Rural Rides Page 28

  To-morrow we intend to move on towards the West; to take a look, just a look, at the Hampshire parsons again. The turnips seem fine; but they cannot be large. All other things are very fine indeed. Every thing seems to prognosticate a hard winter. All the country people say that it will be so.

  FROM CHILWORTH, IN SURREY, TO WINCHESTER

  Thursley, four miles from Godalming, Surrey, Sunday Evening, 23d October, 1825

  We set out from Chilworth to-day about noon. This is a little hamlet, lying under the South side of St Martha’s Hill; and, on the other side of that hill, a little to the North West, is the town of GUILDFORD, which (taken with its environs) I, who have seen so many, many towns, think the prettiest, and, taken all together, the most agreeable and most happy-looking, that I ever saw in my life. Here are hill and dell in endless variety. Here are the chalk and the sand, vieing with each other in making beautiful scenes. Here is a navigable river and fine meadows. Here are woods and downs. Here is something of every thing but fat marshes and their skeleton making agues. The vale, all the way down to Chilworth from Reigate, is very delightful. – We did not go to Guild-ford, nor did we cross the River Wey, to come through GODALMING; but bore away to our left, and came through the village of Hambleton, going first to HASCOMB, to show Richard the South Downs from that high land, which looks Southward over the Wealds of Surrey and Sussex, with all their fine and innumerable oak trees. Those that travel on turnpike roads know nothing of England. – From Hascomb to Thursley almost the whole way is across fields, or commons, or along narrow lands. Here we see die people without any disguise or affectation. Against a great road things are made for show. Here we see them without any show. And here we gain real knowledge as to their situation. – We crossed to-day, three turnpike roads, that from Guildford to Horsham, that from Godalming to Worthing, I believe, and that from Godalming to Chichester.

  Thursley, Wednesday, 26th Oct.

  The weather has been beautiful ever since last Thursday morning; but, there has been a white frost every morning, and the days have been coldish. Here, however, I am quite at home in a room, where there is one of my American Fire-Places, bought, by my host, of MR JUDSON OF KENSINGTON, who has made many a score of families comfortable, instead of sitting shivering in the cold. At the house of the gentleman, whose house I am now in, there is a good deal of fuel-wood; and here I see, in the parlours, those fine and cheerful fires that make a great part of the happiness of the Americans. But, these fires are to be had only in this sort of fire-place. Ten times the fuel; nay, no quantity, would effect the same object, in any other fire-place. It is equally good for coal as for wood; but, for pleasure, a wood-fire is the thing. There is, round about almost every gentleman’s or great farmer’s house, more wood suffered to rot every year, in one shape or another, than would make (with this fire-place) a couple of rooms constantly warm, from October to June.

  Here, peat, turf, saw-dust, and wood, are burnt in these fire-places. My present host has three of the fire-places. – Being out a-coursing to-day, I saw a queer-looking building upon one of the thousands of hills that nature has tossed up in endless variety of form round the skirts of the lofty Hindhead. This building is, it seems, called a Semaphore, or Semiphare, or something of that sort. What this word may have been hatched out of I cannot say; but it means a job, I am sure. To call it an alarm-post would not have been so convenient; for, people not endued with Scotch intellect, might have wondered why the devil we should have to pay for alarm-posts; and might have thought, that, with all our glorious victories’, we had ‘brought our hogs to a fine market’, if our dread of the enemy were such as to induce us to have alarm posts all over the country! Such unintellectual people might have thought that we had ‘conquered France by the immortal Wellington’, to little purpose, if we were still in such fear as to build alarm-posts; and they might, in addition, have observed, that, for many hundred of years, England stood in need of neither signal posts nor standing army of mercenaries; but relied safely on the courage and public spirit of the people themselves. By calling the thing by an outlandish name, these reflections amongst the unintellectual are obviated. Alarm-post would be a nasty name; and it would puzzle people exceedingly, when they saw one of these at a place like ASHE, a little village on the north side of the chalk-ridge (called the hog’s back) going from Guildford to Farnham! What can this be for? Why are these expensive things put up all over the country? Respecting the movements of whom is wanted this alarm-system? Will no member ask this in parliament? Not one: not a man: and yet it is a thing to ask about. Ah! it is in vain, THING,1 that you thus are making your preparations; in vain that you are setting your trammels. The DEBT, the blessed debt, that best ally of die people, will break them all; will snap diem, as die hornet does die cobweb; and, even these very ‘Semaphores’, contribute towards die force of that ever-blessed debt. Curious to see how things work! The ‘glorious revolution’, which was made for die avowed purpose of maintaining die Protestant ascendancy, and which was followed by such terrible persecution of die Catholics; that ‘glorious’ affair, which set aside a race of kings, because they were Catholics, served as the precedent for die American revolution, also called ‘glorious’, and this second revolution compelled the successors of the makers of the first, to begin to cease their persecutions of the Catholics! Then, again, die debt was made to raise and keep armies on foot to prevent reform of parliament, because, as it was feared by die Aristocracy, reform would have humbled diem; and this debt, created for this purpose, is fast sweeping die Aristocracy out of their estates, as a down, with his foot, kicks field-mice out of their nests. There was a hope, that the debt could have been reduced by stealth, as it were; that the Aristocracy could have been saved in this way. That hope now no longer exists. In all likelihood the funds will keep going down. What is to prevent this, if the interest of Exchequer Bills be raised, as die broad sheet tells us it is to be? What! the funds fall in time of peace; and the French funds not fall, in time of peace! However, it will all happen just as it ought to happen. Even the next session of parliament will bring out matters of some interest. The thing is now working in the surest possible way.

  The great business of life, in die country, appertains, in some way or other, to the game, and especially at this time of die year. If it were not for die game, a country life would be like an everlasting honey-moon, which would, in about half a century, put an end to the human race. In towns, or large villages, people make a shift to find the means of rubbing the rust off from each other by a vast variety of sources of contest. A couple of wives meeting in die street, and giving each other a wry look, or a look not quite civil enough, will, if die parties be hard pushed for a ground of contention, do pretty well. But in die country, there is, alas! no such resource. Here are no walls for people to take of each other. Here they are so placed as to prevent the possibility of such lucky local contact. Here is more than room of every sort, elbow, leg, horse, or carriage, for them all. Even at Church (most of the people being in the meeting-houses) the pews are surprisingly too large. Here, therefore, where all circumstances seem calculated to cause never-ceasing concord with its accompanying dullness, there would be no relief at all, were it not for the game. This, happily, supplies the place of all other sources of alternate dispute and reconciliation; it keeps all in life and motion, from the lord down to the hedger. When I see two men, whether in a market-room, by the way-side, in a parlour, in a church yard, or even in the church itself, engaged in manifestly deep and most momentous discourse, I will, if it be any time between September and February, bet ten to one, that it is, in some way or other, about the game. The wives and daughters hear so much of it, that they inevitably get engaged in the disputes; and thus are all kept in a state of vivid animation. I should like very much to be able to take a spot, a circle of 12 miles in diameter, and take an exact account of all the time spent by each individual, above the age of ten (diat is the age they begin at), in talking, during the game season of one year, about t
he game and about sporting exploits. I verily believe that it would amount, upon an average, to six times as much as all the other talk put together; and, as to the anger, the satisfaction, the scolding, the commendation, the chagrin, the exultation, the envy, the emulation, where are there any of these in the country, unconnected with the game?

  There is, however, an important distinction to be made between hunters (including coursers) and shooters. The latter are, as far as relates to their exploits, a disagreeable class, compared with the former; and the reason of this is, their doings are almost wholly their own; while, in the case of the others, the achievements are the property of the dogs. Nobody likes to hear another talk much in praise of his own acts, unless those acts have a manifest tendency to produce some good to the hearer; and shooters do talk much of their own exploits, and those exploits rather tend to humiliate the hearer. Then, a great shooter will, nine times out of ten, go so far as almost to lie a little; and, though people do not tell him of it, they do not like him the better for it; and he but too frequently discovers that they do not believe him: whereas, hunters are mere followers of the dogs, as mere spectators; their praises, if any are called for, are bestowed on the greyhounds, the hounds, the fox, the hare, or the horses. There is a little rivalship in the riding, or in the behaviour of the horses; but this has so little to do with the personal merit of the sportsmen, that it never produces a want of good fellowship in the evening of the day. A shooter who has been missing all day, must have an uncommon share of good sense, not to feel mortified while the slaughterers are relating the adventures of that day; and this is what cannot exist in the case of die hunters. Bring me into a room, with a dozen men in it, who have been sporting all day; or, rather let me be in an adjoining room, where I can hear the sound of their voices, without being able to distinguish the words, and I will bet ten to one that I tell whether they be hunters or shooters.

  I was once acquainted with a famous shooter whose name was WILLIAM EWING He was a barrister of Philadelphia, but became far more renowned by his gun than by his law cases. We spent scores of days together a shooting, and were extremely well matched, I having excellent dogs and caring little about my reputation as a shot, his dogs being good for nothing, and he caring more about his reputation as a shot than as a lawyer. The fact which I am going to relate respecting this gentleman, ought to be a warning to young men, how they become enamoured of this species of vanity. We had gone about ten miles from our home, to shoot where partridges were said to be very plentiful. We found them so. In die course of a November day, he had, just before dark, shot, and sent to the farm-house, or kept in his bag, ninety-nine partridges. He made some few double shots, and he might have a miss or two, for he sometimes shot when out of my sight, on account of the woods. However, he said that he killed at every shot; and, as he had counted the birds, when we went to dinner at the farm-house and when he cleaned his gun, he, just before sun-set, knew that he had killed ninety-nine partridges, every one upon die wing, and a great part of them in woods very thickly set with largish trees. It was a grand achievement; but, unfortunately, he wanted to make it a hundred. The sun was setting, and, in that country, darkness comes almost at once; it is more like the going out of a candle than that of a fire; and I wanted to be off, as we had a very bad road to go, and as he, being under strict petticoat government, to which he most loyally and dutifully submitted, was compelled to get home that night, taking me with him, the vehicle (horse and gig) being mine. I, therefore, pressed him to come away, and moved on myself towards the house (that of OLD JOHN BROWN, in Bucks county, grandfather of that GENERAL BROWN, who gave some of our whiskered heroes such a rough handling last war, which was waged for the purpose of ‘DEPOSING JAMES MADISON’), at which house I would have stayed all night, but from which I was compelled to go by that watchful government, under which he had the good fortune to live. Therefore I was in haste to be off. No: he would kill the hundredth bird! In vain did I talk of the bad road and its many dangers for want of moon. The poor partridges, which we had scattered about, were calling all around us; and just at this moment, up got one under his feet, in a field in which the wheat was three or four inches high. He shot and missed. ‘That’s it,’ said he, running as if to pick up the bird. ‘What!’ said I, ‘you don’t think you killed, do you? Why there is the bird now, not only alive, but calling, in that wood’; which was at about a hundred yards distance. He, in that form of words usually employed in such cases, asserted that he shot the bird and saw it fall; and I, in much about the same form of words, asserted, that he had missed, and that I, with my own eyes, saw the bird fly into die wood. This was too much! To miss once out of a hundred times! To lose such a chance of immortality! He was a good-humoured man; I liked him very much; and I could not help feeling for him, when he said, ‘Well, Sir, I killed the bird; and if you choose to go away and take your dog away, so as to prevent me from folding it, you must do it; the dog is yours, to be sure.’ ‘The dog,’said I, in a very mild tone, ‘why, EWING, there Is die spot; and could we not see it, upon this smooth green surface, if it were there?’ However, he began to look about; and I called the dog, and affected to join him in the search. Pity for his weakness got the better of my dread of the bad road. After walking backward and forward many times upon about twenty yards square with our eyes to the ground, looking for what both of us knew was not there, I had passed him (he going one way and I the other), and I happened to be turning round just after I had passed him, when I saw him, putting his hand behind him, take a partridge out of his bag and let it fall upon the ground! I felt no temptation to detect him, but turned away my head, and kept looking about. Presently he, having returned to the spot where the bird was, called out to me, in a most triumphant tone: ‘Here! here! Come here!’ I went up to him, and he, pointing with his finger down to the bird, and looking hard in my face at the same time, said, ‘There, Cobbett; I hope that will be a warning to you never to be obstinate again!’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘come along’: and away we went as merry as larks. When we got to Brown’s, he told them the story, triumphed over me most clamorously; and, though he often repeated the story to my face, I never had the heart to let him know, that I knew of the imposition which puerile vanity had induced so sensible and honourable a man to be mean enough to practise. A professed shot is, almost always, a very disagreeable brother sportsman. He must, in the first place, have a head rather of the emptiest to pride himself upon so poor a talent. Then he is always out of temper, if the game fail, or if he miss it. He never participates in that great delight which all sensible men enjoy at beholding the beautiful action, the docility, the zeal, the wonderful sagacity, of the pointer and the setter. He is always thinking about himself; always anxious to surpass his companions. I remember that, once, Ewing and I had lost our dog. We were in a wood, and the dog had gone out, and found a covey in a wheat stubble joining the wood. We had been whistling and calling him for, perhaps, half an hour, or more. When we came out of the wood we saw him pointing, with one foot up; and, soon after, he, keeping his foot and body unmoved, gently turned round his head towards the spot where he heard us, as if to bid us come on, and, when he saw that we saw him, turned his head back again. I was so delighted, that I stopped to look with admiration. Ewing, astonished at my want of alacrity, pushed on, shot one of the partridges, and thought no more about the conduct of the dog than if the sagacious creature had had nothing at all to do with the matter. When I left America, in 1800, I gave this dog to LORD HENRY STUART, who was, when he came home, a year or two afterwards, about to bring him to astonish the sportsmen even in England; but, those of Pennsylvania were resolved not to part with him, and therefore they stole him the night before his Lordship came away. Lord Henry had plenty of pointers after his return, and he saw hundreds; but always declared, that he never saw any thing approaching in excellence this American dog. For the information of sportsmen I ought to say, that this was a small-headed and sharp-nosed pointer, hair as fine as that of a greyhound, little and sho
rt ears, very light in the body, very long legged, and swift as a good lurcher. I had him a puppy, and he never had any breaking, but he pointed staunchly at once; and I am of opinion, that this sort is, in all respects, better than the heavy breed. Mr THORNTON, (I beg his pardon, I believe he is now a Knight of some sort) who was, and perhaps still is, our Envoy in Portugal, and who, at the time here referred to, was a sort of partner with Lord Henry in this famous dog; and gratitude (to the memory of the dog I mean,) will, I am sure, or, at least, I hope so, make him bear witness to the truth of my character of him; and, if one could hear an Ambassador speak out, I think that Mr THORNTON would acknowledge, that his calling has brought him in pretty close contact with many a man who was possessed of most tremendous political power without possessing half the sagacity, half the understanding, of this dog, and without being a thousandth part so faithful to his trust. I am quite satisfied, that there are as many sorts of men as there are of dogs. SWIFT was a man, and so is WALTER the base. But, is the sort the same? It cannot be education alone that makes the amazing difference that we see. Besides, we see men of the very same rank and riches and education, differing as widely as the pointer does from the pug. The name, man, is common to all the sorts, and hence arises very great mischief. What confusion must there be in rural affairs, if there were no names whereby to distinguish hounds, greyhounds, pointers, spaniels, terriers, and sheep dogs, from each other! And, what pretty work, if, without regard to the sorts of dogs, men were to attempt to employ them! Yet, this is done in the case of men! A man is always a man; and, without the least regard as to the sort, they are promiscuously placed in all kinds of situations. Now, if Mr Brougham, Doctors Birkbeck, Macculloch and Black, and that profound personage, Lord John Russell, will, in their forth-coming ‘London University’,2 teach us how to divide men into sorts, instead of teaching us to augment the CAPITAL of the nation by making paper-money, they will render us a real service. That will be feelosofy worth attending to. What would be said of the ‘Squire who should take a fox-hound out to find partridges for him to shoot at? Yet, would this be more absurd than to set a man to law-making who was manifestly formed for the express purpose of sweeping the streets or digging out sewers?