bright water. Then an old woman came out of a cottage close
by, and began talking to him in her West Country dialect in a
thin high-pitched cracked voice. Their talking was the only
sound in the village; so silent was it that all the rest of
its inhabitants might have been in bed and fast asleep; then,
the conversation ended, the young man rode out with a great
splashing and the old woman turned into her cottage again, and
I was left in solitude.

Still I lingered: I could not go just yet; the chances were
that I should never again see that sweet village in that
beautiful aspect at the twilight hour.

For now it came into my mind that I could not very well settle
there for the rest of my life; I could not, in fact, tie
myself to any place without sacrificing certain other
advantages I possessed; and the main thing was that by taking
root I should deprive myself of the chance of looking on still
other beautiful scenes and experiencing other sweet surprises.
I was wishing that I had come a little earlier on the scene to
have had time to borrow the key of the church and get a sight
of the interior, when all at once I heard a shrill voice and a
boy appeared running across the wide green space of the
churchyard. A second boy followed, then another, then still
others, and I saw that they were going into the church by the
side door. They were choir-boys going to practice. The
church was open then, and late as it was I could have half an
hour inside before it was dark! The stream was spanned by an
old stone bridge above the ford, and going over it I at once
made my way to the great building, but even before entering it