"In GloucestershireThese high, wild hills and rough, uneven waysDraw out our miles, and make them wearisome."King Richard II.
King Richard II.
It cannot be said that there are many pleasant walks and drives in the Cotswold country, because, as a rule, the roads run over the bleak tableland for miles and miles, and the landscape generally consists of ploughed fields divided by grey stone walls; the downs I have referred to at different times are only to be met with in certain districts. Once upon a time the whole of Cotswold was one vast sheep walk from beginning to end. It was about a hundred and fifty years ago that the idea of enclosing the land was started by the first Lord Bathurst. Early in the eighteenth century he converted a large tract of downland round Cirencester into arable fields; his example was soon followed by others, so that by the middle of last century the transformation of three hundred square miles of downs into wheat-growing ploughed fields had been accomplished. It is chiefly owing to the depression in agricultural produce that there are any downs now, for they merely exist because the tenants have found during the last twenty years that it does not pay to cultivate their farms, hence they let a large proportion go back to grass.
But there is one very pleasant walk in that part of the Cotswolds we know best, and this takes you up the valley of the Coln to the Roman villa at Chedworth.
The distance by road from Fairford to the Chedworth woods is about twelve miles; and at any time of the year, but more especially in the spring and autumn, it is a truly delightful pilgrimage.
And here it is worth our while to consider for a moment how tremendously the abolition of the stage coach has affected places like Fairford, Burford, and other Cotswold towns and villages. It was through these old-world places, past these very walls and gables, that the mail coaches rattled day after day when they "went down with victory" conveying the news of Waterloo and Trafalgar into the heart of merry England. In his immortal essay on "The English Mail Coach," De Quincey has told us how between the years 1805 and 1815 it was worth paying down five years of life for an outside place on a coach "going down with victory." "On any night the spectacle was beautiful. The absolute perfection of all the appointments about the carriages and the harness, their strength, their brilliant cleanliness, their beautiful simplicity--but more than all, the royal magnificence of the horses--were what might first have fixed the attention. But the night before us is a night of victory: and behold! to the ordinary display what a heart-shaking addition! horses, men, carriages, all are dressed in laurels and flowers, oak leaves and ribbons." The brilliancy of the royal liveries, the thundering of the wheels, the tramp of those generous horses, the sounding of the coach horn in the calm evening air, and last, but not least, the intense enthusiasm of travellers and spectators alike, as amid such cries as "Salamanca for ever!" "Hurrah for Waterloo!" they cheered and cheered again, letting slip the dogs of victory throughout those old English villages,--all these things must have united the hearts of the classes and masses in one common bond, rendering such occasions memorable for ever in the hearts of the simple country folk. In small towns like Burford and Northleach, situated five or six miles from any railway station, the prosperity and happiness of the natives has suffered enormously by the decay of the stage coach; and even in smaller villages the cheering sound of the horn must have been very welcome, forming as it did a connecting link between these remote hamlets of Gloucestershire and the great metropolis a hundred miles away.
Fairford Church is known far and wide as containing the most beautiful painted glass of the early part of the sixteenth century to be found anywhere in England. The windows, twenty-eight in number, are usually attributed to Albert Dürer; but Mr. J.G. Joyce, who published a treatise on them some twenty years ago, together with certain other high authorities, considered them to be of English design and workmanship. They would doubtless have been destroyed in the time of the Civil Wars by the Puritans had they not been taken down and hidden away by a member of the Oldysworth family, whose tomb is in the middle chancel.
John Tame, having purchased the manor of Fairford in 1498, immediately set about building the church. He died two years later, and his son completed the building, and also erected two other very fine churches in the neighbourhood--those at Rendcombe and Barnsley. He was a great benefactor to the Cotswold country. Leland tells us that the town of Fairford never flourished "before the cumming of the Tames into it."
You may see John Tame's effigy on his tomb, together with that of his wife, and underneath these pathetic lines:
"For thus, Love, pray for me.I may not pray more, pray ye:With a pater noster and an ave:That my paynys relessyd be."
If I remember rightly his helmet and other parts of his armour still hang on the church wall. Leland describes Fairford as a "praty uplandish towne," meaning, I suppose, that it is situated on high ground. It is certainly a delightful old-fashioned place--a very good type of what the Cotswold towns are like. Chipping-Campden and Burford are, however, the two most typical Cotswold towns I know.
In the year 1850 a remarkable discovery was made in a field close to Fairford. No less than a hundred and fifty skeletons were unearthed, and with them a large number of very interesting Anglo-Saxon relics, some of them in good preservation. In many of the graves an iron knife was found lying by the skeleton; in others the bodies were decorated with bronze fibulae, richly gilt, and ornamented in front. Mr. W. Wylie, in his interesting account of these Anglo-Saxon graves, tells us that some of the bodies were as large as six feet six inches; whilst one or two warriors of seven feet were unearthed. All the skeletons were very perfect, even though no signs of any coffins were to be seen. Bronze bowls and various kinds of pottery, spearheads of several shapes, a large number of coloured beads, bosses of shields, knives, shears, and two remarkably fine swords were some of the relics found with the bodies. A glass vessel, coloured yellow by means of a chemical process in which iron was utilised, is considered by Mr. Wylie to be of Saxon manufacture, and not Venetian or Roman, as other authorities hold.
Whether this is merely an Anglo-Saxon burial-place, or whether the bodies are those of the warriors who fell in a great battle such as that fought in A.D. 577, when the Saxons overthrew the Britons and took from them the cities of Gloucester, Cirencester, and Bath, it is impossible to determine. The natives are firmly convinced that the skeletons represent the slain in a great battle fought near this spot; but this is only tradition. At all events, the words of prophecy attributed to the old Scotch bard Ossian have a very literal application with reference to this interesting relic of bygone times: "The stranger shall come and build there and remove the heaped-up earth. An half-worn sword shall rise before him. Bending above it, he will say, 'These are the arms of the chiefs of old, but their names are not in song.'" The "heaped-up" earth has long ago disappeared, for there are no "barrows" now to be seen. Cottages stand where the old burial mounds doubtless once existed, and all monumental evidences of those mighty men--the last, perhaps, of an ancient race--have long since been destroyed by the ruthless hand of time.
The manor of Fairford now belongs to the Barker family, to whom it came through the female line about a century ago.
We must now leave Fairford, and start on our pilgrimage to the Roman villa of Chedworth. At present we have not got very far, having lingered at our starting-point longer than we had intended. The first two miles are the least interesting of the whole journey; the Coln, broadened out for some distance to the size of a lake, is hidden from our view by the tall trees of Fairford Park. It was along this road that John Keble, the poet used to walk day by day to his cure at Coln-St.-Aldwyns. His home was at Fairford. Two eminent American artists have made their home in Fairford during recent years--Mr. Edwin Abbey and Mr. J. Sargent, both R.A's. Close by, too, at Kelmscott, dwelt William Morris, the poet.
On reaching Quenington we catch a glimpse of the river, whilst high up on the hill to our right stands the great pile of Hatherop Castle. This place, the present owner of which is Sir Thomas Bazley, formerly belonged to the nunnery of Lacock. After the suppression of the monasteries it passed through various heiresses to the family of Ashley. It was practically rebuilt by William Spencer Ponsonby, first Lord de Mauley; his son, Mr. Ashley Ponsonby, sold it to Prince Duleep Singh, from whom it passed to the present owner. Sir Thomas Bazley has done much for the village which is fortunate enough to claim him as a resident; his estate is a model of what country estates ought to be, unprofitable though it must have proved as an investment.
As we pass on through the fair villages of Quenington and Coln-St.-Aldwyns we cannot help noticing the delightful character of the houses from a picturesque point of view; in both these hamlets there are the same clean-looking stone cottages and stone-tiled roofs. Here and there the newer cottages are roofed with ordinary slate; and this seems a pity. Nevertheless, there still remains much that is picturesque to be seen on all sides. Roses grow in every garden, clematis relieves with its rich purple shade the walls of many a cosy little dwelling-house, and the old white mills, with their latticed windows and pointed gables, are a feature of every tiny hamlet through which the river flows.
"How gay the habitations that adornThis fertile valley! Not a house but seemsTo give assurance of content within,Embosom'd happiness, and placid love."WORDSWORTH.
The beautiful gabled house close to the Norman church of Coln-St.-Aldwyns is the old original manor house. Inside it is an old oak staircase, besides other interesting relics of the Elizabethan age. For many years this has been a farmhouse, but it has recently been restored by its owner, Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, who intends to make it his country abode. A piece of carved stone with four heads was discovered by the workmen engaged in the restoration, and is to be placed over the front door. It is doubtless a remnant of an old monastery, and dates back to Norman times.
Williamstrip House and Park lie on your right-hand side as you leave the village of "Coln" behind you. This place also belongs to Sir Michael Hicks-Beach; it has always seemed to us thebeau-idealof an English home. A medium-sized, comfortable square house of the time of George I., surrounded by some splendid old trees, in a park not too large, a couple of miles or so of excellent trout-fishing, very fair shooting, and good hunting would seem to be a combination of sporting advantages that few country places enjoy. Williamstrip came into the family of the present owner in 1784. The three parishes of Hatherop, Quenington, and Coln-St.-Aldwyns practically adjoin each other. Each has its beautiful church, the Norman doorways in that of Quenington being well worth a visit. Close to the church of Quenington are the remnants of an ancient monastery.
The "Knights Templar" of Quenington were famous in times gone by. There is a fine entrance gate and porch on the roadside, which no doubt led to the abbey.
There is little else left to remind us of these Knights Templar. Here and there are an old lancet window or a little piece of Gothic tracery on an ancient wall, an old worm-eaten roof of oak or a heap of ruined stones on a moat-surrounded close,--these are all the remnants to be found of the days of chivalry and the monks of old.
We have now two rather uneventful miles to traverse between Coln-St.-Aldwyns and Bibury, for we must once more leave the valley and set out across the bleak uplands. On the high ground we have the advantage of splendid bracing air at all events. The hills have a charm of their own on a fine day, more especially when the fields are full of golden corn and the old-fashioned Cotswold men are busy among the sheaves.
And very soon we get a view which we would gladly have walked twenty miles to see. Down below us and not more than half a mile away is the fine old Elizabethan house of Bibury, standing out from a background of magnificent trees. Close to the house is the grey Norman tower of the village church, which has stood there for mote than six centuries. Nestling round about are the old stone-roofed cottages, like those we have seen in the other villages we have passed through. A broad reach of the Coln and a grand waterfall enhance the quiet and peaceful beauty of the scene. But this description falls very short of conveying any adequate idea of the truly delightful effect which the old grey buildings set in a framework of wood and water present on a fine autumnal afternoon.
Never shall I forget seeing this old place from the hill above during one September sunset. There was a marvellous glow suffused over the western sky, infinitely beautiful while it lasted; and immediately below a silvery mist had risen from the surface of the broad trout stream, and was hanging over the old Norman tower of the church. Amid the rush of the waterfall could be heard the distant voices of children in the village street. Then on a sudden the church clock struck the hour of six, in deep, solemn tones. Against the russet-tinted woods in the background the old court house stood out grey and silent under the shadow of the church tower, preaching as good a sermon as any I ever heard.
"An English home, grey twilight pouredOn dewy pastures, dewy trees,Softer than sleep,--all things in order stored,A haunt of ancient peace."
Bibury Court is a most beautiful old house. Some of it dates back to Henry VIII.'s time. The most remarkable characteristic of its interior is a very fine carved oak staircase. The greater part of this house was built in the year 1623 by Sir Thomas Sackville. It was long the seat of the Creswell family, before passing by purchase to the family of the present owner--Lord Sherborne. The fine old church has some Saxon work in it, whilst the doorways and many other portions are Norman. Its delightful simplicity and brightness is what pleases one most. On coming down into the village, one notices a little square on the left, not at all like those one sees in London, but very picturesque and clean looking. In the olden times were to be seen in many villages little courts of this kind; in the centre of them was usually a great tree, round which the old people would sit on summer evenings, while the children danced and played around. Gilbert White speaks of one at Selborne, which he calls the "Plestor." The original name was "Pleystow," which means a play place. We have noticed them in many parts of the Cotswold country. Here, too, children are playing about under the shade of some delightful trees in the centre of the miniature square, whilst the variegated foliage sets off the gabled cottages which form three sides of it.
BIBURY STREET."BIBURY STREET."
I have often wondered, as I stood by these chestnut trees, whether there is any architecture more perfect in its simplicity and grace than that which lies around me here. Not a cottage is in sight that is not worthy of the painter's brush; not a gable or a chimney that would not be worthy of a place in the Royal Academy. The little square is bordered for six months of the year with the prettiest of flowers. Even as late as December you may see roses in bloom on the walls, and chrysanthemums of varied shade in every garden. Then, as we passed onwards,
"On the stream's bank, and everywhere, appearedFair dwellings, single or in social knots;Some scattered o'er the level, others perch'dOn the hill-sides--a cheerful, quiet scene."WORDSWORTH.
There is a Gothic quaintness about all the buildings in the Cotswolds, great and small alike, which is very charming. Bibury is indeed a pretty village. As you walk along the main street which runs parallel with the river, an angler is busy "swishing" his rod violently in the air to "dry" the fly, ere he essays to drop it over the nose of one of the speckled fario which abound; so be careful to step down off the path which runs alongside the stream, in case you should put the fish "down" and spoil the sport. And now on our left, beyond the green, may be seen a line of gabled cottages called "Arlington Row," a picture of which by G. Leslie was hung at the Royal Academy this year (1898).
A few hundred yards on you stop to inspect the spring which rises in the garden of the Swan Hotel. It has been said that two million gallons a day is the minimum amount of water poured out by this spring. It consists of the rain, which, falling on a large area of the hill country, gradually finds its way through the limestone rocks and eventually comes out here. It would be interesting to trace the course of some of these underground rivers; for a torrent of water such as this cannot flow down through the soft rock without in the course of thousands of years, producing caves and grottoes and underground galleries and all the wonders of the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, with its stalactite pillars and fairy avenues and domes--though the Cotswold caves are naturally on a much smaller scale. At Torquay and on the Mendip Hills, as everybody knows, there are caves of wondrous beauty, carved by the water within the living rock.
Probably within a hundred yards of Bibury spring there are beautiful hidden caves, such as those funny little "palaeolithic" men lived in a few thousand years ago; but why there have not been more discoveries of this nature in this part of the Cotswolds it is difficult to say. There is a cave hereabouts, men say, but the entrance to it cannot now be found. There is likewise a Roman villa on the hill here which has not yet been dug out of its earthy bed. A hundred years ago a large number of Roman antiquities were discovered near this village.
We now leave Bibury behind us, and a mile on we pass through the hamlet of Ablington, which is very like Bibury on a smaller scale, with its ancient cottages, tithe barns and manor house; its springs of transparent water, its brook, and wealth of fine old trees. We have no time to linger in this hamlet to-day, though we would fain pause to admire the old house.
"The pillar'd porch, elaborately embossed;The low, wide windows with their mullions old;The cornice richly fretted of grey stone;And that smooth slope from which the dwelling roseBy beds and banks Arcadian of gay flowers,And flowering shrubs, protected and adorned."WORDSWORTH
After leaving Ablington we once more ascend the hill and make our way along an old, disused road, probably an ancient British track, in preference to keeping to the highway--in the first place because it is by far the shortest, and secondly because we intend to go somewhat out of our way to inspect two ancient barrows, the resting-place of the chiefs of old, of whom Ossian (or was it Macpherson?)[5]sang: "If fall I must in the field, raise high my grave. Grey stones and heaped-up earth shall mark me to future times. When the hunter shall sit by the mound and produce his food at noon, 'Some warrior rests here,' he will say; and my fame shall live in his praise."
[5]In spite of Dr. Johnson and other eminent critics, one cannot help believing in the genuineness of some of the poems attributed to Ossian. "The proof of the pudding is in the eating"; and those wonderful old songs are too wild and lifelike to have had their origin in the eighteenth century. Macpherson doubtless enlarged upon the originals, but he must have had a good foundation to work upon.
A very large barrow lies about a mile out of our track to the right hand; as it is somewhat different from the other barrows in the neighbourhood, we will briefly describe it. It is a "long barrow," with the two horns at one end that are usually associated with "long" barrows. In the middle of the curve between these ends stands a great stone about five feet square, not very unlike our own gravestones, though worn by the rains of thousands of years. The mound is surrounded by a double wall of masonry. At the north end, when it was opened forty years ago, a chamber was found containing human bones. It is supposed that this mound was the burying-place of a race which dwelt on Cotswold at least three thousand years ago. From the nature of the stone implements found, it is conjectured that the people who raised it were unacquainted with the use of metal.
Now we will have a look at another barrow a few fields away. This is a mound of a somewhat later age; for it was raised over the ashes of a body or bodies that had been cremated. It was probably the Celts who raised this barrow. The other day it was opened for a distinguished society of antiquaries to inspect; they found that in the centre were stones carefully laid, encircling a small chamber, whilst the outer portions were of ordinary rubble. Nothing but lime-dust and dirt was found in the chamber; but in the course of thousands of years most of these barrows have probably been opened a good many times by Cotswold natives in search of "golden coffins" and other treasures.
There is a small, round underground chamber within a short distance of these barrows, which the natives consider to be a shepherd's hut, put up about two centuries back, and before the country was enclosed, as a retreat to shelter the men who looked after the flocks. It has been declared, however, by those who have studied the question of burial mounds, that it was built in very early times, and contained bodies that had not been cremated. The antiquaries who came a short time back to view these remains describe it as "an underground chamber, circular in shape, and an excellent sample of dry walling. The roof is dome-shaped, and gradually projects inwards." I narrowly escaped taking this "society" for a band of poachers; for when out shooting the other day, somebody remarked, "Look at all those fellows climbing over the wall of the fox-covert."
Now the fox-covert is a very sacred institution in these parts; for it is a place of only four acres, standing isolated in the midst of a fine, open country--so that no human being is allowed to enter therein save to "stop the earth" the night before hunting. We rushed up in great haste, fully prepared for mortal combat with this gang of ruffians, until, when within a hundred yards, the thought crossed us that we had given leave to the Cotswold Naturalist Society to make a tour of inspection, and that one of the barrows was in our fox-covert.
Labouring friends of mine often bring me relics of the stone age which they have picked up whilst at work in the fields. Quite recently a shepherd brought me a knife blade and two flint arrow-heads. He also tells me they have lately found a "himmige" up in old Mr. Peregrine's "barn-ground." Tom Peregrine possesses a bag of old coins of all dates and sizes, which he tells you with great pride have been an heirloom in his family for generations.
When we once more resume our pilgrimage along the track which leads to Chedworth we find ourselves in a country which is never explored by the tourist. Far removed from railways and the "busy haunts of men," it is not even mentioned in the guide-books. Our way lies along the edge of the hill for the next few miles, and we look down upon the picturesque valley of the Coln. Four villages, all very like those we have described, are passed in rapid succession. Winson, Coln Rogers, Coln-St.-Dennis, and Fossbridge all lie below us as we wend our way westwards. But although the architecture is of the same massive yet graceful style, and the old Norman churches still tower their grand old heads and cast their shadows over the cottages and farm buildings, there are no manor houses of note in any of these four villages, and no well-timbered demesnes; so that they are not so interesting as some of those we have passed through. In all, however, there dwell the good old honest labouring folk, toiling hard day by day at "the trivial round, the common task," just earning enough to scrape up a livelihood, but enjoying few of the amenities of life. The village parsons--good, pious men--share in the quiet, uneventful life of their flock. And who shall contemn their lot? As Horace tells us:
"Vivitur parvo bene, cui paternumSplendet in mensa tenui salinumNec leves somnos timor aut cupidoSordidus aufert."
ARLINGTON ROW."ARLINGTON ROW."
These four villages were all built two centuries or more ago, when the Cotswolds were the centre of much life and activity and the days of agricultural depression were not known. When we look down on their old, grey houses nestling among the great trees which thrive by the banks of the fertilising stream, we cannot but speculate on their future fate. Gradually the population diminishes, as work gets scarcer and scarcer. Unless there is an unexpected revival in prices through some measure of "protection" being granted by law, or the medium of a great European war, or some such far-reaching dispensation of Providence, terrible to think of for those who live to see it, but with all its possibilities of "good arising out of evil" for future generations, these old villages will contain scarcely a single inhabitant in a hundred year's time. This part of the Cotswold country will once more become a huge open plain, retaining only long rows of tumbled-down stone walls as evidences of its former enclosed state; no longer on Sundays will the notes of the beautiful bells call the toilers to prayer and thanksgiving, and all will be desolation. If only the capitalist or wealthy man of business would take up his abode in these places, all might be well. But, alas! the peace and quiet of such out-of-the-way spots, with all their fascinating contrast to the smoke and din of a manufacturing town, have little attraction for those who are unused to them. And yet there is much happiness and content in these rural villages. The lot of those who are able to get work is a thousand times more supportable than that of the toiling millions in our great cities. There is less drinking and less vice among these villagers than there is in any part of this world that we are acquainted with; consequently you find them cheerful, good-humoured, and, if they only knew it, happy. Grumble they must, or they would not be mortal. Ah! if they could but realise the blessings of the elixir of life--pure air, and fresh, clear, spring water, and sunshine--three inestimable privileges that they enjoy all the year round, and which are denied to so many of the inhabitants of this globe--there would be little grumbling in the Cotswolds.
"From toil he wins his spirits light,From busy day the peaceful night;Rich from the very want of wealthIn heaven's best treasures, peace and health."GRAY.
"But these villages are sodull, and life is so monotonous there," is the constant complaint. But what part of this earth is there, may I ask, that is not dull to those who live there, unless we drive out dull care andennuiby that glorious antidote to gloom and despondency, a fully occupied mind? There are two chapters in Carlyle's "Past and Present" that ought to be printed in letters of gold, set in an ivory frame, and hung up in the sleeping apartment of every man, woman, and child on the face of this earth. They are called "Labour" and "Reward." In those few short pages is embodied the whole secret of content and happiness for the dwellers in quiet country villages and smoky towns alike. They contain the philosopher's stone, which makes men cheerful under all circumstances, but especially those who are poor and down-trodden. The secret is a very simple one; but if the educated classes are continually losing sight of it, how much easier is it for those who have only the bare necessaries of life and few of the comforts to become deadened to its influence! It lies first of all in the realisation of the fact that the object of life is not to get, still less to enjoy, riches and pleasure. It teaches for the thousandth time that the humblest and the highest of us alike are immortal souls imprisoned for threescore years and ten in a tenement of clay, preparing for a better and higher existence. It reverses the position of things on earth--placing the crown of kings on the head of the toiling labourer, and making "the last first and the first last." Its very essence lies in the dictum of the old monks, "Laborare est orare" ("Work is worship").
It was one of the chief characteristics of the Roman people in the time of their greatness that their most successful generals were content to return to the plough after their wars were over. Thus Pliny in his "Natural History" remarks as follows: "Then were the fields cultivated by the hands of the generals themselves, and the earth rejoiced, tilled as it was by a ploughshare crowned with laurels, he who guided the wheel being himself fresh from glorious victories." And no sooner did honest hand labour become despised than effeminacy crept in, and this once haughty nation was practically blotted out from the face of the earth.
Let the Cotswold labourer realise that to work on the land, ploughing and reaping, summer and winter, seedtime and harvest, come weal, come woe, is no mean destiny for an honest man; there is scope for the display of a noble and generous spirit in the beautiful green fields as well as in the smoky atmosphere of the east end of London, in a Birmingham factory, or a Warrington forge.
"What is the meaning of nobleness?" asks Carlyle. "In a valiant suffering for others did nobleness ever lie. Every noble crown is, and on earth will for ever be, a crown of thorns. All true work is sacred. In all true work, were it but true hand labour, there is something of divineness. Sweat of the brow; and up from that to sweat of the brain, sweat of the heart; up to that 'agony of bloody sweat' which all men have called divine. Oh, brother, if this is not worship, then, I say, the more pity for worship: for this is the noblest thing yet discovered under God's sky. Who art thou that complainest of thy life of toil? Complain not. Look up, my wearied brother; see thy fellow workmen there in God's eternity surviving those, they alone surviving; peopling, they alone, the unmeasured solitudes of Time. To thee Heaven, though severe, is not unkind. Heaven is kind, as a noble mother; as that Spartan mother, saying, while she gave her son his shield, 'With it, my son, or upon it, thou, too, shalt return home in honour--to thy far distant home in honour--doubt it not--if in the battle thou keep thy shield!' Thou in the eternities and deepest death kingdoms art not an alien; thou everywhere art a denizen. Complain not; the very Spartans did not complain."
Would that the toiling labourer in the Cotswolds and in our great smoky cities might keep these words continually before him, so that he might grasp, not merely the secret of content and happiness in this life, but the golden key to the immeasurable blessings of "the sure and certain hope" of that life which is to come! Then shall he hear the words:
"King, thou wast called Conqueror;In every battle thou bearest the prize."
Conqueror will he be in life's battle if he follow in the footsteps of the Spartan of old or of Wordsworth's "Happy Warrior":
"Who, doomed to go in company with pain,And fear, and bloodshed--miserable train!--Turns his necessity to glorious gain."
Finally, the countryman who feels discontented with his lot--and there are few indeed who do not occasionally pine for a change of employment--should go on a railway journey through "the black country" at night, and mark the fierce light that reddens the murky skies as the factory fires send forth their livid flames and clouds of sooty smoke. He should watch the swarms of long-suffering human beings going to and fro and in and out like busy bees around their hive, toiling, ever toiling, round about the blazing fires. He should spend an hour in the streets of Birmingham, where, as I passed through one fine September morning recently on my way to Ireland, the atmosphere was darkened and the human lungs stifled by a thick yellow fog. Or he should go down to the engine-room of a mighty liner, when it is doing its twenty knots across the seas, and then think of his own life in the happy hamlets and the fresh, green fields of our English country.
Coming once more down the hill into the valley of the Coln, we must cross the old Roman road known as the Fossway, follow the course of the stream, and, about a mile beyond the snug little village of Fossbridge, we reach the great woods of Chedworth.
These coverts form part of the property of Lord Eldon. His house of Stowell stands well up on the hill. It is a grey, square building of some size, placed so as to catch all the sun and the breezes too,--very much more healthy and bright than most of the old houses we have passed, which were built much too low down in the valley, where the winter sunbeams seldom penetrate and the river mists rise damp and cold at night. As we walk along the drive which leads through the woods to the Roman villa, any amount of rabbits and pheasants are to be seen. And here take place annually some of those big shoots which ignorant people are so fond of condemning as unsportsmanlike, simply because they have not the remotest idea what they are talking about. Why it should be cruel to kill a thousand head in a day instead of two hundred on five separate days, one fails to understand. As a matter of fact, the bigger the "shoot" the less cruelty takes place, because bad shots are not likely to be present on these occasions, whilst in small "shoots" they are the rule rather than the exception. Instead of birds and ground game being wounded time after time, at bigbattuesthey are killed stone dead by some well-known and acknowledged good shot. To see a real workman knocking down rocketer after rocketer at a height which would be considered impossible by half the men who go but shooting is to witness an exhibition of skill and correct timing which can only be attained by the most assiduous practice and the quickest of eyes. No, it is the pottering hedgerow shooter, generally on his neighbour's boundary, who is often unsportsmanlike. We know one or two who would have no hesitation in shooting at a covey of partridges on the ground, when they were within shot of the boundary hedge; and if they wounded three or four and picked them up, they would carry them home fluttering and gasping, because they are too heartless to think of putting the wretched creatures out of their sufferings.
The extensive Roman remains discovered some years ago in the heart of this forest doubtless formed the country house of some Roman squire. They are well away from the river bank, and about three parts of the way up the sloping hillside. The house faced as nearly as possible south-east. In this point, as in many others, the Romans showed their superiority of intellect over our ancestors of Elizabethan and other days. Nowadays we begin to realise that houses should be built on high ground, and that the aspect that gives most sun in winter is south-east. The old Romans realised this fifteen hundred years ago. In other words, our ancestors in the dark ages were infinitely behind the Romans in intellect, and we are just reaching their standard of common sense. The characteristics of the interior of these old dwellings are simplicity combined with refinement and good taste. And it is worthy of remark that the men who are ahead of the thought and feeling of the present day are crying out for more simplicity in our homes and furniture, as well as for more refinement and real architectural merit. No useless luxuries and nick-nacks, but plenty of public baths, and mosaic pavements laboriously put together by hard hand labour,--these are the points that Ruskin and the Romans liked in common.
With this grandly timbered valley spread beneath them, no more suitable spot on which to build a house could anywhere be found. And though the Romans who inhabited this villa could not from its windows see the sun go down in the purple west, emblematic of that which was shortly to set over Rome, they could see the glorious dawn of a new day--boding forth the dawn that was already brightening over England, even as "The old order changeth, yielding place to new";--and they could see the splendours of the moon rising in the eastern sky.
The principal apartment in this Roman country house measures about thirty feet by twenty; it was probably divided into two parts, forming the dining-room and drawing-room as well. The tessellated pavements are wonderfully preserved, though not quite so perfect as a few others that have been found in England. With all their beautiful colouring they are merely formed of different shades of local stone, together with a little terra-cotta. Perhaps these pavements, with their rich mellow tints of red sandstone, and their shades of white, yellow, brown, and grey, afforded by different varieties of limestone, are examples of the most perfect kind of work which the labours of mankind, combined with the softening influences of time, are able to produce. In one corner the design is that of a man with a rabbit in his hand; and no doubt there were lots of rabbits in these woods in those days, as well as deer and other wild animals long since extinct.
In these woods of Chedworth the rose bay willow herbs grow taller and finer than is their wont elsewhere. In every direction they spring up in hundreds, painting the woodlands with a wondrously rich purple glow. Here, too, the bracken thrives, and many a fine old oak tree spreads its branches, revelling in the clay soil. On the limestone of the Cotswolds oaks are seldom seen; but wherever a vein of clay is found, there will be the oaks and the bracken. Every forest tree thrives hereabouts; and in the open spaces that occur at intervals in the forest there grow such masses of wild flowers as are nowhere else to be seen in the Cotswold district. White spiraea, or meadow-sweet, crowds into every nook and corner of open ground, raising its graceful stems in almost tropical luxuriance by the brook-side. Campanula and the blue geranium or meadow crane's-bill, with flowers of perfect blue, grow everywhere amid the white blossoms of the spiraea. St John's wort, with its star-shaped golden flowers, white and red campion, and a host of others, are larger and more beautiful on the rich loam than they are on the stony hills. Even the lily-of-the-valley thrives here.
In the bathroom may be seen an excellent example of the hypocaust--an ingenious contrivance, by means of which the rooms were heated with hot air, which passed along beneath the floors.
In the museum are portions of the skulls of men and of oxen, the antlers of red deer, oyster shells, knives, spear-heads, arrow-heads, bits of locks with keys, and excellent horseshoes, not to speak of such things as bronze spurs, spoons, part of a Roman weighing-machine, and a splendid pair of compasses. There are pieces of earthenware with potter's marks on them, and red tiles bearing unmistakable marks of fingering, as well as footprints of dogs and goats; these impressions must have been made when the tiles were in a soft state. But the most interesting relics are three freestone slabs, on which are inscribed the Greek letters [Greek: chi] and [Greek: rho]. It was Mr. Lysons who first noticed this evidence of ancient faith, and he is naturally of the opinion that the sacred inscription proves that the builder was a Christian. Another stone in this collection has the word "PRASIATA" roughly chiselled on it.
There was a British king, by name Prasutagus, said to have been a Christian, and possibly it was this man who built the old house in the midst of the Chedworth woods. A mile beyond this interesting relic of Roman times is the manor house of Cassey Compton, built by Sir Richard Howe about the middle of the seventeenth century. It stands on the banks of the Coln, and in olden times was approached by a drawbridge and surrounded by a moat. The farmer by whom it is inhabited tells me that, judging by the fish-ponds situated close by, he imagines it was once a monastery. This was undoubtedly the case, for we find in Fozbrooke that the Archbishop of York had license to "embattle his house" here in the reign of Edward I.
A mosaic pavement, discovered here about 1811, was placed in the British Museum.
It is very sad to come upon these remote manor houses in all parts of the Cotswold district, and to find that their ancient glory is departed, even though their walls are as good as they were two hundred years ago, when the old squires lived their jovial lives, and those halls echoed the mirth and merriment which characterised the life of "the good old English gentleman, all of the olden time."
Other fine old houses in this immediate district which have not been mentioned are Ampney Park, a Jacobean house containing an oak-panelled apartment, with magnificently carved ceiling and fine stone fireplace; Barnsley and Sherborne, partly built by Inigo Jones; Missarden, Duntisborne Abbots, Kemble, and Barrington. Rendcombe is a modern house of some size, built rather with a view to internal comfort than external grace and symmetry.
It is not surprising that in those countries which abound in sunshine and fresh, health-giving air, the inhabitants will invariably be found to be not only keen sportsmen, but also accomplished experts in all the games and pastimes for which England has long been famous. Given good health and plenty of work mankind cannot help being cheerful and sociably inclined; for this reason we have christened the district of which we write the "Merrie Cotswolds." From time immemorial the country people have delighted in sports and manly exercises. On the north wall of the nave in Cirencester Church is a representation of the ancient custom of Whitsun ale. The Whitsuntide sports were always a great speciality on Cotswold, and continue to the present day, though in a somewhat modified form.
The custom portrayed in the church of Cirencester was as follows:--
The villagers would assemble together in one of the beautiful old barns which are so plentiful in every hamlet. Two of them, a boy and a girl, were then chosen out and appointed Lord and Lady of the Yule. These are depicted on the church wall; and round about them, dressed in their proper garb, are pages and jesters, standard-bearer, purse-bearer, mace-bearer, and a numerous company of dancers.
The reason that a representation of this very secular custom is seen in the church probably arises from the fact that the Church ales were feasts instituted for the purpose of raising money for the repair of the church. The churchwardens would receive presents of malt from the farmers and squires around; they sold the beer they brewed from it to the villagers, who were obliged to attend or else pay a fine.
The church house--a building still to be seen in many villages--was usually the scene of the festivities.
The "Diary of Master William Silence" tells us that the quiet little hamlets presented an unusually gay appearance on these memorable occasions. "The village green was covered with booths. There were attractions of various kinds. The churchwardens had taken advantage of the unusual concourse of strangers as the occasion of a Church ale. Great barrels of ale, the product of malt contributed by the parishioners according to their several abilities, were set abroach in the north aisle of the church, and their contents sold to the public. This was an ordinary way of providing for church expenses, against which earnest reformers inveighed, but as yet in vain so far as Shallow was concerned. The church stood conveniently near the village green, and the brisk trade which was carried on all day was not interrupted by the progress of divine service." The parson's discourse, however, appears to have suffered some interruption by reason of the numbers who crowded into the aisles to patronise the churchwardens' excellent ale.
In the reign of James I. one, Robert Dover, revived the old Olympic games on Cotswold. Dover's Hill, near Weston-under-Edge, was called after him.
These sports included horse-racing, coursing, cock-fighting, and such games as quoits, football, skittles, wrestling, dancing, jumping in sacks, and all the athletic exercises.
The "Annalia Dubrensia" contain many verses about these sports by the hand of Michael Drayton, Ben Jonson, and others.
"On Cotteswold Hills there meetsA greater troop of gallants than Rome's streetsE'er saw in Pompey's triumphs: beauties, too,More than Diana's beavie of nymphs could showOn their great hunting days."
That hunting was practised here in these days is evident, for Thomas Randall, of Cambridge, writes in the same volume:
"Such royal pastimes Cotteswold mountains fill,When gentle swains visit Anglonicus hill,When with such packs of hounds they hunting goAs Cyrus never woon'd his bugle to."
Fozbrooke tells us that the Whitsuntide sports are thefloraliaof the Romans. They are still a great institution in all parts of the Cotswolds, though Church ales, like cock-fighting and other barbaric amusements, have happily long since died out.
Golf and archery are popular pastimes in the merry Cotswolds. It is somewhat remarkable that this district has produced in recent years the amateur lady champions of England in each of these fascinating pastimes, Lady Margaret Scott, of Stowell, beingfacile princepsamong lady golfers, whilst Mrs. Christopher Bowly, of Siddington, even now holds the same position in relation to the ancient practice of archery.
The ancient art of falconry is still practised in these parts. Thirty years ago, when Duleep Singh lived at Hatherop, hawking on the downs was one of his chief amusements. But the only hawking club hereabouts that we know of is at Swindon, in Wiltshire.
Coursing is as popular as ever among the Cotswold farmers. These hills have always been noted for the sport. Drayton tells us that the prize at the coursing meetings held on the Cotswolds in his day was a silver-studded collar. Shakespeare, in hisMerry Wives of Windsoralludes to the coursing on "Cotsall." There is an excellent club at Cirencester. The hares in this district are remarkably big and strong-running. The whole district lends itself particularly to this sport, owing to the large fields and fine stretches of open downs.