There are some remains of old windmills in the neighbourhood—we saw one or two on near-by hillsides, close enough to recognise them; and if I had known at the time what a divergence of opinion there was about that lonely tower in the distance, I would have driven over to it and investigated it on my own hook. But our jarvey's answer was so positive that it left no room for doubt, so we drove on through a village of tiny thatched houses, with the smoke of the turf giving a pleasant tang to the air; then up a long hill, to the left at a cross-roads, and at last our jarvey drew up before a five-barred gate. We looked at him questioningly, for there was no village in sight.
"'Tis here it was, sir," he said, "sweet Auburn, the loveliest village of the plain. 'Twas up that path yonder the village preacher's modest mansion rose, though there is little enough left of it now; and over yonder, behind that wall with the yellow furze atop it, unprofitably gay, was where the village master taught his little school, and there is nothing at all left of that; and a little furder on is the 'Three Jolly Pigeons,' where news much older than the ale went round."
I looked at him wonderingly.
"Where did you pick up all that patter?" I asked.
He snickered.
"Ah, you would not be the first gintleman I have driven out here, sir," he explained; "and many of them would be speakin' parts of the poem."
"I suppose ale is still to be obtained at the 'Three Jolly Pigeons'?"
"It is, sir, if so be your honour would be wantin' some. And they have one of the big stones of the old mill for a doorstep," he added, as an extra inducement not to pass it by.
We got down from our seats, went through the gate, and up the path which Goldsmith and his father trod so many times; for, whether or not Lissoy was really Auburn, there can be no doubt that the elder Goldsmith was really vicar here, and that he lived in the house, the rectory of Kilkenny West, of which only a fragment of the front wall remains, and that Oliver was a boy here. The ash trees which shadowed the path have disappeared, but there are still plenty of gabbling geese around, and a file of them went past as I took a picture of the remnant of the rectory. A shed with a hideous roof of corrugated iron has been built behind it, and near by is a two-storied house where the present tenant lives. We found an old woman, for all the world like Goldsmith's "widowed, solitary thing," carding wool in an outhouse, and she showed us the old well, deep in the ground, walled around and approached by a steep flight of steps.