"HALF-WAY BETWEEN THE STILES."
(A RIGHT-OF-WAY INCIDENT.)
By the road, Scarby village is good three miles from Colletwood, the nearest town and railway station. But there is a short cut over the hills for foot passengers. Over the hills they call it, but between the hills would be more correct, for there is a sort of tableland once you have climbed a short, steep bit up from the town, which extends nearly to Scarby, sloping gradually down to the village.
And on each side of this tableland the hills rise again, north and south, much higher to the north than to the south. So this flat stretch, though at some considerable height, is neither bleak nor exposed, being sheltered on the colder side, and fairly open to the sunshine south and west.
It is a pleasant place, and so it must have been considered in the old days; for a large monastery stood there once, of which the ruins are still to be seen, and of which the memory is still preserved in the name—"Monksholdings".
Pleasant, but a trifle inconvenient, as the only carriage-road makes a great round from Colletwood, winding along the base of the hill on the north side till it reaches the village, then up again by the gradual slope, half a mile or so—a drive in all of three to four miles, whereas, as the bird flies or the pedestrian walks, the distance from the town is barely a quarter of that.
In the old days there was probably no road at all, the hill-path doubtless serving all requirements. Naturally enough, therefore, it came to be looked upon as entirely public property, and people forgot—if, indeed, any one had ever thought of it—that though the monastery was a ruin, the once carefully kept land round about the old dwelling-place of Monksholdings was still private property.
And the sensation was great when suddenly the news reached the neighbourhood that this "unique estate," as the agents called it, was sold—sold by the old Duke of Scarshire, who scarcely remembered that he owned it, to a man who meant to live on it, to build a house which should be a home for several months of the year for himself and his family.
There was considerable growling and grumbling; and this rose to its height when a rumour got about that the hill-path—such part of it, that is to say, as lay within the actual demesne—was to be closed—must be closed, if the site already chosen for the new house was to be retained; for the house would actually stand upon the old foot-track, and there could be no two opinions that this position had been well and wisely selected.