Читать книгу History of Madeley including Ironbridge, Coalbrookdale, and Coalport онлайн

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It would have warmed your heart if you had seen

Her Christmas kitchen—how the blazing fire

Made her fine pewter shine, and holly boughs

So cheerful red; and as for mistletoe,

The finest bush that grew in the country round

Was marked for madam. Then her old ale went

So bountiful about! A Christmas cask,

And ’twas a noble one. God help me, sir,

But I shall never see such days.”

Still greater changes than those described in the lines quoted above are witnessed at the old Court House and in its immediate vicinity,—changes so great that were it possible for one of its former feudal owners to revisit the scene he would fail to recognise the place. Ugly pit-mounds are seen surrounding the building; the place is illumined by the blaze of the blast-furnace, the screech of machinery is heard around it, and the snort of the iron horse sounds across the park, where the hounds were wont to

“Rend the air, and with a lusty cry

Awake the echo, and confound

Their perfect language in a mingled voice.”