A Cotswold Village | Page 4

Years Ago--The Wolds in Autumn--By the
Stream--Wildfowl--Migration of Birds--Lapwings--Winter
Visitants--Thunderstorms--Glow-Worms--A Brilliant Meteor--Night on
the Hills--The "Blowing-Stone"--Christmas Day on the Cotswolds--A
Solar Halo--Hamlet Festivities--Tom Peregrine Baffled--The Mummers
Play--The Victorian Era--The True Days of "Merrie England"--Carpe
Diem.
CHAPTER XVIII.
WHEN THE SUN GOES DOWN
A Glorious Panorama--Peregrine as Secretary--The Light of Setting
Suns--Conclusion.
APPENDIX.
GEORGE RIDLER'S OVEN
INDEX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY
MESSRS. SHAWCROSS.
STOKE POGES CHURCH.
THE OLD MANOR HOUSE.
INSCRIPTION ON PORCH OF MANOR HOUSE.
INTERIOR OF MANOR HOUSE.
IN THE GARDEN.
A COTSWOLD MANOR HOUSE.
COTSWOLD COTTAGES.
A FARMHOUSE BY THE COLN.
AN OLD COTTAGE.
THE HAMLET.
ON THE WOLDS.
OXEN PLOUGHING.
THE OLD CUSTOMER.
THE OLD MILL, ABLINGTON.
THE COLN NEAR BIBURY.
A BRIDGE OVER THE COLN.
A DISH OF FISH.

BURFORD PRIORY.
BURFORD PRIORY.
THE MANOR HOUSE, COLN-ST.-ALDWYNS.
BIBURY STREET.
ARLINGTON ROW.
VILLAGE CRICKETERS.
HAWKING.
BIBURY COURT.
THE ABBEY GATEWAY, CIRENCESTER.
MARKET-PLACE, CIRENCESTER.
AN OLD BARN.
THE "PILL" BRIDGE.
IN BIBURY VILLAGE.
SIDE VIEW OF MANOR HOUSE.
BIBURY MILL.
BELOW THE "PILL".
ABLINGTON MANOR.
AN OLD-FASHIONED LABOURING COUPLE.
COLN-ST.-ALDWYNS.
[Illustration: Stoke Poges Church. 019.png]

A COTSWOLD VILLAGE.
CHAPTER I.
FLYING WESTWARDS.
London is becoming miserably hot and dusty; everybody who can get
away is rushing off, north, south, east, and west, some to the seaside,
others to pleasant country houses. Who will fly with me westwards to
the land of golden sunshine and silvery trout streams, the land of
breezy uplands and valleys nestling under limestone hills, where the
scream of the railway whistle is seldom heard and the smoke of the
factory darkens not the long summer days? Away, in the smooth
"Flying Dutchman"; past Windsor's glorious towers and Eton's
playing-fields; past the little village and churchyard where a century
and a half ago the famous "Elegy" was written, and where, hard by
"those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade," yet rests the body of the
mighty poet, Gray. How those lines run in one's head this bright
summer evening, as from our railway carriage we note the great white
dome of Stoke House peeping out amid the elms! whilst every field
reminds us of him who wrote those lilting stanzas long, long ago.
"Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade! Ah, fields, beloved in vain!
Where once my careless childhood strayed, A stranger yet to pain: I
feel the gales that from ye blow A momentary bliss bestow; As waving
fresh their gladsome wing My weary soul they seem to soothe, And
redolent of joy and youth, To breathe a second spring."
But soon we are flashing past Reading, where Sutton's nursery gardens
are bright with scarlet and gold, and blue and white; every flower that
can be made to grow in our climate grows there, we may be sure. But
there is no need of garden flowers now, when the fields and hedges,
even the railway banks, are painted with the lovely blue of wild
geraniums and harebells, the gold of birdsfoot trefoil and Saint John's
wort, and the white and pink of convolvulus or bindweed. We are
passing through some of the richest scenery in the Thames valley.
There, on the right, is Mapledurham, a grand mediaeval building,

surrounded by such a wealth of stately trees as you will see nowhere
else. The Thames runs practically through the grounds. What a glorious
carpet of gold is spread over these meadows when the buttercups are in
full bloom! Now comes Pangbourne, with its lovely weir, where the big
Thames trout love to lie. Pangbourne used to be one of the prettiest
villages on the river; but its popularity has spoilt it.
As we pass onwards, many other country houses--Purley, Basildon, and
Hardwick--with their parks and clustering cottages, add their charm to
the view. There are the beautiful woods of Streatley: hanging copses
clothe the sides of the hills, and pretty villages nestle amid the trees.
But soon the scene changes: the glorious valley Father Thames has
scooped out for himself is left behind; we are crossing the chalk
uplands. On all sides are vast stretches of unfenced arable land, though
here and there a tiny village with its square-towered Norman church
peeps out from an oasis of green fields and stately elm trees. On the
right the Chiltern Hills are seen in the background, and Wittenham
Clump stands forth--a conspicuous object for miles. The country round
Didcot reminds one very much of the north of France: between Calais
and Paris one notices the same chalk soil, the same flat arable fields,
and the same old-fashioned farmhouses and gabled cottages.
But now we have entered the grand old Berkshire vale. "Fields and
hedges, hedges and fields; peace and plenty, plenty and peace. I should
like to take a foreigner down the vale of Berkshire in the end of May,
and ask him what he