Rural Rides Page 37

  Before I got to the rotten-borough, I came out upon a Down, just on the border of the two counties, Hampshire and Wiltshire. Here I came up with my sons, and we entered the rotten-borough together. It contained some rashers of bacon and a very civil landlady; but, it is one of the most mean and beggarly places that man ever set his eyes on. The curse, attending corruption, seems to be upon it. The look of the place would make one swear, that there never was a clean shirt in it, since the first stone of it was laid. It must have been a large place once, though it now contains only 479 persons, men, women, and children. The borough is, as to all practical purposes, as much private property as this pen is my private property. Aye, aye! Let the petitioners of Manchester bawl,1 as long as they like, against all other evils; but, until they touch this master-evil, they do nothing at all.

  EVERLEY is but about three miles from LUDGARSHALL, so that we got here in the afternoon of Friday; and, in the evening a very heavy storm came and drove away all flies, and made the air delightful. This is a real Down-country. Here you see miles and miles square without a tree, or hedge, or bush. It is country of greensward. This is the most famous place in all England for coursing. I was here, at this very inn, with a party eighteen years ago; and, the landlord, who is still the same, recognized me as soon as he saw me. There were forty brace of greyhounds taken out into the field on one of the days, and every brace had one course, and some of them two. The ground is the finest in the world; from two to three miles for the hare to run to cover, and not a stone nor a bush nor a hillock. It was here proved to me, that the hare is, by far, the swiftest of all English animals; for I saw three hares, in one day run away from the dogs. To give dog and hare a fair trial, there should be but one dog. Then, if that dog got so close as to compel the hare to turn, that would be a proof that the dog ran fastest. When the dog, or dogs, never get near enough to the hare to induce her to turn, she is said, and very justly, to ‘run away’ from them; and, as I saw three hares do this in one day, I conclude, that the hare is the swiftest animal of the two.

  This inn is one of the nicest, and, in summer, one of the pleasantest, in England; for, I think, that my experience in this way will justify me in speaking thus positively. The house is large, the yard and the stables good, the landlord a farmer also, and, therefore, no cribbing your horses in hay or straw and yourself in eggs and cream. The garden, which adjoins the south side of the house, is large, of good shape, has a terrace on one side, lies on the slope, consists of well-disposed clumps of shrubs and flowers, and of short-grass very neatly kept. In the lower part of the garden there are high trees, and, amongst these, the tulip-tree and the live-oak. Beyond the garden is a large clump of lofty sycamores, and, in these a most populous rookery, in which, of all things in the world, I delight. The village, which contains 301 souls, lies to the north of the inn, but adjoining its premises. All the rest, in every direction, is bare down or open arable. I am now sitting at one of the southern windows of this inn, looking across the garden towards the rookery. It is nearly sun-setting; the rooks are skimming and curving over the tops of the trees; while, under the branches, I see a flock of several hundred sheep, coming nibbling their way in from the Down, and going to their fold.

  Now, what ill-natured devil could bring OLD NIC GRIMSHAW into my head in company with these innocent sheep? Why, the truth is this: nothing is so swift as thought: it runs over a life-time in a moment; and, while I was writing the last sentence of the foregoing paragraph, thought took me up at the time when I used to wear a smock-frock and to carry a wooden bottle like that shepherd’s boy; and, in an instant, it hurried me along through my no very short life of adventure, of toil, of peril, of pleasure, of ardent friendship and not less ardent enmity; and after filling me with wonder, that a heart and mind so wrapped up in every thing belonging to the gardens, the fields and the woods, should have been condemned to waste themselves away amidst the stench, the noise and the strife of cities, it brought me to the present moment, and sent my mind back to what I have yet to perform about NICHOLAS GRIMSHAW and his ditches!

  My sons set off about three o’clock to-day, on their way to HEREFORDSHIRE, where I intend to join them, when I have had a pretty good ride in this country. There is no pleasure in travelling, except on horse-back, or on foot. Carriages take your body from place to place; and, if you merely want to be conveyed, they are very good; but they enable you to see and to know nothing at all of the country.

  East Everley, Monday Morning, 5 o’clock, 28th Aug. 1826

  A very fine morning; a man, eighty-two years of age, just beginning to mow the short-grass, in the garden: I thought it, even when I was young, the hardest work that man had to do. To look on, this work seems nothing; but, it tries every sinew in your frame, if you go upright and do your work well. This old man never knew how to do it well, and he stoops, and he hangs his scythe wrong; but, with all this, it must be a surprising man to mow short-grass, as well as he does, at eight. I wish I may be able to mow short-grass at eighty! That’s all I have to say of the matter. I am just setting off for the source of the AVON, which runs from near MARLBOROUGH to SALISBURY, and thence to the sea; and, I intend to pursue it as far as SALISBURY. In the distance of thirty miles, here are, I see by the books, more than thirty churches. I wish to see, with my own eyes, what evidence there is, that those 30 churches were built without hands, without money, and without a congregation; and, thus, to find matter, if I can, to justify the mad wretches, who, from Committee-Rooms and elsewhere, are bothering this half-distracted nation to death about a ‘surplus popalashon, mon’. My horse is ready; and the rooks are just gone off to the stubble-fields. These rooks rob the pigs; but, they have a right to do it. I wonder (upon my soul I do) that there is no lawyer, Scotchman, or Parson-Justice, to propose a law to punish the rooks for trespass.

  DOWN THE VALLEY OF THE AVON IN WILTSHIRE

  ‘Thou shah not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.’

  Deuteronomy, ch. xxv. ver. 4

  Milton, Monday, 28th August

  I came off this morning on the Marlborough road about two miles, or three, and then turned off, over the downs, in a north-westerly direction, in search of the source of the AVON RIVER, which goes down to Salisbury. I had once been at NETHERAVON, a village in this valley; but, I had often heard this valley described as one of the finest pieces of land in all England; I knew that there were about thirty parish churches, standing in a length of about thirty miles, and in an average width of hardly a mile; and, I was resolved to see a little into the reasons that could have induced our fathers to build all these churches, especially if, as the Scotch would have us believe, there were but a mere handful of people in England until of late years.

  The first part of my ride this morning was by the side of SIR JOHN ASTLEY’S park. This man is one of the members of the county (gallon-loaf BENNET being the other): they say that he is good to the labouring people; and he ought to be good for something, being a member of Parliament of the Lethbridge and Dickenson stamp. However he has got a thumping estate; though, be it borne in mind, the working people and the fund-holders and the dead-weight have each their separate mortgage upon it; of which this Baronet has, I dare say, too much justice to complain, seeing that the amount of these mortgages was absolutely necessary to carry on PITT and PERCEVAL and CASTLEREAGH WARS; to support Hanoverian soldiers in England; to fight and beat the Americans on the Serpentine River; to give Wellington a kingly estate; and to defray the expenses of Manchester and other yeomanry cavalry; besides all the various charges of Power-of-Imprisonment Bills and of Six-Acts. These being the cause of the mortgages, the ‘worthy Baronet’ has, I will engage, too much justice to complain of them.

  In steering across the down, I came to a large farm, which a shepherd told me was MILTON HILL FARM. This was upon the high land, and before I came to the edge of this Valley of Avon, which was my land of promise; or, at least, of great expectation; for I could not imagine that thirty churches had been built for nothin
g by the side of a brook (for it is no more during the greater part of the way) thirty miles long. The shepherd showed me the way towards MILTON; and at the end of about a mile, from the top of a very high part of the down, with a steep slope towards the valley, I first saw this Valley of Avon; and a most beautiful sight it was! Villages, hamlets, large farms, towers, steeples, fields, meadows, orchards, and very fine timber-trees, scattered all over the valley. The shape of the thing is this: on each side downs, very lofty and steep in some places, and sloping miles back in other places; but each out-side of the valley are downs. From the edge of the downs begin capital arable fields generally of very great dimensions, and, in some places, running a mile or two back into little cross valleys, formed by hills of downs. After the corn-fields come meadows, on each side, down to the brook, or river. The farm-houses, mansions, villages, and hamlets, are generally situated in that part of the arable land which comes nearest the meadows.

  Great as my expectations had been, they were more than fulfilled. I delight in this sort of country; and I had frequently seen the vale of the Itchen, that of the Bourne, and also that of the Teste, in Hampshire; I had seen the vales amongst the South Downs; but I never before saw any thing to please me like this valley of the Avon. I sat upon my horse, and looked over Milton and Easton and Pewsy for half an hour, though I had not breakfasted. The hill was very steep. A road, going slanting down it, was still so steep, and washed so very deep, by the rains of ages, that I did not attempt to ride down it, and I did not like to lead my horse, the path was so narrow. So seeing a boy with a drove of pigs, going out to the stubbles, I beckoned him to come up to me; and he came and led my horse down for me. But now before I begin to ride down this beautiful vale, let me give as well as my means will enable me, a plan or map of it, which I have made in this way: a friend has lent me a very old map of Wiltshire describing the spots where all the churches stand, and also all the spots where Manor-houses, or Mansion-houses, stood. I laid a piece of very thin paper upon the map, and thus traced the river upon my paper, putting figures to represent the spots where churches stand, and putting stars to represent the spots where Manor-houses, or Mansion houses formerly stood. Endless is the variety in the shape of the high lands which form this valley. Sometimes the slope is very gentle, and the arable lands go back very far. At others, the downs come out into the valley almost like piers into the sea, being very steep in their sides, as well as their ends towards the valley. They have no slope at their other ends: indeed they have no back ends, but run into the main high land. There is also great variety in the width of the valley; great variety in the width of the meadows; but the land appears all to be of the very best; and it must be so, for the farmers confess it.

  It seemed to me, that one way, and that not, perhaps, the least striking, of exposing the folly, the stupidity, the inanity, the presumption, the insufferable emptiness and insolence and barbarity, of those numerous wretches, who have now the audacity to propose to transport the people of England,1 upon the principle of the monster MALTHUS, who has furnished the unfeeling oligarchs and their toad-eaters with the pretence, that man has a natural propensity to breed faster than food can be raised for the increase; it seemed to me, that one way of exposing this mixture of madness and of blasphemy was, to take a look, now that the harvest is in, at the produce, the mouths, the condition, and the changes that have taken place, in a spot like this, which God has favoured with every good that he has had to bestow upon man.

  From the top of the hill I was not a little surprised to see, in every part of the valley that my eye could reach, a due, a large, portion of fields of Swedish turnips, all looking extremely well. I had found the turnips, of both sorts, by no means bad, from Salt Hill to Newbury; but from Newbury through Burghclere, Highclere, Uphusband, and Tangley, I had seen but few. At and about Ludgarshall and Everley, I had seen hardly any. But, when I came, this morning, to Milton Hill farm, I saw a very large field of what appeared to me to be fine Swedish Turnips. In the valley, however, I found them much finer, and the fields were very beautiful objects, forming, as their colour did, so great a contrast with that of the fallows and the stubbles, which latter, are, this year, singularly clean and bright.

  Having gotten to the bottom of the hill, I proceeded on to the village of MILTON, the church of which is, in the map, represented by the figure 3. I left EASTON (2) away at my right, and I did not go up to WATTON RIVERS (I) where the river AVON rises, and which lies just close to the south-west corner of Marlborough Forest, and at about 5 or 6 miles from the town of Marlborough. Lower down the river, as I thought, there lived a friend, who was a great farmer, and whom I intended to call on. It being my way, however, always to begin making enquiries soon enough, I asked the pig-driver where this friend lived; and, to my surprise, I found that he lived in the parish of Milton. After riding up to the church, as being the centre of the village, I went on towards the house of my friend, which lay on my road down the valley. I have many, many times witnessed agreeable surprise; but I do not know, that I ever in the whole course of my life, saw people so much surprised and pleased as this farmer and his family were at seeing me. People often tell you, that they are glad to see you; and in general they speak truth. I take pretty good care not to approach any house, with the smallest appearance of a design to eat or drink in it, unless I be quite sure of a cordial reception; but my friend at FIFIELD (it is in Milton parish) and all his family really seemed to be delighted beyond all expression.

  When I set out this morning, I intended to go all the way down to the city of Salisbury (31) to-day; but, I soon found, that to refuse to sleep at FIFIELD would cost me a great deal more trouble than a day was worth. So that I made my mind up to stay in this farm-house, which has one of the nicest gardens, and it contains some of the finest flowers, that I ever saw, and all is disposed with as much good taste as I have ever witnessed. Here I am, then, just going to bed after having spent as pleasant a day as I ever spent in my life. I have heard to-day, that BIRKBECK lost his life by attempting to cross a river on horse-back; but if what I have heard besides be true, that life must have been hardly worth preserving; for, they say, that he was reduced to a very deplorable state; and I have heard, from what I deem unquestionable authority, that his two beautiful and accomplished daughters are married to two common labourers, one a Yankee and the other an Irishman, neither of whom has, probably, a second shirt to his back, or a single pair of shoes to put his feet into! These poor girls owe their ruin and misery (if my information be correct), and, at any rate, hundreds besides BIRKBECK himself, owe their utter ruin, the most scandalous degradation, together with great bodily suffering, to the vanity, the conceit, the presumption of BIRKBECK who, observe, richly merited all that he suffered, not excepting his death; for, he sinned with his eyes open; he rejected all advice; he persevered after he saw his error; he dragged thousands into ruin along with him; and he most vilely calumniated the man, who, after having most disinterestedly, but in vain, endeavoured to preserve him from ruin, endeavoured to preserve those who were in danger of being deluded by him. When, in 1817, before he set out for America, I was, in Catherine Street, Strand, London, so earnestly pressing him not to go to the back countries, he had one of these daughters with him. After talking to him for some time, and describing the risks and disadvantages of the back countries, I turned towards the daughter, and, in a sort of joking way, said: ‘Miss Birkbeck, take my advice: don’t let any body get you more than twenty miles from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore.’ Upon which he gave me a most dignified look, and, observed: ‘Miss Birkbeck has a father, Sir, whom she knows it to be her duty to obey.’ This snap was enough for me. I saw, that this was a man so full of self-conceit, that it was impossible to do any thing with him. He seemed to me to be bent upon his own destruction. I thought it my duty to warn others of their danger: some took the warning; others did not; but he and his brother adventurer, FLOWER, never forgave me, and they resorted to all the means in their power to do me in
jury. They did me no injury, no thanks to them; and I have seen them most severely, but, most justly, punished.

  Amesbury, Tuesday, 2gth August

  I set off from FIFIELD this morning, and got here (25 on the map) about one o’clock, with my clothes wet. While they are drying, and while a mutton chop is getting ready, I sit down to make some notes of what I have seen since I left ENFORD… but, here comes my dinner: and I must put off my notes till I have dined.