ver the marshy meadow.

CHAPTER VIII

CHURCHYARD PHEASANTS: BEFORE THE BENCH

The tower of the church at Essant Hill was so low that it scarcely
seemed to rise above the maples in the hedges. It could not be seen
until the last stile in the footpath across the meadows was passed.
Church and tower then came into view together on the opposite side of a
large open field. A few aged hawthorn trees dotted the sward, and beyond
the church the outskirts of a wood were visible, but no dwellings could
be seen. Upon a second and more careful glance, however, the chimney of
a cottage appeared above a hedge, so covered with ivy as hardly to be
separated from the green of the boughs.

There were houses of course somewhere in Essant, but they were so
scattered that a stranger might doubt the existence of the village. A
few farmsteads long distances apart, and some cottages standing in green
lanes and at the corners of the fields, were nearly all; there was
nothing resembling a 'street'--not so much as a row. The church was in
effect the village, and the church was simply the mausoleum of the
Dessant family, the owners of the place. Essant Hill as a name had been
rather a problem to the archaeologists, there being no hill: the ground
was quite level. The explanation at last admitted was that Essant Hill
was a corruption of D'Essantville.

It seemed probable that the population had greatly diminished; because,
although the church was of great antiquity, there was space still for
interments in the yard. A yew tree of immense size stood in one corner,
and was by tradition associated with the fortunes of the family. Though
the old trunk was much decayed, yet there were still green and
flourishing shoots; so that the superstitious elders said the luck of
the house was returning.

Within, the walls of the church were covered with marble slabs, and the
space was reduced by the tombs of the Dessants, one with a recumbent
figure; there were two brasses level with the pavement, and in the
chancel hung the faded hatchments of the dead. For the pedigree went
back to the Battle of Hastings, and there was scarce room for more
heraldry. From week's end to week's end the silent nave and aisles
remained empty; the chirp of the sparrows was the only sound to be heard
there. There being no house attached to the living, the holder could not
reside; so the old church slumbered in the midst of the meadows, the
hedges, and woods, day af