Nor had she misled me. Great Missenden was close at hand, as she had
said, in the trough of a gentle valley, with many great elms about
it. The smoke from its chimneys went up pleasantly in the afternoon
sunshine. The sleepy hum of a threshing-machine filled the
neighbouring fields and hung about the quaint street corners. A
little above, the church sits well back on its haunches against the
hillside - an attitude for a church, you know, that makes it look as
if it could be ever so much higher if it liked; and the trees grew
about it thickly, so as to make a density of shade in the churchyard.
A very quiet place it looks; and yet I saw many boards and posters
about threatening dire punishment against those who broke the church
windows or defaced the precinct, and offering rewards for the
apprehension of those who had done the like already. It was fair day
in Great Missenden. There were three stalls set up, SUB JOVE, for
the sale of pastry and cheap toys; and a great number of holiday
children thronged about the stalls and noisily invaded every corner
of the straggling village. They came round me by coveys, blowing
simultaneously upon penny trumpets as though they imagined I should
fall to pieces like the battlements of Jericho.
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