After a few minutes, the old man went on to tell me about the Well Wakes. "Folks used to flock to 'em," he said. "They used to meet and have a jolly time. There war the Beach Wake, near against Chirbury. There they went in great numbers, and the best class of farmers and their wives. There war a Whirl-stone then, but on Wake Sunday it turned all by itself, Old Jackson as sold the best ale allus used to say. "Then when us could, us went to the Raven's Bowl and to the Cuckoo's Cup on the Wrekin at the proper times. God Almighty, we war taught to believe, kept they full of water for his birds, and 'twar there that we Shropshire lads, seventy years agone and more, used to go and wish, when we had a mind to wed a wench--seventy years agone," the old man lingered over the words, repeating them softly. "One summer mornin' I got up," he continued, "when the dew was lying like jewels on the turf and wet the grass it war so that yer could wring it out with a cloth. I war up betimes, and I walked, and walked till I got to the spot. There warn't many places in Shropshire as I didn't know then," Timothy exclaimed with pride; and added with enthusiasm, "yer gets to know the betwixts and betweens of everything, sure enough, when yer be earth-stopper to the hunt. Dad warn't by trade, but Uncle Mapp war--Peregine Mapp, as us used to call un--as lived behind Muckley Cross and war the best ount-catcher as ever I knowed, rat-catcher, and stoat-trapper, and death to varmint generally. Well, he took me on from rook scarin' for Farmer Burnell; I lived with he till I war twelve. They talks now of eddication, but 'tis the eddication of wood and hill as be the right 'un to make a man of yer." [Sidenote: THE EDUCATION OF WOOD AND HILL] "Yes, Timothy," I said; and to bring him back to his first subject, I added, "but you were telling me about your walk to the Wrekin, and how you drank from the Raven's and Cuckoo's bowls there." "Ay, ay, sure I was," replied the old man, and a gleam of light shot into his lustreless eyes. So saying he rubbed his hands softly before the blazing logs and went on-- "Well, it war the longest day of the year. That night in June, I've heard say, when they used to light fires on the hill tops, and when the men used to sing, and some of 'em used to leap through the fires and call it Johnnie's Watch; but the squires, when they took to planting on the hillsides, forbid that sport, and there war somethin' to be said on that score, for I believe myself it frightened foxes.