But after all, if we would find the old life of England in which have been reared the generations of men who have spread over the whole world making the Empire and its commerce, we must go not only outside London, but outside even the market and fishing towns into the rural country.
10.
A Country Road, Saintbury.
Here is a road running past a farmhouse and cottages, with a flock of geese in the foreground which are being reared for food in the winter.
11.
A Village Street.
12.
Village Church and School.
And here we enter a village, with its church visible up the street. A village differs from a town in having no weekly market. It has fewer shops, and is generally smaller. It is the place where the labourers live who work on the surrounding farms. In its centre three buildings generally stand near together. There is the church, not infrequently several centuries old, and round the church is the churchyard with the graves of twenty generations of the past villagers. Then there is the school, and thirdly, there is the house of the clergyman. These are the little institutions found in each of the several thousand villages which are scattered at intervals of a mile or two over the whole of the British Isles. Some of them contain two or three hundred inhabitants, and some of them a thousand or twelve hundred.
13.
Stoke Poges Church.
Here is another village church, with a pointed spire instead of a blunt tower. It is clothed, as you see, with creepers, and around are the tombstones in the graveyard. There are generally bells in the towers and spires of these country churches. On a bright Sunday morning, when labour has ceased and the people take their weekly rest, these bells ring merrily through all the green country summoning the people, rich and poor, to assemble in the church for the worship of God.
14.
Cottages, Bisham, Berks.