THE WASHINGTONS’ ENGLISH HOME, a9

tor of the maker of a mighty nation, is by far the
most interesting member of the family to us nowa-
days.
he sat in the “house-place” of his newly built
home at Little Brington, had any one prophesied
to him that his son John’s descendant was destined
to rule the greatest republic of the modern world.
The old Washington house — till recently a farm-
house, and now a well-to-do labourer’s cottage —
with flowers peeping out of the stone-mullioned
windows, and sparrows building and chattering in
the thatched eaves, and children filling their pitch-
ers at the village pump under the great yew tree
across the road, looks curiously settled and unad-

 

IN SIR JOHN WASHINGTON’S DAY.

venturous, and unaware of the great destinies of
its children,

And now that we have waded through this old
bit of history, let us see what sort of a land the
Washingtons lived in.

I wonder what he would have thought as —

Northamptonshire is a country of big parks, big
woods, big fields, big fences, big trees. The great,
long-fleeced sheep, that fatten by hundreds in the
tank grass pastures, look like mammoths after the
neat, black-faced “south-downs” of Hampshire
and Sussex. The huge white-faced Hereford cat-
tle stare over the hedges like “ Bulls of Bashan,”
or walk in a long line after us across a field, while
our fox-terrier who they are following, takes refuge
under our feet much to our discomfort. There
are few rivers: but wide brooks run through the
bottom-lands, cutting deep channels through the
heavy clay. The land swells up every mile or so
into bleak, rolling ridges like vast green waves

that foam here and there into a crest of
‘ woodland; and it sinks again into damp
valleys, where wreaths of white mist hang
even on summer days. So that one is
for ever going up or down-hill, though
there is not a hill to be called a hill in
the whole county. Sandstone villages,
_with some of the finest churches in Eng-
_land are built along the crest of the
ridges in one long straggling street: |
and the high pitch of the thatched roofs
with their tall chimneys at each end, and
the soft olive-green and yellow brown of
the stone they are built of, give them
a most picturesque appearance. But
though the woods are carpeted in spring
with primroses—and the pastures are
alive with sweet yellow cowslips, and
scores of nightingales sing in the spin-
neys, yet the country is sad to my mind.
It is all grave and solemn. It never
laughs and smiles in the sunshine, like
the southern and western counties —
like some parts even of our beautiful
Warwickshire. The people too have
less of the kindliness and courtesy of
manner that one finds in the South:
but often carry their “love of inde-
pendence ” as they call it, to the verge
of rudeness. Yet, after all, it is a fine
and stately land; and oh! what a hunting county.
What gallops with the famous Pytchley Pack
across those wide grass fields— what splendid
riding over those deep brooks, and great “ Bul-
finches” —as the hawthorn edges are called—a