“Here,” I said to myself, “is a place where a man might live to be a hundred, undisturbed by the rush and bustle of the Great World.”

That was my feeling then, but since I have come to know it better, and have been permitted an opportunity of seeing for myself something of the inner life of the hamlet, I have discovered that it is only the life of a great city, on a small scale.  There is the same keen competition in trade, with the same jealousies and bickerings.  However, on this peaceful Sunday morning it struck me as being delightful.  There was an old-world quiet about it that was vastly soothing.  The rooks cawed lazily in the elms before the church as if they knew it were Sunday morning and a day of rest.  A dog lay extended in the middle of the road, basking in the sunshine, a thing which he would not have dared to do on a weekday.  Even the little stream that runs under the old stone bridge, which marks the centre of the village, and then winds its tortuous course round the churchyard, through the Squire’s park, and then down the valley on its way to the sea, seemed to flow somewhat more slowly than was its wont.

Feeling just in the humour for a little moralizing, I opened the lych-gate and entered the churchyard.  The congregation were singing the last hymn, the Old Hundredth, if I remember rightly, and the sound of their united voices fitted perfectly into the whole scheme, giving it the one touch that was lacking.  As I strolled along I glanced at the inscriptions on the various tomb-stones, and endeavoured to derive from them some notion of the lives and characters of those whose memories they perpetuated.

“Sacred to the memory of Erasmus Gunning, twenty-seven years Schoolmaster of this Parish.  Born 24th of March, 1806, and rested from his labours on September the 19th, 1876.”  Seating myself on the low wall that surrounded the churchyard, I looked down upon the river, and while so doing, reflected upon Erasmus Gunning.  What had he been like, this knight of the ferrule, who for twenty-seven years acted as pedagogue to this tiny hamlet?  What good had he done in his world?  Had he realized his life’s ambition?  Into many of the congregation now worshipping yonder he must have driven the three R’s, possibly with the assistance of the faithful ferrule aforesaid, yet how many of them gave a thought to his memory!  In this case the assertion that he “rested from his labours” was a trifle ambiguous.  Consigning poor Erasmus to oblivion, I continued my walk.  Presently my eyes caught an inscription that made me halt again.  It was dedicated to the “Loving Memory of William Kitwater, and Susan, his wife.”  I was still looking at it, when I heard a step on the gravel-path behind me, and turning round, I found myself standing face to face with Miss Kitwater.  To use the conventional phrase, church had “come out,” and the congregation was even now making its way down the broad avenue towards the high-road.