resumed
my way but went slowly, then slower still, the better to enjoy the
delicious coolness which came from the moist valley and the beauty of
the evening in that solitary place which I had never looked on before.
Nor was there any need to hurry; I had but three or four miles to go
to the small old town where I intended passing the night. By and by
the winding road led me down close to the stream at a point where it
broadened to a large still pool. This was the ford, and on the other
side was a small rustic village, consisting of a church, two or three
farm-houses with their barns and outbuildings, and a few ancient-looking
stone cottages with thatched roofs. But the church was the main thing;
it was a noble building with a very fine tower, and from its size and
beauty I concluded that it was an ancient church dating back to the
time when there was a passion in the West Country and in many parts
of England of building these great fanes even in the remotest and most
thinly populated parishes. In this I was mistaken through having seen it
at a distance from the other side of the ford after the sun had set.

Never, I thought, had I seen a lovelier village with its old picturesque
cottages shaded by ancient oaks and elms, and the great church with its
stately tower looking dark against the luminous western sky. Dismounting
again I stood for some time admiring the scene, wishing that I could
make that village my home for the rest of my life, conscious at the same
time that is was the mood, the season, the magical hour which made it
seem so enchanting. Presently a young man, the first human figure that
presented itself to my sight, appeared, mounted on a big carthorse and
leading a second horse by a halter, and rode down into the pool to bathe
the animals' legs and give them a drink. He was a sturdy-looking young
fellow with a sun-browned face, in earth-coloured, working clothes,
with a small cap stuck on the back of his round curly head; he probably
imagined himself not a bad-looking young man, for while his horses were
drinking he laid over on the broad bare backs and bending down studied
his own reflection in the bright water. Then an old woman came out of a
cottage close by, and began talking to him in her West Country dialect
in a thin high-pitched cracked voice. Their talking was the only sound
in the village; so silent was it that all the rest of its inhabitants
might have been in bed and fast asleep; then, the conver