. 

 There are one or two, however, which ought not to be 

 passed over without notice, and one of them is figured in 

 the illustration on page 70. 



In former days there had been a water-mill, but time, 

 which, as Waterton quaintly says, is " the great annihilator 

 of all human inventions saving taxation and the national 

 debt," destroyed the mill, and nothing of it is left except 

 a single millstone, measuring between five and six feet in 

 diameter. " The ground where the mill stood having been 

 converted into meadow, this stone lay there unnoticed and 

 unknown (save by the passing haymaker), from the period 

 of the mill's dissolution to the autumn of the year 1813, 

 when one of our nut-eating wild animals, probably by 

 way of winter store, deposited a few nuts under its 

 protecting cover. 



" In the course of the following summer, a single nut. 



