CYCLING--PAGEANTS OF THE ROADS--ROADSIDE CREATURES--HARMONIOUS
BUILDING--COLLECTING OLD FURNITURE AND CHINA.
"I may soberly confess that sometimes, walking abroad after
my studies, I have been almost mad with pleasure--the effect
of nature upon my soul having been inexpressibly ravishing
and beyond what I can convey to you."
--JOHN INGLESANT.
I suppose that the bicycle has given, and gives, as much pleasure to
fairly active people as any machine ever invented. I must have been
one of the first cyclists in England, as my experience dates from the
days when bicycles were first imported from France. The high bicycle
appeared later, but the earlier machines were about the height of the
present safety, with light wooden wheels and iron tyres. The safety,
with pneumatic tyres, did not arrive till nearly thirty years later,
and it was the latter invention that brought about the popularity of
cycling.
The difference between cycling and walking has been stated thus:
"When a man walks a mile he takes on an average 2,263 steps,
lifting the weight of his body with each step. When he rides
a bicycle of the average gear he covers a mile with the
equivalent of 627 steps, bears no burden, and covers the
same distance in less than one third of the time."
People constantly tell me that cycling is all very well for getting
from place to place, but otherwise they don't care about it, which I
can only account for by supposing that they find it a labour more or
less irksome, or that they have never developed their perceptive
faculties, and have no real sympathy with the life of woods and fields
or the spirit of the ancient farms and villages.
Cycling to me is a very easy and pleasant exercise, but it is far more
than that; it is like passing through an endless picture-gallery
filled with masterpieces of form and colour. The roads of England not
only present these delights to the physical sense, but they stir the
imagination with historic visions from the earliest times. There are
the ancient camps, now silent and deserted, which become at the
bidding of fancy peopled with the unkempt and savage British, and
later with their well-disciplined and well-equipped Roman conquerers:
archers and men in armour appear; pilgrims' processions such as we
read of in Chaucer; knights and ladies on their stately steeds. There
are the ghosts of royal progresses, kings and queens, and wonderful
pageantry gorgeous in array; decorously ambling cardinals and abbots
with their trains of servitors; hawking parties with hawks and
attendants; soldiers after Sedgemoor in pursuit of Monmouth's
ill-fated followers; George IV. and his gay courtiers on the Brighton
road; beaux and beauties in their well-appointed carriages bound for
Tunbridge Wells, Cheltenham, or Bath; splendid teams with crowded
coaches, and great covered waggons laden with merchandise; the
highwayman at dusk in quest of belated travellers, and companies of
farmers and cattle-dealers riding home from market together for
safety.
I often see a vision here in the ancient Forest tracks of a gang of
wild and armed smugglers, and among them still more savage-looking
foreign sailors. They have two or three Forest trucks, made especially
to fit the ruts in the little-used tracks, laden with casks of spirits
and drawn by rough Forest ponies. I can hear the shouts of the drivers
as they urge them forward, and I can see the steaming sides of the
ponies in the misty moonlight of a winter night. The spirits were
landed at Poole or Christchurch, and they are on their way to Burley
where, under the old house I bought with my land, there is still the
cellar, then cleverly concealed, where the casks were stored in safety
from the watchful eyes of the Excise; a quaint old place built of the
local rock.
There is one vision of the roads in the Forest which nobody who saw it
can ever forget: the companies of infantry, the serious officers, the
ruddy-faced men, and the then untried guns of the glorious Seventh
Division, on their route marches, with fife and drum to cheer the way
with the now classic strains of "It's a long, long way to Tipperary."
There are spots where I met them in the autumn of 1914 that I never
pass without feeling that for all time these places are sacred to the
memory of heroes.
Besides the fancied pageantry of the roads there are the natural
objects of the woods, the lanes, and the fields; the blossoming
hawthorn and the wild roses trailing from the hedges, the hares and
rabbits, the birds, the butterflies, and the flowers; sturdy teams
with the time-honoured ploughs and harrows, the sowing of the seed,
the young gleaming corn, the scented hayfields or the golden harvest;
every man at his honourable labour, happy children dashing out of
school; noble timber, hazel coppices, grey old villages; cattle in the
pastures, or enjoying the cool waters of shallow pools or brooks;
sheep in the field or the fold, the shepherd and his dog; apple
blossom, or the ripe and ruddy fruit, bowery hop-gardens, mellow old
cottages, country-folk going to market, fat beasts, cows and calves,
carriers' carts full of gossips.
Pictures, real pictures, everywhere, endless in variety. Steady! go
steady past these woods; see the blue haze of wild hyacinths, the cool
carpet of primroses. Look at the cowslips yellowing that meadow; do
you see the heron standing patiently in the marsh? Look overhead,
watch the hovering hawk; hark! there is the nightingale. Stop a moment
at the bridge; can you see the speckled beauties with their heads
upstream? Thank God for the blue, blue sky! thank God for the glory of
the sun, for the lights and shadows beneath the trees! Thank God for
the live air, the growth, the life of plant and tree, the fragrance
and the beauty! Thank God for rural England!
One can tell the most ancient, apart from the scientifically made
Roman roads, by the way they were worn down from the original level,
especially on hillsides, by the constant and heavy traffic. Every
passing wheel abraded a portion of the surface, and the next rain
carried the _débris_ down the hill, forming in time a deep depression,
between banks at the sides, often many feet deep, and giving the
impression of the track having been purposely dug out to lessen the
gradient. In places where the road became impassable from long use and
wet, deviations on either side were made, so that ten or a dozen
disused tracks can be seen side by side, often extending laterally
quite a long distance from the existing road in unenclosed
surroundings.
A great charm of the bicycle is its noiselessness which, with its
speed, affords peeps of wild creatures under natural conditions.
Cycling on the Cotswolds I came upon two hares at a boxing match; they
were so absorbed that I was able to get quite close, and it was
amusing to watch them standing upright on their hind legs, and
sparring with their little fists like professionals. I have often seen
the pursuit of a rabbit by a persistent stoat; the rabbit has little
chance of escape, as the stoat can follow it underground as well as
over; finally the rabbit appears to be paralyzed with fright, lies
down and makes no further effort. Weasels, which probably make up for
depredations of game by their destruction of rats, often cross the
road, and sometimes whole families may be seen playing by the
roadside. I was shooting in Surrey when I once had an excellent view
of an ermine--the stoat in its winter dress. I did not recognize it
until it was out of sight, but I should not have shot it in any case,
for the ermine is a very rare occurrence in the south of England. I
believe that further north it is not unusual, as is natural where the
light colour would protect it from observation in snow, but as far
south as Surrey this would be a danger, and I should scarcely have
noticed it in the thick undergrowth had it been normal in colour.
We had a squirrel's nest, or "drey," as it is called, near my house
last year, and the squirrels have been about my lawn and the Forest
trees ever since. It was charming, in the summer, to watch them
nibbling the fleshy galls produced on the young oaks by a gall-fly
_(Cynips)_. They chattered to each other all the time, holding the
galls between their fore feet, fragments dropping to the ground
beneath the trees. Squirrels are fond of animal food, and I wondered,
as there was so much apparent waste, whether they were not really
searching for the grubs in the galls. Of late years squirrels have
been scarce here; they were formerly abundant, but their numbers were
much reduced by an epidemic. They seem to be increasing again,
possibly the felling of so many Scots-firs has driven them from their
former haunts into adjoining oak and beech woods, such as those which
almost surround my land.
During lunch in a meadow by the roadside, on a cycling ride, we found
a snake with a toad almost down its throat; the snake disgorged the
toad and escaped, but before we had finished lunch it returned and
repeated the process. This time I carried the toad, none the worse for
the adventure, some distance away, where I hope it was safe. Hedgehogs
are said to eat toads, frogs, beetles, and snakes, as well as the eggs
of game, to which I have already referred (p. 264); it is curious that
the old name "urchin" has been superseded in some places by
"hedgehog," but still survives in the "sea-urchin," and is also used
for a troublesome boy.
It is very interesting, when cycling, to notice the changes in passing
from one geological formation to another, and in railway travelling,
with a geological map, one can quickly observe the transition; the
cuttings give an immediate clue, and the contours of the surface and
the agriculture are further guides. The alteration in the flora is
particularly marked in passing from the Bagshot Sands, for instance,
to the Chalk, or from the Lias Clay to the Lias Limestone or the
Oolite; the lime-loving plants appear on the Chalk and Limestone, and
disappear on the Sands and Clays.
The sunken appearance of the old roads is one of the best proofs of
their antiquity, and one is inclined to wonder at their windings, but
in following the tracks across the Forest moors one gets an insight
into the way roads originated. The ancients simply adopted the line of
least resistance by avoiding hills, boggy places, and the deep parts
of streams, choosing the shallow fordable spots for crossing. The
winding road is, of course, much more interesting and beautiful than
the later straight roads of the Romans, though no doubt many of the
former were improved by the invaders for their more important traffic.
It is to be regretted that the formal lines of telegraph and telephone
poles and wires have vulgarized so many of our beautiful roads, and
destroyed their retired and venerable expression; more especially as
in many places these were erected against the will of the inhabitants,
and under the mistaken idea that the farmer's business is retail, and
that he is prepared to deal in and deliver small quantities of goods
daily, receiving urgent orders and enquiries by telephone.
The villages in the Vale of Evesham and the Cotswolds afford an
excellent illustration of building in harmony with surroundings, and
the suitability of making use of local materials. Thus, in the Vale we
find mellow old brick, has limestone, half timber and thatch; while on
the Cotswolds, oolite freestone and "stone slates" of the same
freestone seem the only suitable material. Where the ugly pink bricks
and blue slates have of late years been introduced, they appear out of
place and contemptible. There is an immense charm about these old
villages of hill and vale, and it is curious to think that Aldington
was an established community with, probably, as many inhabitants as at
the present day, when London and Westminster were divided by green
fields.
A story is told of the time before the line to Oxford from
Wolverhampton and Worcester was built, when persons visiting Oxford
from the Vale of Evesham had to travel by road. An old yeoman family,
having decided upon the Church as the vocation for one of the sons,
sent him, in the year 1818, on an old pony, under the protection of an
ancient retainer for his matriculation examination. On their return,
in reply to the question, "Well, did you get the young master
through?" "Oh, yes," he said, "and we could have got the old pony
passed too, if we'd only had enough money!"
Partly as an excuse for a bicycle ride I used often to visit distant
villages where auction sales at farm-houses were proceeding, and
sometimes I came home with old china and other treasures. Wherever
there are old villages with manor houses and long occupied rich land,
wealth formerly accumulated and evidenced itself in well-designed and
well-made furniture, upon which time has had comparatively little
destructive effect. As old fashions were superseded, as oak gave way
to walnut, and walnut to Spanish mahogany, the out-of-date furniture
found its way to the smaller farm-houses and cottages, in which it
descended from generation to generation. Now that the cottages have
been ransacked by dealers and collectors, the treasures have not only
been absorbed by wealthy townspeople, but are finding their way with
those of impoverished landowners and occupiers to the millionaire
mansions on the other side of the Atlantic.
There is no limit to the temptation to collect when once the
fascination of such old things has made itself felt--furniture, china,
earthenware, glass, paintings, brass and pewter become an obsession.
If I had only filled my barns with Jacobean and Stuart oak and walnut,
William and Mary, and Queen Ann marquetry, and Chippendale, Sheraton
and Hepplewhite mahogany, instead of wheat for an unsympathetic
British public, and at the end of my time at Aldington offered a few
of the least interesting specimens for sale by auction, I might still
have carried away a houseful of treasures which would have cost me
less than nothing.
An old friend of mine, who had been collecting for many years, and in
comparison with whom I was a novice, though my enthusiasm long
preceded the fashion of the last twenty-five years, told me that he
once discovered a warehouse in a Cotswold village crammed with
Chippendale, and that the owner, having no sale for it, was glad to
exchange a waggon-load for the same quantity of hay and straw chaff.
Among the more interesting articles which my cycling excursions and
previous pilgrimages on foot produced, I have a charming blue and
white carnation pattern, Worcester china cider mug with the crescent
mark. These mugs are said to have been specially made for the
Shakespeare Jubilee of 1769 at Stratford-on-Avon when Garrick was
present. The date corresponds with the time when the mark was in use,
and establishes the age of the mug as 150 years. The china in my old
neighbourhood was naturally Worcester, Bristol and Salopian, of which
I have many specimens--of the Worcester more especially--ranging from
the earliest days of unmarked pieces through the Dr. Wall period,
Barr, Flight and Barr, down to the later Chamberlain.
An old pair of bellows is a favourite of mine; it is made of pear-tree
wood, decorated with an incised pattern of thistles and foliage,
referring possibly to the Union of England and Scotland in 1707, or as
a Jacobite emblem of a few years later. The carving is surrounded by
the motto:
"WITH MEE MY FREND MAY STILL BE FREE YET VSE MEE
NOT TILL COLD YOV BEE."
These old bellows show unmistakable signs of their more than 200 years
of honourable service, and they have literally breathed their last
though still surviving; but it would be sacrilege to renew the
leather, and might disturb the ghosts of generations of old ladies who
blew the dying embers into a ruddy glow when awaiting, in the twilight
of a winter's evening, their good-men's return from the field or the
chase.
One of my greatest finds was a pair of Chippendale chairs at a sale at
Mickleton at the foot of the Cotswolds; they belong to the early part
of the Chippendale period, before the Chinese style was abandoned.
That influence appears in incised fretted designs on the legs, and the
frieze below the seats. The seats are covered with the original
tapestry, adding much to the interest, and the backs present examples
of the most spirited carving of the maker. At the sale, when I went to
have a second look, I found two dealers sitting on them and chatting
quite casually; the intention was evidently to prevent possible
purchasers from noticing them, and more especially to hide the
tapestry coverings. The value of the chairs immediately rose in my
estimation, and I increased the limit which I had given to a bidder on
my behalf, so that I made sure of buying them. The old chairs looked
very shabby when they came out into the light of day, and they fell to
my representative's bid amid roars of laughter from the rustic crowd.
What a price for "them two old cheers"! they "never heard talk of such
a job!" It would surprise them to know that I have been offered five
times what they then cost.
My wife has had to do with many parochial committees from time to
time, and I have often trembled for my Chippendale chairs when these
meetings, accompanied by tea, have been held at my house, for it is
not everybody who regards them with the reverence due to their
external beauty and true inwardness, or who recognizes in them the
"Tea-cup times of hood and hoop,
Or while the patch was worn."
A very successful afternoon was one I spent at a sale at North
Littleton. I remember the beautiful spring day, and the old
weather-worn grey house in an orchard of immense pear-trees covered
with sheets of snowy blossom. I secured a Jacobean elm chest with
well-carved panels, a Jacobean oak chest of drawers on a curious
stand, a complete tea set of Staffordshire ware, including twelve cups
and saucers, teapot, and other pieces, with Chinese decoration; four
Nankin blue handleless tea-cups, a Delft plate, and a Battersea enamel
patch-box. My bill was a very moderate one, but the executor who had
the matter of the sale in hand was well pleased that these old family
relics had passed into the possession of someone who would value them,
and not to careless and indifferent neighbours, and was more than
satisfied with the amount realized. Next morning, as a token of his
satisfaction, he brought me a charming old brass Dutch tobacco box,
with an oil painting inside the lid, of a smoker enjoying a pipe.
I have seen some amusing incidents at sales of household goods in
remote places; incredulous smiles as to the possibility of the
usefulness of anything in the shape of a bath generally greeted the
appearance of such an article, and on one of these occasions an
ancient, with great gravity, and as an apology for its existence,
remarked that it was "A very good thing for an invalid!" I am reminded
thereby of an old-fashioned hunting man in Surrey, who was astonished
to hear from a friend of mine that he enjoyed a cold bath every
morning. He "didn't think," he said, "that cold water was at all a
good thing--_next to the skin_!"