80 The Village Street* 



with cottages, with gardens at an angle of forty-five 

 degrees or more, and therefore difficult to work. 

 Here stands a group of elm trees ; there half-a-dozen 

 houses ; next a cornfield thrusting a long narrow 

 strip into the centre of the place ; more cottages built 

 with the back to the road, and the front door opening 

 just the other way ; a small meadow, a well, a deep 

 lane, with banks built up of loose stone to prevent 

 them slipping only broad enough for one wagon 

 to pass at once and with cottages high above 

 reached by steps ; an open space where three more 

 crooked lanes meet ; a turnpike gate, and, of course, 

 a beerhouse hard by it. 



Each of these crooked lanes has its group of cot- 

 tages and its own particular name ; but all the lanes 

 and roads passing through the village are known 

 colloquially as ' the street.' There is an individuality, 

 so to say, in these by-ways, and in the regular archi- 

 tecture of the houses, which does not exist in the 

 straight rows, each cottage exactly alike, of the 

 modern blocks in the neighborhood of cities. And 

 the inhabitants correspond with their dwelling in this 

 respect most of them, especially the elder folk, 

 being ' characters ' in their way. 



Such old-fashioned cottages are practically built 

 around the chimney ; the chimney is the firm nucleus 

 of solid masonry or brickwork about which the low 

 walls of rubble are clustered. When such a cottage 

 is burned down the chimney is nearly always the only 

 thing that remains, and against the chimney it is 

 built up again. Next in importance is the roof, 

 which, rising from very low walls, really encloses half 

 of the inhabitable space. 



