In height, he
was about five feet ten; and at the time of our story was as near to
seventy as he was to sixty. But years had treated him very lightly,
and he bore few signs of age. Such in person was Christopher Dale,
Esq., the squire of Allington, and owner of some three thousand a
year, all of which proceeded from the lands of that parish.
And now I will speak of the Great House of Allington. After all, it
was not very great; nor was it surrounded by much of that exquisite
nobility of park appurtenance which graces the habitations of most of
our old landed proprietors. But the house itself was very graceful.
It had been built in the days of the early Stuarts, in that style of
architecture to which we give the name of the Tudors. On its front it
showed three pointed roofs, or gables, as I believe they should be
called; and between each gable a thin tall chimney stood, the two
chimneys thus raising themselves just above the three peaks I have
mentioned. I think that the beauty of the house depended much on
those two chimneys; on them, and on the mullioned windows with which
the front of the house was closely filled.
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