line with it lies Birkland--a tract which bears its character in its
name--the land of birches. It is a forest perfectly unique. It is
equally ancient with Bilhaghe, but it has a less dilapidated air. It is
a region of grace and poetry. I have seen many a wood, and many a wood
of birches, and some of them amazingly beautiful, too, in one quarter or
another of this fair island, but in England nothing that can compare
with this... On all sides, standing in their solemn steadfastness, you
see huge, gnarled, strangely-coloured and mossed oaks, some riven and
laid bare from summit to root with the thunderbolts of past tempests.
An immense tree is called the Shamble Oak, being said to be the one in
which Robin Hood hung his slaughtered deer, but which was more probably
used by the keepers for that purpose. By whomsoever it was so used,
however, there still remain the hooks within its vast hollow."
But it is time to be up and off. We lay last night in Mr Tebbet's
private meadow. Had a long walk before I could secure a suitable place.
But the place was eminently quiet and exceedingly private, near lawns
and gardens and giant elms. The elm that grows near the pretty
cemetery, in which haymakers were so busy this morning, is, with the
exception of the oak at Newstead Abbey gates, the finest ever I have
seen; and yet an old man died but recently in Mansfield workhouse who
remembered the time he could bend it to the ground.
Warsop, which we reached over rough and stony roads and steepish hills,
is a greystone village, the houses slated or tiled blue or red, a fine
church on the hilltop among lordly trees, a graveyard on the brae
beneath with a white pathway meandering up through it to the porch.
At the sixth milestone we reached a hilltop, from which we could see
into several counties. Such a view as this is worth wandering leagues
to look at. We watered the horses here, at the last of the Duke of
Portland's lodges.
Thou down hill again. How lovely the little village of Cuckney looks
down there, its crimson houses shimmering through the trees! We bought
eggs at the inn called the Greendale Oak. There is a story attached to
this oak which my reader has doubtless heard or read.
This is the land of oaks, and a smiling land too, a land of wealth and
beauty, a great garden-land.
CHAPTER TEN.
DONCASTER--BRENTLEY--ASKERN--DINNER ON A YORKSHIRE WOLD.
"Was nought around save images of rest,
Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between,
And flowery beds, that slumberous influence kest,
From poppies breathed, and beds of pleasant green."
It is the morning of the 4th July, and a bright and beautiful morning it
is. The storm clouds that yesterday lowered all around us have cleared
away and the sun shines in an Italian sky. We are encamped in a
delightful little level meadow close to the worthy brewer and farmer to
whom it belongs. How did we come here? Were we invited? No, reader,
we invited ourselves.
Not quite liking the accommodation recommended to us by a villager, I
called on Mr E--, and coyly--shall I say "coyly?"--stated my case.
Though good Mr E--has a wife to please, and the gentle, kindly lady is
an invalid, he granted me the desired permission, and when we were
fairly on the lawn and...
A Page Missing Here.
A Page Missing Here.
stunted than the giants we have left behind us. Mulberry-trees have now
made their appearance, and splendid acacias, tasselled over with
drooping blooms. But the maple or plane-trees are also a sight; they
are now in seed, and the hanging bunches of pods are tinted with carmine
and brown.
Large elder-bushes, like enormous white-rose trees, brighten the
dark-green of the hedgerows; beds of yellow sweet-pea, beds and patches
of the blue speedwell, the purple tapering stachys, solitary spikes of
crimson foxglove, roses, and honeysuckle meet the eye wherever I look.
In some places the sward is covered as with snow by the lavish-spreading
fairy-bedstraw.
At the little cosy town of Askern, with its capital hotels and
civilised-looking lodging-houses, on stopping to shop, we were surprised
at being surrounded by hosts of white-haired cripples--well, say lame
people, for every one had a staff or a crutch.
But I soon found out that Askern is a watering-place, a kind of a
second-class Harrogate, and these people with the locks of snow had come
to bathe and drink the waters; they are sulphureous. There is here a
little lake, with a promenade and toy stalls. The lake has real water
in it, though it looks somewhat green and greasy, and a real boat on it,
and real oars to pull it. There are fish in the lake too. This is
evident from the fact that a twenty-pound pike was lately landed. On
being opened, his stomach was found to contain a roach and two copper
coins of the reign of our present blessed Majesty the Queen. It is
evident that this pike was laving up against a rainy day.
But Askern is really a good resort for the invalid. Things are cheap,
too, and the place would soon flourish if there were abundance of
visitors.
We have halted to dine in the centre of a Yorkshire wold. The road goes
straight through the hedge-bound sward, and can be seen for miles either
way.
A wold means a wood--a wild wood. I like the word, there is a fine
romantic ring about it. This wold has been cleared, or partially so, of
trees, and fields of waving grain extend on all sides of us. Very
delightful is this wold on a sweet summer's day like this, but one can
easily imagine how dreary the scene must be in winter, with the road
banked high with snowdrifts, and the wind sweeping over the flats and
tearing through the leafless oaks.
The horses are enjoying the clover. Hurricane Bob and I are reclining
among our rugs on the broad _coupe_. Foley is cooking a fowl and a
sheep's heart; the latter for Bob's dinner. There are rock-looking
clouds on the horizon, a thunderstorm is within a measurable distance.
How pretty those purple trailing vetches look! How sweet the song of
yonder uprising lark! There is an odour of elder-flowers in the air. I
hear a hen cackling at a distant farm. Probably the hen has laid an
egg. Hurricane Bob is sound asleep. I think I shall read. Burns is by
my elbow:
"Oh, Nature! a' thy shows and forms
To feeling pensive hearts hae charms!
Whether the summer kindly warms
Wi' life and light,
Or winter howls in gusty storms,
The lang dark night."
How lovely those dog-roses are, though! They are everywhere to-day;
roses in clusters, roses in garlands, wreaths and wind-tossed spray,
white, crimson, or palest pink roses--roses--
"The dinner is all on the table, sir."
"Aw--right."
"The dinner is _quite ready_, sir."
"To be sure, to be sure. Thank you, Foley."
"Why, you have been sound asleep, sir."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
We are once more settled for the night and settled for the Sabbath, in a
delightful clovery meadow near a fine old Yorkshire farm, round which
blue-rock pigeons are flying in clouds.
A herd of fine shorthorn cows have arranged themselves in a row to look
at us. A healthful "caller" country lassie is milking one. Her name
is Mary; I heard a ploughboy say "Mary" to her. Mary is singing low as
she milks, and the sleek-sided cow is chewing her cud and meditating.
Yonder is a field of white peas all in bloom, and yonder a field of
pale-green flax.
It must be a great satisfaction for those pigeons to see those peas in
bloom.
"Good-night, Mary."
"Good-night, sir."
Away marches Mary, singing, "Tra, la, lalla, la lah."
What a sweet voice the little maiden has!
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A GENTLEMAN GIPSY.
"He journeyed on like errant-knight the while,
While sweetly the summer sun did smile
On mountain moss and moor."
It has occurred to me that a slightly more detailed account of the
internal economy of our land-yacht, the Wanderer, might not prove devoid
of interest to the reader, and I cannot give this in an easier way to
myself, nor more completely, than by describing a day in the life of a
gentleman gipsy.
It is the ninth of July, and early morning. The belfry-clock, which we
can see from the meadow in which we have been lying all night, will
presently chime out the quarter-past six. Foley is busy erecting the
after-tent under which I have my bath every morning, as sure as sunrise.
In a few minutes, ere ever I have finished my toilet, our coachman will
be here for oats and beans for Corn-flower and Pea-blossom. No fear
that John will neglect his horses, he is quite as kind to them as I
myself am to Bob and Polly, and now that Pear-blossom's fetlock is
slightly strained, it is three times a day most carefully bandaged and
rubbed with healing liniment.
The bed which is made every night on the sofa is not yet taken up, but
as soon as I emerge from the back door and enter the tent my valet
enters by the saloon front door, the bedclothes are carried outside,
carefully shaken and folded, and finally stowed away under the lockers.
The saloon is then brushed and dusted and the cloth laid for breakfast.
Bob sleeps on the driving apron in the corner of the saloon, Polly in
her cage occupies another corner. The first thing I do every morning is
to hang Polly under the balcony, and chain Bob on the _coupe_, wrapping
him in his red blanket if the weather be chilly. He is there now;
ominous warning growls are followed by fierce barking, for some one is
nearing the caravan whose looks Bob does not like, or whose movements he
deems suspicious. At every bark of the brave dog the van shakes and the
lamp-glasses rattle.
I have finished shaving--water boiled by spirits-of-wine.
"The bath all ready? thank you, Foley."
Do not imagine that I carry an immense tin-ware bath in the Wanderer.
No, a gipsy's bath is a very simple arrangement, but it is very
delightful. This is the _modus operandi_. I have a great sponge and a
bucket of cold water, newly drawn from the nearest well. This morning
the water is actually ice-cold, but I am hungry before I have finished
sponging, so benefit must result from so bracing an ablution.
Foley has laid the cloth. The kettle is boiling, the eggs and rashers
are ready to put in the frying-pan, the Rippingille oil-stove is in a
little tent made of mats under the caravan. There is nothing in the
shape of cooking this stove will not perform.
Now Bob must have his early run, and while I am walking with him I call
a bunch of the seedling grasses Polly loves so well, for I believe with
Norman McLeod, D.D. "I think nothing of that man's religion," said that
truly great and good man, "whose cat and dog are not the better for it."
We have not a caravan cat, but Polly is an excellent substitute.
I return and once more fasten Bob on the _coupe_, but he now insists on
having the front door open that he may watch me at breakfast, and get
the tit-bits. How bright, and clean, and pleasant the saloon looks!
There are garden flowers in the crystal boat, and a splendid bouquet of
wild flowers and ferns that I culled in the woods yesterday morning
stands in the bracket beneath one of the windows; crimson foxgloves
there are, rare and beautiful ox-eye daisies, and a score of others of
every colour and shade.
The sun is streaming in through the panes and shimmering on the red
lamp-glasses; the table is laid to perfection, the tea is fragrant, the
eggs and bacon done to a turn, and the bread as white as snow. The
milk, too, is newly from that very cow who was playing the trombone so
noisily last night in the meadow near me, and the butter all that could
be desired. And yet some of these dainties are wondrous cheap up here
in Yorks; for that butter we paid but eleven pence a pound, fourteen
new-laid eggs we secured for a shilling, the bacon cost but sixpence,
while three halfpence buys me a jugful of the richest of milk. Who
would not be a gipsy?
But breakfast is soon discussed and everything cleared away, the spoons
and dishes are washed beneath the tent, the hind tables having been let
down to facilitate matters. In half an hour or less the pantry is as
bright and tidy as eye could wish to see. The tent itself is taken down
and stowed away, the ladder is shipped and secured, buckets and mats,
and nosebags and chains, fastened beneath the caravan, then the steps
are put up, and the after-door closed and locked. The horses are now
put-to; I myself have one last walk round the Wanderer to see that
everything is in its place and no drawer left unlocked, then away we
rattle right gaily O!
To-day the gate that leads to the meadow is narrow, it does not give us
two inches to spare at each side. I have to walk backwards in front of
the horses to guide the coachman in his exit. But John has a keen eye,
and in a few moments we are in the road.
Nothing has been forgotten, and the landlord of the Stalled Ox gives us
kindly good morning and wishes us _bon voyage_. More than one friendly
hand is waved, too, and some hats are lifted, for the good people,
having soon settled in their minds that we were neither in the
Cheap-Jack line nor Salvation soldiers, have promoted me to the dignity
of baronet. This is nothing new. Some scions of nobility are actually
caravanning around somewhere, and I am often supposed to be one of them.
I travel _incog_, and do not care whom I am taken for, whether
Cheap-Jack, noble earl, or political agent. I now let down the front
seat, and Hurricane Bob withdraws to the quiet seclusion of the pantry,
where he rests on cushions to fend him from the jolting.
Pea-blossom invariably nudges Corn-flower with her nose before starting.
This is to make him straighten out and take the first pull at the
caravan. He never refuses, and once it is in motion they both settle
soberly down to their work.
Foley is on ahead with the tricycle--some hundred yards. This is a
judicious and handy arrangement. We hardly know how we should have done
without our smart and beautiful Ranelagh Club machine.
The day will be a warm one. It is now eight o'clock, the road is level
and firm, and we hope to reach Darlington--sixteen miles--to-night.
The country is flat again, but the landscape is bounded by far-off blue
hills.
The roses still accompany us in the hedgerows. There is even a greater
wealth of them to-day than usual, while the sward at each side of our
path still looks like a garden laid out in beds and patches of brightest
colours.
There is nothing of very special interest to view in this long town of
Northallerton, not in the streets at all events. Last night, though, we
were visited by hundreds of well-dressed people; many of these were
really beautiful girls, though here the beauty is of a different type
from that you find far south. More of the Saxon probably, and a
sprinkling of the auburn-haired Dane.
For weeks I have cared but little how the world wagged. With an apathy
and listlessness born of bracing air and sunshine, I have troubled
myself not at all about foreign wars or the fall of governments, but
to-day I have invested in a _Yorkshire Post_. I arrange my rags on the
_coupe_, and lying down, dreamily scan my paper as the horses go
trotting along. I have plenty of work to do if I choose, bundles of
proofs to correct from my publishers, but--I'll do it by-and-bye.
By-and-bye is a gipsy's motto. There is no news in this day's paper.
What care I that Oko Jumbo has departed, or that there has been a royal
visit to Leeds? Bah! I fold the thing up and pitch it to a cow-boy.
Had it fallen in that cow-boy's mouth it would hardly have filled it.
The road is silent and almost deserted, so we see but few people saving
those who run to their garden gates, or peep from behind the geraniums
in windows.
But it is most pleasant lolling here on such a glorious morning, and the
veriest trifles that I notice in passing awaken a kind of drowsy
interest in my mind.
In proof of this let me mention a few. A country boy playing with a
collie puppy. Puppy nearly gets run over. Agony and anxiety of country
boy. Red-tiled brick cottages peeping up through orchards. Red-tiled
cottages everywhere, by hedgerows, by brook-sides, in meadows, on
morsels of moorland. A sweep in full costume, brush and all, standing
glaring from under a broad Scotch bonnet. A yellow-haired wee lassie
standing in a doorway eating a slice of bread; she has not finished her
toilet, for she wears but one stocking, the other shapely leg is bare.
Great banks of elder-trees covered with snowy blossoms. A quiet and
pretty farm-steading near the road, its garden ablaze with crimson
valerian. Milch cows in the adjacent meadow, ankle-deep in yellow
celandine and daisies. A flock of lambs in a field lying down under the
shade of a great sycamore, the sycamore itself a sight worth seeing.
And now we are on the top of Lovesome Hill. What a charming name, by
the way! Spread out before and beneath us is a large and fertile plain,
fields and woodlands, as far as ever the eye can reach, all slumbering
in the sweet summer sunshine. In the distance a train is speeding
along, we can trace it by its trailing smoke. I had almost forgotten we
lived in the days of railway trains. There is a redbrick village on the
hilltop straight ahead of us.
That must be Smeaton. Smeaton? Yes, now I remember, and the lovely
fertile plain yonder, that now looks so green and smiling, hides in its
bosom the dust of an army. History tells us that ten thousand Scotchmen
were there slain. I can fancy the terrible tulzie, I can people that
plain even now in imagination with men in battle array; I see the
banners wave, and hear the border slogan cry:
"And now at weapon-point they close,
Scarce can they hear or see their foes;
They close in clouds of smoke and dust,
With sword's-sway and lance's thrust;
And such a yell was there,
Of sudden and portentous birth,
As if man fought upon the earth,
And fiends in upper air.
Oh! life and death were in the shout,
And triumph and despair."
[The Battle of the Standard, fought in 1138, in which the Scottish army
was routed, and the flower of the land left dead on the field.]
But here we are in Smeaton itself--grass or a garden at every cottage.
This village would make a capital health resort. We stop to water the
horses, and though it is hardly ten o'clock I feel hungry already.
Clear of the village, and on and on. A nice old lady in spectacles
tending cows and knitting, singing low to herself as she does so. An
awful-looking old man, in awful-looking goggles, breaking stones by the
roadside. I address the awful-looking old man.
"Awful-looking old man," I say, "did ever you hear of the Battle of the
Standard?"
"Naa."
"Did you never hear or read that a battle was fought near this spot?"
The awful-looking old man scratched his head.
"Coome ta think on't noo, there was summut o' th' kind, but it's soome
years agone. There war more 'n a hoondred cocks. A regular main as ye
might call it."
I pass on and leave the old man muttering to himself. Pinewoods on our
right mingling with the lighter green of the feathery larches. A
thundercloud hanging over a town in the plains far away. A duck-pond
completely surrounded by trailing roses. Ducks in the pond all head
down, tails and yellow feet up. Road suddenly becomes a lovers' lane,
charmingly pretty, and robins are singing in the copses. We are just
five miles from Darlington.
We stable our horses at a roadside inn and Foley cooks the dinner.
How very handy sheets of paper come in! Look at that snow-white
tablecloth--that is paper; so is the temporary crumb-cloth, and eke my
table-napkin; but in fifty other ways in a caravan paper is useful.
The dinner to-day is cold roast beef and floury new potatoes; add to
this a delightful salad, and we have a _menu_ a millionaire might not
despise.
I write up my log while dinner is cooking, and after that meal has been
discussed comes the hour for reading and siesta.
Now the horses are once more put-to, and we start again for Darlington.
We pass through the charming village of Croft; it lies on the banks of
the Tees, and is a spa of some kind, and well worthy of being a
better-frequented resort for the health or pleasure seeker.
The treescapes, the wood and water peeps, are fine just before you reach
Darlington. This town itself is one of the prettiest in England. Fully
as big but infinitely more beautiful even than Reading.
Wherever we stop we are surrounded by people, so we make haste to shake
the dust of civilisation from our carriage-wheels, and are happy when we
once more breathe country air, and see neither perambulators nor
boarding-school girls.
At the top of a hill some two miles out of town we come upon a cosy wee
hotel--the Harrogate Hill Hotel.
"A've little convenience," says the landlord, in his broad Durham
brogue, "but A'll clear anoother stall, and A'll turn t'ould pony oot o'
his. A'll mak' room."
And the Wanderer is steered up a narrow lane and safely landed in a tiny
meadow, o'ergrown with rank green grass and docks and sheltered with
fine elms and ashes. And here we lie to-night.
Supper will soon be ready. I shall have a ride on my tricycle; there is
always something to see; then beds will be made, shutters put up. I
will read and write, while Foley in his cabin will write up his
road-log, and by eleven every one on board will be wrapped, we hope, in
dreamless slumber.
This then is a true and faithful account of one day in the life of a
gentleman gipsy. Quiet and uneventful, but very pleasant, almost
idyllic.
Do you care for the picture, reader?
CHAPTER TWELVE.
AT DURHAM--THE BRITISH MINER AT HOME--GOSFORTH--AMONG NORTHUMBRIAN
BANKS--ACROSS THE TWEED.
"March! march! Ettrick and Teviotdale,
Why, my lads, dinna ye march forward in order?
March! march! Eskdale and Liddesdale,
All the blue bonnets are over the border.
Many a banner spread flutters above your head;
Many a crest that is famous in story;
Mount and make ready then,
Sons of the mountain glen:
Fight for your Queen, and the old Scottish glory!"
July 11th.
A six-miles' drive, through some of the most charming scenery in
England, brought us into Durham. The city looks very imposing from the
hilltop; its noble old castle, and grand yet solemn looking cathedral.
Eight hundred years of age! What a terrible story they could tell could
those grey old piles but speak! It would be a very sad one to listen
to. Perhaps they do talk to each other at the midnight hour, when the
city is hushed and still.
It would take one a week, or even a fortnight, to see all the sights
about Durham; he would hardly in that time, methinks, be tired of the
walks around the town and by the banks of the winding Weir.
It is a rolling country, a hilly land around here. The people, by the
way, call those hills banks. We had a hard day. John's gloves were
torn with the reins, for driving was no joke. I fear, however, the
horses hardly enjoyed the scenery.
The streets in Durham are badly paved and dangerously steep. We did not
dare to bring the Wanderer through, therefore, but made a sylvan
_detour_ and got on the north road again beyond.
If we reckoned upon encamping last night in a cosy meadow once more we
were mistaken, we were glad to get standing room close to the road and
behind a little public-house.
Miners going home from their work in the evening passed us in scores. I
cannot say they look picturesque, but they are blithe and active, and
would make capital soldiers. Their legs were bare from their knees
downwards, their hats were skull-caps, and all visible flesh was as
black almost as a nigger's.
Many of these miners, washed and dressed, returned to this public-house,
drank and gambled till eleven, then went outside and fought cruelly.
The long rows of grey-slab houses one passes on leaving Durham by road
do not look inviting. For miles we passed through a mining district, a
kind of black country--a country, however, that would be pleasant
enough, with its rolling hills, its fine trees and wild hedgerows, were
it not for the dirt and squalor and poverty one sees signs of everywhere
on the road. Every one and everything looks grey and grimy, and many of
the children, but especially the women, have a woebegone, grief-stricken
look that tells its own tale.
I greatly fear that intemperance is rampant enough in some of these
villages, and the weaker members of the family have to suffer for it.
Here is an old wrinkled yellow woman sitting on a doorstep. She is
smoking a short black clay, perhaps her only comfort in life. A
rough-looking man, with a beard of one week's growth, appears behind and
rudely stirs her with his foot. She totters up and nearly falls as he
brushes past unheeding.
Yonder are two tiny girls, also sitting on a doorstep--one about seven,
the other little more than a baby. An inebriated man--can it be the
father?--comes along the street and stops in front of them. He wants to
get in.
"Git oot o' t'way!" he shouts to the oldest.
His leg is half lifted as if to kick.
"And thou too,"--this to the baby.
One can easily imagine what sort of a home those poor children have. It
cannot be a very happy one.
More pleasant to notice now a window brilliant with flowers, and a clean
and tidy woman rubbing the panes.