200 COUNTRY ESSAYS. 



The predecessor of the present manor house at Swinhope was 

 burnt in the civil wars of Charles I. A double row of gnarled 

 hawthorns in the park strikes the passer-by and reminds him 

 that the hawthorn, though unjustly neglected by landscape 

 gardeners, is one of the most picturesque of our native trees, 

 especially when bent with age, and is withal one of the most 

 beautiful of trees twice in the year ; in May, when clothed in 

 clouds of perfumed snow, and in autumn, when its intensely 

 red haws, touched by the faint sunlight, kindle a late glory in 

 the woodlands. These decrepit but striking specimens of 

 hawthorn at once call up a panorama of human life. How 

 many hopeful boys have birdnested in them, and rambled 

 underneath their shade in youth's enchanted spring time, with 

 soft arms clad in the quaint gowns and ruffles dear to our 

 grandmothers resting on theirs. A few years more, and then 

 eld slowly passes by them ; the old man receiving, let us hope, 

 the happiness that came of love which blossomed into mar- 

 riage, and not unable to reckon up some good works suggested 

 and helped on by the companionship of a good wife. 



" And once, alas! nor in a distant hour, 

 Another voice shall come from yonder tower ; 

 When by his children borne, and from his door, 

 Slowly departing to return no more, 

 He rests in holy earth with them that went before. " 



(Rogers, Human Life.} 



A single hawthorn tree in the North which never seems to 

 grow larger is always an enchanted tree.* 



Here the beck has become an excellent trout-stream, one of 

 the few to be found in this district of East Anglia. It turns 

 round to Thorganby, a hamlet rather than a village. More 

 weatherbeaten ashes surround the somewhat melancholy hall 

 with its low rooms and ancient casements. It formerly be- 

 longed to the Caldwell family, of whom an aged man and his 



* Thorpe's Northern Mythology, ii. p. 275. 



