INTRODUCTION. 



THAT his book might have its hero and scene of 

 operations, the author in his former work drew a 

 sportsman, a manor-house, and a manor. The 

 sportsman was and how could he be otherwise \ 

 what Wordsworth somewhere calls 



" A lover of the meadows, and the woods, 

 And mountains" 



who rhapsodized on purple heaths, like a true High- 

 lander. He dwelt in the centre of his own domain, 

 where, in a richly w r ooded and craggy dell, stood 

 the Oakleigh old Manor-Hall, " a vast and vener- 

 able pile," begrimed by the dusty hand of Time, 

 but crumbling not beneath his mouldering touch. 

 It presented a rude mass of Gothic masonry, whose 

 " stony strength" had laughed " a siege to scorn !" 

 Not far from the Manor-hall reposed, in primeval 

 simplicity, the secluded village of Oakleigh. As 

 the houses there were remarkable for their uniform 

 antiquity, so the people and the trees, the vicar's 



