CHESTER WITHOUT.—A WALK ON THE WALLS.—ANTIQUITIES.—STRIKING
CONTRASTS.
_Chester, June 2d._
[Sidenote: _A WALK ABOUT CHESTER._]
My journal is behindhand several days, what little time I have had to
write being occupied in finishing my last letter. Meantime, I have seen
so much, that if I had a week of leisure I should despair of giving
you a good idea of this strange place. But that you may understand
a little how greatly we are interested, I will mention some of the
objects that we have seen, and are seeing. Use your imagination to the
utmost to fill up the hints, rather than descriptions, of these that I
shall give you. You need not fear that when you come here the reality
will disappoint you, or fail to astonish you with its novelty, its
quaintness, and the strange mingling of venerable associations with its
modern art and civilization.
We were about to leave the printer’s for a walk on the wall. I will not
detain myself with a detailed account of our proceedings, but imagine
that you are with me, while I point out to you a few of the note-worthy
objects.
* * * * *
We are on the top of the wall, a few feet from the side of the archway
through which we entered the town. Look down now on the outside. The
road, just before it enters the gate, crosses, by a bridge, a deep
ravine. In it, some seventy feet below us, you see the dark water,
perhaps of old the _fosse_, but now a modern commercial canal. A long,
narrow boat, much narrower than our canal-boats, laden with coals, is
coming from under the bridge; a woman is steering it, and on the cabin,
in large, red letters, you see her name, “_Margaret Francis_,” and the
name of the boat, the “_Telegraph_.” That arch was turned by a man now
living, but that course of stones—the dark ones between the ivy and the
abutment—was laid by a Roman mason, when Rome was mistress of the world.
Walk on. The wall is five feet wide on the top, with a parapet of
stone on the outside, and an iron rail within. Don’t fear, though it
is so far and deep to the canal, and the stone looks so time-worn and
crumbling; it is firm with true Roman cement, the blood of brave men.
Here it is strengthened by a heavy tower, now somewhat dilapidated.
Look up, and you see upon it a rude carving of a phœnix; under it an
old tablet, with these words:—
“ON THIS TOWER STOOD CHARLES THE FIRST, AND SAW HIS ARMY DEFEATED.”
Within the tower is the stall of a newsman. Buy the London Times, which
has come some hundred miles since morning, with the information that
yesterday the honourable president of a Peace Society was shot in a
duel. (A fact.)
Pass on. On one side of us are tall chimneys, through which, from
fierce forge fires, ascend black smoke and incense of bitumen to the
glory of mammon. Close on the other side stands a venerable cathedral,
built by pious labour of devout men to the laud and service of their
God. We look into the burying-ground, and on the old gravestones
observe many familiar names of New England neighbours.
[Sidenote: _STREET SCENES._]
Narrow brick houses are built close up to the wall again, and now on
both sides; the wall, which you can stride across, being their only
street or way of access. Here, again, it crosses another broad road,
and we are over another entrance to the city—the “_new gate_;” it is
not quite a century old. We look from it into the market-place. Narrow,
steep-gabled houses, with their second story frowning threateningly
over the side-walks, surround it. But the market-building is modern.
See! the sparrow lighting on the iron roof burns her feet and flies
hastily over to the heavy, old, brown thatch, where the little dormers
stick out so clumsily cosy.
Odd-looking vehicles and oddly-dressed people are passing in the
street below us: a woman with a jacket, driving two stout horses in
one of those heavy farm-carts; an omnibus, very broad, and carrying
passengers on the top as well as inside, with the sign of “The Green
Dragon;” the driver, smartly-dressed, tips his whip with a knowing nod
to a pretty Welsh girl who is carrying a tub upon her head. There are
lots of such damsels here, neat as possible, with dark eyes and glossy
hair, half covered by white caps, and fine, plump forms, in short
striped petticoats and hob-nailed shoes. There goes one, straight as
a gun-barrel, with a great jar of milk upon her head. And here is a
little donkey, with cans of milk slung on each side of him, and behind
them, so you cannot see why he does not slip off over his tail, is a
great brute, with two legs in knee-breeches and blue stockings, bent
up so as to be clear of the ground, striking him with a stout stick
across his long, expressive ears. A sooty-faced boy, with a Kilmarnock
bonnet on his head, carrying two pewter mugs, coming towards us, jumps
suddenly one side, and, ha! out from under us, at a rattling pace,
comes a beautiful sorrel mare, with a handsome, tall, slightly-made
young man in undress military uniform; close behind, and not badly
mounted either, follow two others—one also in uniform, with a scarlet
cap and a bright bugle swinging at his side; the other a groom in
livery, neat as a pin; odd again, to American eyes, those leather
breeches and bright top-boots. Who was it? Colonel Lord Grosvenor,
going to review the yeomanry. We shall see them the other side of
the city. His grandfather built this gate and presented it to the
corporation; you may see his arms on the key-stone. But now go on.
On the left, you see an old church tower, and under it the ragged
outline and darker coloured stone of still older masonry. A swallow has
just found a cranny big enough to build her nest in, that Father Time
has been chiselling at now for eight hundred years. Eight hundred? Yes;
it was _rebuilt_ then. You can see some of the _older_, original wall
at the other end—no, not that round Saxon arch, but beyond the trees—a
low wall with a heavy clothing of ivy. The steamboat is just coming out
from behind it now. In the year 973, King Edgar landed at this church
from a boat, in which he had been rowed by eight kings, whom he had
conquered. An ugly, smoky old tub is that steamboat; it would hardly be
thought fit for the conveyance of criminals to prison in America. But
doubtless it is a faster and more commodious craft than King Edgar’s
eight-king power packet.
We cross another gateway, and pass a big mill. The dam was built, I
don’t know when. The Puritans, they say, tried to destroy it, for its
bad name, perhaps, but could not, because, like a duck, it kept under
a high flood of water until the Cavaliers, making a rush to save it,
spiked their guns.
[Sidenote: _QUEENS AND BEGGARS._]
Our path turns suddenly, and runs along the face of a stone wall,
supported by brackets high above the water of the river, but some
distance below the parapets—parapets of a castle. Soon we pass a
red-coated sentry, and now you see a tower that looks older than the
rest. The battle-axes of William the Conqueror once clanged where that
fellow is lounging with a cigar. Beyond, on the esplanade, were wont
to assemble the formidable feudal armies of the Earls of Chester, whose
title is now borne by the German Prince Albert’s eldest son. Quite a
different appearance they must have made from this regiment of Irishmen
in red-cloth coats and leather helmets.
Stop a moment to look at the old bridge—step back to the angle—there
you see it—half a dozen arches of different forms and shades of colour,
not particularly handsome, but worth noticing. The blackest of the
arches was turned half a century before Jamestown was founded—that is,
it was then _rebuilt_. The _old_ bridge, from which the stones for it
were taken, was built by Queen Ethefleda. Who was she? I am sure I
don’t know—some one who reigned here a thousand years ago, I believe,
though I never heard any thing else of her. You’ll be shown her
great-grandmother’s cradle somewhere about town very likely.
Just above is another bridge. What a fine arch! Yes; the longest in the
world, it is said. That was not built by a queen, but a little girl
was the first to cross it, who afterwards _developed up_ into “her
most gracious Majesty, Victoria, whom God long preserve,” as the loyal
guide-book has it.
* * * * *
“... Poor fellow! he is very lame, isn’t he!”
“Oh, he is begging; probably an impostor. Don’t encourage him.”
“He only asks a penny to keep him from starving; his son has not been
able to get any work lately, or he would not let him beg.”
“Let him go to America; there’s enough work for him if he really wants
it; it’s what they all say. Give him a ha’penny then, and be rid of
him. Now, look over there, between the trees, and see the entrance to
the Marquis of Westminster’s park.”—A great, fresh pile of bombastic
towers and battlements to shelter a gate and protect the woman who
opens it from—rain and frost. It is but recently finished, and costs,
says the printer, £10,000.
What says the beggar? Free trade and the Irish have cut down wages,
since he used to work on the farms, from five shillings to eighteen
pence. I don’t believe it.
He reasserts it, though. He has stood himself at Chester Cross on the
market day, and refused to work for four and sixpence, and all the
beer he could drink. It may be true—the printer tells us; in the old
Bonaparte years, in harvest time, it was not unlikely to have been so.
With wheat at a guinea a bushel, the farmers did not have the worst of
it even then. Those were good times for farmers. Soldiers can’t reap,
but they must eat. The government _borrowed_ money to pay the farmers
for supporting the war, and now the farmers are paying the debt.
“Give me something to buy a little bread, good sirs,” repeats the old
man; “I can’t work, and my son.... These dirty Irish and this cussed
free trade....”
* * * * *
Hark! horns and kettle-drums! Come on. It is the band of the yeomanry;
we shall see them directly.... There! Five squadrons of mounted men
trotting over a broad green meadow below us. Well mounted they seem
to be, and well seated too. Ay; fox hunting will make good cavalry.
Doubtless many of those fellows have been after the hounds.
Possibly. But never one of them charged a buffalo herd, I’ll be bound.
[Sidenote: _RUINS AND RAILROADS._]
This green plain—a sort of public lawn in front of the town—is about
twice as large as Boston Common, and is called “The Roodee.” It is free
from trees, nothing but a handsome meadow, and a race-course runs
round it. On this course, by the way, the greatest number of horses
ever engaged in a single match have been run. In 1848, the entries were
one hundred and fifty-six, of which one hundred and six accepted.
Right below us, on the meadow, there is pitched a _marquée_. It belongs
to a cricket club. I want you to notice the beautiful green sward of
their playing ground. It is shaven so clean and close. You see men are
sweeping it with hair-brooms.
Here again, in this garden on the other side of the wall, there used
to be a nunnery. There is the entrance to a subterranean passage, by
which, if you could keep a candle burning, you might pass under the
city back to the cathedral.
* * * * *
... Are you tired of ruins? Here is one more that may rouse your
Puritan blood: a heavy tower built into the wall, connected with a
larger one at some distance outside. How old they look! No paintings
and no descriptions had ever conveyed to me the effect of age upon the
stone itself of these very old structures. How venerable! how stern!
how silent—yet telling what long stories! We will not ask for the
oldest of them, but—you see there, where the battlements are broken
down in one place—that breach was made by a ball thrown from the hill
yonder; and the cannon that sent it was aimed by OLIVER CROMWELL.
How beautiful, how indescribably beautiful, are those thick masses of
dark, glossy, green ivy, falling over the blackened old ramparts, like
the curls of a child asleep on its grandfather’s shoulder!—_Whew!_
don’t let the sparks get in your eye! They have pierced the wall right
under us, and here goes an express train fifty miles an hour, from
Ireland to London by way of Holyhead, with dispatches for her Majesty
(by way of Lord Palmerston’s head). The Roman masonry that resisted
the Roundhead batteries, has yielded to the engines of peace.
But, as we move on, even higher marks of civilization are pointed out
to us. Here, close to the wall, and in the shadow of the old tower,
is a public bath and wash-house. A little back is a hospital for
the poor, and near it a house of correction. Across the valley is a
gloomy-looking workhouse, and in another direction a much more cheering
institution, beautifully placed on a hill, among fine, dark, evergreen
trees, through which you can see the bright sunshine and smile of
God falling upon it. It is the Training College—a normal school, for
preparing teachers for the church schools of the diocese. And here,
on the left, as we approach the north gate again, is an old charity
school-house, the Blue-coat Hospital. The boys at play are all young
George Washingtons, dressed in long-skirted blue coats, and breeches,
and stockings.
* * * * *
... So here we are, back at the good-natured printer’s office, having
been a circuit of three miles on the walls of the city. Its population
is twenty-five thousand (mostly within). If you have observed that
nearly all the houses are low, you will not suppose that much room
is taken up by streets and unoccupied grounds, where that number is
accommodated in such limited space, and you will be ready to explore
the interior with great curiosity. If your taste for the quaint
and picturesque is at all like mine, you will be in no danger of
disappointment.