It came to pass on Sunday morn When the Parish Mass was done,

The men of Woodstock all went home,

And the women every one,

But Hugh the Glover set out north By the banks of Glyme alone.

The sun shone hot on stem and stone,

The robin sang on the thorn,

The last mist lifted off the grass Was tree-top high that morn,

When he doffed his shoes by Wootton Church. That stands high on a rocky perch,

Where the Glyme runs into the Dome.

And barefoot still, by vale and hill,

He took his pilgrim’s way,

For the King’s Glover of Woodstock Sought a great grace that day—

To learn of the Anker of Dornford Wherein Devotion lay.

Now Hugh the Glover was a rich burgess of Woodstock, high in the favour of King John and his peers. He had a fair, cheerful wife; six sons and two daughters; and a large, two-storied house with an arched door and a gabled roof. But for all this he had been ill at ease for a long time, because he did not know the meaning of the word ‘Devotion.’ I do not say he could not hazard a guess at it—most of us could do as much—but he did not think that was the right way to approach so noble a word. And every time he heard Mass—which was almost every day of his life—and the priest prayed for Hugh the Glover and all the other bystanders ‘quorum libi fides cognita esl, et nota devotio,’