No attempt was made to separate the business from the inner life of the house.

Here in front these oaken buckets, scoured till nearly white, their iron handles polished like silver, were close under the eyes of any one looking out.
By the front door a besom leaned against the wall that every comer might clean the mud from his boots; and you stepped at once from the threshold into the sitting-room.

A lane led past the garden, if that could be called a lane which widened into a field and after rain was flooded so deeply as to be impassable to foot passengers.
The morning we had chosen was fine; and after shaking hands with old Farmer 'Willum,' whose shooting days were over, we entered the lane, and by it the fields.

The meadows were small, enclosed with double-mounds, and thickly timbered, so that as the ground was level you could not see beyond the field in which you stood, and upon looking over the gate might surprise a flock of pigeons, a covey of partridges, or a rabbit out feeding.

Though the tinted leaves were fast falling, the hedges were still full of plants and vegetation that prevented seeing through them.
The 'kuck-kuck' of the redwings came from the bushes--the first note of approaching winter--and the tips of the rushes were dead.