CHAPTER VIII
CHURCHYARD PHEASANTS: BEFORE THE BENCH
The tower of the church at Essant Hill was so low that it scarcely
seemed to rise above the maples in the hedges. It could not be seen
until the last stile in the footpath across the meadows was passed.
Church and tower then came into view together on the opposite side of a
large open field. A few aged hawthorn trees dotted the sward, and beyond
the church the outskirts of a wood were visible, but no dwellings could
be seen. Upon a second and more careful glance, however, the chimney of
a cottage appeared above a hedge, so covered with ivy as hardly to be
separated from the green of the boughs.
There were houses of course somewhere in Essant, but they were so
scattered that a stranger might doubt the existence of the village. A
few farmsteads long distances apart, and some cottages standing in green
lanes and at the corners of the fields, were nearly all; there was
nothing resembling a 'street'--not so much as a row. The church was in
effect the village, and the church was simply the mausoleum of the
Dessant family, the owners of the place. Essant Hill as a name had been
rather a problem to the archaeologists, there being no hill: the ground
was quite level. The explanation at last admitted was that Essant Hill
was a corruption of D'Essantville.
It seemed probable that the population had greatly diminished; because,
although the church was of great antiquity, there was space still for
interments in the yard.
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