He suggested my shutting out the
brickfield--if I didn't like the brickfield--with trees. He
suggested the eucalyptus-tree. He said it was a rapid grower. He
also told me that it yielded gum.
"Another house I travelled down into Dorsetshire to see. It
contained, according to the advertisement, 'perhaps the most perfect
specimen of Norman arch extant in Southern England.' It was to be
found mentioned in Dugdale, and dated from the thirteenth century. I
don't quite know what I expected. I argued to myself that there must
have been ruffians of only moderate means even in those days. Here
and there some robber baron who had struck a poor line of country
would have had to be content with a homely little castle. A few
such, hidden away in unfrequented districts, had escaped destruction.
More civilised descendants had adapted them to later requirements. I
had in my mind, before the train reached Dorchester, something
between a miniature Tower of London and a mediaeval edition of Ann
Hathaway's cottage at Stratford. I pictured dungeons and a
drawbridge, perhaps a secret passage. Lamchick has a secret passage,
leading from behind a sort of portrait in the dining-room to the back
of the kitchen chimney. They use it for a linen closet. It seems to
me a pity. Of course originally it went on farther. The vicar, who
is a bit of an antiquarian, believes it comes out somewhere in the
churchyard.
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