Fair-Oaks lawn comes down to the little river Brawl, and on the other
side were the plantations and woods of Clavering Park. The park was let
out in pasture when the Pendennises came first to live at Fair-Oaks.
Shutters were up in the house; a splendid free stone palace, with great
stairs, statues and porticos. Sir Richard Clavering, Sir Francis's
grandfather, had commenced the ruin of the family by the building of this
palace: his successor had achieved the ruin by living in it. The present
Sir Francis was abroad somewhere, and until now nobody could be found
rich enough to rent that enormous mansion; through the deserted rooms,
mouldy, clanking halls, and dismal galleries of which Arthur Pendennis
many a time walked trembling when he was a boy. At sunset from the lawn
of Fair-Oaks there was a pretty sight: it and the opposite park of
Clavering were in the habit of putting on a rich golden tinge, which
became them both wonderfully. The upper windows of the great house flamed
so as to make your eyes wink; the little river ran off noisily westward
and was lost in sombre wood, behind which the towers of the old abbey
church of Clavering (whereby that town is called Clavering St. Mary's to
the present day) rose up in purple splendour. Little Arthur's figure and
his mother's cast long blue shadows over the grass: and he would repeat
in a low voice (for a scene of great natural beauty always moved the boy,
who inherited this sensibility from his mother) certain lines beginning,
"These are thy glorious works.
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