This town of
five houses was tiled; the detached houses were thatched, and the walls
plastered and whitewashed like snow. Such whitewash seems never to be
made in towns, or to lose its whiteness in a day. This broad surface of
vivid white was a background, against which the clinging roses, the
clustering, creeping honeysuckles, and the deep young ivy with its tender
green and polished leaves, shone lovely; wood smoke mounted, thin and
silvery, from a cottage or two, that were cooking, and embroidered the
air, not fouled it. The little windows had diamond panes, as in the
Middle Ages, and every cottage door was open, suggesting hospitality and
dearth of thieves. There was also that old essential, a village green--a
broad strip of sacred turf, that was everybody's by custom, though in
strict law Vizard's. Here a village cow and a donkey went about grazing
the edges, for the turf in general was smooth as a lawn. By the side of
the green was the village ale-house. After the green other cottages; two
of them
"Quite overcanopied with lush woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with
eglantine."
One of these was called Marks's cottage, and the other Allen's.
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