A pleasant road--Memories--Shortening of names--Health-drinking--A
miller and his mill--A rail-less town--Changed times and changed
ways--An Elizabethan church clock--A curious coincidence--Old
superstitions--Satire in carving--“The Monks of Old.”
From Bourn we decided to drive to Sleaford, an easy day’s stage of
eighteen miles, baiting half-way at Falkingham. Upon asking the ostler
about the road, it struck us as curious to hear him remark that it was a
hilly one; so accustomed had we become to the level roads of the Fens
that for the moment we had forgotten that Lincolnshire is a county of
heaths, hills, and waving woods as well as of fens, dykes, and sluggish
streams.
The aspect of the country we passed through that morning had completely
changed from that of yesterday; it was pleasantly undulating, and even
the brake was brought into requisition once or twice, for the first time
since we left London. Hedges again resumed their sway, and we realised
their tangled beauties all the more for our recent absence from them;
sturdy oaks and rounded elms took the place of the silvery flickering
willows and of the tall thin poplars, and smooth-turfed meadows that of
the coarse-grassed marsh-lands. The general forms and outlines of the
country were more familiar, but it seemed a little wanting in colour
after the rich tints of the lowlands; by contrast it all appeared too
green: green fields, green trees, green crops, for these, with the
winding road, chiefly composed the prospect. Moreover, we missed the
constant and enlivening accompaniment of water that we had become so
accustomed to, with its soft, silvery gleaming under cloud and its
cheerful glittering under sun. Water is to the landscape what the eye is
to the human face; it gives it the charm of expression and vivacity. At
first, also, our visions seemed a little cramped after the wide and
unimpeded prospects of the Fens; and the landscape struck us as almost
commonplace compared with that we had so lately passed through, which
almost deserved the epithet of quaint, at least to non-Dutch eyes. There
was no special feature in the present scenery beyond its leafy
loveliness. Truly it might be called typically English, but there was
nothing to show that it belonged to any particular portion of
England--no distant peep of downs, or hills, or moors, that seems so
little, but which to the experienced traveller means so much, as by the
character and contour of distant hill, or moor, or down he can tell
fairly well whether he be in the north or south, the east or west, and
may even shrewdly guess the very county he is traversing.
[Sidenote: _A PASTORAL LAND_]
It was, however, a lovely country, full of pastoral peacefulness,
sunshine, and grateful sylvan shadiness, lovely yet lonely--a loneliness
that aroused within us a feeling akin to melancholy: it may have been
our mood that saw it so that day, and that the fault lay in ourselves
and not in the landscape. Does not the poet say, “Our sweetest songs are
those that tell of saddest thought”? So may not the sweetest scenery, in
certain minds, and under certain conditions, arouse a sentiment of
sadness? There is a peacefulness that is restful beyond words,
especially to the town-wearied brain; but there is also a peacefulness
so deep as to become actually oppressive. However, all the feelings of
loneliness and melancholy vanished, like the mist before the sun, at the
sight of an old-fashioned windmill painted a cheerful white and
picturesquely situated at the top of a knoll by the side of our road,
its great sails whirling round and round with a mighty sweep and a
swishing sound as they rushed through the air in their never-completed
journey. This busy mill gave just the touch of needful life to the
prospect; we hailed it as we would have hailed an old friend, and at
once our spirits rose to a gleesome point. What trifles may thus
suddenly change the current of thought and feeling! It may even be so
small a matter as the scent of a wild flower, or the sound of the wind
in the trees, recalling past days and far-away scenes. So this old mill
brought up before us a rush of pleasant memories, the poetry of many a
rural ramble, of chats with merry meal-covered millers, for millers I
have ever found to be the merriest of men, and never yet have I come
upon a crusty one. All those to whom I have talked, and they have not
been few, without exception appeared to take a rosy view of life, not
even grumbling with cause. I wish I knew the miller’s secret of
happiness!
[Sidenote: _A DOUBTFUL PLEASURE_]
It was whilst watching the hurtling sails of the creaking mill that it
occurred to us why the country seemed so dull that day; it was the
absence of movement, we had the road all to ourselves. There was no
flowing river or running stream, and the cattle in the fields were lazy
and placid, seemingly as immovable as those in pictures; not even
troubling to whisk their tails at real or imaginary flies. Even the
birds appeared too indolent to fly; at least they were strangely
invisible. An air of solemn repose pervaded the whole countryside until
that cheery windmill came into view. It was curious that at the moment
the only life in the landscape should be given to it by a building! for
the mind pictures a building as a substantial thing not given to any
movement.
Shortly after this we reached the pretty and picturesquely situated
village of Aslackby--shortened to Asby by a native of whom we asked its
name--even the rustic has come into line with the late nineteenth
century, so far as not to waste breath or words. The straggling village
was situated in a wooded hollow a little below our road; its ancient
church and cottages, half drowned in foliage, formed a charming picture.
The church looked interesting, but we found the door carefully locked,
and not feeling just then our archæological and antiquarian zeal
sufficient to induce us to go a-clerk-hunting, a doubtful joy at the
best, we quietly, and, I fear, unregretfully, resumed our seats in the
dog-cart, for the soft sunshine and sweet air were grateful to our
senses, and it pleased us to be out in the open.
Just beyond Aslackby a wayside inn ycleped “The Robin Hood” invited us
with the following lines on its sign-board, though unavailingly, to stop
and refresh ourselves there:--
Gentlemen if you think good,
Step in and drink with Robin Hood:
If Robin Hood abroad is gone,
Pray take a glass with Little John.
Noting us stop to take down the inscription, and possibly mistaking our
motive, the familiar incident once more took place--a beery-looking
passer-by approached us and remarked that he could recommend the tap. We
thanked him for his kindness, and jokingly responded that we did not
happen to be thirsty just then, but we would bear in mind his
recommendation should we ever again be in the neighbourhood. “Not
thirsty on such a day as this,” he exclaimed with an air of surprise;
“why, I be as thirsty as a fish”; but we did not rise to the occasion,
and as we drove away the man glanced reproachfully after us, then he
disappeared within the building. Perhaps we might have parted with the
customary twopence, for the man was civil-mannered, but why should the
wanderer by road in England be so frequently expected to have his health
drunk by utter strangers? The number of twopences I have already
expended for this purpose since I first started my driving tours must be
considerable!
Some way farther on our road we chanced upon still another ancient
wooden mill busily at work like the former one. It was a picturesque
mill of a primitive type that is fast disappearing from the land; the
whole structure being supported on a great central post that acts as a
pivot, and is bodily turned on this by a long projecting beam acting as
a lever, so that the sails can be made to face the wind from whichever
quarter it may come; but this arrangement, of course, needs constant
watchfulness.
[Sidenote: _IN A WINDMILL_]
We pulled up here in order to make a sketch of the old mill, that looked
almost too quaint and picturesque to be real, giving one a sort of
impression that it must have come out of some painting, an artist’s
ideal realised. The worthy miller watched our proceeding with manifest
interest from his doorway above, and when we had finished he asked us if
we would care to take a glance inside. We did care, and likewise were
not averse to have the opportunity of a chat so that we might gather his
view of the world and of things in general, for naturally everybody sees
the former from his own centre, and through his own glasses. We had to
mount a number of rickety steps that communicated with the creaking mill
above which oscillated unpleasantly, for the sails were spinning round
apace before the breeze, causing the ancient structure to tremble and
its timbers to groan like those of a ship in a gale; indeed, when we had
safely surmounted the flight of shaking steps we felt that we sadly
needed our “sea-legs” to stand at all, and the latter are not always
immediately at command when cruising on land. “She’s running a bit free
to-day,” exclaimed the miller, smiling and all gray-white with dusty
meal, “and she’s not so young as she were by a couple of centuries or
so, but she’s quite safe though she do rock and rattle a bit. But Lor’
bless you, I likes to hear her talk; it’s company like, for it’s lonely
work up here by oneself all day at times.” It was not only that the
ancient mill moved and shook so, but the floor was uneven as well, nor
was there overmuch elbow-room to allow a margin for unsteadiness, and it
would have been awkward to have been caught by any of the whirring
wheels; moreover the noise was confusing and the light seemed dim for
the moment after the bright sunshine without. But we soon got used to
the new condition of things and our novel and unstable surroundings.
“I wonder she has never been blown right over in a storm during all
those years,” I said, “for she is only supported on a single post,
though certainly it is a big one.” In truth the mill shook so much in
the comparatively steady breeze that it seemed to us a heavy storm would
easily have laid her low. Mills, like ships, are always “she’s,” I have
observed, though how a man-of-war can be a “she” has always puzzled me.
“Well, she may be only supported on one post, but that is of solid heart
of oak, as whole and strong to-day as when first put up; not worm-eaten
a bit. There’s an old saying you may have heard, ‘there’s nothing like
leather’; it ought to be, I thinks, by rights, ‘there’s nothing like
oak.’ She do rock though when it blows hard, but I’m used to it; it’s
her nature, and she’ll last
[Sidenote: _A CHAT WITH A MILLER_]
my life. Oh yes, she’s very old-fashioned and slow, but for all that she
can grind corn better nor your modern mills, in spite of what people
talk. We grinds the wheat and makes honest meal; the modern mills with
their rollers make simply flour, which is not half as wholesome or
nourishing. Wheat-meal and flour are not the same, though they both make
bread: wheat-meal possesses nourishing qualities that ordinary flour
does not.” So one drives about country and learns!
The miller looked an oldish man, but his face and beard (I think he had
a beard, but my memory may be at fault) were white from dusty meal, and
may have made him appear older than he really was. Anyhow, we ventured
to ask him if he thought times had altered for the better or for the
worse since he was young. Like the rest of the world, merry miller
though he was, he complained of the severe competition that had cut down
profits to a minimum, whilst the work was harder. In “the good old days”
of milling, when he began the trade, the price for grinding corn used to
be 1s. a strike or 8s. a quarter for wheat, and 8d. a strike or 5s. 4d.
a quarter for barley; now the charge is 5s. 4d. a quarter for wheat, and
2s. 6d. a quarter for barley. “Moreover, nowadays, though we gets less
money for the work, we have to fetch the corn and take the meal back
again; whereas in past times the corn was carted to the mill, and taken
away when ground.” So that, we were given to understand, besides the
lowering of prices there was the cost of cartage to and fro to be taken
into consideration. It is the same familiar story of a harder struggle
to earn a living, entailing besides a lessened leisure. Some one has to
suffer for the benefit of cheap production, and the small man suffers
most.
Bidding good-bye to our worthy miller, who, in spite of altered times,
had a contented look that a millionaire well might envy, we remounted
the dogcart and soon reached the sleepy, little, and erst market town of
Falkingham--a town unknown to Bradshaw, because it has been left out in
the cold by the railway, but none the less picturesque on that account!
Here the road widened out into a large triangle, the base being at the
end farthest away from us; this formed the old market-place, a pleasant
open space surrounded by quaint and ancient houses and shops. One of
these houses especially interested us, a substantial stone building with
mullioned windows, set slightly back from the roadway and approached
between two massive pillars surmounted by round stone balls. It was not
perhaps actually picturesque, but it had such a charming air of quiet
dignity, and looked so historical in a mild manner, as to make the
modern villa seem a trumpery affair. It was a house that struck you as
having been built originally for the owner to live in and to enjoy, in
contradistinction to which the “desirable residence” of to-day always
seems to me to be built to sell. The stones of this old house were
delightfully toned into a series of delicate grays, enlivened here and
there by splashes of gold and silver lichen. What a difference there is
between the wealth of colourful hues of a time-tinted country building
and the begrimed appearance of a smoke-stained London dwelling. Age adds
beauty to the one; it adds but a depressing gloom to the other.
[Sidenote: _PRE-RAILWAY TRAVELLERS_]
Right in front of us, at the top of the market-place, stood a fine
example of an old coaching inn--a long red-brick structure whose ruddy
front showed in pleasant contrast with the gray stone buildings around
of earlier date: a plain but comfortable-looking hostelry, its many
windows gleaming cheerfully in the sunshine, and having in the centre
under the eaves of its roof a reminder of the past in the shape of a
sun-dial with a legend upon it; but what that legend was we could not
make out, for time and weather had rendered it indistinct. In our mind’s
eye we pictured to ourselves the outside travellers by the arriving
coaches consulting it, and then pulling their cumbersome “verge” watches
out of their fobs to see if they were correct. Sun-dials, besides being
picturesque, were of real utility in the days when watches and clocks
could not always be relied upon to tell the right time.
Of old, Falkingham was on the high turnpike road from London to Lincoln,
therefore the traffic passing through the little town in the coaching
age must have been considerable, and the place must have presented a
very different aspect then from the one of slumberous tranquillity it
now possesses. Our inn, “The Greyhound” to wit, I find duly recorded in
my copy of _Paterson_ as supplying post-horses. I well remember my
grandfather expatiating upon the pleasures of a driving tour in his
young days when he left home with his travelling carriage packed, but
without horses, as he posted from town to town and place to place,
without the shadow of anxiety about the “cattle,” or having any need to
consider whether this or that stage was too long. It was expensive
travelling doubtless, but delightfully luxurious and free from care,
except for the bogey of the highwayman; but every pleasure has its
shadow! The Greyhound has manifestly been but little altered since the
last coach pulled up there, beyond that the great arched entranceway in
the centre has been glazed and converted into a hall, which may or may
not be an improvement: personally, for tradition’s sake, I look
jealously upon any modifications in the economy of these ancient
coaching houses; but one cannot keep the hand of Time back just for the
sake of tradition or the picturesque.
Having refreshed ourselves very satisfactorily here, our roast beef
being washed down with a foaming tankard of genuine home-brewed ale, we
set out to have a quiet look at the clean past-time town, which, as a
matter of fact, we could take in at a glance, for it was all gathered
round its large old market-square, though market-triangle would be a
more correct term. Falkingham seems never to have known the hand of the
modern builder, and has therefore happily preserved its charming
old-world look, thanks doubtless in a great measure, if not wholly, to
the fact of the railway having left it stranded high and dry out of the
traveller’s beat.
Our stroll round the square did not take long:
[Sidenote: _A RAIL-LESS TOWN_]
the only inhabitants we saw were an old gaffer talking across a garden
wall to a woman who stood in her doorway listlessly listening to him; we
were much amused to hear the former suddenly exclaim, just as we passed
by, “Why, bless my soul, I’ve been over half an hour here; I must go now
and have a chat with old Mother Dash.” It suggested to us that his life
was mostly composed of gossiping, and that time was not such a priceless
commodity at Falkingham as in most places. Here at least the hurry and
rush, the stress and striving of the nineteenth century appear not to
have penetrated, and humanity rusts rather than wears away. Can this be
due to the mere absence of the railway, I wonder? Certainly where the
iron horse does not penetrate, life seems to be lived at a lower
pressure than elsewhere. A deep sense of repose hung over the whole
place, a peacefulness that could possibly be felt; for a town it was
unnaturally--painfully I might almost say--silent: in the heart of the
country we could not have found a greater tranquillity!
Having “done” the town and having added a few more pencil notes to our
sketch-book, on glancing around we suddenly espied the church half
hidden away in a corner to the left of our inn that somehow we had
hitherto overlooked. Approaching the aged fane we noticed a great
clockface on the weather-worn and hoary tower with a solitary wooden
hand thereon pointing aimlessly down to six; it was then a few minutes
to one, for we had lunched early, having started in the morning
“betimes,” to once again employ Mr. Pepys’s favourite expression. For
when driving across country it is well to have a long day before one;
even then the whole day was sometimes too short!
Affixed to the porch of the church we observed the following notice,
that plainly tells its own tale of changed times and changed ways, and
of an enlightened, up-to-date ecclesiasticism:--
Cyclists Welcomed
In Cycling Dress.
Entering the building we heard a peculiar creaking noise, apparently
proceeding from the tower above, that was in singular contrast with the
otherwise profound stillness of the interior. This puzzled us, and,
discovering a circular stone stairway that led up the tower, we promptly
ascended it to solve the mystery. This eventually--after climbing over
one hundred steps (we counted them)--took us into a small chamber, where
we found the sexton winding up an ancient clock of curious design, an
interesting specimen of medieval handicraft. I sincerely trust that no
agent from South Kensington or other museum, or any emissary from
Wardour Street, will unearth this antique “time-teller,” or if unhappily
they do, I trust that they will not be permitted to possess it, even
though they promise a brand new clock in its place! I prefer to see such
curiosities in their rightful positions, where they ought to remain
their natural life undisturbed, and where alone they are in harmony with
their surroundings. Many an ancient
[Sidenote: _AN ELIZABETHAN CLOCK_]
helmet, that once hung over the recumbent effigy of its former knightly
owner in the quiet village church, has been basely filched away to add
to the collector’s store, where they may only be seen by the favoured
few, and why should this be? The queer old clock was being wound up, not
by a key, but by a sort of miniature windlass. The works were of wrought
iron, all hammered and cut by hand, for machinery manifestly had no part
in their construction; perhaps that is why they have lasted so long!
From our knowledge of such things, we concluded that this clock could
not have been of later date than Elizabeth’s time; how much earlier, if
any, it would be hard to say. Unless, however, we are greatly mistaken,
it has outlived three centuries, and has probably marked the hours all
those long years, more or less correctly, whilst the cunning hands that
designed and constructed it are forgotten dust. Here the inevitable
moral should follow, but I refrain. This reminds me that I once gave my
thirteen-year-old daughter an improving, well-intentioned book, and in
due course I asked her how she liked it: “Well, dada,” she replied,
quite innocently, “when you’ve skipped all the goody bits there’s
nothing left!” A brass plate attached to the clock informed us that
W. Foster
Repaired this Clock
Anno Domini
1816.
We understood that, so far as the sexton knew, it had not been repaired
since that date. Then we called the sexton’s attention to the fact that
the face of the clock had but one hand, and that was loose and moved to
and fro in the wind as helplessly as a weather-vane: “Yes,” he replied
with a grin, “I had to pull the other hand off; it caught in the wind so
as to slow the clock, and when it blew hard sometimes it stopped her
going altogether. I left the other hand on, as being loose it could do
no harm”! This sounded a delightfully primitive way out of a mechanical
difficulty; quite a stroke of rural genius! At the same time it appeared
to us strangely inconsistent and illogical to have a clock going that
did not show the time. “Lor’ bless you, sir,” responded he, “the old
clock strikes the hours right enough, and that’s all the folk want to
know. Why, if the hands were going they’d never look up at ’em. Not
they.” What a lotus-eating land this, we thought, where people only care
to know the hours, and take no thought of the intervals! Just then the
sexton began to toll a loud bell vigorously. In reply to our query for
the reason of this, he explained that it was the custom there to ring
the bell every morning at eight o’clock, and again at one o’clock, “and
it’s one o’clock now, and so I’m ringing of it. I don’t rightly know how
old the custom be, but the bell be very useful, as it lets the people at
work in the fields around know the time. We calls this the dinner bell.
You see it carries farther than the sound of the clock striking.”
We then ventured to admire the old tower, a fine specimen of
Perpendicular masonry, possessing some much-weathered, curious but
rather coarse gargoyles outside. The sexton also admired it: “It
certainly be a fine tower; there’s a wonderfully good view of the
country round from the top. I allus goes up there when the hounds be out
to see the run. I know no other tower in the district from which you can
see so far. Now, if them old builders had only,” etc., etc. I am afraid
the sexton and ourselves regarded the old tower from two very dissimilar
standpoints.
[Sidenote: _OUT OF THE BEATEN TRACK_]
Descending into the body of the church, we noticed a doorway in the
south wall, and caught a peep of some stone steps beyond, leading, we
were informed, to a chamber over the porch formerly used as a
schoolroom, “now we only keep rubbish in it, odd tiles, broken bits of
carvings, and the like. You can go up if you care to, but it be rare and
dusty.” We did care to go up. Indeed, in the fondness of our heart for
such things we even dared to hope that perchance we might, to use an
expressive term much favoured by antiquaries, come upon “a find” there.
Here, we reasoned, is a fine and ancient church, well out of the beaten
track of travel. The present interior suggested that it had once been
richly adorned; presumably it had suffered, more or less, the fate of
other ornate churches during the Commonwealth. Who can tell but that
some quaint relic of its former beauty may not be stowed away up there
amongst the rubbish? The very mention of “odd tiles” sounded
encouraging, only supposing that there happened to be some quaint
medieval ones amongst the number! So, full of pleasant anticipation, we
eagerly ascended the steep stone steps, worn both very concave and
slippery with the tread of generations departed. We reached a large
parvise, or priest’s chamber, provided with a fireplace; the uneven
floor was strewn with bits of broken tiles, worm-eaten wood, plaster,
bricks, etc. The chamber was exceedingly dusty and cobwebby, but we at
once enthusiastically began to search amongst the litter for anything of
interest, but, alas! discovered nothing noteworthy; the tiles were
modern. The sexton was right after all--it was full of rubbish! So,
disappointed and almost as white as a miller, we descended the slippery
steps. Then as the sexton--there was no clerk, he informed us--seemed in
a chatty mood, we asked him if he knew of any curious inscription in the
churchyard. “Well, I think I can show you one that will interest you,”
he replied, whereupon he led the way outside and we followed. Coming to
an old tombstone he remarked, “Now, I call this a funny one; it is to a
man and his wife who both died in the same year, and were both exactly
the same age to a day when they died.” Then he rubbed the ancient stone
over with his hand, that we might better read what was written thereon,
which I copied as follows:--
To
The Memory of
JOHN BLAND
Who Died March 25th, 1797,
Aged 75 Years, 6 Weeks, and 4 Days.
* * * * *
Also of
JANE, his Widow
Who Died May 11th, 1797,
Aged 75 Years, 6 Weeks, and 4 Days.
[Sidenote: _A FORTUNATE COMBINATION_]
Provided the inscription records facts, it certainly is a curious
coincidence; still quite a possible one.
Returning to our inn, we ordered the horses to be “put to,” and whilst
this was being done, we had a chat with the landlord, from whom we
learnt that he both brewed his own ale and grew his own barley to brew
it with. It is the pleasant fate of some of these remote old coaching
hostelries in their old age to become half hotel and half farmhouse, and
a more fortunate combination for the present-day traveller there could
not be. By this arrangement the old buildings are preserved and cared
for in a manner that diminished custom would hardly permit were they to
remain purely as inns; nor does the providing suffer from the blending
of uses, the produce of the farm being at command, which means, or
should mean, fresh vegetables, milk, butter, and eggs. In the present
case it further meant the rare luxury of home-brewed ale from home-grown
grain, and a quart of such, does not Shakespeare say, “is a dish for a
king”?
We drove on now through a pretty and well-wooded country, our road
winding in and out thereof in the most enticing manner: every now and
then we caught refreshing peeps of a far-away distance, faintly blue,
out from which came to us a fragrant breeze, cool, sweet, and soothing.
In driving across country it is not only the prospect that changes but
the air also, and, as the eye delights in the change of scene, so the
lungs rejoice in the change of climate. The landscape all around had a
delightfully fresh and smiling look; it was intensely pastoral and
peaceful, and over all there brooded a sense of deep contentment and
repose. Old time-mellowed farmsteads and quiet cottage homes were dotted
about, from which uprose circling films of blue-gray smoke, agreeably
suggestive of human occupancy. “How English it all looked,” we
exclaimed, and these five words fitly describe the scenery. In that
sentence pages of word-painting are condensed!
As we proceeded above the woods to the left and the right of us rose two
tall tapering spires, belonging respectively--at least so we made out
from our map--to the hamlets of Walcot and Treckingham. These spires
reminded us what splendid churches some of the small Lincolnshire
villages possess; there they stand in remote country districts often
hastening to decay, with no one to admire them. The ancient architects
who
Built the soaring spires
That sing their soul in stone,
seem to have built these songs in vain: for what avails a poem that no
one prizes? The Lincolnshire rustic is made of stern stuff, he is
honest, hardy, civil, manly, independent (at least that is the opinion I
have formed of him), but he is not a bit poetical, and a good deal of a
Puritan: I fancy, if I have read him aright, he would as soon worship in
a barn as in a church; indeed, I think he would prefer to do so if he
had his own way, as being more homelike. A clergyman I met on the
journey and who confided in me said, “To get on in Lincolnshire, before
all things it is necessary to believe in game, and not to trouble too
much about
[Sidenote: _STRANGE REVELATIONS_]
the Catholic faith.” He said this in a joking manner truly, but I could
see that he jested in earnest: he further assured me as a positive fact
that both devil-worship and a belief in witchcraft existed in the
county. He said, “I could tell you many strange things of my rural
experiences,” and he did--how the devil is supposed to haunt the
churchyards in the shape of a toad, and how witchcraft is practised,
etc. “You may well look astonished,” he exclaimed, “at what I tell you,
but these things are so; they have come under my notice, and I speak
advisedly from personal knowledge.”
Presently we reached the village of Osbournby; here the church looked
interesting, so we stopped in order to take a glance inside, and were
well rewarded for our trouble by discovering a number of very fine and
quaintly-carved medieval bench-ends in an excellent state of
preservation. Medieval carvings have generally a story to tell, though
being without words some people are forgetful of the fact, deeming them
merely ornamental features, and so miss the carver’s chief aim because
they do not look for it; sometimes, by way of relief, they have a joke
to make, now and then they are keenly sarcastic: but the stories--not
the jokes--mostly need time to elucidate, for they often mean more than
meets the eye at a hurried glance; moreover they have to be read in the
spirit of the age that produced them. One of the bench-end carvings at
Osbournby that is particularly noticeable represents a cunning-looking
fox standing up in a pulpit preaching to a silly-looking congregation
of geese, a favourite subject by the way with the monkish sculptors, and
a telling contemporary satire on the priesthood by those who ought to
know it best. It is remarkable that this peculiar subject should have
been so popular, for I have met with it frequently; there is a good
example of the same on one of the miserere seats in St. David’s
Cathedral. What does it signify?
Still more curious does this strange satire seem when we remember that
in the dark ages such carvings were the poor man’s only literature, for
then even reading was a polite art confined to the learned few, and
spelling was in its infancy. One finds it difficult to conjecture why
the Church allowed such ridicule of its religious preaching to be thus
boldly proclaimed, so that even the unlettered many could hardly fail to
comprehend its meaning, for in this case the story meets the eye at once
and was manifestly intended to do so.
If we may judge them solely by their carvings the monks of old, at a
certain period, appear to have been craftsmen clever beyond cavil, full
of quaint conceits, not over refined, often sarcastic, sometimes
severely so, but curiously broad in their selection of subjects for
illustration. Of course they carved religious subjects as in duty bound,
and with painstaking care, but these all look stiff and mechanical,
forced and not spontaneous, possibly because they had to work more or
less in a traditional groove, and consequently there was no scope for
originality; but in their less serious
[Sidenote: _A MEDIEVAL LEECH_]
moments, and these seemed many, when the mood inclined them they wrought
carvings that were imbued with life; and laughed, or grinned, or joked
in stone or wood to their heart’s content; then the whole soul of the
craftsman entered into his work--and the inanimate matter lived,
breathed, and struggled. His comicalities are simply delightful; he was
the medieval Leech and Keene! Truly not all the old monks took religion
seriously! but whatever their virtues or failings they were artists of
no mean merit.