Sunlight gilded the stone deer on the piers of the main gates, where the steward stopped his horse and shouted to the lodge-keeper to take in a line of washing. As he rode on up the great avenue he could not see a twig that was out of place; on either side, stretches of water – one harp-shaped, one heart-shaped – glinted as if they had been polished. The landscape might have been submerged all night and now risen, cleansed and dazzling, as new as the beginning of the world, this April morning. Along the avenue, the clear shadow of the man and horse slanted across the gravel. To the steward this was a wonderful hour of the day. His master, the Duke, slept late, shut away in the great house, and until the moment when he rose and came out on to the terrace, his steward claimed his possessions for himself, watched his pheasants fly up in a flurry disturbed by the horse, as he passed, his hare leaping through the grass. When he met any of the estate men, he lifted his crop as affably as the Duke himself.
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