The weather too was against us; a grey
hard sky, like the slate roofs, and a cold strong east wind to
make the road dusty all day long.
Arrived at Three Mile Cross, it was no surprise to find it no
longer recognizable as the hamlet described in Our Village,
but it was saddening to look at the cottage in which Mary
Russell Mitford lived and was on the whole very happy with her
flowers and work for thirty years of her life, in its present
degraded state. It has a sign now and calls itself the
"Mitford Arms" and a "Temperance Hotel," and we were told that
you could get tea and bread and butter there but nothing else.
The cottage has been much altered since Miss Mitford's time,
and the open space once occupied by the beloved garden is now
filled with buildings, including a corrugated-iron dissenting
chapel.
From Three Mile Cross we walked on to Swallowfield, still by
those never-ending roadside red-brick cottages and villas, for
we were not yet properly out of the hated biscuit metropolis.
It was a big village with the houses scattered far and wide
over several square miles of country, but just where the
church stands it is shady and pleasant. The pretty church
yard too is very deeply shaded and occupies a small hill with
the Loddon flowing partly round it, then taking its swift way
through the village. Miss Mitford's monument is a plain,
almost an ugly, granite cross, standing close to the wall,
shaded by yew, elm, and beech trees, and one is grateful to
think that if she never had her reward when living she has
found at any rate a very peaceful resting-place.
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