From the lodge the drive to the house wound through the park—a wide stretch of green, with noble trees, oak, beech and elm; not towering like Norah’s native gum-trees, but flinging wide arms as though to embrace as much as possible of the beauty of the landscape. Bracken, beginning to turn gold, fringed the edge of the gravelled track. A few sheep and cows were to be seen, across the grass.
“Nice-looking sheep,” said Mr. Linton.
“Yes, but you wouldn’t call it over-stocked,” was Jim’s comment. Jim was not used to English parks. He was apt to think of any grass as “feed,” in terms of so many head per acre.
The drive, well-gravelled and smoothly rolled, took them on, sauntering slowly, until it turned in a great sweep round a lawn, ending under a stone porch flung out from the front of the house. A wide porch, almost a verandah; to the delighted eyes of the Australians, who considered verandah-less houses a curious English custom, verging on lunacy. Near the house it was shut in with glass, and furnished with a few lounge chairs and a table or two.
“That’s a jolly place!” Jim said quickly.
The house itself was long and rambling, and covered with ivy. There were big windows—it seemed planned to catch all the sunlight that could possibly be tempted into it. The lawn ended in a terrace with a stone balustrade, where one could sit and look across the park and to woods beyond it—now turning a little yellow in the sunlight, and soon to glow with orange and flame-colour and bronze, when the early frosts should have painted the dying leaves. From the lawn, to right and left, ran shrubberies and flower-beds, with winding grass walks.
“Why, it’s lovely!” Norah breathed. She slipped a hand into her father’s arm.
Jim rang the bell. A severe butler appeared, and explained that General and Mrs. Somers had gone out for the day, and had begged that Mr. Linton and his party would make themselves at home and explore the house and grounds thoroughly: an arrangement which considerably relieved the minds of the Australians, who had rather dreaded the prospect of “poking about” the house under the eyes of its tenants. The butler stiffened respectfully at the sight of the boys’ uniforms. It appeared presently that he had been a mess-sergeant in days gone by, and now regarded himself as the personal property of the General.
“Very sorry they are to leave the ’ouse, too, sir,” said the butler. “A nice place, but too big for them.”
“Haven’t they any children?” Norah asked.