Sebastian Strome Author:Julian Hawthorne Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. DENE HALL. ENE HALL was a mile and a half distant from Cedarhurst Vicarage —not counting the half-mile of avenue; and there will be time,... more » while the Reverend Arthur Strome is walking these two miles, to give you some notion about the place and people he is going to see. The house looks its best under the slanting beams of an afternoon sun, which bring out the warm ruddy hue of its Elizabethan brick walls, and casts afar the shadows of its fantastic chimneys. It encloses a square court, with an arched cloister; and a fountainplashes into a circular basin in the central grass-plot. It stands on a sort of artificial plateau, some six or seven feet above the level of the surrounding park, the boundaries being built up solidly with stone, and the descent from the higher to the lower level being accomplished by flights of broad steps. This raised area, some ten acres in extent, is laid out in elaborate gardens. Along the front of the house extends a broad gravelled walk, and from a point in front of the main entrance four straight paths radiate fanlike, bordered with thick yew-trees, which, in the brightest sunshine, seem to retain in their foliage the gloom of night. Between, spread broad lawns of fathomless turf; huge carven vases mounted on pedestals occupy the corners of the walks, their grey outlines softened by the sprays of creeping plants which have been planted in them. The flower-beds are replanted every two or three weeks, and their hues graduated and patterned out according to the latest refinements of chromic art; and there are grey stone benchesamong the rhododendrons, whence this painting in petals may be enjoyed at leisure. Under the southern wing of the house a smaller walled-in garden is kept in the Queen Anne style. Here the eye follows do...« less