Axcester lies on the western side and mostly at the foot of a low hill set accurately in the centre of a ring of hills slightly higher-the raised bottom of a saucer would be no bad simile.  The old Roman road cuts straight across this rise, descends between the shops of the High Street, passes the church, crosses the Axe by a narrow bridge, and climbing again passes the iron gates of Bayfield House, a mile above the river.  So straight is it that Dorothea could keep her brothers in view from the gates until they dismounted before their office door, losing sight of them for a minute or two only among the elms by the bridge.  Her boudoir window commanded the same prospect; and every day as the London coach topped the hill, her maid Polly would run with news of it.  The two would be watching, often before the guard’s horn awoke the street and fetched the ostlers out in a hurry from the “Dogs Inn” stables with their relay of four horses.  Miss Dorothea possessed a telescope, too; and if the coach were dressed with laurels and flags announcing a victory, mistress and maid would run to the gates and wave their handkerchiefs as it passed.

Sometimes, too, Polly would announce a post-chaise, and the telescope decide whether the postboys wore the blue or the buff.  Nor were these their only causes of excitement; for the great Bayfield elm, a rood below the gates and in full view of them, marked the westward boundary of the French prisoners on parole.  Some of these were quite regular in their walks for instance, Rear-Admiral de Wailly-Duchemin and General Rochambeau, who came at three o’clock or thereabouts on Wednesdays and Saturdays, summer and winter.  At six paces on the far side of the elm—­ such was their punctilio—­they halted, took snuff, linked arms again and turned back. (Dorothea had entertained them both at Bayfield, and met them at dinner in one or two neighbouring houses.) On the same days, and on Mondays as well, old Jean Pierre Pichou, ex-boatswain of the Didon frigate, would come along arm-in-arm with Julien Carales, alias Frap d’Abord, ex-marechal des logis—­Pichou, with his wooden leg, and Frap d’Abord twisting a grey moustache and uttering a steady torrent of imprecation—­or so it sounded.  These could be counted on; but scores of others stopped and turned at the Bayfield elm, and Polly had names for them all.  Moreover, on one memorable day Dorothea had watched one who did not halt precisely at the elm.  A few paces beyond it, and on the side of the road facing the grounds, straggled an old orchard, out of which her brother Endymion had been missing, of late, a quantity of his favourite pippins—­by name (but it may have been a local one) Somerset Warriors.  The month was October, the time about half-past four, the light dusky.  Yet Miss Dorothea, lingering by the gate, saw a young man pass the Bayfield elm and climb the hedge; and saw and heard him nail against an apple-tree overhanging the road, a board with white