It was said to be staked at the bottom to prevent illicit netting; but if so, the stakes by this time were probably rotten or buried in mud formed from the decaying weeds, the fallen leaves, and branches which were gradually closing it up.

A few yards from the edge there was a mass of ivy through which a little brown thatch could be distinguished, and on approaching nearer this low roof was found to cover the entrance to a cave.

It was an ice-house excavated in the sloping ground or bank, in which, 'when George the Third was King,' the ice of the ponds had been preserved to cool the owner's wine in summer.

Ice was then a luxury for the rich only; but when so large a supply arrived from America, a supply increased by freezing machines, the ice-house lost its importance.

The door, once so jealously closed, was gone, and the dead leaves of last year had gathered in corners where the winds had whirled them.
The heat of a warm June day seemed still more powerful in this hollow.
The sedges, into which two or three moorhens had retired at my approach, were still, and the leaves on the boughs overhanging the water were motionless.