The chimney is a bit of old stove-pipe, scarcely rising
above the top of the hill behind; and, but for the smoke, we could look
down the pipe, as through the tube of a telescope, upon the family
sitting round the hearth within. The thatch, overgrown with moss, appears
as a continuation of the slope of the hill itself, and might almost
deceive the simple sheep grazing around it. Instead of a window there is
only a square hole, covered by a shutter when the light is not urgently
needed; and the door is so much too small for its sill and lintels as to
leave large chinks, through which adventurous bees and beetles may find
their way within. You may see at a glance that there is but one room, and
that there can be no up-stairs to the hut, except that upper storey of
the broad, open common behind it, where the birds sleep softly in their
cosy nests. Before the house is a garden; and beyond that a small field
sown with silver oats, which are dancing and glistening in the breeze and
sunshine; while before the garden wicket, but not enclosed from the
common, is a warm, sunny valley, in the very middle of which a slender
thread of a brook widens into a lovely little basin of a pool, clear and
cold, the very place for the hill ponies to come and drink.
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