"Should 'ee now?" Caleb asked with fine modesty. "Well, I don't
mind, on'y you mus'n' expect 'em to be like Maister Moggridge's.
Mine went thicky way." He recited very slowly, with a terrific
rolling of syllables:--

"See her glidin' dro' the water,
Far, far away!
Many a true heart's niver to be found.

"The last line alludes to my gal wot had recently e-loped wi' the
Rooshan," Caleb explained.

"Was that all?"

"That was all o' mine, sir, but Joe's was p'ints better.
Just listen:--"

"Fare thee well, Barnstaple steeple,--"

"(He was a Barnstaple man, sir, was Joe)--"

"Fare thee well, I say,
Never shall I see thee, once agen, a long time ago."

"Well, sir, we was just a-goin' to step back an' have another shy,
when the breeze sprang up a'most as sudden as et fell, and the
consikence es, sir, that I've niver made no more poetry from that day
to this."