The pastures round the house were but pretty fields, in which timber was abundant.

There was no deer-park at Allington; and though the Allington woods were well known, they formed no portion of a whole of which the house was a part.

They lay away, out of sight, a full mile from the back of the house; but not on that account of less avail for the fitting preservation of foxes.
And the house stood much too near the road for purposes of grandeur, had such purposes ever swelled the breast of any of the squires of Allington.

But I fancy that our ideas of rural grandeur have altered since many of our older country seats were built.

To be near the village, so as in some way to afford comfort, protection, and patronage, and perhaps also with some view to the pleasantness of neighbourhood for its own inmates, seemed to be the object of a gentleman when building his house in the old days.