reapers on the upland, or the rude
chanting in the little church had a magical charm for him; and
Mistress Alison would hear the boy, in his room overhead, singing
softly to himself for very gladness of heart, like a little bird of
the dawn, or tapping out some tripping beat of time; when she would
wonder and speak to God of what was in her heart.

As Paul grew older--he was now about sixteen--a change came slowly
over his mind; he began to have moods of a silent discontent, a
longing for something far away, a desire of he knew not what. His old
dreams began to fade, though they visited him from time to time; but
he began to care less for the silent beautiful life of the earth, and
to take more thought of men. He had never felt much about himself
before; but one day, lying beside a woodland pool at the feet of the
down, he caught a sight of his own face; and when he smiled at it, it
seemed to smile back at him; he began to wonder what the world was
like, and what all the busy people that lived therein said and
thought; he began to wish to have a friend, that he might tell him
what was in his heart--and yet he knew not what it was that he would
say. He began, too, to wonder how people regarded him--the people who
had before been but to him a distant part of the shows of the world.
Once he came in upon Mistress Alison, who sate talking with a gossip
of hers; when he entered, there was a sudden silence, and a glance
passed between the two; and Paul divined that they had been speaking
of himself, and desired to know what they had said.

One day the old gardener, in a more talkative mood than was his wont,
told him a tale of one who had visited the Wishing Well that lay a few
miles away, and, praying for riches, had found the next day, in
digging, an old urn of pottery, full of ancient coins. Paul was very
urgent to know about the well, and the old man told him that it must
be visited at noonday and alone. That he that would have his wish must
throw a gift into the water, and drink of the well, and then, turning
to the sun, must wish his wish aloud. Paul asked him many more
questions, but the old man would say no more. So Paul determined that
he would visit the place for himself.

The next day he set off. He took with him one of his few possessions,
a little silver coin that a parson hard by had given him. He went his
way quickly among the pleasant fields, making towards the great bulk
of Blackdown beacon, where the hills