OWLS IN A VILLAGE l67 



sheltering hollow of a deep coombe, consisting 

 of thatched stone cottages, grouped in a pretty 

 disorder ; a modest ale-house ; a parsonage 

 overgrown with ivy ; and the old stone church, 

 stained yellow and grey with lichen, its low 

 square tower overtopped by the surrounding 

 trees. It was a pleasure merely to sit idle, 

 thinking of nothing, on the higher part of the 

 green slope, with that small centre of rustic life 

 at my feet. For many hours of each day it was 

 strangely silent, the hours during which the men 

 were away at a distance in the fields, the children 

 shut up in school, and the women in their 

 cottages. An occasional bird voice alone broke 

 the silence — the distant harsh call of a crow, 

 or the sudden startled note of a magpie close 

 at hand, a sound that resembles the broken or 

 tremulous bleat of a goat. If an apple dropped 

 from a tree in the village, its thud would be 

 audible from end to end of the little crooked 

 street — ^in every cottage it would be known that 

 an apple had dropped. On some days the sound 

 of the threshing-machine would be heard a mile 

 or two away ; in that still atmosphere it was like 

 the prolonged hum of some large fly magnified 



