Ch. 18: The Shepherd's Return - Page 2

"Why, what's wrong about it?" she asked.
"'Twill be more 'n three months before the year's out, and master'll
pay for all the time sure, and we can go home to Bishop and bide a
little without work, and see if that father of yours has forgiven 'ee
for going away to Warminster."

So they comforted themselves, and were beginning to think with pleasure
of home when Mr. Ellerby informed his shepherd that a friend of his, a
good man though not a rich one, was anxious to take him as
head-shepherd, with good wages and a good cottage rent free. The only
drawback for the Bawcombes was that it would take them still farther
from home, for the farm was in Dorset, although quite near the Wiltshire
border.

Eventually they accepted the offer, and by the middle of September were
once more settled down in what was to them a strange land. How strange
it must have seemed to Caleb, how far removed from home and all familiar
things, when even to this day, more than forty years later, he speaks of
it as the ordinary modern man might speak of a year's residence in
Uganda, Tierra del Fuego, or the Andaman Islands! It was a foreign
country, and the ways of the people were strange to him, and it was a
land of very strange things. One of the strangest was an old ruined
church in the neighbourhood of the farm where he was shepherd. It was
roofless, more than half fallen down, and all the standing portion, with
the tower, overgrown with old ivy; the building itself stood in the
centre of a huge round earthwork and trench, with large barrows on the
ground outside the circle. Concerning this church he had a wonderful
story: its decay and ruin had come about after the great bell in the
tower had mysteriously disappeared, stolen one stormy night, it was
believed, by the Devil himself. The stolen bell, it was discovered, had
been flung into a small river at a distance of some miles from the
church, and there in summer-time, when the water was low, it could be
distinctly seen lying half buried in the mud at the bottom. But all the
king's horses and all the king's men couldn't pull it out; the Devil,
who pulled the other way, was strongest. Eventually some wise person
said that a team of white oxen would be able to pull it out, and after
much seeking the white oxen were obtained, and thick ropes were tied to
the sunken bell, and the cattle were goaded and yelled at, and tugged
and strained until the bell came up and was finally drawn right up to
the top of the steep, cliff-like bank of the stream. Then one of the
teamsters shouted in triumph, "Now we've got out the bell, in spite of
all the devils in hell," and no sooner had he spoken the bold words than
the ropes parted, and back tumbled the bell to its old