The neighbouring village was neither line, nor circle, but a cluster of
cottages. Or rather a group of clusters, so placed that a dozen or more
housewives could stand at their respective doors, very nearly facing
one another, and confabulate without greatly raising their voices.
Outside, all round, the wide open country--grass and tilled land and
hedges and hedgerow elms--is spread out before them. And in sight of
all the cottages, rising a little above them, stands the hoary ancient
church with giant old elm-trees growing near it, their branches laden
with rooks' nests, the air full of the continuous noise of the
wrangling birds, as they fly round and round, and go and come bringing
sticks all day, one to add to the high airy city, the other to drop as
an offering to the earth-god beneath, in whose deep-buried breast the
old trees have their roots.

But the other villages that cannot be named were in scores and
hundreds, scattered all over Wiltshire, for the entire county was
visible from that altitude, and not Wiltshire only but Somerset, and
Berkshire and Hampshire, and all the adjoining counties, and finally,
the prospect still widening, all England from rocky Land's End to the
Cheviots and the wide windy moors sprinkled over with grey stone
villages. Thousands and thousands of villages; but I could only see a
few distinctly--not more than about two hundred, the others from their
great distance--not in space but time--appearing but vaguely as spots
of colour on the earth. Then, fixing my attention on those that were
most clearly seen, I found myself in thought loitering in them,
revisiting cottages and conversing with old people and children I knew;
and recalling old and remembered scenes and talks, I smiled and by-and-
by burst out laughing.