II

The village itself runs, more or less, On the sinuous line of a letter S, Twining its little houses through The twists of the street, as our hamlets do,

For no good reason, so far as I know, Save that chance has arranged it so. It's a quaint old ramshackle moss-grown place, Keeping its staid accustomed pace;

Not moved at all by the rush and flurry, The mad tempestuous windy hurry Of the big world tossing in rage and riot, While the village holds to its old-world quiet.

There's a family grocer, a family baker, A family butcher and sausage-maker — A butcher, proud of his craft and willing To admit that his business in life is killing,

Who parades a heart as soft as his meat's tough — There's a little shop for the sale of sweet stuff; There's a maker and mender of boots and shoes Of the sort that the country people use,

Studded with iron and clamped with steel, And stout as a ship from toe to heel, Who announces himself above his entry As “patronised by the leading gentry.”

There's an inn, “The George”; There's a blacksmith's forge, And in the neat little inn's trim garden The old men, each with his own churchwarden,

Bent and grey, but gossipy fellows, Sip their innocent pints of beer, While the anvil-notes ring high and clear To the rushing bass of the mighty bellows.

And thence they look on a cheerful scene As the little ones play on the Village Green, Skipping about With laugh and shout

As if no Darville could ever squire them, And nothing on earth could tame or tire them. On the central point of the pleasant Green The famous stone-walled well is seen

Which has never stinted its ice-cold waters To generations of Cragwell's daughters. No matter how long the rain might fail There was always enough for can and pail —

Enough for them and enough to lend To the dried-out rivals of Cragwell End. An army might have been sent to raise Enough for a thousand washing days

Crowded and crammed together in one day, One vast soap-sudded and wash-tubbed Monday, And, however fast they might wind the winch, The water would n't have sunk an inch.

For the legend runs that Crag the Saint, At the high noon-tide of a summer's day, Thirsty, spent with his toil and faint, To the site of the well once made his way,

And there he saw a delightful rill And sat beside it and drank his fill, Drank of the rill and found it good, Sitting at ease on a block of wood,

And blessed the place, and thenceforth never The waters have ceased but they run for ever. They burnt St. Crag, so the stories say, And his ashes cast on the winds away,

But the well survives, and the block of wood Stands — nay, stood where it always stood, And still was the village's pride and glory On the day of which I shall tell my story.

Gnarled and knotty and weather-stained, Battered and cracked, it still remained; And thither came, Footsore and lame,

On an autumn evening a year ago The wandering pedlar, Gipsy Joe. Beside the block he stood and set His table out on the well-stones wet.

“Who'll buy? Who'll buy?” was the call he cried As the folk came flocking from every side; For they knew their Gipsy Joe of old, His free wild words and his laughter bold:

So high and low all gathered together By the village well in the autumn weather, Lured by the gipsy's bargain-chatter And the reckless lilt of his hare-brained patter.

And there the Revd. Salvyn Bent, The parish church's ornament, Stood, as it chanced, in discontent, And eyed with a look that was almost sinister

The Revd. Joshua Fall, the minister. And the Squire, it happened, was riding by, With an angry look in his bloodshot eye, Growling, as was his wont, and grunting

At the wasted toil of a bad day's hunting; And he stopped his horse on its homeward way To hear what the gipsy had to say.