We supposed that the happy pair
would have a race to the well, and the one who arrived there first
would ever afterwards play the first fiddle, if that instrument was in
use in the time of St. Keyne. But a story was related of how on one
occasion the better-half triumphed. No sooner had the knot been tied
than the husband ran off as fast as he could to drink of the water at
St. Keyne's Well, leaving his wife in the church. When he got back he
found the lady had been before him, for she had brought a bottle of the
water from the well with her to church, and while the man was running to
the well she had been quietly seated drinking the water in the church
porch!
[Illustration: ST. KEYNE'S WELL.]
The story was told by the victim to a stranger, and the incident was
recorded by Southey in his poem "The Well of St. Keyne":
"You drank of the Well, I warrant, betimes?"
He to the countryman said:
But the countryman smiled as the stranger spake,
And sheepishly shook his head:
"I hastened as soon as the wedding was done,
And left my wife in the porch;
But i' faith! she had been wiser than me,
For she took a bottle to church."
It was at Liskeard that we first heard of George Borrow, a tramp like
ourselves.
Pages:
1132
1133
1134
1135
1136
1137
1138
1139
1140
1141
1142
1143
1144
1145
1146
1147
1148
1149
1150
1151
1152
1153
1154
1155
1156