Oldal 88 [88]
68 LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY.
iTS SEE
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tall ferns grew in masses, and again and again the ground was azure
with the bluebells swaying in the soft breeze. Several times he
started up with a laugh of delight as a rabbit leaped up from under
the greenery and scudded away with a twinkle of short white tail
behind it. Once a covey of partridges rose with a sudden whir and
flew away, and then he shouted and clapped his hands.
“Tt’s a beautiful place, is nt it?” he said to Mr. Havisham. ‘‘I
never saw such a beautiful place. It ’s prettier even than Central
Park.”
He was rather puzzled by the length of time they were on their
way.
" How far 1s it,” he said, at length, "from the gate to the front
door?”
‘It is between three and four miles,” answered the lawyer.
‘That s a long way for a person to live from his gate,” remarked
his lordship.
Every few minutes he saw something new to wonder at and
admire. When he caught sight of the deer, some couched in the
grass, some standing with their pretty antlered heads turned with a
half-startled air toward the avenue as the carriage wheels disturbed
them, he was enchanted.
‘Has there been a circus?” he cried; "or do they live here
always? Whose are they?”
‘They live here,” Mr. Havisham told him. ‘They belong to
the Earl, your grandfather.”
It was not long after this that they saw the castle. It rose up —
before them stately and beautiful and gray, the last rays of the sun
casting dazzling lights on its many windows. It had turrets and
battlements and towers; a great deal of ivy grew upon its walls; all
the broad, open space about it was laid out in terraces and lawns and
beds of brilliant flowers.