A woman works outside one of the simple buildings
LIMESTONE DWELLINGS.
“The sheriff next met some men who had started on a journey, each of whom carried on his back a door.
“‘Why do you carry that door?’ asked the sheriff of one of the travellers.
“‘Left my money at home.’
“‘Then why not leave the door at home too?’
“‘Afraid of thieves.’
“‘Afraid of thieves? Then leave your door at home to protect your money.’
“‘They can’t break in, because, you see, I’ve got the door.’
“‘Leave your door at home, and take your money with you.’
“‘I never thought of that. How wise you be! You are the wisest man that I ever did see!’
“The sheriff let the travellers pass on unmolested.
“‘The people are all fools here,’ he said.
“‘It would be too bad to harm such simple people,’ said his comrades.
“‘Fools all,’ said the sheriff.
“‘Fools all,’ said the horsemen.
“‘Let us go back,’ said the sheriff, ‘and report to the king that the people in Gotham are fools.’
“‘Right,’ said the men.
“So they returned to the king, and reported that Gotham was a place of fools. And from these circumstances, or incidents like these, if I may believe an old tale, the men of that place were called, in derision, ‘The Wise Men of Gotham,’ from that day.”
Tommy goes hunting.—“Peveril of the Peak.”—The Boy at the Wheel.—Leamington.—Stratford-on-Avon.—Shakspeare’s Birthplace, Garden, and Tomb.—Queer Relics.—Kenilworth.—Ernest’s Album of Leaves and Flowers.—Warwick Castle.—The Mighty Guy.—The Antique Portress.
Tommy goes hunting.—“Peveril of the Peak.”—The Boy at the Wheel.—Leamington.—Stratford-on-Avon.—Shakspeare’s Birthplace, Garden, and Tomb.—Queer Relics.—Kenilworth.—Ernest’s Album of Leaves and Flowers.—Warwick Castle.—The Mighty Guy.—The Antique Portress.
MASTER LEWIS gave the boys a couple of days in Nottingham to enjoy themselves as they liked.
Tommy Toby wenthunting.
“I want to be able to tell people,” he said, “that I have hunted in Sherwood Forest, the royal hunting-ground of English kings.”
“In midsummer?” asked Master Lewis. “I fancy if you were to use a gun in the Forest of Sherwood, you might make a longer vacation abroad than you intended.”
“I do not intend to use a gun. I have bought me a bow and some arrows.”
“Let me see them,” said Master Lewis. “They look very harmless, certainly.” Master Lewis seemed to hesitate about making further objections.
Just what came of Tommy’s hunting we cannot state at this stage of our narrative. He left the boys at the hotel, bow and arrows in hand, and saying as a word of parting,—
“‘Let’s go to the wood, said Richard to Robin.’”
“‘Let’s go to the wood, said Richard to Robin.’”
He evidently went outside of the city into the wooded district, that was a part of old Sherwood Forest. When Master Lewis found that he had really gone out of the place he looked troubled, and said:—
“I should have prevented it.”
Tommy returned late on the evening of the same day after a ten hours’ absence. He certainly looked like a modern hunter, for he was empty handed, and his clothes were in a very disarranged condition.
“Where are your bow and arrows?” asked Frank.
“I shall tell you nothing at all about it, now,” said Tommy. “It is my own secret.”
“Then you have two secrets,” said Frank, referring to the fact that Tommy had been made custodian of the secret he was supposed to have selected for the Club.
“Yes, butthatdon’tamount to much,” said Tommy.
“Nothing, after all,” said Master Lewis, quietly, who had seen Tommy’s conundrum on a card. “I did not suppose that you really intended to spend the day in the country alone with bow and arrow.”
“Just look at my legs,” said Tommy, rolling up his pants, and showing bloody scars.
“Where did you getthem?” asked Master Lewis.
“Up a tree.Please do not ask me now. If you will excuse me from telling you now, I will give you a full account some other time.”
“I will excuse you from giving an account of yourself, to-night; but please remember that you must not go hunting, or anywhere, alone again without my permission,” said Master Lewis, noticing some singular rents in Tommy’s clothes.
Tommy went to his supper.
“I’ve been chased by theterriblestbull you ever saw,” he whispered confidentially to Wyllys Wynn, as he passed him. “I’ll tell you all about it some time.”
He added,—
“And that ain’t all. I’ve been chased byJohnBull, too.”
A ruined castle wall
PEVERIL OF THE PEAK.
Ernest Wynn went, under an arrangement made for him by Master Lewis, to the Peak near Castleton, wishing to view the scene of Sir Walter Scott’s charming romance, “Peveril of the Peak.” He found there only a pitiful ruin, and instead of knights with dancing plumes and silver shields, with which fancy pictures the eyry of the grand old Norman baron, he met some very strange-looking mining people, who are often to be seen in the rural districts in this part of England.
One incident touched Frank’s kind heart, and seemed more toimpress him than the associations of manorial splendor he had made the journey to see.
The lame boy turning the wheel
THE BOY AT THE WHEEL.
In the entrance of one of the caves of the Peak was a little rope-spinner, who was lame, and whose time was spent from sun to sun in turning the wheel,—always the same, faithfully turning the wheel.
“I gave him a shilling,” said Frank, “spoke kindly to him, and left him gazing after me with tears in his eyes, still turning his wheel, turning his wheel.”
From Nottingham Master Lewis and the boys went to Birmingham, and Frank Gray and Ernest Wynn made a détour to thelittle village of Madeley, and visited Boscobel, the place of refuge of King Charles II. after his defeat at the battle of Worcester. The king first arrived at White Ladies about three-quarters of a mile from Boscobel House: there he secreted himself in an oak, afterwards famous as the Royal Oak of Boscobel. The brothers Penderell, foresters and yeomen, concealed him in closets in their simple mansion, being true to their sovereign at the risk of their lives, when it might have raised them from poverty to riches to have uttered a treacherous word.
Boscobel House
BOSCOBEL.
The closets in which Charles was concealed are exhibited to visitors, and Frank and Ernest were allowed to pass up and down the passages that had afforded so secure a retreat to the fugitive. In the parlor they were shown a chimney-piece, and on one of the panels a picture of the king in the oak, and on another the king in disguise on horse-back, escorted by the Penderells.
The tomb of Richard Penderell
It is said that the king’s pursuers were thrown off the right track of discovery by an owl that flew out of the oak where he wasconcealed, leading the captain to say, “The owl loveth not company, and where he is no one else can be.” It is also related that when Charles complained of the slowness of the horse on which he fled in disguise, one of the Penderells remarked that the animal never before had “the weight of three kingdoms on his back.” These stories may not be quite true, but one is reminded of them by the figures on the chimney-piece.
The Class next went to Leamington, a most convenient point from which to make short excursions to Stratford-on-Avon, Warwick Castle, and Kenilworth Castle. Leamington, although itself not historically interesting, is provided with excellent hotels, being an English watering-place.
A narrow trap door leads into the hiding place
KING CHARLES’S HIDING PLACE.
The first excursion of the party from Leamington was to Stratford-on-Avon, to the house where Shakspeare was born, and the church in which he was buried.
Shakspeare, quill pen in hand, stands next to a table
SHAKSPEARE.
The birthplace of Shakspeare is an antique-looking stone house two stones high, with picturesque gables fronting the street. In the room where he first saw the light of the world he was to enrich with his thought there is a cast of his face taken after his death, and a portrait painted in the prime of his life. The latter showed a truly noble brow; it was such a face as fancy itself might paint, so royally did it seem endowed with genius. In this room Sir Walter Scott hadinscribed his name on a pane of glass, and Wordsworth once wrote a stanza which is still preserved under glass. It began with these lines:—
“The house of Shakspeare’s birth we here may see;That of his death we find without a trace.Vain the inquiry, for immortal he”—
“The house of Shakspeare’s birth we here may see;That of his death we find without a trace.Vain the inquiry, for immortal he”—
Here the poet seemed to pause as though the literary work was not satisfactory; he drew his pen across what he had written, and under it wrote the following stanza:—
“Of mighty Shakspeare’s birth the room we see;That where he died, in vain to find we try.Useless the search, for, all immortal he:And those who are immortal never die.”
“Of mighty Shakspeare’s birth the room we see;That where he died, in vain to find we try.Useless the search, for, all immortal he:And those who are immortal never die.”
The effort furnishes a curious illustration of the methods of a poet’s mind in careful composition.
Back of the house is a garden, in which grew the old English flowers that are portrayed by the poet in his dramas.
From the house the party went to the cottage of Anne Hathaway, Shakspeare’s wife, whom he loved in youth when life’s bright ways lay fair before him. It is a house which is mainly noticeable for its simplicity.
“There is the place where he sat when he came to see his sweetheart,” said the old lady who showed the house.
Shakspeare and his wife sleep in the same beautiful church amid the bowery town of Stratford-on-Avon; and thither, rowing up the Avon almost to the churchyard, our tourists made their way.
The party approached the church through an avenue of limes, and entered the richly-carved oak doors of the Gothic porch. The tomb of Shakspeare is in the chancel. The Avon runs but a short distance from the walls, and the cool boughs of the summer trees wave before the windows. A flat stone marks the place where the poet is buried, on which are inscribed the oft quoted lines said to be written by the poet himself:—
“Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbearTo dig the dust enclosed here!Blest be the spade that spares these stones,And curst be he that moves my bones.”
“Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbearTo dig the dust enclosed here!Blest be the spade that spares these stones,And curst be he that moves my bones.”
Over the grave, in a niche of the wall, is a bust of the poet. The inscription mentions his age as fifty-three years.
A thatched cottage and garden
ANNE HATHAWAY’S COTTAGE.
Returning to the birthplace, Frank Gray and Tommy Toby visited the Shakspeare Museum. The collection of curiosities was somewhat comical,—such for example as a phial containingjuicefrom mulberries gathered from Shakspeare’s mulberry-tree; Shakspeare’s jug, from which Garrick sipped wine at the Jubilee in 1769. Frank seemed to enjoy the specimens, his mind poetically associating them with bygone scenes.
RUINS OF KENILWORTH CASTLE.
Tommy showed a great contempt for Frank’s wonder-talk.
“I’ve found something now,” he said, “that outdoes all the rest. It is a letter written—”
“By Shakspeare?” asked Frank, in an animated way.
“No:toShakspeare.”
“By whom?”
“Mr. Richard Quyney. You have often heard of him, I suppose?”
“He was probably a literary man,” said Frank.
“Probably. He asked for aloanof thirty pounds.”
The next day’s trip was to Kenilworth Castle, an ivy-hung ruin associated with the whole of England’s history, and traditionally with the romances of King Arthur. The walls are broken, the great banqueting hall has just fallen into decay, and where the coronals flashed and astrals blazed at night, now shine only the dim light of the moon and stars. Here Queen Elizabeth was entertained by her favorite, the Earl of Leicester. The splendor of that reception has rarely been equalled. The fête, which was one long banquet, broken by a most wonderful series of dramatic representations, lasted seventeen days. There were tilts and tournaments; the park was peopled with gods and goddesses to surprise the Queen wherever she went; nymphs and mermaids rose from the pools, and there was minstrelsy on every hand. Thirty-one barons were present. Ten oxen were slaughtered every morning, sixteen hogsheads of wine and forty hogsheads of beer were consumed daily. There were lodged in the castle four hundred servants, all of whom appeared in new liveries of velvet, and shared the unrestrained hospitality.
“All the clocks in the castle were stopped during that long festival,” said Master Lewis, “and the hands were all left pointing at the banquet hour.”
“But time went on,” said Wyllys Wynn.
“Yes, time went on, and the maiden Queen grew old as all mortals must, and there came a time when her vanity could no longer bedeceived. She sought to keep from sight the white hairs and wrinkles of age by every art, but Nature did its work, as with Canute and the sea. When her form and features began to lose whatever of beauty they once possessed, she tried to banish from her mind the reality that she was past her prime by viewing herself in false and flattering mirrors.
“But the wrinkles grew deeper, and the white hairs multiplied, and her limbs lost their power, and her strength at last was gone. Her flatterers still fed her fondness for admiration with their arts, and while life offered her any prospect she still smiled upon those whom she must have suspected were deceiving her.
“‘One day,’ says her attendant, Lady Southwell, ‘she desired to see atrue glass, which in twenty years before she had not seen, but only such an one as on purpose was made to deceive her sight.’
“They brought it to the poor withered Queen. She raised it to her face with her bony hands, and looked. For the first time for years she saw herself.
“It was a revelation. Her old rage came back again. She pointed to her flatterers with scorn, and ordered them to quit her presence.
“Then came the Archbishop of Canterbury, disgracing his sacred office by his words. ‘Madam,’ said he, ‘your piety, your zeal, and the admirable work of the Reformation afford great grounds of confidence for you.’
“But the wretchedly disenchanted woman could no longer be deceived.
“‘My lord,’ she said, ‘the crown that I have borne so long has given me enough ofvanityin my time. I beseech you not to augment it at this hour.’
“She had seen herself, and the world also, in the true glass.”
Ernest Wynn was observed by Master Lewis making a collection of ivy leaves at Kenilworth.
“Do you collect leaves at all the historic places you visit?” he asked.
PORTRAIT OF ELIZABETH.
“I picked some heather at the birthplace of Burns, brought ivy from Melrose, and wild flowers from Newstead and from the Peak, and I purchased flowers from Shakspeare’s garden.”
“What do you intend to do with them?”
“I will tell you privately. George Howe is pleased with collections of interesting things,—shells, stamps, autographs. He has but little money, and I am making a scrap-book of pictures, leaves, and flowers collected at notable places, as a present for him.”
“It seems to me an admirable plan,” said Master Lewis. “I should be pleased with such a book myself.”
The next day the party visited Warwick Castle, one of the finest and best preserved of all the ancient country seats of the English nobility. To one approaching it, its rich lawns, its towering trees (of which some are from Lebanon), its picturesque windows, and harmony of design make it an ideal of castellated beauty.
The Class was ceremoniously admitted by men in livery, and was taken charge of by a portly and pompous Englishwoman, who wore a black silk that rustled as she swept along. She carried a bunch of keys at her side, and evidently entertained a high sense of the dignity of her position.
“This,” said the stately lady, pointing to an immense structure of armor, “this is the armor of the mighty Guy.”
“The mighty Guy!” said Tommy Toby, with large eyes, “will you please tell us whohewas?”
The antique portress stared as though amazed at such a confession of ignorance.
“We are from America,” said Tommy.
Master Lewis smiled at being included in the uninstructed “we.”
“Guy was a giant.”
Tommy’s interest grew.
“He was the great Earl of Warwick: a valiant soldier who slew so many people that he became melancholy, and retired to Guy’sCliff, as it is now called, and there lived alone in a cave for thirty years. He wasninefeet high.”
“And what isthat?” said Tommy Toby, pointing to an immense pot.
“That,” said the antique lady, “was the mighty Guy’sporridge pot.”
“How much does it hold?”
“It holds one hundred and twenty gallons, and weighs eight hundred pounds.”
“Did the mighty Guy drink as much porridge as that at every meal?” asked Tommy, his curiosity taking a wider circle with each new statement.
“I don’t know; all of these things happened long, long before I was born.
“That,” said the lady, “is a rib of the Dun Cow.”
“What kind of a cow was that?” asked Tommy.
“It was a cow which the mighty Guy killed on Dunsmore Heath. It weighs nine pounds and a half.”
“The cow?”
“No, the rib.”
The lady led the party in a procession which she dramatically headed through the lower rooms of the principal building. She showed them the superb old baronial hall; the drawing-rooms, magnificent with tapestries and inlaid furniture; the pictures by Vandyke. Then in an awesome manner she suddenly stopped, and said in a low confidential voice,—
“The Countess herself is above stairs.”
“How many feet high is the Countess? I’d give a quarter—”
Tommy’s intended remark was checked by Master Lewis.
The lady requested a fee on showing the party back to the lodge, and dismissed Master Lewis with a stiff bow that indicated a want of confidence in American respect for the great and mighty Guy and his successors.
A University a Thousand Years Old.—Woodstock.—Fair Rosamond.—Old Ballad.—The Head of Brass that Spoke.
A University a Thousand Years Old.—Woodstock.—Fair Rosamond.—Old Ballad.—The Head of Brass that Spoke.
BEAUTIFUL! beautiful!” exclaimed Wyllys Wynn, as the city of Oxford appeared in view. “It looks like a city of churches.”
“It is indeed a city of institutions,” said Master Lewis.
“It is a very old city, is it not?” asked Wyllys.
“It is said to have been the residence of Alfred the Great, and of King Canute. The University of Oxford was, according to tradition, founded by Alfred the Great.”
“If it be so, what a monument the good king left behind him! It was this king, was it not, whose mother offered a beautiful manuscript to the one of her four sons who would first learn to repeat it from memory? Alfred, although he was a mere child and could not read, induced an instructor to teach him the manuscript, and so secured the prize.”
Alfred kneels beside his mother as she reads from a book
ALFRED AND HIS MOTHER.
“This was the king,” said Tommy Toby, “who,when flying from the Danes in disguise, was left by a rustic’s wife to watch some cakes that were baking by the fire.”
“And let them burn,” said Wyllys.
“The woman,” said Tommy, “gave him a gentle hint, saying that if he was too lazy to watch them, he would be glad enough to eat them when they were cooked. I have heard my mother make very similar remarks.”
Canute sits on his throne at the edge of the waves
CANUTE AND HIS COURTIERS.
“Canute, of whom you spoke, was the king who ordered his throne to be placed on the margin of the sea,” said Wyllys to Master Lewis, “and then commanded the sea to rise no farther.”
“But the sea rose,” said Master Lewis, “and the king refused to wear again his golden crown for ever, resolving to serve only that King who rules the sea.
“The history of Oxford covers a period of a thousand years,” continued Master Lewis. “Here Queen Matilda, or the Empress Maud, as she was called, because she had been the wife of the German Emperor, was besieged by King Stephen, who had usurped the throne, and thence she fled from him one snowy day, herself and attendants dressed in white that they might not be discovered; here the people closed the gates against William the Conqueror; here Richard I. was born, and here Ridley, Latimer, and Cranmer were burned. The early history of nearly all great English scholars for many centuries is associated with the colleges in this place.”
The Empress and her men flee the castle
FLIGHT OF EMPRESS MAUD.
“How green are the English meadows with their hedgerows and trees!” said Wyllys.
“And how bright are the streams that run among them! An English landscape is more rich and varied than an American.”
“I never would tell of it,” said Tommy. “Grass is grass, and we have just as good grass at home as anywhere.”
“We have no buildings at home that are quite equal to Warwick Castle,” said Frank.
“It is better to admit excellences frankly wherever one is,” said Master Lewis, “and never let any prejudice color an opinion. When one is travelling it is well never to make a comparison.”
Few scenes are more charming, especially on a long sunny summer afternoon, than the college buildings of Oxford, separated by gardens, meadows, and rows of venerable trees, the latter as old as the roofs and spires that rise above them.
The men bound to the stake of the pyre
DEATH OF LATIMER AND RIDLEY.
While at Oxford the boys were taken to Woodstock, a distance of some eight miles. The old ballad of “Fair Rosamond” so haunted the mind of Ernest Wynn, at Oxford, that he induced Master Lewis to make an excursion to Woodstock, the scene of the fancied tragedy.
“I have seen Kenilworth, the scene of one of Walter Scott’s romances,” said Ernest; “have been among the associations of ‘Ivanhoe,’ and ‘Peveril of the Peak,’ and I shall always be glad to have seen the place of the novelist’s other English fiction.”
The town of Woodstock once constituted a part of the royal demesnes. Here Ethelred held a council, and Alfred the Great translated the “Consolations of Boethius.” The history of the old palace of Woodstock is associated with dark romances, splendid cavalcades, and crumbled kings and queens.
Not a vestige of the palace now remains; its site is merely marked by two sycamore trees.
The famous Rosamond’s Bower, Maze, or Labyrinth seems to have consisted of a succession of under-ground chambers, and is thought to have existed before the time of King Henry II., who is supposed to have used it to hide Fair Rosamond from his jealous queen. There was but one way into it, though there were many ways that would lead astray any one who should try to find the right passage. It may have been like the following diagram, which may puzzle the reader who attempts to find an open way to the centre.
The maze, Rosamond's Bower
Henry II. had married Eleanor of Aquitaine, a woman of bad reputation, full of craft and wickedness, whom the French king had put away. But he gave his affections to Rosamond Clifford, whose beauty had charmed him when he first met her in the valley of Wye. It is said that she supposed herself wedded to him; but however this may be, she and not Eleanor was the spouse of his heart. She pined away in the seclusion that the king provided for her, but he was true to her in her illness; he hovered around her sick bed, and at last, when she was laid away to rest in the chapel at Edstowe Nunnery, he kept her grave bright with lights and sweet with flowers. The story of her being poisoned by Queen Eleanor is a fiction, although it is said the Queen discovered her place of concealment, and administered to her a severe reproof.
A monk walks along reading a book
A STUDIOUS MONK.
The atmosphere of learning dispels superstition, but history clings fondly to the fine old legends of the past that gather around them unreallights and shadows. It is not strange that Oxford, the quiet valley town, hidden even to the bases of its pinnacles, spires, and towers in ancient groves, through which glide the waters of the Thames, should still preserve traditions of the wonder-working gifts of its early philosophers, whom ignorance associated with the magical arts and regarded as more than men.
It is related that two old Oxford monks made a head of brass that spoke.
These wise monks discovered from their wonderful books (the like of which are not now to be found in any of the twenty colleges) that if they were able to make a head of brass that could speak, and if they couldhearit speak within a month, they would be given the power to surround England with a magic wall of brass.
So they studied their folios, and found out the chemistry of making the wonderful head.
A man works on his papers by candlelight
AN OLD TIME STUDENT.
They listened to hear it three weeks, and then became irresistibly sleepy. So they intrusted a servant to listen, and to wake them if the statue should begin to speak.
When they were well asleep, the head said,—
“Time is.”
Then it said,—
“Time was.”
The servant, not knowing the secret of the monks, failed to awake them as he had been ordered to do, and down came the figure with a fearful crash; and England has remained without any other wall of brass than enters into an Englishman’s composition to this day.
An English Skylark.—Letter from George Howe.—Tommy’s Account of his Nottingham Adventure.—Glastonbury Abbey.—The Beginning of the English Church.—St. Joseph of Arimathæa and the Glastonbury Thorn.—Story of St. Dunstan and the Devil.
An English Skylark.—Letter from George Howe.—Tommy’s Account of his Nottingham Adventure.—Glastonbury Abbey.—The Beginning of the English Church.—St. Joseph of Arimathæa and the Glastonbury Thorn.—Story of St. Dunstan and the Devil.
MASTER LEWIS set apart a day at Oxford for leisure, writing, and rest.
In the morning, after breakfast, the Class took a walk to the suburbs, and rested on some wayside seats overlooking the Thames.
It was a beautiful morning, cool and still. The world of sunlight all seemed to be above the trees, an over-sea of gold, of which the long arcades of intermingling boughs afforded but glimpses.
Near the wayside resting-place was a field bordered with trees. A speck of a bird rose from it out of the grass uttering a few notes that attracted the boys’ attention. Up, up it went like a rocket, and as it rose higher and higher its song became sweeter and sweeter,—a happy, trilling melody, which made every boy leap to his feet, and try to find a place where he could see it through the openings in the trees.
“The bird seems to have gone straight up to heaven,” said Wyllys Wynn. “I can hardly see it; but I can hear its melody yet.”
“That is an English skylark,” said Master Lewis, “so famous in pastoral poetry. You now understand Tennyson’s meaning when he says,—
“‘The lark becomes a sightless song.’
“‘The lark becomes a sightless song.’
I am glad you have seen it. I wish we might see more of common sights and scenes.
“I have here a letter from George Howe and Leander Towle, which greatly pleases me. My object is to take you to historic scenes. George and Leander have different tastes from yours, and expect to follow different occupations. They are making their journey a study of common life and its pursuits, as I would have them do.”
“Will you not read their letter to us?” asked Ernest.
“That was just what I was about to do,” said Master Lewis.
Caen, Normandy, July.Dear Teacher:—I begin my letter here in this city, which I suppose has an atmosphere of old history, but which is interesting to me because it is the centre of the “food-producing land” of France, as Lower Normandy is well called. All of this part of the country through which I have passed is a scene of thrift, productiveness, and plenty. The people are all busy and happy. Occupied minds are always happy, I believe.How did we get here?We rode a part of the way to London on what is called, I think, Parliamentary trains. This is not a train of grand coaches for the use of members of Parliament, but a sort of slow-coach train which Parliament has enacted shall carry cattle, produce, and commercial necessities for a fixed rate a mile. Or this is the way in which the running of these cheap trains was explained to me.It would have been a hard ride, had not new scenes been continually coming into view, and the train have gone so slowly that we were enabled to enjoy them almost as well as though we had been riding on an English stage-coach. I was so interested in the new objects that presented themselves that I entirely forgot the manner of conveyance.I shall never forget that ride: it was like viewing a long panorama.It cost me only about £1 or $5.00, to travel from Scotland to London.We took a lodging room in London which cost us a shilling a night apiece. While in London I visited the Tower, Westminster Abbey, Windsor, and the principal Parks. The half day spent in Westminster Abbey was worth all the discomforts of the journey across the sea.We also made a journey to Sydenham Crystal Palace,—an immense museum of novelties, to which the admission is only one shilling. It is probably the firstpalace ever built for the people, and I like the idea of a people’s palace better than a king’s. It occupies with its grounds about three hundred acres, and cost nearly £2,000,000. Twenty-five acres of glass were used in its construction. The museum is full of the products of industry of all countries and times. Think of it—all for one shilling! It is a thing to make one always respect the English people.I need say very little of the tombs of the twenty or thirty kings and queens in Westminster Abbey. I was first impressed with the value of fame when I read inscriptions to persons once famous of whom I never heard,—Thomas Shadwell, Poet Laureate in the Court of William III.; Mrs. Oldfield, whom we are told was buried “in a fine Brussels lace head-dress,”—and I thought, Well, all men can do is to perform their duty, and time will one day make forgotten Thomas Shadwells and Mrs. Oldfields of them all.While in London I made also a pleasant excursion into Berkshire, and there I saw the famous White Horse Hill. It is said that the figure of the White Horse on the hill was first made by Alfred the Great a thousand years ago, to commemorate the defeat of the Danes,—the White Horse being the standard or national emblem of the Danish chief. Whatever may have been its origin, it isnowmade by annually cutting about an acre of turf away from the chalk beneath it. This work is performed during a festival in its honor, and is called “Scouring the White Horse.”A tower on wheels, the house of a migrating citizenWhile in Berkshire I saw an odd picture, not of a castle, but of an old English gentleman’s residence, which was truly castle-like in appearance, and which furnishes a happy suggestion to people who do not like to live long in any one place. It was a tun on wheels, and it had been used by an overtaxed and indignant democrat for the purpose of having no fixed locality, and so to avoid assessment.In London I made a study of the cheapest way of getting to Paris, and of seeing the most on the journey. I found I could take a returning produce boat at Southampton for Lower Normandy at a trifling cost, and could go on a produce train from Caen to Paris as inexpensively.We took a third-class ticket to Southampton. What a delightful ride it was! Out of the smoke of London into the blossoming country, among landscapes of cottages and gardens,—thatched cottages, cottages covered with old red tiles, cottages whose gardens seemed to climb up embankments to the roofs; past wheat fields so full of poppies that they seemed like poppy-fields in full bloom! I saw one field completely covered with red, purple, yellow, and white poppies. It was an exquisitely beautiful sight,—nothing but bright color.The steamer we took was employed simply for the exportation of Normandy butter, potatoes, and other farm produce. It comes to England loaded, and goes back empty. I obtained passage for 10 francs, and what I saved by travel on the water I intended to make up by a longer trip by land.We were much tossed about by the tides of the English Channel, but arrived safely at Cherbourg, and went by rail immediately to Bayeux, a dreamy, ecclesiastical city that the battles of the past seem to have left in strange silence. I spoke at the beginning of my letter of the activity and thrift of Lower Normandy, but Bayeux is the stillest city I ever saw.Soldiers during the battleFAC-SIMILE OF THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY.Here, in the Public Library, we saw the famous Bayeux Tapestry, which is displayed under a glass case; is two hundred and fourteen feet long and contains over fifteen hundred figures. The canvas is embroidered in woollen threadof various colors, the work of Matilda and her maids. I make a copy from a sample picture of the exact size of the thread used.Example of woollen threadOne may read on this fabric the history of the Norman Conquest of England. It is the most novel work of history I ever saw.The farming districts of Normandy seem indeed like Arcadia: farmers mean business here, and thrive by thrift. Their sons and daughters, I am told, do not run off to the city. I have never seen a people whose habits I like so well.Give our regards to all.George Howe.P. S. We are on our way to Paris, riding through a country of old churches, castles, and flowers, on a produce train.
Caen, Normandy, July.
Dear Teacher:—
I begin my letter here in this city, which I suppose has an atmosphere of old history, but which is interesting to me because it is the centre of the “food-producing land” of France, as Lower Normandy is well called. All of this part of the country through which I have passed is a scene of thrift, productiveness, and plenty. The people are all busy and happy. Occupied minds are always happy, I believe.
How did we get here?
We rode a part of the way to London on what is called, I think, Parliamentary trains. This is not a train of grand coaches for the use of members of Parliament, but a sort of slow-coach train which Parliament has enacted shall carry cattle, produce, and commercial necessities for a fixed rate a mile. Or this is the way in which the running of these cheap trains was explained to me.
It would have been a hard ride, had not new scenes been continually coming into view, and the train have gone so slowly that we were enabled to enjoy them almost as well as though we had been riding on an English stage-coach. I was so interested in the new objects that presented themselves that I entirely forgot the manner of conveyance.
I shall never forget that ride: it was like viewing a long panorama.
It cost me only about £1 or $5.00, to travel from Scotland to London.
We took a lodging room in London which cost us a shilling a night apiece. While in London I visited the Tower, Westminster Abbey, Windsor, and the principal Parks. The half day spent in Westminster Abbey was worth all the discomforts of the journey across the sea.
We also made a journey to Sydenham Crystal Palace,—an immense museum of novelties, to which the admission is only one shilling. It is probably the firstpalace ever built for the people, and I like the idea of a people’s palace better than a king’s. It occupies with its grounds about three hundred acres, and cost nearly £2,000,000. Twenty-five acres of glass were used in its construction. The museum is full of the products of industry of all countries and times. Think of it—all for one shilling! It is a thing to make one always respect the English people.
I need say very little of the tombs of the twenty or thirty kings and queens in Westminster Abbey. I was first impressed with the value of fame when I read inscriptions to persons once famous of whom I never heard,—Thomas Shadwell, Poet Laureate in the Court of William III.; Mrs. Oldfield, whom we are told was buried “in a fine Brussels lace head-dress,”—and I thought, Well, all men can do is to perform their duty, and time will one day make forgotten Thomas Shadwells and Mrs. Oldfields of them all.
While in London I made also a pleasant excursion into Berkshire, and there I saw the famous White Horse Hill. It is said that the figure of the White Horse on the hill was first made by Alfred the Great a thousand years ago, to commemorate the defeat of the Danes,—the White Horse being the standard or national emblem of the Danish chief. Whatever may have been its origin, it isnowmade by annually cutting about an acre of turf away from the chalk beneath it. This work is performed during a festival in its honor, and is called “Scouring the White Horse.”
A tower on wheels, the house of a migrating citizen
While in Berkshire I saw an odd picture, not of a castle, but of an old English gentleman’s residence, which was truly castle-like in appearance, and which furnishes a happy suggestion to people who do not like to live long in any one place. It was a tun on wheels, and it had been used by an overtaxed and indignant democrat for the purpose of having no fixed locality, and so to avoid assessment.
In London I made a study of the cheapest way of getting to Paris, and of seeing the most on the journey. I found I could take a returning produce boat at Southampton for Lower Normandy at a trifling cost, and could go on a produce train from Caen to Paris as inexpensively.
We took a third-class ticket to Southampton. What a delightful ride it was! Out of the smoke of London into the blossoming country, among landscapes of cottages and gardens,—thatched cottages, cottages covered with old red tiles, cottages whose gardens seemed to climb up embankments to the roofs; past wheat fields so full of poppies that they seemed like poppy-fields in full bloom! I saw one field completely covered with red, purple, yellow, and white poppies. It was an exquisitely beautiful sight,—nothing but bright color.
The steamer we took was employed simply for the exportation of Normandy butter, potatoes, and other farm produce. It comes to England loaded, and goes back empty. I obtained passage for 10 francs, and what I saved by travel on the water I intended to make up by a longer trip by land.
We were much tossed about by the tides of the English Channel, but arrived safely at Cherbourg, and went by rail immediately to Bayeux, a dreamy, ecclesiastical city that the battles of the past seem to have left in strange silence. I spoke at the beginning of my letter of the activity and thrift of Lower Normandy, but Bayeux is the stillest city I ever saw.
Soldiers during the battle
FAC-SIMILE OF THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY.
Here, in the Public Library, we saw the famous Bayeux Tapestry, which is displayed under a glass case; is two hundred and fourteen feet long and contains over fifteen hundred figures. The canvas is embroidered in woollen threadof various colors, the work of Matilda and her maids. I make a copy from a sample picture of the exact size of the thread used.
Example of woollen thread
One may read on this fabric the history of the Norman Conquest of England. It is the most novel work of history I ever saw.
The farming districts of Normandy seem indeed like Arcadia: farmers mean business here, and thrive by thrift. Their sons and daughters, I am told, do not run off to the city. I have never seen a people whose habits I like so well.
Give our regards to all.George Howe.
P. S. We are on our way to Paris, riding through a country of old churches, castles, and flowers, on a produce train.
“I think,” said Master Lewis, “that George and Leander are, after all, making a very delightful tour; they certainly are getting better views of common, practical life abroad than we are. I am glad that they had the independence to make the journey in this way.”
“How much do you think their whole tour will cost them?” asked Ernest.
“It will cost each of them less than either you or I have paid for a single ocean passage,” said Master Lewis.
The boys spent the afternoon in letter-writing.
Tommy Toby wrote a long letter to George Howe.
“I have taken George into my confidence,” said he, after tea, as Master Lewis and the boys were sitting by the open windows of the hotel, “and have given him an account of my hunting adventure in Nottingham.”
“Suppose you read the letter to us,” said Master Lewis.
Tommy, whose nature would not allow him to keep a secret long, however disparaging to himself, seemed pleased to accept Master Lewis’s suggestion.