BOOK ICHAPTER ITHE TWO COMMUNITIESINthe earlier half of the nineteenth century, when most of the travelling done by our grandfathers was done by road, and the intercourse between districts by no means far apart was but small, a tract of country lying at the foot of the Black Mountain, which rises just inside the Welsh border, was as far behind the times of which I speak, as though it had been a hundred miles from any town.Where the Great Western engines now roar down the Wye valley, carrying the traveller who makes his journey in spring through orchards full of pink blossom, the roads then lay in peaceful and unsophisticated quiet. Soon after leaving Hereford, the outline of the mountain might be seen raising itself like an awakening giant, over green hedges and rich meadowland from the midst of the verdure and cultivation.Between its slopes and the somewhat oppressive luxuriance through which the river ran, a band of country totally unlike either of these in character, encircled the mountain’s foot, and made a kind of intermediate stage between the desolate grandeur of the Twmpa (as the highest summit was called) and the parish of Crishowell with its farmyards and hayfields far beneath. The lanes leading up from Crishowell village were so steep that it was impossible for carts to ascend them, and the sheep-grazing population which inhabited the hill farms above, had to go up and down to the market-town of Llangarth, either on foot or on ponies brought in from the mountain runs. The “hill-people,” as the slower-witteddwellers in the valley called them, came seldom down except on market-days, when the observer mixing in these weekly gatherings in Llangarth market-place, might distinguish them as a leaner, harder race with a wider range of expression, due possibly to their larger outlook on the natural world. They were neither entirely mountain nor entirely valley bred, though retaining something of each locality, and something of the struggle between nature and civilization seemed to have entered into them, giving them that strenuousness which all transition must bring with it.They lived, too, in the midst of what one might call a by-gone element, for the fields and uplands round their homes were full of the records of preceding generations. Strange graves scattered the hill-sides, ancient dates were cut in the walls of their houses, names identical with those on forgotten tombs might be found on outbuildings, and, in the hedges of the perpendicular lanes, stones stood here and there which tradition vaguely designated as “murder-stones,” showing where the roadside tragedies of earlier times had taken place. Local history told, too, of bloody battles fought round the spurs of the mountain in ancient British times, and, at one spot, a mound, visible to the eye of archæology, marked the place where three chieftains had been buried after one of those fights. Perhaps it was this which had given the name of “The Red Field” to a small farm at a short distance from the plateau. Imaginative people finding themselves in that region of neither yesterday nor to-day might have felt the crowding-in at every step of dead personalities, past customs and passions, in fact, a close treading on their heels of generations which had lain for years in their graves in Crishowell churchyard, or in the burying-places beside the little Methodist chapels.An element of superstition which all this could not fail to bring with it, stalked abroad through those misty fields and lonely pastures, and, one can hardly wonder that at the time of which I am speaking, it was a powerful factor in the livesof the illiterate shepherds and even of the better-educated farmers who owned sheep-runs on the mountain. Stories were extant of strange appearances seen by late riders on the bridle-tracks, and certain places were passed, even by daylight, with a great summoning-up of courage.One of these shrines of horror was an innocent-looking spot called “The Boiling Wells,” in the middle of a green track stretching over the Twmpa’s shoulder, where a flat piece of slate rock jutted from the turf, and three small springs of water bubbled eternally up through the earth. Near this place two young farmers, returning at dusk from a sheep-run, had had an experience which they and all the hill-people were not quick to forget, for they had arrived breathless one evening at the Red Field Farm to detail to an open-mouthed audience of farm-labourers how they had been overtaken by a thunderstorm near the Boiling Wells, and how, as they neared the water, the horses had refused to pass it, wheeling round and flying from something visible only to themselves. Then the two men had become aware of a man’s figure hovering in the dusk, and a luminous face had peered at one of them from between his horse’s ears. At sight of this they had fled as fast as their terrified beasts could carry them, and, after galloping wildly in the increasing darkness for some time, they had been brought to a stand by finding themselves running against the fence which divided Red Field Farm from the mountain land.In fact, the tales of fear which grew around this and other places in the neighbourhood were endless, though sceptics hinted that these strange things happened oftener on market-days than on any others, and that those who claimed to have seen more than their neighbours owed their pretensions more to having been what was called “market-peart” than to anything else. Still, the effect on the public mind was disquieting, and, in winter evenings, it kept many inside their doors or in the inspiriting vicinity of the farm buildings.To the dwellers in Crishowell village, who were disinclinedto question anything, all these tales, as they came down to their ears from the higher regions, were unmitigated horrors, to be accepted as best might be and retailed at corners over pipes with much repetition and comment, coloured here and there to suit the narrator’s cast of mind. Living in their bit of valley where wages were small, needs few, and public-houses many, they had scant ideas beyond the round of weekly work, which terminated, in many cases, on Saturday night in a prolonged visit to some favoured inn, and a circuitous return to the domestic hearth afterwards.Sunday, indeed, brought to these unsophisticated labourers its veneer of respectability. A bucket of water in the back garden, an inherited Sunday coat, a virtuous resolve not to smoke in any part of the churchyard in which the parson could see them, converted them from a quarter to eleven till half-past twelve, noon, into a chastened community which filed noisily into the battered pews of Crishowell church, there to remain till the final “Amen” let them loose upon the joys of a Sunday dinner in the family circle. After this, they might cast from them the garments of righteousness and sit about on gates with acquaintances to whom they apparently never spoke.Though the hill-people descended into Crishowell, the Crishowell people rarely went up among their neighbours; only the Methodists among them journeyed upwards to attend the Chapels with which the higher land was dotted. In out-of-the-way corners by the thickly intersecting lanes these grim, square, unadorned little buildings were to be found. The wayfarer, coming unexpectedly upon one as he turned some sudden angle of his road, might pause to glance over the low wall which divided its unkempt precincts from the public path, at the few crooked tombstones rising amid a wilderness of coarse hemlock which spread even to the Chapel door, imparting a forlorn effect to the spot, and pervading the air with its rank smell. Many of these places were falling into disrepair from disuse, as, in summer weather, the meetings would oftenbe held on the hill-side, where the short turf would bear marks until the next heavy rain of iron-bound heels and heavy feet which had trodden in a ring round the spot. When the wind chanced to sit in the east, the sound of the hymns and psalms would come down with a kind of wail, by no means unimpressive, though somewhat prolonged and nasal, to the nearer parts of the valley, the favourite themes of death and judgment to come seeming singularly appropriate to the hard, fervent faces and the background of frowning mountain from which they sounded.If it was a narrow religion which had obtained such a grasp upon these upland men and women, it was yet one from which they gained a great deal that few other things could have taught, and virtues adapted to their exposed life grew up among them, possibly in obedience to those laws of supply and demand which are part of Nature’s self. Children reared in unyielding austerity, forced to sit meekly through hours of eloquence against which their hearts rebelled, while their bodies suffered in silence, groaned under their trials. But, when they had crossed the threshold of grown-up life, the fruits of these experiences would show in a dormant fund of endurance and tenacity, submerged, no doubt, by the tide of every-day impressions, but apt to re-appear in emergencies as a solid rock rises into view at low water.Such were the two communities living close together on the borders of two nations, nominally one since the middle ages, but, in reality, only amalgamated down to a very few inches below the surface.
INthe earlier half of the nineteenth century, when most of the travelling done by our grandfathers was done by road, and the intercourse between districts by no means far apart was but small, a tract of country lying at the foot of the Black Mountain, which rises just inside the Welsh border, was as far behind the times of which I speak, as though it had been a hundred miles from any town.
Where the Great Western engines now roar down the Wye valley, carrying the traveller who makes his journey in spring through orchards full of pink blossom, the roads then lay in peaceful and unsophisticated quiet. Soon after leaving Hereford, the outline of the mountain might be seen raising itself like an awakening giant, over green hedges and rich meadowland from the midst of the verdure and cultivation.
Between its slopes and the somewhat oppressive luxuriance through which the river ran, a band of country totally unlike either of these in character, encircled the mountain’s foot, and made a kind of intermediate stage between the desolate grandeur of the Twmpa (as the highest summit was called) and the parish of Crishowell with its farmyards and hayfields far beneath. The lanes leading up from Crishowell village were so steep that it was impossible for carts to ascend them, and the sheep-grazing population which inhabited the hill farms above, had to go up and down to the market-town of Llangarth, either on foot or on ponies brought in from the mountain runs. The “hill-people,” as the slower-witteddwellers in the valley called them, came seldom down except on market-days, when the observer mixing in these weekly gatherings in Llangarth market-place, might distinguish them as a leaner, harder race with a wider range of expression, due possibly to their larger outlook on the natural world. They were neither entirely mountain nor entirely valley bred, though retaining something of each locality, and something of the struggle between nature and civilization seemed to have entered into them, giving them that strenuousness which all transition must bring with it.
They lived, too, in the midst of what one might call a by-gone element, for the fields and uplands round their homes were full of the records of preceding generations. Strange graves scattered the hill-sides, ancient dates were cut in the walls of their houses, names identical with those on forgotten tombs might be found on outbuildings, and, in the hedges of the perpendicular lanes, stones stood here and there which tradition vaguely designated as “murder-stones,” showing where the roadside tragedies of earlier times had taken place. Local history told, too, of bloody battles fought round the spurs of the mountain in ancient British times, and, at one spot, a mound, visible to the eye of archæology, marked the place where three chieftains had been buried after one of those fights. Perhaps it was this which had given the name of “The Red Field” to a small farm at a short distance from the plateau. Imaginative people finding themselves in that region of neither yesterday nor to-day might have felt the crowding-in at every step of dead personalities, past customs and passions, in fact, a close treading on their heels of generations which had lain for years in their graves in Crishowell churchyard, or in the burying-places beside the little Methodist chapels.
An element of superstition which all this could not fail to bring with it, stalked abroad through those misty fields and lonely pastures, and, one can hardly wonder that at the time of which I am speaking, it was a powerful factor in the livesof the illiterate shepherds and even of the better-educated farmers who owned sheep-runs on the mountain. Stories were extant of strange appearances seen by late riders on the bridle-tracks, and certain places were passed, even by daylight, with a great summoning-up of courage.
One of these shrines of horror was an innocent-looking spot called “The Boiling Wells,” in the middle of a green track stretching over the Twmpa’s shoulder, where a flat piece of slate rock jutted from the turf, and three small springs of water bubbled eternally up through the earth. Near this place two young farmers, returning at dusk from a sheep-run, had had an experience which they and all the hill-people were not quick to forget, for they had arrived breathless one evening at the Red Field Farm to detail to an open-mouthed audience of farm-labourers how they had been overtaken by a thunderstorm near the Boiling Wells, and how, as they neared the water, the horses had refused to pass it, wheeling round and flying from something visible only to themselves. Then the two men had become aware of a man’s figure hovering in the dusk, and a luminous face had peered at one of them from between his horse’s ears. At sight of this they had fled as fast as their terrified beasts could carry them, and, after galloping wildly in the increasing darkness for some time, they had been brought to a stand by finding themselves running against the fence which divided Red Field Farm from the mountain land.
In fact, the tales of fear which grew around this and other places in the neighbourhood were endless, though sceptics hinted that these strange things happened oftener on market-days than on any others, and that those who claimed to have seen more than their neighbours owed their pretensions more to having been what was called “market-peart” than to anything else. Still, the effect on the public mind was disquieting, and, in winter evenings, it kept many inside their doors or in the inspiriting vicinity of the farm buildings.
To the dwellers in Crishowell village, who were disinclinedto question anything, all these tales, as they came down to their ears from the higher regions, were unmitigated horrors, to be accepted as best might be and retailed at corners over pipes with much repetition and comment, coloured here and there to suit the narrator’s cast of mind. Living in their bit of valley where wages were small, needs few, and public-houses many, they had scant ideas beyond the round of weekly work, which terminated, in many cases, on Saturday night in a prolonged visit to some favoured inn, and a circuitous return to the domestic hearth afterwards.
Sunday, indeed, brought to these unsophisticated labourers its veneer of respectability. A bucket of water in the back garden, an inherited Sunday coat, a virtuous resolve not to smoke in any part of the churchyard in which the parson could see them, converted them from a quarter to eleven till half-past twelve, noon, into a chastened community which filed noisily into the battered pews of Crishowell church, there to remain till the final “Amen” let them loose upon the joys of a Sunday dinner in the family circle. After this, they might cast from them the garments of righteousness and sit about on gates with acquaintances to whom they apparently never spoke.
Though the hill-people descended into Crishowell, the Crishowell people rarely went up among their neighbours; only the Methodists among them journeyed upwards to attend the Chapels with which the higher land was dotted. In out-of-the-way corners by the thickly intersecting lanes these grim, square, unadorned little buildings were to be found. The wayfarer, coming unexpectedly upon one as he turned some sudden angle of his road, might pause to glance over the low wall which divided its unkempt precincts from the public path, at the few crooked tombstones rising amid a wilderness of coarse hemlock which spread even to the Chapel door, imparting a forlorn effect to the spot, and pervading the air with its rank smell. Many of these places were falling into disrepair from disuse, as, in summer weather, the meetings would oftenbe held on the hill-side, where the short turf would bear marks until the next heavy rain of iron-bound heels and heavy feet which had trodden in a ring round the spot. When the wind chanced to sit in the east, the sound of the hymns and psalms would come down with a kind of wail, by no means unimpressive, though somewhat prolonged and nasal, to the nearer parts of the valley, the favourite themes of death and judgment to come seeming singularly appropriate to the hard, fervent faces and the background of frowning mountain from which they sounded.
If it was a narrow religion which had obtained such a grasp upon these upland men and women, it was yet one from which they gained a great deal that few other things could have taught, and virtues adapted to their exposed life grew up among them, possibly in obedience to those laws of supply and demand which are part of Nature’s self. Children reared in unyielding austerity, forced to sit meekly through hours of eloquence against which their hearts rebelled, while their bodies suffered in silence, groaned under their trials. But, when they had crossed the threshold of grown-up life, the fruits of these experiences would show in a dormant fund of endurance and tenacity, submerged, no doubt, by the tide of every-day impressions, but apt to re-appear in emergencies as a solid rock rises into view at low water.
Such were the two communities living close together on the borders of two nations, nominally one since the middle ages, but, in reality, only amalgamated down to a very few inches below the surface.