His mills they merrily go;
His nose doth shine with drinking wine,
And the gout is in his great toe."
We pass on to the southward and pause in the main street of the
quiet village of Scrooby, just on the Yorkshire border, where good
authorities insist the idea of American colonization was first
conceived. Here Elder Brewster, one of the chief founders of the
Plymouth Colony, was born in 1567, and here he passed his boyhood days.
The manor-house where he lived and where he met Rev. John Robinson and
William Bradford is no longer standing; but it is not unreasonable
to suppose that the plan of leaving England for the new world may
have been consummated here by these earnest men, who held themselves
persecuted for righteousness' sake. After varied fortunes they sailed
on the Mayflower in 1620.
We are now leaving old Yorkshire with its waste moorlands, its wide,
fertile valleys, its narrow, picturesque dales, its quaint old towns
and modern cities, its castles and abbeys, and, more than all, its
associations of the past which reach out even to the shores of our
native land, and we leave it with the keenest regret. It has fallen
to us as it has to few to traverse the highways and byways of every
section of the great county, and I can but be sensible as to how
feebly my pages reflect the things that charmed us. If an American and
a stranger is so impressed, how must the native Englishman feel when
wandering among these memorials of the past? I cannot close my chapter
more fitly than to quote the words of one who in poetic phrase has
written much of Yorkshire and its history:
"But any man will spend a month in wandering round Yorkshire, with
ears awake to all the great voices of the past, and eyes open to the
beauty which is so peculiarly English, he will find the patriotic
passion roused again, real and living; and thenceforth the rivers and
the glaciers of other lands will be to him no more than the parks
and palaces of other men compared with the white gateway and the low
veranda which speaks to him of home."
XV
ROUND ABOUT WILTSHIRE
Our run from Nottingham to Oxford was uneventful, for we roved rather
at random for the day through the delightful Midland country. At
Nottingham one will find the Victoria is quite up to the standard of
station-hotel excellence in England and the rates refreshingly low.
The city itself will not detain one long, for the great wave of modern
progress that has inundated it has swept away most of its ancient
landmarks. The old castle, once the key to the Northlands, has been
superseded by a palatial structure which now serves as museum and art
gallery. Unless one would see factories, machine shops and lace-making
works, there will be little to keep him in Nottingham.
We follow the well-surfaced road to the southeast, and though steep
in places, its hills afford splendid views of the landscape. The rain
interferes much with the prospect, but in the lulls we catch glimpses
of long reaches of meadowland dotted with solitary trees, rich with the
emerald greenness that follows summer rain in England.
Melton Mowbray has a proud distinction, for does not the infallible
Baedeker accord it the honor of being the "hunting capital of the
Midlands?" And the assertion that it is famous for its pork pies very
appropriately follows, a matter of cause and effect, perhaps, for the
horde of hungry huntsmen who congregate in the town would hardly be
satisfied with anything less substantial than an English pork pie.
Melton Mowbray has a competitor in Market Harborough, some twenty miles
farther, where we stopped for luncheon at a pleasant wayside inn.
Each of these towns has a population of about seven thousand, chiefly
dependent upon the hunting industry--if I may use such a term--and
certain it is that fox hunting is about the only vocation toward which
many of the Midland squires are at all industriously inclined. One is
simply astounded at the hold the sport has in England and the amount
of time and money devoted to it; a leading authority estimates that
not less than nine million pounds is spent yearly by the hunters. In a
summer tour one sees comparatively little of it, but in the autumn and
winter these towns doubtless exhibit great activity, and their streets,
crowded with red-coated huntsmen and packs of yelping dogs, must be
decidedly picturesque.
From Market Harborough a straight, narrow road carried us swiftly
southward toward Northampton and we passed through the Bringtons,
of whose memories of the Washingtons I have written in an earlier
chapter. The rain, which had been falling fitfully during the day,
ceased and the sun came out with a brilliancy that completely
transformed the landscape. All about us was the dense green of the
trees and meadowlands, bejeweled with sparkling raindrops and dashed
with the gold of the ripening grain, stretching away until lost in the
purple mist of the distance. Even the roadside pools glowed crimson
and gold, and altogether the scene was one of transcendent beauty and
freshness. It was exhilarating indeed as our open car swept over the
fine Oxford road, passing through the ancient towns of Towcester,
Buckingham and Bicester. There is no more beautiful or fertile country
in the Island than that around Oxford, and it was a welcome change to
see it basking in the sunshine after our dull days on the Yorkshire
moors.
One never wearies of Oxford, and the Randolph Hotel is worth a run of
many miles to reach at nightfall. Aristocratic, spacious and quiet,
with an indefinable atmosphere of the great universities about it, it
appeals to both the bodily and aesthetic senses of the wayfarer--but
Oxford, with all its interest and charm, has no place in this
chronicle, and we leave it, however loath, in the early morning. We
hasten over the Berkshire Hills through Abingdon into Wiltshire, where
there is much to engage our attention.
Swindon, the first town we encounter after passing the border, is an
up-to-date city of fifty thousand people and the newness everywhere
apparent, the asphalt pavement and the numerous tram lines impress
one with its similarity to live American towns. We learn that it is
practically a creation of the Great Western Railway, whose shops give
employment to a large proportion of the population. Clearly, there is
nothing for us in Swindon and we hasten on to Chippenham, which has
the traditions which Swindon so wofully lacks. It is a staid old town
of six thousand and was important in Saxon times, having frequent
mention in the chronicles of Alfred's wars with the Danes. Strange
indeed the mutations of time--strange it seems that the now decadent
and negligible Denmark once sent her "fair-haired despots of the sea"
into this remote section of the present mistress of the seas. The town
is full of odd old houses and it is the center of one of the most
interesting spots in England, as I hope to be able to show. But its
hotel would hardly invite a long sojourn; we stop for luncheon at the
Angel, and are placed at a large table with several rather red-faced
gentlemen who discuss horses and hunting dogs as vigorously as a lively
onslaught on the host's vintage and good cheer permits.
Lacock is only four miles away and they tell us that we should see
the abbey; but they do not tell us that the village itself is worth a
day's journey and that the abbey is only secondary. They do not tell us
this, because no one about Lacock knows it. The utter unconsciousness
and genuineness of the village is not its least charm. Lacock never
dreams of being a show place or tourist resort; but despite its
unconsciousness, anyone who has seen England as we have seen it will
know that Lacock is not easily matched for its wealth of old stone
and timber houses and its quaint, genuine antiquity. It is perhaps a
trifle severe and its picturesqueness is of a melancholy and somber
kind--thatched roofs are few, ivy-clad walls and flower gardens are
wanting; there is little color save an occasional red roof to relieve
the all-pervading gray monotone. Its timbered houses are not the
imitations one sees so often, even in England, or the modernized old
buildings shining in black and white paint, but the genuine article,
with weathered oak timbers and lichen-covered brick. There are many
projecting upper stories and sharp gables with casement windows of
diamond panes set in rusty iron frames. The Lacock of today is truly
a voice from the past. It must have been practically the same two or
three hundred years ago. Its houses, its streets, its church and its
very atmosphere carry one back to the England of Shakespeare.
Such a village seems a fitting introduction to the abbey at whose gates
it sits; and the abbey itself, gray and ancient like the village, is
one of the most perfect monastic buildings in England. Nowhere else did
we see what seemed to us a more appropriate home for romance than this
great rambling pile of towered and gabled buildings, with a hundred odd
nooks and corners, each of which might well have a story of its own.
It is opened freely to visitors by its owner, Mr. Talbot, himself an
antiquarian of note, who is glad to share his unbounded delight in the
old place with anyone who may care to come. We were shown in detail
the parts of the abbey that have a special historic and architectural
interest. It is guarded carefully and the atmosphere of antiquity
jealously preserved. Even the stone steps of the main entrance are
grass-grown and moss-covered--"and he wont let us clean them up," said
our guide.
Inside there are many fine apartments and notable relics. The arched
cloisters, the chapter house, the refectory and other haunts of the
nuns, are in quite the original state. The immense stone fishtank from
a solid block sixteen feet long and the great bronze cauldron show that
good cheer was quite as acceptable to the nuns as to their brethren.
But the exterior of the abbey and the beautiful grounds surrounding
it impressed us most. All about were splendid trees and plots of
shrubbery, and the Bristol Avon flows through the park. We heard what
we thought the rush of its waters, but our guide told us that it was
the quaking aspens which fringe the river banks, keeping up their
age-long sigh that their species had supplied the wood for the cross.
No day is so still that you do not hear them in summer time. We passed
around the building to note from different viewpoints its quaint
outlines and its great rambling facades with crowded, queerly assorted
gables, battlemented towers and turrets, and mysterious corners, all
combining to make it the very ideal of the abbey of romance. How easy,
when contemplating it in the dim twilight or by the light of a full
moon, for the imagination to re-people it with its old-time habitants;
and surely, if the ghosts of the gray nuns ever return to their earthly
haunts, Lacock Abbey must have such visitants.
[Illustration: LACOCK ABBEY.]
But enough of these vagaries--one might yield himself up to them for
days in such surroundings. I will not mar them with sober history, in
any event, though Lacock has quite enough of that. The guide-book which
you may get at the abbey lodge for two-pence tells its story and I have
tried to tell only what we saw and felt.
At the postcard shop, where we buy a few pictures and souvenirs of
Lacock, the young woman tells us of other Wiltshire nooks that we
should see. Do we know of Sloperton Cottage, of Bromham Church, of
Corsham, of Yatton Keynell and Castle Combe? These are only a few, in
fact, but they are the ones that strike our fancy most and we thank
our informant, who follows us to point out the roads. And never had
we more need of such assistance, for our search for Sloperton Cottage
involves us in a maze of unmarked byways that wind between tall hedges
and overarching trees.
And what of Sloperton Cottage? Are you, dear reader, so ignorant as we
were, not to know that Tom Moore, the darling poet of Erin, lived in
Sloperton Cottage with his beloved Bessie for a third of a century and
that both are buried at Bromham Church near at hand? One had surely
thought to find his grave in the "ould sod" rather than in the very
heart of rural England; but so it is; and after much inquiry we enter
the lonely lane that leads to Sloperton Cottage and pause before the
long low building, heavily mantled with ivy and roses, though almost
hidden from the road by the tall hedge in front. We had been told that
it is the private home of two ladies, sisters of the owner, and we have
no thought of intruding in such a case--but a neat maid appears at the
gateway as we look, no doubt rather longingly, at the house.
"Miss ----," said she, "would be pleased to have you come in and see
the cottage."
Here is unexpected good fortune, and coming voluntarily to us, we
feel free to accept the invitation. We see the cottage and gardens,
which are much the same as when occupied by the poet, though some of
the furniture has been replaced. The garden to the rear, sweet with
old-fashioned flowers, we are told was a favorite resort of the author
of "Lalla Rookh" and that he composed much of his verse here, lying
on his back and gazing at the sky through over-arching branches. The
cottage is quite unpretentious and the whole place is so cozy and
secluded as to be an ideal retreat for the muses, and as an English
writer has observed:
"It would be an unfeeling person who could stand today before this
leafy cottage, so snugly tucked away by a shady Wiltshire lane, without
some stirring of the pulse, if only for the sake of the melodies.
If they are not great, they are the most felicitous and feeling
English verse, taken as a whole, ever set to music, and are certainly
world-famous and probably immortal. No one would wish to submit "Dear
Harp of My Country" or "Oft in the Stilly Night" to the cold light
of poetic criticism. But when the conscientious expert has finished
with "Lalla Rookh" and the "Loves of the Angels" and consigned them to
oblivion, he goes into another chamber, so to speak, and relaxes into
unrestrained praise of the melodies."
Moore must have written much of the "melodies" at Sloperton Cottage,
but before he came here his fame had been made by his oriental poems,
whose music and glitter caused them to be greatly over-estimated at
the time. As we take our leave and thank the ladies for the courtesy,
we are told that the cottage is to let and that we may so inform any
of our friends. We do so herewith and can add our unqualified personal
indorsement of Sloperton Cottage.
Bromham Church, one of the most graceful of the country churches we
have seen, is near at hand. It stands against a background of fine
trees with a hedge-surmounted stone wall in front. It is mainly in
the Perpendicular style and a slender spire rises from its square
battlemented tower. The stained windows are very large, each with many
tall upright stone mullions; one is a memorial to the poet and another
to his wife, whose memory still lingers as one of the best-loved
women of the countryside. She survived the poet, who died in 1852, by
fourteen years. They lie buried just outside the north wall of the
church. The grave is marked by a tall Celtic cross, only recently
erected, and the occasion was observed by a gathering of distinguished
Irishmen in honor of the memory of their poet. On the pedestal of
the cross is graven a verse which truly gives Moore's best claim to
remembrance:
"Dear Harp of my Country, in darkness I found thee,
The cold chain of silence had hung o'er thee long;
When proudly, my own Island Harp, I unbound thee,
And gave all thy chords to light, freedom and song."
And indeed it is the harp of his country that is now heard, and not his
labored oriental poems.
[Illustration: BROMHAM CHURCH, BURIAL PLACE OF THOMAS MOORE.]
It is a very quiet, retired country lane that we followed to Corsham,
famous for the stately seat of Lord Metheun. Corsham Court is an
Elizabethan mansion of vast extent which has many noted pictures in
its galleries, among them "Charles I. on Horseback," which is counted
the masterpiece of Van Dyck. Near the park entrance is the almshouse,
with its timeworn gables of yellow stone against the dull red of the
tile roofing. Just inside is the chapel, always present in early
English buildings, a fine Jacobean room with a double-deck pulpit and
a gallery behind an intricately carved oaken screen. One finds these
almshouses in many of the older English towns. They were founded some
centuries ago by charitably inclined persons who left legacies for the
purpose, and are maintained for a limited number of old people--women
at Corsham--who are admitted under certain carefully specified
conditions. Each inmate has a small, fairly comfortable room and
usually a little garden plot. We saw such houses at Coventry, Campden
and Corsham--all substantially built and unique in their architecture.
St. Cross at Winchester and Leicester's Hospital at Warwick are similar
institutions. There is always a long waiting-list of applicants for the
charity.
At the queer little village of Yatton Keynell, as odd and uncouth
as its name, we found another of the melancholy instances so common
in England of the degeneration of a fine manor into a slovenly farm
tenement. We drove into the ill-kept farmyard and picked our way
carefully through the debris to the front entrance, a solid oaken
door under a curious little porch. The house is a good example of the
substantial mansion of the old-time English squire, and though still
quite extensive, is of only half its original size. It has a solid oak
staircase and many touches of its old-time beauty remain. While it has
no history or tradition, it is worthy a visit from anyone interested
in English domestic architecture and in a rather melancholy phase of
social conditions.
A combe, in west of England parlance, is a deep, ravinelike valley.
Such a description certainly fits the site of Castle Combe, surely
one of the loveliest villages in Wiltshire, or all of England, for that
matter. We carefully descended a steep, narrow road winding through
the trees that cover the sharply rising hillsides, and paused before
the queer old market cross of the little town. Nowhere did we find
a more perfect and secluded gem of rural England. The market cross,
whose quadrangular roof of tile, with a tall slender shaft rising from
the center, is supported on four heavy stone pillars, looks as if it
had scarce been touched in the four hundred years during which it
has weathered sun and rain. Near by is the solid little church with
pinnacled and embattled tower, still more ancient. Along shady lanes
leading from the market place are cozy thatched cottages, bright with
climbing roses and ivy, and others of gray stone seem quite as bleak as
the cross itself. Nothing could be more picturesque than the gateway
to the adjoining park--the thatched roof of the lodgekeeper's house
sagging from the weight of several centuries. On either side of the
village rise the steep, heavily wooded hills and from the foot of the
glen comes up the murmur of the stream. Verily, there is an unknown
England--the guide-books have nothing of Castle Combe, and unless
the wayfarer comes upon it like ourselves, he will miss one of the
most charming bits of old-world life in the Kingdom. And it is all
unconscious of its charm; excepting an occasional incursion of English
trippers, visitors are few.
[Illustration: CASTLE COMBE VILLAGE, WILTSHIRE.]
The road out of the valley runs along the wooded glen, by the swift
stream just below, until a sharp rise brings us to the up-lands, where
we enter the main Bath road. And we are glad that the close of our
day's wanderings finds us so close to Bath, for we may be sure of
comfort at the Empire--though we may expect to pay for it--and we have
stopped here often enough to form the acquaintance so helpful to one in
the average English hotel. Bath is in Somerset, but the next morning we
recross the border and resume our pilgrimage in Wiltshire.
How lightly the rarest antiquities were valued in England until
yesterday is shown by the remarkable history of the Saxon chapel at
Bradford-on-Avon. This tiny church, believed to be the oldest in
England, was completely lost among the surrounding buildings; as the
discoverer, Rev. Laurence Jones, says: "Hemmed in on every side by
buildings of one kind or another, on the north by a large shed employed
for the purposes of the neighbouring woolen manufactory; on the south
by a coach-house and stables which hid the south side of the chancel,
and by a modern house built against the same side of the nave; on the
east by what was formerly, as Leland tells us, 'a very fair house of
the building of one Horton, a rich clothier,' the western gable of
which was within a very few feet of it, and hid it completely from the
general view--the design and nature of the building entirely escaped
the notice of the archaeologist."
About 1865 Rev. Jones, then Vicar of Bradford, was led to his
investigations by the accidental discovery of stone figures, evidently
rude Saxon carvings, during some repairs to the school-room. From this
beginning the building was gradually disentangled from the surrounding
structures; excavations were made and many old carvings unearthed, and
in short the chapel began to assume its present shape. The history of
the church is of course very obscure, though Rev. Jones with great
ingenuity and research shows that there is good reason to believe that
it was founded by St. Aldhelm, who died in 709. If this be true, the
chapel is twelve hundred years old and contests in antiquity with St.
Augustine's of Canterbury.
Architecturally, the little church is the plainest possible--it
comprises a tiny entrance porch, nave and chancel. The most remarkable
feature of the nave is its great height as compared with its other
dimensions, being the same as its length, or about twenty-five feet.
The doors are very narrow, barely wide enough for one person at a time,
and windows mere slits through which the sunlight struggled rather
weakly with the gloom of the interior. The chapel is a regularly
constituted Church of England and services are held in it once a year.
With all its crudeness, it serves as one of the milestones of the
progress of a new order of things in Britain, and a space of only three
centuries separates this poor little structure from the cathedrals!
The youth who acted as guide led us into his cottage near at hand
when we asked for picture cards of the chapel. His eyes brightened
noticeably when he learned we were from America. "Ah," said he, "I am
going there next spring; my brother is already there and doing well.
Do you know that more than a hundred people have gone from Bradford to
America in the past year? And more are going. There is no chance for
a common man in England." No chance for a common man in England!--How
often we heard words to that effect during our pilgrimage.
Bradford has another unique relic in the "tithe barn" built in 1300,
a long low structure with enormously thick, heavily buttressed walls
and ponderous roof--solid oaken timbers overlaid with stone slabs. Its
capacious dimensions speak eloquently of the tribute the monks were
able to levy in the good old days, for here the people who could not
contribute money brought their offerings in kind and the holy fathers
were apparently well prepared to receive and care for anything of
value. Today it serves as a cow-barn for a nearby farmer.
We leave Bradford-on-Avon for Marlborough over a fine though rather
undulating road. We pause at Devizes to read the astonishing
inscription on the town cross: