60 The Gamekeeper at Home. 



His own kingdom may be said to begin with the 

 park, and the land ' in demesne ' to quote the quaint 

 language of the Domesday Book : a record not 

 without its value as an outline picture of English 

 scenery eight centuries ago, telling us that near this 

 village was a wood, near that a stretch of meadow 

 and a mill, here again arable land and corn waving 

 in the breeze, and everywhere the park and domain 

 of the feudal lords. The beauty of the park consists 

 in its ' breadth ' as an artist would say — the meadows 

 with their green frames of hedges are cabinet pictures, 

 lovely, but small ; this is life size, a broad cartoon 

 from the hand of Nature. The sward rises and rolls 

 along in undulations like the slow heave of an ocean 

 wave. Besides the elms there is a noble avenue of 

 limes, and great oaks scattered here and there, under 

 whose ample shade the cattle repose in the heat of 

 the day. 



In summer from out the leafy chambers of the 

 limes there falls the pleasant sound of bees innumer- 

 able, the voice of whose trembling wings lulls the 

 listening ear as the drowsy sunshine weighs the eye- 

 lid till I walk the avenue in a dream. It leads out 

 into the park — no formal gravel drive, simply a foot- 

 path on the sward between the flowering trees : a 

 path that becomes less and less marked as I ad- 



