With surprising grace, the grand piano sails through the sky a hundred feet above a pasture here, finally returning to earth in a fortissimo explosion of wood chunks, ivory keys and piano wire. Nor is the piano the strangest thing to startle the grazing sheep this Sunday morning.
Pigs fly here, too.
In ancient times, such war machines were dreaded instruments of destruction, flinging huge missiles, including plague-ridden horses, over the walls of besieged castles. Too At Acton, Round Hall, Mr. Kennedy's handsome Georgian manor house here, one enters the bizarre world of a P. G. Wodehouse novel. Lining the walls are dozens of halberds and suits of armor. A full suit of Indian elephant armor, rebuilt by Mr. Kennedy, shimmers resplendently on an elephant-sized frame. Capping this scene, atop a hill on the other side of the 620-acre Kennedy estate, is the siege engine, punctuating the skyline like an oil derrick.