The village, built on a primitive plan, consisted of one long, wide street, with a similar one running crosswise to it, so that the little town was divided into four almost equal sections. Where the four roads met appeared a large open space doing duty as the village green, in the centre of which stood an antique stone cross with elaborate carvings thereon, much worn by time, said to have been erected by one Geoffrey Garsworth on his return from the third crusade. As a proof of this, there could be seen amid the carvings, representations of palm branches and scallop shells, both symbolical of eastern vegetation and pilgrim wanderings; but Dr. Larcher, the vicar of Garsworth--an ardent archaeologist--maintained that the cross had been placed there by the Cistercian monks, who once occupied a monastery near the village. The worthy vicar, being of a somewhat polemical nature, was wont to wax warm on the subject, and held strong opinions as to the cross and the church, which opinions he was willing enough to impart to any curious stranger who might chance to have antiquarian leanings. And a beautiful old church it was, of irregular architecture, with heavy stone pillars supporting both round and pointed arches of the Norman Romanesque style, remarkably fine stained glass windows, and a high, elaborately carved roof of dark oak. Standing at the end of the village, near the bridge, the graveyard in which it was placed sloped down to the river's edge, and at times the mighty shadow of the square tower fell across the stream. A little further down was the vicarage, built of grey stone in the quaint Tudor fashion, enclosing a green square on three sides, while the fourth was open to the Gar. From its grounds could be seen the graceful span of the bridge, a somewhat modern structure, which led on to a wide common overgrown with golden gorse, and far away in the distance amid a thick forest of beech and elm and oak, arose the towers of Garsworth Grange, wherein lived the Lord of the Manor.