Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: is a village of surprises. Opposite the " Queen's Head," on the Chester-road, about a mile and a-half from Weedon, you descend at right angles with the maiil road. The descent is rapid; banks and tall trees fence it in on either side. Within a few hundred yards, you come to a cluster of fine lofty elms, and, turning short to the left, you ascend a gravelled path, which brings you to the churchyard. Crossing the churchyard diagonally towards the North-West comer, you see beneath you, on the right, the Vicarage, a tall mansion of the last century, and, East of it, a smaller, but still rather large, building, dating from about the beginning of the 17th century. It is long and low, with a deep porch in the centre of the same height as the building, and having rooms above it. Venerable evergreens tower up in the South-Western angle; climbing plants clothe and adorn its walls; and a spacious sweep of grassy lawn lies fair before it. It is now a farm-house, occupied by Mr. Thomas Russell, and looks as if it were well cared for, and not subjected to the fancies of innovation. The original door is still beneath the porch. Leaving the churchyard by the corner gate already mentioned, you enter a path fenced in by tall hedges, and rapidly descending. It emerges, to your surprise, upon a gravelled space, where a skittle board let into the ground indicates the neighbourhood of an inn. Before you, a couple of willows stand upon the bank of a brook which runs rapidly past, and beneath a wooden foot bridge, rounding the corner eastward. Just to the right is the corner of a very rustic hostdrie, and at its right angle swings its sign—" The Swan."Even if the month were not August, and the sunshine not hot upon your back, and your walk had not been a longish one, you might be tempted to enter...