A rough causeway ran along the foot of the walls, connecting the doors in the different blocks.

Of these, the kitchen door for the most part stood open: sometimes the snow would be coming fast down the wide chimney, with little soft hisses in the fire, and the business of the house going on without a thought of closing it, though from it you could not have seen across the yard for the falling flakes.
But when my story opens, the summer held the old house and the older hills in its embrace.

The sun was pouring torrents of light and heat into the valley, and the slopes of it were covered with green.

The bees were about, contenting themselves with the flowers, while the heather was getting ready its bloom for them, and a boy of fourteen was sitting in a little garden that lay like a dropped belt of beauty about the feet of the grim old walls.

This was on the other side--that to the south, parting the house from the slope where the corn began--now with the ear half-formed.