CHAPTER XVIA gruesome carving—Architectural tit-bits—An ancient and historic hostelry—Chipping Norton—Wychwood—A parson's story—"Timothying"—Shipton-under-Wychwood—On the Cotswolds—"The grey old town" of Burford—Two old manor-houses—A new profession—Highworth—Church relics.I left Banbury one sunshiny morning, shaking "the very dust" of the town from my wheels "as a testimony against it," and driving by its modern cross I took the road before me, letting it lead me where it would. Out of Banbury I would go the nearest way. The road climbed Wickham Hill and then dropped sharply down to the quiet old-world village of Bloxham, that boasts of one of the many "finest parish churches" in the kingdom. How many are there, I wonder? Certainly it is a fine church and has a fine spire; this all must grant. I thought it worthy of inspection. I found its windows guiltless of stained glass excepting for two in the chancel, but this was not a matter to grieve about, for I much prefer plain glass to the rubbishy modern stained variety one too often comes upon, and that so offends the cultured eye by its garish crudity. A peep of the blue sky, of green trees and of even the rain, framed by the graceful tracery of aGothic window, is more to my mind than visions of stiffly posed angular saints with ill-fitting halos round their heads; I have always an uneasy feeling that the halos may tumble off. Not that all modern stained and painted glass is bad, but most of it is—hopelessly bad; its drawing when rarely correct is spiritless, it lacks inspiration; its colouring lacks richness; so unlike the lovely medieval stained glass, it has no gem-like qualities whatever. I honestly find difficulty in worshipping in a church with angular saints in ill-fitting robes and halos askew staring at me! It seems more the idea of a sinner doing penance than a saint glorified.I noticed in the church a carved and coloured screen with some faded figures on it, and on the wall of a side chapel hung two old helmets and breastplates, somewhat rusty. I love to see ancient armour hanging in our churches, it takes the mind back to the days of knightly chivalry and recalls the never-returning romance of them—not the romance of fancy, but the romance of a past reality. Outside the church I found some open stone steps leading to two priests' chambers, one chamber over the other, but what interested me most was its richly sculptured west front; at the top of this are some good but unfortunately much weather-worn grinning gargoyles, for Time has been at work on these and has supplemented the carving of the monks with his, even, it may be, adding to their grotesqueness. Over and round the top of the big doorway is a quaint and gruesome representation of the resurrection, showing dead men rising from their coffins, one man beingrepresented as lifting the lid of his and peering out with a look of genuine surprise as though he did not realise what was happening; others had risen and were kneeling on the ground with hands folded in the attitude of prayer, and all looked very much aghast. Skilful indeed was the hand of the medieval sculptor to obtain these expressions. It was a nightmare in carving, crudely done but startlingly effective. I am glad I do not attend that church and have to face each Sunday that terrible story in stone; it is enough to wish death the end of all. When men could not read the monks talked to them in carving, though rarely so horribly as this; mostly those monks were in a jovial mood, and so I prefer them, as witness their grinning gargoyles, their merry devils, and frequent mirthful representations of men in the dumps; they were artists of no mean order, and verily, I believe, in their hearts loved a joke better than a sermon: truly they joked far better than they preached, for their preaching seems forced—not so their jokes! To the right of the doorway there is a curious carving of a man entering the jaws of some unearthly monster; the drift of this was wholly beyond me—surely it could not have been intended for Jonah being swallowed by the whale, for the monster's head, and that was all there was of him, bore no resemblance to that of a whale or to any creature that ever walked the earth or swam the sea, unless doubtfully in the prehistoric ages. A local rhyme perpetuates the character of the spire of this church with two of its near neighbours thus:Bloxham for length,Adderbury for strength,And King's Sutton for beauty.The next village of South Newington, a village of stone-built cottages with thatched roofs, had by way of contrast a very small and poor church with square-headed windows, not those of the usual pointed Gothic type. I did not trouble to inspect it, though generally the poorest little country church can boast of some architectural feature more or less interesting. I came to a country church with only one point of interest, and that was a narrow priests' doorway gracefully designed; I presume it served the priests of past times, but I was told there was one parson of the good old Georgian days who could not use it because he was too fat! So he could not enter by the "narrow way," but had to go through the porch like any sinner.Doorways in human habitations are often the keynote to the character of the house, and I was tempted in some of the country villages I passed through to photograph a few of their ancient doorways, for they interested me; two of these photographs, reproduced, will be found in pages farther on. The one of the fourteenth century is noteworthy, for it is a rare thing for so ancient a doorway to belong to a dwelling-house. I gathered the house had originally been a pre-Reformation vicarage; now it makes a quaint and picturesque home, with its low stone-slated roof, its mullioned windows, and its ivy-clad walls, boasting too the bloom of age that so beautifies a building. The other shows a simple type of Tudor doorway with steps up to it from the village street, but, though so simple and devoid of ornament, it is so well proportioned that it both pleases and satisfies the eye. I am rather fond of photographing architectural bits that take my fancy, and the English country abounds in such bits, apart from the larger features of buildings. It is curious to note how different districts afford and abound in special subjects: here you find ancient pigeon-cotes, often centuries old, of some pretence, and frequently most picturesque; here the minor items of sun-dials and of artistically wrought weather-vanes are most in evidence; at another spot you discover interesting "lion-guarded" gateways and picturesque doorways; again, it may be, it is the inn signs, with their crudely painted signboards and their elaborate scroll-work of wrought iron that surrounds them, that attract your attention; here a gazebo, and there an ancient roofed-in village fountain, claims your notice; anon a quaint conceit in carving on church or house, and so forth, not to waste space in needlessly enumerating the many and varied architectural tit-bits the wanderer by road constantly comes across, nor need he keep his eyes very wide open to discover them.THE PRIEST'S DOORWAY.After South Newington we had another long stretch of very lonely road, but charming on account of its loneliness; the country we passed through was elevated and undulating and afforded us many fine and far-reaching prospects. There were wide margins of grass by the sides of our road, so wide in places as to be almost fields; on these multitudes of silly sheep were grazing—I say silly,for when they heard the car approaching they would quietly cross the road in front of us, first one, then another, then the whole flock in slow procession, causing us to make many a stop, for sheep and cattle are lords of the road; they used even to stop a king's mails in the days of yore. These sheep really seemed to do it out of sheer perversity, and it was the more provoking as the otherwise forsaken road was so tempting to speed along, and occasionally, when all is safe, a turn of speed is a very inspiriting thing; it wipes the cobwebs from the brain, it drives the good fresh air into the lungs, it stimulates the mind, and braces the body. Not that I am an advocate of speed, except as a rare indulgence on lonely roads when there can be no hurt in it, and so you may test the mettle of your car.Then we came to the old mail and turnpike highway from London to Birmingham; this crossed our road at a lonely, bleak, and elevated spot close to which formerly stood the once flourishing "Chapel House Inn"; the building still stands there indeed, but it has been converted into a residence: an inn of wide renown in the old road-travelling days, where the Birmingham coaches changed horses and stopped whilst their passengers dined; an inn far famous for its fare and its wines—so good were the latter that it has been said, and I see no reason to doubt the saying, that "there was a strong temptation to indulge in them which was rarely resisted, even the king's cellars could produce nothing better," and there over their wines our ancestors doubtless made merry as was their wont. Atleast they enjoyed their lives. It was to this inn that Dr. Johnson and Boswell came in a postchaise during the early summer of 1776, and it was then when posting across country that the former, lover of towns though he was, suddenly exclaimed, "Life has little better to offer than this." It was on the same day, whilst dining at the "Chapel House Inn," that the learned doctor delivered his much-quoted eulogy on inns: "There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well as in a capital tavern," declared he. "You are sure of a welcome, and the more noise you make, the more good things you call for, the more trouble you give, the welcomer you are. There is nothing that has been invented by man by which so much happiness is produced as a good tavern or inn." What road traveller will not re-echo those sentiments?—though I grieve for the one who can honestly say with Shenstone he has found his "warmest welcome at an inn," however warm the welcome at his inn may be.About Chapel House many stories, astonishing and otherwise, truthful and untruthful, of old days and old ways are told; but though sadly tempted to relate some of these, I refrain, for I find I am always writing about inns. It does not do to keep harping on one subject, to be for ever "spinning your own wheel." I know a man, and a very good-natured, clubbable man is he, but even he gets bored by listening to one tune too long; his sole crime is that he is not a golfer—it is a serious one, I own. Now at his club he frequently meets a golfing friend who will talk golf and nothing else as long as anyman will listen to him, just as some fishermen and motorists enlarge about their hobby. Now my friend had listened long times patiently to the golfer's endless stories, but when one day the golfer complained that he was suffering badly from a "golfer's arm," my friend exclaimed, "I have suffered from a worse disease than that, 'golfer's jaw.'" Now I do not wish my readers to suffer from my "jaw" about inns.From Chapel House we dropped down to Chipping Norton, a quiet, clean, contented-looking little town, and that I think sufficiently describes it. As Clarendon remarked of Aldermaston, it is "a town out of any great road," though near to one. So perhaps on that account it has no special history.Beyond Chipping Norton the country grew lonely again, delightfully, restfully lonely, and all the way we went to Shipton-under-Wychwood I do not find a single house marked on my excellent and accurate map. We were in a bleak stone country, where stone walls take the place of hedges, and where the landscape bears a Cotswold look. Those who know the Cotswolds know what that look is, a rarely pleasant one to me in the summer time, with a sense of openness about it; and how fresh and free and bracing are the airs that blow over the Cotswold hills. There you can keep cool in the hottest weather. Is there not an old saying that at "Stow-on-the-Wold, the wind always blows cold"? It is a truthful one as far as my experience goes, for I have passed through Stow on the hottest of summer days and found it none too warm there even then.By degrees we descended into a valley and into a warmer atmosphere, and crossing the little river Evenlode (of which I had not heard before, so does a driving tour extend one's knowledge of one's own country) we found ourselves in the attractive and interesting village of Shipton-under-Wychwood, but of the once wild Wychwood forest, formerly a royal hunting ground, there is not much to boast of left—sufficient, however, to earn for it to-day the title of "The Forest Country of Oxfordshire." There is a story told of a traveller in the pre-railway days whose road took him close by Wychwood, and he asked of a boy the name of the wood. "Wychwood," the boy replied. "Which wood?" the traveller exclaimed. "Why, that wood, you fool," pointing with his finger to it. Again he received the same reply. Once more the traveller repeated his query and received the same reply again; whereupon the traveller grew wroth, and deeming the boy was making fun of him, got down from his horse and soundly boxed his ears. One story calls forth another. This I had from a parson on my journey. It appears that one of his parishioners was over-fond of frequenting the public-house, and one day finding him coming out of it the parson said to him, "Williams, why do you go to the public-house so often?" To which the non-abashed Williams made reply, "Because they sell good ale there," and then he quoted the Bible to the parson. "You know, sir, the Bible tells us 'Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake'—now I cannot afford wine, so I drink ale"; and the parson was hardput how to answer him. It appears that the villagers there employ the expression "Timothying" when they have been drinking. Still another story of a parson I was told occurs to me; this may be an old one, but it is one I have not heard before, nor seen it in print. It appears that this parson had recently lost his only son, to whom he was devoted, and was preaching on the text of Abraham offering up his son Isaac as a sacrifice, and during the sermon his feelings so overcame him that thus unknowingly he delivered himself: "And it was his son, his only son; now if it had only been a sheep or a daughter."I found so much to interest me in Shipton, for there I noticed some old stone buildings, now forming part of what I took to be a farmyard, buildings with Gothic windows of good design and a graceful Gothic doorway in their walls; these could hardly be mere farm-buildings. That they possessed some history was from their character highly probable, but of that history, if there was any, I could glean nothing; as usual, nobody knew anything about them but that "they be very old." That appears to be the stock reply of the villager when you question him about such things. Then I wandered to the church a little way off, and there, for a wonder, I found the clerk within, "tidying up," as he called it. There was not much of interest in the church except a gruesome brass of a figure in a shroud, dated 1548, and a gloomy priest's chamber above the porch, reached by a dark stone stairway. This chamber, the clerk told me, was eight hundred years old; in truth it had an ancient look. Hanging on the wall, though why it should find a place there I could not understand, was a long-winded and framed account of the life of "John Foxe the Martyrologist born 1517," leaving no particulars of his life untold, I gathered from a hasty glance at it.DOORWAY OF THE CROWN INN, SHIPTON-UNDER-WYCHWOOD.In the village stands a very ancient inn with a weather-worn aspect and a pathetic look of having seen better days, for its architectural features suggest it has been a house of some importance in times past. The old inn possesses a fine, early, and well-preserved high-pointed Tudor archway that, with its big door below with long exterior hinges, the quaint little two-lighted window by its side, and the old-fashioned mounting-block in front, presents a pleasing bit of ancient architecture. My photograph, here reproduced, will give some idea of this ancient doorway and of the quaint little window shown to the right of it. On leaving the village I caught to the left a delightful vision of a stately, many-gabled, stone-built Elizabethan home, standing in its pleasant park at a friendly short distance from the road. Shipton Court was, I learnt, the name of this picture in stone, for it is a home and a picture in one. Very beautiful did the building look with the warm sunshine resting upon it, for, though ancient, the house had a cheerful countenance; there was nothing gloomy or ghostly about it, nothing mysterious or suggestive of legend, but the word Home was written largely on it.Beyond Shipton we rose on to high ground andfound ourselves in a breezy open country. Again our road was a deserted one. Few people appear to travel the byways of the Cotswolds, yet, within the same distance of London, nowhere else, I think, can such spacious solitudes be found, such wide and glorious sweeps of uplands and valleys stretching far away into dim and dreamy distances where the round hills seem to melt into the sky. The Cotswolds always delight me, for on them I realise the sense of solitude, silence, and space—a solitude that would satisfy an anchorite. Not that I love solitude except as a restful and occasional change from the burden of too much society; even when I was enjoying my solitude that day I had still a thought for the company I hoped to meet that night at my inn, and a thought of home and family when I returned to them.After a time we dropped down to the lonely, ancient town of Burford, forgotten by the railway; but Burford does not mind, it exists quite well without the railway. There the little town lay before us, hidden in a hollow, at the foot of the hill, and we looked down upon its uneven roof-trees, and on the silvery Windrush quietly flowing by. Of all the old-world Cotswold towns none has a greater charm than Burford. Thus sings one of its many lovers:O fair is Moreton in the MarshAnd Stow on the wide wold,But fairer far is Burford townWith its stone roofs grey and old.And he calls it "The grey old town on the lonelydown." But Burford is not on the lonely down—far from it; it lies sheltered, half forgotten, deep in a hollow; a place of peace.At Burford Speaker Lenthall lived, and his home, painted by Waller, stands there to-day a little removed from the quiet street—a fine specimen of Jacobean architecture. Burford church is one of the finest of the many fine Cotswold churches raised by the pious and prosperous wool merchants of the country, and contains the truly magnificent tomb, in a chapel all to itself, of Sir Lawrence Tanfelde (deceased 1625), besides many other fine monuments. The church was turned into a prison for his captives by Cromwell, after his fight with the Banbury Levellers here, who outdid Cromwell himself in zeal and struggle against authority. At "The George Inn" here Charles I. slept on his retreat from Oxford to Worcester, and on the glass of a window, in the upper room of the same inn, there was, and may be now for aught I know, the diamond-scratched name of Samuel Pepys below the date of 1666, though whether this be genuine or a forgery perhaps no man now can say; if a forgery, it is a clever imitation of that famous Diarist's signature. So Burford, though much out of the world to-day, was not always so. It has witnessed stirring events, it has welcomed and entertained many famous travellers, and people of renown have lived within its walls. All the roads into Burford are hilly, all the stages into the town are long and trying for horses, so that in the past coaching, posting, and horseback days horses coming there were usually given an extra allowance ofcorn; hence probably arose the local proverb, "To take a Burford bait," meaning to make a big meal.It was a steep climb out of Burford, at the top of which we crossed the old highway from London to Gloucester and South Wales that runs for many miles on the undulating ridge of the hills. The Cotswolds are little given to change, and much as the country looks now it must have looked to our coach-travelling ancestors, excepting that to-day long lines of telegraph poles faithfully follow the road in long array lessening to the horizon, and the sound of the wind on the wires as we passed was like the hum of innumerable bees, and it broke pleasantly the silence of the hills.At the corner of the highway, just where our road crossed, I noticed a large board set up with a boldly lettered inscription on it, and this is what I read there:Only a few yards to the North is one of the most ancient towns to be seen in this part of the Country. It has historical associations of the most interesting nature. Its church is renowned for its beauty.Thus Burford appeals to the hurrying motorists who speed upon this fine highway. I should not have thought Burford would have done any such thing; it appears to me a little undignified; yet without such a notice the motorists mentioned would doubtless rush along heedless of the ancient, grey old town that sleeps so peacefully in the hollow below. Still, I trust other interesting towns off the highway will not take this as a precedent, else we shall haveall England turned into a sort of gigantic peep-show.Now we got on to a wilderness of lanes, mostly narrow and rough of surface, but they took us into an old-world land of stone-built villages, very ancient, very grey, and past many a time-mellowed home that hinted of legend. One rambling, neglected-looking old home especially took my fancy, with its great gables, clustering chimneys, and shapely stone diamond-paned windows; it had such a look of mystery about it, high-walled in as it was, and half hidden from the road, and over its porch the lichens had traced strange hieroglyphics. There appeared to be no life about the place, though a film of smoke uprose from one tall, solitary chimney. An ancient manor-house fallen to decay—A jolly place in days of old,But something ails it now; the place is curst.In its forsaken courtyard stood a tumble-down pigeon-cote of some size, so that I knew it had been a manor-house, for in the medieval days no lesser personage than the lord of the manor had the right of pigeonry, and the pigeon-cote was very ancient. Unfortunately, owing to the high wall without and the trees that had grown up at their own sweet will close around it, I was unable satisfactorily to photograph the old house. Some day I hope to re-discover it and to see if I can trace anything of its history.Another fine old manor-house I came to I found has also fallen on to evil days and was doing duty as a farmhouse, the farmer and his wife inhabitingbut a small portion of it. By happy chance I came across the farmer in a field and I got a-chatting with him, first diplomatically about the weather and the crops; neither were satisfactory to him—I hardly thought they would be—but I listened to his complaints about both, and to his complaints about the low price of produce. I listened patiently, and I think my patience pleased—I had "an axe to grind." Then I led up to the old house and ventured to remark what a picturesque place it was. "It's all right to look at," said he, "but it's not good to live in. It's too big, and it's so draughty, and it's so cold and damp in winter, it would take a fortune to keep fires going over it to warm it properly. There's only the wife and self lives in it, and it would hold a large family, and they would only fill a part of it. Would you care to take a glance inside?" Now that is just what I wanted. I said I would. In truth it was a rambling old house. We entered by a large hall, with a fine old carved oak but much damaged fireplace at one end, and dog-irons on the wide hearth below. I could fancy that in the old days, when the lord of the manor lived there, merry were the doings and the dances that took place in that now vacant hall; the very thought of such things made it, in its bareness, look the more forsaken. One wing, where the farmer lived, was furnished fairly comfortably; the rest of the mansion, divided from it by the hall, was a very picture of desolation. Even the once strong oak staircase was shaky, and the floors of the rooms were in places so rotten that it was hardly safe to tread on them; in some thepanelling was tumbling from the walls, and in others the bare walls were adorned with cobwebs, erst doubtless covered with tapestry. Such is the fate of some old houses that have come down in the world, but there are others that have fortunately found purchasers and have been restored to something of their ancient dignity. I know at least a good dozen fine old houses of the Elizabethan and Jacobean days that had fallen to decay, but which have been so restored by loving hands that they now form delightful and picturesque homes, and yet have not lost the charm of their ancient look.I met a man, when house-hunting for a friend some little time ago, who confided to me that he made it a business of buying any ruinous old house, if of any architectural merit and agreeably situated, that was for sale at a low price—"and many such houses fetch low prices," he said, "often, the land apart, not more than the value of their materials; sometimes these old houses possess a bit of interesting history, but that goes for nothing"; and purely as a speculation, though the speculation was not without its pleasure, he skilfully restored it, as far as possible, to its pristine estate, and he had done this each time at a considerable profit on the sale of the restored house. "I call myself a house improver," he said, with a laugh, "quite a novel and paying profession." This confession was made to me whilst looking over an interesting old Jacobean house that he had recently purchased and restored, and exceedingly well had he done it. "This," he explained, "had been let and occupiedas a farmhouse for years, and little care was taken of it; as you see, it is a picturesque old building, but it was in a dreadful state when I bought it—indeed at first I almost thought it was beyond restoration. I have spent a lot of money on it, but I expect to get it all back with a fair margin of profit. Here you see an ancient house with a formal garden to match, and even an old-fashioned sun-dial in it, to say nothing of the Haddon Hall-like terrace, and all this cost me a lot; but one has to do the thing properly or you may make a failure of it, and this house is ready for occupation. Meanwhile I make it my home; I must live somewhere, and here I abide till I find a purchaser. Then I shall go in search of another old house to restore. The idea of doing such a thing came quite accidentally to me; originally I purchased an old house and restored it for my own occupation, but I had so many unsought offers for it at a big figure, nearly double what it cost me altogether, that I was tempted to sell it. Then I bought another old house and restored it in the same way, and that I sold at a substantial profit; so now I have made a trade of doing this. Look at the panelling of these rooms, all of seasoned oak, a careful copy of old panelling of the period, every bit done by adze and hand; the hinges and locks, too, are copies of old ones I found in the house. I have opened up all the fireplaces, and on removing the modern grates I luckily discovered the open hearths behind; the firebacks are all castings from old ones, and the fire-dogs are copies too fromfine past specimens. The whole thing has been properly done. I have pulled down all the plaster ceilings and revealed the old rafters. The one or two sash windows I found I have replaced with mullion ones, so now you have before you the house much as it looked when first built over two centuries ago." This was quite a new way to me of making a living, or a fortune, but one learns many unexpected things when travelling by road.To some there is a potent magnetism, an irresistible fascination about certain old houses, a subtle influence from which there is no escape. I confess to it myself. I have lived in them and love them. Of course there are old houses and old houses; not all possess this peculiar power to charm, and only those of the Elizabethan or Jacobean period, with their panelled halls and chambers, their beamed ceilings, their great gables, their clustering chimneys, their many mullioned windows and big fireplaces, hold it over me. Those of the Queen Anne or Georgian age leave me cold; they are too formal; they lack the sense of mystery and atmosphere of romance. The old moated granges pictured in the Christmas numbers of theIllustrated London Newsof many years back, how they charmed me when a boy! What romances about them did not I weave to myself! I thought they were only artists' dreams, but since I have happily discovered them actually existing. I shall never forget the thrill of delightful surprise the first discovery of the kind gave me; I could hardly believe my eyes,yet there before me stood an ancient moated home, grey, gabled, and ivy-clad, with a broken bell-turret on its lichen-laden roof, its leaded-light windows reflecting the sunlight, and its big chimney-stacks rising boldly up against the sky; nor shall I forget the special moment when I crossed the deep moat by a moss-grown bridge and knocked at the great oak and nail-studded door. I felt like one in a dream, that this could not be a reality, and that I should suddenly wake up and find myself deceived, disenchanted, and in the commonplace world again. Happily it was no vain imagining.But I am digressing. We were wandering on winding lanes south of Burford when I began this overlong digression, and on that maze of lanes we wandered for some miles—many they seemed to me; first in one direction, then in another we went, without arriving anywhere. All the same, it was very pleasant wandering through a land purely given over to agriculture, somnolent and restful. At last we reached a fair road, and this took us to the little Wiltshire town of Highworth, boldly set on a hill, so that we could see it from afar long before we came to it, its grey church tower and irregular roofed houses outlined sharply against the sky. Seen thus the town looked like those one finds in early engravings.A clean, homely, dreamy little town is Highworth, very ancient, even quaint in parts, and this in spite of the fact that a branch line of railway has found it out; but so far the railway does not appear to have disturbed its old-world tranquillityThere I halted a while at "The Saracen's Head," a relic of the old coaching days, and the inn, like the town, seemed half asleep. Then I took a quiet walk round the place, and eventually found my way to the church; there appeared to be nothing else noteworthy there except the old houses and old shops, and these, though they grouped well and made a picturesque whole, were not individually of much interest. So it was I strolled into the church, and there I found the clerk: twice running had I done this unusual thing. I bade him good-morning. He told me he was looking after a bat that had got into the roof of the building and was making a mess there. I have heard of owls in a church tower, but here was a bat in the church itself. "How are you going to catch the bat?" queried I, for he had no ladder, and he believed the bat was somewhere hidden in the beams above. "That's just what I want to know," he replied. "I'm thinking it over; meanwhile I'll show you the church if you like." I thought he might as well do this whilst he was thinking, so I accepted his services. The first thing I noticed was a cannon-ball hanging by three chains from a bracket on the wall; there must be some story attached to that, I thought, and there was. It was another of Cromwell's countless cannon-balls—I have long ago lost count of the many I have seen. "That," said the clerk, "was fired against the church by Cromwell, and it lodged in the tower. I can show you the hole it made there where it struck." Then I learnt that the churchhad been fortified and held for Charles I., was besieged by the Parliamentarians, who eventually captured it, taking seventy prisoners; the earthworks a little beyond the town, where the cannon was mounted, are still to be made out. Those were stirring times for the countryside; the district between Oxford and Worcester had its full share in them, and in some parts of it the fighting raged furiously."Now I think I can show you something that will interest you," exclaimed the clerk; then he pointed out the ancient oak and much worm-eaten stalls (of the thirteenth century, he said they were), and called my attention to a quaint carving on one of them of a mermaid admiring herself in a handglass; but what interested me more than this were the ancient helmet and sword of the Baston family suspended against the wall, and still of greater interest a silk tabard belonging to the same Baston family that was worn over the armour with a coat-of-arms worked on it: this was needful in order to distinguish the mail-clad warriors one from another. The tabard, preserved now in a glass frame, is much decayed and faded, but still a lion boldly worked thereon is visible. I understood that this tabard was discovered stowed away somewhere in the church, and that the vicar had it framed and hung up there, and I commend the action of the vicar. Many of our old churches contain, to this day, treasures of various kinds hidden away and forgotten in oak chests and cupboards, and even lost amongst lumber. There was, too, a priest-chamberbelonging to the church, with the usual stone steps leading to it, but this special chamber had the uncommon luxury of a washing place. I noticed when leaving a curious bit of bold sculpture over the entrance doorway; in the dim light of the moment I could not very certainly make out what the carving was about, but I read a notice beneath it stating that it was probably a Norman Tympanon. There I bade the clerk good-day. I wondered how he was going to catch that bat!CHAPTER XVIILittle country towns—The romance of the ferry—"The Bear" at Woodstock—Curious conditions of tenure—Where the Black Prince was born—Islip—The mystery of Joseph's Stone—An English Holland—Boarstall Tower—The ancient town of Brill—"Acres for Aeroplanes"—Stokenchurch—A quaint hiring fair.After Highworth we had a hilly road, and this took us without event to Faringdon, where it chanced to be market day, and the little town was crowded with farmers and cattle; there were crowds in its streets, and crowds round its inns, so we made what haste we could to get out of the place. These little country towns, however sleepy generally, manage to be very wide-awake once a week on market days. A long, quiet stretch of road now followed, with wide views on either hand over fertile farming lands. A signpost informed us we were bound for Abingdon; now Abingdon we knew, so to avoid the familiar we after a time turned up a byway and, crossing the Upper Thames on an ancient and very narrow bridge, we presently espied another signpost with "North Moor" upon it; the name suggested wildness, to North Moor we would go. We got on a rare tangle of lanes and into a land monotonously level, but no moor did wefind, nothing but hedge-enclosed and tame fields. Curiously enough signposts were plentiful, but only gave the names of villages we had never heard of, and one name meant as much, or as little, to us as another.Eventually we found ourselves by the side of the river again and at Bablockhythe Ferry, of which Matthew Arnold has sung. I asked the name of it, and then I found it on my map, and so our whereabouts. The old ferry boat, the quiet river that was so still it hardly seemed to flow at all, the leafy trees, and the road on the opposite shore winding its white way into a distance of green woods, made such a pretty picture that I was tempted to photograph it. Were I a poet or a landscape painter it is a spot that would inspire me. I waited a long time on the chance of some cattle or sheep to be crossing and so help my picture, but during that time only a cyclist came, and I had to make do with him. The ferryman pulled up his boat to the bank thinking I was about to "go over," but when he told me the opposite road went to Oxford, and it was the nearest way there, I concluded I would not cross but trust to the lanes and the chance of coming upon a country hostel in a fresh land. "Where be you bound for?" asked the ferryman politely. "I might help you, for the roads about here are not gain ones for strangers"—and this though he lost custom for his ferry. It was an awkward question, for I knew not myself, and was nonplussed how to answer him. To be a traveller without a destination seems such a silly thing tothe rural mind. I hope he did not take me for some lunatic escaped in a car. It was cool by the river, for the day was growing late, and I thought it about time to search for an inn. There was only a public-house by the ferry, and the land around had a lonely look, so I thought it wise to hasten on.I cannot reason why, for some things are not open to reason, but like an old manor-house (moated or otherwise) or a wayside inn of the Jacobean days, of which a few are still left to us, a lonely ferry always appeals to me with a sense of romance. There is something so primitive and picturesque about a lonely old-fashioned ferry, especially those one finds in the far-away Fens, that I cannot get away from my mind a feeling of adventure connected with such: even the one at Bablockhythe has a certain far-from-everywhere look about it, and I gave myself up to the illusion of the spot, an illusion not only of space but of time; and I verily believe just then, when in that mood, if a gaily dressed Cavalier had appeared on the scene fleeing in hot haste from his pursuers with the hurried cry of "Over," I should have taken it quite as a matter of course. I have watched patiently by a very out-of-the-world Fenland ferry I know, always in the vain hope of adventure; yet so has the spirit of the place got hold of me that I feel surely one day, when again I am there, some strange experience will come to me.BABLOCKHYTHE FERRY.Very lonely, very winding and narrow were the lanes we got on, but if you travel far enough you are sure to arrive somewhere, so we arrived at Stanton Harcourt, a well-known spot to Oxford men, and where the old home of the Harcourts stands with its ancient and chimneyless kitchen, a building apart from the house with a pyramidical roof having a louvre at the top, out of which the smoke escapes as it can. This curious detached kitchen closely resembles the famous one at Glastonbury Abbey, so at least I thought from a passing glance at it. If there was an inn at Stanton Harcourt we missed it, and so we drove on, and shortly came to Eynsham, where I noticed its medieval stone cross in the street by the side of the church. Finding no inn to my liking, I consulted my map and discovered that Woodstock was not far off. Now at Woodstock I knew there was a good inn of the old-fashioned sort, so to Woodstock we went; and so in the gloaming, with the soft light of declining day giving all the landscape a mysterious look, we sped on the few miles to "The Bear" at that town.The great stableyard of "The Bear" is a graphic reminder of the spacious inns of the coaching era of which it has been said, "A regiment of cavalry might have been housed in them, and good wine could be had for the ordering." You may order good wine now at country inns, and pay the price of it, but if you think to get good wine I can only say, I hope you may. Though I do know one or two old inns whose cellars contain some rare old port that has lain in them for years; in one case, the worthy landlord told me, "since the last coach took its last change here," which may be butpleasant fiction, I cannot say; still, in truth, the wine is very old, very rare and good. I have sampled it, and hope to sample it again as long as the bin lasts, for such wine is not to be had every day, not even for money.There were only two other guests at "The Bear" that night; they came from Yorkshire, they said—I did not ask them—and the only thing they talked about was horses. They even dated their remarks from the day, or year, a certain horse won the Derby, or some other horse that had won some other race. I stood it for an hour or two, then called for my candle, as travellers did in the days before gas or electricity, and "to bed," as Pepys has it.I did not visit the show-house of Blenheim, for I had seen it before; moreover, show-houses are not to my mind. It may, however, be interesting to call attention to the conditions on which the Blenheim estate is held, which estate was granted by a grateful nation to the first Duke of Marlborough and his heirs in recognition of the famous victory of Blenheim, in Bavaria, on 2nd August 1704. "A representative of the family has once a year to convey to Windsor Castle an embroidered flag, which is placed in the Guards' Chamber. There it remains for a twelvemonth, till the next rental for holding the palace and the estate falls due. It is the only return the family have to make for the property they enjoy."Next morning, on strolling round the town, I saw in a shop window a picture postcard, and on it a photograph of "The Manor-House Farm, birthplaceof the Black Prince, Woodstock." It came as a surprise to me to learn that the Black Prince, "that mirror of knighthood and the greatest of heroes," was born there; so I gleaned, as I travelled on, many a forgotten historical happening. To take a schoolboy a trip through England in a motor-car would be an excellent way of increasing his knowledge of its history. The manor-house is very old, though I take it, except perhaps in parts, little of the original structure can be left. The house has a pleasant look, and possesses a curious old chimney consisting of a stone shaft having a conical roof, the shaft being pierced on all sides at its top with lancet openings for the smoke to escape. The chimney looks as though it ought not to smoke whatever the way of the wind, and that with it a down draught should be an impossibility; it is a picturesque device that might be worth trying in place of the ugly cowls. Finding nothing further to interest me in the sunny and sleepy little town, I took my early departure whilst yet the day was fresh and cool.Out of Woodstock I found myself on the old highway leading to Oxford, but I did not travel it far, taking a lane to the left with a view of exploring that rather remote and out-of-the-way district lying in a rough square between Oxford and Bicester, Aylesbury and Thame—at least it looked out of the way on my map, only served by narrow roads; and on my map I noticed a vacant place marked "Ot Moor," an odd name, with "Joseph's Stone" also marked in the centre of the moor. I wondered what that stone could be so plainly shownthere, some "Druidical Standing Stone" perhaps; it aroused my curiosity; and beyond these, in the direction I was going, "Boarstall Tower" was inscribed in bold lettering, also the forsaken little town of Brill. I felt in an exploring mood that day, and here was an odd corner of the land inviting me to explore it. First I came to Islip, a bleak-looking and tiny town of stone houses, yet a town of some importance in its day; but that was a long time ago, when King Ethelred had his palace there, in which his son Edward the Confessor was born, he who founded Westminster Abbey. Shortly afterwards our road led us across lonely Ot Moor, and through the quaint village of Oddington, quaint as becomes its quaint name. Here I inquired about Joseph's Stone, and was told that a big stone of that name once stood on the moor, but "it has been broken up"; nothing further of its history could I glean, nor found I any mention of it in any guide-book I afterwards consulted, nor in any other likely work, nor did any of my antiquarian friends know anything about it. I was disappointed. As the stone is not now there, has not been there, except in bits, for long years, why do they still mark it on the map? It is so provoking to see places marked on the map, and conspicuously marked, that arouse your curiosity, only to find they do not exist. It was the same on Salisbury Plain; there at a spot by the roadside between Wylye and Devizes was printed plainly on my map "St. John á Gores Cross." I believe that a wayside stone cross once stood there, but when that was no oneseems to know. Now there is no vestige of it, not even its stump in the ground. Possibly it was destroyed by the Puritans. Now, trusting to my map, I went miles out of my way purposely to see it. I look upon a map as a faithful friend, and one does not like to find a friend at fault.Now succeeded a level stretch of lowland country that had a look of Holland, excepting that the cottage homes by the way were distinctly not Dutch. A land where the eye had freedom to rove over wide spaces of green right away to a circling horizon of blue, and a wild wind swept over it, fresh, cool, and laden with the pungent scent of marsh flowers—as fresh and cool as the wind that sweeps over the sea, only without its salt savour. The wind was making holiday; it tossed the long grasses and reeds about, it bent down the hedges before it, it made mimic waves and Lilliputian tempests on the ponds that we passed. It is wind that gives life to a scene, and the strife of it stirred the blood in our veins. We rejoiced in the wind, for it came from the west, with just a suspicion of keenness, but no harshness, of greeting.In spite of the wind and the sur, sur, sur of it, the whole countryside gave me the impression of great quietude. I could allow for the wind—it would not blow so every day; few people were in the fields, and those few seemed to be taking life easy, contentedly doing little; the hedges were delightfully tangled, a disgrace to good farming it may be, but that is a matter apart. Perhaps they needed some pruning, but they best pleased myeye just wild as they were, growing as Nature would have them. It was a land to laze in, to do nothing in haste; only the wind stirred it up to a semblance of passion. There was no flow in the streams that one could perceive; it was a relief to come to a land that suggested nothing but rest. The interfering political economist might well shake his head at all this, but I was out for my pleasure, without a thought of what he might say. It was so peace-bestowing, and that was its charm. It was a land of health rather than a land of wealth—and who shall say that health is not the better thing?—a land that conformed to no canon of beauty, but none the less pleasing to me. I will wager that no one grew prematurely old from overwork in it: why should he? Mere money-making is the bane of the age; it gives a man no time to call his soul his own. "If a person," says Stevenson, "cannot be happy without remaining idle, idle he should remain. It is a revolutionary precept." It is. I do not go so far. I only protest against money-making at the price of much leisure, the making of money for money's sake only. I knew a man who toiled hard all the week at his desk in a stuffy city office at the cost of his health, and what for?—to keep up a needlessly pretentious home with gardeners and carriage. One day, he confessed to me, the folly of all this forcibly struck him; he had so little leisure to enjoy his family or home. He thought the matter carefully over and for long, and he came to the conclusion that by working half the time he should lose half his income; on theother hand, he would have half the week to himself that he could devote to his wife and the pleasures of home. So he gave up his large house, he dismissed his gardeners, he did away with his carriage, and took a pretty little cottage where, on his reduced income, he could live in comfort, though without the luxuries of gardeners and carriage; and his wife, too, had less cares in the management of a smaller home. So happy was he and every one in the new conditions that, though his partners laughed at him and deemed him a fool, he declared to me that nothing would induce him to return to his former slavery, as he called it. He was an infinitely happier man, his family were happier too, and he enjoyed such health as he had never known since he was a schoolboy free from all but fancied care.From this leisured land a stiff climb brought us on to high ground and into a lighter, more exciting air. On the lowland we were content to laze along, and desired to laze so; here we must needs speed for a while, for the country was open and things not seen in detail; for there is a pace at which you can best enjoy and appreciate the type of country passed through: here, not the foreground but the distance allured us. When you see far ahead, and all is revealed before you, as in a stretch of open road over a wide moorland, your eye is ever on the horizon that beckons you on to explore the unknown, and you cannot, if human, resist its attraction. That is the magic of distance.At a turn in the road, in a lonely spot, we caught a glimpse through branching trees of thegrey old tower of Boarstall: no longer the distance held us in thrall; its power was gone. Boarstall, with its four flanking and embattled towers, is all that remains of a once fortified house. There are narrow arrow-slits in the towers that show their ancientness, but the large front and mullioned side windows do not suggest so early a date or a place of much defensive strength; doubtless they were added in later years under a feeling of greater security. The house that stood in the moat-enclosed ground beyond has now wholly disappeared. Boarstall, however, was strengthened during the Civil Wars, well garrisoned, and held for the king. Lord Clarendon in hisHistory of the Rebellionsays: "Fairfax attempted to take a poor house near Boarstall, and was beaten from thence with considerable loss, so that he drew off his men, little to his credit." Before the siege the following correspondence took place between the commanders of the besiegers and the besieged:—Sir Thomas Fairfax to Sir William Campion3 June 1645.Sir—I send you this summons before I proceed to further extremities, to deliver up to me the house of Borstall you now hold, with all the ordinance, arms, and ammunition therein, for the use and service of the kingdom, which if you shall agree unto, you may expect civility and fair respect, otherwise you may draw upon yourself those inconveniences which I desire may be prevented. I expect your answer by this trumpet within one hour.—Your Servant,Thomas Fairfax.This is the spirited reply that Fairfax received to his summons:Sir William Campion to Sir Thomas FairfaxIn answer.Sir—You have sent me a summons of a surrender of this house for the service of the kingdom. I thought that cant had been long ere this very stale (considering the King's often declarations and protestations to the contrary), now sufficient only to cozen women and poor ignorant people: for your civilities, so far as they are consonant to my honour, I embrace: in this place I absolutely apprehend them as destructive not only to my honour, but also to my conscience. I am therefore ready to undergo all inconveniences whatsoever, rather than submit to any, much less those, so dishonourable and unworthy propositions, this is the resolution of, Sir, yours,William Campion.So the siege began.Boarstall Tower stands a picturesque reminder of "the brave days of old," with its embattled towers and weather-beaten walls. Crossing the broad and brimming moat by a stone bridge (with the date of 1735 upon it) that replaces the drawbridge of past times, I found the door locked, so I inquired of a farmhouse close by if it were possible to see the building. The maid who responded to my summons said she thought so, and presently returned with the key and permission to view it. Even with the key I found some difficulty in gaining admission, for the ancient and possibly rusty lock was hard to turn, and the door creaked complainingly on its hinges. Within, the building apparently has suffered little change since the Jacobean days: the towers contain dark circular stairs of stone, and odd and gloomy little rooms reached by narrow passages through the thickwalls; but there is one large, well-lighted, and even cheerful apartment on the top. Judging from the size of the gate-house, the original house which it served must have been one of some importance. Though Clarendon calls it "a poor house," I take it this was intended in a military sense. Boarstall must have been a thorn in the side of the Parliamentarians, not being far from Oxford, and by the "constant mischievous incursions of its garrison." The old tower makes a telling subject for the pencil, brush, or camera, as I trust my photograph proves. I hardly think Boarstall is as well known as it deserves to be. Situated in an out-of-the-way corner of the land, remote from main roads, it is not easy to find, but well worth finding.The tradition of the origin of the name Boarstall is curious. It appears that "once upon a time"—that convenient "once upon a time"—it was in the centre of the royal forest of Bemwode, and that "a tremendous wild boar, the terror of the inhabitants," haunted it, and was eventually slain by one Nigel, the forester, who as a reward received a grant of land by tenure of a horn, and on the land he built a house and called it "Borrestalle" in memory of the slain boar.BOARSTALL TOWER FROM THE MOAT.A little beyond Boarstall the country became wild and open again, and there before us, perched right on the top of a bleak, isolated hill, a hill much scarred with clay pits, stood the odd, little, out-of-date town of Brill. Odd, little, out-of-date town—that just describes it, there is no need for more words: on its hill stands one of, I think, the oldest windmills I have ever seen working, an ancient wooden structure with canvas sails, a mill of the kind the old masters put in their pictures, so old must it be. Brill at one time actually tried to transform itself into a fashionable watering-place, a spring of mineral waters having been discovered there, said by experts to be superior even to those of Bath. But the attempt turned out a failure; for the success of such an adventure a place needs something beyond a mere mineral spring. Prosperity and popularity require pretty or interesting surroundings, decent roads, and, above all, reasonable accessibility. Brill, though bracing in situation, has none of these other needful advantages. Yet a pretentious pump-room was built with every required accessory, including a spacious reception-room, all in the Doric style; these are now hastening to decay, and Brill is left to its solitude. Possibly if you asked the average man where Brill is, he would respond, "I never heard of the place." So should I have done before I discovered it and learnt the unfortunate history of its bold and, to me, apparently hopeless bid for popularity, of which nothing came. I am glad it did not, for it is a quaint old town, and deserves to remain so.Beyond Brill a winding lane brought us to Long Crendon that possesses an interesting old Court House of the fifteenth century, and a fine old Tudor gateway, and shortly after this we found ourselves at Thame, and there we took a by-road to our right that for some miles led us through a quiet, pastoral land, and eventually we came out on the mainLondon to Oxford road. Then we drove eastward. This portion of the Oxford road as far as to West Wycombe runs through very pleasant country, as the many motorists who travel it well know, affording in parts wide prospects over a well-wooded country and climbing the Chilterns with many windings through a fragrant forest of firs.At the hamlet of Tetsworth we noticed its rambling, brick-built, and time-dimmed old coaching inn, and on its ancient front a board inscribed "Petrol." How times have changed—petrol in place of corn and hay for the passing steed of many horse power, even forty at times; machinery in place of muscle! At another old coaching inn, on a previous journey, I noticed a bold advertisement that ran briefly thus, "Acres for Aeroplanes." I did not take this seriously, though there was ample space in the hostel's large and open field for the landing of aeroplanes; but that an ancient inn should display such a sign at all gave me food for thought. Twice during my journey did I wholly unexpectedly see an aeroplane flying overhead, on one occasion when I was stopping in a village; and though the village folk looked up to see it, attracted by the noise of its engines, I hardly think they regarded it with more curiosity, or as a thing more wonderful, than they regarded the motor-car when it first appeared on the road. The miracle of to-day is but the commonplace of to-morrow, and how soon it becomes the commonplace! "The Swan" at Tetsworth is a building of some size, and, though it still entertains wayfarers, has such a forlorn look that I felt quite sorryfor the poor old place. Once it was known as "the great inn at Tetsworth," and was the scene of much noisy revelry; when we were there we saw no sign of life about the place.To the ancient wayside tavernComes the noisy throng no more.Even the motor-car does not appear to have revived its fortunes. There we pulled up for petrol, not that we required it, but it was an excuse to linger about the old inn, for, though I cannot say exactly why, it mildly fascinated me; the building, old and weather-stained, with its broad front to the street, told its silent tale of past days and doings as eloquently and plainly as though it were told on the printed page. After much waiting I procured the petrol I did not want, and, more to the point, I obtained a glance within at the inn's ancient chambers; they had a faded, antiquated look, not, to me, altogether displeasing; I think I could have spent the night at "The Swan" quite comfortably had I needed. It is an inn of memories.Then followed a level stretch of open, cheerful, and sunlit road, with extensive prospects over a rich green land to a long line of low and undulating hills; after this a winding ascent through fragrant woods brought us presently to the bleak little village of Stokenchurch, situated high up on the top of the Chilterns, and there I caught sight of another old decayed coaching inn, but, to my eye, this was a hard-featured, unattractive building, wholly lacking in that peculiar, indescribable character that suggestsa romantic past, for buildings have their characters as well as men: some appeal to you, some do not.A little beyond Stokenchurch began the long and steep descent of the famous Dashwood Hill, at the foot of which we found ourselves in the sleepy village of West Wycombe, with one or two rather curious old houses, but having nothing else to boast of. High Wycombe succeeded to West Wycombe; there is but a short and an uninteresting mile or two between them. High Wycombe is an old-fashioned, wide-streeted town, as those who travel the Oxford road are aware, with rather a quaint, much-mellowed, red-brick market-hall raised on stone arches. At High Wycombe the curious custom of Michaelmas hiring still prevails and flourishes. I think a short account of this that I cull from a local paper of the past year may prove interesting:—Yesterday one of the oldest Michaelmas hiring fairs in England was witnessed in our ancient market-place. From a wide radius, including parts of the three counties of Bucks, Berks, and Oxon, farmers and agricultural employees in all spheres flocked into the town early in the morning. The attendance was large, and there was a general disposition to "change hands," though the average terms of remuneration showed very little alteration. Several old-time customs still prevail, both at the hiring and in regard to the conditions upon which the farm hands are engaged for the ensuing twelve months. For instance, ploughmen decorate their button-holes with pieces of whipcord to denote their distinctive calling, shepherds display tufts of wool in their forelocks and their caps, and other farm hands utilise horsehair and fancy ribbons and rosettes for their personal adornment.A good deal of time was occupied in making the best terms,and in accordance with the precedent of many years' standing, the engagements were conditional on the supplying of beer, or harvest money in its place.Leaving High Wycombe we followed a while the side of the little river Wye that turns an ancient mill on its way, and across the river rose some of the beautiful beech-clad hills for which Buckinghamshire is so justly famed. There is something about the form and growth of the close-leafed beech that causes it to clothe the hills with a graceful and following contour that no other tree does.Now an unattractive five miles of road, with a climb on the way and at the end of it, brought us to the elevated and breezy little town of Beaconsfield that, considering it is within twenty-four miles of London, has retained its ancient air surprisingly; for its low, old houses, that face its wide and quiet street, still possess a pleasant and ancient look that charms. The town seems almost as remote and dreamy as though it were somewhere far away in the distant shires. May it long retain its primitive character! but I doubt it, for the railway has at last found it out.
CHAPTER XVIA gruesome carving—Architectural tit-bits—An ancient and historic hostelry—Chipping Norton—Wychwood—A parson's story—"Timothying"—Shipton-under-Wychwood—On the Cotswolds—"The grey old town" of Burford—Two old manor-houses—A new profession—Highworth—Church relics.I left Banbury one sunshiny morning, shaking "the very dust" of the town from my wheels "as a testimony against it," and driving by its modern cross I took the road before me, letting it lead me where it would. Out of Banbury I would go the nearest way. The road climbed Wickham Hill and then dropped sharply down to the quiet old-world village of Bloxham, that boasts of one of the many "finest parish churches" in the kingdom. How many are there, I wonder? Certainly it is a fine church and has a fine spire; this all must grant. I thought it worthy of inspection. I found its windows guiltless of stained glass excepting for two in the chancel, but this was not a matter to grieve about, for I much prefer plain glass to the rubbishy modern stained variety one too often comes upon, and that so offends the cultured eye by its garish crudity. A peep of the blue sky, of green trees and of even the rain, framed by the graceful tracery of aGothic window, is more to my mind than visions of stiffly posed angular saints with ill-fitting halos round their heads; I have always an uneasy feeling that the halos may tumble off. Not that all modern stained and painted glass is bad, but most of it is—hopelessly bad; its drawing when rarely correct is spiritless, it lacks inspiration; its colouring lacks richness; so unlike the lovely medieval stained glass, it has no gem-like qualities whatever. I honestly find difficulty in worshipping in a church with angular saints in ill-fitting robes and halos askew staring at me! It seems more the idea of a sinner doing penance than a saint glorified.I noticed in the church a carved and coloured screen with some faded figures on it, and on the wall of a side chapel hung two old helmets and breastplates, somewhat rusty. I love to see ancient armour hanging in our churches, it takes the mind back to the days of knightly chivalry and recalls the never-returning romance of them—not the romance of fancy, but the romance of a past reality. Outside the church I found some open stone steps leading to two priests' chambers, one chamber over the other, but what interested me most was its richly sculptured west front; at the top of this are some good but unfortunately much weather-worn grinning gargoyles, for Time has been at work on these and has supplemented the carving of the monks with his, even, it may be, adding to their grotesqueness. Over and round the top of the big doorway is a quaint and gruesome representation of the resurrection, showing dead men rising from their coffins, one man beingrepresented as lifting the lid of his and peering out with a look of genuine surprise as though he did not realise what was happening; others had risen and were kneeling on the ground with hands folded in the attitude of prayer, and all looked very much aghast. Skilful indeed was the hand of the medieval sculptor to obtain these expressions. It was a nightmare in carving, crudely done but startlingly effective. I am glad I do not attend that church and have to face each Sunday that terrible story in stone; it is enough to wish death the end of all. When men could not read the monks talked to them in carving, though rarely so horribly as this; mostly those monks were in a jovial mood, and so I prefer them, as witness their grinning gargoyles, their merry devils, and frequent mirthful representations of men in the dumps; they were artists of no mean order, and verily, I believe, in their hearts loved a joke better than a sermon: truly they joked far better than they preached, for their preaching seems forced—not so their jokes! To the right of the doorway there is a curious carving of a man entering the jaws of some unearthly monster; the drift of this was wholly beyond me—surely it could not have been intended for Jonah being swallowed by the whale, for the monster's head, and that was all there was of him, bore no resemblance to that of a whale or to any creature that ever walked the earth or swam the sea, unless doubtfully in the prehistoric ages. A local rhyme perpetuates the character of the spire of this church with two of its near neighbours thus:Bloxham for length,Adderbury for strength,And King's Sutton for beauty.The next village of South Newington, a village of stone-built cottages with thatched roofs, had by way of contrast a very small and poor church with square-headed windows, not those of the usual pointed Gothic type. I did not trouble to inspect it, though generally the poorest little country church can boast of some architectural feature more or less interesting. I came to a country church with only one point of interest, and that was a narrow priests' doorway gracefully designed; I presume it served the priests of past times, but I was told there was one parson of the good old Georgian days who could not use it because he was too fat! So he could not enter by the "narrow way," but had to go through the porch like any sinner.Doorways in human habitations are often the keynote to the character of the house, and I was tempted in some of the country villages I passed through to photograph a few of their ancient doorways, for they interested me; two of these photographs, reproduced, will be found in pages farther on. The one of the fourteenth century is noteworthy, for it is a rare thing for so ancient a doorway to belong to a dwelling-house. I gathered the house had originally been a pre-Reformation vicarage; now it makes a quaint and picturesque home, with its low stone-slated roof, its mullioned windows, and its ivy-clad walls, boasting too the bloom of age that so beautifies a building. The other shows a simple type of Tudor doorway with steps up to it from the village street, but, though so simple and devoid of ornament, it is so well proportioned that it both pleases and satisfies the eye. I am rather fond of photographing architectural bits that take my fancy, and the English country abounds in such bits, apart from the larger features of buildings. It is curious to note how different districts afford and abound in special subjects: here you find ancient pigeon-cotes, often centuries old, of some pretence, and frequently most picturesque; here the minor items of sun-dials and of artistically wrought weather-vanes are most in evidence; at another spot you discover interesting "lion-guarded" gateways and picturesque doorways; again, it may be, it is the inn signs, with their crudely painted signboards and their elaborate scroll-work of wrought iron that surrounds them, that attract your attention; here a gazebo, and there an ancient roofed-in village fountain, claims your notice; anon a quaint conceit in carving on church or house, and so forth, not to waste space in needlessly enumerating the many and varied architectural tit-bits the wanderer by road constantly comes across, nor need he keep his eyes very wide open to discover them.THE PRIEST'S DOORWAY.After South Newington we had another long stretch of very lonely road, but charming on account of its loneliness; the country we passed through was elevated and undulating and afforded us many fine and far-reaching prospects. There were wide margins of grass by the sides of our road, so wide in places as to be almost fields; on these multitudes of silly sheep were grazing—I say silly,for when they heard the car approaching they would quietly cross the road in front of us, first one, then another, then the whole flock in slow procession, causing us to make many a stop, for sheep and cattle are lords of the road; they used even to stop a king's mails in the days of yore. These sheep really seemed to do it out of sheer perversity, and it was the more provoking as the otherwise forsaken road was so tempting to speed along, and occasionally, when all is safe, a turn of speed is a very inspiriting thing; it wipes the cobwebs from the brain, it drives the good fresh air into the lungs, it stimulates the mind, and braces the body. Not that I am an advocate of speed, except as a rare indulgence on lonely roads when there can be no hurt in it, and so you may test the mettle of your car.Then we came to the old mail and turnpike highway from London to Birmingham; this crossed our road at a lonely, bleak, and elevated spot close to which formerly stood the once flourishing "Chapel House Inn"; the building still stands there indeed, but it has been converted into a residence: an inn of wide renown in the old road-travelling days, where the Birmingham coaches changed horses and stopped whilst their passengers dined; an inn far famous for its fare and its wines—so good were the latter that it has been said, and I see no reason to doubt the saying, that "there was a strong temptation to indulge in them which was rarely resisted, even the king's cellars could produce nothing better," and there over their wines our ancestors doubtless made merry as was their wont. Atleast they enjoyed their lives. It was to this inn that Dr. Johnson and Boswell came in a postchaise during the early summer of 1776, and it was then when posting across country that the former, lover of towns though he was, suddenly exclaimed, "Life has little better to offer than this." It was on the same day, whilst dining at the "Chapel House Inn," that the learned doctor delivered his much-quoted eulogy on inns: "There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well as in a capital tavern," declared he. "You are sure of a welcome, and the more noise you make, the more good things you call for, the more trouble you give, the welcomer you are. There is nothing that has been invented by man by which so much happiness is produced as a good tavern or inn." What road traveller will not re-echo those sentiments?—though I grieve for the one who can honestly say with Shenstone he has found his "warmest welcome at an inn," however warm the welcome at his inn may be.About Chapel House many stories, astonishing and otherwise, truthful and untruthful, of old days and old ways are told; but though sadly tempted to relate some of these, I refrain, for I find I am always writing about inns. It does not do to keep harping on one subject, to be for ever "spinning your own wheel." I know a man, and a very good-natured, clubbable man is he, but even he gets bored by listening to one tune too long; his sole crime is that he is not a golfer—it is a serious one, I own. Now at his club he frequently meets a golfing friend who will talk golf and nothing else as long as anyman will listen to him, just as some fishermen and motorists enlarge about their hobby. Now my friend had listened long times patiently to the golfer's endless stories, but when one day the golfer complained that he was suffering badly from a "golfer's arm," my friend exclaimed, "I have suffered from a worse disease than that, 'golfer's jaw.'" Now I do not wish my readers to suffer from my "jaw" about inns.From Chapel House we dropped down to Chipping Norton, a quiet, clean, contented-looking little town, and that I think sufficiently describes it. As Clarendon remarked of Aldermaston, it is "a town out of any great road," though near to one. So perhaps on that account it has no special history.Beyond Chipping Norton the country grew lonely again, delightfully, restfully lonely, and all the way we went to Shipton-under-Wychwood I do not find a single house marked on my excellent and accurate map. We were in a bleak stone country, where stone walls take the place of hedges, and where the landscape bears a Cotswold look. Those who know the Cotswolds know what that look is, a rarely pleasant one to me in the summer time, with a sense of openness about it; and how fresh and free and bracing are the airs that blow over the Cotswold hills. There you can keep cool in the hottest weather. Is there not an old saying that at "Stow-on-the-Wold, the wind always blows cold"? It is a truthful one as far as my experience goes, for I have passed through Stow on the hottest of summer days and found it none too warm there even then.By degrees we descended into a valley and into a warmer atmosphere, and crossing the little river Evenlode (of which I had not heard before, so does a driving tour extend one's knowledge of one's own country) we found ourselves in the attractive and interesting village of Shipton-under-Wychwood, but of the once wild Wychwood forest, formerly a royal hunting ground, there is not much to boast of left—sufficient, however, to earn for it to-day the title of "The Forest Country of Oxfordshire." There is a story told of a traveller in the pre-railway days whose road took him close by Wychwood, and he asked of a boy the name of the wood. "Wychwood," the boy replied. "Which wood?" the traveller exclaimed. "Why, that wood, you fool," pointing with his finger to it. Again he received the same reply. Once more the traveller repeated his query and received the same reply again; whereupon the traveller grew wroth, and deeming the boy was making fun of him, got down from his horse and soundly boxed his ears. One story calls forth another. This I had from a parson on my journey. It appears that one of his parishioners was over-fond of frequenting the public-house, and one day finding him coming out of it the parson said to him, "Williams, why do you go to the public-house so often?" To which the non-abashed Williams made reply, "Because they sell good ale there," and then he quoted the Bible to the parson. "You know, sir, the Bible tells us 'Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake'—now I cannot afford wine, so I drink ale"; and the parson was hardput how to answer him. It appears that the villagers there employ the expression "Timothying" when they have been drinking. Still another story of a parson I was told occurs to me; this may be an old one, but it is one I have not heard before, nor seen it in print. It appears that this parson had recently lost his only son, to whom he was devoted, and was preaching on the text of Abraham offering up his son Isaac as a sacrifice, and during the sermon his feelings so overcame him that thus unknowingly he delivered himself: "And it was his son, his only son; now if it had only been a sheep or a daughter."I found so much to interest me in Shipton, for there I noticed some old stone buildings, now forming part of what I took to be a farmyard, buildings with Gothic windows of good design and a graceful Gothic doorway in their walls; these could hardly be mere farm-buildings. That they possessed some history was from their character highly probable, but of that history, if there was any, I could glean nothing; as usual, nobody knew anything about them but that "they be very old." That appears to be the stock reply of the villager when you question him about such things. Then I wandered to the church a little way off, and there, for a wonder, I found the clerk within, "tidying up," as he called it. There was not much of interest in the church except a gruesome brass of a figure in a shroud, dated 1548, and a gloomy priest's chamber above the porch, reached by a dark stone stairway. This chamber, the clerk told me, was eight hundred years old; in truth it had an ancient look. Hanging on the wall, though why it should find a place there I could not understand, was a long-winded and framed account of the life of "John Foxe the Martyrologist born 1517," leaving no particulars of his life untold, I gathered from a hasty glance at it.DOORWAY OF THE CROWN INN, SHIPTON-UNDER-WYCHWOOD.In the village stands a very ancient inn with a weather-worn aspect and a pathetic look of having seen better days, for its architectural features suggest it has been a house of some importance in times past. The old inn possesses a fine, early, and well-preserved high-pointed Tudor archway that, with its big door below with long exterior hinges, the quaint little two-lighted window by its side, and the old-fashioned mounting-block in front, presents a pleasing bit of ancient architecture. My photograph, here reproduced, will give some idea of this ancient doorway and of the quaint little window shown to the right of it. On leaving the village I caught to the left a delightful vision of a stately, many-gabled, stone-built Elizabethan home, standing in its pleasant park at a friendly short distance from the road. Shipton Court was, I learnt, the name of this picture in stone, for it is a home and a picture in one. Very beautiful did the building look with the warm sunshine resting upon it, for, though ancient, the house had a cheerful countenance; there was nothing gloomy or ghostly about it, nothing mysterious or suggestive of legend, but the word Home was written largely on it.Beyond Shipton we rose on to high ground andfound ourselves in a breezy open country. Again our road was a deserted one. Few people appear to travel the byways of the Cotswolds, yet, within the same distance of London, nowhere else, I think, can such spacious solitudes be found, such wide and glorious sweeps of uplands and valleys stretching far away into dim and dreamy distances where the round hills seem to melt into the sky. The Cotswolds always delight me, for on them I realise the sense of solitude, silence, and space—a solitude that would satisfy an anchorite. Not that I love solitude except as a restful and occasional change from the burden of too much society; even when I was enjoying my solitude that day I had still a thought for the company I hoped to meet that night at my inn, and a thought of home and family when I returned to them.After a time we dropped down to the lonely, ancient town of Burford, forgotten by the railway; but Burford does not mind, it exists quite well without the railway. There the little town lay before us, hidden in a hollow, at the foot of the hill, and we looked down upon its uneven roof-trees, and on the silvery Windrush quietly flowing by. Of all the old-world Cotswold towns none has a greater charm than Burford. Thus sings one of its many lovers:O fair is Moreton in the MarshAnd Stow on the wide wold,But fairer far is Burford townWith its stone roofs grey and old.And he calls it "The grey old town on the lonelydown." But Burford is not on the lonely down—far from it; it lies sheltered, half forgotten, deep in a hollow; a place of peace.At Burford Speaker Lenthall lived, and his home, painted by Waller, stands there to-day a little removed from the quiet street—a fine specimen of Jacobean architecture. Burford church is one of the finest of the many fine Cotswold churches raised by the pious and prosperous wool merchants of the country, and contains the truly magnificent tomb, in a chapel all to itself, of Sir Lawrence Tanfelde (deceased 1625), besides many other fine monuments. The church was turned into a prison for his captives by Cromwell, after his fight with the Banbury Levellers here, who outdid Cromwell himself in zeal and struggle against authority. At "The George Inn" here Charles I. slept on his retreat from Oxford to Worcester, and on the glass of a window, in the upper room of the same inn, there was, and may be now for aught I know, the diamond-scratched name of Samuel Pepys below the date of 1666, though whether this be genuine or a forgery perhaps no man now can say; if a forgery, it is a clever imitation of that famous Diarist's signature. So Burford, though much out of the world to-day, was not always so. It has witnessed stirring events, it has welcomed and entertained many famous travellers, and people of renown have lived within its walls. All the roads into Burford are hilly, all the stages into the town are long and trying for horses, so that in the past coaching, posting, and horseback days horses coming there were usually given an extra allowance ofcorn; hence probably arose the local proverb, "To take a Burford bait," meaning to make a big meal.It was a steep climb out of Burford, at the top of which we crossed the old highway from London to Gloucester and South Wales that runs for many miles on the undulating ridge of the hills. The Cotswolds are little given to change, and much as the country looks now it must have looked to our coach-travelling ancestors, excepting that to-day long lines of telegraph poles faithfully follow the road in long array lessening to the horizon, and the sound of the wind on the wires as we passed was like the hum of innumerable bees, and it broke pleasantly the silence of the hills.At the corner of the highway, just where our road crossed, I noticed a large board set up with a boldly lettered inscription on it, and this is what I read there:Only a few yards to the North is one of the most ancient towns to be seen in this part of the Country. It has historical associations of the most interesting nature. Its church is renowned for its beauty.Thus Burford appeals to the hurrying motorists who speed upon this fine highway. I should not have thought Burford would have done any such thing; it appears to me a little undignified; yet without such a notice the motorists mentioned would doubtless rush along heedless of the ancient, grey old town that sleeps so peacefully in the hollow below. Still, I trust other interesting towns off the highway will not take this as a precedent, else we shall haveall England turned into a sort of gigantic peep-show.Now we got on to a wilderness of lanes, mostly narrow and rough of surface, but they took us into an old-world land of stone-built villages, very ancient, very grey, and past many a time-mellowed home that hinted of legend. One rambling, neglected-looking old home especially took my fancy, with its great gables, clustering chimneys, and shapely stone diamond-paned windows; it had such a look of mystery about it, high-walled in as it was, and half hidden from the road, and over its porch the lichens had traced strange hieroglyphics. There appeared to be no life about the place, though a film of smoke uprose from one tall, solitary chimney. An ancient manor-house fallen to decay—A jolly place in days of old,But something ails it now; the place is curst.In its forsaken courtyard stood a tumble-down pigeon-cote of some size, so that I knew it had been a manor-house, for in the medieval days no lesser personage than the lord of the manor had the right of pigeonry, and the pigeon-cote was very ancient. Unfortunately, owing to the high wall without and the trees that had grown up at their own sweet will close around it, I was unable satisfactorily to photograph the old house. Some day I hope to re-discover it and to see if I can trace anything of its history.Another fine old manor-house I came to I found has also fallen on to evil days and was doing duty as a farmhouse, the farmer and his wife inhabitingbut a small portion of it. By happy chance I came across the farmer in a field and I got a-chatting with him, first diplomatically about the weather and the crops; neither were satisfactory to him—I hardly thought they would be—but I listened to his complaints about both, and to his complaints about the low price of produce. I listened patiently, and I think my patience pleased—I had "an axe to grind." Then I led up to the old house and ventured to remark what a picturesque place it was. "It's all right to look at," said he, "but it's not good to live in. It's too big, and it's so draughty, and it's so cold and damp in winter, it would take a fortune to keep fires going over it to warm it properly. There's only the wife and self lives in it, and it would hold a large family, and they would only fill a part of it. Would you care to take a glance inside?" Now that is just what I wanted. I said I would. In truth it was a rambling old house. We entered by a large hall, with a fine old carved oak but much damaged fireplace at one end, and dog-irons on the wide hearth below. I could fancy that in the old days, when the lord of the manor lived there, merry were the doings and the dances that took place in that now vacant hall; the very thought of such things made it, in its bareness, look the more forsaken. One wing, where the farmer lived, was furnished fairly comfortably; the rest of the mansion, divided from it by the hall, was a very picture of desolation. Even the once strong oak staircase was shaky, and the floors of the rooms were in places so rotten that it was hardly safe to tread on them; in some thepanelling was tumbling from the walls, and in others the bare walls were adorned with cobwebs, erst doubtless covered with tapestry. Such is the fate of some old houses that have come down in the world, but there are others that have fortunately found purchasers and have been restored to something of their ancient dignity. I know at least a good dozen fine old houses of the Elizabethan and Jacobean days that had fallen to decay, but which have been so restored by loving hands that they now form delightful and picturesque homes, and yet have not lost the charm of their ancient look.I met a man, when house-hunting for a friend some little time ago, who confided to me that he made it a business of buying any ruinous old house, if of any architectural merit and agreeably situated, that was for sale at a low price—"and many such houses fetch low prices," he said, "often, the land apart, not more than the value of their materials; sometimes these old houses possess a bit of interesting history, but that goes for nothing"; and purely as a speculation, though the speculation was not without its pleasure, he skilfully restored it, as far as possible, to its pristine estate, and he had done this each time at a considerable profit on the sale of the restored house. "I call myself a house improver," he said, with a laugh, "quite a novel and paying profession." This confession was made to me whilst looking over an interesting old Jacobean house that he had recently purchased and restored, and exceedingly well had he done it. "This," he explained, "had been let and occupiedas a farmhouse for years, and little care was taken of it; as you see, it is a picturesque old building, but it was in a dreadful state when I bought it—indeed at first I almost thought it was beyond restoration. I have spent a lot of money on it, but I expect to get it all back with a fair margin of profit. Here you see an ancient house with a formal garden to match, and even an old-fashioned sun-dial in it, to say nothing of the Haddon Hall-like terrace, and all this cost me a lot; but one has to do the thing properly or you may make a failure of it, and this house is ready for occupation. Meanwhile I make it my home; I must live somewhere, and here I abide till I find a purchaser. Then I shall go in search of another old house to restore. The idea of doing such a thing came quite accidentally to me; originally I purchased an old house and restored it for my own occupation, but I had so many unsought offers for it at a big figure, nearly double what it cost me altogether, that I was tempted to sell it. Then I bought another old house and restored it in the same way, and that I sold at a substantial profit; so now I have made a trade of doing this. Look at the panelling of these rooms, all of seasoned oak, a careful copy of old panelling of the period, every bit done by adze and hand; the hinges and locks, too, are copies of old ones I found in the house. I have opened up all the fireplaces, and on removing the modern grates I luckily discovered the open hearths behind; the firebacks are all castings from old ones, and the fire-dogs are copies too fromfine past specimens. The whole thing has been properly done. I have pulled down all the plaster ceilings and revealed the old rafters. The one or two sash windows I found I have replaced with mullion ones, so now you have before you the house much as it looked when first built over two centuries ago." This was quite a new way to me of making a living, or a fortune, but one learns many unexpected things when travelling by road.To some there is a potent magnetism, an irresistible fascination about certain old houses, a subtle influence from which there is no escape. I confess to it myself. I have lived in them and love them. Of course there are old houses and old houses; not all possess this peculiar power to charm, and only those of the Elizabethan or Jacobean period, with their panelled halls and chambers, their beamed ceilings, their great gables, their clustering chimneys, their many mullioned windows and big fireplaces, hold it over me. Those of the Queen Anne or Georgian age leave me cold; they are too formal; they lack the sense of mystery and atmosphere of romance. The old moated granges pictured in the Christmas numbers of theIllustrated London Newsof many years back, how they charmed me when a boy! What romances about them did not I weave to myself! I thought they were only artists' dreams, but since I have happily discovered them actually existing. I shall never forget the thrill of delightful surprise the first discovery of the kind gave me; I could hardly believe my eyes,yet there before me stood an ancient moated home, grey, gabled, and ivy-clad, with a broken bell-turret on its lichen-laden roof, its leaded-light windows reflecting the sunlight, and its big chimney-stacks rising boldly up against the sky; nor shall I forget the special moment when I crossed the deep moat by a moss-grown bridge and knocked at the great oak and nail-studded door. I felt like one in a dream, that this could not be a reality, and that I should suddenly wake up and find myself deceived, disenchanted, and in the commonplace world again. Happily it was no vain imagining.But I am digressing. We were wandering on winding lanes south of Burford when I began this overlong digression, and on that maze of lanes we wandered for some miles—many they seemed to me; first in one direction, then in another we went, without arriving anywhere. All the same, it was very pleasant wandering through a land purely given over to agriculture, somnolent and restful. At last we reached a fair road, and this took us to the little Wiltshire town of Highworth, boldly set on a hill, so that we could see it from afar long before we came to it, its grey church tower and irregular roofed houses outlined sharply against the sky. Seen thus the town looked like those one finds in early engravings.A clean, homely, dreamy little town is Highworth, very ancient, even quaint in parts, and this in spite of the fact that a branch line of railway has found it out; but so far the railway does not appear to have disturbed its old-world tranquillityThere I halted a while at "The Saracen's Head," a relic of the old coaching days, and the inn, like the town, seemed half asleep. Then I took a quiet walk round the place, and eventually found my way to the church; there appeared to be nothing else noteworthy there except the old houses and old shops, and these, though they grouped well and made a picturesque whole, were not individually of much interest. So it was I strolled into the church, and there I found the clerk: twice running had I done this unusual thing. I bade him good-morning. He told me he was looking after a bat that had got into the roof of the building and was making a mess there. I have heard of owls in a church tower, but here was a bat in the church itself. "How are you going to catch the bat?" queried I, for he had no ladder, and he believed the bat was somewhere hidden in the beams above. "That's just what I want to know," he replied. "I'm thinking it over; meanwhile I'll show you the church if you like." I thought he might as well do this whilst he was thinking, so I accepted his services. The first thing I noticed was a cannon-ball hanging by three chains from a bracket on the wall; there must be some story attached to that, I thought, and there was. It was another of Cromwell's countless cannon-balls—I have long ago lost count of the many I have seen. "That," said the clerk, "was fired against the church by Cromwell, and it lodged in the tower. I can show you the hole it made there where it struck." Then I learnt that the churchhad been fortified and held for Charles I., was besieged by the Parliamentarians, who eventually captured it, taking seventy prisoners; the earthworks a little beyond the town, where the cannon was mounted, are still to be made out. Those were stirring times for the countryside; the district between Oxford and Worcester had its full share in them, and in some parts of it the fighting raged furiously."Now I think I can show you something that will interest you," exclaimed the clerk; then he pointed out the ancient oak and much worm-eaten stalls (of the thirteenth century, he said they were), and called my attention to a quaint carving on one of them of a mermaid admiring herself in a handglass; but what interested me more than this were the ancient helmet and sword of the Baston family suspended against the wall, and still of greater interest a silk tabard belonging to the same Baston family that was worn over the armour with a coat-of-arms worked on it: this was needful in order to distinguish the mail-clad warriors one from another. The tabard, preserved now in a glass frame, is much decayed and faded, but still a lion boldly worked thereon is visible. I understood that this tabard was discovered stowed away somewhere in the church, and that the vicar had it framed and hung up there, and I commend the action of the vicar. Many of our old churches contain, to this day, treasures of various kinds hidden away and forgotten in oak chests and cupboards, and even lost amongst lumber. There was, too, a priest-chamberbelonging to the church, with the usual stone steps leading to it, but this special chamber had the uncommon luxury of a washing place. I noticed when leaving a curious bit of bold sculpture over the entrance doorway; in the dim light of the moment I could not very certainly make out what the carving was about, but I read a notice beneath it stating that it was probably a Norman Tympanon. There I bade the clerk good-day. I wondered how he was going to catch that bat!
A gruesome carving—Architectural tit-bits—An ancient and historic hostelry—Chipping Norton—Wychwood—A parson's story—"Timothying"—Shipton-under-Wychwood—On the Cotswolds—"The grey old town" of Burford—Two old manor-houses—A new profession—Highworth—Church relics.
I left Banbury one sunshiny morning, shaking "the very dust" of the town from my wheels "as a testimony against it," and driving by its modern cross I took the road before me, letting it lead me where it would. Out of Banbury I would go the nearest way. The road climbed Wickham Hill and then dropped sharply down to the quiet old-world village of Bloxham, that boasts of one of the many "finest parish churches" in the kingdom. How many are there, I wonder? Certainly it is a fine church and has a fine spire; this all must grant. I thought it worthy of inspection. I found its windows guiltless of stained glass excepting for two in the chancel, but this was not a matter to grieve about, for I much prefer plain glass to the rubbishy modern stained variety one too often comes upon, and that so offends the cultured eye by its garish crudity. A peep of the blue sky, of green trees and of even the rain, framed by the graceful tracery of aGothic window, is more to my mind than visions of stiffly posed angular saints with ill-fitting halos round their heads; I have always an uneasy feeling that the halos may tumble off. Not that all modern stained and painted glass is bad, but most of it is—hopelessly bad; its drawing when rarely correct is spiritless, it lacks inspiration; its colouring lacks richness; so unlike the lovely medieval stained glass, it has no gem-like qualities whatever. I honestly find difficulty in worshipping in a church with angular saints in ill-fitting robes and halos askew staring at me! It seems more the idea of a sinner doing penance than a saint glorified.
I noticed in the church a carved and coloured screen with some faded figures on it, and on the wall of a side chapel hung two old helmets and breastplates, somewhat rusty. I love to see ancient armour hanging in our churches, it takes the mind back to the days of knightly chivalry and recalls the never-returning romance of them—not the romance of fancy, but the romance of a past reality. Outside the church I found some open stone steps leading to two priests' chambers, one chamber over the other, but what interested me most was its richly sculptured west front; at the top of this are some good but unfortunately much weather-worn grinning gargoyles, for Time has been at work on these and has supplemented the carving of the monks with his, even, it may be, adding to their grotesqueness. Over and round the top of the big doorway is a quaint and gruesome representation of the resurrection, showing dead men rising from their coffins, one man beingrepresented as lifting the lid of his and peering out with a look of genuine surprise as though he did not realise what was happening; others had risen and were kneeling on the ground with hands folded in the attitude of prayer, and all looked very much aghast. Skilful indeed was the hand of the medieval sculptor to obtain these expressions. It was a nightmare in carving, crudely done but startlingly effective. I am glad I do not attend that church and have to face each Sunday that terrible story in stone; it is enough to wish death the end of all. When men could not read the monks talked to them in carving, though rarely so horribly as this; mostly those monks were in a jovial mood, and so I prefer them, as witness their grinning gargoyles, their merry devils, and frequent mirthful representations of men in the dumps; they were artists of no mean order, and verily, I believe, in their hearts loved a joke better than a sermon: truly they joked far better than they preached, for their preaching seems forced—not so their jokes! To the right of the doorway there is a curious carving of a man entering the jaws of some unearthly monster; the drift of this was wholly beyond me—surely it could not have been intended for Jonah being swallowed by the whale, for the monster's head, and that was all there was of him, bore no resemblance to that of a whale or to any creature that ever walked the earth or swam the sea, unless doubtfully in the prehistoric ages. A local rhyme perpetuates the character of the spire of this church with two of its near neighbours thus:
Bloxham for length,Adderbury for strength,And King's Sutton for beauty.
The next village of South Newington, a village of stone-built cottages with thatched roofs, had by way of contrast a very small and poor church with square-headed windows, not those of the usual pointed Gothic type. I did not trouble to inspect it, though generally the poorest little country church can boast of some architectural feature more or less interesting. I came to a country church with only one point of interest, and that was a narrow priests' doorway gracefully designed; I presume it served the priests of past times, but I was told there was one parson of the good old Georgian days who could not use it because he was too fat! So he could not enter by the "narrow way," but had to go through the porch like any sinner.
Doorways in human habitations are often the keynote to the character of the house, and I was tempted in some of the country villages I passed through to photograph a few of their ancient doorways, for they interested me; two of these photographs, reproduced, will be found in pages farther on. The one of the fourteenth century is noteworthy, for it is a rare thing for so ancient a doorway to belong to a dwelling-house. I gathered the house had originally been a pre-Reformation vicarage; now it makes a quaint and picturesque home, with its low stone-slated roof, its mullioned windows, and its ivy-clad walls, boasting too the bloom of age that so beautifies a building. The other shows a simple type of Tudor doorway with steps up to it from the village street, but, though so simple and devoid of ornament, it is so well proportioned that it both pleases and satisfies the eye. I am rather fond of photographing architectural bits that take my fancy, and the English country abounds in such bits, apart from the larger features of buildings. It is curious to note how different districts afford and abound in special subjects: here you find ancient pigeon-cotes, often centuries old, of some pretence, and frequently most picturesque; here the minor items of sun-dials and of artistically wrought weather-vanes are most in evidence; at another spot you discover interesting "lion-guarded" gateways and picturesque doorways; again, it may be, it is the inn signs, with their crudely painted signboards and their elaborate scroll-work of wrought iron that surrounds them, that attract your attention; here a gazebo, and there an ancient roofed-in village fountain, claims your notice; anon a quaint conceit in carving on church or house, and so forth, not to waste space in needlessly enumerating the many and varied architectural tit-bits the wanderer by road constantly comes across, nor need he keep his eyes very wide open to discover them.
THE PRIEST'S DOORWAY.
THE PRIEST'S DOORWAY.
THE PRIEST'S DOORWAY.
After South Newington we had another long stretch of very lonely road, but charming on account of its loneliness; the country we passed through was elevated and undulating and afforded us many fine and far-reaching prospects. There were wide margins of grass by the sides of our road, so wide in places as to be almost fields; on these multitudes of silly sheep were grazing—I say silly,for when they heard the car approaching they would quietly cross the road in front of us, first one, then another, then the whole flock in slow procession, causing us to make many a stop, for sheep and cattle are lords of the road; they used even to stop a king's mails in the days of yore. These sheep really seemed to do it out of sheer perversity, and it was the more provoking as the otherwise forsaken road was so tempting to speed along, and occasionally, when all is safe, a turn of speed is a very inspiriting thing; it wipes the cobwebs from the brain, it drives the good fresh air into the lungs, it stimulates the mind, and braces the body. Not that I am an advocate of speed, except as a rare indulgence on lonely roads when there can be no hurt in it, and so you may test the mettle of your car.
Then we came to the old mail and turnpike highway from London to Birmingham; this crossed our road at a lonely, bleak, and elevated spot close to which formerly stood the once flourishing "Chapel House Inn"; the building still stands there indeed, but it has been converted into a residence: an inn of wide renown in the old road-travelling days, where the Birmingham coaches changed horses and stopped whilst their passengers dined; an inn far famous for its fare and its wines—so good were the latter that it has been said, and I see no reason to doubt the saying, that "there was a strong temptation to indulge in them which was rarely resisted, even the king's cellars could produce nothing better," and there over their wines our ancestors doubtless made merry as was their wont. Atleast they enjoyed their lives. It was to this inn that Dr. Johnson and Boswell came in a postchaise during the early summer of 1776, and it was then when posting across country that the former, lover of towns though he was, suddenly exclaimed, "Life has little better to offer than this." It was on the same day, whilst dining at the "Chapel House Inn," that the learned doctor delivered his much-quoted eulogy on inns: "There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well as in a capital tavern," declared he. "You are sure of a welcome, and the more noise you make, the more good things you call for, the more trouble you give, the welcomer you are. There is nothing that has been invented by man by which so much happiness is produced as a good tavern or inn." What road traveller will not re-echo those sentiments?—though I grieve for the one who can honestly say with Shenstone he has found his "warmest welcome at an inn," however warm the welcome at his inn may be.
About Chapel House many stories, astonishing and otherwise, truthful and untruthful, of old days and old ways are told; but though sadly tempted to relate some of these, I refrain, for I find I am always writing about inns. It does not do to keep harping on one subject, to be for ever "spinning your own wheel." I know a man, and a very good-natured, clubbable man is he, but even he gets bored by listening to one tune too long; his sole crime is that he is not a golfer—it is a serious one, I own. Now at his club he frequently meets a golfing friend who will talk golf and nothing else as long as anyman will listen to him, just as some fishermen and motorists enlarge about their hobby. Now my friend had listened long times patiently to the golfer's endless stories, but when one day the golfer complained that he was suffering badly from a "golfer's arm," my friend exclaimed, "I have suffered from a worse disease than that, 'golfer's jaw.'" Now I do not wish my readers to suffer from my "jaw" about inns.
From Chapel House we dropped down to Chipping Norton, a quiet, clean, contented-looking little town, and that I think sufficiently describes it. As Clarendon remarked of Aldermaston, it is "a town out of any great road," though near to one. So perhaps on that account it has no special history.
Beyond Chipping Norton the country grew lonely again, delightfully, restfully lonely, and all the way we went to Shipton-under-Wychwood I do not find a single house marked on my excellent and accurate map. We were in a bleak stone country, where stone walls take the place of hedges, and where the landscape bears a Cotswold look. Those who know the Cotswolds know what that look is, a rarely pleasant one to me in the summer time, with a sense of openness about it; and how fresh and free and bracing are the airs that blow over the Cotswold hills. There you can keep cool in the hottest weather. Is there not an old saying that at "Stow-on-the-Wold, the wind always blows cold"? It is a truthful one as far as my experience goes, for I have passed through Stow on the hottest of summer days and found it none too warm there even then.
By degrees we descended into a valley and into a warmer atmosphere, and crossing the little river Evenlode (of which I had not heard before, so does a driving tour extend one's knowledge of one's own country) we found ourselves in the attractive and interesting village of Shipton-under-Wychwood, but of the once wild Wychwood forest, formerly a royal hunting ground, there is not much to boast of left—sufficient, however, to earn for it to-day the title of "The Forest Country of Oxfordshire." There is a story told of a traveller in the pre-railway days whose road took him close by Wychwood, and he asked of a boy the name of the wood. "Wychwood," the boy replied. "Which wood?" the traveller exclaimed. "Why, that wood, you fool," pointing with his finger to it. Again he received the same reply. Once more the traveller repeated his query and received the same reply again; whereupon the traveller grew wroth, and deeming the boy was making fun of him, got down from his horse and soundly boxed his ears. One story calls forth another. This I had from a parson on my journey. It appears that one of his parishioners was over-fond of frequenting the public-house, and one day finding him coming out of it the parson said to him, "Williams, why do you go to the public-house so often?" To which the non-abashed Williams made reply, "Because they sell good ale there," and then he quoted the Bible to the parson. "You know, sir, the Bible tells us 'Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake'—now I cannot afford wine, so I drink ale"; and the parson was hardput how to answer him. It appears that the villagers there employ the expression "Timothying" when they have been drinking. Still another story of a parson I was told occurs to me; this may be an old one, but it is one I have not heard before, nor seen it in print. It appears that this parson had recently lost his only son, to whom he was devoted, and was preaching on the text of Abraham offering up his son Isaac as a sacrifice, and during the sermon his feelings so overcame him that thus unknowingly he delivered himself: "And it was his son, his only son; now if it had only been a sheep or a daughter."
I found so much to interest me in Shipton, for there I noticed some old stone buildings, now forming part of what I took to be a farmyard, buildings with Gothic windows of good design and a graceful Gothic doorway in their walls; these could hardly be mere farm-buildings. That they possessed some history was from their character highly probable, but of that history, if there was any, I could glean nothing; as usual, nobody knew anything about them but that "they be very old." That appears to be the stock reply of the villager when you question him about such things. Then I wandered to the church a little way off, and there, for a wonder, I found the clerk within, "tidying up," as he called it. There was not much of interest in the church except a gruesome brass of a figure in a shroud, dated 1548, and a gloomy priest's chamber above the porch, reached by a dark stone stairway. This chamber, the clerk told me, was eight hundred years old; in truth it had an ancient look. Hanging on the wall, though why it should find a place there I could not understand, was a long-winded and framed account of the life of "John Foxe the Martyrologist born 1517," leaving no particulars of his life untold, I gathered from a hasty glance at it.
DOORWAY OF THE CROWN INN, SHIPTON-UNDER-WYCHWOOD.
DOORWAY OF THE CROWN INN, SHIPTON-UNDER-WYCHWOOD.
DOORWAY OF THE CROWN INN, SHIPTON-UNDER-WYCHWOOD.
In the village stands a very ancient inn with a weather-worn aspect and a pathetic look of having seen better days, for its architectural features suggest it has been a house of some importance in times past. The old inn possesses a fine, early, and well-preserved high-pointed Tudor archway that, with its big door below with long exterior hinges, the quaint little two-lighted window by its side, and the old-fashioned mounting-block in front, presents a pleasing bit of ancient architecture. My photograph, here reproduced, will give some idea of this ancient doorway and of the quaint little window shown to the right of it. On leaving the village I caught to the left a delightful vision of a stately, many-gabled, stone-built Elizabethan home, standing in its pleasant park at a friendly short distance from the road. Shipton Court was, I learnt, the name of this picture in stone, for it is a home and a picture in one. Very beautiful did the building look with the warm sunshine resting upon it, for, though ancient, the house had a cheerful countenance; there was nothing gloomy or ghostly about it, nothing mysterious or suggestive of legend, but the word Home was written largely on it.
Beyond Shipton we rose on to high ground andfound ourselves in a breezy open country. Again our road was a deserted one. Few people appear to travel the byways of the Cotswolds, yet, within the same distance of London, nowhere else, I think, can such spacious solitudes be found, such wide and glorious sweeps of uplands and valleys stretching far away into dim and dreamy distances where the round hills seem to melt into the sky. The Cotswolds always delight me, for on them I realise the sense of solitude, silence, and space—a solitude that would satisfy an anchorite. Not that I love solitude except as a restful and occasional change from the burden of too much society; even when I was enjoying my solitude that day I had still a thought for the company I hoped to meet that night at my inn, and a thought of home and family when I returned to them.
After a time we dropped down to the lonely, ancient town of Burford, forgotten by the railway; but Burford does not mind, it exists quite well without the railway. There the little town lay before us, hidden in a hollow, at the foot of the hill, and we looked down upon its uneven roof-trees, and on the silvery Windrush quietly flowing by. Of all the old-world Cotswold towns none has a greater charm than Burford. Thus sings one of its many lovers:
O fair is Moreton in the MarshAnd Stow on the wide wold,
But fairer far is Burford townWith its stone roofs grey and old.
And he calls it "The grey old town on the lonelydown." But Burford is not on the lonely down—far from it; it lies sheltered, half forgotten, deep in a hollow; a place of peace.
At Burford Speaker Lenthall lived, and his home, painted by Waller, stands there to-day a little removed from the quiet street—a fine specimen of Jacobean architecture. Burford church is one of the finest of the many fine Cotswold churches raised by the pious and prosperous wool merchants of the country, and contains the truly magnificent tomb, in a chapel all to itself, of Sir Lawrence Tanfelde (deceased 1625), besides many other fine monuments. The church was turned into a prison for his captives by Cromwell, after his fight with the Banbury Levellers here, who outdid Cromwell himself in zeal and struggle against authority. At "The George Inn" here Charles I. slept on his retreat from Oxford to Worcester, and on the glass of a window, in the upper room of the same inn, there was, and may be now for aught I know, the diamond-scratched name of Samuel Pepys below the date of 1666, though whether this be genuine or a forgery perhaps no man now can say; if a forgery, it is a clever imitation of that famous Diarist's signature. So Burford, though much out of the world to-day, was not always so. It has witnessed stirring events, it has welcomed and entertained many famous travellers, and people of renown have lived within its walls. All the roads into Burford are hilly, all the stages into the town are long and trying for horses, so that in the past coaching, posting, and horseback days horses coming there were usually given an extra allowance ofcorn; hence probably arose the local proverb, "To take a Burford bait," meaning to make a big meal.
It was a steep climb out of Burford, at the top of which we crossed the old highway from London to Gloucester and South Wales that runs for many miles on the undulating ridge of the hills. The Cotswolds are little given to change, and much as the country looks now it must have looked to our coach-travelling ancestors, excepting that to-day long lines of telegraph poles faithfully follow the road in long array lessening to the horizon, and the sound of the wind on the wires as we passed was like the hum of innumerable bees, and it broke pleasantly the silence of the hills.
At the corner of the highway, just where our road crossed, I noticed a large board set up with a boldly lettered inscription on it, and this is what I read there:
Only a few yards to the North is one of the most ancient towns to be seen in this part of the Country. It has historical associations of the most interesting nature. Its church is renowned for its beauty.
Thus Burford appeals to the hurrying motorists who speed upon this fine highway. I should not have thought Burford would have done any such thing; it appears to me a little undignified; yet without such a notice the motorists mentioned would doubtless rush along heedless of the ancient, grey old town that sleeps so peacefully in the hollow below. Still, I trust other interesting towns off the highway will not take this as a precedent, else we shall haveall England turned into a sort of gigantic peep-show.
Now we got on to a wilderness of lanes, mostly narrow and rough of surface, but they took us into an old-world land of stone-built villages, very ancient, very grey, and past many a time-mellowed home that hinted of legend. One rambling, neglected-looking old home especially took my fancy, with its great gables, clustering chimneys, and shapely stone diamond-paned windows; it had such a look of mystery about it, high-walled in as it was, and half hidden from the road, and over its porch the lichens had traced strange hieroglyphics. There appeared to be no life about the place, though a film of smoke uprose from one tall, solitary chimney. An ancient manor-house fallen to decay—
A jolly place in days of old,But something ails it now; the place is curst.
In its forsaken courtyard stood a tumble-down pigeon-cote of some size, so that I knew it had been a manor-house, for in the medieval days no lesser personage than the lord of the manor had the right of pigeonry, and the pigeon-cote was very ancient. Unfortunately, owing to the high wall without and the trees that had grown up at their own sweet will close around it, I was unable satisfactorily to photograph the old house. Some day I hope to re-discover it and to see if I can trace anything of its history.
Another fine old manor-house I came to I found has also fallen on to evil days and was doing duty as a farmhouse, the farmer and his wife inhabitingbut a small portion of it. By happy chance I came across the farmer in a field and I got a-chatting with him, first diplomatically about the weather and the crops; neither were satisfactory to him—I hardly thought they would be—but I listened to his complaints about both, and to his complaints about the low price of produce. I listened patiently, and I think my patience pleased—I had "an axe to grind." Then I led up to the old house and ventured to remark what a picturesque place it was. "It's all right to look at," said he, "but it's not good to live in. It's too big, and it's so draughty, and it's so cold and damp in winter, it would take a fortune to keep fires going over it to warm it properly. There's only the wife and self lives in it, and it would hold a large family, and they would only fill a part of it. Would you care to take a glance inside?" Now that is just what I wanted. I said I would. In truth it was a rambling old house. We entered by a large hall, with a fine old carved oak but much damaged fireplace at one end, and dog-irons on the wide hearth below. I could fancy that in the old days, when the lord of the manor lived there, merry were the doings and the dances that took place in that now vacant hall; the very thought of such things made it, in its bareness, look the more forsaken. One wing, where the farmer lived, was furnished fairly comfortably; the rest of the mansion, divided from it by the hall, was a very picture of desolation. Even the once strong oak staircase was shaky, and the floors of the rooms were in places so rotten that it was hardly safe to tread on them; in some thepanelling was tumbling from the walls, and in others the bare walls were adorned with cobwebs, erst doubtless covered with tapestry. Such is the fate of some old houses that have come down in the world, but there are others that have fortunately found purchasers and have been restored to something of their ancient dignity. I know at least a good dozen fine old houses of the Elizabethan and Jacobean days that had fallen to decay, but which have been so restored by loving hands that they now form delightful and picturesque homes, and yet have not lost the charm of their ancient look.
I met a man, when house-hunting for a friend some little time ago, who confided to me that he made it a business of buying any ruinous old house, if of any architectural merit and agreeably situated, that was for sale at a low price—"and many such houses fetch low prices," he said, "often, the land apart, not more than the value of their materials; sometimes these old houses possess a bit of interesting history, but that goes for nothing"; and purely as a speculation, though the speculation was not without its pleasure, he skilfully restored it, as far as possible, to its pristine estate, and he had done this each time at a considerable profit on the sale of the restored house. "I call myself a house improver," he said, with a laugh, "quite a novel and paying profession." This confession was made to me whilst looking over an interesting old Jacobean house that he had recently purchased and restored, and exceedingly well had he done it. "This," he explained, "had been let and occupiedas a farmhouse for years, and little care was taken of it; as you see, it is a picturesque old building, but it was in a dreadful state when I bought it—indeed at first I almost thought it was beyond restoration. I have spent a lot of money on it, but I expect to get it all back with a fair margin of profit. Here you see an ancient house with a formal garden to match, and even an old-fashioned sun-dial in it, to say nothing of the Haddon Hall-like terrace, and all this cost me a lot; but one has to do the thing properly or you may make a failure of it, and this house is ready for occupation. Meanwhile I make it my home; I must live somewhere, and here I abide till I find a purchaser. Then I shall go in search of another old house to restore. The idea of doing such a thing came quite accidentally to me; originally I purchased an old house and restored it for my own occupation, but I had so many unsought offers for it at a big figure, nearly double what it cost me altogether, that I was tempted to sell it. Then I bought another old house and restored it in the same way, and that I sold at a substantial profit; so now I have made a trade of doing this. Look at the panelling of these rooms, all of seasoned oak, a careful copy of old panelling of the period, every bit done by adze and hand; the hinges and locks, too, are copies of old ones I found in the house. I have opened up all the fireplaces, and on removing the modern grates I luckily discovered the open hearths behind; the firebacks are all castings from old ones, and the fire-dogs are copies too fromfine past specimens. The whole thing has been properly done. I have pulled down all the plaster ceilings and revealed the old rafters. The one or two sash windows I found I have replaced with mullion ones, so now you have before you the house much as it looked when first built over two centuries ago." This was quite a new way to me of making a living, or a fortune, but one learns many unexpected things when travelling by road.
To some there is a potent magnetism, an irresistible fascination about certain old houses, a subtle influence from which there is no escape. I confess to it myself. I have lived in them and love them. Of course there are old houses and old houses; not all possess this peculiar power to charm, and only those of the Elizabethan or Jacobean period, with their panelled halls and chambers, their beamed ceilings, their great gables, their clustering chimneys, their many mullioned windows and big fireplaces, hold it over me. Those of the Queen Anne or Georgian age leave me cold; they are too formal; they lack the sense of mystery and atmosphere of romance. The old moated granges pictured in the Christmas numbers of theIllustrated London Newsof many years back, how they charmed me when a boy! What romances about them did not I weave to myself! I thought they were only artists' dreams, but since I have happily discovered them actually existing. I shall never forget the thrill of delightful surprise the first discovery of the kind gave me; I could hardly believe my eyes,yet there before me stood an ancient moated home, grey, gabled, and ivy-clad, with a broken bell-turret on its lichen-laden roof, its leaded-light windows reflecting the sunlight, and its big chimney-stacks rising boldly up against the sky; nor shall I forget the special moment when I crossed the deep moat by a moss-grown bridge and knocked at the great oak and nail-studded door. I felt like one in a dream, that this could not be a reality, and that I should suddenly wake up and find myself deceived, disenchanted, and in the commonplace world again. Happily it was no vain imagining.
But I am digressing. We were wandering on winding lanes south of Burford when I began this overlong digression, and on that maze of lanes we wandered for some miles—many they seemed to me; first in one direction, then in another we went, without arriving anywhere. All the same, it was very pleasant wandering through a land purely given over to agriculture, somnolent and restful. At last we reached a fair road, and this took us to the little Wiltshire town of Highworth, boldly set on a hill, so that we could see it from afar long before we came to it, its grey church tower and irregular roofed houses outlined sharply against the sky. Seen thus the town looked like those one finds in early engravings.
A clean, homely, dreamy little town is Highworth, very ancient, even quaint in parts, and this in spite of the fact that a branch line of railway has found it out; but so far the railway does not appear to have disturbed its old-world tranquillityThere I halted a while at "The Saracen's Head," a relic of the old coaching days, and the inn, like the town, seemed half asleep. Then I took a quiet walk round the place, and eventually found my way to the church; there appeared to be nothing else noteworthy there except the old houses and old shops, and these, though they grouped well and made a picturesque whole, were not individually of much interest. So it was I strolled into the church, and there I found the clerk: twice running had I done this unusual thing. I bade him good-morning. He told me he was looking after a bat that had got into the roof of the building and was making a mess there. I have heard of owls in a church tower, but here was a bat in the church itself. "How are you going to catch the bat?" queried I, for he had no ladder, and he believed the bat was somewhere hidden in the beams above. "That's just what I want to know," he replied. "I'm thinking it over; meanwhile I'll show you the church if you like." I thought he might as well do this whilst he was thinking, so I accepted his services. The first thing I noticed was a cannon-ball hanging by three chains from a bracket on the wall; there must be some story attached to that, I thought, and there was. It was another of Cromwell's countless cannon-balls—I have long ago lost count of the many I have seen. "That," said the clerk, "was fired against the church by Cromwell, and it lodged in the tower. I can show you the hole it made there where it struck." Then I learnt that the churchhad been fortified and held for Charles I., was besieged by the Parliamentarians, who eventually captured it, taking seventy prisoners; the earthworks a little beyond the town, where the cannon was mounted, are still to be made out. Those were stirring times for the countryside; the district between Oxford and Worcester had its full share in them, and in some parts of it the fighting raged furiously.
"Now I think I can show you something that will interest you," exclaimed the clerk; then he pointed out the ancient oak and much worm-eaten stalls (of the thirteenth century, he said they were), and called my attention to a quaint carving on one of them of a mermaid admiring herself in a handglass; but what interested me more than this were the ancient helmet and sword of the Baston family suspended against the wall, and still of greater interest a silk tabard belonging to the same Baston family that was worn over the armour with a coat-of-arms worked on it: this was needful in order to distinguish the mail-clad warriors one from another. The tabard, preserved now in a glass frame, is much decayed and faded, but still a lion boldly worked thereon is visible. I understood that this tabard was discovered stowed away somewhere in the church, and that the vicar had it framed and hung up there, and I commend the action of the vicar. Many of our old churches contain, to this day, treasures of various kinds hidden away and forgotten in oak chests and cupboards, and even lost amongst lumber. There was, too, a priest-chamberbelonging to the church, with the usual stone steps leading to it, but this special chamber had the uncommon luxury of a washing place. I noticed when leaving a curious bit of bold sculpture over the entrance doorway; in the dim light of the moment I could not very certainly make out what the carving was about, but I read a notice beneath it stating that it was probably a Norman Tympanon. There I bade the clerk good-day. I wondered how he was going to catch that bat!
CHAPTER XVIILittle country towns—The romance of the ferry—"The Bear" at Woodstock—Curious conditions of tenure—Where the Black Prince was born—Islip—The mystery of Joseph's Stone—An English Holland—Boarstall Tower—The ancient town of Brill—"Acres for Aeroplanes"—Stokenchurch—A quaint hiring fair.After Highworth we had a hilly road, and this took us without event to Faringdon, where it chanced to be market day, and the little town was crowded with farmers and cattle; there were crowds in its streets, and crowds round its inns, so we made what haste we could to get out of the place. These little country towns, however sleepy generally, manage to be very wide-awake once a week on market days. A long, quiet stretch of road now followed, with wide views on either hand over fertile farming lands. A signpost informed us we were bound for Abingdon; now Abingdon we knew, so to avoid the familiar we after a time turned up a byway and, crossing the Upper Thames on an ancient and very narrow bridge, we presently espied another signpost with "North Moor" upon it; the name suggested wildness, to North Moor we would go. We got on a rare tangle of lanes and into a land monotonously level, but no moor did wefind, nothing but hedge-enclosed and tame fields. Curiously enough signposts were plentiful, but only gave the names of villages we had never heard of, and one name meant as much, or as little, to us as another.Eventually we found ourselves by the side of the river again and at Bablockhythe Ferry, of which Matthew Arnold has sung. I asked the name of it, and then I found it on my map, and so our whereabouts. The old ferry boat, the quiet river that was so still it hardly seemed to flow at all, the leafy trees, and the road on the opposite shore winding its white way into a distance of green woods, made such a pretty picture that I was tempted to photograph it. Were I a poet or a landscape painter it is a spot that would inspire me. I waited a long time on the chance of some cattle or sheep to be crossing and so help my picture, but during that time only a cyclist came, and I had to make do with him. The ferryman pulled up his boat to the bank thinking I was about to "go over," but when he told me the opposite road went to Oxford, and it was the nearest way there, I concluded I would not cross but trust to the lanes and the chance of coming upon a country hostel in a fresh land. "Where be you bound for?" asked the ferryman politely. "I might help you, for the roads about here are not gain ones for strangers"—and this though he lost custom for his ferry. It was an awkward question, for I knew not myself, and was nonplussed how to answer him. To be a traveller without a destination seems such a silly thing tothe rural mind. I hope he did not take me for some lunatic escaped in a car. It was cool by the river, for the day was growing late, and I thought it about time to search for an inn. There was only a public-house by the ferry, and the land around had a lonely look, so I thought it wise to hasten on.I cannot reason why, for some things are not open to reason, but like an old manor-house (moated or otherwise) or a wayside inn of the Jacobean days, of which a few are still left to us, a lonely ferry always appeals to me with a sense of romance. There is something so primitive and picturesque about a lonely old-fashioned ferry, especially those one finds in the far-away Fens, that I cannot get away from my mind a feeling of adventure connected with such: even the one at Bablockhythe has a certain far-from-everywhere look about it, and I gave myself up to the illusion of the spot, an illusion not only of space but of time; and I verily believe just then, when in that mood, if a gaily dressed Cavalier had appeared on the scene fleeing in hot haste from his pursuers with the hurried cry of "Over," I should have taken it quite as a matter of course. I have watched patiently by a very out-of-the-world Fenland ferry I know, always in the vain hope of adventure; yet so has the spirit of the place got hold of me that I feel surely one day, when again I am there, some strange experience will come to me.BABLOCKHYTHE FERRY.Very lonely, very winding and narrow were the lanes we got on, but if you travel far enough you are sure to arrive somewhere, so we arrived at Stanton Harcourt, a well-known spot to Oxford men, and where the old home of the Harcourts stands with its ancient and chimneyless kitchen, a building apart from the house with a pyramidical roof having a louvre at the top, out of which the smoke escapes as it can. This curious detached kitchen closely resembles the famous one at Glastonbury Abbey, so at least I thought from a passing glance at it. If there was an inn at Stanton Harcourt we missed it, and so we drove on, and shortly came to Eynsham, where I noticed its medieval stone cross in the street by the side of the church. Finding no inn to my liking, I consulted my map and discovered that Woodstock was not far off. Now at Woodstock I knew there was a good inn of the old-fashioned sort, so to Woodstock we went; and so in the gloaming, with the soft light of declining day giving all the landscape a mysterious look, we sped on the few miles to "The Bear" at that town.The great stableyard of "The Bear" is a graphic reminder of the spacious inns of the coaching era of which it has been said, "A regiment of cavalry might have been housed in them, and good wine could be had for the ordering." You may order good wine now at country inns, and pay the price of it, but if you think to get good wine I can only say, I hope you may. Though I do know one or two old inns whose cellars contain some rare old port that has lain in them for years; in one case, the worthy landlord told me, "since the last coach took its last change here," which may be butpleasant fiction, I cannot say; still, in truth, the wine is very old, very rare and good. I have sampled it, and hope to sample it again as long as the bin lasts, for such wine is not to be had every day, not even for money.There were only two other guests at "The Bear" that night; they came from Yorkshire, they said—I did not ask them—and the only thing they talked about was horses. They even dated their remarks from the day, or year, a certain horse won the Derby, or some other horse that had won some other race. I stood it for an hour or two, then called for my candle, as travellers did in the days before gas or electricity, and "to bed," as Pepys has it.I did not visit the show-house of Blenheim, for I had seen it before; moreover, show-houses are not to my mind. It may, however, be interesting to call attention to the conditions on which the Blenheim estate is held, which estate was granted by a grateful nation to the first Duke of Marlborough and his heirs in recognition of the famous victory of Blenheim, in Bavaria, on 2nd August 1704. "A representative of the family has once a year to convey to Windsor Castle an embroidered flag, which is placed in the Guards' Chamber. There it remains for a twelvemonth, till the next rental for holding the palace and the estate falls due. It is the only return the family have to make for the property they enjoy."Next morning, on strolling round the town, I saw in a shop window a picture postcard, and on it a photograph of "The Manor-House Farm, birthplaceof the Black Prince, Woodstock." It came as a surprise to me to learn that the Black Prince, "that mirror of knighthood and the greatest of heroes," was born there; so I gleaned, as I travelled on, many a forgotten historical happening. To take a schoolboy a trip through England in a motor-car would be an excellent way of increasing his knowledge of its history. The manor-house is very old, though I take it, except perhaps in parts, little of the original structure can be left. The house has a pleasant look, and possesses a curious old chimney consisting of a stone shaft having a conical roof, the shaft being pierced on all sides at its top with lancet openings for the smoke to escape. The chimney looks as though it ought not to smoke whatever the way of the wind, and that with it a down draught should be an impossibility; it is a picturesque device that might be worth trying in place of the ugly cowls. Finding nothing further to interest me in the sunny and sleepy little town, I took my early departure whilst yet the day was fresh and cool.Out of Woodstock I found myself on the old highway leading to Oxford, but I did not travel it far, taking a lane to the left with a view of exploring that rather remote and out-of-the-way district lying in a rough square between Oxford and Bicester, Aylesbury and Thame—at least it looked out of the way on my map, only served by narrow roads; and on my map I noticed a vacant place marked "Ot Moor," an odd name, with "Joseph's Stone" also marked in the centre of the moor. I wondered what that stone could be so plainly shownthere, some "Druidical Standing Stone" perhaps; it aroused my curiosity; and beyond these, in the direction I was going, "Boarstall Tower" was inscribed in bold lettering, also the forsaken little town of Brill. I felt in an exploring mood that day, and here was an odd corner of the land inviting me to explore it. First I came to Islip, a bleak-looking and tiny town of stone houses, yet a town of some importance in its day; but that was a long time ago, when King Ethelred had his palace there, in which his son Edward the Confessor was born, he who founded Westminster Abbey. Shortly afterwards our road led us across lonely Ot Moor, and through the quaint village of Oddington, quaint as becomes its quaint name. Here I inquired about Joseph's Stone, and was told that a big stone of that name once stood on the moor, but "it has been broken up"; nothing further of its history could I glean, nor found I any mention of it in any guide-book I afterwards consulted, nor in any other likely work, nor did any of my antiquarian friends know anything about it. I was disappointed. As the stone is not now there, has not been there, except in bits, for long years, why do they still mark it on the map? It is so provoking to see places marked on the map, and conspicuously marked, that arouse your curiosity, only to find they do not exist. It was the same on Salisbury Plain; there at a spot by the roadside between Wylye and Devizes was printed plainly on my map "St. John á Gores Cross." I believe that a wayside stone cross once stood there, but when that was no oneseems to know. Now there is no vestige of it, not even its stump in the ground. Possibly it was destroyed by the Puritans. Now, trusting to my map, I went miles out of my way purposely to see it. I look upon a map as a faithful friend, and one does not like to find a friend at fault.Now succeeded a level stretch of lowland country that had a look of Holland, excepting that the cottage homes by the way were distinctly not Dutch. A land where the eye had freedom to rove over wide spaces of green right away to a circling horizon of blue, and a wild wind swept over it, fresh, cool, and laden with the pungent scent of marsh flowers—as fresh and cool as the wind that sweeps over the sea, only without its salt savour. The wind was making holiday; it tossed the long grasses and reeds about, it bent down the hedges before it, it made mimic waves and Lilliputian tempests on the ponds that we passed. It is wind that gives life to a scene, and the strife of it stirred the blood in our veins. We rejoiced in the wind, for it came from the west, with just a suspicion of keenness, but no harshness, of greeting.In spite of the wind and the sur, sur, sur of it, the whole countryside gave me the impression of great quietude. I could allow for the wind—it would not blow so every day; few people were in the fields, and those few seemed to be taking life easy, contentedly doing little; the hedges were delightfully tangled, a disgrace to good farming it may be, but that is a matter apart. Perhaps they needed some pruning, but they best pleased myeye just wild as they were, growing as Nature would have them. It was a land to laze in, to do nothing in haste; only the wind stirred it up to a semblance of passion. There was no flow in the streams that one could perceive; it was a relief to come to a land that suggested nothing but rest. The interfering political economist might well shake his head at all this, but I was out for my pleasure, without a thought of what he might say. It was so peace-bestowing, and that was its charm. It was a land of health rather than a land of wealth—and who shall say that health is not the better thing?—a land that conformed to no canon of beauty, but none the less pleasing to me. I will wager that no one grew prematurely old from overwork in it: why should he? Mere money-making is the bane of the age; it gives a man no time to call his soul his own. "If a person," says Stevenson, "cannot be happy without remaining idle, idle he should remain. It is a revolutionary precept." It is. I do not go so far. I only protest against money-making at the price of much leisure, the making of money for money's sake only. I knew a man who toiled hard all the week at his desk in a stuffy city office at the cost of his health, and what for?—to keep up a needlessly pretentious home with gardeners and carriage. One day, he confessed to me, the folly of all this forcibly struck him; he had so little leisure to enjoy his family or home. He thought the matter carefully over and for long, and he came to the conclusion that by working half the time he should lose half his income; on theother hand, he would have half the week to himself that he could devote to his wife and the pleasures of home. So he gave up his large house, he dismissed his gardeners, he did away with his carriage, and took a pretty little cottage where, on his reduced income, he could live in comfort, though without the luxuries of gardeners and carriage; and his wife, too, had less cares in the management of a smaller home. So happy was he and every one in the new conditions that, though his partners laughed at him and deemed him a fool, he declared to me that nothing would induce him to return to his former slavery, as he called it. He was an infinitely happier man, his family were happier too, and he enjoyed such health as he had never known since he was a schoolboy free from all but fancied care.From this leisured land a stiff climb brought us on to high ground and into a lighter, more exciting air. On the lowland we were content to laze along, and desired to laze so; here we must needs speed for a while, for the country was open and things not seen in detail; for there is a pace at which you can best enjoy and appreciate the type of country passed through: here, not the foreground but the distance allured us. When you see far ahead, and all is revealed before you, as in a stretch of open road over a wide moorland, your eye is ever on the horizon that beckons you on to explore the unknown, and you cannot, if human, resist its attraction. That is the magic of distance.At a turn in the road, in a lonely spot, we caught a glimpse through branching trees of thegrey old tower of Boarstall: no longer the distance held us in thrall; its power was gone. Boarstall, with its four flanking and embattled towers, is all that remains of a once fortified house. There are narrow arrow-slits in the towers that show their ancientness, but the large front and mullioned side windows do not suggest so early a date or a place of much defensive strength; doubtless they were added in later years under a feeling of greater security. The house that stood in the moat-enclosed ground beyond has now wholly disappeared. Boarstall, however, was strengthened during the Civil Wars, well garrisoned, and held for the king. Lord Clarendon in hisHistory of the Rebellionsays: "Fairfax attempted to take a poor house near Boarstall, and was beaten from thence with considerable loss, so that he drew off his men, little to his credit." Before the siege the following correspondence took place between the commanders of the besiegers and the besieged:—Sir Thomas Fairfax to Sir William Campion3 June 1645.Sir—I send you this summons before I proceed to further extremities, to deliver up to me the house of Borstall you now hold, with all the ordinance, arms, and ammunition therein, for the use and service of the kingdom, which if you shall agree unto, you may expect civility and fair respect, otherwise you may draw upon yourself those inconveniences which I desire may be prevented. I expect your answer by this trumpet within one hour.—Your Servant,Thomas Fairfax.This is the spirited reply that Fairfax received to his summons:Sir William Campion to Sir Thomas FairfaxIn answer.Sir—You have sent me a summons of a surrender of this house for the service of the kingdom. I thought that cant had been long ere this very stale (considering the King's often declarations and protestations to the contrary), now sufficient only to cozen women and poor ignorant people: for your civilities, so far as they are consonant to my honour, I embrace: in this place I absolutely apprehend them as destructive not only to my honour, but also to my conscience. I am therefore ready to undergo all inconveniences whatsoever, rather than submit to any, much less those, so dishonourable and unworthy propositions, this is the resolution of, Sir, yours,William Campion.So the siege began.Boarstall Tower stands a picturesque reminder of "the brave days of old," with its embattled towers and weather-beaten walls. Crossing the broad and brimming moat by a stone bridge (with the date of 1735 upon it) that replaces the drawbridge of past times, I found the door locked, so I inquired of a farmhouse close by if it were possible to see the building. The maid who responded to my summons said she thought so, and presently returned with the key and permission to view it. Even with the key I found some difficulty in gaining admission, for the ancient and possibly rusty lock was hard to turn, and the door creaked complainingly on its hinges. Within, the building apparently has suffered little change since the Jacobean days: the towers contain dark circular stairs of stone, and odd and gloomy little rooms reached by narrow passages through the thickwalls; but there is one large, well-lighted, and even cheerful apartment on the top. Judging from the size of the gate-house, the original house which it served must have been one of some importance. Though Clarendon calls it "a poor house," I take it this was intended in a military sense. Boarstall must have been a thorn in the side of the Parliamentarians, not being far from Oxford, and by the "constant mischievous incursions of its garrison." The old tower makes a telling subject for the pencil, brush, or camera, as I trust my photograph proves. I hardly think Boarstall is as well known as it deserves to be. Situated in an out-of-the-way corner of the land, remote from main roads, it is not easy to find, but well worth finding.The tradition of the origin of the name Boarstall is curious. It appears that "once upon a time"—that convenient "once upon a time"—it was in the centre of the royal forest of Bemwode, and that "a tremendous wild boar, the terror of the inhabitants," haunted it, and was eventually slain by one Nigel, the forester, who as a reward received a grant of land by tenure of a horn, and on the land he built a house and called it "Borrestalle" in memory of the slain boar.BOARSTALL TOWER FROM THE MOAT.A little beyond Boarstall the country became wild and open again, and there before us, perched right on the top of a bleak, isolated hill, a hill much scarred with clay pits, stood the odd, little, out-of-date town of Brill. Odd, little, out-of-date town—that just describes it, there is no need for more words: on its hill stands one of, I think, the oldest windmills I have ever seen working, an ancient wooden structure with canvas sails, a mill of the kind the old masters put in their pictures, so old must it be. Brill at one time actually tried to transform itself into a fashionable watering-place, a spring of mineral waters having been discovered there, said by experts to be superior even to those of Bath. But the attempt turned out a failure; for the success of such an adventure a place needs something beyond a mere mineral spring. Prosperity and popularity require pretty or interesting surroundings, decent roads, and, above all, reasonable accessibility. Brill, though bracing in situation, has none of these other needful advantages. Yet a pretentious pump-room was built with every required accessory, including a spacious reception-room, all in the Doric style; these are now hastening to decay, and Brill is left to its solitude. Possibly if you asked the average man where Brill is, he would respond, "I never heard of the place." So should I have done before I discovered it and learnt the unfortunate history of its bold and, to me, apparently hopeless bid for popularity, of which nothing came. I am glad it did not, for it is a quaint old town, and deserves to remain so.Beyond Brill a winding lane brought us to Long Crendon that possesses an interesting old Court House of the fifteenth century, and a fine old Tudor gateway, and shortly after this we found ourselves at Thame, and there we took a by-road to our right that for some miles led us through a quiet, pastoral land, and eventually we came out on the mainLondon to Oxford road. Then we drove eastward. This portion of the Oxford road as far as to West Wycombe runs through very pleasant country, as the many motorists who travel it well know, affording in parts wide prospects over a well-wooded country and climbing the Chilterns with many windings through a fragrant forest of firs.At the hamlet of Tetsworth we noticed its rambling, brick-built, and time-dimmed old coaching inn, and on its ancient front a board inscribed "Petrol." How times have changed—petrol in place of corn and hay for the passing steed of many horse power, even forty at times; machinery in place of muscle! At another old coaching inn, on a previous journey, I noticed a bold advertisement that ran briefly thus, "Acres for Aeroplanes." I did not take this seriously, though there was ample space in the hostel's large and open field for the landing of aeroplanes; but that an ancient inn should display such a sign at all gave me food for thought. Twice during my journey did I wholly unexpectedly see an aeroplane flying overhead, on one occasion when I was stopping in a village; and though the village folk looked up to see it, attracted by the noise of its engines, I hardly think they regarded it with more curiosity, or as a thing more wonderful, than they regarded the motor-car when it first appeared on the road. The miracle of to-day is but the commonplace of to-morrow, and how soon it becomes the commonplace! "The Swan" at Tetsworth is a building of some size, and, though it still entertains wayfarers, has such a forlorn look that I felt quite sorryfor the poor old place. Once it was known as "the great inn at Tetsworth," and was the scene of much noisy revelry; when we were there we saw no sign of life about the place.To the ancient wayside tavernComes the noisy throng no more.Even the motor-car does not appear to have revived its fortunes. There we pulled up for petrol, not that we required it, but it was an excuse to linger about the old inn, for, though I cannot say exactly why, it mildly fascinated me; the building, old and weather-stained, with its broad front to the street, told its silent tale of past days and doings as eloquently and plainly as though it were told on the printed page. After much waiting I procured the petrol I did not want, and, more to the point, I obtained a glance within at the inn's ancient chambers; they had a faded, antiquated look, not, to me, altogether displeasing; I think I could have spent the night at "The Swan" quite comfortably had I needed. It is an inn of memories.Then followed a level stretch of open, cheerful, and sunlit road, with extensive prospects over a rich green land to a long line of low and undulating hills; after this a winding ascent through fragrant woods brought us presently to the bleak little village of Stokenchurch, situated high up on the top of the Chilterns, and there I caught sight of another old decayed coaching inn, but, to my eye, this was a hard-featured, unattractive building, wholly lacking in that peculiar, indescribable character that suggestsa romantic past, for buildings have their characters as well as men: some appeal to you, some do not.A little beyond Stokenchurch began the long and steep descent of the famous Dashwood Hill, at the foot of which we found ourselves in the sleepy village of West Wycombe, with one or two rather curious old houses, but having nothing else to boast of. High Wycombe succeeded to West Wycombe; there is but a short and an uninteresting mile or two between them. High Wycombe is an old-fashioned, wide-streeted town, as those who travel the Oxford road are aware, with rather a quaint, much-mellowed, red-brick market-hall raised on stone arches. At High Wycombe the curious custom of Michaelmas hiring still prevails and flourishes. I think a short account of this that I cull from a local paper of the past year may prove interesting:—Yesterday one of the oldest Michaelmas hiring fairs in England was witnessed in our ancient market-place. From a wide radius, including parts of the three counties of Bucks, Berks, and Oxon, farmers and agricultural employees in all spheres flocked into the town early in the morning. The attendance was large, and there was a general disposition to "change hands," though the average terms of remuneration showed very little alteration. Several old-time customs still prevail, both at the hiring and in regard to the conditions upon which the farm hands are engaged for the ensuing twelve months. For instance, ploughmen decorate their button-holes with pieces of whipcord to denote their distinctive calling, shepherds display tufts of wool in their forelocks and their caps, and other farm hands utilise horsehair and fancy ribbons and rosettes for their personal adornment.A good deal of time was occupied in making the best terms,and in accordance with the precedent of many years' standing, the engagements were conditional on the supplying of beer, or harvest money in its place.Leaving High Wycombe we followed a while the side of the little river Wye that turns an ancient mill on its way, and across the river rose some of the beautiful beech-clad hills for which Buckinghamshire is so justly famed. There is something about the form and growth of the close-leafed beech that causes it to clothe the hills with a graceful and following contour that no other tree does.Now an unattractive five miles of road, with a climb on the way and at the end of it, brought us to the elevated and breezy little town of Beaconsfield that, considering it is within twenty-four miles of London, has retained its ancient air surprisingly; for its low, old houses, that face its wide and quiet street, still possess a pleasant and ancient look that charms. The town seems almost as remote and dreamy as though it were somewhere far away in the distant shires. May it long retain its primitive character! but I doubt it, for the railway has at last found it out.
Little country towns—The romance of the ferry—"The Bear" at Woodstock—Curious conditions of tenure—Where the Black Prince was born—Islip—The mystery of Joseph's Stone—An English Holland—Boarstall Tower—The ancient town of Brill—"Acres for Aeroplanes"—Stokenchurch—A quaint hiring fair.
After Highworth we had a hilly road, and this took us without event to Faringdon, where it chanced to be market day, and the little town was crowded with farmers and cattle; there were crowds in its streets, and crowds round its inns, so we made what haste we could to get out of the place. These little country towns, however sleepy generally, manage to be very wide-awake once a week on market days. A long, quiet stretch of road now followed, with wide views on either hand over fertile farming lands. A signpost informed us we were bound for Abingdon; now Abingdon we knew, so to avoid the familiar we after a time turned up a byway and, crossing the Upper Thames on an ancient and very narrow bridge, we presently espied another signpost with "North Moor" upon it; the name suggested wildness, to North Moor we would go. We got on a rare tangle of lanes and into a land monotonously level, but no moor did wefind, nothing but hedge-enclosed and tame fields. Curiously enough signposts were plentiful, but only gave the names of villages we had never heard of, and one name meant as much, or as little, to us as another.
Eventually we found ourselves by the side of the river again and at Bablockhythe Ferry, of which Matthew Arnold has sung. I asked the name of it, and then I found it on my map, and so our whereabouts. The old ferry boat, the quiet river that was so still it hardly seemed to flow at all, the leafy trees, and the road on the opposite shore winding its white way into a distance of green woods, made such a pretty picture that I was tempted to photograph it. Were I a poet or a landscape painter it is a spot that would inspire me. I waited a long time on the chance of some cattle or sheep to be crossing and so help my picture, but during that time only a cyclist came, and I had to make do with him. The ferryman pulled up his boat to the bank thinking I was about to "go over," but when he told me the opposite road went to Oxford, and it was the nearest way there, I concluded I would not cross but trust to the lanes and the chance of coming upon a country hostel in a fresh land. "Where be you bound for?" asked the ferryman politely. "I might help you, for the roads about here are not gain ones for strangers"—and this though he lost custom for his ferry. It was an awkward question, for I knew not myself, and was nonplussed how to answer him. To be a traveller without a destination seems such a silly thing tothe rural mind. I hope he did not take me for some lunatic escaped in a car. It was cool by the river, for the day was growing late, and I thought it about time to search for an inn. There was only a public-house by the ferry, and the land around had a lonely look, so I thought it wise to hasten on.
I cannot reason why, for some things are not open to reason, but like an old manor-house (moated or otherwise) or a wayside inn of the Jacobean days, of which a few are still left to us, a lonely ferry always appeals to me with a sense of romance. There is something so primitive and picturesque about a lonely old-fashioned ferry, especially those one finds in the far-away Fens, that I cannot get away from my mind a feeling of adventure connected with such: even the one at Bablockhythe has a certain far-from-everywhere look about it, and I gave myself up to the illusion of the spot, an illusion not only of space but of time; and I verily believe just then, when in that mood, if a gaily dressed Cavalier had appeared on the scene fleeing in hot haste from his pursuers with the hurried cry of "Over," I should have taken it quite as a matter of course. I have watched patiently by a very out-of-the-world Fenland ferry I know, always in the vain hope of adventure; yet so has the spirit of the place got hold of me that I feel surely one day, when again I am there, some strange experience will come to me.
BABLOCKHYTHE FERRY.
BABLOCKHYTHE FERRY.
BABLOCKHYTHE FERRY.
Very lonely, very winding and narrow were the lanes we got on, but if you travel far enough you are sure to arrive somewhere, so we arrived at Stanton Harcourt, a well-known spot to Oxford men, and where the old home of the Harcourts stands with its ancient and chimneyless kitchen, a building apart from the house with a pyramidical roof having a louvre at the top, out of which the smoke escapes as it can. This curious detached kitchen closely resembles the famous one at Glastonbury Abbey, so at least I thought from a passing glance at it. If there was an inn at Stanton Harcourt we missed it, and so we drove on, and shortly came to Eynsham, where I noticed its medieval stone cross in the street by the side of the church. Finding no inn to my liking, I consulted my map and discovered that Woodstock was not far off. Now at Woodstock I knew there was a good inn of the old-fashioned sort, so to Woodstock we went; and so in the gloaming, with the soft light of declining day giving all the landscape a mysterious look, we sped on the few miles to "The Bear" at that town.
The great stableyard of "The Bear" is a graphic reminder of the spacious inns of the coaching era of which it has been said, "A regiment of cavalry might have been housed in them, and good wine could be had for the ordering." You may order good wine now at country inns, and pay the price of it, but if you think to get good wine I can only say, I hope you may. Though I do know one or two old inns whose cellars contain some rare old port that has lain in them for years; in one case, the worthy landlord told me, "since the last coach took its last change here," which may be butpleasant fiction, I cannot say; still, in truth, the wine is very old, very rare and good. I have sampled it, and hope to sample it again as long as the bin lasts, for such wine is not to be had every day, not even for money.
There were only two other guests at "The Bear" that night; they came from Yorkshire, they said—I did not ask them—and the only thing they talked about was horses. They even dated their remarks from the day, or year, a certain horse won the Derby, or some other horse that had won some other race. I stood it for an hour or two, then called for my candle, as travellers did in the days before gas or electricity, and "to bed," as Pepys has it.
I did not visit the show-house of Blenheim, for I had seen it before; moreover, show-houses are not to my mind. It may, however, be interesting to call attention to the conditions on which the Blenheim estate is held, which estate was granted by a grateful nation to the first Duke of Marlborough and his heirs in recognition of the famous victory of Blenheim, in Bavaria, on 2nd August 1704. "A representative of the family has once a year to convey to Windsor Castle an embroidered flag, which is placed in the Guards' Chamber. There it remains for a twelvemonth, till the next rental for holding the palace and the estate falls due. It is the only return the family have to make for the property they enjoy."
Next morning, on strolling round the town, I saw in a shop window a picture postcard, and on it a photograph of "The Manor-House Farm, birthplaceof the Black Prince, Woodstock." It came as a surprise to me to learn that the Black Prince, "that mirror of knighthood and the greatest of heroes," was born there; so I gleaned, as I travelled on, many a forgotten historical happening. To take a schoolboy a trip through England in a motor-car would be an excellent way of increasing his knowledge of its history. The manor-house is very old, though I take it, except perhaps in parts, little of the original structure can be left. The house has a pleasant look, and possesses a curious old chimney consisting of a stone shaft having a conical roof, the shaft being pierced on all sides at its top with lancet openings for the smoke to escape. The chimney looks as though it ought not to smoke whatever the way of the wind, and that with it a down draught should be an impossibility; it is a picturesque device that might be worth trying in place of the ugly cowls. Finding nothing further to interest me in the sunny and sleepy little town, I took my early departure whilst yet the day was fresh and cool.
Out of Woodstock I found myself on the old highway leading to Oxford, but I did not travel it far, taking a lane to the left with a view of exploring that rather remote and out-of-the-way district lying in a rough square between Oxford and Bicester, Aylesbury and Thame—at least it looked out of the way on my map, only served by narrow roads; and on my map I noticed a vacant place marked "Ot Moor," an odd name, with "Joseph's Stone" also marked in the centre of the moor. I wondered what that stone could be so plainly shownthere, some "Druidical Standing Stone" perhaps; it aroused my curiosity; and beyond these, in the direction I was going, "Boarstall Tower" was inscribed in bold lettering, also the forsaken little town of Brill. I felt in an exploring mood that day, and here was an odd corner of the land inviting me to explore it. First I came to Islip, a bleak-looking and tiny town of stone houses, yet a town of some importance in its day; but that was a long time ago, when King Ethelred had his palace there, in which his son Edward the Confessor was born, he who founded Westminster Abbey. Shortly afterwards our road led us across lonely Ot Moor, and through the quaint village of Oddington, quaint as becomes its quaint name. Here I inquired about Joseph's Stone, and was told that a big stone of that name once stood on the moor, but "it has been broken up"; nothing further of its history could I glean, nor found I any mention of it in any guide-book I afterwards consulted, nor in any other likely work, nor did any of my antiquarian friends know anything about it. I was disappointed. As the stone is not now there, has not been there, except in bits, for long years, why do they still mark it on the map? It is so provoking to see places marked on the map, and conspicuously marked, that arouse your curiosity, only to find they do not exist. It was the same on Salisbury Plain; there at a spot by the roadside between Wylye and Devizes was printed plainly on my map "St. John á Gores Cross." I believe that a wayside stone cross once stood there, but when that was no oneseems to know. Now there is no vestige of it, not even its stump in the ground. Possibly it was destroyed by the Puritans. Now, trusting to my map, I went miles out of my way purposely to see it. I look upon a map as a faithful friend, and one does not like to find a friend at fault.
Now succeeded a level stretch of lowland country that had a look of Holland, excepting that the cottage homes by the way were distinctly not Dutch. A land where the eye had freedom to rove over wide spaces of green right away to a circling horizon of blue, and a wild wind swept over it, fresh, cool, and laden with the pungent scent of marsh flowers—as fresh and cool as the wind that sweeps over the sea, only without its salt savour. The wind was making holiday; it tossed the long grasses and reeds about, it bent down the hedges before it, it made mimic waves and Lilliputian tempests on the ponds that we passed. It is wind that gives life to a scene, and the strife of it stirred the blood in our veins. We rejoiced in the wind, for it came from the west, with just a suspicion of keenness, but no harshness, of greeting.
In spite of the wind and the sur, sur, sur of it, the whole countryside gave me the impression of great quietude. I could allow for the wind—it would not blow so every day; few people were in the fields, and those few seemed to be taking life easy, contentedly doing little; the hedges were delightfully tangled, a disgrace to good farming it may be, but that is a matter apart. Perhaps they needed some pruning, but they best pleased myeye just wild as they were, growing as Nature would have them. It was a land to laze in, to do nothing in haste; only the wind stirred it up to a semblance of passion. There was no flow in the streams that one could perceive; it was a relief to come to a land that suggested nothing but rest. The interfering political economist might well shake his head at all this, but I was out for my pleasure, without a thought of what he might say. It was so peace-bestowing, and that was its charm. It was a land of health rather than a land of wealth—and who shall say that health is not the better thing?—a land that conformed to no canon of beauty, but none the less pleasing to me. I will wager that no one grew prematurely old from overwork in it: why should he? Mere money-making is the bane of the age; it gives a man no time to call his soul his own. "If a person," says Stevenson, "cannot be happy without remaining idle, idle he should remain. It is a revolutionary precept." It is. I do not go so far. I only protest against money-making at the price of much leisure, the making of money for money's sake only. I knew a man who toiled hard all the week at his desk in a stuffy city office at the cost of his health, and what for?—to keep up a needlessly pretentious home with gardeners and carriage. One day, he confessed to me, the folly of all this forcibly struck him; he had so little leisure to enjoy his family or home. He thought the matter carefully over and for long, and he came to the conclusion that by working half the time he should lose half his income; on theother hand, he would have half the week to himself that he could devote to his wife and the pleasures of home. So he gave up his large house, he dismissed his gardeners, he did away with his carriage, and took a pretty little cottage where, on his reduced income, he could live in comfort, though without the luxuries of gardeners and carriage; and his wife, too, had less cares in the management of a smaller home. So happy was he and every one in the new conditions that, though his partners laughed at him and deemed him a fool, he declared to me that nothing would induce him to return to his former slavery, as he called it. He was an infinitely happier man, his family were happier too, and he enjoyed such health as he had never known since he was a schoolboy free from all but fancied care.
From this leisured land a stiff climb brought us on to high ground and into a lighter, more exciting air. On the lowland we were content to laze along, and desired to laze so; here we must needs speed for a while, for the country was open and things not seen in detail; for there is a pace at which you can best enjoy and appreciate the type of country passed through: here, not the foreground but the distance allured us. When you see far ahead, and all is revealed before you, as in a stretch of open road over a wide moorland, your eye is ever on the horizon that beckons you on to explore the unknown, and you cannot, if human, resist its attraction. That is the magic of distance.
At a turn in the road, in a lonely spot, we caught a glimpse through branching trees of thegrey old tower of Boarstall: no longer the distance held us in thrall; its power was gone. Boarstall, with its four flanking and embattled towers, is all that remains of a once fortified house. There are narrow arrow-slits in the towers that show their ancientness, but the large front and mullioned side windows do not suggest so early a date or a place of much defensive strength; doubtless they were added in later years under a feeling of greater security. The house that stood in the moat-enclosed ground beyond has now wholly disappeared. Boarstall, however, was strengthened during the Civil Wars, well garrisoned, and held for the king. Lord Clarendon in hisHistory of the Rebellionsays: "Fairfax attempted to take a poor house near Boarstall, and was beaten from thence with considerable loss, so that he drew off his men, little to his credit." Before the siege the following correspondence took place between the commanders of the besiegers and the besieged:—
Sir Thomas Fairfax to Sir William Campion
3 June 1645.
Sir—I send you this summons before I proceed to further extremities, to deliver up to me the house of Borstall you now hold, with all the ordinance, arms, and ammunition therein, for the use and service of the kingdom, which if you shall agree unto, you may expect civility and fair respect, otherwise you may draw upon yourself those inconveniences which I desire may be prevented. I expect your answer by this trumpet within one hour.—Your Servant,
Thomas Fairfax.
This is the spirited reply that Fairfax received to his summons:
Sir William Campion to Sir Thomas Fairfax
In answer.
Sir—You have sent me a summons of a surrender of this house for the service of the kingdom. I thought that cant had been long ere this very stale (considering the King's often declarations and protestations to the contrary), now sufficient only to cozen women and poor ignorant people: for your civilities, so far as they are consonant to my honour, I embrace: in this place I absolutely apprehend them as destructive not only to my honour, but also to my conscience. I am therefore ready to undergo all inconveniences whatsoever, rather than submit to any, much less those, so dishonourable and unworthy propositions, this is the resolution of, Sir, yours,
William Campion.
So the siege began.
Boarstall Tower stands a picturesque reminder of "the brave days of old," with its embattled towers and weather-beaten walls. Crossing the broad and brimming moat by a stone bridge (with the date of 1735 upon it) that replaces the drawbridge of past times, I found the door locked, so I inquired of a farmhouse close by if it were possible to see the building. The maid who responded to my summons said she thought so, and presently returned with the key and permission to view it. Even with the key I found some difficulty in gaining admission, for the ancient and possibly rusty lock was hard to turn, and the door creaked complainingly on its hinges. Within, the building apparently has suffered little change since the Jacobean days: the towers contain dark circular stairs of stone, and odd and gloomy little rooms reached by narrow passages through the thickwalls; but there is one large, well-lighted, and even cheerful apartment on the top. Judging from the size of the gate-house, the original house which it served must have been one of some importance. Though Clarendon calls it "a poor house," I take it this was intended in a military sense. Boarstall must have been a thorn in the side of the Parliamentarians, not being far from Oxford, and by the "constant mischievous incursions of its garrison." The old tower makes a telling subject for the pencil, brush, or camera, as I trust my photograph proves. I hardly think Boarstall is as well known as it deserves to be. Situated in an out-of-the-way corner of the land, remote from main roads, it is not easy to find, but well worth finding.
The tradition of the origin of the name Boarstall is curious. It appears that "once upon a time"—that convenient "once upon a time"—it was in the centre of the royal forest of Bemwode, and that "a tremendous wild boar, the terror of the inhabitants," haunted it, and was eventually slain by one Nigel, the forester, who as a reward received a grant of land by tenure of a horn, and on the land he built a house and called it "Borrestalle" in memory of the slain boar.
BOARSTALL TOWER FROM THE MOAT.
BOARSTALL TOWER FROM THE MOAT.
BOARSTALL TOWER FROM THE MOAT.
A little beyond Boarstall the country became wild and open again, and there before us, perched right on the top of a bleak, isolated hill, a hill much scarred with clay pits, stood the odd, little, out-of-date town of Brill. Odd, little, out-of-date town—that just describes it, there is no need for more words: on its hill stands one of, I think, the oldest windmills I have ever seen working, an ancient wooden structure with canvas sails, a mill of the kind the old masters put in their pictures, so old must it be. Brill at one time actually tried to transform itself into a fashionable watering-place, a spring of mineral waters having been discovered there, said by experts to be superior even to those of Bath. But the attempt turned out a failure; for the success of such an adventure a place needs something beyond a mere mineral spring. Prosperity and popularity require pretty or interesting surroundings, decent roads, and, above all, reasonable accessibility. Brill, though bracing in situation, has none of these other needful advantages. Yet a pretentious pump-room was built with every required accessory, including a spacious reception-room, all in the Doric style; these are now hastening to decay, and Brill is left to its solitude. Possibly if you asked the average man where Brill is, he would respond, "I never heard of the place." So should I have done before I discovered it and learnt the unfortunate history of its bold and, to me, apparently hopeless bid for popularity, of which nothing came. I am glad it did not, for it is a quaint old town, and deserves to remain so.
Beyond Brill a winding lane brought us to Long Crendon that possesses an interesting old Court House of the fifteenth century, and a fine old Tudor gateway, and shortly after this we found ourselves at Thame, and there we took a by-road to our right that for some miles led us through a quiet, pastoral land, and eventually we came out on the mainLondon to Oxford road. Then we drove eastward. This portion of the Oxford road as far as to West Wycombe runs through very pleasant country, as the many motorists who travel it well know, affording in parts wide prospects over a well-wooded country and climbing the Chilterns with many windings through a fragrant forest of firs.
At the hamlet of Tetsworth we noticed its rambling, brick-built, and time-dimmed old coaching inn, and on its ancient front a board inscribed "Petrol." How times have changed—petrol in place of corn and hay for the passing steed of many horse power, even forty at times; machinery in place of muscle! At another old coaching inn, on a previous journey, I noticed a bold advertisement that ran briefly thus, "Acres for Aeroplanes." I did not take this seriously, though there was ample space in the hostel's large and open field for the landing of aeroplanes; but that an ancient inn should display such a sign at all gave me food for thought. Twice during my journey did I wholly unexpectedly see an aeroplane flying overhead, on one occasion when I was stopping in a village; and though the village folk looked up to see it, attracted by the noise of its engines, I hardly think they regarded it with more curiosity, or as a thing more wonderful, than they regarded the motor-car when it first appeared on the road. The miracle of to-day is but the commonplace of to-morrow, and how soon it becomes the commonplace! "The Swan" at Tetsworth is a building of some size, and, though it still entertains wayfarers, has such a forlorn look that I felt quite sorryfor the poor old place. Once it was known as "the great inn at Tetsworth," and was the scene of much noisy revelry; when we were there we saw no sign of life about the place.
To the ancient wayside tavernComes the noisy throng no more.
Even the motor-car does not appear to have revived its fortunes. There we pulled up for petrol, not that we required it, but it was an excuse to linger about the old inn, for, though I cannot say exactly why, it mildly fascinated me; the building, old and weather-stained, with its broad front to the street, told its silent tale of past days and doings as eloquently and plainly as though it were told on the printed page. After much waiting I procured the petrol I did not want, and, more to the point, I obtained a glance within at the inn's ancient chambers; they had a faded, antiquated look, not, to me, altogether displeasing; I think I could have spent the night at "The Swan" quite comfortably had I needed. It is an inn of memories.
Then followed a level stretch of open, cheerful, and sunlit road, with extensive prospects over a rich green land to a long line of low and undulating hills; after this a winding ascent through fragrant woods brought us presently to the bleak little village of Stokenchurch, situated high up on the top of the Chilterns, and there I caught sight of another old decayed coaching inn, but, to my eye, this was a hard-featured, unattractive building, wholly lacking in that peculiar, indescribable character that suggestsa romantic past, for buildings have their characters as well as men: some appeal to you, some do not.
A little beyond Stokenchurch began the long and steep descent of the famous Dashwood Hill, at the foot of which we found ourselves in the sleepy village of West Wycombe, with one or two rather curious old houses, but having nothing else to boast of. High Wycombe succeeded to West Wycombe; there is but a short and an uninteresting mile or two between them. High Wycombe is an old-fashioned, wide-streeted town, as those who travel the Oxford road are aware, with rather a quaint, much-mellowed, red-brick market-hall raised on stone arches. At High Wycombe the curious custom of Michaelmas hiring still prevails and flourishes. I think a short account of this that I cull from a local paper of the past year may prove interesting:—
Yesterday one of the oldest Michaelmas hiring fairs in England was witnessed in our ancient market-place. From a wide radius, including parts of the three counties of Bucks, Berks, and Oxon, farmers and agricultural employees in all spheres flocked into the town early in the morning. The attendance was large, and there was a general disposition to "change hands," though the average terms of remuneration showed very little alteration. Several old-time customs still prevail, both at the hiring and in regard to the conditions upon which the farm hands are engaged for the ensuing twelve months. For instance, ploughmen decorate their button-holes with pieces of whipcord to denote their distinctive calling, shepherds display tufts of wool in their forelocks and their caps, and other farm hands utilise horsehair and fancy ribbons and rosettes for their personal adornment.
A good deal of time was occupied in making the best terms,and in accordance with the precedent of many years' standing, the engagements were conditional on the supplying of beer, or harvest money in its place.
Leaving High Wycombe we followed a while the side of the little river Wye that turns an ancient mill on its way, and across the river rose some of the beautiful beech-clad hills for which Buckinghamshire is so justly famed. There is something about the form and growth of the close-leafed beech that causes it to clothe the hills with a graceful and following contour that no other tree does.
Now an unattractive five miles of road, with a climb on the way and at the end of it, brought us to the elevated and breezy little town of Beaconsfield that, considering it is within twenty-four miles of London, has retained its ancient air surprisingly; for its low, old houses, that face its wide and quiet street, still possess a pleasant and ancient look that charms. The town seems almost as remote and dreamy as though it were somewhere far away in the distant shires. May it long retain its primitive character! but I doubt it, for the railway has at last found it out.