To their left, keeping watch over the graves which encircled it, rose the fourteenth-century church; amid the trees around it rooks were cawing and wheeling; and close beneath it huddled other cottages, ivy-grown, about the village well.

Afternoon school was just over, and the children were skipping and running about the streets.
Through the cottage doors could be seen occasionally the gleam of a fire or a white cloth spread for tea.

For the womenfolk, at least, tea was the great meal of the day in Beechcote.

So that what with the flickering of the fires, and the sunset light on the windows, the skipping children, the dogs, the tea-tables, and the rooks, Beechcote wore a cheerful and idyllic air.

But Mrs.Roughsedge knew too much about these cottages.