A gipsy encampment—A puzzling matter—Farming and farmers past and present—An ancient market-town—A picturesque bit of old-world architecture—Gleaners—Time’s changes—A house in two counties—A wayside inn—The commercial value of the picturesque.
A gipsy encampment—A puzzling matter—Farming and farmers past and present—An ancient market-town—A picturesque bit of old-world architecture—Gleaners—Time’s changes—A house in two counties—A wayside inn—The commercial value of the picturesque.
Onone of the grassy wastes by the roadside, a sheltered corner overhung by branching elms, we espied a gipsy encampment. A very effective and pretty picture the encampment made with its belongings and green setting of grass and foliage. There were three brilliantly-coloured caravans drawn up in an irregular line and partly screening from view the same number of brown tents; in and out of caravans and tents sun-tanned and gay-kerchiefed children were noisily rampaging; from amidst the brown tents a spiral film of faint blue smoke lazily ascended, to be lost to sight in the bluer sky above; and to complete a ready-made picture, the gipsies’ horses were tethered close at hand, grazing on the rough sward. Truly the gipsy is a picturesque personage, though I have to confess he is not much beloved in the country; yet I should regret to have him improved entirely away, for he does bring colour and the flavour of wild, free life on to the scene, well suiting the English landscape.
The gipsy, for reasons best known to himself, is apt to resent the advances of strangers, even when made in the most amiable manner. The artist, who, for the sake of his picturesqueness and paintable qualities, is inclined to overlook the gipsy’s possible sins of commission on other people’s property, finds it difficult to sketch him; for myself, I am content to “snap-shot” him photographically on passing by, as I did on this occasion; which proceeding, however, he was prompt to resent with some gruffly muttered exclamation, to which we chaffingly replied, in the blandest of voices, “But you know a cat may look at a king.” Upon which he shouted after us, not in the politest of tones, “Yes, but a photograph machine ain’t a cat, and I ain’t a king, nohow,” and we felt that after all the gipsy had the best of the skirmish in words. The gipsy is manifestly no fool, or, with so many enemies on all sides, he would hardly have held his own for so long, and be extant and apparently flourishing as he is to-day. “It’s the gipsy against the world,” as a farmer once remarked to me, “and bless me if the gipsy don’t somehow score in the struggle.”
As we passed by the encampment, the incense of burning wood, mingled with sundry savoury odours, came wafted our way on the quiet air, and it appeared to us that a gipsy’s life in the summer time was a sort of continuous picnic, not without its charms. Such a charm it has indeed for some minds, that we have more than once on previous expeditions actually met imitations of the real article in the shape of lady and gentleman gipsies (the term truly seems
CARAVANNING
rather a misnomer), touring about in smartly turnedout caravans, driven by liveried coachmen. But all this seems to me far too respectable and luxurious to be quite delightful. The dash of Bohemianism about it is absurdly artificial; moreover, the coming of a caravan, both from its size and unfamiliar appearance, of necessity invites an amount of attention that is not always desirable, and is frequently very annoying. Speaking for myself, I must say that when I travel I endeavour to attract as little notice as possible; I go to observe, not to be observed. Still, every one to his taste. If I have not become a caravannist myself, it is certainly not from want of having the charms, real or imagined, of that wandering and expensive life on wheels instilled into me by a friend who owns a pleasure caravan, and has travelled over a goodly portion of southern England in it, though he had to confess to me, under close cross-examination, that there were certain “trifling” drawbacks connected with the amateur gipsy’s life: first, there was the aforementioned unavoidable publicity that a large caravan entails; then there was the slow pace such a cumbrous conveyance imposes on you at all times; the heat of the interior caused by the sun beating on the exterior in hot summer days; to say nothing of having to go, at the end of a long day’s journey, in search of camping ground for the night, entailing often a loss of time and a good deal of trouble before suitable quarters are found and permission to use them is obtained; besides this, there is stabling to secure, and a foraging expedition has to beundertaken, hardly a pleasure should the weather be wet! Whilst a simple inn is all that the more modest and less encumbered driving-tourist needs.
As we proceeded on our way, our attention was presently arrested by something strange and quite novel to us: on the telegraph wires, that stretched forth in long lines by the roadside, were suspended numerous little square bits of tin, and this for a considerable distance. The bits of tin, as they were swayed about by the wind, made weird music on the wires. Had we chanced to have driven that way at night, and heard those sounds coming directly down from the darkness above, without being able to discover the cause, we should have been much mystified; indeed, some hyper-nervous people passing there in the dark, under the same circumstances of wind and weather, might have come to the conclusion that this portion of the Great North Road was haunted. Such reputations have been established from lesser causes.
We were at a loss to account for the strange arrangement, so we looked about for somebody to question on the subject, and to solve the mystery for us if possible. There was not a soul in sight on the road, far off or near; for that matter, there never is when wanted. However, another look around revealed a man at work in a field near by, and to him we went and sought for the information desired, and this is the explanation we received in the original wording: “What be them tin things for on the telegraph postes?” They were really on the wires, but I have long ago discovered that you
A CHAT BY THE WAY
must not expect exactness from the average countryman. “Why, they be put there on account of the partridges. You see, the birds, when they be a-flying fast like, don’t always see them wires, and lots of them gets hurt and killed by striking themselves against them. You know, sir, as how partridges is partridges, and has to be taken great care on; if the quality only took the same care of the poor working-man, we should be happy.” The poor working-man, or labourer, in the present case did not appear very miserable or poorly clad, so we ventured to remark: “Well, you don’t seem particularly unhappy anyhow.” At the same moment a small coin of the realm changed ownership in return for the information imparted, and we went our way, and the man resumed his work, after promising to drink our very good healths that very night, and we saw no reason to doubt that the promise would be faithfully kept. The one thing you may positively rely upon the countryman doing, if you give him the opportunity, is “to drink your health.”
I may note here that during my many chats with the English labourer, in different counties far apart from each other, I have found their chief complaint (when they have one and venture to express it) is not so much the lowness of their wage, or the hardness of their work, as the poorness of their dwellings. Even the farm-hand begins to expect something better than the too often cold, damp, and draughty cottages that for generations past, in some parts of the country more than others, his “rude forefathers” had to put upwith uncomplainingly, or otherwise. It seems to me that the best way of stopping the emigration from the country to the town is to make the country more attractive to the countryman by housing him better. “But cottages don’t pay,” as a landlord once informed me, and in this age it is difficult to make men enter into philanthropic enterprises—unless they return a certainper cent! A moneymaking generation likes to mix up philanthropy with profit—to do good openly and make it pay privately!
From the agricultural labourer upwards to the farmer, and from the farmer to the landowner, is an easy and natural transition. Now, since I commenced taking my holidays on the road several years ago, agricultural depression has, alas! gradually deepened, and my driving tours in rural England have brought me into frequent contact with both landowner and tenant farmer, and now and again with that sadly growing rarity the independent and sturdy yeoman who farms his own little freehold, perchance held by his ancestors for long centuries; with all of these I have conversed about the “bad times,” and have obtained, I think, a fairly comprehensive view of the situation from each standpoint. Endeavouring, as far as is possible with fallible human nature, to take the unprejudiced position of a perfectly neutral onlooker—a position that has caused me in turn to heartily sympathise with each party—the conclusion that I have reluctantly come to is this, that unless a great war should be a disturbing factor in
AN OLD SAYING
the case—an ever-possible contingency, by the way—with cheapened ocean transit and competition with new countries, land in Old England will no longer produce a profit to the modern tenant as well as to the landlord, and pay big tithes besides. It must be borne in mind that the tenant farmer of to-day has progressed like the rest of the world. He needs must possess a certain capital, and no longer is he or his family content with the simple life or pleasures of his predecessors. His wife, son, and daughters will not work on the farm, nor superintend the dairy, as of old; they all expect, and I think rightly expect, in an age when Board School children learn the piano and other accomplishments, a little more refinement and ease. And if this be so, I take it that the only way to solve the difficulty of making the land pay is somehow to get back the disappearing yeoman: the pride of possession will alone ensure prosperous farming. A local saying, possibly pertinent to the question, was repeated to me one day by a large tenant farmer in the Midlands, who had lost by farming well. It runs thus:
He who improves may flit,He who destroys may sit.
He who improves may flit,He who destroys may sit.
He who improves may flit,He who destroys may sit.
And much truth underlies the proverbs of the countryside. Now a yeoman would not have to “flit” for improving his freehold, and a man does not generally destroy his own.
Whilst our thoughts had been wandering thus, the dog-cart had kept steadily on its way, and our reverie was broken by finding ourselves in thequaint old market-town of Baldock, driving down its spacious and sunny main street, which we noticed with pleasure was lined with trees, and bound by irregular-roofed buildings, mellowed by age into a delicious harmony of tints. Nature never mixes her colours crudely. I know no better study of colour harmonies than the weather-painting of a century-old wall, with its splashes of gold, and silver, and bronze lichen, its delicate greens and grays, its russets and oranges, and all the innumerable and indescribable hues that the summer suns and winter storms of forgotten years have traced upon its surface—hues blending, contrasting, and commingling, the delight of every true artist, and his despair to depict aright. With buildings age is the beautifier; even Tintern, with its roofless aisles and broken arches, could not have looked half as lovely in the full glory of its Gothic prime, when its walls were freshly set, its sculptures new, and traceries recently worked, as it looks now. No building, however gracefully designed, can ever attain the perfection of its beauty till Time has placed his finishing touches thereon, toning down this and tinting that, rounding off a too-sharp angle here, and making rugged a too-smooth corner there, adorning the walls with ivy and clinging creepers, and decorating the roof with lustrous lichen!
Baldock had such a genuine air of antiquity about it, with its ancient architecture and slumberous calm, so foreign to the present age, that we felt that without any undue strain upon the imagination we could picture ourselves as medieval travellers
QUAINT ALMS-HOUSES
arriving in a medieval market-town! Baldock does not suggest, as so many country towns unfortunately do, a bit of suburban London uprooted and dumped down in a distant shire. No, Baldock has somehow managed to retain its own characteristic individuality, and it pleases the lover of the picturesque past because of this. To the left of the broad roadway our eyes were charmed by the sight of a quaint group of ancient alms-houses, situated within a walled enclosure, through which wall a graceful archway gave entrance to the homes. Whilst we were admiring this pleasing specimen of old-time work, one of the inmates came out and invited us inside; but the interior, upon inspection, did not attract us as the exterior had done: the latter had not been spoilt by furniture or paper, or any other modern addition, to disturb its charming and restful harmony. The rooms looked comfortable enough, however, and the old body who showed us over declared that she was more than satisfied with her quarters,—even life in an alms-house could not affect her manifestly cheerful and contented disposition. A prince in a palace could not have looked more satisfied with his lot. Inscribed on a stone tablet let into the front of the building we read:
Theis Almes Howses arethe gieft of Mr Iohn Wynnecittezen of London LatelyeDeceased who hath left aYeareley stipend to evereypoore of either howses tothe Worldes End. SeptemberAnno Domini 1621.
Theis Almes Howses arethe gieft of Mr Iohn Wynnecittezen of London LatelyeDeceased who hath left aYeareley stipend to evereypoore of either howses tothe Worldes End. SeptemberAnno Domini 1621.
Theis Almes Howses arethe gieft of Mr Iohn Wynnecittezen of London LatelyeDeceased who hath left aYeareley stipend to evereypoore of either howses tothe Worldes End. SeptemberAnno Domini 1621.
And may the stipend be regularly paid to the poor “to the Worldes End,” according to the donor’s directions, and not be devoted to other and very different purposes, as sometimes has been the case elsewhere with similar gifts, under the specious pretext of changed times!
Judging from the date affixed to these alms-houses, they were standing just as they are now, looking doubtless a little newer, when Charles I. passed a prisoner through here in the charge of General Fairfax; on which occasion, according to long-cherished local tradition, the vicar offered him for his refreshment some wine in the Communion cup. That must have been an eventful day for Baldock.
Not only the alms-houses, but the other buildings round about, of red brick, with the pearly-gray bloom of age over them, were very pleasant to look upon. Perhaps their colour never was so crude and assertive as that of the modern red brick with which we construct our cheap misnamed Queen Anne villas—which have nothing of the Queen Anne about them,—a red that stares at you, and is of one uniform, inartistic hue—a hue quite on a par as regards unsightliness with the chilly, eye-displeasing blue of Welsh slates. Since the railways have come and cheapened communication, Welsh slates have spread over all the land like an ugly curse; you find them everywhere—they have displaced the cheerful ruddy tiles that so well suit the gentle gloom of the English climate and the soft green of its landscapes, they have ousted the pleasant gray stone slab and homely
THE MAGIC OF FAME
thatch. Welsh slates are bad enough, but, alas! there is even a lower depth of ugliness. Corrugated iron is still more hideous, and this I sadly note is coming into use as a roofing material; it is cheap and effectual, absolutely waterproof—and such an eyesore! How is it that things are so seldom cheap and beautiful—truly there are exceptions, but these only prove the rule—are these two qualities sworn enemies? If only the Welsh slates were of the delicious greeny-gray tint of the more expensive Cumberland ones, it would be a different matter. It is an astonishing thing how even good architects are neglectful of colour in their buildings, and what comparatively small thought they devote to the beauty of the roof.
Many people possibly would see nothing to admire or commend in Baldock; it would probably impress the average individual as being a sleepy, old-fashioned sort of place, deadly dull, and wholly devoid of interest; so doubtless the same individual would consider Stratford-on-Avon, had not Shakespeare been born there, and had not that magic accident of his birth caused the town to be visited and written about by famous authors, its beauties sought out and belauded by guide-book compilers, its quaint old-world bits of architecture to be sketched and painted and photographed endlessly, so that we all know how to admire it. Now, so far as I am aware, no very notable person has been born at Baldock, so the tourist comes not thither; and with nothing eventful to chronicle about the town, nothing to commend it but its quiet naturalness and picturesqueness, which it shares with many another ancient English market-town, Baldock will have to sleep on unfamed, for its quiet charms are not of the nature to assert themselves or appeal to everybody. There is a beauty that requires searching after, which, not being pronounced, the eye needs training to see. Still, I think that even the most unobservant traveller, on passing through the quiet little town, must note its pleasing look of mellowness and naturalness, the latter of which qualities is attractively refreshing in this age of artificiality.
Out of Baldock our road rose gradually on an embankment, possibly one of the later improvements made by the old Turnpike Trust, when there was actually a feeling amongst the coach proprietors that they might successfully compete with the coming iron horse—an idea that took some time to dispel, for even as late as October 1837 I find, from an old coaching poster so dated, that the “Red Rover” from London to Manchester was re-established as a commercial speculation. How long this “well-appointed coach” ran after its establishment I cannot say.
From the top of the rise we obtained a good view of Baldock, that, with the woods around, the silvery sheen of water below, and the soft sky above, made a very pretty picture; so pretty, indeed, that the temptation to sketch it was not to be resisted. But later on we had to harden our hearts and pass by many a picturesque spot without using our pencil, otherwise we should have made more sketches than
OLD CUSTOMS
miles per hour, and our journey would not have been finished by Christmas time. To the artist eye, accustomed to look out for beauty, rural England is one succession of pictures!
We now struck upon a purely farming country, where the fields were large and divided by hedgerows into a sort of glorified and many-tinted chessboard—not a happy comparison certainly, but “’twill serve.” In some of the fields we saw gleaners, women and children, at work amongst the stubble,—I had nearly written at play, so unlike work did their occupation seem, for the children were romping, and the women were laughing and chatting, and it did our hearts good to hear the merry prattle and cheerful voices. Would all labour were as lightsome!
We had an idea that the gleaner, like the almost forgotten flail, was a thing of the past, but were delighted to find that the good old custom, honoured by over two thousand years of observance, sung of by poets and beloved by painters, has not wholly disappeared, and that some of the romance of the fields is left to us. The flail, that used to knock out the corn on the old barn floors with much thumping, I have not met with for years long past, but I believe, from what I hear, that it still is used in a few remote places. The reaping machine has driven the slow sickle into a few odd corners of the land, where the ground is rough and the crops are small, though sometimes it has momentarily reappeared elsewhere when the corn has been badly laid. The mowing machine also has to a greatextent, though less universally, taken the place of the scythe. And with these changes has come a change over the sounds of the countryside. For the occasional whetting of the scythe we have the continuous rattle of the machine; and the puffing and peculiar humming of the steam-thresher, heard from afar, has taken the place of the muffled thumping of the flail on the soft straw, only to be heard a short way off.
The fact cannot be blinked that husbandry has lost not a little of its past-time picturesque and poetic aspect. Perhaps no one realises this more than the artist; for though it may be done, and has been done, yet for all it is not easy to put romance into commonplace machinery—that means poetry without the gathered glamour of the associations of long years. Machinery has at last but too successfully invaded the farm, and the agriculturist is being slowly converted into a sort of produce manufacturer. Now it is difficult to grow sentimental over machinery! The time may even come when the readers of Crabbe, Gray, Thomson, and other poets of the countryside will need the aid of a commentator to understand their terms aright. Only the other day a literary man asked me to describe a flail, as he was not quite sure what it was! Possibly some of us hardly realise how rapidly “the old order gives place to the new,” till unexpectedly the fact is brought to mind by some such question. I am thankful to say that I have heard nothing of the “Silo” of late, so that I trust that ensilage, that was to do such great things for the English farmers, is a
THE POETRY OF TOIL
failure, and never likely to usurp the place of the pleasant hay-field and fragrant haystacks. We simply cannot afford to improve the merry haymaking away—it is the very poetry of toil.
Driving on, we presently passed the fortieth milestone from London, just beyond which a post by the roadside informed us that we had entered Bedfordshire. Crossing this imaginary line brought back to mind a story we had been told concerning it by an antiquarian friend, as follows:—Just upon the boundaries of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire formerly stood a rambling old farm-house; the living-room of this was long and low, and on the centre beam that went across the ceiling (such as may still be found in ancient buildings) was inscribed this legend: “If you are cold, go to Hertfordshire”—which apparently inhospitable invitation was explained by the fact of the peculiar situation of the room, one-half being in the one county and one-half in the other, and it chanced that the fireplace was at the Hertfordshire end!
Soon after the change of counties, at the foot of a long gradual descent, we found ourselves in the hamlet of Astwick, where by the wayside we espied a primitive but picturesque little inn boasting the title of “The Greyhound,” with a pump and horse-trough at one side, as frequently represented in old pictures and prints of ancient hostelries—a trough of the kind in which Mr. Weller the elder so ignominiously doused the head of the unfortunate Mr. Stiggins. Besides the trough there was a tiny garden of colourful flowers in front of theinn by way of refinement, and above the weather-tinted roof uprose a fine stack of clustering chimneys. The chance light and shade effect of the moment suited well the unpretending but pleasant bit of old-time architecture, so we proceeded to photograph it, not, however, before the landlord had divined our intention, and had placed himself in a prominent position, so that he might be included in the picture. A worthy man the landlord proved to be, as we found out in after conversation with him, and we promised to send him a copy of the photograph; but “the best-laid schemes o’ mice an’”amateur photographers “gang aft agley,” for it happened we had forgotten to change the plate, and so took the old inn right on the top of a previous photograph of another inn, and the photographic mixture was not favourable to clearness or an artistic result! The negative when developed showed two signboards on separate posts in different positions and at different angles, two roofs, one just over the other, a hopeless jumble of windows, and two stacks of chimneys occupying, the same place at the same time, in spite of the well-known axiom that no two things can do so. The Astwick landlord truly was there, but converted into a veritable ghost, for through his body you could plainly trace the doorway of the first inn! Certainly the result amused sundry of our friends, but then the photograph—photographs, I mean,—were not taken for that purpose, and friends are so easily amused at one’s failings! This reminds me that a famous artist once told me, speaking of experiments in painting,that he preferred a magnificent failure to a poor success; but our failure was not magnificent.
“HEART OF OAK”
Having, as we fondly imagined, secured a fine photograph, we entered into a conversation with the landlord, which resulted, as we hoped, in his inviting us to “take a glance” inside, where he pointed out the floors to us, which he said were all of “heart of oak,” and further remarked, “You don’t find that in modern buildings of this sort”—a statement in which we heartily concurred. He also showed us the staircase, likewise of oak. He had not been in the house long, we learnt, and when he bought the place “it was all going to ruin”; but he put it in good order. “Lots of people come to sketch and photograph the old inn, and some of the people who come patronise us for refreshment.” So it would seem that, after all, the picturesque has a commercial value—a fact we were delighted to note. Who would go even a mile to sketch a modern-built public-house? for the primitive inn was really that, though its picturesque and thought-out design suggested a more dignified purpose.
Biggleswade—“Instituted” or “intruded”!—A poetical will—The river Ivel—A day to be remembered—The art of seeing—Misquotations—The striving after beauty—Stories in stone—An ancient muniment chest—An angler’s haunt—The town bridge—The pronunciation of names—St. Neots.
Biggleswade—“Instituted” or “intruded”!—A poetical will—The river Ivel—A day to be remembered—The art of seeing—Misquotations—The striving after beauty—Stories in stone—An ancient muniment chest—An angler’s haunt—The town bridge—The pronunciation of names—St. Neots.
Somethree miles or so beyond Astwick we reached high ground, from which we had extensive views to the right over miles of fields and undulating greenery. Shortly after this we dropped down into the drowsy old town of Biggleswade; at least it struck us as being a very drowsy sort of place when we were there, but doubtless it wakes up to a little life and movement once a week, on market-days. Even the Biggleswade dogs looked sleepily inclined, curled up under the shelter of various doorways, hardly indeed condescending to give us a glance as we passed by; whilst the nature of dogs generally is to make the arrival of a stranger in their parts an excuse to rush out and bark at him, good-naturedly or the reverse as the mood moves them. A dog seems to reason with himself, “Barking is the chief pleasure of life; here comes a stranger, let’s have a bark!”
Here we drove into the ancient and rambling stable-yard of an old inn near the market-place, and
A SUGGESTIVE WORD
handed our horses over to the good keeping of the ostler; and whilst our lunch was being prepared we wandered out to have a look round the town, but found nothing to specially interest us, so all else failing, we sought the church. Even here we did not discover much to reward us, though the open and carved timber roof of the south aisle was good, with its ornamental bosses and corbels formed of sculptured figures of angels, the whole being more or less decayed and the worse for age. On the woodwork are some slight remains of decorative painting.
Placed against the wall of the church we observed a board with the following heading—“The Vicars of Biggleswade,” followed by a list of names of the said vicars, “from 1276 to the present time, with the dates of their Institution.” Glancing down the long list of names, after each we noticed the word “instituted,” followed by the date thereof; but when we came to that of William Raulius, we noted instead of the usual “instituted,” the suggestive word and date “intruded 1658” was inserted!
Of this church myPaterson’s Roads, that does duty as a sufficient guide-book for us, remarks: “This substantial ancient edifice was built in the year 1230; it was formerly collegiate, and still contains several of the stalls. The parishioners have all an equal right to any of the seats, for which privilege, however, they are constrained to repair or rebuild the fabric when requisite.” Under the heading of “Biggleswade,” the same excellent road-companion also remarks of Sutton Park, near by, on the road to Potton, “It is traditionally stated that this seatformerly belonged to John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, who gave it to Roger Burgoyne, ancestor of the present proprietor, by the following laconic grant:—
I, John of Gaunt,Do give and do grant,Unto Roger Burgoyne,And the heirs of his loin,Both Sutton and Potton,Until the world’s rotten.
I, John of Gaunt,Do give and do grant,Unto Roger Burgoyne,And the heirs of his loin,Both Sutton and Potton,Until the world’s rotten.
I, John of Gaunt,Do give and do grant,Unto Roger Burgoyne,And the heirs of his loin,Both Sutton and Potton,Until the world’s rotten.
There is also a moated site in the park, still known by the name of John of Gaunt’s Castle.”
Leaving Biggleswade, we crossed the river Ivel, but until the crossing thereof we had no idea that there was a river of such a name in England,—a driving tour is certainly helpful to a better and more minute knowledge of the geography of one’s own land. Then we entered upon a far-reaching level stretch of country, with a great expanse of sunny sky above, and the silvery sheen of stilly waters showing below in slothful river and clear but stagnant dyke. We could trace our road for miles ahead in curving lines lessening to the low horizon, inclining first this way and then that, now disappearing, to reappear again along way off. The eye—the artistic eye at any rate—rejoices in such a succession of sinuous curves, as much as it abhors the dictatorial and monotonous straight line; it likes to be led by gentle and slow degrees into the heart of the landscape, and away beyond into the infinity of space where the vague distance vanishes into the sky. Possibly the muscles of the eye more readily
A PLEASANT LAND
adapt themselves to such easy and gradual transition from spot to spot than to the harsher insistence of a straight line. Nature herself hardly ever indulges in the latter; man may make it, but she, in time, on every opportunity, mars it gloriously.
On either hand, as we drove on, stretched a level land of tilled fields and verdant meadows, the many colours of the crops and the varied greens of the pastures forming a gigantic mosaic. To the right of us rose some rounded fir-crowned hills, if hills be the right term, for only perhaps in a flat country would such modest elevations be dignified with the title of hills. These, to employ a familiar painter’s expression, “told” deeply blue—with all the beauty of ultramarine and all the depth of indigo.
It was an open breezy prospect, delightful to gaze upon, though there was nothing exciting or grand about it save the great distances and the wide over-arching sky; but it had the charm of wonderful colouring, and was full of lightness and brightness that was most inspiriting; full of cheery movement too, where the wild wind made rhythmic waves of the long grasses and unreaped fields of corn, and rustled the leaves and bent the topmost branches of the saplings before its gentle blasts, or where it rippled the gliding waters of the winding river and silvery streams, causing them to glance and sparkle in the flooding sunshine. All Nature seemed buoyant with an exuberant vitality upon that almost perfect afternoon, and the gladness of the hour entered into our very souls and made us exultant accordingly! It was a day to call fondly back tomind when pent up in London during the darksome and dreary November days, half asphyxiated with the smoke and sulphur laden atmosphere; then the very remembrance of such a time of golden sunshine and fresh and fragrant breezes is of untold refreshment.
Some people might have deemed that prospect, composed chiefly of flat fields, sluggish waters, and scattered trees, uninteresting and unbeautiful, with nothing to commend it, still less to rave about; but there is such a thing as the art of seeing, which art reveals, to those who cultivate it, beauty in the most unexpected places. The charm of form and colour is often a noteworthy factor that makes for beauty in a prospect that is devoid of the picturesque and the “sweetly pretty.” The best training in the art of seeing and discovering beauty that I know is to make a series of sketches from Nature, in colour—water-colour for preference, as being clearer of tint and easier applied. Take, for instance, a bit of an old stone wall, or, better still, a weather-stained boulder on some moor, outline it as well as you can—never mind the drawing at first, it is the colour you must look for—copy these tint for tint, hue for hue, as faithfully as you can. Before starting you may imagine that the rugged boulder is simply gray all over, lighter on the side where the sun shines, and darker in the shadows, and that is all; but as you try to represent its surface you will soon discover, if you only look hard and carefully enough, that what you at first deemed to be merely a mass of gray is composed of a myriad changeful colours:
A NEW SENSE
there are sure to be the silver, and the gold, and perchance the red, of clinging lichen (glorious colours these); then there are the greens of mosses, and countless weather-stains here and there, all to be given; then the rock itself, you will perceive as the eye gets more accustomed to its novel task, is composed of countless tints, changing with almost every change of surface, and where the boulder lies half in shadow you will perceive a sort of blue-gray bloom—look very hard for this; then the blackest shadows, you will note, are rich and deep, and look quite colourful beside any single tint you may mix in the hope of representing them. The more you study that boulder, the more colour you will see in it; and if all this unexpected colour exists in one simple rock, to leave the charms of varying form unconsidered, what must there not exist on the whole wide moor? Look for yourself and see. After your eye has had its first lesson in the art of seeing and searching out the beautiful, it will naturally, unconsciously almost, begin to look for it everywhere—and expect it! I fear I have perhaps written this in too didactical a manner, but I find it difficult to express myself clearly otherwise, and must plead this as my excuse for a failing I find it so hard to endure in others.
It was sketching from Nature that first taught me to look for and find beauties in my everyday surroundings that before I had never even imagined to exist. This art of seeing came to me like a new sense—it was a revelation, and it has ever since afforded me so much positive and lasting pleasure,that I can truly say it has materially increased the happiness of my life. Surely if “a man who can make two blades of grass grow where one grew before is a benefactor to his race,” to add, however slightly, to the happiness of life is to be a benefactor too, humble though the addition may be.
Now, after this over-long digression, let us once more resume the even tenor of our tour. I had nearly written the even tenor of our way, and placed the words between inverted commas, so familiar does the saying sound; but I find on reference that Gray really wrote “the noiseless tenor of their way,” which is not exactly the same thing, and it is as well to be correct in small details as in great. It is astonishing to me how often familiar quotations go wrong in the quoting; indeed, it is rather the exception to find them rightly given. I have only just to-day come across two instances of this whilst glancing over a magazine article. First I note that Milton’s “fresh woods and pastures new” is rendered, as it mostly is, “fresh fields and pastures new”; then Nathaniel Lee’s “when Greeks joined Greeks, then was the tug of war” is misquoted, as usual, “when Greek meets Greek,” etc., quite losing the point that when the ancient—not the modern!—Greeks were joined together they were a doughty foe. But now I am wandering again right off the road!
Driving on, we presently crossed the little river Ivel by a gray stone bridge, beneath which the stream ran clear and brightly blue. Across the bridge we found ourselves in the straggling village
A SUDDEN CONTRAST
of Girtford. This began well with pretty cottages roofed with homely thatch; then passing a wayside public-house with the uncommon title of “The Easy Chair” (a sign that we do not remember to have met with before), the village ended badly, in a picturesque point of view, with a row of uninteresting cottages of the modern, square-box type, shelters for man rather than habitations—commonplace, alas! and unsightly. The sudden contrast from the old to the new was an object-lesson in ancient beauty and modern ugliness.
The progressive nineteenth century, by the mean and hideous structures it has erected over all the pleasant land, has done much towards the spoliation of English scenery. It has done great things, truly. It has created railways, it has raised palaces, mansions, huge hotels, monster warehouses, tall towers, and gigantic wheels of iron; but it has forgotten the way of rearing so simple and pleasing a thing as a home-like farmstead; it cannot even build a cottage grandly. Yet how well our ancestors knew how to do these. Still, the wanderer across country now and then sees signs of better things, a promise of a return to more picturesque conditions, and this sometimes in the most out-of-the-way and unexpected quarters. Thus, during our drive, have we chanced upon a quaint and freshly-painted inn sign done in a rough but true artistic spirit, supported by wrought-iron work of recent date, worthy of the medieval craftsman; and in quiet market-towns and remote villages have our eyes occasionally been delighted by bits of thoughtful architecture, the outcome of to-day, with their gable fronts, mullioned windows, and pleasant porches, in reverent imitation of what is best in the old. Besides these, sundry restorations of ancient buildings backwards, not forwards, point to a striving again for beauty.
An excellent and most delightful example of the revival of picturesque village architecture we discovered the other year when driving through Leigh, near Tunbridge, where the modern cottages are all pictures, charming to look upon with their half-timber framework, thatched roofs of the true Devon type, many gables, big chimneys, and quaint porches—all modern, but imbued with the spirit and poetry of the past. It is as though a medieval architect had been at work on them. The simple cottages are nobly designed; there is no starving of material in the attempt to make the utmost of everything; they are all humble abodes, yet dignified; a millionaire might live in one and not be ashamed; and withal they are essentially English. If they have a failing, it is perhaps that they look a trifle artificial—too suggestive of the model village or of stage scenery; but this I take it arises mainly because we are not accustomed in these commonplace days to find poetry out of books and paintings, so that the coming suddenly upon it realised in bricks and mortar strikes one for the moment as strange and unreal.
After another stretch of wide, open country, flushed with air and suffused with sunshine, the hamlet of Tempsford was reached. By the roadside
A WAYSIDE INN.
A WAYSIDE INN.
A WAYSIDE INN.
AN ANCIENT CHEST
here stood the ancient fane, gray and dusky with years. Its door was unfastened, so we stepped inside. Our hoary churches are stories in stone, to those who can read them; though not always is the reading easy, or the story complete. The first thing on entering that attracted our attention was an unusually fine medieval muniment chest, its age uncertain, but without doubt centuries old. It had evidently been cut out of the solid trunk of a tree (presumably of an oak). The chest is now much worm-eaten, and is bound round with many broad iron bands, and further secured by five locks. They had great faith in big locks in those days—locks with twisted keyholes, though to the modern mind they look easy enough to pick. The problem that presented itself to us was, seeing that about two-thirds of the wood was interlaced with these metal bands, why was not the chest at the start made wholly of iron? In this case the bands promise to outlast the worm-eaten and decaying wood they enclose, though in some old chests of a similar nature the iron has rusted more than the wood has perished, possibly owing to atmospheric conditions, for dampness would probably destroy the iron quicker than the wood, and dryness would reverse these conditions.
At the west end of the north aisle we observed a curious triangular window, and in the pavement at the base of the tower we found two flat tombstones a little apart. One is inscribed in Latin to the memory of “Knightley Chetwode,” and the other in English to his wife, who, we learnt, was noted for her “piety towards God, fidelity to the King and theProtestant succession”; though why the virtues of the husband should be set forth in Latin and those of his wife in English I do not quite see.
On the wall of the tower we also noted the following inscription cut in a stone slab, the exact import of which was not very clear to us; possibly it related to some rebuilding:—
Wil̄l̄ Savnderson Gēand Thōm̄ Staplo YēōOverseers of this NewWork & patentyes of hisMaiesties LettersPatent Granted forthe same May xii—1621.
Wil̄l̄ Savnderson Gēand Thōm̄ Staplo YēōOverseers of this NewWork & patentyes of hisMaiesties LettersPatent Granted forthe same May xii—1621.
Wil̄l̄ Savnderson Gēand Thōm̄ Staplo YēōOverseers of this NewWork & patentyes of hisMaiesties LettersPatent Granted forthe same May xii—1621.
The lettering of this was delightfully full of character, and pleasing to look upon simply for the forms of the letters—a something quite apart from the mechanical precision with which the present-day engravers render their works, possibly because they cannot do otherwise; it does not require much thought to be simply precise!
Just beyond Tempsford our road came close to the side of the quiet-flowing Ouse, and there, where for a space the road and river ran together, stood an inviting and picturesque inn, whose sign was that of “The Anchor.” An ideal angler’s haunt it seemed to us as we passed by, with an old punt and boats close inshore, and shady trees overhanging the gleaming stream. There was a look of homely repose about the spot quite incommunicable in words, a beauty about the fresh greens and silvery grays of the wind-stirred foliage to be felt, not described.
THE WINDING OUSE
And how deep and rich were the luscious reflections where the woods doubled themselves in the glassy flood! How peace-bestowing it all was! We would, for the moment, that we were simple fishermen, and that this were our journey’s end! Great was the temptation to stop and laze a while, but we resisted it and drove on. We feared, perhaps, though we did not confess this to ourselves, that too close an inspection might rob us of our pleasant impressions. We had an ideal, and wished to keep it! There is an art in knowing how much to leave unseen!
On now we drove, through a land of broad and luxuriant meadows, cool and tree-shaded, till we reached Eaton Socon, a pretty village with a small green and a fine large church. Within the sacred edifice we discovered little of interest, only portions of a rather good timber roof, a carved oak screen of fair workmanship, and the remains of a squint blocked up. If there were anything else noteworthy we managed very successfully to miss it.
Then a short stretch of road brought us once more to the blue winding Ouse; at least it looked very blue that day. This we crossed on an ancient, time-worn bridge, that had great recessed angles at the sides wherein pedestrians might retreat and watch the long track of the glimmering river, and dream day-dreams, should they be so minded, safely out of the way of road traffic, and undisturbed by the passing and repassing of those afoot. On the other side of the river we found ourselvesat oncein the wide market-place of St. Neots. At the bridgethe country ended and the town began; there were no straggling suburbs to traverse. Close at hand, right in the market-place, we caught sight of an inviting hostelry, the “Cross Keys” to wit. The first glance at the old inn was enough to decide us in its favour. Relying on the instinct begotten of long years of road travel, we had no hesitation in directly driving under the archway thereof, where we alighted in the courtyard, and sought and obtained, just what we then mostly needed, comfortable quarters for the night. In the case of the selection of an hostelry, we had learnt to judge by outside appearances, in spite of the proverb to the contrary effect. Even in proverbs there are exceptions to the rule!
I should imagine, from the glance we had on passing over, that the bridge at St. Neots forms a sort of outdoor club for a number of the townsfolk. There is something magnetic about a river that equally attracts both the young and the old; it is bright and open, it has the charm of movement, and there is nearly always life of some kind to be found by the waterside. Thither, too, at times the fisherman, or at any rate the fisher-urchin, comes; and what a fascination there is for most minds in watching an angler pursuing his sport, even though in vain! I have frequently observed that in country towns where there is a widish river and a convenient bridge over it, there on that bridge do certain of the citizens regularly congregate at evening-time, when the day’s work is done, for a chat, a quiet smoke, and “a breath of air before turning in.” The town