Hugh | Page 3

tower of a hidden church overtopping them, and a windmill or two; on
the left, long lines of willows marking the course of a stream. The road
soaked with rain, the grasses heavy with it, hardly a human being to be
seen.
I came at last to a village straggling along each side of the road; to the
right, a fantastic-looking white villa, with many bow-windows, and an
orchard behind it. Then on the left, a great row of beeches on the edge
of a pasture; and then, over the barns and ricks of a farm, rose the
clustered chimneys of an old house; and soon we drew up at a big iron
gate between tall red-brick gateposts; beyond it a paling, with a row of
high lime trees bordering a garden lawn, and on beyond that the
irregular village street.
From the gate a little flagged pathway leads up to the front of a long,
low house, of mellow brick, with a solid cornice and parapet, over
which the tiled roof is visible: a door in the centre, with two windows
on each side and five windows above--just the sort of house that you

find in a cathedral close. To the left of the iron gate are two other tall
gateposts, with a road leading up to the side of the house, and a yard
with a row of stables behind.
Let me describe the garden first. All along the front and south side of
the house runs a flagged pathway, a low brick wall dividing it from the
lawn, with plants in rough red pots on little pilasters at intervals. To the
right, as we face the door, the lawn runs along the road, and stretches
back into the garden. There are tall, lopped lime-trees all round the
lawn, in the summer making a high screen of foliage, but now bare. If
we take the flagged path round the house, turn the corner, and go
towards the garden, the yew trees grow thick and close, forming an
arched walk at the corner, half screening an old irregular building of
woodwork and plaster, weather-boarded in places, with a tiled roof,
connected with the house by a little covered cloister with wooden
pillars. If we pass that by, pursuing the path among the yew trees, we
come out on a pleasant orchard, with a few flower-beds, thickly
encircled by shrubs, beyond which, towards the main road, lies a
comfortable-looking old red-brick cottage, with a big barn and a long
garden, which evidently belongs to the larger house, because a gate in
the paling stands open. Then there is another little tiled building behind
the shrubs, where you can hear an engine at work, for electric light and
water-pumping, and beyond that again, but still connected with the
main house, stands another house among trees, of rough-cast and tiles,
with an open wooden gallery, in a garden of its own.
[Illustration: Photo by Bishop, Barkway
HARE STREET HOUSE
FROM THE FRONT 1914
The room to the left of the door is the dining room, with Hugh's
bedroom over it. To the right of the door is the library.]
In the orchard itself is a large grass-grown mound, with a rough
wooden cross on the top; and down below that, in the orchard, is a
newly-made grave, still covered, as I saw it to-day, with wreaths of

leaves and moss, tied some of them with stained purple ribbons. The
edge of the grave-mound is turfed, but the bare and trodden grass
shows that many feet have crossed and recrossed the ground.
The orchard is divided on the left from a further and larger garden by a
dense growth of old hazels; and passing through an alley you see that a
broad path runs concealed among the hazels, a pleasant shady walk in
summer heat. Then the larger garden stretches in front of you; it is a big
place, with rows of vegetables, fruit-trees, and flower-borders, screened
to the east by a row of elms and dense shrubberies of laurel. Along the
north runs a high red-brick wall, with a big old-fashioned vine-house in
the centre, of careful design. In the corner nearest the house is a large
rose-garden, with a brick pedestal in the centre, behind which rises the
back of the stable, also of old red brick.
[Illustration: Photo by Bishop, Barkway
HARE STREET HOUSE
FROM THE GARDEN 1914
The timbered building on the left is the Chapel; in the foreground is the
unfinished rose-garden.]
But now there is a surprise; the back of the house is much older than
the front. You see that it is a venerable Tudor building, with pretty
panels of plaster embossed with a rough pattern. The moulded brick
chimney-stacks are Tudor too, while the high gables cluster