The present representatives of the tribe of Wirk were known as Old Wirk
and Young Wirk. Young Wirk was sixty-seven. No one knew where a still
younger Wirk would come from when Old Wirk died and when Young Wirk
died. But no one troubled to know. No one knows, precisely, where the
next Pope is coming from, but he always comes, and successive Wirks
appeared as surely. Old Wirk was past duty at the forge now. He sat on a
Windsor chair all day and watched Young Wirk. When the day was finished
Old Wirk and Young Wirk would walk across the Green to the pound, not
together, but Old Wirk in front and Young Wirk immediately behind him;
both with the same gait, bent and with a stick. On reaching the pound
they would gaze profoundly into it over the decayed, grey wall, rather
as if they were looking to see if the power that was going to turn out
the forge was there, and then, the power apparently not being there,
they would return, trailing back in the same single file, and take up
their reserved positions on the bench before the Tybar Arms.


IV

Mark Sabre, intensely fond of Penny Green, had reflected upon it
sometimes as a curious thing that there was scarcely one of the
village's inhabitants or institutions but had evidenced little
differences of attitude between himself and Mabel, who was not intensely
fond of Penny Green. The aged Wirks had served their turn. Mabel had
once considered the Wirks extremely picturesque and, quite early in
their married life, had invited them to her house that she might
photograph them for her album.

They arrived, in single file, but she did not photograph them for her
album. The photograph was not taken because Mark, when they presented