There was not much difference in the aspect of the sylvan
scene upon the other side of the fence. Sir David's domain had been a
good deal neglected of late years, and the brushwood and brambles grew
thick under the noble old trees. The timber had not yet suffered by its
owner's improvidence. The end of all things must have come for Sir David
before he would have consented to the spoliation of a place he fondly
loved, little as he had cared to inhabit it since the day that shattered
all that was brightest and best in his life.
For some time Captain Sedgewick and his companions went along a footpath
under the shelter of the trees, and then emerged upon a wide stretch of
smooth turf, across which they commanded a perfect view of the principal
front of the old house. It was a quadrangular building of the Elizabethan
period, very plainly built, and with no special beauty to recommend it to
the lover of the picturesque. Whatever charm of form it may have
possessed in the past had been ruthlessly extirpated by the modernisation
of the windows, which were now all of one size and form--a long gaunt
range of unsheltered casements staring blankly out upon the spectator.
There were no flower-beds, no terraced walks, or graceful flights of
steps before the house; only a bare grassplot, with a stiff line of tall
elms on each side, and a wide dry moat dividing it from the turf in the
park.
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