CHAPTER XVIIIAn inn of the old-fashioned sort—A chat with "mine host"—A weird experience—Ghost stories—An ancient rectory house—A quaint interior—A haunted passage—Lost in a fog—The game of bowls—An old posting bill—The siege of Alton church—Ants as weather prophets.At Beaconsfield I put up for the night at "The White Hart," an ancient and homely hostelry where I found comfortable quarters, a landlord both interesting and obliging, a waitress civil and attentive, and excellent fare: such was my accidental good fortune. "The White Hart" is a very ancient though much altered building, dating, I was informed, from the days of Elizabeth; certainly some of its big and shaped beams upstairs testify to its ancientness. The coaching days were the days of its prime, for then one hundred horses were stabled there—so I afterwards learnt. The landlord received me with a cheery smile at the door: he knew how to welcome a guest. I casually told him I was tired and hungry, for I had travelled far that day; then he must needs at once concern himself about my dinner, so that I might not have to wait unduly for it, and promised me the best that the town could supply. I explained to him I was not an exacting traveller; he was far more anxious about my comfort and my fare thanwas I. That is the sort of landlord for me: very different his welcome to that one generally receives from the stony-eyed manager of a modern hotel. At these old-fashioned inns, with their friendly, good-natured landlords (for the one seems always to go with the other), I, but a tweed-clad, dust-stained traveller, always feel quite at home and at ease; there is such a charming simplicity and do-as-you-will air about them. Were I a millionaire I would choose them in preference to all others and desire no better. I merely sought a night's shelter, and however humble my chamber, if clean, it satisfied me. These inns give you their best, and who but the surliest could grumble at that when good is the best? I am an unpretending road-farer, though I fare in a car. I do not care to discuss my dinners when I get them; some days I made do with a tea, I found it more refreshing, but the dinner provided for me at that little inn of no pretence consisted of soup, fish, fowl, sweet omelette, with cheese to follow. Perhaps my hunger, begotten of a long day in fresh air, gave me an extra zest, but I thought at the time that never had I sat down to a better cooked dinner—I have certainly sat down to a worse in a wealthy man's house. This much for my modest inn I must say. Indeed, on the strength of its goodness I indulged in a small bottle of wine, and the wine was no worse than that of the same sort I have had at expensive London hotels at double the price, or perhaps even more.It chanced that I was the only guest there that night, so the landlord, with kind intent, came to meafter dinner and entertained me with a chat, and I was well entertained. It turned out that he was an old "'Varsity" man, a magistrate, an enthusiastic antiquary, a churchwarden, a mason, and I know not what else besides, a man of many parts; and if he played his other parts as well as he played that of "mine host," he played them well indeed. His knowledge was wide, he talked of many things and interestingly, so I spent a very pleasant and profitable evening in his company over a glass and a pipe. I quite forgot my tiredness; it was late before I got to bed—that speaks well for mine host. Our gossip eventually took an antiquarian turn; he told me of a very ancient, rambling, timber-framed rectory house that stood against the churchyard, which he said I really ought to see, and he kindly offered to show me over it the next morning. This ancient rectory, I understood, was built on the site of an old nunnery and dated from about 1525, and is in part inhabited—I think by the town nurse, he said. Connected with it, he told me of a most strange experience of his, and this is the tale he told to me after some hesitation. "I hardly like to relate my experience," he said, "for you may possibly not credit me, but I tell you the absolute truth." Then he paused as though doubtful if he should continue; indeed he needed some persuasion to do so. But I prevailed on him. What was the strange story he had to tell, I wondered, that he should so hesitate to tell it? I bided my time, and at last he went on: "I was going over the old building one morning, as I sometimes do. Believe me, I ama perfectly sane man, not given to fancies; I was in perfect health at the time, thinking of nothing special in particular. I was going over the building, as I said, and I opened the door of one of the rooms expecting to find it empty as usual. To my surprise I saw a strange clergyman seated there reading a book; being a stranger I took a good look at him, for I wondered who he was, but he neither moved nor spoke, so I left the room, quietly shutting the door. In the passage outside I met an inhabitant of the place. I described the clergyman to him, and asked him who he could be. The man looked at me in some astonishment; then he exclaimed, 'Why, from your description he exactly resembles our late rector, but he has been dead these three years.' Then I went back to the room again; the door had not been opened, I was close to it, and there was no other mode of egress, yet when I entered no one was there, the chair was vacant. For the moment I hardly knew what to think; a queer sort of feeling came over me, for I was suddenly conscious that it must have been the ghost of the late rector I saw. If not, what was it? How came that figure seated there? to where had it disappeared? I did not even know in the least what the dead rector was like, yet the description of what I saw was at once recognised for him by one who had known him well. I had never believed in ghosts, was not at the time thinking about them—indeed I had never previously given them a thought. Such was my strange experience, for which I can give no reasonable explanation." No more could I.The landlord's story did not disturb my rest that night, though I slept in a very ancient chamber, but it set me a-thinking. Ghosts and ghost stories appear to be coming into favour and fashion again, even taken seriously, it seems, from the accounts I read in the papers and in books. Truly astonishing are some of these. A few years back, under the heading of "A Haunted House," there appeared in theStandarda long letter from an army officer who confessed to having been driven out of a good house by the ghostly manifestations that took place within it! He begins his letter: "In this century ghosts are obsolete, but they are costing me two hundred pounds a year. I have written to my lawyer, but am told by him that the English law does not recognise ghosts." I really cannot blame the law, indeed I commend it. Then he goes on to say: "I am not physically nervous, I have been under fire repeatedly, have been badly wounded in action, and have been complimented on my coolness when bullets were flying about. I was not then afraid of ghosts; besides, I suspected trickery. A light was kept burning in the upper and lower corridor all night. A lamp and loaded revolver were by my bedside every night. No one could have entered the house without being detected, and probably shot." Then he describes the different ghostly manifestations that drove him, family, and servants out of the house: "The governess used to complain of a tall lady, with black, heavy eyebrows, who used to come as if to strangle her as she lay in bed." Footsteps were constantly heard during the nightin the corridors. "One night, lying awake, I distinctly saw the handle of my bedroom door turned, and the door pushed open; I seized my revolver and ran to the door. The lamp in the corridor was burning brightly; no one was there, and no one could have got away." On another occasion, when the writer with his family returned home at midnight from a concert, "our old Scotch housekeeper, who admitted us, a woman of iron nerves, was trembling with terror. Shortly before our arrival a horrible shriek had rung through the house. To our questions she only replied, 'It was nothing earthly.' The nurse, who was awake with a child with the whooping-cough, heard the cry, and says it was simply horrible," and so forth. Then I read inA Diplomatist's Wife in Many Lands, by Mrs. Hugh Fraser, how she had frequently seen a ghost in an Italian palace where her husband and self resided for a time. Besides, have we not the extraordinary description not only of ghostly people but of ghostly scenery (the latter is quite a new departure to me) in that astonishing bookAn Adventure, of which "the Publishers guarantee that the authors have put down what happened to them as faithfully and accurately as was in their power. The signatures appended to the Preface are the only fictitious words in the book." In theNotes from the Life of an Ordinary Mortal, by A. G. C. Liddell, C.B., I read: "In the morning walked with Mr. Chamberlain. We talked about ghosts." So enlightened people do talk about ghosts! "He said that he had at one time been interested in the subject, and had got hold of a casewhere the ghost had been seen by more than one person at the same time.... Four persons were sitting in an old hall and saw the figure of a monk walk across the far end of the room and disappear. The next night they fixed a rope across the track of the phantom, but it passed through the body without movement." So much for the papers and books, though I have only quoted a few of the incidents recorded; there are many others. Now, besides the landlord of "The White Hart," three other persons of late have declared to me positively that they have seen a ghost. Yet till this, since I was a boy, I have never heard them mentioned. The first was a lady whose husband had taken a charming old house in the Eastern Counties; it had the reputation of being haunted, but, not believing in ghosts, neither she nor her husband thought anything of that; but one evening, when going upstairs to dress for dinner, my informant told me she distinctly saw a figure of a woman, richly attired in a quaint old-world dress, perhaps of the Elizabethan period, quietly walking along the landing, and she watched it till it disappeared in the wall at the end of the passage. All the servants and the guests were accounted for, and "If the figure were not a ghost, what could it have been?" I was asked. I could not say! Moreover, the lady saw the same figure on a further occasion walking and disappearing in just the same astonishing manner. Another lady told me the story of a ghost she had seen in her house, only she said she was so frightened she could not say how it was dressed, or whether it was a heor a she ghost, so I did not trouble about further detail. Now for my last relation, and this occurred in my own house, not an old house by the way, and where I have never heard or dreamt of a ghost. A lady was left a short time in a room, when she rushed out to me in another part of the house declaring that, though the room was empty when she went in and she had shut the door behind her, on suddenly looking up from her chair she saw a bald-headed man standing in front of the fireplace; for a moment she wondered who he could be and how he came there, then the thought came across her it must be a ghost, and she asked me to come and interview it! This I did with her at all speed, but when we returned to the room no one was there. I merely thought the lady must have been dozing, but she stoutly averred she had not. Still, let people say and write on the subject no end, and be hounded out of their houses by ghosts, I will not believe in one till I see it; even then, I think I should send for a doctor to learn if my health were at fault, to be sure that I had not imagined the thing.The old rectory house at Beaconsfield is built on three sides of a square, and its half-timber front has a picturesque look. Within are many ancient chambers, some with their original panelling and Tudor fireplaces of stone, and there are many passages besides, for it is a rambling place: one of these passages, I was told, is called "The Ghost Walk," because a ghost is often heard at night, though not seen, walking along it; her footsteps, however, are often heard, and the rustling of her dress, for it issupposed to be the ghost of some lady. I think the landlord told me her story, but I have forgotten it now. Rats suggest themselves to me as an explanation of the footsteps, for I will wager there are rats in that old house; imagination might account for the rustling of a dress—it accounts for a good many things in this world. Old houses are often full of strange noises, for panelling is apt to creak with the changes of the weather, and in the still night-time all sounds appear magnified; then the creak of old woodwork seems startlingly loud, for I have experienced this.My landlord pointed out to me the chamber in which he had seen the vision, but there is nothing remarkable about it except its ancientness. The house is certainly one that should appeal even to the most exacting ghost; any stray ghost out of place through his "haunt" being pulled down would miss a rare opportunity in not taking up his abode there. Some small niches in the sides of the walls were pointed out to me; what use these could have been put to puzzled my antiquarian guide—they were too small and too shallow for statues. It occurred to me that they might be to place lamps in to light the dark passages; the landlord said he had not thought of that, and deemed it a plausible and possible explanation of their purport. I felt complimented he should so esteem my suggestion, but I had seen very similar niches in other old buildings that had undoubtedly been used to contain lamps; I told him this, and then he accepted my view as being correct, though he said many people hadseen the niches and were at a loss to account for them.It was a rare foggy morning when we left Beaconsfield, it was as though the whole country were packed up in cotton-wool; so dense indeed was the mist that we had to drive slowly and cautiously, for ahead of us was a wall of white and our vision was limited to yards. At my hotel in the evening I found a fellow-motorist who did not venture out at all that day, he thought it too risky. However, it was merely a matter of pace, and at times, when the fog thinned a little, we drove along quite comfortably. In a way I even enjoyed the drive, for the country looked so mysterious, and the mist exaggerated the forms of half-hidden things that suddenly rose up before us; even the houses and trees by the way assumed proportions gigantic: we might have been travellers in fabled Brobdingnag.Shortly after Beaconsfield we got on to narrow winding lanes, then into woods, though we could not see much of them, when we discovered we were at Burnham Beeches, where the roads are kept as prim as those of a park, neatly signposted too, and this robbed the woods of their suggestion of wildness; so on somehow to the main Bath road, which we followed only as far as Maidenhead, where we struck to the left over cross-country roads and eventually turned up at Wokingham, the landscape between being mostly hidden from view. The horn came in useful that day. Then followed some more cross-country roads, out of which we emerged on to the old Exeter highway and soon reachedthe hamlet of Hook with its old coaching inn—from the notices on its front it now appears to be a motoring inn; and after this we found ourselves back in Odiham again, so we took a fresh road out of it. The fog had now quite cleared away and the sun was shining, but what with a late start and the slow travelling for much of the way, and a long halt for refreshment, the sun was already lowering in the west and the sky was growing golden there. We had a delightful drive through a more or less hilly country into Alton, passing through South Warnborough, a very pretty village—the prettiest in Hampshire, its inhabitants declare. I am glad to learn they take a pride in their village; that is the sort of pride that profits, the pride of place and not of person—to be a dweller in no mean village.After South Warnborough we had a hilly drive over a down-like undulating country, and then we descended into Alton, where I have an idea they brew good ale. At Alton we put up at "The Swan," an old coaching inn of some former fame, and that still has a pleasantly prosperous look, keeps up its ancient reputation for good cheer, and presents a smiling front to the street. I found a fine bowling-green in the rear, and during the course of the evening some of the townsfolk forgathered there and played bowls quite seriously over their pipes and their ale. It may not be high art, but I noticed there was an art in playing bowls, and the old men who knew and studied it appeared mostly to win. A good old-fashioned game is bowls, that never seems wholly to go out of fashion, and a pleasant one to watch; engrossing too, for even Drake, when playing it on Plymouth Hoe with the dreaded Armada in sight, went on with his rub undisturbed. "There is no hurry," quoth he, and he quietly finished his game and then went and played ball with the Spaniards—but those were the days before steam. Now I never look on at a game of bowls but I think of bold Drake and those easy-going historic old days when, if they did things slowly, they did them very thoroughly.A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY DOORWAY.Writing of the subject of inn gardens, I remember seeing somewhere on the way boldly displayed on the front of an inn the simple legend "Lovely Garden." I am glad to note that innkeepers are becoming aware of the attraction of a garden and so proclaim it: a garden where guests may escape from walled rooms into the fresh air, there to loiter at ease retired from the street and the crowd; to secure a bedroom looking over those gardens is a further attraction to me.It may be that special good-fortune attended me, but during the whole of my journey never once at my inn where I stopped for the night did I fail to find entertainment, either from host or from guest. I think I have said so before. Now here at "The Swan" was still another landlord both willing to gossip and wishful to entertain a lone wanderer in the smoke-room of his comfortable hostel. He brought me a time-yellowed paper of the seventeenth century having an advertisement of his inn, to show how long it had been in existence. In the same paper, I think it was, my eye caught the followingannouncement: "June 19th, 1684. The post will go every day, to and from, betwixt London and Epsom during the season for drinking the waters." Then Epsom was a fashionable Spa. Also he showed me an old posting bill of the house that was of some interest, for it was a bill paid by the Rev. Gilbert White for a postchaise from "The Swan" to Meon Stoke and back, when White was on a visit to a friend at that place; and thus the bill runs:—Harrow.Hampshire—Alton.Swan.Neat Post-Chaises.£s.d.August 1st.Chaise to Meon Stoke136Duty30August 6th.Chaise from Meon Stoke to Alton136Duty30£1130August 27th, 1785.Received the contents.H. Harrow.Paid by the Rev.Gilbert White.In the account of his Hampshire rides in this locality Cobbett thus delightfully refers to Gilbert White: "I forgot to mention that a man who showed me the way told me at a certain fork, 'that road goes to Selbourne.' This puts me in mind of a book that was once recommended to me, but which I never saw, entitledThe History and Antiquities of Selbourne(or something of that sort), written, I think, by a parson of the name of White. Theparson had, I think, the living of Selbourne." Now had the "parson of the name of White" only written about farming Cobbett might have taken a more intelligent interest in him. Next the landlord remarked, "You ought really to see our old church." (How often have the landlords of inns during my journey recommended me to see their church; even one offered me his pew on a Sunday, such a staunch churchman was he.) "It may interest you," he continued, "for there are still the marks on its walls of the cannon-balls that struck them during the Civil War, when the church was besieged" (still more of Cromwell's endless cannon-balls!), "and there are the bullet marks too on the door made at the same time." The story of this siege is sufficiently and quaintly recorded on a brass in the church, and this I copied as follows:—A MemoricallFor this renowned Martialist Richard Boles of yeRight Worshipful family of the Boles. Colonell of aRidgment of foot of 1300. Who for his GratiousKing Charles ye First did wonders att the BattellOf Edge Hill. His last action was at Alton inThis County of Southampton, he was surprised byFive or six thousand of the Rebells whichCaused him, there Quartered, to fly to the ChurchWith near Fourescore of his men who thereFought them six or seuen houers, and whenThe Rebells Breaking in upon him, he slewWith his sword six or seuen of them and thenWas slayne himselfe with sixty of his men aboute him.1641.His Gratious Soverayne hearing of his deathGive ys passionate Expression "Bring meA Moorning Scarffe i have lost one of theBest Commanders in this Kingdome."Alton will tell you of that Famous FightWhich ys man made & bade the world good night,His Verteous life fear'd not mortalytyHis body must, his Vertues cannot die,Because his Bloud was there so nobly spent,This is his tombe, the Church his monument.The next morning, after seeing the church, as I was departing the landlord exclaimed, and that in spite of a fast-falling barometer and a plentiful supply of suspicious clouds about: "You'll have a fine day, for I notice the ants are throwing up their tiny heaps on the bowling-green, and when they do that the day is certain to be fine." I had not heard of this method of prognosticating the weather before; all the same it proved true, excepting for one short shower, when from the look of the sky at the start, and the south-westerly wind that was blowing, I should certainly have expected little but rain; yet even the shower we experienced I found out was local and did not extend very far.CHAPTER XIXThe Meon Valley—Warnford—A hidden church—A house "a million years old"!—A Saxon sun-dial—A ruined home—Corhampton and its Saxon church—A modern "Naboth's Vineyard"—An out-of-the-world village—A curious story—Quaint carvings and their legend—A church tower built by servants.We left Alton by the Winchester road; we did not, however, follow it for long, but turned down a by-road and soon reached a pretty village of some thatched cottages built round a little green, with its pond to make the picture complete. The inn there had on its signboard the representation of a fat monk with the legend "The Grey Friar," a fresh sign to me. Then passing a finely timbered park with many wide-branching elms in it, causing grey patches of shade on the great sweeps of sunlit sward, we began to explore the lovely Meon Valley, through which runs the clear and bright river Meon between richly wooded banks and gently sloping hills. I really do not think an artist could have designed prettier scenery had he the designing of it. A valley full of quiet beauty, yet so ignorant was I of my own land I had not heard of its charms before; many a guidebook-lauded valley is not half so beautiful as it. No poet has been born in that valley to sing its praises, otherwise it might havebeen famed. The day, too, was perfect, and the soft sunshine helped to make everything pleasant; the day and scene were attuned one to another.Up and down hill we went, then we dropped down to West Meon, a neat, clean village. The chief occupation of its inhabitants at the time appeared to be in standing idly at their doorways, or loafing in the road; it somehow reminded me of a scene at a theatre ready set, with the minor performers in place and awaiting the principal actors to come on the stage and play their parts. I often wonder how these villagers live with no local industry; they cannot live on one another, and they do not seem exactly the sort of people to receive dividends on investments, though in all of them at least the public-house appears to prosper. It is a problem beyond me. Here we crossed the Meon on a little stone bridge and proceeded by a delightfully tree-shaded road, as pleasant as a road could be, and along by the river-side to the tiny decayed village of Warnford, a mere hamlet rather of a few pretty and ancient cottages deep in woods where each cottage is a picture. Yet it had a depressingly lonely look as though the village were under some spell, for I did not see a soul about it, not a face at a window, not a figure at a door, no one in its cottage gardens, not a child, nor a dog, nor a fowl in the road. I stopped in the village for an hour, or more, to make some sketches and to take some photographs, yet all that while there was no sign of life about the place, no one going or coming. I could not but marvel at this, it was so curious anexperience. It looked like a deserted village, yet the cottages appeared well cared for, and their little gardens loved and well tended. The strange loneliness and silence of the spot impressed me. Why was it? I could not account for it, unless all its inhabitants were away making holiday, but where were the dogs and the fowls? It might almost have been one of those picturesque model villages one sees in an exhibition at an early hour before the very properly dressed up and show village maidens have arrived and when no one is there, only it was far too real for that.There was one thing besides its loneliness that seemed strange and incomplete about the spot, though for a time I could not realise what I missed; then it struck me it was the absence of a presiding church, that is generally such a prominent feature of a village and centres the life of it. I looked carefully around, but nowhere could I see the church; there was no sign of one, nor a chapel. For even peaceful villagers cannot worship one God in one way.As I left the village by a road that bent round sharply by the side of a park, at last I saw a human being, a man close at hand in a field. So I pulled up and asked where the church was, or if there were one. "The church," replied he, "it be away in the park opposite, right in the woods. You cannot see it till you come to it. You go in at the lodge gate and follow the road over the bridge, then when you comes in sight of the house you turns to the right, and there be the church inthe woods. It be a curious old place, over a thousand years old they do say." I thought I would see it. A thousand years old is a fair age for a building, and though the man might be mistaken in that, probably the building was very ancient. So off I set in search of the church that I found some way off in the park, half hidden and surrounded by trees and green in the shade of them. A humble little church with a damp and time-worn look, yet with a certain pathetic charm about it that belongs to most things ancient of man's contriving. I was surprised in so poor a church to come upon a fine altar-tomb with the recumbent effigies of a man and his two wives, and the kneeling figures of their children below; and another similar monument, both to members of the same Neale family, the earliest one bearing date of 1599. Drops of moisture were dripping down the sides of the monuments as though the very stones were mourning for the forgotten dead. There is some fine carved oak in the church going to decay, and a curious old pillared font. But the interior was so dim and damp I was glad to get out of it. It certainly is an ancient church, and perhaps looks more ancient than it really is. Some of the walls, and certainly the small yet massive tower, are Norman, but that would not make it over a thousand years old; still, a century or two is nothing to rural folk. I once asked a man in a little country town if he could tell me the age of an interesting old house there. "I don't rightly know just how old it be," he replied, "but it's over a million years old, that I know forcertain." I was astonished. "Surely you have made a mistake?" I exclaimed. "No, I haven't," he responded, "for there's the date carved upon it, as you may see," and he pointed this out to me, for it had escaped my notice, carved in Roman letters, "MDXCII." "There, I told you it was over a million years old. 'M' stands for a million, as you know, and the other letters for more years, but I cannot rightly read them." I said nothing; it was not my business to educate the countryman. Once I did attempt to correct a villager about some glaring mistake in reading an inscription—he would read it to me; he resented my correction and walked off in a huff; now I am careful not to run the risk of so offending again.Church clerks too, as a frequent rule, I have found very touchy if you venture, however mildly, to differ with them about anything they may have to say about their church. I shall not in a hurry forget the rare trouble I got into with a more than usually intelligent clerk who was showing me over his interesting old church. Now I had noticed in the tiny town a small and cheap local handbook of the church for sale, so I purchased this before going to inspect the building. I had it with me as I went round the church accompanied by the clerk; I referred to it now and again and found it fairly correct as far as my knowledge went, but on one minor point of architecture I certainly thought the author was manifestly wrong. In my innocence I pointed this out to the clerk, with what I thought to be the quite harmless remark that "the writer of this bookdoes not know everything." My guide was up in arms in a moment. "What do you mean?" queried he; "the book is absolutely correct; I never, no never, heard any one question it before. It has always given perfect satisfaction," and so forth and for some time. I was fairly taken aback. Why all this rage about nothing? thought I, and as I was thinking it out the clerk suddenly exclaimed, "Do you know who wrote that book?" I confessed I did not. "Why, I did," said the clerk, "I who have been here for over twenty long years, and there's not a soul in the whole county knows as much about the church as I do; I know every stone of it, and you have only been in it ten minutes. Now what is ten minutes to twenty years' long study?" I had "put my hand in a hornet's nest," as the saying has it, and I hardly remember to this day how I smoothed matters over; indeed I am not sure if I actually did, the clerk's feelings were wounded. I was truly sorry. I humbly apologised, I even trebled my tip, trusting thus to appease him; in a measure I did, but in a measure only, for he accepted it in an off-hand manner as though he were doing me a favour; still he accepted it, upon doing which he remarked, "You're a generous gentleman, that I will own, but you really don't understand architecture; however," now in a tone more of sorrow than anger, "it takes a lifetime of study, it do." I was glad to get away from that clerk. Now I am careful when reading a book, or when having read one, that I do not talk unawares to its author. Yet I actually blundered again in a much similar way, though I hardly think I wastreated quite fairly that time. An artist friend took me to look over a picture-gallery; he asked my opinion of the different pictures as we passed along; my opinion was not worth much, but he seemed pleased to have it, so I gave it quite freely. Of one picture I exclaimed, as I felt bound to make some remarks, "Well, I don't think much of that." "No more do I," said my friend, "for I painted it!" But when I profusely apologised and tried to explain I meant something quite different, even at the price of the truth, unlike the clerk my friend laughed aloud at the trick he had played and how he had trapped me, then insisted on my dining with him that night. Once on the journey I thought I saw an opportunity to turn the tables and to score in this way off a stranger. We were chatting in the smoke-room of our inn after dinner, when, to my surprise, I discovered he was reading a book I had written; he knew not my name, nor did I know his, and I hoped he might make some disparaging remark about my book, then I would tell him I wrote it, and could myself indulge in a laugh. But it never came off, for he put down the book unconcernedly and talked to me most of the evening; evidently he preferred my talk to my writing.But to return to the little church of Warnford, it depressed me with its silence and gloom; I was glad to get out into the fresh air, for it seemed like a tomb. As I was leaving, under the porch I caught sight of a curious old Saxon sun-dial, a somewhat rare thing to find, and over it was a long Latin inscription relating, as far as I could make out, though my Latinis rusty, to the rebuilding of the church a long while ago. The dial probably belonged to a still more ancient church that once stood on the spot, but why it was placed there where no sun could reach it I could not understand.Just by the side of the neglected churchyard I caught a glimpse of the ruins of an old house buried in trees, and a grand house it must have been in its day, for six upstanding stone pillars of what once was its great hall testify to its size, but little else remains but some broken and mouldering walls. Of its history I could glean nothing, for there was no one about to ask this. Then I returned to the car, and once more proceeded on my pleasant way down the wooded valley, with the musical murmuring of the river and the song of the wind in the woods for company; and I had all this lovely country to myself for some miles, except for a stray farmer's gig and a cart or two—a country where to my mind's eye peace dwelt in lowly cottages and scattered old-time farmhouses; truly the trail of the serpent might be there as well as elsewhere, but I saw no sign of it. To me it was a valley of peace and contentment. Perhaps it was because I was an onlooker only and had no concern in its life. It is well to be a mere onlooker at times, then the drama of the little world before you runs smoothly; you do not see behind the scenes. You behold neither the tragedy nor the comedy of life, only its sunshine and its pleasantness. So it is wise not to abide too long in any place, however it take your fancy, lest you risk disillusion of finding the world is much the samethe world over, and the earthly paradise you have discovered is no paradise at all. I thought I had found my paradise once in a charming old and picturesque village far west, where all seemed so peaceful and blest; but I stayed there too long, for on getting to know the quiet country folk I too quickly discovered they had their grievances one against the other, just as much as those people who live in less desirable spots; these grievances mostly seemed paltry to me who had no part in them, but they were not to be got over. Yes, I had stayed there too long. Three weeks had I stayed, so charmed was I with the place and its cosy old inn: I had better have stayed for only three days, and retained my first dream of perfection.Next we came to the adjoining villages of Corhampton and Meon Stoke; I took them for one, but I learnt that the little river Meon divides them and that they really are two distinct places. On each side of the river, almost within a stone's throw of each other, their ancient churches stand. Two places of worship where one might suffice—surely a waste of Christian energy! How much energy is often wasted in country churches! A Sussex parson once told me that sometimes he had to preach and the choir had to sing to three old women and an umbrella! Both Corhampton and Meon Stoke are lovely villages in a lovely spot enclosed by wooded hills; you might travel for many a day and many a mile before coming to so fair a corner of the land. It is as fair as wooded hills, gently gliding river, with a droning old mill by its side, green meadows, prettycottages gracefully yet accidentally grouped, and two grey, quaint, and ancient churches can make it.Meon Stoke church with its odd black wooden bell-turret makes a pretty picture standing by the side of the river where it broadens out into a pool. Corhampton church stands on a little knoll almost opposite, and is small and most unpretending, but of much interest, being Saxon, though since those far-away Saxon times it has suffered alteration. Now Saxon churches are rare in the land, notwithstanding that this was the second we had come upon in out-of-the-way places during the journey. Its walls still show the long-and-short Saxon stone-work, and there is a good example of a Saxon doorway on the north side, unfortunately built up. There is to me little doubt that its walls are the original ones, though patched here and there, and though later windows have been inserted in them, so that the building remains the same size and form as when first erected, long centuries past. In the churchyard is a large yew-tree undoubtedly ancient, but whether it is "as old as the building itself and the oldest in the country," as a parishioner asserted it was, I could scarcely believe; perhaps he did not realise the age of the church. I grant that the tree likely flourished in the days of Queen Bess, probably was old even then, and that takes one back a good while. How many churchyards boast of having the biggest and oldest yew-tree in the land? I have quite lost count of them, and of the "smallest church in England" I have seen not a few. Standing at one side of the porch we noticedthe original altar-stone with five crosses on it, and within the church, built into the south wall of the chancel, is a curious stone chair. But I think perhaps Corhampton church is of more interest to the archaeologist than to the average tourist. I suppose there are still trout in the Meon as there were in Izaak Walton's past days when he fished in that river, for as we left I observed a woman on its banks patiently and deftly casting the fly, though the water was so clear and the sun so bright she could hardly hope for much sport. But anglers live greatly on hope. Good Izaak Walton knew when to stop fishing, for of one day he writes: "We went to a good honest ale-house, and there played shovel-board half the day ... and we were as merry as they that fished." He was no slave to his hobby, and owned it. Again I must confess that fishing with me is more an excuse to get out in the country with something to do than the mere catching of fish; possibly to others its chief charm lies in this. But it does not do to analyse one's pleasures.After Corhampton the country grew more open for a time, and at one spot on the top of a hill that rose across the river I caught sight of a quaint-looking, remote village with a fine church possessing a noble tower that dominates the landscape. I could not understand why so small and out-of-the-way a village (it seemed but a hamlet) should possess so fine a church. A sudden desire took me to explore it, so I turned down the narrow lane that led to the spot and climbed the opposite hill. Ipulled up at the first cottage I came to; there were only a few, but this attracted my attention, being creeper-covered and with a porch all overgrown with fragrant honeysuckle just as a poet would have it. Then I noticed its name painted over its garden gate; this struck me as strange, for it was "Naboth's Vineyard." As I was standing close by, its owner came forth and bade me good-day; I think curiosity brought him out to learn what a stranger did there, in a motor-car too, where I should imagine strangers or motor-cars very seldom or hardly ever appear. We got chatting together about nothing in particular; then I asked why he had given his pretty cottage so strange a name. I thought there might be some story connected with it. "Can't you guess?" said he, smiling; "it's because so many people envy me it and would like to possess it. I thought it a very suitable name"—and he was simply the village blacksmith who had conceived this conceit. "Would you care to come into the garden and see what a fine view I've from it?" So I went into the garden and duly admired the view looking south far away down the valley, then bathed in the glow of the afternoon sun, and the garden I noticed was a pleasant one, gay with the bright, old-fashioned, hardy flowers so familiar to the Elizabethan poets, flowers that Mrs. Allingham has pictured to us in many of her charming drawings of cottage homes. How I love those hardy flowers, never hurt by the rain; they seem fuller of colour and far sweeter of scent to me than the pampered, potted-out ones that people admire or profess to admire to-day, andthat are often ruined by a storm in an hour. I thought at the moment I could live in that cottage contentedly, far away from the world and its worries. I asked the name of the village and learnt it was Soberton.As I was quietly admiring the view, the blacksmith pointed me out a field down below. "Some time ago," said he, "a stone coffin was dug up there, and in it was a skeleton of a man embedded in cement, but no one could make anything of it." A skeleton only, buried in cement in a coffin, not in a churchyard—that is surely suggestive of mystery?From the garden I had a good view of the tall flint and stone-built church tower, and I expressed my surprise to find so fine a one there. "I expect you don't know its history," said the blacksmith. I confessed I did not, but would be pleased to hear it. "Well, it's like this," he continued; "they say it was built by the life-savings of two servants, a butler and a dairymaid, who were in service at an old mansion in the valley that has long been pulled down. You can see on the tower, if you care, the carved figures in stone of the butler and the maid, and between them there is a skull to show, I am told, that the tower was built after their death." So I went to inspect the tower and see what I could make of the carvings. How many quaint legends you pick up on the road if you only search out places remote where legends still linger. There, true enough, high up in the tower, just under the parapet, I saw plainly the two figures, opposite one another, of a butler with a key in his hand and adairymaid with a pail by her side. They were carved with much skill and boldly, and appeared little the worse for the storms of years that must have beaten upon them, exposed as they are to all weathers. If sculptured stones could confirm a story, these stones appeared to do so. Then at the foot of the tower my eye caught this inscription:This towerOriginally built by ServantsWas restored by Servants1881.I presume that whoever had that inscription placed there must have felt there was some truth in the story, though, to me, I confess it seems an improbable one. Still, what traveller would be so cruelly critical as to doubt every legend he hears? In this case the curious carvings are suggestive and certainly call for some story—else why are they there, and not only there, but so prominently placed right in front of the tower?CHAPTER XXA tramp's story—A relic of a famous sea-fight—A tame road—Inn gardens—New landlords and old traditions—Chichester market-cross—A wind-swept land—"Dull and dreary Bognor"—A forgotten poet—Littlehampton—Country sights and sounds—A lulling landscape.From Soberton we resumed our way down the Meon Valley, which gradually widening out lost its vale-like character and with that much of its charm; its scenery culminated at Corhampton. We had not gone far before we sought shelter beneath some overhanging trees from a smart shower; already a tramp was sheltering there. As we drove up he received me with a military salute, or what he considered to be such, for it was not very well done, remarking at the same time, "Good-morning, captain." Tramps are fond of addressing any one as "captain"; I presume they find it pleases. I simply acknowledged his salute out of civility, but said nothing. "Old soldier," exclaimed the tramp laconically. Old humbug, I thought, but still I said nothing, not from pride, but because he looked such a dirty, worthless tramp. But not a whit disheartened he came close up to the car, too close for my liking, and began to pitch a yarn how he had fought for his country against the Boers: "Now look at me, a poorold soldier who has served his country, having to tramp about in search of any odd job, and jobs is hard to find, and wherever I goes to ask for work there's sure to be a dog come for me. Dogs is a terror to a poor tramp." It might have been uncharitable of me, but I was rather pleased to hear that; I have a good opinion of a dog's judgment. Then he started on a long-winded story of his experiences and hardships, real or invented—I strongly inclined to the latter—during the war. The tale was not badly told, I must give him credit for that, yet I doubted the truth of it; my experience of tramps being extensive caused me to doubt; though if I meet with an interesting tramp, and some there are, I am always prepared for a chat and to pay the price of my entertainment—and cheat. Greatly doubting the truth of the tale, a sudden idea struck me: I asked the tramp the name of the ship he went out in. A surprise question it proved, for he hesitated before answering it, then he gave me a name; I had never heard of a ship so called, still that proved nothing; then I quite casually exclaimed, "Why, that's an old paddle-ship." "That's the one," he replied in some haste, not seeing the point that sea-going paddle-ships have long been out of date, and not one naturally was employed to convey troops to the Cape. Such is the artless art of the tramp; but that tramp got nothing from me. As soon as the shower was over I went on my way. I really do not think it kindness or wisdom to encourage the professional tramp, it only tends to increase the tribe who already sufficiently pesterour roads. The best of them are lazy fellows who prefer their rough life to doing an hour's honest work. A friend of mine one day offered a begging tramp a good meal and a shilling to dig a corner in his garden, perhaps two hours' real work. But the tramp refused "the job," his excuse being he was hungry and needed the meal first, which might mean he would get the meal, then walk off.Soon we reached the pleasant little town of Wickham, where William of Wykeham was born in 1324, and that is its only claim to fame as far as I know. It is a tiny town with a wide market-place, and it looked very sleepy that day. It consists of a number of gabled houses, mostly old and of various dates, the oldest, as usual, being the most picturesque. The modern city architect, with some very rare exceptions, appears to be ashamed of gables and of chimneys that so pleasantly break and vary the skyline. Wickham just escapes being quaint, but it retains the slumberous calm of old times. The charm that these quiet little unprogressive old towns have for some people lies not alone in their antiquity, though this has much to do with it, nor in their picturesqueness, for they are not all picturesque, except for an odd building here and there, but in their rare restfulness and completeness, for they never seem to grow or get ugly: now prosperous towns are always growing and eating up the green fields around, they have an unfinished look that displeases, and their modern buildings are hopelessly uninteresting, when not positively unsightly, and there is no sense of repose about them.They go in for plate-glass and show, and for tramways when they can. At Wickham we discovered a water-mill, built about a century ago, though it looked much older; the big beams within it were made out of the timbers of the U.S. frigateChesapeakethat was captured by H.M.S. frigateShannonin that famous sea-fight of 1813, and some of the timbers bear the marks of the cannon-balls still. So in the most unlikely places we came upon history—indeed we never passed a day that we did not at some spot or another.We did not patronise the inn at Wickham, for there was still time for more wandering. I often wonder how these little inns in the sleepy country towns and villages pay, for their customers cannot be many. One landlord at whose inn I stayed on the way, a neat and even picturesque inn where I was very well treated and served, told me he paid £55 a year rent for it with stabling attached. It seemed a low enough rental to me, not enough to pay a fair interest on the building; but that was the owner's affair, I suppose he could not get more or he would. Mine host told me, during a chat in his cosy bar, that his average takings were £10 a week, "which is not all profit, of course. There are licences to pay and rent and taxes, then there's the providing and servants' wages, to say nothing of the wear and tear of carpets and furniture, which is considerable. No, sir, the innkeeper's lot is not all cakes and ale; his hours are late, and he has much responsibility. Yet the Government tax us unmercifully. Our worries are many, but we always have to greet our guests with a cheerful face as though we had nothing to worry about and were the happiest of men. We provide a home from home for all travellers and at all hours. It's hard work is innkeeping, and ought to be better rewarded." I agreed with mine host of a smiling face, and I drank his good health. When I paid my modest bill for excellent entertainment, I left feeling I was under an obligation to him for the trouble he took to obtain me admission to see over a most interesting half-timber Elizabethan house near by, having first told me of it and its eventful past history.AN OLD-TIME HOME.I had intended to follow the valley of the Meon right down to the sea, and by my map I find it would have taken me to Lichfield, but by some mischance at Wickham I got on the wrong road, a road that took me to Fareham, so the rest of the way I lost sight of the river. I was vexed with myself at having done this, for a river is always such cheerful company. No country, however tame, is without charm that has a river running through it; a river is, as a Frenchman said, "a moving road," its destiny the sea; the birds sing best by its banks, the cattle go down to and refresh themselves and wade in its waters, the fisherman haunts it, often picturesque old mills stand by its side; there is always life by a river, and the gleam of it enlivens the dullest of landscapes. I always make for a river, and follow it as far as I conveniently can. Those old monks knew a good thing, they could be trusted for that, and be it noted how generally they built their abbeys by the side of a stream.Some say it was because they might catch fish for their Fridays when they fasted, or feasted, on fish, for fish is not a bad dish, washed down by good wine—so their enemies say, in the days when the monks became lazy and fat, and let their lands instead of farming them, but I rather believe they selected such sites with an eye for fair spots, and that only.The road on to Fareham seemed tame and hardly worth travelling. After the quiet beauties of the valley above, I was spoilt for the ordinary. But at Fareham, an unattractive, long-streeted town, I again found a good inn of the old-fashioned sort, and that reconciled me to the place; then the inn had a little garden in its rear overlooking an inlet of the sea where ships were harboured, and the sight of their masts and their sails gave a sense of romance to the view, for the sight of a ship, however small it may be, sets my thoughts a-wandering and voyaging in imagination all the world over. The town was forgiven, indeed forgotten. If an inn you rest at has only a pleasant garden to moon in, what matters the town? If "the finest landscape is improved by a good hotel in the foreground," how much the more so in comparison is a commonplace town? I know an old country town that might have been pleasant enough in past days, but now has been ruined picturesquely and utterly by some rows of most assertively ugly new buildings of staring red brick and blue slates and plate-glass; but at the end of it stands a fine coaching inn, a long low building with creeper-cladwalls, a dream of old times with its swinging signboard upheld on a post, its panelled, beam-ceilinged chambers, its cool, cosy bar, its long out-of-date comfortable Georgian furniture, not to mention its big bowling-green on which our ancestors played. In spite of its ugliness, and very ugly it is, to that town I often repair solely for the sake of that inn, not forgetting its worthy host, who might have stepped out of some novel by Dickens or Ainsworth or James. So much for sentiment and the attraction of the picturesque. I really think that the inn makes the host; the subtle influence of an ancient inn, the atmosphere or a spirit of the past that lingers about it, soon takes possession of the later landlord and makes him one in his manner and ways with those who preceded him, and so without realising it he comes to conform to the old traditions quite naturally, almost as though he were born to them. So surely I feel this the case that I always expect, and I find—I cannot remember a single exception—an old inn of the kind to have a landlord in keeping. It is the same with old houses. I know a man of modern ideas who came into the possession of one and determined to make alterations in it, but somehow or other the alterations were postponed. Meanwhile the house quietly conquered, and now is religiously preserved as it was; the only concession to modern ideas being that a diamond casement window was replaced with one of plate-glass, and this merely for the sake of a view; but to-day the new owner regrets even that, and I fully expect in due time to find the old lattice panesback in their place, for the view can be sufficiently well seen through them.From Fareham we took the road to Chichester, a road that follows the line of the coast though a little inland; a road of no beauty after the first few miles, but not without interest. Here and there on the way we had peeps of the sea and of little landlocked creeks that had a charm of their own, and these redeemed the scenery from the uninteresting succession of houses and poor villages that succeeded one another with scant intervals for many a mile. Presently we came in sight of Portsmouth over a long lagoon, its waters coming right up to our road, which is embanked to preserve it from the wash of the tide. We caught a glimpse of the grim ironclads in the harbour dimly seen through the drifting dun smoke of the town, but the smoke above where touched by the sunshine was tinged with gold and glorified, and under such conditions even smoke can be beautiful seen afar off. As the road gradually rose we had a fine view across Langstone Harbour, over which the wind blew free towards us with a cool and refreshing salt savour. So through Havant and Emsworth we found our townified and dusty way and came to a land of flat green plains, ahead of which rose, pearly-grey against the white sky, the steeple of Chichester Cathedral with the irregular outline of the city below. Seen thus from our point of view it suggested a city of romance in the days of pilgrimages. Would that the reality could only come up to our vision! How much truth lies in Campbell'soften-quoted line, "Distance lends enchantment to the view." We almost wished we could have avoided Chichester and so have retained that poetic vision, for "There is a pleasure, now and then, in giving full scope to Fancy and Imagination." But the road led to Chichester and nowhere else; to the south was the sea, and there was no other way. But Chichester is a pleasant old city, though it does not realise impossible dreams; its grey-toned cathedral makes a fine background for its beautiful arched market-cross. I am afraid I admire the market-cross more than the cathedral, for the cathedral is rather interesting than beautiful, whilst the market-cross is wholly beautiful and interesting besides. Never had an architect of lesser structures a more happy inspiration than when designing that graceful cross.We drove southward from Chichester to regain the sea front, and the road we selected we found led to Bognor: dull and dreary Bognor I have heard it called; its name is against it, and it is a hard thing to struggle against a bad name whether in man or place. Now we found ourselves in a flat land, a land of meadows and fields of waving corn, a land that stretched far away, wide and open to the long level lines of the distant horizon. Truly it was not a beautiful country according to the accepted traditions of beauty, for it was devoid of all character except flatness, and that is a quality that mostly appeals to a Dutchman or Fen dweller. Yet there was a certain charm about that flat country to me; I think it lay in the wide dome of sky above thatflooded the landscape with unshadowed light, and the bracing breeziness of it, swept as it was by the unchecked winds from the sea. It was all so open, free, and flushed with the freshest of airs; then there was such a homely, friendly feeling about it, for it was a country of modest homes, not one of mansions or villas—a country of odd farmsteads and cottages only. Truly there was nothing strictly to admire in all the far prospect, only a succession of grass and green cornfields, "one field much like another," as I think Dr. Johnson once said of the country; but the brightness of the vast spaces of sunlit land, and the pronounced pureness and clearness of the air, made for cheerfulness and were inspiriting. If the landscape was in a measure monotonous, the wild flowers that abounded by the way made fair atonement for it. I knew not their names, but what mattered that? It was their beauty I prized, their colour and form. I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba and cry, "'Tis all barren." He had best stay at home and travel by book, till he learns through other eyes how to see. As Keats wrote of the pre-Wordsworth poets:Ah, dismal-soul'd!The winds of heaven blew, the ocean roll'dIts gathering waves—ye felt it not. The blueBared its eternal bosom and the dewOf summer nights collected still to makeThe morning precious: beauty was awake!Why were ye not awake? But ye were deadTo things ye knew not.I think it was Stevenson who wrote an interestingarticle "On the Enjoyment of Unpleasant Places"—not that the country we passed through that day was in any way unpleasant, it simply was somewhat uninteresting; and there is an art in enjoying the uninteresting, or what you may deem so, though I must confess it does not come up to the higher art of "the enjoyment of unpleasant places." A man who can do that can be happy anywhere and without travelling far, but its accomplishment needs a good deal of training and time and trying, I should imagine—not, be it noted, to make the best of, but actually toenjoythe unpleasant. "Ay, there's the rub." That surely is an education in itself, somewhat in the shape of a task! Now I travel for pleasure and not to be taught.Perhaps it was because I fully expected to find Bognor a dull and dreary spot that I was agreeably disappointed with it. Then I confess I have a fancy for seeing places differently from other people, amounting almost to a confirmed opposition to prevailing opinion. It may be just then that I was in the unconscious humour to enjoy unpleasant places, but I could see nothing unpleasant about Bognor to test it. Basking in the bright sunshine it looked quite cheerful to me; indeed I thought I should much prefer to stay there than at fashionable and familiar Brighton, which seems like a town where the sea is but an accident and the shops on the front are the real attraction—Bond Street at second-hand. Hear what Richard Jefferies says: "All fashionable Brighton parades the King's Roadtwice a day, morning and afternoon, always on the side of the shops.... These people never look at the sea.... The sea is not 'the thing' at Brighton, which is the least nautical of seaside places"—and I fear that the music at the Pavilion is more to the liking of visitors there than the music of the waves. Now at Bognor I noticed there were crowds by the sea, crowds with a happy look on their faces, a sea that was sparkling and dancing far away with joy in its dancing, whilst the white-crested waves came rolling in on the beach, breaking and splashing in masses of silvery spray. I must have had my rose-coloured spectacles on that day, for I could see nothing dreary or dull about Bognor; all the people I saw there seemed light-hearted and sprightly, and it is not a bad rule to judge of a place by the people in it. Those who read this may smile, but in spite of its reputation and name, and reputation influences much, I took quite a liking to the place. Truly I must allow that the sun was shining down gloriously, "doing its best to make all things pleasant," and succeeding—making even Bognor look gay.It was but a short way from Bognor to the village of Felpham, where William Blake lived for some time to be near his friend Hayley the poet, who—the poet, that is—gained some repute in his day, though his popularity has not stood Time's trying test. Of Hayley it may be said, "Everything was good about him but his poetry." Still he wrote pleasant enough verse, though his thoughts were not deep. The last lines he composed to theswallows on his roof may be quoted as an example, not of his best, nor yet of his worst:Ye gentle birds that perch aloof,And smooth your pinions on my roof,Preparing for departure henceEre winter's angry threats commence;Like you my soul would smooth her plumeFor longer flights beyond the tomb.Hayley, who was given to writing epitaphs, also composed the well-known and much-quoted one to a local blacksmith that is to be found in Felpham churchyard, which runs thus:My sledge and hammer lie reclin'd,My bellows too have lost their wind,My fire's extinct, my forge decay'd,And in the dust my vice is laid,My coal is spent, my iron gone,The nails are driven, my work is done.This epitaph has been frequently repeated elsewhere; I have come upon it in at least a dozen churchyards, sometimes with variations that are no improvements. An epitaph once popular soon became common property. Twice when touring in the Eastern Counties did a clerk of a church declare in effect, knowing I was in search of quaint epitaphs, "Now I can show you a curious one to a blacksmith that is quite original," only to find, once again, Hayley's epitaph there; and I really do not think I have ever been in a churchyard without coming upon the everlasting—and irritating because so commonplace—Afflictions soreLong time he (or she) bore.Whoever originated these lines has much to answer for. On the other hand, the man who had simply inscribed on his wife's tombstone "Though lost to sight to memory dear," without a thought of such a thing has given us a classic quotation. Here, however, are two epitaphs that strike a fresh note. The first is at Cobham to a photographer, both brief and to the point, for all it says is "Taken from life." Another to John Knott, a scissor-grinder, may be found in smoky Sheffield:Here lies a man that was Knott born,His father was Knott before him,He lived Knott and did Knott die,Yet underneath this stone doth lieKnott christened,Knott begot,And here he liesAnd yet was Knott.From Felpham we drove along narrow roads to Littlehampton. I am not sure that we went the nearest or best way, indeed I feel almost sure we did not; even on the map it is not simple to follow. I know we wound about a good deal, first in one direction, then in another, but it was very pleasant wandering, and we passed by many delightful old homes and pretty cottages. It was a land of pleasant homes and quiet abiding. Now and then we caught a peep of the sea on one hand, and of the fine rolling "hills of the South Country" on the other, and on the level land between our road took its devious way as though of uncertain mind whether to make for the sea or the hills, then finally making for the sea at Littlehampton.Now and then we heard the fussy rattle of a mowing machine busy at work in a field. Not only country sights but country sounds have changed greatly during the past century. Scarcely ever now one hears the once familiar whetting of the scythe, or the soothing swish of it in the long grass. Sings Tennyson:O sound to rout the brood of cares,The sweep of scythe in morning dew.That is the value of pleasant sounds. It is long since I have heard the beat of the flail threshing out the grain on the barn floor; to-day in its place we have the steam threshing-machine, and that is the only mechanical sound that pleases my ear, the dreamy hum of it when mellowed by distance. Doubtless associations have much to do with the pleasure sounds afford. Who loves not the "caw, caw, caw" of the rook? Yet in reality it is a sound harsh and grating, but then one always so intimately connects it with the country, big trees, ancestral homes and rural delights, that, though truly discordant, the notes even gratify the ear.So we reached Littlehampton, half port half watering-place, of no great importance as either. From Littlehampton our road kept up much the same pleasantly rural and uneventful character, with hills to the north and the sea to the south, and the same sort of level and, in parts, well-wooded land between. "Hills," it has been said, "give hope, wood a kind of mysterious friendliness with the earth, but the sea reminds us that we arehelpless." We had all three, but the sea that day, gleaming and bright in the glance of the sun, looked more like a friend than a foe; it did not suggest the helplessness of man but rather his convenient highway over the world to distant lands of old romance—if any be left.There is an infinite pleasure to the quiet-loving pilgrim in driving through a lulling land like this where all is restful to the eye and hurry a thing unknown, a land through which you drive on in a sort of day-dream and for a time desire nothing better, a landWhere the wind with the scent of the sea is fed,And the sun seems glad to shine.In truth there was a touch of sunny Southernness about it, a warmth and brightness suggestive of Italy, though the scenery was essentially English.Then we came to the sea again at Worthing, when my rose-coloured spectacles must surely have dropped from my eyes, for I could see nothing attractive about it: otherwise how can I account for the fact that Bognor, "dull Bognor," appealed to me and Worthing did not? Perhaps because, I thought, there was more pretence of being a watering-place about Worthing, and I heard a band playing there, and I heard no band at Bognor but only the surge of the sea. I was glad to escape from Worthing; it had no interest for me beyond its fresh air.
CHAPTER XVIIIAn inn of the old-fashioned sort—A chat with "mine host"—A weird experience—Ghost stories—An ancient rectory house—A quaint interior—A haunted passage—Lost in a fog—The game of bowls—An old posting bill—The siege of Alton church—Ants as weather prophets.At Beaconsfield I put up for the night at "The White Hart," an ancient and homely hostelry where I found comfortable quarters, a landlord both interesting and obliging, a waitress civil and attentive, and excellent fare: such was my accidental good fortune. "The White Hart" is a very ancient though much altered building, dating, I was informed, from the days of Elizabeth; certainly some of its big and shaped beams upstairs testify to its ancientness. The coaching days were the days of its prime, for then one hundred horses were stabled there—so I afterwards learnt. The landlord received me with a cheery smile at the door: he knew how to welcome a guest. I casually told him I was tired and hungry, for I had travelled far that day; then he must needs at once concern himself about my dinner, so that I might not have to wait unduly for it, and promised me the best that the town could supply. I explained to him I was not an exacting traveller; he was far more anxious about my comfort and my fare thanwas I. That is the sort of landlord for me: very different his welcome to that one generally receives from the stony-eyed manager of a modern hotel. At these old-fashioned inns, with their friendly, good-natured landlords (for the one seems always to go with the other), I, but a tweed-clad, dust-stained traveller, always feel quite at home and at ease; there is such a charming simplicity and do-as-you-will air about them. Were I a millionaire I would choose them in preference to all others and desire no better. I merely sought a night's shelter, and however humble my chamber, if clean, it satisfied me. These inns give you their best, and who but the surliest could grumble at that when good is the best? I am an unpretending road-farer, though I fare in a car. I do not care to discuss my dinners when I get them; some days I made do with a tea, I found it more refreshing, but the dinner provided for me at that little inn of no pretence consisted of soup, fish, fowl, sweet omelette, with cheese to follow. Perhaps my hunger, begotten of a long day in fresh air, gave me an extra zest, but I thought at the time that never had I sat down to a better cooked dinner—I have certainly sat down to a worse in a wealthy man's house. This much for my modest inn I must say. Indeed, on the strength of its goodness I indulged in a small bottle of wine, and the wine was no worse than that of the same sort I have had at expensive London hotels at double the price, or perhaps even more.It chanced that I was the only guest there that night, so the landlord, with kind intent, came to meafter dinner and entertained me with a chat, and I was well entertained. It turned out that he was an old "'Varsity" man, a magistrate, an enthusiastic antiquary, a churchwarden, a mason, and I know not what else besides, a man of many parts; and if he played his other parts as well as he played that of "mine host," he played them well indeed. His knowledge was wide, he talked of many things and interestingly, so I spent a very pleasant and profitable evening in his company over a glass and a pipe. I quite forgot my tiredness; it was late before I got to bed—that speaks well for mine host. Our gossip eventually took an antiquarian turn; he told me of a very ancient, rambling, timber-framed rectory house that stood against the churchyard, which he said I really ought to see, and he kindly offered to show me over it the next morning. This ancient rectory, I understood, was built on the site of an old nunnery and dated from about 1525, and is in part inhabited—I think by the town nurse, he said. Connected with it, he told me of a most strange experience of his, and this is the tale he told to me after some hesitation. "I hardly like to relate my experience," he said, "for you may possibly not credit me, but I tell you the absolute truth." Then he paused as though doubtful if he should continue; indeed he needed some persuasion to do so. But I prevailed on him. What was the strange story he had to tell, I wondered, that he should so hesitate to tell it? I bided my time, and at last he went on: "I was going over the old building one morning, as I sometimes do. Believe me, I ama perfectly sane man, not given to fancies; I was in perfect health at the time, thinking of nothing special in particular. I was going over the building, as I said, and I opened the door of one of the rooms expecting to find it empty as usual. To my surprise I saw a strange clergyman seated there reading a book; being a stranger I took a good look at him, for I wondered who he was, but he neither moved nor spoke, so I left the room, quietly shutting the door. In the passage outside I met an inhabitant of the place. I described the clergyman to him, and asked him who he could be. The man looked at me in some astonishment; then he exclaimed, 'Why, from your description he exactly resembles our late rector, but he has been dead these three years.' Then I went back to the room again; the door had not been opened, I was close to it, and there was no other mode of egress, yet when I entered no one was there, the chair was vacant. For the moment I hardly knew what to think; a queer sort of feeling came over me, for I was suddenly conscious that it must have been the ghost of the late rector I saw. If not, what was it? How came that figure seated there? to where had it disappeared? I did not even know in the least what the dead rector was like, yet the description of what I saw was at once recognised for him by one who had known him well. I had never believed in ghosts, was not at the time thinking about them—indeed I had never previously given them a thought. Such was my strange experience, for which I can give no reasonable explanation." No more could I.The landlord's story did not disturb my rest that night, though I slept in a very ancient chamber, but it set me a-thinking. Ghosts and ghost stories appear to be coming into favour and fashion again, even taken seriously, it seems, from the accounts I read in the papers and in books. Truly astonishing are some of these. A few years back, under the heading of "A Haunted House," there appeared in theStandarda long letter from an army officer who confessed to having been driven out of a good house by the ghostly manifestations that took place within it! He begins his letter: "In this century ghosts are obsolete, but they are costing me two hundred pounds a year. I have written to my lawyer, but am told by him that the English law does not recognise ghosts." I really cannot blame the law, indeed I commend it. Then he goes on to say: "I am not physically nervous, I have been under fire repeatedly, have been badly wounded in action, and have been complimented on my coolness when bullets were flying about. I was not then afraid of ghosts; besides, I suspected trickery. A light was kept burning in the upper and lower corridor all night. A lamp and loaded revolver were by my bedside every night. No one could have entered the house without being detected, and probably shot." Then he describes the different ghostly manifestations that drove him, family, and servants out of the house: "The governess used to complain of a tall lady, with black, heavy eyebrows, who used to come as if to strangle her as she lay in bed." Footsteps were constantly heard during the nightin the corridors. "One night, lying awake, I distinctly saw the handle of my bedroom door turned, and the door pushed open; I seized my revolver and ran to the door. The lamp in the corridor was burning brightly; no one was there, and no one could have got away." On another occasion, when the writer with his family returned home at midnight from a concert, "our old Scotch housekeeper, who admitted us, a woman of iron nerves, was trembling with terror. Shortly before our arrival a horrible shriek had rung through the house. To our questions she only replied, 'It was nothing earthly.' The nurse, who was awake with a child with the whooping-cough, heard the cry, and says it was simply horrible," and so forth. Then I read inA Diplomatist's Wife in Many Lands, by Mrs. Hugh Fraser, how she had frequently seen a ghost in an Italian palace where her husband and self resided for a time. Besides, have we not the extraordinary description not only of ghostly people but of ghostly scenery (the latter is quite a new departure to me) in that astonishing bookAn Adventure, of which "the Publishers guarantee that the authors have put down what happened to them as faithfully and accurately as was in their power. The signatures appended to the Preface are the only fictitious words in the book." In theNotes from the Life of an Ordinary Mortal, by A. G. C. Liddell, C.B., I read: "In the morning walked with Mr. Chamberlain. We talked about ghosts." So enlightened people do talk about ghosts! "He said that he had at one time been interested in the subject, and had got hold of a casewhere the ghost had been seen by more than one person at the same time.... Four persons were sitting in an old hall and saw the figure of a monk walk across the far end of the room and disappear. The next night they fixed a rope across the track of the phantom, but it passed through the body without movement." So much for the papers and books, though I have only quoted a few of the incidents recorded; there are many others. Now, besides the landlord of "The White Hart," three other persons of late have declared to me positively that they have seen a ghost. Yet till this, since I was a boy, I have never heard them mentioned. The first was a lady whose husband had taken a charming old house in the Eastern Counties; it had the reputation of being haunted, but, not believing in ghosts, neither she nor her husband thought anything of that; but one evening, when going upstairs to dress for dinner, my informant told me she distinctly saw a figure of a woman, richly attired in a quaint old-world dress, perhaps of the Elizabethan period, quietly walking along the landing, and she watched it till it disappeared in the wall at the end of the passage. All the servants and the guests were accounted for, and "If the figure were not a ghost, what could it have been?" I was asked. I could not say! Moreover, the lady saw the same figure on a further occasion walking and disappearing in just the same astonishing manner. Another lady told me the story of a ghost she had seen in her house, only she said she was so frightened she could not say how it was dressed, or whether it was a heor a she ghost, so I did not trouble about further detail. Now for my last relation, and this occurred in my own house, not an old house by the way, and where I have never heard or dreamt of a ghost. A lady was left a short time in a room, when she rushed out to me in another part of the house declaring that, though the room was empty when she went in and she had shut the door behind her, on suddenly looking up from her chair she saw a bald-headed man standing in front of the fireplace; for a moment she wondered who he could be and how he came there, then the thought came across her it must be a ghost, and she asked me to come and interview it! This I did with her at all speed, but when we returned to the room no one was there. I merely thought the lady must have been dozing, but she stoutly averred she had not. Still, let people say and write on the subject no end, and be hounded out of their houses by ghosts, I will not believe in one till I see it; even then, I think I should send for a doctor to learn if my health were at fault, to be sure that I had not imagined the thing.The old rectory house at Beaconsfield is built on three sides of a square, and its half-timber front has a picturesque look. Within are many ancient chambers, some with their original panelling and Tudor fireplaces of stone, and there are many passages besides, for it is a rambling place: one of these passages, I was told, is called "The Ghost Walk," because a ghost is often heard at night, though not seen, walking along it; her footsteps, however, are often heard, and the rustling of her dress, for it issupposed to be the ghost of some lady. I think the landlord told me her story, but I have forgotten it now. Rats suggest themselves to me as an explanation of the footsteps, for I will wager there are rats in that old house; imagination might account for the rustling of a dress—it accounts for a good many things in this world. Old houses are often full of strange noises, for panelling is apt to creak with the changes of the weather, and in the still night-time all sounds appear magnified; then the creak of old woodwork seems startlingly loud, for I have experienced this.My landlord pointed out to me the chamber in which he had seen the vision, but there is nothing remarkable about it except its ancientness. The house is certainly one that should appeal even to the most exacting ghost; any stray ghost out of place through his "haunt" being pulled down would miss a rare opportunity in not taking up his abode there. Some small niches in the sides of the walls were pointed out to me; what use these could have been put to puzzled my antiquarian guide—they were too small and too shallow for statues. It occurred to me that they might be to place lamps in to light the dark passages; the landlord said he had not thought of that, and deemed it a plausible and possible explanation of their purport. I felt complimented he should so esteem my suggestion, but I had seen very similar niches in other old buildings that had undoubtedly been used to contain lamps; I told him this, and then he accepted my view as being correct, though he said many people hadseen the niches and were at a loss to account for them.It was a rare foggy morning when we left Beaconsfield, it was as though the whole country were packed up in cotton-wool; so dense indeed was the mist that we had to drive slowly and cautiously, for ahead of us was a wall of white and our vision was limited to yards. At my hotel in the evening I found a fellow-motorist who did not venture out at all that day, he thought it too risky. However, it was merely a matter of pace, and at times, when the fog thinned a little, we drove along quite comfortably. In a way I even enjoyed the drive, for the country looked so mysterious, and the mist exaggerated the forms of half-hidden things that suddenly rose up before us; even the houses and trees by the way assumed proportions gigantic: we might have been travellers in fabled Brobdingnag.Shortly after Beaconsfield we got on to narrow winding lanes, then into woods, though we could not see much of them, when we discovered we were at Burnham Beeches, where the roads are kept as prim as those of a park, neatly signposted too, and this robbed the woods of their suggestion of wildness; so on somehow to the main Bath road, which we followed only as far as Maidenhead, where we struck to the left over cross-country roads and eventually turned up at Wokingham, the landscape between being mostly hidden from view. The horn came in useful that day. Then followed some more cross-country roads, out of which we emerged on to the old Exeter highway and soon reachedthe hamlet of Hook with its old coaching inn—from the notices on its front it now appears to be a motoring inn; and after this we found ourselves back in Odiham again, so we took a fresh road out of it. The fog had now quite cleared away and the sun was shining, but what with a late start and the slow travelling for much of the way, and a long halt for refreshment, the sun was already lowering in the west and the sky was growing golden there. We had a delightful drive through a more or less hilly country into Alton, passing through South Warnborough, a very pretty village—the prettiest in Hampshire, its inhabitants declare. I am glad to learn they take a pride in their village; that is the sort of pride that profits, the pride of place and not of person—to be a dweller in no mean village.After South Warnborough we had a hilly drive over a down-like undulating country, and then we descended into Alton, where I have an idea they brew good ale. At Alton we put up at "The Swan," an old coaching inn of some former fame, and that still has a pleasantly prosperous look, keeps up its ancient reputation for good cheer, and presents a smiling front to the street. I found a fine bowling-green in the rear, and during the course of the evening some of the townsfolk forgathered there and played bowls quite seriously over their pipes and their ale. It may not be high art, but I noticed there was an art in playing bowls, and the old men who knew and studied it appeared mostly to win. A good old-fashioned game is bowls, that never seems wholly to go out of fashion, and a pleasant one to watch; engrossing too, for even Drake, when playing it on Plymouth Hoe with the dreaded Armada in sight, went on with his rub undisturbed. "There is no hurry," quoth he, and he quietly finished his game and then went and played ball with the Spaniards—but those were the days before steam. Now I never look on at a game of bowls but I think of bold Drake and those easy-going historic old days when, if they did things slowly, they did them very thoroughly.A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY DOORWAY.Writing of the subject of inn gardens, I remember seeing somewhere on the way boldly displayed on the front of an inn the simple legend "Lovely Garden." I am glad to note that innkeepers are becoming aware of the attraction of a garden and so proclaim it: a garden where guests may escape from walled rooms into the fresh air, there to loiter at ease retired from the street and the crowd; to secure a bedroom looking over those gardens is a further attraction to me.It may be that special good-fortune attended me, but during the whole of my journey never once at my inn where I stopped for the night did I fail to find entertainment, either from host or from guest. I think I have said so before. Now here at "The Swan" was still another landlord both willing to gossip and wishful to entertain a lone wanderer in the smoke-room of his comfortable hostel. He brought me a time-yellowed paper of the seventeenth century having an advertisement of his inn, to show how long it had been in existence. In the same paper, I think it was, my eye caught the followingannouncement: "June 19th, 1684. The post will go every day, to and from, betwixt London and Epsom during the season for drinking the waters." Then Epsom was a fashionable Spa. Also he showed me an old posting bill of the house that was of some interest, for it was a bill paid by the Rev. Gilbert White for a postchaise from "The Swan" to Meon Stoke and back, when White was on a visit to a friend at that place; and thus the bill runs:—Harrow.Hampshire—Alton.Swan.Neat Post-Chaises.£s.d.August 1st.Chaise to Meon Stoke136Duty30August 6th.Chaise from Meon Stoke to Alton136Duty30£1130August 27th, 1785.Received the contents.H. Harrow.Paid by the Rev.Gilbert White.In the account of his Hampshire rides in this locality Cobbett thus delightfully refers to Gilbert White: "I forgot to mention that a man who showed me the way told me at a certain fork, 'that road goes to Selbourne.' This puts me in mind of a book that was once recommended to me, but which I never saw, entitledThe History and Antiquities of Selbourne(or something of that sort), written, I think, by a parson of the name of White. Theparson had, I think, the living of Selbourne." Now had the "parson of the name of White" only written about farming Cobbett might have taken a more intelligent interest in him. Next the landlord remarked, "You ought really to see our old church." (How often have the landlords of inns during my journey recommended me to see their church; even one offered me his pew on a Sunday, such a staunch churchman was he.) "It may interest you," he continued, "for there are still the marks on its walls of the cannon-balls that struck them during the Civil War, when the church was besieged" (still more of Cromwell's endless cannon-balls!), "and there are the bullet marks too on the door made at the same time." The story of this siege is sufficiently and quaintly recorded on a brass in the church, and this I copied as follows:—A MemoricallFor this renowned Martialist Richard Boles of yeRight Worshipful family of the Boles. Colonell of aRidgment of foot of 1300. Who for his GratiousKing Charles ye First did wonders att the BattellOf Edge Hill. His last action was at Alton inThis County of Southampton, he was surprised byFive or six thousand of the Rebells whichCaused him, there Quartered, to fly to the ChurchWith near Fourescore of his men who thereFought them six or seuen houers, and whenThe Rebells Breaking in upon him, he slewWith his sword six or seuen of them and thenWas slayne himselfe with sixty of his men aboute him.1641.His Gratious Soverayne hearing of his deathGive ys passionate Expression "Bring meA Moorning Scarffe i have lost one of theBest Commanders in this Kingdome."Alton will tell you of that Famous FightWhich ys man made & bade the world good night,His Verteous life fear'd not mortalytyHis body must, his Vertues cannot die,Because his Bloud was there so nobly spent,This is his tombe, the Church his monument.The next morning, after seeing the church, as I was departing the landlord exclaimed, and that in spite of a fast-falling barometer and a plentiful supply of suspicious clouds about: "You'll have a fine day, for I notice the ants are throwing up their tiny heaps on the bowling-green, and when they do that the day is certain to be fine." I had not heard of this method of prognosticating the weather before; all the same it proved true, excepting for one short shower, when from the look of the sky at the start, and the south-westerly wind that was blowing, I should certainly have expected little but rain; yet even the shower we experienced I found out was local and did not extend very far.
An inn of the old-fashioned sort—A chat with "mine host"—A weird experience—Ghost stories—An ancient rectory house—A quaint interior—A haunted passage—Lost in a fog—The game of bowls—An old posting bill—The siege of Alton church—Ants as weather prophets.
At Beaconsfield I put up for the night at "The White Hart," an ancient and homely hostelry where I found comfortable quarters, a landlord both interesting and obliging, a waitress civil and attentive, and excellent fare: such was my accidental good fortune. "The White Hart" is a very ancient though much altered building, dating, I was informed, from the days of Elizabeth; certainly some of its big and shaped beams upstairs testify to its ancientness. The coaching days were the days of its prime, for then one hundred horses were stabled there—so I afterwards learnt. The landlord received me with a cheery smile at the door: he knew how to welcome a guest. I casually told him I was tired and hungry, for I had travelled far that day; then he must needs at once concern himself about my dinner, so that I might not have to wait unduly for it, and promised me the best that the town could supply. I explained to him I was not an exacting traveller; he was far more anxious about my comfort and my fare thanwas I. That is the sort of landlord for me: very different his welcome to that one generally receives from the stony-eyed manager of a modern hotel. At these old-fashioned inns, with their friendly, good-natured landlords (for the one seems always to go with the other), I, but a tweed-clad, dust-stained traveller, always feel quite at home and at ease; there is such a charming simplicity and do-as-you-will air about them. Were I a millionaire I would choose them in preference to all others and desire no better. I merely sought a night's shelter, and however humble my chamber, if clean, it satisfied me. These inns give you their best, and who but the surliest could grumble at that when good is the best? I am an unpretending road-farer, though I fare in a car. I do not care to discuss my dinners when I get them; some days I made do with a tea, I found it more refreshing, but the dinner provided for me at that little inn of no pretence consisted of soup, fish, fowl, sweet omelette, with cheese to follow. Perhaps my hunger, begotten of a long day in fresh air, gave me an extra zest, but I thought at the time that never had I sat down to a better cooked dinner—I have certainly sat down to a worse in a wealthy man's house. This much for my modest inn I must say. Indeed, on the strength of its goodness I indulged in a small bottle of wine, and the wine was no worse than that of the same sort I have had at expensive London hotels at double the price, or perhaps even more.
It chanced that I was the only guest there that night, so the landlord, with kind intent, came to meafter dinner and entertained me with a chat, and I was well entertained. It turned out that he was an old "'Varsity" man, a magistrate, an enthusiastic antiquary, a churchwarden, a mason, and I know not what else besides, a man of many parts; and if he played his other parts as well as he played that of "mine host," he played them well indeed. His knowledge was wide, he talked of many things and interestingly, so I spent a very pleasant and profitable evening in his company over a glass and a pipe. I quite forgot my tiredness; it was late before I got to bed—that speaks well for mine host. Our gossip eventually took an antiquarian turn; he told me of a very ancient, rambling, timber-framed rectory house that stood against the churchyard, which he said I really ought to see, and he kindly offered to show me over it the next morning. This ancient rectory, I understood, was built on the site of an old nunnery and dated from about 1525, and is in part inhabited—I think by the town nurse, he said. Connected with it, he told me of a most strange experience of his, and this is the tale he told to me after some hesitation. "I hardly like to relate my experience," he said, "for you may possibly not credit me, but I tell you the absolute truth." Then he paused as though doubtful if he should continue; indeed he needed some persuasion to do so. But I prevailed on him. What was the strange story he had to tell, I wondered, that he should so hesitate to tell it? I bided my time, and at last he went on: "I was going over the old building one morning, as I sometimes do. Believe me, I ama perfectly sane man, not given to fancies; I was in perfect health at the time, thinking of nothing special in particular. I was going over the building, as I said, and I opened the door of one of the rooms expecting to find it empty as usual. To my surprise I saw a strange clergyman seated there reading a book; being a stranger I took a good look at him, for I wondered who he was, but he neither moved nor spoke, so I left the room, quietly shutting the door. In the passage outside I met an inhabitant of the place. I described the clergyman to him, and asked him who he could be. The man looked at me in some astonishment; then he exclaimed, 'Why, from your description he exactly resembles our late rector, but he has been dead these three years.' Then I went back to the room again; the door had not been opened, I was close to it, and there was no other mode of egress, yet when I entered no one was there, the chair was vacant. For the moment I hardly knew what to think; a queer sort of feeling came over me, for I was suddenly conscious that it must have been the ghost of the late rector I saw. If not, what was it? How came that figure seated there? to where had it disappeared? I did not even know in the least what the dead rector was like, yet the description of what I saw was at once recognised for him by one who had known him well. I had never believed in ghosts, was not at the time thinking about them—indeed I had never previously given them a thought. Such was my strange experience, for which I can give no reasonable explanation." No more could I.
The landlord's story did not disturb my rest that night, though I slept in a very ancient chamber, but it set me a-thinking. Ghosts and ghost stories appear to be coming into favour and fashion again, even taken seriously, it seems, from the accounts I read in the papers and in books. Truly astonishing are some of these. A few years back, under the heading of "A Haunted House," there appeared in theStandarda long letter from an army officer who confessed to having been driven out of a good house by the ghostly manifestations that took place within it! He begins his letter: "In this century ghosts are obsolete, but they are costing me two hundred pounds a year. I have written to my lawyer, but am told by him that the English law does not recognise ghosts." I really cannot blame the law, indeed I commend it. Then he goes on to say: "I am not physically nervous, I have been under fire repeatedly, have been badly wounded in action, and have been complimented on my coolness when bullets were flying about. I was not then afraid of ghosts; besides, I suspected trickery. A light was kept burning in the upper and lower corridor all night. A lamp and loaded revolver were by my bedside every night. No one could have entered the house without being detected, and probably shot." Then he describes the different ghostly manifestations that drove him, family, and servants out of the house: "The governess used to complain of a tall lady, with black, heavy eyebrows, who used to come as if to strangle her as she lay in bed." Footsteps were constantly heard during the nightin the corridors. "One night, lying awake, I distinctly saw the handle of my bedroom door turned, and the door pushed open; I seized my revolver and ran to the door. The lamp in the corridor was burning brightly; no one was there, and no one could have got away." On another occasion, when the writer with his family returned home at midnight from a concert, "our old Scotch housekeeper, who admitted us, a woman of iron nerves, was trembling with terror. Shortly before our arrival a horrible shriek had rung through the house. To our questions she only replied, 'It was nothing earthly.' The nurse, who was awake with a child with the whooping-cough, heard the cry, and says it was simply horrible," and so forth. Then I read inA Diplomatist's Wife in Many Lands, by Mrs. Hugh Fraser, how she had frequently seen a ghost in an Italian palace where her husband and self resided for a time. Besides, have we not the extraordinary description not only of ghostly people but of ghostly scenery (the latter is quite a new departure to me) in that astonishing bookAn Adventure, of which "the Publishers guarantee that the authors have put down what happened to them as faithfully and accurately as was in their power. The signatures appended to the Preface are the only fictitious words in the book." In theNotes from the Life of an Ordinary Mortal, by A. G. C. Liddell, C.B., I read: "In the morning walked with Mr. Chamberlain. We talked about ghosts." So enlightened people do talk about ghosts! "He said that he had at one time been interested in the subject, and had got hold of a casewhere the ghost had been seen by more than one person at the same time.... Four persons were sitting in an old hall and saw the figure of a monk walk across the far end of the room and disappear. The next night they fixed a rope across the track of the phantom, but it passed through the body without movement." So much for the papers and books, though I have only quoted a few of the incidents recorded; there are many others. Now, besides the landlord of "The White Hart," three other persons of late have declared to me positively that they have seen a ghost. Yet till this, since I was a boy, I have never heard them mentioned. The first was a lady whose husband had taken a charming old house in the Eastern Counties; it had the reputation of being haunted, but, not believing in ghosts, neither she nor her husband thought anything of that; but one evening, when going upstairs to dress for dinner, my informant told me she distinctly saw a figure of a woman, richly attired in a quaint old-world dress, perhaps of the Elizabethan period, quietly walking along the landing, and she watched it till it disappeared in the wall at the end of the passage. All the servants and the guests were accounted for, and "If the figure were not a ghost, what could it have been?" I was asked. I could not say! Moreover, the lady saw the same figure on a further occasion walking and disappearing in just the same astonishing manner. Another lady told me the story of a ghost she had seen in her house, only she said she was so frightened she could not say how it was dressed, or whether it was a heor a she ghost, so I did not trouble about further detail. Now for my last relation, and this occurred in my own house, not an old house by the way, and where I have never heard or dreamt of a ghost. A lady was left a short time in a room, when she rushed out to me in another part of the house declaring that, though the room was empty when she went in and she had shut the door behind her, on suddenly looking up from her chair she saw a bald-headed man standing in front of the fireplace; for a moment she wondered who he could be and how he came there, then the thought came across her it must be a ghost, and she asked me to come and interview it! This I did with her at all speed, but when we returned to the room no one was there. I merely thought the lady must have been dozing, but she stoutly averred she had not. Still, let people say and write on the subject no end, and be hounded out of their houses by ghosts, I will not believe in one till I see it; even then, I think I should send for a doctor to learn if my health were at fault, to be sure that I had not imagined the thing.
The old rectory house at Beaconsfield is built on three sides of a square, and its half-timber front has a picturesque look. Within are many ancient chambers, some with their original panelling and Tudor fireplaces of stone, and there are many passages besides, for it is a rambling place: one of these passages, I was told, is called "The Ghost Walk," because a ghost is often heard at night, though not seen, walking along it; her footsteps, however, are often heard, and the rustling of her dress, for it issupposed to be the ghost of some lady. I think the landlord told me her story, but I have forgotten it now. Rats suggest themselves to me as an explanation of the footsteps, for I will wager there are rats in that old house; imagination might account for the rustling of a dress—it accounts for a good many things in this world. Old houses are often full of strange noises, for panelling is apt to creak with the changes of the weather, and in the still night-time all sounds appear magnified; then the creak of old woodwork seems startlingly loud, for I have experienced this.
My landlord pointed out to me the chamber in which he had seen the vision, but there is nothing remarkable about it except its ancientness. The house is certainly one that should appeal even to the most exacting ghost; any stray ghost out of place through his "haunt" being pulled down would miss a rare opportunity in not taking up his abode there. Some small niches in the sides of the walls were pointed out to me; what use these could have been put to puzzled my antiquarian guide—they were too small and too shallow for statues. It occurred to me that they might be to place lamps in to light the dark passages; the landlord said he had not thought of that, and deemed it a plausible and possible explanation of their purport. I felt complimented he should so esteem my suggestion, but I had seen very similar niches in other old buildings that had undoubtedly been used to contain lamps; I told him this, and then he accepted my view as being correct, though he said many people hadseen the niches and were at a loss to account for them.
It was a rare foggy morning when we left Beaconsfield, it was as though the whole country were packed up in cotton-wool; so dense indeed was the mist that we had to drive slowly and cautiously, for ahead of us was a wall of white and our vision was limited to yards. At my hotel in the evening I found a fellow-motorist who did not venture out at all that day, he thought it too risky. However, it was merely a matter of pace, and at times, when the fog thinned a little, we drove along quite comfortably. In a way I even enjoyed the drive, for the country looked so mysterious, and the mist exaggerated the forms of half-hidden things that suddenly rose up before us; even the houses and trees by the way assumed proportions gigantic: we might have been travellers in fabled Brobdingnag.
Shortly after Beaconsfield we got on to narrow winding lanes, then into woods, though we could not see much of them, when we discovered we were at Burnham Beeches, where the roads are kept as prim as those of a park, neatly signposted too, and this robbed the woods of their suggestion of wildness; so on somehow to the main Bath road, which we followed only as far as Maidenhead, where we struck to the left over cross-country roads and eventually turned up at Wokingham, the landscape between being mostly hidden from view. The horn came in useful that day. Then followed some more cross-country roads, out of which we emerged on to the old Exeter highway and soon reachedthe hamlet of Hook with its old coaching inn—from the notices on its front it now appears to be a motoring inn; and after this we found ourselves back in Odiham again, so we took a fresh road out of it. The fog had now quite cleared away and the sun was shining, but what with a late start and the slow travelling for much of the way, and a long halt for refreshment, the sun was already lowering in the west and the sky was growing golden there. We had a delightful drive through a more or less hilly country into Alton, passing through South Warnborough, a very pretty village—the prettiest in Hampshire, its inhabitants declare. I am glad to learn they take a pride in their village; that is the sort of pride that profits, the pride of place and not of person—to be a dweller in no mean village.
After South Warnborough we had a hilly drive over a down-like undulating country, and then we descended into Alton, where I have an idea they brew good ale. At Alton we put up at "The Swan," an old coaching inn of some former fame, and that still has a pleasantly prosperous look, keeps up its ancient reputation for good cheer, and presents a smiling front to the street. I found a fine bowling-green in the rear, and during the course of the evening some of the townsfolk forgathered there and played bowls quite seriously over their pipes and their ale. It may not be high art, but I noticed there was an art in playing bowls, and the old men who knew and studied it appeared mostly to win. A good old-fashioned game is bowls, that never seems wholly to go out of fashion, and a pleasant one to watch; engrossing too, for even Drake, when playing it on Plymouth Hoe with the dreaded Armada in sight, went on with his rub undisturbed. "There is no hurry," quoth he, and he quietly finished his game and then went and played ball with the Spaniards—but those were the days before steam. Now I never look on at a game of bowls but I think of bold Drake and those easy-going historic old days when, if they did things slowly, they did them very thoroughly.
A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY DOORWAY.
A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY DOORWAY.
A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY DOORWAY.
Writing of the subject of inn gardens, I remember seeing somewhere on the way boldly displayed on the front of an inn the simple legend "Lovely Garden." I am glad to note that innkeepers are becoming aware of the attraction of a garden and so proclaim it: a garden where guests may escape from walled rooms into the fresh air, there to loiter at ease retired from the street and the crowd; to secure a bedroom looking over those gardens is a further attraction to me.
It may be that special good-fortune attended me, but during the whole of my journey never once at my inn where I stopped for the night did I fail to find entertainment, either from host or from guest. I think I have said so before. Now here at "The Swan" was still another landlord both willing to gossip and wishful to entertain a lone wanderer in the smoke-room of his comfortable hostel. He brought me a time-yellowed paper of the seventeenth century having an advertisement of his inn, to show how long it had been in existence. In the same paper, I think it was, my eye caught the followingannouncement: "June 19th, 1684. The post will go every day, to and from, betwixt London and Epsom during the season for drinking the waters." Then Epsom was a fashionable Spa. Also he showed me an old posting bill of the house that was of some interest, for it was a bill paid by the Rev. Gilbert White for a postchaise from "The Swan" to Meon Stoke and back, when White was on a visit to a friend at that place; and thus the bill runs:—
Harrow.
Hampshire—Alton.
Swan.
Neat Post-Chaises.
August 27th, 1785.
Received the contents.
H. Harrow.
Paid by the Rev.Gilbert White.
In the account of his Hampshire rides in this locality Cobbett thus delightfully refers to Gilbert White: "I forgot to mention that a man who showed me the way told me at a certain fork, 'that road goes to Selbourne.' This puts me in mind of a book that was once recommended to me, but which I never saw, entitledThe History and Antiquities of Selbourne(or something of that sort), written, I think, by a parson of the name of White. Theparson had, I think, the living of Selbourne." Now had the "parson of the name of White" only written about farming Cobbett might have taken a more intelligent interest in him. Next the landlord remarked, "You ought really to see our old church." (How often have the landlords of inns during my journey recommended me to see their church; even one offered me his pew on a Sunday, such a staunch churchman was he.) "It may interest you," he continued, "for there are still the marks on its walls of the cannon-balls that struck them during the Civil War, when the church was besieged" (still more of Cromwell's endless cannon-balls!), "and there are the bullet marks too on the door made at the same time." The story of this siege is sufficiently and quaintly recorded on a brass in the church, and this I copied as follows:—
A Memoricall
For this renowned Martialist Richard Boles of yeRight Worshipful family of the Boles. Colonell of aRidgment of foot of 1300. Who for his GratiousKing Charles ye First did wonders att the BattellOf Edge Hill. His last action was at Alton inThis County of Southampton, he was surprised byFive or six thousand of the Rebells whichCaused him, there Quartered, to fly to the ChurchWith near Fourescore of his men who thereFought them six or seuen houers, and whenThe Rebells Breaking in upon him, he slewWith his sword six or seuen of them and thenWas slayne himselfe with sixty of his men aboute him.
1641.
His Gratious Soverayne hearing of his deathGive ys passionate Expression "Bring meA Moorning Scarffe i have lost one of theBest Commanders in this Kingdome."
Alton will tell you of that Famous FightWhich ys man made & bade the world good night,His Verteous life fear'd not mortalytyHis body must, his Vertues cannot die,Because his Bloud was there so nobly spent,This is his tombe, the Church his monument.
The next morning, after seeing the church, as I was departing the landlord exclaimed, and that in spite of a fast-falling barometer and a plentiful supply of suspicious clouds about: "You'll have a fine day, for I notice the ants are throwing up their tiny heaps on the bowling-green, and when they do that the day is certain to be fine." I had not heard of this method of prognosticating the weather before; all the same it proved true, excepting for one short shower, when from the look of the sky at the start, and the south-westerly wind that was blowing, I should certainly have expected little but rain; yet even the shower we experienced I found out was local and did not extend very far.
CHAPTER XIXThe Meon Valley—Warnford—A hidden church—A house "a million years old"!—A Saxon sun-dial—A ruined home—Corhampton and its Saxon church—A modern "Naboth's Vineyard"—An out-of-the-world village—A curious story—Quaint carvings and their legend—A church tower built by servants.We left Alton by the Winchester road; we did not, however, follow it for long, but turned down a by-road and soon reached a pretty village of some thatched cottages built round a little green, with its pond to make the picture complete. The inn there had on its signboard the representation of a fat monk with the legend "The Grey Friar," a fresh sign to me. Then passing a finely timbered park with many wide-branching elms in it, causing grey patches of shade on the great sweeps of sunlit sward, we began to explore the lovely Meon Valley, through which runs the clear and bright river Meon between richly wooded banks and gently sloping hills. I really do not think an artist could have designed prettier scenery had he the designing of it. A valley full of quiet beauty, yet so ignorant was I of my own land I had not heard of its charms before; many a guidebook-lauded valley is not half so beautiful as it. No poet has been born in that valley to sing its praises, otherwise it might havebeen famed. The day, too, was perfect, and the soft sunshine helped to make everything pleasant; the day and scene were attuned one to another.Up and down hill we went, then we dropped down to West Meon, a neat, clean village. The chief occupation of its inhabitants at the time appeared to be in standing idly at their doorways, or loafing in the road; it somehow reminded me of a scene at a theatre ready set, with the minor performers in place and awaiting the principal actors to come on the stage and play their parts. I often wonder how these villagers live with no local industry; they cannot live on one another, and they do not seem exactly the sort of people to receive dividends on investments, though in all of them at least the public-house appears to prosper. It is a problem beyond me. Here we crossed the Meon on a little stone bridge and proceeded by a delightfully tree-shaded road, as pleasant as a road could be, and along by the river-side to the tiny decayed village of Warnford, a mere hamlet rather of a few pretty and ancient cottages deep in woods where each cottage is a picture. Yet it had a depressingly lonely look as though the village were under some spell, for I did not see a soul about it, not a face at a window, not a figure at a door, no one in its cottage gardens, not a child, nor a dog, nor a fowl in the road. I stopped in the village for an hour, or more, to make some sketches and to take some photographs, yet all that while there was no sign of life about the place, no one going or coming. I could not but marvel at this, it was so curious anexperience. It looked like a deserted village, yet the cottages appeared well cared for, and their little gardens loved and well tended. The strange loneliness and silence of the spot impressed me. Why was it? I could not account for it, unless all its inhabitants were away making holiday, but where were the dogs and the fowls? It might almost have been one of those picturesque model villages one sees in an exhibition at an early hour before the very properly dressed up and show village maidens have arrived and when no one is there, only it was far too real for that.There was one thing besides its loneliness that seemed strange and incomplete about the spot, though for a time I could not realise what I missed; then it struck me it was the absence of a presiding church, that is generally such a prominent feature of a village and centres the life of it. I looked carefully around, but nowhere could I see the church; there was no sign of one, nor a chapel. For even peaceful villagers cannot worship one God in one way.As I left the village by a road that bent round sharply by the side of a park, at last I saw a human being, a man close at hand in a field. So I pulled up and asked where the church was, or if there were one. "The church," replied he, "it be away in the park opposite, right in the woods. You cannot see it till you come to it. You go in at the lodge gate and follow the road over the bridge, then when you comes in sight of the house you turns to the right, and there be the church inthe woods. It be a curious old place, over a thousand years old they do say." I thought I would see it. A thousand years old is a fair age for a building, and though the man might be mistaken in that, probably the building was very ancient. So off I set in search of the church that I found some way off in the park, half hidden and surrounded by trees and green in the shade of them. A humble little church with a damp and time-worn look, yet with a certain pathetic charm about it that belongs to most things ancient of man's contriving. I was surprised in so poor a church to come upon a fine altar-tomb with the recumbent effigies of a man and his two wives, and the kneeling figures of their children below; and another similar monument, both to members of the same Neale family, the earliest one bearing date of 1599. Drops of moisture were dripping down the sides of the monuments as though the very stones were mourning for the forgotten dead. There is some fine carved oak in the church going to decay, and a curious old pillared font. But the interior was so dim and damp I was glad to get out of it. It certainly is an ancient church, and perhaps looks more ancient than it really is. Some of the walls, and certainly the small yet massive tower, are Norman, but that would not make it over a thousand years old; still, a century or two is nothing to rural folk. I once asked a man in a little country town if he could tell me the age of an interesting old house there. "I don't rightly know just how old it be," he replied, "but it's over a million years old, that I know forcertain." I was astonished. "Surely you have made a mistake?" I exclaimed. "No, I haven't," he responded, "for there's the date carved upon it, as you may see," and he pointed this out to me, for it had escaped my notice, carved in Roman letters, "MDXCII." "There, I told you it was over a million years old. 'M' stands for a million, as you know, and the other letters for more years, but I cannot rightly read them." I said nothing; it was not my business to educate the countryman. Once I did attempt to correct a villager about some glaring mistake in reading an inscription—he would read it to me; he resented my correction and walked off in a huff; now I am careful not to run the risk of so offending again.Church clerks too, as a frequent rule, I have found very touchy if you venture, however mildly, to differ with them about anything they may have to say about their church. I shall not in a hurry forget the rare trouble I got into with a more than usually intelligent clerk who was showing me over his interesting old church. Now I had noticed in the tiny town a small and cheap local handbook of the church for sale, so I purchased this before going to inspect the building. I had it with me as I went round the church accompanied by the clerk; I referred to it now and again and found it fairly correct as far as my knowledge went, but on one minor point of architecture I certainly thought the author was manifestly wrong. In my innocence I pointed this out to the clerk, with what I thought to be the quite harmless remark that "the writer of this bookdoes not know everything." My guide was up in arms in a moment. "What do you mean?" queried he; "the book is absolutely correct; I never, no never, heard any one question it before. It has always given perfect satisfaction," and so forth and for some time. I was fairly taken aback. Why all this rage about nothing? thought I, and as I was thinking it out the clerk suddenly exclaimed, "Do you know who wrote that book?" I confessed I did not. "Why, I did," said the clerk, "I who have been here for over twenty long years, and there's not a soul in the whole county knows as much about the church as I do; I know every stone of it, and you have only been in it ten minutes. Now what is ten minutes to twenty years' long study?" I had "put my hand in a hornet's nest," as the saying has it, and I hardly remember to this day how I smoothed matters over; indeed I am not sure if I actually did, the clerk's feelings were wounded. I was truly sorry. I humbly apologised, I even trebled my tip, trusting thus to appease him; in a measure I did, but in a measure only, for he accepted it in an off-hand manner as though he were doing me a favour; still he accepted it, upon doing which he remarked, "You're a generous gentleman, that I will own, but you really don't understand architecture; however," now in a tone more of sorrow than anger, "it takes a lifetime of study, it do." I was glad to get away from that clerk. Now I am careful when reading a book, or when having read one, that I do not talk unawares to its author. Yet I actually blundered again in a much similar way, though I hardly think I wastreated quite fairly that time. An artist friend took me to look over a picture-gallery; he asked my opinion of the different pictures as we passed along; my opinion was not worth much, but he seemed pleased to have it, so I gave it quite freely. Of one picture I exclaimed, as I felt bound to make some remarks, "Well, I don't think much of that." "No more do I," said my friend, "for I painted it!" But when I profusely apologised and tried to explain I meant something quite different, even at the price of the truth, unlike the clerk my friend laughed aloud at the trick he had played and how he had trapped me, then insisted on my dining with him that night. Once on the journey I thought I saw an opportunity to turn the tables and to score in this way off a stranger. We were chatting in the smoke-room of our inn after dinner, when, to my surprise, I discovered he was reading a book I had written; he knew not my name, nor did I know his, and I hoped he might make some disparaging remark about my book, then I would tell him I wrote it, and could myself indulge in a laugh. But it never came off, for he put down the book unconcernedly and talked to me most of the evening; evidently he preferred my talk to my writing.But to return to the little church of Warnford, it depressed me with its silence and gloom; I was glad to get out into the fresh air, for it seemed like a tomb. As I was leaving, under the porch I caught sight of a curious old Saxon sun-dial, a somewhat rare thing to find, and over it was a long Latin inscription relating, as far as I could make out, though my Latinis rusty, to the rebuilding of the church a long while ago. The dial probably belonged to a still more ancient church that once stood on the spot, but why it was placed there where no sun could reach it I could not understand.Just by the side of the neglected churchyard I caught a glimpse of the ruins of an old house buried in trees, and a grand house it must have been in its day, for six upstanding stone pillars of what once was its great hall testify to its size, but little else remains but some broken and mouldering walls. Of its history I could glean nothing, for there was no one about to ask this. Then I returned to the car, and once more proceeded on my pleasant way down the wooded valley, with the musical murmuring of the river and the song of the wind in the woods for company; and I had all this lovely country to myself for some miles, except for a stray farmer's gig and a cart or two—a country where to my mind's eye peace dwelt in lowly cottages and scattered old-time farmhouses; truly the trail of the serpent might be there as well as elsewhere, but I saw no sign of it. To me it was a valley of peace and contentment. Perhaps it was because I was an onlooker only and had no concern in its life. It is well to be a mere onlooker at times, then the drama of the little world before you runs smoothly; you do not see behind the scenes. You behold neither the tragedy nor the comedy of life, only its sunshine and its pleasantness. So it is wise not to abide too long in any place, however it take your fancy, lest you risk disillusion of finding the world is much the samethe world over, and the earthly paradise you have discovered is no paradise at all. I thought I had found my paradise once in a charming old and picturesque village far west, where all seemed so peaceful and blest; but I stayed there too long, for on getting to know the quiet country folk I too quickly discovered they had their grievances one against the other, just as much as those people who live in less desirable spots; these grievances mostly seemed paltry to me who had no part in them, but they were not to be got over. Yes, I had stayed there too long. Three weeks had I stayed, so charmed was I with the place and its cosy old inn: I had better have stayed for only three days, and retained my first dream of perfection.Next we came to the adjoining villages of Corhampton and Meon Stoke; I took them for one, but I learnt that the little river Meon divides them and that they really are two distinct places. On each side of the river, almost within a stone's throw of each other, their ancient churches stand. Two places of worship where one might suffice—surely a waste of Christian energy! How much energy is often wasted in country churches! A Sussex parson once told me that sometimes he had to preach and the choir had to sing to three old women and an umbrella! Both Corhampton and Meon Stoke are lovely villages in a lovely spot enclosed by wooded hills; you might travel for many a day and many a mile before coming to so fair a corner of the land. It is as fair as wooded hills, gently gliding river, with a droning old mill by its side, green meadows, prettycottages gracefully yet accidentally grouped, and two grey, quaint, and ancient churches can make it.Meon Stoke church with its odd black wooden bell-turret makes a pretty picture standing by the side of the river where it broadens out into a pool. Corhampton church stands on a little knoll almost opposite, and is small and most unpretending, but of much interest, being Saxon, though since those far-away Saxon times it has suffered alteration. Now Saxon churches are rare in the land, notwithstanding that this was the second we had come upon in out-of-the-way places during the journey. Its walls still show the long-and-short Saxon stone-work, and there is a good example of a Saxon doorway on the north side, unfortunately built up. There is to me little doubt that its walls are the original ones, though patched here and there, and though later windows have been inserted in them, so that the building remains the same size and form as when first erected, long centuries past. In the churchyard is a large yew-tree undoubtedly ancient, but whether it is "as old as the building itself and the oldest in the country," as a parishioner asserted it was, I could scarcely believe; perhaps he did not realise the age of the church. I grant that the tree likely flourished in the days of Queen Bess, probably was old even then, and that takes one back a good while. How many churchyards boast of having the biggest and oldest yew-tree in the land? I have quite lost count of them, and of the "smallest church in England" I have seen not a few. Standing at one side of the porch we noticedthe original altar-stone with five crosses on it, and within the church, built into the south wall of the chancel, is a curious stone chair. But I think perhaps Corhampton church is of more interest to the archaeologist than to the average tourist. I suppose there are still trout in the Meon as there were in Izaak Walton's past days when he fished in that river, for as we left I observed a woman on its banks patiently and deftly casting the fly, though the water was so clear and the sun so bright she could hardly hope for much sport. But anglers live greatly on hope. Good Izaak Walton knew when to stop fishing, for of one day he writes: "We went to a good honest ale-house, and there played shovel-board half the day ... and we were as merry as they that fished." He was no slave to his hobby, and owned it. Again I must confess that fishing with me is more an excuse to get out in the country with something to do than the mere catching of fish; possibly to others its chief charm lies in this. But it does not do to analyse one's pleasures.After Corhampton the country grew more open for a time, and at one spot on the top of a hill that rose across the river I caught sight of a quaint-looking, remote village with a fine church possessing a noble tower that dominates the landscape. I could not understand why so small and out-of-the-way a village (it seemed but a hamlet) should possess so fine a church. A sudden desire took me to explore it, so I turned down the narrow lane that led to the spot and climbed the opposite hill. Ipulled up at the first cottage I came to; there were only a few, but this attracted my attention, being creeper-covered and with a porch all overgrown with fragrant honeysuckle just as a poet would have it. Then I noticed its name painted over its garden gate; this struck me as strange, for it was "Naboth's Vineyard." As I was standing close by, its owner came forth and bade me good-day; I think curiosity brought him out to learn what a stranger did there, in a motor-car too, where I should imagine strangers or motor-cars very seldom or hardly ever appear. We got chatting together about nothing in particular; then I asked why he had given his pretty cottage so strange a name. I thought there might be some story connected with it. "Can't you guess?" said he, smiling; "it's because so many people envy me it and would like to possess it. I thought it a very suitable name"—and he was simply the village blacksmith who had conceived this conceit. "Would you care to come into the garden and see what a fine view I've from it?" So I went into the garden and duly admired the view looking south far away down the valley, then bathed in the glow of the afternoon sun, and the garden I noticed was a pleasant one, gay with the bright, old-fashioned, hardy flowers so familiar to the Elizabethan poets, flowers that Mrs. Allingham has pictured to us in many of her charming drawings of cottage homes. How I love those hardy flowers, never hurt by the rain; they seem fuller of colour and far sweeter of scent to me than the pampered, potted-out ones that people admire or profess to admire to-day, andthat are often ruined by a storm in an hour. I thought at the moment I could live in that cottage contentedly, far away from the world and its worries. I asked the name of the village and learnt it was Soberton.As I was quietly admiring the view, the blacksmith pointed me out a field down below. "Some time ago," said he, "a stone coffin was dug up there, and in it was a skeleton of a man embedded in cement, but no one could make anything of it." A skeleton only, buried in cement in a coffin, not in a churchyard—that is surely suggestive of mystery?From the garden I had a good view of the tall flint and stone-built church tower, and I expressed my surprise to find so fine a one there. "I expect you don't know its history," said the blacksmith. I confessed I did not, but would be pleased to hear it. "Well, it's like this," he continued; "they say it was built by the life-savings of two servants, a butler and a dairymaid, who were in service at an old mansion in the valley that has long been pulled down. You can see on the tower, if you care, the carved figures in stone of the butler and the maid, and between them there is a skull to show, I am told, that the tower was built after their death." So I went to inspect the tower and see what I could make of the carvings. How many quaint legends you pick up on the road if you only search out places remote where legends still linger. There, true enough, high up in the tower, just under the parapet, I saw plainly the two figures, opposite one another, of a butler with a key in his hand and adairymaid with a pail by her side. They were carved with much skill and boldly, and appeared little the worse for the storms of years that must have beaten upon them, exposed as they are to all weathers. If sculptured stones could confirm a story, these stones appeared to do so. Then at the foot of the tower my eye caught this inscription:This towerOriginally built by ServantsWas restored by Servants1881.I presume that whoever had that inscription placed there must have felt there was some truth in the story, though, to me, I confess it seems an improbable one. Still, what traveller would be so cruelly critical as to doubt every legend he hears? In this case the curious carvings are suggestive and certainly call for some story—else why are they there, and not only there, but so prominently placed right in front of the tower?
The Meon Valley—Warnford—A hidden church—A house "a million years old"!—A Saxon sun-dial—A ruined home—Corhampton and its Saxon church—A modern "Naboth's Vineyard"—An out-of-the-world village—A curious story—Quaint carvings and their legend—A church tower built by servants.
We left Alton by the Winchester road; we did not, however, follow it for long, but turned down a by-road and soon reached a pretty village of some thatched cottages built round a little green, with its pond to make the picture complete. The inn there had on its signboard the representation of a fat monk with the legend "The Grey Friar," a fresh sign to me. Then passing a finely timbered park with many wide-branching elms in it, causing grey patches of shade on the great sweeps of sunlit sward, we began to explore the lovely Meon Valley, through which runs the clear and bright river Meon between richly wooded banks and gently sloping hills. I really do not think an artist could have designed prettier scenery had he the designing of it. A valley full of quiet beauty, yet so ignorant was I of my own land I had not heard of its charms before; many a guidebook-lauded valley is not half so beautiful as it. No poet has been born in that valley to sing its praises, otherwise it might havebeen famed. The day, too, was perfect, and the soft sunshine helped to make everything pleasant; the day and scene were attuned one to another.
Up and down hill we went, then we dropped down to West Meon, a neat, clean village. The chief occupation of its inhabitants at the time appeared to be in standing idly at their doorways, or loafing in the road; it somehow reminded me of a scene at a theatre ready set, with the minor performers in place and awaiting the principal actors to come on the stage and play their parts. I often wonder how these villagers live with no local industry; they cannot live on one another, and they do not seem exactly the sort of people to receive dividends on investments, though in all of them at least the public-house appears to prosper. It is a problem beyond me. Here we crossed the Meon on a little stone bridge and proceeded by a delightfully tree-shaded road, as pleasant as a road could be, and along by the river-side to the tiny decayed village of Warnford, a mere hamlet rather of a few pretty and ancient cottages deep in woods where each cottage is a picture. Yet it had a depressingly lonely look as though the village were under some spell, for I did not see a soul about it, not a face at a window, not a figure at a door, no one in its cottage gardens, not a child, nor a dog, nor a fowl in the road. I stopped in the village for an hour, or more, to make some sketches and to take some photographs, yet all that while there was no sign of life about the place, no one going or coming. I could not but marvel at this, it was so curious anexperience. It looked like a deserted village, yet the cottages appeared well cared for, and their little gardens loved and well tended. The strange loneliness and silence of the spot impressed me. Why was it? I could not account for it, unless all its inhabitants were away making holiday, but where were the dogs and the fowls? It might almost have been one of those picturesque model villages one sees in an exhibition at an early hour before the very properly dressed up and show village maidens have arrived and when no one is there, only it was far too real for that.
There was one thing besides its loneliness that seemed strange and incomplete about the spot, though for a time I could not realise what I missed; then it struck me it was the absence of a presiding church, that is generally such a prominent feature of a village and centres the life of it. I looked carefully around, but nowhere could I see the church; there was no sign of one, nor a chapel. For even peaceful villagers cannot worship one God in one way.
As I left the village by a road that bent round sharply by the side of a park, at last I saw a human being, a man close at hand in a field. So I pulled up and asked where the church was, or if there were one. "The church," replied he, "it be away in the park opposite, right in the woods. You cannot see it till you come to it. You go in at the lodge gate and follow the road over the bridge, then when you comes in sight of the house you turns to the right, and there be the church inthe woods. It be a curious old place, over a thousand years old they do say." I thought I would see it. A thousand years old is a fair age for a building, and though the man might be mistaken in that, probably the building was very ancient. So off I set in search of the church that I found some way off in the park, half hidden and surrounded by trees and green in the shade of them. A humble little church with a damp and time-worn look, yet with a certain pathetic charm about it that belongs to most things ancient of man's contriving. I was surprised in so poor a church to come upon a fine altar-tomb with the recumbent effigies of a man and his two wives, and the kneeling figures of their children below; and another similar monument, both to members of the same Neale family, the earliest one bearing date of 1599. Drops of moisture were dripping down the sides of the monuments as though the very stones were mourning for the forgotten dead. There is some fine carved oak in the church going to decay, and a curious old pillared font. But the interior was so dim and damp I was glad to get out of it. It certainly is an ancient church, and perhaps looks more ancient than it really is. Some of the walls, and certainly the small yet massive tower, are Norman, but that would not make it over a thousand years old; still, a century or two is nothing to rural folk. I once asked a man in a little country town if he could tell me the age of an interesting old house there. "I don't rightly know just how old it be," he replied, "but it's over a million years old, that I know forcertain." I was astonished. "Surely you have made a mistake?" I exclaimed. "No, I haven't," he responded, "for there's the date carved upon it, as you may see," and he pointed this out to me, for it had escaped my notice, carved in Roman letters, "MDXCII." "There, I told you it was over a million years old. 'M' stands for a million, as you know, and the other letters for more years, but I cannot rightly read them." I said nothing; it was not my business to educate the countryman. Once I did attempt to correct a villager about some glaring mistake in reading an inscription—he would read it to me; he resented my correction and walked off in a huff; now I am careful not to run the risk of so offending again.
Church clerks too, as a frequent rule, I have found very touchy if you venture, however mildly, to differ with them about anything they may have to say about their church. I shall not in a hurry forget the rare trouble I got into with a more than usually intelligent clerk who was showing me over his interesting old church. Now I had noticed in the tiny town a small and cheap local handbook of the church for sale, so I purchased this before going to inspect the building. I had it with me as I went round the church accompanied by the clerk; I referred to it now and again and found it fairly correct as far as my knowledge went, but on one minor point of architecture I certainly thought the author was manifestly wrong. In my innocence I pointed this out to the clerk, with what I thought to be the quite harmless remark that "the writer of this bookdoes not know everything." My guide was up in arms in a moment. "What do you mean?" queried he; "the book is absolutely correct; I never, no never, heard any one question it before. It has always given perfect satisfaction," and so forth and for some time. I was fairly taken aback. Why all this rage about nothing? thought I, and as I was thinking it out the clerk suddenly exclaimed, "Do you know who wrote that book?" I confessed I did not. "Why, I did," said the clerk, "I who have been here for over twenty long years, and there's not a soul in the whole county knows as much about the church as I do; I know every stone of it, and you have only been in it ten minutes. Now what is ten minutes to twenty years' long study?" I had "put my hand in a hornet's nest," as the saying has it, and I hardly remember to this day how I smoothed matters over; indeed I am not sure if I actually did, the clerk's feelings were wounded. I was truly sorry. I humbly apologised, I even trebled my tip, trusting thus to appease him; in a measure I did, but in a measure only, for he accepted it in an off-hand manner as though he were doing me a favour; still he accepted it, upon doing which he remarked, "You're a generous gentleman, that I will own, but you really don't understand architecture; however," now in a tone more of sorrow than anger, "it takes a lifetime of study, it do." I was glad to get away from that clerk. Now I am careful when reading a book, or when having read one, that I do not talk unawares to its author. Yet I actually blundered again in a much similar way, though I hardly think I wastreated quite fairly that time. An artist friend took me to look over a picture-gallery; he asked my opinion of the different pictures as we passed along; my opinion was not worth much, but he seemed pleased to have it, so I gave it quite freely. Of one picture I exclaimed, as I felt bound to make some remarks, "Well, I don't think much of that." "No more do I," said my friend, "for I painted it!" But when I profusely apologised and tried to explain I meant something quite different, even at the price of the truth, unlike the clerk my friend laughed aloud at the trick he had played and how he had trapped me, then insisted on my dining with him that night. Once on the journey I thought I saw an opportunity to turn the tables and to score in this way off a stranger. We were chatting in the smoke-room of our inn after dinner, when, to my surprise, I discovered he was reading a book I had written; he knew not my name, nor did I know his, and I hoped he might make some disparaging remark about my book, then I would tell him I wrote it, and could myself indulge in a laugh. But it never came off, for he put down the book unconcernedly and talked to me most of the evening; evidently he preferred my talk to my writing.
But to return to the little church of Warnford, it depressed me with its silence and gloom; I was glad to get out into the fresh air, for it seemed like a tomb. As I was leaving, under the porch I caught sight of a curious old Saxon sun-dial, a somewhat rare thing to find, and over it was a long Latin inscription relating, as far as I could make out, though my Latinis rusty, to the rebuilding of the church a long while ago. The dial probably belonged to a still more ancient church that once stood on the spot, but why it was placed there where no sun could reach it I could not understand.
Just by the side of the neglected churchyard I caught a glimpse of the ruins of an old house buried in trees, and a grand house it must have been in its day, for six upstanding stone pillars of what once was its great hall testify to its size, but little else remains but some broken and mouldering walls. Of its history I could glean nothing, for there was no one about to ask this. Then I returned to the car, and once more proceeded on my pleasant way down the wooded valley, with the musical murmuring of the river and the song of the wind in the woods for company; and I had all this lovely country to myself for some miles, except for a stray farmer's gig and a cart or two—a country where to my mind's eye peace dwelt in lowly cottages and scattered old-time farmhouses; truly the trail of the serpent might be there as well as elsewhere, but I saw no sign of it. To me it was a valley of peace and contentment. Perhaps it was because I was an onlooker only and had no concern in its life. It is well to be a mere onlooker at times, then the drama of the little world before you runs smoothly; you do not see behind the scenes. You behold neither the tragedy nor the comedy of life, only its sunshine and its pleasantness. So it is wise not to abide too long in any place, however it take your fancy, lest you risk disillusion of finding the world is much the samethe world over, and the earthly paradise you have discovered is no paradise at all. I thought I had found my paradise once in a charming old and picturesque village far west, where all seemed so peaceful and blest; but I stayed there too long, for on getting to know the quiet country folk I too quickly discovered they had their grievances one against the other, just as much as those people who live in less desirable spots; these grievances mostly seemed paltry to me who had no part in them, but they were not to be got over. Yes, I had stayed there too long. Three weeks had I stayed, so charmed was I with the place and its cosy old inn: I had better have stayed for only three days, and retained my first dream of perfection.
Next we came to the adjoining villages of Corhampton and Meon Stoke; I took them for one, but I learnt that the little river Meon divides them and that they really are two distinct places. On each side of the river, almost within a stone's throw of each other, their ancient churches stand. Two places of worship where one might suffice—surely a waste of Christian energy! How much energy is often wasted in country churches! A Sussex parson once told me that sometimes he had to preach and the choir had to sing to three old women and an umbrella! Both Corhampton and Meon Stoke are lovely villages in a lovely spot enclosed by wooded hills; you might travel for many a day and many a mile before coming to so fair a corner of the land. It is as fair as wooded hills, gently gliding river, with a droning old mill by its side, green meadows, prettycottages gracefully yet accidentally grouped, and two grey, quaint, and ancient churches can make it.
Meon Stoke church with its odd black wooden bell-turret makes a pretty picture standing by the side of the river where it broadens out into a pool. Corhampton church stands on a little knoll almost opposite, and is small and most unpretending, but of much interest, being Saxon, though since those far-away Saxon times it has suffered alteration. Now Saxon churches are rare in the land, notwithstanding that this was the second we had come upon in out-of-the-way places during the journey. Its walls still show the long-and-short Saxon stone-work, and there is a good example of a Saxon doorway on the north side, unfortunately built up. There is to me little doubt that its walls are the original ones, though patched here and there, and though later windows have been inserted in them, so that the building remains the same size and form as when first erected, long centuries past. In the churchyard is a large yew-tree undoubtedly ancient, but whether it is "as old as the building itself and the oldest in the country," as a parishioner asserted it was, I could scarcely believe; perhaps he did not realise the age of the church. I grant that the tree likely flourished in the days of Queen Bess, probably was old even then, and that takes one back a good while. How many churchyards boast of having the biggest and oldest yew-tree in the land? I have quite lost count of them, and of the "smallest church in England" I have seen not a few. Standing at one side of the porch we noticedthe original altar-stone with five crosses on it, and within the church, built into the south wall of the chancel, is a curious stone chair. But I think perhaps Corhampton church is of more interest to the archaeologist than to the average tourist. I suppose there are still trout in the Meon as there were in Izaak Walton's past days when he fished in that river, for as we left I observed a woman on its banks patiently and deftly casting the fly, though the water was so clear and the sun so bright she could hardly hope for much sport. But anglers live greatly on hope. Good Izaak Walton knew when to stop fishing, for of one day he writes: "We went to a good honest ale-house, and there played shovel-board half the day ... and we were as merry as they that fished." He was no slave to his hobby, and owned it. Again I must confess that fishing with me is more an excuse to get out in the country with something to do than the mere catching of fish; possibly to others its chief charm lies in this. But it does not do to analyse one's pleasures.
After Corhampton the country grew more open for a time, and at one spot on the top of a hill that rose across the river I caught sight of a quaint-looking, remote village with a fine church possessing a noble tower that dominates the landscape. I could not understand why so small and out-of-the-way a village (it seemed but a hamlet) should possess so fine a church. A sudden desire took me to explore it, so I turned down the narrow lane that led to the spot and climbed the opposite hill. Ipulled up at the first cottage I came to; there were only a few, but this attracted my attention, being creeper-covered and with a porch all overgrown with fragrant honeysuckle just as a poet would have it. Then I noticed its name painted over its garden gate; this struck me as strange, for it was "Naboth's Vineyard." As I was standing close by, its owner came forth and bade me good-day; I think curiosity brought him out to learn what a stranger did there, in a motor-car too, where I should imagine strangers or motor-cars very seldom or hardly ever appear. We got chatting together about nothing in particular; then I asked why he had given his pretty cottage so strange a name. I thought there might be some story connected with it. "Can't you guess?" said he, smiling; "it's because so many people envy me it and would like to possess it. I thought it a very suitable name"—and he was simply the village blacksmith who had conceived this conceit. "Would you care to come into the garden and see what a fine view I've from it?" So I went into the garden and duly admired the view looking south far away down the valley, then bathed in the glow of the afternoon sun, and the garden I noticed was a pleasant one, gay with the bright, old-fashioned, hardy flowers so familiar to the Elizabethan poets, flowers that Mrs. Allingham has pictured to us in many of her charming drawings of cottage homes. How I love those hardy flowers, never hurt by the rain; they seem fuller of colour and far sweeter of scent to me than the pampered, potted-out ones that people admire or profess to admire to-day, andthat are often ruined by a storm in an hour. I thought at the moment I could live in that cottage contentedly, far away from the world and its worries. I asked the name of the village and learnt it was Soberton.
As I was quietly admiring the view, the blacksmith pointed me out a field down below. "Some time ago," said he, "a stone coffin was dug up there, and in it was a skeleton of a man embedded in cement, but no one could make anything of it." A skeleton only, buried in cement in a coffin, not in a churchyard—that is surely suggestive of mystery?
From the garden I had a good view of the tall flint and stone-built church tower, and I expressed my surprise to find so fine a one there. "I expect you don't know its history," said the blacksmith. I confessed I did not, but would be pleased to hear it. "Well, it's like this," he continued; "they say it was built by the life-savings of two servants, a butler and a dairymaid, who were in service at an old mansion in the valley that has long been pulled down. You can see on the tower, if you care, the carved figures in stone of the butler and the maid, and between them there is a skull to show, I am told, that the tower was built after their death." So I went to inspect the tower and see what I could make of the carvings. How many quaint legends you pick up on the road if you only search out places remote where legends still linger. There, true enough, high up in the tower, just under the parapet, I saw plainly the two figures, opposite one another, of a butler with a key in his hand and adairymaid with a pail by her side. They were carved with much skill and boldly, and appeared little the worse for the storms of years that must have beaten upon them, exposed as they are to all weathers. If sculptured stones could confirm a story, these stones appeared to do so. Then at the foot of the tower my eye caught this inscription:
This towerOriginally built by ServantsWas restored by Servants1881.
I presume that whoever had that inscription placed there must have felt there was some truth in the story, though, to me, I confess it seems an improbable one. Still, what traveller would be so cruelly critical as to doubt every legend he hears? In this case the curious carvings are suggestive and certainly call for some story—else why are they there, and not only there, but so prominently placed right in front of the tower?
CHAPTER XXA tramp's story—A relic of a famous sea-fight—A tame road—Inn gardens—New landlords and old traditions—Chichester market-cross—A wind-swept land—"Dull and dreary Bognor"—A forgotten poet—Littlehampton—Country sights and sounds—A lulling landscape.From Soberton we resumed our way down the Meon Valley, which gradually widening out lost its vale-like character and with that much of its charm; its scenery culminated at Corhampton. We had not gone far before we sought shelter beneath some overhanging trees from a smart shower; already a tramp was sheltering there. As we drove up he received me with a military salute, or what he considered to be such, for it was not very well done, remarking at the same time, "Good-morning, captain." Tramps are fond of addressing any one as "captain"; I presume they find it pleases. I simply acknowledged his salute out of civility, but said nothing. "Old soldier," exclaimed the tramp laconically. Old humbug, I thought, but still I said nothing, not from pride, but because he looked such a dirty, worthless tramp. But not a whit disheartened he came close up to the car, too close for my liking, and began to pitch a yarn how he had fought for his country against the Boers: "Now look at me, a poorold soldier who has served his country, having to tramp about in search of any odd job, and jobs is hard to find, and wherever I goes to ask for work there's sure to be a dog come for me. Dogs is a terror to a poor tramp." It might have been uncharitable of me, but I was rather pleased to hear that; I have a good opinion of a dog's judgment. Then he started on a long-winded story of his experiences and hardships, real or invented—I strongly inclined to the latter—during the war. The tale was not badly told, I must give him credit for that, yet I doubted the truth of it; my experience of tramps being extensive caused me to doubt; though if I meet with an interesting tramp, and some there are, I am always prepared for a chat and to pay the price of my entertainment—and cheat. Greatly doubting the truth of the tale, a sudden idea struck me: I asked the tramp the name of the ship he went out in. A surprise question it proved, for he hesitated before answering it, then he gave me a name; I had never heard of a ship so called, still that proved nothing; then I quite casually exclaimed, "Why, that's an old paddle-ship." "That's the one," he replied in some haste, not seeing the point that sea-going paddle-ships have long been out of date, and not one naturally was employed to convey troops to the Cape. Such is the artless art of the tramp; but that tramp got nothing from me. As soon as the shower was over I went on my way. I really do not think it kindness or wisdom to encourage the professional tramp, it only tends to increase the tribe who already sufficiently pesterour roads. The best of them are lazy fellows who prefer their rough life to doing an hour's honest work. A friend of mine one day offered a begging tramp a good meal and a shilling to dig a corner in his garden, perhaps two hours' real work. But the tramp refused "the job," his excuse being he was hungry and needed the meal first, which might mean he would get the meal, then walk off.Soon we reached the pleasant little town of Wickham, where William of Wykeham was born in 1324, and that is its only claim to fame as far as I know. It is a tiny town with a wide market-place, and it looked very sleepy that day. It consists of a number of gabled houses, mostly old and of various dates, the oldest, as usual, being the most picturesque. The modern city architect, with some very rare exceptions, appears to be ashamed of gables and of chimneys that so pleasantly break and vary the skyline. Wickham just escapes being quaint, but it retains the slumberous calm of old times. The charm that these quiet little unprogressive old towns have for some people lies not alone in their antiquity, though this has much to do with it, nor in their picturesqueness, for they are not all picturesque, except for an odd building here and there, but in their rare restfulness and completeness, for they never seem to grow or get ugly: now prosperous towns are always growing and eating up the green fields around, they have an unfinished look that displeases, and their modern buildings are hopelessly uninteresting, when not positively unsightly, and there is no sense of repose about them.They go in for plate-glass and show, and for tramways when they can. At Wickham we discovered a water-mill, built about a century ago, though it looked much older; the big beams within it were made out of the timbers of the U.S. frigateChesapeakethat was captured by H.M.S. frigateShannonin that famous sea-fight of 1813, and some of the timbers bear the marks of the cannon-balls still. So in the most unlikely places we came upon history—indeed we never passed a day that we did not at some spot or another.We did not patronise the inn at Wickham, for there was still time for more wandering. I often wonder how these little inns in the sleepy country towns and villages pay, for their customers cannot be many. One landlord at whose inn I stayed on the way, a neat and even picturesque inn where I was very well treated and served, told me he paid £55 a year rent for it with stabling attached. It seemed a low enough rental to me, not enough to pay a fair interest on the building; but that was the owner's affair, I suppose he could not get more or he would. Mine host told me, during a chat in his cosy bar, that his average takings were £10 a week, "which is not all profit, of course. There are licences to pay and rent and taxes, then there's the providing and servants' wages, to say nothing of the wear and tear of carpets and furniture, which is considerable. No, sir, the innkeeper's lot is not all cakes and ale; his hours are late, and he has much responsibility. Yet the Government tax us unmercifully. Our worries are many, but we always have to greet our guests with a cheerful face as though we had nothing to worry about and were the happiest of men. We provide a home from home for all travellers and at all hours. It's hard work is innkeeping, and ought to be better rewarded." I agreed with mine host of a smiling face, and I drank his good health. When I paid my modest bill for excellent entertainment, I left feeling I was under an obligation to him for the trouble he took to obtain me admission to see over a most interesting half-timber Elizabethan house near by, having first told me of it and its eventful past history.AN OLD-TIME HOME.I had intended to follow the valley of the Meon right down to the sea, and by my map I find it would have taken me to Lichfield, but by some mischance at Wickham I got on the wrong road, a road that took me to Fareham, so the rest of the way I lost sight of the river. I was vexed with myself at having done this, for a river is always such cheerful company. No country, however tame, is without charm that has a river running through it; a river is, as a Frenchman said, "a moving road," its destiny the sea; the birds sing best by its banks, the cattle go down to and refresh themselves and wade in its waters, the fisherman haunts it, often picturesque old mills stand by its side; there is always life by a river, and the gleam of it enlivens the dullest of landscapes. I always make for a river, and follow it as far as I conveniently can. Those old monks knew a good thing, they could be trusted for that, and be it noted how generally they built their abbeys by the side of a stream.Some say it was because they might catch fish for their Fridays when they fasted, or feasted, on fish, for fish is not a bad dish, washed down by good wine—so their enemies say, in the days when the monks became lazy and fat, and let their lands instead of farming them, but I rather believe they selected such sites with an eye for fair spots, and that only.The road on to Fareham seemed tame and hardly worth travelling. After the quiet beauties of the valley above, I was spoilt for the ordinary. But at Fareham, an unattractive, long-streeted town, I again found a good inn of the old-fashioned sort, and that reconciled me to the place; then the inn had a little garden in its rear overlooking an inlet of the sea where ships were harboured, and the sight of their masts and their sails gave a sense of romance to the view, for the sight of a ship, however small it may be, sets my thoughts a-wandering and voyaging in imagination all the world over. The town was forgiven, indeed forgotten. If an inn you rest at has only a pleasant garden to moon in, what matters the town? If "the finest landscape is improved by a good hotel in the foreground," how much the more so in comparison is a commonplace town? I know an old country town that might have been pleasant enough in past days, but now has been ruined picturesquely and utterly by some rows of most assertively ugly new buildings of staring red brick and blue slates and plate-glass; but at the end of it stands a fine coaching inn, a long low building with creeper-cladwalls, a dream of old times with its swinging signboard upheld on a post, its panelled, beam-ceilinged chambers, its cool, cosy bar, its long out-of-date comfortable Georgian furniture, not to mention its big bowling-green on which our ancestors played. In spite of its ugliness, and very ugly it is, to that town I often repair solely for the sake of that inn, not forgetting its worthy host, who might have stepped out of some novel by Dickens or Ainsworth or James. So much for sentiment and the attraction of the picturesque. I really think that the inn makes the host; the subtle influence of an ancient inn, the atmosphere or a spirit of the past that lingers about it, soon takes possession of the later landlord and makes him one in his manner and ways with those who preceded him, and so without realising it he comes to conform to the old traditions quite naturally, almost as though he were born to them. So surely I feel this the case that I always expect, and I find—I cannot remember a single exception—an old inn of the kind to have a landlord in keeping. It is the same with old houses. I know a man of modern ideas who came into the possession of one and determined to make alterations in it, but somehow or other the alterations were postponed. Meanwhile the house quietly conquered, and now is religiously preserved as it was; the only concession to modern ideas being that a diamond casement window was replaced with one of plate-glass, and this merely for the sake of a view; but to-day the new owner regrets even that, and I fully expect in due time to find the old lattice panesback in their place, for the view can be sufficiently well seen through them.From Fareham we took the road to Chichester, a road that follows the line of the coast though a little inland; a road of no beauty after the first few miles, but not without interest. Here and there on the way we had peeps of the sea and of little landlocked creeks that had a charm of their own, and these redeemed the scenery from the uninteresting succession of houses and poor villages that succeeded one another with scant intervals for many a mile. Presently we came in sight of Portsmouth over a long lagoon, its waters coming right up to our road, which is embanked to preserve it from the wash of the tide. We caught a glimpse of the grim ironclads in the harbour dimly seen through the drifting dun smoke of the town, but the smoke above where touched by the sunshine was tinged with gold and glorified, and under such conditions even smoke can be beautiful seen afar off. As the road gradually rose we had a fine view across Langstone Harbour, over which the wind blew free towards us with a cool and refreshing salt savour. So through Havant and Emsworth we found our townified and dusty way and came to a land of flat green plains, ahead of which rose, pearly-grey against the white sky, the steeple of Chichester Cathedral with the irregular outline of the city below. Seen thus from our point of view it suggested a city of romance in the days of pilgrimages. Would that the reality could only come up to our vision! How much truth lies in Campbell'soften-quoted line, "Distance lends enchantment to the view." We almost wished we could have avoided Chichester and so have retained that poetic vision, for "There is a pleasure, now and then, in giving full scope to Fancy and Imagination." But the road led to Chichester and nowhere else; to the south was the sea, and there was no other way. But Chichester is a pleasant old city, though it does not realise impossible dreams; its grey-toned cathedral makes a fine background for its beautiful arched market-cross. I am afraid I admire the market-cross more than the cathedral, for the cathedral is rather interesting than beautiful, whilst the market-cross is wholly beautiful and interesting besides. Never had an architect of lesser structures a more happy inspiration than when designing that graceful cross.We drove southward from Chichester to regain the sea front, and the road we selected we found led to Bognor: dull and dreary Bognor I have heard it called; its name is against it, and it is a hard thing to struggle against a bad name whether in man or place. Now we found ourselves in a flat land, a land of meadows and fields of waving corn, a land that stretched far away, wide and open to the long level lines of the distant horizon. Truly it was not a beautiful country according to the accepted traditions of beauty, for it was devoid of all character except flatness, and that is a quality that mostly appeals to a Dutchman or Fen dweller. Yet there was a certain charm about that flat country to me; I think it lay in the wide dome of sky above thatflooded the landscape with unshadowed light, and the bracing breeziness of it, swept as it was by the unchecked winds from the sea. It was all so open, free, and flushed with the freshest of airs; then there was such a homely, friendly feeling about it, for it was a country of modest homes, not one of mansions or villas—a country of odd farmsteads and cottages only. Truly there was nothing strictly to admire in all the far prospect, only a succession of grass and green cornfields, "one field much like another," as I think Dr. Johnson once said of the country; but the brightness of the vast spaces of sunlit land, and the pronounced pureness and clearness of the air, made for cheerfulness and were inspiriting. If the landscape was in a measure monotonous, the wild flowers that abounded by the way made fair atonement for it. I knew not their names, but what mattered that? It was their beauty I prized, their colour and form. I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba and cry, "'Tis all barren." He had best stay at home and travel by book, till he learns through other eyes how to see. As Keats wrote of the pre-Wordsworth poets:Ah, dismal-soul'd!The winds of heaven blew, the ocean roll'dIts gathering waves—ye felt it not. The blueBared its eternal bosom and the dewOf summer nights collected still to makeThe morning precious: beauty was awake!Why were ye not awake? But ye were deadTo things ye knew not.I think it was Stevenson who wrote an interestingarticle "On the Enjoyment of Unpleasant Places"—not that the country we passed through that day was in any way unpleasant, it simply was somewhat uninteresting; and there is an art in enjoying the uninteresting, or what you may deem so, though I must confess it does not come up to the higher art of "the enjoyment of unpleasant places." A man who can do that can be happy anywhere and without travelling far, but its accomplishment needs a good deal of training and time and trying, I should imagine—not, be it noted, to make the best of, but actually toenjoythe unpleasant. "Ay, there's the rub." That surely is an education in itself, somewhat in the shape of a task! Now I travel for pleasure and not to be taught.Perhaps it was because I fully expected to find Bognor a dull and dreary spot that I was agreeably disappointed with it. Then I confess I have a fancy for seeing places differently from other people, amounting almost to a confirmed opposition to prevailing opinion. It may be just then that I was in the unconscious humour to enjoy unpleasant places, but I could see nothing unpleasant about Bognor to test it. Basking in the bright sunshine it looked quite cheerful to me; indeed I thought I should much prefer to stay there than at fashionable and familiar Brighton, which seems like a town where the sea is but an accident and the shops on the front are the real attraction—Bond Street at second-hand. Hear what Richard Jefferies says: "All fashionable Brighton parades the King's Roadtwice a day, morning and afternoon, always on the side of the shops.... These people never look at the sea.... The sea is not 'the thing' at Brighton, which is the least nautical of seaside places"—and I fear that the music at the Pavilion is more to the liking of visitors there than the music of the waves. Now at Bognor I noticed there were crowds by the sea, crowds with a happy look on their faces, a sea that was sparkling and dancing far away with joy in its dancing, whilst the white-crested waves came rolling in on the beach, breaking and splashing in masses of silvery spray. I must have had my rose-coloured spectacles on that day, for I could see nothing dreary or dull about Bognor; all the people I saw there seemed light-hearted and sprightly, and it is not a bad rule to judge of a place by the people in it. Those who read this may smile, but in spite of its reputation and name, and reputation influences much, I took quite a liking to the place. Truly I must allow that the sun was shining down gloriously, "doing its best to make all things pleasant," and succeeding—making even Bognor look gay.It was but a short way from Bognor to the village of Felpham, where William Blake lived for some time to be near his friend Hayley the poet, who—the poet, that is—gained some repute in his day, though his popularity has not stood Time's trying test. Of Hayley it may be said, "Everything was good about him but his poetry." Still he wrote pleasant enough verse, though his thoughts were not deep. The last lines he composed to theswallows on his roof may be quoted as an example, not of his best, nor yet of his worst:Ye gentle birds that perch aloof,And smooth your pinions on my roof,Preparing for departure henceEre winter's angry threats commence;Like you my soul would smooth her plumeFor longer flights beyond the tomb.Hayley, who was given to writing epitaphs, also composed the well-known and much-quoted one to a local blacksmith that is to be found in Felpham churchyard, which runs thus:My sledge and hammer lie reclin'd,My bellows too have lost their wind,My fire's extinct, my forge decay'd,And in the dust my vice is laid,My coal is spent, my iron gone,The nails are driven, my work is done.This epitaph has been frequently repeated elsewhere; I have come upon it in at least a dozen churchyards, sometimes with variations that are no improvements. An epitaph once popular soon became common property. Twice when touring in the Eastern Counties did a clerk of a church declare in effect, knowing I was in search of quaint epitaphs, "Now I can show you a curious one to a blacksmith that is quite original," only to find, once again, Hayley's epitaph there; and I really do not think I have ever been in a churchyard without coming upon the everlasting—and irritating because so commonplace—Afflictions soreLong time he (or she) bore.Whoever originated these lines has much to answer for. On the other hand, the man who had simply inscribed on his wife's tombstone "Though lost to sight to memory dear," without a thought of such a thing has given us a classic quotation. Here, however, are two epitaphs that strike a fresh note. The first is at Cobham to a photographer, both brief and to the point, for all it says is "Taken from life." Another to John Knott, a scissor-grinder, may be found in smoky Sheffield:Here lies a man that was Knott born,His father was Knott before him,He lived Knott and did Knott die,Yet underneath this stone doth lieKnott christened,Knott begot,And here he liesAnd yet was Knott.From Felpham we drove along narrow roads to Littlehampton. I am not sure that we went the nearest or best way, indeed I feel almost sure we did not; even on the map it is not simple to follow. I know we wound about a good deal, first in one direction, then in another, but it was very pleasant wandering, and we passed by many delightful old homes and pretty cottages. It was a land of pleasant homes and quiet abiding. Now and then we caught a peep of the sea on one hand, and of the fine rolling "hills of the South Country" on the other, and on the level land between our road took its devious way as though of uncertain mind whether to make for the sea or the hills, then finally making for the sea at Littlehampton.Now and then we heard the fussy rattle of a mowing machine busy at work in a field. Not only country sights but country sounds have changed greatly during the past century. Scarcely ever now one hears the once familiar whetting of the scythe, or the soothing swish of it in the long grass. Sings Tennyson:O sound to rout the brood of cares,The sweep of scythe in morning dew.That is the value of pleasant sounds. It is long since I have heard the beat of the flail threshing out the grain on the barn floor; to-day in its place we have the steam threshing-machine, and that is the only mechanical sound that pleases my ear, the dreamy hum of it when mellowed by distance. Doubtless associations have much to do with the pleasure sounds afford. Who loves not the "caw, caw, caw" of the rook? Yet in reality it is a sound harsh and grating, but then one always so intimately connects it with the country, big trees, ancestral homes and rural delights, that, though truly discordant, the notes even gratify the ear.So we reached Littlehampton, half port half watering-place, of no great importance as either. From Littlehampton our road kept up much the same pleasantly rural and uneventful character, with hills to the north and the sea to the south, and the same sort of level and, in parts, well-wooded land between. "Hills," it has been said, "give hope, wood a kind of mysterious friendliness with the earth, but the sea reminds us that we arehelpless." We had all three, but the sea that day, gleaming and bright in the glance of the sun, looked more like a friend than a foe; it did not suggest the helplessness of man but rather his convenient highway over the world to distant lands of old romance—if any be left.There is an infinite pleasure to the quiet-loving pilgrim in driving through a lulling land like this where all is restful to the eye and hurry a thing unknown, a land through which you drive on in a sort of day-dream and for a time desire nothing better, a landWhere the wind with the scent of the sea is fed,And the sun seems glad to shine.In truth there was a touch of sunny Southernness about it, a warmth and brightness suggestive of Italy, though the scenery was essentially English.Then we came to the sea again at Worthing, when my rose-coloured spectacles must surely have dropped from my eyes, for I could see nothing attractive about it: otherwise how can I account for the fact that Bognor, "dull Bognor," appealed to me and Worthing did not? Perhaps because, I thought, there was more pretence of being a watering-place about Worthing, and I heard a band playing there, and I heard no band at Bognor but only the surge of the sea. I was glad to escape from Worthing; it had no interest for me beyond its fresh air.
A tramp's story—A relic of a famous sea-fight—A tame road—Inn gardens—New landlords and old traditions—Chichester market-cross—A wind-swept land—"Dull and dreary Bognor"—A forgotten poet—Littlehampton—Country sights and sounds—A lulling landscape.
From Soberton we resumed our way down the Meon Valley, which gradually widening out lost its vale-like character and with that much of its charm; its scenery culminated at Corhampton. We had not gone far before we sought shelter beneath some overhanging trees from a smart shower; already a tramp was sheltering there. As we drove up he received me with a military salute, or what he considered to be such, for it was not very well done, remarking at the same time, "Good-morning, captain." Tramps are fond of addressing any one as "captain"; I presume they find it pleases. I simply acknowledged his salute out of civility, but said nothing. "Old soldier," exclaimed the tramp laconically. Old humbug, I thought, but still I said nothing, not from pride, but because he looked such a dirty, worthless tramp. But not a whit disheartened he came close up to the car, too close for my liking, and began to pitch a yarn how he had fought for his country against the Boers: "Now look at me, a poorold soldier who has served his country, having to tramp about in search of any odd job, and jobs is hard to find, and wherever I goes to ask for work there's sure to be a dog come for me. Dogs is a terror to a poor tramp." It might have been uncharitable of me, but I was rather pleased to hear that; I have a good opinion of a dog's judgment. Then he started on a long-winded story of his experiences and hardships, real or invented—I strongly inclined to the latter—during the war. The tale was not badly told, I must give him credit for that, yet I doubted the truth of it; my experience of tramps being extensive caused me to doubt; though if I meet with an interesting tramp, and some there are, I am always prepared for a chat and to pay the price of my entertainment—and cheat. Greatly doubting the truth of the tale, a sudden idea struck me: I asked the tramp the name of the ship he went out in. A surprise question it proved, for he hesitated before answering it, then he gave me a name; I had never heard of a ship so called, still that proved nothing; then I quite casually exclaimed, "Why, that's an old paddle-ship." "That's the one," he replied in some haste, not seeing the point that sea-going paddle-ships have long been out of date, and not one naturally was employed to convey troops to the Cape. Such is the artless art of the tramp; but that tramp got nothing from me. As soon as the shower was over I went on my way. I really do not think it kindness or wisdom to encourage the professional tramp, it only tends to increase the tribe who already sufficiently pesterour roads. The best of them are lazy fellows who prefer their rough life to doing an hour's honest work. A friend of mine one day offered a begging tramp a good meal and a shilling to dig a corner in his garden, perhaps two hours' real work. But the tramp refused "the job," his excuse being he was hungry and needed the meal first, which might mean he would get the meal, then walk off.
Soon we reached the pleasant little town of Wickham, where William of Wykeham was born in 1324, and that is its only claim to fame as far as I know. It is a tiny town with a wide market-place, and it looked very sleepy that day. It consists of a number of gabled houses, mostly old and of various dates, the oldest, as usual, being the most picturesque. The modern city architect, with some very rare exceptions, appears to be ashamed of gables and of chimneys that so pleasantly break and vary the skyline. Wickham just escapes being quaint, but it retains the slumberous calm of old times. The charm that these quiet little unprogressive old towns have for some people lies not alone in their antiquity, though this has much to do with it, nor in their picturesqueness, for they are not all picturesque, except for an odd building here and there, but in their rare restfulness and completeness, for they never seem to grow or get ugly: now prosperous towns are always growing and eating up the green fields around, they have an unfinished look that displeases, and their modern buildings are hopelessly uninteresting, when not positively unsightly, and there is no sense of repose about them.They go in for plate-glass and show, and for tramways when they can. At Wickham we discovered a water-mill, built about a century ago, though it looked much older; the big beams within it were made out of the timbers of the U.S. frigateChesapeakethat was captured by H.M.S. frigateShannonin that famous sea-fight of 1813, and some of the timbers bear the marks of the cannon-balls still. So in the most unlikely places we came upon history—indeed we never passed a day that we did not at some spot or another.
We did not patronise the inn at Wickham, for there was still time for more wandering. I often wonder how these little inns in the sleepy country towns and villages pay, for their customers cannot be many. One landlord at whose inn I stayed on the way, a neat and even picturesque inn where I was very well treated and served, told me he paid £55 a year rent for it with stabling attached. It seemed a low enough rental to me, not enough to pay a fair interest on the building; but that was the owner's affair, I suppose he could not get more or he would. Mine host told me, during a chat in his cosy bar, that his average takings were £10 a week, "which is not all profit, of course. There are licences to pay and rent and taxes, then there's the providing and servants' wages, to say nothing of the wear and tear of carpets and furniture, which is considerable. No, sir, the innkeeper's lot is not all cakes and ale; his hours are late, and he has much responsibility. Yet the Government tax us unmercifully. Our worries are many, but we always have to greet our guests with a cheerful face as though we had nothing to worry about and were the happiest of men. We provide a home from home for all travellers and at all hours. It's hard work is innkeeping, and ought to be better rewarded." I agreed with mine host of a smiling face, and I drank his good health. When I paid my modest bill for excellent entertainment, I left feeling I was under an obligation to him for the trouble he took to obtain me admission to see over a most interesting half-timber Elizabethan house near by, having first told me of it and its eventful past history.
AN OLD-TIME HOME.
AN OLD-TIME HOME.
AN OLD-TIME HOME.
I had intended to follow the valley of the Meon right down to the sea, and by my map I find it would have taken me to Lichfield, but by some mischance at Wickham I got on the wrong road, a road that took me to Fareham, so the rest of the way I lost sight of the river. I was vexed with myself at having done this, for a river is always such cheerful company. No country, however tame, is without charm that has a river running through it; a river is, as a Frenchman said, "a moving road," its destiny the sea; the birds sing best by its banks, the cattle go down to and refresh themselves and wade in its waters, the fisherman haunts it, often picturesque old mills stand by its side; there is always life by a river, and the gleam of it enlivens the dullest of landscapes. I always make for a river, and follow it as far as I conveniently can. Those old monks knew a good thing, they could be trusted for that, and be it noted how generally they built their abbeys by the side of a stream.Some say it was because they might catch fish for their Fridays when they fasted, or feasted, on fish, for fish is not a bad dish, washed down by good wine—so their enemies say, in the days when the monks became lazy and fat, and let their lands instead of farming them, but I rather believe they selected such sites with an eye for fair spots, and that only.
The road on to Fareham seemed tame and hardly worth travelling. After the quiet beauties of the valley above, I was spoilt for the ordinary. But at Fareham, an unattractive, long-streeted town, I again found a good inn of the old-fashioned sort, and that reconciled me to the place; then the inn had a little garden in its rear overlooking an inlet of the sea where ships were harboured, and the sight of their masts and their sails gave a sense of romance to the view, for the sight of a ship, however small it may be, sets my thoughts a-wandering and voyaging in imagination all the world over. The town was forgiven, indeed forgotten. If an inn you rest at has only a pleasant garden to moon in, what matters the town? If "the finest landscape is improved by a good hotel in the foreground," how much the more so in comparison is a commonplace town? I know an old country town that might have been pleasant enough in past days, but now has been ruined picturesquely and utterly by some rows of most assertively ugly new buildings of staring red brick and blue slates and plate-glass; but at the end of it stands a fine coaching inn, a long low building with creeper-cladwalls, a dream of old times with its swinging signboard upheld on a post, its panelled, beam-ceilinged chambers, its cool, cosy bar, its long out-of-date comfortable Georgian furniture, not to mention its big bowling-green on which our ancestors played. In spite of its ugliness, and very ugly it is, to that town I often repair solely for the sake of that inn, not forgetting its worthy host, who might have stepped out of some novel by Dickens or Ainsworth or James. So much for sentiment and the attraction of the picturesque. I really think that the inn makes the host; the subtle influence of an ancient inn, the atmosphere or a spirit of the past that lingers about it, soon takes possession of the later landlord and makes him one in his manner and ways with those who preceded him, and so without realising it he comes to conform to the old traditions quite naturally, almost as though he were born to them. So surely I feel this the case that I always expect, and I find—I cannot remember a single exception—an old inn of the kind to have a landlord in keeping. It is the same with old houses. I know a man of modern ideas who came into the possession of one and determined to make alterations in it, but somehow or other the alterations were postponed. Meanwhile the house quietly conquered, and now is religiously preserved as it was; the only concession to modern ideas being that a diamond casement window was replaced with one of plate-glass, and this merely for the sake of a view; but to-day the new owner regrets even that, and I fully expect in due time to find the old lattice panesback in their place, for the view can be sufficiently well seen through them.
From Fareham we took the road to Chichester, a road that follows the line of the coast though a little inland; a road of no beauty after the first few miles, but not without interest. Here and there on the way we had peeps of the sea and of little landlocked creeks that had a charm of their own, and these redeemed the scenery from the uninteresting succession of houses and poor villages that succeeded one another with scant intervals for many a mile. Presently we came in sight of Portsmouth over a long lagoon, its waters coming right up to our road, which is embanked to preserve it from the wash of the tide. We caught a glimpse of the grim ironclads in the harbour dimly seen through the drifting dun smoke of the town, but the smoke above where touched by the sunshine was tinged with gold and glorified, and under such conditions even smoke can be beautiful seen afar off. As the road gradually rose we had a fine view across Langstone Harbour, over which the wind blew free towards us with a cool and refreshing salt savour. So through Havant and Emsworth we found our townified and dusty way and came to a land of flat green plains, ahead of which rose, pearly-grey against the white sky, the steeple of Chichester Cathedral with the irregular outline of the city below. Seen thus from our point of view it suggested a city of romance in the days of pilgrimages. Would that the reality could only come up to our vision! How much truth lies in Campbell'soften-quoted line, "Distance lends enchantment to the view." We almost wished we could have avoided Chichester and so have retained that poetic vision, for "There is a pleasure, now and then, in giving full scope to Fancy and Imagination." But the road led to Chichester and nowhere else; to the south was the sea, and there was no other way. But Chichester is a pleasant old city, though it does not realise impossible dreams; its grey-toned cathedral makes a fine background for its beautiful arched market-cross. I am afraid I admire the market-cross more than the cathedral, for the cathedral is rather interesting than beautiful, whilst the market-cross is wholly beautiful and interesting besides. Never had an architect of lesser structures a more happy inspiration than when designing that graceful cross.
We drove southward from Chichester to regain the sea front, and the road we selected we found led to Bognor: dull and dreary Bognor I have heard it called; its name is against it, and it is a hard thing to struggle against a bad name whether in man or place. Now we found ourselves in a flat land, a land of meadows and fields of waving corn, a land that stretched far away, wide and open to the long level lines of the distant horizon. Truly it was not a beautiful country according to the accepted traditions of beauty, for it was devoid of all character except flatness, and that is a quality that mostly appeals to a Dutchman or Fen dweller. Yet there was a certain charm about that flat country to me; I think it lay in the wide dome of sky above thatflooded the landscape with unshadowed light, and the bracing breeziness of it, swept as it was by the unchecked winds from the sea. It was all so open, free, and flushed with the freshest of airs; then there was such a homely, friendly feeling about it, for it was a country of modest homes, not one of mansions or villas—a country of odd farmsteads and cottages only. Truly there was nothing strictly to admire in all the far prospect, only a succession of grass and green cornfields, "one field much like another," as I think Dr. Johnson once said of the country; but the brightness of the vast spaces of sunlit land, and the pronounced pureness and clearness of the air, made for cheerfulness and were inspiriting. If the landscape was in a measure monotonous, the wild flowers that abounded by the way made fair atonement for it. I knew not their names, but what mattered that? It was their beauty I prized, their colour and form. I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba and cry, "'Tis all barren." He had best stay at home and travel by book, till he learns through other eyes how to see. As Keats wrote of the pre-Wordsworth poets:
Ah, dismal-soul'd!
The winds of heaven blew, the ocean roll'dIts gathering waves—ye felt it not. The blueBared its eternal bosom and the dewOf summer nights collected still to makeThe morning precious: beauty was awake!Why were ye not awake? But ye were deadTo things ye knew not.
I think it was Stevenson who wrote an interestingarticle "On the Enjoyment of Unpleasant Places"—not that the country we passed through that day was in any way unpleasant, it simply was somewhat uninteresting; and there is an art in enjoying the uninteresting, or what you may deem so, though I must confess it does not come up to the higher art of "the enjoyment of unpleasant places." A man who can do that can be happy anywhere and without travelling far, but its accomplishment needs a good deal of training and time and trying, I should imagine—not, be it noted, to make the best of, but actually toenjoythe unpleasant. "Ay, there's the rub." That surely is an education in itself, somewhat in the shape of a task! Now I travel for pleasure and not to be taught.
Perhaps it was because I fully expected to find Bognor a dull and dreary spot that I was agreeably disappointed with it. Then I confess I have a fancy for seeing places differently from other people, amounting almost to a confirmed opposition to prevailing opinion. It may be just then that I was in the unconscious humour to enjoy unpleasant places, but I could see nothing unpleasant about Bognor to test it. Basking in the bright sunshine it looked quite cheerful to me; indeed I thought I should much prefer to stay there than at fashionable and familiar Brighton, which seems like a town where the sea is but an accident and the shops on the front are the real attraction—Bond Street at second-hand. Hear what Richard Jefferies says: "All fashionable Brighton parades the King's Roadtwice a day, morning and afternoon, always on the side of the shops.... These people never look at the sea.... The sea is not 'the thing' at Brighton, which is the least nautical of seaside places"—and I fear that the music at the Pavilion is more to the liking of visitors there than the music of the waves. Now at Bognor I noticed there were crowds by the sea, crowds with a happy look on their faces, a sea that was sparkling and dancing far away with joy in its dancing, whilst the white-crested waves came rolling in on the beach, breaking and splashing in masses of silvery spray. I must have had my rose-coloured spectacles on that day, for I could see nothing dreary or dull about Bognor; all the people I saw there seemed light-hearted and sprightly, and it is not a bad rule to judge of a place by the people in it. Those who read this may smile, but in spite of its reputation and name, and reputation influences much, I took quite a liking to the place. Truly I must allow that the sun was shining down gloriously, "doing its best to make all things pleasant," and succeeding—making even Bognor look gay.
It was but a short way from Bognor to the village of Felpham, where William Blake lived for some time to be near his friend Hayley the poet, who—the poet, that is—gained some repute in his day, though his popularity has not stood Time's trying test. Of Hayley it may be said, "Everything was good about him but his poetry." Still he wrote pleasant enough verse, though his thoughts were not deep. The last lines he composed to theswallows on his roof may be quoted as an example, not of his best, nor yet of his worst:
Ye gentle birds that perch aloof,And smooth your pinions on my roof,Preparing for departure henceEre winter's angry threats commence;Like you my soul would smooth her plumeFor longer flights beyond the tomb.
Hayley, who was given to writing epitaphs, also composed the well-known and much-quoted one to a local blacksmith that is to be found in Felpham churchyard, which runs thus:
My sledge and hammer lie reclin'd,My bellows too have lost their wind,My fire's extinct, my forge decay'd,And in the dust my vice is laid,My coal is spent, my iron gone,The nails are driven, my work is done.
This epitaph has been frequently repeated elsewhere; I have come upon it in at least a dozen churchyards, sometimes with variations that are no improvements. An epitaph once popular soon became common property. Twice when touring in the Eastern Counties did a clerk of a church declare in effect, knowing I was in search of quaint epitaphs, "Now I can show you a curious one to a blacksmith that is quite original," only to find, once again, Hayley's epitaph there; and I really do not think I have ever been in a churchyard without coming upon the everlasting—and irritating because so commonplace—
Afflictions soreLong time he (or she) bore.
Whoever originated these lines has much to answer for. On the other hand, the man who had simply inscribed on his wife's tombstone "Though lost to sight to memory dear," without a thought of such a thing has given us a classic quotation. Here, however, are two epitaphs that strike a fresh note. The first is at Cobham to a photographer, both brief and to the point, for all it says is "Taken from life." Another to John Knott, a scissor-grinder, may be found in smoky Sheffield:
Here lies a man that was Knott born,His father was Knott before him,He lived Knott and did Knott die,Yet underneath this stone doth lie
Knott christened,Knott begot,And here he liesAnd yet was Knott.
From Felpham we drove along narrow roads to Littlehampton. I am not sure that we went the nearest or best way, indeed I feel almost sure we did not; even on the map it is not simple to follow. I know we wound about a good deal, first in one direction, then in another, but it was very pleasant wandering, and we passed by many delightful old homes and pretty cottages. It was a land of pleasant homes and quiet abiding. Now and then we caught a peep of the sea on one hand, and of the fine rolling "hills of the South Country" on the other, and on the level land between our road took its devious way as though of uncertain mind whether to make for the sea or the hills, then finally making for the sea at Littlehampton.
Now and then we heard the fussy rattle of a mowing machine busy at work in a field. Not only country sights but country sounds have changed greatly during the past century. Scarcely ever now one hears the once familiar whetting of the scythe, or the soothing swish of it in the long grass. Sings Tennyson:
O sound to rout the brood of cares,The sweep of scythe in morning dew.
That is the value of pleasant sounds. It is long since I have heard the beat of the flail threshing out the grain on the barn floor; to-day in its place we have the steam threshing-machine, and that is the only mechanical sound that pleases my ear, the dreamy hum of it when mellowed by distance. Doubtless associations have much to do with the pleasure sounds afford. Who loves not the "caw, caw, caw" of the rook? Yet in reality it is a sound harsh and grating, but then one always so intimately connects it with the country, big trees, ancestral homes and rural delights, that, though truly discordant, the notes even gratify the ear.
So we reached Littlehampton, half port half watering-place, of no great importance as either. From Littlehampton our road kept up much the same pleasantly rural and uneventful character, with hills to the north and the sea to the south, and the same sort of level and, in parts, well-wooded land between. "Hills," it has been said, "give hope, wood a kind of mysterious friendliness with the earth, but the sea reminds us that we arehelpless." We had all three, but the sea that day, gleaming and bright in the glance of the sun, looked more like a friend than a foe; it did not suggest the helplessness of man but rather his convenient highway over the world to distant lands of old romance—if any be left.
There is an infinite pleasure to the quiet-loving pilgrim in driving through a lulling land like this where all is restful to the eye and hurry a thing unknown, a land through which you drive on in a sort of day-dream and for a time desire nothing better, a land
Where the wind with the scent of the sea is fed,And the sun seems glad to shine.
In truth there was a touch of sunny Southernness about it, a warmth and brightness suggestive of Italy, though the scenery was essentially English.
Then we came to the sea again at Worthing, when my rose-coloured spectacles must surely have dropped from my eyes, for I could see nothing attractive about it: otherwise how can I account for the fact that Bognor, "dull Bognor," appealed to me and Worthing did not? Perhaps because, I thought, there was more pretence of being a watering-place about Worthing, and I heard a band playing there, and I heard no band at Bognor but only the surge of the sea. I was glad to escape from Worthing; it had no interest for me beyond its fresh air.