The path leads through a deep wooded dell; over purple plough-lands; down retired lanes.
After an hour and a quarter of smartish walking, I reach the door.

There are no signs of ravaging children about.

Long, long ago--years before this generation was born--the noisy children went out; some to the church-yard; some, with clamor of wedding-bells, to separate life.

I knock, and after an interval hear the sound of pattens clacking across the flagged floor, and am admitted by an old woman, dried and pickled, by the action of the years, into an active cleanly old mummy, and whose fingers are wrinkled even more than time has done it, by the action of soapsuds.

I am received with the joyful reverence due to my exalted station, am led in, and posted right in front of the little red fire and the singing kettle, and introduced to a very old man, who sits on the settle in the warm chimney-corner, dressed in an ancient smock-frock, and with both knotted hands clasped on the top of an old oak staff.