Woodburn Grange: A story of English country life; vol. 1 of 3

WOODBURN GRANGE.
A Story of English Country Life.
LONDON: BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
WOODBURN GRANGE.
THE LAST OF A LONG LINE.
Sir Roger Rockville, of Rockville, was the last of a very long line. It extended from the Norman Conquest to the present century. His first known ancestor came over with William, and must have been a man of some mark, either of bone and sinew, or of brain, for he obtained what the Americans would call a prime location. As his name does not occur in the roll of Battle Abbey, he was, of course, not of a high Norman extraction; but he had done enough, it seems, in the way of knocking down Saxons, to place himself on a considerable eminence in this kingdom. The centre of his domains was conspicuous far over the country, through a high range of rock overhanging one of the sweetest rivers in the kingdom. On one hand lay a vast tract of rich marsh land, capable, as society advanced, of being converted into meadows; and on the other, as extensive moorlands, finely undulating, and abounding with woods and deer.
Here the original Sir Roger built his castle on the summit of the range of rock, with huts for his followers; and became known directly all over the country as Sir Roger de Rockville, or Sir Roger of the hamlet on the Rock. Sir Roger, no doubt, was a mighty hunter before the lord of the feudal district; it is certain that his descendants were. For generations they led a jolly life at Rockville, and were always ready to exchange the excitement of the chase for a bit of civil war. Without that the country would have grown dull, and ale and venison lost their flavour. There was no gay London in those days, and a good brisk skirmish with their neighbours in helm and hauberk was the way of spending their season. It was their parliamentary debate, and was necessary to thin their woods. Protection and free trade were as much the great topics of interest as they are now, only they did not trouble themselves so much about corn bills. Their bills were of good steel, and their protective measures were arrows a cloth-yard long. Protection meant a good suit of mail, and a castle with its duly prescribed moats, bastions, portcullises, and donjon keep. Free trade was a lively inroad into the neighbouring baron’s lands, and the importation thence of goodly herds and flocks. Foreign cattle for home consumption was as striking an article in their market as ours, only the blows were expended on one another’s heads, instead of the heads of foreign bullocks—that is, bullocks from over the Welsh or Scotch marches, or from beyond the next brook.