Several
Hundred Sombre Old Pines Surround The House On All Sides.
The neighboring villa, to the west, was planted by the Honorable Louis
Panet, about 1830; also the grounds tastefully laid out in meadows,
plantations and gardens, symmetrically divided off by neat spruce, thorn,
and snowball hedges, which improve very much their aspect.
One fir hedge,
in particular, is of uncommon beauty. To the west an ancient pine, a
veritable monarch of the forest, rears his hoary trunk, and amidst most
luxuriant foliage looks down proudly on the young plantation beneath him,
lending his hospitable shades to a semi-circular rustic seat - a grateful
retreat during the heat of a summer's day. Next to this old tree runs a
small rill, once dammed up for a fish-pond, but a colony of muskrats
having "unduly elected domicile thereat," the finny denizens disappeared
as if by magic; and next, the voracious rodents made so many raids
into the vegetable garden that the legal gentleman, who was lord of the
manor, served on them a notice to quit, by removing the dam. The
ejected amphibii crossed the river in a body and "elected domicile" in the
roots of an elm tree at Poplar Grove, opposite and in full view of the
castle, probably by way of a threat. On the high river banks is a twelve-
pounder used formerly to crown a miniature fort erected over there. We
remember on certain occasions hearing at a distance its loud boom.
Coucy-le-Castel is surrounded on two sides by a spacious piazza, and
stands on an elevated position close to the river bank.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 600 of 864
Words from 164177 to 164446
of 236821
