AN ARCADIAN HAMLET.—OUT OF THE WORLD, BUT NOT BEYOND THE REACH
OF THE YANKEE PEDDLER.—THE COTTAGES OF THE DOWNS.—GROUT AND
COBBLE-STONES.—CHARACTER OF THE LABOURING CLASS OF THE DOWNS.—WANT
OF CURIOSITY.—OLD STOCKBRIDGE, WINCHESTER, WILLIAM OF WYKEHAM.—HIS
LEGACY TO WAYFARERS.—THE CATHEDRAL.—SOME REMARKS ON ARCHITECTURAL
SITUATION.—SEARCH FOR LODGINGS.—MOTHERLY KINDNESS.—RAILROAD
MISMANAGEMENT.—WATERLOO DAY AT PORTSMOUTH.
[Sidenote: _OLD CONNECTICUT._]
Wallop, where we spend the night, is a most poetical hamlet, so hidden
by trees, that as we came over the downs, after we were within a few
moments’ walk of it, we had to inquire where it was. It is a narrow
road and string of cottages some miles long, by the bank of a cool,
silvery brook, at which, when we first saw it, we rushed to drink
like camels in the desert; and the water was indeed delicious. It is
an exceedingly quiet, peaceful place. As we sit at our window at the
“Lower George,” we can hear nothing but the rippling of the brook,
which threads its way through the trees and among the cottages across
the street, the rustling of the trees in the gentle air, the peeping
of chickens, and the chirping of small birds. There is a blacksmith’s
shop, but no smoke ascends from it, and the anvil is silent. There is
a grist-mill further down; there is a little, square, heavy-roofed
schoolhouse, and there is a church and graveyard. But there is no
stage-coach, no public conveyance, not even a carrier’s cart by which
we might send on our packs, runs through or from the hamlet. Yet
this is a good inn, clean, and well provided; we have a large room,
comfortably furnished, and the landlord seems to understand what a
tired traveller wants; and down stairs, in the parlour, there is—would
you ever guess? It tells its own story thus:—
[Illustration:
“IMPROVED BRASS CLOCK,
MANUFACTURED BY
H. WELTON, TERRYVILLE, CONNECTICUT.
(_Warranted, if well used._”) ]
It cost twelve shillings, and was a capital time-piece, only lately it
had got a-going too fast, and the landlord wished Mr. Welton would send
his man over and have it fixed according to contract. It marked the
hour rather behind our watches, but as it was the liveliest thing in
the village, we have set it back to the landlord’s notion, lengthened
the pendulum, and oiled the “pallet,” all to save the reputation of Mr.
Welton and the universal Yankee nation.
The cottages here are generally built of a chalk grout, sometimes
with lines of flint stones for ornament. In others, flint pebbles are
laid regularly in tiers set in grout, like the “cobble-stone houses”
in western New York; in others, grout, and stones set in grout,
alternately; or brick and stone in grout, in alternate tiers a foot
thick. The village fences and the stock-yard walls about here are also
made of white grout, very thick, and with a coping of thatch. The
thatch on the cottages is very heavy, sometimes two feet deep.
The labouring class upon the downs have generally a quiet, sleepy,
stupid expression, with less evident viciousness and licentious
coarseness of character, and with more simplicity, frankness, and
good-nature, than those we have previously been among. The utter want
of curiosity and intelligent observation, among a people living so
retired from the busy world, is remarkable. We have met but two to-day
whose minds showed any inclination to move of their own accord: one
of them was a pensioned soldier who had served at Halifax, and who
made inquiries about several old comrades who had deserted and escaped
to “the States,” and whom he seemed to suppose we must have seen as
we were Yankees; the other, an old woman in Newtown-Tawney, at whose
cottage we stopped to get water; she had at first taken us, as we came
one after the other over the stile, for a “detachment of the Rifles,”
and on discovering her error was quite anxious to know what we were and
what we were after, what we carried in our knapsacks, &c.
* * * * *
_June 18th._
In the morning we walked from Wallop through Stockbridge to Winchester.
A down-land district still, as yesterday, but a well-travelled road,
with houses, inns, and guide-boards; more frequent plantations of trees
and more cultivated land, yet but little of it is fenced, and the
sheep are restrained from crops by shepherds and dogs. Since we left
Salisbury we have seen but three cows, each of which was tethered or
tied to a woman or child. We have seen no donkeys for the last hundred
miles.
Stockbridge is a small village of one wide street, with two clear
streams and a canal crossing it, the surface of the ground a dead flat;
all as unlike its Massachusetts namesake as it is to a Pawnee village.
We saw some fine horses near here.
[Sidenote: _WILLIAM OF WYKEHAM._]
Winchester—a name we remember as that of the school-place of many a
good man—is an interesting old town in a cleft of the downs. All who
have heard Mr. Emerson’s lecture upon England will remember it also as
the town of “_William of Wykeham_.”
We visited the cathedral, the college, and the other notable
institutions and monuments, and demanded and received our share of the
legacy bequeathed by William of Wykeham, five hundred years ago, to all
wayfarers passing by—a generous slice of good bread, and a draught of
ale, served in an ancient horn. There is certainly _no humbug_ about
it, but the good bishop’s hospitable will, in this particular, is yet
as sincerely executed as if by servants under his own eye. Mr. Emerson
was, nevertheless, unfortunate in his eloquent use of this circumstance
to illustrate the simple honesty of English character, and the
permanence and reliability of English institutions; for it now appears
that, notwithstanding the substantial bread and unadulterated beer,
this is but the cleanliness of the cup and platter, and that in the
real and worthy legacy which the far-reaching piety of the good prelate
left to the future of England, there is much rottenness. Generally, the
means which the piety of Englishmen of former generations bequeathed,
for the furnishing to the poor aliment of mind, have been notoriously
wrenched aside to the emolument and support, in luxurious sinecures,
of a few individuals, whom, but for the association of their _titles_
with religion, loyalty, law, and order, and the poor conscience-salve
that it is the system and not they that are wrong, every man would know
for perjured hypocrites, liars, swindlers; far more detestable than
American repudiators, French sycophants, or Irish demagogues.
The cathedral is low and heavy, covering much ground; and exhibits,
curiously interworked, the styles of Saxon, Norman, and early and later
English architects. I again wrote in my note-book, “unimpressive;” but
now, after two years, I find that my mind was strongly, though it
would seem unconsciously, impressed by it; for there returns to me,
as I very vividly remember its appearance, a feeling of quiet, wholly
uncritical _veneration_, of which I believe a part must be due to the
breadth of green turf of the graveyard, and deep shade of the old trees
in which it is upreared. There were scarcely any edifices that I saw
in Europe that produced in me the slightest thrill of such emotion
from sublimity as I have often had in contemplation of the ocean, or
of mountains, that it was not plainly due less to the architectural
style, than to the connection and harmony of the mass with the ground
upon which it was placed. The only church that stopped me suddenly with
a sensation of deep solemnity, as I came unexpectedly _under_ it, as
it were, in turning the corner of a street, was one that stood upon a
bold, natural terrace, and in which the lines of the angles of a heavy
tower were continuous and unbroken from base to summit.
At half-past six we took seats in the second-class cars for Portsmouth,
and were favoured with a specimen of a corporation’s disregard for
the convenience of the public, and the accomplishment of their own
promises, that a _New Jerseyman_ would almost have growled at. There
was a full hour’s unnecessary detention at the way-stations, and after
having arrived near the terminus, that much behind the time-tables, the
tickets were collected and the doors locked upon us, and we were kept
waiting a long time within a few rods of the station-house. Some one
at length got out at the windows, but was sent back by the guard. When
we requested to know what was the objection to our leaving, we were
answered it was against the rules of the company for any passengers to
be allowed upon the ground without the station. After waiting some time
longer, we rose in numbers too strong for the guards, who, however,
promised that we should be prosecuted for trespass, and made our
escape. I may say, in passing, that the speed upon the English roads
is, _on an average_, not better than on ours. It is commonly only from
fifteen to twenty miles an hour. The express trains, however, upon
the main lines, run usually as fast as fifty miles an hour, sometimes
sixty. For the accommodation, comfort, and advantage of all but those
who choose and can afford to pay extravagantly, their whole railroad
system is very inferior to ours.
[Sidenote: _A HOLIDAY NIGHT._]
It was _Waterloo Day_, and there had been a review of the forces at
Portsmouth, before the Duke of Wellington and Prince Albert; the Queen
had been off the harbour in her yacht, and received a salute; there
had been a balloon ascension; there had been a carousal with long and
eloquently-reported speeches, and in one way and the other a great
deal of powder and gas spent. There was to be an illumination yet, and
the town was full—some of the streets packed with soldiers and sailors
and women. We spent several hours trying to get lodgings; every hotel,
inn, tavern, and lodging-house, high and low, was full. The best thing
that kindness or covetousness could be induced to offer, was room to
lay upon a carpet on the floor, and this nowhere that we thought it
likely we should be allowed to sleep. We got supper somewhere, and the
landlady informed us frankly that she charged us twice as much for it
as she usually would, because it was “holiday.”
It was late at night when, by advice of policemen and favour of
sentinels, we had passed out through a series of ramparts, and were
going up a broad street of the adjoining town of Portsea. “Good-night,
my dear,” we heard a kindly-toned voice; and a woman closed a door,
and, after walking on a moment, ascended the steps to another. “Could
you be good enough, madam,” one of us took the liberty of inquiring,
“to tell us of any house in this vicinity where we should be likely to
obtain lodging for the night?”
“No—dear me!—who are you?”
“We are strangers in the town; travellers, who reached here this
evening, and we have been looking for several hours to find some place
where we could sleep, but all the inns are full.”
“Come here; let me look at you. You are _young_ men, are you not? come
up to me, you need not be afraid—yes, I see; youths” (we had caps on,
which is unusual in England except for school-boys). “Why, poor youths,
I am sorry for you—strangers—you wait here, and I will call my servant
and see if she does not think she can find where you can get a bed.”
She then went in, and in a few minutes returned with a maid whom she
called Susan, to whom she repeated what we had said; and then inquired
further what was our business, were we “travelling with the consent of
our parents,” &c., and remarked—“Your parents are _reputable people_, I
think:—yes—yes—dear me!—yes—poor youths. Yes, I will find beds for you.
You are good youths, and Susan shall—but come in: you will sit in the
parlour, and my servant, Susan, shall sit with you a few minutes, and I
will see. Come in, come in, good youths.”
While we remained in the parlour it was infinitely droll to hear the
kind old woman talking with another in the next room about the safety
and propriety of lodging us. “_I have known the world_, and I cannot be
deceived: these are _good youths_.”
[Sidenote: _A HOLIDAY NIGHT._]
It was at length concluded that if we would each of us pay a shilling,
(“and then we could give whatever we liked besides to _Susan_,”) and if
we would be willing to have our doors locked on the outside, we should
be provided then and there with beds. The old woman then came in again
to us, and with great severity re-examined us, and finally informed
us that we were to spend the night in her house. She then became
exceedingly kind again, asked much about our parents and America, and
at length asked us, with a whimpering laugh, as if she feared how
we would take it, but begged that it might be considered a joke—“We
wouldn’t be offended if our doors should be locked on the outside?”