Produced by Al Haines
Todborough Grange, the seat of Cedric Bloxam, Justice of the Peace, andwhilom High Sheriff for East Fernshire, lies low. The original Bloxam,like the majority of our ancestors, had apparently a great dislike toan exposed situation; and either a supreme contempt for the science ofsanitation, or a confused idea that water could be induced to runuphill, and so, not bothering his head on the subject of drainage, asindeed no one did in those days, he built his house in a hole, holding,I presume, that the hills were as good to look up at as the valleys tolook down upon. It was an irregular pile of gabled red brick, of whatcould be only described as the composite order, having been added to bysuccessive Bloxams at their own convenience, and without any regard toarchitectural design. It was surrounded by thick shrubberies, in whichthe laurels were broken by dense masses of rhododendrons. Beyond theseagain were several plantations, and up the hill on the east side of thehouse stretched a wood of some eighty acres or so in extent.
As a race, the Bloxams possessed some of the leading Anglo-Saxoncharacteristics; to wit, courage, obstinacy, and density—or perhaps Ishould rather say slowness—of understanding. The present proprietorhad been married—I use the term advisedly—to Lady Mary Ditchin, adaughter of the Earl of Turfington, a family whose hereditary devotionto sport in all its branches had somewhat impoverished their estates.The ladies could all ride; and some twenty odd years ago, when CedricBloxam was hunting in the Vale of White Horse country, Lord Turfingtonand his family chanced to be doing the same. Lady Mary rode; CedricBloxam saw; and Lady Mary conquered. She had made him a very goodwife, although as she grew older she unfortunately, as some of us do,grew considerably heavier; and when no longer able to expend hersuperfluous energies in the hunting-field, she developed into asomewhat ambitious and