drove, some of us
walked, to the village church. It was about two miles distant
from the house by the carriage road, but the path that led
thither by a short cut across the park, through a small wood,
down a steep hill, and up another still steeper, and then by a
gentle descent into the village, was not much more than a mile
in length. It was a beautiful walk, and the view from the top
of that last hill was enough to repay the fatigue of
scrambling up that winding path, exposed to the burning heat
of the sun, and that is not saying a little. As the last bell
had not begun to ring, we sat down on the stile on the brow of
the hill, to wait for it, and in the meantime I looked with
delight on the picture before my eyes. The little footpath
wound down through the daisy-enamelled grass to the edge of a
pond of clear water, that lay between the field and the road,
and was shaded by half a dozen magnificent oaks, elms, and
horse-chesnuts, beyond the little village, which did not seem
to contain more than seven or eight cottages, each half-buried
in trees, or overgrown with creepers, except one red brick
house, that flared in all the pride of newness, and of the
gaudy flowers in its spruce little garden. In the middle of
the irregular square, or rather of the wide part of the
village road, for it could not be called a street, stood a
tall May-pole, still adorned with two or three faded remnants
of the streamers which had decorated it a month before. On an
eminence beyond the village stood the church; one of those
small old beautiful parish churches, with one square gray
tower, and two wide porches; around it grew yews and thorn
trees, of various shapes and sizes, intermingling their white
flowers and dark foliage in graceful contrast.

After a few moments' rest we walked on to the churchyard, and
sat down upon a tombstone close to the principal porch. All
the people of the village were assembled, sitting, or standing
in groups, waiting for the clergyman's arrival. Mr. Brandon
was just telling me, in answer to my expressions of admiration
for a picturesque, ivy-grown old wall and house, which formed
one of the boundaries of the churchyard, that they were part
of the ruins of an ancient palace of King John's, when the
carriage arrived, and we all went into church. It looked
smaller still within than without, but its rude architecture
had something religious as well as rustic about it, and the
simple singing of the morning h