Furthermore, Women When They Write Are As A Rule Even More
Conventional Than Men, More Artificial And Out Of And Away
From Themselves.
I do not know that any literary person will agree with me; I
have gone aside to write about Miss Mitford mainly for my own
satisfaction.
Frequently when I have wanted to waste half an
hour pleasantly with a book I have found myself picking up
"Our Village" from among many others, some waiting for a first
perusal, and I wanted to know why this was so - to find out, if
not to invent, some reason for my liking which would not make
me ashamed.
At Swallowfield we failed to find a place to stay at; there
was no such place; and of the inns, named, I think, the
"Crown," "Cricketers," "Bird-in-the-Hand," and "George and
Dragon," only one, was said to provide accommodation for
travellers as the law orders, but on going to the house we
were informed that the landlord or his wife was just dead, or
dangerously ill, I forget which, and they could take no one
in. Accordingly, we had to trudge back to Three Mile Cross
and the old ramshackle, well-nigh ruinous inn there. It was a
wretched place, smelling of mould and dry-rot; however, it was
not so bad after a fire had been lighted in the grate, but
first the young girl who waited on us brought in a bundle of
newspapers, which she proceeded to thrust up the chimney-flue
and kindle, "to warm the flue and make the fire burn," she
explained.
On the following day, the weather being milder, we rambled on
through woods and lanes, visiting several villages, and
arrived in the afternoon at Silchester, where we had resolved
to put up for the night. By a happy chance we found a
pleasant cottage on the common to stay at and pleasant people
in it, so that we were glad to sit down for a week there, to
loiter about the furzy waste, or prowl in the forest and haunt
the old walls; but it was pleasant even indoors with that wide
prospect before the window, the wooded country stretching many
miles away to the hills of Kingsclere, blue in the distance
and crowned with their beechen rings and groves. Of Roman
Calleva itself and the thoughts I had there I will write in
the following chapter; here I will only relate how on Easter
Sunday, two days after arriving, we went to morning service in
the old church standing on a mound inside the walls, a mile
from the village and common.
It came to pass that during the service the sun began to shine
very brightly after several days of cloud and misty windy wet
weather, and that brilliance and the warmth in it served to
bring a butterfly out of hiding; then another; then a third;
red admirals all; and they were seen through all the prayers,
and psalms, and hymns, and lessons, and the sermon preached by
the white-haired Rector, fluttering against the translucent
glass, wanting to be out in that splendour and renew their
life after so long a period of suspension.
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