THE GOLDEN AGE
after what lapse of time I know not, my further course, though not the stream's, was barred by some six feet of stout wire netting, stretched from side to side just where a thick hedge, arching till it touched, forbade all further view.
The excitement of the thing was becoming thrilling. A Black Flag must surely be fluttering close by? Here was most plainly a malignant contrivance of the Pirates, designed to baffle our gun-boats when we dashed up-stream to shell them from their lair! A gun-boat, indeed, might well have hesitated, so stout was the netting, so close the hedge. But I spied where a rabbit was wont to pass, close down by the water's edge; where a rabbit could go a boy could follow, howbeit stomach-wise and with one leg in the stream; so the passage was achieved, and I stood inside, safe but breathless at the sight.
Gone was the brambled waste, gone the flickering tangle of woodland. Instead, terrace after terrace of shaven sward, stone-edged, urn-cornered, stepped delicately down to where the
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