All these chances and changes of life, however, occurring to the leading family of the neighbourhood had left very little mark on St. Rest, which drowsed under the light shadow of the eastern hills by its clear flowing river, very much as it had always drowsed in the old days, and very much as it would always do even if London and Paris were consumed by unsuspected volcanoes. The memory of the first 'old Squire,'--who died peacefully in his bed all alone, his wife having passed away two years before him, and his two living twin sons being absent,--was frequently mixed with stories of the other 'old Squire' Robert, the elder twin, who was killed in the hunting field,--and indeed it often happened that some of the more ancient and garrulous villagers were not at all sure as to which was which. The Manor had been shut up for ten years,--the Manor 'family' had not been heard of during all that period, and the tenantry's recollection of their late landlord, as well as of his one daughter, was more vague and confused than authentic. The place had been 'managed' and the cottage rents collected by the detested agent Oliver Leach, a fact which did not sweeten such remembrance of the Vancourts as still existed in the minds of the people.
However, nothing in the general aspect and mental attitude of the village had altered very much since the early thirties, except the church. That from a mere ruin, had under John Walden's incumbency become a gem of architecture, so unique and perfect as to be the wonder and admiration of all who beheld it, and whereas in the early Victorian reign a few people stopped at Riversford because it was a county town and because there was an inn there where they could put up their horses, so a few people now went to St. Rest, because there was a church there worth looking at. They came by train to Riversford, where the railway line stopped, and then took carriage or cycled the seven miles between that town and St. Rest to see the church; and having seen it, promptly went back again. For one of the great charms of the little village hidden under the hills was that no tourist could stay a night in it, unless he or she took one spare room--there was only one--at the small public-house which sneaked away up round a corner of the street under an archway of ivy, and pushed its old gables through the dark enshrouding leaves with a half-surprised, half-propitiatory air, as though somewhat ashamed of its own existence. With the exception of this one room in this one public-house, there was no accommodation for visitors. Never will the rash cyclist who ventured once to appeal to the sexton's wife for rooms in her cottage, forget the brusqueness of his reception: "Rooms!" And Mrs. Frost, setting her arms well akimbo, surveyed the enquirer scornfully through an open doorway, rendered doubly inviting by the wealth of roses clambering round it. "Be off, young man! Where was you a-comin' to? D'ye think a woman wi' fifteen great boys and girls in an' out of the 'ouse all day, 'as rooms for payin' guests!" And here Mrs. Frost, snorting at the air in irrepressible disdain, actually snapped her fingers in her would-be lodger's face. "Rooms indeed! Go to Brighting!"