Publisher's Synopsis
The village of Monnycrofts, in Derbyshire, may be said to be a distinguished village, for though it is not a city set on a hill, it is a village set on a hill. It may be seen far and wide with its cluster of red brick houses, and its tall gray-stone church steeple, which has weathered the winds of many a century. The distant traveller observes its green upward sloping fields, well embellished by hedgerow trees, and its clumps of trees springing up amongst its scenes, and half hiding them, and says to himself as he trots along, "a pleasant look-out must that hamlet have." And he is right; it has a very pleasant look-out for miles and miles on three sides of it; the fourth is closed by the shoulder of the hill, and the woods and plantations of old Squire Flaggimore. On another hill some half-mile to the left of the village, as you ascend the road to it, stands a windmill, which with its active sails always seems to be beckoning everybody from the country round to come up and see something wonderful.
