294 KINGSCLERE 



good woman who carried the most recent baby 

 received a double gift, whereupon she retraced her 

 steps and, relating the circumstance to her companions, 

 the baby was borrowed, and, like the infant in 

 'The Cricket on the Hearth,' 'handed round* for 

 further presentation, ' like something to drink.' 

 Attacked directly in the cause of charity, and never 

 besieged in vain, Park House is also not seldom 

 made the medium for indirect appeals on what may 

 be termed the higher scale of benevolence. One of 

 the patrons of the stable, who is remarkable for a 

 concise epistolary style, appealed to by a lady in 

 Kingsclere for a subscription to a local charity, 



replied somewhat as follows : ' takes all my 



money. Kingsclere is my ruin. I send you a 

 guinea.' As you stroll past the paddocks on the 

 right, and more cottages on the left, it is ' Park 

 House ' that confronts you in every shape and form. 

 The baker, laden to the roof of his cart with loaves 

 to be discharged in one delivery : the butcher, with 

 his contributions towards provisioning the garrison, 

 as it were, for a siege : and waggon-loads of forage, 

 with other contributors to the maintenance of the 

 establishment, are all making for the house. You 

 look ahead and note the two sides of the Down 

 converging to a point, with the road in the centre 

 and the village ' bosom'd low in tufted trees ' partly 

 disclosed, and the richly wooded country beyond 

 spreading out like a fan. Here on the right are the 

 gas works, which make their presence apparent to 

 more senses than one. And here again we re-touch 



