ld with wood; once or twice he passed a timbered
farmhouse, with tall brick chimneys. The country round about was much
invaded by new, pert houses, but there were none here; and Hugh
supposed that this road, which seemed the only track into the valley,
was of so forbidding a steepness that it had not occurred to any one to
settle there. The road became more and more precipitous, and at the
very bottom, having descended nearly three hundred feet, Hugh found
himself in a very beautiful place. He thought he had never seen
anything more sweetly, more characteristically English. On one side
was a rough field, encircled by forest on all sides; here stood some
old wooden sheds and byres; and one or two green rides passed
glimmering into the thick copse, with a charming air of mystery, as
though they led to some sequestered woodland paradise. To the right
was a mill, with a great pond thick with bulrushes and water-lilies,
full of water-birds, coots and moorhens, which swam about, uttering
plaintive cries. The mill was of wood, the planks warped and
weather-stained, the tiled root covered with mosses; the mill-house
itself was a quaint brick building, with a pretty garden, full of
old-fashioned flowers, sloping down to the pool; a big flight of
pigeons circled round and round in the breeze, turning with a sudden
clatter of wings; behind the house were small sandstone bluffs, fringed
with feathery ashes, and the wood ran up steeply above into the sky.
It looked like an old steel-engraving, like a picture by Morland or
Constable. The blue smoke went up from the chimneys in that sheltered
nook, rising straight into the air, lending a rich colour to the trees
behind. Hugh thought it would be a beautiful place to live in, so
remote from the world, in that still valley, where the only sound was
the wind in the copses, the trickle of the mill-leat, and the slow
thunder of the dripping wheel within. Yet he supposed that the simple
people who lived there were probably unconscious of its beauty, and
only aware that the roads which led to the spot were inconveniently
steep. Still, it was hard to think that the charm of the place would
not pass insensibly into the hearts, perhaps even into the faces, of
the dwellers there.

He stood for a little to see the bright water leaping clear and fresh
from the sluice. There was a delicious scent of cool river-plants
everywhere. It was hard not to think that the stream, bickering out in