THE BRIDE’S WELL
THE BRIDE’S WELL
On what is locally called a Ramp, that is to say the refuse thrown out of a quarry, and left to decay or become covered with mould, was, in our quiet parish, a long white-washed cottage thatched. It was planted in a peculiar position: its back was against a dense oak wood, out of which shot up Scotch firs, and the portion of ramp it occupied was of very old standing, and was a good way from that part of the quarry on which workmen were engaged.
In front of the cottage was a garden, always well kept, and on the farther side of the garden, the inevitable pig-sty. But then—what would the garden have produced without the pig?
When I said that the cottage was on the ramp, I was not quite exact, it was on the slope of the hill, but ramp had been thrown up before it even to a level above the garden, so that the dwellers in the cottage were almost as much shut in as was Noah in his ark.