Martinmas to Ladyday 
first coming to our little Border home, in the golden light 
of an Indian summer’s day, when the sun was glinting on 
the cornfields and gilding the yellowing leaves of the many 
trees which close round the old mansion-house and keep it 
so well from the bitter winds which sweep down from the 
moors ! November is not the ideal month of many, yet 
sometimes St. Martin’s summer is perfection, with its 
bright clear tints of far-off hill and distance, and warm sun 
combined with a crisp cleanness in the air which is 
invigorating and inspiriting to a degree. As we drove 
past the substantial-looking red-tiled grey stone farmsteading, 
in at the old stone gateway, certainly the leaves came 
whirling down from the lindens which bordered the small 
winding avenue, and there were many branches bare. But 
there were giant ferns in abundance, under the trees, and 
scurrying happy rabbits, and a robin in an old crooked 
laburnum was carolling a lusty welcome. 
There is a nameless charm about some old houses, and 
none who ever sojourned here but have come under its 
spell and remembered it when far away, even coming to 
inquire of its welfare if in its vicinity after they had ceased 
to inhabit it. I fell in love with the old house the very 
first day, even though I nearly broke my neck down the 
dark winding stone stair, and was aroused at an unholy 
hour in the morning by the twitter of a myriad birds 
singing matins in the ivy. It had the attraction of a ghost 
too, a white mouse with pink eyes, said to haunt the 
pantry. I never saw it, much as I longed to do so, but I 
can vouch for many living mice of more sombre hue. How 
strange it was to wake at night and only hear the mice in 
the wainscot, the ££ rurall myss ” as the old writers termed 
them ‘ the owls shrieking to each other ! What an eerie sound 
it is till one gets used to it and the eternal ripple of the 
river, after the hubbub of the city whence we had come ! 
I felt in a perfect maze wandering about the tangled over- 
grown garden, and I was positively a week in the place 
before I discovered the entry into a certain little crescent- 
shaped garden I saw from the attic window and desired 
5 
