The two philosophers, therefore, watched it night and day for
three weeks, and then, getting tired, Bacon ordered his man Myles to
watch, and waken him when it spoke. About half an hour after they had
retired the head spoke, and said, "Time is," but Myles thought it was
too early to tell his master, as he could not have had sleep enough. In
another half-hour the head spoke again, and said, "Time was," but as
everybody knew that, he still did not think fit to waken his master, and
then half an hour afterwards the head said, "Time is past," and fell
down with a tremendous crash that woke the philosophers: but it was now
too late! What happened afterwards, and what became of Myles, we did not
know.
In the neighbouring village of North Hinksey, about a mile across the
meadows, stands the Witches' Elm. Of the Haunted House beside which it
stood hardly even a trace remained, its origin, like its legend,
stretching so far back into the "mists of antiquity" that only the
slenderest threads remained. Most of the villages were owned by the
monks of Abingdon Abbey under a grant of the Saxon King Caedwalla, and
confirmed to them by Caenwulf and Edwig. The Haunted House, like the
Church of Cumnor, was built by the pious monks, and remained in their
possession till the dissolution of the monastery, then passing into the
hands of the Earls of Abingdon.
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