Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Bristol. 279 
to pick their blind man for themselves, we have all the elements 
which would in the opinion of the pagan bystanders, who knew all 
about it, create the title “the well of deceit.”” It is not at all 
“necessary to include among our suppositions any conscious trickery 
on Augustine’s part, though I should suppose he had heard of 
the reputation of the well, and the Britons had not. 
While Mr. Martin Gibbs of Down Ampney, Lord St. Germans 
the owner of the Oak Farm, and Mr. Gott the Vicar of Latton, 
have provided me with this information, a very interesting piece 
of information has reached me from Mr. Stent, the assistant curate 
of Cricklade. On the road from Malmesbury to Cricklade, by 
which, no doubt, the Britons went for at least part of the way, 
there are cross-roads about four miles on this side of Cricklade, 
where the road from Cirencester, running due south, cuts our road 
running from west to east. If the Britons diverged from the 
direct road to Cricklade, in order to get at once on to Hwiccian soil 
and entirely avoid West Saxon territory, they would take the north 
road at the cross. About half-a-mile south of the crossing, on the 
road from Cirencester, is a site called the Gospel Oak. The great 
oak was famous in times past, but it disappeared long before the 
memory of man, leaving only its name and the tradition that in 
past ages a great religious meeting was held there. We can 
searcely overlook this record where we are amusing ourselves by 
guesses as to the exact site of the conference or conferences. I 
ave heard in my time many a worse guess than this, that ‘“‘ Gospel 
Oak,” pronounced indistinctly, has some resemblance to “ Gustin 
Oak,” also indistinctly pronounced. The departure from the one 
to the other in 1300 years is a smaller departure than other names 
can show us in half the time. The first conference may well have 
been at the one place, the second at the other. 
_ Just one more problem, quite short. We are to see to-morrow, 
if all be well, at Littleton Drew, two massive stones in the church- 
yard which I recognised two years ago, on a very hurried visit, as 
two parts of the shaft of a noble pre-Norman cross, its sides covered 
with arabesques of the foliage character, so far as a rapid glance 
revealed. [The Bishop of Bristol has twice visited these stones 
