Chapter XXI: Ludlow Town 379 (8)

Immediately adjoining Marlborough is Savernake Forest, on the estate of the Marquis of Ailesbury, which is said to be the only forest of any extent possessed by a subject. This park is sixteen miles in circumference, and its chief glory is a straight four-mile drive between rows of enormous beeches. This splendid avenue is not "closed to motors" (the inscription that greeted us at the entrance of so many private parks), and our car carried us soberly enough through the sylvan scene, which is diversified with many grassy glades. There are several famous trees, one of which, the King's Oak, is twenty-four feet in circumference. Savernake is pleasant and impressive in summer time, but its real beauty must be most apparent in autumn, when, as an English writer describes it, "it is a blaze of crimson and yellow--the long shadows and golden sunlight giving the scene a painted, almost too brilliant effect."

It is growing late and we must not loiter longer by the way if we are to reach Bournemouth for the night. We sweep across the great open Salisbury Plain past Stonehenge and down the sweet vale of the Avon until the majestic spire of Salisbury pierces the sky. Then southward through Ringwood to Christchurch, where we catch a glimpse of the scant fragments of the castle and the abbey church, with its melancholy memorial to Shelley. A few minutes more on the fine ocean road brings us into Bournemouth.

XVI

DORSET AND THE ISLE OF WIGHT

Of the hundreds of hotels whose hospitality we enjoyed--or endured--in Britain, no other was so barbarously gorgeous as the Royal Bath at Bournemouth. The furnishings were rich, though verging to some extent on the gaudy, and the whole place had an air of oriental splendor about it made the more realistic by "fairy grottoes" and gilded pagodas on the grounds. It is a rather low building of great extent, with wide, thickly carpeted halls in which bronze and plaster statuettes and suits of old plate armor are displayed. At the head of the stairs a tablet enumerates a few of the patrons of quality--an imposing list indeed--which we may partly transcribe here. The large gilt letters solemnly assure us that "This Hotel has been patronised by H. R. H. the PRINCE OF WALES, H. R. H. the DUCHESS OF ALBANY, and other Members of the ROYAL FAMILY: H. I. H. the EMPRESS EUGENIE, H. M. the KING OF THE BELGIANS, H. R. H. CROWN PRINCE OF SWEDEN and NORWAY, H. R. H. the CROWN PRINCESS OF DENMARK, H. R. H. PRINCE ALBRECHT OF PRUSSIA, Regent of Brunswick; the Leading Statesmen, and the most Eminent and Distinguished Personages visiting Bournemouth." Verily a list of notables that might well overawe a common American citizen.

But after all, the pretensions of the Royal Bath are not altogether unwarranted, for its foundation, in 1838, marked the beginning of Bournemouth itself. It is since then that this handsome watering-place--it has no superior in the Kingdom--has come into existence. In few other modern resort towns has the original idea been so well carried out. The pine trees planted by the early promoters now form a grove through which runs the magnificent promenade along the sea. The citizens are mainly of the wealthier class and there are many fine private residences. There are, of course, the usual adjuncts of the watering-place, such as the amusement pier, promenades, public gardens and palatial hotels. The climate, which is as salubrious as that of Torquay, brings to the town many people seeking health. Bournemouth, of course, has little of history or tradition. In the churchyard surrounding its imposing modern church is buried Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and her parents, William and Mary Godwin.

I have not intended to intimate that the Royal Bath, with all its splendor, is anything but comfortable and first-class. Our tall casement windows opened directly on the sea, and the high ceilings of our room were decorated with plaster bosses and stencilled festoons of roses. The view at sunset over the terrace, down the sandy beach and sweeping over the sail-flecked waters, was at once restful and inspiring. The crowd thronging the promenades was in a gay, careless mood; children played in the sand in unrestrained joy, while the many colored lights on the pier and the lanterns of the boats gave a touch of brilliancy to the scene. It all seemed to strangely contrast with the spirit of the England we were most familiar with, for Bournemouth belongs to another day and generation than the England of our pilgrimage.

The Isle of Purbeck is no island at all--even as the "Isles," Athelney and Avilion, in no wise fulfill the geographical requirements of islands. It is a small peninsula of Southern Dorset, and at its very center stands one of the most remarkable of the English castles. Thither we go, following the coast from Bournemouth through the somber little town of Wareham; from thence southward over heather-mottled hills, and ere long we catch sight of the gigantic mound upon which are the straggling fragments of Corfe Castle. Before the castle gate stands Corfe village, a group of plain cottages, seemingly as ancient as the ruin overlooking them. All are mellowed by the touch of time; there is naught to mar the harmony of the dull silver grays and moss greens of the cottages, the solid old church or of the ruins which tower in sharp outline against a pale, blue sky.

The entrance to the castle court is well above the roofs of the cottages and is severed from the village by a deep fosse crossed by a high-arched stone bridge. The gate is flanked by two huge round towers, but from the inside one sees the castle proper, perched on the summit of the mound, its very foundation stones high above the gate towers. Standing among the stupendous ruins we realize the amazing strength the castle possessed, both in construction and position. Huge fragments of walls and towers rise above us like thunder-riven cliffs, their bald outlines softened in places by the clinging ivy. Here and there masses of fallen masonry are lying about like boulders, so solidly does the mass cling together. So ruinous are the walls that it is difficult to identify the different apartments, and even the antiquarians have trouble in restoring the original plan of the castle. The keep itself, generally intact, is shattered, one fragment, almost the entire height of the structure, standing curiously like a huge chimney. Clearly enough, an explosive was the agent of destruction here--Corfe Castle was razed with gunpowder by express order of Cromwell's Parliament.

From the wall on the highest point of the mound, one has a wide prospect. It was a clear lucent day and when we climbed a broken tower the whole peninsula of Purbeck spread beneath us like a map. It is now bleak and sterile, spotted with gorse and heather and broken in places with chalk cliffs. Yet when the castle was built the region was covered with a stately forest, of which no trace now remains. Far to the north we see the Wareham road winding away like a serpent, while a stony trail cuts squarely across the moor to the west. When we prepare to take our leave, we ask the custodian concerning the road to Lulworth, and he points out the uninviting byway through the fields. We had planned to return to Wareham, but this route, he assures us, is shorter and "very good,"--strange ideas of good roads had the old man if he could so describe the ten miles through the moors to Lulworth, quite as bad as any of equal distance we found in ten thousand miles.

But before we go shall we ask the story of Corfe? The tales of the abbeys and castles are much alike and their end nearly always the same--dismantled by Henry, destroyed by Cromwell. Still, Corfe is very old; its records go back to Saxon times. How weird it is to think that in front of the towers that grimly guard the entrance King Edward the Martyr was stabbed by order of his stepmother, Elfrida, as he paused to quaff a goblet of wine. It happened more than a thousand years ago, and from that time until Cromwell's gunpowder sent walls and towers tottering to destruction, the sequestered castle was the scene of intermittent turmoil and bloodshed. Sir Christopher Hatton built the more modern portions during the reign of Elizabeth, but Corfe brought him only trouble. In 1633 it passed from the possession of his descendant to Sir John Bankes, a loyal supporter of King Charles, and while he was active in court and field, his energetic wife held the castle against all comers. One siege she repulsed and the surrender in 1646 was brought about only by treachery. Brave Lady Bankes! The story of her gallant defense will not be forgotten while a single fragment of the old fortress remains on its bleak, wind-swept hill.

But they have told us that Lulworth and its cove are worth seeing and we are soon away over the moorland road. A strenuous ten miles it is, rough, stony, steep, with numerous gates to open and close between the fields, and in places the road is so overgrown with grass and heather as to be hardly discernible. But from the uplands which it traverses one may see the ocean on the left and to the right a long array of rolling hills and winding valleys, all in the purple glow of full-blown heather, with here and there a lonely cottage or group of trees. We begin a long descent, following the edge of the hill toward the sea, and a sharp turn leads down a short steep grade into Lulworth.

The village some years ago had merely a few thatched cottages nestling beneath the high hills to the landward, but of late Lulworth has assumed airs as a trippers' resort in the summertime, and the red-tiled villas rather spoil its old-world effect. Lulworth would be of no more note than other villages scattered along the south coast were it not for its peculiar cove, an almost circular, basinlike depression a few hundred yards in diameter; the sea enters it through a narrow opening in the cliffs. We were able to take the car down to the very margin of the water. An angular, red-whiskered fisherman approached us and in broad South Country speech offered to row us across the cove. We acquiesced in deference to his story of slack times and hard luck. The water of the cove has a depth of sixty feet near the center and in old days offered shelter to smugglers' smacks. From the high cliffs on the opposite side we had a magnificent view of the rough coast line, a medley of gray, green and white, stretching along the foam-flecked sea.

We soon regain the main road and pass Lulworth Castle but a little way from the village--a massive, rectangular structure with circular, crenelated towers at each corner. It is not of great antiquity, having been built during the reign of Elizabeth, who is reputed to have visited it, and King James came here to escape the plague in London.

Our route carries us back to Wareham, a sleepy, shrunken town with little to suggest its strenuous history. Indeed, one writer declares that no town in England has undergone more calamities in the shape of sieges and conflagrations from the early wars with the Danes down to the capture of the place by Cromwell's forces. It is pleasantly situated on a strip of meadowland between two small rivers, and today has about two thousand people. Its wall, built more than a thousand years ago, may still be traced throughout its entire course and proves Wareham once of much greater extent than at present.

Wimborne Minster takes its name from the church whose square towers with odd minaretlike pinnacles loom over the town as we approach it from the south. And rightly should the name of the minster predominate, for it is the redeeming feature of the commonplace Dorset town. But it is quite enough--few English churches have a greater store of curious relics. The chained library of about two hundred and fifty huge volumes, each held to its shelf by a heavy, rusty chain, is unique; but as one reads the ponderous titles of the books he wonders that such precaution should have been deemed necessary. Still, there were no "six best sellers" in the day when this library was established, and even heavy theological treatises in Latin and Greek may have been in demand.

Not less curious is the orrery clock, five hundred years old, which illustrates the astronomical ideas of its time in compelling the sun to make a circuit of the dial every day, while the moon occupies a month. The sense of humor that mixes itself with the solemnity of so many English churches finds expression here in an odd, gnomelike automaton on the western tower that goes through strange contortions every quarter hour. One cannot but wonder just what is in the huge chest--unopened for centuries--hewn from a single log and fastened with great bunglesome locks; but most likely it contains records and documents pertaining to the church. But all these marvels are nothing to those which Wimborne Minster once possessed but which have disappeared; a piece of the true cross and one of the manger in which the Lord was born; some of the earth from the Bethlehem stable and a few hairs from Christ's head; a thigh bone of St. Agatha; a few of St. Philip's teeth; a joint of St. Cecelia; the hair shirt of St. Thomas a' Becket and a small phial of his blood. Verily Wimborne Minster was well supplied with the stock in trade of the early church.

But the minster has associations of a less mythical nature. In the chancel is the grave of Aethelred, King of the West Saxons, brother of Alfred the Great, who was slain in 871. A fine brass is set in the slab over the grave, but this is doubtless of more recent date. There are tombs of several crusaders, though the effigies have been sadly mutilated. But the most curious tomb is a gilded coffin set in a niche in the wall, a little below the level of the floor. On the coffin is the date 1693, which the occupant at one time fixed as the date for his demise, but this did not occur until ten years later. He expressed a wish to be buried "neither under the ground nor above it; neither in the church nor out of it" and left an annuity of five pounds to keep his coffin touched up yearly--all of which was faithfully carried out, for thus did the church once lend itself to clownish eccentricity.

Wimborne Minster delights in its relics, its traditions, and its medieval customs. The verger told us of one of the latter that is perhaps founded on more of common sense than many of the old-time practices, and which, with that continuity of custom that confronts one everywhere in England, still prevails. The vestrymen pass through the church at times during the services and prod the sleeping brethren with long black rods--not a bad idea, after all, though one that could hardly be inaugurated without precedent.

So much of our glimpse of Wimborne Minster; it is late and we are bound for Southampton, forty or more miles away as we propose to go. The road to Ringwood and from thence to Lymington leads through an open, heathlike country--stretches of rank-growing ferns interspersed with the vivid purple of the heather. A little beyond Ringwood we enter New Forest, though in this section little of the forest--as one thinks of the word now--is to be seen. There are occasional groups of trees, but the prevailing feature of the landscape is the fern-clad heath. A cheerless road it is, but open, finely surfaced and nearly level, with nothing to hinder the mad rush of our motor.

At Lymington we hail a citizen and inquire in our best French accent for the road to Beaulieu. He studies awhile and shakes his head. Then we seek a never-failing source of information--a garage man--but to our astonishment he is puzzled.

"Boloo, Boloo; never heard of it."

"What, the old abbey? It can't be far from here."

"O, you mean Bewley, to be sure--eight miles straight away; you can't miss it."

We hasten on over the moors and through a stretch of woodland into a wooded valley, where we come to a village more pleasing than any we have yet seen in Dorset--a village of thatched cottages and flower gardens fitting well into the charming surroundings. The river, held in leash by a weir, lies in broad, silvery reaches, fringed with willows, and groups of pond lilies dot its surface. Beaulieu, aside from its abbey, might be a shrine for the motorist, for here is the estate of Lord Montague, an enthusiast for the wind-shod steed, who has exchanged his ancestral stables for motors, and, to cap it all, is owner and editor of "The Car."

There is not much left of the abbey. Henry VIII., with characteristic thrift, floated the stone down the river to build Hurst Castle. The refectory, now restored and used as a parish church, is the most perfect remnant of the once magnificent establishment, whose church almost equalled the huge dimensions of Winchester Cathedral. The late lord did much to restore the ruins, which are now surrounded by lawns and shrubbery. The monks of Beaulieu had wide fame for good cheer--they kept great vineyards and their wines were counted the best in England. The vineyards throve long after the Dissolution, but the last vine, several hundred years old, disappeared about two centuries ago. Just across the river there is a substantial, comfortable hotel belonging to Lord Montague, which is much frequented by fishermen.

An hour's run over level but winding roads brought us to the Great Western Hotel in Southampton. It was a needless trip, after all, for the Isle of Wight is best reached from Lymington, whither we returned in the morning.

At Lymington the motor was loaded into a tiny boat, nearly filling it from stem to stern, and towed by the little channel steamer across the Solent to Yarmouth. The captain, who commands a crew of four men, invited us into the pilot house and gave us his field glasses, entertaining us with a tale of hard luck, long hours, small pay and still smaller appreciation of his service on part of the railway company, which owns the steamers. He was a typical English salt, bluff and bronzed, with a dialect that was refreshing to hear. We did not forget him, either, and found him anxiously looking for us next day when we were ready to return to the mainland.

Here we are on the sunniest, calmest of summer days in the isle whose greatest charm for us is, perhaps, in the fact that Tennyson spent most of his active life here and did much of his best work in his island home. But this is far from the only attraction of the romantic island, so small that a circuit of sixty-five miles takes one over the coast roads. The eastern and half the northern coast is dotted with increasingly popular resort towns, of which Cowes, of yachting fame, is the best known, and thither we direct our course.

It is open day at Osborne House and the short excursion by steamer from Southampton appeals to English people as few other holiday trips. And it is not strange when one reflects that no other place was in such a strict sense the home of Queen Victoria as Osborne House, or has so many memories of her life. The rather ineffective Italian villa was designed and built by herself and the Prince Consort and here were passed the happy years of the early married life of the royal couple. It was the queen's private property and descended to King Edward, who presented it to the nation. As it stands now, it may be said to be a memorial to the queen. Here are the family portraits and the marvelous presents given to Victoria on the occasions of her golden and diamond jubilees; some were from other rulers, but the most wonderful came from Indian potentates and the colonies. These defy all description. The queen died here in 1901, and altogether Osborne House is full of the deepest significance to the average British subject. The crowds that thronged the palace grounds on the day of our visit, we were told, were quite representative of the open days of the summer season.

Newport, the capital and metropolis of the island, is a modern-looking town, whose greatest interest is Carisbrooke Castle, the stronghold of the ancient governors. It stands on an eminence overlooking the town and charming indeed was the prospect that greeted us from the walls on that shimmering summer afternoon. The town, with its red-brick, slate-roofed buildings, lay just below us; about it were the tiny fields, with the green meadowlands, the ripening grain, great trees and snug cottages. One may walk on the battlements--in part modern replacements--entirely around the castle walls, and thus view the ruin from every angle.

Carisbrooke's chief memory is of Charles I., who came here as a guest only to be detained as a prisoner. The room he occupied has disappeared, but the window in its outer wall, through which he twice essayed to escape, may yet be seen. It was during his captivity here that he first lost hope; his hair turned gray and his trim, jaunty cavalier air forsook him. Finally, on the last night of November, 1648, he was seized by two companies of Roundhead horse and carried to Yarmouth and from thence to Windsor Castle. This was the beginning of the end. After the King's execution, the Princess Elizabeth and the young duke of Gloucester were sent here by order of Parliament. The princess soon died and is buried in Newport Church, where a marble effigy marks the tomb. Aside from the melancholy history of King Charles, the annals of Carisbrooke have few events of importance. Its decay and resulting ruin were due to ages of neglect.

Beginning at Ryde, four miles north of Newport, we followed the coast, passing a succession of resort towns. Ryde is situated on a hillside sloping toward the sea, and its water front with drives and gardens, is one of the most charming we know of. The road from Ryde to Ventnor is crooked, narrow, and highly dangerous in places. At times it runs through closely bordering forests; again along the edge of an almost precipitous incline; then it climbs a long, terribly steep hill, but is never more than a few hundred yards from the coast.

The Royal Hotel at Ventnor comes up to its pretensions but poorly. We were surprised to find the last three parties registered in the visitors' book coming from France, Germany and Sweden respectively, while our own added a fourth foreign registry in succession. The number of foreign guests at this hotel seemed to indicate that Ventnor is more popular with continental people than the average English resort town, for as a rule we found very few European guests. Ventnor is situated on a precipitous hill-slope, quite sheltered from the north and east. The houses run up the hill in terraces and the ledge of rock along the beach is barely wide enough for the promenade. The climate is mild and few spots in England are more favored by invalids. It was this that brought poor John Keats in 1817, and he composed "Lamia" during his stay. Here was a favorite resort of Tennyson before he settled in Freshwater, and Longfellow's visit in 1868 is commemorated by an inscription which he composed for the fountain near the hotel in Shanklin, the old town nearly contiguous to Ventnor. Shanklin contains many bits of the picturesque old-time island--touches of antiquity quite wanting in Ventnor.

The following day was one to be remembered; a day as near perfection as one may have in England--the sky pale blue, cloudless and serene, toning to lucent gray near the horizon, and the air fresh and invigorating. Our road closely followed the coast with an almost continual view of the sea. The ocean lay darkly under the rocks, rippled over stretches of silvery beach, or glittered under the long headlands, whose white chalk cliffs were almost dazzling in the sunlight. There were flower-embowered cottages along the road, but no villages for many miles. We gave two hours to the twenty miles to Freshwater and enjoyed the beauty to our hearts' content--but no! to do that one must linger until darkness shuts out the view.

Freshwater became famous through its association with Tennyson, and the poet by coming here destroyed to a certain extent the very retirement and quiet that he sought, for the tourists followed him, much to his disgust. Yet he used to go about in a great slouching hat and military cloak that advertised his presence to everyone--an inconsistency that even his little grandchild is said to have noticed, and that she queried in her childish innocence, "If you don't like people to look at you, Grandpa, why do you wear that queer hat and cloak?" But in any event, the trippers, though often snubbed for their pains, flocked to Freshwater. They still come to the old home of the poet, and the present Lord Tennyson is said to welcome them even less than did his father.

We stopped at a post card shop just opposite the rear entrance to Farringford--a rustic gate opening into a narrow roadway between tall trees--and they told us that the ban on visitors was absolute. But one might see the house from the road. The unprecedented snow of the preceding winter had almost destroyed the tree so beloved of the poet--the

"giant Ilex, keeping leaf
When frosts are keen and days are brief,"

which hid the front of the house. Besides, the owner was now at Aldworth and the gardener might not be so averse to visitors--but we ignore the hint and content ourselves with a visit to Freshwater Church. Lady Tennyson is buried in the churchyard, her grave marked by a white marble cross. Inside there are tablets inscribed to the poet and his wife, who were regular attendants at the church, and a marble statue to the memory of Lionel, the son who died on shipboard in the Red Sea when returning from India. The village of Freshwater is full of picturesque cottages, and there are many more pretentious modern villas which indicate that the blight of a popular watering place threatens it. High on the hill, over the town and sea, towers the Tennyson memorial, a great Celtic cross, forty feet in height, reared by the poet's admirers in England and America.

There is little to see at Yarmouth, where we wait an hour or more for the boat. In the church is buried Admiral Holmes, the man who took the village of New Amsterdam from the Dutch and called it New York, and a marble statue, representing the great seaman standing by a cannon, commemorates this and other achievements. An English writer tells this curious story of the monument:

"Even a poor judge of such things can see at a glance that this is no ordinary piece of work. It is said that the unfinished statue was intended to represent Louis XIV. and was being conveyed by the sculptor in a French ship to Paris in order that the artist might model the head from the living subject. Holmes captured the vessel and conceived the brilliant idea of compelling the artist to complete the work with his (the admiral's) likeness instead of that of le Grand Monarque. The old fellow seems to wear a grim smile as he thinks of the joke, but as the head is undoubtedly of inferior workmanship to the body, the artist may have felt that he had his revenge."

The admiral was a native of Yarmouth and a part of his mansion is incorporated into the Pier Hotel. It still retains the old staircase and much antique paneling; and a tablet on the wall recites that Charles II. was a guest here in 1671 on a visit to Holmes.

We were soon aboard the little steamer, and despite marine rules and regulations, on the bridge with our friend the captain. We noticed that he was going far out of the usual course, directly toward the wreck of the Gladiator. For the warship Gladiator lay on her side a few furlongs off the coast west of Yarmouth, whither she had staggered and fallen when mortally wounded in a collision with the American liner, St. Paul, a few months before. Salvage crews were working to raise her and we naturally expressed interest in the sight. Our ancient mariner heard it and as he steered toward the wreck muttered something about getting "out of the way of the current," but added, "They may think I did it to give you a good view of the Gladiator!"--and we are still wondering if that was the reason for his detour. Far down the Solent he pointed out the Needles, Swinburne's "loose-linked rivets of rock," and he told us of the wild storms and shifting bars that confound the navigators in this locality. Ere long he had to attend closely to business, for the channel to Lymington is narrow and tortuous, being navigable only at high tide. A large coaling steamer partly obstructed our way and called forth a series of marine objurgations from our friend, but he quickly swung to the pier and the motor soon scrambled out of her little craft up the steep bank to terra firma.

We find that our jaunt in the Isle of Wight has covered only seventy miles and occupied just a day; still, thanks to our trusty car, we have seen about all the points of interest that the average tourist would care to see and which it would have required several days to visit in the ordinary manner of travel.

XVII

SOUTH ENGLAND NOOKS

One will find Lyndhurst in New Forest a pleasant place for a day's rest after returning from the Isle of Wight to the mainland. Especially is this so if it be early in the summer before the more crowded season comes on. The town will be fairly quiet then and the Crown Inn has an air of solid comfort that almost takes it out of the class of resort hotels. Its spacious gardens to the rear afford a sylvan retreat that is an agreeable variation from an almost continual life on the open road. Lyndhurst, it is true, is no longer the retired village of half a century ago, when Leighton and Millais came here to get away from busy London and to pursue their sketching without interruption. The rather ugly red brick church just over the way from the Crown evidences Lyndhurst's modernity, though its distressing newness may be momentarily forgotten in contemplation of Leighton's great altar piece, illustrating the story of the ten virgins.

One may care little about William Rufus, who was so fond of hunting in New Forest and who, while engaged in his favorite pastime, was killed by a forester's arrow; yet a pilgrimage to the spot where he is said to have fallen is worth while--not merely to see the iron casting which encases the old stone, but to view one of the prettiest glades in the forest. We came early in the day, which is the time to come to avoid the crowds of trippers who flock here in season, and we had undivided possession of the scene of sylvan beauty. A shaded byway leads to the main road, which soon brings us to Romsey.

There is little to detain the wayfarer in Romsey aside from the abbey church, whose high roof reaches almost to the top of its central tower--in fact, the noble bulk of the church rises over the town, completely dwarfing the low buildings that crowd closely around it. One can but admire its great size and perfect proportions, and though there may be incongruous details, these will hardly be noticed by the layman.

The interior is almost pure Norman--massive pillars supporting the great rounded arches. The height and size of the columns give the church an impressiveness that is hardly surpassed by any other in the Kingdom, and after Durham, it easily ranks as the finest example of Norman architecture extant. It dates mainly from the twelfth century, and a Saxon church previously occupied the site, slight remains of this being incorporated into the present building. The most remarkable Saxon relic is a life-size image of Christ upon the cross, of a type not found later than the eleventh century.

There is often a gruesome side to the old English church--a bit of human skin flayed from a living church robber is shown at Gloucester, frightful effigies representing decayed corpses at Canterbury and Sherborne, and at Romsey a broad plait of human hair, found in recent restoration work. It was in a leaden casket and even the bones had mouldered to dust, but the soft brown hair was almost unaltered, and it is thought to have adorned the head of some Roman maiden, for the casket showed traces of Roman work. The old caretaker has reserved this weird little relic for the last of his wonders--we leave the abbey and pass out into the sunshine of the perfect summer day. We shall not soon forget Romsey Abbey Church and we cast more than one backward glance as its giant bulk recedes in the distance.

Surely Twyford, a few miles south of Winchester, has quite outlived any claim to its one-time title of "Queen of Hampshire villages." It has paid the price of its popularity; modern brick buildings crowd upon its creeper-clad cottages or have superseded them altogether. Its church has been restored to the point of newness, and its yew tree, locally reputed to be the largest in England, is easily surpassed by the one at Selborne. Still, Twyford is not without an especial interest to American visitors. Here stands the Elizabethan mansion where Benjamin Franklin penned his autobiography while a guest of the vicar of St. Asaphs. The rambling old house with a fine stretch of lawn in front of it may be plainly seen from the road.

No matter how frequently the wanderer may pause in Winchester, the attraction of the ancient capital can never be outworn. One might spend a day among the college buildings, whose rough flint walls and slate roofs, sagging but little beneath the weight of years, stand much the same as when the builder finished them six hundred years ago. Nor should St. Cross and its quaint brotherhood, one of those strange medieval charities, be forgotten. A great quadrangle of buildings and an elaborate church, all for "thirteen poor men decayed and past their strength," seems a great means for a small achievement. Much has fallen into disuse, but the church is still in good condition and in many respects a remarkable piece of architecture. But after all, Winchester's greatest charm is not in her college or her cathedral, but in her old-world streets and odd corners. Nor should one forget the shops in which antiques of merit in furniture, books and other articles may be found.

A broad easy road leads from Winchester through Alton to Jane Austen's Chawton, from whence a secluded byway brings us to Selborne, a nook that every tourist knows. But Selborne, nestling beneath its hills, its thatched cottages and weather-worn buildings stretching along a wide grass-grown street, has no hint of the resort town. There are other villages in the Hampshire and Surrey hills that may match it, but none of them had a Gilbert White to give it immortality.

The street was quite deserted on the drowsy summer afternoon when we checked our car under the great tree beneath which the village worthys congregate in Selborne. A shopkeeper pointed out the Wakes, once White's vicarage, which a modern owner has extended into a large rambling house, probably bearing little resemblance to the modest home of the curate of Selborne. Still, it incorporates his cottage, though red brick and tile have displaced the half-timber gables and thatched roof. But his church is not much altered and the giant yew, the largest we saw in England, is still standing, hale and green. Its circumference measured twenty-three feet in White's time, and he declared that its years must be at least coeval with Christianity. Its girth at present exceeds twenty-five feet. One cannot stand beneath it without being impressed with its hoary antiquity, and the great events that crowd the procession of years which have passed over the old tree quite overwhelm one.

Indeed, it must have stood here when the Romans ruled in Britain; it was sturdy and green when the Conqueror came a thousand summers past, and it looks today as if it well might weather the storms of a third millennium. Such historic trees have almost a human personality; and, fortunately, they are carefully guarded by an enlightened public sentiment in England.

The day is a quiet one in Selborne; we have the yew tree and church all to ourselves. We wander about the churchyard and with difficulty locate the unpretentious headstone with the almost illegible initials, "G. W."--a simple memorial, indeed--though inside the church there is an appropriate tablet to the memory of the well beloved naturalist. One can easily see how he could lead in Selborne the simple studious life reflected in his works. Verily, we need a revival of his plain common sense today when the fiction of the nature-faker bids fair to supersede the facts of natural history.

From Selborne it is but a step across the border into the downs of Sussex--"Green Sussex, fading into blue," as the poet so aptly puts it. The low sun strikes along the rough hills as we enter Midhurst, nestling in a nook in the downs and reached by rather difficult roads. It is a quiet town with an air of thorough self-contentment; a town of weather-beaten houses with over-hanging timbered gables, sagging tile roofs and diamond-paned casements; one long wide street sweeps through it with narrow crooked lanes branching to either side--an unspoiled old-country town, as yet quite undiscovered by the globe-trotters.

And yet Midhurst is not without historic importance, having been a place of considerable size at the time of the Conquest. The site of its strong castle which once stood on the banks of the pretty little river, Rother, is now marked only by a grass-covered mound; but it was once the home of a powerful Norman family, the Bohuns, who in 1547 entertained King Edward VI. in great splendor. Nor is Midhurst wanting in associations with famous men, for Sir Charles Lyell, the great geologist, and Richard Cobden, the "Father of English Free Trade," received their early education in the ancient grammar school which may yet be seen.

But the romance of Midhurst is in Cowdray Park, the estate which adjoins the town. What a pity it is that the mansion and the story did not seize the fancy of Walter Scott--who alone could have done it justice. We entered the park and drove through an avenue of giant chestnuts directly to the shattered palace. And what a glorious ruin it is, with its immense stone-mullioned windows, its great grouped chimneys, and sculptured mantels and bosses that cling to the wall here and there. Though roofless, the walls are almost entire, and over them the ivy flings its dark mantle and falls in heavy masses from the broken battlements. One does not care to analyze the ruin into its component parts--what did we care for hall and chapel and chamber? It is the impression that came to us as we wandered through it in the fading light that lingers with us now. What a memory it is of darkened halls, of great empty windows, through which the light falls mellow and ghostly, and of weird traditions which the old crone who keeps the key constantly droned in our ears.

The curse of Cowdray has made more than one listener shudder and turn pale and even those who listen as we do in benevolent scepticism can only say, "Strange--strange!" For the lands of Cowdray were rent from the monkish owners by the ruthless Henry and were given into the possession of the first viscount of Montague, who built the splendid palace, one of the costliest and most imposing in the Kingdom. It was in no sense a fortified castle, but a great baronial residence, standing on low-lying grounds with no attempt at strength of position. In some respects the palace recalls Kirby Hall, though here ruin is more complete.

When the last monkish habitant departed from the lands of Cowdray, he left his curse upon them: that the line of the Montagues should perish by fire and water. It was long in being fulfilled, but in 1793 the palace was destroyed by fire and the last Montague was drowned in a foolhardy attempt to swim across the Rhine above the Falls of Schoffhausen. He must have perished without knowing the fate of his ancestral home. With the palace were burned many works of art and antiquities of inestimable value, among the latter the roll of Battle Abbey and the coronation robes and sword of William the Conqueror. The estate descended to the sister of Lord Montague, who, dreading the curse, is said to have guarded her two sons with the greatest care, even filling the fish ponds near her home and keeping the youths jealously away from sea and river. Yet one day they escaped from the care of their attendants and were both drowned in the sea at Bognor. The broken-hearted mother sold Cowdray to the Earl of Egremont, who had no issue to inherit it. But the curse seems to cling to it still--after our visit a wealthy London contractor purchased the estate and began a thorough repair of the modern house (not the ruined palace), but while the work was in progress the mansion caught fire and was burned to the ground.

Darkness overtakes us as we sweep along the hills toward Worthing, where we arrive by lamplight. Morning reveals a quiet and somewhat secluded watering-town, patronized by people who seek to get away from the ceremony and expense of such places as Brighton and Bournemouth. Its hotels are unpretentious, comfortable and accommodating--qualities not so common to resort inns as to go without notice. But Worthing is modern; there is little to detain one on such a pilgrimage as our own. We follow the broad white road which climbs steadily northward from the sea to the distant hills and winds among them to the dreary hamlet of Washington. The name, so familiar to us, bears no reference to the distinguished family. It is of old Saxon derivation--Wasa-inga-tun (town of the sons of Wasa).

From the Original Painting by Daniel Sherrin.]

Near at hand is Warminghurst, once the Sussex home of William Penn, who bought the great house in 1676. One of his children died here and is buried in Coolham churchyard close by. Penn was wont to attend services at the meeting house not far away, which was built of timbers taken from one of his ships. It goes locally by the strange designation of "The Blue Idol"--just why, no one seemed to know--and we wandered long in unmarked byroads ere we found it. It is a mile and a half from Coolham, and one follows for a mile a narrow lane branching from the Billingshurst road.

The simple old caretaker lives in a modern addition to the chapel and tills the plot of ground in connection with it. The chapel is a low brick-and-timber building whose interior is the plainest imaginable; a half dozen high-backed benches, a platform pulpit without a stand, and a few books made up its furnishings. As at Jordans, the women sat during worship in a gallery which could be cut off by a sliding partition in case of interruption by persecutors. The old law forbade the assembling of women in the Quaker meetings, but from the gallery they could participate in the services, yet could instantly be shut out of the room if the king's officers should arrive. Outside, the chapel is surrounded by greensward and tall trees, and the old man was mowing the grass in the tiny burying-ground. Services are still held at intervals, as they have been for the past two centuries or more. Probably the spot was chosen on account of its very retirement, since when the chapel was built it was a criminal offense for the Quakers to assemble in any place of worship. The chapel is unaltered and seems quite as remote and lonely as it must have been in Penn's time; and the spirit of that old day comes very near as one stands in the tiny room where the founder of the great American Commonwealth was wont to worship according to his conscience, coming hither from Warminghurst in his heavy ox-wagon.

We now begin an uninterrupted run to the east through Mid-Sussex over an unsurpassed road to Cuckfield, Hayward's Heath, and Uckfield. We continue on the London and Eastbourne road to Hailsham, from whence a digression of three or four miles brings us to the ruins of Herstmonceux Castle. Though styled a castle, it was really a great castellated country mansion, never intended as a defensive fortress. It reminds one in a certain way of Cowdray, though it lacks much of the beauty and grace of the Midhurst palace, and its conversion by its owner into a picnic ground also does much to detract.

The story of its destruction is peculiar. It was deliberately dismantled and partially torn down in 1777 by its owner, who used the materials in erecting a smaller house, now called Herstmonceux Place, which would be less expensive to maintain. It is interesting to know that Wyatt, the architect who dealt so barbarously with Salisbury and Hereford Cathedrals, was the advisor of this wanton destruction. The last descendant of the original owner died in 1662, and since then the estate has changed hands many times. It is now one of the most popular tripper resorts in Sussex and during the summer months the daily visitors number hundreds.

It is not our wont to trouble ourselves much with the sober history of such places, but there is one melancholy incident of the early days of the palace which has weird interest for the wanderer who stands amidst the shattered grandeur, and which we may best relate in the words of an English historian:

"Lord Dacre, of Herstmonceux, a young nobleman of high spirit and promise, not more than twenty-four years old, was tempted by his own folly, or that of his friends, to join a party to kill deer in the park of an unpopular neighbor. The excitement of lawless adventure was probably the chief or only inducement for the expedition; but the party were seen by the foresters; a fray ensued, in which one of the latter was mortally wounded and died two days after.

"Had Lord Dacre been an ordinary offender he would have been disposed of summarily. Both he and his friends happened to be general favorites. The Privy Council hesitated long before they resolved on a prosecution and at last it is likely they were assisted by a resolution from the King.

"'I found all the Lords at the Star Chamber,' Sir William Paget wrote to Wriothesley, 'assembled for a conference touching Lord Dacre's case. They had with them present the Chief Justice with others of the King's learned council, and albeit I was excluded, yet they spoke so loud, some of them, that I might hear them notwithstanding two doors shut between us. Among the rest that could not agree to wilful murder, the Lord Cobham, as I took him by his voice, was very vehement and stiff.' They adjourned at last to the King's Bench. The Lord Chancellor was appointed High Steward and the prisoner was brought up to the bar. He pleaded 'not guilty,' he said that he intended no harm, he was very sorry for the death of the forester, but it had been caused in an accidental struggle; and 'surely,' said Paget, who was president, 'it was a pitiful sight to see a young man brought by his own folly into so miserable a state.' The lords, therefore, as it seems they had determined among themselves, persuaded him to withdraw his plea and submit to the King's clemency. He consented; and they repaired immediately to the Court to intercede for his pardon. Eight persons in all were implicated--Lord Dacre and seven companions. The young nobleman was the chief object of commiseration; but the King remained true to his principles of equal justice; the frequency of crimes of violence had required extraordinary measures of repression; and if a poor man was to be sent to the gallows for an act into which he might be tempted by poverty, thoughtlessness could not be admitted as an adequate excuse because the offender was a peer. Four out of the eight were pardoned. For Lord Dacre there was to the last an uncertainty. He was brought to the scaffold, when an order arrived to stay the execution, probably to give time for a last appeal to Henry. But if it was so the King was inexorable. Five hours later the sheriff was again directed to do his duty; and the full penalty was paid."

Leaving the ruined mansion we drop down to the seashore, passing Bexhill on the way to Hastings, which is now a modern city of sixty-five thousand people, its red-brick, tile-roofed houses rising in terraces overlooking the sea. Once it was an important seaport, but here the sea has advanced and wiped out the harbor, and it is now chiefly known as a watering-place. A few miles from the town was fought the Battle of Hastings, which stamped the name so deeply on English history and marked the overthrow of the Saxon dynasty. On a precipitous hill looking far over town and sea stands the scanty ruin of its castle, whose story is much clouded, though legend declares it was built by the Conqueror.

Far greater is the attraction of the unspoiled old towns of Winchelsea and Rye, a few miles farther on the coast road. A former visit gives them a familiar look, but we stop an hour in Rye. The receding sea robbed these towns of their importance hundreds of years ago, and their daily life is now quite undisturbed by modern progress. Each occupies a commanding hill separated by a few miles of low-lying land. A local writer makes the truest appeal for Rye when he declares that it gives us today a presentment of a town of centuries earlier. "Rye," he says, "is southern and opulent in coloring. There is here mellowness, a gracious beauty; one has the feeling that every house and garden is the pride and love of its owner, and indeed this impression is a true one, for it is the characteristic of Rye to inspire the loving admiration of its inhabitants, whether native-born or drawn thither in later life."

Rye has a magnificent church, the largest in Sussex, which overshadows the town from the very crest of the hill. A very unusual church it is, with a low cone-pointed tower and triple roofs lying alongside each other. At the end of the nave are three immense stone-mullioned windows, very effective and imposing, though the glass is modern. Queen Elizabeth presented to the church the remarkable old tower clock which has marked time steadily for more than three hundred years. The pendulum swings low inside, describing a wide arc only a little above the preacher's head.

From Original Water Color by Theresa Thorp, A. R. M. S.]

Rye itself is quite as interesting as its church, a place of crooked lanes and odd buildings, among which the hospital pictured in such a realistic manner by our artist is one of the most notable. It is a splendid combination of stucco and timber, with red tiled gables and diamond-paned lattice windows. Much else there is in Rye to tempt one to linger, but the sun is setting and we are off on the fine level road to Folkestone. For the latter half of the distance we run along the very edge of the ocean--as we saw it, fifteen miles of shimmering twilight water. Those who are attracted by the gruesome will pause at the old church in Hythe to see the strange collection of human remains, thousands of skulls and bones, that are ranged on shelves or piled in heaps on the floor in the crypt. Whence these ghastly relics came, antiquarians dispute; but local tradition has it that a great battle was fought near Hythe, between the Britons and Danes, and these bones are the remains of the slain. Be that as it may, one does not care to linger--a mere glance at such a charnel house is quite sufficient.