A gipsy encampment--A puzzling matter--Farming and farmers past and
present--An ancient market-town--A picturesque bit of old-world
architecture--Gleaners--Time’s changes--A house in two counties--A
wayside inn--The commercial value of the picturesque.
On one of the grassy wastes by the roadside, a sheltered corner overhung
by branching elms, we espied a gipsy encampment. A very effective and
pretty picture the encampment made with its belongings and green setting
of grass and foliage. There were three brilliantly-coloured caravans
drawn up in an irregular line and partly screening from view the same
number of brown tents; in and out of caravans and tents sun-tanned and
gay-kerchiefed children were noisily rampaging; from amidst the brown
tents a spiral film of faint blue smoke lazily ascended, to be lost to
sight in the bluer sky above; and to complete a ready-made picture, the
gipsies’ horses were tethered close at hand, grazing on the rough sward.
Truly the gipsy is a picturesque personage, though I have to confess he
is not much beloved in the country; yet I should regret to have him
improved entirely away, for he does bring colour and the flavour of
wild, free life on to the scene, well suiting the English landscape.
The gipsy, for reasons best known to himself, is apt to resent the
advances of strangers, even when made in the most amiable manner. The
artist, who, for the sake of his picturesqueness and paintable
qualities, is inclined to overlook the gipsy’s possible sins of
commission on other people’s property, finds it difficult to sketch him;
for myself, I am content to “snap-shot” him photographically on passing
by, as I did on this occasion; which proceeding, however, he was prompt
to resent with some gruffly muttered exclamation, to which we chaffingly
replied, in the blandest of voices, “But you know a cat may look at a
king.” Upon which he shouted after us, not in the politest of tones,
“Yes, but a photograph machine ain’t a cat, and I ain’t a king, nohow,”
and we felt that after all the gipsy had the best of the skirmish in
words. The gipsy is manifestly no fool, or, with so many enemies on all
sides, he would hardly have held his own for so long, and be extant and
apparently flourishing as he is to-day. “It’s the gipsy against the
world,” as a farmer once remarked to me, “and bless me if the gipsy
don’t somehow score in the struggle.”
As we passed by the encampment, the incense of burning wood, mingled
with sundry savoury odours, came wafted our way on the quiet air, and it
appeared to us that a gipsy’s life in the summer time was a sort of
continuous picnic, not without its charms. Such a charm it has indeed
for some minds, that we have more than once on previous expeditions
actually met imitations of the real article in the shape of lady and
gentleman gipsies (the term truly seems
[Sidenote: _CARAVANNING_]
rather a misnomer), touring about in smartly turnedout caravans, driven
by liveried coachmen. But all this seems to me far too respectable and
luxurious to be quite delightful. The dash of Bohemianism about it is
absurdly artificial; moreover, the coming of a caravan, both from its
size and unfamiliar appearance, of necessity invites an amount of
attention that is not always desirable, and is frequently very annoying.
Speaking for myself, I must say that when I travel I endeavour to
attract as little notice as possible; I go to observe, not to be
observed. Still, every one to his taste. If I have not become a
caravannist myself, it is certainly not from want of having the charms,
real or imagined, of that wandering and expensive life on wheels
instilled into me by a friend who owns a pleasure caravan, and has
travelled over a goodly portion of southern England in it, though he had
to confess to me, under close cross-examination, that there were certain
“trifling” drawbacks connected with the amateur gipsy’s life: first,
there was the aforementioned unavoidable publicity that a large caravan
entails; then there was the slow pace such a cumbrous conveyance imposes
on you at all times; the heat of the interior caused by the sun beating
on the exterior in hot summer days; to say nothing of having to go, at
the end of a long day’s journey, in search of camping ground for the
night, entailing often a loss of time and a good deal of trouble before
suitable quarters are found and permission to use them is obtained;
besides this, there is stabling to secure, and a foraging expedition has
to be undertaken, hardly a pleasure should the weather be wet! Whilst a
simple inn is all that the more modest and less encumbered
driving-tourist needs.
As we proceeded on our way, our attention was presently arrested by
something strange and quite novel to us: on the telegraph wires, that
stretched forth in long lines by the roadside, were suspended numerous
little square bits of tin, and this for a considerable distance. The
bits of tin, as they were swayed about by the wind, made weird music on
the wires. Had we chanced to have driven that way at night, and heard
those sounds coming directly down from the darkness above, without being
able to discover the cause, we should have been much mystified; indeed,
some hyper-nervous people passing there in the dark, under the same
circumstances of wind and weather, might have come to the conclusion
that this portion of the Great North Road was haunted. Such reputations
have been established from lesser causes.
We were at a loss to account for the strange arrangement, so we looked
about for somebody to question on the subject, and to solve the mystery
for us if possible. There was not a soul in sight on the road, far off
or near; for that matter, there never is when wanted. However, another
look around revealed a man at work in a field near by, and to him we
went and sought for the information desired, and this is the explanation
we received in the original wording: “What be them tin things for on the
telegraph postes?” They were really on the wires, but I have long ago
discovered that you
[Sidenote: _A CHAT BY THE WAY_]
must not expect exactness from the average countryman. “Why, they be put
there on account of the partridges. You see, the birds, when they be
a-flying fast like, don’t always see them wires, and lots of them gets
hurt and killed by striking themselves against them. You know, sir, as
how partridges is partridges, and has to be taken great care on; if the
quality only took the same care of the poor working-man, we should be
happy.” The poor working-man, or labourer, in the present case did not
appear very miserable or poorly clad, so we ventured to remark: “Well,
you don’t seem particularly unhappy anyhow.” At the same moment a small
coin of the realm changed ownership in return for the information
imparted, and we went our way, and the man resumed his work, after
promising to drink our very good healths that very night, and we saw no
reason to doubt that the promise would be faithfully kept. The one thing
you may positively rely upon the countryman doing, if you give him the
opportunity, is “to drink your health.”
I may note here that during my many chats with the English labourer, in
different counties far apart from each other, I have found their chief
complaint (when they have one and venture to express it) is not so much
the lowness of their wage, or the hardness of their work, as the
poorness of their dwellings. Even the farm-hand begins to expect
something better than the too often cold, damp, and draughty cottages
that for generations past, in some parts of the country more than
others, his “rude forefathers” had to put up with uncomplainingly, or
otherwise. It seems to me that the best way of stopping the emigration
from the country to the town is to make the country more attractive to
the countryman by housing him better. “But cottages don’t pay,” as a
landlord once informed me, and in this age it is difficult to make men
enter into philanthropic enterprises--unless they return a certain _per
cent_! A moneymaking generation likes to mix up philanthropy with
profit--to do good openly and make it pay privately!
From the agricultural labourer upwards to the farmer, and from the
farmer to the landowner, is an easy and natural transition. Now, since I
commenced taking my holidays on the road several years ago, agricultural
depression has, alas! gradually deepened, and my driving tours in rural
England have brought me into frequent contact with both landowner and
tenant farmer, and now and again with that sadly growing rarity the
independent and sturdy yeoman who farms his own little freehold,
perchance held by his ancestors for long centuries; with all of these I
have conversed about the “bad times,” and have obtained, I think, a
fairly comprehensive view of the situation from each standpoint.
Endeavouring, as far as is possible with fallible human nature, to take
the unprejudiced position of a perfectly neutral onlooker--a position
that has caused me in turn to heartily sympathise with each party--the
conclusion that I have reluctantly come to is this, that unless a great
war should be a disturbing factor in
[Sidenote: _AN OLD SAYING_]
the case--an ever-possible contingency, by the way--with cheapened ocean
transit and competition with new countries, land in Old England will no
longer produce a profit to the modern tenant as well as to the landlord,
and pay big tithes besides. It must be borne in mind that the tenant
farmer of to-day has progressed like the rest of the world. He needs
must possess a certain capital, and no longer is he or his family
content with the simple life or pleasures of his predecessors. His wife,
son, and daughters will not work on the farm, nor superintend the dairy,
as of old; they all expect, and I think rightly expect, in an age when
Board School children learn the piano and other accomplishments, a
little more refinement and ease. And if this be so, I take it that the
only way to solve the difficulty of making the land pay is somehow to
get back the disappearing yeoman: the pride of possession will alone
ensure prosperous farming. A local saying, possibly pertinent to the
question, was repeated to me one day by a large tenant farmer in the
Midlands, who had lost by farming well. It runs thus:
He who improves may flit,
He who destroys may sit.
And much truth underlies the proverbs of the countryside. Now a yeoman
would not have to “flit” for improving his freehold, and a man does not
generally destroy his own.
Whilst our thoughts had been wandering thus, the dog-cart had kept
steadily on its way, and our reverie was broken by finding ourselves in
the quaint old market-town of Baldock, driving down its spacious and
sunny main street, which we noticed with pleasure was lined with trees,
and bound by irregular-roofed buildings, mellowed by age into a
delicious harmony of tints. Nature never mixes her colours crudely. I
know no better study of colour harmonies than the weather-painting of a
century-old wall, with its splashes of gold, and silver, and bronze
lichen, its delicate greens and grays, its russets and oranges, and all
the innumerable and indescribable hues that the summer suns and winter
storms of forgotten years have traced upon its surface--hues blending,
contrasting, and commingling, the delight of every true artist, and his
despair to depict aright. With buildings age is the beautifier; even
Tintern, with its roofless aisles and broken arches, could not have
looked half as lovely in the full glory of its Gothic prime, when its
walls were freshly set, its sculptures new, and traceries recently
worked, as it looks now. No building, however gracefully designed, can
ever attain the perfection of its beauty till Time has placed his
finishing touches thereon, toning down this and tinting that, rounding
off a too-sharp angle here, and making rugged a too-smooth corner there,
adorning the walls with ivy and clinging creepers, and decorating the
roof with lustrous lichen!
Baldock had such a genuine air of antiquity about it, with its ancient
architecture and slumberous calm, so foreign to the present age, that we
felt that without any undue strain upon the imagination we could picture
ourselves as medieval travellers
[Sidenote: _QUAINT ALMS-HOUSES_]
arriving in a medieval market-town! Baldock does not suggest, as so many
country towns unfortunately do, a bit of suburban London uprooted and
dumped down in a distant shire. No, Baldock has somehow managed to
retain its own characteristic individuality, and it pleases the lover of
the picturesque past because of this. To the left of the broad roadway
our eyes were charmed by the sight of a quaint group of ancient
alms-houses, situated within a walled enclosure, through which wall a
graceful archway gave entrance to the homes. Whilst we were admiring
this pleasing specimen of old-time work, one of the inmates came out and
invited us inside; but the interior, upon inspection, did not attract us
as the exterior had done: the latter had not been spoilt by furniture or
paper, or any other modern addition, to disturb its charming and restful
harmony. The rooms looked comfortable enough, however, and the old body
who showed us over declared that she was more than satisfied with her
quarters,--even life in an alms-house could not affect her manifestly
cheerful and contented disposition. A prince in a palace could not have
looked more satisfied with his lot. Inscribed on a stone tablet let into
the front of the building we read:
Theis Almes Howses are
the gieft of Mr Iohn Wynne
cittezen of London Latelye
Deceased who hath left a
Yeareley stipend to everey
poore of either howses to
the Worldes End. September
Anno Domini 1621.
And may the stipend be regularly paid to the poor “to the Worldes End,”
according to the donor’s directions, and not be devoted to other and
very different purposes, as sometimes has been the case elsewhere with
similar gifts, under the specious pretext of changed times!
Judging from the date affixed to these alms-houses, they were standing
just as they are now, looking doubtless a little newer, when Charles I.
passed a prisoner through here in the charge of General Fairfax; on
which occasion, according to long-cherished local tradition, the vicar
offered him for his refreshment some wine in the Communion cup. That
must have been an eventful day for Baldock.
Not only the alms-houses, but the other buildings round about, of red
brick, with the pearly-gray bloom of age over them, were very pleasant
to look upon. Perhaps their colour never was so crude and assertive as
that of the modern red brick with which we construct our cheap misnamed
Queen Anne villas--which have nothing of the Queen Anne about them,--a
red that stares at you, and is of one uniform, inartistic hue--a hue
quite on a par as regards unsightliness with the chilly, eye-displeasing
blue of Welsh slates. Since the railways have come and cheapened
communication, Welsh slates have spread over all the land like an ugly
curse; you find them everywhere--they have displaced the cheerful ruddy
tiles that so well suit the gentle gloom of the English climate and the
soft green of its landscapes, they have ousted the pleasant gray stone
slab and homely
[Sidenote: _THE MAGIC OF FAME_]
thatch. Welsh slates are bad enough, but, alas! there is even a lower
depth of ugliness. Corrugated iron is still more hideous, and this I
sadly note is coming into use as a roofing material; it is cheap and
effectual, absolutely waterproof--and such an eyesore! How is it that
things are so seldom cheap and beautiful--truly there are exceptions,
but these only prove the rule--are these two qualities sworn enemies? If
only the Welsh slates were of the delicious greeny-gray tint of the more
expensive Cumberland ones, it would be a different matter. It is an
astonishing thing how even good architects are neglectful of colour in
their buildings, and what comparatively small thought they devote to the
beauty of the roof.
Many people possibly would see nothing to admire or commend in Baldock;
it would probably impress the average individual as being a sleepy,
old-fashioned sort of place, deadly dull, and wholly devoid of interest;
so doubtless the same individual would consider Stratford-on-Avon, had
not Shakespeare been born there, and had not that magic accident of his
birth caused the town to be visited and written about by famous authors,
its beauties sought out and belauded by guide-book compilers, its quaint
old-world bits of architecture to be sketched and painted and
photographed endlessly, so that we all know how to admire it. Now, so
far as I am aware, no very notable person has been born at Baldock, so
the tourist comes not thither; and with nothing eventful to chronicle
about the town, nothing to commend it but its quiet naturalness and
picturesqueness, which it shares with many another ancient English
market-town, Baldock will have to sleep on unfamed, for its quiet charms
are not of the nature to assert themselves or appeal to everybody. There
is a beauty that requires searching after, which, not being pronounced,
the eye needs training to see. Still, I think that even the most
unobservant traveller, on passing through the quiet little town, must
note its pleasing look of mellowness and naturalness, the latter of
which qualities is attractively refreshing in this age of artificiality.
Out of Baldock our road rose gradually on an embankment, possibly one of
the later improvements made by the old Turnpike Trust, when there was
actually a feeling amongst the coach proprietors that they might
successfully compete with the coming iron horse--an idea that took some
time to dispel, for even as late as October 1837 I find, from an old
coaching poster so dated, that the “Red Rover” from London to Manchester
was re-established as a commercial speculation. How long this
“well-appointed coach” ran after its establishment I cannot say.
From the top of the rise we obtained a good view of Baldock, that, with
the woods around, the silvery sheen of water below, and the soft sky
above, made a very pretty picture; so pretty, indeed, that the
temptation to sketch it was not to be resisted. But later on we had to
harden our hearts and pass by many a picturesque spot without using our
pencil, otherwise we should have made more sketches than
[Sidenote: _OLD CUSTOMS_]
miles per hour, and our journey would not have been finished by
Christmas time. To the artist eye, accustomed to look out for beauty,
rural England is one succession of pictures!
We now struck upon a purely farming country, where the fields were large
and divided by hedgerows into a sort of glorified and many-tinted
chessboard--not a happy comparison certainly, but “‘twill serve.” In
some of the fields we saw gleaners, women and children, at work amongst
the stubble,--I had nearly written at play, so unlike work did their
occupation seem, for the children were romping, and the women were
laughing and chatting, and it did our hearts good to hear the merry
prattle and cheerful voices. Would all labour were as lightsome!
We had an idea that the gleaner, like the almost forgotten flail, was a
thing of the past, but were delighted to find that the good old custom,
honoured by over two thousand years of observance, sung of by poets and
beloved by painters, has not wholly disappeared, and that some of the
romance of the fields is left to us. The flail, that used to knock out
the corn on the old barn floors with much thumping, I have not met with
for years long past, but I believe, from what I hear, that it still is
used in a few remote places. The reaping machine has driven the slow
sickle into a few odd corners of the land, where the ground is rough and
the crops are small, though sometimes it has momentarily reappeared
elsewhere when the corn has been badly laid. The mowing machine also has
to a great extent, though less universally, taken the place of the
scythe. And with these changes has come a change over the sounds of the
countryside. For the occasional whetting of the scythe we have the
continuous rattle of the machine; and the puffing and peculiar humming
of the steam-thresher, heard from afar, has taken the place of the
muffled thumping of the flail on the soft straw, only to be heard a
short way off.
The fact cannot be blinked that husbandry has lost not a little of its
past-time picturesque and poetic aspect. Perhaps no one realises this
more than the artist; for though it may be done, and has been done, yet
for all it is not easy to put romance into commonplace machinery--that
means poetry without the gathered glamour of the associations of long
years. Machinery has at last but too successfully invaded the farm, and
the agriculturist is being slowly converted into a sort of produce
manufacturer. Now it is difficult to grow sentimental over machinery!
The time may even come when the readers of Crabbe, Gray, Thomson, and
other poets of the countryside will need the aid of a commentator to
understand their terms aright. Only the other day a literary man asked
me to describe a flail, as he was not quite sure what it was! Possibly
some of us hardly realise how rapidly “the old order gives place to the
new,” till unexpectedly the fact is brought to mind by some such
question. I am thankful to say that I have heard nothing of the “Silo”
of late, so that I trust that ensilage, that was to do such great things
for the English farmers, is a
[Sidenote: _THE POETRY OF TOIL_]
failure, and never likely to usurp the place of the pleasant hay-field
and fragrant haystacks. We simply cannot afford to improve the merry
haymaking away--it is the very poetry of toil.
Driving on, we presently passed the fortieth milestone from London, just
beyond which a post by the roadside informed us that we had entered
Bedfordshire. Crossing this imaginary line brought back to mind a story
we had been told concerning it by an antiquarian friend, as
follows:--Just upon the boundaries of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire
formerly stood a rambling old farm-house; the living-room of this was
long and low, and on the centre beam that went across the ceiling (such
as may still be found in ancient buildings) was inscribed this legend:
“If you are cold, go to Hertfordshire”--which apparently inhospitable
invitation was explained by the fact of the peculiar situation of the
room, one-half being in the one county and one-half in the other, and it
chanced that the fireplace was at the Hertfordshire end!
Soon after the change of counties, at the foot of a long gradual
descent, we found ourselves in the hamlet of Astwick, where by the
wayside we espied a primitive but picturesque little inn boasting the
title of “The Greyhound,” with a pump and horse-trough at one side, as
frequently represented in old pictures and prints of ancient
hostelries--a trough of the kind in which Mr. Weller the elder so
ignominiously doused the head of the unfortunate Mr. Stiggins. Besides
the trough there was a tiny garden of colourful flowers in front of the
inn by way of refinement, and above the weather-tinted roof uprose a
fine stack of clustering chimneys. The chance light and shade effect of
the moment suited well the unpretending but pleasant bit of old-time
architecture, so we proceeded to photograph it, not, however, before the
landlord had divined our intention, and had placed himself in a
prominent position, so that he might be included in the picture. A
worthy man the landlord proved to be, as we found out in after
conversation with him, and we promised to send him a copy of the
photograph; but “the best-laid schemes o’ mice an’” amateur
photographers “gang aft agley,” for it happened we had forgotten to
change the plate, and so took the old inn right on the top of a previous
photograph of another inn, and the photographic mixture was not
favourable to clearness or an artistic result! The negative when
developed showed two signboards on separate posts in different positions
and at different angles, two roofs, one just over the other, a hopeless
jumble of windows, and two stacks of chimneys occupying, the same place
at the same time, in spite of the well-known axiom that no two things
can do so. The Astwick landlord truly was there, but converted into a
veritable ghost, for through his body you could plainly trace the
doorway of the first inn! Certainly the result amused sundry of our
friends, but then the photograph--photographs, I mean,--were not taken
for that purpose, and friends are so easily amused at one’s failings!
This reminds me that a famous artist once told me, speaking of
experiments in painting, that he preferred a magnificent failure to a
poor success; but our failure was not magnificent.
[Sidenote: _“HEART OF OAK”_]
Having, as we fondly imagined, secured a fine photograph, we entered
into a conversation with the landlord, which resulted, as we hoped, in
his inviting us to “take a glance” inside, where he pointed out the
floors to us, which he said were all of “heart of oak,” and further
remarked, “You don’t find that in modern buildings of this sort”--a
statement in which we heartily concurred. He also showed us the
staircase, likewise of oak. He had not been in the house long, we
learnt, and when he bought the place “it was all going to ruin”; but he
put it in good order. “Lots of people come to sketch and photograph the
old inn, and some of the people who come patronise us for refreshment.”
So it would seem that, after all, the picturesque has a commercial
value--a fact we were delighted to note. Who would go even a mile to
sketch a modern-built public-house? for the primitive inn was really
that, though its picturesque and thought-out design suggested a more
dignified purpose.