A tramp's story--A relic of a famous sea-fight--A tame road--Inn
gardens--New landlords and old traditions--Chichester market-cross--A
wind-swept land--"Dull and dreary Bognor"--A forgotten
poet--Littlehampton--Country sights and sounds--A lulling landscape.
From Soberton we resumed our way down the Meon Valley, which gradually
widening out lost its vale-like character and with that much of its
charm; its scenery culminated at Corhampton. We had not gone far before
we sought shelter beneath some overhanging trees from a smart shower;
already a tramp was sheltering there. As we drove up he received me
with a military salute, or what he considered to be such, for it
was not very well done, remarking at the same time, "Good-morning,
captain." Tramps are fond of addressing any one as "captain"; I presume
they find it pleases. I simply acknowledged his salute out of civility,
but said nothing. "Old soldier," exclaimed the tramp laconically.
Old humbug, I thought, but still I said nothing, not from pride,
but because he looked such a dirty, worthless tramp. But not a whit
disheartened he came close up to the car, too close for my liking,
and began to pitch a yarn how he had fought for his country against
the Boers: "Now look at me, a poor old soldier who has served his
country, having to tramp about in search of any odd job, and jobs is
hard to find, and wherever I goes to ask for work there's sure to be
a dog come for me. Dogs is a terror to a poor tramp." It might have
been uncharitable of me, but I was rather pleased to hear that; I have
a good opinion of a dog's judgment. Then he started on a long-winded
story of his experiences and hardships, real or invented--I strongly
inclined to the latter--during the war. The tale was not badly told,
I must give him credit for that, yet I doubted the truth of it; my
experience of tramps being extensive caused me to doubt; though if
I meet with an interesting tramp, and some there are, I am always
prepared for a chat and to pay the price of my entertainment--and
cheat. Greatly doubting the truth of the tale, a sudden idea struck
me: I asked the tramp the name of the ship he went out in. A surprise
question it proved, for he hesitated before answering it, then he
gave me a name; I had never heard of a ship so called, still that
proved nothing; then I quite casually exclaimed, "Why, that's an old
paddle-ship." "That's the one," he replied in some haste, not seeing
the point that sea-going paddle-ships have long been out of date, and
not one naturally was employed to convey troops to the Cape. Such is
the artless art of the tramp; but that tramp got nothing from me. As
soon as the shower was over I went on my way. I really do not think it
kindness or wisdom to encourage the professional tramp, it only tends
to increase the tribe who already sufficiently pester our roads. The
best of them are lazy fellows who prefer their rough life to doing an
hour's honest work. A friend of mine one day offered a begging tramp
a good meal and a shilling to dig a corner in his garden, perhaps two
hours' real work. But the tramp refused "the job," his excuse being he
was hungry and needed the meal first, which might mean he would get the
meal, then walk off.
Soon we reached the pleasant little town of Wickham, where William
of Wykeham was born in 1324, and that is its only claim to fame as
far as I know. It is a tiny town with a wide market-place, and it
looked very sleepy that day. It consists of a number of gabled houses,
mostly old and of various dates, the oldest, as usual, being the most
picturesque. The modern city architect, with some very rare exceptions,
appears to be ashamed of gables and of chimneys that so pleasantly
break and vary the skyline. Wickham just escapes being quaint, but
it retains the slumberous calm of old times. The charm that these
quiet little unprogressive old towns have for some people lies not
alone in their antiquity, though this has much to do with it, nor in
their picturesqueness, for they are not all picturesque, except for
an odd building here and there, but in their rare restfulness and
completeness, for they never seem to grow or get ugly: now prosperous
towns are always growing and eating up the green fields around, they
have an unfinished look that displeases, and their modern buildings are
hopelessly uninteresting, when not positively unsightly, and there is
no sense of repose about them. They go in for plate-glass and show,
and for tramways when they can. At Wickham we discovered a water-mill,
built about a century ago, though it looked much older; the big beams
within it were made out of the timbers of the U.S. frigate _Chesapeake_
that was captured by H.M.S. frigate _Shannon_ in that famous sea-fight
of 1813, and some of the timbers bear the marks of the cannon-balls
still. So in the most unlikely places we came upon history--indeed we
never passed a day that we did not at some spot or another.
We did not patronise the inn at Wickham, for there was still time for
more wandering. I often wonder how these little inns in the sleepy
country towns and villages pay, for their customers cannot be many. One
landlord at whose inn I stayed on the way, a neat and even picturesque
inn where I was very well treated and served, told me he paid £55 a
year rent for it with stabling attached. It seemed a low enough rental
to me, not enough to pay a fair interest on the building; but that
was the owner's affair, I suppose he could not get more or he would.
Mine host told me, during a chat in his cosy bar, that his average
takings were £10 a week, "which is not all profit, of course. There
are licences to pay and rent and taxes, then there's the providing and
servants' wages, to say nothing of the wear and tear of carpets and
furniture, which is considerable. No, sir, the innkeeper's lot is not
all cakes and ale; his hours are late, and he has much responsibility.
Yet the Government tax us unmercifully. Our worries are many, but we
always have to greet our guests with a cheerful face as though we
had nothing to worry about and were the happiest of men. We provide
a home from home for all travellers and at all hours. It's hard work
is innkeeping, and ought to be better rewarded." I agreed with mine
host of a smiling face, and I drank his good health. When I paid my
modest bill for excellent entertainment, I left feeling I was under an
obligation to him for the trouble he took to obtain me admission to see
over a most interesting half-timber Elizabethan house near by, having
first told me of it and its eventful past history.
[Illustration: AN OLD-TIME HOME.]
I had intended to follow the valley of the Meon right down to the sea,
and by my map I find it would have taken me to Lichfield, but by some
mischance at Wickham I got on the wrong road, a road that took me to
Fareham, so the rest of the way I lost sight of the river. I was vexed
with myself at having done this, for a river is always such cheerful
company. No country, however tame, is without charm that has a river
running through it; a river is, as a Frenchman said, "a moving road,"
its destiny the sea; the birds sing best by its banks, the cattle go
down to and refresh themselves and wade in its waters, the fisherman
haunts it, often picturesque old mills stand by its side; there is
always life by a river, and the gleam of it enlivens the dullest of
landscapes. I always make for a river, and follow it as far as I
conveniently can. Those old monks knew a good thing, they could be
trusted for that, and be it noted how generally they built their abbeys
by the side of a stream. Some say it was because they might catch fish
for their Fridays when they fasted, or feasted, on fish, for fish is
not a bad dish, washed down by good wine--so their enemies say, in the
days when the monks became lazy and fat, and let their lands instead of
farming them, but I rather believe they selected such sites with an eye
for fair spots, and that only.
The road on to Fareham seemed tame and hardly worth travelling. After
the quiet beauties of the valley above, I was spoilt for the ordinary.
But at Fareham, an unattractive, long-streeted town, I again found
a good inn of the old-fashioned sort, and that reconciled me to the
place; then the inn had a little garden in its rear overlooking an
inlet of the sea where ships were harboured, and the sight of their
masts and their sails gave a sense of romance to the view, for the
sight of a ship, however small it may be, sets my thoughts a-wandering
and voyaging in imagination all the world over. The town was forgiven,
indeed forgotten. If an inn you rest at has only a pleasant garden to
moon in, what matters the town? If "the finest landscape is improved
by a good hotel in the foreground," how much the more so in comparison
is a commonplace town? I know an old country town that might have been
pleasant enough in past days, but now has been ruined picturesquely
and utterly by some rows of most assertively ugly new buildings of
staring red brick and blue slates and plate-glass; but at the end of
it stands a fine coaching inn, a long low building with creeper-clad
walls, a dream of old times with its swinging signboard upheld on a
post, its panelled, beam-ceilinged chambers, its cool, cosy bar, its
long out-of-date comfortable Georgian furniture, not to mention its big
bowling-green on which our ancestors played. In spite of its ugliness,
and very ugly it is, to that town I often repair solely for the sake of
that inn, not forgetting its worthy host, who might have stepped out of
some novel by Dickens or Ainsworth or James. So much for sentiment and
the attraction of the picturesque. I really think that the inn makes
the host; the subtle influence of an ancient inn, the atmosphere or a
spirit of the past that lingers about it, soon takes possession of the
later landlord and makes him one in his manner and ways with those who
preceded him, and so without realising it he comes to conform to the
old traditions quite naturally, almost as though he were born to them.
So surely I feel this the case that I always expect, and I find--I
cannot remember a single exception--an old inn of the kind to have a
landlord in keeping. It is the same with old houses. I know a man of
modern ideas who came into the possession of one and determined to make
alterations in it, but somehow or other the alterations were postponed.
Meanwhile the house quietly conquered, and now is religiously preserved
as it was; the only concession to modern ideas being that a diamond
casement window was replaced with one of plate-glass, and this merely
for the sake of a view; but to-day the new owner regrets even that, and
I fully expect in due time to find the old lattice panes back in their
place, for the view can be sufficiently well seen through them.
From Fareham we took the road to Chichester, a road that follows the
line of the coast though a little inland; a road of no beauty after
the first few miles, but not without interest. Here and there on the
way we had peeps of the sea and of little landlocked creeks that
had a charm of their own, and these redeemed the scenery from the
uninteresting succession of houses and poor villages that succeeded
one another with scant intervals for many a mile. Presently we came in
sight of Portsmouth over a long lagoon, its waters coming right up to
our road, which is embanked to preserve it from the wash of the tide.
We caught a glimpse of the grim ironclads in the harbour dimly seen
through the drifting dun smoke of the town, but the smoke above where
touched by the sunshine was tinged with gold and glorified, and under
such conditions even smoke can be beautiful seen afar off. As the road
gradually rose we had a fine view across Langstone Harbour, over which
the wind blew free towards us with a cool and refreshing salt savour.
So through Havant and Emsworth we found our townified and dusty way and
came to a land of flat green plains, ahead of which rose, pearly-grey
against the white sky, the steeple of Chichester Cathedral with the
irregular outline of the city below. Seen thus from our point of view
it suggested a city of romance in the days of pilgrimages. Would that
the reality could only come up to our vision! How much truth lies in
Campbell's often-quoted line, "Distance lends enchantment to the
view." We almost wished we could have avoided Chichester and so have
retained that poetic vision, for "There is a pleasure, now and then,
in giving full scope to Fancy and Imagination." But the road led to
Chichester and nowhere else; to the south was the sea, and there was
no other way. But Chichester is a pleasant old city, though it does
not realise impossible dreams; its grey-toned cathedral makes a fine
background for its beautiful arched market-cross. I am afraid I admire
the market-cross more than the cathedral, for the cathedral is rather
interesting than beautiful, whilst the market-cross is wholly beautiful
and interesting besides. Never had an architect of lesser structures a
more happy inspiration than when designing that graceful cross.
We drove southward from Chichester to regain the sea front, and the
road we selected we found led to Bognor: dull and dreary Bognor I
have heard it called; its name is against it, and it is a hard thing
to struggle against a bad name whether in man or place. Now we found
ourselves in a flat land, a land of meadows and fields of waving
corn, a land that stretched far away, wide and open to the long level
lines of the distant horizon. Truly it was not a beautiful country
according to the accepted traditions of beauty, for it was devoid
of all character except flatness, and that is a quality that mostly
appeals to a Dutchman or Fen dweller. Yet there was a certain charm
about that flat country to me; I think it lay in the wide dome of
sky above that flooded the landscape with unshadowed light, and the
bracing breeziness of it, swept as it was by the unchecked winds from
the sea. It was all so open, free, and flushed with the freshest of
airs; then there was such a homely, friendly feeling about it, for
it was a country of modest homes, not one of mansions or villas--a
country of odd farmsteads and cottages only. Truly there was nothing
strictly to admire in all the far prospect, only a succession of grass
and green cornfields, "one field much like another," as I think Dr.
Johnson once said of the country; but the brightness of the vast spaces
of sunlit land, and the pronounced pureness and clearness of the air,
made for cheerfulness and were inspiriting. If the landscape was in a
measure monotonous, the wild flowers that abounded by the way made fair
atonement for it. I knew not their names, but what mattered that? It
was their beauty I prized, their colour and form. I pity the man who
can travel from Dan to Beersheba and cry, "'Tis all barren." He had
best stay at home and travel by book, till he learns through other eyes
how to see. As Keats wrote of the pre-Wordsworth poets:
Ah, dismal-soul'd!
The winds of heaven blew, the ocean roll'd
Its gathering waves--ye felt it not. The blue
Bared its eternal bosom and the dew
Of summer nights collected still to make
The morning precious: beauty was awake!
Why were ye not awake? But ye were dead
To things ye knew not.
I think it was Stevenson who wrote an interesting article "On the
Enjoyment of Unpleasant Places"--not that the country we passed
through that day was in any way unpleasant, it simply was somewhat
uninteresting; and there is an art in enjoying the uninteresting, or
what you may deem so, though I must confess it does not come up to
the higher art of "the enjoyment of unpleasant places." A man who can
do that can be happy anywhere and without travelling far, but its
accomplishment needs a good deal of training and time and trying, I
should imagine--not, be it noted, to make the best of, but actually
to _enjoy_ the unpleasant. "Ay, there's the rub." That surely is an
education in itself, somewhat in the shape of a task! Now I travel for
pleasure and not to be taught.
Perhaps it was because I fully expected to find Bognor a dull and
dreary spot that I was agreeably disappointed with it. Then I confess I
have a fancy for seeing places differently from other people, amounting
almost to a confirmed opposition to prevailing opinion. It may be just
then that I was in the unconscious humour to enjoy unpleasant places,
but I could see nothing unpleasant about Bognor to test it. Basking in
the bright sunshine it looked quite cheerful to me; indeed I thought
I should much prefer to stay there than at fashionable and familiar
Brighton, which seems like a town where the sea is but an accident
and the shops on the front are the real attraction--Bond Street at
second-hand. Hear what Richard Jefferies says: "All fashionable
Brighton parades the King's Road twice a day, morning and afternoon,
always on the side of the shops.... These people never look at the
sea.... The sea is not 'the thing' at Brighton, which is the least
nautical of seaside places"--and I fear that the music at the Pavilion
is more to the liking of visitors there than the music of the waves.
Now at Bognor I noticed there were crowds by the sea, crowds with a
happy look on their faces, a sea that was sparkling and dancing far
away with joy in its dancing, whilst the white-crested waves came
rolling in on the beach, breaking and splashing in masses of silvery
spray. I must have had my rose-coloured spectacles on that day, for I
could see nothing dreary or dull about Bognor; all the people I saw
there seemed light-hearted and sprightly, and it is not a bad rule to
judge of a place by the people in it. Those who read this may smile,
but in spite of its reputation and name, and reputation influences
much, I took quite a liking to the place. Truly I must allow that the
sun was shining down gloriously, "doing its best to make all things
pleasant," and succeeding--making even Bognor look gay.
It was but a short way from Bognor to the village of Felpham, where
William Blake lived for some time to be near his friend Hayley the
poet, who--the poet, that is--gained some repute in his day, though his
popularity has not stood Time's trying test. Of Hayley it may be said,
"Everything was good about him but his poetry." Still he wrote pleasant
enough verse, though his thoughts were not deep. The last lines he
composed to the swallows on his roof may be quoted as an example, not
of his best, nor yet of his worst:
Ye gentle birds that perch aloof,
And smooth your pinions on my roof,
Preparing for departure hence
Ere winter's angry threats commence;
Like you my soul would smooth her plume
For longer flights beyond the tomb.
Hayley, who was given to writing epitaphs, also composed the well-known
and much-quoted one to a local blacksmith that is to be found in
Felpham churchyard, which runs thus:
My sledge and hammer lie reclin'd,
My bellows too have lost their wind,
My fire's extinct, my forge decay'd,
And in the dust my vice is laid,
My coal is spent, my iron gone,
The nails are driven, my work is done.
This epitaph has been frequently repeated elsewhere; I have come upon
it in at least a dozen churchyards, sometimes with variations that are
no improvements. An epitaph once popular soon became common property.
Twice when touring in the Eastern Counties did a clerk of a church
declare in effect, knowing I was in search of quaint epitaphs, "Now I
can show you a curious one to a blacksmith that is quite original,"
only to find, once again, Hayley's epitaph there; and I really do
not think I have ever been in a churchyard without coming upon the
everlasting--and irritating because so commonplace--
Afflictions sore
Long time he (or she) bore.
Whoever originated these lines has much to answer for. On the other
hand, the man who had simply inscribed on his wife's tombstone "Though
lost to sight to memory dear," without a thought of such a thing has
given us a classic quotation. Here, however, are two epitaphs that
strike a fresh note. The first is at Cobham to a photographer, both
brief and to the point, for all it says is "Taken from life." Another
to John Knott, a scissor-grinder, may be found in smoky Sheffield:
Here lies a man that was Knott born,
His father was Knott before him,
He lived Knott and did Knott die,
Yet underneath this stone doth lie
Knott christened,
Knott begot,
And here he lies
And yet was Knott.
From Felpham we drove along narrow roads to Littlehampton. I am not
sure that we went the nearest or best way, indeed I feel almost sure we
did not; even on the map it is not simple to follow. I know we wound
about a good deal, first in one direction, then in another, but it was
very pleasant wandering, and we passed by many delightful old homes and
pretty cottages. It was a land of pleasant homes and quiet abiding.
Now and then we caught a peep of the sea on one hand, and of the fine
rolling "hills of the South Country" on the other, and on the level
land between our road took its devious way as though of uncertain mind
whether to make for the sea or the hills, then finally making for the
sea at Littlehampton.
Now and then we heard the fussy rattle of a mowing machine busy at work
in a field. Not only country sights but country sounds have changed
greatly during the past century. Scarcely ever now one hears the once
familiar whetting of the scythe, or the soothing swish of it in the
long grass. Sings Tennyson:
O sound to rout the brood of cares,
The sweep of scythe in morning dew.
That is the value of pleasant sounds. It is long since I have heard the
beat of the flail threshing out the grain on the barn floor; to-day
in its place we have the steam threshing-machine, and that is the
only mechanical sound that pleases my ear, the dreamy hum of it when
mellowed by distance. Doubtless associations have much to do with the
pleasure sounds afford. Who loves not the "caw, caw, caw" of the rook?
Yet in reality it is a sound harsh and grating, but then one always so
intimately connects it with the country, big trees, ancestral homes and
rural delights, that, though truly discordant, the notes even gratify
the ear.
So we reached Littlehampton, half port half watering-place, of no great
importance as either. From Littlehampton our road kept up much the same
pleasantly rural and uneventful character, with hills to the north
and the sea to the south, and the same sort of level and, in parts,
well-wooded land between. "Hills," it has been said, "give hope, wood
a kind of mysterious friendliness with the earth, but the sea reminds
us that we are helpless." We had all three, but the sea that day,
gleaming and bright in the glance of the sun, looked more like a friend
than a foe; it did not suggest the helplessness of man but rather his
convenient highway over the world to distant lands of old romance--if
any be left.
There is an infinite pleasure to the quiet-loving pilgrim in driving
through a lulling land like this where all is restful to the eye and
hurry a thing unknown, a land through which you drive on in a sort of
day-dream and for a time desire nothing better, a land
Where the wind with the scent of the sea is fed,
And the sun seems glad to shine.
In truth there was a touch of sunny Southernness about it, a warmth
and brightness suggestive of Italy, though the scenery was essentially
English.
Then we came to the sea again at Worthing, when my rose-coloured
spectacles must surely have dropped from my eyes, for I could see
nothing attractive about it: otherwise how can I account for the
fact that Bognor, "dull Bognor," appealed to me and Worthing did
not? Perhaps because, I thought, there was more pretence of being a
watering-place about Worthing, and I heard a band playing there, and I
heard no band at Bognor but only the surge of the sea. I was glad to
escape from Worthing; it had no interest for me beyond its fresh air.