A VISIT TO RUGBY AND A TRAMP TO THE WHITE HORSE HILL.
LONDON, _September 20, 1902_.
[Sidenote: Tom Brown's School-days at Rugby.]
One would think at first view that it would be as easy to write a good
book for boys about school life as to write a good story about any
other subject. But it does not seem to be so. At any rate, many gifted
and practised authors have attempted it, with only moderate success.
Archdeacon Farrar, one of the most versatile writers of our time, has
given us a pretty good story of school life in his _St. Winifred's_,
but the work is marred by its too constant appeal to morbid emotion.
Mr. Rudyard Kipling, too, has tried his hand on a book for boys,
and has only given us what Dr. Robertson Nicoll justly calls "that
detestable thing," _Stalky & Co_. The less boys have to do with that
kind of books the better. High hopes were raised by the announcement
that the Rev. John Watson, D. D., of Liverpool, better known as "Ian
Maclaren," author of _Beside the Bonny Brier Bush_, and many other
exceedingly popular volumes, was to publish a book on school-boy life.
It was known that he had the requisite talent, sympathy and humor,
that he was a scholarly and high-minded man, and that he had sons of
his own. Surely these are just the qualifications that a man ought to
have in order to write an ideal book for boys. But Dr. Watson's book,
_Young Barbarians_, was a disappointment. It has many true and bright
and laughable things in it, and it glorifies manliness and pluck, but
it often ridicules the good boys of the school, the boys who give the
teacher no trouble and perform their tasks faithfully, and it makes the
most mischievous and lawless boy in school its hero. Besides, it is not
one continuous story, but a group of sketches.
In short, I know only one book of this class having the first order of
merit, and that is _Tom Brown's School Days at Rugby_. In my judgment,
that is the best book for boys that has yet been written, the most
natural, the most interesting, the most wholesome. It has an abiding
charm. I read it as a boy, and I have read it again and again since I
was grown. It is one of the books whose scenes I have always wished
to visit. The opportunity came a few days ago while I was travelling
through Central England with several youngsters, ranging from eleven
years to fifteen, to whom I had read _Tom Brown_, and who wished to
visit Rugby.
[Sidenote: The Rugby of to-day.]
The place is now an important railway junction, with a wilderness of
tracks, and trains flying in and out in every direction. What a change
in the mode of travel since the days of the Pig and Whistle which
brought Tom down to Rugby! The school itself, however, is much the
same--the venerable buildings and quadrangles; the doctor's house,
with its wealth of vines; the wide sweep of green playground, where
Tom had his memorable first experience at football, and "the island,"
as the mound on one side was called. On the bulletin board was an
announcement about "hare and hounds," so that this splendid game, so
finely described in the book, is evidently still a favorite. One marked
innovation since Tom's time is the introduction of the military feature
into the school. The boys are now regularly drilled, and in passing
through the buildings one sees the rows of rifles neatly ranged along
the walls. It is one of many indications of England's effort to keep
up a full stream of recruits for her army.
In the library we are shown the long gilt hand from the old clock in
the school tower, the very hand on which Tom and East scratched their
names as a suitable conclusion to a certain series of exploits; and,
looking closely, we see the name "Thomas Hughes." He was the original
of Tom Brown, and to him we are indebted for this unrivalled story
of life at school. Just in front of the library building stands a
singularly fit and vital bronze statue of Judge Hughes, represented
as wearing a sack coat, informal, manly, keenly intelligent, kind and
true--the very thing to appeal to boys.
I spoke above of the generally unchanged appearance of the buildings.
But the library just mentioned is an exception, being new; and another
exception is the very large and handsome new chapel of variegated
brick, so that we no longer see it just as it was when Tom, on
revisiting Rugby, knelt before Dr. Arnold's tomb, and lifted a subdued
and thankful heart to God. But the remains of the great head-master
still lie there, and on one side of the chapel is a good recumbent
statue of Arnold, and just below it a similar one of his favorite
pupil, Stanley, afterwards the celebrated dean of Westminster.
[Sidenote: Our Expedition to Tom Brown's Birthplace.]
We left Rugby regretfully, but we were not through with the scenes
connected with Tom Brown, by any means, for, a few days later, while
sojourning at Oxford, I proposed one evening to our young people
that we should make an expedition to the White Horse Vale, where
Tom was born, and where, moreover, we could see that most ancient,
most striking, and most durable of Saxon monuments, the huge figure
of a galloping horse, three hundred and seventy feet long, cut in
the hillside by removing the turf to the depth of a foot or two and
exposing the white chalk beneath, made by King Alfred's soldiers to
commemorate his great victory over the Danes at this place--to say
nothing of a great fortified Roman camp on top of the same hill. The
suggestion was agreed to with alacrity, and next morning, after an
early breakfast, we took a train from Oxford down the Thames Valley,
but at Didcot turned westward, and soon came to Wantage, the birthplace
of Alfred the Great, of whom there is a statue in the marketplace,
the native town also of Bishop Butler, the author of the immortal
_Analogy_, and the residence at present of the notorious leader of
Tammany Hall, New York, Richard Croker, who has his racing stables here.
The country through which we are passing is as flat as a Western
prairie, but since leaving Didcot we have come in sight of a range
of chalk hills covered with the greenest of grass, running parallel
with the railway on our left, and distant some two or three miles. The
highest point in this range is the White Horse Hill--our destination.
At Uffington Station we leave the train and begin our tramp, first of
two miles to Uffington village, where, as we pass the parish school,
we have the good fortune to see the children all out at play, as in
the time when Harry Winburn taught Tom Brown that valuable trick
in wrestling, and when Tom and Jacob Doodlecalf were caught by the
wheelwright while performing in the porch in a manner not conducive to
the gravity and order of the school.
[Sidenote: The Highest Horse we ever Mounted.]
The ground has been level thus far, but for the next mile or so it
rises gently, the great white figure on the hill before us becoming
more distinct as we come around in front of it somewhat, and then when
we come to the foot of the hill itself we find a sharp climb before
us, and are presently going almost straight up. Up, up we go. Let us
pause for a rest. Up again. Another pause. Now look back. What a lovely
view! One more pull for the top, and here we are at last, standing
on the broad tail of the White Horse, mopping our brows with our
handkerchiefs, and panting with the exertion, while the wind blows a
stiff gale from the west. But we yield the floor for a few moments to
the man who first told us about this place:
What a hill is the White Horse Hill! There it stands right up above all
the rest, nine hundred feet above the sea, the boldest, bravest shape
for a chalk hill that you ever saw. Let us go up to the top of him, and
see what is to be found there. Ay, you may well wonder and think it odd
you never heard of this before....
[Sidenote: The Roman Camp.]
Yes, it's a magnificent Roman camp, and no mistake, with gates and
ditch and mounds, all as complete as it was twenty years after the
strong old rogues had left it. Here, right up on the highest point,
from which they say you can see eleven counties, they trenched round
all the tableland, some twelve or fourteen acres, as was their custom,
for they couldn't bear anybody to overlook them, and made their eyrie.
The ground falls away rapidly on all sides. Was there ever such turf
in the whole world? You sink up to your ankles at every step, and yet
the spring of it is delicious. There is always a breeze in the "camp,"
as it is called; and here it lies, just as the Romans left it.... It
is altogether a place that you won't forget,--a place to open a man's
soul and make him prophesy, as he looks down on that great vale spread
out as the garden of the Lord before him, and wave on wave of the
mysterious downs behind; and to the right and left the chalk hills
running away into the distance, along which he can trace for miles the
old Roman road, "the Ridgeway" ("the Rudge," as the country folk call
it), keeping straight along the highest back of the hills;--such a
place as Balak brought Balaam to and told him to prophesy against the
people in the valley beneath. And he could not, neither shall you, for
they are a people of the Lord who abide there.
[Sidenote: King Alfred's Defeat of the Danes.]
And now we leave the camp, and descend towards the west and are on the
Ash-down. We are treading on heroes. For this is the actual place where
our Alfred won his great battle, the battle of Ash-down, which broke
the Danish power, and made England a Christian land. The Danes held the
camp and the slope where we are standing--the whole crown of the hill,
in fact. "The heathen had beforehand seized the higher ground," as old
Asser says, having wasted everything behind them from London, and being
just ready to burst down on the fair Vale, Alfred's own birthplace and
heritage. And up the heights came the Saxons, "and there the battle was
joined with a mighty shout, and the pagans were defeated with great
slaughter." After which crowning mercy the pious king, that there might
never be wanting a sign and a memorial to the countryside, carved out
on the northern side of the chalk hill, under the camp, where it is
almost precipitous, the great Saxon white horse, which he who will may
see from the railway, and which gives its name to the vale, over which
it has looked these thousand years and more.
[Sidenote: The Manger and the Dragon's Hill.]
Right down below the White Horse is a curious deep and broad gully,
called "the manger" [because it is right under the mouth of the White
Horse], into one side of which the hills fall with a series of the
most lovely sweeping curves, known as "the Giant's Stairs"; they are
not a bit like stairs, but I never saw anything like them anywhere
else, with their short, green turf, and tender bluebells, and gossamer
and thistle-down gleaming in the sun, and the sheep paths running along
their sides like ruled lines.
The other side of the Manger is formed by the Dragon's Hill, a curious
little round self-confident fellow, thrown forward from the range,
utterly unlike everything round him. On this hill some deliverer of
mankind--St. George, the country folk used to tell me--killed a dragon.
Whether it were St. George I cannot say; but surely a dragon was killed
there, for you may see the marks yet where his blood ran down, and
more by token the place where it ran down is the easiest way up the
hillside. So far Thomas Hughes.
As a truthful chronicler, I must record that some of our party, tempted
by the precipitous slope covered with luxuriant grass, slid down the
hill from the White Horse into the Manger, sitting down on the turf and
letting themselves go, with the result of wrecking a pair of trousers
or so, and carrying away some portion of the fertile soil of Berks to
Oxford.
[Sidenote: The Blowing Stone.]
Passing along the ridgeway to the west for about a mile, we may come
to Wayland Smith's forge, a cave familiar to readers of _Kenilworth_,
but we content ourselves with a distant view, and, descending the hill,
turn to the east, and, after a brisk walk of three or four miles,
we halt under a fine old tree in front of a cottage door, to see
another object described in _Tom Brown's School Days at Rugby_, the
celebrated Blowing Stone, "a square lump of stone, some three feet and
a half high, perforated with two or three queer holes, like petrified
antediluvian rat holes." It is chained to the tree and secured with a
padlock. Instead of the innkeeper, for whom Mr. Hughes was so fearful
lest he should burst or have apoplexy when he blew the stone, a very
comely matron came out of the cottage and blew it for us--then we
all blew it in turn. The sound is described exactly in the book: "a
grewsome sound, between a moan and a roar, spreads itself away over
the valley, and up the hillside, and into the woods at the back of the
house, a ghost-like, awful voice." This stone is said to have been used
in old times to give warning and summons in time of war.
In his other book, on _The Scouring of the White Horse_, that is, the
scraping away of the accumulated sand and grass, which is the occasion
every year for the gathering of the whole countryside for games and
festivities, Judge Hughes gives the following ballad in the country
dialect, which contains a reference to this use of the stone:
"The owed White Horse wants zettin to rights,
And the 'Squire hev promised good cheer,
Zo we'll gee un a scrape to kip un in zhape,
An a'll last for many a year.
"A was made a lang, lang time ago,
Wi a good dale o' labor and pains,
By King Alfred the Great when he spwiled their consate
And caddled[4] they wosbirds,[5] the Danes.
"The Bleawin' Stwun in days gone by
Wur King Alfred's bugle harn,
And the tharnin' tree you med plainly zee
As is called King Alfred's tharn."
[Sidenote: The Effect upon our Appetite.]
But the sun is now sinking westward, and we have still a long walk
before us to the railroad, and in order to catch our train it must
be a rapid walk as well. We have been so much interested that we did
not think of anything to eat until now, but the vigorous exercise has
given us keen appetites, and we begin to inquire for food. None to be
had. So we set out hungry on our forced march to the station, and by
steady toil reach it a few minutes before the arrival of our train,
having tramped thirteen long miles up hill and down dale since leaving
the train there that morning. In the compartment which we entered were
a couple of English ladies, who presently opened a small case of tea
things, lighted a spirit lamp, and brewed their tea. Then _they_ drank
it. That was the best tea I ever--smelled. The delicious aroma of it
tantalized and tormented our weary and hungry pedestrians for miles,
and put an edge on our appetites that made obedience to the tenth
commandment an utter impossibility.
It may seem incredible, but it is a fact that our friend, Mr. Bird,
and two of the youngsters in the party, did four miles more on foot
at Wantage later on in the same day. You may be sure there was hearty
eating and sound sleeping when we all got back to our quarters at
Oxford that night, well satisfied with our memorable visit to the White
Horse and the Blowing Stone.
Our sojourn at Oxford, with her wealth of mellow architecture and her
inspiring historical and literary associations,--our visits to Windsor
Castle, Eton College, and Stoke Pogis, where Gray wrote his immortal
"Elegy,"--and our excursions to Hampton Court, with its wonderful grape
vine and its crowding memories of Wolsey, Cromwell, and William III.,
and to Kingston, Richmond Hill, Kew Gardens, Kensington and the Crystal
Palace,--were all full of interest, but must be passed over here, as
there are subjects of greater importance connected with London which
will occupy all the remaining space that we can give to England.
[Illustration: MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD.]
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Caddled, worried.
[5] Wosbird, bird of woe, of evil omen.