and to look farther, and away yonder was a farm-house at the foot of
a hill. Pale yellow stubble covered the hill, rising like a
background to the red-tile roof, and to the elms beside the house,
among whose branches there were pale yellow spots. Round wheat-ricks
stood in a double row on the left hand--count them, and you counted
the coin of the land, bank-notes in straw--and on the right and in
front were green meads, and horses feeding--horses who had done good
work in plough-time and harvest-time, and would soon be at plough
again. There were green meads, because some green meads are a
necessity of an English farm-house, and there are few without them,
even when in the midst of corn. Meads in which the horses feed, a
pony for the children and for the pony-cart, turkeys, two or three
cows--all the large and small creatures that live about the place.
When the land was torn up and ploughed for corn of old time, these
green enclosures were left to stay on, till now it seems as if
pressure of low prices for wheat would cause the corn-land to again
become pasture. Of old time, golden wheat conquered and held
possession, and now the grass threatens to oust the conqueror.
Had anyone studied either of these three--the great elms in the
Out-park, or the thin twisted screen of hedge, or the red-tile roof,
and the yellow stubble behind it on the hill--he might have found
material for a picture in each. There was, in truth, in each far
more than anyone could put into a picture, or than anyone could put
into a book; for the painter can but give one aspect of one day, and
the writer a mere catalogue of things; but Nature refreshes the
reality every day with different tints, and as it were new ideas, so
that, although it is always there, it is never twice the same. Over
that stubble on the hill there were other hills, and among these a
combe or valley, in which stood just such another farm-house, but
differently placed, with few trees, and those low, somewhat bare in
its immediate surroundings, but above, on each side, close at hand,
sloping ramparts of green turf rising high, till the larks that sang
above seemed to sing in another land, like that found by Jack when
he clomb the beanstalk. Along this combe was a cover of gorse, and
in spring there was a mile of golden bloom, richer than gold in
colour, leading like a broad highway of gold down to the house. From
those ramparts in high summer--which is when the corn is ripe and
the reapers in it--there could be seen a slope divided into squares
of varied grain. This on the left of the fertile undulation was a
maize colour, which, when the sunlight touched it, seemed to have a
fleeting hue of purple somewhere within. There is no purple in ripe
wheat visible to direct and considering vision; look for it
specially, and it will not be seen. Purple forms no part of any
separate wheat-ear or straw; brown and yellow in the ear, yellow in
the upper part of the straw, and still green towards the earth. But
when the distant beams of sunlight travelling over the hill swept
through the rich ripe grain, for a moment there was a sense of
purple on the retina. Beyond this square was a pale gold piece, and
then one where the reapers had worked hard, and the shocks stood in
diagonal rows; this was a bronze, or brown and bronze, and beside it
was a green of clover.
Farther on, the different green of the hill turf, and white sheep,
feeding in an extended crescent, the bow of the crescent gradually
descending the sward. The hills of themselves beautiful, and
possessing views which are their property and belong to them--a
twofold value. The woods on the lower slopes full of tall brake
fern, and holding in their shadowy depths the spirit of old time. In
the woods it is still the past, and the noisy mechanic present of
this manufacturing century has no place. Enter in among the
round-boled beeches which the squirrels rush up, twining round like
ivy in ascent, where they nibble the beech-nuts forty feet aloft,
and let the husks drop to your feet; where the wood-pigeon sits and
does not move, safe in the height and thickness of the spray. There
are jew-berries or dew-berries on a bramble-bush, which grows where
the sunlight and rain fall direct to the ground, unchecked by
boughs. They are full of the juice of autumn, black, rich,
vine-like, taken fresh from the prickly bough. Low down in the
hollow is a marshy spot, sedge-grown, and in the sedge lie yellow
leaves of willow already fallen. Here in the later months will come
a woodcock or two, with feathers so brown and leaf-like of hue and
markings that the plumage might have been printed in colours from
brown leaves of beech. No springes are set for the woodcocks now,
but the markings are the same on the feathers as centuries since;
the brown beech-leaves lie in the dry hollows the year through just
as they did then; the large dew-berries are as rich; and the nuts as
sweet. It is the past in the wood, and Time here never grows any
older. Could you bring back the red stag--as you may easily in
fancy--and place him among the tall brake, and under the beeches, he
should not know that a day had gone by since the stern Roundheads
shot down the last of his race hereabouts in Charles I.'s days. For
the leaves are turning as they turned then to the altered colour of
the sun's rays as he declines in his noonday arch, lower and lower
every day; his rays are somewhat yellower than in dry hot June; a
little of the tint of the ripe wheat floats in the sunshine. To this
the woods turn. First, the nut-tree leaves drop, and the green brake
is quickly yellow; the slender birch becomes lemon on its upper
branches; the beech reddens; by-and-by the first ripe acorn falls,
and there's as much cawing of the rooks in the oaks at acorn-time as
at their nests in the elms in March.
All these things happened in the old, old time before the red stags
were shot down; the leaves changed as the sunbeams became less
brilliantly white; the woodcocks arrived; the mice had the last of
the acorns which had fallen, and which the rooks and jays and
squirrels had spared for them after feasting to the full of their
greediness. This ancient oak, whose thick bark, like cast-iron for
ruggedness at the base, has grown on steadily ever since the last
deer bounded beneath it, utterly heedless of the noisy rattle of
machinery in the northern cities, unmoved by any shriek of engine,
or hum, or flapping of loose belting, or any volume of smoke
drifting into the air--I wish that the men now serving the great
polished wheels, and works in iron and steel and brass, could
somehow be spared an hour to sit under this ancient oak in Thardover
South Wood, and come to know from actual touch of its rugged bark
that the past is living now, that Time is no older, that Nature
still exists as full as ever, and to see that all the factories of
the world have made no difference, and therefore not to pin their
faith to any theory born and sprung up among the crush and
pale-faced life of modern time; but to look for themselves at the
rugged oak-bark, and up to the sky above the highest branches, and
to take an acorn and consider its story and possibilities, and to
watch the sly squirrel coming down, as they sit quietly, to play
almost at their feet. That they might gather to themselves some of
the leaves--mental and spiritual leaves--of the ancient forest,
feeling nearer to the truth and soul, as it were, that lives on in
it. They would feel as if they had got back to their original
existence, and had become themselves, as they ought to be, could
they live such life, untouched by artificial care. Then, how hurt
they would be if any proposed to cut down that oak; if any proposed
the felling of the forest, and the death of its meaning. It would be
like a blow aimed at themselves. No picture that could be bought at
a thousand guineas could come near that ancient oak; but you can
carry away the memory of it, the picture and thought in your mind
for nothing. If the oak were cut down, it would be like thrusting a
stick through some valuable painting on your walls at home.
The common below the South Wood, even James Thardover with all his
desire for improvement could not do much good with; the soil, and
the impossibility of getting a fall for draining, all checked effort
there. A wild, rugged waste, you say, at first, glancing at the
rushes, and the gaunt signpost standing up among them, the anthills,
and thistles. Thistles have colour in their bloom, and the prickly
leaves are finely cut; rushes--green rushes--are notes of the
season, and with their slender tips point to the days in the book of
the year; they are brown now at the tip, and some bent downwards in
an angle. The brown will descend the stalk till the snipes come with
grey-grass colours in their wings. But all the beatings of the rain
will not cast the rushes utterly down; they will send up fresh green
successors for the spring, for the cuckoo to float along over on his
way to the signpost, where he will perch a few minutes, and call in
the midst of the wilderness. There, too, the lapwings leave their
eggs on the ground among the rushes, and rise, and complainingly
call. The warm showers of June call up the iris in the corner where
the streamlet widens, and under the willows appear large yellow
flowers above the flags. Pink and white blossom of the rest-harrow
comes on bushy plants where the common is dry, and there is heath,
and heather, and fern. The waste has its treasures too--as the
song-thrush has his in the hawthorn bush--its treasures of flowers,
as the wood its beauties of tree and leaf, and the hills their
wheat.
The ring-fence goes farther than this; it encloses the living
creatures, yet without confining them. The wing of the wood-pigeon,
as the bird perches, forms a defined curve against its body. The
forward edge of the wing--its thickest part--as it is pressed to its
side, draws a line sweeping round--a painter's line. How many
wood-pigeons are there in the South Wood alone, besides the copses
and the fir-plantations? How many turtle-doves in spring in the
hedges and outlying thickets, in summer among the shocks of corn?
And all these are his--the Squire's--not in the sense of possession,
for no true wild creature was ever anyone's yet; it would die first;
but still, within his ring-fence, and their destinies affected by
his will, since he can cut down their favourite ash and hawthorn, or
thin them with shot. Neither of which he does. The robin, methinks,
sings sweetest of autumn-tide in the deep woods, when no other birds
speak or trill, unexpectedly giving forth his plaintive note,
complaining that the summer is going, and the time of love, and the
sweet cares of the nest; telling you that the berries are brown, the
dew-berries over-ripe, and dropping of over-ripeness like dew as the
morning wind shakes the branch; that the wheat is going to the
stack, and that the rusty plough will soon be bright once more by
the attrition of the earth.
Many of them sing thus in the South Wood, yet scarce any two within
sound of each other, for the robin is jealous, and likes to have you
all to himself as he tells his tale. Song-thrushes--what ranks of
them in April; larks, what hundreds and hundreds of them on the
hills above the green wheat; finches of varied species; blackbirds;
nightingales; crakes in the meadows; partridges; a whole page might
be filled merely with their names.
These, too, are in the ring-fence with the hills and woods, the
yellow iris of the common, and the red-roofed farm-houses. Besides
which, there are beings infinitely higher--namely, men and women in
village and hamlet, and more precious still, those little children
with hobnail boots and clean jackets and pinafores, who go
a-blackberrying on their way to school. All these are in the
ring-fence. Upon their physical destinies the Squire can exercise a
powerful influence, and has done so, as the school itself testifies.
Now, is not a large estate a living picture? Or rather, is it not
formed of a hundred living pictures? So beautiful it looks, its
hills, its ripe wheat, its red-roofed farm-houses, and acres upon
acres of oaks; so beautiful, it must be valuable--most valuable; it
is visible, tangible wealth. It is difficult to disabuse anyone's
mind of that idea; yet, as we have seen, with all the skill,
science, and expenditure Thardover could bring to bear upon it, all
his personal effort was in vain. It was a possession, not a profit.
Had not James Thardover's ancestors invested their wealth in
building streets of villas in the outskirts of a great city, he
could not have done one-fifth what he had. Men who had made their
fortunes in factories--the noisy factories of the present
century--paid him high rents for these residences; and thus it was
that the labour and time of the many-handed operatives in mill,
factory, and workshop really went to aid in maintaining these living
pictures. Without that outside income the Squire could not have
reduced the rents of his tenants, so that they could push through
the depression; without that outside income he could not have
drained the lands, put up those good buildings, assisted the
school, and in a hundred ways helped the people. Those who watched
the polished machinery under the revolving shaft, and tended the
loom, really helped to keep the beauties of South Wood, the
grain-grown hills, the flower-strewn meadows. These were so
beautiful, it seemed as if they must represent money--riches; but
they did not. They had a value much higher than that. As the spring
rises in the valley at the foot of the hills and slowly increases
till it forms a river, to which ships resort, so these fields and
woods, meads and brooks, were the source from which the city was
derived. If the operative in the factory, or tending the loom, had
traced his descent, he would have found that his grandfather, or
some scarcely more remote ancestor, was a man of the land. He
followed the plough, or tended the cattle, and his children went
forth to earn higher wages in the town. For the hamlet and the
outlying cottage are the springs whence the sinew and muscle of
populous cities are derived. The land is the fountain-head from
which the spring of life flows, widening into a river. The river at
its broad mouth disdains the spring; the city in its immensity
disdains the hamlet and the ploughman. Yet if the spring ceased, the
ships could not frequent the river; if the hamlet and the ploughman
were wiped out by degrees, the city must run dry of life. Therefore
the South Wood and the park, the hamlet and the fields, had a value
no one can tell how many times above the actual money rental, and
the money earned by the operatives in factory and workshop could
not have been better expended than in supporting it.
But it had another value still--which they too helped to
sustain--the value of beauty. Parliament has several times
intervened to save the Lake District from the desecrating intrusion
of useless railways. So, too, the beauty of these woods, and
grain-grown hills, of the very common, is worth preservation at the
hands and votes of the operatives in factory and mill. If a man
loves the brick walls of his narrow dwelling in a close-built city,
and the flowers which he has trained with care in the window, how
much more would he love the hundred living pictures like those round
about Thardover House! After any artificer had once seen such an oak
and rested under it, if any threatened to cut it down, he would feel
as if a blow had been delivered at his heart. His efforts,
therefore, should be not to destroy these pictures, but to preserve
them. All the help that they can give is needed to assist a King of
Acres in his struggle, and the struggle of the farmers and
labourers--equally involved--against the adverse influences which
press so heavily on English agriculture.
THE STORY OF SWINDON
We have all of us passed through Swindon Station, whether _en route_
to Southern Wales, to warm Devon--the fern-land--to the Channel
Islands, or to Ireland. The ten minutes for refreshment, now in the
case of certain trains reduced to five, have made thousands of
travellers familiar with the name of the spot. Those who have not
actually been there can recall to memory a shadowy tradition which
has grown up and propagated itself, that here the soup skins the
tongue, and that generally it is a near relative of the famous
'Mugby Junction.' Those who have been there retain at least a
confused recollection of large and lofty saloons, velvet sofas,
painted walls, and long semicircular bars covered with glittering
glasses and decanters. Or it may be that the cleverly executed
silver model of a locomotive under a glass case lingers still in
their memories. At all events Swindon is a well-known oasis,
familiar to the travelling public. Here let us do an act of justice.
Much has been done of late to ameliorate many of the institutions
which formerly led to bitter things being said against the place.
The soup is no longer liquid fire, the beer is not lukewarm, the
charges are more moderate; the lady manager has succeeded in
substituting order for disorder, comfort and attention in place of
lofty disdain. Passengers have not got to cross the line for a fresh
ticket or to telegraph; the whole place is reformed. So much the
better for the traveller. But how little do these birds of passage
imagine the varied interest of the strange and even romantic story
which is hidden in this most unromantic spot, given over, as it
seems, to bricks and mortar!
Not that it ever had a history in the usual sense. There is but a
faint, dim legend that the great Sweyn halted with his army on this
hill--thence called Sweyn's dune, and so Swindon. There is a family
here whose ancestry goes back to the times of the Vikings; which was
in honour when Fair Rosamond bloomed at Woodstock; which fought in
the great Civil War. Nothing further. The real history, written in
iron and steel, of the place began forty years ago only. Then a
certain small party of gentlemen sat down to luncheon on the
greensward which was then where the platform is now. The furze was
in blossom around them; the rabbits frisked in and out of their
burrows; two or three distant farm-houses, one or two cottages,
these were all the signs of human habitation, except a few cart-ruts
indicating a track used for field purposes. There these gentlemen
lunched, and one among them, ay, two among them, meditated great
things, which the first planned, and the second lived to see realize
the most sanguine anticipations. These two gentlemen were Isambard
Brunel and Daniel Gooch. Driven away from the original plan, which
was to follow the old coach-road, they had come here to survey and
reconnoitre a possible track running in the valley at the northern
edge of the great range of Wiltshire Downs. They decided that here
should be their junction and their workshop. Immense sacrifices,
enormous expenditure, the directors of the new railway incurred in
their one great idea of getting it finished! They could not stay to
cart the earth from the cuttings to the places where it was required
for embanking, so where they excavated thousands of tons of clay
they purchased land to cast it upon out of their way; and where they
required an embankment they purchased a hill, and boldly removed it
to fill up the hollow. They could not stay for the seasons, for
proper weather to work in, and in consequence of this their clay
embankment, thrown up wet and saturated, swelled out, bulged at the
sides, and could not be made stable, till at last they drove rows of
piles on each side, and chained them together with chain-cables, and
so confined the slippery soil. They drove these piles, tall
beech-trees, 20 feet into the earth, and at this day every train
passes over tons of chain-cables hidden beneath the ballast. The
world yet remembers the gigantic cost of the Box Tunnel, and how
heaven and earth were moved to get the line open; and at last it was
open, but at what a cost!--a cost that hung like a millstone round
the neck of the company, till a man rose into power who had the
talent of administration, and that man was the very companion of
Brunel whom we saw lunching among the furze-bushes. Reckless as the
expenditure was, one cannot but admire the determination which
overcame every obstacle. For the great line a workshop was needed,
and that workshop was built at Swindon. The green fields were
covered with forges, the hedges disappeared to make way for cottages
for the workmen. The workmen required food--tradesmen came and
supplied that food--and Swindon rose as Chicago rose, as if by
magic. From that day to this additions have been made, and other
departments concentrated upon this one spot, till at the present
time the factory covers a space equal to that of a moderate farm,
and employs nearly four thousand workmen, to whom three hundred
thousand pounds are yearly paid, whereby to purchase their daily
bread. But at that early stage the difficulty was to find
experienced workmen, and still greater to discover men who could
superintend them. For these it was necessary to go up into the
shrewd North, which had already foreseen the demand that must arise,
and had partially educated her children in the new life that was
about to dawn on the world; and so it is that to this time the names
of those who are in authority over this army of workers carry with
them in their sound a strong flavour of the heather and the brae,
and seem more in accordance with ideas of 'following the wild deer'
than of a dwelling in the midst of the clangour and smoke.