They Are Fond Of The
Neighbourhood Of Water, And Are Sure To Be There Some Time During The
Day.
The path went upwards, but the ascent was scarcely perceptible
through hazel bushes, which became farther apart and thinner as the
elevation increased, and the soil was less rich.
Some hawthorn bushes
succeeded, and from among these he stepped out into the open park.
Nothing could be seen of the manor-house here. It was hidden by the roll
of the ground and the groups of trees. The close sward was already a
little brown - the trampling of hoofs as well as the heat causes the
brownish hue of fed sward, as if it were bruised. He went out into the
park, bearing somewhat to the right and passing many hawthorns, round the
trunks of which the grass was cut away in a ring by the hoofs of animals
seeking shadow. Far away on a rising knoll a herd of deer were lying
under some elms. In front were the downs, a mile or so distant; to the
right, meadows and cornfields, towards which he went. There was no house
nor any habitation in view; in the early part of the year, the
lambing-time, there was a shepherd's hut on wheels in the fields, but it
had been drawn away.
According to tradition, there is no forest in England in which a king has
not hunted. A king, they say, hunted here in the old days of the
cross-bow; but happily the place escaped notice in that artificial era
when half the parks and woods were spoiled to make the engraver's ideal
landscape of straight vistas, broad in the foreground and narrowing up to
nothing.
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