and, until you came quite near, you could not but wonder where the body
that supported this head could be. But you soon saw that the ground fell
suddenly away, leaving a bank against which the cottage was built.
Crossing a garden of the smallest, the principal flowers of which were the
stonecrop on its walls, by a flag-paved path, you entered the building,
and, to your surprise, found yourself, not in a little cottage kitchen, as
you expected, but in a waste-looking space, that seemed to have forgotten
the use for which it had been built. There was a sort of loft along one
side of it, and it was heaped with indescribable lumber-looking stuff with
here and there a hint at possible machinery. The place had been a mill for
grinding corn, and its wheel had been driven by the stream which had run
for ages in the hollow of which I have already spoken. But when the canal
came to be constructed, the stream had to be turned aside from its former
course, and indeed was now employed upon occasion to feed the canal; so
that the mill of necessity had fallen into disuse and decay. Crossing this
floor, you entered another door, and turning sharp to the left, went down
a few steps of a ladder-sort of stair, and after knocking your hat against
a beam, emerged in the comfortable quaint little cottage kitchen you had
expected earlier. A cheerful though small fire burns in the grate--for
even here the hearth-fire has vanished from the records of cottage-life--
and is pleasant here even in the height of summer, though it is counted
needful only for cooking purposes. The ceiling, which consists only of the
joists and the boards that floor the bedroom above, is so low, that
necessity, if not politeness, would compel you to take off your already-
bruised hat. Some of these joists, you will find, are made further useful
by supporting each a shelf, before which hangs a little curtain of printed
cotton, concealing the few stores and postponed eatables of the house--
forming, in fact, both store-room and larder of the family. On the walls
hang several coloured prints, and within a deep glazed frame the figure of
a ship in full dress, carved in rather high relief in sycamore.