This difficulty in the water supply, together with two other odd

facts, namely, that the chief graveyard slopes up as steeply as a

roof behind the church, and that in former times the town passed

through a curious period of corruption, conventual and domestic, gave

rise to the saying that Shaston was remarkable for three consolations

to man, such as the world afforded not elsewhere. It was a place

where the churchyard lay nearer heaven than the church steeple, where

beer was more plentiful than water, and where there were more wanton

women than honest wives and maids. It is also said that after the

Middle Ages the inhabitants were too poor to pay their priests,

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and hence were compelled to pull down their churches, and refrain

altogether from the public worship of God; a necessity which they

bemoaned over their cups in the settles of their inns on Sunday

afternoons. In those days the Shastonians were apparently not

without a sense of humour.

There was another peculiarity--this a modern one--which Shaston

appeared to owe to its site. It was the resting-place and

headquarters of the proprietors of wandering vans, shows,

shooting-galleries, and other itinerant concerns, whose business

lay largely at fairs and markets. As strange wild birds are seen

assembled on some lofty promontory, meditatively pausing for longer

flights, or to return by the course they followed thither, so here,

in this cliff-town, stood in stultified silence the yellow and green

caravans bearing names not local, as if surprised by a change in the

landscape so violent as to hinder their further progress; and here

they usually remained all the winter till they turned to seek again

their old tracks in the following spring.

It was to this breezy and whimsical spot that Jude ascended from the

nearest station for the first time in his life about four o'clock one

afternoon, and entering on the summit of the peak after a toilsome

climb, passed the first houses of the aerial town; and drew towards

the school-house. The hour was too early; the pupils were still in

school, humming small, like a swarm of gnats; and he withdrew a few

steps along Abbey Walk, whence he regarded the spot which fate had

made the home of all he loved best in the world. In front of the

schools, which were extensive and stone-built, grew two enormous

beeches with smooth mouse-coloured trunks, as such trees will only

grow on chalk uplands. Within the mullioned and transomed windows he

could see the black, brown, and flaxen crowns of the scholars over

the sills, and to pass the time away he walked down to the level

terrace where the abbey gardens once had spread, his heart throbbing

in spite of him.




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