Among English Hedgerows Author:Clifton Johnson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II A VILLAGE WORTHY IN my stay in Sedleigh I became very well acquainted with the sexton of the established church. He was an old gentleman named Taplow wh... more »o had served twenty years in London as a policeman and was now a pensioner. He had a little house on the other side of the street a short distance from my hotel. One evening when I called I found Mr. Taplow with his elbows on the small table in the centre of his kitchen, reading a circular left by a travelling doctor. He passed the circular to me with the remark that this doctor could cure " about everything but the wagging of a woman's tongue." " I told my wife that," said he, "just before you come in, and it got me into trouble in no time." Mr. Taplow was always getting off some joke of this nature. He was a stout, slow old gentleman with aged blue eyes, a soggy nose, and a bald head fringed round the edges with wisps of gray hair. His broadface was framed with a semicircle of beard growing in a thin line far back under his chin. He laughed a great deal, and when he laughed, he laughed all over. It was an eruptive, wheezing, gurgling sort of a laugh that was almost coughing. But he was a different sort of man when performing his duties as sexton at the church. At such times no official could be more staid and solemn. The Taplow kitchen was a mere box of a room with two of the prettiest windows imaginable. One was very wide and deep, with dainty square panes, and the broad sill was set full of plants. The other window was only less pretty because it was smaller. At one side of the room was a dresser full of old fashioned dishes, and next it a tall clock; and with the numerous other furnishings, the little room was very much crowded. From a black beam which crossed the ceiling was suspended a row of ten larg...« less