Sol and Chickerel plodded along the road, in order to skirt Enckworth before the carrier came up.  Reaching the top of a hill on their way, they paused to look down on a peaceful scene.  It was a park and wood, glowing in all the matchless colours of late autumn, parapets and pediments peering out from a central position afar.  At the bottom of the descent before them was a lodge, to which they now descended.  The gate stood invitingly open.  Exclusiveness was no part of the owner’s instincts:  one could see that at a glance.  No appearance of a well-rolled garden-path attached to the park-drive; as is the case with many, betokening by the perfection of their surfaces their proprietor’s deficiency in hospitality.  The approach was like a turnpike road full of great ruts, clumsy mendings; bordered by trampled edges and incursions upon the grass at pleasure.  Butchers and bakers drove as freely herein as peers and peeresses.  Christening parties, wedding companies, and funeral trains passed along by the doors of the mansion without check or question.  A wild untidiness in this particular has its recommendations; for guarded grounds ever convey a suspicion that their owner is young to landed possessions, as religious earnestnesss implies newness of conversion, and conjugal tenderness recent marriage.

Half-an-hour being wanting as yet to Chickerel’s time with the carrier, Sol and himself, like the rest of the world when at leisure, walked into the extensive stretch of grass and grove.  It formed a park so large that not one of its owners had ever wished it larger, not one of its owner’s rivals had ever failed to wish it smaller, and not one of its owner’s satellites had ever seen it without praise.  They somewhat avoided the roadway passing under the huge, misshapen, ragged trees, and through fern brakes, ruddy and crisp in their decay.  On reaching a suitable eminence, the father and son stood still to look upon the many-chimneyed building, or rather conglomeration of buildings, to which these groves and glades formed a setting.

‘We will just give a glance,’ said Chickerel, ’and then go away.  It don’t seem well to me that Ethelberta should have this; it is too much.  The sudden change will do her no good.  I never believe in anything that comes in the shape of wonderful luck.  As it comes, so it goes.  Had she been brought home today to one of those tenant-farms instead of these woods and walls, I could have called it good fortune.  What she should have done was glorify herself by glorifying her own line of life, not by forsaking that line for another.  Better have been admired as a governess than shunned as a peeress, which is what she will be.  But it is just the same everywhere in these days.  Young men will rather wear a black coat and starve than wear fustian and do well.’

’One man to want such a monstrous house as that!  Well, ’tis a fine place.  See, there’s the carpenters’ shops, the timber-yard, and everything, as if it were a little town.  Perhaps Berta may hire me for a job now and then.’