Gardens and groves;
I slight my own beloved Cam to range
Where silver Isis leads my wandering feet."
Wordsworth.
"A curious Gothic building, many gabled,
By flowering creepers hidden and entangled."
There is to my way of thinking a delicious uncertainty in starting on a
long caravan tour, without being aware in the least what you are going
to do or see, or even what route you are going to take.
As regards a route, though, I did throw up a pebble with a black tick on
it before the horses pulled out at the gate, and twice running the spot
pointed to the north-west.
So we steered for Reading, and on without stopping as far as the Roebuck
Hotel at Tilehurst. Nine years ago this hotel was a very small one
indeed, but all gables, thickest thatch, and climbing roses and
honeysuckle. The thatch has given place to red tiles, and an addendum
of modern dimensions has been built. The old must ever give place to
the new. But what lovely peeps there are from this hotel, from the
balcony and from the bedrooms. It is a river house now in every sense
of the word, though not old as a hotel of the kind, and all day long,
and far into the night, the bar and passages and the coffee-rooms are
crowded in summer with men in snowy flannels, and with some in sailor
garb and with artificial sailor swagger.
The road leads onwards through a cool elm avenue towards Pangbourne.
The copses here are in earlier spring carpeted with wild hyacinths. On
the hilltop the scenery opens out again, the tree-clad valley of the
Thames, fields of green grain, with poppies here and there, or wild
mustard, and fields crimson with blossoming trefoil. Surely milk and
butter must be good when cows are fed on flowers.
"Lay till the day" in the great inn yard of the George. Rather too
close to the railway embankment, for the trains went roaring past all
night long. This did not make sleeping impossible, for a gipsy, even an
amateur one, can sleep anywhere; but the earth shook and the lamps
rattled every time a train rolled by. Some villas are built right
beneath the embankment, which is far higher than their roofs. _Facilis
descensus Averni_. What a strange and terrible accident it would be
were one of those trains to leave the line and run through a roof! An
old lady of the nervous persuasion, who lives here, told me that she
oftentimes trembled in her bed when she thought of this dread
possibility.
Pangbourne is a well-known haunt for those who love boating and fishing.
It is quiet, and so well shaded as to be cool on the warmest summer
day. But Pangbourne is not a hackneyed place, and never, I believe,
will be so.
Left about nine o'clock on June 19th. It had been raining just enough
to lay the dust and give a brighter colouring to the foliage.
Ivy leaves, when young, are, as my country readers know, of a very
bright green. There are on a well-kept lawn by the riverside, and just
outside Pangbourne, a coach-house and a boathouse. Both are well-built
and prettily shaped. They are thatched, and the walls are completely
covered in close-cropped ivy, giving them the look of houses built of
green leaves.
Two miles from Pangbourne a nice view of the Thames valley is obtained,
round wooded hills on the right bank, with farms here and there, and
fields now covered with waving wheat, some of them flooded over with the
rich red of the blossoming sainfoin.
We reach the village of Lower Basildon. Spring seems to linger long in
this sweet vale. Here is a lofty spruce, each twiglet pointed with a
light green bud; here a crimson flowered chestnut; yonder a row of pink
mays and several laburnums, whose drooping blooms show no symptoms yet
of fading or falling.
At the grotto we pass through a splendid avenue of beeches.
Just at the top of a steep hilltop we meet a girl and a boy on the same
tricycle. How happy they look! We warn them of the steepness of the
descent. They smilingly thank us, put on their brake, and go floating
away and finally disappear among the beeches.
Every one has rushed through Goring and Streatley by train, and some may
have thought the villages pretty. So they are indeed, but you must go
by road to find this out. Look at them from Grotto Hill, for instance,
just after you emerge from the lane.
Here is a pretty bit of road. On the left is a high bank covered with
young beech-trees, a hedge on the right, then a green field sweeping
down the hill to the river's edge. The Thames is here bordered with
willow-trees and flowering elders. That hedgerow is low and very wild.
It may be blackthorn at heart, but it is quite encanopied by a wealth of
trailing weeds and flowers, and by roses and honeysuckle all in bloom,
while the roadsides are laid out by nature's hand in beds of yellow
trefoil and blue speedwell. The pink marsh-mallow, too, is growing in
every grassy nook by the hedge-foot.
I wonder how far on my journey north will hedgerows accompany me. I
shall feel sorry when they give place to unsightly wooden fences or
walls of rugged stone.
High up yonder is a green grassy tableland or moor, through which goes
the ancient ridge-way or cattle-road to Wales. Unused now, of course,
but the scene of many a strange story in bygone times.
A little very old man gets out from under a tree and stands as straight
as he can to gaze at us. Surely the oldest inhabitant of these regions.
His dress is peculiar--a cow-gown worn beneath and protruding like a
kilt from under a long blue coat, and a tall black hat. He bobs his
wrinkled face, grins, and talks to himself as we pass. A queer old man
indeed.
We stopped on Moulsford Hill to water horses. A fine open country, and
breezy to-day. Rather too breezy, in fact, for hardly had we started
again before the wind got in under the great awning which covers the
roof from stem to stern. It ripped the cloth from the hooks that held
it, but I caught it in time, else it would have blown over the horses'
heads, and might have given rise to a very serious accident.
It was market-day at Wallingford, and busy and bustling it was in the
little town. The place is close to the Thames. It boasts of a bridge
with nineteen arches, a very ancient history, and the remains of an old
castle, which, it is said, was at one time considered impregnable. It
was besieged by King Stephen, and defied him.
It held out against Cromwell too, I am told, and was one of the last
places to surrender. The remains of its ancient walls are visible
enough in the shape of mounds, turf-clad, and green as a grave.
Did Wallingford not hold out against the Danes also? I believe it did.
I have already had so much of Oliver Cromwell and the Danes dinned into
my ear, that I am heartily tired of both. If I can credit current
traditions, the Danes must have been very badly handled indeed, and must
have bitterly repented ever setting a foot on English shores.
The country after leaving Wallingford is exceedingly picturesque; one is
inclined to deem every peep of scenery prettier than that which preceded
it, and to pity from the heart people who travel by train.
Shillingford, in our route, is a little village which, as far as I could
see, consists mostly of public-houses. Near here are the Whittingham
Clumps, which do not look of much account, merely two round green hills
with a tuft of trees on the top of each. Yet they can be seen for many
miles--almost, indeed, from every part of Berkshire.
Dorchester, some miles farther on, is quiet and pretty, and evidently an
old village--its cottages look old, its inns look old, and eke the
church itself. Just the spot for an artist to while away a month in
summer, while an author might do worse than lay the scene of a tale in a
place like this.
We stopped in front of the mansion house of Burcot, and made coffee
under the chestnuts. The house lies off the road, but there is no fence
around the park; we could rest in the shade therefore. Here are some
splendid pine-trees (Scotch) and elms. What a noble tree an elm is, if
its branches are spared by the billhook of pruner or axe of woodman!
The most of our English trees are spoiled in appearance by injudicious
interference.
We reached Abingdon in the evening, having done twenty miles and spent a
delightful day. But the horses were tired of their long drag. There is
to be a great fair here to-morrow. It is only natural, therefore, that
the people should take us for real gipsies.
We have stabled our steeds, and the Wanderer lies snug in the back yard
of a wealthy corn merchant, and within the precincts of the old gaol.
The place was built at an expenditure of 36,000 pounds, but Abingdon
being no longer the county town, it has been sold and turned into a
granary. The town is all _en gala_, and the young folks, at all events,
are enjoying the sights and sounds.
Visited to-night by a group of gipsies of the true type. They came,
they said, to admire our "turnout." They had never seen so grand a
caravan on the road, and so on and so forth.
Abingdon is a cosy little town, a neighbourly, kindly sort of a place
that any one fond of country life must enjoy living in. Abingdon should
be visited by tourists in summer far more than it is.
We started early, and had some difficulty in getting through the town,
so narrow are the streets and so crowded were they to-day. On the road
we met droves of horses and traps or conveyances of every sort and size
taking country folks to the fair. The weather was wondrous cold for
June, but endurable nevertheless, albeit clouds hid the sun and showers
were not unfrequent.
We reached a hilltop about noon, and all at once a landscape burst upon
our view which is hardly surpassed for quiet beauty in all England.
People who journey by rail miss this enchanting scene. Just beneath us,
and in the centre of the plain, lay Oxford.
We dined by the roadside, gipsy-fashion, for there was no meadow we
could draw our caravan into. Started about two pm, and rattled through
Oxford, only stopping here and there to do our shopping. There is no
better verb than "rattled" to convey the notion of our progress. Oxford
is vilely paved for either carriage or cycle.
With the bumping and shaking we received, the saloon of the Wanderer
soon looked like that of a yacht in a rough sea-way.
Poor Polly, my cockatoo, the pet of the ship, is sadly put about when
there is much motion. I gave her a morsel of meat to-day when passing
through Oxford. To stand on one leg and eat it as usual from her other
claw was out of the question, but Polly was equal to the occasion. She
put the choice morsel under her feet on the perch, and so quietly rent
and devoured it.
We were all of us glad to get away from Oxford, where there is no rest
for the soles of the feet of a caravanite. Hurricane Bob, though he
dearly loves to travel, enjoys his morsel of meadow in the evening, his
mode of enjoyment being to roll on the greensward, with all four legs
waved aloft.
When he gets on to a bit of clovery sward by the wayside it really is a
treat to see him.
"I wouldn't miss this, master," he says to me, "for all the world, and I
only wonder you don't come and tumble as I do."
_June, 22nd_ (Monday).--A village of grey limestone houses, thatched and
tiled, many with charmingly antique roofs, a village built on ground
that is level, a village embowered in orchards and trees, and with so
many lanes and roads through it that a stranger could not be expected to
know when he was in it or when he was out of it. I have said "a village
built," but rather it seems like a village that has grown, house by
house, each in its own garden or orchard, and each one different in
appearance from the others. Altogether English, however, is Kidlington,
and the work-a-day people are thoroughly English too, very rustic,
good-natured, and simple. I do not believe they ever brawl and fight
here at pothouses on Saturday nights, or that the conversation ever
advances much beyond "turmuts" and cattle.
I do not suppose that Kidlington ever looked much better than it does on
this bright summer's morning. The breeze that blew all night, making
the Wanderer rock like a ship at sea, has fallen; there is just
sufficient left to sough through the ash-trees and whisper among the
elms; cloudlets float lazily in the sky's blue and temper the sunshine.
I am writing on the _coupe_, in the meadow where we have lain since
Saturday afternoon. There is silence all round, except that cocks are
crowing and a turkey gobbling; there is a rustic perched on the
stile-top yonder, wondering at my cockatoo, and at Bob, who wears a
scarlet blanket to keep the early morning chill away; another rustic is
driving a herd of lazy cows along the lane. That is the scene, and that
is about all. But what a quiet and pleasant Sabbath we spent yesterday
in this meadow and at the village church!
It is now eight o'clock, and time to get the horses in. I wonder what
the world is doing--the outside world, I mean. I have not seen a
newspaper for three days, nor had a letter since leaving home. Now hey!
for Deddington.
Somewhat pretty is the country for a mile or two out of Kidlington,
rising ground all the way to Sturdy's Castle, four miles and a half.
This is a solitary inn, of grey limestone, Sturdy by name and sturdy by
nature, and if it could tell its story it would doubtless be a strange
one. But what a wide, wild country it overlooks! It is wide and wild
now. What must it have been one hundred years ago? Found a
carpet-hawker encamped with her caravan behind the castle. She travels
all alone with her two children throughout the length and breadth of
England. Seems very intelligent, and gives a terrible account of the
difficulties to be encountered on ahead of us in getting in at night.
We'll see.
We are at present in the Blenheim country, and the Dashwood estate lies
east--away yonder. I make no _detour_ to visit the palace. Every one
knows it by heart.
A kind-hearted carter man has told me a deal about the scenes around us,
which I daresay the jolting over these rutty roads will soon drive out
of my head.
On we go again.
Hopcroft's Holt is an old-fashioned quiet inn close by intersecting
roads that to the right branch off to Bicester. Stayed here to cook and
eat.
Densely wooded and well hedged country all round, quiet and retired. It
must be healthy here in summer.
Blacksmith has neatly mended my tricycle, which had broken down, so that
I am able to make little excursions down by-roads. The village of Upper
Heyford, about two miles from here, is as quaint and ancient-looking as
if some town in the Orkneys.
_June 23rd_.--It needed all the strength of Corn-flower and Pea-blossom
to get us into Deddington, for the hills are long and steep. We are
furnished with a roller that drags behind the near after wheel, in case
of accident or sudden stopping on a hill, and now for the first time we
needed it.
New experiences come on this tour of mine every day, though adventures
are but few, or have been hitherto. At Oxford and places _en route_
from there we were reported to be the Earl of E--. At Deddington the
wind changed, and we were taken for Salvationists on a pilgrimage.
Salvationists are not liked in Deddington, and our arrival in the
market-place, an ugly piece of rocky ground in the centre of the town
(population about three thousand), was the occasion of a considerable
deal of excitement. We had the horses out nevertheless, and prepared to
spend the night there. We pulled blinds down, and I was about to batten
down, as sailors say--in other words, get on the shutters--for the boys
had taken to stoning each other, when the arrival of kindly Dr T--and
an invitation to come to his grounds gave us relief and surcease from
riot.
As the mob chose to follow and hoot, my Highland blood got up, and I got
out with Hurricane Bob, the Newfoundland. The street was narrow, and
further advance of those unmannerly louts was deemed by them indiscreet.
The change from the lout-lined street to the pleasant grounds of Dr
T--'s old house at Deddington was like getting into harbour from off a
stormy sea, and I shall never forget the kind hospitality of the kindly
doctor and his family.
To be taken for an earl in the morning and a captain of the Salvation
Army in the evening is surely enough for one day.
This morning I visited the fine old church, and, as usual, got up into
the steeple. If ever you go to Deddington, pray, reader, do the same.
The town stands on a hill, and the steeple-top is one hundred feet
higher; you can see for many miles. The country round is fertile,
rolling hill and dale and valley, and densely treed. There are villages
to the right, villages to the left, and mansions peeping from the woods
wherever you turn your eye.
The steeple-head is covered with lead, and it is the custom of visitors
to place a foot on the lead and cut a mark round it. Inside this they
write their initials and the date. Here are footmarks of every size.
You can even tell the age and guess the sex. Among them are those of
children, but looking at some of the dates those babes must have grown
men and women long ago, grown old and died. There is food for thought
in even this.
We pass the village of Adderbury on our way to Banbury. From an
artistic as well as antiquarian point of view it is well worth a visit.
See it from the Oxford side, where the stream winds slowly through the
valley. The village lies up yonder on the ridge among grand old trees,
its church as beautiful as a dream. Looking in the opposite direction
to-day a thoroughly English view meets my gaze. On one bank of the
valley is a broad flat meadow, where cattle are wading more than
ankle-deep in buttercups and grass; on the other merry haymakers are
busy; away beyond are sunny braelands with a horizon of elms.
Delayed for a time after leaving Adderbury by the collapse of a traction
engine on the road. We are now cooking dinner outside Banbury, the
horses grazing quietly by the roadside.
_June 24th_.--We went quickly through Banbury, pretty though the place
be. We stayed not even to have a cake. Truth is, we were haunted by
our greatest foe, the traction engine fiend, which twice yesterday
nearly brought us to grief and my narrative to a close.
The country 'twixt Banbury and the little village of Warmington, which
lies in a hollow--and that hollow is a forest of fine trees--is
beautiful. The soil in many of the fields a rich rusty red. There is
what may well be called a terrible hill to descend before you reach the
road that leads to Warmington. Once here, we found ourselves on a
spacious green, with ample room for a hundred caravans. The village is
primitive in the extreme--primitive and pretty. Are we back in the
middle ages, I wonder?
Here is no hotel, no railway, no telegraph, no peep at a daily paper,
and hardly stabling for a horse.
"I can only get stabling for one horse," I said to a dry, hard-faced
woman who was staring at me.
I thought she might suggest something.
"Humph!" she replied; "and I ain't got stabling e'en for _one_ horse.
And wot's more, I ain't got a 'orse to stable!"
I felt small, and thought myself well off.
The people here talk strangely. Their _patois_ is different from
Berkshire, even as the style of their houses is, and the colour of the
fields. Wishing yesterday to get a photograph of the old church at
Adderbury, I entered an inn.
The round-faced landlord was very polite, but when I asked for a
photographer,--
"A wot, sir?" he said.
"A photographer," I replied, humbly.
"I can't tell wot ye means, sir. Can you tell wot the gemman means,
'Arry?"
"'Arry" was very fat and round, wore a cow-gown, and confronted a quart
pot of ale.
I repeated the word to him thrice, but 'Arry shook his head. "I can't
catch it," he said, "no 'ow."
When I explained that I meant a man who took pictures with a black
box,--
"Oh, now I knows," said the landlord; "you means a pott-o-graffer."
But the children here that came down from their fastnesses in the
village above are angels compared to the Deddington roughs. I was so
struck with the difference that I asked four or five to come right away
into the pantry and look at the saloon.
It rained hard all the afternoon and night, the dark clouds lying low on
the hills--real hills--that surrounded us, and quite obscuring our view.
'Twixt bath and breakfast this morning, I strolled down a tree-shaded
lane; every field here is surrounded by hedges--not trimmed and
disfigured--and trees, the latter growing also in the fields, and under
them cows take shelter from sun or shower. How quiet and still it was,
only the breeze in the elms, the cuckoo's notes, and the murmur of the
unseen cushat!
We are near the scene of the battle of Edgehill. For aught I know I may
be sitting near a hero's grave, or on it. The village can hardly, have
altered since that grim fight; the houses look hundreds of years old.
Yonder quaint stone manor, they tell me, has seen eight centuries go by.
I don't wonder at the people here looking quiet and sleepy; I did not
wonder at the polite postmistress turning to her daughter, who was
selling a boy "a happorth of peppercorns," and saying, "Whatever is the
day of the month, Amelia? I've forgot."
Warmington may some day become a health resort. At present there is no
accommodation; but one artist, one author, or one honeymooning pair
might enjoy a month here well enough.
Started at nine for Warwick--fourteen miles. For some miles the highway
is a broad--very broad--belt of greensward, with tall hedges at every
side. Through this belt the actual road meanders; the sward on each
side is now bathed in wild flowers, conspicuous among which are patches
of the yellow bird's-foot trefoil.
Hills on the right, with wooded horizons; now and then a windmill or
rustic church, or farm or manor. A grey haze over all.
We come to a place where the sward is adorned with spotted lilac
orchids.
Conspicuous among other wild flowers are now tall pink silenes, very
pretty, while the hedges themselves are ablaze with wild roses.
Midday halt at cross roads, on a large patch of clovery grass. Here the
Fosse, or old Roman road, bisects our path. It goes straight as crow
could fly across England.
There is a pretty farm here, and the landlady from her gate kindly
invited Hurricane Bob and me in, and regaled us on the creamiest of
milk.
We shall sleep at Warwick to-night.
CHAPTER EIGHT.
LEAMINGTON AND WARWICK--A LOVELY DRIVE--A BIT OF BLACK COUNTRY--
ASHBY-DE-LA-ZOUCH.
"... Evening yields
The world to-night...
... A faint erroneous ray,
Glanced from th' imperfect surfaces of things,
Flings half an image on the straining eye;
While wavering woods, and villages and streams,
And rocks and mountain-tops, that long retained
Th' ascending gleam, are all one swimming scene,
Uncertain if beheld."
Strange that for twelve long miles, 'twixt Warmington and the second
milestone from Warwick, we never met a soul, unless rooks and rabbits
have souls. We were in the woods in the wilds, among ferns and flowers.
When houses hove in sight at last, signs of civilisation began to
appear. We met a man, then a swarm of boarding-school girls botanising,
and we knew a city would soon be in sight. At Leamington, the livery
stables to which we had been recommended proved too small as to yard
accommodation, so we drove back and put up at the Regent Hotel. But
there is too much civilisation for us here. Great towns were never
meant for great caravans and gipsy-folk. We feel like a ship in
harbour.
Rain, rain, rain! We all got wet to the skin, but are none the worse.
The old ostler at the Regent is a bit of a character, had been on the
road driving four-in-hands for many a year. He was kindly-loquacious,
yes, and kindly-musical as well, for he treated me to several
performances on the coach-horn, which certainly did him great credit.
He was full of information and anecdotes of the good old times, "when
four-in-hands _were_ four-in-hands, sir, and gentlemen _were_
gentlemen." He told us also about the road through Kenilworth to
Coventry. It was the prettiest drive, he said, in all England.
Beautiful and all though Leamington be, we were not sorry to leave it
and make once more for the cool green country.