Fire in the Thatch by Edith Caroline Rivett

Just as Anne St Cyres shut the door of the wood-shed and ran over the frosty cobbles towards Michael, a very old car drew up in the lane outside the gate of Little Thatch, and the driver got out and stood by the gate, looking at the neglected garden. He was a big fellow, over six feet tall, with such broad shoulders that his height seemed less than it was. He stood with his arms folded on the gate and stared thoughtfully at Little Thatch. The house was a long, low building—more spacious than the usual Devonshire cottage. None of its corners was a right angle, none of its walls quite vertical. The ancient cob walls seemed to crouch a little, their curves denoting strength, not weakness: the thatch over the long roof seemed like a blanket, comfortably overhanging the walls in deep eaves which cast lilac shadows on the rose and ochre of the freshly washed walls. The long, low sturdy house pleased the observer at the gate: (Anne St Cyres said later that the man resembled the house, because his heavy powerful shoulders reminded her of the thick cob walls of Little Thatch). He noted the excellent condition of the thatch, with its comely patterned ridge and plaited “dollies” at the gable ends, the tall sturdy brick chimneys bestriding the thatch, and the stonework showing through the colour wash in the squat buttress at one end. An old house but a worthy one, he meditated, thick walled, deep thatched, with good mullioned windows all facing south. To the north towards the lane, the house presented a dead wall without a window in it, an inscrutable uneven solid wall, squatting beneath its thatch, as though to snub an inquisitive observer.

When Colonel St Cyres first saw Nicholas Vaughan leaning patiently on the gate of Little Thatch, the older man said to himself, “Fine big chap: he ought to be able to dig. Shoulders like a bull...”