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diff --git a/46801-0.txt b/46801-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4c13baf --- /dev/null +++ b/46801-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8311 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Hardy Country, by Charles G. Harper + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: The Hardy Country + Literary landmarks of the Wessex Novels + + +Author: Charles G. Harper + + + +Release Date: September 7, 2014 [eBook #46801] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HARDY COUNTRY*** + + +This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler + + [Picture: Weymouth: St. Mary Street and statue of George III.] + + + + + + THE + HARDY COUNTRY + + + LITERARY LANDMARKS OF + THE WESSEX NOVELS + + * * * * * + + BY + CHARLES G. HARPER + AUTHOR OF “THE INGOLDSBY COUNTRY,” ETC. + + “Here shepherds pipe their rustic song, + Their flocks and rural nymphs among.” + + [Picture: Medallion] + + _ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR_ + + * * * * * + + LONDON + ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK + + 1904 + + + + +_PREFACE_ + + +_Dorsetshire_, _the centre of the_ “_Hardy Country_,” _the home of the +Wessex Novels_, _is a land literally flowing with milk and honey_: _a +land of great dairies_, _of flowers and bees_, _of rural industries_, +_where rustic ways and speech and habits of thought live long_, _and the +kindlier virtues are not forgotten in such stress of life as prevails in +towns_: _a land desirable for its own sweet self_, _where you may see the +beehives in cottage gardens and therefrom deduce that honey of which I +have spoken_, _and where that flow of milk is no figure of speech_. _You +may indeed hear the swish of it in the milking pails at almost every turn +of every lane_. + +_Thatch survives in every village_, _as nowhere else_, _and here quaint +towns maintain their quaintness at all odds_, _while elsewhere foolish +folk seek to be—as they phrase it_—“_up to date_.” _It is good_, _you +think_, _who explore these parts_, _to be out of date and reckless of all +the tiresome worries of modernity_. + +_Spring is good in Dorset_, _summer better_, _autumn—when the kindly +fruits of the earth are ingathered and __the smell of pomace is sweet in +the mellow air—best_. _Winter_? _Well_, _frankly_, _I don’t know_. + +_To all these natural advantages has been added in our generation the +romantic interest of Mr. Thomas Hardy’s novels of rural life and +character_, _in which real places are introduced with a lavish hand_. +_The identity of those places is easily resolved_; _and_, _that feat +performed_, _there is that compelling force in his genius which +inevitably_, _sooner or later_, _magnetically draws those who have read_, +_to see for themselves what manner of places and what folk they must be +in real life_, _from whose characteristics such poignant tragedy_, _such +suave and admirable comedy_, _have been evolved_. _I have many a time +explored Egdon_, _and observed the justness of the novelist’s description +of that sullen waste_: _have traversed Blackmoor Vale_, _where_ “_the +fields are never brown and the springs never dry_,” _but where the +roads—it is a cyclist’s criticism—are always shockingly bad_: _in fine_, +_have visited every literary landmark of the Wessex Novels_. _If I have +not found the rustics so sprack-witted as they are in_ THE RETURN OF THE +NATIVE _and other stories—why_, _I never expected so to find them_, _for +I did not imagine the novelist to be a reporter_. _But—this is in +testimony to the essential likeness to life of his women—I know_ +“_Bathsheba_”; _only she is not a farmer_, _nor in_ “_Do’set_,” _and I +have met_ “_Viviette_” _and_ “_Fancy_.” _They were called by other +names_, _’tis true_; _but they were_, _and are_, _those distracting +characters come to life_. + +_A word in conclusion_. _No attempt has here been made to solemnly_ +“_expound_” _the novelist_. _He_, _I take it_, _expounds himself_. _Nor +has it been thought necessary to exclude places simply for the reason +that they by some chance do not find mention in the novels_. _These +pages are_, _in short_, _just an attempt to record impressions received +of a peculiarly beautiful and stimulating literary country_, _and seek +merely to reflect some of the joy of the explorer and the enthusiasm of +an ardent admirer of the novelist_, _who here has given tongues to trees +and a voice to every wind_. + + CHARLES G. HARPER. + +PETERSHAM, SURREY, + _July_ 1904. + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAP. PAGE + I. PRELIMINARIES: THE HARDY COUNTRY DEFINED; 1 + FAWLEY MAGNA; OXFORD + II. WINCHESTER: THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF WESSEX 9 + III. WINCHESTER TO STOCKBRIDGE AND WEYHILL 16 + IV. STOCKBRIDGE TO SALISBURY AND STONEHENGE 26 + V. THE OLD COACH-ROAD: SALISBURY TO BLANDFORD 35 + VI. THE OLD COACH-ROAD: BLANDFORD TO DORCHESTER 47 + VII. DORCHESTER 62 + VIII. DORCHESTER (_continued_) 74 + IX. SWANAGE 84 + X. SWANAGE TO CORFE CASTLE 92 + XI. CORFE CASTLE 105 + XII. WAREHAM 114 + XIII. WAREHAM TO WOOL AND BERE REGIS 122 + XIV. BERE REGIS 133 + XV. THE HEART OF THE HARDY COUNTRY 148 + XVI. DORCHESTER TO CROSS-IN-HAND, MELBURY, AND 168 + YEOVIL + XVII. SHERBORNE 178 + XVIII. SHERBORNE TO CERNE ABBAS AND WEYMOUTH 191 + XIX. SHERBORNE TO CERNE ABBAS AND WEYMOUTH 205 + (_continued_) + XX. WEYMOUTH 214 + XXI. THE ISLE OF PORTLAND 222 + XXII. WEYMOUTH TO BRIDPORT AND BEAMINSTER 232 + XXIII. WEYMOUTH TO LULWORTH COVE 246 + XXIV. BOURNEMOUTH TO POOLE 257 + XXV. WIMBORNE MINSTER 270 + XXVI. WIMBORNE MINSTER TO SHAFTESBURY 277 + XXVII. WIMBORNE MINSTER TO SHAFTESBURY (_continued_) 288 + XXVIII. WIMBORNE MINSTER TO HORTON AND MONMOUTH ASH 297 + XXIX. OVER THE HILLS, BEYOND THE RAINBOW 302 + INDEX 313 + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + +Weymouth: St. Mary Street and Statue of George III. _Frontispiece_ +Fawley Magna 3 +High Street, Oxford, _Facing_ 4 +High Street, Winchester 11 +Winchester Cathedral, _Facing_ 14 +Weyhill Fair 24 +Salisbury Cathedral 30 +Stonehenge 32 +Pentridge 36 +Eastbury 41 +Blandford Forum 45 +The Old Manor-House, Milborne St. Andrew 49 +Weatherbury Castle 50 +The Obelisk, Weatherbury Castle 51 +Piddletown 55 +A Quaint Corner in Piddletown 57 +Lower Walterstone Farm; Original of “Bathsheba’s 59 +Farm” in _Far from the Madding Crowd_ +Ten Hatches, Dorchester 69 +Dorchester Gaol 75 +The Hangman’s Cottage, Dorchester 77 +Colyton House, Dorchester 79 +The Old Church, Swanage 89 +Encombe 95 +Corfe Castle 99 +Corfe Castle, _Facing_ 106 +Approach to Wareham: The Walls of Wareham 116 +Wareham 119 +The Abbot’s Coffin, Bindon Abbey 123 +Woolbridge House 125 +Woolbridge House: Entrance Front 127 +Gallows Hill, Egdon Heath, _Facing_ 128 +Chamberlain’s Bridge 130 +Rye Hill, Bere Regis 131 +Bere Regis 135 +Bere Regis 137 +Bere Regis: Interior of Church 141 +“Toothache,” Bere Regis 143 +“Headache,” Bere Regis 143 +Bere Regis: The Turberville Window 145 +Stinsford Church; the “Mellstock” of _Under the 149 +Greenwood Tree_ +Birthplace of Thomas Hardy 158 +Birthplace of Thomas Hardy 159 +The Duck Inn, Original of the “Quiet Woman” Inn in 161 +_The Return of the Native_ +Tincleton 163 +An Egdon Farmstead 165 +A Farm on Egdon 166 +Cross-in-Hand, _Facing_ 170 +Batcombe 171 +Tomb of “Conjuring Minterne” 173 +Melbury House, _Facing_ 174 +Sherborne Abbey Church, _Facing_ 184 +Long Burton 192 +Holnest: the Drax Mausoleum 194 +Dungeon Hill and the Vale of Blackmore 195 +Cerne Abbas 201 +The Gatehouse, Cerne Abbey, _Facing_ 202 +The Cerne Giant 203 +Cerne Abbas 206 +Wolveton House 207 +Weymouth and Portland from the Ridgeway 209 +The Wishing Well, Upwey 211 +Weymouth Harbour 219 +Sandsfoot Castle 223 +Bow and Arrow Castle 229 +Portisham 233 +The Road out of Abbotsbury 235 +Sheep-Shearing in Wessex, _Facing_ 236 +West Bay, Bridport 239 +High Street and Town Hall, Bridport 243 +Sutton Poyntz: the “Overcombe” of _The Trumpet 247 +Major_ +Bincombe 249 +Poxwell Manor 251 +Owermoigne: the Smugglers’ Haunt in _The Distracted 253 +Preacher_ +Lulworth Cove 254 +Lulworth Cove 255 +Lytchett Heath: The Equestrian Effigy of George 256 +III.: Entrance to Charborough Park, _Facing_ +Bournemouth: The Invalids’ Walk 258 +Poole Quay 267 +Sturminster Marshall: Anthony Etricke’s Tomb, 270 +Wimborne Minster, _Facing_ +The Wimborne Clock Jack 273 +Wimborne Minster: the Minster and the Grammar 274 +School, _Facing_ +The Tower, Charborough Park 281 +Weather-vane at Shapwick: the “Shapwick Monster” 283 +The Maypole, Shillingstone 285 +Sturminster Newton: The White Hart Inn 286 +Marnhull 289 +Gold Hill, Shaftesbury 295 +The Observatory, Horton, _Facing_ 298 +Horton Inn: the “Lorton Inn” of _Barbara of the 299 +House of Grebe_ +Monmouth Ash 300 +Bingham’s Melcombe 303 +Milton Abbas, _Facing_ 306 +Milton Abbas, an Early “Model” Village 307 +Abbot Milton’s Rebus, Milton Abbey 309 +Milton Abbey 310 +Turnworth House 311 + +CHAPTER I + + + PRELIMINARIES: THE HARDY COUNTRY DEFINED; FAWLEY MAGNA; OXFORD + +IN the literary partition of England, wherein the pilgrim may discover +tracts definitely and indissolubly dedicated to Dickens, to Tennyson, to +Ingoldsby, and many another, no province has been so thoroughly annexed +or so effectively occupied as that associated with the Wessex novels +written by Mr. Thomas Hardy. He holds Wessex in fee-simple, to the +exclusion of all others; and so richly topographical are all those +romances, that long ere sketch-maps showing his literary occupancy of it +were prepared and published in the uniform edition of his works, there +were those to whom the identity of most of his scenes offered no manner +of doubt. By the circumstances of birth and of lifelong residence, the +“Wessex” of the novels has come to denote chiefly his native county of +Dorset, and in especial the neighbourhood of Dorchester, the county town; +but Mr. Hardy was early an expansionist, and his outposts were long ago +thrown forward, to at last make his Wessex in the domain of letters +almost coterminous with that ancient kingdom of Saxon times, which +included all England south of the Thames and west of Sussex, with the +exception of Cornwall. The very excellent sketch-map prepared for the +definitive edition of Mr. Hardy’s works very clearly shows the +comparative density of the literary settlements he has made. Glancing at +it, you at once perceive that what he chooses to term “South +Wessex”—named in merely matter-of-fact gazetteers Dorsetshire—is thickly +studded with names of his own mintage, unknown to guidebook or ordnance +map, and presently observe that the surrounding divisions of Upper, +North, Mid, Outer, and Lower Wessex—as who should say Hampshire, +Berkshire, Wilts, Somerset, and Devon—are, to follow the simile already +adopted, barely colonised. + +His nearest frontier-post towards London is Castle Royal, to be +identified with none other than Windsor; while near by are Gaymead +(Theale), Aldbrickham (Reading), and Kennetbridge (Newbury). In the +midst of that same division of North Wessex, or Berkshire, are marked +Alfredston and Marygreen, respectively the little town of Wantage, +birthplace of Alfred the Great, and the small village of Fawley Magna, +placed on the draughty skyline of the bare and shivery Berkshire downs. + +Then, near the eastern border of Upper Wessex is Quartershot, or +Aldershot, and farther within its confines Stoke-Barehills, by which name +Basingstoke and the unclothed uplands partly surrounding it are +indicated. Its “gaunt, unattractive, ancient church” is accurately +imaged in a phrase, and it is just as true that the most familiar object +of the place is “its cemetery, standing among some picturesque mediæval +ruins beside the railway”; for indeed Basingstoke cemetery and the fine +ruins of the chapel once belonging to the religious who, piously by +intent, but rather blasphemously to shocked ears, styled themselves the +“Brotherhood of the Holy Ghost,” stand immediately without the railway +station. At Stoke-Barehills, Jude and Sue, visiting the Agricultural +Show, were observed by Arabella, Jude’s sometime wife, with some +jealousy. + + [Picture: Fawley Magna] + +Finally, northernmost of all these transfigured outer landmarks, is +Christminster, the university town and city of Oxford, whose literary +name in these pages derives from the cathedral of Christ there. This +remote corner of his kingdom is especially and solely devoted to the +grievous story of _Jude the Obscure_, a pitiful tale of frustrated +ambition, originally published serially in _Harper’s Magazine_, under the +much more captivating, if less descriptive, title of _Hearts Insurgent_. +The story opens at Fawley Magna, to whose identity a clue is found in the +name of Fawley given the unhappy Jude. The village, we are told, was “as +old-fashioned as it was small, and it rested in the lap of an upland +adjoining the undulating North Wessex downs. Old as it was, however, the +well-shaft was probably the only relic of the local history that remained +absolutely unchanged. . . . Above all, the original church, hump-backed, +wood-turreted and quaintly hipped, had been taken down, and either +cracked up into heaps of road-metal in the lane, or utilised as pigsty +walls, garden-seats, guard-stones to fences, and rockeries in the +flower-beds of the neighbourhood. In place of it a tall new building of +German-Gothic design, unfamiliar to English eyes, had been erected on a +new piece of ground by a certain obliterator of historic records who had +run down from London and back in a day.” Who was that obliterator thus +held up to satire? Inquiries prove the church to have been rebuilt in +1866, and its architect to have been none other than G. E. Street, R.A., +than whom the middle Victorian period had no more accomplished architect. +Truly enough, its design is something alien, but candour compels the +admission that, however detached from local traditions, it is really a +very fine building, and its designer quite undeserving of so slighting a +notice. + + [Picture: High Street, Oxford] + +From Fawley the scene of Jude’s tragedy changes to Christminster, the +Oxford of everyday commerce. Oft had he, as a boy, seen from this +vantage-point the faint radiance of its lights reflected from the sky at +night, twenty miles away. His anticipations and disillusionments, his +strong resolves and stumblings by the way, over stumbling-blocks of his +own and of extraneous making, picture a strong character brought low, +like Samson by Delilah—cheated of scholarly ambition by the guardians of +learning, who open its gates only to wealth or scholarships acquired by +early opportunity. Take _Jude the Obscure_ as you will, it forms a +somewhat serious indictment of university procedure: “They raise pa’sons +there, like radishes in a bed. ’Tis all learning there—nothing but +learning, except religion.” Jude sought learning there, and Holy Orders, +but never rose beyond his trade of stonemason, and, after many fitful +wanderings through Wessex, ends tragically at Oxford. + +Since _Jude the Obscure_ was written Oxford has gained another historic +personality, none the less real than the great figures of actual life who +have trodden the pavements of its High Street. You may follow all the +innermost thoughts of that mere character in a novel, and see fully +exposed the springs that produce his actions; and thus he is made seem +more human than all your Wolseys and great dignitaries, whose doings, +smothered in dust, and whose motives, buried deep beneath their own +subterfuges and the dark imaginings of historians with little but ancient +verbiage to rely upon, seem only the spasmodic, involuntary capers of so +many irresponsible jumping-jacks. Nowadays, when I think of Oxford, it +is to recall poor Jude Fawley’s fascination by it, like the desire of the +moth for the star, or for the candle that eventually scorches its wings +and leaves it maimed and dying. “It is a city of light,” he exclaimed, +not knowing (as how should he have known?) that the light it emits is but +the phosphorescent glow of decay. And when I walk the High Street, “the +main street—that ha’n’t another like it in the world,” it is not of +Newman or his fellow Tractarians I think, but of Jude the stonemason, +feeling with appreciative technical fingers the mouldings and crumbling +stones of its architecture. + +In one novel, _A Pair of Blue Eyes_, Mr. Hardy has made an expedition far +beyond the confines of his Wessex. Away beyond “Lower Wessex,” or +Devonshire—itself scarce more than incidentally referred to in the whole +course of his writings—he takes the reader to the north coast of +Cornwall, the “furthest westward of all those convenient corners wherein +I have ventured to erect my theatre for these imperfect little dramas of +country life and passions; and it lies near to, or no great way beyond, +the vague border of the Wessex kingdom, on that side which, like the +westering verge of modern American settlements, was progressive and +uncertain.” + +“Castle Boterel” he styles the stage of his tragical story of _A Pair of +Blue Eyes_; a place to be found on maps under the style and title of +Boscastle. That tiny port and harbour on the wildest part of a wild +coast obtains its name, in a manner familiar to all students of Cornish +topography, by a series of phonetic corruptions. Originally the site of +a castle owned by the Norman family of De Bottreaux, its name has in the +course of centuries descended from that knightly designation to that it +now bears. Leland, four hundred years ago, described the place as “a +very filthy Toun and il kept,” and probably had still in mind and in +nostrils when he wrote the scent of the fish-cellars and the fish-offal +which to this day go largely towards making up the bouquet of most of the +smaller Cornish fishing-ports. + +Still, as in Leland’s time, goes the little brook, running down from the +tremendously hilly background “into the Severn Se betwixt 2 Hylles,” and +still the harbour remains, from the mariner’s point of view, “a pore +Havenet, of no certaine Salvegarde,” winding, as it does, in the shape of +a double S, between gigantic rocky headlands, and most difficult of +approach or exit. It will thus be guessed, and guessed rightly, that, +although poor as a harbour, Boscastle is a place of commanding +picturesqueness. Its Cornish atmosphere, too, confers upon it another +distinction. In the romantic mind of the novelist the district is +“pre-eminently (for one person at least) the region of dream and mystery. +The ghostly birds, the pall-like sea, the frothy wind, the eternal +soliloquy of the waters, the bloom, of dark purple cast, that seems to +exhale from the shoreward precipices, in themselves lend to the scene an +atmosphere like the twilight of a night vision.” + +But it is not always like that at Boscastle. There are days of bright +sunshine, when the sea is in colour something between a sapphire and an +opal, when the cliffs reveal unexpected hues and the sands of +Trebarrow—the “Trebarwith Strand” of the novel—shine golden, in contrast +with the dark slaty headland of Willapark Point—the “cliff without a +name” where Elfride, the owner of that pair of blue eyes, saves the prig, +Henry Knight, by the singular expedient none other than the author of the +Wessex novels would have conceived. The average reader may perhaps be +allowed his opinion that it had been better for Elfride had she saved her +underclothing and allowed Knight to drop from his precarious hand-hold on +the cliff’s edge into the sea below waiting for him. + +The town of “St. Launce’s” mentioned in the book is of course Launceston, +and “Endelstow” is the village of St. Juliot’s. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + + WINCHESTER: THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF WESSEX + +BUT, to have done with these preliminary triflings in the marches of the +Hardy Country, let us consider in what way the Londoner may best come to +a thoroughgoing exploration of this storied land. On all counts—by force +of easy access, and by its ancient circumstance—Winchester is indicated. +“The city of Wintoncester, that fine old city, afore-time capital of +Wessex,” stands at the gate of this literary country and hard by the +confines of the New Forest, to which by tradition and history it is +closely akin. At one in feeling with that hoary hunting preserve, it is +itself modern in but little measure, and loves to linger upon memories of +the past. Here the Saxon and the Norman are not merely historical +counters with which, to the ideas of unimaginative students, the dusty +game of history was played; but do, by the presence of their works, make +the least impressionable feel that they were creatures of blood and +fibre, strong to rule, to make and unmake nations; groping darkly in +superstition, without doubt, but perceiving the light, distant and dim, +and striving with all the strength of their strong natures to win toward +it. They fought as sturdily for Christianity as they had done for +paganism, and were not—it really seems necessary to insist upon +it—creatures of parchment and the wax of which seals are sealed; but +lived as human a life as ourselves, and loved and hated, and despaired +and triumphed, just as keenly, nay, with perhaps even greater keenness, +than any Edwardian liege of this twentieth century. Still runs the +Itchen, bright and clear as when the Romans came and the Saxons followed, +to be in their turn ousted in governance by the Norman-French; and still, +although this England of ours be yet overlorded by the relics of Norman +domination, it is the broad-shouldered, level-headed, stolid, and +long-suffering Saxon who peoples Winchester and Wessex, and in him that +ancient kingdom, although unknown to modern political geographies, +survives. + +Sweet and gracious city, I love you for old association and for your +intrinsic worth, alike. Changing, although ever so slowly, with the +years, your developments make, not as elsewhere, for black bitterness of +heart and vain regrets for the things of sweet savour and good report, +swept away into the dustheaps and potsherds of “progress,” but for +content and happy assent. In these later years, for example, it has +occurred to Winchester to honour Alfred, the great Wessex king, warrior +and lawgiver, born at Wantage, warring over all southern England, ruling +at Winchester, dead at Faringdon in A.D. 901, and buried here in a spot +still shown, in the long desecrated Hyde Abbey. That is a noble, +heroic-sized bronze effigy of him, erected in 1901, to commemorate the +millenary of this hero-king, and one in thorough keeping with +Winchester’s ancient dignity. + + [Picture: High Street, Winchester] + +Near by, where its imposing bulk is reared up against the giant +background of St. Giles’s Hill, you may still see and hear the Itchen +rushing furiously under the old City Mill by Soke Bridge, where dusty +millers have ground corn for a thousand years. Released from the +mill-leat, the stream regains its placid temper and wanders suavely along +daisy-dappled meads to St. Cross, and so at last to lose itself in +Southampton Water; still fishful all the way, as in the days of old Izaak +Walton himself, who lies in the south transept of the cathedral yonder, +and has a sanctified place in these liberal-minded times in a tabernacle +of the restored reredos, in the glorious company of the apostles, the +saints, kings and bishops, who form a very mixed concourse in that +remarkable structure. I fear that if they were all brought to life and +introduced to one another, they would not form the happiest of families. + +But that’s as may be. From this vantage-point by King Alfred’s statue—or +“Ælfred,” as the inscription learnedly has it, to the confusion of the +unscholarly—you may see, as described in Tess, “the sloping High Street, +from the West Gateway to the mediæval cross, and from the mediæval cross +to the bridge”; but you can only make out a portion of the squat, low +Norman tower of the cathedral itself; for here, instead of being beckoned +afar by lofty spire, you have to seek that ancient fane, and, diligently +inquiring, at last find it. Best it is to come to the cathedral by way +of that aforesaid mediæval cross in the High Street, hard by the +curiously overhanging penthouse shops, and under a low-browed entry, +which, to the astonishment of the stranger, instead of conducting into a +backyard, brings one into the cathedral close, a lovely parklike space of +trim lawns, ancient lime avenues, and noble old residences of cathedral +dignitaries with nothing to do and exceedingly good salaries for doing +it. It has been remarked, with an innocent, childlike wonder, that some +sixty per cent. of the famous men whose careers are included in the +_Dictionary of National Biography_ were the sons of clergymen. No wonder +at all, I take it, in this, for it is merely nature’s compensating swing +of the pendulum. The parents, living a life of repose, have been storing +up energy for the use of their offspring, and thus our greatest +empire-makers and men of action, and some of our greatest scoundrels too, +have derived from beneath the benignant shadow of the Church. + +That squat, heavy Norman tower just now spoken of has a history to its +squatness—a history bound up with the tragical death of Rufus. The grave +of the Red King in the cathedral forms the colophon of a tragical story +whose inner history has never been, and never will be, fully explained; +but by all the signs and portents that preceded the ruthless king’s death +at Stoney Cross, where his heart was pierced by the glanced arrow said to +have been aimed at the wild red deer by Walter Tyrrell, it should seem +that the clergy were more intimately connected with that “accident” than +was seemly, even in the revengeful and bloodstained ecclesiastics of that +time. It must not be forgotten that the king had despoiled the Church +and the Church’s high dignitaries with a thorough and comprehensive +spoliation, nor can it be blinked that certain of them had denounced him +and prophesied disaster with an exactness of imagery possible only to +those who had prepared the fulfilment of their boding prophecies. “Even +now,” said one, “the arrow of retribution is fixed, the bow is +stretched.” This was not metaphor, merely: they prophesied who had with +certainty prepared fulfilment. And when the thing was consummated and +the body of the Red King was buried in the choir beneath the original +central tower, the ruin in which that tower fell, seven years later, was +not, according to clerical opinion, due to faulty construction and the +insufficient support given to its great crushing weight by the inadequate +pillars, but to the fact that one was buried beneath who had not received +the last rites of the Church. If indeed that be so, the mills of God +certainly do grind slowly. + +For the rest, the cathedral is the longest in England. Longer than Ely, +longer than St. Albans, it measures from east to west no less than 556 +feet. As we read in the story of _Lady Mottisfont_, Wintoncester, among +all the romantic towns in Wessex, is for this reason “probably the most +convenient for meditative people to live in; since there you have a +cathedral with nave so long that it affords space in which to walk and +summon your remoter moods without continually turning on your heel, or +seeming to do more than take an afternoon stroll under cover from the +rain or sun. In an uninterrupted course of nearly three hundred steps +eastward, and again nearly three hundred steps westward amid those +magnificent tombs, you can, for instance, compare in the most leisurely +way the dry dustiness which ultimately pervades the persons of kings and +bishops with the damper dustiness that is usually the final shape of +commoners, curates, and others who take their last rest out-of-doors. +Then, if you are in love, you can, by sauntering in the chapels and +behind the episcopal chantries with the bright-eyed one, so steep and +mellow your ecstasy in the solemnities around that it will assume a rarer +and fairer tincture.” + + [Picture: Winchester Cathedral] + +In the city the curfew bell still rings out from the old Guildhall every +evening at eight o’clock, the sentimental survival of an old-time very +real and earnest ordinance; the West Gate remains in the wall, hard by +the fragments of the royal castle; down in the lower extremity of the +city the bishop’s palace and castle of Wolvesey rears its shattered, +ivy-covered walls: much in fine remains of Winchester’s ancient state. + +But now to make an end and to leave Winchester for Salisbury. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + + WINCHESTER TO STOCKBRIDGE AND WEYHILL + +FROM Wintoncester to Melchester—that is to say, from Winchester to +Salisbury—is twenty-three miles if you go by way of Stockbridge and +Winterslow; if by the windings of the valley roads by King’s Somborne and +Mottisfont, anything you like, from thirty upwards, for it is a devious +route and a puzzling. We will therefore take the highway and for the +present leave the byways severely alone. + +The high road goes in an ascent, a white and dusty streak, from +Winchester to Stockbridge, the monotonous undulations of the chalky downs +relieved here and there on the skyline by distant woods, and the wayside +varied at infrequent intervals by murmurous coppices of pines, in whose +sullen depths the riotous winds lose themselves in hollow undertones or +absolute silences. But before the traveller comes thus out into the +country, he must, emerging from the West Gate, win to the open through +the recent suburb of Fulflood; for “Winton” as its natives lovingly name +it, and as the old milestones on this very road agree to style it, has +after many years of slumber waked to life again, and is growing. It is +not a large nor a bustling suburb, this recent fringe upon Winchester’s +ancient kirtle, and you are soon out of it and breasting the slope of +Roebuck Hill. Here, looking back, the tragic outlines of the prison, +with grey-slated roof and ugly octagonal red-brick tower, cut the +horizon: an unlovely palimpsest set above the mediæval graciousness of +the ancient capital of all England, but one that has become, in some +sort, a literary landmark in these later years, for it figures in the +last scene of _Tess of the D’Urbervilles_. In the last chapter of that +strenuous romance you shall read how from the western gate of the city +two persons walked on a certain morning with bowed heads and gait of +grief. They were Angel Clare, the husband, and ’Liza-Lu, the sister of +poor Tess, come to witness the hoisting of the black flag upon the tower +of that inimical building. They witnessed this proof that “‘Justice’ was +done, and the President of the Immortals (in Æschylean phrase) had ended +his sport with Tess,” not from this Stockbridge road, but from the first +milestone on the road to Romsey, whence the city may be seen “as in an +isometric drawing” set down in its vale of Itchen, “the broad cathedral +tower with its Norman windows and immense length of aisle and nave, the +spires of St. Thomas’s, the pinnacled tower of the college, and, more to +the right, the tower and gables of the ancient hospice, where to this day +the pilgrim may receive his dole of bread and ale. Behind the city swept +the rotund upland of St. Catherine’s Hill; further off, landscape beyond +landscape, till the horizon was lost in the radiance of the sun hanging +above it.” + +Turning away from the contemplation of these things, and overpassing the +crest of Roebuck Hill and its sponsorial inn, the road dips down suddenly +into the tiny village of Weeke, whose name is sometimes, with romantic +mediævalism, spelled “Wyke.” For myself, did I reside there, I would +certainly have my notepaper stamped “Wyke next Winchester,” and find much +satisfaction therein. Wyke consists, when fully summed up, of a +characteristic rural Hampshire church, with little wooden belfry and +walls of flint and red brick, of some scattered farms and of a roadside +pond, a great prim red-bricked house of Georgian date, and a row of +pollard limes on a grassy bank overlooking the road. + +And then? Then the road goes on, past more uplands, divided into fields +whose smooth convexity gives the appearance of even greater size than +they possess: every circumstance of their featureless rotundity disclosed +from the highway across the sparse hedges, reduced by free use of the +billhook to the smallest semblance of a hedge, consistent with the +preservation of a boundary. Wayside trees are to seek, and the wayfarer +pants in summer for lack of shade, and in winter is chilled to the bone, +as the winds roam free across Worthy downs. + +Such is the way up Harestock Hill; not so grim as perhaps this +description may convey, but really very beautiful in its sort, with a few +cottages topping the rise where a signpost points a road to Littleton and +Crawley, and where the white-topped equatorial of an observatory serves +to emphasise a wholly unobstructed view over miles of sky. It is only +from vast skyfields such as this that one hears the song of the skylark +on those still summer days when the sky is of the intensest azure blue +and the bees are busy wherever the farmer has left nooks for the +wild-flowers to grow. On such days the dark woods of Lainston, crowning +the distant ridge, lend a welcome shade. Fortunately they are easy of +access, for the road runs by them and an inconspicuous stile leads +directly into one of the rook-haunted alleys of those romantic avenues +with which the place is criss-crossed. A slightly marked footpath +through undergrowth thickly spread with the desiccated leaves of autumns +past, where the hedgehog hides and squirrels and wild life of every kind +abound, leads by a crackling track of dried twigs and the empty husks of +last year’s beech-nuts to another stile and across a byroad into another +of the five grand avenues leading to Lainston House, a romantically +gloomy, but architecturally very fine, late seventeenth-century mansion +embowered amid foliage, with a ruined manorial chapel close at hand in a +darkling corner amid the close-set mossy boles of the trees. The spot +would form an ideal setting for one of the Wessex tales, and indeed has a +part in a sufficiently queer story in actual life. That tale is now +historic—how Walpole’s “Ælia Lælia Chudleigh” was in 1745 privately +married, in this now roofless chapel, to Captain Hervey, a naval officer +who afterwards succeeded to the title of third Earl of Bristol. “Miss +Chudleigh,” however, she still continued to be at Court. Twenty-five +years later she was the heroine of a bigamy case, having married, while +her first husband was living, Pierrepont, Duke of Kingston. This was +that lively lady who, Walpole tells us, “went to Ranelagh as Iphigenia, +but as naked as Andromeda.” + +The ruined chapel has long been in that condition. Its font lies, broken +and green with damp, on the grass, and the old ledger-stones that cover +the remains of Chudleighs and Dawleys, successive owners of the manor, +are cracked and defaced. The “living” of Lainston is worth £60 per +annum, and goes with that of the neighbouring village of Sparsholt, the +vicar holding it by virtue of preaching here once a year. Stress of +weather occasionally obliges him to perform this duty under the shelter +of an umbrella, when his congregation, like that of the saint who +preached to the birds, is composed chiefly of rooks and jackdaws. But +their responses are not always well timed, and the notes of the jackdaw +sound uncommonly like the scoffings of the ribald. + +One emerges from Lainston woods only to perceive this to be a district of +many woodlands. Across the road is Northwood, where, close by Eastman’s +great school, are thick coppices of hazels and undergrowths that the +primroses and bluebells love. In another direction lies Sparsholt. None +may tell what the “Spar” in the place-name of this or the other Sparsholt +in Berkshire means, but “holt” signifies a wood; and thus we may perceive +that the surroundings must still wear very much the aspect they owned +when the name was conferred. Sparsholt has no guidebook +attractions—nothing but its old thatched cottages and quiet surroundings +to recommend it. But the fragrant scent of the wood-smoke from cottage +hearths is over all. You may see its blue filmy wreaths curling upwards +on still days, against the dark background of foliage. It is a rustic +fragrance never forgotten, an aroma which, go whithersoever you will, +brings back the sweet memory of days that were, and the sound of a voice +in more actual fashion than possible to the notes of a well-remembered +song, or the scent of a rose. + +They are not woods of forest trees that beset this district, but hillside +tangles of scrub oaks, of hazels and alders, where the wild-flowers make +a continual glory in early spring. There are the labyrinths of No Man’s +Land, the intricacies of Privet and Crab Wood, through whose bosquets run +the long-deserted Roman road from Winchester to Old Sarum, and the +nameless spinneys dotted everywhere about. Away on the horizon you may +perceive a monument, capping a hill. It is no memorial of gallantries in +war, but is the obelisk erected on Farley Mount to the horse of a certain +“Paulet St. John,” which jumped with him into a chalk-pit twenty-five +feet deep, emerging, with his rider, unhurt. That was in 1733. An +inscription tells how that wonderful animal was afterwards entered for +the Hunters’ Plate, under the name of “Beware Chalk Pit,” at the races on +Worthy downs, and won it. + +Continuing on to Stockbridge, whose race-meeting has recently been +abolished, the way grows grim indeed, with that Roman grimness +characteristic of all the Wessex chalky down country. The road is long, +and at times, when the sun is setting and the landscape fades away in +purple twilight, the explorer becomes obsessed, against all reason, with +the weird notion that the many centuries of civilisation are but a dream +and the distant ages come back again. To this bareness the pleasant +little town of Stockbridge, situated delightfully in the valley of the +Anton, is a gracious interlude. In its old churchyard the curious may +still see the whimsical epitaph to John Bucket, landlord of the “King’s +Head” inn, who died, aged 67, in 1802: + + And is, alas! poor Bucket gone? + Farewell, convivial honest John. + Oft at the well, by fatal stroke + Buckets like pitchers must be broke. + In this same motley shifting scene, + How various have thy fortunes been. + Now lifting high, now sinking low, + To-day the brim would overflow. + Thy bounty then would all supply + To fill, and drink, and leave thee dry. + To-morrow sunk as in a well, + Content unseen with Truth to dwell. + But high or low, or wet or dry, + No rotten stave could malice spy. + Then rise, immortal Bucket, rise + And claim thy station in the skies; + Twixt Amphora and Pisces shine, + Still guarding Stockbridge with thy sign. + +In 1715, when the poet Gay rode horseback to Exeter and wrote a rhymed +account of his journey for the Earl of Burlington, he described +Stockbridge in doleful dumps. Why? Because for seven years there had +been no election: + + Sad melancholy ev’ry visage wears; + What! no election come in seven long years! + Of all our race of Mayors, shall Snow alone + Be by Sir Richard’s dedication known? + Our streets no more with tides of ale shall float! + Nor cobblers feast three years upon one vote. + +Some of this seems cryptic, but it is explained by the fact of Sir +Richard Steele having published, September 22nd, 1713, a quarto pamphlet +entitled _The Importance of Dunkirk considered_ . . . _in a letter to the +Bailiff of Stockbridge_, whose name was John Snow. The number of voters +at Stockbridge was then about seventy, and its population chiefly +cobblers. To say it was a corrupt borough is merely to state what might +be said of almost every one at that time; but it seems to have been +especially notable, even above its corrupt fellows, for a contemporary +chronicler is found writing: “It is a very wet town and the voters are +wet too.” He then continues, as one deploring the depreciation of +securities, “The ordinary price of a vote is £60, but better times may +come.” But when elections only came septennially, the wet voters who +subsisted three years upon one vote must have gone dry, poor fellows, an +unconscionable while. + +Some ten miles north of Stockbridge, on the road past Andover, and +overlooking the valley of the Anton, is Weyhill, a Hardy landmark of +especial importance, for it is the point whence starts that fine tale, +_The Mayor of Casterbridge_, described in its sub-title as “The Life and +Death of a Man of Character.” It is a pleasant country of soft riverain +features by which you who seek to make pilgrimage to this spot shall +fare, coming into the quiet, cheerful little market-town of Andover, and +thenceforward near by the villages which owe their curiously feminine +names to their baptismal river, the Anton. There you shall find Abbot’s +Ann and Little Ann, and I daresay, if you seek long enough, Mary Ann +also. Weyhill, a hamlet in the parish of Penton Mewsey, is a +place—although to look at it, you might not suspect so—of hoary +antiquity, and its Fair—still famous, and still the largest in +England—old enough to be the subject of comment in _Piers Plowman’s +Vision_, in the line: + + At Wy and at Wynchestre I went to ye fair. + +Alas that such things should be! this old-time six-days’ annual market is +now reduced to four. It is held between October 10th and 13th, and +divided into the Sheep, Horse, Hops, Cheese, Statute or Hiring, and +Pleasure Fairs. On each of these days the three miles’ stretch of road +from Andover is thronged with innumerable wayfarers and made unutterably +dusty by the cabs and flys and the dense flocks of sheep and cattle on +their way to the Fair ground. + +There are quaint survivals at Weyhill Fair. An umbrella-seller may +still, with every recurrent year, be seen selling the most bulgeous and +antique umbrellas, some of them almost archaic enough to belong to the +days of Jonas Hanway, who introduced the use of such things in the +eighteenth century; and unheard-of village industries display their +produce to the astonished gaze. Here, for example, you see an exhibit of +modern malt-shovels, together with the maker of them, the “W. Choules +from Penton” whose name is painted up over his unassuming corner; and +although the Londoner has probably never heard of, and certainly never +seen, malt-shovels, the making of them is obviously still a living +industry. + +Greatly to the stranger’s surprise, Weyhill, although in fact situated +above the valley of the Anton, does not appear to be situated on a hill +at all. The road to “Weydon Priors,” by which name it figures in _The +Mayor of Casterbridge_, is indeed, as the novelist sufficiently hints, of +no very marked features. It is “a road neither straight nor crooked, +neither level nor hilly,” and at times other than Fair-time is as quiet a +country road—for a high road—as you shall meet; and, except for that one +week in the year, Weyhill is as a derelict village. There, on a grassy +tableland, stand, deserted for fifty-one weeks out of every fifty-two, +the whitewashed booths and rows of sheds that annually for a brief space +do so strenuous a trade, and scarce a human being comes into view. Even +now, just as in the beginning of the story, Weyhill does not grow: +“Pulling down is more the nater of Weydon.” + + [Picture: Weyhill Fair] + +It is on the last day of the old six-days’ Fair, in 1829, that the story +opens, with a man and woman—the woman carrying a child—walking along this +dusty road. That they were man and wife was, according to the novelist’s +sardonic humour, plain to see, for they carried along with them a “stale +familiarity, like a nimbus.” The man was the hay-trusser, Michael +Henchard, whose after rise to be Mayor of Casterbridge and whose final +fall are chronicled in the story. This opening scene is merely in the +nature of a prologue, disclosing the itinerant hay-trusser seeking work, +coming to the Fair and there selling his wife for five guineas to the +only bidder, a sailor—the second chapter resuming the march of events +eighteen years later. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + + STOCKBRIDGE TO SALISBURY AND STONEHENGE + +RETURNING to Stockbridge, _en route_ for Salisbury, eight miles more of +roads of the same unchanging characteristics, but growing more +plentifully carpeted with crushed flints as we advance, bring us to +Wiltshire and to a junction with the Exeter Road from Andover at Lobcombe +Corner. In the neighbourhood are “the Wallops,” as local parlance refers +to a group of three villages, Over and Nether Wallop, with the wayside +settlement of Little (or Middle) Wallop in between. It is this +last-named to which Mr. Hardy refers when he tells how the ruined and +broken-hearted Mayor of Casterbridge, fleeing from the scene of his +vanished greatness and resuming his early occupation of hay-trusser, +became employed at a “pastoral farm near the old western highway. . . . +He had chosen the neighbourhood of this artery from a sense that, +situated here, though at a distance of fifty miles, he was virtually +nearer to her whose welfare was so dear than he would be at a roadless +spot only half as remote.” Dorchester, otherwise Casterbridge, is in +fact just forty-nine and a half miles distant, down this old Exeter Road. + +In less than another mile on our westward way the sight of a solitary +house in all this apparently uninhabited wilderness arouses speculations +in the pilgrim’s mind—speculations resolved on approach, when the sight +of the recently restored picture-sign of the “Pheasant,” reared up on its +posts on the short grass of the open down, opposite its door, proclaims +this to be the old coaching inn once famed as “Winterslow Hut.” None +ever spoke of the inn in those days as the “Pheasant,” although that was +the sign of it, plainly to be seen; as “Winterslow Hut” it was always +known, and a more lonely, forbidding place of seclusion from the haunts +of man it would be difficult to find. It was once, appropriately enough, +the retreat of a lonely, forbidding person—the self-selected place of +exile from society of Hazlitt, the essayist, who, parting from his wife +at the village of West Winterslow (whence the inn takes its name of +“Winterslow Hut”) two miles away, lived here from 1819 to 1828. Here he +wrote the essays on “Persons one would wish to have seen,” and the much +less sociable essay, “On Living to One’s Self”—an art he practised here +to his own satisfaction and the cheerful resignation of the many persons +with whom he quarrelled. And here he saw the Exeter Mail and the +stage-coaches go by, and must have found the place even lonelier, in the +intervals after their passing, than it seems now that the Road, as an +institution, is dead and the Rail conveys the traffic to and from +Salisbury and the west, some two miles distant, across country hidden +from view from this point beneath the swelling shoulders of the +unchanging downs. + +Salisbury spire is soon seen, when the long drop into the valley of the +Wiltshire Avon, down Three Mile Hill, begins; its slender spire, the +tallest in England, thrusting its long needle-point 404 feet into the +blue, and oddly peering out from the swooping sides of the downs, long +before any suspicion of Sarum itself—as the milestones style it—has +occupied the mind of the literary pilgrim. + +Salisbury, like some bland and contented elderly spinster, does not look +its age. When you are told how Old Sarum was abandoned, New Sarum +founded, and everything recreated _ad hoc_ at the command of Bishop +Poore, impelled thereto by a vision, in the then customary way, you are +so impressed with what we are used to regard as such thoroughly +“American” proceedings that you forget, in the apparent modernity of such +a method, how very long ago all this was done. This great change of site +took place about 1220, and sixty years later the great cathedral, +remarkable and indeed unique among all our cathedrals for being designed +and built, from the laying of the foundation stone to the roofing-in of +the building, in one—the Early English—style, was completed. It was +actually a century later that the spire itself was finished. + +Much of this seeming youthfulness of Salisbury is due to the regularity +of plan upon which the city is laid out, and to the comparative breadth +of its streets. To that phenomenally simple-minded person, Tom Pinch, +whose like certainly could never have been met with outside the pages of +_Martin Chuzzlewit_, Salisbury seemed “a very desperate sort of place; an +exceedingly wild and dissipated city.” Here we smile superior, although +it is true that in his short story, _On the Western Circuit_, Mr. Hardy +presents Melchester, as he names this fair city, as given over to blazing +orgies in the progress of Melchester Fair, with steam-trumpeting +merry-go-rounds, glamour and glitter, glancing young women no better than +they ought to be, and an amorous young barrister much worse than he +should have been. Granting the truth of this picture of Melchester Fair, +it is to be observed that this is but an interlude in a twelvemonth’s +programme of polished, decorous, and well-ordered urbanity. Its +character is more truly portrayed in _Jude the Obscure_, where Sue +Bridehead having gone to the city, to enter the Training College in the +Close, her cousin Jude follows her. He found it “a quiet and soothing +place, almost entirely ecclesiastical in its tone; a spot where worldly +learning and intellectual smartness had no establishment.” It was here +he obtained work at his trade of stonemason, labouring on the restoration +of the cathedral; here that Sue shocked his ecclesiastical and mediæval +bent, meeting his suggestion that they should sit for a talk in the +cathedral by the proposal that she would rather wait in the railway +station: “That’s the centre of town life now—the cathedral has had its +day!” To his shocked interjection, “How modern you are!” she replied +defensively, “I am not modern, either. I am more ancient than +mediævalism, if you only knew”; meaning thereby that she was enamoured of +classicism and the old pagans. + +To Sue the cathedral was not unsympathetic merely by force of that +clear-cut regularity which impresses most beholders with a sense of a +splendid, but cold, perfection. There are those who compare this great +fane with Tennyson’s Lady Clara Vere de Vere: + + Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null, + Dead perfection, no more; + +but while those critics are critics only of design and carved stones, who +would welcome something in its regular features paralleled by a +tip-tilted nose in a human face, Sue was obviously preoccupied by the +sense that it, not alone among cathedrals, has outlived the devotional +needs that produced it, and is little more than a magnificent museum of +architectural antiquities. That magnificence would be even more complete +and pronounced had not the egregious James Wyatt been let loose upon the +“restoration” of it, towards the close of the eighteenth century, when he +cast out and destroyed most of its internal adornments, and pulled down +and utterly obliterated the beautiful detached bell tower, coeval with +the cathedral itself, which stood, away from it, on the north side. + +It is perhaps worthy of remark that there may be noticed in the cathedral +the tomb, with somewhat bombastic inscription, of Dr. D’Albigny +Turberville, the seventeenth-century oculist, who died, aged 85, in 1696. +The flagrant Latin, which tells us that his fame shall perish no sooner +than this marble, does not allow for human forgetfulness, nor for the +advances of science. + +The Normal School in the Close, whence Sue escaped, after being confined +to her room as a punishment for her night’s escapade with Jude, is a +prominent building, described as “an ancient edifice of the fifteenth +century, once a palace . . . with mullioned and transomed windows, and a +courtyard in front shut in from the road by a wall.” + + [Picture: Salisbury Cathedral] + +From the ever-impending tragedy of Jude’s ambitions it is a relief to +turn to the pure comedy of Betty Dornell, the first Countess of Wessex, +in that collection of diverting short stories, _A Group of Noble Dames_. +Looking upon those two old inns, the “Red Lion” in the High Street and +the “White Hart,” we are reminded that it was to the first-named that +Betty resorted with that husband with whom, although married at an early +age, she had not lived. + +“‘Twice we met by accident,’ pleaded Betty to her mother. ‘Once at +Abbot’s Cernel and another time at the “Red Lion,” Melchester.’ + +“‘O, thou deceitful girl!’ cried Mrs. Dornell. ‘An accident took you to +the “Red Lion” whilst I was staying at the “White Hart”! I remember—you +came in at twelve o’clock at night and said you’d been to see the +cathedral by the light o’ the moon!’ + +“‘My ever-honoured mamma, so I had! I only went to the “Red Lion” with +him afterwards.’” + +Nine miles to the north of Melchester stands Stonehenge, reached after +their flight through the deserted midnight streets of the city by Tess +and Angel Clare, vainly endeavouring to elude justice after the murder of +the sham D’Urberville at Sandbourne. The night was “as dark as a cave,” +and a stiff breeze blew as they came out upon the black solitudes of +Salisbury Plain. For some miles they had proceeded thus, when “on a +sudden Clare became conscious of some vast erection close in his front, +rising sheer from the grass. They had almost struck themselves against +it. + +“‘What monstrous place is this?’ said Angel. + +“‘It hums,’ said she. ‘Hearken!’ + +“The wind, playing upon the edifice, produced a booming tune, like the +note of some gigantic one-stringed harp.” It was indeed Stonehenge, “a +very Temple of the Winds.” + +And here, as the night wore away, and Tess lay sleeping on the Altar +Stone, and the great trilithons began to show up blackly against the +coming dawn, the figure of a man advancing towards them appeared rising +out of the hollows of the great plain. At the same time Clare heard the +brush of feet behind him: they were surrounded. Thoughts of resistance +came to him; but “‘It’s no use, sir,’ said the foremost plain-clothes +man: ‘There are sixteen of us on the Plain, and the whole country is +reared.’” And so they stood watching while Tess finished her sleep. + +Stonehenge sadly requires such romantic passages as this to renew its +interest, for, truth to tell, the first glimpse of this mysterious +monument of prehistoric ages is wofully disappointing. No use to strive +against that disappointment as you come up the long rises from Amesbury +under the midday sun and see its every time-worn cranny displayed +mercilessly in the impudent eye of day: the interval between anticipation +and realisation is too wide, and the apparent smallness and +insignificance of the great stone circles must, although unwillingly, be +allowed. This comparative insignificance is, however, largely the effect +of their almost boundless environment of vast downs, tumid with the +attendant circles of prehistoric tumuli, each tumulus or barrow crowned +with its clump of trees, like the tufted plumes of a hearse. + + [Picture: Stonehenge] + +Mystery continues to shroud the origin of Stonehenge, which was probably +standing when the Romans first overran Britain, and seems by the most +reasoned theories to have really been a Temple of the Sun. Its name is +only the comparatively modern one of “Stanenges,” or “the hanging +stones,” given by the Saxons, who discovered it with as much astonishment +as exhibited by any one of a later age, and so named it, not from any +reference to the capital punishment of _sus. per coll._, but from the +great lintel-stones that are laid flat upon the tall rude columns, and +may fancifully be said to hang in mid-air, at a height of twenty-five +feet. + +Those who speak of Stonehenge remaining a “monument to all time,” speak +not according to knowledge, for the poor old relic is becoming sadly +weatherworn and decrepit, and has aged rapidly of late years. No good +has been wrought it by the fussy interferences and impertinences of +“scientific” men, who, taking advantage of an alleged necessity for +shoring up one the largest stones, dug about the soil and strove to wrest +its secret by the method of sifting the spadesful of earth and stone +chippings. Then a last indignity befell it. Sir Edward Antrobus, of +Amesbury, lord of the manor, claimed Stonehenge as his manorial property, +and, erecting a barbed-wire fence around it, levied a fee of a shilling a +head for admission through the turnstiles that click you through, for all +the world as though you were entering some Earl’s Court Exhibition. The +impudence that has found it possible to do these things, in defiance of +undoubted public rights of way, bulks majestically—much larger than +Stonehenge itself, whose grey pile it indeed belittles and vulgarises. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + + THE OLD COACH-ROAD: SALISBURY TO BLANDFORD + +IT is thirty-eight and a half miles from Salisbury to Dorchester, the +“Casterbridge” of the novels, along the old coach-road to Exeter. +Speaking as an exploratory cyclist, I would ten times rather go the +reverse way, from west to east, for the gradients are all against the +westward traveller, and westerly winds are the prevailing airs during +summer and autumn. It is, indeed, a terribly difficult road, exposed, +and very trying in its long rises. One charming interlude there is, +three miles from Salisbury, at the beautifully situated little village of +Coombe Bissett, set down in the deep valley of an affluent of the +Wiltshire Avon; but it is heartbreaking work climbing out of it again, up +the inclines of Crowden Down. At eight miles’ distance from Salisbury +the old Woodyates Inn, long since re-christened the “Shaftesbury Arms,” +stands in a lonely situation beside the road, looking regretful for +bygone coaching days. Its old name, deriving from “wood-gates,” +indicated its position on the south-western marches of the wooded +district of Cranborne Chase. When railways disestablished coaches and +the road resumed its solitude, the old inn became for a time the home of +William Day’s training establishment for racehorses. He tells, in his +recollections, of the drinking habits of the old Wiltshire farmers in +general, and of two in particular, who used to call at Woodyates when on +their way to or from Salisbury. They would talk, over the fire and their +glasses of grog, somewhat in this fashion of their drunken exploits when +riding home horseback: “Well, John, I fell off ten times.” “Yes, Thomas, +and I fell off a dozen times: you see, I rode the old black horse, and he +always jerks me about so.” It was said that there was scarcely a yard of +ground over the eight miles that these worthies had not fallen on to from +their horses. + + [Picture: Pentridge] + +At the distance of a mile from the coach-road at this point, where, by +the way, we leave Wilts and enter Dorset, is the Hardy landmark of +“Trantridge,” to be identified with the little village of Pentridge set +down on the map. It was to Trantridge that Tess came early in her +career, from her home at Marnhull in the Vale of Blackmore, to take +service with Mrs. Stoke-D’Urberville of The Slopes, relict of Mr. Simon +Stoke, merchant or money-lender, who had unwarrantably assumed the name, +the crest, and arms of the knightly D’Urbervilles—dead and gone and +powerless to resent the affront. It would be useless to seek The Slopes, +rising in all the glory of its new crimson brick “like a geranium bloom +against the subdued colours around”; but plain to see, not far away, is +the “soft azure landscape of the Chase—a truly venerable tract of forest +land, one of the few remaining woodlands in England, of undoubted +primæval date.” It was in the Chase that the ruin of Tess was wrought by +Alec D’Urberville. + +The exceedingly rustic village of Pentridge nestles under the lee of a +long, partly wooded hill, probably the “ridge” referred to in the +place-name. In the little highly restored or rebuilt church with the +stone spirelet is now to be seen, since August, 1902, when it was +erected, the plain white marble tablet: + + TO THE MEMORY OF + ROBERT BROWNING, + + of Woodyates, in this parish, who died Nov. 25th, 1746, + and is the first known forefather of + Robert Browning, the poet. + + He was formerly footman and butler in the + Bankes family. + + “All service ranks the same with God.” + + BROWNING. + + _This Tablet_ + was erected by some of the poet’s friends and admirers + 1902. + +Much reflected glory doubtless accrues to “the Bankes family” from this +tablet, which owes its being to the exertions of Dr. F. J. Furnivall. It +seems that the poet’s ancestor, after severing his connection with the +Bankes, became landlord of the Woodyates Inn, and churchwarden here. + +This entrance to Dorsetshire is not so favourable an one as that, for +example, from Somerset, by Templecombe and Stalbridge or Sherborne, where +Dorset is indeed like unto the Land of Promise, a land flowing with milk +and honey, where herds of cattle low musically in mead or byre, and the +earth is alluvial—rich, deep, and sticky. + +Here is the more arid, elevated country of open down; chalky, and +producing only coarse grass, pine-trees, bracken, and furze—a +sheep-grazing, as opposed to a cattle-rearing, district. Dorset is +indeed a greatly varied county in the character of its soils. The +sheep-grazing districts may be said to be this of the north-east border, +and those other stretches of lofty, almost waterless chalk downs, running +due east and west, parallel with the coast, with a similarly lengthy, but +broader, stretch in a like direction, from where the downs rise from the +Stour at Sturminster Marshall, past Milton Abbas and Cerne Abbas, on to +Beaminster. In between these are the valleys of the River Frome—the +“Vale of Great Dairies” of _Tess of the D’Urbervilles_, and the “Vale of +Little Dairies” in the same story, otherwise Blackmore Vale. A glance at +the map will show the River Frome flowing in its “green trough of +sappiness and humidity” from the neighbourhood of Beaminster, past +Chilfroom, Frome Vanchurch, and Frampton, which most obviously take their +name from the stream, to Dorchester, Moreton, Wool, and Wareham, whence +it pours its enriching waters into Poole Harbour; and another glance will +discover the Vale of Little Dairies, or Blackmore, bounded by Blandford +and Minterne Magna, and the heights of High Stoy on the south, and by +Shaftesbury, Wincanton, and Sherborne on the north; including within its +compass Stalbridge and Sturminster Newton, together with a host of small +villages. The natural outlet of this last district—which, despite the +name of “Little Dairies,” given to it in the pages of the novels, is a +larger area than that of the Frome valley, and of course produces in the +aggregation more—is the railway junction of Templecombe, which, beyond +being a mere junction, is also an exceedingly busy and bustling place for +the receipt of all this dairy produce of Blackmore. + +Such are, roughly, the main agricultural divisions of Dorset, which is, +to the hard-working farmer who is his own bailiff, with his family to aid +in the dairy-work, still a county where ends may be made to meet, with a +considerable selvedge or overlapping to sweeten his industry. Despite a +very general belief current in towns, there are still considerable +numbers of these families. The farmer and his wife have largely grown +out of the rustic speech, and their sons and daughters—the daughters +especially, the adaptive dears!—have got culture for leisure moments, but +they are none the less practical for that. A generation ago, perhaps, +things were not so pleasing, for the then would-be up-to-date attempted +the absurdity of aping the leisured classes, while seeking to carry on +farming and obtain a living by it. Such as those came to grief, and were +rightly the butts of outside observers, as well as of moralists of their +own class. A thorough-going farmer of that period, who saw the daughters +of his neighbour going on the way to their music-lesson, reported his +feelings and sayings as follows: + +“While I and an’ my wife were out a-milken, they maidens went by, an’ I +zaid to her, ‘Where be they maidens a-gwoin’?’ an’ she zaid, ‘Oh! they be +a-gwoin’ to their music.’ An’ I zaid, ‘Oh! a-gwoin’ to their music at +milken-time! That ’ull come to zom’ehat, that wull.’” And it doubtless +did come to a pretty considerable deal, if—as a doctor might say—the +course of the disease was normal. + +Resuming the main road, which for the distance of a mile beyond Woodyates +is identical with the old Roman road, the Via Iceniana, that ancient +relic of a past civilisation may presently be seen parting company from +the modern highway, and going off by itself, to the left, across the +downs, making for the great fortified hill of Badbury Rings. It is known +locally as the Achling Dyke, and is somewhat conspicuously elevated above +the bracken, the gorse, and heather of these wilds. + +Now, passing a few scattered cottages, we come—in fifteen miles from +Coombe Bissett—to a village, the first on this lonely main road. Tarrant +Hinton, this welcome village, stands on a sparkling little stream, +without doubt the “tarrant,” or torrent, whence it and a small sisterhood +of neighbouring settlements obtain a generic name. There are Tarrant +Gunville, Tarrant Monkton, Tarrant Rawston, Tarrant Rushton, Tarrant +Keynston, and Tarrant Crawford; and then, as below the last-named place +the little stream falls into the Stour, there are no more Tarrants. + + [Picture: Eastbury] + +To Tarrant Gunville belongs Eastbury Park, a place of Hardyesque and +romantic aspect; but, so far, not made the vehicle of any of his stories. +It has, to be sure, a story of its own—a tale of vaulting ambition which +fell on t’other side. Eastbury was built, like many another ponderous +and overgrown mansion of the eighteenth century, by Vanbrugh, to the +commission of George Dodington, a former Lord of the Admiralty, who, +growing enormously rich by long-continued peculation, blossomed out as a +patron of the arts and a friend of literature. But before his huge house +could be completed he was gathered to his fathers and to judgment upon +his illegitimate pickings, leaving all his wealth to his grandnephew, +George Bubb Dodington, afterwards Lord Melcombe, who lavished £140,000 on +the completion of the works. Here he too became a patron, and +entertained the literary men of his time until 1762, when, dying, the +property went to Earl Temple, who, unable to afford the expense of +maintaining the immense place, actually offered—and offered in vain—an +income of £200 a year to any one who would reside at Eastbury and keep it +in repair. As this bait failed, the great house was dismantled and +demolished, piecemeal, in 1795, only one wing remaining to attest its +former grandeur. + +But traces of that grandeur are not wanting, from the iron railings, +stone piers, and decorative kerbs, carved boldly with an acanthus-leaved +design, that conduct into the demesne, to the magnificent clumps of +beeches and other forest trees studding the sward of what was the park; +and that remaining wing itself, still disclosing in its arcade, or +loggia, something of Vanbrugh’s design. + +Eastbury, of course, is haunted—so much is to be expected of such a +place; but those who have seen the headless coachman and his ghostly +four-in-hand issuing from the park gates, or returning, are growing +scarce, and times are become so sceptical that even they cannot obtain +credence. So, with a sigh for the decay of belief, we will e’en on +through Pimperne down to Blandford, which good town, of fine dignified +classic architectural presence, the coach-road enters in a timid +back-doors manner, down a narrow byway. + +Blandford is further dignified by that curious pedantic Latinity very +marked in many Dorsetshire place-names. In this manner it is made to +figure as “Blandford Forum,” a rendering of “Blandford Market.” In Mr. +Thomas Hardy’s pages it is “Shottsford Forum,” and so appears in his +story of _Barbara of the House of Grebe_, in _Far from the Madding +Crowd_, and again in _The Woodlanders_, wherein it is stated, from the +mouth of a rustic character, that “Shottsford is Shottsford still: you +can’t victual your carcass there unless you’ve got money, and you can’t +buy a cup of genuine there, whether or no”; this last a sad drawback from +the amenities of a delightful town. But there is a very excellent pump, +and an historic, in the broad High Street, whereon, cast in enduring +iron, it may be read how a certain John Bastard, a “considerable sharer” +in the great calamity by which Blandford was burnt in 1731, “humbly +erected this monument, in grateful Acknowledgement of the Divine Mercy, +That has since raised this Town, Like the Phoenix from its Ashes, to its +present flourishing and beautiful State.” That, it will be allowed, is +rather a fine, curly, and romantic way of putting it. A rider to this +inscription goes on to say that in 1899 the Corporation of Blandford +converted the pump into a drinking-fountain, and that the Blandford +Waterworks Company, not halting in good deeds, gratuitously supplies the +water. + +The pilgrim who, arriving in Blandford hot, dusty and thirsty, and +perhaps mindful of that alleged impossibility of buying a cup of genuine, +essays to drink from the fountain, is at first surprised at the keen +interest taken in his proceedings by a quickly collecting group of +urchins. Their curiosity appears to be in the nature of surprise at the +sight of a grown man drinking water, but light is shed upon it when, +pressing hard the obstinate knob that releases the fount, the thing +suddenly gives way and squirts half a pint or so up his sleeve. This is +a never-failing form of entertainment to the youth of Blandford, and a +cheap one. + +Not once, but several times has Blandford been destroyed by fire. It +owed these disasters to the old Dorsetshire fashion of thatched roofs, +and only in time, by dint of repeated happenings in this sort, learned +wisdom. This light dawned at the time when the classic revival in +architecture was flourishing, and thus, as already hinted, Blandford’s +High Street is wholly of that character. Classicism does not often make +for beauty in English towns, but here the general effect is admirable, +and although the stone of the fine church-tower—designed in the same +taste—is of a jaundiced greenish-yellow hue, it is a noble feature. + +Blandford’s natives have sometimes won to a great deal more than local +fame; witness Alfred Stevens, the designer of the Wellington monument in +St. Paul’s Cathedral, who was born in 1817, in Salisbury Street, that +back-doors coach-road entrance into the town already mentioned. +Willowes, the unhappy husband of Barbara, of the House of Grebe, was a +descendant of one of the old families of glass-painters of Shottsford +mentioned in that story, and more particularly referred to by Aubrey, the +antiquary, who says: “Before the Reformation, I believe there was no +country or great town in England but had glasse painters. Old Harding of +Blandford in Dorsetshire, where I went to schoole, was the only country +glasse painter that ever I knew. Upon play daies I was wont to visit his +shop and furnaces. He dyed about 1643, aged about 83 or more.” That +craft has long since died out from the town. + + [Picture: Blandford Forum] + +A beautiful backward view of the town is obtained on leaving it, over the +Town Bridge that spans the sluggish, lily-grown Stour, at the entrance to +Lord Portman’s noble park of Bryanstone. Here a dense overarching canopy +of trees gives a grateful shade on summer days and frames the distant +prospect whence the classic tower of the church grandly rises. The +entrance-gates to the domain of Bryanstone are jealously kept locked and +guarded, but there be ways of circumventing this churlish exclusiveness +and of seeing the astonishingly beautiful scenery of the park, as the +present writer has by chance discovered for himself. You, at the cost of +some effort in hill-climbing, take the defences in the rear, and entering +away back by the farmstead and workshops of the estate, come down by the +finest of the scenery to those selfsame locked gates at these outskirts +of Blandford, to observe and hear with some secret satisfaction the +expressed horror of the lodge-keeper, only too anxious to let you out and +be rid of you. + +But, for the unenterprising, there is a sufficiently beautiful distant +view of the park and of the new mansion from the Town Bridge. A former +Lord Portman in 1780 employed James Wyatt to build him a classic mansion +which remained until the rule of the present owner of the title, who +demolished and replaced it with the fine mansion designed by Norman Shaw, +R.A., and built in red brick and Portland stone. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + + THE OLD COACH-ROAD: BLANDFORD TO DORCHESTER + +FROM this point the old coach-road becomes astonishingly hilly, so that +mere words cannot accurately portray it, and recourse must be had to the +eloquent armoury of the printer’s case to set it forth in any truly +convincing manner. The series of semicircular dumpling hills is not +adequately to be shadowed forth by the aid of mere brackets—we must +picture them thus: + + [Picture: Representation of Hills in Type] + +and, to give some notion of the quality of the surface during the heats +of summer, let a glaring white surface five inches deep in dust and +powdered flint be imagined, the whole stirred up into a stifling halo of +floating particles by the frequent passage of a flock of sheep. Such is +the Exeter Road between Blandford and Dorchester in the merry months of +summer. + +Five miles of this bring us to the village of Winterborne Whitchurch, +anciently referred to as “Album Monasterium” or “Blaunch Minster,” +situated in the stony bottom where the little stream called the +Winterborne does not in summer flow across the road. John Wesley, +grandfather of the more famous John, the founder of Methodism, was vicar +of this parish in 1658, and on the Restoration was dispossessed, when he +took to a life of itinerant preaching amid the hills and dales of +Dorsetshire, not altogether dissimilar from that of his celebrated +grandson. Here, about 1540, was born George Turberville, the poet. To +this succeeds, in less than another three miles, Milborne St. Andrew, on +the less dried up Mill Bourne. This, the “Millpond St. Jude’s” alluded +to in _Far from the Madding Crowd_, is a pretty place, of an old-world +coaching interest, reflected from its partly thatched “Royal Oak” inn and +the post office, once the “White Hart,” with the imposing effigy of a +white hart still prominent on its cornice, in company with those of two +foxes and a row of miniature cannon. Up along a byroad, past the +feathery poplars that lend so feminine an air of beauty to the village, +is the church, and then the Manor House Farm, once the residence of the +Mansell Pleydells, who since the building of Whatcombe House, near by +Winterborne Whitchurch, in 1758, have left this residence to farming. +The red-brick pillars of the entrance-gates remain—partly ruined and +standing foolishly, without a trace of the old carriage drive that once +went between them—on the grass, surmounted still with sculptured displays +of military trophies surrounding a cartouche bearing the lichened arms of +the Pleydells, including an inescutcheon of pretence showing that before +they allied themselves with a Mansell they married money with a Morton. +It is a fine house, full of character, with unusually—and somewhat +foreign-looking—high-pitched roof. Grand old trees lead up to it, and in +the distance one perceives a manorial pigeon-house, against the skyline. +The old drive led round to the other side of the mansion, where it is +divided from the meadows by a moatlike cut in the Mill Bourne, now, +however, richer in mud than in water, and crossed by a brick bridge. We +can picture Lady Constantine, the susceptible young and wealthy widow of +the defunct Sir Blount, stealing at night over this bridge, to visit +Swithin St. Cleeve, stargazing in his lonely tower on the hilltop. In +the garden, with its sundial, are pretty old-world box-edged flower-beds +and shady arbours. Foundations of many demolished buildings are +traceable in the meadows. + + [Picture: The Old Manor-House, Milborne St. Andrew] + +The scene of _Two on a Tower_ is a selection from various places. “The +tower,” Mr. Hardy writes to me, “had two or three originals—Horton, +Charborough, etc.” Those other places are duly described in these pages, +but the “etc.” covers the curious brick obelisk built on the summit of +the earthwork-encircled hill near by this old manor-house of Milborne St. +Andrew, and called Weatherbury Castle. Standing on this “fir-shrouded +hilltop,” one may see, for many miles around, summer conflagrations among +the furze on Bere Heath, the tall tower in Charborough Park, which, much +more than this obelisk, resembles Swithin’s observatory, and, near at +hand, below, this old manor-house, the “Welland House” of the story. +From this eyrie, too, you perceive the old Exeter Road swooping whitely +downhill, and hear the hum of threshing-machines, coming up, like the +drowsy buzz of insects, from the vale. + + [Picture: Weatherbury Castle] + +It is not difficult to detect sarcasm in the description of this hill. +It “was (according to some antiquaries) an old Roman camp—if it were not +(as others insisted) an old British castle, or (as the rest swore) an old +Saxon field of Witanagemote—with remains of an outer and an inner vallum, +a winding path leading up between their overlapping ends by an easy +ascent.” + + [Picture: The Obelisk, Weatherbury Castle] + +Not so easy, really—indeed, demanding a rather strenuous climb. And when +you are on the crest of that ancient glacis (impregnable it might well +have been when men fought hand to hand) it is with some difficulty you +penetrate the dense woodland growing within this _ceinture_. Little can +in these times be seen of the obelisk from without: only from one +particular view-point can you observe its ultimate inches and the metal +ball that caps it, rising mysteriously from amid the topmost branches of +the fir-trees. Its situation is exactly described in the story: “The +gloom and solitude which prevailed round the base were remarkable. The +sob of the environing trees” (how like, by the way, to that passage in +Mr. W. S. Gilbert’s _Ruddigore_, “the sob of the breeze is heard in the +trees”) “was here expressively manifest, and, moved by the light breeze, +their thin straight stems rocked in seconds, like inverted pendulums, +while some boughs and twigs rubbed the pillar’s sides, or occasionally +clicked in catching each other. Below the level of their summits the +masonry was lichen-stained and mildewed, for the sun never pierced that +moaning cloud of blue-black vegetation. Pads of moss grew in the joints +of the stonework, and here and there shade-loving insects had engraved on +the mortar patterns of no human style or meaning, but curious and +suggestive.” + +[Picture: E.M.P. inscription on obelisk] The why or purpose of this +slight brick structure are lost. The only clue, afforded by the +inscription on a stone tablet set in the lichened bricks, points to it +being the handiwork of a Pleydell. It was, in fact, built by Edmund +Morton Pleydell, but his purpose, if indeed he had one beyond a singular +notion of ornament, has passed, with himself, beyond these voices; and +the neglected condition of the monument—if indeed it be a monument—fully +bears out the moral reflection in _Two on a Tower_. “Here stood this +aspiring piece of masonry, erected as the most conspicuous and +ineffaceable reminder of a man that could be thought of; and yet the +whole aspect of the memorial betokened forgetfulness. Probably not a +dozen people within the district knew the name of the person +commemorated, while perhaps not a soul remembered whether the column were +hollow or solid, whether with or without a tablet explaining its date and +purpose.” + +Regaining the high road and passing uphill by where the Dewlish toll-gate +once stood, and by an up-and-down course infinitely varied as to +gradient, we come at length down to the valley of the Piddle, and to +Piddletown, the “Weatherbury” of _Far from the Madding Crowd_, where +Gabriel Oak, come down in the world by the agency of Fate and his foolish +young sheep-dog, took service with his distractingly elusive dear, +Bathsheba Everdene, the lady-farmer. Weatherbury, as Mr. Hardy +regretfully tells us, is not the Weatherbury he once knew. It has indeed +been very largely rebuilt, and the rather stern and prim limestone +cottages that stand prominently in one of its several streets do not +altogether prepossess one in favour of this village that is not quite a +townlet and yet may quite possibly resent the more rustic definition. +The “several” streets are, after all, rather roads, with rows of houses +and cottages less integrally than incidentally there, and the several are +perhaps reducible to a term less connotive of number; but they run in +unexpected directions and uncovenanted angles, and so make an imposing +show, comparable with the effect produced by six supers who, by judicious +stage-management in passing and repassing, can be made to represent an +army. But the Piddle, running sparkling and clear through Piddletown, +redeems the conjoined effect of those streets and gives the place a final +and definitive _cachet_ of rurality, by no means belied by the very +large, though very rustic, church—happily still unrestored, and, with its +tall pews and fine Jacobean carved oak choir-gallery, a perfect picture +of an ancient Wessex place of worship. Hardean village choirs and +Gabriel Oak’s bass voice take, if it be possible, an even greater air of +actuality to the pilgrim who enters here. + +The interest of Piddletown church is added to by the fine and curious +bowl font, diapered in an unusual pattern, and by the tombs of the +Martins of Athelhampton, who lie mediævally recumbent in effigy in their +own chapel, quite unconcerned, although scored over with the initials of +the undistinguished, and although their old manor-house of Athelhampton, +near by, on the road to Bere Regis, has since the time they became +extinct passed through several alien hands. Poor old fellows! Their +somewhat threatening motto, under their old monkey crest, of “He who +looks at Martin’s ape Martin’s ape shall look at him!” has lost any point +it ever had. + + [Picture: Piddletown] + +A touching epitaph desires your prayers for two of the family: + + Here lyeth the body of Xpofer Martyn Esquyer, + Sone and heyre unto Syr Willym Martyn, knyght, + Pray for there Soules with harty desyre + That bothe may be sure of Eternall lyght; + Calling to Remembraunce that ev’ry wyhgt + Most nedys dye, and therefor lett us pray + As other for us may do Another day. + +This church of Piddletown, or “Weatherbury,” is the scene of Sergeant +Troy’s belated remorse and of the acute misery of that incident where, +coming by the light of a lantern and planting flowers on Fanny Robin’s +grave, he sleeps in the porch while the rain-storm breaks and the +storm-water from the gurgoyles of the tower spouts furiously over the +spot. + +“The persistent torrent from the gurgoyle’s jaws directed all its +vengeance into the grave. The rich tawny mould was stirred into motion, +and boiled like chocolate. The water accumulated and washed deeper down, +and the roar of the pool thus formed spread into the night. . . . The +flowers so carefully planted by Fanny’s repentant lover began to move and +writhe in their bed. The winter-violets turned slowly upside down, and +became a mere mat of mud. Soon the snowdrops and other bulbs danced in +the boiling mass like ingredients in a cauldron. Plants of the tufted +species were loosened, rose to the surface, and floated off.” + +The street beside the church retains a good deal of its quaint features +of thatch and plaster, with deep eaves where the house-martins build. A +pretty corner including an old thatched house with architectonic windows +closely resembling those of a Queen Anne bureau, and supported on pillars +having a cousinship with classic art, is especially noticeable. + + [Picture: A quaint corner in Piddletown] + +If we wish to see the old mansion that served as model for Bathsheba’s +farm, we shall not find it in Piddletown, but must turn aside and proceed +up the valley of the Piddle, in the direction of Piddlehinton and +Piddletrenthide—usually termed “Longpiddle.” Before reaching these, at +the distance of rather over a mile, we come to Lower Walterstone, where, +behind noble groups of beeches, horse-chestnuts, and sycamores growing on +raised grassy banks, it will be found, in the shape of a Jacobean mansion +eloquently portrayed by the novelist: + +“By daylight, the bower of Oak’s new-found mistress, Bathsheba Everdene, +presented itself as a hoary building, of the Jacobean stage of Classic +Renaissance as regards its architecture, and of a proportion which told +at a glance that, as is so frequently the case, it had once been the +manorial hall upon a small estate around it, now altogether effaced as a +distinct property, and merged in the vast tract of a non-resident +landlord which comprised several such modest demesnes. Fluted pilasters, +worked from the solid stone, decorated its front, and above the roof +pairs of chimneys were here and there linked by an arch, some gables and +other unmanageable features still retaining traces of their Gothic +extraction. Soft brown mosses, like faded velveteen, formed cushions +upon the stone tiling, and tufts of the houseleek or sengreen sprouted +from the eaves of the low surrounding buildings. A gravel walk leading +from the door to the road in front was incrusted at the sides with more +moss—here it was a silver-green variety, the nut-brown of the gravel +being visible to the width of only a foot or two in the centre. This +circumstance, and the generally sleepy air of the whole prospect here, +together with the animated and contrasting state of the reverse façade, +suggested to the imagination that, on the adaptation of the building for +farming purposes, the vital principle of the house had turned round +inside its body, to face the other way.” + +The way from Piddletown to Dorchester, passing the hamlet singularly and +interestingly named “Troy Town,” which, although itself intrinsically +without visible interest, invites speculation, presently passes over +Yellowham Hill, clothed in luxuriant woods. This spot, the “Yalbury +Hill” of Troy’s excruciatingly pitiful meeting with Fanny Robin, figures, +together with the woodlands—the “Yalbury Great Wood” of _Under the +Greenwood Tree_—in several others among the Wessex stories. Coming to it +in old times, the coaches changed horses at the “Buck’s Head” inn, now +quite disestablished and forgot, save for the humorous description of it +to be found in the pages of _Far from the Madding Crowd_. Unswervingly +the highway passes over its crest and down on the other side, the +wayfarer along it watched by bright-eyed squirrels and the other lesser +fauna of this dense covert, while he thinks himself unobserved. It is a +lovely road, but you should see it and its encompassing woods in autumn, +when the October sunshine, with that characteristic golden sheen peculiar +to the time of year, falls between the rich red trunks of the firs on to +the golden-brown of the dried bracken; when the acorns are ripe on the +dwarf oaks and fall with startling little crashes into the sere leaves of +the undergrowth; when the nuts are ripe on the hazels and the +squirrels—too busy now to follow the wayfarer’s movements—are +industriously all day long gathering store of them over against winter. +Then Yellowham Woods are at their finest. + + [Picture: Lower Walterstone Farm: Original of Bathsheba’s farm] + +Where the descent from this eminence reaches an intermediate level, +preparatory to diving again downwards, the road takes a curve through the +park-lands of Kingston House, a stately but cold-looking mansion of +stone, figuring in that first novel, _Desperate Remedies_, as “Knapwater +House.” The bias of the architect, as he then was, is prominently +displayed in Mr. Hardy’s description of it: “The house was regularly and +substantially built of clean grey freestone throughout, in that plainer +fashion of Greek classicism which prevailed at the latter end of the last +century, when the copyists called designers had grown weary of fantastic +variations in the Roman orders. The main block approximated to a square +on the ground plan, having a projection in the centre of each side, +surmounted by a pediment. From each angle of the north side ran a line +of buildings lower than the rest, turning inwards again at their farthest +end, and forming within them a spacious open court, within which +resounded an echo of astounding clearness. These erections were in their +turn backed by ivy-covered ice-houses, laundries, and stables, the whole +mass of subsidiary buildings being half buried beneath close-set shrubs +and trees.” + +Leaving aside, for the present, an exploration of Stinsford, down the +next turning, to come later to a particular and intimate discussion of +it, we proceed to Dorchester, whose houses, and those of its allied +suburb of Fordington, are now seen, crowning the ridge on which the old +county town stands. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + + DORCHESTER + +DORCHESTER, the “Casterbridge” of the novels, stands upon or, more +correctly, above, the River Frome, and from that circumstance derived its +ancient Roman name of Durnovaria, whose Latinity Mr. Hardy has exploited +in the name of “Durnover” he confers upon Fordington. The Romans +themselves did by no means invent their name for the station they founded +here, but just adapted the title given by the native tribe of Durotriges +to their settlement. Those natives, who were of Welsh stock, styled +their habitation by the sufficiently Welsh name of Dwrinwyr, which, like +all Cymric place-names, was descriptive and alluded to its watery +situation. + +The approach to Dorchester has suffered in late years, in the pictorial +point of view, from the decay and destruction of many of those +magnificent old elms that once formed a noble introduction along this, +the “London Road”; but it is not wholly to be bankrupted of beauty, for, +although Dorchester may continue to grow, it is not in this direction +that its suburbs will be thrown out. The flat water-meadows of the Frome +forbid building operations here, and in effect say, at the bridge +immediately below where Fordington on its ridge stands on the thitherward +bank of the stream—“thus far and no farther!” From this approach, +looking to where Fordington’s houses die away on the left hand, and to +where the chalky downs begin to rise, you may obtain a distant view of +the novelist’s residence, a house he himself designed, standing beside +the Wareham Road near where an old turnpike-gate stood, and called from +it “Max Gate.” Looking, however, straight ahead, the road into +Dorchester is seen becoming a street and going with inflexible Roman +directness through the town, with the ancient church tower of Fordington +slightly to the left, and the equally ancient church of St. Peter’s +immediately in front, in the centre of the town, where the two main +streets cross. Attendant modern churches and chapels, and the Town Hall, +with spires, act as satellites. To the right hand, rising bulky from the +huddled mass of houses, is a grey building which but a little experience +of touring in England identifies without need of inquiry as the gaol. + +Dorchester, figuring as the “Casterbridge” of that mayor whose surprising +history is set forth in that powerful story, bulks large in the whole +series of Wessex novels—as how could it fail of doing, seeing that the +novelist himself was born at Upper Bockhampton, only three miles away? +In masterly fashion he has described its salient points, as they were +before modernity had come to obliterate them, or at least to take off the +sharp edge of their singularity. He has expended much thought upon Roman +Dorchester, and speculated upon what manner of place it was fifteen +hundred years ago. “Casterbridge announced old Rome in every street, +alley, and precinct. It looked Roman, bespoke the art of Rome, concealed +dead men of Rome. It was impossible to dig more than a foot or two deep +about the town fields and gardens without coming upon some tall soldier +or other of the Empire, who had lain there in his silent unobtrusive rest +for a space of fifteen hundred years.” Nay, even within the precincts of +his own garden, on the edge of the rotund upland that looks so wanly down +upon the railway, relics of the legionaries have been discovered. Three +of those stout warriors were there found. “Each body was fitted with, +one may almost say, perfect accuracy into the oval hole, the crown of the +head touching the maiden chalk at one end and the toes at the other, the +tight-fitting situation being strongly suggestive of the chicken in the +egg-shell.” + +More attuned to modern times is that description of Dorchester as it +appeared when Susan, Henchard’s wife, with Elizabeth-Jane, entered it +from the London Road that evening. Wonderfully observed and true is that +passage where the light of the street lamps, glimmering through those +engirdling trees that were then, even more than now, the great feature of +the town, is made a snug and comforting contrast with the outside +country, seeming “strangely solitary and vacant in aspect, considering +its nearness to life.” Then the agricultural and pastoral pursuits of +the people, as reflected in the character of the goods displayed in shop +windows, is neatly shown, in a list of those objects: the hay-rakes, the +seed-lips, butter-firkins, hoes and spades and mattocks; the +horse-embrocations, scythes, reaping-hooks, and hedger’s and ditcher’s +gloves, articles all of everyday requirement. + +The “grizzled church” to which they came was St. Peter’s, whose tower +showed “how completely the mortar from the joints of the stonework had +been nibbled out by time and weather, which had planted in the crevices +thus made little tufts of stone-crop and grass, almost as far up as the +very battlements.” Yes, and so one vividly remembers it; but restoration +has recently made away with all these evidences of age, and cleaned the +stonework and renewed and pointed it, greatly to the aid of the tower’s +structural stability, ’tis true, but the very death of picturesque +effect. There is a pleasing thing here, at the foot of this tower, where +High East Street and High West Street join. It is the bronze life-sized +statue, in his habit as he lived, of “Pa’son Barnes,” otherwise the +Reverend William Barnes, the Dorset poet, described by Thomas Hardy as he +is represented here—“an aged clergyman, quaintly attired in caped cloak, +knee-breeches and buckled shoes, with a leather satchel slung over his +shoulders and a stout staff in his hand.” This quaint figure, whose life +and thoughts and writings were racy of the soil whence he sprang—he was +born in the Vale of Blackmore—was for many years a quite inadequately +rewarded schoolmaster, and only late in life was given, first the living +of Whitcomb, and then that of Winterborne Came, near Dorchester. His +poems in the Dorsetshire vernacular, long known and admired, were not +pecuniarily successful. “What a mockery is life!” said he. “They praise +me, and take away my bread! They may be putting up a statue to me some +day, when I am dead, while all I want now is leave to live. I asked for +bread, and they gave me a stone!” + +Prophetic indeed! for here is the statue, with beneath it the +inscription: + + WILLIAM BARNES + 1801–1886 + +and the quotation from one of his own folk-poems: + + Zoo now I hope his kindly fëace + Is gone to vind a better plëace, + But still wi’ vo’k a’ left behind + He’ll always be a kept in mind. + +The mural monument of a sixteenth-century Thomas Hardy, within the +church, attracts attention. The inscription states him to have been +“esquire” and of Melcombe Regis, and goes on to describe his benefactions +to the town and the gratitude of the “Baylives and Burgisses” therefor. +To “commend to posterity an example soe worthy of imitation,” they +erected this tablet. He is said to be the common ancestor of Admiral Sir +Thomas Hardy, the friend and comrade of Nelson, and of Thomas Hardy, the +novelist. + +Still from this tower of St. Peter’s sounds the curfew chime, with the +stroke of eight o’clock every evening, as described in the story; its +“peremptory clang” the signal for shop-shutting throughout the town. +“Other clocks struck eight from time to time—one gloomily from the gaol, +another from the gable of an alms-house, with a preparative creak of +machinery more audible than the note of the bell.” + +In High East Street stands, just as described, the principal inn—I +suppose in these times one should, for fear of disrespect say “hotel”—of +Dorchester, the “King’s Arms,” white-faced, with the selfsame “spacious +bow-window projected into the street over the main portico,” the whole +not too imposing for comfort, and not too homely for dignity. It was a +coaching house in days gone by. From a step above the pavement on the +opposite side of the street Susan and Elizabeth-Jane, amid the crowd, +witnessed the dinner given to the mayor, and through the archway Boldwood +carried Bathsheba, fainting at the news of her husband’s death. + +Equally white-faced, but a good deal more picturesque, is the “White +Hart,” down at the end, or the beginning if you will, of the sloping +street, as you enter the town. By it runs the Frome, and in its +courtyard on market-days may be seen such a concourse of carriers’ carts +as rarely witnessed nowadays. Dorchester is a busy carrying centre, by +no means spoiled in that respect by railways, which yet fail to reach +many of its surrounding villages. + +The brick bridge that here spans the Frome, and the stone bridge some +distance farther away, spanning a branch of the same stream out away in +the meads, have their parts in the _Mayor of Casterbridge_. “These +bridges had speaking countenances. Every projection in each was worn +down to obtuseness, partly by weather, more by friction from generations +of loungers, whose toes and heels had from year to year made restless +movements against these parapets, as they had stood there, meditating on +the aspect of affairs. In the case of the more pliable bricks and +stones, even the flat faces were worn into hollows by the same mixed +mechanism. The masonry of the top was clamped with iron at each joint; +since it had been no uncommon thing for desperate men to wrench the +coping off and throw it down into the river, in reckless defiance of the +magistrates. For to this pair of bridges gravitated all the failures of +the town—those who had failed in business, in love, in sobriety, in +crime. Why the unhappy hereabout usually chose the bridges for their +meditations in preference to a railing, a gate, or a stile, was not so +clear.” He goes on to tell how there was a marked difference in quality +between the frequenters of the near bridge of brick and the far one of +stone. The more thoroughgoing failures and those with the most +threadbare characters, or with no characters at all, save bad ones, +preferred the near bridge: to reach it entailed less trouble, and it was +not for such as them to mind the glare of publicity. + +“The _misérables_ who would pause on the remoter bridge were of a politer +stamp. They included bankrupts, hypochondriacs, persons who were what is +called ‘out of a situation’ from fault or lucklessness, the inefficient +of the professional class—shabby-genteel men, who did not know how to get +rid of the weary time between breakfast and dinner, and the yet more +weary time between dinner and dark.” These unfortunates gazed steadily +into the river, never turning to notice passers-by, and indeed shrinking +from observation. And so day by day they looked and looked in the +stream, until at last their bodies were sometimes found in it. + + [Picture: Ten Hatches, Dorchester] + +When Henchard’s ruin was complete, he too began to frequent the stone +bridge, and would have ended in the same way, not at the bridge itself, +but over in the meadows where the many branches of the Frome are +regulated and controlled by a number of sluices known as Ten Hatches. +“To the east of Casterbridge lay moors and meadows, through which much +water flowed. The wanderer in this direction, who should stand still for +a few moments on a quiet night, might hear singular symphonies from these +waters, as from a lampless orchestra, all playing in their sundry tones, +from near and far parts of the moor. At a hole in a rotten weir they +executed a recitative; where a tributary brook fell over a stone +breastwork they trilled cheerily; under an arch they performed a metallic +cymballing; and at Durnover Weir they hissed. The spot at which their +instrumentation rose loudest was a place called Ten Hatches, whence +during high springs there proceeded a very fugue of sounds.” + +The ruined mayor, to whom, and not the cold, successful Donald Farfrae, +the reader’s sympathies go out, would have ended all his troubles here +with a plunge in the waters, had it not been for the ghastly floating +Skimmington effigy of himself he saw floating down the current as he was +about to drop in. + +“Gray’s Bridge,” as the stone structure on the London Road is known, is +that toward which Bob Loveday, in the _Trumpet Major_, gazed anxiously, +awaiting the coach bearing his Matilda, and across it, of course, on +their way to Longpiddle, went those “Crusted Characters,” telling stories +in the carrier’s cart jogging along with them so comfortably from the +“White Hart.” + +The fateful, almost sentient, character many natural objects are made to +assume in the march of Mr. Hardy’s tragic stories is expressly shown in +his description of the Roman amphitheatre of Maumbury, at the farther or +western extremity of Dorchester, beside the road to Weymouth. He styles +it “the Ring, on the Budmouth Road,” and explains how “it was to +Casterbridge what the ruined Coliseum is to modern Rome, and was nearly +of the same magnitude.” It is not, as might be gathered from this +passage, a building, like the Coliseum, but a vast amphitheatre formed by +earthworks. Used by the Romans as the scene of their gladiatorial +displays, it has doubtless witnessed many an act of savage cruelty, but +is now a solitude. A sinister place it has been always, for, when +executions were public affairs, the gallows stood within the old arena; +and until well into the eighteenth century the populace came to it in +thousands to witness the execution of felons where, before the dawn of +the Christian era, fighting men had struggled to the death: where +perhaps, in early Christian times, in the days of the Diocletian +persecution, Christians had been sacrificed. It was here, in 1705, that +Mary Channing was executed, under the most fearful circumstances of +barbarity belonging to the penalties prescribed for _petit treason_. The +crimes known by that name included several forms of rebellion against +authority, among them the murder of a husband by a wife. A husband being +then, much more than now, in the eyes of the law in a position of +authority over his wife, to murder him was not merely murder—it was +_petit treason_ as well, and therefore deserving of exceptional +punishment. Mary Brookes, married by the wish of her parents, against +her own inclination, to one Richard Channing of Dorchester, a grocer, +almost ruined him by her extravagance, and then poisoned him by giving +him white mercury, first in rice-milk, and twice afterwards in a glass of +wine. At the Summer Assizes, 1704, she was found guilty and condemned to +death. On March 21st, 1705, accordingly, she was strangled here, in this +arena, and then burned, the horrible spectacle being witnessed by ten +thousand persons. She was but nineteen years of age. This Golgotha was +disestablished in 1767, when the gallows was removed to the decent +solitudes of Bradford Down, a mile and a half along the Exeter Road, on +the way to Bridport. It was to this spot that a mayor of Dorchester +desired to escort a distinguished traveller leaving the town, after being +presented with the customary address. “May I be allowed to accompany +your Highness as far as the gallows?” he asked, greatly to the dismay of +that departing Serenity, to whom the allusion seemed more ill-omened than +really it was. It is a tale told of many places and many mayors, and he +would be a clever commentator who should distinguish the real original. + +The lone amphitheatre of Maumbury has thus, it will be seen, real +tragical associations fitting it for the novelist’s more sombre humours. +He tells how intrigues were there carried forward, how furtive and +sinister meetings happened within the rim of these ancient earthworks, +and how, although the patching up of long-standing feuds might be +attempted on this spot, seldom had it been the place of meeting of happy +lovers. In this ring, then, the reconciliation of Susan and Henchard +took place, after eighteen years, and was but the prelude to miseries and +disasters. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + + DORCHESTER (_continued_) + +HENCHARD’S house—“one of the best, faced with dull red-and-grey old +brick,” there are many such here—was in the neighbourhood of North +Street, and not far from that Corn Exchange where Bathsheba was wont, on +market days, to mingle with the burly farmers and corn-factors, like a +yacht among ironclads, displaying for inspection the sample wheat in her +outstretched palm. + +Down here, too, is the gaol, whose mass is seen from the meads on +approaching the town. It has been much altered, but the heavy stone +gateway, together with the flanking walls of red brick, is very much as +of old. Happily, such things as are noticed in that gruesome short +story, _The Withered Arm_, are things only of dreadful memory. At that +time the populace of Dorchester were accustomed to wait below in the +meadows, eager to witness the executioner, the criminals—murderers, +burglars, rick-firers, sheep and horse-stealers, even down to those +convicted of petty larceny—being capitally condemned and hanged as high +as, possibly indeed higher than, Haman, whose place of suspension is +notoriously and traditionally lofty. Gertrude Lodge, coming here for the +cure of her withered arm by the agency of the dead man’s touch, observed, +as all could then not help observing, those “three rectangular lines +against the sky,” which indicated the coming execution and the morrow’s +exhibition, to be followed by the merry-makings of Hang Fair. When she +enquired the hour of execution, she was told: “The same as usual—twelve +o’clock, or as soon after as the London mail-coach gets in. We always +wait for that, in case of a reprieve.” + + [Picture: Dorchester Gaol] + +In Dorchester Gaol—we have no space here for those merely actual persons +of flesh and blood who have been incarcerated, or who have suffered in +it—those more real characters of fiction, Boldwood and Marston were +confined; and hence the Shottsford watchmaker of _The Three Strangers_, +lying under sentence of death, escaped along the downs to Higher +Crowstairs, where, while sheltering in the ingle-nook of the cottage, two +other strangers, one of them the hangman deputed to execute the demands +of the law upon him on the morrow, take shelter from the weather. + +To follow this gloomy train a little longer, the veritable Hangman’s +Cottage, home of this erstwhile busy functionary, at a time when +Dorchester demanded the whole time and energies of a Jack Ketch, and not +a very occasional visit from one common to the whole kingdom, may be +seen, at the foot of Glydepath Lane, in a fine damp situation near the +river. It is one of a tiny group of heavily thatched old rustic cottages +built of grouted flint and chalk, faced and patched with red brick, and +held together with iron ties, so that in their old age they shall not, +some night, altogether collapse and deposit their inhabitants among the +potatoes, the peas, and cabbages of their fertile gardens. Dorchester +paid its hangman a regular salary, and in the intervals between his more +important business, he was under engagement to perform those minor +punishments of whipping and scourging, of putting in the stocks, and of +pillorying, by whose plentiful administration Old England was made the +“Merry England” of our forefathers. Let not the reader, however, seek a +covert satire here. It is not to be gainsaid that it was a “Merry +England,” for the times were so brutal that, in all such degrading and +pitiful spectacles as these, the populace took the keenest delight. +Sufficient for the day—! and those who made merry did not stop to +consider that they who were now spectators might soon very likely afford +in their own persons the same spectacle. + +Miserable times! Proof of them, do you need seek it, is to be found in +the Dorchester Museum, where the leaden weights, boldly inscribed +“MERCY,” are pointed out as the contribution, years ago, of an +exceptionally tender-hearted governor of the gaol to a more pitiful +method of ending the condemned man who was to die for his crime of arson. + + [Picture: The Hangman’s Cottage, Dorchester] + +The man was of unusually light weight, and, as those were the times when +men really were slowly and painfully hanged and choked by degrees, before +criminals were given a drop and their necks broken, it was thought a +kindly thing on the part of this governor that he should have provided +these heavy weights, to attach to this particular victim’s feet and so +help to shorten his misery. + +This museum it was that Lucetta, keen to get the girl out of the way, +suggested for Elizabeth Jane’s entertainment; with affected enthusiasm +and a good deal of veiled womanly sarcasm at the expense of antiquities, +describing how it contained “crowds of interesting things—skeletons, +teeth, old pots and pans, ancient boots and shoes, birds’ eggs—all +charmingly instructive.” + +But enough of such things, let us to other quarters. + +Looking on to the cheerful and prosperous South Street from the corner of +Durngate Street is the substantial “grey façade” of Lucetta’s house, +where lived Henchard’s lady-love, whose affections were so readily +transferable. The lower portion of this, the “High Place Hall” of the +story, has suffered a transformation into business premises, but the +resounding alleyways of Durngate Street and neighbouring lanes are as +gloomy as those spots are described. “At night the forms of passengers +were patterned by the lamps in black shadows upon the pale walls,” and so +they are still. + +But the description of Lucetta’s house in those pages is a composite +picture; a good deal of it deriving from an old mansion in another part +of the town. This will be found by taking a narrow thoroughfare leading +out of the north side of High West Street, and called, in different parts +of its course, Glydepath Lane and Glydepath Street. In this quiet byway +is the early eighteenth-century mansion known as Colyton House, sometime +a town residence of the Churchill family, and so named from the little +Devonshire town of Colyton, near which is situated Ash, that old +dwelling, now a farmhouse, whence the historic Churchills sprang. + +Readily to be seen, in a blank wall, is the long-filled-in archway, with +the dreadful keystone mask, alluded to in the pages of _The Mayor of +Casterbridge_. + + [Picture: Colyton House, Dorchester] + +“Originally the mask had exhibited a comic leer, as could still be +discerned; but generations of Casterbridge boys had thrown stones at the +mask, aiming at its open mouth; and the blows thereof had chipped off the +lips and jaws as if they had been eaten away by disease.” Its appearance +is indeed of a ghastly leprous nature, infinitely shuddery. + +At this end of the town, out upon the Charminster road is the great Roman +encampment of Poundbury, or, locally, “Pummery,” where Henchard spread +that feast, deserted by those for whom it was intended, in favour of the +rival entertainment in the West Walks, prepared by the hateful Farfrae, +that paragon of all the business and higher virtues, whom the reader +perversely, but not unnaturally, detests. “Roman” it has been in this +last passage declared, but, in truth, its origin has been as widely +disputed as that of Weatherbury Castle, where the varying theories arouse +Mr. Hardy’s sarcasm so markedly. It lies without the site of the Roman +walls of Durnovaria, and probably formed some advanced outpost or great +camp in the long years of the Roman occupation of Britain, before the +establishment of security and the growth of their towns. Those Roman +walls are now for the most part gone and their sites were long ago +planted with avenues, now growing aged and past their prime, and ceased +to be that clean-cut barrier between _urbs_ and _rure_ they formed of +old, when Dorchester of pre-railway days had not grown too big for that +girdle the Romans had set about her: a girdle not too constrictive for +the needs of the Middle Age, nor even in the eighteenth century with any +suspicion of tight-lacing, but all too compressive soon after the coaches +had given way to trains, and steel rails and steam along them had sent up +the birthrate. A notable passage in _The Mayor of Casterbridge_ tells +how there were not, quite a little while ago, any suburbs here, in the +modern sense, nor any gradual fusion of town and country. “The farmer’s +boy could sit under his barleymow, and pitch a stone into the window of +the town-clerk; reapers at work among the sheaves nodded to acquaintances +standing on the pavement-corner; the red-robed judge, when he condemned a +sheep stealer, pronounced sentence to the tune of ‘Baa,’ that floated in +at the window from the remainder of the flock browsing hard by.” + +But those bounds have in several places been leaped, and, in especial +where the South Walk runs, modern villas have redly replaced the golden +grain or the green pastures. Changed manners and customs have brought +about this alteration, quite as much as increased population. The four +old traditional streets of the town, together with their more immediate +offshoots, have been resigned more exclusively to business than of yore, +and made less a residence. The butchers, the bakers, the +candlestick-makers, who would once have scorned to live anywhere else +than over “the shop,” will now not very often condescend to make their +homes in the upper stages of their “stores” or “establishments,” or by +what other pretty names modern finesse elects to describe shops and +counters and tills and such like things by which tradespeople become +rich. + +And, by that same token, the business premises thus deserted for snug +suburban villas, are themselves changing. One could never, in modern +times, have strictly called Dorchester generally picturesque, in the +prominent circumstances of those four main streets: repeated +conflagrations that destroyed most of the really old and interesting +houses forbade that, and replaced thatch and barge-boarded gables with +plain brick fronts, severe in unornamental rectangular windows, and +ending on the skyline with unimaginative straight copings. But the +latest manifestations of these times, when they say business is a +struggle and all trades alike carried on less for the profit of the +purveyor, than for the good of the purchaser, are expensive carved stone +and brick frontages, with good artistic features. As art in this country +only spells much expenditure of good money and as building operations are +always costly, it is a little difficult to square all these developments +with the talk of “hard times.” South Street, in especial, is being +grandly transformed, and “Napper’s Mite,” the crouching row of +almshouses, built from the benefaction of the good Sir Robert Napper, in +1615, made to look additionally humble by newly risen tall buildings. +But the town authorities have not yet removed the old rusticated stone +obelisk that stands in Cornhill, in the centre of the town, where High +East and High West Streets, and North and South Streets meet. It serves +the multum-in-parvo purposes of a pump, a lamp-standard, and a +leaning-stock for Dorchester’s weary or born-tired, and is moreover a +landmark. But the two dumpy little houses at the corner, which were +properly dumpy and humble and—so to speak—knew their place, and abased +themselves in the presence of their betters—that is to say, in the +contiguity of St. Peter’s across the road—have been rebuilt, with the +result that their tall upstanding pretentiousness detracts not a little +from the height of that “grizzled tower.” + +And so, turning to the left at this corner, we leave Dorchester for +Bridport, along High West Street, the quietest of all these +thoroughfares, and looking rather “out of it,” and somewhat glad of that +fact, in a dignified, exclusive way, typified by its aristocratic old +houses, and its old County Hall. It is true there are a few shops in +High Street, but they are by no means pushful shops. They never make +“alarming sacrifices,” nor sell off. Indeed, were I not fearful of +offending susceptibility, I might declare a belief that they never sell +anything at all, and are kept by “grown-ups,” not grown tired of playing +at shops when they did so arrive at years supposed to be those of +discretion. Here is a quiet shop—where they will doubtless sell you +something, if you really enter and firmly insist upon it—occupying one of +the few really old and picturesque houses in the main thoroughfare; it is +the house “by tradition” occupied by the infamous Judge Jeffreys, when +visiting Dorchester on the business of that special occasion, the Bloody +Assize, holden to try the unhappy wretches arraigned for their part in +Monmouth’s Rebellion of 1685. The old house bears an inscription to this +effect. Over three hundred prisoners faced the judge at that awful time, +and two hundred and ninety received sentence of death. Of these the +number actually executed was seventy-four, and, as the old gossip at the +“Three Mariners” tells, portions of their bodies were gibbeted in various +parts of the county, “different j’ints sent about the country like +butcher’s meat.” + +And so we leave Dorchester and its, on the whole, grim memories, along an +avenue, fellow to that by which the town was entered. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + + SWANAGE + +THE name of Swanage shares with that of Swansea, the honour of being, +perhaps, the most poetic that any seaside resort ever owned. It is a +corruption of the Danish name of “Swanic,” or “Swanwich,” and there seems +to be no reason to doubt—although there exists a school of antiquarians +sceptical enough to doubt it—that the place was then, as its name +indicates, a place of swans. Your modern antiquary, disgusted at the +childish legends once everywhere accepted as sober historical facts, +rushes to the other extreme, and, although a thing be obvious, will not +allow its obviousness, unless supported by documentary or other tangible +evidence. He must needs disregard the self-evident, and delve deeply and +unavailingly in attempts to prove that “things are not what they seem.” + +Conjectures that there was at that time a royal swannery here are based +upon the known fondness of royal personages for preserving that bird, +once thought a table delicacy, and upon the existence from ancient times +of the famous Abbotsbury swannery, along this same coast. But it is +needless here to labour the point; and although the little stream, more +and more pollutedly with every year of the extension of modern Swanage, +still flows down into the sea under the name of the Swan Brook, the +argument supported by it in favour of the obvious origin of the +place-name shall be no further pursued. + +But the surrounding quarries have for many centuries past given a very +different character to Swanage than that of a village with a marshy creek +inhabited by swans. Few places ever proclaimed the industries by which +they lived more prominently than did this little port, until well within +recent recollection. A colliery town no more insistently obtrudes the +circumstances by which it earns its livelihood than Swanage displayed +evidences of its cleanly trade and craft of stone-working and +stone-exporting. + +The varieties of stone from the quarries to the rear of Swanage are among +the most famous building and decorative stones in the world; for here we +are at the gates of Isle of Purbeck, where, not only the oolitic +limestone of the same nature as “Portland stone” is quarried, but that +(to antiquaries at least) far more generally known material, “Purbeck +marble,” as well. No ancient church or cathedral of any considerable +size or elaboration was considered complete without shafts and font and +other decorative features of Purbeck marble, sometimes polished, at other +times left in its native state; and thus, from very early times until the +beginning of the sixteenth century, when more strikingly coloured and +patterned foreign marbles began to find their way into England, Swanage +in particular, and Purbeck in general, enjoyed an amazing prosperity. + +Swanage in Mr. Hardy’s pages is “Knollsea,” and is described in _The Hand +of Ethelberta_ as a village:—“Knollsea,” we learn, “was a seaside village +lying snug within two headlands, as between a finger and thumb.” A very +true simile, as a glance on the map, upon the configuration of Swanage +Bay, will satisfy those curious in the exactness or otherwise of literary +images. But time has very rapidly vitiated the justness of what +follows:—“Everybody in the parish who was not a boatman was a quarrier, +unless he were the gentleman who owned half the property and had been a +quarryman, or the other gentleman who owned the other half and had been +to sea.” + +“The knowledge of the inhabitants was of the same special sort as their +pursuits. The quarrymen in white fustian understood practical geology, +the laws and accidents of dips, faults, and cleavage, far better than the +ways of the world and mammon; the seafaring men, in Guernsey frocks, had +a clearer notion of Alexandria, Constantinople, the Cape, and the Indies +than of any inland town in their own country. This, for them, consisted +of a busy portion, the Channel, where they lived and laboured, and a dull +portion, the vague unexplored miles of interior at the back of the ports, +which they seldom thought of.” + +This charming picture of an out-of-the world place remained, very little +blurred by change, until well on into the ’80’s of the nineteenth +century, when it occurred to exploiting railway folk that the time was +ripe for the construction of a branch railway from Wareham. With the +opening of that line the primitive houses, and the equally primitive +people who lived in them, suffered a change almost as sudden and complete +as though a harlequin had waved his wand over their heads. + +There was indeed something exceptionally primitive in the Swanage people. +They were chiefly quarrymen, and like all quarry folk, mining the great +blocks of stone from mother earth, a strangely reserved and isolated +race. A man who, felling timber, might conceivably remain all his life +mentally detached from his occupation, following it only mechanically, +could not long in these quarries, rich in the embalmed stoniness of +myriads of humble creatures living in the palæozoic age, remain +unaffected by his surroundings. An imaginative man might, not inaptly, +conceive himself as a phenomenally gigantic giant working in some vast +petrified graveyard among the petrifactions of a world infinitely little; +and, as the dyer’s hand is subdued to the dye he works in, and—a less +classic allusion—as the photographer acquires a permanent stain from his +collodion, he could scarce escape the almost inevitable mental twist +resulting from the surroundings. + +And as they were, and in some measure still are, individually peculiar, +so collectively they retain their exclusiveness. Still, with every +recurrent Shrove Tuesday, their guild meets at Corfe, under the +presidency of warden and steward; and even in these days it is not open +for an outsider to become a Purbeck quarryman. It is an industry only to +be followed by patrimony and by due admission into its membership in the +prescribed manner, which is that of appearing at the annual court with a +penny loaf in one hand, a pot of beer in the other, and a sum of six +shillings and eightpence in the pocket, ready to be duly paid down. + +With all the changes that have overtaken Swanage, who knows nowadays, +save very old folk, that Swanage people are, or were, locally “Swanage +Turks”? When—outside Swanage, of course—you asked why so named, you were +apt to be told “Tarks, we al’us carls ’em, ’cos they don’t know nawthen +about anything.” The informant in this particular instance was a Poole +man. None could possibly have brought this charge of comprehensive and +thorough-going ignorance against the natives of Poole, for that ancient +port was a sink of iniquity, and inhabited, if we are to believe the +history books—which there is no reason we should not do—by ruffians who +were by no means unspotted of the world, but had plumbed the depths of +every wickedness. Since Swanage has become the terminus of a branch +railway and become a seaside resort, its “Turks” have acquired a very +considerable amount of worldly wisdom, and can argue and chop logic with +you, as well as the best. + +To those who knew and loved old Swanage, the change that has come with +its tardy accessibility by rail is woeful, but to those who have not so +known and loved, I daresay it seems, by contrast with Bournemouth, a +place strangely undeveloped. The trouble with the first-named is that +development has been all too rapid, and has utterly robbed Swanage of its +immemorial character as the port whence the famous Purbeck stone was +shipped. Alas! pretentious houses of a tall and terrible ugliness now +stand in the middle of the bay, on the shore immediately in front of what +used merely by courtesy to be called “the town,” but is now actually +grown to that status. The “bankers”—rows upon rows of stacked slabs of +Purbeck stone that used to form so striking a feature of the shore, and +were wont, to a stranger seeing them first on a moonlit night, to look so +grisly, as though this were some close-packed seashore cemetery—the +circumstance of facetious irony—the grown prosperity of Swanage has built +banks, where the Swanage tradesfolk doubtless deposit heavily from the +profits of their summer trading. + + [Picture: The Old Church, Swanage] + +In the distance, along the curving shore of Swanage Bay, there has arisen +with the development of the Durlstone estate, a grand hotel, and in the +town itself—the folly of it!—uninteresting modern commercial buildings +have replaced the quaint old cottages that, built as they were, in a +peculiarly local fashion, with great stone slabs and rude stone tiling, +had their like nowhere else. Now, the rows of newly arisen streets are +such as have their counterparts in every town, and you can dine _à la +carte_ or _table-d’hôte_ at the many hotels and boarding-houses, as their +announcements boldly inform the visitor, quite as elaborately as in great +cities. All, without doubt, very refined and up to date, but perhaps not +to all of us, who keep the simple and robustious appetites of our +beginnings, so pleasing a change from the time (of which Kingsley speaks) +when a simple glass of ale and a crust of bread and cheese at a rustic +inn was all one wished, and certainly all one could have got. + +Of those times there are but little “islands,” so to speak, left in the +surging mass of modern brick and stone. One of them is the ancient +church, whose tower is thought to be Saxon—the church where Ethelberta +Petherwin, in _The Hand of Ethelberta_, marries Lord Mountclere. +Another, tucked away behind the Town Hall, and only to be with some +difficulty discovered, is the old village lock-up. No dread Bastille +this, but an affair resembling a stone tool-house, twelve feet by eight, +and lighted only by the holes in the decaying woodwork of its +nail-studded door. It was built in 1803, “erected” as the old +inscription tells us, “for the prevention of Wickedness and Vice by the +Friends of Religion and Good Order.” The inference to be drawn from the +small size of this place of incarceration is that the “Wickedness and +Vice” of Swanage were on a very insignificant scale. Although Swanage +has grown so greatly, and now owns a very fine and large police-station, +it is not to be inferred that the delinquencies have increased in +proportion, but rather that officialism has made a larger growth, and +that Swanage, like poor old England in general, is over-governed. + +Among other outstanding features of Swanage, conferred upon it by the +late Mr. Mowlem, of the London contracting firm of Mowlem and Burt, is +the Wellington Clock Tower, the Gothic pinnacled structure now +ornamenting the foreshore, in what were once the private gardens of “the +Grove.” But “the Grove” has now, like many another seashore estate, been +cut up, and new villas now take the place of the older exclusiveness. + +The Clock Tower, one of the many memorials to the great Duke of +Wellington, stood, until about 1860, on the south side of London Bridge, +but was removed when the roadway was widened at that point. Once +removed, the good folk of Southwark were at a loss what to do with it, +and so solved their difficulty by presenting its stones to Mr. Mowlem, +the contractor. They thought he had been saddled with a “white +elephant,” and chuckled accordingly; but they little knew their man. He +considered the relic “just the thing” for his native town of Swanage, and +accepting it with the greatest alacrity, despatched it hither, and +presented it to his friend Mr. Docwra, of “the Grove.” This poor old +monument to martial glory has suffered of late, for its pinnacle has been +blown down and replaced by a copper sheathing very like a dish-cover. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + + SWANAGE TO CORFE CASTLE + +THAT pilgrim who, whether on foot or by cycle, shall elect to trace these +landmarks, will find the road out of Swanage to Corfe, by way of Langton +Matravers and Kingston a heart-breaking stretch of stony hills, whose +blinding glare under a summer sun is provocative of ophthalmia, and whose +severities of stone walling, in place of green hedges, recall the scenery +of Ireland. Herston, too, the unlovely outskirt of Swanage, is not +encouraging. But the world—it is a truism—is made up of all sorts, and +here, as elsewhere, rewards come after trials. + +Langton Matravers, on the ridge-road, is, just as one might suppose from +the stony nature of Purbeck, a village of stone houses, and very grim and +unornamental ones too. Nine hundred souls live here, and so long as the +“Langton freestone” won from its quarries is in good demand, are happy +enough, although subject to every extremity of weather. The “Matravers” +in the place-name derives from the old manorial lords, the Maltravers +family, who dropped the “l” out of their name some time after one of +their race, deeply implicated in the barbarous murder of Edward II., +proved himself a very “bad Travers” indeed, and so made his name +peculiarly descriptive. + +Passing Gallows Gore Cottages—what a melodramatic address to own!—we come +to Kingston village, along just such a road, with just such a view as +that described in _The Hand of Ethelberta_, although, to be sure, she +went, on that donkey-ride to Corfe, by another and very roundabout route, +through Ulwell Gap, over Nine Barrow Down. Ordinary folk would have gone +by the ordinary road; but then, you see, Ethelberta was a poetess, and +“unconventionality—almost eccentricity—was _de rigueur_” for such an one. +Hence also that unconventional, and uncomfortable, seat on the donkey’s +back. + +From this point Corfe Castle is exquisitely seen, down below the ridge, +but situated on the course of the minor, but still mighty, backbone that +bisects the Isle. From hence, too, the country may be seen spread out +like a map, “domains behind domains, parishes by the score, harbours, +fir-woods and little inland seas mixing curiously together.” Dipping +down out of sight of all these distant Lands of Promise, among the richly +wooded lanes of Kingston, the glaring limestone road is exchanged for +shaded ways, where sunlight only filters through in patches of gold, +looking to the imaginative as though some giant had come this way and +dropped the contents of his money-bags. Thatched cottages, tall elms, +and old-fashioned roadside gardens are the features of Kingston; but +above all these, geographically and in every other respect, is the great +and magnificent modern church built for Lord Eldon and completed in 1880, +after seven years’ work and a vast amount of money had been expended upon +it. It was designed by Street—that same “obliterator of historic +records”—who at Fawley Magna earned Mr. Hardy’s satire; but here were no +records to obliterate. Certain reminiscences of the architect’s early +studies of the early Gothic of the Rhine churches may be traced here, in +the exterior design of the apsidal chancel, strongly resembling that of +Fawley, but one would hesitate to apply the opprobrious term of +“German-Gothic” to this, as a whole. Its intention is Early English, but +the general effect is rather of a Norman spirit informed with Early +English details; an effect greatly accentuated by the heaviness and bulk +of the central tower, intended by Lord Eldon to be a prominent landmark, +and fulfilling that intention by the sacrifice of proportion to the rest +of the building. Cruciform plan, size, and general elaboration render +this a church particularly unfitted for so small and so rustic a village. +Had its needs been studied, rather than the ecclesiological tastes of the +third Lord Eldon, the little church built many years ago for the first +earl, the great lawyer-lord, by Repton, would have sufficed; although to +be sure it has all the faults of the first attempts at reviving Gothic. + +The Earl of Eldon purchased the manor of Kingston and the residence of +Encombe from William Morton Pitt in 1807. Here, in that little church +built by him, he lies, beside his “Bessie,” that Bessie Surtees with whom +he, then plain and penniless John Scott, eloped from the old house on +Sandhill, Newcastle-on-Tyne, in 1772. His house of Encombe, the +“Enkworth Court,” of _The Hand of Ethelberta_, lies deep down in the glen +of Encombe, approached by a long road gradually descending into the +cup-like crater by the only expedient of winding round it. Think of all +the beautiful road scenery you have ever seen or heard of, and you will +not have seen or been told of anything more beautiful in its especial +kind of beauty than this sequestered road down into Lord Eldon’s retreat. +Jagged white cliffs here and there project themselves out of the steep +banks of grass and moss above the way, draped with a profusion of +small-leaved ground-ivy and a wealth of hart’s-tongue ferns, and trees +romantically shade the whole. An obelisk erected by the great statesman, +on a bold bluff, to the memory of his brother, Lord Stowell, adds an +element of romance to the scene, and then, plunging into a final mass of +tangled woodland, the grey stone elevation of the house is seen, +ghostlike, fronting a gravel drive, in its silence and drawn blinds +looking less like the home of some fairy princess than the residence of a +misanthrope, who has retired beyond the reach of the world and drawn his +blinds, with the hope of persuading any who may possibly find their way +here that he is not at home. + + [Picture: Encombe] + +“Enkworth Court” was, we are told, “a house in which Pugin would have +torn his hair,” and Encombe certainly can possess no charms for amateurs +of Gothic. Nor can it possibly delight students of the ancient Greek and +Roman orders, for its architecture has classic intentions without being +classical, and heaviness without dignity. But its interior, if it +likewise does not appeal to a cultivated taste in matters connected with +the mother of all the arts, is exceptionally comfortable. Here the old +Chancellor, over eighty years of age, spent most of his declining days. +“His sporting days were over; he had but little interest in gardening or +farming; and his only reading, beside the newspaper, was a chapter in the +Bible. His mornings he spent in an elbow-chair by the fireside in his +study—called his shop—which was ornamented by portraits of his deceased +master, George III. and his living companion, Pincher, a poodle dog.” + +From Kingston to Corfe Castle, the bourne of innumerable summer visitors, +is two miles. The first glimpse of town and castle is one which clearly +shows how aptly the site of them obtained its original name of +Corvesgate, from the Anglo-Saxon _ceorfan_, to cut. The site was so +named long before castle or town were erected here, and referred to the +passages cut or carved through the bold range of hills by the little +river Corfe and its tributaries. Those clefts are clearly distinguished +from here and from the main road between Corfe and Swanage, and are +notched twice, so deeply into the stony range, that the eminence on which +the castle stands is less like a part of one continuous chain of hills +than an isolated conical hill neighboured by lengthy ridges. + +On that islanded hill, shouldered by taller neighbours, the castle was +built, because at this point it so effectually guarded these passes from +the shores of Purbeck to the inland regions. The position in these days +seems a singular one, for from the upper slopes of those neighbours it is +possible to look down into the castle and observe its every detail, but +such things mattered little in days before artillery. + +A first impression of Corfe, if it be summer, is an impression of +dazzling whiteness; resolved, on a nearer approach, into the pure white +of the road and of the occasional repairs and restorations of the +stone-built streets, the grey white of buildings past their first +novelty, and the dead greyness of the roofing slabs of stone. There is +little colour in Corfe when June has gone. The golden-green lichens and +houseleeks of spring have been sucked dry by the summer heats and turned +to withered rustiness, and even the grass of the pyramidical hill on +which the castle keep is reared has little more than an exhausted +sage-green hue. + +“Corvsgate Castle,” as we find it styled in _The Hand of Ethelberta_, is +frequently the scene, at such a time of year, of meetings like that of +the “Imperial Association” in that story. All that is to be known +respecting these ruins, “the meagre stumps remaining from flourishing +bygone centuries,” is the common property of all interested in historical +antiquities, but there is something, it may be supposed, in revisiting +the oft-visited and in retelling the old tale, which bids defiance to +_ennui_ and precludes satiety, even although the President’s address be a +paraphrase of the last archæological paper, and that the echo of its +predecessor, and so forth, in endless _diminuendo_: + + And smaller fleas have lesser fleas, + And so _ad infinitum_. + +“Carfe,” as any Wessex man of the soil will name it, just as horses are +‘harses’ and hornets become ‘harnets’ in his ancient and untutored +pronunciation, is, as already hinted, a place of stone buildings, where +brick, although not unknown, is remarkable. Stone from foundation to +roof, and stone slabs of immense size for the roofs themselves. In a +place where building-stone is and has been so readily found it is, of +course, in the nature of things to find the remains of a castle that must +have been exceptionally large and strong, and here they are, peering over +the rooftops of the town from whatever point of view you choose. The +castle is as essential a feature in all views of the town as it is in +history; and rightly too, for had it not been for that fortress there +would have been no town. It is a town by courtesy and ancient estate, +and a village by size; a village that does not grow and has so far +escaped the desecration of modern streets. The market cross, recently +restored to perfection from a shattered stump, and the town hall both +declare it to have been a town, as does, or did, the existence of a +mayor, but such things have long become vanities. The return of two +members to Parliament, a privilege Corfe enjoyed until reform put an end +to it in 1832, proved nothing, for Parliamentary representation was no +more fixed on the principle of comparative electorates than the +representation of Ireland is now in the House of Commons. + + [Picture: Corfe Castle] + +The temperance interest need by no means be shocked when it is said that +the most interesting feature of Corfe, next to the castle, is its inn. +The church does not count; for the body of it has been uninterestingly +rebuilt, and only the fine tower, of Perpendicular date, remains. The +inns, however, combine picturesqueness with the solid British comforts of +old times and the less substantial amenities of the new. Here, looking +upon the “Bankes Arms,” with its highly elaborate heraldic sign, you can +have no manner of doubt as to what family is still paramount in Corfe, +and I think, perhaps, that to shelter behind so gorgeous an achievement +even reflects a halo upon the guest; while if the “Greyhound” can confer +no such satisfaction, its unusual picturesqueness, with that charming +feature of a porch projecting over the pavement and owning a capacious +room poised above the comings and goings, the commerce and gossipings of +the people, can at least give a visitor the charm of what, although an +ancient feature of the place, is at least a novelty to him. + +The three cylindrical stone columns of plethoric figure which support +this porch and its room are more generally useful than the architect who +placed them here, some two hundred and eighty years ago, probably ever +imagined they would be. _He_ devised them for the support of his gazebo +above, but more than twenty generations of Wessex folk have found them +convenient for leaning-stocks, and the comfortable support they give has +further lengthened many a long argument which, had all contributing +parties stood supported only by their own two natural posts that carry +the bodily superstructure, would have been earlier concluded. The +progress of an argument, discussion, narration, or negotiation under such +unequal conditions is to be watched with interest. Time probably will +forbid one being followed from beginning to end; but to be a spectator of +one of these comedies from the middle onwards is sufficient. The length +it has already been played may generally be pretty accurately estimated +by the state of weariness or impatience exhibited by that party to it who +is not supported by the pillar. The “well, as I was saying” of the one +enjoying the leaning-stock, discloses, like the parson’s “secondly, Dear +brethren,” the fact that the discourse is well on the way, but the same +thing may be gathered by those out of earshot, in the manœuvres of the +less fortunate of the two, the one who is supporting his own bulk. He +stands upright, hands behind his back, while swaying his walking stick; +then he leans his weight to one side upon it, first (if he be a stout +man, whom it behoves to exercise caution) carefully selecting a safe +crevice in the jointing of the pavement, as a bearing for the ferule of +his ash-plant; then, growing weary of this attitude, he repeats the +process on the other side, changing after a while to the expedient of a +sideways stress, halfway up the body, by straining the walking stick +horizontally against the wall. Then, having exhausted all possible +movements, he takes a bulky silver watch from his pocket, and affects to +find time unexpectedly ahead of him; and when this resort is reached the +spectacle generally comes to a conclusion. + +But it is time to follow Ethelberta into the castle:— + + “Ethelberta crossed the bridge over the moat, and rode under the + first archway into the outer ward. As she had expected, not a soul + was here. The arrow-slits, portcullis-grooves, and staircases met + her eye as familiar friends, for in her childhood she had once paid a + visit to the spot. Ascending the green incline and through another + arch into the second ward, she still pressed on, till at last the ass + was unable to clamber an inch further. Here she dismounted, and + tying him to a stone which projected like a fang from a raw edge of + wall, performed the remainder of the journey on foot. Once among the + towers above, she became so interested in the windy corridors, + mildewed dungeons, and the tribe of daws peering invidiously upon her + from overhead, that she forgot the flight of time.” + +The ruins that Ethelberta and the “Imperial Association” had come to +inspect owe their heaped and toppling ruination to that last great armed +convulsion in our insular history, the Civil War, whose two greatest +personalities were Charles I. and Oliver Cromwell. Until that time the +proud fortress had stood unharmed, as stalwart as when built in Norman +times. + +The history of Corfe before those times is very obscure, and no one has +yet discovered whether the first recorded incident in it took place at a +mere hunting-lodge here or at the gates of a fortress. That incident, +the first and most atrocious of all the atrocious deeds of blood wrought +at Corfe, was the murder of King Edward “the Martyr,” in A.D. 978, by his +stepmother, Queen Elfrida, anxious to secure the throne for her own son. +The boy—he was only in his nineteenth year—had drawn rein here, on his +return alone from hunting, and was drinking at the door from a goblet +handed him by Elfrida herself when she stabbed him to the heart. His +horse, startled at the attack, darted away, dragging the body by the +stirrups, and thus, battered and lifeless, it was found. + +Built, or rebuilt, in the time of the Conqueror, Corfe Castle was early +besieged, and in that passage gave a good account of itself and justified +its existence, for King Stephen failed to take it by force or to starve +the garrison out. How long he may have been pleased to sit down before +it we do not know, for the approach of a relieving force caused him to +pack his baggage and be off. Strong, however, as it was even then, it +was continually under enlargement in the reigns of Henry II., Henry III., +and Edward I., and had a better right to the oft-used boast of being +impregnable than most other fortresses. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + + CORFE CASTLE + +LIKE some cruel ogre of folk-lore the Castle of Corfe has drunk deep of +blood. Its strength kept prisoners safely guarded, as well as foes at +arm’s length, and many a despairing wretch has been hurried through the +now ruined gatehouse, to the muttered “God help him!” of some +compassionate warder. Through the great open Outer Ward and steeply +uphill between the two gloomy circular drum-towers across the second +ward, and thence to the Dungeon Tower at the further left-hand corner of +the stronghold, they were taken and thrust into some vile place of little +ease, to be imprisoned for a lifetime, to be starved to death, or more +mercifully ended by the assassin’s dagger. Twenty-four knights captured +in Brittany, in arms against King John, in aid of his nephew, Arthur, +were imprisoned here, in 1202, and twenty-two of them met death by +starvation in some foul underground hold. Prince Arthur, as every one +knows, was blinded by orders of the ruthless king, and Arthur’s sister, +Eleanor, was thrown into captivity, first here and then at Bristol, +where, after forty years, she died. Thus did monarchs dispose of rivals, +and those who aided them, in the “good old days,” and other monarchs, not +so ferocious, or not so well able to take care of themselves, stood in +danger of tasting the same fare, as in the case of Edward II. imprisoned +here and murdered in the dungeons of Berkeley Castle. Sympathies go out +to the unhappy captives and victims, but a knowledge of these things +tells us that they would have done the same, had opportunity offered and +the positions been reversed. + +This stronghold held many a humbler prisoner, among them those who had +offended in one or other of the easy ways of offence in this, the King’s +deer-forest of Purbeck; and many others immured for mere caprice. The +place must have reeked with blood and been strewn with bones like a +hyæna’s lair. + + [Picture: Corfe Castle] + +So much for the domestic history of Corfe Castle. Its last great +appearance in the history of the nation was during the civil wars of King +and Parliament, when it justified the design of its builders, and proved +the excellence of its defences by successfully withstanding two sieges; +falling in the second solely by treachery. It had by that time passed +through many hands, and had come at last to the Bankes family, by whom it +is still owned. It was only eight years before the first siege in this +war that the property had been acquired by the Lord Chief Justice of the +Common Pleas, Sir John Bankes, who purchased it from the widow of that +celebrated lawyer, Sir Edward Coke, the Coke of “Coke upon Littleton.” + + [Picture: Corfe Castle] + +When the civil war broke out, Sir John Bankes, called to the King’s side +at York, left his wife and children at their home of Kingston Lacy, near +Wimborne Minster, whence, for security from the covert sneers and petty +annoyances offered them by the once humbly subservient townsfolk, not +slow to note the trend of affairs, they removed in the autumn of 1642 to +Corfe Castle, where they spent the winter unmolested. + +Although they thus sought shelter here, they probably had no idea of the +heights to which the tide of rebellion would rise, and could scarce have +anticipated being besieged; but the Parliamentary leaders in the district +had their eyes upon a fortress which, already obsolete and the subject of +antiquarian curiosity, could yet be made a place of strength, as the +sequel was presently to show. + +The first attempt to gain possession of the castle was by a subterfuge, +ingenious and plausible enough. The Mayor of Corfe had from time +immemorial held a stag hunt annually, on May Day, and it was thought +that, if on this occasion some additional parties of horse were to +attend, and to seize the stronghold under colour of paying a visit, the +thing would be done with ease. So probably it would, but for the keen +feminine intuition of Lady Bankes, who closed the gates and mounted a +guard upon the entrance-towers, so that when those huntsmen came and +demanded surrender, scarcely in the manner of visitors, they were at once +denied admission, and effectually unmasked. The revolutionary committee +sitting at Poole then considered it advisable to despatch a body of +sailors, who appeared before the castle, early one morning, to demand the +surrender of four small dismounted pieces of cannon with which it was +armed. “But,” says the _Mercurius Rusticus_, a contemporary news-sheet, +“instead of delivering them, though at the time there were but five men +in the Castle, yet these five, assisted by the maid-servants, at their +ladies’ Command, mount these peeces on their carriages againe, and lading +one of them they gave fire, which small Thunder so affrighted the Sea-men +that they all quitted the place and ran away.” + +Operations thus opened, Lady Bankes proved herself a ready and +resourceful general. By beat of drum she summoned tenants and friends, +who, responding to the number of fifty, garrisoned the fortress for about +a week, when a scarcity of provisions, together with threatening letters, +and the entreaties of their wives, to whom home and children were more +than King or Parliament, or the Bankes family either, made them shamble +home again. We should perhaps not be too ready to censure them. Lady +Bankes, however, did not despair. A born strategist, she perceived how +vitally necessary it was, above all else, to lay in a stock of +provisions; and to secure them, and time for her preparations she offered +in the meekest way to give up those cannon which, after all, although +they made the maximum of noise effected a minimum of harm. + +The enemy, pacified by this offer, removed the guns and left the castle +alone for a while; thinking its defences weak enough. But it was soon +thoroughly provisioned, supplied with ammunition, and garrisoned under +the command of one Captain Lawrence, and when the Roundheads of Poole +next turned their attention to Corfe, behold! it was bristling like a +porcupine with pikes and musquetoons and all those ancient +seventeenth-century engines of war, with which men were quaintly done to +death—when by some exceptional chance the marksmen earned their name and +hit anybody. + +The middle of June had gone before the Parliamentary forces from Poole +made their appearance. They numbered between two and three hundred horse +and foot, and brought two cannon, with which they played upon the castle +from the neighbouring hills, with little effect. Then came an interlude, +ended by the appearance, on June 23rd, of Sir Walter Erle with between +five and six hundred men, to reinforce the besiegers. They brought with +them a “Demy-Canon, a Culverin, and two Sacres,” and with these fired a +hail of small shot down into the castle upon those heights on either +hand. The results were poor to insignificance, and it was then +determined to attempt a storming of the castle. This grand advance, made +on June 26th, was begun by intimidating shouts that no quarter would be +granted, but the garrison were so little terrified by this fighting with +the mouth that, tired of waiting the enemy from the walls, they even +sallied out and slaughtered some of the foremost, who were approaching +cautiously under cover of strange engines named the “Sow” and the “Boar.” +The besiegers then mounted a cannon on the top of the church-tower, +“which,” we are told, “they, without fears of prophanation used,” and +breaking the organ, used the pipes of it for shot-cases. The ammunition +included, among other strange missiles, lumps of lead torn off the roof +and rolled up. + +All these things proving useless, a band of a hundred and fifty sailors +was sent by the Earl of Warwick, with large supplies of petards and +grenadoes, and a number of scaling ladders, and then all thought the +enterprise in a fair way of being ended. The sailors, nothing loth, were +made drunk, the ladders were placed against the walls, and a sum of +twenty pounds was offered to the first man up. With preparations so +generous as these a riotous scaling-party, carrying pikes and +hand-grenades, strove to mount the ladders, but were met by an avalanche +of hot cinders, stones, and things still more objectionable, hoarded up +by the garrison from those primitive sanitary contrivances called by +antiquaries “garderobes,” against such a contingency as this. One sailor +has his clothes almost burnt off his back, another’s courage is dowsed +with a pail of slops, others are knocked over, bruised and battered, into +the dry moat, by a hundredweight of stone heaved over the battlements, +and long ladders full of escaladers, swarming up, on one another’s heels, +are flung backward with tremendous crashes by prokers from arrow-slits in +the bastioned walls. Soldiers under the machicolated entrance towers +have had their steel morions crushed down upon their heads by heavy +weights dropped upon them, and are left gasping for breath and slowly +suffocating in that meat-tin kind of imprisonment; and a more than +ordinarily active besieger, who has made himself exceptionally prominent, +is suddenly flattened out by a heavy lump of lead. “The knocks are too +hot,” as Shakespeare says, and the assailants are forced to retire, to +bury their dead, to tend one another’s hurts, and those most fortunate to +cleanse themselves. That same night of August 4th, Sir Walter Erle, +hearing a rumour of the King’s forces approaching, hurriedly raised the +siege and retreated upon Poole, and not until February 1646 was Corfe +Castle again molested. + +This time it was beset to more purpose. Lady Bankes, now a widow, for +her husband had died in 1644, parted from his family, was at Corfe, +vigilant, keen-eyed, loyal, and more or less strictly blockaded between +Roundhead garrisons. Wareham was in their possession, Poole, as ever, a +hotbed of disaffection, and Swanage watched by land and sea. A gallant +deed performed at the opening of 1646 by one Cromwell, a youthful officer +strangely enough, considering his name, on the Royalist side, was of no +avail. He with his troops burst through the enemy’s lines at Wareham and +on the way encountered the Parliamentary governor of that place, whom he +captured and brought to Corfe. This was undertaken to afford Lady Bankes +an opportunity of escaping, if she wished, but she fortunately refused, +for on the way back the little party were captured. + +The castle was then besieged by Colonel Bingham, and endured for +forty-eight days the rigours of a strict investment. In the meanwhile, +Lawrence, the governor, deserted and at the same time released the +imprisoned governor of Wareham. Every one knew the King’s cause here and +in the whole of the kingdom to be in desperate straits, and the knowledge +of fighting for a losing side unnerved all. Seeing the inevitable course +of events, Lieutenant-Colonel Pitman, one of the defenders’ officers, +secretly opened negotiations with the enemy for the surrender, and, +succeeding in persuading the new governor, who had taken the post +deserted by Lawrence, that a reinforcement from Somersetshire was +expected, under that guise at dead of night admitted fifty Parliamentary +troops into the keep. When morning dawned the garrison found themselves +betrayed; but, commanding as they did the lives of some thirty prisoners, +they were able to exact favourable terms of surrender. And then, when +all the defenders marched out, kegs of gunpowder were laid in keep and +curtain-towers, down in dungeons and under roofs, and the match applied. +When the roar and smoke of the explosion had died away, the stern walls +that for five hundred years had frowned down upon the streets of Corfe +had gone up in ruin. + +Not altogether destroyed, in the Biblical completeness of the fulfilled +prophecies of “not one stone upon another,” concerning Nineveh, and the +Cities of the Plain; for tall spires of cliff-like masonry still +represent the keep and gateway, and curtain-towers remain in recognisable +shapes, connected by riven jaws of masonry, so hard and so formless that +they are not easily to be distinguished from the rock in which their +foundations are set. Here a tower may be seen, lifted up bodily by the +agency of gunpowder, and set down again at a distance, gently and as +fairly plumb as it was it its original position: there another has been +torn asunder, as one tears a sheet of paper, and a few steps away is +another, leaning at a much more acute angle than the Leaning Tower of +Pisa. Everywhere, light is let into dungeons and battlements abased; +floors abolished and great empty stone fireplaces on what were second, +third and fourth floors turned to mouthpieces for the winds. And yet, +although such havoc has been wrought, and although it is almost +impossible to identify the greater part of its chambers, Corfe Castle is +still a fine and an impressive ruin. It is grand when seen from afar, +and not less grand when viewed near at hand, from the ravine in which +runs the road to Wareham. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + + WAREHAM + +THAT is a straight and easy road which in four miles leads from Corfe to +Wareham, and a breezy and bracing road too, across heaths quite as +unspoilt as those of “Egdon,” but of a more cheerful and hopeful aspect. +_The Return of the Native_, whose scene is laid on the heaths to the +north-west, could not, with the same justness of description, have been +staged upon these, and from another circumstance, quite apart from this +heart-lifting breeziness, these heaths have little in common with their +brooding neighbours. They are enlivened with the signs of a very ancient +and long-continued industry, for where the Romans discovered and dug in +the great deposits of china-clay found here the Dorsetshire labourer +still digs, and runs his truckloads on crazy tramways down to the quays +upon Poole Harbour at Goathorn. Fragments of Roman pottery, made from +this clay, are still occasionally found here, but since that time the +clay has not been turned to extensive use on the spot where it is found, +but is shipped for Staffordshire and abroad. Much of Poole’s prosperity +is due to the china-clay trade, carried on by the vessels of that port, +which receive it from barges crossing the harbour. It was early used for +tobacco-pipes, and probably those of Sir Walter Raleigh’s first +experiments were made from the clay found here. So far back as 1760 the +export of Purbeck china-clay had reached ten thousand tons annually. It +has now risen to about sixty thousand. + +This northern portion of the Isle of Purbeck is indeed of altogether +different character from the rugged stony southern half, beyond Corfe. +It is low-lying and heathy, and the roads are a complete change from the +blinding whiteness characterising those of Purbeck _Petræa_, as it may be +named. Here, mended with ironstone, they are of a ruddy colour. + +Leaving the clay-cutters and their terraced diggings behind, we come, +past the paltry hamlet of Stoborough, within sight of Wareham, entered +across a long causeway over the Frome marshes and over an ancient Gothic +bridge spanning the Frome itself. Ahead is seen the tower of St. Mary’s, +one of the only two churches remaining of the original eight. Five of +the others have been swept away, and the sixth is converted into a +school. Wareham, it will be guessed, is not a mushroom place of +yesterday, but has a past and has seen many changes. + +Wareham, “the oldest arnshuntest place in Do’set, where ye turn up housen +underneath yer ’tater-patch,” as described to the present historian by a +rustic, who might have been the original of Haymoss, in _Two on a Tower_, +is indeed of a hoary antiquity, and bears many evidences of that +attractive fact. Its chief streets, named after the cardinal points of +the compass, do not perhaps afford the best evidences of that age, for +they are broad and straight and lined with houses which, if not all +Georgian, are so largely in that style that they influence the general +character of the thoroughfares and give them an air of the eighteenth +century. For this there is an excellent reason, found in the almost +complete destruction by fire of Wareham, on July 25th, 1762. + +To the ordinary traveller—and certainly to the commercial +traveller—without a bias for history and antiquities, it is the dullest +town in Wessex. Not decayed, like Cerne Abbas, its streets are yet void +and still, and how it, under this constant solitude and somnolence, +manages to retain its prosperity and cheerfulness is an unsolved riddle. + +Wareham, like Dorchester, was enclosed within earthworks; but while +Dorchester has overleaped those ancient bounds, Wareham has shrunk within +them, and one who, climbing those stupendous fortifications, looks down +upon the little town, sees gardens and orchards, pigsties and cowsheds +plentifully intermingled with the streets, on the spot where other and +vanished streets once stood. That “once,” however, was so long ago that +the effect of decay, once produced, no longer obtains, and the mind +dwells, not so greatly upon the fallen fortunes evident in such things, +as upon the luxuriance of the gardens themselves and the prettiness of +the picture they produce, intermingled with the houses. + +Wareham—“Anglebury” Mr. Hardy calls it—is, or was when the latest census +returns were published, a town of two thousand and three inhabitants. + + [Picture: Approach to Wareham] + +Since then it has certainly not increased, and most likely has lost more +than those odd three, thus coming within the fatal definition given +somewhere, by some one, of a village. + + [Picture: The Walls of Wareham] + +Things are in this way come to a parlous state, for this is the latest of +a good many modern strokes. One, which hurt its pride not a little, was +when, in the redistribution of Parliamentary seats, it lost its +representation and became merged in a county division. Another—but why +enumerate these undeserved whips and scorns? In one respect Wareham +keeps an urban character. It has two inns—the “Black Bear” and the “Red +Lion”—that call themselves hotels, and a score or so of minor houses +where, if you cannot obtain a desirable “cup of genuine,” why, “’tis a +sad thing and an oncivilised?” + +It was doubtless its ancient story which induced Mr. Hardy to style +Wareham “Anglebury,” for that story is greatly concerned with the +settlement of the Anglo-Saxons in Dorset and the fortunes of the Kingdom +of Wessex. Conveniently near the sea, within the innermost recesses of +Poole Harbour, and yet removed from the rage and havoc of the outer +elements, it lies on the half-mile-broad tongue of land separating the +two rivers Piddle and Frome, at the distance of little over a mile from +where they debouch upon the landlocked harbour. In a nook such as this +you might think a town would have been secure, and that was the hope of +those who founded it here. But, to render assurance doubly sure, those +original town-builders—who were probably much earlier than the invading +Saxons and are thought to have been some British tribe—heaped up and dug +out those famous “walls of Wareham,” which surround the town to this day, +and are not walls in the common acceptation of the term, but ditches so +deeply delved, and mounds so steeply piled that they are in some places +little more scalable than a forthright, plumb up and down, wall of brick +or masonry would be, and with an “angle of repose” sufficiently acute to +astonish any modern railway engineer. + +Wareham, lying within these cyclopean earthworks, was a place of +strength, but it was its very strength that brought about the bloody +tangle of its long history. Strong defences require determined attacks. +That history only opens with some clearness at the time of the Saxon +occupation, when the piratical Danes were beginning to harry the coast, +but it continues with accounts of fierce assaults and merciless forays, +repeated until the time when Guthrum, the Danish chief, was opposed by +only a few dispirited defenders. In A.D. 876 these Northmen captured the +place, but were besieged by Alfred the Great, who starved them out. Some +Saxon confidence then returned, but the old miseries were repeated when +Canute, not yet the pious Canute of his last years, sailed up the Frome +and not only destroyed this already oft-destroyed town, but pillaged the +greater part of Wessex. + +Little wonder, then, that Wareham was described as a desolated place when +the Conqueror came; but it was made to hold up its head once more, and +the two mints it had owned in the time of Saxon Athelstan were +re-established. The castle, whose name alone survives, in that of Castle +Hill, was then built, and, in the added strength it gave, was the source +of many troubles soon to come. It was surprised and seized for the +Empress Maud in 1138, but captured and burnt by Stephen four years later, +in the absence of its governor, the Earl of Gloucester, who returning, +recaptured the town after a three-weeks’ siege. At length the treaty of +peace and tolerance between Stephen and Maud gave the townsfolk—those few +of them who had been courageous enough to remain, and fortunate enough to +survive—an opportunity of creeping out of the cellars, and of looking +around and reviewing their position. “Hope springs eternal,” and these +remnants of the Wareham folk were in some measure justified of their +faith, for it was not until another half-century had passed that the town +was again besieged and taken. That event was an incident in the +contention between King John and his Barons, and a feature of it was the +destruction of the castle, never afterwards rebuilt. + + [Picture: Wareham] + +That destruction was one of the greatest blessings that could possibly +have befallen this ancient cockpit of racial and personal warfares, for +it rendered Wareham a place of little account in the calculations of +mediæval partisans; and then it grew and prospered, unmolested, until the +Civil War of Crown and Parliament, when old times came again, in the +bewildering circumstances of its being garrisoned for the Parliament +against the inclination of the loyal townsfolk, besieged and half ruined +and then captured by the Royalists, obliged to batter the property of +their friends before they could recover it, and then stormed and +surrendered and regained and evacuated until the Muse of History herself +ceases to keep tally. Few people looked on: most took an active part, +and the rector himself, “a stiff-necked and stubborn scorner of good +things,” was wounded in the head and imprisoned nineteen times. The +obvious criticism here is that they must have been short sentences. The +Parliamentary commander, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, was for punishing the +“dreadful malignancy shown towards the cause of righteousness” by the +Wareham people, and advised that the place be “plucked down and made no +town”; but this course was not adopted. + +Apart from battles and sieges, Wareham has witnessed many horrid deeds. +In that castle whose site alone remains, Robert de Belesme was starved to +death in 1114, and on those walls an unfortunate and indiscreet hermit +and prophet, one Peter of Pomfret, who had prophesied that the King +should lose his crown, was hanged and quartered in 1213, after having +been fed, in the manner of the prophet Micaiah, with the bread of +affliction, and the water of affliction, in the gruesome dungeons of +Corfe. For King John, the Ahab of our history, had a way of his own with +seers of visions and prophesiers of disaster; and his way, it will be +allowed, very effectually discouraged prying into futurity. + +Here also, at a corner of these grassy ramparts still called “Bloody +Bank,” three poor fellows who had taken part in the Monmouth Rebellion +were hanged, portions of their bodies being afterwards exposed, with +ghastly barbarity, in different parts of the town. + +Following the long broad street from where the town is entered across the +Frome, the “Black Bear” is passed, prominent with its porch and the great +chained effigy of the black bear himself, sitting on his rump upon the +roof of it. Passing the Church of St. Martin, perched boldly on a +terrace above the road, its tower bearing a quaintly lettered tablet, +handing the churchwardens of 1712 down to posterity, we now come to the +northern extremity of Wareham, and descending to the banks of the Piddle, +may, looking backwards, see those old defences, the so-styled “walls,” +heaped up with magnificent emphasis. + +They envisage the ancient drama of the contested town, and although it is +a drama long since played, and the curtain rung down upon the last act, +two hundred and fifty years ago, this scenery of it can still eloquently +recall its dragonadoes and blood-boltered episodes. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +WAREHAM TO WOOL AND BERE REGIS + +LEAVING Wareham by West Street, where there is a “Pure Drop” inn, perhaps +suggesting the sign of the public where John Durbeyfield boozed, at +far-away Marlott, a valley road leads by East Stoke to the remains of +Bindon Abbey. + +The ruins of Bindon Abbey are few and formless, standing in tree-grown +and unkempt grounds, where a black and green stagnant moat surrounds a +curious circular mound. Those who demolished Bindon Abbey did their work +thoroughly, for little is left of it save the bases of columns and the +foundations of walls, in which archæological societies see darkly the +ground plan of the old Cistercian monastery. A few stone slabs and +coffins remain, among them a stone with the indent of a vanished +life-sized brass to an abbot. The inscription survives, in bold +Lombardic characters— + + ABBAS RICARDUS DE MANERS HIC TUMULATUR + APPŒNAS TARDUS DEUS HUNC SALVANS + TUEATUR. + +Close by is the stone sarcophagus in which Angel Clare, sleep-walking +from Woolbridge House (which is represented in the story as being much +nearer to this spot than it really is), laid Tess. Near the ruin, beside +the Frome, is Bindon Abbey Mill, where Angel Clare proposed to learn +milling. + +[Picture: The Abbot’s Coffin, Bindon Abbey] Here that thing not greatly +in accord with monastic remains and hallowed vestiges of the olden +times—a railway station—comes within sight and hearing at the end of Wool +village. Old and new, quiet repose and the bustling conduct of business, +mingle strangely here, for within sight of Wool railway station, and +within hearing of the clashing of the heavy consignments of milk-churns, +driven up to it, to be placed on the rail and sent to qualify the tea of +London’s great populations, stands the great, mellowed, Elizabethan, red +brick grange or mansion known as Woolbridge House, romantically placed on +the borders of the rushy river Frome. The property at one time belonged +to the neighbouring Abbey of Bindon, from which it came to Sir Thomas +Poynings, and then to John Turberville. Garrisoned as a strategic point +during the Civil Wars, its history since that period is an obscure and +stagnant one. Long since passed from Turberville hands, it now belongs +to the Erle-Drax family of Charborough Park and Holnest. The air of +bodeful tragedy that naturally enwraps the place and has made many a +passenger in the passing trains exclaim at sight of it, “what a fitting +home for a story!” has at last been justified in its selection by the +novelist as the scene of Tess’s confession to her husband. It was here +the newly married pair were to have spent their honeymoon. “They drove +by the level road along the valley, to a distance of a few miles, and, +reaching Wellbridge, turned away from the village to the left, and over +the great Elizabethan bridge, which gives the place half its name. +Immediately behind it stood the house wherein they had engaged lodgings, +whose external features are so well known to all travellers through the +Frome Valley; once portion of a fine manorial residence, and the property +and seat of a D’Urberville, but since its partial demolition, a +farm-house.” + +It is not altogether remarkable that Clare found the “mouldy old +habitation” somewhat depressing to his dear one; and she was altogether +startled and frightened at “those horrid women,” whose portraits are +actually, as in the pages of the novel they are said to be, on the walls +of the staircase: “two life-size portraits on panels built into the +masonry. As all visitors are aware, these paintings represent women of +middle age, of a date some two hundred years ago, whose lineaments once +seen can never be forgotten. The long pointed features, narrow eye, and +smirk of the one, so suggestive of merciless treachery; the bill-hook +nose, large teeth, and bold eye of the other, suggesting arrogance to the +point of ferocity, haunt the beholder afterwards in his dreams.” They +are indeed unprepossessing dames. One is growing indistinguishable, but +the other still wickedly leers at you, glancing from the tail of her eye, +as though challenging admiration. A painted round or oval decorative +frame surrounds these Turberville portraits, for such they are, and so +they were explained to be to Clare, who uneasily recognised their +likeness in an exaggerated form, to his own darling. All the old +D’Urberville vices of lawless cunning, mediæval ferocity, and callous +heartlessness are reflected in those sinister portraits, which seemed to +him to hold up a distorting mirror to the woman he had married, and +certainly proved themselves of her kin. + + [Picture: Woolbridge House] + +A farm-house the place remains, the ground-floor rooms stone-flagged and +chilly to modern notions, the fireplaces vast and cavernous as they are +wont to be in such old houses. It is perhaps more romantic seen in the +middle distance than when made the subject of closer study. But it is of +course the home of a ghost story, and a very fine and aristocratic +ghost-story too, made the subject of an allusion in _Tess of the +D’Urbervilles_. It seems that in that very long ago, generally referred +to in fairy stories as “once upon a time,” there was a Turberville whose +unholy passions so broke all bounds of restraint that he murdered a guest +while the two of them were riding in the Turberville family coach. But +as the guest was himself one of the family, it were a more judicial +thing, perhaps, to divide the blame. This incident in the annals of a +race who very improperly often figured as sheriffs and such-like +guardians of law and order, took place on the road between Wool and Bere, +and we are asked to believe that there are those who have heard the +wheels of the blood-stained family coach traversing this route. One or +two are said to have seen it, but _they_ are persons proved to own some +mixture of that blood, for to none other is this pleasing spectacle of a +black midnight coach and demon horses vouchsafed. But stay! Not so +pleasing after all, this proof of ancestry, for to them it is a warning +of impending disaster and dissolution. + + [Picture: Woolbridge House: Entrance Front] + +That is a terribly dusty road which, in six miles, leads from Woolbridge +to Bere Regis, across the heaths: in some summers—_experto crede_—so +astonishingly deep in dust that it is not only impossible to ride a +bicycle over it, but scarce possible to walk. But this heath road is as +variable as the moods of a woman. It will be of this complexion at one +time, and at another entirely different. It is perhaps only when this +desirable difference rules that one appreciates the scenery it passes +through; scenery wholly of buff sand, purple heather, furze, and bracken, +whose colours are by distance blended into that rich purple brown termed, +in _The Return of the Native_, “swart.” For this is the district of that +gloomy tale, perhaps at once the most powerful and painful in its tragic +intensity of all the Wessex novels, and one in which the element of +scenery adds most strikingly to the unfolding of futilities and +disasters. “Bere Heath” it is, according to the chartographers of the +Ordnance Survey, but to ourselves who are on literary pilgrimage bent, it +is Egdon Heath whose “swart abrupt slopes” are here seen on every side, +now rising into natural hillocks masquerading solemnly as sepulchral +tumuli, now dipping into hollows where the rainwater collects in marshy +pools and keeps green the croziers and fully-opened fronds of the bracken +much longer than the parched growths, at the crests of these rises; and +again spreading out into little scrubby plains. + +Mr. Hardy, who has translated the reticent solemnity of Egdon Heath into +such poignant romance, has said how pleasant it is to think or dream that +some spot in these extensive wilds may be the heath of Lear, that +traditionary King of Wessex whose sorrows Shakespeare has made the +subject of tragedy; and he has himself, in _The Return of the Native_, +made these heaths the stage whereon a tragedy is enacted that itself bids +fair to become a classic little less classical than the works of +Shakespeare. True it is that his tragedy is in the rustic kind, and none +of the characters in it far above the homespun sort, but the stricken +worm feels as great a pang as when a giant dies, and the woes of Mrs. +Yeobright, of Clym, and of Eustacia and Damon Wildeve are none the less +thrilling than those of that + + “. . . very foolish fond old man + Fourscore and upward, not an hour more or less,” + +whose wanderings are the theme of Shakespeare’s muse. + + [Picture: Gallows Hill, Egdon Heath] + +_The Return of the Native_ is a story of days as well as nights, of fair +weather and foul, of sunshine and darkness, but it is in essence the +story of a darkened stage. The description of Egdon in the opening +chapter is the keynote of a mournful fugue:— + + “The face of the heath by its mere complexion added half an hour to + evening: it could in like manner retard the dawn, sadden noon, + anticipate the frowning of storms scarcely generated, and intensify + the opacity of a moonless midnight to a cause of shaking and dread. + + “In fact, precisely at this transitional point of its nightly roll + into darkness the great and particular glory of the Egdon waste + began, and nobody could be said to understand the heath who had not + been there at such a time. It could best be felt when it could not + clearly be seen, its complete effect and explanation lying in this + and the succeeding hours before the next dawn: then, and only then, + did it tell its true tale. The spot was, indeed, a near relation of + night, and when night showed itself an apparent tendency to gravitate + together could be perceived in its shades and the scene. The sombre + stretch of rounds and hollows seemed to rise and meet the evening + gloom in pure sympathy, the heath exhaling darkness as rapidly as the + heavens precipitated it.” + +An artist who should come to Egdon, intent upon studying its +colour-scheme, would be nonplussed by the more than usual fickleness and +instability of its daylight hues. Shrouded in the black repose of night, +its tone is a thing of some permanence, but under the effects of sunshine +he finds it now purple, now raw sienna, shading off into Prout’s Brown, +and again rising to glints and fleeting stripes of rich golden yellow. +It would be the despair of one who worked in the slow analytic manner of +a Birket Foster, but the joy of an impressionist like a Whistler. + + [Picture: Chamberlain’s Bridge] + +The extremely rich and beautiful colouring of Wool and Bere Heaths +deepens with the setting of the sun to a velvety blackness and gives to +the fir-crowned hills melodramatic and tragical significances. Such an +one is Gallows Hill, where the road goes in a hollow formed by the +massive shoulders of the tree-studded height. Here, the gossips say, +with the incertitude of rustic indifference, a man hanged himself, or was +hanged. When or why he committed what we have the authority of +conventional old-time journalism for calling “the rash deed,” does not—in +the same language—“transpire.” But certainly he selected a romantic spot +for ending, for from the ragged crest, underneath one of those “clumps +and stretches of fir-trees, whose notched tops are like battlemented +towers crowning black-fronted castles of enchantment,” the moorland, +under the different local names of Hyde Heath, Decoy Heath, and Gore +Heath, but all one to the eye, goes stretching away some ten miles, to +Poole Harbour, seen from this view-point, on moonlit nights, glancing +like a mirror in a field of black velvet. + + [Picture: Rye Hill, Bere Regis] + +A juicy interlude to the summer dryness of these wastes is that dip in +the road where one comes to the river Piddle at Chamberlain’s Bridge, a +battered old red brick pont that, by the aid of the quietly gliding +stream and the dark, boding mass of fir-crowned Mat Hill in the +background, makes a memorable picture. Only when Bere Regis comes within +sight are the solitudes of Egdon left behind. Steeply down goes the way +into the village, down Rye Hill, past the remarkably picturesque old +thatched cottage illustrated here, perched on its steep roadside bank, +and so at last on to the level where Bere Church is glimpsed, standing +four-square and handsome in advance of the long street, backed by dense +clumps of that tree, the fir, which has so strong an affection for these +sandy heaths. Here then is the introduction to the +“Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill” of the Wessex novels, the “half-dead townlet . +. . the spot of all spots in the world which could be considered the +D’Urbervilles’ home, since they had resided there for full five hundred +years.” + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + + BERE REGIS + +THIS “blinking little place,” and now perhaps a not even blinking, but +fast asleep village, was at one time a market-town, and, more than that, +as its latinised name would imply, a royal residence. Kingsbere, said to +mean “Kingsbury”—that is to say, “King’s place” or building—really +obtained its name in very different fashion. It was plain “Bere,” long +before the Saxon monarchs came to this spot and caused the latter-day +confusion among antiquaries of the British “bere,” meaning an underwood, +a scrub, copse, bramble, or thorn-bed, with the Anglo-Saxon “byrig.” We +have but to look upon the surroundings of Bere Regis even at this day, a +thousand years later, to see how truly descriptive that British name +really was. It was of old a place greatly favoured by royalty, from that +remote age when Elfrida murdered her stepson, Edward the King and Martyr, +at Corfe Castle, and thrashed her own son Ethelred here with a large wax +candle, for reproaching her with the deed. Those events happened in A.D. +978, and it is therefore not in any way surprising that no traces of the +ferocious Queen Elfrida’s residence have survived. Ethelred, we are +told, hated wax candles ever after that severe thrashing, and doubtless +hated Bere as well; but it was more than ever a royal resort in the later +times of King John, who visited it on several occasions in the course of +his troubled reign. Thenceforward, however, the favours of monarchs +ceased, and it came to depend upon the good will of the Abbots of Tarent +Abbey and that of the Turbervilles, who between them became owners of the +manor. + +The village street of Bere is bleak and barren. It is a street of rustic +cottages of battered red brick, or a compost of mud, chopped straw, and +lime, called “cob,” built on a brick base, often plastered, almost all of +them thatched: some with new thatch, some with thatch middle-aged, others +yet with thatch ancient and decaying, forming a rich and fertile bed for +weeds and ox-eyed daisies and “bloody warriors,” as the local Dorsetshire +name is for the rich red wall-flowers. Sometimes the old thatch has been +stripped before the new was placed: more often it has not, and the merest +casual observer can, as he passes, easily become a critic of the +thoroughness or otherwise with which the thatcher’s work has been +performed, not only by sight of the different shades belonging to old and +new, but by the varying thicknesses with which the roofs are seen to be +covered. Here an upstairs window looks out immediately, open-eyed, upon +the sunlight; there another peers blinkingly forth, as behind beetling +eyebrows, from half a yard’s depth of straw and reed, shading off from a +coal-black substratum to a coffee-coloured layer, and thence to the amber +top-coating of the latest addition. Warm in winter, cool in summer, is +the testimony of cottagers towards thatch; and earwiggy always, thinks +the stranger under such roofs, as he observes quaint lepidoptera +ensconced comfortably in his bed. Picturesque it certainly is, expensive +too, although it may not generally be thought so; but it is more enduring +than cheap slates or tiles, and, according to many who should know, if +indeed their prejudices do not warp their statements, cheaper in the long +run. + + [Picture: Bere Regis] + +It is, in fine, not easy to come to a definitive pronouncement on the +merits or demerits, the comparative cheapness or costliness, of rival +roofing materials. The cost of the materials themselves, payments for +laying them, and the astonishing difference between the enduring +qualities of thatch well and thatch indifferently laid forbid certitude. +But all modern local authorities are opposed to thatch, chiefly on the +score of its liability to fire. All the many and extensive fires of +Dorsetshire have been caused by ignited thatch; or else, caused in other +ways, have been spread and magnified by it. Yet, here again your rustic +will stoutly defend the ancient roofing, and declare that while such a +roof is slowly smouldering, and before it bursts into a blaze, he can +dowse it with a pail of water. No doubt, but that water, from a well +perhaps two hundred feet deep, and that ladder from some neighbour +half-a-mile away, are sometimes not to be brought to bear with the +required celerity. + +This, let it be fervently said, is not an attack upon thatch: it is but +the presentation of pros and cons, and is no argument in favour of that +last word in utilitarian hideousness, corrugated galvanized iron, under +whose shelter you freeze in winter and fry in summer. + +Meanwhile, here are ruined cottages in the long street of Bere, whose +condition has been brought about by just such causes, and whose +continuation in that state is due, not to a redundancy of dwellings, but +because the Lady of the Manor at Charborough, despising the insignificant +rents here, will not trouble about, or go to the expense of, rebuilding. + +Hence the gaps in the long row, like teeth missing from a jaw. + +Not a little hard-featured and stern at first sight, owing to the entire +absence of the softening feature of gardens upon the road, this long +street of Bere has yet a certain self-reliant strong-charactered aspect +that brings respect. It has, too, the most interesting and beautiful +church, rich in historical, and richer in literary, associations. + + [Picture: Bere Regis] + +Bere Regis in its decay is a storehouse of old Dorset speech and customs. +To its cottagers vegetables are “gearden-tackle,” sugar—at least, the +moist variety—is “zand,” and garden-flowers all have quaint outlandish +names. The rustic folk have a keen, if homely philosophy. “Ef ’twarnt +for the belly,” said one to the present writer, in allusion to cost of +living, “back ’ud wear gold.” “Bere,” said another—an ‘outlandish’ +person he, who had only been settled in the village a decade or so and +accordingly was only regarded as a stranger, and so indeed regarded +himself—“Bere, a poor dra’lattin twankyten pleace, ten mile from +anywheer, God help it!” which is so very nearly true that, if you consult +the map you will find that Dorchester is ten miles distant, Corfe Castle +twelve, Wimborne twelve, Blandford eight, and Wareham, the nearest town, +seven miles away. + +“Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill,” as Mr. Hardy elects to rechristen Bere Regis, +owes the ultimate limb of that compound name to Woodbury Hill, a lofty +elevation rising like an exaggerated down, but partly clothed with trees, +on the outskirts of Bere Regis. The novelist describes this scene of an +ancient annual fair, now much shrunken from its olden import, rather as +it was than as it is. “Greenhill was the Nijni Novgorod of South Wessex; +and the busiest, merriest, noisiest day of the whole statute number was +the day of the sheep-fair. This yearly gathering was upon the summit of +a hill, which retained in good preservation the remains of an ancient +earthwork, consisting of a huge rampart and entrenchment of an oval form, +encircling the top of the hill, though somewhat broken down here and +there. To each of the two openings, on opposite sides, a winding road +ascended, and the level green space of twenty or thirty acres enclosed by +the bank was the site of the fair. A few permanent erections dotted the +spot, but the majority of the visitors patronised canvas alone for +resting and feeding under during the time of their sojourn here.” + +The place looks interesting, viewed from beneath whence two +forlorn-looking houses are seen perched on the very ridge of the windy +height. But it is always best to remain below, and so to keep romantic +illusions; and here is no exception. Climbing to the summit, those two +houses are increased to fifteen or seventeen red-brick, storm-beaten +cottages, some thatched, others slated, mostly uninhabited; all +commonplace. The fair is still held in September, beginning on the 18th, +the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Formerly it lasted a week, and, +at the rate of a hundred pounds a day in tolls to the Lord of the Manor, +brought that fortunate person an annual “unearned increment” as the +Radicals would call it, of £700. Nowadays those tolls are very much of a +negligible quantity. + +Here it was, during the sheep fair, that Troy, supposed to have long +before been drowned in Lulworth Cove, but living and masquerading as Mr. +Francis, the Great Cosmopolitan Roughrider, enacted the part of Dick +Turpin in the canvas-covered show, and, looking through a hole in the +tent, unobserved himself, observed Bathsheba, who had thought him dead. + +The villagers of Bere look askance upon the dwellers on this eyrie. They +tell you “they be gipsy vo’k up yon,” and hold it to be the last resort +of those declining in worldly estate. Villagers going, metaphorically, +“down the hill” in the direction of outdoor relief, move to the less +desirable cottages in the village, and then, complete penury at last +overtaking them, continue their moral and economic descent by the +geographical ascent of this hill of Woodbury, whence they are at last +removed to “The Union.” + +Below Woodbury Hill, on the edge of Bere Wood, the scene of an old +Turberville attempt at illegal enclosure, is rural Bloxworth, whose +little church contains the fine monument of Sir John Trenchard “of the +ancient family of the Trenchards in Dorsetshire,” Sergeant-at-Law and +Secretary of State in the reign of William and Mary. He died in 1695, +aged 46. Ten years before, he had been an active sympathiser with the +Duke of Monmouth, in that ill-fated rebellion, and it is told, how, when +visiting one Mr. Speke at Ilchester, hearing that Jeffreys had issued a +warrant for his arrest, he instantly took horse, rode to Poole and thence +crossed to Holland, returning with the Prince of Orange three years +later. + +Above all other interest at Bere is the beautiful church, standing a +little distance below the long-drawn village street, and clearly from its +character and details, a building cherished and beautified by the Abbey +of Tarent, by the Turbervilles, and by Cardinal Archbishop Morton, native +of the place. + +The three-staged pinnacled tower is very fine, the lower stage +alternately of stone and flint, the three surmounting courses diapered: +the second and third stages treated wholly in that chessboard fashion. +The beautiful belfry windows, of three lights, divided into three stages +by transoms, are filled with pierced stonework. The exterior south wall +of the church is of alternate red brick and flint, in courses of threes. +There is a remarkable window in the west wall of the north aisle, and in +the south wall the exceptionally fine and unusual Turberville window, of +late Gothic character and five lights, filled in modern times by the +Erle-Drax family, of Charborough, with a series of stained-glass armorial +shields, displaying the red lion of the Turbervilles, all toe-nails and +whiskers, and ducally crowned, ramping against an ermine field, firstly +by himself and then conjointly with the arms of the families with which +the Turbervilles, in the course of many centuries, allied themselves. +The Erle-Draxes have not, in honouring the extinct Turberville, forgotten +themselves, for some of the shields display their arms and those of the +Sawbridges, Grosvenors, Churchills, and Eggintons they married. + + [Picture: Bere Regis: Interior of Church] + +Entering, the building is seen to be even more beautiful than without. +Its most striking and unusual feature—unusual in this part of the +country—is the extraordinarily gorgeous, elaborately carved and painted +timber roof, traditionally said to have been the gift of Cardinal Morton, +born at Milborne Stileman, in the parish of Bere Regis. The hammer-beams +are boldly carved into the shapes of bishops, cardinals, and pilgrims, +while the bosses are worked into great faces that look down with a fat +calm satisfaction that must be infinitely reassuring to the +congregations. + +The bench ends are another interesting feature. Many are old, others are +new, done in the old style when the church was admirably restored by +Street. Had Sir Gilbert Scott been let loose upon it, it may well be +supposed that the surviving bench-ends would have been cast out, and nice +new articles by the hands of his pet firm of ecclesiastical furnishers +put in their stead. One is dated, in Roman numerals, MCCCCCXLVII; +another is inscribed “IOH. DAV. WAR. DENOF. THYS. CHARYS,” and another +bears a merchant’s mark, with the initial of “I. T.” The Transitional +Norman pillars are bold and virile, with humorous carvings of that period +strikingly projecting from their capitals. It evidently seemed to that +now far-away waggish fellow who sculptured them that toothache and +headache were things worth caricaturing. Let us hope he never suffered +from them, but he evidently took as models some who were such martyrs. + + [Picture: Pew ends in Bere Regis Church] + +But the centre of interest to us in these pages is by the Turberville +window in the south aisle, beneath whose gorgeous glass is the great +ledger-stone, covering the last resting-place of the extinct family. It +is boldly lettered: + + _Ostium sepulchri antiquae_ + _Famillae Turberville_ + _24 Junij 1710_ + + (_The door of the sepulchre_ + _of the ancient family_ + _of the Turbervilles_). + +In the wall beneath the window is a defaced Purbeck marble altar-tomb, +and four others neighbour it. These are the tombs described in _Tess of +the D’Urbervilles_ as “canopied, altar-shaped, and plain; their brasses +torn from their matrices, the rivet-holes remaining, like marten-holes in +a sand-cliff,” and it was on one of those that Alec D’Urberville lay +prone, in pretence of being an effigy of one of her ancestors, when Tess +was exploring the twilight church. + +The great monumental _History of Dorsetshire_ tells the enquirer a good +deal of the Turbervilles who, being themselves all dead and gone to their +place, have, with a slight alteration in the spelling of their name +served as a peg on which to hang the structure of one of the finest +exercises ever made in the art of novel writing. It seems that the +Turbervilles descended from one Sir Pagan or Payne Turberville, or de +Turbida Villa, who is shown in the Roll of Battle Abbey—or was shown, +before that Roll was accidentally burnt—to have come over with the +Conqueror. After the Battle of Hastings he seems to have been one of +twelve knights who helped Robert Fitz Hamon, Lord of Estremaville, in his +unholy enterprises, and then to have returned to England when his +over-lord was created Earl of Gloucester. He warred in that lord’s +service, in the Norman conquest of Glamorgan, and was rewarded with a +tit-bit of spoil there, in the shape of the lordship of Coyty. + +In the reign of Henry III. a certain John de Turberville is found paying +an annual fee or fine in respect of some land in the forest of Bere, +which an ancestor of his had impudently endeavoured to enclose out of the +estate of the Earl of Hereford; and in 1297 a member of the family is +found in the neighbourhood of Bere Regis. This Brianus de Thorberville, +or Bryan Turberville, was lord of the manor, called from its situation on +the river Piddle, and from himself, “Piddle Turberville,” and now +represented by the little village called Bryan’s Piddle. + + [Picture: Bere Regis: the Turberville Window] + +At a later period the rising fortunes of this family are attested by +their coming into possession of half of the manor of Bere Regis, the +other half being, as it had long been, the property of Tarent Abbey. +Still later, when at last that Abbey was dissolved, the Turbervilles were +in the enjoyment of good fortune, for the other half of the manor then +came to them. This period seems to have marked the summit of their +advancement, for from that time they gradually but surely decayed, giving +point to the old superstition which dates the decadence of many an old +family from that day when it sacrilegiously was awarded the spoils of the +Church. This fall from position began in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, +but D’Albigny Turberville, the oculist who was consulted by Pepys the +diarist, and eventually died in 1696, as the tomb to him with the fulsome +inscription in Salisbury Cathedral tells us, was a distinguished scion of +the ancient race, as also was “George Turberville, gentleman,” and poet, +born at Winterborne Whitchurch, and publishing books of poems and travels +in 1570. These, doubtless, were not forms of distinction that would have +commended themselves to those old fighting and land-snatching +Turbervilles; but, other times, other manners. + +The last Turberville of Bere Regis was that Thomas Turberville over whom +the ancient vault of his stock finally closed in 1710. His twin +daughters and co-heiresses, Frances and Elizabeth, born here in 1703, +sold the property and left for London. They died at Purser’s Cross, +Fulham, near London, early in 1780, and were buried together at Putney. +Shortly afterwards their old manor-house of Bere Regis, standing near the +church, was allowed to lapse into ruin, and thus their kin became only a +memory where they had ruled so long. Of the old branch of the family +settled in Glamorganshire, a Colonel Turberville remains the +representative, but the position of the various rustics who in Dorset and +Wilts bear the name, corrupted variously into Tollafield and +Troublefield, is open to the suspicion that they are the descendants of +illegitimate offspring of that race. There remained, indeed, until quite +recent years a humble family of “Torevilles” in Bere Regis, one of whom +persisted in calling himself “Sir John.” But as Mr. Hardy says, in the +course of _Tess of the D’Urbervilles_, instances of the gradual descent +of legitimate scions of the old knightly families, down and again +downwards until they have become mere farm-labourers, are not infrequent +in Wilts and Dorset. Their high-sounding names have undergone outrageous +perversions, as in the stated instance of courtly Paridelle into rustic +Priddle; but, although they have inherited no worldly gear they own the +same blood. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + + THE HEART OF THE HARDY COUNTRY + +DORCHESTER is not only the capital of Dorset: it is also the chief town +of the Hardy Country. The ancient capital of Wessex was Winchester: the +chief seat of this literary domain is here, beside the Frome. Four miles +distant from it the novelist was born, and at Max Gate, Fordington, +looking down upon Dorchester’s roofs, he resides. + +The old country life still closely encircles the county town, and on +market-days takes the place by storm; so that when, by midday, most of +the carriers from a ten or fifteen miles radius have deposited their +country folk, and the farmers have come in on horseback, or driving, or +perhaps by train, the slighter forms, less ruddy faces, and more urban +dress of the townsfolk are lost amid the great army of occupation that +from farms, cottages, dairies, and sheep-pastures, has for the rest of +the day taken possession of the streets. The talk is all of the goodness +or badness of the hay crop, the prospects of the harvest, how swedes are +doing, and the condition of cows, sheep, and pigs; or, if it be on toward +autumn, when the hiring of farm-labourers, shepherds, and rural servants +in general for the next twelve months is the engrossing topic, then the +scarcity of hands and their extravagant demands are the themes of much +animated talk. + +Dorchester faithfully at such times reflects the image of Dorset, and +Dorset remains to this day, and long may it so remain, a great +sheep-breeding and grazing county, and equally great as a land of rich +dairies. From that suburb of Fordington, which has for so very many +centuries been a suburb that to those who know it the name bears no +suburban connotation, you may look down, as from a cliff-top, and see the +river Frome winding away amid the rich grazing pastures, and with one ear +hear the cows calling, while with the other the cries of the newspaper +boys are heard in the streets of the town. The scent of the hay and the +drowsy hum of the bees break across the top of the bluff, and, just as +one may read, in the exquisite description of these things in the pages +of _The Mayor of Casterbridge_, the dandelion and other winged seeds +float in at open windows. One may sometimes from this point, when the +foliage of its dense screen of trees grows thin, see Stinsford, the +“Mellstock” of that idyllic tale, _Under the Greenwood Tree_; but in +general you can see nothing of that sequestered spot until you have +reached the by-lane out of the main road from Dorchester, and, turning +there to the right, come to Stinsford Church, along a way made a midday +twilight by those trees which render the title of that story so +descriptive. + + [Picture: Stinsford Church. (Mellstock)] + +Blue wood-smoke, curling up from cottage chimneys against the massed +woodlands that surround Kingston House, grey church, largely ivy-covered +and plentifully endowed with grotesque gurgoyles—these, with school-house +and scattered cottages, make the sum-total of Stinsford, or “Mellstock.” +The school-house is that of the young school-mistress, Fancy Day, in the +story; and suggests romance; but the sentimental pilgrim may be excused +for being of opinion that it is all in the book, with perhaps nothing +left over for real life. At any rate, passing it, as the scholars within +are, like bees, in Mr. Hardy’s words, “humming small,” one does not +linger, but speculates more or less idly which was the cottage where +Tranter Dewy lived, and which that of Geoffrey Day, the keeper of Yalbury +Great Wood. There are not, after all, many cottages to choose from, and +Mr. Hardy has so largely peopled his stories from Mellstock that each one +might well be a literary landmark. The Fiddler of the Reels, Mop +Ollamoor, a rustic Paganini, whose diabolical cleverness with his violin +is the subject of a short story, lived in one of these thatched homes of +rural content, and in another was born unhappy Jude the Obscure. In each +one of the rest you can imaginatively find the home of a member of that +famous Mellstock choir, whose performances and enthusiasm sometimes rose +so “glorious grand” that those who wrought with stringed instruments +almost sawed through the strings of fiddle and double-bass, and those +others whose weapons were of brass blew upon them until they split the +seams of their coats and sent their waistcoat-buttons flying with the +force of their fervid harmony, in the cumulative strains of Handel and +the dithyrambics of Tate and Brady. “Oh! for such a man in our parish,” +was thought to be the admiratory attitude of the parson at the +_fortissimo_ outburst of a minstrel from a neighbouring village, who had +taken a turn with the local choir; but the parson’s pose was less one of +admiration than of startled surprise. + +All the members of that harmonious, if at times too vigorous, choir are +gone to the land where, let us hope, they are quiring in the white robes +and golden crowns usually supposed to be the common wear “up along”; and +their instruments are perished too: + + The knight is dust, his sword is rust, + His soul is with the saints, we trust. + +Or, as Mr. Hardy, in _Friends Beyond_, says of his own creations: + + William Dewy, Tranter Reuben, + Farmer Ledlow late at plough, + Robert’s kin, and John’s, and Ned’s, + And the Squire and Lady Susan + Lie in Mellstock churchyard now. + +The clergy, who were responsible for the disappearance of the old choirs, +did not succeed at one stroke in sweeping them away, and in many parishes +it was not until the leader had died that they broke up the old rustic +harmony. “The ‘church singers,’ who played anthems, with selections +‘from Handel, but mostly composed by themselves,’ had a position in their +parish. They had an admiring congregation. Their afternoon anthem was +the theme of conversation at the church porch before the service, and of +enquiry and critical disquisition after. ‘And did John,’ one would ask, +‘keep to his time?’ ‘Samuel was crowding very fitly until his string +broked.’ This was said after a performance difficult in all the +categories in which difficulty—close up even to impossibility—may be +found. And there was, I was about to say, a finale, but it seemed +endless; it was a concluding portion, and a long one, of the anthem. + +“Mary began an introductory recapitulation, in which she was ably +followed, of the words, the subject of the composition, the masterpiece +of one, or many, if the choir had lent a helping hand. It happened that +Mary had to manage three full syllables, and all the cadences, and +trills, and quavers connected therewith, as a solo. Then followed, +through all the turns of the same intricate piece, Thomas, of tenor +voice, who evolved his music, but did not advance to any elucidation of +the subject of his concluding effort. He only dwelt upon the same +syllables, at which the good minister was seen to smile and become +restless, particularly when Jonathan took on with his deep bass voice, +accompanied by the tones he drew from his bass-viol. He, as best suited +a bass singer, slowly repeated the syllables that Mary and Thomas had +produced in so many ways, and with such a series of intonations, +‘OUR—GREAT—SAL.’ May some who tittered at this canonisation of, as it +were, a female saint, be forgiven!’ Had they waited a few minutes, the +grand union of all the performers in loud chorus would have enlightened +them to the fact that the last syllable was only the first of one of +three ending in ‘_vation_,’ which would be loudly repeated by the whole +choir till they appeared fairly tired out.” + +The very last surviving vestige of the old village choirs of the West of +England became extinct in 1893. Until then the startled visitor from +London, or indeed any other part of a country by that time given over to +harmoniums in chapels, cheap and thin organs in small churches, and more +full-toned ones in larger, would have found the village choir of +Martinstown still bass-viol and fiddle-scraping, flute-blowing, and +clarionet-playing, as their forefathers had been wont to do. +“Martinstown” is the style by which Wessex folk, not quite equal to the +constant daily repetition of the name of Winterborne St. Martin, know +that village, a little to the west of Dorchester. It is a considerable +place and by no means remote, and it was therefore not the general +inaccessibility of Martinstown to modern ideas that caused this survival, +when every other parish had put away such things. Martinstown then +provided itself with an organ, as understood to-day; and so escaped a +middle period to which many another parish fell a victim, between the +decay of the old church music and the adoption of the new. When, about +the accession of Queen Victoria, village minstrelsy began to relax, there +came in a fashion, or rather a scourge, of mechanical barrel-organs, +fitted to play a dozen or fewer, sacred tunes, according to the local +purse, or the local requirements. Precisely like secular barrel organs, +save only in the matter of the tunes they were constructed to play, +church minstrelsy with them not only became mechanical but singularly +unvaried, for, when your dozen tunes were played, there was nothing for +it—if, like Oliver Twist, the congregation called for more—but to grind +the same things over again. The only variety—and that was one not +covenanted for—was when portions of the melody-producing works decayed +and broke off. A tooth missing from a cog-wheel, or something wrong with +the barrel, was apt to give an ungodly twist to the Old Hundredth, +calculated to impart a novelty to that ancient stand-by of village +churches, and would even have made the air of “Onward, Christian +Soldiers!” stream forth in spasms, as though those soldiers were an +awkward squad learning some ecclesiastical goose-step. In short, the +barrel-organs were not “things seemly and of good report,” and they +presently died the death. + +Many regretted the old order of things, largely destroyed by the current +movements in the Church. Reforming High Churchmen had seized upon the +signs of weakness exhibited in the old choirs, and had made away with +them wherever possible. The rustic music had, as we have seen, its +humorous incidents, but it was enthusiastic and was understood and +sympathised with by the people. Surpliced choirs, and others, formed as +they now commonly are, from classes superior to those of which the old +instrumental and vocal choirs were composed, have not that hold upon +congregations, who do not sing, as the Prayer-book and the Psalm enjoin, +but listen while others do the singing for them. + +“Why, daze my old eyes,” said a Wessex rustic, reviewing the trend of +modern life, “everything’s upsey-down. ’Tis, if ye want this and if ye +want that, put yer hand in yer pocket and goo an’ git some’un to do’t for +ye, or goo to the Stowers (he meant the Stores) up to Do’chester, and buy +yer ’taters and have’m sint home for ’ee, cheaper’n ye can grow’m, let be +the back-breakin’ work of a hoein’ of ’em, and a diggin’ of ’em and a +clanin’ of ’em. An’ talking of church, why bless ’ee, tidden no manner +of good yer liftin’ up yer v’ice glad-like, an’ makkin’ a cheerful noise +onto the Lord, as we’m bidden to do. Not a bit. Ef ye do’t passon looks +all of a pelt, and they boys in their nightshirts sets off a-sniggerin’ +and they tells yer ye bissen much of a songster, they ses.” + +It has already been said that the instruments, as well as the old village +players of them, have perished, but at least one specimen of that oddly +named instrument, the “serpent,” frequently mentioned by Mr. Hardy, has +survived. This example is in the possession of Messrs. H. Potter & Co., +of West Street, Charing Cross Road. The serpent belongs to such a past +order of things that, like the rebecs, dulcimers, and shawms of +Scriptural references, it requires explanation. + +The “serpent,” then, it may be learned, although invented by one +Guillaume so far back as the close of the sixteenth century, first came +into general use in the early part of the eighteenth. It was a wind +instrument, the precursor of the bass horn, or ophicleide, which in its +turn has been superseded by the valved bass brasses of the present day. +The serpent of course owed its name to its contorted shape. It was +generally made of wood, covered with leather, and stained black, and +ranged in length from about twenty-nine to thirty-three inches. The +earlier form of serpent had but six holes, but these were gradually +increased, and keyed, until this now obsolete instrument, as improved by +Key, of London, about the beginning of the nineteenth century, finally +became possessed of seventeen keys. It went out of use, +contemporaneously with the decay of the old village choirs, about 1830. + +The geographical area of the heart of the Hardy Country is not very +great, but the difficulties of finding one’s way about it are not small. +The Vale of Great Dairies opens out, and the many runnels of the Frome +make the byways so winding that to clearly know whither one is going +demands the use of a very large-scale Ordnance Map. But to lose one’s +self here is no disaster. You will find your way out again, and in the +meanwhile will have come into intimate touch with dairying, and perhaps, +if it be early summer, will find the barns and the waterside busy with +sheepshearers. Seeing the dexterous shearing, the quick, practised +movements of the men and the panting helplessness of the sheep, one is +reminded of the similar scene in _Far from the Madding Crowd_. + +Away across the Frome is the rustic, out-of-the-way village of West +Stafford, which has a little one-aisled church, still displaying the +royal arms of the time of Queen Elizabeth with that semée of lilies, the +empty boast of a sovereignty over France, which, to the contemplative and +sentimental student of history is as pitiful a make-believe as that of +penury apeing affluence. “That glorious _Semper Eadem_,” motto, “our +banner and our pride,” as Macaulay says, looks a little flatulent in +these circumstances of a relaxed grasp. + +The long rhymed inscription outside an off-licence beerhouse in the +village, displaying the Hardyean phrase of “a cup of genuine” for a glass +of ale, is a curiosity in its way— + + I trust no Wise Man will condemn + A Cup of Genuine now and then. + When you are faint, your spirits low, + Your string relaxed ’twill bend your Bow, + Brace your Drumhead and make you tight, + Wind up your Watch and set you right: + But then again the too much use + Of all strong liquors is the abuse. + ’Tis liquid makes the solid loose, + The Texture and whole frame Destroys, + But health lies in the Equipoise. + +Resuming the north bank of the Frome, and the road to Tincleton, a +left-hand turning is seen leading across to Piddletown, by way of Lower +and Upper Bockhampton—hamlets rustic to the last degree, and, by reason +of being quite remote from any road the casual stranger is likely to +take, unknown to the outside world. Yet the second of these, the +thatched and tree-embowered hamlet of Upper Bockhampton, has the keenest +interest for the explorer of the Hardy Country, for it was here, in the +rustic, thatched cottage still occupied by members of the Hardy family, +that Thomas Hardy, novelist and poet, was born, June 2nd, 1840. It is a +fitting spot for the birthplace of one who has described nature as surely +it has never before been described, has pictured the moods of earth and +sky, and has heard and given new significances to the voices of birds and +trees, by the stubborn and intractable method of prose-writing. + + [Picture: Birthplace of Thomas Hardy] + +The cottage stands—its front almost hid from sight in the dense growths +of its old garden and by the slope of the downs—at the extreme upper end +of Upper Bockhampton, on the edge of the wild, called, with a fine +freedom of choice, Bockhampton or Piddletown Heath, and Thorneycombe or +Ilsington Woods. You enter its garden up steep, rustic steps, and find +its low-ceiled rooms stone-flagged and criss-crossed with beams. At the +back, its walls, with small latticed windows, look sheer upon a lane +leading into the heart of the woodland; where, so little are strangers +expected or desired that the tree-trunks bear notice-boards detailing +what shall be done to those who trespass. Branches of these enshrining +trees touch the thatched roof and scrape the walls, and the voices of the +wind and of the woodlands reverberate from them; and when the sun goes +down, the nocturnal orchestra of owls and nightingales strikes up. It is +an ideal spot for the birth of one whose genius and bent are largely in +the interpretation of nature; but it must not be forgotten that the +chances are always against the observation and appreciation of scenes +amidst which a child has been born and reared, and that only exceptional +receptivity can throw off the usual effect of staleness and lack of +interest in things usual and accustomed. It is thus in the nature of +things that the townsman generally takes a keener interest in the country +than those native to it, and the dweller in the mushroom cities of +commerce finds more in a cathedral city than many of those living within +the shadow of the Minster ever suspect. This is to say, parabolically, +what we all know, that the nature of the seer is an exceptional nature, +and rises superior to the dulling effects of use and wont: unaccountable +as the winds that blow, and not to be analysed or predicated by any +literary meteorological department. + + [Picture: Birthplace of Thomas Hardy] + +Returning through Lower Bockhampton, on the way to Tincleton, a ridge is +presently seen on the left hand, crowned with fir-trees, and a little +questing will reveal a rush-grown pool, the original of Heedless +William’s Pond, mentioned in _The Fiddler of the Reels_. Beyond this +landmark, a cottage that fills the position of “Bloom’s End” in _The +Return of the Native_, is seen, and on the right-hand side the farmstead +of Norris Mill Farm, where, overlooking the Vale of Great Dairies, is the +original of Talbothays, the dairy where Angel Clare, learning the +business from Dairyman Crick, met Tess. Below the grassy bluff on whose +sides the farm-buildings stand may be traced the fertilising course of +the Frome, or as Mr. Hardy calls it, the Var:—“The Var waters were clear +as the pure River of Life shown to the Evangelist, rapid as the shadow of +a cloud, with pebbly shadows that prattled to the sky all day long. +There the water-flower was the lily.” + + [Picture: The “Duck” Inn, Original of the “Quiet Woman” Inn] + +This land of fat kine and water-meads, to the south of the road, is +neighboured to the northward by the outlying brown and purple stretches +of Egdon Heath, into whose wilds we shall presently come. “Bloom’s End,” +or a house that may well stand for it, we have noticed, and now come upon +a humble little farm on the right hand, standing with front to the road +and facing upon a strikingly gloomy heather-covered hill. This is the +house, once the “Duck” inn, which figures in _The Return of the Native_ +as the “Quiet Woman” inn, kept by Damon Wildeve, who, a failure as an +engineer, made a worse shipwreck of life here. As described in the +novel, a little patch of land has by dint of supreme exertions been +reclaimed from the grudging soil: + +“Wildeve’s Patch, as it was called, a plot of land redeemed from the +heath, and after long and laborious years brought into cultivation. The +man who had discovered that it could be tilled died of the labour: the +man who succeeded him in possession ruined himself in fertilising it. +Wildeve came like Amerigo Vespucci, and received the honours due to those +who had gone before.” + +A casual talk with the small farmer who has taken the place reveals the +fact that this soil is a hard taskmaster and yields a poor recompense. +The heathery hill facing it is described exactly as it is in nature: + +“The front of the house was towards the heath and Rainbarrow, whose dark +shape seemed to threaten it from the sky. . . .” + +“It was a barrow. This bossy projection of earth above its natural level +occupied the loftiest ground of the loneliest height that the heath +contained. Although from the vale it appeared but as a wart on an +Atlantean brow, its actual bulk was great. It formed the pole and axis +of this heathery world.” + +The soil at the back of the house is better, which indeed it could well +be without being even then particularly good. It slopes towards the +river, at what is described in the book as “Shadwater Weir,” where the +drowned bodies of Wildeve and Eustacia were found: + + “The garden was at the back, and behind this ran a still deep + stream.” + + [Picture: Tincleton] + +The village of Tincleton, the “Stickleford” of casual mention in some of +the short stories, is one of about a dozen cottages, clustering round a +little church and school; and with presumably a few dozen more dwellings +in the neighbourhood of the wide common on which Tincleton stands, to +account for the existence of that school and that church. Past it and +Pallington, whose hill and hilltop firs, known as Pallington Clump, are +conspicuous for great distances, we turn to the left and explore a +portion of Egdon Heath towards Bryan’s Piddle and Bere Regis. Everywhere +the wilds now stretch forth and seem to bid defiance to the best efforts +of the cultivator, but down at the hamlet of Hurst, where water is +plentiful, there is an ancient red-brick farm of superior aspect, and yet +with a thatched roof—an effect oddly like that which might be produced by +a gentleman wearing a harvester’s hat. It is obviously an old +manor-house, and besides showing evidences of former state, has two +substantial brick entrance piers surmounted by what country folk, in +their native satire, call “gentility balls.” + +Such gentility in the neighbourhood of wild, uncanny Egdon wears, as Mr. +Hardy would say, “an anomalous look.” The heath is more akin with Adam +than with his descendants: + + “This obscure, obsolete, superseded country figures in Domesday. Its + condition is recorded therein as that of heathy, furzy, briary + wilderness—‘Bruaria.’ Then follows the length and breadth in + leagues; and, though some uncertainty exists as to the exact extent + of this ancient lineal measure, it appears from the figures that the + area of Egdon down to the present day has but little diminished. + ‘Turbaria Bruaria’—the right of cutting heath-turf—occurs in charters + relating to the district. ‘Overgrown with heth and mosse,’ says + Leland of the same dark sweep of country.” + + “Here at least were intelligible facts regarding the + landscape—far-reaching proofs productive of genuine satisfaction. + The untamable Ishmaelitish thing that Egdon now was it always had + been. Civilisation was its enemy; and ever since the beginning of + vegetation its soil had worn the same antique brown dress, the + natural and invariable garment of the particular formation. In its + venerable one coat lay a certain vein of satire on human vanity in + clothes. A person on a heath in raiment of modern cut and colours + has more or less an anomalous look. We seem to want the oldest and + simplest human clothing where the clothing of the earth is so + primitive.” + +Here, if anywhere in this poor old England of ours, generally +over-populated and sorted over, raked about, and turned inside out, there +is quiet and solitude. No recent manifestations of the way the world +wags, no advertisement hoardings, no gasometers or mean suburbs intrude +upon the inviolable heath. No one has yet suspected coal beneath the +shaggy frieze coat of this remote vestige of an earlier age, and its +vitals have therefore not been probed and dragged forth. A railway +skirts it, ’tis true, but only on the way otherwhere, and no network of +sidings has yet made a gridiron of its unexploited waste. Elsewhere trim +hedges or fences of barbed-wire restrain the explorer, but here he is +free to roam, and may so roam until he has fairly lost himself. + + [Picture: An Egdon Farmstead] + +It is a land wholly antithetic from the bubbling superficial feelings of +cities, and has the introspective, self-communing air of the solitary. A +town-bred man, + + “Heart-halt and spirit-lame, + City-opprest,” + +and wearied with the weariful reek of the streets, the jostling of the +pavements, and the intolerable numbers of his kind, might come to a spell +of recluse life in a farm on Egdon, and there rid him of that +supersaturation of humanity; returning at last to his streets with a new +spirit, a brisker step, and a revived hope in the right ordering of the +world. So much Egdon can do for such an one. + + [Picture: A Farm on Egdon] + +I know just such a farm, in the dip of the yellow road, its thatched +roofs and the near trees taking on a homely, comfortable look when night +closes down upon the wild, when its windows are lit with a welcome ray as +the sun goes down, in an angry glory in the west. This is, to me, the +heart of the Hardy Country, and its surroundings seem most closely to fit +his imaginings. The place has just that personality he gives his +farmsteads, and the wastes near it wear sometimes just that cold +indifference to humanity, and at others precisely that ogreish hostility, +he in his pagan way describes. + +Halting here, as the sun goes down, and the landscape changes from its +daylight browns and purples to an irradiated orange, and through the +siennas and umbers of an etching, to the blackness of night, I feel that +here resides the _genius loci_, the Spirit of the Heath. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + + DORCHESTER TO CROSS-IN-HAND, MELBURY, AND YEOVIL + +A GOOD many outlying literary landmarks of the Wessex novels may be +cleared up by leaving Dorchester by Charminster, and then, at a fork in +the road just past Wolveton, taking the left-hand turning and following +for awhile the valley road along the course of the river Frome. Not for +long, however, if it is desired to keep strictly to those landmarks, do +we pursue this easy course, for in another couple of miles, by Grimstone +station, we shall have to bear to the right hand and make for what is +known in Mr. Hardy’s pages as “Long Ash Lane,” along whose almost +interminable course Farmer Darton and his friend rode, to the wooing of +Sally Hall, at Great Hintock, in that short story, _Interlopers at the +Knap_. + +Long Ash Lane—in some editions of the novels styled “Holloway Lane”—is +the middle one of three roads past Grimstone station. Those on either +side lead severally to Maiden Newton—the “Chalk Newton” of _Tess of the +D’Urbervilles_—and to Sydling St. Nicholas; but this is, as described in +that story, “a monotonous track, without a village or hamlet for many +miles, and with very seldom a turning.” For its own sake, it will +therefore be easily seen, Long Ash Lane is not an altogether desirable +route. It is an ancient Roman road, running eventually to Yeovil and +Ilchester; passing near by, but not touching, and always out of sight of +several small villages on its lengthy way. Darton and Johns found it +weariful as they rode, the hedgerow twigs on either side “currycombing +their whiskers,” as Mr. Hardy delightfully says; and wayfarers on foot, +tired out, believe at last that it will never end: + +“Unapprised wayfarers, who are too old, or too young, or in other +respects too weak for the distance to be traversed, but who, +nevertheless, have to walk it, say, as they look wistfully ahead: ‘Once +at the top of that hill, and I must surely see the end of Long Ash Lane!’ +But they reach the hill-top, and Long Ash Lane stretches in front +mercilessly as before.” + +After many miles this tiresome road at last comes in touch with modern +life, for Evershot station and the hamlet of Holywell are placed directly +beside it. Here we may turn right, or turn left, or go onward, sure in +all directions of finding many scenes to be identified with the novels. +Turning to the right, a road not altogether dissimilar in its loneliness +from Long Ash Lane is found, but differing from it in the one essential +respect of ascending the ridge of lofty downs overlooking the Vale of +Blackmoor, and thus, while to the right hand disclosing a dull expanse of +table-land, on the left opening out a romantic view, bounded only by +distance and the inadequacies of human eyesight. This is the road along +which Tess was travelling—in the reverse direction—from Dole’s Ash Farm +at Plush, the “Flintcombe Ash” of those tragical pages, to Beaminster or +“Emminster,” to visit the parents of Angel Clare, her husband, when she +came to that ill-fated meeting with Alec D’Urberville at the spot we now +approach, Cross-in-Hand: + +“At length the road touched the spot called ‘Cross-in-Hand.’ Of all +spots on the bleached and desolate upland this was the most forlorn. It +was so far removed from the charm which is sought in landscape by artists +and view-lovers as to reach a new kind of beauty, a negative beauty of +tragic tone. The place took its name from a stone pillar which stood +there, a strange rude monolith, from a stratum unknown in any local +quarry, on which was roughly carved a human hand.” + +The history and meaning of this lonely pillar on the solitary ridgeway +road are unknown. Thought by some to mark the old-time bounds of +property under the sway of the Abbot of Cerne, others have considered it +to be the relic of a wayside cross, while others yet have held it to be a +place of meeting of the tenants and feudatories of the old abbey, and the +hollow in the stone to have been the receptacle for their tribute. But, +“whatever the origin of the relic, there was and is something sinister, +or solemn, according to mood, in the scene amid which it stands; +something tending to impress the most phlegmatic passer-by.” + +Here it was that Tess, on her way to Flintcombe Ash, was surprised by the +converted Alec D’Urberville, already shaken in his new-found grace and +preaching mission at sight of her, and here he made her swear upon it +never to tempt him by her charms or ways. “This was once a Holy Cross,” +said he. “Relics are not in my creed, but I fear you at moments.” It +was not very reassuring to Tess when, leaving the spot of this singular +rencounter and asking a rustic if the stone were not a Holy Cross, he +replied, “Cross—no; ’twer not a cross! ’Tis a thing of ill-omen, miss. +It was put up in wuld times by the relations of a malefactor, who was +tortured there by nailing his hand to a post and afterwards hung. The +bones lie underneath. They say he sold his soul to the devil, and that +he walks at times.” + + [Picture: Cross-in-Hand] + +This pillar, “the scene of a miracle or murder, or both,” stands some +five feet in height, and rises from the unfenced grassy selvedge of the +road, where the blackberry bushes and bracken grow, on the verge of the +down that breaks precipitously away to the vale where Yetminster lies. +The rude bowl-shaped capital of the mystic stone has the coarse semblance +of a hand, displayed in the manner of the Bloody Hand of Ulster. + + [Picture: Batcombe] + +Deep down below, in midst of the narrowest lanes, lies the sequestered +village of Batcombe, from which this down immediately above takes its +name. The church stands almost in the shadow of the hills. This also is +a place of marvellous legends, for a battered old Gothic tomb in the +churchyard, innocent of inscription, standing near the north wall of the +church, is, according to old tales the resting-place of one “Conjuring +Minterne,” a devil-compeller and astrologer of sorts, who was originally +buried half in and half out of the church, for fear his master, “the +horny man,” as a character in one of Mr. Hardy’s romances calls Old Nick, +should have him, if buried otherwise. One would like to learn more about +“Conjuring Minterne” and his strange tricks, but history is silent. + +Returning to Evershot, or, as it is styled in the sources of our +pilgrimage, “Evershead,” we come to Melbury Park, the seat of the Earl of +Ilchester, and the principal scene of that charming story, _The First +Countess of Wessex_, in the collection of “A Group of Noble Dames.” The +great house of oddly diversified architecture, stands in the midst of +this nobly wooded and strikingly varied domain, but can readily be seen, +for the carriage-drive is a public right of way. This is the broad +roadway through the park described in the passage where Tupcombe, riding +towards “King’s Hintock Court”—as Mr. Hardy disguises the identity of the +place—from Mells, on Squire Dornell’s errand, saw it stretching ahead +“like an unrolled deal shaving.” + +Like most of the stories of those noble dames, this romance of Betty +Dornell, the First Countess of Wessex, is founded upon actual people, and +largely upon their real doings. Squire Dornell of Falls Park—really +Mells Park—was in real life that Thomas Horner who in 1713 married +Susannah Strangways, heiress of the Strangways family and owner of +Melbury Sampford; and their only child was Elizabeth, born in 1723, who +in 1736, in her thirteenth year, almost precisely as in the story, was +married to Stephen Fox, afterwards Earl of Ilchester, who died in 1776. +The Countess died in 1792. + + [Picture: Tomb of “Conjuring Minterne”] + +But this passage of family history is best set forth in the manner +customary to genealogists: + + [Picture: Family tree of Thomas Horner of Mells] {174} + +The father of the first Countess of Wessex was, it is curious to know, +descended from Little Jack Horner, that paragon of selfishness who sat in +a corner, eating his Christmas pie, and who, the familiar nursery rhyme +goes on to tell us, + + “Put in his thumb and pulled out a plum, + And said, What a good boy am I!” + +The nursery rhyme was that, and something more. It was, in fact a satire +upon that John Horner who, upon the dissolution of the monasteries, +purchased for much less than it was worth the confiscated Mells estate of +Glastonbury Abbey. This prize, the “plum” of the rhyme, is said to have +been worth £10,000. The Horners, represented by Sir John Horner, +espoused the side of the Parliament in the war with Charles I. but they +have kept their plum, at every hazard and in all chances, and Mells Park +is still in the family. + + [Picture: Melbury House] + +Leland tells how the house of Melbury Park was built in the sixteenth +century by Sir Giles Strangways, but portions of the great T-shaped +building have at later times been added, notably the wing built in the +time of Queen Anne. The whole heterogeneous pile, dominated by a +church-like, six-sided central tower, occupies a raised grassy site +looking upon a lake on whose opposite shore is the little manorial church +of Melbury Sampford, plentifully stored with monuments of Strangways and +Fox-Strangways, and in especial notable for that to the courtly and +equable husband of Betty Dornell. His epitaph, by the hand of his widow, +describes him as the most desirable of husbands. + + Near this stone is interred + Stephen, Earl of Ilchester, + who died at Melbury + Sept. 26, A.D. MDCCLXXVI., aged LXXII. + He was the eighth son of Sir Stephen Fox, knight. + He married Elizabeth, only daughter of Thomas Horner, + of Mells, in the county of Somerset, esquire, + heiress-general to the family of + Strangways of Melbury, in the county of Dorset, + by whom he had Henry Thomas, his eldest son, + now Earl of Ilchester + (who succeeds him in honours and estate) + and a numerous offspring. + As a small token of her great affection + to the best of husbands, fathers, friends, + his disconsolate widow inscribes this marble, + + Sacred to his memory. + + Hush’d be the voice of bards who heroes praise, + And high o’er glory’s sun their pæans raise; + And let an artless Muse a friend review, + Whose tranquil Life one blameless tenour knew, + By Nature form’d to please, of happiest mien, + Just, friendly, chearful, affable, serene; + Engaging Manners, cultivated Mind, + Adorn’d by Letters and in Courts refin’d, + His blooming honours long approv’d he bore, + And added lustre to that gem he wore; + Grac’d with all pow’rs to shine, he left parade, + And unambitious lov’d the sylvan shade; + The choice by Heav’n applauded stood confess’d + And all his Days with all its blessing bless’d; + Living belov’d, lamented in his end, + Unfading Bliss his mortal change attend. + +At the other extremity of the park is the small and secluded village of +Melbury Osmund, the “Little Hintock” of _The Woodlanders_, “one of those +sequestered spots outside the gates of the world, where may usually be +found more meditation than action, and more listlessness than +meditation.” It lies among vast hills and profound hollows, whose huge +convexities and corresponding concavities render this a district to be +more comfortably ridden by the horseman than walked, and one to be +explored by the cyclist only with great and exhausting labour. + +By perspiring perseverance, however, Yeovil and Somerset, or, speaking by +the card, “Ivell” and “Outer Wessex” may be reached at last, by way of +the strangely-entitled village of Ryme Intrinsica, whose name, so spelled +on the map, is, with considerable incertitude both as to spelling and +meaning, said to be properly written “Entrenseca” or “Entrensicca.” +Local theories, disregarding altogether the inexplicable “Ryme,” and +expending themselves upon the preposterous Latinity of the second part of +the name, have come to some sort of agreement that it denotes a dry place +on a ridge placed between two watered vales; and those curious enough to +look for it on a large-scale map will perceive readily enough that, +whatever the comparative dryness of the ridge it does occupy, it is +certainly so flanked by the low-lying lands in which flow two tributaries +of the river Yeo. + +Hutchins, the county historian, on the other hand, gives a wholly +different explanation of the name. Spelling the “Intrinseca” with an +“e,” instead of the final “i,” he says it is so called, Ryme Intrinseca, +or “In Ryme,” in contradistinction to an outlying portion of the old +manor, away down in the parish of Long Bredy, and styled Ryme +Extrinsecus, or “Out Ryme.” + +At any rate, Ryme Intrinsica looks scarcely the place to be dolled out in +so classical a style. It is too Saxon, too rustic and homespun in all +its circumstances of thatch, rickyards, dairies, and pigsties; and its +little church is not in any way corroborative of this dignity. + +Yeovil, whose name has so bucolic a sound that it would seem to be, above +all other places, the home most suitable for yeomen, is the “Ivell” of +the Wessex novels, but finds only scattered allusions in them, and +touches far from intimate. Cope, the curate, who in the story _For +Conscience’ Sake_ married the conscience-smitten Millborne’s daughter +when at last the father effaced himself, was curate at Ivell; and it was +at the “Castle” inn of the same town that the brothers Halborough called +for their drunken father, in the harrowing embarrassments of _A Tragedy +of two Ambitions_, but those are the nearest approaches to be discovered. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + + SHERBORNE + +MUCH remains in pleasant Sherborne to tell of that time when it was a +cathedral city, and when, after it had lost that high dignity, it was of +scarce less importance as the home of a powerful Abbey. It was the +pleasing, well-watered and sheltered situation, in the vale where the +little Yeo or Ivel runs—the stream which, passing through Yeovil, gives +that town its name—that first attracted the religious in A.D. 705, the +time of that now misty and vague monarch, King Ina. The Yeo had not yet +obtained that name, and was merely spoken of in descriptive and +admiratory phrase as the _Seir burne_, an Anglo-Saxon description for a +bright and clear brook which has crystallised here and at several other +places in the country, into a place-name. Even in the City of London +there is a Sherborne Lane, where no stream now flows, the successor, +however, of a pleasant lane, where in Anglo-Saxon times a tributary of +the Wall Brook flowed. + +Not every one was satisfied with this choice for a cathedral site. +William of Malmesbury wrote of it as “pleasant neither by multitudes of +inhabitants, nor beauty of position.” But beauty is a matter of +individual taste. “Wonderful, almost shameful,” he continued, “was it, +that a bishop’s see should have remained here for so many years.” For +three hundred and three years it so remained, the bishop’s seat being +removed only in 1078, when Old Sarum, a much more inconvenient site, +sterile, cramped and waterless—a place that to the Saxons was Searobyrig, +the dry city—was selected, only itself to be abandoned in less than +another hundred and fifty years. In the meanwhile no fewer than +twenty-seven bishops ruled in succession at Sherborne and passed into the +Great Beyond, leaving for the most part, very little evidence of their +existence. Notable exceptions, however, were Adhelm, an early translator +of the Scriptures, and Asser, whose biography of his friend and patron, +Alfred the Great, is a monument to himself as well as to his subject. In +the choir-aisles of the existing Abbey-church are sundry relics of those +prelates, in the shape of ancient tombs with battered effigies, as near a +likeness to them as possible for the sculptors to produce; and in the +retro-choir are pointed out the spots where Kings Ethelbald and +Ethelbert, brothers and predecessors of King Alfred, lie. + +After an interval of uncertainty following the removal of the bishopric +in 1078 to Old Sarum, the cathedral here was in 1139 made a Benedictine +Abbey and rebuilt by Roger, Bishop of Sarum, who although he might not +again remove the cathedral back to Sherborne, seems to have loved the +place, and certainly lavished much care and labour upon it. + +Bishop Roger was a man of energy and determination. Starting in life as +a poor Norman monk, he owed his first important preferment to a curious +circumstance. None could gabble through a mass more speedily than he, +and he raced through a service before Henry I. so quickly, while the king +was anxious to be off a-hunting, that the gratified monarch put him on +the broad high road to advancement, along whose course Roger travelled +far. But, if all had liked him as little as did the censorious William +of Malmesbury, his journeys would have been short. To that chronicler he +was “unscrupulous, fierce and avaricious,” not content to keep his own, +but eager to grab the goods of others. “Was there anything contiguous to +his property which might be advantageous to him, he would directly extort +it, either by entreaty or purchase, or, if that failed, by force.” It +must have been well, therefore, to arrange terms with this masterful +personage while he was in the negotiating way, lest he took what he +wanted, without so much as a “by-your-leave.” The great Norman structure +he erected has largely survived, not only in its ground plan, but in the +essential circumstances of its walling, for although it is outwardly a +building in the Perpendicular phase of Gothic, dating from the second +half of the fifteenth century, that magnificently-elaborated external +show of nave and presbytery is but a later and more enriched surface, +daringly grafted upon the stern and solemn Norman walls of over three +hundred years’ earlier date. + +The history of the great Benedictine Abbey of Sherborne very clearly +retells the old tale of Bury St. Edmunds, of Norwich, and of many another +great monastic centre, by which you see that these rich and powerful +settlements of the religious were not generally at peace with the outside +worldlings. The causes of quarrel were many. In some places the +monastery was a harsh and exacting landlord; in others the imposts and +hindrances placed upon the markets, whose tolls in many instances were +the property of the Church, aroused bitter enmity and constant strife; +and in yet more cases the maintenance of forests and game for the sport +of the Lords Abbots gave rise to trouble. Poachers we have had always +with us, and even in those times when to kill the stag in the Chases was +a crime adjudged worthy death or mutilation, men for sport or sustenance +illegally slew the game. “What shall he have who killed the deer?” Why, +an ear cut off or a nose slit, at the very least of it. + +Here at Sherborne the bitterest quarrel arose from other causes. It +seems that the parish church was situated at the west end of the Abbey, +separated from it only by a door which the monks, exclusives always, had +sought gradually to narrow, with a view of eventually blocking it up +altogether. A question nearly allied with this was whether the children +of the townsfolk should be baptised in the Abbey or in the parish church, +and the disputes at last grew so raw that the Sherborne burgesses, very +wrothy and spiteful, took to ringing their church-bells so long and so +loudly that on account of the clamour, the monastic offices could not be +carried on. In 1437 the points at issue were by common consent laid +before the Bishop of Salisbury, who, siding with his own cloth, made an +award in favour of the Abbey. Regarding this decision as an injustice, +the townsfolk refused to abide by it; but there were evidently two +parties in the town, for one faction, headed by a stalwart butcher, broke +into the parish church with some of the monks and reduced the font to +fragments. Things then, naturally grew worse, until, as Leland puts it, +“The variance grew to a plain sedition, until a priest of the town church +of All Hallows shot a shaft with fire into the top of that part of the +Abbey Church of St. Mary that divided the east part that the monks used +from that the townsmen used; and this partition happening at the time to +be thatched in, the roof was set on fire, and consequently the whole +church, the lead and bells melted, was defaced.” + +The Choir was so seriously injured that it was taken down and rebuilt, +but the rest was repaired, and still in some parts shows traces, in the +reddened patches on the beautiful golden-yellow Ham Hill sandstone of the +internal walls, of the conflagration. + +The townsfolk were made to contribute heavily to the cost of repair and +rebuilding; works resulting in a more lovely interior, both in form and +colour, than owned by any other considerable church in the west. A +commonplace person, one no connoisseur of churches, if asked to convey a +general sense of their interiors by the medium of temperature would reply +that they were cold, for coldness is the effect most often +produced—irrespective of the degrees registered by the thermometer—by +their stonework; but here, though the mercury shrink down from the tube +into close proximity with the bulb, provocative in most places of +shivers, even the most matter-of-fact, irresponsive to the call of +soaring arches, painted windows and delicately poised fretted roof to +“lift up your hearts, O Zion!” feel a grateful sensation of warmth +pervading them, apparently radiating from these walls of richly hued +stone, whose natural colouring seems to fully furnish the place and +render it indifferent to the rigours of the season. It is a colour +compact of all the beautiful hues of this country of a rich and bountiful +Nature: of honey, of apples and pears golden and russet, of autumn +leaves, and of cider and October ale, with a glint of the sun through it +all. It gives a beautiful and cheerful tone, quick to purge melancholy +and to make the devout happier in their hallelujahs than when in the +cold, if chaste, companionship of Portland stone, the mild cream purity +of the oolite of Bath, the Gregorian richness of the building stone of +Mansfield, or the solemn satisfaction engendered by the deep red +sandstone of Devon. + +The exquisite fan-vaulting of Sherborne Abbey, the finest example of that +supremest effort of the last stage of Gothic art, has no superior +elsewhere. That of Henry VII.’s Chapel at Westminster, and that in St. +George’s Chapel at Windsor, are on a larger scale, and more daring, but, +although generally cited as representative, are not so truly artistic. + +The old Pack-Monday fair, still an annual institution at Sherborne, is a +two days’ market, originating with the completion of the repairs and the +vaulting of the nave, under Abbot Peter de Ramsam, or Rampisham, in 1504. +Tradition has it that, the last stone well and truly laid and the great +church at last again in order, the masons and their kind were paid off +and bidden depart by midnight on the Sunday after Old Michaelmas Day. +Accordingly, Pack-Monday fair is opened every year at the stroke of +midnight on the Sunday succeeding October 10th, to the accompaniment of a +din of horn-blowing and the uncouth banging of tin cans. + +Much of the beauty of the Abbey interior is due to the loving care of the +restoration executed by the Digbys of Sherborne Castle, between 1848 and +1858, at a cost of over £32,000. The church of All Hallows at the west +end, which caused all the trouble, was demolished after the dissolution +of the monastery, when the Abbey was sold to the town for use as a parish +church and All Hallows itself thereby became a redundancy. Its situation +and its ground-plan can still be traced on the paths and lawns and on the +ragged walls and makeshift patchwork that serve as West Front to the +Abbey. + +An ancestor of the restoring Digbys is commemorated by a pretentious +mountain of marble in the south transept, with an epitaph, written by a +bishop, setting forth with much antithetical rhodomontade his many +virtues of activities and renunciations: + +“Here Lyes John, Lord Digby, Baron Digby of Sherborne and Earl of +Briftol. Titles to which ye merit of his Grandfather firft gave luftre +And which he himfelf laid down unfully’d. He was naturally enclined to +avoid the Hurry of a publick Life, Yet carefull to keep up the port of +his Quality. Was willing to be at eafe, but fcorned obfcurity. And +therefore never made his retirement a pretence to draw Himfelf within a +narrower compafs, or to fhun fuch expence As Charity, Hospitality and his +Honour call’d for. His Religion was that which by LAW is Eftablisfhed, +and the Conduct of his life fhew’d the power of it in his Heart. His +distinction from others never made him forget himfelf or them. He was +kind and obliging to his Neighbours, generous and condefcending to his +inferiours, and juft to all Mankind. Nor had the temptations of honour +and pleafure in this world Strength enough to withdraw his Eyes from that +great Object of his hope, which we reafonably affure ourfelves he now +enjoys. + + MDCICVIII.” + + [Picture: Sherborne Abbey Church] + +The surroundings of the Abbey closely resemble cathedral precincts, and +lead the well-informed stranger to remember that Sherborne cherishes +hopes of some day being again erected into the head of a bishop’s see, +when that talked-of formation of a new diocese, carved out of the great +territorial domains of Salisbury and of Bath and Wells, shall be an +accomplished fact. + +The usual and properest way of coming to the Abbey, after you have +glimpsed the fine picture it makes looking down Long Street, is past the +Conduit—usually called the Monks’ Conduit—standing on the pavement of +Cheap Street, and through a time-worn archway and a narrow alley of small +shops and old houses. The Conduit, built about 1360, an open octangular +building greatly resembling a market-cross, was originally in the centre +of the cloister-garth, to the north of the Abbey, on a part of the site +now occupied by the admirable Grammar School, founded by Edward VI. from +the spoils of the dissolved monastery, and grown in these days to be one +of the foremost schools of the country. + +Cheap Street, the principal thoroughfare of Sherborne, is, like similar +business streets in other West Country towns, composed of houses of many +periods and all sizes. It is built generally of that sunny Ham Hill +ferruginous sandstone, quarried for many years at Stoke-sub-Hamdon, six +miles to the northwest of Yeovil. That fine old hostelry, the “New Inn,” +now swept away, was built of it. This vanished house was the original of +the “Earl of Wessex,” in _The Woodlanders_, in whose yard Giles +Winterborne is observed by his old sweetheart from the balcony, while he +is engaged with the business of cider-making: + +“The chief hotel at Sherton Abbas was the “Earl of Wessex”—a large +stone-fronted inn with a yawning arch under which vehicles were driven by +stooping coachmen to back premises of wonderful commodiousness. The +windows to the street were mullioned into narrow lights, and only +commanded a view of the opposite houses.” + +The castle, some distance outside the town to east, adjoining the village +of Castleton, was originally the combined palace and fortress of the +Bishops of Sherborne. The remaining fragments, on their woody knoll +overlooking the Yeo, in what is now Sherborne Park, are those of the +stout keep built by that ambitious, and unscrupulous Bishop Roger, of +Henry I.’s time. Despite the curse, called down by the equally ferocious +and saintly Osmund, upon any who should dare to alienate the castle from +the bishops of Sherborne, it was wrested from them on several occasions, +perhaps sometimes in direct unbelieving challenge to that _quis +separabit_; at others, certainly, because, in the fashion of the times, +the bishops had taken part in the political troubles, the pitched battles +and weary sieges of contending factions, and, having the ill-luck to side +with the defeated party, suffered with them in body and estate. For over +two hundred years, from 1139 to 1355, it was thus alienated, and Osmund’s +curse slept. Those who owned the castle were not executed, or +imprisoned, or made to suffer beyond the usual mediæval average, perhaps +because it took no account of developments arising from mitred follies +and errors of judgment. At last, having been Crown property for many +generations, the stronghold and its surrounding lands were granted to +Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, from whom, after a futile proposal had been +made to fight him for it, in gage of single combat—a fourteenth-century +example of Kingsley’s “muscular Christianity”—it was purchased by the +bishop for 2,500 marks; a cheap lot. Whether the earl, in Etonian +phrase, “funked it,” imagining the bishop’s steel would be fellow to “the +sword of the Lord and of Gideon,” and as invincible, who shall say? At +any rate, Bishop Wyvil, this strenuous champion, who feared neither the +ordeal of the sword nor of the purse, entered into the gates of his +predecessors of old time, and died here, after a residence of twenty +years. The brass to his memory, in the north-east transept of Salisbury +Cathedral, displays a representation of Sherborne Castle, with a figure +of the bishop’s champion armed with a battle axe, by which it will be +seen that it was not scandalously, in his own proper person, that the +bishop was prepared to fight, but by a deputy, skilled in arms, and +supported by the ghostly terrors of that ancient curse. + +And so, in the possession of the bishops of Salisbury who, to all intents +and purposes, and within the meaning of old Oswald, were successors and +representatives of the Bishops of Sherborne, the castle remained until +1540, when, in the dissolution of religious houses, it was seized and +afterwards granted to the Lord Protector, the Duke of Somerset. Then the +curse seems to have come into its own again, for Somerset ended, where +many other good and true were cut off, on Tower Hill. Although +subsequently restored to the bishop of Salisbury, it was again alienated +by Bishop Cotton to Sir Walter Raleigh, as payment for favours and +promotion received when that hero and courtier was in the enjoyment of +royal smiles. Raleigh, as every one knows, ended tragically, after +long-drawn misery, in 1618, on the same spot where Somerset had suffered +sixty years earlier. And well, the superstitious may think, was it that +by legal quirks and quibbles James I. succeeded in chousing Raleigh’s son +out of his inheritance, for the ill-omened possession continued to work +disaster. James bestowed it upon his favourite, the despicable Robert +Carl, Earl of Somerset, who, convicted of being accessory to the murder +of Sir Thomas Overbury, was condemned to die, but was reprieved, and +finally released by the timid James, to die obscurely in 1645. Something +of a blundering curse, this, one may think, to miss scoring a “bull” on +so admirable and easy a mark. + +The king then conveyed the property to Digby, Earl of Bristol, the “Earl +of Severn” of the slight story of _Anna_, _Lady Baxby_, in _A Group of +Noble Dames_. When the Civil War broke out, Sherborne Castle was +garrisoned for the king by the Marquis of Hertford, and early besieged by +the Earl of Bedford, on behalf of the Parliament. It happened here—as so +often it did in their internecine strife—that there were relatives +engaged on either side in this siege. The Earl of Bristol’s son, George, +Lord Digby, was married to the Lady Anne Russell, sister of the Earl of +Bedford. She it was, the “Anna, Lady Baxby,” of the story, who rode out +secretly to her brother, and told him that if he were determined to +reduce the castle, he “should find his sister’s bones buried in the +ruins.” But the investment continued until, finding himself weaker than +he had supposed, the marquis offered to surrender on terms. If they were +not accepted he proposed, with the Lady Anne’s consent, and indeed at her +wish, to station her on the battlements, and let the enemy’s marksmen do +their worst. The Earl of Bedford was not proof against this, and it is +said, raising the siege, retired. + +But this plan would not always work. Three years later, in 1645, when +Sir Lewis Dives, the Earl of Bristol’s stepson, was in command, a greater +than the Earl of Bedford appeared before Sherborne Castle, and summoned +it to surrender. This was Sir Thomas Fairfax, flushed with his +successes, and making a clean sweep of the garrisons in the west of +England. For sixteen days, his forces sat down in front of the castle, +which then surrendered, with its garrison of fifty-five gentlemen and six +hundred soldiers. With that surrender came the final ruin, for the +castle was “slighted,” or destroyed by gunpowder, its contents and the +spoils of “the lodge,” sold to the people of Sherborne. This “Lodge” was +the mansion which even then had been built near by, the castle already +proving too inconvenient for the ideas of those times. It is the +so-called “Castle” of to-day, still the seat of Digbys, collateral and +commoner descendants of the old owners. Sir Walter Raleigh built the +centre portion of it in 1594, as his arms and the sculptured figures +show, and Digbys the later wings. Their crest, the singular one of an +ostrich holding a horse-shoe in its beak, is prominent over the entrance +to the courtyard. In the park is still shown a stone seat, said to be +that on which Sir Walter Raleigh was resting and smoking his first pipe +of tobacco, when his pipe was dowsed and he drenched, by the pail of +water thrown over him by his faithful retainer, who, not unnaturally, as +tobacco was then a thing unknown, imagined his master to be on fire, and, +in the expressive words of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade’s reports, “well +alight.” + +The Lodge, now the “Castle,” was a halting-place of the Prince of Orange +on his triumphal march from Tor Bay, in 1688. He slept here a night, and +from a printing-press in the house was issued his address to the people +of England. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + + SHERBORNE TO CERNE ABBAS AND WEYMOUTH + +IT is twenty-six miles from stately Sherborne, the “Sherton Abbas” of +_The Woodlanders_, to where Weymouth sits enthroned on the margin of her +circular Bay, and, always supposing that no strong southerly gale is +blowing, there is for the cyclist no easier route in all the Hardy +Country. Bating the steep rise out of Sherborne and out of the Vale of +Blackmore to the chalk uplands at Minterne Magna, it is a route of +favourable gradients, with one interval of dead level. + +The river Yeo is a small stream, but its valley is deep and wide, as he +who, leaving Sherborne, climbs the hills which shut in that valley, shall +find. But a reward comes with the easy descent to the long, scattered +street of rustic cottages at Long Burton, whence the way lies across a +dead level to where, six miles distant from this point, rise the bastions +of the mid-Dorset heights, seen distinctly from here: Dogbury, with his +convex clump of cresting trees, like a blue-black wig, High Stoy, where +the ridge runs bare, with Nettlecomb Tout and Bulbarrow in the hazy +distance. + +It is a straight, and a marshy and low-lying, as well as a flat road to +Holnest, where, beside the road, is Holnest Lodge, belonging to the +Erle-Drax family, and one of the seats of that eccentric person, the late +J. S. W. Sawbridge Erle-Drax, of Charborough Park, long a member of +Parliament for Wareham, and one of the last of the squires. The old time +squires were laws to themselves, and like none others. The product of +generations of other many-acred squires of great port-drinking +propensities and unbounded local influence, whom all the lickings +administered at Eton did not suffice to bring to a proper sense of their +intrinsic unimportance, apart from the accidental circumstance that they +were the lords of their manors, “old Squire Drax,” as the rustics call +him now that he is dead, might from his high-handed ways have formed an +excellent model for a dramatist building up a melodrama of the old style. +He was “the Squire” to the very _n_th degree, with so extraordinary an +idea of his own importance that here, on the lawn fronting Holnest Lodge, +he caused to be erected in his own lifetime a memorial to himself. An +inspection of the approach to that residence will convince any one not +only that he was very rich, but very mad as well. The sweeping drive is +bordered at intervals with statues: Circes, Floras, Ceres, Dianas, and +other classical deities, shining whitely and conspicuously against the +grass, and leading the eye up to the central point where, on a tall +imposing column, guarded by crouching lions, stands the bronze, +frock-coated statue of Squire Drax himself. It is all very like a kind +of higher-class Rosherville, and exceedingly curious. + + [Picture: Long Burton] + +One has not progressed far along the dead-level road before another +evidence of the Drax swelled head comes in sight. It is a huge building +in the Byzantine style, highly elaborated, and decorated in a costly way +with polished stones. Its purpose puzzling at first, it is seen on +closer approach to stand in a churchyard and to be a mausoleum. Away +back from it stands in perspective the little church of Holnest, scarce +larger than this gorgeous place prepared by the squire for his rest, and +looking really smaller. The rustics dot the i’s and cross the t’s of his +eccentricity, telling how he had his coffin made in his lifetime and his +funeral rehearsed in front of the house. The more superstitious declare +that the mausoleum was built so strongly and substantially in order to +foil a certain personage whose desire is rather for the souls than for +the bodies of his own; and, to support their dark beliefs, narrate how, +canvassing for votes during the progress of an election the squire +declared he had always been a Member of Parliament, would always be, and +would rather go to the Pit with the initials of M.P. attached to his name +than to Heaven without them. Unfortunately, these wonder-mongers halt a +little short of the completeness desired by dramatic requirements, and do +not proceed to tell us how the election was secured by the agency of a +gentlemanly stranger of persuasive manners and club-feet, who, upon the +declaration of the poll mysteriously disappeared amid a strong smell of +Tandstickör matches. + + [Picture: Holnest: the Drax Mausoleum] + +Advancing, we come at Middlemarsh into the country of _The Woodlanders_, +where dense woodlands now begin to cover the levels. The long ridge of +the downs ahead now grows stern, steep, and threatening. To the left +hand an isolated protuberance, covered with trees, the oddly named +Dungeon Hill, rises, disclosing from its flanks peeps into the Vale of +Blackmore, where the explorer can, with promptitude and thorough +efficacy, lose himself. Believe one who has been along the sometimes +devious and sometimes straight, but always lonely, roads of these levels. +There, down beyond Dungeon Hill and Pulham, on a road flat as the +alliterative flounder and empty as a City church, stands at King’s Stag +Bridge across the river Lidden an inn with the sign of the White Hart and +a verse alluding to the origin of the name of “Vale of White Hart” given +to this part of the greater Vale of Blackmore— + + “When Julius Cæsar Reigned here, I was but then a little Deer. + When Julius Cæsar Reigned King, around my Neck he put this Ring. + Whoever doth me overtake, Oh! spare my life, for Cæsar’s sake.” + + [Picture: Dungeon Hill and the Vale of Blackmore] + +The classic historian of Dorsetshire tells us something of the story thus +darkly reflected. According to his account, corrected in details from +other sources, it seems that King Henry III. hunting in what was then a +forest, rounded up, among several other deer, a particularly beautiful +white hart, whose life he spared for future hunting. Somewhat later, Sir +John de la Lynde, Bailiff of Blackmore Forest, a neighbouring gentleman +of ancient descent and local importance, out hunting with a party, roused +the same animal, and, less pitiful than the king, killed it at the end of +a long pursuit, at the spot ever after called King’s Stag Bridge. The +king, highly offended, not only punished Sir John de la Lynde and his +companions with imprisonment and heavy fines, but taxed their lands +severely and permanently, so that for many later generations the fine of +White Hart Silver continued to be paid into the Exchequer. Another +historian, the quaint and amusing Fuller, in giving his version, states +that the whole county was laid under contribution. “Myself,” he says +whimsically “hath paid a share for the sauce who never tasted the meat.” +It is stated that “White Hart Silver” was levied until the reign of Henry +VII. + +The road, passing a signpost weirdly directing to “Giant’s Head,” ascends +a steep hill, perhaps the ‘Rubdon Hill’ of _The Woodlanders_, and the +Lyon’s Gate Hill of actual fact, down which, into the vale on that +autumnal day went Fitzpiers, the infatuated surgeon—a Dorsetshire +Tannhäuser, thinking of the Venus who had bewitched him, and careless of +the beauty of the season—when “the earth was now at the supreme moment of +her bounty. In the poorest spots the hedges were bowed with haws and +blackberries; acorns cracked underfoot, and the burst husks of chestnuts +lay exposing their auburn contents as if arranged by anxious sellers for +the market.” Steeply upward continues the hill, to the ridge of the +mid-Dorset heights, whence Blackmore Vale, of which it is very truly said +that “an unguided ramble into its recesses in bad weather, is apt to +engender dissatisfaction with its narrow, tortuous, and miry ways,” is +seen spreading out like an unrolled map. + +“This fertile and sheltered tract of country, in which the fields are +never brown, and the springs never dry,” is bounded on the south by the +bold chalk ridge that embraces the prominences of Hambledon Hill, +Bulbarrow, Nettlecombe-Tout, Dogbury, High Stoy, and Bubb Down. There +“in the valley, the world seems to be constructed upon a smaller and more +delicate scale; the fields are mere paddocks, so reduced that from this +height their hedgerows appear a network of dark green threads +overspreading the paler green of the grass. The atmosphere beneath is +languorous, and is so tinged with azure that what artists call the middle +distance partakes also of that hue, while the horizon beyond is of the +deepest ultramarine. Arable lands are few and limited; with but slight +exceptions the prospect is a broad rich mass of grass and trees, mantling +minor hills and dales within the major. Such is the Vale of Blackmore.” + +The village of Minterne Magna that, with its fine trees and the seat of +Lord Digby, has so handsome a presence, is the “Great Hintock” of _The +Woodlanders_. Poor loyal-hearted Giles Winterbourne, “a good man, who +did good things,” was buried here, beside that ivy-covered church-tower +overlooking the road, and now bearing the inscription + + “LE TEMPS PASSE + L’AMITIE RESTE + 1888 + IN MEMORIAM H.R.D.” + +They laid him to rest “on the top of that hill looking down into the +Vale,” to whose villages he had, as autumn came round, been wont to +descend with his portable cider-mill and press; and Grace rejoined her +husband, and the world went on as usual. Only Marty South remembered him +and treasured his memory. + +At Minterne Magna, otherwise “Great Hintock,” according to a rustic +character, “you do see the world and life,” whereas, at Little Hintock, +to be identified with Melbury Osmund, away down at Evershot, “’tis such a +small place that you’d need a candle and lantern to find it, if ye don’t +know where ’tis.” + +But, at the same time, outside the pages of novels Minterne Magna is not +a place of stir and movement, and is great only in name. + +From just before Minterne Magna there is a left-hand turning which +affords an alternative route to Dorchester, avoiding Cerne Abbas, and +going exposedly over the haggard downs. The two routes are locally known +as the overhill and the underhill roads. The first-named is now little +travelled, and its old house of entertainment, the Revels inn, a thing of +the past. This, “the forsaken coach-road running in an almost meridional +line from Bristol to the south shore of England,” is the route of the +escaped prisoner and the scene of “Higher Crowstairs” in the intense +story of _The Three Strangers_. On that route you see better than +anywhere else, those “calcareous downs” described by the novelist, where +“the hills are open, the sun blazes down upon fields so large as to give +an unenclosed character to the landscape, the lanes are white, the hedges +low and splashed, the atmosphere colourless.” It is, by the same token, +of an exhausting dryness in summer, and in winter only to be undertaken +by the most robust. + +By the ‘underhill’ road on the other hand, the ten miles from Minterne to +Dorchester are chiefly on a gentle descent. Presently, therefore, one +reaches Cerne Abbas, the “Abbot’s Cernel” of _Tess_ and other stories, +situated in a fine widening of the valley through which the river Cerne +flows, with the gaunt bare shoulders of the great chalk downs receding +far enough to lose something of their asperity, and to gain in distance +all the atmosphere and softened outlines of an impressionistic picture. +From the south, half a mile beyond the decayed town of Cerne, a very +beautiful view of this nature opens out, by the roadside. There the fine +tower of the church stands out against the sage-green coloration of the +hills, and with the luxuriant trees and the nestling farms of the valley, +presents by force of contrast with the bare uplands a striking picture of +comfort, prosperity, and hospitality, not perhaps warranted in every one +of those respects by a closer acquaintance. For Cerne is a place very +hardly treated by heartless circumstance. + +Many centuries ago, in A.D. 987 to be exact, a Benedictine Abbey was +founded here by Ethelmar, Earl of Devon and Cornwall, upon the site of a +hermitage established by Ædwold, brother of that East Anglican saint, +Edmund the King and Martyr. It does not appear what became of the +hermit, whether those who established the abbey bought him out, or threw +him out; but it certainly seems to demand enquiry, the more especially +that hermits and abbots, pious founders and holy monks were not +altogether so unbusinesslike in their worldly affairs as the uninstructed +might imagine. The hermit probably received due compensation for +disturbance and went off somewhere else. However that may be, the abbey +grew and flourished. Canute certainly despoiled it, but more than made +amends, by large gifts and endowments of other people’s property, when he +had been brought to see the error of his ways and that +plundering—plundering the property of the church, at least—was wrong. +And so the business of the abbey progressed through the centuries, to the +daily accompaniment of the monks chanting “their wonderful piff-and-paff” +as the librettist of _The Golden Legend_ makes the devil say of it. + +In 1471 Henry VI.’s Queen, Margaret of Anjou, striving desperately, brave +heart, on her son’s behalf, fled for shelter here, up the road from +Weymouth, where she had landed from France; but, indeed, little else of +history belongs to this sometime rich and splendid abbey in the heart of +the hills. It afforded shelter and protection to the townlet of Cerne +that had sprung up outside its precincts; and great therefore was the +dismay when ruin overtook it in the time of Henry VIII. The abbey +disestablished, the town of course also suffered. How greatly we do not +know; but it plucked up courage again and refused to die, and when +England was still that exceedingly uncomfortable England of coaching +times, flourished in a modest way on the needs of travellers for succour +and shelter on the exhausting journeys that are so romantic to read of in +Christmas numbers, but were the terror of those who could not possibly +stop at home. + + [Picture: Cerne Abbas] + +And at last the coaches ceased and railways came to the country in +general, but not to Cerne. It is still, to-day, remote from railways and +is thus hit several severe, separate, and distinct blows by Fate, which, +when travellers no longer needed its shelter, took away its chief reason +for existence, refused it the reinvigorating boon of a railway, and then, +in the general depression of agriculture, has dealt a final and +staggering buffet. Cerne is dead. There is (assuming for the moment +positive, comparative, and superlative degrees of deadness) no deader +townlet in England, and it has all the interest, and commands all the +respect due to the departed. _De mortuis nil nisi bonum_, and if there +were hard things to be said of Cerne, they should not here be uttered. +But there are no such things for utterance. It has all the romance of +the bygone that appeals to the artist, and I love to dwell upon and in +it. It is a place where commercialism has, or should have, no part, and +therefore, when I pass a noble-looking farmhouse and a somewhat stately +landlady comes out with a key, asking me—with an eye upon the perquisite +of the fee exacted—if I would like to see the Abbey Gatehouse, I refuse; +earning thereby the keen contempt shown on her expressive face. Soulless +Goth, to wander about Cerne and not see the Gatehouse! Ah! my dear lady, +your contempt is misplaced. I love these things better than you imagine, +but I hate commercialism—and in such unexpected places—the more. The +abbey ruins, wholly summed up in that Gatehouse, are at the extremity of +this dead town, but there is a fine parish church in the centre of its +streets. A noble, highly decorated tower is that belonging to it, one of +the finest productions of the Perpendicular period, with bold gargoyles, +whose gaping mouths are for the most part stopped with birds’ nests. +Decay and ruin squat next door, in the shape of one of Cerne’s wrecked +and unroofed houses, so long in that condition as to have become a +terrace on which wild flowers luxuriantly grow and display themselves to +passing admiration. It will be observed that there are shops—or things +in the specious and illusory shape of shops—in this town of Yester-year. +They indeed were so once, but the shopkeepers have long ceased from their +shopkeeping. The windows, perhaps retained over against that time when +Cerne shall be resurrected—for Fortune’s wheel still spins, and will come +full circle some day—are meanwhile excellent for displaying geraniums. + + [Picture: The Gatehouse, Cerne Abbey] + +[Picture: The Cerne Giant] Prominent in most views of Cerne Abbas is that +weird figure of a man on the hillside which gives an alternative name to +Trendle or Giant’s Hill. The “Giant of Cerne” is a big fellow, well +deserving his name, for he is 180 feet high. No one knows who cut him on +the chalk of the hillside, but local tradition has long told how the +figure commemorated the destruction of a giant who, feasting on the sheep +of Blackmore, laid himself down here, in the sleep of repletion, and was +then, like another Gulliver, pinioned where he lay by the enraged +peasantry, who killed him and immediately traced his dimensions for the +information of posterity. The prominence of his ribs, however, says +little for the result of his feeding. + +A more instructed opinion is that the figure represents Heil, a god of +the pagan Saxons, and that it was cut before A.D. 600. Fearful legends +belong to it: tales of horror narrating how the border enclosing the +effigy is the ground plan of a stout wicker-work cage in which the pagan +priests imprisoned many victims, whom they offered up as burnt sacrifices +to their god. + +Looked upon with awe and wonder by the peasantry of old, who cleaned him +once every seven years, the Giant is now regarded by them with +indifference and left alone, and it is only the stranger who finds +himself obsessed with a strange awe as he gazes upon this mystic relic of +a prehistoric age. His minatory and uncouth appearance—for the relation +of his head to his body is that of a pea to a melon—perhaps even more +than his size, impresses the beholder. It should be said that he is +merely traced in outline on the turf, in lines two feet broad and one +foot deep, and not laid bare, a huge white shape, to the sky. The club +he wields is 120 feet long, and from seven to twenty-four feet broad. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + + SHERBORNE TO CERNE ABBAS AND WEYMOUTH + (_continued_) + +PAST Nether Cerne and Godmanstone, the road leads, consistently straight +and on a down gradient, to Charminster, where, in consonance with the +place-name, a minster-like church stands. It is rich in monuments of the +Trenchards—bearing their motto, _Nosce Teipsum_, Know Thyself—of the +neighbouring historic mansion of Wolveton, one of whom—a Sir Thomas—built +the tower, in or about the year 1500, as duly attested on the building +itself, which displays his cypher of two T’s. + +Wolveton, standing in the rich level water-meadows where the rivers Cerne +and Frome come to a confluence, is, as the Man of Family narrates in the +story of _The Lady Penelope_, in _A Group of Noble Dames_, “an ivied +manor-house, flanked by battlemented towers, and more than usually +distinguished by the size of its mullioned windows. Though still of good +capacity, the building is much reduced from its original grand +proportions; it has, moreover, been shorn of the fair estate which once +appertained to its lord, with the exception of a few acres of park-land +immediately around the mansion. This was formerly the seat of the +ancient and knightly Drenghards, or Drenkhards, now extinct in the male +line, whose name, according to the local chronicles, was interpreted to +mean _Strenuus Miles_, _vel Potator_, though certain members of the +family were averse to the latter signification, and a duel was fought by +one of them on that account, as is well known.” + + [Picture: Cerne Abbas] + +The Lady Penelope, who jestingly promised to marry all three of her +lovers in turn, and by that jest earned such misery when Fate ordained +that her words should come true, was an actual living character. A +daughter of Lord Darcy, she in turn married George Trenchard, Sir John +Gage, and Sir William Hervey. As the story truly tells, the Drenghards, +or rather Trenchards, are extinct in the male line. + +Passing by Poundbury, the “Pummery” of Dorset speech, we enter +Dorchester, already described at considerable length, and, passing down +South Street and by the Amphitheatre, of gloomy associations, come out +upon the Weymouth—or, as Mr. Hardy would say the “Budmouth”—road. + + [Picture: Wolveton House] + +For the distance of close upon a mile this Roman road, the chief means of +communication between their seaport station of Clavinium, near Weymouth, +and their inland town of Durnovaria, runs on the level, bordered by the +fine full-grown elms of one of Dorchester’s many avenues. Then it sets +out with a grim straightness to climb to the summit of that geological +spine, the Ridgeway, which places so stubborn an obstacle on these nine +miles of road that many a faint-hearted pilgrim from Dorchester fails to +reach Weymouth, and many another from Weymouth gives up the task at less +than half-way. + +Climbing here, the vast mass of Maiden Castle rises on the right, +conferring a solemnity upon the scene, due not so much to the bulk given +it by nature as to the amazing ditches, mounds, scarps, and counterscarps +terraced along its mighty bosom by—ay, by whom? Many peoples had a hand +in the making of this great fortification. The British Durotriges are +said to have styled it “Mai-Dun,” the “Castle of the great Hill,” and to +have established their capital here; and at a later date the Romans +camped upon it and must have cursed the Imperialism which brought them +here to wilt and wither in face of the bitter blasts of an inclement +land. + +It was the Dunium of Ptolemy, and has been the wonder of many ages, not +easily able to understand by what enormous expenditure of effort all +these great mounds were heaped up and what enemies they feared who delved +the ditches so deeply and ramped the ridges so steeply and so high. + +Maiden Castle is still occupied, although the last defender left it +perhaps a thousand years ago; for as the curious traveller to these +prehistoric earthworks climbs exhaustedly up the steep rises, over the +short grass, he may see the rabbits mounting guard by thousands against +the skyline, or fleeing panic-stricken, in admirable open order, showing +myriads of white flags formed by their tails as they go loping away over +the field. + + [Picture: Weymouth and Portland, from the Ridgeway] + +As one progresses, more and more slowly with the acuter gradient, up the +roadway, the church-tower of Winterborne Monkton, among its encircling +barns, ricks, and cow-byres, comes into view, the observer’s eye on a +higher level than the rooftop. Village there is none, and the clergyman +who on Sundays conducts services here must do so—between the peals of the +organ, and in midst of the quieter-spoken passages of morning and evening +prayers—to the commentatory lowing of cattle or the grunts of pigs, +sounding like the observations of grudging critics. There was once a +saint who, like a broody hen that will nurse strange things, preached to +the fowls of the air and the beasts of the field, and the spiritual +shepherd of Winterborne Monkton not infrequently has among his +congregation a barn owl, and a cheerful concourse of sparrows in the +roof, much given to brawling in church. + +Roman directness was all very well, but later races found it much too +trying for their horses, and thus we find, nearing the summit, that the +straight ancient road across the ridgeway has long been abandoned, except +by the telegraph-poles, for a cutting through the crest and an S curve +down the southern and much steeper side. This expedient certainly eases +both ascent and descent, but it does not suffice to render the way less +than extremely fatiguing to climb and nerve-shaking to descend. + +As a view-point it has remarkable features, for the whole expanse of +Portland Roads, the Isle of Portland, and the site on which Weymouth and +Melcombe Regis are built are exposed to gaze, very much as though the +spectator looking down upon them were bending in an examination of some +modelled map of physical geography. White spires at Weymouth and equally +white groups of houses at Portland gain striking effects from backgrounds +of grey rock or the dark green of trees, massed by distance to the +likeness of dense forests; and the mile-lengths of harbour walls and +breakwaters, punctuated with forts, out in the roadstead are shrunken by +distance to the likeness of a cast seine-net supported by cork floats. +On a ridge inland a row of circular ricks with peaked roofs showing +against the sea looks absurdly like beehives, and down there in the +middle distance is the curving line of embankment where the railway from +Dorchester goes, after piercing the hill on which we stand by the +Bincombe Tunnel. + + [Picture: The Wishing Well, Upwey] + +Descending the hill, we come to the valley of the Wey. The older part of +the village of Upwey marks the source of that little stream to the right, +and the newer part, with the village of Broadwey, are scarcely to be +distinguished from one another, ahead. The original Upwey, the Upwey of +the “Wishing Well,” lies under the flanks of a great down, where, if you +climb and climb and continue climbing, you will presently discover the +poppy-like scarlet buildings of the Weymouth waterworks. But there is no +need to seek them while the Wishing Well, nearer to hand, calls. + +The “Wishing Well” is a pretty spot, overhung with trees and still a +place resorted to by tourists, who either shamefacedly, with an implied +half-belief in its virtues, drink its waters, or else with the quip and +jest of unbelief, defer the slaking of their thirst until the nearest inn +is reached, where liquors more palatable to the sophisticated taste—or +what Mr. Hardy’s rustics would term “a cup of genuine”—are obtainable. +Once the haunt of gipsies, who used the well as a convenient pitch, and, +when you crossed their palms with silver in the approved style, +prophesied fulfilment of the nicest things you could possibly wish +yourself—and a good many other things that would never occur to you at +all—it is now quite unexploited, save perhaps by a little village girl, +who, with a glass tumbler, will save the devotee from stooping on hands +and knees and lapping up the magic water, like a dog. The gipsies have +been all frightened away by the Vagrants Act, and no great loss to the +community in general. The inquisitive stranger, curious to know whether +the villagers themselves resort to their famous Fount of Heart’s Desire, +receives a rude shock when he is told by one of them that, “Bless ’ee, +there baint a varden’s wuth o’ good in ’en, at arl. Mebbe ’tis good ver +a whist (a stye) but all them ’ere magicky tales be done away wi’.” The +Age of Faith is dead. + +And so into Weymouth, down a road lined with long rows of suburbs. +Radipole is come to this complexion at last, and its spa is, like a +service rendered and a benefit conferred, a thing clean forgot. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + + WEYMOUTH + +WELL, then, here, reaching a Modern church with a tall spire, surrounded +by suburban villas, is the beginning of Weymouth. The sea in these miles +has dropped gradually down, out of sight as the road comes to the level, +and at this point you might, to all intents and purposes, be at North +Kensington, which the spot greatly resembles. But turning sharply with +the road to the right the derogatory illusion is at once dispelled, for +the sea is out there, sparkling, to the left; and, in the perfect segment +of a circle, the Esplanade of Weymouth goes sweeping round to the +harbour, with the Nothe Point fort above, and, away out in the distance, +that towering knob of limestone, the Isle of Portland. It is a +stimulating view, and has generally other and even more stimulating +constituents than those of nature, for Weymouth and Portland are places +of arms, and the ships of the Navy are usually represented by a squadron +of cruisers well in shore, with a brace or two of battleships coming, +going, or anchored easily in sight, and numbers of those ugly, imp-like +craft, torpedo-boats, flying hither and thither. + +Weymouth styles itself—or others style it—“the Naples of England,” but no +one has ever yet found Naples returning the compliment and calling itself +“the Weymouth of Italy.” There is really no reason why Weymouth, instead +of seeking some fanciful resemblance based solely, it may be supposed on +the configuration of its widely curving bay, should not stand or fall by +the sufficing attractions of its own charming self. For one thing, it +would be impossible to persuade the public that Weymouth owns a Vesuvius +somewhere away in its _hinterland_, and, although the country is rich in +Roman camps, no antiquary has yet discovered a Pompeii midway between +Melcombe Regis and Dorchester. + +The town is still in essentials the Weymouth of George III., the +“Budmouth” of Thomas Hardy. They are, it is true, the battleships of +Edward VII. wallowing out there, like fat pigs, where of yore the wooden +men-o’-war swam the waters like swans; but the houses at least, that face +the Esplanade in one almost unbroken row, each one like its neighbour and +all absolutely innocent either of taste or pretension, are +characteristically Georgian. Taken individually and examined, one might +go greater lengths, and say such a house was more than insipid and +commonplace—was, indeed, downright ugly—but in a long curving row the +effect is a comprehensive one of dignified restraint. At any rate, they +are constructed of good honest dull red brick, and not plastered and made +to look like stone. This bluff honesty in these days of shams and of +restless, worried-looking designs, when every new building must have its +own ready-made picturesqueness, and this total absence of anything and +everything that by remotest chance could be thought an ornament, is +grateful. + +We speak of this as “Weymouth,” but it is rather, to speak by the card, +Melcombe Regis, and although the interests of both this and of Weymouth +proper, on the other side of the narrow neck of harbour, are now pooled, +it was once a sign of ignorance and a certain offence not to carefully +distinguish between the two. Their rivalries and jealousies were of old +so bitter that the river-mouth and harbour, long since bridged to make a +continuous street, was like a stream set between two alien states. The +passage was then “by a bote and a rope bent over ye haven, so yt in ye +fery bote they use no ores.” + +These disputes and contentions had risen almost to the condition of a +smouldering petty local warfare in the time of Queen Elizabeth, when +means were taken to put an end to it. Thus in 1571 they were compelled +to unite, and in the familiar phrase of fairy tales have “lived happily +ever after.” Says Camden: “These stood both some time proudlie upon +their owne severall priviledges, and were in emulation one of the other, +but now, tho’ (God turne it to the good of both!) many, they are, by +authoritie of Parliament, incorporated into one bodie, conjoyned by late +by a bridge, and growne very much greater and goodlier in buildings and +by sea adventures than heretofore.” + +But things widely different from trade have in later times made the +fortune of the conjoined towns of Weymouth and Melcombe Regis. I suppose +the one or the other of them was bound in the course of time to be +“discovered” as a bathing-resort, but it is to George III. that Weymouth +owes a deep debt of gratitude. His son had already “discovered” +Brighthelmstone, or rather, had placed the seal of his approval upon Dr. +Russel’s earlier discovery of it; and likewise Weymouth was already on +the road to recognition when George III. came here first, in 1789. +Thirty years or so earlier, when people had begun as a strange new +experience, to bathe, the sands of Weymouth—or to adopt an attitude of +strict correctitude, the sands of Melcombe Regis—were on the way to +appreciation. Then greater folks lending their august patronage where +that of meaner people had little weight, the place was resorted to by the +famous Ralph Allen of Bath, for whom in 1763 the first bathing-machine +was constructed, and by a stream of visitors gradually ascending in the +social scale. The place long found favour with the Duke of Gloucester, +by whose recommendation the king was induced to make a visit and then a +lengthy stay, placing the apex at last upon this imposing pyramid of good +fortune. It was no fleeting glimpse of royal favour thus accorded, for +with the coming of summer the king for many years resided here at +Gloucester Lodge, the mansion facing the sea built by his brother the +Duke of Gloucester, and now the staid and grave Gloucester Hotel. +Weymouth basked happily in the splendours of that time. They were +splendours of the respectable domestic sort generally associated with +that homely monarch, who bathed from his machine in full view of his +loyal lieges and then went home to boiled mutton and turnips. He made +sober holiday on the Dorset coast while his graceless son was on the +coast of Sussex rearing a fantastical palace and playing pranks fully +matching it in extravagance of design and purse. + +Weymouth’s return for all these favours is still to be seen, in the +bronze group erected by the townsfolk in 1809, to celebrate the generally +joyful occasion of his Jubilee, to perpetuate the especial gratitude of +the people for favours received, and in hopes of more to come. + +Weymouth very closely reflects the prosperity of that great era, in the +Georgian streets, the quaintly bowed windows of private houses and the +now old-world shop-fronts, many of them exquisite examples of the +restrained taste and aptitude for just proportion in design +characteristic of that age, and only now beginning to be appreciated at +their true worth. It was the age of the Adams brothers, of Chippendale +and Sheraton; an age rightly come to be regarded in our time as classic +in all things in the domain of architecture and decoration. In its +unaltered purlieus Weymouth is thus singularly like the older parts of +Brighton, but now richer in vestiges of the Georgian period than the +larger and more changeful town. + +That, doubtless, was a period of inflated prices in Weymouth. King, +queen, and princesses, fashionables and many soldiers sent up the ideas +of tradesfolk just as the sun expands the mercury of a thermometer. +Uncle Benjy, in _The Trumpet Major_, found Budmouth a place where money +flew away doubly as quick as it did when the famous Scot visited London +and “hadna’ been there a day when bang went saxpence.” At Budmouth in +the time of Farmer George, it was a “shilling for this and a shilling for +that; if you only eat one egg or even a poor windfall of an apple, you’ve +got to pay; and a bunch o’ radishes is a halfpenny, and a quart o’ cider +a good tuppence three-farthings at lowest reckoning. Nothing without +paying!” Ay! but if prices were no higher than these, ’twas no such +ruinous place, after all. Poor Uncle Benjy! + + [Picture: Weymouth Harbour] + +The most striking differences in physical geography between the +constituent parts of Weymouth are that Melcombe Regis, here on the shore +is flat as a pancake, and Weymouth, there on t’other side of the harbour, +is as hilly as a house-roof. You could have no greater dissimilarity +than that between the prudish formality which stands for the Melcombe +front and the heaped-up terraces of houses of every description at +Weymouth, which has no front at all; unless indeed the lowest tier of +houses skirting the harbour and its quays, and looking into the back +alleys and quays of Melcombe may so be styled. In those old days, to +which Weymouth dates back, no seaside town could afford so assailable a +luxury as a “front,” and the older quarters of nearly all such are +generally found, as here, folded away under the lee of a bluff, or thinly +lining the shores of an estuarial harbour. Here the Nothe Point, with +its fort mounted with heavy guns, is the rocky bluff behind which the old +town cowered from elemental and human foes, and that estuary, both by +reason of its narrow entrance, and those great forts of the Nothe and +Portland, has never been one sought by an enemy’s ship. + +The harbour is not uninteresting: what harbour ever is? The comings and +goings of ships have their own romance, and bring rumours of all kinds of +outer worlds and strange peoples. You look across from the quays of +Weymouth to the quays of Melcombe, and there, beside the walls and the +old warehouses, lie the ships from many home and foreign ports, their +names duly to be read under their counters. Whence they individually +come, I do not greatly care to know. This one may only have come from +the Channel Islands with a consignment of early potatoes: and, on the +other hand, it may have won home again after who knows what romantic +doings at the Equator or within the Arctic Zone. It may have brought +treasure-trove, or on the other hand be merely carrying ordinary +commercial freights, at so low a figure that the owners are dissatisfied +and the skipper gloomy. It is well, you see, to leave a little margin +for fancy when the good ship has come to port once more and within sight +and the easiest reach of those two great features of a Christian and a +civilised land: the Church and the Public House. + +In these days the town is recovering at last from the undeserved neglect +into which it fell after the illness and death of George III. and from +later disasters and indifferences; and, what with improved railway +travelling, and the added interest it obtains from being selected as the +site of a new great national harbour where more than ever the ships of +the Navy will come and go, has a great future before it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + + THE ISLE OF PORTLAND + +TO the generality of untravelled folk, Portland is nothing but a quarry +and a prison. It is both and more. It is, for one additional thing, a +fortress, in these times grown to a considerable strength, and, for +another, is a singular outlying corner of England tethered to the +mainland only by that seemingly precarious stretch of pebbles, the Chesil +Beach. As Weymouth is peculiarly the scene of _The Trumpet Major_, so +Portland, the “Isle of Slingers,” as Mr. Hardy calls it, is especially, +though not with absolute exclusiveness, the district of _The Well +Beloved_. + +There is a choice of ways to Portland. You may go by the high road—and a +very steep up and down road it is, too—past Wyke, or may proceed by the +crumbling clifflets past Sandsfoot Castle, one of those blockhouse +coastward fortresses stretching from Deal and Sandown Castles, in Kent, +along the whole of the south coast, to this point, whose building we owe +to the panic that possessed the nation in the time of Henry VIII.: one of +those periodic fears of a French invasion that from time to time have +troubled the powers that be. Two of the long series were placed in this +neighbourhood; the so-styled “Portland Castle” at the base of the Isle of +Portland itself, and this craggy ruin of Sandsfoot, roofless and rough +and more cliff-like than the cliffs themselves, at the mainland extremity +of this sheltered inlet, wherein, in days of yore, an enemy might +conceivably have effected a lodgment. For the defence of this fort, when +new-builded in the Eighth Harry’s time, there were to be provided “the +nombre of xv hable footmen, well furneyshed for the warres, as +appertayneth,” together with some “harchers” duly furnished, or “harmed” +as the summons might have put it, with their “bows and harrowes.” Alas! +poor overworked letter H! + + [Picture: Sandsfoot Castle] + +It is here, in the story of _The Well Beloved_, that Jocelyn Pierston, +the weirdly constituted hero of that fantastic romance, elects to bid +farewell to Avice Caro, and past it Anne Garland went on her way to +Portland Bill, “along the coast road to Portland.” When she had reached +the waters of the Fleet, crossed now by a bridge, she had to ferry over, +and from thence to walk that causeway road whose mile-and-three-quarters +of flatness, bounded sideways by the expressionless blue of the summer +sky and the equally vacant vastnesses of the yellow pebbles of the Chesil +Beach, seems to foot-passengers an image of eternity. It is but a flat +road, less than two miles long, but the Isle ahead seems to keep as far +off as ever, and the way is so bald of incident that a sea-poppy growing +amid the pebbles is a change for the eye, a piece of driftwood a +landmark, and a chance boat or capstan a monument. + +But even the Chesil Beach has an end, and at last one reaches Portland +and Fortune’s Well, referred to in that story of the Portlanders as “the +Street of Wells.” The well—a wishing well of the good, or the bad, old +sort, where you wished for your heart’s desire, and perhaps obtained the +boon in the course of a lifetime—by striving and labouring for it—is +behind that substantial inn, the Portland Arms, and it is a cynical +commentary upon this and all such legends of faëry that, while the +Portlanders in general, and the people of Fortune’s Well in particular, +can one and all direct you to the inn, if so be you are bat-like enough +not to perceive it for yourself, very few of them know anything at all of +the magic spring, of where it is, or that the place took its name from +the existence of such a thing. + +One circumstance, above all other curious and interesting circumstances +of this so-called “Isle” of Portland, is calculated to impress the +stranger with astonishment. Its giant forts; its great convict +establishment, “the retreat, at their country’s expense, of geniuses from +a distance,” the odd nexus of almost interminable pebble beach that +tethers it to the mainland and makes the name of “Isle” a misnomer, are +all fitting things for amazement; but no one previously uninformed on the +point is at all likely to have any conception of its numerous villages +and hamlets and the large populations inhabiting this grim, forbidding, +“solid and single block of limestone four miles long.” Eleven thousand +souls live and move and have their being on what the uninstructed, gazing +across the Roads from Weymouth, might be excused for thinking a +penitential rock, reserved for forts and garrison artillery, and for +convicts and those whose business it is to keep them in order. The +number of small villages or hamlets is itself in the nature of a +surprise. Entering upon this happily styled “Gibraltar of Wessex,” there +is in the foreground, by the railway-station, Chesilton; succeeded by +Fortune’s Well, Castleton to the left, Portland to the right, and, away +ahead up to the summit of a stupendous climb on to the great elevated, +treeless and parched stony plateau of the Isle, Reforne. Beyond the +prison and the prison quarries, come Easton, Wakeham, Weston, and +Southwell; all stony and hard-featured and like nothing else but each +other. To-day an exploration of the Isle is easy, for a railway runs +from Weymouth along the beach to Chesilton, and another, skirting the +cliffs, takes you out almost to the famous Bill itself; but otherwise, +all the circumstances of the place still fully show how the Portlanders +came to be that oddly different race from the mainlanders they are shown +to be in the pages of _The Well Beloved_, and in the writings of +innumerable authors. + +Portland was to the ancients the Isle of Vindilis, the “Vindelia” of +Richard of Cirencester; and Roman roads are surviving on it to this day, +notwithstanding the blasting and quarrying activities of this vast bed of +building-stone, whence much of the material for Sir Christopher Wren’s +City of London churches came, and despite the business of fortification +that has abolished many merely antiquarian interests. You, indeed, +cannot get away from stone, here on Portland; physically, in historic +allusions, and in matters of present-day business. The story of the Isle +begins with it, with those ancient inhabitants, the _Baleares_, slingers +of stones, who made excellent defence of their unfertile home with the +inexhaustible natural ammunition; and quarrying is now, after the passing +of many centuries, its one industry. It is to be supposed, without any +extravagance of assumption, that the Portlanders of to-day are the +descendants of those ancient Baleares, and, certainly until quite recent +times, they maintained the aloofness and marked individuality to be +expected from such an ancestry. To them the mainlanders were foreigners, +or, as themselves would say, “kimberlins”; a flighty, mercurial and none +too scrupulous people, calling themselves Englishmen, who lived on the +adjacent island of Great Britain and were only to be dealt with +cautiously, and then solely on matters of business connected with the +selling of stone, or maybe of fish, caught in Deadman’s Bay. For the +true Portlanders, like their home, are grey and unsmiling, and reflect +their surroundings, even as do those inhabitants of more sheltered and +fertile places; and still, although things be in these later days of +railway communication and a kind of quick-change and “general-post” all +over the country somewhat altered, a stranger, who by force of +circumstances—pleasure is out of the question—comes to live here, will +find himself as uncongenial as oil is to water. + +The outlook of the old Portlanders upon strangers was justified to them, +in a way, when the great prison was built and the gangs of convicts began +to be a feature of the Isle. _They_, who thus by force of circumstances +over which they had no control, took up a hard-working and frugal +existence upon the Isle, were specimens of the “kimberlins”; and the +prejudices, if not quite the ignorance, of the islanders saw in them +representative specimens of all “Outlanders.” + +When you come toilsomely uphill from Fortune’s Well, out upon the stony +plateau that is Portland, you presently become conscious of the +contiguity of that great convict establishment, in the appearance of +notice-boards, warning all and sundry of the penalties awaiting those who +aid prisoners to escape. Such an offence, you learn, “shall be treated +as a felony, not subject to any bail or mainprize” (whatever that may +be). But any “free person” finding money, letters, or clothing, or +anything that may be supposed to have been left to facilitate the escape +of prisoners shall be rewarded, unless such person shall be proved to +have entered into collusion, etc., etc., and so forth. + +What, however, one especially desires to call attention to is the +delicious expression, “free person.” Obviously, to the official minds +ruling Portland “free persons” owe their freedom, not to any virtues they +possess, but to their luck in not being found out. One, being a “free +person,” has, therefore, after reading this notice, an uneasy suspicion +that freedom is, in the eye of those authorities, a wholly undeserved +accident, and that if every one—saving, of course, officials—had their +deserts, they would be cutting and hauling stone out yonder, with the +gangs in those yellow jackets and knickerbockers plentifully decorated +with a pleasing design in broad arrows. + +Being merely a “free person,” without prejudice in one’s favour in the +eyes of the armed warders who abound here, it behoves one to walk +circumspectly on Portland. + +A great deal might be said of the Convict Prison and its quarries. It is +another “sermon in stones,” quite as effective as the sermons preached by +those other stones referred to in the lines + + . . . books in the running brooks, + Sermons in stones, and good in everything, + +and the text, I take it, is the amended and horribly sophisticated one: +“Thou shalt not steal—or, if you must, do it outside the cognisance of +the criminal laws!” + +But this only in passing. Literary landmarks have fortunately, no points +of contact with burglars, fraudulent trustees, and swindling promoters of +companies. We will make for Pennsylvania Castle, very slightly disguised +in _The Well Beloved_ as “Sylvania Castle,” the residence of Jocelyn +Pierston in that story. Coming to it, past the cottage of Avice, down +that street innocent of vegetation, the thickets of trees surrounding the +Castle (which is not a castle, but only a castellated mansion built in +1800 by Wyatt, in true Wyattesque fashion, for the then Governor of the +Isle) are seen, closing in the view. A tree is something more than a +tree on stony, wind-swept Portland. Any tree here is a landmark, and a +grove of trees a feature; and thus, in the thickets and cliffside +undergrowths of “Sylvania Castle,” that justify the name and give the lie +to any who may in more than general terms declare Portland to be +treeless, the boskage is therefore more than usually gracious. + + [Picture: Bow and Arrow Castle] + +Many incidents in the elfish career of Pierston are made to happen here. +The first Avice was courted by him in the churchyard down below, where a +landslip has swept away the little church that gave to Church Hope Cove +its name, and Avice the third eloped with another—that Another who with +that capital A lurks between the pages of every novel, and behind the +scenes in most plays—down the steep lane that runs beneath the archways +of “Rufus’,” or Bow and Arrow, Castle on to the rocks beside the raging +sea. + +By lengthy cliff-top ways we leave this spot and make for Portland Bill, +whence Anne Garland tearfully watched the topsails and then the +topgallants, and at last the admiral’s flag of the _Victory_ drop down +towards, and into, the watery distance. Offshore is the Shambles +lightship that gave a refuge to the fleeing Avice and Leverre. + +This “wild, herbless, weatherworn promontory,” called Portland Bill, with +its two lighthouses looking down upon shoals and rapid currents of +extraordinary danger to mariners, obtains its name from the beak-like end +of the Isle which “stretches out like the head of a bird into the English +Channel.” Other, and more fanciful and wonder-loving accounts would have +us believe that it derives from this being the site of propitiatory Baal +fires in far-off pagan times; and, if we like to carry on the fancy, we +may draw comparisons between the fires of the shivering superstitious +terrors of those old heathens, and the beneficent warning gleams +maintained here in modern times by the Trinity House, for the benefit of +“they that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great +waters.” + +Completing the circuit of Portland, the return to Fortune’s Well and +Chesilton is made chiefly along high ground disclosing a comprehensive +and beautiful view of the whole westward sweep of the Dorset coast, where +the many miles of the Chesil Beach at last lose themselves in hazy +distance, and the heights of Stonebarrow and Golden Cap, between Bridport +and Lyme Regis, pierce the skies. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + + WEYMOUTH TO BRIDPORT AND BEAMINSTER + +TO leave Weymouth by this route is to obtain some initial impressions of +a very striking character: impressions, not slight or fleeting, of +hilliness and of Weymouth’s modern growth. A specious and illusory flat +quayside stretch of road, by the well-known swan-haunted Backwater, ends +all too soon, and the road goes at a grievous inclination up through what +was once the village, now the suburb, and a very packed and populous +suburb, too, of East Chickerell. To this succeeds the Chickerell of the +West; and so, in and out and round about, and up and down—but chiefly +up—at last to Portisham, the first place of any Hardyean interest. + +Portisham, under the bold hills that rise to the commanding height of +Blackdown—locally “Black’on,” just as the name of the village is +shortened to “Po’sham”—rising eight hundred and seventeen feet above the +sea, is notable to us both from fiction and in facts. It appears in _The +Trumpet Major_ as the village to which Bob Loveday comes to seek service +under Admiral Hardy, and although the brave but sentimentally flighty Bob +be a character of fiction, the admiral is that very real historical +personage, Admiral Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy, Nelson’s friend and +comrade-in-arms, who was born here, in the house still pointed out, in +1769, and to whose memory the conspicuous monument on Blackdown is +erected. The house is the first on the left, at the cross-roads as you +make for the village. In the garden belonging to it, on the opposite +side of the road may still be seen a sundial, bearing the inscription: + + JOSEPH HARDY, ESQ., + Kingston Russell. Lat. 50° 45′ + 1767 + Fugio fuge. + + [Picture: Portisham] + +It is a lovely perspective along the road approaching Portisham, +disclosing a long avenue of poplars and ashes, with the village church +and some scattered farmsteads in the vale, and the tremendous sides of +the rolling down, covered in patches with furze, filling in the +background. The beautiful old church has, happily, been left very much +to itself, with the lichen-stains of age and other marks of time not yet +scraped off. A strange epitaph in the churchyard provokes curiosity: + + “William Weare lies here in dust, + As thou and I and all men must. + Once plundered by Sabean force, + Some cald it war but others worse. + With confidence he pleads his cavse, + And Kings to be above those laws. + September’s eygth day died hee + When neare the date of 63 + Anno domini 1670.” + +Those Sabines appear from the internal evidence of the epitaph to have +been the Roundhead party, and “rebellion,” or perhaps “robbery,” to have +been the worse thing than war some called it. The allusion is probably +to some raid in which cows and sheep were carried off by the Puritans and +were grudged them by the loyal Weare, who seems, in the passage where he +claims “Kings to be above those laws,” to have cheerfully borne some +other foray on the Royalists’ behalf. + + [Picture: The road out of Abbotsbury] + +Two miles from Portisham is the large village of Abbotsbury, not itself +the scene of any of the Wessex romances, but intrinsically a very +interesting place, remarkable for a hilltop chapel of St. Catherine +anciently serving as a seamark, and for the remains of the Abbey; few, +and chiefly worked into farmsteads and cottages, but including a great +stone barn of the fifteenth century, as long as a cathedral, and very +cathedral-like in its plan. + +The great barn of _Far from the Madding Crowd_, scene of the +sheep-shearing, is really a description of the monastic barn of +Abbotsbury, which, as in the story, resembles a church with transepts. +“It not only emulated the form of the neighbouring church of the parish, +but vied with it in antiquity. . . . The vast porches at the sides, +lofty enough to admit a waggon laden to its highest with corn in the +sheaf, were spanned by heavy pointed arches of stone, broadly and boldly +cut, whose very simplicity was the origin of a grandeur not apparent in +erections where more ornament has been attempted. The dusky, filmed +chestnut roof, braced and tied in by huge collars, curves, and diagonals +was far nobler in design, because more wealthy in material, than +nine-tenths of those in our modern churches. Along each side wall was a +range of striding buttresses, throwing deep shadows on the spaces between +them, which were perforated by lancet openings, combining in their +proportions the precise requirements, both of beauty and ventilation. +One could say about this barn, what could hardly be said of either the +church or the castle akin to it in age and style, that the purpose which +had dictated its original erection was the same with that to which it was +still applied.” + + [Picture: Sheep-shearing in Wessex] + +Out of Abbotsbury, and down amid the waters of the West Fleet, is the +famous Swannery, where, amid reedy lakes and marshes, some thousands of +swans have from ancient times had a home. Once belonging to the Church, +in the persons of the old abbots of the Benedictine abbey of Abbotsbury, +the swans are now the property of the Earl of Ilchester, descendant of +the “First Countess of Wessex,” Betty Dornell, whose romance is set forth +in _A Group of Noble Dames_. Though long passed from the hands of any +religious establishment, the ownership of the swans still points with the +trifling alteration in the position of an apostrophe, to the fact that +“the earth is the Lords’ and the fulness thereof.” + +Eight miles of cliff-top roads, with magnificent views to the left over +sea and coast, and other views equally magnificent inland, to the right, +lead in staggering drops and rises past Swyre and Puncknowle down to +Burton Bradstock, and thence to the “unheard-of harbour” of West Bay. + +West Bay, and Bridport town itself, are scenes in _Fellow Townsmen_, +where they are called “Port Bredy,” from the little river, the Brit or +Bredy, which here flows into the sea. West Bay is one of the oddest +places on an odd and original coast. A mile and a half away from +Bridport town, which is content to hide, sheltering away from the +sea-breezes, it has always been about to become great, either as a +commercial harbour or a seaside resort, or both, but has ended in not +achieving greatness of any kind. No one who enjoys the sight of a quiet +and picturesque place will sorrow at that. + +Picturesque it is in a wholly accidental and unstudied way. It owns a +little harbour, with quays and an inn or two, and shipping that, daring +greatly, has to be warped in between the narrow timbered pier-heads, +where a furious sea is for ever banging in from the unsheltered bay; and +away at one side it is shut in from the outside coast by some +saucy-looking cliffs of golden yellow sandstone, whose odd effect is due +to their being the remaining part of a symmetrically rounded down. The +seaward part has been shorn off, with the odd result that the rest looks +like the quarter of some gigantic Dutch cheese of pantomime. It is an +eloquent, stimulating, not unpleasing loneliness that characterises the +shore of West Bay. A few old thatched houses, halting midway between an +inland and a coastwise picturesqueness, and so only succeeding in being +broken-heartedly nondescript, start out of wastes of tiny shingle, and +are backed at a discreet distance by a long row of modern houses, whose +architect is so often on their account professionally spoken of as a +genius, that it becomes a duty to state, however convenient to the +residents in them their plan may be, that their appearance in the view is +the one pictorial drawback to West Bay. + +The microscopic shingle—for shingle it is—of West Bay has for centuries +been the enemy of the place and has practically strangled it. There are +heaped up wastes of it everywhere, and every visitor involuntarily +carries some of it away, as a sample, about his person, in his shoes or +his hair, or in his pockets. The more of it removed in this, or indeed +in any other manner, the better pleased will West Bay be, for it comes, +unasked, into the houses; you have it for breakfast, lunch, tea, and +supper, as an unsolicited garnish to the viands, and when at last you +seek repose between the sheets, there it is again. These wastes are part +of that natural phenomenon of the Dorset coast, the Chesil Beach, which +runs eighteen miles from this point along the perfectly unbroken shores +of the Bay to Chesilton and Portland. The “Chesil” is just the “Pebble” +beach: that old word for pebbles being found elsewhere in Dorsetshire, +and at Chislehurst, among other places. A pecularity of it is that by +insensible degrees it grows coarser as it proceeds in a south-easterly +direction, ending as very large pebbles at Portland. The fishermen of +this lonely coast, landing on dark nights, with nothing else to guide +them as to their whereabouts, can always readily settle the point by +handling this shingle, and by use can tell within a mile of the +particular spot. + + [Picture: West Bay, Bridport] + +The story of West Bay’s struggle against this insidious enemy is an old +one. In 1722 the Bridport authorities procured an Act of Parliament +empowering them to restore and rebuild the haven and port, the piers and +landing-places, in order to bring the town to that ancient and +flourishing state whence it had declined. The preamble stated that by +reason of a great sickness and other accidents, the wealthy inhabitants +had been swept away and the haven choked. But although the Legislature +had given authority for the work to be done, it did not indicate whence +the funds were to be obtained, and so it was not until 1742 that the +pier, authorised twenty years before, was built, nor was it until another +fourteen years had waned that the pier and harbour were enlarged. Mr. +Hardy in _Fellow Townsmen_ thus describes West Bay: “A gap appeared in +the rampart of hills which shut out the sea, and on the left of the +opening rose a vertical cliff, coloured a burning orange by the sunlight, +the companion cliff on the right side being livid in shade. Between +these cliffs, like the Libyan Bay which sheltered the shipwrecked +Trojans, was a little haven, seemingly a beginning made by Nature herself +of a perfect harbour, which appealed to the passer-by as only requiring a +little human industry to finish it and make it famous, the ground on each +side, as far back as the daisied slopes that bounded the interior valley, +being a mere layer of blown sand. But the Port-Bredy burgesses a mile +inland had, in the course of ten centuries, responded many times to that +mute appeal, with the result that the tides had invariably choked up +their works with sand and shingle as soon as completed. There were but +few houses here: a rough pier, a few boats, some stores, an inn, a +residence or two, a ketch unloading in the harbour, were the chief +features of the settlement.” + +The harbour road, along whose mile and a half, the domestically unhappy +Barnet went to see his Lucy at various intervals of time, leads into the +corporate town of Bridport, which, after long remaining, as far as the +casual eye of the stranger may perceive, little affected by the +circumstance of being on a railway, is now developing a something in the +nature of a suburb, greatly to the dismay of neighbouring residents who, +residing here because of its isolation on a branch railway that brings +few passengers, and to landward of a harbour that has no commerce, now +can glimpse at the end of a vista of years some prospect of the ancient +peace of Bridport being genteelly disturbed. + +Bridport was, in those days when it remained a busy place, a town keenly +interested in the flax, hemp, twine, and rope industries; and rope and +twine walks, where the old methods are even yet in use, are still +features of its less prominent lanes and alleys, but the unobservant and +the incurious, who to be sure form the majority of travellers, might +pass, and do pass, through Bridport, without thinking it any other than a +quiet market town, dependent solely upon surrounding agricultural needs +and weekly village shopping. + +When hemp was grown in the neighbourhood of Bridport, in those bustling +days when the manufacturers of the town supplied the King’s Navy with +ropes, and criminals were suspended by this staple article of the town, +the expression “stabbed with a Bridport dagger,” was a pretty, or at +least a symbolical, way of saying that a man had been hanged. It was a +figure of speech that quite escaped that matter-of-fact antiquary, +Leland, when in the time of Henry VIII. he came to Bridport and stolidly +noted down: “At Bridport be made good daggers.” + +One is disposed to sympathise with Leland in that egregious error of his, +for which he and his memory have been laughed at for more than three +hundred and fifty years. How his shade must writhe at the shame of it! +He was, doubtless, tired and bored, for some reason or another, when he +reached Bridport, and to his undoing, took things on trust. And +nowadays, every one who writes the very leastest scrap on Bridport has +his fling at the poor old fellow; and I—conscience tells me—insincerely +do the same, under a miserably inadequate cloak of pretended sympathy! + + [Picture: High Street and Town Hall, Bridport] + +Barnet, whose baulked love is the theme of _Fellow Townsmen_, was +descended from the hemp and rope-merchants of Bridport, as the story, in +several allusions, tells us. + +South Street, leading from the Harbour Road into the right and left +course of the main street, contains most of the very few buildings of any +great age. Among them is the little Gothic, gabled building now a +workmen’s club, but once the “Castle” inn. Here, too, is the church, +ancient enough, but restored in 1860, when the two bays were added to the +nave; probably the incident referred to by Mr. Hardy: “The church had had +such a tremendous practical joke played upon it by some facetious +restorer or other as to be scarce recognisable by its dearest old +friends.” + +There is, in this otherwise rather bald interior of Bridport church, a +curious mural tablet to the “Memory of Edward Coker, Gent. Second son of +Capt. Robert Coker of Mapowder, Slayne at the Bull Inn, in Bridpurt. +June the 14th Añ. Dõ. 1685, by one Venner, who was a Officer under the +late Dvke of Mvnmovth in that Rebellion.” + +The Bull inn stands yet in the main street, but modernised. It is the +original of the “Black Bull” in _Fellow Townsmen_. + +Six miles due north of Bridport lies the little town of Beaminster, the +“hill-surrounded little town” of which Angel Clare’s father was vicar. +“Sweet Be’mi’ster” says Barnes: + + “Sweet Be’mi’ster, that bist abound + By green and woody hills all round,” + +and in truth those hills that surround it are set about this quiet +agricultural town in a manner that fairly astounds the traveller. No +railway reaches “Emminster,” as it is named in _Tess of the +D’Urbervilles_, and, looking upon those mighty natural turrets and domes +that beset it, the traveller is of opinion that no railway ever will. +Nearing Beaminster at cockshut time, when the birds have all gone to bed, +when the sky is hot in the west with the burnished copper of the +after-glow, and a cold blue and green, with pale stars appearing, fills +the eastern firmament, the scenery is something awesome and approaching +an Alpine sublimity. Then the twilight streets of this quiet place in +the basin-like hollow begin to take an hospitable look, and the tall red +stone tower of the church, that looks so nobly aloof in day, assumes a +welcoming paternal benignancy. It is a toilsome winning to Beaminster, +but, when won, worth the trouble of it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + + WEYMOUTH TO LULWORTH COVE + +YOU cannot go far from Weymouth without a good deal of hill-climbing, but +the longest stretch of level in this district, where levels are the +exception and hills the rule, is by this route. It is not so very long, +even then, for when you have passed the curving Esplanade and Lodmoor +Marsh, and come to the foot of Jordan Hill, thought to have been the site +of the Roman “Clavinium,” it is only two and a half miles. Preston +stands on the top of a further hill, and is a place of great resort for +brake-parties not greatly interested in literature. Turning to the left +out of its street, opposite the Ship inn, we come to the pretty +village—or hamlet, for no church is visible—of Sutton Poyntz, the +“Overcombe” of _The Trumpet Major_. Its thatched stone cottages, +charming tree-shaded stream and mill-pond, and old barns, all under the +looming shadow of the downs, vividly recall the old-fashioned ways and +talk, and the pleasant romance of Mr. Hardy’s only semi-historical novel; +and you need not see, if you do not wish, the flagrant Vandalism of the +Weymouth waterworks, hard by, and can if you will, turn your back upon +the inn that will be interesting and picturesque some day, but now, rawly +new, is an outrage upon, and a thing altogether out of key with, these +old rustic surroundings. + + [Picture: Sutton Poyntz: The “Overcombe” of “The Trumpet Major”] + +Squawking ducks, hurrying across the dusty road and flouncing noisily +into the clearly running stream, rooks cawing contentedly from their +windy see-saw in the topmost branches of tall trees; and tired horses +coming stolidly home from plough are the chief features of this +“Overcombe,” where John Loveday had his mill, and his sons John and Bob, +and Anne Garland and Matilda, and all the lovable, the hateful, or the +merely contemptible characters in that sympathetic tale came and went. +The mill—I am afraid it is not _the_ mill, but one of somewhat later +date—still grinds corn, and you can see it, bulking very largely between +the trees, “the smooth millpond, over-full, and intruding into the hedge +and into the road,” as mill-ponds will do, even in these later days of +strict local government. But the days of European wars are gone. It is +a hundred years since the last call of brave, tender, loyal John Loveday, +the Trumpet Major, was silenced on a bloody battlefield in Spain, and +well on toward the same tale of years since the press gangs, fellows to +that which searched Overcombe Mill for Bob Loveday, impressed likely +fellows for service on His Majesty’s ships:—the characters of _The +Trumpet Major_ belong wholly to a bygone age. + +To the same age belonged the characters in _The Melancholy Hussar of the +German Legion_, a short story associated with Bincombe, a tiny village it +requires no little exertion to reach; but you may win this way to it as +easily—or at any rate, not more laboriously—than by any other route. It +stands up among the downs, and in what Dorset folk would call an +“outspan”—that is to say a remote hollow, recess or shelf amid them, +where their sides are so steep that they give the appearance of some +theatrical “back-cloth” to a romantic scene. + +“Here stretch the downs, high and breezy and green, absolutely unchanged +since those eventful days. A plough has never disturbed the turf, and +the sod that was uppermost then is uppermost now. Here stood the camp; +here are distinct traces of the banks thrown up for the horses of the +cavalry, and spots where the midden heaps lay are still to be observed. +At night, when I walk across the lonely place, it is impossible to avoid +hearing, amid the scourings of the wind over the grass-bents and +thistles, the old trumpet and bugle-calls, the rattle of the halters; to +help seeing rows of spectral tents and the _impedimenta_ of the soldiery. +From within the canvases come guttural syllables of foreign tongues, and +broken songs of the fatherland; for they were mainly regiments of the +King’s German Legion that slept round the tent-poles hereabout at that +time.” + + [Picture: Bincombe] + +The story associated with this out-of-the-way place is one in its chief +lines true to facts, for in an unmarked grave within the little +churchyard, lie two young German soldiers, shot for desertion from the +York Hussars, as quoted at the end of the story from the register: + +“Matth: Tina (Corpl.) in His Majesty’s Regiment of York Hussars, and shot +for Desertion, was Buried June 30th, 1801, aged 22 years. Born in the +town of Sarrbruk, Germany.” + +“Christop Bless, belonging to His Majesty’s Regiment of York Hussars, who +was shot for Desertion, was Buried June 30th, 1801, aged 22 years. Born +at Lothaargen, Alsatia.” + +Returning from Bincombe and down again through Sutton Poyntz to Preston, +we come to Osmington, with views down along on the right to Ringstead +Bay; but, avoiding for the present the coast, strike inland, to Poxwell, +the “Oxwell Hall” of _The Trumpet Major_. It is really three miles from +“Overcombe,” and therefore not the close neighbour to the Lovedays it is +made to be, for the purposes of the novel. The church stands beside of +the road, the old manor-house, now a farmstead, the home of “Uncle +Benjy,” miserly Squire Derriman, close by. In old days, back in 1634, +when it was built, this curiously walled-in residence with its outer +porter’s lodge, the physical and visible sign of an ever-present distrust +of strangers, was a seat of the Henning family. That lodge still stands, +obsolete as an _avant-garde_ and gazebo for the timely spying out of +unwelcome visitors, but very admirable for a summer-house, if the farmer +had leisure for such things. But as he has not, but must continually +“plough and sow, and reap and mow,” or see that others do so, the lodge +is in every way a derelict. The farmer could perhaps add some testimony +of his own respecting all those “romantic excellencies and practical +drawbacks,” mentioned in the story, and existing in fact; but, farmers +having a bent towards practicality, although they discuss, rather than +practise it, it is to be supposed that he would place a stress upon the +drawbacks, to the neglect of the romance. + + [Picture: Poxwell Manor] + +Pursuing the road onwards from Poxwell, we come, in a mile and a half, to +the cross-roads at “Warm’ell Cross,” leading on the left to Dorchester, +on the right to Wareham, and straight ahead across the remotenesses of +“Egdon Heath,” to Moreton station. Here we turn to the right, and so +miss the village of Warmwell, whence the cross roads take their name. It +is not by any means, to the ordinary traveller, a remarkable crossing of +the roads, but it has associations for the pilgrim stored with the +literary lore of the Hardy Country, for it was here, in the story of _The +Distracted Preacher_, that Mr. Stockdale, the Wesleyan minister of Nether +Mynton, by the aid of their voices, crying “Hoi—hoi—hoi! Help, help!” +discovered Will Latimer and the exciseman tied to the trees by the +smuggler friends of his Lizzie. Turning here to the right, Owermoigne +itself—the “Nether Mynton” of that tale of smuggled spirits and religious +scruples—is reached in another mile; the church and its tiny village of +thatched rusticity standing shyly, as such a smuggler’s haunt should do, +off the broad high road and down a little stumbly and rutty lane. The +body of the church has been rebuilt since Lizzie Newberry and her friends +stored “the stuff” in the tower and the churchyard, but that churchyard +remains the same, as also does the tower from whose battlements the “free +traders” spied upon the excisemen, searching for those hidden tubs. + +From this road there is a better distant view of the great equestrian +effigy of George III., cut in the chalky southern slopes of the downs, +than from any other point. He looks impressive, in the ghostly sort, +seen across the bare slopes, where perhaps an occasional farmstead or +barton, or a row of wheat-ricks, accentuates the solitude and at the same +time gives scale to the chalky effigies of His Majesty and that very +elegant horse of his, showing how very large this horse and rider really +are. The gallant Trumpet Major told about the making of this memorial, +as he and Anne Garland walked among the flowering peas, and described +what this “huge picture of the king on horseback in the earth of the +hill” was to be like: “The King’s head is to be as big as our mill-pond, +and his body as big as this garden; he and the horse will cover more than +an acre.” + +And here he is to this day, very spirited and martial, with his cocked +hat and marshal’s baton. + + [Picture: Owermoigne: The Smugglers’ Haunt in “The Distracted Preacher”] + +It is, however, a weariful business to arrive in the neighbourhood of +him, for those chalk downs are just as inhospitable in the sun as they +are in the storms of winter, the only difference lying between being +fried on their shelterless sides when the thermometer registers ninety +degrees, or frozen when the mercury sinks towards zero. + +Some two miles of highway along the verge of Egdon Heath bring us to a +right-hand turning, leading past Winfrith Newburgh by a somewhat more +shaded route up over the crest of these chalky ranges, and then with +several turnings, steeply down, and at length, “by and large”—as sailors +say—to the village of West Lulworth, which lies at the inland end of a +coombe, the better part of a mile from Lulworth Cove. + + [Picture: Lulworth Cove] + +To Lulworth—or as he terms it, Lullstead—Cove, Mr. Hardy returns again +and again. It is the “small basin of sea enclosed by the cliffs” where +Troy bathed and was supposed to have been drowned; it is one of the spots +where _The Distracted Preacher’s_ parishioners landed their smuggled +spirit-tubs, and upon its milk-white shores of limestone pebbles the +lifeless bodies of Stephen Hardcombe and his companion were found. It +was the first meeting-place of Cytherea Graye and Edward Springrove; and +was, again, that “three-quarter round Cove” where, “screened from every +mortal eye,” save his own, Solomon Selby observed Bonaparte questing +along the darkling shore for a suitable place where his flotilla might +land in his projected invasion of England. + + [Picture: Lulworth Cove. The coastgard station] + +Lulworth Cove is an almost perfect circle, eaten out of the limestone in +the long ago by the sea, in an unusually geometrical manner. Bindon Hill +frowns down upon it, and in summer the circle of light-blue water laughs +saucily back, in little sparkling ripples, just as though there were no +storms in nature and no cruel rock-bound coast outside. The Cove is, if +you be classically minded, a Bath of the Naiads; and, if less +imaginative, is at any rate a delightful spot that even in these +tidied-up and ordered days, when every little seaside cove has its hair +brushed and face scrubbed, and is made always to look its Sunday best, +persists in being littered with a longshore fishing and boating medley of +anchors and lobster-pots, ropes, chains and windlasses, infinitely more +pleasing to right-thinking persons—by whom I indicate those who think +with myself—than the neatest of promenades and seats. True, they have +rebuilt or enlarged the Cove Hotel and red-brick manifestations of a +growing favour with visitors are springing up beside the old thatched +cottages; but Lulworth—Cove or village—is not spoiled yet. The +Coastguard Station, perched on what looks like a hazardous pinnacle of +cliff, with the wild chasm of Stair Hole to one side of it and the sheer +drop into the Cove on the other, is the most striking feature, looking +down from landward, of this curious place, which has not its fellow +anywhere else, and is the sunniest, the ruggedest, and certainly the most +treeless place along the Dorset coast. + +To those who have persevered along the roads into Lulworth, the prospect +of again climbing those hills is perhaps a little grim, and they should +so contrive to time their arrival and departure that they comfortably fit +in with the return to Weymouth of the excursion steamer plying in the +tourist season between the two places. + + [Picture: Lytchett Heath] + + [Picture: The Equestrian Effigy of George III] + + [Picture: Entrance to Charborough Park] + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + + BOURNEMOUTH TO POOLE + +BOURNEMOUTH, the “Sandbourne” of _Tess of the D’Urbervilles_ and of minor +incidents and passing allusions in others of Mr. Hardy’s novels, is one +of the principal gates of entrance to his Wessex. Just within the +western borders of Hampshire, or what he would call “Upper Wessex,” the +heart of his literary country is within the easiest reach of its pleasant +districts of villa residences, by road or rail, or indeed by sea; for +Swanage, the “Swanwich” of a Hardy gazetteer, and Lulworth Cove, his +“Lullstead,” that azure pool within “the two projecting spurs of rock +which form the pillars of Hercules to this miniature Mediterranean,” are +the destinations in summer of many steamboat voyages. + +“Sandbourne has become a large place, they say.” Thus Angel Clare, +seeking his wife somewhere within its bounds. Large indeed, and growing +yet. Census officials and other statisticians toil after its increase in +vain. I find a guide-book of 1887 speaking of its population as “nearly +18,000.” I find another, of 1896, putting it at “about 40,000,” and then +referring to the last census returns, discover it to have further risen +to forty-seven thousand souls, and a few over. By now it doubtless +numbers full fifty thousand, and has further rubricated and underscored +its description in the last pages of Tess: “This fashionable +watering-place with its eastern and its western stations, its piers, its +groves of pines, its promenades, and its covered gardens, was to Angel +Clare like a fairy place, suddenly created by the stroke of a wand, and +allowed to get a little dusty. An outlying eastern tract of the enormous +Egdon waste was close at hand, yet on the very verge of that tawny piece +of antiquity such a glittering novelty as this pleasure city had chosen +to spring up. Within the space of a mile from its outskirts every +irregularity of the soil was prehistoric, every channel an undisturbed +British trackway; not a sod having been turned there since the days of +the Cæsars. Yet the exotic had grown here, suddenly as the prophet’s +gourd; and had drawn hither Tess.” + +“By the midnight lamps he went up and down the winding ways of this new +world in an old one, and could discern between the trees and against the +stars the lofty roofs, chimneys, gazebos, and towers of the numerous +fanciful residences of which the place was composed. It was a city of +detached mansions; a Mediterranean lounging-place on the English Channel; +and as seen now by night it seemed even more imposing than it was. + +“The sea was near at hand, but not intrusive; it murmured, and he thought +it was the pines, the pines murmured in precisely the same tones, and he +thought they were the sea.” + + [Picture: Bournemouth: The Invalid’s Walk] + +This rich and populous seaside home of wealthy valetudinarians was until +well on into the nineteenth century a lonely waste, whose only +frequenters were smugglers, fishermen, rabbits, and seagulls. In the +midst of its pine-woods, sands, and heather a little stream, the Bourne, +which now gives this great concourse of villa paradises, palatial hotels, +and fashionable shops its name, flowed into the sea, just where, in these +days, tricked out with cascades, and fountains, and made to wander +circuitously at the will of landscape-gardeners amid the neatest of lawns +and the gayest of flower-beds, it at last trickles exhaustedly into the +sea, under the pier. Its natural course from the neighbourhood of +Kinson, down Bourne Bottom, to that smallest of “mouths,” is some six +miles, but in these days it is made to work hard in the last stretch, +through the public gardens, and where it once covered one mile, is now +looped here and turned back there upon itself, and exploited generally, +until it has become as sophisticated a stream as anywhere to be found. +The Bourne is, indeed, like the humble parent of some overwhelming social +success, made to alter its ways and put aside its rustic manners, to do +credit to its offspring. + +The country folk who live in the background of this oft-styled “City of +Pines,” still call it merely “Bourne,” as it was when, many years ago, +Dr. Granville made the fortunes of the hamlet, frequented by a few +invalids and others rejoicing in the spicy odours of the pine-woods, that +had grown in a scattered and chance fashion upon the heath. “No +situation,” said that authority upon spas and watering-places, “possesses +so many capabilities of being made the very first sea watering-place in +England; and not only a watering-place, but what is still more important, +a winter residence for the most delicate constitutions requiring a warm +and sheltered locality at this season of the year.” Then follow +comparisons favourable to the site of Bournemouth, and derogatory to +other seaside resorts. + +Every circumstance insured attention being drawn to this weighty +pronouncement, and advantage being taken of it. Consumptives came and +found the air beneficial, and Bournemouth grew suddenly and astonishingly +upon a lonely coastline; arising in that residential +all-round-the-calendar character it has kept to this day, in spite of +those holiday-folk, the excursionists and trippers whom its “residential” +stratum discourages as much as possible. But when even so thoroughly +exclusive a residential health-resort has been so successful, and has +grown so greatly in that character as Bournemouth has grown, there comes +inevitably a time when the workers and tradesfolk, ministrants to the +wants of those residents, themselves become an important section of the +community. It is a time when suburbs and quarters, invidiously +distinguished from one another in the social scale, have established +themselves; when, in short, from being just the resort of a class, a +place becomes a microcosm of life, in which all classes and degrees are +represented. The seal was set upon the arrival of that time for +Bournemouth with its admission to the dignity of a municipal borough, +fully equipped with Mayor and Town Council, in the summer of 1890, and +again, later, with the opening of electric tramways. Railway-companies +urge the attractions of Bournemouth upon holiday-makers, with great +success, and nowadays one only perceives the place in anything like its +former characteristic air at such time when the summer has gone and the +holiday-maker has returned to his own fireside. + +Bournemouth has already gathered together some odds and ends of +sentimental associations. Mary Wollstonecraft, widow of Shelley, died +here in 1853, and lies in the churchyard of St. Peter’s, beside Godwin +and his wife, whose bodies were brought from the London churchyard of St. +Pancras. Keble died here in 1866, and the present St. Peter’s is his +memorial. Robert Louis Stevenson, Bournemouth’s most distinguished +consumptive, resided at “Skerryvore,” in Alum Chine Road, before he took +flight to the South Seas. + +But—singular and ungrateful omission—one looks in vain for a statue to +Dr. Granville, who, by his powerful advocacy, made Bournemouth, just as +Dr. Russel made Brighton a century earlier. In this it is not difficult +to find another instance of “benefits forgot.” + +The juxtaposition of a place so new as Bournemouth with one so ancient as +Poole is a piquant circumstance. When Bournemouth rose, not like +Britannia, from the azure main, but from beside it, there was a +considerable interval of open country between the hoary seaport and the +mint-new pleasure-town. That interval has now shrunk to vanishing-point; +for, what with Bournemouth’s expansion, growing Parkstone’s position +midway, and Poole’s own attempt to sprout in an eastwardly direction, to +meet those manifestations, the green country has been abolished beneath +an irruption of bricks and mortar. + +The piquancy of Poole’s ancient repose being neighboured by Bournemouth’s +wide-awake life is italicised when that port—the “Havenpool” of _To +Please his Wife_—is entered. It would not be correct to say that the +days of Poole as a port are over, but with the growth in size of modern +ships, the shallowness of Poole Harbour in whose recesses it is tucked +rather obscurely away, prevents any but vessels of slight draught coming +up to its quays. For that reason, large ocean-going steamers are +strangers to Poole, more familiar with wooden barques and brigantines and +their maze of masts and spars, than with the capacious steamships that, +although of much greater speed and tonnage, carry very slight and +insignificant sticks; and were it not for the china-clay shipments and +for that coasting trade which seems almost indestructible, Poole would +assuredly die. + +But Poole, besides being ancient, has been a place to reckon with. +Already, in 1220, when by a proclamation of Henry III. the ships of many +ports were sealed up, Poole appeared among the number. In 1347 its +contribution towards the siege of Calais was four ships and ninety-four +men, and it was the base from which the English army in France was +provisioned. Then in 1349 came that fourteenth century scourge, the +Black Death, and Poole, among other towns, was almost depopulated, and +lost the Parliamentary representation it had long enjoyed. But it made a +good recovery, and in the time of Henry VI. regained its Parliamentary +representation. Leland, writing of the place describes it, two hundred +years later, as “a poore fisshar village, much encreasid with fair +building and use of marchaundise of old tyme.” Poole, after that +description was penned, continued to recover itself, and fully regained +its lost prosperity. Fifty years later it is found carrying on a +thriving trade with Spain, and how truly it was said that its merchants +were men of wealth and consideration may be judged from their large, and +architecturally and decoratively fine, mansions still remaining, although +nowadays put to all kinds of mean uses and often occupied as tenements. + +Poole, however, long enjoyed a very bad reputation, and the wealth of +which these were some of the evidences, was not often come by in very +reputable ways. When it is said that Poole “enjoyed” a bad reputation, +it is said advisedly, for Poole was so lost to shame that it really _did_ +enjoy what should have been a source of some searchings of heart. It was +a veritable nest of pirates and smugglers, and the home of strange and +original sinfulnesses; so that at last an injurious rhyme that still +survives was circulated about it: + + “If Poole were a fish-pool, and the men of Poole fish, + There’d be a pool for the devil, and fish for his dish.” + +So early as the close of the fourteenth century, the buccaneers of Poole +were infamous, and at their head was the notorious Harry Page, known to +the French and the Spaniards as Arripay, the nearest they could frame to +pronounce his name. Arripay was a very full-blooded, enterprising, and +unscrupulous fellow; if without irreverence we may call him a “fellow,” +who was the admiral of his rascally profession. There can be little +doubt but that tradition has added not a little to the tales of his +exploits, and it is hardly credible that he and his fellow-pirates +should, on one occasion, have brought home a hundred and twenty prizes +from the coast of Brittany. His forays were made upon the shipping of +the foreigner, and with such system that no ship, it was said, could +successfully run the gauntlet of his lawless flotilla. His success and +power were so great that they necessitated the sending of an expedition +to sweep the seas of him. This was an allied French and Spanish force, +commissioned in 1406, and sailing under the command of Perdo Nino, Count +of Buelna. Adopting the tactics of raiders, they burnt and ravaged the +coasts of Cornwall and Devon, and, coming to Dorset, swept into Arripay’s +hornets’ nest of Poole Harbour, and landing at Poole itself, defeated the +townsmen in a pitched battle. The brother of the redoubtable Arripay was +among the slain. + +A worthy successor of this bold spirit in the pike and cutlass +way—although he was no pirate, but just an honest stalwart sailor—was +that bonny fighter, Peter Jolliffe, of the hoy _Sea Adventurer_. Off +Swanage in 1694, he fell in with a French privateer having a poor little +captured Weymouth fishing-smack in tow, and attacked the Frenchman +repeatedly, and at last with such success, that he not only released the +smack, but drove the privateer ashore near Lulworth, its crew being made +prisoners of war. For so signal an instance of bravery Jolliffe received +a gold chain and medal from the hands of the king himself. + +Jolliffe’s example fired enthusiasm, and the following year, William +Thompson, skipper of a fishing-smack, aided only by his scanty crew of +one man and a boy, attacked a Cherbourg privateer that had attempted to +capture him, and actually succeeded in capturing it and its complement of +sixteen hands, instead. He brought his prize into Poole, and he too, +fully deserved that gold chain and medal awarded him. + +In St. James’s church itself—disclosing an interior not unlike that of a +stern cabin of an old man-o’-war, writ large—is a monument to the +intrepid Jolliffe. From a reminiscence of it, no doubt, Mr. Hardy chose +to name Captain Shadrach Jolliffe, that shipmaster engaged in the +Newfoundland trade who is the ill-fated hero of _To Please his Wife_. + +For the rest, Poole figures so largely in the Civil War, as a town +ardently in favour of the Parliament, that it has a long and stirring +story of its own, in the varying fortunes of Roundheads and Stuarts. It +is too lengthy a story to be told with advantage here. + +The High Street of Poole, a mile long, is busy enough to quite dispel any +idea that Poole is not prospering; but, on the other hand, the many +puzzling narrow streets that lead out of it are so rich in what have been +noble residences, that they tell in unmistakable tones of a greater +period than this of to-day. + +These byways lead at last past the church of St. Paul, the fellow to St. +James’s, with its dolphin vane, to Poole Quay, where the most prominent +feature is an ancient Gothic building, looking very like some desecrated +place of worship, or a monastic tithe-barn. It is, as a matter of fact, +neither, but the “Town Cellar,” a relic of a past age when Poole was part +of the manor of Canford. The lords of Canford, away back to that +ubiquitous John o’ Gaunt, “time-honoured Lancaster,” who seems to have +owned quite half of the most desirable properties in the England of his +time, took toll in money, when they could, and in kind when silver marks +and golden angels were scarce; and in the “Town Cellar” were stored those +bales of wool, those spices from Ind, and those miscellaneous goods, +which were made in this manner to render unto the Cæsars of Canford, in +times when such things were. It is a picturesque old building, its walls +oddly composed of flint intermingled with large squared pieces of stone +that, by the look of them, would seem to have been plundered from some +older structure. + +Opposite stands the Harbour Office, not altogether unpicturesquely +provided with a loggia supported by columns, and still retaining the +sundial erected when clocks were scarce. The Mayor of Poole, who in 1727 +presided over the fortunes of the port, is handed down to posterity by +the quaint tablet let into the gable wall, showing us the quarter-length +relief portrait of a stout personage in voluminous wig and mayoral chain +and robes, lackadaisically glancing skyward, as though longing to be gone +to those ethereal regions where double chins and “too, too solid flesh” +are not. + +Poole Quay—its old buildings, waterside picturesqueness, and the shipping +lying off the walls—is an interesting place for the artist, who has it +very much to himself; for the holiday-maker does not often discover it. +But waterside characters are not lacking: sailors, who have got berths +and are only waiting for the tide to serve; other sailors, who are in +want of berths; town boys, who would dearly like to go to sea; and +nondescript characters, who would not take a job if offered to them, and +want nothing but a quayside bollard to sit upon, sunshine, a pipe of +tobacco, and the price of half a pint: these form the natural history of +Poole Quay, which though it may have been—and was—one of the gateways +into the great outer world, in the brave old days of Arripay and his +merry men, is now something of a straitened gate, and Poole itself for +the land voyager very much in the nature of one of those stop-blocks at +the end of a railway siding: what a railway man would call a “dead end.” + + [Picture: Poole Quay] + +For Poole is not a main road to anywhere, and when you have turned down +into it, on those three and a half miles from Bournemouth, you are either +compelled to return the way you came, or else cross a creek by the +toll-bridge to Hamworthy, where there is nothing but a church built in +1826—and precisely of the nature one might expect from that date—and, a +little way onward, a lonely railway junction in midst of sandy heaths and +whispering pines, which, even at night, “tell the tale of their species,” +as phrenologists say, “without help from outline or colour,” in “those +melancholy moans and sobs which give to their sound a solemn sadness +surpassing even that of the sea.” It is the district of _The Hand of +Ethelberta_, and if we pursue it, we shall, as Sol says, in that novel, +“come to no place for two or three miles, and then only to Flychett,” +which, in everyday life, is Lytchett Minster, a place which, despite that +grand name, can show nothing in the nature of a cathedral, and is, as Sol +said, “a trumpery small bit of a village,” where possibly that +wheelwright mentioned in the story still “keeps a beer-house and owns two +horses.” That house is the inn oddly named the “Peter’s Finger,” with a +picture-sign standing on a post by the wayside, and showing St. Peter +holding up a hand with two extended fingers in benedictory fashion, as +though blessing the wayfarer. The origin of this sign is said to be the +custom, once usual in Roman Catholic times, of holding manorial courts on +Lammas Day, the 1st of August, the day of St. Peter ad Vincula—that St. +Peter-in-the-Fetters to whom the church on Tower Green, in the Tower of +London, is so appropriately dedicated. On that day suit and service had +to be performed by tenants for their lands, which thus obtained, in +course of time, the corrupted title of “Peter’s Finger” property. + +Around the village so slightingly characterised in _The Hand of +Ethelberta_ there is little save “the everlasting heath,” mentioned in +that story, “the black hills bulging against the sky, the barrows upon +their round summits like warts on a swarthy skin.” It is true the road +leads at last to Bere Regis, but it has little individuality and no +further Hardyesque significance, and so may be disregarded in these +pages. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + + WIMBORNE MINSTER + +WIMBORNE MINSTER or “Warborne” in _Two on a Tower_—is, or was, for the +Romans and their works are altogether vanished from the town, the +_Vindogladia_ of the Antonine Itinerary. If you speak of it in the curt +irreverent way of railways and their time-tables, or in the equally curt, +but only familiar, manner of its inhabitants, it is merely “Wimborne.” +In their mouths, elision of the “Minster” merely connotes affection and +use, as one drops the titles or the “Mister” of a friend, in speaking of +him; but in the case of railway usage it is the offensive familiarity of +the ill-bred, or, at the least, a derogatory saving of space and type. + +This common practice is all the more historically an outrage, for had +there been no Minster, there would have been no town of Wimborne. It +derives from an early religious settlement, founded in A.D. 700 near the +site of the forgotten Roman station, by Cuthburga, one of those +unsatisfactory princess spouses of the pietistic period of Saxon +dominion, who, married to the King of Northumbria, refused him conjugal +rights and finally established herself here, living a life of “continual +watchings and fastings,” and finally dying of them. We are not concerned +to follow the mazes of the early history of town and church. It suffered +the usual plunderings and burnings, the nuns were occasionally carried +off, sometimes against their will, at other times with their consent, and +at last, somewhere about A.D. 902, monks replaced them. The whole +foundation was re-established by Edward the Confessor, and remained as a +Collegiate church until 1547, when it was disestablished, its revenues +seized, and the building wholly converted to the purposes of a parish +church. + + [Picture: Sturminster Marshall] + + [Picture: Anthony Etricke’s Tomb, Wimborne Minster] + +Wimborne Minster might be made the subject of a lengthy architectural +disquisition. Its two towers, western and central, are themselves +pointers to its history; for they show, not in the different periods at +which they were built, but in the richness of the one and the comparative +plainness of the other, the combined uses of the building in days of old. +The central tower, of transitional Norman design, and remarkably like the +towers of Exeter cathedral, was originally surmounted by a stone spire, +which fell in 1600. Its elaboration is explained by its having been a +part of the monastic church, while the western tower erected about 1460, +belonged to the parochial building. + +The church, endowed with two—and two dissimilar—towers, is a splendid +feature in the streets of the old town. It and the town gain dignity and +interest in an amazing degree, and here in Wimborne the pinnacled +battlemented outlines “make” both town and Minster, in the pictorial +sense. They bulk darkly and largely across the yellow sandiness of the +broad market-place, and sort themselves into endless and changeful +combinations down the narrower streets. Apart, too, from these important +considerations, the Minster is exceptionally rich in curious features, +outside its architectural details. + +Our ancestors possessed a quaint mixture of serious devotion and +light-hearted childishness, and we are the richer for it. Thus, high up +on the external wall of the western tower, the observant will notice the +odd little effigy, carved, painted and gilt, resembling a grenadier of a +century ago, or a French gendarme of a past _régime_: it is difficult to +assign it with certainty, and assuredly it does not look so old as 1600, +the date when it is stated to have been placed here. His business is +that of a quarter-jack, and he strikes the quarters upon a bell on either +side of him. The clock within, an astronomical contrivance made in 1320 +by that same ingenious Glastonbury monk, Peter Lightfoot, who was the +author of the famous clock of Wells Cathedral, represents the courses of +the sun, moon, and stars. + +The Minster, in short, is a museum of antiquities, found particularly +interesting by the half-day excursionists from Bournemouth who are its +chief visitors and carry away a fine confused recollection of their +scamper round it. Here, in a room above the vestry, is the Chained +Library, a collection of over two hundred and forty volumes, mostly +chained to iron rods. Some of the books are very early, but the +collection was formed in 1686. Perhaps, for the sake of its story, the +copy of Sir Walter Raleigh’s “History of the World” is even more +interesting than “The Whole Duty of Man” and the “Breeches Bible,” for it +still displays the carefully mended hundred leaves burnt through when the +boy, afterwards poet, Prior fell asleep over his reading of it and upset +the candle, with this result. Each damaged page was neatly mended by him +and the missing letters so carefully restored that it is difficult, until +attention is drawn to the repair, to detect anything exceptional. Prior +was born at Wimborne in 1664, as a brass tablet in the western tower to +his “perennial and fragrant” memory tells us. + +[Picture: The Wimborne Clock-Jack] But of paramount interest to +sightseers, far transcending the ironbound deed-chests, some hollowed +from a single trunk, and the tombs of the noble and knightly, is the last +resting-place of Anthony Etricke, in the south wall of the choir aisle. +Anthony Etricke was a personage of some local distinction in his day, for +besides being a man of wealth, he was first Recorder of Poole. He has +also won a little niche in the history of England by no effort of his +own: a distinction thrust upon him by circumstance, and one which might +have fallen upon any other local magistrate. Sentimentally speaking, it +is also a wholly invidious and undesirable fame or notoriety, and was so +regarded by the good folk of the town. Etricke, residing at Holt, near +the spot where the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth was captured, was the +magistrate before whom the wretched fugitive was brought. Another might +possibly, greatly daring, have secured the escape of that romantic +figure, and by so doing at the same time have altered the course of +English history and earned the admiration of those who admire chivalric +deeds. But Etricke was not of this stamp, and was, moreover, of that old +faith which the bigoted James was striving to reintroduce: while Monmouth +was the Protestant champion. Alas! poor champion. Etricke at once +performed his bounden duty as a magistrate, and also satisfied his own +private feelings; and Monmouth ended miserably. + +Etricke never regained popularity in his district, and lived for eighteen +years longer, a shunned and soured man. The story tells how he took what +may surely be regarded as the odd and altogether insufficient revenge of +declaring that he would be buried neither in the church of Wimborne nor +out of it, and accordingly in his lifetime had a niche prepared here, in +the wall, where the polished black slate sarcophagus, still seen above +ground, was placed. He was eccentric beyond this, for he had conceived +the date of his death and caused it to be boldly carved on the side, +between two of the seven shields of arms that in braggart fashion are +made to redound to the glory of the Etricke family. That year he had +imagined would be 1691, but he actually survived until 1703, and the date +was accordingly altered (as seen to this day) when at last, to the +satisfaction of Wimborne, he did demise. For the keeping of his tomb in +good repair he left twenty shillings annually, a sum still administered +by the Charity Commissioners; and it certainly cannot be said that he +does not receive value for his money, because his eccentric lair is +maintained, heraldic cognisances and all, in the most perfect condition. +Any ill-will this solemn personage may have felt towards Wimborne is +altogether robbed of satisfaction nowadays, and his gloomy ghost may, for +all we know, be enraged at the thought of the attraction his eccentricity +has for visitors and the trade in photographs it has provoked, much to +the material well-being of the town. + + [Picture: Wimborne Minster; The Minster and the Grammar School] + +The pilgrim of the Hardy country, come to Wimborne—I should have said +“Warborne”—to see that Grammar School where, to quote Haymoss Fry, “they +draw up young gam’sters’ brains like rhubarb under a ninepenny pan, my +lady, excusing my common way,” is like to be disappointed, for the place +where “they hit so much larning into en that ’a could talk like the day +of Pentecost” is no longer an ancient building. ’Tis true, the +foundation is what the country folk might call an “old arnshunt” thing +enough, being the work indeed of that very great founder of schools and +colleges, the Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond, mother of Henry VII. +It was refounded by Queen Elizabeth, who stripped all the credit of this +good deed in a naughty world from the memory of the pious countess, and +willed that it should be styled “The Grammar School of the Foundation of +Queen Elizabeth in Wimborne Minster in the County of Dorset.” That was +pretty bad, but worse came with the whirling years. James I., like the +shabby fellow he was, raised a question respecting the validity of its +charter, and was only bought off with £600; and Charles I., unlike the +noble, magnanimous sovereign he is commonly thought to be, bled the +institution to the tune of another £1,000, by a similar dodge. The +wonder is that it has survived at all, and not only survived, but +flourished and was able, so long ago as 1851, to build itself that new +and substantial home which is so scholastically useful, but at the same +time disappointing to the literary pilgrim who, at the place where +Swithin St. Cleeve was educated, hoped to find a picturesque building of +mediæval age. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + + WIMBORNE MINSTER TO SHAFTESBURY + +WIMBORNE shall here be the starting-point of a twenty-eight miles route, +that in its south-easterly to north-westerly direction, is as easy as the +one north to south of the road between Sherborne and Weymouth. It +follows the valley of the Stour the whole way, and only at its conclusion +brings up butt against the hill on which Shaftesbury is built. + +There is at the outset from Wimborne a choice between the easeful and the +toilsome. You may elect to go directly up-along, to the height frowned +down upon by the greater height of Badbury Rings, or may go more +circuitously but by more level ways, through Corfe Mullen and Sturminster +Marshall. On the first route, beautifully overhung by elms, lies +Kingston Lacy, the old seat of the Bankes family, rebuilt by Sir Ralph +Bankes in 1663, and now a very treasure-house of art and historic relics. +Here one may, greatly favoured, see and touch those keys of Corfe Castle, +held so stoutly by the valorous Lady Bankes in the two sieges she +withstood. + +A younger avenue of beeches lines the exposed road across the shoulders +of what has been identified as _Mons Badonicus_—Badbury Rings—the scene +of the overwhelming victory gained in A.D. 520, over Cerdic and his +Saxons by King Arthur and his Britons. In later years, when at last +Saxon dominion had spread, and this had become Wessex, Saxons themselves +encamped where of old they had been defeated, and after them the Danes +occupied this inhospitable height. It is now tufted with a clump of +fir-trees, and, solemn and darkly looming against a lowering sky, looks a +fitting scene for any national portent of evil. + +They are less impressive roads that lead by the Stour to Corfe Mullen and +Sturminster Marshall. There the farmer reaps his heavy crops of hay and +cereals, and ploughs and sows and reaps again, and history is only a +matter of comparison between this year of a poor harvest, when prices are +high and marketable produce little, and last year of a bumper, when the +horn of Ceres was full and prices low. No matter what the yield, there +is ever a something to dash the farmer’s cup from his expectant lips. + +At Bailey Corner, three miles from Wimborne, a broad main road branches +off from our route, going to Bere Regis and Dorchester. This is the road +made at the suggestion of Mr. Erle-Drax of Charborough Park, whose +property, it may be supposed, gained in some way from it. Charborough +Park is one of the originals whence Welland House and the tower of _Two +on a Tower_ were drawn, and therefore demands a deviation of two miles +from our route. + +It is a straight road and a lonely that leads to the main entrance-lodge +of this seat of the Erle-Drax family, past a long-continued brick +boundary-wall that must have cost a small fortune, and decorated at +intervals with arches surmounted by effigies of stags and lions. Time +has dealt very severely with some of the squire’s stags, shorn here and +there of a limb, and in one instance presenting a headless awfulness to +the gaze of the pilgrim, who can scarce repress a shudder at sight of it, +even though the destruction provides a little comedy of its own, in the +revelation that these imposing “stone” decorations are really of plaster, +and hollow. + +The principal entrance to Charborough Park, the one feature that breaks +the long, straight perspective of this undeviating road, seems to have +been erected by the squire as a species of permanent self-advertising +hoarding, for it is boldly inscribed: “This road from Wimborne to +Dorchester was projected and completed through the instrumentality of J. +S. W. Sawbridge Erle-Drax, Esq., M.P., in the years 1841 and 1842.” +Cæsar himself could have done no more than was performed by this magnate +of the many names, and could not with greater magnificence have +suppressed the fact that what his Parliamentary influence procured, the +public purse paid for. + +There is this essential difference between Charborough Park and “Welland +House.” Charborough is very closely guarded from intrusion, and none who +cannot show a real reason for entering is allowed through the jealously +closed and locked gates of the lodges. + +The residence of Lady Constantine was, however, very readily accessible, +and, “as is occasionally the case with old-fashioned manors, possessed +none of the exclusiveness found in some aristocratic settlements. The +parishioners looked upon the park avenue as their natural thoroughfare, +particularly for christenings, weddings, and funerals, which passed the +squire’s mansion, with due considerations as to the scenic effect of the +same from the manor windows.” So much to show the composite nature of +the scene drawn in _Two on a Tower_. + +The tower—the “Rings Hill Speer” of the story—stands in the park, at a +considerable distance from the house on the other side of a gentle dip, +but well within sight of the drawing-room windows. In between, across +the turf and disappearing into the woodlands to right and left, roam the +deer that so plentifully inhabit this beautiful domain. The tower is +approached by roomy stone staircases, now overgrown with grass, moss, and +fungi, and so far from it or its approaches being in “the Tuscan order of +architecture,” they are designed in a most distinctive and aggressive +Strawberry Hill Gothic manner. Built originally by Major Drax in 1796, +and struck by lightning, it was rebuilt in 1839. + +Returning now from this interlude and regaining Bailey Corner, we come to +Sturminster Marshall, a place that now, for all the dignity of its name, +is just a rustic village, with only that name and an ancient church that +was the “Stour Minster” of the Earls of Pembroke, the Earls Marshal of +England, to affirm its vanished importance. Its village green, bordered +with scattered cottages, has a maypole, painted, like a barber’s pole, +with vivid bands of red, white, and blue. + +An expedition from this point, across the Stour to Shapwick, although a +roundabout pilgrimage, is not likely to be an unrewarded exertion, for +that is a village which, although unknown to the greater world, has a +local fame that, so long as rustic satire lives, will assuredly not be +allowed to die. + +[Picture: The Tower, Charborough Park] Shapwick is not remote from the +sea, but it might be a midland village (and exceptionally ignorant at +that) if we are to believe the legend which accounts for the local name +of “Shapwick Wheel-offs,” by which its villagers are known. According to +this injurious tale, a shepherd, watching his sheep on Shapwick Down at +some period unspecified—let us call it, as the children do, “once upon a +time,” or “ever so long ago”—found a live crab, or lobster, that had +fallen out of an itinerant fishmonger’s cart. He was so alarmed at the +sight of the strange thing that he hurried into the village with the news +of it, and brought all the people out to see. With them was the oldest +inhabitant, a “tar’ble wold man,” incapable of locomotion, brought in a +wheelbarrow to pronounce, out of the wisdom his accumulated years gave +him, what this unknown monster might be. When his ancient eyes lighted +upon it, or rather, in the Do’set speech: “When a sin ’en, a carled out, +tar’ble feared on ’en, ‘wheel I off, my sonnies, wheel I off.’” So they +wheeled him off, accordingly, well pleased to leave that mysterious thing +to itself. + +As may well be supposed, the Shapwick folk are by no means proud of their +nickname, and it is therefore a little surprising to find an old and very +elaborate weathervane in the village, surmounting the roof of a barn, and +giving, in a quaintly silhouetted group, a pictorial representation of +the scene. It seems that there were originally three more figures, +behind the barrow, but they have disappeared. Perhaps this is evidence +of attempts on the part of Shapwick folk to destroy the record of their +shame. + +A succession of pretty villages—Spetisbury, Charlton Marshall, Blandford +St. Mary—enlivens the five miles of road between Sturminster Marshall and +Blandford; and then Blandford itself, already described, is entered. +Passing through it, and skirting the grounds of Bryanstone, the Stour, +more beautiful than earlier on the route, is crossed, and the twin +villages of Durweston and Stourpaine, one on either bank, are glimpsed. +Then comes the large village of Shillingstone, still steadfastly rural, +despite its size, and keeping to the ancient ways more markedly than +Sturminster Marshall, for it not only shares with that village the +peculiarity of owning a maypole, but a maypole of exceptional height, and +one still dressed and decorated with every spring. This tall pole, +tapering like the mast of a ship, is a hundred and ten feet in height, +and most carefully guarded with wire stays against destruction by the +stormy winds that in winter sweep down the valley of the Stour. + + [Picture: Weather-Vane at Shapwick: The “Shapwick Monster”] + +If we were to name the Shillingstone maypole in accordance with the date +of its annual garlanding, it would rather be a “Junepole,” for it is on +the 9th of that month that the pretty old ceremony and its attendant +merrymakings are held. This apparently arbitrary selection of a date is +explained by the old May Day games and rejoicings having been held on May +29th, in the years after the Restoration of Charles II. in 1660; and by +the change from Old Style to New, more than a hundred and fifty years +later. That change, taking away eleven days, converted what would have +been May 29th into June 9th; and thus by gradual change this survival of +the ancient pagan festival of Floralia is held when May Day has itself +passed and become a memory. + +The pole has several times been restored. Its present appearance is due +to the restoration of October 1868, but the arrow vane with which it was +then surmounted appears to have been blown down, and its improving +mottoes—“Tanquam sagitta” (Like as an arrow), and “Sic et nos” (So even +we)—lost. Another Latin inscription is Englished thus: + +“Their maypole, decayed by age, the rector and inhabitants of +Shillingstone, keeping their yearly May Games with all due observance, +have carefully restored it on the ninth day of June 1850: + + “The fading garland mourns how short life’s day, + The towering maypole heavenward points the way. + Read thou the lesson—seek to gather now + Undying wreaths to twine a deathless brow.” + +All very pious and proper, no doubt, but wofully lacking in the May Day +spirit of the joy of life, and more fitting to the “Memento mori” fashion +of the neighbouring churchyard. + +In this old church of Shillingstone—or “Shilling-Okeford,” as from the +old manorial lords it was once named—the pilgrim may see by the evidence +of an old tablet how a certain William Keen, a merchant of London, +fleeing terror-struck from the Great Plague, was overtaken by it and died +here in 1666. + +The reader, versed in the oddities of place-names, will perhaps not +require the assurance that the name of Shillingstone has nothing whatever +to do with shillings; but if he doubts, let it at once be said that it +was so called long before that coin was known. It was originally +“Oakford” and became “Schelin’s Oakford,” or “Schelin’s Town,” when the +manor was in Norman times given to an ancestor of those who for centuries +later continued to hold it and in more elaborate fashion styled +themselves Eschellings. + + [Picture: The Maypole, Shillingstone] + +Down over intervening hills the road, for a little space forsaking its +character of a valley route, comes beside the stream again at +Piddleford—or, as the Post Office authorities prefer to call it +“Fiddleford”—on the way to Sturminster Newton, the “Stourcastle” of +_Tess_. This is the place mentioned at the opening of the story, to +which Tess was driving the load of beehives from Marnhull at night, when +the lantern went out and the mailcart dashing into the trap, killed the +horse, Prince; thus starting the tragical chain of events that led at +last to Winchester gaol. + + [Picture: Sturminster Newton: The White Hart Inn] + +Of Sturminster Newton, impressively styled on ordnance maps “Sturminster +Newton Castle,” Leland says: “The townlette is no greate thing, and the +building of it is mene,” and, although it would not occur to a modern +writer to adopt that term, certainly there is little that is notable +about it. There is no “minster,” no “castle,” and no “new town,” and +little to say, save that an ancient six-arched bridge crosses the weedy +Stour and that the battered stump of the market cross in the main street +seems in its decay to typify the history of the market itself. As the +church has been rebuilt, and as the castle on the outskirts is now little +more than a memory, the only resort is to turn for some point of interest +to that quaintly thatched old inn, the White Hart, very much older than +the tablet, “W. M. P. 1708,” on its front would lead many to suppose. It +was probably restored at that date, after those troublous times had +passed in which the cross, just opposite, lost its shaft, and when, in +the fighting in the streets between the Parliamentary dragoons and the +associated clubmen of the west, this house and others were fired and +Sturminster Newton very generally given over to the horrors of a brutal +conflict between troops trained to arms and a peasantry unskilled in the +use of the weapons with which they had hastily equipped themselves. But, +unprofessional soldiers though they were, the clubmen at Sturminster gave +an excellent account of themselves, killing and wounding a number of the +dragoons, and taking sixteen others prisoners. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + + WIMBORNE MINSTER TO SHAFTESBURY + (_continued_) + +ONWARDS from Sturminster Newton the road comes into the rich Vale of +Blackmore and traverses levels watered by the Lidden, in addition to the +Stour. Turning here to the right-hand and avoiding the way to +Stalbridge, we follow the steps of Tess to her home at “Marlott,” a +village to be identified with Marnhull. + +Could we associate any cottage here with the birthplace of Tess, how +interesting a landmark that would be! But it is not to be done. +“Rolliver’s,” the “Pure Drop” inn, may be the “Crown,” but you who call +there to wet a particularly dry whistle on a scorching day will not find +the name of Rolliver over the door, either of this house or of another, +with the picture-sign of a dashing hussar outside. As to whether either +or both of them keep “a pretty brew,” as we are told Rolliver’s did, I +cannot tell you, for when dry, I drink ginger-beer if it is to be got, +and, if it isn’t, go thirsty, refusing alike malt-liquors and the +abominable gaseous compounds made cheaply of harmful materials, sold +expensively, and rather thirst-provoking than quenching. + +Marnhull is not precisely the type of village the readers of _Tess_ would +picture as the home of a heroine whose adventures have so constant a +background of dairying. It is, or was, a quarry-village, and the shallow +pits that supplied for stone the church and the cottages are still +prominent in a field to the left of the road to Shaftesbury. Thus +Marnhull is somewhat formal and prim, and instead of the abundant thatch +noticeable in the typical villages of dairy farms, its houses are roofed +with slates and tiles. + + [Picture: Marnhull] + +The church of Marnhull has a singularly fine tower, which, although the +details of its Perpendicular design are largely intermingled with +Renaissance ornament, is in general outline a beautiful and imposing +specimen of Gothic, built in that period—the early eighteenth +century—generally thought impossible for Gothic art. It was in 1718 that +this fine work arose out of the heap of ruins into which the old tower +had suddenly fallen, but it has almost every appearance of being three +hundred years older, and it seems likely that, as it now stands, it was a +free copy of its predecessor. + +The body of the church is of much earlier date, and well supplied with +mediæval effigies and finely carved capitals to its pillars. But it is +not without amusement that one reads the flamboyant epitaph to the +Reverend Mr. Conyers Place, M.A., + + “the youngeft son of an ancient and reputable family in the County of + York, who, after he had been liberally educated at Trinity College, + in Cambridge, was invited to the Mafter-fhip of the Grammar School in + Dorchester, which he governed many years with great succefs and + applaufe till, weary of the fatigue of it, he chofe to refign it. He + was endowed with many excellent talents, both natural and acquired: a + lively wit, a sound judgement, with solid and extenfive learning: he + was eminently Studious, yet remarkably facetious: attached to no + party, nor addicted to any caufe but that of Truth and Religion, in + the defence of whofe Doctrines he wrote many learned and ingenious + Treatifes; while he was efteemed by all worthy of the greateft + Preferments, he lived content with the praife of deferving without + enjoying any but the small Rectory of Poxwell, in this County, which + he held two years, and in the Pofsefsion of which he died.” + +Shaftesbury, six miles onward from Marnhull, is soon seen, standing as it +does majestically upon a commanding hill. It looks perhaps best from the +point where the old farmstead of Blynfield stands, at the foot of the +long and winding ascent, whence you see the hillside common stretching up +to the very edge of the town. From distant points such as this, +“Shaston,” as Mr. Hardy, the milestones, and old chroniclers agree to +call it, wears the look of another Jerusalem the Golden, and any who, +thus looking upon this town of old romance, should chance to come no +nearer, might well carry away an impression of a fairy city whose +architecture was equal to both its half-legendary history and its natural +surroundings. If such a traveller there be, let him rest assured that +nothing in Shaftesbury, saving only the view over limitless miles of +Vale, stretching away into the distance, is worth the climbing up to it, +and that to make its near and intimate acquaintance is only to dispel +that distant dream of an unearthly beauty which afar off seems to belong +to it. + +Shaftesbury’s streets are in fact more than ordinarily commonplace, and +its houses grossly tasteless. It is as though, despairing of ever +bringing Shaftesbury back to a shadow of the magnificence of history and +architecture it once enjoyed, the builders of the modern town built +houses as plastiferously ugly as they could. “Shaston” is described with +a wonderful sympathy and lightness of touch by Mr. Hardy:—“The ancient +British Palladour was, and is, in itself the city of a dream. Vague +imaginings of its castle, its three mints, its magnificent apsidal abbey, +the chief glory of South Wessex, its twelve churches, its shrines, +chantries, hospitals, its gabled freestone mansions—all now ruthlessly +swept away—throw the visitor, even against his will, into a pensive +melancholy, which the stimulating atmosphere and limitless landscape +around him can scarcely dispel. The spot was the burial-place of a king +and a queen, of abbots and abbesses, saints and bishops, knights and +squires. The bones of King Edward ‘the Martyr,’ carefully removed +thither for holy preservation, brought Shaston a renown which made it the +resort of pilgrims from every part of Europe, and enabled it to maintain +a reputation extending far beyond English shores. To this fair creation +of the great Middle Ages the Dissolution was, as historians tell us, the +death-knell. With the destruction of the enormous abbey the whole place +collapsed in a general ruin; the martyr’s bones met with the fate of the +sacred pile that held them, and not a stone is now left to tell where +they lie.” + +“The natural picturesqueness and singularity of the town still remain; +but, strange to say, these qualities, which were noted by many writers in +ages when scenic beauty is said to have been unappreciated, are passed +over in this, and one of the queerest and quaintest spots in England +stands virtually unvisited to-day. It has a unique position on the +summit of an almost perpendicular scarp, rising on the north, south and +west sides of the borough out of the deep alluvial Vale of Blackmoor, the +view from the Castle Green over three counties of verdant pasture—South, +Mid, and Nether Wessex—being as sudden a surprise to the unexpectant +traveller’s eyes as the medicinal air is to his lungs. Impossible by a +railway, it can best be reached on foot, next best by light vehicles; and +it is hardly accessible to these but by a sort of isthmus on the +north-east, that connects it with the high chalk table-land on that side. +Such is, and such was, the now-forgotten Shaston or Palladour.” + +That finely inaccurate chronicler, or rather romancer, Geoffrey of +Monmouth, who never lacked “historical” details while his imagination +remained in good preservation, has some picturesque “facts” to narrate of +Shaftesbury. It was founded, says he, by Hudibras, grandfather of King +Lear, a trifle of 950 years before the Christian era. Between that +shamelessly absurd origin and the earliest known mention of the place, in +A.D. 880, when Alfred the Great founded a nunnery here, there is thus a +gulf—a very yawning gulf, too—of one thousand, eight hundred and thirty +years. + +“Caer Palladour,” as it had been in early British times, became +“Edwardstow” when, in the year 979, the body of the young king “martyred” +at Corfe Castle was translated from its resting-place at Wareham, but +although his shrine was the scene of many miracles and greatly resorted +to, we do not find that change of name so greatly favoured as was the +like change made in East Anglia, when, early in the eleventh century, the +town that had been Beodric’s Weorth became, with the miracle-mongering of +St. Edmund’s shrine, that town of St. Edmundsbury which we know as Bury +St. Edmunds. No: as the expressive modern slang would phrase it, the +name of “Edwardstow” never really “caught on,” and Caer Palladour, which +had in the beginning of Saxon rule become “Shaftesbyrig,” has so +remained. + +Nowadays the only vestiges of the great Abbey of Shaftesbury are the +fragments of encaustic tiles and carved stones, rarely and with +difficulty brought to light by antiquarian societies, painfully digging +on the spot once occupied by it; and the great abbey estates, the booty +at the Dissolution seized by, or granted to, Wriothesley, Earl of +Southampton, now belong to the Duke of Westminster, whose Grosvenor crest +of a wheatsheaf is prominent in the town. + +There are three parish churches at Shaftesbury; St. James’s, as you climb +upwards towards the town, and Holy Trinity and St. Peter’s in the town +itself. It is St. Peter’s which is seen in the illustration of Gold +Hill, by whose incredibly steep ascent the pilgrim takes his way up from +the deep recesses of the Vale. This is the most difficult approach, +paved with granite setts divided off into broad steps, so that in wet +weather the hillside shall not slip away into those depths; and with the +craggy sides shored up by ancient stone buttresses of prodigious bulk. +The building that closes in the view next the church tower, leaving but a +narrow entrance alley into the town, is the Town Hall and Market House. + +There are, of course, wider and less steep entrances to Shaftesbury, but +this shows it on its most characteristic side. + +Shaftesbury is chiefly associated in the pages of the Wessex novels with +_Jude the Obscure_, for here it was that the long-suffering and +inoffensive Phillotson—who (why?) always reminds me of +Wordsworth—obtained the school, which he and the distracting Sue were to +jointly keep. Their house, “Old Grove’s Place,” is easily recognisable. +You come to it past Bimport, near the fork of the roads that run +severally to Motcombe and to East Stower, on the edge of the plateau. It +is an old house with projecting porch and mullioned windows through which +it would be quite easy, as in the story, to see the movements of any one +inside; and the upper room over the entrance is not too high above the +pavement for any one who, like Sue, leaped from the window, to alight +without injury. Those people are probably few who feel an oppressiveness +in old houses such as that which worried the highly strung and neurotic +Sue Bridehead: “We don’t live in the school, you know,” said she, “but in +that ancient dwelling across the way called Old Grove’s Place. It is so +antique and dismal that it depresses me dreadfully. Such houses are very +well to visit, but not to live in. I feel crushed into the earth by the +weight of so many previous lives there spent. In a new place like these +schools, there is only your own life to support.” + + [Picture: Gold Hill, Shaftesbury] + +Close by are the schools. Looking upon them the more than usually +sentimental pilgrim, with, it may be, some ancient tender passages of his +own, stored up in the inviolate strong-box of his memory, to be unlocked +and drawn forth at odd times, may think he identifies that window whence +Sue, safely out of reach, spoke with Jude, standing down on the footpath, +and said, “Oh, my poor friend and comrade, you’ll suffer yet!” + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + + WIMBORNE MINSTER TO HORTON AND MONMOUTH ASH + +IT is by the direct road to Cranborne, and past the Gate Inn at Clapgate, +that one reaches Horton, where, at the intersection of the two broad main +roads from Wimborne to Cranborne, and from Shaftesbury to Ringwood, +stands Horton Inn, a fine, substantial old house, once depending upon a +great coaching and posting traffic, and even now that only an occasional +cyclist stays the night, dispensing good, old-fashioned, solid comforts +in its cosy and comfortable rooms. When Horton Inn was built, let us say +somewhere about the time of Queen Anne (who, poor soul! is dead), those +who designed it, disregarding any temptations to be picturesque, devoted +their energies to good, honest workmanship, with the result that nowadays +one sees a building certainly lacking in imagination, with windows +equidistant and each the counterpart of its fellow, but disclosing in +every quoin and keystone, and in each well and truly laid course of +brickwork, the justness and thoroughness of its design and execution. +Within doors it is the same: unobtrusive but excellent workmanship +characterises panelling and window-sashes, doors and handrails, with the +result that in its old age Horton Inn has an air of distinction and +dignity strongly marked to those who take an interest in technical +details, and attracting the notice of even the least observant, who from +its superior air generally conceive it to be an old mansion converted to +its present use. It is the subject of an allusion in the tale of +_Barbara of the House of Grebe_: the “Lornton Inn” whence Barbara eloped +with the handsome Willowes, and where she was to meet her disfigured +husband, posting along the road from Southampton, on his return from +foreign parts. + +The village of Horton, down the road, at some little distance from the +inn, has an oddly German-looking tower to its church, containing the +monument of “Squire Hastings” of Woodlands, who died, aged 99 years, in +1650. + +On an eerie hillside near by, in what of old was Horton Park, but sold by +the Sturts in 1793 to the Earl of Shaftesbury, and disparked, stands the +many-storied tower of what was once an observatory built by Humphry +Sturt. It is now an empty shell, through whose ruined windows the wind +sighs mournfully at night, and the moonlight gleams ghostlike. It is an +ugly enough place in daylight, but should you particularly desire to know +what the creepy, uncanny feeling of being haunted is like, why then, walk +up on a windy night to “The Folly,” as the villagers call it, and stand +in it, listening to the wind howling, grumbling or whispering in and out +of the long, shaft-like building, and nocturnal birds fluttering and +squeaking on the upper ledges. It is not a little gruesome. + +This is one of the originals whence Mr. Hardy drew his idea of the tower +in _Two on a Tower_, and is certainly the most impressive of them. Very +many years have passed since the old tower was used, and since the park +in which it stands was converted into a farm. + + [Picture: The Observatory, Horton] + +The Woodlands estate, on the broad acres belonging to the Earl of +Shaftesbury, is a sandy, heathy district of furze and pine-trees, with a +conspicuous ridge in the midst, shaped in a semicircle and crested with +those sombre trees. Here is Shag Heath and the cultivated oasis called +“The Island” where on July 8th, 1685, the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth +was captured, hiding amid the bracken and undergrowth, beneath an +ash-tree. He might possibly have succeeded in stealing away to the coast +and so escaping, despite the thoroughness of the search made by the +Sussex Militia, spurred to it by the reward of £5,000, offered for the +capture of the fugitive, had it not been for the information given by an +old woman who lived in a cottage near at hand. She had seen him, +disguised as a shepherd, threading his way cautiously through the heath, +and he was accordingly discovered near the spot she had indicated by a +militiaman named Parkin. The Duke, half-starved and unkempt from his +hunted wanderings since the fatal Sedgemoor fight of three days earlier, +was found in possession of his badge of the George, a pocket-book and +several guineas. In his pockets were a number of peas, the remains of a +quantity he had plucked, to stave off his hunger. + + [Picture: Horton Inn: the “Lornton Inn” of “Barbara of the House of + Grebe”] + + [Picture: Monmouth Ash] + +A total of £5,500 was divided among Lord Lumley, the officers, +militiamen, and others concerned in the capture. Among these was Amy +Farant, whose information had directly led to it, and she received a sum +of fifty pounds. + +Local tradition points out the spot on the hillside where this woman’s +cottage formerly stood, overlooking the field called “Monmouth Close” and +the horror always felt by the rustics at the taking of what they still +call the “blood-money” is seen in the story told of her after-years. The +price of blood brought a curse with it. She fell upon evil times, and at +last lived and died in a state of rags and dirt, shunned by all. After +her death, the cottage itself speedily earned a sinister reputation, and +was at length either pulled down, or allowed to decay. The spot is still +called locally Louse, or more genteelly Slough, Lane. + +The “Monmouth Ash”—or “Aish,” in the country speech—still survives, with +a difference. Those who, looking upon the present tree and thinking, +despite its decrepit and propped-up condition, that it cannot be over two +hundred years old—and therefore that this cannot be the precise spot—may, +with the reservation already made, be reassured of its absolute +genuineness. The original trunk grew decayed in the long ago, and was +blown down, but the present tree is a growth from the “stool,” or root, +of that under which the unhappy Protestant Champion was discovered. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + + OVER THE HILLS, BEYOND THE RAINBOW + +BEYOND the rainbow is Fairyland, but no one has ever penetrated to that +country, save in dreams, to which nothing is impossible. There is also a +Rainbow-land in Dorsetshire, certainly not impossible of achievement, but +still a district of which no one knows anything, saving only those who +live in it, and those sturdy fellows, the carriers, the Marco Polos and +Livingstones of this age and country, who every week or so travel from it +to the nearest market-town, and back again. The carriers are men of +strange speech and dress. Although sturdy, they move slowly both in body +and mind; and their tilt-carts are as slow as themselves, and as dusty +and travel-worn as the caravans of any African expedition. The Rainbow +country of Dorset is, in fact, a country innocent of railways. It is +comprised within a rough circle made by tracing a course from Bere Regis +to Piddletrenthide, Cerne Abbas, Minterne Magna, Holnest, Sherborne, +Milborne Port, Stalbridge, Sturminster Newton, and Blandford, and is not +only in parts extremely hilly, but includes Bulbarrow, one of the highest +hills in Dorsetshire, 927 feet above sea-level, and Nettlecombe Tout; +among a fine diversified array of lesser eminences. There is thus some +considerable difficulty in travelling out of it, and a very widespread +disinclination to penetrate into what may, not without considerable +warranty, be termed its “wilds.” + + [Picture: Bingham’s Melcombe] + +Wise men, who study maps, and from the tracks of watercourses deduce +easier, or at any rate, rather less arduous, routes, may find a means of +winning to this Rainbow country by turning off the Piddletown and Bere +Regis road at Burlestone, and thence making along the slight valley of +the Chesil Bourne or Divelish stream. The small village of Dewlish on +the map points to the amazing colonial energy of the Roman, for here, in +a district that even we moderns are accustomed to think remote, was found +a fine Roman pavement, many years ago. In another two miles and a half +the valley closes in, and the neighbourhood of those big brothers, +Bulbarrow and Nettlecombe Tout, is evident from their smaller kindred, on +either hand. + +Here, under the shelter of the everlasting hills, and in a “lew” warm +hollow surrounded by benignant trees that lovingly shut it in, is +Bingham’s Melcombe. A little pebbly brook, the Chesil Bourne, prattles +down the combe, sheep-bells sound from the hillsides, cattle low in the +meadows, and rooks scold and gibber, or lazily caw, in over-arching elms; +otherwise, all is still, for much more than even the rustic scenes of Mr. +Hardy’s especially farming story, Bingham’s Melcombe is “far from the +madding crowd,” and there is nothing of it but a farmstead, the tiny +church, and the little gem of an ancient manor-house. For all that +Bingham’s Melcombe is so insignificant, it has sent out at least one +distinguished man. Fluellen boasted that there were “good men porn at +Monmouth,” and here was born that Sir Richard Bingham who earns the +praise of Fuller, as being “a brave soldier and _fortis et felix_ in all +his undertakings.” He lies, as a brave soldier should, but all brave +soldiers cannot, in Westminster Abbey. The Binghams of Bingham’s +Melcombe came from a younger son of the Binghams of Sutton Bingham in +Somersetshire, and early allied themselves with prominent families. The +ducally crowned lion rampant of the Turbervilles quartered on their +ancestral shield owes its place there to the marriage of Robert Bingham, +about the reign of Henry III., or Edward I., with the daughter and +heiress of Robert Turberville. + +These long-descended Binghams maintained their hold upon this lovely old +home of theirs from the middle of the thirteenth century until recently. +Now it has passed into other hands. A member of the family, Canon +Bingham, was the original of the “Parson Tringham,” the learned +antiquary, who, in the opening pages of _Tess of the D’Urbervilles_, so +indiscreetly informs old John Durbeyfield, the haggler, of his +distinguished ancestry. + +The manor-house of Bingham’s Melcombe, within its courtyard, is a perfect +example of a sixteenth-century country residence. The courtyard, entered +by a gatehouse, discloses stone-gabled buildings at the sides, with the +highly carved and decorated projecting gable of the hall in front; +displaying with a wealth of mantling the Bingham coat of arms, the whole +overgrown with trailing roses. + +A wild, chalky country, very knobbly and with constant hills and dales, +leads away to westward, past Melcombe Horsey, to the hamlet and starved +hillside farms of Plush, where flints abound, water is scarce, and +farmers are obliged to depend largely upon the “dew-ponds” made on the +arid downs. Here is Dole’s Ash farm, the original of “Flintcomb Ash,” +the “starve-acre place” where Tess toiled among the other weariful hands +in the great swede-fields, “a hundred odd acres in one patch,” with not a +tree in sight: Rainbow-land is not all fertile and roseate. The farm, as +Mr. Hardy describes it, is situated “above stony lanchets—the outcrop of +siliceous veins in the chalk formation, composed of myriads of loose +white flints in bulbous, cusped, and phallic shapes,” and is at the other +extreme from the fertility and sheltered beauty of the Valley of the +Frome, the “Vale of Great Dairies.” + +Very different from the forbidding westerly range from Bingham’s Melcombe +is the country immediately to the east. There the village of Milton +Abbas lies enfolded between the richly wooded hills, where the little +Mill Bourne rises, at the foot of an alarming but wonderfully picturesque +descent; and the woodland shade comes to the back door of every cottage. + +Milton Abbas is a remarkable place, and owes its long lines of regularly +spaced cottages, all of the same design, to the autocratic whim of Joseph +Damer, Baron Milton and first Earl of Dorchester, who (then a commoner) +purchased the large and beautiful estate in 1752, and, demolishing the +old village, which rose humbly on the outskirts of the magnificent abbey, +rebuilt it, a mile away, in 1786. Milton Abbas is, indeed, the precursor +of many recent “model” villages, and typical of the highhanded ways of +the eighteenth-century landed gentry, who could not endure the sight of a +cottage from the windows of their mansions; and so forthwith, in the +manner of Eastern potentates, whisked whole villages and populations away +from between the wind and their gentility. Each cottage is built +four-square, with thatched roof and equidistant doors and windows, all in +the Doll’s House or Noah’s Ark order of architecture, and there is scarce +a pin to choose between any of them. Half-way down the street is the +almshouse, and opposite is the church, and from their presence it will be +seen that Lord Dorchester’s village-transplanting was complete and highly +methodical. Now that time has weathered his model village, and the +chestnut trees planted between the cottages have grown up, Milton Abbas +is a not unpleasing curiosity. + + [Picture: Milton Abbas] + +But Milton Park, beyond the village, contains the greatest surprise, in +the almost perfect condition of the surviving abbey church, rising in all +the stately bulk and beautiful elaboration of a cathedral; beside the +great mansion built for Lord Dorchester in 1771 by Sir William Chambers, +familiar to Londoners as the architect of Somerset House. + + [Picture: Milton Abbas, an early “Model” Village] + +That explorer of this Wessex unknown country, this Land Beyond the +Rainbow, who, setting forth uninstructed in what he shall find, comes all +unwittingly upon this generally unheard-of abbey, is greatly to be +envied, for it is to him as much of a surprise as though its existence +had never been breathed beyond the rim of the hills down in whose hollows +it lies hid; and to him falls the exquisite pleasure of what is nothing +less than a discovery. Coming into the park, all unsuspectingly, the +abbey church is disclosed against a wooded background of hills, +strikingly like the first glimpse of Wells Cathedral, underneath the +Mendips. + +Milton Abbey, the “Middleton Abbey” of _The Woodlanders_, was founded so +early as A.D. 933, by Athelstan, and in thirty years from that date +became a Benedictine monastery. Nothing, however, of that early time has +survived, and the great building we now see belongs to the period between +1322 and 1492, when it was gradually rebuilt, after having been struck by +lightning and wholly destroyed in 1309. But the noble building rising so +beautifully from the gravel drives and trim lawns of this park is but a +completed portion of an intended design. It consists of choir, tower, +and north and south transepts, and extends a total length of 132 feet. +Had not the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539 put an end to this +lovely retreat of the Benedictine fraternity, a nave would have been +added. To Sir John Tregonwell, King’s Proctor in the divorce of Henry +VIII. and Katherine of Aragon, fell what may reasonably be called this +fine piece of “spoil”; for the price of one thousand pounds at which he +bought the monkish estates of Milton Abbas can scarce be regarded as +adequate purchase money. Coming at last into the hands of Joseph Damer, +the domestic offices of the monastery, which had until then survived in +almost perfect condition, were with one exception utterly destroyed, and +the existing mansion built in a bastard “Gothic” style, as understood by +Chambers. The sole exception is the grand Abbot’s Hall, enshrined within +that eighteenth-century building, and entered from the farther side of +the great quadrangle. Now in use as a drawing-room, there is probably no +more stately room of that description in existence. It has the combined +interest and beauty of size, loftiness and exquisite workmanship in stone +and carved wood, with antiquity. + +[Picture: Abbot Milton’s Rebus, Milton Abbey] The abbey church stands +immediately to the south of the mansion, separated from it only by lawns +and a drive, and is used as a chapel by the present owner of the estate, +a nephew of the late Baron Hambro, who restored it at great cost under +the professional advice of that arch-restorer, Sir Gilbert Scott. The +solitude, the size and beauty of the interior, are very impressive. Here +is a place of worship like a cathedral, used for the prayers of a private +household, and if you can by any means manage to forget the grotesque +disproportion of ancient size and magnificence to modern use, you will +feel very reverent indeed. + + [Picture: Milton Abbey] + +There is a monument here to that fortunate and successful time-server, +Sir John Tregonwell, who so neatly trimmed the sails of his public +conduct in those times of quick-change, between the reigns of Henry VIII. +and Elizabeth, that, although a Roman Catholic, he managed to enrich +himself at the expense of the old religion’s misfortunes, and to die at +peace with all men, although in the possession of property belonging to +others. There is also a most exquisitely sculptured marble monument by +Carlini to Lady Milton, who died in 1775. It represents her in the +costume of that period, with her husband bending anxiously over her. A +quaint little piece of Gothic fancy will be seen on one of the walls, in +the shape of the sculptured rebus of one Abbot William Middleton, with +the Arabic date, 1514, and the device of a mill on a tun, or barrel. +Thus did the strenuous minds of the Middle Ages unbend to childish +fancies and puns in stone. + + [Picture: Turnworth House] + +A sign of the times may be noted, in the restoration and re-dedication of +the long-desecrated Chapel of St. Catherine, on the hilltop to the east +of the abbey. When the monastery was dissolved, the chapel of course +fell out of use, and so remained until recently. It had in turn been +used as a pigeon-house, a labourer’s cottage, a carpenter’s shop, and a +lumber-room, and was falling into complete decay when Mr. Everard Hambro +in 1903 decided to restore it. The varied Saxon, Norman, and +Perpendicular architecture was accordingly repaired, and the building +reconsecrated on St. Catherine’s night of the same year. + +Through Winterborne Houghton, and Winterborne Stickland, two of the +eleven Dorsetshire Winterbornes, named from a chalk stream that flows +into the Stour at Sturminster Marshall, we come to another _Woodlanders_ +landmark, Turnworth House, the “Great Hintock House,” where Mrs. +Charmond, fascinator of the surgeon Fitzpiers, lived. It is situated +just as in the tale, in a deep and lonely dell: + + “To describe it as standing in a hollow would not express the + situation of the manor-house; it stood in a hole. But the hole was + full of beauty. From the spot which Grace had reached a stone could + easily have been thrown over or into the birds’-nested chimneys of + the mansion. Its walls were surmounted by a battlemented parapet; + but the grey lead roofs were quite visible behind it, with their + gutters, laps, rolls, and skylights. . . . The front of the house + was an ordinary manorial presentation of Elizabethan windows, + mullioned and hooded, worked in rich snuff-coloured freestone from + local quarries. . . . Above the house was a dense plantation, the + roots of whose trees were above the level of the chimneys.” + +From Turnworth the way out of Rainbow-land by way of Durweston, +Stourpaine, and Blandford is easy: a _facilis descensus_, as well in +spirit as in the matter of gradients, for thus you come out of the +untravelled and the unknown into the well-worn tracks and intimate life +of every day. + + + + +INDEX. + + +ABBOT’S ANN, 23 + +“Abbot’s Cernel,” Cerne Abbas, 31–38, 116, 170, 199–203, 206, 302 + +Abbotsbury, 84, 235, 236 + +“Aldbrickham,” Reading, 2 + +Aldershot, “Quartershot,” 2 + +“Alfredston,” Wantage, 2 + +Andover, 23 + +“Anglebury,” Wareham, 10, 38, 86, 111, 113–122, 138, 192 + +_Anna_, _Lady Baxby_, 189 + +Anton, River, 23, 24 + +Athelhampton, 54 + + * * * * * + +BANKES FAMILY, 37, 106, 108, 111 + +_Barbara of the House of Grebe_, 43, 298, 299 + +Barnes, Reverend William, 65 + +Basingstoke, “Stoke-Barehills,” 2, 3 + +Batcombe, 171, 172 + +Bathsheba’s Farm, 57–59 + +Beaminster, “Emminster,” 38, 170, 244, 245 + +Bere Heath, 50, 128, 130 + +Bere Regis, “Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill,” 54, 126, 127, 132–146, 163, 302 + +Berkshire, “North Wessex,” 2 + +Bincombe, 211, 248–250 + +Bindon Abbey, 122 + +Bindon Abbey Mill, 123 + +Bingham’s Melcombe, 303–306 + +Blackmore, or Blackmoor, Vale of, 36, 38, 39, 65, 169, 191, 195, 197, +198, 288, 291, 292 + +Blandford Forum, “Shottsford Forum,” 39, 42–47, 138, 282, 302 + +Bloody Assize, 83 + +Bloxworth, 140 + +Bockhampton, Lower, 157, 160 + +Bockhampton, Upper, 157–160 + +Boscastle, “Castle Boterel,” 6, 7 + +Bourne, River, 259 + +Bournemouth, “Sandborne,” 31, 88, 257–262 + +Bow and Arrow Castle, 229 + +Bredy, River, 237 + +Bridport, “Port Bredy,” 82, 231, 237, 240–244 + +Brit, River, 237 + +Broadwey, 212 + +Browning, Robert, 37, + +Bryan’s Piddle, 145, 163 + +Bryanstone, 46 + +“Budmouth,” Weymouth, 71, 200, 207, 209, 210, 212–221, 225, 226, 232, 246 + + * * * * * + +“CASTERBRIDGE,” Dorchester, 26, 35, 38, 47, 58, 61–83, 116, 138, 148, +149, 153, 168, 199, 206, 207, 215 + +“Castle Boterel,” Boscastle, 6, 7 + +“Castle Royal,” Windsor, 2 + +Castleton, 186 + +Cerne Abbas, “Abbot’s Cernel,” 31, 38, 116, 170, 199–203, 206, 302 + +Cerne, River, 205 + +“Chalk Newton,” Maiden Newton, 168 + +Chamberlain’s Bridge, 130, 132 + +Charborough Park, 50, 123, 136, 192, 278, 279 + +Charminster, 79, 168, 205 + +Chesil Beach, 224, 231, 240 + +Chesil Bourn, 304 + +“Christminster,” Oxford, 3, 5, 6 + +_Clavinium_, 207, 246 + +“Cliff without a Name,” 8 + +Colyton House, 78 + +“Conjuring Minterne,” 172 + +Coombe Bissett, 35, 40 + +Corfe Castle, “Corvsgate Castle,” 87, 92, 93, 97–113, 121, 133, 138, 277 + +Corfe Mullen, 277, 278 + +Cornwall, “Nether Wessex,” 6, 292 + +“Corvsgate Castle,” 87, 92, 93, 97–113, 121, 133, 138, 277 + +Cranborne Chase, 35 + +Cross-in-Hand, 170 + + * * * * * + +_Desperate Remedies_, 60 + +Devonshire, “Lower Wessex,” 2, 6 + +_Distracted Preacher_, _The_, 252, 254 + +Dogbury, 191, 197 + +Dole’s Ash Farm, “Flintcomb Ash,” 170, 305 + +Dorchester, “Casterbridge,” 26, 35, 38, 47, 58, 61–83, 116, 138, 148, +149, 153, 168, 199, 206, 207, 215 + +Dorsetshire, “South Wessex,” 2, 38, 39, 44, 134, 135, 138, 149, 291, 292 + +Drax family, 193, 194 + +Dungeon Hill, 195 + +D’Urbervilles, the, 37, 124, 126 132, 170 + +_Durnovaria_, 62, 80, 207 + +“Durnover,” Fordington, 61–63, 148, 149 + + * * * * * + +EAST STOKE, 122 + +Eastbury Park, 40 + +“Egdon Heath,” 128–130, 132, 161–167, 254, 258 + +“Emminster,” Beaminster, 38, 170, 244, 245 + +Encombe, “Enkworth Court,” 94–96 + +“Endelstow,” 8 + +“Enkworth Court,” 94–96 + +Erle-Drax, J. S. W. Sawbridge, Esq., M.P. 192, 278, 279 + +Evershot, “Evershead,” 169, 172, 198 + + * * * * * + +“FALLS PARK,” MELLS PARK, 172–175 + +_Far from the Madding Crowd_, 43, 48, 53, 56–59, 156, 236, 254 + +Fawley Magna, “Marygreen,” 2, 4, 94 + +_Fellow Townsmen_, 237, 241, 243, 244 + +_Fiddler of the Reels_, _The_, 150, 161 + +_First Countess of Wessex_, _The_, 31, 172–175, 237 + +“Flintcomb Ash,” Dole’s Ash Farm, 170, 305 + +“Flychett,” Lytchett Minster, 268 + +_For Conscience’ Sake_, 177 + +Fordington, “Durnover,” 61–63, 148, 149 + +Fortune’s Well, “Street of Wells,” 224, 225, 227, 231 + +Frome, River, 38, 62, 115, 117, 118, 121, 123, 124, 156, 157, 161, 163, +205, 306 + + * * * * * + +“GAYMEAD,” Theale, 2 + +“Giant of Cerne,” 203 + +Glydepath Lane, 76, 78 + +Goathorn, 114 + +Godmanstone, 205 + +“Gray’s Bridge,” 70 + +“Great Hintock,” Minterne Magna, 39, 168, 191, 198, 302 + +“Great Hintock House,” Turnworth House, 311, 312 + +_Group of Noble Dames_, _A_, 14, 31, 43, 172–176, 189, 205, 237, 297–299 + + * * * * * + +HAMPSHIRE, “Upper Wessex,” 2, 257 + +Hamworthy, 268 + +_Hand of Ethelberta_, _The_, 86, 90, 93, 94, 98, 268, 269 + +Hangman’s Cottage, Dorchester, 76, 77 + +Hardy, Admiral Sir Thomas Masterman, 66, 232, 233 + +Hardy, Thomas, birthplace of, 158–160 + +Hardy, Thomas, residence of, 148 + +“Havenpool,” Poole, 88, 107–109, 111, 140, 261–268 + +_Hearts Insurgent_, 4 + +Heedless William’s Pond, 160 + +“High Place Hall,” 78 + +High Stoy, 39, 191, 197 + +“Higher Crowstairs,” 75, 199 + +Holnest, 123, 191–194, 302 + +Horner family, 173–175 + +Horton, 50, 298 + +Horton Inn, “Lornton Inn,” 297–299 + +Hurst, 163 + + * * * * * + +ILCHESTER, Earls of, 172–175 + +Ilsington Woods, 159 + +_Interlopers at the Knap_, 168 + +“Ivell,” Yeovil, 169, 176–178 + + * * * * * + +JORDAN HILL, 246 + +_Jude the Obscure_, 4, 5, 29, 30, 31, 151, 294, 295 + + * * * * * + +“KENNETBRIDGE,” NEWBURY, 2 + +“King’s Hintock Court,” Melbury Park, 172–176 + +King’s Stag Bridge, 195 + +“Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill,” Bere Regis, 54, 126, 127, 132–146, 163, 302 + +Kingston, 92, 93, 94, 97 + +Kingston House, “Knapwater House,” 60, 150 + +Kingston Lacy, 106 + +“Knapwater House,” Kingston House, 60, 150 + +“Knollsea,” Swanage, 84–92, 97, 111, 257, 264 + + * * * * * + +_Lady Mottisfont_, 14 + +_Lady Penelope_, _The_, 205 + +Lainston, 19, 20 + +Langton Matravers, 92 + +Launceston, “St. Launce’s,” 8 + +Lidden, River, 195 + +Little Ann, 23 + +“Little Hintock,” Melbury Osmund, 176, 198 + +“Little Jack Horner,” 174 + +Lobcombe Corner, 26 + +Lodmoor Marsh, 246 + +“Long Ash Lane,” 168, 169 + +Long Burton, 191, 192 + +“Long Piddle,” Piddletrenthide, 57 + +“Lornton Inn,” Horton Inn, 297–299 + +Lower Walterstone Farm, 57–59 + +“Lucetta’s house,” 78 + +Lulworth Cove, “Lullstead,” 139, 254, 255–257 + +Lulworth West, 254 + +Lytchett Minster, “Flychett,” 268 + + * * * * * + +MAIDEN CASTLE, 208 + +Maiden Newton, “Chalk Newton,” 168 + +Marnhull, “Marlott,” 36, 285, 288, 290 + +Martinstown, or Winterborne St. Martin, 153 + +“Marygreen,” Fawley Magna, 2, 4, 94 + +Maumbury, 71, 72 + +Max Gate, 63, 148 + +_Mayor of Casterbridge_, _The_, 23, 25, 26, 63–80, 149 + +_Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion_, _The_, 248–250, + +Melbury Osmund, “Little Hintock,” 176, 198 + +Melbury Park, “King’s Hintock Court,” 172–176 + +Melbury Sampford, 172–176 + +“Melchester,” Salisbury, 16, 26–28, 31, 35, 36, 187 + +Melcombe Regis, 66, 210, 215–217, 220, 221 + +Mells Park, “Falls Park,” 172–175 + +“Mellstock,” Stinsford, 61, 149–151 + +Middlemarsh, 194 + +“Middleton Abbey,” Milton Abbas, 38, 306–311 + +Milborne Port, 302 + +Milborne St. Andrew, “Millpond St. Jude’s,” 48–50 + +Milton Abbas, “Middleton Abbey,” 38, 306–311 + +Minterne Magna, “Great Hintock,” 39, 168, 191, 198, 302 + +“Monmouth Ash,” 299–301 + +Monmouth, Duke of, 83, 121, 140, 299–301 + +_Mottisfont_, _Lady_, 14 + + * * * * * + +NETHER CERNE, 205 + +“Nether Mynton,” Owermoigne, 252, 253 + +Newbury, “Kennetbridge,” 2 + + * * * * * + +OBSERVATORY, The, Horton, 298 + +Old Sarum, 21, 28, 179 + +_On the Western Circuit_, 29 + +Osmington, 250 + +“Overcombe,” Sutton Poyntz, 246, 247, 250 + +Owermoigne, “Nether Mynton,” 252, 253 + +Oxford, “Christminster,” 3, 5, 6 + +“Oxwell Hall,” Poxwell Manor, 250, 251 + + * * * * * + +_Pair of Blue Eyes_, _A_, 6, 7, 8 + +_Penelope_, _The Lady_, 205 + +Pennsylvania Castle, “Sylvania Castle,” 229 + +Pentridge, “Trantridge,” 36, 37 + +Piddle, River, 54, 57, 117, 121, 132, 144 + +Piddleford, or Fiddleford, 285 + +Piddletown, “Weatherbury,” 53–58, 157 + +Piddletrenthide, “Long Piddle,” 57, 302 + +Plush, 170 + +Poole, “Havenpool,” 88, 107, 108, 109, 111, 140, 261–268 + +Poole Harbour, 39, 114, 117, 131 + +“Port Bredy,” Bridport, 82, 231, 237, 240–244 + +Portisham, 232–234 + +Portland Bill, 224 + +Portland, Isle of, “Isle of Slingers,” 209, 210, 214, 222–231, 240 + +Poundbury, 79, 206 + +Poxwell, 250, 290 + +Poxwell Manor, “Oxwell Hall,” 250, 251 + +Preston, 246, 250 + +Pulham, 195 + +“Pummery,” 206 + +Purbeck, Isle of, 85, 87–89, 97, 115 + + * * * * * + +“QUARTERSHOT,” Aldershot, 2 + + * * * * * + +RADIPOLE, 213 + +Reading, “Aldbrickham,” 2 + +_Return of the Native_, _The_, 114, 128, 129, 161 + +Revels Inn, 199 + +Rye Hill, Bere Regis, 131, 132 + +Ryme Intrinseca, 176, 177 + + * * * * * + +ST. JULIOT’S, “ENDELSTOW,” 8 + +“St. Launce’s,” Launceston, 8 + +Salisbury, “Melchester,” 16, 26–28, 31, 35, 36, 187 + +Salisbury Plain, 31 + +“Sandbourne,” Bournemouth, 31, 88, 257–262 + +Sandsfoot Castle, 222, 223 + +“Serpent,” The, 155 + +Shaftesbury, “Shaston,” 39, 277, 290, 291–296 + +Shapwick, 280, 281, 282, 283 + +“Shapwick Wheeloffs,” 281 + +“Shaston,” Shaftesbury, 39, 277, 290, 291–296 + +Sherborne, “Sherton Abbas,” 38, 39, 178–191 + +Sherborne Castle, 184, 186–190 + +“Sherton Abbas,” 38, 39, 178–191 + +Shillingstone, 282–285 + +“Shottsford Forum,” Blandford Forum, 39, 42–47, 75, 138, 282, 302 + +“Slingers, Isle of,” Isle of Portland, 209, 210, 214, 221–231, 240 + +_Some Crusted Characters_, 70 + +Somersetshire, “Outer Wessex,” 2, 176 + +Sparsholt, 20 + +Stalbridge, 302 + +“Stickleford,” Tincleton, 157, 160, 163 + +Stinsford, “Mellstock,” 61, 149–151 + +Stoborough, 115 + +Stockbridge, 16, 21–23, 26 + +“Stoke-Barehills,” Basingstoke, 2, 3 + +Stonehenge, 31–34 + +Stour, River, 38, 277, 278, 280, 282, 283, 288 + +“Stourcastle,” Sturminster Newton, 39, 286–288 + +Strangways family, 173–175 + +“Street of Wells,” 224, 225, 227, 231 + +Sturminster Marshall, 38, 277, 278, 280 + +Sturminster Newton, “Stourcastle,” 39, 286–288 + +Sutton Poyntz, “Overcombe,” 246, 247, 250 + +Swanage, “Knollsea,” 84–92, 97, 111, 257, 264 + +“Sylvania Castle,” Pennsylvania Castle, 229 + + * * * * * + +TARENT ABBEY, 134, 145 + +Tarrant Hinton, 40 + +Templecombe, 38, 39 + +Ten Hatches, 70 + +Tess of the D’Urbervilles, 12, 17, 31, 32, 36, 38, 122–126, 143, 147, +161, 168, 170, 199, 244, 257, 258, 285, 288, 289, 305 + +Theale, “Gaymead,” 2 + +_Three Strangers_, _The_, 75, 199 + +Tincleton, “Stickleford,” 157, 160, 163 + +_To Please his Wife_, 262, 265 + +_Tragedy of Two Ambitions_, 177 + +“Trantridge,” Pentridge, 36, 37 + +Trebarrow Sands, “Trebarwith Strand,” 7 + +“Troy Town,” 59 + +_Trumpet Major_, _The_, 70, 218, 222, 230, 232, 246–248, 250, 253 + +Turberville, Dr. D’Albigny, 30, 146 + +Turberville, George, 48, 146 + +Turberville, John, 123 + +Turberville, Thomas, 146 + +Turberville, family, The, 126, 134, 140–144, 146, 304 + +Turnworth House, “Great Hintock House,” 311, 312 + +_Two on a Tower_, 49, 53, 115, 270, 275, 278, 280, 298, 299 + + * * * * * + +_Under the Greenwood Tree_, 59, 149, 150 + +Upper Bockhampton, 63 + +Upwey, 211, 212 + + * * * * * + +“VALE OF GREAT DAIRIES,” 38, 156, 161, 306 + +Vale of Little Dairies, 38, 39 + +“Vale of White Hart,” 196 + +Village Choirs, 151–155 + +_Vindogladia_, 270 + + * * * * * + +WALLOP, LITTLE (OR MIDDLE), 26 + +Wantage, “Alfredston,” 2 + +“Warborne,” 270 + +Wareham, “Anglebury,” 10, 38, 86, 111, 113–122, 138, 192 + +“Warm’ell Cross,” 252 + +“Weatherbury,” Piddletown, 53–58, 157 + +Weatherbury Castle, 50, 51, 80 + +Weeke, 18 + +_Well Beloved_, _The_, 224, 226, 229, 230 + +Welland House, 50, 278, 279 + +“Wellbridge,” Woolbridge, 124, 127 + +“Wells, the Street of,” Fortune’s Well, 224, 225, 227, 231 + +Wessex, 1, 9, 14, 21, 148, 253 + +Wessex, Lower, Devonshire, 2, 6 + +Wessex, Mid, Wiltshire, 2, 292 + +Wessex, Nether, Cornwall, 292 + +Wessex, North, Berkshire, 2 + +Wessex, Outer, Somersetshire, 2, 176 + +Wessex, South, Dorsetshire, 2, 38, 39, 44, 134, 135, 138, 249, 291, 292 + +Wessex, Upper, Hampshire, 2, 257 + +West Bay, 237, 238, 239, 241 + +West Stafford, 157 + +Wey, River, 212 + +Weyhill, “Weydon Priors,” 23–25 + +Weyhill Fair, 24, 25 + +“Weydon Priors,” Weyhill, 23–25 + +Weymouth, “Budmouth,” 71, 200, 207, 209, 210, 212, 221, 225, 226, 232, +246 + +Whitcomb, 65 + +Willapark Point, 8 + +Wilts, 2 + +Wimborne Minster, “Warborne,” 106, 138, 270–276 + +Wincanton, 39 + +Winchester, “Wintoncester,” 9–17, 21, 148 + +Windsor “Castle Royal,” 2 + +Winterborne Came, 65 + +Winterborne Monkton, 208, 210 + +Winterborne St. Martin, or Martinstown, 153 + +Winterborne Whitchurch, 47, 48, 146 + +Winterslow, 16 + +“Winterslow Hut,” 27 + +“Wintoncester,” Winchester, 9–17, 21, 148 + +“Wishing Well,” Upwey, 211–213 + +_Withered Arm_, _The_, 74 + +Wolveton House, 168, 205, 207 + +Woodbury Hill, Bere Regis, 138, 140 + +_Woodlanders_, _The_, 43, 176, 286, 191, 195, 197, 198, 308, 312 + +Woodlands, 298, 299 + +Woodyates Inn, 35, 36, 38, 40 + +Wool, 38, 123, 126, 130 + +Woolbridge, “Wellbridge,” 124, 127 + +Woolbridge House, 122, 123, 125 + + * * * * * + +“YALBURY HILL,” YELLOWHAM HILL, 59 + +Yellowham Woods, “Yalbury Great Wood,” 59, 150 + +Yeo, River, 176, 178, 186, 191 + +Yeovil, “Ivell,” 169, 176–178 + + * * * * * + + * * * * * + + _Printed by Hazell_, _Watson & Viney_, _Ld._, _London and Aylesbury_. + + * * * * * + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +{174} In text the genealogy is: Thomas Horner of Mells _m._ 1713 +Susannah, daughter of Thomas Strangeways, of Melbury, co. Dorset, born +1690, died 1758: they had issue Elizabeth Horner (born 1723, died 1792). + +Elizabeth Horner _m._ 1736 Sir Stephen Fox, afterwards 1st Earl of +Ilchester, etc. Born 1706, Died 1776.—DP. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HARDY COUNTRY*** + + +******* This file should be named 46801-0.txt or 46801-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/6/8/0/46801 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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