that village just to see his native place, and later I visited Doveton
for no other reason than that he had lived there, to find it one of the
most charming of the numerous pretty villages in the vale. I looked for
the cottage in which he had lived and thought it as perfect a home as a
quiet, contemplative man who loved nature could have had: a small,
thatched cottage, very old looking, perhaps inconvenient to live in, but
situated in the prettiest spot, away from other houses, near and within
sight of the old church with old elms and beech-trees growing close to
it, and the land about it green meadow. The clear river, fringed with a
luxuriant growth of sedges, flag, and reeds, was less than a
stone's-throw away.

So much did I like the vale of the Wylye when I grew to know it well
that I wish to describe it fully in the chapter that follows.




CHAPTER XIII

VALE OF THE WYLYE

Warminster--Vale of the Wylye--Counting the villages--A lost
church--Character of the villages--Tytherington church--Story of the
dog--Lord Lovell--Monuments in churches--Manor-houses--Knook--The
cottages--Yellow stonecrop--Cottage gardens--Marigolds--Golden-rod--Wild
flowers of the water-side--Seeking for the characteristic expression


The prettily-named Wylye is a little river not above twenty miles in