The Woodlanders

Dr. Fitzpiers lived on the slope of the hill, in a house of much less

pretension, both as to architecture and as to magnitude, than the

timber-merchant's. The latter had, without doubt, been once the

manorial residence appertaining to the snug and modest domain of Little

Hintock, of which the boundaries were now lost by its absorption with

others of its kind into the adjoining estate of Mrs. Charmond. Though

the Melburys themselves were unaware of the fact, there was every

reason to believe--at least so the parson said that the owners of that

little manor had been Melbury's own ancestors, the family name

occurring in numerous documents relating to transfers of land about the

time of the civil wars.

Mr. Fitzpiers's dwelling, on the contrary, was small, cottage-like, and

comparatively modern. It had been occupied, and was in part occupied

still, by a retired farmer and his wife, who, on the surgeon's arrival

in quest of a home, had accommodated him by receding from their front

rooms into the kitchen quarter, whence they administered to his wants,

and emerged at regular intervals to receive from him a not unwelcome

addition to their income.

The cottage and its garden were so regular in their arrangement that

they might have been laid out by a Dutch designer of the time of

William and Mary. In a low, dense hedge, cut to wedge-shape, was a

door over which the hedge formed an arch, and from the inside of the

door a straight path, bordered with clipped box, ran up the slope of

the garden to the porch, which was exactly in the middle of the house

front, with two windows on each side. Right and left of the path were

first a bed of gooseberry bushes; next of currant; next of raspberry;

next of strawberry; next of old-fashioned flowers; at the corners

opposite the porch being spheres of box resembling a pair of school

globes. Over the roof of the house could be seen the orchard, on yet

higher ground, and behind the orchard the forest-trees, reaching up to

the crest of the hill.

Opposite the garden door and visible from the parlor window was a

swing-gate leading into a field, across which there ran a footpath.

The swing-gate had just been repainted, and on one fine afternoon,

before the paint was dry, and while gnats were still dying thereon, the

surgeon was standing in his sitting-room abstractedly looking out at

the different pedestrians who passed and repassed along that route.

Being of a philosophical stamp, he perceived that the character of each

of these travellers exhibited itself in a somewhat amusing manner by

his or her method of handling the gate.