r.
Its situation rendered water the great want of the town; and within
living memory, horses, donkeys and men may have been seen toiling
up the winding ways to the top of the height, laden with tubs and
barrels filled from the wells beneath the mountain, and hawkers
retailing their contents at the price of a halfpenny a bucketful.

This difficulty in the water supply, together with two other odd
facts, namely, that the chief graveyard slopes up as steeply as a
roof behind the church, and that in former times the town passed
through a curious period of corruption, conventual and domestic, gave
rise to the saying that Shaston was remarkable for three consolations
to man, such as the world afforded not elsewhere. It was a place
where the churchyard lay nearer heaven than the church steeple, where
beer was more plentiful than water, and where there were more wanton
women than honest wives and maids. It is also said that after the
Middle Ages the inhabitants were too poor to pay their priests,
and hence were compelled to pull down their churches, and refrain
altogether from the public worship of God; a necessity which they
bemoaned over their cups in the settles of their inns on Sunday
afternoons. In those days the Shastonians were apparently not
without a sense of humour.

There was another peculiarity--this a modern one--which Shaston
appeared to owe to its site. It was the resting-place and
headquarters of the proprietors of wandering vans, shows,
shooting-galleries, and other itinerant concerns, whose business
lay largely at fairs and markets. As strange wild birds are seen
assembled on some lofty promontory, meditatively pausing for longer
flights, or to return by the course they followed thither, so here,
in this cliff-town, stood in stultified silence the yellow and green
caravans bearing names not local, as if surprised by a change in the
landscape so violent as to hinder their further progress; and here
they usually remained all the winter till they turned to seek again
their old tracks in the following spring.

It was to this breezy and whimsical spot that Jude ascended from the
nearest station for the first time in his life about four o'clock one
afternoon, and entering on the summit of the peak after a toilsome
climb, passed the first houses of the aerial town; and drew towards
the school-house. The hour was too early; the pupils were still in
school, humming small, like a swarm of gnats; and he withdre