Chapter XXI: Ludlow Town 379 (4)

And we ourselves are pilgrims to St. David's shrine--not by the slow horseback cavalcade of old days, or the more modern coach, but by motor car. Our forty-horse engine makes quick work of the precipitous hill out of Haverfordwest and carries us without lagging over the dozen long steep hills on the road to the ancient town. Shortly before reaching St. David's the road drops down to the ocean side, but the sea is hidden by a long ridge of stones and pebbles piled high by the inrushing waters. The tide was far out and we saw no finer beach on the Welsh coast than the one that lay before us as we stood on the stony drift. A great expanse of yellow--almost literally golden--sand ran down to a pale green sea, which lapped it in silvery sunlit ripples, so quiet and peaceful was the day. But one could not but think of the scope afforded for the wild play of the ocean on stormy days--how the scene must be beyond all description

"When the great winds shoreward blow,
And the salt tides seaward flow;
Where the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray."

We left the car near the ancient stone cross in the deserted market place of St. David's and sought the cathedral, which is strangely situated in a deep dell, the top of the Norman tower being only a little above the level of the market place. The cathedral has been recently restored, more perhaps on account of its historic past than any present need for it, but the bishop's palace, once one of the most elaborate and extensive in the Kingdom, stands in picturesque decay, beyond any hope of rehabilitation. As to the old-time importance of St. David's as contrasted with its present isolation, the words of an enthusiastic English writer may perhaps serve better than my own:

"Centuries ago St. David's bishop had seven palaces for his pleasure; now he does not dwell in his own city. Of old the offerings at St. David's shrine were divided every Saturday among the priests by the dishful, to save time in counting the coins; now a few pounds weekly is accounted a good collection total. Ancient kings came hither in state to confess their sins; in this travelling age only the enterprising tourist comes to the city at all. Eight or nine roads converged upon the little place on its headland of about three miles square, but the majority are now no better than humble weather-worn lanes. The Atlantic winds sweep across the depression by the Alan brook in which St. David's Cathedral, the extensive ruins of the bishop's palace, and the many other fragments of St. David's glorious prime nestle among trees, with the humble cottages of the city itself surrounding them as if they loved them. Even the dilapidation here is so graceful that one would hardly wish it altered into the trim and rather smug completeness of many an English cathedral with its close."

The cathedral is extremely interesting and made doubly so by an intelligent verger whom we located with considerable difficulty. Pilgrims to St. David's were apparently too infrequent to justify the good man's remaining constantly on duty as in larger places, and a placard forbidding fees, may have dampened his zeal in looking for visitors. But we found him at last in his garden, and he did his part well; nothing curious or important in the history of the cathedral was forgotten by him. The leaning Norman pillars, the open roof of Irish oak, the gorgeous ceiling with its blood-red and gold decorations, and many relics discovered during the restoration, were pointed out and properly descanted upon. But one might write volumes of a shrine which kings once underwent many hardships to visit, among them Harold the Saxon and his conqueror, William of Normandy. Nothing but a visit can do it justice, and with the advent of the motor car, old St. David's will again be the shrine of an increasing number of pilgrims, though their mission and personel be widely different from the wayfarers of early days.

There is only one road out of the lonely little town besides that which brought us thither and we were soon upon the stony and uncomfortable highway to Cardigan. Here we found roadmaking in primitive stages; the broken stone had been loosely scattered along the way waiting for the heavy-wheeled carts of the farmers to serve the purpose of the steam roller. The country is pitifully barren and the little hovels--always gleaming with whitewash--were later called to mind by those in Ireland. There are no great parks with fine mansions to relieve the monotony of the scene. Only fugitive glimpses of the ocean from the upland road occasionally lend a touch of variety. At Fishguard, a mean little town with a future before it--for it is now the Welsh terminus of the Great Western Railway's route to Ireland--we paused in the crowded market square and a courteous policeman approached us, divining that we needed directions.

"The road to Cardigan? Straight ahead down the hill."

"It looks pretty steep," we suggested.

"Yes, but nothing to the one you must go up out of the town. Just like the roofs of those houses there, and the road rough and crooked. Yes, this is all there is of Fishguard; pretty quiet place except on market days."

We thanked the officer and cautiously descended the hill before us. We then climbed much the steepest and most dangerous hill we found in all the twelve thousand or more miles covered by our wanderings. To our dismay, a grocer's cart across the narrow road compelled us to stop midway on the precipitous ascent, but the motor proved equal to the task and we soon looked back down the frightful declivity with a sigh of relief. We were told later of a traveling showman who had been over all the main roads of the Island with a traction engine and who declared this the worst hill he knew of.

Newport--quite different from the Eastern Welsh Newport--and Cardigan are quaint, old-world villages, though now decayed and shrunken. I will not write of them, though the history of each is lost in the mists of antiquity and the former possesses an imposing though ruinous castle. The road between them is hilly, but the hills are well wooded and the prospects often magnificent and far-reaching. We found it much the same after leaving Cardigan, though the country is distinctly better and more pleasing than the extreme south. The farm houses appear more prosperous, and well-cared-for gardens surround them. Nowhere did we find the people kinder or more courteous. An instance occurred at Carmarthen, where we stopped to consult our maps. The owner of a near-by jewelry shop came out and accosted us. Did we want information about the roads? He had lived in Carmarthen many years and was familiar with all the roads about the town. To Llandovery? We had come too far; the road north of the river is the best and one of the prettiest in Wales. It would be worth our while to go back a mile and take this road.

Thanking him, we retraced our way through the long main street of the town and were soon away over one of the most perfect and beautiful of Welsh highways. It runs in straight broad stretches between rows of fine trees, past comfortable-looking farm houses, and through cozy little hamlets nestling amid trees and shrubbery, and seems constantly to increase in charm until it takes one into Llandovery, twenty-five miles from Carmarthen and the center of one of the most picturesque sections of Wales.

Lying among wooded hills in a valley where two clear little rivers join their waters, Llandovery--the church among the waters--is a village of surpassing loveliness. The touch of antiquity so necessary to complete the charm is in the merest fragment of its castle, a mouldering bit of wall on a mound overlooking the rivers--dismantled "by Cromwell's orders." Delightful as the town is, its surroundings are even more romantic. The highest peaks of South Wales, the Beacon and the Black Mountains, overlook it and in the recesses of these rugged hills are many resorts for the fisherman and summer excursionist. From the summits are vast panoramas of wooded hills and verdant valleys. The view is so far-reaching that on a clear day one may see the ocean to the south; or, far distant in the opposite direction, the snow-crowned mountains of Northern Wales.

The road from Llandovery to Brecon is as fine as that to Carmarthen, though it is more sinuous and hilly. But it is perfectly surfaced and climbs the hills in such long sweeping curves and easy uniform grades that the steepest scarcely checks the flight of our car as it hastens at a thirty-five mile gait to Brecon. It is growing late--we might well wish for more time to admire the views from the hillside road. The valleys are shrouded in the purple haze of twilight and the sky is rich with sunset coloring. It has been a strenuous day for us--one of our longest runs over much bad road. We note with satisfaction the promise of a first-class hotel at Brecon, though we find it crowded almost to our exclusion. But we are so weary that we vigorously protest and a little shifting--with some complaint from the shifted parties--makes room for us. We are told in awe-stricken whispers that the congestion is partly due to the fact that Her Grace the Duchess of B---- (wife of one of the richest peers in England) has arrived at the hotel with her retinue, traveling in two motor cars. She was pointed out to us in the morning as she walked along the promenade in very short skirts, accompanied by her poodle. We heard of this duke often in our journeyings, one old caretaker in a place owned by the nobleman assuring us that his income was no less than a guinea a minute! The duke owns many blocks of buildings in some of the busiest sections of London. The land occupied by them came into possession of the family through the marriage of the great-grandfather of the present holder of the title with the daughter of a dairy farmer who owned much of the quarter where London real estate is now of fabulous value--thus showing that some of the English aristocracy rose to wealth by means quite as plebeian as some of those across the water. Nowadays the penniless duke would have crossed the Atlantic to recoup his fortune, instead of turning to a rich dairyman's daughter in his own country.

But in indulging in this more or less interesting gossip, I am forgetting Brecon and the Castle Hotel, rightly named in this instance, for the hotel owns the old castle; it stands in the private grounds which lie between the hotel and the river and are beautified with flowers and shrubbery. Brecon boasts of great antiquity and it was here that Sir John Price made overtures to Henry VIII. which resulted in the union of England and Wales. The priory church is one of the largest and most important in Wales and is interesting in architecture as well as historical association. We saw the plain old house where the ever-charming Mrs. Siddons was born--a distinction of which Brecon is justly proud. And Brecon is not without its legend of Charles the Wanderer, who passed a day or two at the priory during one of his hurried marches in Wales, and the letter he wrote here is the first record we have of his despair of the success of the royal cause.

My chapter is already too long--but what else might be expected of an effort to crowd into a few pages the record of sights and impressions that might well fill a volume?

VIII

SOME NOOKS AND CORNERS

Early next day we were in Hereford, for it is but forty miles from Brecon by the Wye Valley road. It had been just one week since we had passed through the town preparatory to our tour of South Wales--a rather wearisome journey of well upon a thousand miles over some of the worst of Welsh roads. It was not strange, then, that we gladly seized the opportunity for a short rest in Hereford. There is something fascinating about the fine old cathedral town. It appeals to one as a place of repose and quiet, though this may be apparent rather than real, for we found the Green Dragon filled to the point of turning away would-be guests. The town stands sedately in the midst of the broad, level meadows which surround it on every side, and through its very center meanders the Wye, the queenliest of British rivers, as though loath to leave the confines of such a pleasant place. It is a modern city, despite its ancient history, for its old-time landmarks have largely disappeared and its crowded lanes have been superseded by broad streets. Even the cathedral has a distressingly new appearance, due to the recent restoration, and a public park occupies the site of the vanished castle. But for all that, one likes Hereford. Its newness is not the cheap veneer so frequently evident in the resort towns; it is solid and genuine throughout and there are enough antique corners to redeem it from monotony. To sum up our impressions, Hereford is a place one would gladly visit again--and again.

Jotted down on our map adjacent to the Tewkesbury road were blue crosses, indicating several seldom-visited nooks and corners we had learned of in our reading and which we determined to explore. No recollection of our wanderings comes back to us rosier with romance or more freighted with the spirit of rural England than that of our meanderings through the leafy byways of Worcestershire in search of Birtsmorton, Ripple, Stanton and Strensham. One will look long at the map before he finds them and a deal of inquiry was necessary before we reached Birtsmorton and its strange moated manor, Moreton Court. No better idea could be given of the somnolence and utter retirement of the little hamlet than the words of a local writer:

"Birtsmorton is remarkable for the almost total absence of the usual signs of trade and industry; even agriculture is prosecuted within such limits as consist with leaving an ample portion of its surface in the good feudal condition of extended sheep walks and open downs. Such Birtsmorton has ever been, such it still is--but, thanks to projected railroads, such we trust it will not always be."

The projected railroad has not yet arrived and the lover of quietude and of the truly rural will hope that it will still be long delayed. No quainter old place did we find in our long quest for the quaint than Moreton Court. Fancy a huge, rambling house, a mixture of brick and half-timber, with a great gateway over which the ancient port-cullis still shows its teeth, surrounded closely on all sides by the waters of a very broad moat and connected with the outer world by a drawbridge. Once inside the court, for you gain admission easily, you pause to look at the strange assortment of gables, huge chimneys and mullioned windows, all indicative of ancient state. Not less interesting is the interior; one finds a staircase of solid black oak with a queer, twisted newelpost, dark corridors leading to massive oaken doors, chambers with ceilings intersected by heavy beams, and a state apartment of surpassing beauty. This is a spacious room, paneled to the ceiling with finely wrought dark oak, its mullioned oriel windows overhanging the moat, which on this side widens to a lake. A marvelous chimney-piece with the arms of the ancient owners attracts attention and the scutcheons of a dozen forgotten noblemen are ranged as a frieze around the walls.

We will not seek to learn the history of the old house, but some of its legends have a strange fascination. It is surely appropriate that Moreton Court should have its ghost--the "lily maid" who on winter nights kneels over the grave of her murdered lover in the adjoining churchyard. Her stern father had driven her from his home because of her constancy to her yeoman lover, whom he caused to be hung on the false charge of stealing a cow. The next morning the cruel sire found his daughter dead at his door, covered with the winter snow. But there is another grim old legend far better authenticated, which had its origin in a sad incident occurring at Moreton Court two or three centuries ago, and a sermon is still annually preached in the church against dueling. A pair of lovers were plighting their troth in the manor gardens when an unsuccessful rival of the happy youth chanced upon them and a quarrel ensued which led to a duel fatal to both of the combatants. The heart-broken maiden ended her days in sorrow at Moreton Court and left by will a fund to provide for this annual sermon. Another weird story they tell of the great Wolsey, in his youth chaplain to the lords of Moreton Court. A recalcitrant priest from Little Malvern Priory was condemned to crawl on all fours from his cell to the summit of Ragged-Stone Hill and in his rage cursed all upon whom the shadow of the hill should afterwards fall. Wolsey was one day reading in the manor grounds when to his horror he found that the fatal shadow of the hill-crest enveloped him.

But today, for all its history and legend, Moreton Court has degenerated into an ill-kept tenement farmhouse and the banquet hall with its richly moulded plaster roof is used as a storehouse for cheese. The stagnant waters of the moat and the uncleanly dairy yard directly in front of the house accord ill with its old-time state and with our modern notions of sanitation. The church near at hand is older and quite as unique as the manor; little restoration has interfered with its antique charm. Its bench ends still show the Tudor Rose and are undoubtedly those originally placed in the church. A "sanctuary ring" in the door and an odd circular alms-chest are very unusual and the altar tombs and screens are worthy of notice. In the church are buried the ancient lords of Moreton Court, who sleep their long sleep while church and manor degenerate into plebeian hands and gradually fall into ruin.

We found it practically impossible at the close of the day to trace on the map the maze of byways we threaded before reaching Worcester, and now our wanderings come back only as a general impression. We crossed the Severn at Tewkesbury but did not enter the town. A departure from the Worcester road into a narrow lane led us in a mile or two into Ripple, one of the quaintest and coziest of hamlets. Only a few thatched cottages clustered about the stone market cross of immemorial days--cottages overshadowed by no less immemorial elms, mantled with ivy and dashed with the color of rose vines. Near the cross, relics of days when there were rogues in Ripple--surely there are none now--are the oaken stocks and weather-beaten whipping-post. What a quiet, dreamy, secluded place it seems. It is hard indeed to imagine that within a circle of fifty miles is a country teeming with cities. If the village has any history we did not learn it--no great man is connected with Ripple as Tennyson with Somersby, though Ripple is not unlike Somersby. Ripple is worth a day's journey just for itself. Only one lane leads to the village, but we left it over a wide common, passing many gates to regain the main road.

We left this again in a few miles for Strensham, a village not unlike Ripple, though larger. Its church, our "object of interest," is situated in the fields a mile from the town. No open road leads to it, only a rough stone-strewn path through the fields. They told us, though, that we might take the car to the church, and we passed through several gates before we paused in the green meadow in front of the old structure. There was no one in charge; the doors were locked and it looked as if our pains in coming were all for nothing. A man who was trimming the hedge pointed out the rectory and a little effort brought forth the rector himself, who seemed much pleased that pilgrims should be interested enough to come to his church.

Surely Strensham Church is one of the quaintest of the smaller English churches. The restorer's hand has not as yet marred its oddity--though sorely needed, the rector said, to arrest too evident decay. The floor is of uneven flagstones, interspersed here and there with remnants of the original tiling. The high-backed oaken pews have been in place for centuries, but, alas, have been covered by a coat of yellow "grained" paint.

"I had a man come from London to give me the cost of removing the paint," said the rector, "but he said it would be sixty pounds--quite out of the question when money is so much needed to prevent actual decay."

The rood loft, bearing a dozen painted panels of saints--as old, perhaps, as the church, yet with colors rich and strong, is very remarkable. Each face has a characteristic expression, in most cases rather quaintly distorted, and each saint has some distinguishing mark, as St. Anthony with his pig. There are several unusually fine brasses, but the best of these had been torn from its original grave before the altar a hundred years ago by an ambitious squire who desired to occupy this place of honor himself.

"But like the man in the scriptures who sought the head of the table only to be humiliated, the usurper is likely to be removed," said the rector, "and the fourteenth century brass replaced over the grave."

The little church seems lonely and poverty-stricken, but the rectory near at hand is a large, comfortable house surrounded by well-kept gardens. Strensham village has a decided advantage over its lowly neighbor, Ripple, for it is known to fame as the birthplace of Samuel Butler, the author of "Hudibras."

A charming road leads through Upton-on-Severn to Malvern Wells and Great Malvern, but we had no leisure to contemplate its beauties; a car was bent on passing us--to which we were much averse, for the road was very dusty. We had only a glimpse of the Malverns, with their endless array of hotels, lodging-houses and other resort-town characteristics. The two towns are practically continuous and lie beneath the Malvern Hills, whose slopes, diversified with stone-walled fields, groves and farm villages, stretch away to the blue haze that nearly always envelops the summits. Yet Malvern is not without a touch of antiquity--no doubt the Romans had a station here and the splendid priory church rivals some of the cathedrals in size and dignity. Only scanty ruins remain of the domestic portions of the abbey, which, with the great beautifully carved Gothic gateway, constitute all that is left of the old order besides the church. A delightful feature of the towns is the Common--when we saw it, fine stretches of greensward with many noble trees. The Common was at one time a royal domain, and Charles I. in his stresses for money undertook to sell the land to raise funds, but such rioting ensued in Malvern that a compromise was effected by surrendering two-thirds of the Chase, as the Common was then called, to the people. Though the forests have been greatly thinned by the ax, there still remains enough of sylvan beauty to give to Malvern Common an indescribable charm, and so intersected is it with sinuous roads that it was with difficulty we started aright for Worcester.

On our way to the cathedral city we passed the battlefield where the momentous encounter took place between the forces of Cromwell and the Royalists under Prince Charles--or, as his followers claimed, King Charles II. through his Scotch coronation--which resulted in such disaster to the royal arms. Cromwell called it his "crowning mercy," and indeed it ended all organized efforts against the Commonwealth while the Protector lived. Charles fled to Boscobel, as already related, and after many adventures reached France to remain until peacefully recalled after Oliver's death.

Worcester is one of the fine old towns that tempt one to linger, no matter how often he may come. Modern improvements have swept away many of the relics of extreme antiquity; yet the Romans were certainly here, and before them the early Britons had a fortified town on the site. The streets are now lined with attractive shops and here is extensive manufacturing--few indeed are the wayfarers who escape paying tribute to "Royal Worcester" before they leave. Not a little of the charm of the town is due to the Severn, lying broad, bright and still in its very heart. We pause for tea--again the mild dissipation of the Englishman attracts us--at the Star Hotel, and as we depart from the city look lingeringly at the majestic yet graceful outlines of the cathedral towers against the evening sky.

From the Original Painting by B. W. Leader, R. A.]

Coventry is but forty miles away. The King's Head comes to our minds, though ever so faintly, as something like home, and we may reach it by the grace of the long twilight. And what a flight it is--through the most delightful section of rural England, tinged with the golden glows and purple shades of a perfect summer evening. We sweep over the broad road to Droitwich, and as soon as we can solve the mystery of its tortuous streets, we enter the excellent though rather narrow and winding highway that leads through Alcester to Shakespeare's Stratford.

It had evidently been a gala day in the old town, for the streets were thronged with people, mostly from the surrounding country, though no doubt there was a goodly number of our fellow-countrymen in the crowd, since it was now the height of the Stratford season. Under the circumstances, the "eight-mile" limit notice posted on the roads entering the town was quite superfluous; we could scarcely have violated it--so it seemed, at least--had it been only a mile an hour. Once away on the surpassing road to Coventry, the fifteen miles occupied scarce half an hour, despite the checks at Warwick and Kenilworth. Coventry was thronged with the happy "Week-End" holiday crowd, through which we slowly made our way to the King's Head, where we were now well known and received as warm a welcome as one may find at an inn.

Sunday, by odds the best day for getting about London or the larger cities, is not so satisfactory for touring in the rural sections. The roads are thronged with pedestrians, including many women and children. Not a few of the women pushed perambulators and often showed a strange perversity in crossing to the farther side of the road in front of the car. Besides, a number of the places one may desire to visit are closed on Sundays, though the tendency is constantly towards more liberality in this particular. Yet there was nothing agreeable in lounging about a hotel, and Sunday--afternoons, at least--usually found us on the road. It was very quiet in Nuneaton, the rather ugly town which George Eliot made famous as "Milby." The farmhouse where the authoress was born and the old manor, her home for many years, were not accessible. The throngs of Sunday wayfarers made progress slow, but we reached Tamworth for late luncheon at the excellent Castle Hotel and learned that the castle--the tower of Scott's "Marmion," would be open during the afternoon.

Tamworth Castle is now the property of the town corporation and the grounds have been converted into a public park, which, judging from the crowds that filled it on the fine afternoon, must be well appreciated. The castle is situated on a high, apparently artificial mound. It has been put in tolerable repair and is used as a museum. So well preserved is it that one may gain a good idea of the domestic life of a feudal nobleman of the fourteenth century--a life comfortless and rude, judged by our present standards. There is much paneling and elaborate wood-carving on the walls and mantels of many of the rooms, and one may be quite lost in the devious passageways that lead to odd nooks and quaint, irregular apartments. The view from the keep tower, with its massive over-hanging battlements, was indeed a lovely one. The day was perfectly clear, permitting a far-reaching outlook over the valley of the Tame, a fertile country of meadow lands and yellowing harvest fields, while westward in the distance the spires of Lichfield pierced the silvery sky.

There is, perchance, something a little incongruous in a restored and well-cared-for old-time castle such as Tamworth. It can never appeal to the imagination as does the shattered, neglected ruin crumbling away beneath its mantle of ivy and flaunting its banners of purple and yellow wall-flowers. But after all, the Tamworth idea is the right one and insures the preservation of many historic buildings which otherwise might gradually fall into complete decay. And yet one almost shudders to think of Ludlow or Raglan under such conditions.

We hastened over the broad road to Lichfield, and passing through its irregular streets, with which we are now fairly familiar, followed the river to Colwich, where we paused to admire the splendid Decorated church which overshadows the quiet village. But few prettier and more truly rural byroads did we find anywhere than the one running northward from Colwich to Uttoxeter. On either side were flower-spangled hedge-rows, or in places long ranks of over-arching trees. Though the road was excellent, the trim neatness so characteristic of England was quite wanting. The tangle of wild flowers, vines and shrubbery was faintly suggestive of country roadsides in some of our Western states.

Midway we came into full view of a lonely ruined castle standing on the crest of a gently rising hill, and surrounded by a lawnlike meadow running down to the road. The ragged towers and crumbling walls stood gray and forbidding against a background of giant trees, and these were sharply outlined against the bluest of English skies. We learn later that it is Chartley Castle, which stands in a tract of ancient forest and heath land, upon which roams a herd of wild white cattle similar to those of Chillingham. Over Chartley broods the somber memory of its one-time owner, the Earl of Ferrars, who in a fit of anger murdered a steward and was hanged two centuries ago for the crime at Tyburn. It was his whim to be dressed in his wedding garments and hanged with a silken cord. He was stoic to the last and would say no more than he expressed in the misanthropic lines:

"In doubt I lived, in doubt I die,
Yet stand prepared the vast abyss to try,
And undismayed expect eternity."

A grim old tale that fits well with the lonely fortress, standing in unguarded ruin in the mysterious forest about it.

But the day was waning and we hastened on to Uttoxeter, a town to which Nathaniel Hawthorne made a pilgrimage nearly half a century ago, attracted by the fact that it is the birthplace of Dr. Samuel Johnson. He regretted that there was no memorial of the great author in his native town, but this has since been supplied. An ugly fountain has been erected on the traditional spot where Johnson did penance, as he described in a letter to Miss Seward on his return from Uttoxeter:

"Fifty years ago, madam, on the day, I committed a breach of filial piety which has ever since lain heavy on my mind, and has not till this day been expiated. My father ... had long been in the habit of attending Uttoxeter market and opening a stall of his books during that day. Confined to his bed by indisposition, he requested me, this time fifty years, to visit the market in his place. But, madam, my pride prevented me from doing my duty and I gave my father a refusal. To do away the sin of disobedience, this day I went in a post-chaise to Uttoxeter, and going into the market at the time of high business, uncovered my head and stood with it bare an hour before the stall which my father formerly used, exposed to the sneers of the standers-by and the inclemency of the weather."

The open road to Derby is broad, straight, smooth and level--what a combination of excellences for the motorist!--and the car skims joyously along. There are many fine estates on either hand with wide forest-dotted parks and imposing gateways. Derby is a large, rather unattractive town and we do not care to linger. Mansfield appeals more strongly to us, for Mansfield is the center of the Byron country. The road is not a pleasing one, passing through towns crowded with workingmen's cottages and climbing steep, stony hills. At dusk we come into Mansfield and find it a larger town than we had fancied--a rather modern city built around an ancient center, in the very heart of which stands the old many-gabled Swan Inn.

IX

THE BYRON COUNTRY

The exterior of the Swan Inn, its weather-beaten gables crowded between rather shabby-looking buildings on either side, is not wholly prepossessing. We hesitate to enter the courtyard, though it is quite late, until a policeman assures us there is nothing better in the town--or in the country about, for that matter. Had we needed further assurance, we might have glanced at our trusty Baedeker to find the Swan honored with special mention as "an excellent, long-established house with winding oak stairs three hundred years old." Once inside our misgivings vanish instantly amidst the air of cleanliness, solid comfort and pleasant antiquity that prevails. We have a large room, almost oppressive in its wealth of mahogany, and, dimly lighted by candles in ancient candlesticks, it seems pervaded with an air of ghostly mystery. There are tall-posted, canopied beds of marvelous state, mysterious oaken chests heavily carved, antique chairs, quaint old settees, and many curious things wrought in brass and copper.

Altogether, few other of the country inns had quite the charm of the Swan, and very agreeable did we find the ladies who managed it. We told them of our previous futile attempts to see Newstead Abbey and they were certain that the coveted privilege would be secured for us on the following day--it had never been refused to guests of the Swan at the request of the manageress. She would write at once and would doubtless have an answer in the morning. It need hardly be said that we were glad to stay another day at the Swan and in the meanwhile visit some of the curious and delightful spots in which Derbyshire abounds. No section of England is more famed than the "Peak District," with Haddon Hall, Chatsworth, Bakewell Church, Buxton and Dovedale; and though almost unknown to tourists, the great moorlands which stretch away to the north we found none the less interesting.

Chesterfield Church is famous for its distorted spire, strangely twisted and leaning several degrees from the vertical. Some say it was due to a whim of the designer, but local legend prefers to ascribe it to the malice of His Satanic Majesty, who chose such queer ways of venting his spite on the churches of olden time. If he indeed twisted Chesterfield's spire, it was at least a far more obvious evidence of his ill will toward churches than the scratch of his claw still shown on the bell of St. Mary's at Shrewsbury. But the troublesome antiquarians, who have such a way of discrediting the painstaking and very satisfactory work of the legend-makers, would have us believe that the oaken timbers of the spire warped while seasoning under their coverings of lead. Be that as it may, Chesterfield Church is worthy a few minutes' pause on account of its remarkable tombs and unusual screen mysteriously carved with emblems of the crucifixion. Less imposing is Trinity Church, though the white marble tablet on its walls with the simple inscription, "George Stephenson, died August 12, 1848, aged 68 years," will have a fascination for the wayfarer from the remotest part of the earth, wherever the steam railroad has penetrated. The great inventor spent his declining years in retirement on a farm about a mile from Chesterfield, and his house still stands, partly hidden from the road by ancient trees.

We had no desire to visit Chatsworth House a second time, though we followed the much frequented road through the park. No section of rural England, possibly excepting the Stratford-upon-Avon country is more favored by tourists; motors, carriages and chars-a-bancs were everywhere in evidence and stirred up clouds of limestone dust, which whitened the trees and hedges and filled the sky with a silvery haze. The number of English visitors is greater than at Stratford, and the more intelligent Englishman who has not visited Chatsworth is rather the exception. A thousand visitors a day is not uncommon; yet Chatsworth House is thrown open free to all every week day--surely an example of princely generosity on the part of the Duke of Devonshire.

Few who visit Chatsworth will omit Haddon Hall, and while a single visit to the modern palace may suffice, a hundred to Haddon, it seemed to us, would leave one still unsatisfied. Who could ever weary of the indescribable beauty of the ancient house or cease to delight in its atmosphere of romantic story? Nowhere in England is there another place that speaks so eloquently of the past or which brings so near to our prosaic present day the life, manners and environment of the English nobleman of three or four centuries ago. No sight in England is more enchanting than the straggling walls and widely scattered towers of Haddon, standing in gray outline against the green of its sheltering hill--the point of view chosen by the painter of our picture. Yet, with all its battlements and watch-towers, Haddon was never a fortified castle--a circumstance to which we owe its perfect preservation. The wars of the Roses and the Commonwealth left it scathless; it was an actual residence until 1730, since which time every care has been exercised to maintain it in repair. We will not rehearse the well-known legends of the place, nor will we give ear for an instant to the insinuation that the romance of the fair Dorothy was fabricated less than a hundred years ago. What tinge of romance will be left to this prosaic world if these busybody iconoclasts are given heed? They cannot deny that Dorothy married John Manners, Duke of Rutland, anyway, for it was through this union that Haddon Hall passed to its present owners.

From the Original Water Color by C. F. Allbon.]

After a long, loving look at her ancestral home, we turn away and follow the dusty road to Bakewell, where we stand before her tomb in the fine old church. Here in effigy she kneels facing her husband and below are the indescribably quaint figures of her four children. The caretaker, who is loudly lecturing a group of trippers, catches a glimpse of us as we enter and his practical eye differentiates instantly the American tourist. He hastens to us and begs us to wait a little--the party is large--he will soon give us his personal attention. The trippers are hurried along and dismissed with scant ceremony and we are shown about in detail that encroaches upon our time. Still, there are many things of genuine interest and antiquity in Bakewell Church and the dissertations of our guide concerning them is worth the half crown we bestow upon him.

Outside, we pause to contemplate the grand old structure. Its massive walls terminate in castellated battlements and its splendid spire, a miniature of Salisbury, in slender yet graceful proportions, rises to a height of two hundred feet. All around is the spacious churchyard, thickly set with monumental stones, and upon one of these we noted the quaintest of the many quaint old English epitaphs we read. Happy indeed the parish clerk immortalized in the following couplets:

"The vocal Powers let us mark
Of Philip our late Parish Clerk
In Church none ever heard a Layman
With clearer Voice say Amen!
Who now with Hallelujas Sound
Like Him can make the Roofs rebound.
The Choir lament his Choral tones
The Town--so soon Here lie his bones
Sleep undisturbed within thy peaceful shrine,
Till Angels wake thee with such notes as thine."

From Bakewell we followed one of the many Wyes to Buxton--a road scarcely equalled for beauty in the Peak District. What a contrast its wayside trees and flowers and pleasant farm cottages presented to the stony moorland road we pursued northward from Buxton! We lingered at the latter place only enough to note the salient features of the popular watering-place of the Peak. It is situated in a verdant valley, but the moorland hills, bleak and barren, nearly surround it. Only three miles distant is Dovedale, famed as the loveliest and most picturesque of the many English "Dales."

I have no words cheerless enough to tell our impressions of the great Midland Moor, through whose very heart our way led to the northward. A stony road through a gray, stony country with a stone hovel here and there, tells something of the story. We pass bleak little towns, climb many steep, winding hills, speed swiftly along the uplands, leaving a long trail of white dust-clouds in our wake--until we are surprised by Glossop, a good-sized city in the midst of the moor. It has large papermills, substantially built of stone, an industry made possible by the pure waters of the moor. The streets are paved with rough cobble-stones and the town has altogether a cheerless, unattractive look, but interesting as quite a new phase of England. In all our journeyings throughout the Kingdom we found no section more utterly bleak and dreary than that through which we passed from Buxton to Glossop. We could but imagine what aspect a country that so impressed us on a fine day in June time must present in the dull, gray English winter. How the unimpeded winds must sweep the brown moorlands! How their icy blasts must search out every crevice in the lone cottages and penetrate the cheerless-looking hovels in the villages! A small native of whom we asked his recollection of winter shook his head sadly and said, "Awfully cold"; and a local proverb referring to the section has it that "Kinderscout is the cowdest place aout."

The Sheffield road follows the hills, which towered high above us at times or again dropped almost sheer away below to a black, tumbling stream. In one place, beneath an almost mountainous hill, we had an adventure which startled us more than any other occurrence of our tour. From the summit of a hill hundreds of feet above us, some miscreant loosened a huge boulder, which plunged down the declivity seemingly straight at us, but by good fortune missed our car by a few yards. The perpetrator of the atrocity immediately disappeared and there was no chance of tracing him. Happily, we had no similar outrage to record of all our twelve thousand miles in Britain, and we pass the act as that of a criminal or lunatic. This road was built about the beginning of the nineteenth century and a competent authority expresses doubt if there is a finer, better-engineered road in England than that between Glossop and Ashopton, a village about half way to Sheffield, and adds, "or one where houses are so rare--or the sight of an inn rouses such pleasureable anticipation," though one of these, "The Snake," must have other attractions than its name. It is indeed a fine road, though by no means unmatched by many others--the Manchester road to the northwest fully equals it, and following as it does the series of fine reservoirs lying in the valleys, is superior in scenery.

We took a short cut through Sheffield, the city of knives, razors and silver plate, caught a second glimpse of Chesterfield's reeling spire, and swept over the hills into Mansfield just as the long twilight was fading into night.

The next morning our hostess of The Swan placed in our hands the much-sought-for pass to Newstead Abbey, and to while the time until the hour set for admittance, we went by the way of Hucknall, to visit Byron's grave in the church whose square-topped tower dominates the town. Recent restoration gives an air of newness, for Hucknall Church, when Byron's remains were laid before its altar, was little better than a ruin. The old man working over the graves in the churchyard knew full well our mission and leaving his task accosted us in unmistakable Irish brogue. He led us directly to the poet's tomb, and it was with deep feeling not unmixed with awe that we advanced toward the high altar of Hucknall Church and stood silent and uncovered before the grave of Byron. On the wall over the tomb were graven two of those passages whose lofty sentiments glitter like gems--though betimes in inharmonious setting--throughout the poet's writings, which breathe the high hopes he felt in his better moments. Well may the tablet over his last resting-place bear the inspired lines:

"If that high world, which lies beyond
Our own, surviving Love endears;
If there the cherish'd heart be fond,
The eye the same, except in tears--
How welcome those untrodden spheres!
How sweet this very hour to die!
To soar from earth and find all fears
Lost in thy light--Eternity!"

"It must be so; 'tis not for self
That we so tremble on the brink;
And, striving to o'erleap the gulf,
Yet cling to Being's severing link.
Oh! in that future let us think
To hold each heart the heart that shares;
With them the immortal waters drink,
And soul in soul grow deathless theirs!"

The second quotation is from "Childe Harold," more positive in its tone, though less scintillating in its verbiage. In the wall near by, the gift of a Scotch admirer, is a marble profile medallion of the poet's face, with Shelley's characterization, "The Pilgrim of Eternity." In the adjoining vestry the walls are covered with the graven words of many of the greatest men of the century--tributes to the genius of Byron. Verily the church at Hucknall has become as a mausoleum to one denied burial in the nation's Valhalla, and who was, in truth, almost grudged sepulture in his native soil by a large number of the Englishmen of his day. And there came to us a faint conception of the intense bitterness of the times--when the body of England's greatest genius, dead in a forlorn but glorious cause, was brought to his native land to be greeted with a storm of hatred and a fierce protest against interment in Westminster Abbey. With little ceremony he was laid away in the church of Hucknall and pilgrims now come daily to that otherwise uninteresting and rather ugly town to do honor to the memory of Byron--certainly one of the brightest and most fascinating, if not the greatest, of English poets.

For me there was none other of the historic places which we visited more deeply tinged by its romantic associations or possessing a greater fascination than Newstead Abbey. Perhaps this feeling was intensified by our previous unsuccessful attempts to gain admission and by the recollection of the passion of my boyhood days for the verse of Byron--though indeed I have hardly read him latterly. But we were to visit Newstead at last. If we found a little difficulty--possibly the result of our ignorance--in getting permission, we could not complain of the opportunities afforded us as visitors.

From the Mansfield road we entered the gateway and drove through the stretches of forest and meadow in the great park, halting the car at the very doorway of the ancient place. We paused to view the fine facade, with its square battlemented tower at one end and the ruins of the abbey church at the other. There is little left of this latter save the east wall, once pierced by three great windows, two of which have at some time been filled in. We were conducted by the rather aristocratic housekeeper to every part of the house save the private apartments of the family, and there was no effort to hurry us along--so often the fate of the tourist in such cases.

One who is accustomed to think of Newstead Abbey as it lives, lonely and half ruinous, in the verse of Byron, who had such an intense affection for the home of his ancestors; or even one who reads Washington Irving's interesting account of his visit to the place when owned by Col. Wildman a few years later, is hardly prepared for the modern palace into which the abbey has been transformed. The paneled halls, with their rich furnishings and rare curios from all parts of the world, and the trim, beautifully kept gardens that greet one everywhere from the windows, have little in common with the Newstead of which Byron wrote in "Hours of Idleness:"

"Through thy battlements, Newstead, the hollow winds whistle,
Thou, the hall of my fathers, art gone to decay;
In thy once smiling garden, the hemlock and thistle
Have choked up the rose which once bloomed in the way."

Still, much is unaltered and there are many relics to bring memories of the one-time noble, though unfortunate, owner, whose recklessness quite as much as his necessities compelled the sale of his ancestral estate.

Of greatest interest are the apartments which Byron himself occupied, a suite of three medium-sized rooms, which have been religiously kept through all the years just as the poet left them. The simple blue and white toilet set was his own, the bed the one he slept in, and many other articles and furnishings vividly recall the noble occupant who never returned after the sale of the abbey. Probably no one has occupied the rooms since Washington Irving slept there during the visit we have referred to and was roused in the middle of the night by a ghostly footfall in the hall--but found only Boatswain II. outside the door.

In the hall the marks of the pistol shots of the young lord and his wild companions have not been effaced from the walls and in the gallery there is a collection of many mementos of the poet. Perhaps the most interesting is a section of the tree upon which he carved his name and that of his sister, Augusta--cut down because it was decaying. The gallery is largely filled with portraits of the present family, but our interest centers in the famous portrait by Phillips, in which the refined features and dignified though slightly melancholy air has invested the poet's face with a spirituality which it probably did not possess in so great a degree.

From the house we were ushered into the gardens and were shown every nook and corner of these by the gardener in charge. They were elaborate indeed; rich with the color and perfume of the flowers which bloom so profusely in England; and there were many rare plants and shrubs. We were interested in Boatswain's grave, with its elaborate monument and inscription in which pathos verges on the ridiculous, yet highly consistent with the misanthropic moods so often affected by Byron. In contrast with the trim neatness of the flower beds and shrubbery is the fragment of the abbey church, through which the wind whistles as it did in the poet's day, and which has weathered the sun and rain of more than three hundred years since the heavy hand of the eighth Henry smote it into ruins. And it carries us back four hundred years farther to another Henry, who built the abbey to expiate his crime of instigating the murder of Thomas a'Becket.

The history of Newstead told in brief by Irving need not occupy space in this hasty chronicle. It was with reluctance that we departed after our two hours' sojourn. It often comes back in memory with all the color and glory of a perfect June day--the majestic hall, the abbey ruin, the gardens with their riot of coloring, the shining lake, the woodland and the meadows--an enchanted world which we left behind us as we hastened away over the road to Mansfield, where we had late luncheon at the Swan.