A Cotswold Village | Page 9

and
in the halls of old country houses, for the following simple reasons.

There is meaning in them--deep, mystic meaning, such as no ordinary
picture can boast. Every quartering on that ancient shield emblazoned
in red, black, and gold has a legend attached to it Hundreds of years
ago, in those splendid mediaeval times--nay, farther back than that, in
the dim, mysterious, dark ages--each of those quarterings was a device
worn by some brave knight or squire on his heavy shield. It was his
cognizance in the field of battle and at the tournament. It was borne at
Agincourt perhaps; at Creçy, or Poitiers, or in the lists for some "faire
ladye"; and it is a token of ancient chivalry, an emblem of the days that
have been and never more will be. It was doubtless the sight of those
eighteen great hatchments which still hang in the little church at Stoke
Poges that inspired Gray to attune his harp to such lofty strains.
"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that
wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour The paths of glory
lead but to the grave."
Among other old masters was a portrait of the "John Coxwel" who built
the house, by Cornelius Jansen, dated 1613. The house did not appear
remarkable either for size or grandeur; yet there is always something
particularly pleasing to me to alight unexpectedly on buildings of this
kind, and to find that although they are obscure and unknown, they are
on a small scale as interesting to the antiquarian as Knole, Hatfield, and
other more famous mediaeval houses. Some lattice windows, evidently
at some time out of doors, but now on the inner walls, showed that in
more recent times the house had been enlarged, and the old courtyard
walled in and made part of the hall. Over one of these windows is the
inscription, "Post tenebras lux." The part I liked best, however, was the
old-fashioned passage, with its lattice windows and musty dungeon
savour, leading to the ancient kitchen and to a little oak-panelled
sitting-room: but, knocking my head severely against the oak beam in
the doorway, I nearly brought the whole ceiling down, a catastrophe
which they tell me has happened before now in this rather rickety old
manor house. Opening a door on the other side of the house, I passed
out into the garden. How characteristic of the place!--a broad terrace
running along the whole length of the house, and beyond that a few
flower beds with the old sundial in their midst Beyond these a lawn,

and then grass sweeping down to the edge of the river, some hundred
yards away. Beyond the river again more grass, but of a wilder
description, where the rabbits are scudding about or listening with
pricked ears; and in the background a magnificent hanging wood,
crowning the side of the valley, with a large rookery in it. I was much
struck with the different tints of the foliage; for although autumn had
not yet begun to turn the leaves, the different shades of green were
most striking. A gigantic ash tree on the far side of the river stood out
in bold relief, its lighter leaves being in striking contrast to the dark firs
in the background. Then walnut and hazel, beech and chestnut all
offered infinite variety of shape and foliage. The river here had been
broadened to a width of some ninety feet, and an island had been made.
The place seemed to be a veritable sportsman's paradise! Dearly would
Isaac Walton have loved to dwell here! From the windows of the old
house he would have loved to listen to the splash of the trout, the
cawing of the rooks, and the quack of the waterfowl, while all the air is
filled with the cooing of doves and the songs of birds. At night he could
have heard the murmuring waterfall amid a stillness only broken at
intervals by the scream of the owl, the clatter of the goatsucker, or the
weird barking of the foxes: for not two hundred yards from the house
and practically in the garden, is a fox earth that has never been without
a litter of, cubs for forty years!
In an ivy-covered house in the stable-yard I saw a very large number of
foxes' noses nailed to boards of wood--as Sir Roger de Coverley used
to nail them. They appeared to have been slain by one Dick Turpin,
huntsman to the Vale of White Horse hounds, some thirty or forty years
ago, when a quondam master of those hounds lived in this old place.
What a charm there is in an old-fashioned English garden! The great
tall hollyhocks and phlox, the bright orange marigolds and large