She told me also how seldom it was that a Catholic could hear mass at Hare Street: sometimes, she said, a priest would lie there, and say mass in the attic; but not very often; and sometimes if a priest were in the neighbourhood they would ride over and hear mass wherever he happened to be.

The house, she said, lay near upon the road, so that they would hear a good deal of news in this way.

But she told me nothing of another matter--for indeed she could not--which distressed her; though I presently guessed it for myself, as will appear in the course of this tale.
My horse, Peter (as I had named him after the Apostle when I bought him at Dover), was pretty weary as we came in sight of the church of Hormead Parva; for I had given him plenty to do while I was in London; and he stumbled three or four times.
"We are nearly home," said my Cousin Dorothy; and pointed with her whip.
"It is pleasant to hear such a word," I said: "for, as for me, I have none." She said nothing to that; and I was a little ashamed to have said it; for nothing is easier than to touch a maid's heart by playing Othello to her Desdemona.
"I have no business to have said that, cousin," I went on presently: "for England is all home to me just now." "I hope you will find it so, cousin," she said.
The country was pretty enough through which we rode; though in no ways wonderful.

It was pasture-land for the most part, with woods here and there; and plenty of hollow ways (all of which were marked upon the map with great accuracy), by which drovers brought their sheep to the highway.

I saw also a good many fields of corn.