Churchyard Pheasants. 137 



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 ap- 

 peared 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 ; 



