O doubt not but I told him then,
I told him then,
That I had kept me from all men
Since we joined lips and swore.
Whereat he smiled, and thinned away
As the wind stirred to call up day . . .
—’Tis past! And here alone I stray
Haunting the Western Moor.
NOTES.—“Windwhistle” (Stanza iv.). The highness and dryness of
Windwhistle Inn was impressed upon the writer two or three years ago,
when, after climbing on a hot afternoon to the beautiful spot near which
it stands and entering the inn for tea, he was informed by the landlady
that none could be had, unless he would fetch water from a valley half a
mile off, the house containing not a drop, owing to its situation.
However, a tantalizing row of full barrels behind her back testified to a
wetness of a certain sort, which was not at that time desired.
“Marshal’s Elm” (Stanza vi.) so picturesquely situated, is no longer an
inn, though the house, or part of it, still remains. It used to exhibit
a fine old swinging sign.
“Blue Jimmy” (Stanza x.) was a notorious horse-stealer of Wessex in those
days, who appropriated more than a hundred horses before he was caught,
among others one belonging to a neighbour of the writer’s grandfather.
He was hanged at the now demolished Ivel-chester or Ilchester jail above
mentioned—that building formerly of so many sinister associations in the
minds of the local peasantry, and the continual haunt of fever, which at
last led to its condemnation. Its site is now an innocent-looking green
meadow.
_April_ 1902.