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Isaac Bawcombe's family The youngest son Caleb goes to seek David at Wilton sheep-fair Martha, the eldest daughter Her beauty She marries Shepherd Ierat The name of Ierat Story of Ellen Ierat The Ierats go to Somerset Martha and the lady of the manor Martha's travels Her mistress dies Return to Winterbourne Bishop Shepherd Ierat's end
Still they felt hurt at being discussed in this way by the villagers, so that when Ierat was offered a place as shepherd at a distance from home, where his family history was not known, he was glad to take it and his wife to go with him, about a month after her child was born.
Her manner, too, was very engaging. At the age of twenty-five she married a shepherd named Thomas Ierat a surname I had not heard before and which made me wonder where were the Ierats in Wiltshire that in all my rambles among the downland villages I had never come across them, not even in the churchyards.
His marriage to Martha Bawcombe came as a surprise to the village, for though no one had any fault to find with Tommy Ierat there was a slur on him, and Martha, who was the finest girl in the place, might, it was thought, have looked for some one better.
After drinking his cup of tea he got a footstool, and placing it at her feet sat down on it and rested his head on her knees; he remained a long time in this position so perfectly still that she at length bent over and felt and examined his face, only to discover that he was dead. And that was the end of Tommy Ierat, the son of Ellen.
The new place was in Somerset, thirty-five to forty miles from their native village, and Ierat as shepherd at the manor-house farm on a large estate would have better wages than he had ever had before and a nice cottage to live in. Martha was delighted with her new home the cottage, the entire village, the great park and mansion close by, all made it seem like paradise to her.
Nobody knew there were no Ierats except Martha Ierat, the widow, of Winterbourne Bishop and her son nobody had ever heard of any other family of the name. I began to doubt that there ever had been such a name until quite recently when, on going over an old downland village church, the rector took me out to show me "a strange name" on a tablet let into the wall of the building outside.
The name was Ierat and the date the seventeenth century. He had never seen the name excepting on that tablet. Who, then, was Martha's husband? It was a queer story which she would never have told me, but I had it from her brother and his wife. A generation before that of Martha, at a farm in the village of Bower Chalk on the Ebble, there was a girl named Ellen Ierat employed as a dairymaid.
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