It is but a little village, of some twenty or thirty
cottages with white cob walls and low thatched roofs, running along the
sunny side of the valley for a little way, and then curving downward
across it to a little bridge of two tiny pointed arches, on the other
side of which stands a mill with a water-wheel. For a little stream
runs down this valley as down all Devonshire valleys; and as you look
up the water from the bridge you can see it winding and sparkling
through its margin of meadow, while the great oak woods hang still and
solemn above it, till some bold green headland slopes down and shuts it
from your sight; and you raise your eyes, and count fresh headlands
crossing each other right and left beyond it, fainter and fainter, till
at last they end in a little patch of purple heather, which seems to be
the end of all things.
But when you look down the water, you find that the woods no longer
cover the sunny side of the valley so thickly, but that there is open
ground like a park. There is a gate by the bridge opening on to a
narrow road, which presently ends in two great spreading yews; and
through these you can see a lych-gate, and beyond it a little grey
church with a low grey tower. Close to this gate is a lodge of grey
stone, with a winding drive which guides your eye through the trees to
the gables of a house of the same grey stone, which peer up over the
trees on the ground above the church.
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