Jimmy Aldridge & Sid Goldsmith - The Cottager's Reply lyrics

Five hundred thousand english pounds For this old house and a piece of ground You and your wife you've always planned To settle down in the Cotswold lands Well you best come in and you best sit down It's such a long drive from London town Would you like some tea now while I tell The reasons why I will not sell You best come in and you best sit down It's such a long drive from London town You best come in and you best sit down It's such a long drive from London town This stone built house that you call "nice" Was built at far too high a price For me to gaily sign away What others toiled for night and day Well they hammered bluestone by the yard And found the rent when times were hard They lived and died beneath the sun Tending the fields you gaze upon You best come in and you best sit down It's such a long drive from London town You best come in and you best sit down It's such a long drive from London town Well they're all gone but as for me The wild hare still roams as free And at dusk the badger travels still Ancestral highways on the hill I'm as Cotswold bred as all these And I still need these fields and trees I need the soil that bore my race And holds their bones beneath this place You best come in and you best sit down It's such a long drive from London town You best come in and you best sit down It's such a long drive from London town Enough for me this cot of stone A mite of land to call my own A friend to drink with, wife to smile And Cotswold country by the mile So take your cup and drain it down You would-be peasant from the town Go on your journey let me bide Content in my own countryside