On the other side of the copses bounding our home, there was a park containing trees old as the History of England, John Thresher said, and the thought of their venerable age enclosed me comfortably.

He could not tell me whether he meant as old as the book of English History; he fancied he did, for the furrow-track follows the plough close upon; but no one exactly could swear when that (the book) was put together.

At my suggestion, he fixed the trees to the date of the Heptarchy, a period of heavy ploughing.
Thus begirt by Saxon times, I regarded Riversley as a place of extreme baldness, a Greenland, untrodden by my Alfred and my Harold.

These heroes lived in the circle of Dipwell, confidently awaiting the arrival of my father.

He sent me once a glorious letter.