chequers

our journey lies through dell and dingle, Where the blithe fawn trips by its timid mother, Where the broad oak, with intercepting boughs, Chequers the sunbeam in the green-sward alley Up and away!

Half the sky was chequered with black thunderheads, but all the west was luminous and clear: in the lightning flashes it looked like deep blue water, with the sheen of moonlight on it; and the mottled part of the sky was like marble pavement, like the quay of some splendid seacoast city, doomed to destruction.

Obviously it was a vain hope in 187- to see the ladies of a royal household walk in chequered sunshine, with baskets of linen on their heads, to the banks of a clear stream overhung by the starry fronds of palm-trees.

But in spite of the brilliant sunlight and the green fans of the trees waving in the soothing sea-breeze, the world was a confusion, blurred with drifting black and red phantasms, until I was out of earshot of the house in the chequered wall.

The western end was already steeped in moon- shine; the rest, and the block house itself, still lay in a black shadow chequered with long silvery streaks of light.

At one side was a barrowman with a load of walnuts, and beside the barrow a bedraggled woman with a black fringe and a chequered shawl thrown over her head.

At the present moment Athanase, leaning pensively on his elbow at the breakfast table, was twirling his spoon in his empty cup and contemplating with a preoccupied eye the poor room with its red brick floor, its straw chairs, its painted wooden buffet, its pink and white curtains chequered like a backgammon board, which communicated with the kitchen through a glass door.

Latest phase: The completion of the third phase of The Chequers, in Templetown, Consett, raises the total of new homes on the site to 54.; Quality throughout: The showhome at Chequers reflects the quality of design and finish throughout that is Dysart's hallmark.

THE PM's Chequers freebie will help smooth the handover of power to Gordon Brown, No 10 insisted yesterday.

As a result, the family will stay on for a "few days" at Chequers in Buckinghamshire.

BREXITEER Jacob Rees-Mogg has urged Theresa May to "chuck Chequers" and "believe in Britain" in a letter to grassroots Conservatives.