The Gates of Dawn by Fergus Hume — Read

The house built on the side of the hill was a dreary-looking place, standing in a park of no very great extent. Gloomy pine-woods rose above it, and the grounds appertaining to the mansion stretched below in a gentle slope towards the village. So sheltered was the park from sea-winds by reason of the depression of the ground, that therein flourished quite a forest in wild luxuriance. Oak, and sycamore, and beech, and elm, all lifted their giant boughs in the genial atmosphere, and formed a wood round the Court similar to that said to have environed the palace of the Sleeping Beauty. It was almost as impenetrable, and quite as wild in growth.

Here the fecundation of Nature went on incessantly, unrestrained by the hand of man. Nothing was kept within bounds; so, untended and untouched, the forest -- for, though of limited extent, it could be called by no other name -- relapsed into its wild state. The trees crowded so thickly together that they almost excluded the sunlight. Parasites grew unchecked round the aged boles; wan grasses, uncoloured by the sun, sprang high and thick; while groves of saplings made the wood well-nigh impassable. Wild creatures dwelt in the undergrowth, undisturbed by sportsman or poacher, and overhead flocks of birds made the forest musical from sunrise to sunset. Here and there spread stagnant pools of water, choked with weeds, and almost hidden by broad-leaved lilies. And there were winding paths, overgrown with moss and grass, blocked by fallen tree-trunks, and barred to the most resolute pioneer by brushwood and tangled briars. Desolation ruled supreme throughout the deserted domain.