I70 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 



out by a party of sportsmen, mostly farmers and tradesmen! 

 from the nearest town, who are permitted on two given 

 days every year to hold a rook-shooting festival. A little to 

 the rear of a levelj^bright-green lawn, smooth as a billiard- 

 table (when newly mown by the noisy machine), half-hidden 

 by hoary-trunked beeches, stand the ruins of a castle that 

 was in its heyday in Queen Elizabeth's time, and whose re- 

 mains are now picturesque and covered by luxuriant ivy. 

 Owls dwell there, bats in the summer time wheel in and out 

 of the dusky remnants of goodly arches. 



Pull your boat into the middle of the lake, and look away 

 to the south-east. Look beyond the home park as soon as 

 you have ceased to admire that peerless herd of Channel 

 Islands cattle, whose representatives have worn red, blue, 

 and yellow ribbons at famous agricultural shows.' They arc 

 cattle, although you may be deceived by their sleek beauty 

 into believing them to be deer. The deer are the specks 

 that dot the green slope beyond the moat and fence which 

 keep them to their own haunts, and on the crest, crowned 

 by forest trees of every kind, is the spot I wish you to 

 observe. This is where Oliver Cromwell is said to have 

 surveyed the ground and planned his attack ; and not far 

 from yonder boat-house is a bit of broken ground where he 

 planted his rude cannon and pounded away with partial 

 success upon the castle. For a mile the lake thus extends- 

 amidst the scenery characteristic of English country life, 

 scenery which cannot be matched in the wide world, — the 

 scenery of an English gentleman's hereditary estate. 



I linger over this scene because it is typical of hundreds 

 of similar pictures scattered over our lovely English shires 

 with such variations as history and locality enforce ; and 



