stand near and think into. The purple rock, dotted with black moss; the
white rock; the thin scarlet line; the green water; the overhanging tree;
the verdant moss upon the bank; the lady fern--are there still. But I see
also now a little pink somewhere in the water, much brown too, and shades
I know no name for. The water is not green, but holds in solution three
separate sets of colours. The confervae on the stones, the growths
beneath at the bottom waving a little as the water swirls like minute
seaweeds--these are brown and green and somewhat reddish too. Under water
the red rock is toned and paler, but has deep black cavities. Next, the
surface, continually changing as it rotates, throws back a different
light, and thirdly, the oaks' yellow-green high up, the pale ash, the
tender ferns drooping over low down confer their tints on the stream. So
from the floor of the pool, from the surface, and from the adjacent bank,
three sets of colours mingle. Washed together by the slow swirl, they
produce a shade--the brown of the Barle--lost in darkness where the bank
overhangs.
Following the current downwards at last the river for awhile flows in
quietness, broad and smooth. A trout leaps for a fly with his tail curved
in the air, full a foot out of water. Trout watch behind sunken stones,
and shoot to and fro as insects droop in their flight and appear about to
fall. So clear is the water and so brightly illuminated that the fish are
not easily seen--for vision depends on contrast--but in a minute I find a
way to discover them by their shadows. The black shadow of a trout is
distinct upon the bottom of the river, and guides the eye to the spot;
then looking higher in the transparent water there is the fish. It was
curious to see these black shadows darting to and fro as if themselves
animated and without bodies, for if the trout darted before being
observed the light concealed him in motion. Some of the trout came up
from under Torre-steps, a singular structure which here connects the
shores of the stream. Every one has seen a row of stepping-stones across
a shallow brook; now pile other stones on each of these, forming
buttresses, and lay flat stones like unhewn planks from buttress to
buttress, and you have the plan of this primitive bridge. It has a
megalithic appearance, as if associated with the age of rude stone
monuments. They say its origin is doubtful; there can be no doubt of the
loveliness of the spot. The Barle comes with his natural rush and
fierceness under the unhewn stone planking, then deepens, and there
overhanging a black pool--for the shadow was so deep as to be black--grew
a large bunch of marsh-marigolds in fullest flower, the broad golden cups
almost resting on the black water. The bridge is not intended for wheels,
and though it is as firm as the rock, foot passengers have to look at
their steps, as the great planks, flecked with lichen at the edges, are
not all level. The horned sheep and lambs go over it--where do they not
go? Like goats they wander everywhere.
In a cottage some way up the hill we ate clotted cream and whortleberry
jam. Through the open door came the ceaseless rush! rush! like a wind in
the wood. The floor was of concrete, lime and sand; on the open
hearth--pronounced 'airth'--sods of turf cut from the moor and oak
branches were smouldering under the chimney crook. Turf smoke from the
piled-up fires of winter had darkened the beams of the ceiling, but from
that rude room there was a view of the river, and the hill, and the oaks
in full June colour, which the rich would envy. Sometimes in early
morning the wild red deer are seen feeding on the slope opposite. As we
drove away in reckless Somerset style, along precipices above the river,
with nothing but a fringe of fern for parapet, the oak woods on the hills
under us were shading down into evening coolness of tint, the yellow less
warm, the green more to the surface. Upon the branches of the trees moss
grows, forming a level green top to the round bough like a narrow cushion
along it, with frayed edges drooping over each side. Though moss is
common on branches, it does not often make a raised cushion, thick, as if
green velvet pile were laid for the birds to run on. There were rooks'
nests in some tall ash trees; the scanty foliage left the nests exposed,
they were still occupied by late broods. Rooks' nests are not often seen
in ashes as in elms.
By a mossy bank a little girl--a miniature Audrey--stout, rosy, and
ragged, stood with a yellow straw hat aslant on her yellow hair, eating
the leaves from a spray of beech in her hand. Audrey looked at us, eating
the beech leaves steadily, but would not answer, not even 'Where's your
father to?' For in Somerset the 'to' is put last, and must never be
omitted; thus, instead of saying 'I bought this at Taunton,' it is
correct to say 'I bought this to Taunton.' There are models under glass
cases in places of entertainment with a notice to say that if a penny be
inserted the machine will go. Audrey the Little would not speak, but when
a penny was put in her hand she began to move, and made off for home with
the treasure. The road turned and turned, but whichever way the Barle was
always under us, and the red rock rose high at the side. This rock
fractures aslant if worked, vast flakes come out, and the cleavage is so
natural that until closely approached a quarry appears a cliff. Stone got
out in squares, or cut down straight, leaves an artificial wall; these
rocks cannot be made to look artificial, and if painted a quarry would be
certainly quite indistinguishable from a natural precipice. Entering a
little town (Dulverton) the road is jammed tight between cottages: so
narrow is the lane that foot passengers huddle up in doorways to avoid
the touch of the wheels, and the windows of the houses are protected by
iron bars like cages lest the splash-boards should crack the glass.
Nowhere in closest-built London is there such a lane--one would imagine
land to be dear indeed. The farm labourers, filing homewards after their
day's work, each carry poles of oak or fagots on their shoulders for
their hearths, generally oak branches; it is their perquisite. The oak
somehow takes root among the interstices of the stones of this rocky
land. Past the houses the rush! rush! of the brown Barle rises again in
the still evening air.
From the Devon border I drifted like a leaf detached from a tree, across
to a deep coombe in the Quantock Hills. The vast hollow is made for
repose and lotus-eating; its very shape, like a hammock, indicates
idleness. There the days go over noiselessly and without effort, like
white summer clouds. Ridges each side rise high and heroically steep--it
would be proper to set out and climb them, but not to-day, not now: some
time presently. To the left massive Will's Neck stands out in black
shadow defined and distinct, like a fragment of night in the bright light
of the day. The wild red deer lie there, but the mountain is afar; a sigh
is all I can give to it, for the Somerset sun is warm and the lotus sweet
Yonder, if the misty heat moves on, the dim line of Dunkery winds along
the sky, not unlike the curved back of a crouching hare. The weight of
the mountains is too great--what is the use of attempting to move? It is
enough to look at them. The day goes over like a white cloud; as the sun
declines it is pleasant to go into the orchard--the vineyard of Somerset,
and then perhaps westward may be seen a light in the sky by the horizon
as if thrown up from an immense mirror under. The mirror is the Severn
sea, itself invisible at this depth, but casting a white glow up against
the vapour in the air. By it you may recognise the nearness of the sea.
The thumb-nail ridges of the Quantocks begin to grow harder, they carry
the eye along on soft curves like those of the South Downs in Sussex, but
suddenly end in a flourish and point as if cut out with the thumb-nail.
Draw your thumb-nail firmly along soft wood, and it will, by its natural
slip, form such a curve. Blackbird and thrush commence to sing as the
heavy heat decreases; the bloom on the apple trees is loose now, and the
blackbird as he springs from the bough shakes down flakes of blossom.
Towards even a wind moves among the lengthening shadows, and my footsteps
involuntarily seek the glen, where a streamlet trickles down over red
flat stones which resound musically as the water strikes them. Ferns are
growing so thickly in the hedge that soon it will seem composed of their
fronds; the first June rose hangs above their green tips. A water-ousel
with white breast rises and flies on; again disturbed, he makes a circle,
and returns to the stream behind. On the moist earth there is the print
of a hare's pad; here is a foxglove out in flower; and now as the incline
rises heather thickens on the slope. Sometimes we wander beside the
streamlet which goes a mile into the coombe--the shadow is deep and cool
in the vast groove of the hill, the shadow accumulates there, and is
pressed by its own weight--up slowly as far as the 'sog,' or peaty place
where the spring rises, and where the sundew grows. Sometimes climbing
steep and rocky walls--scarce sprinkled with grass--we pause every other
minute to look down on the great valley which reaches across to Dunkery.
The horned sheep, which are practically wild, like wild creatures, have
worn out holes for themselves to lie in beside the hill. If resolution is
strong, we move through the dark heather (soon to be purple), startling
the heath-poults, or black game, till at last the Channel opens, and the
far-distant Flat and Steep Holms lie, as it looks, afloat on the dim sea.
This is labour enough; stern indeed must be the mind that could work at
summer's noon in Somerset, when the apple vineyards slumber; when the
tall foxgloves stand in the heavy heat and the soft air warms the deepest
day-shadow so that nothing is cool to the touch but the ferns. Is there
anything so good as to do nothing?
Fame travels slowly up these breathless hills, and pauses overcome in the
heated hollow lanes. A famous wit of European reputation, when living,
resided in Somerset. A traveller one day chancing to pass through the
very next parish inquired of a local man if somebody called Sydney Smith
did not once live in that neighbourhood. 'Yes,' was the reply, 'I've
heard all about Sydney Smith; I can tell you. He was a highwayman, and
was hung on that hill there.' He would have shown the very stump of the
gallows-tree as proof positive, like Jack Cade's bricks, alive in the
chimney to this day.
There really was a highwayman, however, whose adventures are said to have
suggested one of the characters in the romance of 'Lorna Doone.' This
desperate fellow had of course his houses of call, where he could get
refreshment safely, on the moors. One bitter winter's day the robber sat
down to a hearty dinner in an inn at Exford. Placing his pistols before
him, he made himself comfortable, and ate and drank his fill. By-and-by
an old woman entered, and humbly took a seat in a corner far from the
fire. In time the highwayman observed the wretched, shivering creature,
and of his princely generosity told her to come and sit by the hearth.
The old woman gladly obeyed, and crouched beside him. Presently, as he
sat absorbed in his meal, his arms were suddenly pinioned from behind.
The old woman had him tight, so that he could not use his weapons, while
at a call constables, who had been posted about, rushed in and secured
him. The old woman was in fact a man in disguise. A relation of the
thief-taker still lives and tells the tale. The highwayman's mare,
mentioned in the novel, had been trained to come at his call, and was so
ungovernable that they shot her.
Such tracts of open country, moors, and unenclosed hills were the haunts
of highwaymen till a late period, and memories of the gallows, and of
escapes from them, are common. A well-to-do farmer who used to attend
Bristol market, and dispose there of large quantities of stock and
produce, dared not bring home the money himself lest he should be robbed.
He entrusted the cash to his drover; the farmer rode along the roads, the
drover made short cuts on foot, and arrived safely with the money. This
went on for years, in which time the honest fellow--a mere
labourer--carried some thousands of pounds for his master, faithfully
delivering every shilling. He had, however, a little failing--a dangerous
one in those days, when the gallows was the punishment for
sheep-stealing. He was known to be a sheep-stealer, and actually after
bringing home a hundred pounds would go and put his neck in danger the
very same night by taking a sheep. This went on for some time, people
shut their eyes, but at last patience was exhausted, and efforts were
made to catch him in the act, without success.
One night he came home in the usual manner from market, delivered the
cash, and went to his cottage. Next day a little girl was sent on an
innocent errand to the cottage, with orders while she was there to look
sharply round and observe if there were any ashes on the floor. She came
back with the news that there was a heap of wood ashes. Immediately a
posse set out, and the drover was arrested. The use of the ashes by
sheep-stealers was to suck up and remove stains of blood, which were
certain to be left in cutting up the animal. Sufficient proof was found
in the cottage to condemn the honest thief to be hung; great exertions
were, however, made in his behalf; and principally, it is supposed, on
account of his character for carrying large sums of money untouched, he
was saved. There is a story of the smugglers--once notorious folk on
these hills--teaching their horses to understand the usual words of
command backwards. If they were driving pack-horses along at night with a
load of brandy landed from a lugger, and were met by the revenue men, who
ordered them to stop that the packs might be searched, the smugglers,
like good and loyal subjects, called 'Whoa! whoa!' Instantly the horses
set off at a tearing gallop, for they understood 'Whoa!' as' Gee-up!'
By a farmer's door I found a tall branch of oak lying against the porch.
The bark was dry, and the leaves were shrivelled, but the bough had been
originally taken green from the tree. These boughs are discovered against
the door on the morning of the 29th of May, and are in memory of the
escape of King Charles from his enemies by hiding in an oak. The village
ringers leave them, and then go to the church and ring a peal, for which
they expect cider or small coin from each loyal person honoured with an
oak branch. Another custom, infinitely more ancient, is that of singing
to the apple trees in early spring, so that the orchards may be induced
to bear a good crop. The singers come round and visit each orchard; they
have a rhyme specially for the purpose, part of the refrain of which is
that a cup of good cider cannot do any one harm--a hint which brings out
a canful. In strange contrast to these genial customs, which accord so
well with flowery fields, I heard an instance of the coldest
indifference. An old couple lived for many years in a cottage; at last
the wife died, and the husband, while the body was in the house, had his
meals on the coffin as a table.
A hundred years since, before steam, the corn was threshed out by the
flail--a slow, and consequently expensive process. Many efforts were made
to thresh quicker. Among others, wooden machines were put up in some of
the villages, something resembling a water-wheel placed horizontally.
This was moved by horses walking round and round, and drove machinery in
the barn by belt or shafting. The labourers, greatly incensed--for they
regarded threshing by the flail as their right--tried to burn them, but
the structures were guarded and still exist. Under the modern conditions
of farming they are still found useful to cut chaff, crack corn, and so
on. The ancient sickle is yet in use for reaping in Somerset; the reapers
sharpen it by drawing the edge through an apple, when the acid bites and
cleans the steel. While we were sauntering through a village one morning,
out rushed the boys from school, and instantly their tongues began to wag
of those things on which their hearts were set. 'I know a jay's nest,
said one; 'I know an owl's nest,' cried a second; a third hastened to
claim knowledge of a pigeon's nest. It will be long before education
drives the natural love of the woods out of the children's hearts. Of old
time a village school used to be held in an ancient building, the lower
part of which was occupied as almshouses. Underneath the ancient folk
lived as best they might, while the young folk learned and gave their
class responses, or romped on the floor overhead. The upper part of the
building belonged to one owner, the lower part to another landlord. It
came about that the roof decayed and the upper owner suggested to the
lower owner that they should agree in bearing the cost of repairs. Upon
which the owner of the basement remarked that he contemplated _pulling
his part down._
In these hamlets along the foot of the hills ancient stone crosses are
often found. One of them has retained its top perfect, and really is a
cross, not a shaft only. This is, I think, rare. Sometimes in the village
street, the slender column grey against the green trees, sometimes in the
churchyard, these crosses come on the mind like a sudden enigma. It
requires an effort to grasp their meaning, so long have the ideas passed
away which led to their erection. They almost startle modern thought. How
many years since the peasant women knelt at their steps! On the base of
one which has a sculptured shaft the wall-rue fern was growing. A young
starling was perched on the yew by it; he could but just fly, and
fluttered across to the sill of the church window. Young birds called
pettishly for food from the bushes. Upon the banks hart's-tongue was
coming up fresh and green, and the early orchis was in flower. Fern and
flower and fledglings had come again as they have come every year since
the oldest of these ancient shafts was erected, for life is older, life
is greyer, than the weather-beaten mouldings. But life, too, is fresh and
young; the stern thought in the stone becomes more cold and grim as the
centuries pass away. In the crevices at the foot of another cross
wallflowers blossomed, and plants of evening primrose, not yet in flower,
were growing. Under a great yew lay the last decaying beam of the stocks.
A little yew tree grew on the top of the church tower, its highest branch
just above the parapet. A thrush perhaps planted it--thrushes are fond of
the viscous yew berries. Through green fields, in which the grass as
rising high and sweet, a footpath took me by a solitary mill with an
undershot wheel. The sheds about here are often supported on round
columns of stone. Beyond the mill is a pleasant meadow, quiet, still, and
sunlit; buttercup, sorrel, and daisy flowered among the grasses down to
the streamlet, where comfrey, with white and pink-lined bells, stood at
the water's edge. A renowned painter, Walker, who died early, used to
work in this meadow: the original scene from which he took his picture of
_The Plough_ is not far distant. The painter is gone; the grasses and the
flowers are renewed with the summer. As I stood by the brook a water-rat
came swimming, drawing a large dock-leaf in his mouth; seeing me, he
dived, and took the leaf with him under water.
Everywhere wild strawberries were flowering on the banks--wild
strawberries have been found ripe in January here; everywhere ferns were
thickening and extending, foxgloves opening their bells. Another deep
coombe led me into the mountainous Quantocks, far below the heather, deep
beside another trickling stream. In this land the sound of running water
is perpetual, the red flat stones are resonant, and the speed of the
stream draws forth music like quick fingers on the keys; the sound of
running water and the pleading voice of the willow-wren are always heard
in summer. Among the oaks growing on the steep hill-side the willow-wrens
repeated their sweet prayer; the water as it ran now rose and now fell;
there was a louder note as a little stone was carried over a fall. The
shadow came slowly out from the oak-grown side of the coombe, it reached
to the margin of the brook. Under the oaks there appears nothing but red
stones, as if the trees were rooted in them; under the boughs probably
the grass does not cover the rock as it does on the opposite side. There
mountain-ashes flowered in loose order on the green slope. Redstarts
perched on them, darting out to seize passing insects. Still deeper in
the coombe the oaks stood on either side of the stream; it was the
beginning of woods which reach for miles, in which occasionally the wild
red deer wander, and drink at the clear waters. By now the shadow of the
western hill-top had crossed the brooklet, and the still coombe became
yet more silent. There was an alder, ivy-grown, beside the stream--a tree
with those lines which take an artist's fancy. Under the roots of alders
the water-ousel often creeps by day, and the tall heron stalks past at
night. Receding up the eastern slope of the coombe the sunlight left the
dark alder's foliage in the deep shadow of the hollow. I went up the
slope till I could see the sun, and waited; in a few minutes the shadow
reached me, and it was sunset; I went still higher, and presently the sun
set again. A cool wind was drawing up the coombe, it was dusky in the
recesses of the oaks, and the water of the stream had become dark when we
emerged from the great hollow, and yet without the summer's evening had
but just commenced, and the banks were still heated by the sun.
In contrast to the hills and moors which are so open and wild, the broad
vales beneath are closely shut in with hedges. The fields are all of
moderate size, unlike the great pastures elsewhere, so that the constant
succession of hedges, one after the other, for ten, twenty, or more
miles, encloses the country as it were fivefold. Most of the fields are
square, or at all events right-angled, unlike the irregular outline and
corners of fields in other counties. The number of meadows make it appear
as if the land was chiefly grass, though there is really a fair
proportion of arable. Over every green hedge there seems a grassy mead;
in every hedge trees are numerous, and their thick June foliage, green
too, gives a sense of green colour everywhere. But this is relieved with
red--the soil is red, and where the plough has been the red furrows stand
out so brightly as to seem lifted a little from the level. These red
squares when on the side of rising ground show for many miles. The stones
are red that lie about, the road dust has a reddish tint, so have the
walls of the cottages and mills. Where the banks of the hedges can be
seen (or where rabbits have thrown out the earth) they are red, and the
water in the ditches and streamlets looks red--it is in fact clear, and
the colour is that of the sand and stones. The footpath winds a red band
through the grass of the meads, and if it passes under a cliff the rock
too rises aslant in red lines. Along the cropped hedges red campions
flower so thickly as to take the place of green leaves, and by every
gateway red foxgloves grow. Red trifolium is a favourite crop; it is not
much redder than the land which bears it. The hues of the red ploughed
squares, seen through the trees, vary as the sun dries or the rain
moistens the colour. Then, again, the ferns as the summer advances bring
forward their green to the aid of the leaves and grass, so that red and
green constantly strive together.
There is a fly-rod in every house, almost every felt hat has gut and
flies wound round it, and every one talks trout. Every one, too,
complained that the rivers were so low it was difficult to angle. This
circumstance, however, rendered the hues of the rocky banks more
distinct. Sitting down to dinner by chance with two farmers, one began to
tell me how he had beguiled three trout the previous evening; and the
other described how, as he was walking in a field of his by the river, he
had seen an otter. These creatures, which are becoming sadly scarce, if
not indeed extinct in many counties, are still fairly numerous in the
waters here. I hope they will long remain so, for although they certainly
do destroy great numbers of fish, yet it must be remembered that in this
country our list of wild animals has been gradually decreasing for
centuries, and especially wild animals that show sport. The otter, I
fear, is going; I hope the sportsmen of Somerset will see that it remains
in their county, at all events, when it has become a tradition elsewhere.
Otter hounds frequently visit the rivers, and first-rate sport is
obtained. In these villages, two hundred miles from London, and often far
from the rail, some of the conditions resemble those in the United
States, where, instead of shops, 'stores' supply every article from one
counter. So here you buy everything in one shop; it is really a 'store in
the American sense. A house which seems amid fields is called 'The
Dragon;' you would suppose it an inn, but it is a shop, and has been so
ever since the olden times when every trader put out a sign. The sign has
gone, but the name remains.