Mervyn Hall, being partly an ancient building, and constructed with a view to defence, is situated on the verge of the lake.

A stone dropped from the projecting balcony plunges into water deep enough to float a skiff.

I had left my window partly unbarred, that, before I went to bed, I might, according to my custom, look out and see the moonlight shining upon the lake.

I was deeply engaged with that beautiful scene in the "Merchant of Venice" where two lovers, describing the stillness of a summer night, enhance on each other its charms, and was lost in the associations of story and of feeling which it awakens, when I heard upon the lake the sound of a flageolet.

I have told you it was Brown's favourite instrument.