I have changed my Belvern, and there are so many others left to choose
from that I might live in a different Belvern each week. North, South,
East, and West Belvern, New Belvern, Old Belvern, Great Belvern, Little
Belvern, Belvern Link, Belvern Common, and Belvern Wells. They are all
nestled together in the velvet hollows or on the wooded crowns of the
matchless Belvern Hills, from which they look down upon the fairest
plains that ever blessed the eye. One can see from their heights a
score of market towns and villages, three splendid cathedrals, each in a
different county, the queenly Severn winding like a silver thread among
the trees, with soft-flowing Avon and gentle Teme watering the verdant
meadows through which they pass. All these hills and dales were once
the Royal Forest, and afterwards the Royal Chase, of Belvern, covering
nearly seven thousand acres in three counties; and from the lonely
height of the Beacon no less than
'Twelve fair counties saw the blaze'
of signals, when the country was threatened by a Spanish invasion. As
for me, I mourn the decay of Romance with a great R; we have it still
among us, but we spell it with a smaller letter. It must be so much
more interesting to be threatened with an invasion, especially a Spanish
invasion, than with a strike, for instance. The clashing of swords and
the flashing of spears in the sunshine are so much more dazzling and
inspiring than a line of policemen with clubs! Yes, I wish it were the
age of chivalry again, and that I were looking down from these hills
into the Royal Chase. Of course I know that there were wicked and
selfish tyrants in those days, before the free press, the jury system,
and the folding-bed had wrought their beneficent influences upon the
common mind and heart. Of course they would have sneered at Browning
Societies and improved tenements, and of course they did not care
a penny whether woman had the ballot or not, so long as man had the
bottle; but I would that the other moderns were enjoying the modern
improvements, and that I were gazing into the cool depths of those deep
forests where there were once good lairs for the wolf and wild boar. I
should like to hear the baying of the hounds and the mellow horns of the
huntsman. I should like to see the royal cavalcade emerging from one of
those wooded glades: monarch and baron bold, proud prelate, abbot and
prior, belted knight and ladye fair, sweeping in gorgeous array under
the arcades of the overshadowing trees, silver spurs and jewelled
trappings glittering in the sunlight, princely forms bending low over
the saddles of the court beauties. Why, oh why, is it not possible to
be picturesque and pious in the same epoch? Why may not chivalry and
charity go hand in hand? It amuses me to imagine the amazement of
the barons, bold and belted knights, could they be resuscitated for a
sufficient length of time to gaze upon the hydropathic establishments
which dot their ancient hunting-grounds. It would have been very
difficult to interest the age of chivalry in hydropathy.
Such is the fascination of historic association that I am sure, if
I could drag my beloved but conscientious Salemina from some foreign
soup-kitchen which she is doubtless inspecting, I could make even her
mourn the vanished past with me this morning, on the Beacon's towering
head. For Salemina wearies of the age of charity sometimes, as every one
does who is trying to make it a beautiful possibility.