was very
strong and active of body; he had delighted in seeing the places he
had passed through, the churches and the towns and the castles that
lay beside the way; he had been pleased with the simple friendly inns,
and as his custom was had talked with all travellers that he met. And
most of all he had loved, as he drew nearer the West, to see the great
green slopes of hills, the black heads of mountains, the steep wooded
valleys, where the road lay along streams, that dashed among mossy
boulders into still pools.

At last he came to the village which he sought, which lay with its
grey church and low stone houses by a bridge, in a deep valley. The
vicarage lay a little apart in a pleasant garden; and his friend the
Vicar had made him greatly welcome. The Vicar was an old man and
somewhat infirm, but he loved the quiet life of the country, and knew
all the joys and sorrows of his simple flock. A large chamber was set
apart for Gilbert, who ranged his books on a great table, and prepared
for much quiet work. The window of the chamber looked down the valley,
which was very still. There was no pattering of feet in the road, as
there was at Cambridge; the only sounds were the crying of cocks or
the bleating of sheep from the hill-pastures, the sound of the wind in
the woods, and the falling of water from the hills. So Gilbert was
well content.

For the first few days he was somewhat restless; he explored the
valley in all directions. The Vicar could not walk much, and only
crept to and fro in the town, or to church; and though he sometimes
rode to the hills, to see sick folk on upland farms, yet he told
Gilbert that he must go his walks alone; and Gilbert was not loth; for
as he thus went by himself in the fresh air, a stream of pleasant
fancies and gentle thoughts passed lightly through his head, and his
work shaped itself in his brain, like a valley seen from a height,
where the fields and farms lie out, as if on a map, with the road
winding among them that ties them with the world.

One day Gilbert walked alone to a very solitary place among the
hills, a valley where the woods grew thickly; the valley was an
estuary, where the sea came up blue and fresh twice in the day,
covering the wide sandbanks with still water that reflected the face
of the sky; in the midst of the valley, joined with the hillside by a
chain of low mounds, there rose a large round hill, covered with
bushes which grew thickly over the slopes, an