The proper thing to do, on catching sight of any stranger, was to start with an aversion suggested by our mother's, but improved upon more pictorial. We would all three stare at the intruder, and then allow our eyes to travel to the nearer of the signs, "Trespassers," etc. If this pantomime did not convince the creature of the impropriety of his presence, we would look at one another with wide eyes, as though inquiring: "Can such things be? Are these, then, deliberate criminals? If so" - our looks agreed - "the company of outlaws is not for us." We turned our backs and went home. I was twelve before I realised that we ourselves were trespassers.
The heath belonged to Lord Helmstone.
That was a blow.
Still worse, the later knowledge that Buncombe House and garden were not our own. The laying out of a golf course, and the cheapening of the motor-car, forced the facts upon our knowledge. But I am glad that as little children we did not know these things. We saw ourselves as heiresses to the prettiest house and garden in the world. And no whit less to those broad acres rolling away - with foam of gorse and broom on
