"
My route for a part of the way lay in sight of the Avon, which
made a variety of the most fancy doublings and windings through a
wide and fertile valley--sometimes glittering from among willows
which fringed its borders; sometimes disappearing among groves or
beneath green banks; and sometimes rambling out into full view
and making an azure sweep round a slope of meadow-land. This
beautiful bosom of country is called the Vale of the Red Horse. A
distant line of undulating blue hills seems to be its boundary,
whilst all the soft intervening landscape lies in a manner
enchained in the silver links of the Avon.
After pursuing the road for about three miles, I turned off into
a footpath, which led along the borders of fields and under
hedgerows to a private gate of the park; there was a stile,
however, for the benefit of the pedestrian, there being a public
right of way through the grounds. I delight in these hospitable
estates, in which every one has a kind of property--at least as
far as the footpath is concerned. It in some measure reconciles a
poor man to his lot, and, what is more, to the better lot of his
neighbor, thus to have parks and pleasure-grounds thrown open for
his recreation.
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