Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/217

Rh It proved a good hit, for he evidently gave me the credit of composing the lines as well as of understanding how the matter really stood between him and the girl he wooed and won on the Wrekin. Indeed, as we walked along under the brows of the two hills, we could see his lips move now and then as if whispering over to himself the lines we had devoted to his domestic felicity. He was evidently bent carrying then to his young wife. Capern was delighted at the impression upon him in this direction, so, on the spur of the impulse, he gave him a practical suggestion in a homely verse to be remembered in pursuing his daily occupation:

""The poor man carries his grist to the mill. The miller a merciful wight is he. The poor man has many mouths to fill. So he lets the toll of the poor man be; The farmer sends a two-bushel bag of the very best wheat his barn doth hold. And the miller, a jolly-faced, merry wag. Says, a moderate dish when the corn is tolled. The rich man sends a well-filled sack. For the rich man hath plenty in store. And the burden sore bendeth the miller's back. So he lightens the weight for himself and the poor.""

This was well meant on the poet's part, but not seemingly so well taken on the part of the miller, who was busy storing away in his mind the verse about his wife and their first love and joint happiness. He did not understand Capern's ethics in