Puck of Pook's Hill: Ch. 9: Dymchurch Flit

Ch. 9: Dymchurch Flit

The Bee Boy's Song

Bees!  Bees!  Hark to your bees!
'Hide from your neighbours as much as you please,
But all that has happened, to us you must tell,
Or else we will give you no honey to sell!'
A Maiden in her glory,
Upon her wedding-day,
Must tell her Bees the story,
Or else they'll fly away.
Fly away - die away -
Dwindle down and leave you!
But if you don't deceive your Bees,
Your Bees will not deceive you.
Marriage, birth or buryin',
News across the seas,
All you're sad or merry in,
You must tell the Bees.
Tell 'em coming in an' out,
Where the Fanners fan,
'Cause the Bees are justabout
As curious as a man!
Don't you wait where trees are,
When the lightnings play;
Nor don't you hate where Bees are,
Or else they'll pine away.
Pine away - dwine away -
Anything to leave you!
But if you never grieve your Bees,
Your Bees'll never grieve you!
just at dusk, a soft September rain began to fall on the
hop-pickers.  The mothers wheeled the bouncing perambulators
out of the gardens; bins were put away, and
tally-books made up.  The young couples strolled home,
two to each umbrella, and the single men walked behind
them laughing.  Dan and Una, who had been picking
after their lessons, marched off to roast potatoes at the
oast-house, where old Hobden, with Blue-eyed Bess, his
lurcher dog, lived all the month through, drying the hops.
They settled themselves, as usual, on the sack-strewn
cot in front of the fires, and, when Hobden drew up the
shutter, stared, as usual, at the flameless bed of coals
spouting its heat up the dark well of the old-fashioned
roundel.  Slowly he cracked off a few fresh pieces of coal,
packed them, with fingers that never flinched, exactly
where they would do most good; slowly he reached
behind him till Dan tilted the potatoes into his iron scoop
of a hand; carefully he arranged them round the fire, and
then stood for a moment, black against the glare.  As he
closed the shutter, the oast-house seemed dark before
the day's end, and he lit the candle in the lanthorn.  The
children liked all these things because they knew them so well.
The Bee Boy, Hobden's son, who is not quite right in
his head, though he can do anything with bees, slipped
in like a shadow.  They only guessed it when Bess's
stump-tail wagged against them.
A big voice began singing outside in the drizzle:
     'Old Mother Laidinwool had nigh twelve months been dead,
     She heard the hops were doin' well, and then popped up her head.'
'There can't be two people made to holler like that!'
cried old Hobden, wheeling round.
     'For, says she, "The boys I've picked with when I was young and fair,
     They're bound to be at hoppin', and I'm -'
A man showed at the doorway.
'Well, well!  They do say hoppin' 'll draw the very
deadest, and now I belieft 'em.  You, Tom?  Tom Shoesmith?'
Hobden lowered his lanthorn.
'You're a hem of a time makin' your mind to it, Ralph!'
The stranger strode in - three full inches taller than
Hobden, a grey-whiskered, brown-faced giant with clear
blue eyes.  They shook hands, and the children could
hear the hard palms rasp together.
'You ain't lost none o' your grip,' said Hobden.  'Was it
thirty or forty year back you broke my head at Peasmarsh Fair?'
'Only thirty, an' no odds 'tween us regardin' heads,
neither.  You had it back at me with a hop-pole.  How did
we get home that night?  Swimmin'?'
'Same way the pheasant come into Gubbs's pocket - by
a little luck an' a deal o' conjurin'.'  Old Hobden laughed
in his deep chest.
see you've not forgot your way about the woods.
D'ye do any o' this still?'  The stranger pretended to look
along a gun.
Hobden answered with a quick movement of the hand
as though he were pegging down a rabbit-wire.
'No.  That's all that's left me now.  Age she must as
Age she can.  An' what's your news since all these years?'
     'Oh, I've bin to Plymouth, I've bin to Dover -
     I've bin ramblin', boys, the wide world over,'
the man answered cheerily.  'I reckon I know as much of
Old England as most.'  He turned towards the children
and winked boldly.
'I lay they told you a sight o' lies, then.  I've been into
England fur as Wiltsheer once.  I was cheated proper over
a pair of hedgin'-gloves,' said Hobden.
'There's fancy-talkin' everywhere.  You've cleaved to
your own parts pretty middlin' close, Ralph.'
'Can't shift an old tree 'thout it dyin',' Hobden
chuckled.  'An' I be no more anxious to die than you look
to be to help me with my hops tonight.'
The great man leaned against the brickwork of the
roundel, and swung his arms abroad.  'Hire me!' was all
he said, and they stumped upstairs laughing.
The children heard their shovels rasp on the cloth
where the yellow hops lie drying above the fires, and all
the oast-house filled with the sweet, sleepy smell as they
were turned.
'Who is it?' Una whispered to the Bee Boy.
'Dunno, no more'n you - if you dunno,' said he, and smiled.
The voices on the drying-floor talked and chuckled
together, and the heavy footsteps moved back and forth.
Presently a hop-pocket dropped through the press-hole
overhead, and stiffened and fattened as they shovelled it
full.  'Clank!' went the press, and rammed the loose stuff
into tight cake.
'Gentle!' they heard Hobden cry.  'You'll bust her crop
if you lay on so.  You be as careless as Gleason's bull,
Tom.  Come an' sit by the fires.  She'll do now.'
They came down, and as Hobden opened the shutter
to see if the potatoes were done Tom Shoesmith said to
the children, 'Put a plenty salt on 'em.  That'll show you
the sort o' man I be.'Again he winked, and again the Bee
Boy laughed and Una stared at Dan.
'I know what sort o' man you be,'old Hobden grunted,
groping for the potatoes round the fire.
'Do ye?' Tom went on behind his back.  'Some of us
can't abide Horseshoes, or Church Bells, or Running
Water; an', talkin' o' runnin' water' - he turned to
Hobden, who was backing out of the roundel - 'd'you
mind the great floods at Robertsbridge, when the miller's
man was drowned in the street?'
'Middlin' well.'  Old Hobden let himself down on the
coals by the fire-door.  'I was courtin' my woman on the
Marsh that year.  Carter to Mus' Plum I was, gettin' ten
shillin's week.  Mine was a Marsh woman.'
'Won'erful odd-gates place - Romney Marsh,' said
Tom Shoesmith.  'I've heard say the world's divided
like into Europe, Ashy, Afriky, Ameriky, Australy, an'
Romney Marsh.'
'The Marsh folk think so,' said Hobden.  'I had a hem o'
trouble to get my woman to leave it.'
'Where did she come out of?  I've forgot, Ralph.'
'Dymchurch under the Wall,' Hobden answered, a
potato in his hand.
'Then she'd be a Pett - or a Whitgift, would she?'
'Whitgift.'  Hobden broke open the potato and ate it
with the curious neatness of men who make most of
their meals in the blowy open.  'She growed to be quite
reasonable-like after livin' in the Weald awhile, but our
first twenty year or two she was odd-fashioned, no
bounds.  And she was a won'erful hand with bees.'  He
cut away a little piece of potato and threw it out to the door.
'Ah!  I've heard say the Whitgifts could see further
through a millstone than most,' said Shoesmith.  'Did
she, now?'
'She was honest-innocent of any nigromancin',' said
Hobden.  'Only she'd read signs and sinnifications out o'
birds flyin', stars fallin', bees hivin', and such.  An, she'd
lie awake - listenin' for calls, she said.'
'That don't prove naught,' said Tom.  'All Marsh folk
has been smugglers since time everlastin'.  'Twould be in
her blood to listen out o' nights.'
'Nature-ally,' old Hobden replied, smiling.  'I mind
when there was smugglin' a sight nearer us than what
the Marsh be.  But that wasn't my woman's trouble.
'Twas a passel o' no-sense talk' - he dropped his voice -
'about Pharisees.'
'Yes.  I've heard Marsh men belieft in 'em.'Tom looked
straight at the wide-eyed children beside Bess.
'Pharisees,' cried Una.  'Fairies?  Oh, I see!'
'People o' the Hills,' said the Bee Boy, throwing half of
his potato towards the door.
'There you be!' said Hobden, pointing at him.  My boy
- he has her eyes and her out-gate sense.  That's what she
called 'em!'
'And what did you think of it all?'
'Um - um,' Hobden rumbled.  'A man that uses fields
an' shaws after dark as much as I've done, he don't go out
of his road excep' for keepers.'
'But settin' that aside?' said Tom, coaxingly.  'I saw ye
throw the Good Piece out-at-doors just now.  Do ye
believe or - do ye?'
'There was a great black eye to that tater,' said
Hobden indignantly.
'My liddle eye didn't see un, then.  It looked as if you
meant it for - for Any One that might need it.  But settin'
that aside, d'ye believe or - do ye?'
'I ain't sayin' nothin', because I've heard naught, an'
I've see naught.  But if you was to say there was more
things after dark in the shaws than men, or fur, or
feather, or fin, I dunno as I'd go far about to call you a liar.
Now turn again, Tom.  What's your say?'
'I'm like you.  I say nothin'.  But I'll tell you a tale, an'
you can fit it as how you please.'
'Passel o' no-sense stuff,' growled Hobden, but he
filled his pipe.
'The Marsh men they call it Dymchurch Flit,'Tom went
on slowly.  'Hap you have heard it?'
'My woman she've told it me scores o' times.  Dunno as
I didn't end by belieftin' it - sometimes.
Hobden crossed over as he spoke, and sucked with his
pipe at the yellow lanthorn flame.  Tom rested one great
elbow on one great knee, where he sat among the coal.
'Have you ever bin in the Marsh?' he said to Dan.
'Only as far as Rye, once,' Dan answered.
'Ah, that's but the edge.  Back behind of her there's
steeples settin' beside churches, an' wise women settin'
beside their doors, an' the sea settin' above the land, an'
ducks herdin' wild in the diks' (he meant ditches).  'The
Marsh is justabout riddled with diks an' sluices, an'
tide-gates an' water-lets.  You can hear 'em bubblin' an'
grummelin' when the tide works in 'em, an' then you
hear the sea rangin' left and right-handed all up along the
Wall.  You've seen how flat she is - the Marsh?  You'd
think nothin' easier than to walk eend-on acrost her?  Ah,
but the diks an' the water-lets, they twists the roads
about as ravelly as witch-yarn on the spindles.  So ye get
all turned round in broad daylight.'
'That's because they've dreened the waters into the
diks,' said Hobden.  'When I courted my woman the
rushes was green - Eh me!  the rushes was green - an' the
Bailiff o' the Marshes he rode up and down as free as the fog.'
'Who was he?' said Dan.
'Why, the Marsh fever an' ague.  He've clapped me on
the shoulder once or twice till I shook proper.  But now
the dreenin' off of the waters have done away with the
fevers; so they make a joke, like, that the Bailiff o' the
Marshes broke his neck in a dik.  A won'erful place for
bees an' ducks 'tis too.'
'An' old,' Tom went on.  'Flesh an' Blood have been
there since Time Everlastin' Beyond.  Well, now, speakin'
among themselves, the Marsh men say that from Time
Everlastin' Beyond, the Pharisees favoured the Marsh
above the rest of Old England.  I lay the Marsh men ought
to know.  They've been out after dark, father an' son,
smugglin' some one thing or t'other, since ever wool
grew to sheep's backs.  They say there was always a
middlin' few Pharisees to be seen on the Marsh.
Impident as rabbits, they was.  They'd dance on the
nakid roads in the nakid daytime; they'd flash their liddle
green lights along the diks, comin' an' goin', like honest
smugglers.  Yes, an' times they'd lock the church doors
against parson an' clerk of Sundays.'
'That 'ud be smugglers layin' in the lace or the brandy
till they could run it out o' the Marsh.  I've told my woman
so,' said Hobden.
'I'll lay she didn't belieft it, then - not if she was a
Whitgift.  A won'erful choice place for Pharisees, the
Marsh, by all accounts, till Queen Bess's father he come
in with his Reformatories.'
'Would that be a Act of Parliament like?' Hobden asked.
'Sure-ly.  Can't do nothing in Old England without Act,
Warrant an' Summons.  He got his Act allowed him,
an', they say, Queen Bess's father he used the parish
churches something shameful.  justabout tore the gizzards
out of I dunnamany.  Some folk in England they
held with 'en; but some they saw it different, an' it
eended in 'em takin' sides an' burnin' each other no
bounds, accordin' which side was top, time bein'.  That
tarrified the Pharisees:  for Goodwill among Flesh an'
Blood is meat an' drink to 'em, an' ill-will is poison.'
'Same as bees,' said the Bee Boy.  'Bees won't stay by a
house where there's hating.'
'True,' said Tom.  'This Reformatories tarrified the
Pharisees same as the reaper goin' round a last stand o'
wheat tarrifies rabbits.  They packed into the Marsh from
all parts, and they says, "Fair or foul, we must flit out o'
this, for Merry England's done with, an' we're reckoned
among the Images."'
'Did they all see it that way?' said Hobden.
'All but one that was called Robin - if you've heard of
him.  What are you laughin' at?'Tom turned to Dan.  'The
Pharisees's trouble didn't tech Robin, because he'd
cleaved middlin' close to people, like.  No more he never
meant to go out of Old England - not he; so he was sent
messagin' for help among Flesh an' Blood.  But Flesh an'
Blood must always think of their own concerns, an'
Robin couldn't get through at 'em, ye see .  They thought it
was tide-echoes off the Marsh.'
'What did you - what did the fai - Pharisees want?'
Una asked.
'A boat, to be sure.  Their liddle wings could no more
cross Channel than so many tired butterflies.  A boat an' a
crew they desired to sail 'em over to France, where yet
awhile folks hadn't tore down the Images.  They couldn't
abide cruel Canterbury Bells ringin' to Bulverhithe for
more pore men an' women to be burnded, nor the King's
proud messenger ridin' through the land givin' orders to
tear down the Images.  They couldn't abide it no shape.
Nor yet they couldn't get their boat an' crew to flit by
without Leave an' Good-will from Flesh an' Blood; an'
Flesh an' Blood came an' went about its own business the
while the Marsh was swarvin' up, an' swarvin' up with
Pharisees from all England over, strivin' all means to get
through at Flesh an' Blood to tell 'em their sore need ...  I
don't know as you've ever heard say Pharisees are like chickens?'
'My woman used to say that too,'said Hobden, folding
his brown arms.
'They be.  You run too many chickens together, an' the
ground sickens, like, an' you get a squat, an' your chickens
die.  Same way, you crowd Pharisees all in one place -
they don't die, but Flesh an' Blood walkin' among 'em is
apt to sick up an' pine off.  They don't mean it, an' Flesh
an' Blood don't know it, but that's the truth - as I've
heard.  The Pharisees through bein' all stenched up an'
frighted, an' trying' to come through with their
supplications, they nature-ally changed the thin airs an'
humours in Flesh an' Blood.  It lay on the Marsh like
thunder.  Men saw their churches ablaze with the wildfire
in the windows after dark; they saw their cattle scatterin'
an' no man scarin'; their sheep flockin' an' no man
drivin'; their horses latherin' an' no man leadin'; they
saw the liddle low green lights more than ever in the
dik-sides; they heard the liddle feet patterin' more than
ever round the houses; an' night an' day, day an' night,
'twas all as though they were bein' creeped up on, an'
hinted at by Some One or other that couldn't rightly
shape their trouble.  Oh, I lay they sweated!  Man an'
maid, woman an' child, their nature done 'em no service
all the weeks while the Marsh was swarvin' up with
Pharisees.  But they was Flesh an' Blood, an' Marsh men
before all.  They reckoned the signs sinnified trouble for
the Marsh.  Or that the sea 'ud rear up against Dymchurch
Wall an' they'd be drownded like Old Winchelsea;
or that the Plague was comin'.  So they looked for
the meanin' in the sea or in the clouds - far an' high up.
They never thought to look near an' knee-high, where
they could see naught.
'Now there was a poor widow at Dymchurch under the
Wall, which, lacking man or property, she had the more
time for feeling; and she come to feel there was a Trouble
outside her doorstep bigger an' heavier than aught she'd
ever carried over it.  She had two sons - one born blind,
an' t'other struck dumb through fallin' off the Wall when
he was liddle.  They was men grown, but not wage-
earnin', an' she worked for 'em, keepin' bees and
answerin' Questions.'
'What sort of questions?' said Dan.
'Like where lost things might be found, an' what to put
about a crooked baby's neck, an' how to join parted
sweethearts.  She felt the Trouble on the Marsh same as
eels feel thunder.  She was a wise woman.'
'My woman was won'erful weather-tender, too,' said
Hobden.  'I've seen her brish sparks like off an anvil out of
her hair in thunderstorms.  But she never laid out to
answer Questions.'
'This woman was a Seeker, like, an' Seekers they
sometimes find.  One night, while she lay abed, hot an'
achin', there come a Dream an' tapped at her window,
an' "Widow Whitgift," it said, "Widow Whitgift!"
'First, by the wings an' the whistlin', she thought it was
peewits, but last she arose an' dressed herself, an'
opened her door to the Marsh, an' she felt the Trouble an'
the Groanin' all about her, strong as fever an' ague, an'
she calls:  "What is it?  Oh, what is it?"
'Then 'twas all like the frogs in the diks peepin'; then
'twas all like the reeds in the diks clip-clappin'; an' then
the great Tide-wave rummelled along the Wall, an' she
couldn't hear proper.
'Three times she called, an' three times the Tide-wave
did her down.  But she catched the quiet between, an' she
cries out, "What is the Trouble on the Marsh that's been
lying down with my heart an' arising with my body this
month gone?"  She felt a liddle hand lay hold on her
gown-hem, an' she stooped to the pull o' that liddle hand.'
Tom Shoesmith spread his huge fist before the fire and
smiled at it as he went on.
"'Will the sea drown the Marsh?" she says.  She was a
Marsh woman first an' foremost.
"'No," says the liddle voice.  "Sleep sound for all o' that."
"'Is the Plague comin' to the Marsh?" she says.  Them
was all the ills she knowed.
"'No.  Sleep sound for all o' that," says Robin.
'She turned about, half mindful to go in, but the liddle
voices grieved that shrill an' sorrowful she turns back, an'
she cries:  "If it is not a Trouble of Flesh an' Blood, what
can I do?"
'The Pharisees cried out upon her from all round to
fetch them a boat to sail to France, an' come back no more.
"'There's a boat on the Wall," she says, "but I can't
push it down to the sea, nor sail it when 'tis there."
"'Lend us your sons," says all the Pharisees.  "Give
'em Leave an' Good-will to sail it for us, Mother - O Mother!"
"'One's dumb, an' t'other's blind," she says.  "But all
the dearer me for that; and you'll lose them in the big sea.  "
The voices justabout pierced through her; an' there was
children's voices too.  She stood out all she could, but she
couldn't rightly stand against that.  So she says:  "If you
can draw my sons for your job, I'D not hinder 'em.  You
can't ask no more of a Mother."
'She saw them liddle green lights dance an' cross till
she was dizzy; she heard them liddle feet patterin' by the
thousand; she heard cruel Canterbury Bells ringing to
Bulverhithe, an' she heard the great Tide-wave ranging
along the Wall.  That was while the Pharisees was workin'
a Dream to wake her two sons asleep:  an' while she bit on
her fingers she saw them two she'd bore come out an'
pass her with never a word.  She followed 'em, cryin'
pitiful, to the old boat on the Wall, an' that they took an'
runned down to the sea.
'When they'd stepped mast an' sail the blind son
speaks:  "Mother, we're waitin' your Leave an' Good-will
to take Them over."'
Tom Shoesmith threw back his head and half shut his eyes.
'Eh, me!' he said.  'She was a fine, valiant woman, the
Widow Whitgift.  She stood twistin' the eends of her long
hair over her fingers, an' she shook like a poplar, makin'
up her mind.  The Pharisees all about they hushed their
children from cryin' an' they waited dumb-still.  She was
all their dependence.  'Thout her Leave an' Good-will
they could not pass; for she was the Mother.  So she shook
like a aps-tree makin' up her mind.  'Last she drives the
word past her teeth, an' "Go!" she says.  "Go with my
Leave an' Goodwill."
'Then I saw - then, they say, she had to brace back
same as if she was wadin' in tide-water; for the Pharisees
just about flowed past her - down the beach to the boat, I
dunnamany of 'em - with their wives an' childern an'
valooables, all escapin' out of cruel Old England.  Silver
you could hear chinkin', an' liddle bundles hove down
dunt on the bottom-boards, an' passels o' liddle swords
an' shields raklin', an' liddle fingers an' toes scratchin' on
the boatside to board her when the two sons pushed her
off.  That boat she sunk lower an' lower, but all the
Widow could see in it was her boys movin' hampered-
like to get at the tackle.  Up sail they did, an' away they
went, deep as a Rye barge, away into the off-shore
mists, an' the Widow Whitgift she sat down an' eased
her grief till mornin' light.'
'I never heard she was all alone,' said Hobden.
'I remember now.  The one called Robin, he stayed with
her, they tell.  She was all too grieevious to listen to his promises.'
'Ah!  She should ha' made her bargain beforehand.  I
allus told my woman so!'Hobden cried.
'No.  She loaned her sons for a pure love-loan, bein' as
she sensed the Trouble on the Marshes, an' was simple
good-willin' to ease it.'  Tom laughed softly.  'She done
that.  Yes, she done that!  From Hithe to Bulverhithe,
fretty man an' maid, ailin' woman an' wailin' child, they
took the advantage of the change in the thin airs just
about as soon as the Pharisees flitted.  Folks come out
fresh an' shinin' all over the Marsh like snails after
wet.  An' that while the Widow Whitgift sat grievin'
on the Wall.  She might have belieft us - she might
have trusted her sons would be sent back!  She
fussed, no bounds, when their boat come in after three days.'
'And, of course, the sons were both quite cured?' said Una.
'No-o.  That would have been out o' nature.  She got 'em
back as she sent 'em.  The blind man he hadn't seen
naught of anythin', an' the dumb man nature-ally he
couldn't say aught of what he'd seen.  I reckon that was
why the Pharisees pitched on 'em for the ferryin' job.'
'But what did you - what did Robin promise the
Widow?' said Dan.
'What did he promise, now?'  Tom pretended to think.
'Wasn't your woman a Whitgift, Ralph?  Didn't she ever say?'
'She told me a passel o' no-sense stuff when he was
born.'  Hobden pointed at his son.  'There was always to
be one of 'em that could see further into a millstone than most.'
'Me!  That's me!'said the Bee Boy so suddenly that they
all laughed.
'I've got it now!' cried Tom, slapping his knee.  'So long
as Whitgift blood lasted, Robin promised there would
allers be one o' her stock that - that no Trouble 'ud lie on,
no Maid 'ud sigh on, no Night could frighten, no Fright
could harm, no Harm could make sin, an' no Woman
could make a fool of.'
'Well, ain't that just me?' said the Bee Boy, where he sat
in the silver square of the great September moon that was
staring into the oast-house door.
'They was the exact words she told me when we first
found he wasn't like others.  But it beats me how you
known 'em,' said Hobden.
'Aha!  There's more under my hat besides hair?'  Tom
laughed and stretched himself.  'When I've seen these
two young folk home, we'll make a night of old days,
Ralph, with passin' old tales - eh?  An' where might
you live?' he said, gravely, to Dan.  'An' do you think
your Pa 'ud give me a drink for takin' you there, Missy?'
They giggled so at this that they had to run out.  Tom
picked them both up, set one on each broad shoulder,
and tramped across the ferny pasture where the cows
puffed milky puffs at them in the moonlight.
'Oh, Puck!  Puck!  I guessed you right from when you
talked about the salt.  How could you ever do it?' Una
cried, swinging along delighted.
'Do what?'he said, and climbed the stile by the pollard oak.
'Pretend to be Tom Shoesmith,' said Dan, and they
ducked to avoid the two little ashes that grow by the
bridge over the brook.  Tom was almost running.
'Yes.  That's my name, Mus' Dan,' he said, hurrying
over the silent shining lawn, where a rabbit sat by the big
white-thorn near the croquet ground.  'Here you be.'  He
strode into the old kitchen yard, and slid them down as
Ellen came to ask questions.
'I'm helping in Mus' Spray's oast-house,' he said to
her.  'No, I'm no foreigner.  I knowed this country 'fore
your mother was born; an' - yes, it's dry work oastin',
Miss.  Thank you.'
Ellen went to get a jug, and the children went in -
magicked once more by Oak, Ash, and Thorn!
A Three-Part Song

I'm just in love with all these three,
The Weald an' the Marsh an' the Down countrie;
Nor I don't know which I love the most,
The Weald or the Marsh or the white chalk coast!
I've buried my heart in a ferny hill,
Twix' a liddle low shaw an' a great high gill.
Oh, hop-bine yaller an' wood-smoke blue,
I reckon you'll keep her middling true!
I've loosed my mind for to out an' run
On a Marsh that was old when Kings begun:
Oh, Romney level an' Brenzett reeds,
I reckon you know what my mind needs!
I've given my soul to the Southdown grass,
An' sheep-bells tinkled where you pass.
Oh, Firle an' Ditchling an' sails at sea,
I reckon you keep my soul for me!

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