sunk through eleven feet of soil and then into the chalk. the water comes up cloudy in the bucket and clears as it stands. by morning the inside of the jug has a fine pale ring at the line where the night met it.
good water, on the whole. hard. soap sulks in it. tea is wrong in it. the meadow's two horses prefer it to any other source on the estate and will walk past three nearer troughs to reach it. the cook uses it for bread and for nothing else.
local belief holds that a glass drunk on the rim, slowly, will settle a quarrel between two who drink from the same draw. nobody has tested this in living memory. the chalk does not appear to keep records.
field-note · the ring on the jug, scratched with a fingernail, smells faintly of an old room.
kitchen-yard · seven cures · water · stone · the well