Читать книгу Neighbourhood: A year's life in and about an English village онлайн

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All the oldest houses in Windlecombe are gathered round the village green. Here, amidst its thicket of live-oak and yew, the church tower rears its bluff grey stones against the sky, its clock-face with the one gilded hour-hand (minutes are of no account in Windlecombe) turned to catch the last light of evening. The parsonage, the village shop, the forge and wheelwright’s yard, a dozen or more of ivy-smothered tenements, stand at easy intervals round the oblong of the green. There is the little sweetstuff shop at the far corner, side by side with the cobbler’s den; and, beyond them, the inn juts boldly out half across the roadway, silhouetting its sign against the distant, bright patch of river which flows at the foot of the hill.

I often wonder how other villages get on without a green. In Windlecombe all the life of the place seems to culminate here. On summer evenings every one drifts this way at some time or other for a quiet stroll, or a chat with friends on the seats under the ‘Seven Sisters,’ a group of gnarled Scotch pines almost in the centre of the green.