Paul the Minstrel | Page 5

Paul would say to himself, "it is like
that."
One other chief delight the boy had; he knew the magic of sound,
which spoke to his heart in a way that it speaks to but few; the sounds
of the earth gave up their sweets to him; the musical fluting of owls, the
liquid notes of the cuckoo, the thin pipe of dancing flies, the mournful
creaking of the cider-press, the horn of the oxherd wound far off on the
hill, the tinkling of sheep-bells--of all these he knew the notes; and not
only these, but the rhythmical swing of the scythes sweeping through
the grass, the flails heard through the hot air from the barn, the clinking
of the anvil in the village forge, the bubble of the stream through the
weir--all these had a tale to tell him. Sometimes, for days together, he

would hum to himself a few notes that pleased him by their sweet
cadence, and he would string together some simple words to them, and
sing them to himself with gentle content. The song of the reapers on the
upland, or the rude chanting in the little church had a magical charm for
him; and Mistress Alison would hear the boy, in his room overhead,
singing softly to himself for very gladness of heart, like a little bird of
the dawn, or tapping out some tripping beat of time; when she would
wonder and speak to God of what was in her heart.
As Paul grew older--he was now about sixteen--a change came slowly
over his mind; he began to have moods of a silent discontent, a longing
for something far away, a desire of he knew not what. His old dreams
began to fade, though they visited him from time to time; but he began
to care less for the silent beautiful life of the earth, and to take more
thought of men. He had never felt much about himself before; but one
day, lying beside a woodland pool at the feet of the down, he caught a
sight of his own face; and when he smiled at it, it seemed to smile back
at him; he began to wonder what the world was like, and what all the
busy people that lived therein said and thought; he began to wish to
have a friend, that he might tell him what was in his heart--and yet he
knew not what it was that he would say. He began, too, to wonder how
people regarded him--the people who had before been but to him a
distant part of the shows of the world. Once he came in upon Mistress
Alison, who sate talking with a gossip of hers; when he entered, there
was a sudden silence, and a glance passed between the two; and Paul
divined that they had been speaking of himself, and desired to know
what they had said.
One day the old gardener, in a more talkative mood than was his wont,
told him a tale of one who had visited the Wishing Well that lay a few
miles away, and, praying for riches, had found the next day, in digging,
an old urn of pottery, full of ancient coins. Paul was very urgent to
know about the well, and the old man told him that it must be visited at
noonday and alone. That he that would have his wish must throw a gift
into the water, and drink of the well, and then, turning to the sun, must
wish his wish aloud. Paul asked him many more questions, but the old
man would say no more. So Paul determined that he would visit the

place for himself.
The next day he set off. He took with him one of his few possessions, a
little silver coin that a parson hard by had given him. He went his way
quickly among the pleasant fields, making towards the great bulk of
Blackdown beacon, where the hills swelled up into a steep bluff, with a
white road, cut in the chalk, winding steeply up their green smooth
sides. It was a fresh morning with a few white clouds racing merrily
overhead, the shadows of which fell every now and then upon the down
and ran swiftly over it, like a flood of shade leaping down the sides.
There were few people to be seen anywhere; the fields were full of
grass, with large daisies and high red sorrel. By midday he was beneath
the front of Blackdown, and here he asked at a cottage of a
good-natured woman, that was bustling in and out, the way to the well.
She answered him very kindly and described the path--it was not many
yards away--and then asked where he came from, saying briskly, "And
what would you