a quiet place. For example, long ago, though the recollection of the
affair is still green in the memory of the oldest inhabitants, there
used to be held at Botley what were called "beef-fairs." For months
beforehand "twopences" were saved, to raise a fund for fair-day. When
this latter came round, the agreement among these innocents was that
having once taken the cup of beer in his hand every man must drain it to
the bottom, to prove he was a man.
In his bacchanalian song "Willie brew'd a peck o' maut," Burns says:--
"The first that rises to gang awa'
A cuckold cowardly loon is he.
The first that in the neuk does fa'
We'll mak' him king amang the three."
But at the beef-fair of Botley matters were reversed, and the first that
"in the neuk did fa'" was fined two shillings, and failing payment he
was condemned to be hanged.
On a certain fair-day a certain "innocent" fell in the nook but refused
to pay. Honour was honour among these fair folks, so first they stood
the culprit on his head, and endeavoured to shake the money out of him.
Disappointed and unsuccessful, they really did hang him, not by the neck
but by the waist, to a beam.
Unfortunately for the poor fellow, the band came past, and away rushed
his _confreres_ to listen.
It did not matter much to the condemned joskin that he was trundled
about the town for two hours after they had returned, and finally
deposited under the settle of an inn. For he was _dead_!
One other example of the congeniality of the Botley folks of long ago.
My attention was attracted to a large iron-lettered slab that hangs on
the wall of the coffee-room of the Dolphin. The following is the
inscription thereon:--
This Stone is Erected To Perpetuate a
Most Cruel Murder Committed on the Body
of Thos. Webb a Poor Inhabitant of Swanmore
on the 11th of Feb. 1800 by John Diggins
a Private Soldier in the Talbot Fencibles
Whose Remains are Gibbeted on the Adjoining Common.
And there doubtless John Diggins' body swung, and there his bones
bleached and rattled till they fell asunder.
But the strange part of the story now has to be told; they had hanged
the wrong man!
It is an ugly story altogether. Thus: two men (Fencibles) were drinking
at a public-house, and going homewards late made a vow to murder the
first man they met. Cruelly did they keep this vow, for an old man they
encountered was at once put to the bayonet. Before going away from the
body, however, the soldier who had done the deed managed to exchange
bayonets with Diggins. The blood-stained instrument was therefore found
in _his_ scabbard, and he was tried and hanged. The real murderer
confessed his crime twenty-one years afterwards, when on his deathbed.
So much for the Botley of long ago.
The iron slab, by the way, was found in the cellar of the Dolphin, and
the flag of the Talbot Fencibles, strange to say, was found in the roof.
We took Southampton as our midday halt, driving all round the South Park
before we entered--such a charming park--and stopped to dine among the
guns away down beside the pier.
Then on for a few miles, bivouacking for the night in an inn yard, in
order that we might return to Southampton and see the play.
Next day we reached Lyndhurst, and came safely to anchor in a meadow
behind the old Crown Hotel, and this field we made our headquarters for
several days.
It had always been my ambition to see something of the New Forest, and
here I was in the centre of it. I had so often read about this wondrous
Forest; I had thought about it, dreamt about it, and more than once it
had found its way into the tales I wrote. And now I found the real to
exceed the imaginary.
One great beauty about the New Forest is that it is open. There is
nothing here of the sombre gloom of the Scottish pine wood. There are
great green glades in it, and wide wild patches of heatherland. Even at
the places where the trees are thickest the giant oaks thrust their arms
out on every side as if to keep the other trees off.
"Stand back," they seem to say. "We will not be crowded. We must not
keep away the sunshine from the grass and the brackens beneath us, for
all that has life loves the light. Stand back."
What charmed me most in this Forest? I can hardly tell. Perhaps its
gnarled and ancient oaks, that carried my thoughts back to the almost
forgotten past; perhaps its treescapes in general, now with the tints of
autumn burnishing their foliage; perhaps its glades, carpeted with soft
green moss and grass, and surrounded with brackens branched and lofty,
under which surely fairies still do dwell.
They say that the modern man is but a savage reformed by artificial
means, and if left to himself would relapse to his pristine state.
Well, if ever I should relapse thus, I'd live in the New Forest.
Referring to the forest, Galpin says--"Within equal limits, perhaps, few
parts of England afford a greater variety of beautiful landscapes than
this New Forest. Its woody scenes, its extended lawns, and vast sweeps
of wild country, unlimited by artificial boundaries, together with its
river views and distant coasts, are all in a great degree magnificent.
[There have been many portions of the Forest enclosed since these lines
were written, but their gates are never closed against the stranger or
sight-seer.] Still, it must be remembered that its chief
characteristic, and what it rests on for distinction, is not sublimity
but sylvan beauty."
And this last line of Galpin's naturally enough leads my thoughts away
northward to the wild Highlands of Scotland, where sublimity _is_ in
advance of sylvan beauty, and brings the words of Wilson to my mind:--
"What lonely magnificence stretches around,
Each sight how sublime, how awful each sound,
All hushed and serene as a region of dreams,
The mountains repose 'mid the roar of the streams."
I have mentioned the wide-spreading oak-trees. Is it not possible that
the mountain firs of our Scottish Highlands would spread also had they
room? I mean if they were not planted so thickly, and had not to expend
their growth in towering skywards in search of sunlight, their stems all
brown and bare beneath, till looking into a pine wood is like looking
into some vast cave, its dark roof supported by pillars.
Not very far from Carrbridge, in the Grampians, is one of the strangest
and weirdest bits of pine forest it is possible to imagine. Here the
trees have plenty of room to spread; they evidently owe their existence
to birds that have brought the seeds from afar. Be that as it may, they
are not very tall, but gnarled and branched in the most fantastic
fashion, while in the open spaces between them grow heather and brackens
of such height and magnificence that among them an army could hide. If
fairies still dwell anywhere in this land of ours, surely it is in this
weirdlike ferny forest of Alpine pine-trees.
I very greatly enjoyed my long drive through Sherwood Forest, on the
Duke of Portland's estate. There, I think, many of the oaks are even
more aged than those in the New Forest here, though, perhaps, I am
mistaken. Spenser's lines would better therefore describe the former--
"Great oaks, dry and dead,
Still clad with relics of their trophies old,
Lifting to heaven their aged hoary heads,
Whose feet on earth have got but feeble hold,
And half disbowelled stand above the ground,
With wreathed roots and naked arms,
And trunks all rotten and unsound."
In one of our rambles through the New Forest--driven we were in a
dogcart over the green sward, through the ferns and through the furze,
over glades and natural lawns, into tree caves, and round and about the
gigantic monarchs of the woods--we were taken by our guide to see the
king and queen oaks, a morsel of the bark of each of which now lies in
the caravan. I would not like even to guess how old these oaks were--
probably a thousand years and more. Yet had you and I, reader, a chance
of living as long as these majestic trees may still exist, it would not
be profitable for an assurance company to grant us an annuity.
But before seeing the king and queen I pointed out to our guide one
particular oak.
"What a splendid old oak!" I remarked.
"Old," was the reply--"why, sir, that's only a hinfant hoak. He ain't
mebbe more'n three or four 'undred year old."
And this was an infant!
I was silent for a spell after that. I was thinking.
'Twixt three and four hundred years of age! My mind was carried away
back to the days of Henry the Eighth. He would be on the throne about
that time, if I remember my school history aright, marrying and giving
in marriage, cutting off heads right and left, and making himself
generally jolly; and Cardinal Wolsey was up and about, and poor
Buckingham was murdered under guise of an execution; and on the whole
they were very busy and very bloody times, when this "hinfant hoak"
first popped out of its acorn.
Lyndhurst may well be called the capital of this romantic forest.
It is quite a charming little town, chiefly built on the slope of a
hill, with many beautiful villas and houses surrounding it.
It is well removed from the din and roar of the railway, and from shouts
of station porters. It is a quiet place. No, I must qualify that
statement; it would be quiet except for those everlasting bells. They
clang-clang-clang every quarter of an hour all day long and all night,
and all the year round. Poe speaks about:--
"The people, ah! the people,
They that live up in the steeple,
They are ghouls!"
Are the good folks of Lyndhurst ghouls? Anyhow, the whole of the
inhabitants of the sweet little town may be said to live up in the
steeple. Their nerves and ears are encased in felt perhaps, but may
heaven help any nervous invalid who happens to make the neighbourhood of
that church steeple his or her habitat. The bells, however, did not
bother me much, for a gipsy can always sleep.
If he can stand the bells the visitor will be happy at Lyndhurst. There
are capital shops, several excellent inns, lots of well-furnished
apartments, and a most comfortable family hotel, the Crown, and
everywhere you will meet civility,--at all events I did; and what is
more I mean to go back to Lyndhurst, and do a deal more of the Forest.
The visitor should go to Mr Short's, and secure bits of Forest scenery
and his guide-book--author Mr Phillips. This gentleman is most
enthusiastic in his descriptions of the Forest and everything in and
about it.
I cannot refrain from making one or two extracts. Phillips gives a nice
description of the beautiful church of Lyndhurst--the church with the
bells, and is loud in his praises of Sir F. Leighton's splendid wall
painting, which all who visit the Forest must go and gaze on and study
for themselves. Phillips is quoting Eustace Jones in his "picture
parables" when he says:--
"All the shade is so graduated from either end to the glory in the
centre, that the picture will not let you rest till you have gazed on
Him, the Bridegroom--the King in His beauty. There is no light in the
centre of the palace where the Bridegroom is; yet it is dazzling bright
and shining, because He is the light thereof for ever and ever. All the
light comes from Him, glowing out from His garments in some strange way,
that makes it seem to come and go, as when you look full in the sun's
face at midday, and see him burn--till he leaves his image in your eyes,
glowing now large, and now small, yet dazzling alway. The face I cannot
describe. There is joy in it for those who have kept their lamps still
burning; there is sadness in it for those from whom it turns away--
ineffable pity. But is hope quite past, even for these? His glance is
averted from them, but does the hand that holds out the lily sceptre
only mean to taunt their stainfulness by the sight of purity which may
never more be theirs? Is He mocking at their calamity? Surely, if so,
the Iron Sceptre would be less cruel than the White Lily. It cannot be,
for there is nothing like it in His face.
"It may be a reflection awakened of His pity: it may be for relief from
the brightness, that makes one turn from Him to look at those sorrowful
faces on His left hand. It is all His palace. It is as light here as
on His right hand. But there is this difference--the same sun shines
winter on the Foolish virgins and summer on the Wise. It is so cold.
It would not be, but that the wings of the angel who sorrowfully warns
them back, shut out His light, leaving them only a strange garish
brightness, wherein the waning moonlight, straggling through a troubled
sky, chills and deadens the glory that yet would fall if it might. Not
one of these looks at Him. They cannot. Their eyes, used to the
darkness, cannot bear His light. One, who has ventured nearest and
looked, has covered her face with her mantle and bowed herself that she
may not see His radiance even through the angel's wing. The farthest
off, who has strained her eyeballs to see the Bridegroom, must needs
cover her dazzled eyes and turn away, for she cannot bear the sight.
One lies, like Lazarus, at the gate, if perchance some crumbs from the
banquet may be thrown to her;--but she has looked at Him for a moment,
and cowers down, awestricken with the glory, _lest_ she see Him and her
heart be scorched like her eyes. Two have not yet dared to raise their
eyes to look. They have come very near, but the angel, with eyes so
full and compassionate (tears must be in them), prays them not. A
broken vine trails across their way, to remind them of the True Vine,
whose broken branches they are. But the branch still holds by a tiny
splinter to the Vine, and even to these, now turned away with empty
lamps, lightless, into the cold night where the moon is fast being
obscured by stormy clouds, the angel at the outer porch still displays a
scroll: `Ora!'--`Pray.' This cannot be to mock their agony! Pray yet,
if perchance the door may still open to their knocking, though their
lamps were lighted late. The Bridegroom has risen up; but the door is
not yet shut. The eleventh hour is nearly gone, but He is
long-suffering still. Will they return with but a glimmer of light
before it is for ever too late? Who can tell? It is dark without, and
late, and there is no hope in their faces, and the angels have hushed
their golden music, that it may not jar upon the sadness of those who
leave His gate in tears.
"But on His right they all look at Him--every eye. They must, lest they
see the sorrow of their sisters; and His very brightness interposes a
blinding screen of glory to hide the sadness and the awful chill that is
outside and beyond. And looking on Him, their faces are lightened, and
beam radiant. They have brought their little lamps to Him, burning.
Oh! how tiny the flames look, and how brown is their light against His
glory, for they are all shone down and dazzled out before Him, like
earthly lights before the sun--candles fading blear-eyed before the
noon. One of the figures, eager, with the smallest lamp of them all,
has pressed by all the rest, and caught the Bridegroom's hand, that she
who was last might be first; whilst another, in the very background, is
content to bear aloft her largest lamp, with three wicks bravely
burning, calmly confident and trustful; for they who are first shall be
last. One, half-averted, nurses and tends the flame of her lamp still--
it has had but a little oil in it, and that scarce eked out till now.
Close to the Bridegroom, an angel holds out a child's hand, with a
little feeble light, so that even if it does not last on, it shall only
go out in His very presence. But the little one is safe, for of such is
His kingdom, and in heaven her Angel has always beheld the Father's
face. These are all in the sunshine of His favour, and glow with the
light that streams from Him. Yet the angel at the porch _still_ says
even to these, `Vigila!'--`Watch ye!' and _still_ pours oil into the
fading lamp at the gate."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Barley, Holmsley, and Sway are within easy reach of Lyndhurst, even to
the pedestrian lady.
Queen's Bower Wood--
"Beautiful, beautiful Queen of the Forest,
How art thou hidden so wondrously deep!"
--Is one of the most charming of forest woods, its handsome aged oak
picturesquely overhanging the clear and bubbling stream, so soon to mix
its waters with the all-absorbing sea. The stream here, as in so many
other parts of the Forest, is covered in summer time with white
water-lilies.
We visited Lymington in the Wanderer, and although the rain poured
down in torrents all day, from under the broad canopy of the _coupe_ we
viewed the scenery safely and were delighted therewith.
Of course the Wanderer visited Minstead and Stony Cross.
What a magnificent view is to be got of the Forest from the breezy
furze-clad common near the inn at Bramble Hill!
Hurricane Bob led the way with a rush down the grassy slope to Rufus's
Stone, and Inie and myself came scampering on after, all three of us as
full of life as mavises in May time.
The scenery about this sacred spot is pretty enough, but we did not
greatly admire the stone itself. Nor did Hurricane Bob, though he paid
his respects to it after his own canine fashion.
It somewhat detracts from the romance of the place that close adjoining
you can have three shies at a cocoa-nut for a penny. I spent a shilling
unsuccessfully; Inie knocked one down at the first shot, and Bob, not to
be behindhand, watched his chance and stole one, for which may goodness
forgive him.
I wish I could spare space to say something about the birds and beasts
and creeping things of the Forest, and about its wild flowers, but this
chapter the reader will doubtless think too long already.
I must mention Forest flies and snakes, however. Of the latter we saw
none _in_ the wilds, but the well-known snake-catcher of the New Forest,
who supplies the Zoological Gardens, paid us a visit at the caravan, and
brought with him some splendid specimens. Many of these were very tame,
and drank milk from a saucer held to them by my wee girl.
The adders he catches with a very long pair of surgical forceps
presented to him by Dr Blaker, of Lyndhurst, whose kindness and
hospitality, by-the-bye, to us, will ever dwell in my memory.
We heard great accounts of the Forest flies. They say--though I cannot
verify it by my own experience--that long before the transatlantic
steamers reach New York, the mosquitoes, satiated with Yankee gore,
smell the blood of an Englishman, and come miles to sea to meet him.
And so we were told that the Forest flies would hardly care to bite a
Forest horse, but at once attacked a strange one and sent him wild.
Hearing us talk so much about this wondrous Forest fly, it was not
unnatural that it should haunt wee Inie's dreams and assume therein
gigantic proportions. One day, when ranging through a thicket--this was
before ever we had become acquainted with the fly--we came upon a
capital specimen of the tawny owl, winking and blinking on a bough.
Inez saw it first.
"Oh, papa," she cried aghast, "_there's a Forest Fly_!"
This put me in mind of the anecdote of the woman who was going out to
India with her husband, a soldier in the gallant 42nd.
"You must take care of the mosquitoes," said another soldier's wife, who
had been out.
"What's a mosquito, 'oman?"
"Oh!" was the reply, "a creature with a long snout hangin' doon in
front, that it sucks your blood wi'."
On landing in India almost the first animal she saw was an elephant.
"May the Lord preserve us!" cried the soldier's wife, "is that a
mosquito?"
But we had to leave the dear old Forest at last, and turn our horses'
heads to the north once more. "It is," says Phillips, "in such
sequestered spots as these, removed from the everlasting whirl and
turmoil of this high-pressure age, that we may obtain some glimpses of a
life strangely contrasting in its peaceful retirement with our own; and
one cannot envy the feelings of him who may spend but a few hours here
without many happy and pleasant reflections."
"The past is but a gorgeous dream,
And time glides by us like a stream
While musing on thy story;
And sorrow prompts a deep alas!
That like a pageant thus should pass
To wreck all human glory."
We met many pleasant people at Lyndhurst and round it, and made many
pleasant tours, Lymington being our limit.
Then we bade farewell to the friends we had made, and turned our horses'
heads homewards through Hants.
When I left my little village it was the sweet spring time, and as the
Wanderer stood in the orchard, apple-blossoms fell all about and over
her like showers of driven snow. When she stood there again it was the
brown withered leaves that rustled around her, and the wind had a wintry
sough in it. But I had health and strength in every limb, and in my
heart sunny memories--that will never leave it--of the pleasantest
voyage ever I have made in my life.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.
CARAVANNING FOR HEALTH.
"Life is not to live, but to be well."
This chapter, and indeed the whole of this appendix, may be considered
nothing more or less than an apology for my favourite way of spending my
summer outing.
Now there are no doubt thousands who would gladly follow my example, and
become for a portion of the year lady or gentlemen gipsies, did not
circumstances over which they have no control raise insuperable barriers
between them and a realisation of their wishes. For these I can only
express my sorrow. On the other hand, I know there are many people who
have both leisure and means at command, people who are perhaps bored
with all ordinary ways of travelling for pleasure; people, mayhap, who
suffer from debility of nerves, from indigestion, and from that disease
of modern times we call _ennui_, which so often precedes a thorough
break-up and a speedy march to the grave. It is for the benefit of
these I write my appendix; it is to them I most cordially dedicate it.
There may be some who, having read thus far, may say to themselves:--
"I feel tired and bored with the worry of the ordinary everyday method
of travelling, rushing along in stuffy railway carriages, residing in
crowded hotels, dwelling in hackneyed seaside towns, following in the
wake of other travellers to Scotland or the Continent, over-eating and
over-drinking; I feel tired of ball, concert, theatre, and at homes,
tired of scandal, tired of the tinselled show and the businesslike
insincerity of society, and I really think I am not half well. And if
_ennui_, as doctors say, does lead the way to the grave, I do begin to
think I'm going there fast enough. I wonder if I am truly getting ill,
or old, or something; and if a complete change would do me good?" I
would make answer thus:--You may be getting ill, or you may be getting
old, or both at once, for remember age is _not_ to be reckoned by years,
and nothing ages one sooner than boredom and _ennui_. But if there be
any doubts in your mind as regards the state of your health, and seeing
that _ennui_ does not weaken any one organ more than another, but that
its evil effects are manifested in a deterioration of every organ and
portion of the body and tissues at once, let us consider for a moment
what health really is.
It was Emerson, I think, who said, "Give me health and a day, and I will
make the pomp of emperors ridiculous."
There is a deal of truth underlying that sentence. To put it in my own
homely way: if a young man, or a middle-aged one either, while spending
a day in the country, with the fresh breezes of heaven blowing on his
brow, with the larks a-quiver with song in the bright sunshine, and all
nature rejoicing,--I tell you that if such an individual, not being a
cripple, can pass a five-barred gate without an inclination to vault
over it, he cannot be in good health.
Will that scale suit you to measure _your_ health against?
Nay, but to be more serious, let me quote the words of that prince of
medical writers, the late lamented Sir Thomas Watson, Bart:--