y inhabited and directed
by a race named Wirk. The forge was the only human habitation or
personal and individual workshop actually on the Green, and it was said,
and freely admitted by the successive members of the tribe of Wirk, that
it had "no right" to be there. There it nevertheless was, had been for
centuries, so far as anybody knew to the contrary, and administered
always by a Wirk. In some mysterious way which nobody ever seemed to
recognize till it actually happened there was always a son Wirk to
continue the forge when the father Wirk died and was carried off to be
deposited by his fathers who had continued it before him. It was also
said in the village, as touching this matter of "no right", that nobody
could understand how the forge ever came to be there and that it
certainly would be turned off one day; and with this also the current
members of the tribe of Wirk cordially agreed. They understood less than
anybody how they ever came to be there, and they knew perfectly well
they would be turned off one day; saying which--and it was a common
subject of debate among village sires of a summer evening, seated
outside the Tybar Arms--saying which, the Wirk of the day would gaze
earnestly up the road and look at his watch as if the power which would
turn him off was then on its way and was getting a bit overdue.

The present representatives of the tribe of Wirk were known as Old Wirk
and Young Wirk. Young Wirk was sixty-seven. No one knew where a still
younger Wirk would come from when Old Wirk died and when Young Wirk
died. But no one troubled to know. No one knows, precisely, where the
next Pope is coming from, but he always comes, and successive Wirks
appeared as surely. Old Wirk was past duty at the forge now. He sat on a
Windsor chair all day and watched Young Wirk. When the day was finished
Old Wirk and Young Wirk would walk across the Green to the pound, not
together, but Old Wirk in front and Young Wirk immediately behind him;
both with the same gait, bent and with a stick. On reaching the pound
they would gaze profoundly into it over the decayed, grey wall, rather
as if they were looking to see if the power that was going to turn out
the forge was there, and then, the power apparently not being there,
they would return, trailing back in the same single file, and take up
their reserved positions on the bench before the Tybar Arms.

IV

Mark Sabre, intensely fond of Penny Green, had reflected upon it
s