IT A Day spent at Playford Hall. T was a pleasant morning in May,-I believe that is the orthodox way of beginning a story,-when C. and I took the cars to go into the country to Playford Hall. "And what's Playford Hall?" you say. "And why did you go to see it?" As to what it is, here is a reasonably good picture before you. As to why, it was for many years the residence of Thomas Clarkson, and is now the residence of his venerable widow and her family. Playford Hall is considered, I think, the oldest of the fortified houses in England, and is, I am told, the only one that has water in the moat. The water which is seen girdling the wall in the picture, is the moat; it surrounds the place entirely, leaving no access except across the bridge, which is here represented. After crossing this bridge, you come into a green court-yard, filled with choice plants and flowering shrubs, and carpeted with that thick, soft, velvet-like grass, which is to be found nowhere else in so perfect a state as in England. The water is fed by a perpetual spring, whose current is so sluggish as scarcely to be perceptible, but which yet has the vitality of a running stream. It has a dark and glassy stillness of surface, only broken by the forms of the water plants, whose leaves float thickly over it. The walls of the moat are green with ancient moss, and from the crevices springs an abundant flowering vine, whose delicate leaves and bright yellow flowers in some places entirely mantled the stones with their graceful drapery. The picture I have given you represents only one side of the moat. The other side is grown up with dark and thick shrubbery and ancient trees, rising and embowering the whole place, adding to the retired and singular effect of the whole. The place is a specimen of a sort of thing which does not exist in America. It is one of those significant landmarks |