Page:The Heart of England.djvu/196



morning air of autumn smelt like the musky, wild white rose. The south wind had carried hither all the golden and brown savours from Devon and Wiltshire and Surrey; and the strong sweetness made the walker snuff deeply at it, with uplifted upper lip. Church bells two miles away, deep among the woods that lay around narrow gulfs of meadow on every side, called and called, as if they had wedded this perfume and all the gold and brown of the wide land. Not the last willow wren in the oak, nor the cooing dove, spoke more melodiously of autumn and repose than the bells. So when I came to the church, under a cavernous beech wood, I paused beneath the low tower and sate in the cool nave.

Parts of the windows were still rich with old colour, the rest might seem to have flown into the woods as the sounds from the genial bells were still flying thither and through the autumn land. The church was the lovely home of the dead of several fair families still living near. A helmet with motionless crest jutted over the nave. Several bright, crude effigies flaunted their crimson and blue in one aisle. The walls were still half covered by paintings of varying clearness.