It was a beautiful forest-road when they had crossed the heath.  No hedges shut it in, but here and there the great beech trees stood in clumps or in single grace, and green rides opened vistas into cool depths of shade which had never changed but with the seasons for many ages.  It was quite old-world scenery here.  Neither clearings nor enclosures had been thought of, and the wild sylvan beauty had all its own perfect way.  Presently there were signs of habitation.  A curl of smoke from a low roof so lost in its orchard that but for that domestic flag it might have escaped observation altogether; a triangular green with a pond, geese and pigs; more thatched cottages, gardens, small fields, large hedges, high, bushy, unpruned; hedgerow trees; a lonely little chapel in a burial-ground, a woodyard, a wheelwright’s shop, a guide-post pointing three ways, a blacksmith’s forge at one side of the road, and an old inn opposite; cows, unkempt children; white gates, gravelled drives, chimney-pots of gentility, hidden away in bowers of foliage.  Then a glimpse of the church-tower, a sweep in the road; the church and crowded churchyard, the rectory, the doctor’s house, and a stone’s throw off the “King’s Arms” at the top of the town-street, which sloped gently all down hill.  Another forge, tiled houses, shops with queer bow-windows and steps up to the half-glazed doors, where a bell rang when the latch was lifted.  More white gates, more well-kept shrubberies; green lanes, roads branching, curving to right and left; and everywhere those open spaces of lawn and magnificent beech trees, as if the old town had an unlimited forest-right to scatter its dwellings far and wide, just as caprice or the love of beauty might dictate.

“This is very lovely—­it is a series of delightful pictures.  Only to live here must be a sort of education,” said Mr. Fairfax as they arrived within view of the ancient church and its precincts.

Mr. John Short saw and smelt opportunities of improvement, but he agreed that Beechhurst for picturesqueness was most desirable.  Every cottage had its garden, and every garden was ablaze with flowers.  Flowers love that moist sun and soil, and thrive joyfully.  Gayest of the gay within its trim holly hedge was the Carnegies.  The scent of roses and mignonette suffused the warm air of evening.  The doctor was going about with a watering-pot, tending his beauties and favorites, while he watched for the children coming home.  His name and profession, set forth on a bright brass plate, adorned the gate, from which a straight box-edged path led to the white steps of the porch.  The stable entrance was at the side.  Everything about the place had an air of well-doing and of means enough; and the doctor himself, whom the strangers eyed observantly from the height of their saddles, looked like his own master in all the independence of easy circumstances.