I have seen many fine places since then, but I do not remember to have seen a landscape more beautiful in its peculiar English character than that which I now gazed on. It had none of the feudal characteristics of ancient parks, with giant oaks, fantastic pollards, glens covered with fern, and deer grouped upon the slopes; on the contrary, in spite of some fine trees, chiefly beech, the impression conveyed was that it was a new place—a made place. You might see ridges on the lawns which showed where hedges had been removed; the pastures were parcelled out in divisions by new wire-fences; young plantations, planned with exquisite taste, but without the venerable formality of avenues and quincunxes, by which you know the parks that date from Elizabeth and James, diversified the rich extent of verdure; instead of deer, were short-horned cattle of the finest breed—sheep that would have won the prize at an agricultural show. Every where there was the evidence of improvement—energy—capital; but capital clearly not employed for the mere purpose of return. The ornamental was too conspicuously predominant amidst the lucrative, not to say eloquently—"The owner is willing to make the most of his land, but not the most of his money."
But the old woman's eagerness to earn sixpence had impressed me unfavourably as to the character of the master. "Here," thought I, "are all the signs of riches; and yet this poor old woman, living on the very threshold of opulence, is in want of a sixpence."
These surmises, in the indulgence of which I piqued myself on my penetration, were strengthened into convictions by the few sentences which I succeeded at last in eliciting from the old woman.
"Mr Trevanion must be a rich man," said I.
"O ay, rich eno'!" grumbled my guide.
"And," said I, surveying the extent of shrubbery or dressed ground through which our way wound, now emerging into lawns and glades, now belted by rare garden trees, now (as every inequality of the ground was turned to advantage in the landscape) sinking into the dell, now climbing up the slopes, and now confining the view to some object of graceful art or enchanting nature:—"And," said I, "he must employ many hands here—plenty of work, eh!"
"Ay, ay—I don't say that he don't find work for those who want it. But it aint the same place it wor in my day."
"You remember it in other hands, then?"
"Ay, ay! When the Hogtons had it, honest folk! My goodman was the gardener—none of these set-up fine gentlemen who can't put hand to a spade."
Poor faithful old woman!