Q '-T' : r s~ 
 
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 . -
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 bp aitcE Proton. 
 
 BY OAK AND THORN : A Record of 
 English Days. i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 THE DAY OF HIS YOUTH. A Novel. 
 
 i6mo, fi.oo. 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK.
 
 ip 
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 HecorD of dftiglisfy 
 
 BY 
 
 ALICE BROWN 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 $, CambriD0e 
 
 1897
 
 Copyright, 1896, 
 BY ALICE BROWN. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S.A, 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
 
 TO 
 
 MY GOOD COMRADES 
 
 WHO 
 SHARED THE FOOTPATH WAY
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 IN PRAISE OF GYPSYING i 
 
 THE FOOD OF FANCY 10 
 
 A STILL HUNT . -, 23 
 
 THE PILGRIM IN DEVON 29 
 
 THE HAUNT OF THE DOONES .... 72 
 
 THE LAND OF ARTHUR 101 
 
 THE BRONTE COUNTRY . - . . . . . 132 
 
 THE QUEST OF A CUP . ... . . 144 
 
 AN UNRESISTED TEMPTATION 173 
 
 LATTER-DAY CRANFORD 187 
 
 UNDER THE GREAT BLUE TENT . . . .215
 
 " Then follow you, wherever hie 
 The traveling mountains of the sky t 
 Or let the streams in civil mode 
 Direct your choice upon a road; 
 
 " For one and all, or high or low, 
 Will lead you -where you wish to go : 
 And one and all go night and day 
 Over the hills and far away .' " 
 
 ROBERT Louis STEVENSON.
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 AND now, with the youth of the year, 
 hath come a strange longing upon the 
 hearts and within the veins of all crea- 
 tures living, and one born to a climate of 
 unchanging peace would scarcely know 
 what it might portend. For there works 
 a sweet languor and at the same time a 
 quickening within the blood ; the spirit 
 is given over to melancholy, and alter- 
 nately to joyance, and the lips fit them- 
 selves easily to snatches of old song. 
 Conscience is dead within us, or, if it 
 speak, it is to fret us, though listlessly, 
 that we stay indoors while the apple 
 is forming within the green of the 
 bud, and while columbines nod bravely, 
 and over-sea the may is whitening well 
 her fairy smock, spread lavishly upon 
 green hedges. " What avails it," we cry, 
 " that we labored all winter within the
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 prisoning of four dull walls ? Our books 
 are written, our canvas lies wet, our 
 songs are sung ; yet what living soul is 
 the better for our travail ? Children are 
 we that play at shaping a creation of our 
 own, while without us the ever-mutable 
 yet ever-living makes unto itself red 
 sunsets, and with one spring-attired birch- 
 tree set against a background of pine 
 puts to shame all the conceptions of 
 art." And therefore, sick with the van- 
 ity of our seriousness, do we turn the 
 hearing inward and listen to the throb- 
 bing of swift-pulsing currents ; and their 
 measure is that of a jocund march draw- 
 ing us ever onward. Where, we know 
 not, and if we have but one drop of 
 blessed gypsy blood, that, like moving 
 quicksilver, doth inform the whole, we 
 care not ; for, as one great among wizards 
 truly declares, " to travel hopefully is a 
 better thing than to arrive." (They that 
 know not spring may finish the line, to 
 the effect that " the true success is to 
 labor," but we who be gypsies will toss 
 this tiresome tag into the next thicket. 
 It smacks of the school-room, and all 
 moralizing have we forsworn.) And 
 ever at this season, when one has tuned 
 
 2
 
 IN PRAISE OF GYPSYING 
 
 his ear to listen, the voice of bird and 
 tree is, "Come!" and the sailing clouds 
 cry, " Follow ! " Memories don brave 
 attire, masquerading as hopes, and step 
 gayly forward to the tune of " Summer 
 is icumen in." Let Emerson assure us 
 that he who stays at. home hath as great 
 a share of the universe as he that travels 
 abroad, and let Whittier equalize the 
 wanderer's lot with that of him 
 
 " who from his doorway sees 
 The miracle of flowers and trees," 
 
 their words are empty air ; we give 
 courteous acquiescence, yet from the 
 moment when the tassel droops first on 
 the alder to that when the last crimsoned 
 maple leaf flutters down the wind, Na- 
 ture herself contained within the fra- 
 gile vial of man's being contradicts it. 
 " Come ! " she cries to us, as to the young 
 birds on the rim of the nest, " Come 
 and follow ! " What loving sympathy 
 have we now for that happy band who, 
 in one guise or another, but never that 
 6*f conformity to the world - discerning 
 eye, "house by the hedge," and make 
 their rallying note, 
 
 " To the wood thfen, to the wild : free life, full lib- 
 erty!" 
 
 3
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 Among us who can seize upon such her- 
 itage of delight, books shall be forsworn ; 
 but if, in some moment of weakness, we 
 long for the old vice of print, let it be 
 that excellent work, the life of Bamp- 
 fylde-Moore Carew, commonly called the 
 King of the Beggars. Born respectably, 
 the son of a rector (alas ! good youth, he 
 would fain have had it otherwise), he 
 followed his star to the greenwood, and 
 there out-gypsied the gypsies. A love 
 and longing not to be withstood marched 
 ever before him, and like joyous pioneers 
 cleft the way to his desires. He joined 
 the gypsies ; he received the crown of 
 virtuous ambition, and became their 
 king. Lustily rang the inauguration ode 
 at his crowning, whereof one line con- 
 taineth the whole philosophy of summer : 
 
 "This is Maunders' holiday ! " 
 
 Maunders (beggars), their holiday is 
 eternal while the sun shines and the 
 grass grows, and we, if we be worthy, 
 may pick up the crumbs of their festival. 
 Glorious and historic precedent have we 
 for our vagrom desires. When ^Eneas 
 became aweary of philandering, or was 
 suddenly alive to the divine message 
 4
 
 IN PRAISE OF GYPSYING 
 
 (and who can tell, in the case of any 
 mortal man, whether he be moved by 
 gods or ennui?}, when this same paste- 
 board hero was minded to leave the 
 pedestal whereon poor Dido had set him, 
 what did he do ? Marry, he kicked down 
 the altar, smoking with the sacrifice of 
 her queenly devotion, scattered the ashes 
 of her hopes, and set sail! Potent 
 phrase ! The mariners pulled with lusty 
 will, the sea sparkled, a jolly breeze 
 sprang after, and ./Eneas was safe on 
 waves no salter than Dido's tears, yet 
 under a sun more beguiling than her 
 smiles. Stay - at - homes were ever de- 
 puted to do the weeping; be warned, 
 dear pilgrim, and buckle on your shoon ! 
 Ulysses of wily memory was he ani- 
 mated solely by a virtuous desire for 
 home-made cakes and ale, in quitting 
 Circe and Calypso, and their bribes of 
 gilded ease ? Rather had he tired of 
 island life ; he was ready to be up and 
 away. Theseus, deserter of Ariadne 
 and the Isle of Naxos ! it was never in 
 obedience to the gods, say I, that he 
 showed so clean a pair of heels. Mi- 
 nerva appeared to him, reads the tale. 
 Possibly, yet only after he had been 
 5
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 moved by dreams of a swifter flight, a 
 more adventurous way than that of him 
 who has newly enslaved himself to love. 
 " Bind me with no fetters, not even in 
 the prisoning of rosy arms ! " sang his 
 Viking soul. Jason was a shrewd mer- 
 chant, a hardy adventurer, yet sought he 
 chiefly the Golden Fleece, or to cool the 
 fever of his youth ? 
 
 Strange suspicions awaken in us when 
 the distance wooes, and spring airs blow 
 soft ; doubts, all unwonted, of the true 
 values of ancient tales. At such mo- 
 ments even the Crusader seems not so 
 much enkindled with the passion for 
 rescuing earth's holy spot, as a wanderer 
 moved by vague desire of foreign lands 
 and sweetly new experience ; one who, 
 though spendthrift of time and strength, 
 wpuld yet store up, for his gray and 
 broken age, a casket of golden memories. 
 He was the bird of passage of a prayer- 
 ful time ; his scallop shell, his staff and 
 sandals, were symbols not only of a 
 yearning faith and abiding constancy, 
 but of a natural delight such as those 
 hemmed in by " four gray walls " can 
 never know. To run the ringer further 
 down the margin of the past is to find 
 6
 
 IN PRAISE OF GYPSYING 
 
 what burning names, what wild adven- 
 ture ! Elizabeth queened it in England 
 when she would fain have taken sword 
 in hand, and sailed the sea with the best 
 of her merry men, killing the Spaniard, 
 and drinking deep of the desire of life. 
 They fought for crown and faith (and 
 booty, let not that be forgot ! ) ; but 
 though the peace of Christendom was 
 the laurel leaf for which they held life 
 but as " a pin's fee," not the less did 
 they pursue continual change for pure 
 love and for the quieting of their per- 
 turbed spirits. This was the Wanderjahr 
 of their time, counterpart of the Age of 
 Chivalry ; they who would truly live, 
 lived on the wing, and Fortune was with 
 them, and their own stout hearts their 
 best companioning. 
 
 And for us ? There are no sacred 
 tombs to deliver, no Hesperides in im- 
 agined view, and perhaps not even one 
 soul to be rescued and deserted in the 
 light-hearted fashion of our mythic for- 
 bears ; but not for that will we fold our 
 hands at home, and live the life of nider- 
 ings and them that be easily content. 
 This moment of the opening bud is that 
 for which we have endured our months 
 7
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 of servitude. The chrysalis hath ful- 
 filled its destined use, and now the crea- 
 ture hath his wings to fly away, and soar 
 or flutter as his nature bids. We will go 
 forth, not perchance like a wiser race, 
 to hang odes on the blossoming cherry, 
 but to seek that beauty which the hand 
 of man hath not made, and the secret 
 of which no cunning can divine. To lie 
 beneath the open sky, to mark the 
 rhythm of murmuring treetops, and face 
 the wild rose unshamed, in that our lives 
 have grown serene and natural as hers, 
 that shall be our desire and our de- 
 light. If we may sail the seas that have 
 cradled heroes, and walk the shores of 
 golden memories, we are blest indeed ; 
 but whatever be our station, let us go 
 out, whether to sit among the limes and 
 yews of Stratford churchyard, or in a 
 New England pasture, tippling on fra- 
 grance and lulled by the foolish bees. 
 Somewhere, somehow, we will wander, 
 look and listen, and ringing in our ears 
 shall be one or another majestic chant, 
 like the solemn prophecy of a greater 
 hope and a more splendid journey : 
 
 " My purpose holds 
 
 To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 
 8
 
 IN PRAISE OF GYPSYING 
 
 Of all the western stars, until I die. 
 It may be that the gulfs will wash us down : 
 It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, 
 And see the great Achilles, whom we knew." 
 
 9
 
 THE FOOD OF FANCY 
 
 FEW are the pens of perfect technique, 
 and only such may fitly couple the ethe- 
 real with the grossly utilitarian. So by 
 a good-fortune not always regnant, even 
 in the happy world of verse, it fell to 
 Aldrich to link the praise of "dreamy 
 words" and "very pleasant eating." His 
 was the good word, for he was born to 
 see and sing ; but ours shall be the joy- 
 ous deed, especially when we have set 
 forth on pilgrimage to inherit the earth. 
 On such days, far from the mahogany- 
 tree we left behind us, every homely act 
 gains a new significance ; and unfamiliar 
 food fits itself, not only to the nourish- 
 ment of corporeal particles, but to that 
 spiritual life wherewith we draw our only 
 vital breath. So that it becomes the wise 
 to refrain from considering eating as an 
 exact science, so much nitrogen, so 
 many units of energy, and to merge it 
 into a contemplative and poetic delight, 
 unknown to him who only eats to live. 
 On such a topic it is impossible to speak 
 10
 
 THE FOOD OF FANCY 
 
 impersonally, or to shield one's self be- 
 hind the egotistical bulwark of the edi- 
 torial we. It is necessary to betake us 
 individually to the small go-cart of the 
 first person ; for who ever ate altruis- 
 tically, or chewed the cud of a foreign 
 flavor, save to his own self-limited de- 
 light ? To speak straitly, then, as a unit 
 whose yea would fain, in this matter, be 
 simply yea, I frankly avow that my shal- 
 lop of joy in English travel was upborne 
 upon an ever - buoyant wave of table- 
 delight. The earliest May-blossom, the 
 first English daisy, quivered in white 
 before my seeking eyes, wraith-pictures 
 from the land of dreams ; the first Eng- 
 lish gooseberry tart stood forth a more 
 substantial but no less joyous herald of 
 welcome to a soil whose heroes have ever 
 held tankard and trencher in honorable 
 repute. What fruit this side the land 
 of pure delight can rival the English 
 strawberry ? the only sort of immortal 
 joy you can buy by the pound. And 
 though, alas ! no purveyor shall hence- 
 forth bring us tribute from the garden 
 of " my lord of Ely," so also nothing 
 short of an irresponsive palate can de- 
 prive us of that flavor underlying the rosy
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 flesh even in the days of Tyrant Rich- 
 ard. I ate my first strawberry from a 
 little basket (you know the shape, dear 
 pilgrim !) in a field bordering the Nun's 
 Walk, on the banks of Itchen. And so 
 corpulent was the fruit, so grown beyond 
 all reason, though lacking nothing of 
 tenderness and fragrance, that we meas- 
 ured its bulk with a wisp of grass, and 
 sent the boastful girth home to one who 
 would have been with us, had the gods 
 dealt tenderly. In Devon, more straw- 
 berries, some eaten in an exquisite dairy- 
 shop off the cathedral close, at Exeter, 
 their nectarous juices enriched and soft- 
 ened with clotted cream, and set off by 
 cloying junket, as a country lass by her 
 hot-house sister. It was at Ilfracornbe, 
 later in this progress of delight, that a 
 matron, pink of cheek and gown, gave 
 us the recipe for the clotted cream, most 
 delectable product of the red-soiled south. 
 But you cannot "bring home the river 
 and sky." You shall have Devon cattle, 
 and learn the tricks of the dairy from a 
 thousand years' inheritance, else your 
 cream will turn out a plain and whole- 
 some compound of the taste of scalded 
 milk : and no charm, even the specific 
 
 12
 
 THE FOOD OF FANCY 
 
 furnished the guileless Annie by Coun- 
 sellor Doone, shall avail you. 
 
 It was in a little Warwick shop that I 
 was first made one with weal and 'am 
 pie, that concoction so cunningly tra- 
 duced by Sam Weller that no one may 
 eat it, from his time forth, without a 
 premonitory shudder. 
 
 " ' Weal pie,' " said Mr. Weller, solilo- 
 quizing, as he arranged the eatables on 
 the grass. " ' Wery good thing is a weal 
 pie, when you know the lady as made it, 
 and is quite sure it ain't kittens.' ' 
 
 But the verdict of the American palate 
 was altogether favorable. "Much like 
 the British character," says retrospect. 
 " Solid and satisfying, and ' pleasant, too, 
 to think on ! " 
 
 At Dulverton, immortal halting-place 
 of John Ridd as he rode home from 
 school across the moors, on the occasion 
 of his standing up like a pixy in the dark, 
 and shouting prophetic defiance to the 
 returning Doones, a culinary disappoint- 
 ment lay coldly in wait. We would fain 
 have duplicated John Fry's order, 
 " ' Hot mootton pasty, zame as I hardered 
 last Tuesday ; ' " but there was no time 
 for the cooking, and we went away with 
 13
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 the sacred rite undone. Moreover, not in 
 all Devon did mention of pickled loaches, 
 the love whereof first led little John into 
 the Doone Valley, do more than rouse a 
 wondering look on the face of the myth- 
 ignoring inhabitants. But, we might 
 have asked, to what end should Devon 
 kitchens exist, save for the perpetuating 
 of sacred lore and setting before the rev- 
 erent palate hot collops of venison, such 
 as were approved by its tutelary giant, 
 and all else that went to the nourishing 
 of his mightiness ? Shame on him who 
 would remove one guidepost of the culi- 
 nary past, one viand embalmed in story ! 
 Let his name be anathema, though he 
 invent a thousand modern trifles, or a 
 sauce to outrival Worcestershire. For 
 no tickling of the palate under new com- 
 binations can compensate for the starving 
 of the soul. 
 
 You who have trodden English by- 
 paths and fallen in with ancient ways, 
 did you ever eat English buns without 
 a jingling mental accompaniment to the 
 tune of the old nursery rhyme ? And 
 though you consumed them luxuriously 
 in the London ABC shops, or made 
 your touring staff that other variety to 
 14
 
 THE FOOD OF FANCY 
 
 be found, yellow with saffron, beside the 
 Cornish sea, were they not soul-satisfy- 
 ing and plummy ? I charge you, O seek- 
 ers of inward joy, by all the past eating 
 you have ever done, to your own enlarge- 
 ment of vision, that, when you come 
 upon a classic dish, you pass it not by. 
 And north and south the traditionary 
 riches of the kitchen shall be yours. For 
 in Derbyshire, you shall eat Bakewell 
 pudding, of the genus tart, having, as 
 one greater than the world of realists 
 hath said, "a sort of mixed flavor of 
 cherry-tart, custard, pineapple, roast tur- 
 key, toffy, and hot buttered toast." At 
 Banbury, or possibly farther afield among 
 the Shakespeare haunts, you may pur- 
 chase the unholy Banbury cake, which is 
 no less than a superlatively rich mince 
 turnover, evidently without the meat, 
 but compensating for all conventional 
 lack by fruits and spices. Without 
 doubt it will trouble your dreams, for 
 no Banbury cake ever did its spiriting 
 gently ; but in the end, when absence 
 shall have softened every harsh detail 
 of that English journey, it will linger, a 
 spicy savor, in your happy memory. You 
 shall eat haggis and scones in Scotland, 
 15
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 roast goose and apple-sauce wherever 
 you can get them, star-gazing pie in 
 Cornwall (filled with pilchards, their in- 
 nocent heads protruding above the crust), 
 and go, like all your generation and the 
 fathers of the English-speaking race, to 
 Richmond, to dine at the Star and Garter, 
 upon whitebait and Richmond maids-of- 
 honor. You shall eat chad from Lake 
 Windermere, in memory of the Roman 
 legions who carried that royal family 
 thither ; and everywhere shall you bow 
 down before old England's roast beef, 
 though she import it from Australia or 
 America, and so hold historic lien upon 
 it by courtesy only. Her chops, of a 
 thickness and succulence unknown in 
 the golden West, shall tell their own 
 story of growth in fields fat with yellow 
 mustard blooms, where the innocent 
 sheep hourly nibble and munch, uncon- 
 scious that such sunny joy is decreed 
 but for the flavoring of tissue. All this 
 may you have for the paltry exchange of 
 shillings ; but, as for the salmi put to- 
 gether by the weaving fingers of Becky 
 Sharp for her bamboozled brother-in-law, 
 even the prince of the power of imagina- 
 tion shall fail to resuscitate that. Such 
 16
 
 THE FOOD OF FANCY 
 
 salmis are dead and gone with Becky 
 and the snows of yester-year. 
 
 No bread and beer in England mingle 
 such savor of lovely past and present as 
 the bit and sup making up the dole of 
 Saint Cross Hospital, and served to any 
 wayfarer at the open hatch. There, in 
 tantalizing nearness to the custodian's 
 blue china within the lodge (china which 
 is not for you !) and neighbored by the 
 green quadrangle where the gowned 
 brethren go pottering about in serene 
 relinquishment of care, you linger at 
 will (so you come but once a day !) sip- 
 ping your horn cup as it were elixir. 
 This is no bread and beer alone, but a 
 heartening food, a magic draught, holding 
 all the flavor of that idyllic walk, when, 
 awed with peace and " soft as bees by 
 Catherine Hill," you cross the meadow 
 from Winchester by ways parcel - gilt 
 with golden mimulus, where the river 
 dreams of gentle things and the breath 
 of cattle scents the air. For me, too, 
 it keeps the memory of that day when 
 I first bent over the opulent, homely 
 flower-beds, and asked the brother whose 
 art was gardening what name he gave 
 the ladies' -delights cosily settled there.
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 " Lublidles," he returned, in some cour- 
 teous interest that one could call them 
 otherwise. 
 
 Shakespeare's love - in - idleness ! In 
 some spots be thankful ! the world 
 does not move. 
 
 What memories are ours of the first 
 crab essayed at Seaton, where we at- 
 tacked him gingerly, not knowing his 
 kind, and mentally repelling the simile 
 of ossified spiders ! The waiter stood by, 
 meantime, fraternal over a maiden effort 
 and solicitous for the fame of Devon-. 
 His self-forgetful joy when the venture 
 was made and we vowed our fealty then 
 and there to the worthy crustacean 
 that was something to see ! What shall 
 despoil us of the day when we halted 
 before a mediaeval-seeming shop near old 
 Bristol's Christmas Steps, and read the 
 longing on the faces of three children 
 standing there without, staring hard at 
 the winkles, cockles and mussels in the 
 window ? 
 
 "Which are the nicest?" asked we 
 with the humility of the non-elect. 
 
 " Mussels, miss ! " rang the concerted 
 shout, whereupon tuppence each turned 
 the loiterers into mussel-eating monarchs. 
 18
 
 THE FOOD OF FANCY 
 
 Two of us will never set eyes on the 
 London barrows loaded with like marine 
 delicacies without choking reminiscence 
 of a certain expedition planned, gloated 
 over in the night-watches and never ac- 
 complished. For we had invited a lady 
 of social high degree, who knows only 
 poetic and fashionable London, and for 
 whom the City is a myth, to vouchsafe 
 us one day wherein to show her the 
 World and the joys thereof. She should 
 ride on the tops of 'buses, she should be 
 presented to the Duke of Suffolk's head, 
 resident in the Minories, salute Gog and 
 Magog, and pause before the tree " at the 
 corner of Wood Street." But alas ! in 
 a moment of ill-judged prophecy we re- 
 ferred to the mussels of Shoreditch to 
 be purchased from a barrow and dipped 
 in the public vinegar ; and being daintily 
 nurtured, thenceforth she would none of 
 our unholy pranks. 
 
 Milk is no uncommon beverage, yet 
 sometimes it has a taste of all Arcadia. 
 One June day when we were on the 
 march brought us to the Welsh paradise 
 of Montgomery, where Magdalen Her- 
 bert's castle heights are standing, crown- 
 less, wonderful. We were entering the 
 19
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 village foot-sore but never weary (and 
 with no time for food, for there were 
 many miles to tramp, that night, before 
 we got home to our den, O) and there, 
 providentially meeting us, came a clean 
 woman driving a clean cow into a tidy 
 yard. Never was bargain more swiftly 
 sealed. She disappeared to bring two 
 bright glasses and a quart measure. 
 She milked and we, throned on a strip 
 of turf, drank, while round about us 
 thronged the village children, solemnly 
 classifying two gaitered, short-skirted 
 and apparently hollow monsters. That 
 was milk such as they drink on Olympus 
 when Hebe serves, though possibly only 
 a cut above the draughts permanently on 
 tap, for a penny or for love, at farm-house 
 doors. 
 
 We are wise, we who go gypsying. 
 We have known what it is to find mush- 
 rooms on the Stratford Road and to smell 
 them, one strange Dorset day, through a 
 choking mist through which the trees 
 seemed walking toward us as we went. 
 How good must elf-men be, we said, to 
 set a banquet there for such as are born 
 with eyes and nose ! We have learned 
 the soul-satisfying quality of raw turnips, 
 20
 
 THE FOOD OF FANCY 
 
 for we fed thereon, one hungry, happy 
 afternoon in Kent. We have lived. 
 
 Certain harmless fictions dominate the 
 English mind regarding the national 
 "victuals." Smile over them, and enjoy 
 the more. You may long for apples, and 
 " seek all day ere you find them ; " for 
 the English apple, as it appears in the 
 market, is prone to show a degree of 
 hardness known to us in no article of 
 food save sugar gooseberries. " I like a 
 good tasty apple meself," said an English 
 wench, setting white teeth into a knurly 
 pippin ; " something to bite on ! " She 
 had it ; a baby foreordained to gums 
 might have cut molars upon it. You 
 may ask plaintively for vegetables, in 
 ordering your dinner, to be answered 
 daily, with a naive air of delighted dis- 
 covery, " Potatoes ! " And should you 
 hint at a larger ambition, a nobler quest, 
 you may count yourself proud and happy 
 if the omnipresent pea is an available 
 candidate, albeit the only one. There 
 may be set before you a loathsome and 
 greasy compound with the encouraging 
 dictum, "This is an American dough- 
 nut ! " (An historic introduction : " Pud- 
 ding Alice ; Alice pudding. Re- 
 
 21
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 move the pudding ! ") But though, for 
 honor's sake, you deny the fallacy, you 
 shall eschew its ocular proof. Every- 
 where seek out the native and historic 
 dish ; and some happy day, if Fortune 
 fawn upon you, roasted crabs may hiss 
 for you in the bowl, and you shall have 
 saffron in the warden pies. 
 22
 
 A STILL HUNT 
 
 WE would hear the nightingale, but, 
 more slenderly equipped than John Bur- 
 roughs in the same fine quest, we had 
 not the certainty of making literary capi- 
 tal out of our ill-success. For us failure 
 was failure : a handful of the summer's 
 gold irretrievably wasted. At Warwick, 
 sure of place "and time agreeing," we 
 made careful inquiry where the bird of 
 wonder might be sought. According to 
 the popular voice, the woods were full of 
 nightingales ; I remember writing home, 
 in a fit of emulous extravagance, that the 
 tongues thereof daily served the castle 
 lord and lordlings for breakfast. " Go 
 down on the bridge, miss, at nine o'clock," 
 said the optimistic landlady. " They do 
 sing there most beautiful. 'KnOw one 
 when you hear him ? ' Yes, indeed, miss ! 
 You can't mistake a nightingale ! " Like 
 all who love their gloriously mediaeval 
 and frankly dirty Warwick as she may 
 be loved, we were accustomed to make 
 a worshipful pilgrimage down past the 
 23
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 castle at twilight, chiefly to steal dreams 
 from one pink rose hanging high on the 
 castle wall ; and so it came about that 
 our observance appropriately ended with 
 the bridge and the greater quest. That 
 rose held strange emphasis in those War- 
 wick days ; it played a part as real and 
 wonderful as the role of princess in tales 
 of fairydom. Little rosy breaths came 
 from her petals, grew into clouds of fan- 
 tasy and enveloped us. Our minds walked 
 dimly in a morning haze. We imagined 
 much about her, as one may about a rose. 
 She suggested to us her who seemed to 
 us then the Fairest of Women, and we 
 made our lady Countess of Warwick 
 (Cophetua's immortal maid !) hung there 
 in her sweet deserving upon the antiquity 
 of the house like that rose upon the stabile 
 wall. And though I have been there 
 since and the dirty white peacock flaunts 
 himself with the same ill-judged vanity, 
 and not one bourgeoning spray is less on 
 the ruined bridge without the gates, 
 Warwick Castle is never the same to me ; 
 for that one rose is gone, and no sister 
 flower could ever take her place. So we 
 dreamed until the dusk enfolded us, and 
 then went happily on to the bridge, stout- 
 24
 
 A STILL HUNT 
 
 hearted in desire and belief. There we 
 paced and leaned and lingered, dallying 
 with dampness and grave in discussion. 
 The question was of mighty import, and 
 always the same. When that liquid note 
 was once entrapped, should we too find 
 it and remember it jug, jug? We were 
 wise, that summer. We knew how vital 
 it was, how much more to be desired 
 than great statecraft, to know whether 
 her lamenting did so run, or whether it 
 must melt into some strange wild note 
 too untamable for even poets' para- 
 phrasing. We need not have striven. 
 The long summer twilights passed : the 
 skies paled, and faded into dusk. De- 
 feated seekers of a wealth more to be 
 desired than El Dorado, there was no- 
 thing for us but to creep home, chilled 
 and vanquished, to bed. Then it was that 
 we bethought us of confiding in an all- 
 knowing cab-driver, and his hopefulness 
 put discouragement to shame. " Night- 
 ingales, miss ? " quoth he. " Yes, miss, I 
 know exactly where they sing. A mile 
 or so out of Warwick is a lonely bit of 
 road, and they hold regular concerts there. 
 I went by last night, and they were 
 a-singing away like everything. I could 
 25
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 take you out, miss, for 'arf a crown ! " 
 Was ever tempting bait more cunningly 
 offered ? We were caught, and that 
 night at ten o'clock, John, with a friend 
 on the box (both faithfully dressed to 
 represent Rogue Riderhood villains), 
 drove up in state. I have not yet been 
 able to decide why these two beguilers 
 of the American purse came thus dis- 
 guised. They had pulled their hats low 
 over their eyes, they had tied flaring 
 handkerchiefs about their necks, and had 
 turned up their collars at a murderous 
 angle. They may have had some exalted 
 idea of a practical joke ; they may have 
 been afraid of the damp. We rattled 
 away, and John asked us respectfully, yet 
 with meaning, if there were not frequent 
 murders in America; he told us folk- 
 tales of horror, and then, at the moment 
 when my spinal marrow was properly 
 chilled, drew up the horse, on a lonely 
 bit of road, and announced, sepulchrally, 
 " This is the very place ! " I had nearly 
 shrieked, "O, save rne, Hubert, save 
 me ! " but I remembered the nightingale, 
 and held my peace. Whether the night- 
 ingale was also mindful of us I know not, 
 but he was silent, too. For one hour we 
 26
 
 A STILL HUNT 
 
 sat there, and then drove slowly home- 
 ward, cold and depressed, our base guides 
 assuring each other, by the way, that 
 never, in all their lives, had they heard 
 of such a circumstance ; still did they 
 insist that nightingales were always mak- 
 ing musical clamor at that particular 
 spot. 
 
 With saddened hearts, we relinquished 
 the quest ; but one night, at Stratford, 
 sitting in the coffee-room of the Red 
 Horse Inn, we mentioned our forlorn 
 pursuit before two young English boys. 
 They were knightly souls and ready. 
 They knew well where Philomel lamented 
 on the Warwick Road, and there would 
 they lead us, if we chose to go. Instantly 
 we were afoot with them in the moqnlit 
 dusk, where the hedgerows smelled of 
 bloom, talking until the way grew lonely 
 (and so provocative of hope), and learning 
 something, I am persuaded, even in that 
 short space, of the finely tempered fibre 
 in little English lads. I cannot remem- 
 ber what they said ; only that they were 
 very frank and very courteous (grown-up 
 and bookish, too, as compared with our 
 American children, using fine-spun words 
 and phrasing with an absolute lack of pre- 
 27
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 tense) and that they breathed the essence 
 of all that is rarest in their nationality. 
 Had it been this year of grace, 1896, I 
 should here assert that they had neigh- 
 bored and played with the boys and girls 
 of "The Golden Age." One passport to 
 their consideration seemed to be the fact 
 that, as Americans, we were indubitably 
 the countrywomen of Mr. William Win- 
 ter. They had rowed with him on the 
 Avon ; he had evidently passed the silent 
 and terrible scrutiny of a boy's ideals 
 and been approved. 
 
 On and on we walked, fields on either 
 side, and sweetness of summer all about. 
 We talked less and less ; we listened, ex- 
 pectant. A lonely corn-crake cried in 
 the distance, sound inharmonious, yet 
 fitted to the darkness and the hour. And 
 then listen ! 
 
 "How thick the bursts come crowding through 
 the leaves I 
 
 Again thou nearest ? 
 Eternal passion ! 
 Eternal pain ! " 
 
 28
 
 THE PILGRIM IN DEVON 
 
 No region short of Arcadia was ever 
 blest with historian more enthusiastic 
 than Charles Kingsley whenever he 
 touched upon Devonshire, her charms or 
 her story; then was his pen dipped in 
 illuminating colors, and he traced the 
 outline of her beauties on a page that 
 must endure until the memory of Devon 
 lads no longer thrills the romance-loving 
 heart. When guide-books wax eloquent 
 over this fair county, and dry historic 
 mention broadens into a sweep of verbal 
 imagery, then are the paragraphs hedged 
 between telltale quotation marks, and 
 a footnote points to Kingsley as the 
 source of such just laudation. His sym- 
 pathy was perfect ; the light of his genius 
 seems to brighten every golden thread in 
 the fabric of her story ; and the traveler 
 who loves such an unfailing lover can 
 scarcely do better than to visit these 
 happy haunts with " Westward Ho ! " 
 and the " Prose Idylls " in hand, as po- 
 etic guidebooks. Unlike many a memo- 
 29
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 rable spot, this has a beauty that is all 
 its own, holding a peculiar power over 
 the human spirit. Not only do the pages 
 of its history rouse the heart to quicker 
 pulsations by their review of the days 
 when there were giants, but even the 
 face of nature seems here significant. 
 Devonshire may be "relaxing," as the 
 neighbors of Bow Bells declare, with 
 fine and almost depreciatory inflection, 
 but nevertheless every breath within its 
 borders inevitably exhilarates all who 
 love a hero. The English Midlands 
 spread out into a fair garden, beautified 
 by the hand of man, and gaining grace 
 from his necessities. Devonshire is 
 all warm luxuriance, rolling waste, and 
 stormy breaker. Its moorland wastes 
 spread on and on, clothed only by coarse 
 grass, heath, and furze ; but its clefts 
 and chasms are enriched by a marvelous 
 fern growth, and cooled by clear moun- 
 tain streams holding a multitude of fish 
 within their limpid shallows. Dartmoor, 
 like Salisbury Plain, is one of nature's 
 high altars, to be approached with rever- 
 ence and dread. A broad expanse, waste 
 and wonderful, it lies like a sea caught 
 in commotion and fixed in everlasting re- 
 30
 
 pose. The touch of cultivation has never 
 disturbed its bosom, yet is it a store- 
 house of varied wealth. The antiquary 
 may ponder long, unsatisfied, over its 
 gigantic mounds and rocky remains, the 
 fisherman fill his creel from its waters, 
 and countless sheep nibble the unfenced 
 pasturage ; but he whom it most delights 
 is the pilgrim who fares along its ways, 
 mindless of aught save shifting cloud 
 beauties and the outline of the billow- 
 ing hills. What treasure-house of form 
 and color can match the English sky? 
 Taken at its sunniest, here arches no 
 crystal vault of blue, but one diversified 
 by an ever-changeful pageant made from 
 sunlit feather-down and clouds the color 
 of a dove's gray wing, glorified, never- 
 theless, by sapphire intervales. Such a 
 procession of airy loveliness awakens a 
 wondrous sympathy in Dartmoor below. 
 Over its tors sweep the shadows, chased 
 by a light that turns the heather to rose, 
 and transforms the coarse grass to a 
 fabric of warm yellow. One hollow lies 
 scowling in darkness ; and lo ! beside it 
 a hill smiles, and then laughs outright 
 under a golden shaft of sun. 
 
 My own course over the moor led from
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 the little village of Chagford to Tavi- 
 stock, thence to seek Plymouth ; and 
 when I set foot in that historic town, I 
 felt the tightening of Kingsley's grasp 
 upon my hand. "Come," he seemed 
 to say ; " here was set the tiny stage 
 whereon great parts were played, as if 
 only Olympus were to be auditor and 
 judge. Come, and keep reverent silence ; 
 read and remember ! " 
 
 Plymouth is a town born for the per- 
 petual flaunting of England's glory. It 
 sits in well-defended pride, looking calm- 
 ly over the waves which are Britannia's 
 own, and saying in every line of wall 
 and fortress, "Behold my impregnable 
 strength ! " Should you, on arriving 
 there, confide to some inhabitant your 
 desire for a pleasant walk, he will say 
 substantially although not perhaps in the 
 eccentric diction of one kindly woman, 
 " Oh, the 'O, my lady, you must go to 
 the 'O ! " Half a mile from the station 
 brings one to this Hoe, or highest part 
 of the esplanade and pleasure-grounds 
 bordering the water, and themselves 
 locked in a wonder of stone outwork and 
 coping. Straight across the sound to the 
 south runs the breakwater, binding the 
 3*
 
 THE PILGRIM IN DEVON 
 
 waves in such beneficent yet stony fetters 
 that they lie tranquil and hospitable be- 
 fore the incoming mariner. Fourteen 
 miles out stands the Eddystone Light- 
 house, on the site of an earlier triumph 
 of engineering, at whose firmness even 
 its great projector, Smeaton, may have 
 wondered, as morning after morning he 
 climbed the Hoe, to exult as he found 
 the tower still piercing the sunrise mist. 
 The tale of the Eddystone Light has 
 been one of varied tragedy. The first 
 lighthouse erected there was washed 
 away, and the second burned. Smea- 
 ton's stood the shock of wind and water 
 for over a century, and then, having been 
 removed on account of its insecure base, 
 and replaced by the present structure, 
 was set up on the green-carpeted Hoe, 
 a perpetually honored pensioner. Com- 
 panioned by it, and overlooking fortress 
 and wave, stands, counterfeited in bronze, 
 the hero of the deep, the scourge of 
 Spain, Sir Francis Drake, about whose 
 memory clings to-day a legendary glory, 
 which, recited by old Devon dames at 
 the hour when the thoughts of kid and 
 old woman turn homeward, brings a 
 parlous creeping along the spine even in 
 33
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 such as are able to summon also that 
 expression known in the older novels as 
 "a skeptical smile." Who can wonder, 
 after reading Drake's exploits, that Spain 
 held him to be no man, but devil ? He 
 had a soul perpetually drunken with be- 
 lief in self and a passionate love of action ; 
 he was one of those who do, not the 
 things they can, but what they will ; and 
 more than all, like Napoleon in his hap- 
 pier days, he had a star. His actual 
 doings read like fairy tales ; but better 
 than them all do I love the folk-lore indi- 
 cating his place in the common mind, 
 that afterglow sure to depict a vanished 
 sunset more faithfully than painter's 
 brush or poet's pen. Was she not a 
 prudent dame, the Spanish favorite who 
 refused to join a water-party with Philip 
 of Spain, even at the risk of offending 
 her sovereign, because she feared "El 
 Draque," that water dragon who, by force 
 of his magic arts, might be anywhere 
 at a moment's notice, now in Europe, 
 now in Prester John's dominions ? It 
 was he who brought water down into 
 Plymouth from clear mountain sources, 
 by the simple process of obtaining a 
 grant from the queen, and the good-will 
 34
 
 THE PILGRIM IN DEVON 
 
 of certain influential persons through 
 whose ground it must run. But did such 
 commonplace means suffice for the popu- 
 lar imagination ? Not in the least. Sir 
 Francis mounted his great black horse, 
 and rode up into Dartmoor. There he 
 found a spring by Sheep's Tor. He 
 beckoned, it followed, and, as he galloped 
 down into Plymouth town, the stream, a 
 docile Jill, came tumbling after. 
 
 " And fine would have been the Diver- 
 sion," says a worthy chronicler, "when 
 the Water was brought somewhere near 
 the Town, to have seen how the Mayor 
 and his Brethren, in their Formalities, 
 went out to meet it, and bid it welcome 
 hither; and that being thus met, they 
 all returned together, the Gentlemen of 
 the Corporation accompanied with Sir 
 Francis Drake, walked before, and the 
 Stream followed after into the Town, 
 where it has continued to do ever since." 
 
 Though some give Sir Francis the 
 mere credit of taking the contract for the 
 waterworks, which had been previously 
 planned by others, he is never forgotten 
 in his capacity of Plymouth's cup-bearer. 
 One loving custom of the town is its 
 annual survey of the watercourse, amply 
 35
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 described in a programme of the cere- 
 mony, dated July, 1891, a bit of paper 
 calculated, as it lies in the hand, to set 
 one to dreaming of that heroic past with 
 which it forms a solid link. 
 
 " At the Head Weir," says this quaint 
 and delightful memorial, " the party be- 
 ing assembled, a Goblet filled with pure 
 Water taken from the Weir by the Sur- 
 veyor is handed by him to the Chairman 
 of the Water Committee, who presents 
 the same to the Mayor, and requests 
 him to drink thereof, ' To the pious 
 memory of Sir Francis Drake,' and pass- 
 ing the Cup from one to the other each 
 drinks and repeats the same words. 
 Another Goblet, being filled with Wine, 
 is then presented by the Chamberlain to 
 the Mayor, who drinks to the Toast 
 ' May the Descendants of him who 
 brought us Water never want Wine.' 
 Passing the Cup as before." 
 
 Then followed " Ye Fyshinge Feast," 
 provided with trout taken from the 
 stream, and concluded by toasts to the 
 royal family, the mayor, and water com- 
 mittee, and topped by one imperishable 
 custom. For "before separating," says 
 the programme, " ' Ye Lovynge Cuppe ' 
 36
 
 THE PILGRIM IN DEVON 
 
 will be passed in pledge of ' Uflity and 
 Prosperity ' to the Town of Plymouth." 
 United may it stand, and prosperous as 
 if Sir Francis yet reigned, its living 
 dictator ! 
 
 The story of Drake's marital influence 
 is well suited to his reputed tempera- 
 ment and generalship. His second wife 
 was Elizabeth Sydenham, of Combe Sy- 
 denham, Somerset ; and before leaving 
 her in the temporary widowhood en- 
 tailed by one of his voyages, he threat- 
 ened her with dire consequences should 
 her fealty waver. Months stretched on 
 in a weary chain, and the lady, believing 
 him to be dead, reluctantly accepted an- 
 other suitor. But just as they were set- 
 ting forth to church, in the midst of a 
 violent thunder-storm, a ball of iron a 
 foot in diameter fell hot on the pave- 
 ment and rolled between the astonished 
 pair. As the impartial student of his- 
 tory will at once believe, the wronged 
 husband had taken aim from the antipo- 
 des, and as usual hit his mark. " It is 
 the token from Drake ! " exclaimed the 
 unwilling bride. " He is alive ! I will 
 not go to church." Nor did she, and 
 Drake himself soon appeared to requite 
 37
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 her readiness in taking a hint. Some, 
 indeed, say that the incident occurred 
 while the two were merely plighted 
 lovers, but I tell the tale as 't was told 
 to me within the Devonshire borders. 
 Historians may be cheerfully allowed to 
 have it otherwise, but even their dictum 
 is less to be desired than the warm if 
 distorted memories of an auld wife's 
 brain. 
 
 One bit of gossip the worshipers of 
 Sir Francis would fain consign to the 
 lists of fiction, though it is set down by 
 sober John Prince in his " Worthies of 
 Devon." It seems that, like many a 
 lesser soul, the admiral was at one time 
 bitten by the fever of ancestry, and bor- 
 rowed, to speak in mildness, a coat of 
 arms belonging to Sir Bernard Drake, 
 head of an elder branch of the name, 
 from whose line his own descent could 
 not be traced. Sir Bernard naturally 
 resented the perching of this uninvited 
 guest on his family tree, and one day, 
 when the feud had waxed fiery hot, 
 within the verge of the court he gave 
 Sir Francis a box on the ear. There- 
 upon Elizabeth, jealous for her favorite 
 as only a woman can be, bestowed 
 38
 
 THE PILGRIM IN DEVON 
 
 upon Sir Francis a vainglorious coat of 
 arms all his own, indicating symbolically 
 his dominion over the world of waters, 
 and at the same time cunningly flouting 
 the elder line; for in the rigging of the 
 ship adorning the crest was a wyvern, 
 copied from the crest of Sir Bernard, 
 but ignominiously hung by the heels. 
 Nevertheless, one is inclined to think 
 Sir Bernard had the best of the mat- 
 ter in his neat retort that " though her 
 Majesty could give Sir Francis a nobler 
 coat than his, she could not give him an 
 antienter one." 
 
 Kingsley's vivid description of Ply- 
 mouth as it was in 1588, when the In- 
 vincible Armada undertook the demoli- 
 tion of Protestant Christendom, is well 
 rounded, in his portraiture of the men 
 who were gathered in the town to await 
 the arch enemy, by the picture of " a 
 short, sturdy, plainly dressed man, who 
 stands with legs a little apart, and hands 
 behind his back, looking up with keen 
 gray eyes into the face of each speaker. 
 His cap is in his hands, so that you can 
 see the bullet head of crisp, brown hair 
 and the wrinkled forehead, 'as well as the 
 high cheek bones, the short square face, 
 39
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 the broad temples, the thick lips, which 
 are yet firm as granite. A coarse, ple- 
 beian stamp of man, yet the whole figure 
 and attitude are that of boundless de- 
 termination, self-possession, energy ; and 
 when at last he speaks a few blunt words, 
 all eyes are turned respectfully upon 
 him, for his name is Francis Drake." 
 
 And there on Plymouth Hoe was he 
 playing at bowls when a sailor hurriedly 
 put in shore, to say that the enemy had 
 been sighted. The English, from lord 
 high admiral to common sailor, were 
 tired of waiting. They had grown un- 
 easy over conflicting rumors and Eliza- 
 beth's weathercock advance and with- 
 drawal, and even the leaders sorely 
 needed the solace of that match on the 
 green. Yet when the great word broke 
 upon the ear of Drake, what did he re- 
 ply ? That he would play out his game, 
 since there would afterwards be time 
 enough and to spare for beating the 
 Spaniard. But who would attempt re- 
 peating the after-story which many have 
 told so well ? Suffice it for us to recall 
 the folk-version of the first scene in 
 the grand drama, wherein the winds of 
 heaven and the heroism of earth played 
 40
 
 THE PILGRIM IN DEVON 
 
 antiphonal parts. When the Spanish 
 fleet appeared, say Plymouth dames, Sir 
 Francis quietly called for a billet of 
 wood and an axe. The stick he pro- 
 ceeded to chop into small pieces, which, 
 as he threw them into the water, speedily 
 became men-of-war; and these Devo- 
 nian dragon's teeth (fraternal and benefi- 
 cent, unlike the crop of old !) fell upon 
 the enemy of Gloriana the Great, and 
 straightway destroyed him. 
 
 At the right of the Hoe, a wilderness 
 of greenery overlooking the sea, lies 
 Mount Edgcumbe, wisely selected by 
 the leader of the Armada for his own 
 share of the spoils. He had an eye for 
 beauty, this Medina Sidonia; and even 
 at this late day, with all our sympathies 
 enlisted on the winning side, we can but 
 feel " the pity of it " that even so insolent 
 an invader should thus have "loved a 
 dream," though we smile, perforce, over 
 old Fuller's ironical remark that "the 
 bear was not yet killed, and Medina 
 Sidonia might have catched a great cold, 
 had he no other clothes to wear than the 
 skin thereof." It is easy to picture the 
 delight with which the sea-wearied eyes 
 of the Spanish mariners must have rested 
 41
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 on this royal spot. Sheer above the 
 dimpling water rise mountainous cliffs, 
 crowned by a noble growth of trees, 
 and carpeted with sweet under-verdure. 
 Mount Edgcumbe Park, where the public 
 is permitted to wander on specified days, 
 is a miracle of beauty. Tracts of wood- 
 land alternate with garden beds rich in 
 color. Laurel and holly reflect the day 
 in their shining leaves, and a wondrous 
 giant hypericum stars the ground with 
 bloom. The great estate is traversed by 
 broad walks and winding paths, appar- 
 ently due not to design, but to the errant 
 will of some wanderer ; and now and 
 again, in skirting the cliff, you may look 
 down into the summer sea, over the 
 greenly wooded Drake's Island in the 
 harbor. At happy intervals are lodge 
 and cottage, where you may order delec- 
 table tea and plum-cake for sixpence, or 
 ham and eggs (the bulwark of England's 
 greatness) for another silver trifle. And 
 if the sky, such of it as you can see 
 through the treetops, smile upon you, 
 and the typical sight-seer be not omni- 
 present, you will take the little boat 
 again for Plymouth quay, after a dreamy 
 half -day in the park, more alive than ever 
 42
 
 THE PILGRIM IN DEVON 
 
 to England's beauty and Medina Sidonia's 
 taste in real estate. 
 
 Were one to attempt a summary of 
 Plymouth's notable days and names, he 
 would find an American tourist's stay 
 within its gates all too short for dwelling 
 fitly upon associations of such magnitude. 
 From that port set sail, in its golden 
 days, an " infinite swarm of expeditions." 
 Drake put forth from its harbor to 
 circumnavigate the globe. Sir John 
 Hawkins made it the initial point of his 
 dark but masterful career. Sir Walter 
 Raleigh's fleet set sail thence for the 
 settlement of Virginia, and hither he 
 returned, broken-hearted, from his last 
 fatal expedition in quest of the golden 
 city of Manoa. Sir Humphrey Gilbert 
 went thence to Newfoundland, a voyage 
 destined to stretch on into that other, 
 infinite journey, illumined by the burning 
 words, " We are as near heaven by sea 
 as by land." From Plymouth, also, em- 
 barked, in 1620, those pilgrims who had 
 left Holland for a bleaker but more de- 
 sired haven. Quaint and dry are the 
 early chronicles of the town, denoting a 
 race of tough fibre, fit associates for the 
 mariners whose names do so burn and 
 43
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 flash upon the page. These were men 
 who stood no more upon ceremony than 
 old " Frankie Drake," and who could give 
 and take such missiles of dry humor as 
 might well be considered both danger- 
 ous and deadly in their effect on friendly 
 intercourse. Some of the stories con- 
 nected with the early mayors recall the 
 candor once prevailing in the pit of the 
 English theatres. Shipley, being meek 
 by nature and deportment, was popularly 
 called " Sheepley," and evidently took no 
 offense thereat. Farcy, who would have 
 the world know that he was " gentleman 
 born," struck the town clerk for not call- 
 ing him "your Worship," and so was 
 dubbed thereafter " Worshipful Farcy " 
 by all the Plymouth gamins, perhaps 
 even with the concurrence of their tough- 
 hided fathers. Yogge, who was blamed 
 for belittling his office by bearing his 
 meat home from market, returned with 
 sturdy good wit, " It's a poor horse that 
 won't carry its own provender ! " But 
 of all the legends connected with these 
 robust city fathers, none better shows us 
 the stuff of which they were made than 
 a true tale of Mayor Dirnford, who, in 
 1455, m church "on his opening day," 
 44
 
 THE PILGRIM IN DEVON 
 
 had a fit of apoplexy. No such slight in- 
 cident, however, could really disturb his 
 Worship. He came out of it with dignity, 
 as from a recognized part of the services, 
 and at dinner ate Michaelmas goose, say- 
 ing grimly that the fit had given him an 
 appetite. 
 
 Of the beauty and strength of Ply- 
 mouth at the present day, it would be 
 difficult to say too much. It includes 
 within its jurisdiction the sister towns 
 of Stonehouse and Devonport, all three 
 bearing the patent marks of military de- 
 sign and occupation. Look into the Cat- 
 water and Hamoaze, estuaries of the Plym 
 and Tamar, twin rivers of Plymouth, and 
 you shall find men-of-war and humble 
 merchant vessels. Go to Devonport, and 
 there you may seek the dockyards, en- 
 ticingly open to such foreigners as are 
 favored by the gods and the admiralty. 
 Though the days have long passed when 
 seafaring heroes trod the streets, Ply- 
 mouth will disclose many a quaint corner 
 to such as are patient as well as curious : 
 witness, at least, the Barbican, where one 
 who fears not sea slime and good-natured 
 chaff may meet the fishing population at 
 dawn ; and also that eccentric auction 
 45
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 distinguished by the falling of every bid. 
 What lover of the past could be misled 
 by a garnished exterior? Yet if there 
 be one thus " fond and foolish," let him 
 in Plymouth seek out that square where 
 so many stately buildings are congre- 
 gated, and, ignoring their carven fresh- 
 ness, enter old Saint Andrew's Church. 
 For there were the people at service, 
 three hundred years ago, when a salute 
 told the news that Sir Francis Drake 
 had returned from the seas which " were 
 a prison for so large a spirit," and drew 
 forth men, women, and children to meet 
 the victorious hero. 
 
 Another bit of earth where the loyal 
 heart beats at thought of Kingsley and 
 olden days is Clovelly, jewel dropped in 
 a cleft of the rock, happy human nest 
 builded close by the sea. The approach 
 to this oddest corner of creation, past 
 vestiges of a Roman encampment, gives 
 no hint of the beauties on which the eye 
 is presently to feed. The coach stops, 
 apparently in a gentleman's park devoted 
 to utilitarian ends ; and leaving care be- 
 hind, in the shape of baggage, the trav- 
 eler must thereupon take to his feet down 
 a steep, rock-paved road, where all tour- 
 46
 
 THE PILGRIM IN DEVON 
 
 ists fare alike, be they clad in frieze or 
 gold. Suddenly, at a turn of the way, ap- 
 pears Clovelly Street, descending sharply 
 in low, broad stairs laid with cobblestones. 
 No carriage has ever profaned this stony 
 staircase. Only the tiny hoofs of don- 
 keys go clattering up and down ; for it is 
 Neddy who patiently toils under sacks 
 of coal (trying, meanwhile, with gentle 
 insistence, to " scrunch " the unwary 
 traveler against the neighboring wall), 
 or drags about sledges piled high with 
 trunk and portmanteau, whose name 
 here is legion. Flanking this declivitous 
 way runs, on either side, a row of cot- 
 tages, immaculate in whitewash, and 
 adorned by fuchsia shrubs and gerani- 
 ums. Halfway down stands the New 
 Inn, its sign swinging across the street, 
 a little old-fashioned house, resplen- 
 dent in old china, and kept in perpetual 
 commotion by the influx of hungry ex- 
 cursionists, who come by boat and coach 
 to flood the tiny village with admiring 
 exclamations. 
 
 The quaintness of Clovelly is not all 
 its charm ; it wears, too, that of a won- 
 drous beauty and delight. Lying as it 
 does in an earth-cleft stretching down to 
 47
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 the sea, it is fostered and overlooked by 
 towering wooded cliffs, and, secure in 
 humble contentment and sweetness of 
 life, seems nowise inferior in merit to 
 such natural pomp and magnificence. 
 The little street wanders, in its progress 
 to the water ; once, perhaps twice, it 
 boldly marches through the walls of a 
 house (itself spanned by an archway 
 above), and then after threading strange 
 nooks and corners, where fishy smells 
 mingle with the smoke which is Clovelly's 
 natural breath, ends at the little harbor, 
 that harbor where, as Kingsley says, 
 in the season of herring fishing so many 
 boats set forth with song and prayer, 
 some never to return. One scene, he 
 tells us, would come upon him again and 
 again : of " the old bay darkened with 
 the gray coldness of the waterspouts 
 stalking across the waves before the 
 northern gales ; and the tiny herring 
 boats fleeing from their nets right for 
 the breakers, hoping more mercy even 
 from those iron walls of rock than from 
 the pitiless howling wastes of spray be- 
 hind them ; and that merry beach beside 
 the town covered with shrieking women 
 and old men, casting themselves on the 
 48
 
 THE PILGRIM IN DEVON 
 
 pebbles in fruitless agonies of prayer, as 
 corpse after corpse swept up at the feet 
 of wife and child, till in one case alone 
 the dawn saw upwards of sixty widows 
 and orphans weeping over those who had 
 gone out the night before in the fullness 
 of strength and courage." 
 
 Kingsley's father was rector of Clo- 
 velly during six of those years when the 
 sensitive lad must have been very deli- 
 cately responsive to new impressions. 
 Under the mysterious spell of sea and 
 cliff, he conned the pages of England's 
 naval history, learning it through the 
 heart rather than the mind ; for here did 
 he catch the spirit of those men who 
 made it glow and burn. From Devon 
 air, her sunshine, waves, and rocks, rather 
 than Hakluyt's Chronicles, was born his 
 fiery sympathy with that heroic race who 
 peopled the deep three hundred years 
 ago. " Now," said he to his wife, on 
 her first visit to Clovelly, " now that you 
 have seen the dear old paradise, you 
 know what was the inspiration of my life 
 before I met you." His very spirit per- 
 meates the place ; his name is there a 
 household word. 
 
 "Did you know Mr. Kingsley?" I 
 49
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 asked a woman, beautiful with health, 
 and bearing the dignity of a sturdy 
 character, the wife of a "master mari- 
 ner," to whom a humble stone was 
 erected in Clovelly churchyard. Evi- 
 dently, that manner of speech was too 
 familiar as concerning a beneficent house- 
 hold deity. " We all saw him very often," 
 she said with gravity. " As soon as he 
 came on his visits, he was in and out of 
 every house, as welcome as a bit of sun- 
 light on a wet day, and asking how was 
 this one, and how was that, and had the 
 lads got home from sea ? Ah, we loved 
 Mr. Kingsley!" 
 
 His happiest vacations were spent 
 here, sometimes as a guest at Clovelly 
 Court, and again in lodgings in a fuchsia- 
 decked house on Clovelly Street. Thence 
 he sailed to Lundy, or wherever a fisher- 
 man's lot might lead him, delighting his 
 keen eyes and reverent soul with God's 
 wonders dredged up from the deep. " I 
 cannot believe my eyes," was his home- 
 satisfied cry, on settling into a welcoming 
 nest. "The same 'place, the pavement, 
 the dear old smells, the dear old hand- 
 some faces again! " 
 
 The people who fill the picturesque 
 5
 
 THE PILGRIM IN DEVON 
 
 village houses are of a noble and digni- 
 fied type. Clovelly women are tall and 
 shapely; the men bear in face and car- 
 riage unmistakable marks of thought and 
 feeling, and the children are marvels of 
 dark-eyed beauty. With such simplicity 
 and directness does the body here express 
 the soul that you may read daily, in 
 living lineaments, the story of a fine and 
 striving race. Life to these men is little 
 more or less than a year-long struggle 
 with the treacherous sea. So constantly 
 are they brought face to face with danger 
 that minor griefs are no longer present 
 to remembrance, and the desire of eter- 
 nal life becomes to them all in all. Such 
 men were their dead-and-gone ancestors, 
 who fought the Armada, and went, "grim 
 or jocund," in quest of the "golden South 
 Americas ; " such, in endurance and rigid 
 purpose, was Salvation Yeo, of "West- 
 ward Ho ! " who was born in Clovelly 
 Street, in the year 1 526, where his "father 
 exercised the mystery of a barber sur- 
 geon and a preacher of the people since 
 called Anabaptists." One noticeable cir- 
 cumstance, strange and pregnant, is that 
 Clovelly has no young men. They are 
 all at sea, serving their apprenticeship,
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 to come home for the innocent kisses of 
 a dozen joyous women waiting on the 
 quay, or to furnish new cause for the old 
 ache, throbbing for the wanderer who 
 may not return. 
 
 Clovelly may be approached through 
 the Hobby Drive, a way of marvelous 
 beauty skirting the top of the cliff, 
 guarded by towering trees, and bordered 
 with a lush undergrowth of ferns. From 
 time to time in his course, the traveler 
 will come upon a natural window in the 
 leafy walls, an airy space, whence he 
 may overlook the blue sea, seek out 
 Lundy's outline, severely simple, and in 
 the distance the shadowy coast of Wales ; 
 and finally shall he receive the crowning 
 vision of Clovelly herself, far below his 
 eyrie, nestling in her flowery gorge, and 
 drowsily indifferent to sea or wind. This 
 road, a veritable fairy progress, belongs 
 to Clovelly Court, where in the sixteenth 
 century lived the Carys, one of whom 
 figures so prominently among Kingsley's 
 giants of action. They held it till the 
 eighteenth century, when their branch 
 of the family died out. And where now 
 shall we seek a trace of the gallant Will 
 who was one of that noble Brotherhood 
 52
 
 THE PILGRIM IN DEVON 
 
 of the Rose, founded by Frank Leigh, 
 worthy favorite of the Virgin Queen ? 
 Only Kingsley can rehearse his mimic 
 history, though, if the trace of one of 
 his forbears be cheering to the eye, the 
 traveller may climb the height to the 
 little church, to find a Gary's name in 
 enduring brass. Another point of pil- 
 grimage on the estate is Gallantry Bower, 
 a steep cliff rising four' hundred feet out 
 of the sea, and commanding Hartland 
 Point, Bideford Bay, and, stretching ever 
 outward like a weird finger, Morte Point, 
 where so many ships have gone down, 
 barren and dreadful Morte, which of all 
 places on earth " God made last, and the 
 devil will take first." Gallantry Bower, 
 as Amyas says, is so named when one is 
 on land, though you " always call it White 
 Cliff when you see it from the seaboard." 
 It has its appropriate legend ; for here, in 
 a lonely tower, lived the fair lady of a 
 Norman lord. She had a fine vantage 
 point for surveying the world around, 
 this victim of soft durance ! Peace to 
 her dust, peace equal in measure to 
 the skyful of beauty whereon she daily 
 looked ! 
 
 To go into lodgings at Clovelly is to 
 53
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 invite a possibility of becoming soon in- 
 terknit with the life of its kindly people. 
 In an angle of the stairlike street, almost 
 overhanging the quay, stands a bench 
 serving as council ground for the village 
 fathers. There, usually at twilight, when 
 the boats have come in and nets are dry- 
 ing, sits a row of grizzled mariners dis- 
 cussing the state of the world, think 
 you ? Nay, of the universe itself. One 
 bit of quaint philosophy, overheard during 
 such a twilight symposium, has lingered 
 in my ears, to sweeten many a tough 
 morsel of experience. " Well," said one 
 of these weatherworn sea-dogs, in the 
 tone of those who have drawn their own 
 conclusions from the inexplicable drama 
 called Life, " human nature 's looking up 
 a bit ; that 's the only comfort." And 
 is human nature looking up even a bit, 
 Clovelly sailor, more familiar with the 
 deep than with human countenance, and 
 unpolluted by the grime of great cities ? 
 It may be so ; for out of the lips of men 
 unspotted from the world come often 
 truths more crystalline than those of sci- 
 ence or statistics. In the village is sold 
 a photograph of Clovelly mariners, and 
 one face, a humorous, droll physiognomy, 
 54
 
 THE PILGRIM IN DEVON 
 
 at once strikes the attention. "And 
 who is this ? " I asked the sympathetic 
 dealer. " Oh, that is poor old Captain 
 Folly," said she, with a tear in her voice. 
 " He died the other day. You must have 
 been here." Yes, we were there in our 
 lodgings at the head of the street, when 
 Captain Folly was borne past by his 
 brother mariners in their Sunday best ; 
 wearing also the becoming gravity of 
 those who think gently and seriously of 
 death, not during the one hour when it 
 disturbs them at their avocations, but as 
 children recognize the night as the inevi- 
 table foil of day. A solemn hymn was 
 sung, strong voices sustaining the burden, 
 and up the street to the little church was 
 carried the old man whose journey was 
 finished, and who slept, wrapped in honor 
 and full of days, beneath the flag spread 
 reverently upon his coffin. 
 
 Midway down the street stands or 
 stood another old man, whose race is 
 not soon to be run, judging from his 
 apparent ability to keep feebleness and 
 sorrow at bay. He is crippled, and waits 
 at the domestic receipt of custom, ready 
 to retail village gossip, and readier still 
 to dispose, in a very self-respecting man- 
 55
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 ner, of the forthcoming shilling or six- 
 pence. He is a trifle more cynical than 
 many of his brother mariners, this aged 
 man, the daily implication of whose life 
 is, "A penny, if you please," yet he 
 furnishes savor and spice in a godly 
 community. 
 
 But in order to find himself actually 
 near the heart of this simple folk, it is 
 the part of the reflective traveler to 
 attend chapel on Sunday, and not the 
 church. Such a service, once sought 
 out and followed, is never to be forgotten. 
 A rough hall in an obscure corner jutting 
 from the street, bare and uninteresting 
 as the old country schoolhouse, is filled 
 with worshipers, who at entrance and 
 departure make a mighty clattering on 
 the uncarpeted floor, and whose heart of 
 religious love raises their hymn-singing 
 to a resounding if strident chorus. What 
 lover of human expression would not 
 study reverently the faces in that lowly 
 chapel? Every eye fixed upon the 
 preacher, a man who had somewhat 
 to say, a sermon full of hard and lov- 
 ing common -sense, their earnestness 
 bespoke sheep worthy the guidance of 
 a faithful shepherd ; not such as feed 
 56
 
 THE PILGRIM IN DEVON 
 
 in grassy vales, but accustomed to stony 
 ways and mountain fastnesses, to storm 
 and night. One old man, whose every 
 look and gesture was of the sea, empha- 
 sized the prayers, from point to point, 
 with sonorous " amens." His soul drank 
 of the waters of life, said the recurrent 
 response ; this was his thanksgiving. 
 
 Eleven miles from Clovelly lies Lun- 
 dy, from whose southeast edge rises the 
 Shutter Rock, terrible dramatic centre 
 of the tragedy so marvelously described 
 in " Westward Ho ! " when, at the end 
 of Amyas Leigh's sixteen days' chase 
 of the Spaniard, the wind a destroying 
 angel, and lightnings and thunder the 
 messengers of an avenging heaven, Don 
 Guzman's ship was cast upon the rocks. 
 What traveler so painstaking as to seek 
 out Lundy will not remember at the 
 south that cliff overhanging the shore- 
 less cove and deep, dark sea, where blind 
 Amyas sat and drank in his vision of 
 the Spanish galleon, and her men "all 
 lying round her, asleep until the judg- 
 ment day " ? 
 
 " Don Guzman he never heeded, but 
 sat still and drank his wine. Then he 
 took a locket from his bosom ; and I 
 57
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 heard him speak, Will, and he said, 
 * Here's the picture of my fair and true 
 lady ; drink to her, Senors all.' Then he 
 spoke to me, Will, and called me right 
 up through the oar-weed and the sea : 
 ' We have had a fair quarrel, Senor, and 
 it is time to be friends once more. My 
 wife and your brother have forgiven me, 
 so your honor takes no stain.' And I 
 answered, 'We are friends, Don Guz- 
 man ; God has judged our quarrel, and 
 not we.' Then he said, ' I have sinned, 
 and I am punished.' And I said, 'And, 
 Senor, so am I.' Then he held out his 
 hand to me, Gary, and I stooped to take 
 it, and I woke." 
 
 Lundy, in the days before steam had 
 rendered traveling "as easy as lying," 
 was so inaccessible as to provoke the re- 
 mark that the difficulty of getting there 
 was exceeded only by the difficulty of 
 getting away. Indeed, it is said that the 
 clergymen of five or six coast parishes 
 once made an excursion thither, and 
 were detained on the island over two 
 Sundays, to the exceeding dismay of 
 their waiting congregations, an en- 
 forced season of retirement which, it is 
 hoped, the reverend gentlemen employed 
 58
 
 THE PILGRIM IN DEVON 
 
 for the good of their souls. The island 
 is one of that brood of earth pigmies 
 born to mightiness of garb and history. 
 Its granite and slate defenses present an 
 impregnable front to the Atlantic, and 
 surging currents rage about it with a 
 strength and fury to be surpassed only 
 at Land's End. But once within its 
 rocky gates, more smiling beauties greet 
 the eye, for its vegetation is rich in 
 that coloring which is the benison of sea 
 air. Here heather and furze glow in 
 rose and gold, the royal foxglove stands, 
 and the sedum blesses the earth with 
 bloom. 
 
 Lundy has had a checkered history, 
 ever painted in gloomy and glaring hues. 
 It can boast remains of a primeval popu- 
 lation in flint and pottery, but few will 
 care to trace its history further than the 
 day of Sir Jordan de Moresco, its earliest 
 recorded lord, who in the reign of Henry 
 II. lived there a turbulent and piratical 
 life, undaunted by king or peer, though 
 his bit of land was declared forfeit to the 
 crown. Of good old stuff were the Mo- 
 rescos, and they fought a valiant fight 
 against law and order until 1242, when 
 William of that name was seized and 
 59
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 hanged in London town. Thereafter, 
 Lundy became a favorite resort for 
 pirates, and was captured in turn by 
 French, Spanish, and even Turkish pri- 
 vateers. Seek its pages to-day, and you 
 will read the tamer sequel to so bold 
 a story : a few houses cluster at the 
 landing-cove, a lighthouse crowns the 
 plateau above ; the scene is one of qui- 
 etude, broken only by the turmoil of 
 nature. On the upper plain lie also the 
 ruins of an ancient fortress known as 
 Moresco's Castle, forever tainted by the 
 blot of having sheltered a dastardly refu- 
 gee, Sir Lewis Stukely, Vice-Admiral of 
 Devonshire, and kinsman of Sir Walter 
 Raleigh, who through that craven means 
 oame to the headsman's block. By this 
 Judas-like deed, Stukely earned the royal 
 favor, but irretrievably lost that of his 
 peers ; and being vigorously insulted by 
 old Lord Howard of Effingham, he ran 
 whining to James and made complaint. 
 " What should I do with him ? " queried 
 James. " Hang him ? On my sawl, mon, 
 if I hung all that spoke ill of thee, all the 
 trees in the island were too few ! " But 
 Stukely was to learn that treachery to a 
 friend and defection from a royal master 
 60
 
 THE PILGRIM IN DEVON 
 
 are two different offenses ; for when, 
 within a year, he was caught debasing 
 the coin of the realm, there was nothing 
 for it but flight before the winds of 
 wrath. Into Devonshire hot-foot he hur- 
 ried, and there was he resolutely boy- 
 cotted; his own denied him, and the 
 common people would give him " neither 
 fire nor water." Again was he swept 
 on by fate and furies to Lundy, and, seek- 
 ing refuge in the old Moresco Castle, 
 died there, "cursing God and man." 
 
 Not far from Clovelly lies Portledge, 
 now the seat of the Pine-Coffins, and in 
 Amyas Leigh's time the residence of 
 that Will Coffin who made one among 
 the lovers of Rose Salterne. The most 
 prominent member of the old Coffin 
 family figures boldly among Prince's 
 "Worthies of Devon," and his life pre- 
 sents a pretty bit of incident scarcely 
 to be told more vividly than in Prince's 
 own diction, quaint and clear. This Sir 
 William Coffin married, in the reign of 
 Henry VIII., Lady Manners of Derby- 
 shire ; " and residing, as is likely, with 
 her on her Dowry in those Parts, he was 
 chosen Knight of that Shire in the Parli- 
 ment which began A. 21 K. Henry VIII., 
 61
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 1529: In his way to which, there hap- 
 pened a remarkable Accident, not un- 
 worthy the relating, especially for the 
 good Law it occasioned : Passing by a 
 Church-yard, he saw a multitude of Peo- 
 ple standing Idle ; he enquired into the 
 cause thereof : Who reply'd, They had 
 brought a Corse thither to be buried ; 
 but the Priest refused to do his office 
 unless they first delivered him the Poor 
 Man's Cow, the only quick goods he left, 
 for a Mortuary. Sir William sent for 
 the Priest, and required him to do his 
 Office to the Dead : Who peremptorily 
 refused it, unless he had his Mortuary 
 first. Whereupon he caused the Priest to 
 be put into the Poor Man's Grave, and 
 Earth to be thrown in upon him ; and he 
 still persisting in his Refusal, there was 
 still more earth thrown in, until the 
 obstinate Priest was either altogether or 
 well-nigh suffocated." This little drama 
 led to an act of Parliament absolutely fix- 
 ing the amount of mortuaries, and spe- 
 cifying the place of payment, so that 
 no poor man was thereafter likely to be 
 denied his last rites and resting-place. 
 " All which," as Prince begs us to "make 
 a note of," " Confirms the Observation, 
 62
 
 THE PILGRIM IN DEVON 
 
 That Evil Manners are often the Parent 
 of Good Laws." 
 
 It were a pert and presumptuous pen 
 which would attempt a description of 
 Bideford after Kingsley has ticketed it 
 with missal script, and laid it away for 
 all time, in library records, as " the little 
 white town . . . which slopes upwards 
 from its broad tide-river paved with yel- 
 low sands, and many-arched old bridge 
 where salmon wait for autumn floods, 
 toward the pleasant upland on the west. 
 Above the town the hills close in, cush- 
 ioned with deep oak woods, through 
 which juts here and there a crag of fern- 
 fringed slate ; below they lower, and 
 open more and more in softly-rounded 
 knolls and fertile squares of red and 
 green, till they sink into the wide ex- 
 panse of hazy flats, rich salt-marshes, 
 and rolling sand-hills, where Torridge 
 joins her sister Taw, and both together 
 flow quietly toward the broad surges of 
 the bar, and the everlasting thunder of 
 the long Atlantic swell." But the trav- 
 eler who arrives there with the begin- 
 ning of " Westward Ho ! " warm in the 
 memory will recall that, in the year I575> 
 Amyas Leigh, wandering home from 
 63
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 school along the quay, by the taverns 
 that lined the High Street, met there 
 two men telling strange tales of the gold 
 and gems of the New World, and the 
 marvelous adventures attendant on their 
 quest. These were Mr. John Oxenham, 
 of whose family Devonshire traditions 
 contain curious mention, and Salvation 
 Yeo. That the latter was a true Devon- 
 shire name " the bricks are alive to this 
 day to testify ; " for in Bideford town I 
 saw it, not many months ago, on a pro- 
 saic and humble signboard. But though 
 syllables may defy the lapse of time, the 
 ancient taverns are gone, and the High 
 Street is a busy course of trade. Even 
 the old church, where Amyas and his 
 brother mariners gave thanks after their 
 wonderful voyage with Drake, has made 
 place for a new one. Only the muddy 
 Torridge flows daily in and out, alternat- 
 ing in yellow flats and dimpling water, 
 and Bideford bridge stands proud and 
 firm in the very outlines it wore when 
 the lad Amyas begged of Salvation Yeo 
 his carven horn. So old is this historic 
 bridge that no man knoweth the date 
 of its building. The most ancient ex- 
 isting seal of Bideford borough, dating 
 64
 
 THE PILGRIM IN DEVON 
 
 from the fourteenth century, bears its 
 portrait; therefore must it have been 
 alive and in good and honorable stand- 
 ing at that day. Its origin, like that 
 of all truly self-respecting structures 
 in Great Britain, is supernatural. It is 
 recorded that the river was long ago 
 crossed by a ford so dangerous that no 
 stones could be laid there with any hope 
 of permanence. Finally, however, the 
 parish priest was told in a dream that a 
 stone had been moved to a desirable 
 spot in the stream, and there should the 
 bridge be built. So this holy medium of 
 communication 'twixt Heaven and Bide- 
 ford, Sir Richard Gomard, or Gurney, re- 
 vealed his vision to the bishop, who was 
 pleased to "send forth indulgences and 
 licenses" in order to enlist the good 
 offices of his flock. They, obedient 
 souls, gave abundantly, each according 
 to his means. Many contributed money ; 
 the rich gave lands and the labor of 
 their workmen, and the poor cheerfully 
 offered the work of their hands, some 
 for a week, and others, more prosperous 
 or more zealous, for a month. That the 
 succeeding bishops had the bridge's wel- 
 fare in mind is indicated by the fact that 
 65
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 announcement was made not only from 
 the cathedral church of Exeter, but 
 throughout the diocese of Devonshire 
 and Cornwall, that those who would 
 promote and encourage this work " should 
 participate in all spiritual blessings for- 
 ever." No wonder that the bridge be- 
 came so rich as to hold its head high, 
 and bear itself with the dignity of a 
 landed proprietor, becoming, first and 
 last, " an inspired bridge, a soul-saving 
 bridge, an alms-giving bridge, an educa- 
 tional bridge, a sentient bridge, and last, 
 but not least, a dinner-giving bridge." 
 
 It was to the Grenviles that Bide- 
 ford owed its early prosperity. The 
 first Grenvile of Bideford was a cousin 
 of the Conqueror ; but the bright star of 
 that heroic family remains Sir Richard, 
 whose prowess is sung by every chanter 
 of Devon's fame, and who departed this 
 life in a swiftly-traced but ever-during 
 track of glory. For in the Revenge, off 
 Flores, with a hundred and twenty men, 
 he fought the Spanish fleet of fifty sail 
 and ten thousand men, from three in 
 the afternoon till daybreak next morn- 
 ing. But when, in that fury of battle, 
 more than a thousand of the enemy were 
 66
 
 THE PILGRIM IN DEVON 
 
 slain, while the Revenge lost but forty, 
 when his boat was riddled through and 
 through, and he himself was wounded, 
 he would fain have blown up the vessel, 
 and was forced to surrender only through 
 want of ammunition. Three days after, 
 he died of his wounds, saying in Span- 
 ish, that his captors might understand 
 and know themselves defied to the last, 
 " Here die I, Richard Grenvile, with a 
 joyful and quiet mind, for that I have 
 ended my life as a good soldier ought to 
 do, who has fought for his country and 
 his queen, for honor and religion." 
 
 Such was Richard Grenvile, who walks 
 through " Westward Ho ! " and the pages 
 of less poetic history " a wise and gallant 
 gentleman, lovely to all good men, awful 
 to all bad men : in whose presence none 
 dare say or do a mean or a ribald thing ; 
 whom brave men left, feeling themselves 
 nerved to do their duty better, while 
 cowards slipped away, as bats and owls 
 before the sun." Well is he remembered 
 as " the great Sir Richard, the pride of 
 North Devon." 
 
 Kingsley's authority has been ques- 
 tioned for making Bideford one of Eng- 
 land's chief ports in the sixteenth cen- 
 67
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 tury, though its halcyon days, beginning 
 under Elizabeth, rapidly brightened, 
 until its commerce with America and 
 Newfoundland became exceeding great. 
 French and Spanish privateers found 
 Bideford ships such rich booty that they 
 seized them in the very offing of the 
 Taw and Torridge, and ironically named 
 the spot " Golden Bay." But such flour- 
 ishing of commerce is a thing of the past, 
 for now the shipping trade of the Tor- 
 ridge is conducted mainly at the neigh- 
 boring town of Appledore. Burrough 
 in Northam, where Kingsley fixed the 
 home of Amyas Leigh, has been for 
 centuries the seat of a family of the 
 name of Leigh, two of whom were sea- 
 faring men, and one, in Elizabeth's time, 
 " Chief Pilot of England." A member 
 of a luckless expedition to the Arctic 
 seas in the sixteenth century, he daringly 
 continued his voyage, even though a 
 companion ship was separated from him 
 by wind and weather. On he sailed 
 into the north, the region of perpetual 
 mystery, and, most undaunted of pio- 
 neers, entered the White Sea, naming 
 the North Cape by the way. Again, in 
 an insignificant vessel with a tiny crew, 
 68
 
 THE PILGRIM IN DEVON 
 
 he sailed triumphantly to a point within 
 the Kara Sea, " beyond which," says 
 Prince, " no navigator went until our 
 own day." Truly Amy as the giant came 
 of a goodly race, and one whose tradi- 
 tions bound him to heroic deeds. 
 
 Near the mouth of the Torridge lies a 
 delightfully clean little town, a seaside 
 resort of some pretension. This is West- 
 ward Ho, born of the great book to 
 which the region is yearly indebted for 
 crowding visitors. Though the town is 
 modern, even amazingly so among such 
 surroundings, its near neighbor is as old 
 as what ? Let geology tell us. I had 
 almost said, in the ignorant enthusiasm 
 of the unscientific pilgrim, " as old as 
 Adam." This neighbor is the Pebble 
 Ridge, whose moaning told poor Mrs. 
 Leigh, three miles away in Bideford 
 town, that the sea and winds were rap- 
 idly rising, and that her boy, on his way 
 to Ireland, would not sleep that night. 
 The Ridge is simply a wide beach heaped 
 with pebbles, the smallest larger than 
 the fist, and on the day of my pilgrimage 
 lying at rest beside a calm sea and under 
 a smiling sky. But it is easily to be 
 guessed that when the demons of ai* jand 
 69
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 water strive together, these missiles of 
 the deep, wet with ocean spume, are cast 
 mightily upon one another, until they 
 rattle like the fetters of giants captive. 
 Behind them lie Northam Burrows, broad, 
 smiling expanses clothed with coarse 
 grass, and delightful to the British golfer, 
 who there amuses himself religiously, 
 quite as the Armada captains played at 
 skittles on the Hoe. Is it beyond pos- 
 sibility that, in our own " empty day," 
 some game of golf may be historic ? 
 
 When and where shall the pilgrim 
 content himself ? Shall he follow the 
 uttermost traces of those he would fain 
 have known, and, knowing, offered rev- 
 erence, even when the present fails to 
 copy fair the past ? If he elect to do so, 
 then may he seek Freshwater at Clovelly, 
 where "Irish ffoxe came out of rocks," 
 to lose his brush of self-sufficiency, de- 
 spoiled by giant Amyas ; yet here he will 
 find but slender trickling of the stream 
 of clear water, and slight reminder of 
 such shy quarry, so peaceful is the scene. 
 He may religiously visit Marsland Mouth, 
 where lived Lucy Passmore, the "white 
 witch," to find it a Devonshire combe, 
 full of every-day contentment ; or he may 
 70
 
 THE PILGRIM IN DEVON 
 
 traverse Dartmoor, and put the finger of 
 fancy on the very spot where Salvation 
 Yeo slew the king of the Gubbings. 
 Time and enthusiasm must direct him, 
 but he can scarcely be disappointed in 
 any Devonian quest, even where he looks 
 for castle or hovel, and finds not one 
 stone left upon another ; for always and 
 everywhere are the changeful skies, 
 warm cliffs, and smiling or tempestuous 
 sea ; everywhere his hope will be set in 
 the gold of trefoil or the rose of heather. 
 Devonshire herself has not waxed old 
 nor faded, and in holding her warm hand 
 and gazing into her true eyes he may 
 comfort himself with the certainty that 
 even so was she in those yesterdays 
 made for the building of great epics. 
 7'
 
 THE HAUNT OF THE DOONES 
 
 IT was during my first summer's travel 
 in Great Britain, now sojourning in hotels 
 where milk was cream and the butter 
 overlaid with gold, and again purringly 
 content in the humblest of lodgings, that 
 I chanced, at Ilfracombe, to secure a bed- 
 room over a dairyman's shop. The finger 
 of fate was in this ; for, passing through 
 the shop in search of adventure without, 
 I espied near the doorway a large wooden 
 box marked distinctly " Ridd." To see 
 was figuratively to pounce upon this auto- 
 graphic trace of friend and hero. 
 
 " Now, who is Ridd?" quoth I, point- 
 ing a dramatic finger at the legend. 
 
 " John Ridd, miss ? " quaked the 
 shopman, consciously innocent and yet 
 alarmed, viewing the box as it might be 
 a forerunner of November Fifth. " He 
 sends it in full of eggs, miss ; and it goes 
 back to him for more." 
 
 " But who is John Ridd ? Is he a 
 giant ? Does he dearly love collops of 
 venison ? Did he marry " 
 72
 
 " Bless you, miss ! " interrupted my 
 shopman, "all amort:" "he's a dairy- 
 man ; but he 's nowise remarkable." 
 
 This was the first faint footprint of 
 Lorna's John on Devonshire sand : and 
 it greatly inflamed the mind with desire 
 of an extended pilgrimage, wherein Lyn- 
 ton, famed among the jewels of Devon, 
 should be the initial point. Possibly 
 the enthusiast who works by rule and 
 compass would have traced the honest 
 yeoman's career, from its beginning at 
 Blundell School across the moor to 
 Plover's Barrows (even, with painstaking 
 exactitude, locating the Dulverton pump, 
 where he dodged a kiss), thence to his 
 meeting with Lorna, and so on to Lon- 
 don Town ; but something must at times 
 be sacrificed to the common -sense of 
 travel, and thus it was that we made our 
 path in a measure straight. 
 
 Lynton has been a thousand times- 
 lauded in breathless interjections, by 
 sounding paragraphs ; but it remains the 
 despair of word-imagery. The town is 
 builded upon a wood-covered height, 
 flanked behind by rolling tors, unlimited 
 even by the far distance ; and four hun- 
 dred feet below, approached either by 
 73
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 the lift or a steep, winding track, lies the 
 little harbor of Lynmouth, cherisher of 
 the noisy Lyn stream running thereby 
 and clamoring for the sea. More like 
 far-famed Clovelly than any sister town, 
 Lynmouth has chosen foothold in a cleft 
 of mighty crags. Majestically they tower 
 above her, while she broods in peace at 
 the water gate, guarded in friendly fash- 
 ion by a quaint Rhenish tower, erected 
 solely for the delight of artistic eyes. 
 At a distance of something more than 
 a mile from Lynton is the Valley of 
 Rocks, to be approached, if the traveler 
 is truly wise, only by the cliff walk, a 
 footpath cut in the living rock and, faith- 
 fully rendered by its name, on the very 
 face of the cliff. An enchanted way, it 
 leads on and on, through almost impos- 
 sible glories of color and light. Below, 
 a sheer descent to the sea, stretches the 
 cliff. Above, also, it towers inaccessible, 
 carpeted everywhere with a wondrous 
 richness of growth. Heather smiles in 
 roseate purple, gorse glows resplendent, 
 and a certain nodding fairy bell intensi- 
 fies the upper blue. At the right, looking 
 Lynmouth way, a huge cliff or foreland 
 sweeps into the sea, "one entire and 
 74
 
 THE HAUNT OF THE DOONES 
 
 perfect chrysolite " in gemlike coloring. 
 Rich browns shade into purple and rose- 
 red ; and, at those gala moments when 
 the sunset glory is supreme, the bare 
 rock throbs and palpitates in almost 
 breathing beauty. On one late afternoon, 
 marked forever by a red letter in the 
 missal of the year, the sky was as a shell, 
 pink-tinted, lustrous. The sea snatched 
 its hues, and threw them back in shim- 
 mering splendor. The great cliff shone 
 in glory ; and the watcher, poised upon 
 his meagre eyrie, might almost forget 
 the ground above and beneath, and 
 imagine himself some happy dweller in 
 the air, nourished by light and breath- 
 ing only color. Following this heavenly 
 way along the curving cliff, the traveler 
 suddenly turns a corner, and enters the 
 valley itself. At first, remembering the 
 stupendous descriptions hung upon its 
 fame, he is disappointed ; but gradually 
 the true grandeur of the rocky waste 
 insists upon its own significance. A 
 valley of some extent, flanked by hills 
 and to-day traversed by a road, it is 
 green with bracken and sterile under 
 stone. Everywhere obtrudes the un- 
 yielding rock, in bits fit for a giant's 
 75
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 missile, in massive and uncouth forma- 
 tion, like chaotic dwellings. Two such 
 rocky citadels, grotesque, tremendous, 
 attract and hold the eye. These are 
 Castle Rock and the Devil's Cheese-ring 
 (the latter word, according to some, sig- 
 nifying cheese-knife or scoop). Tradition 
 still declares that in this eerie spot the 
 witch, Mabel Durham, or, as the name 
 was corrupted, Mother Melldrum, had 
 her abode, or possibly her rendezvous ; 
 and thither came John Ridd to seek her. 
 Wise Mother Melldrum ! She knew the 
 full value of scene-setting and accessories. 
 Even the valiant John found himself 
 depressed by the gloom of her surround- 
 ings, though he had previously consid- 
 ered the place " nothing to frighten 
 anybody, unless he had lived in a gal- 
 lipot." His nerves were as the bass 
 string, and not the treble ; but among the 
 suppliants for her uncanny aid there 
 must have been those who here quivered 
 and quaked in awe of the sorcerer Nature, 
 if not the human witch. 
 
 To extend one's walk along the valley 
 and through the hospitable gate of Lee 
 Abbey is to turn a page of romantic his- 
 tory. This estate was some time the 
 76
 
 THE HAUNT OF THE DOONES 
 
 residence of the De Whichehalse family, 
 Flemish refugees, whose line ended in 
 revolt against the English crown. One 
 spot in the grounds furnishes the initial 
 note to this tragic history, a cliff over- 
 hanging the shore, and still known as 
 Jennifred's Leap. Jennifred, according 
 to the story, was beloved and deserted 
 by Lord Auberley ; and, like Ophelia, she 
 could not survive the outrage of her 
 maiden dream. One night she wandered 
 away from the house, and next morning 
 had not returned. Search waxed hot 
 and frantic ; and at length they found 
 her, happily dead, at the foot of the cliff 
 where she had cast herself in heroic de- 
 spair. Her father sought King James for 
 justice against the recreant lover ; but 
 Auberley stood high in court favor, and 
 the royal coward declared his inability to 
 judge between them. Then came Mon- 
 mouth's Rebellion ; and De Whiche- 
 halse, burning for revenge, repudiated 
 the royal party, and sought the woman- 
 slayer in the ranks of its army, met him 
 face to face, and struck him dead. The 
 battle of Sedgemoor followed ; and De 
 Whichehalse, like others of the defeated, 
 attempted flight to Holland, whereupon 
 77
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 the winds swept down upon him and the 
 sea rose, quenching his stormy life and 
 passions forever. But the lover of that 
 ideal which is forever satisfying, though 
 the actual betray, will scarcely waste 
 thought upon this righteous maid-aven- 
 ger. Rather will he choose to smile over 
 the memory of that Marwood de Whiche- 
 halse who kissed pretty Annie at the 
 door, and in payment for his whistle was 
 so sturdily clouted by the giant John. 
 
 When John Fry and his valiant little 
 charge made their way across Exmoor, 
 from Tiverton to Oare, they halted at 
 Dulverton ; and there it was that the im- 
 mortal "farm-hand" demanded "Hot 
 mootton pasty for twoo trarv'lers, at 
 number vaive, in vaive minutes ! " The 
 coach road from Lynton thither is char- 
 acteristic and satisfying ; for on either 
 side lies the moor, barren, brown, crack- 
 ling with coarse grass diversified by 
 patches of heather, "the green of bracken, 
 the red of whortleberry," and tenanted, 
 as of old, by ponies and red deer. It is 
 like Dartmoor as one sister resembles an- 
 other, and yet strangely individual and 
 different. Dartmoor is broken by abrupt 
 hills and gigantic rocky remains : Ex- 
 78
 
 THE HAUNT OF THE DOONES 
 
 moor sweeps away in rolling billows. In 
 the deep glens at the foot of these enor- 
 mous earth-ridges hasten clear streams 
 of varying size, but all swarming with 
 fish ; for the moor is the " mother of 
 manie rivers." Over the sides of the 
 ridges themselves trickle swifter rills, in 
 goyals or gullies, to join the torrent be- 
 low, in winter a torrent, indeed ; for 
 then such mountain waters throw aside 
 the decorum of habit, and swollen by the 
 early rains leap forth, destructive and 
 dauntless, to meet the sea. But in the 
 centre of the great tract, peopled every- 
 where by thousands of sheep, lie its 
 monotony and dreariness of waste moor- 
 land. It is when they approach the sea 
 that the great downs become majestic 
 and truly satisfying. Then they drop 
 suddenly hundreds of feet, cleft perhaps 
 by a romantic fissure, where sweeps some 
 rushing streamlet, foam-fringed and vo- 
 cal. Here and there are bogs, but alas 
 for the partisan who would fain shudder 
 over the bones of Carver Doone bleaching 
 below the ooze ! Not one, says, a cool and 
 unsympathetic authority, is dangerous. 
 
 "It always rains on Exmoor," runs 
 a proverb ; and the couplet defining 
 79
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 Dunkery's barometric qualification, an- 
 nounces with the eccentric rhyming of a 
 weather distich, 
 
 " When Dunkery's top cannot be seen, 
 Horner will have a flooded stream." 
 
 Clouds are the hourly attendants of an 
 Exmoor sky ; but, when they lower on 
 Dunkery, then the rain may be said to 
 have given official warning of its ap- 
 proach. To climb this beacon hill with- 
 out a guide is to suffer some diminution 
 of spiritual vainglory, unless, indeed, the 
 gods go with you every step. The pleas- 
 antest footway from Porlock leads 
 through the valley of the Horner, where 
 that gurgling, shouting, utterly irrespon- 
 sible water creature goes tumbling along 
 over stone and shallow, slapping his 
 sides, joking, singing, waking the valley 
 to a madness of mirth. The ah- there is 
 dark with " green things growing." You 
 can scarcely make your way for love of 
 the thickening leaves on either hand. 
 Everywhere is the beauty woven out of 
 ferns and brawling waters. Crossing the 
 stream is by a foot-bridge made of one 
 timber and a narrow hand-rail. Then 
 you begin climbing, and perhaps like us 
 find yourself, quite out of breath and be- 
 So
 
 THE HAUNT OF THE DOONES 
 
 wildered, in an upland open, apparently 
 on the way to nowhere. In better 
 company than the king of France, we 
 marched down again, mounted another 
 height and knew only that Exmoor was 
 about us and that we were plainly lost. 
 I have little remembrance of that day, 
 save that it was full of hot sun and 
 winy airs ; that somehow the sound of 
 an axe led us into a wood, where the 
 chopper, surprised at visitors in his sleep- 
 ing world, directed us profusely. All 
 his conflicting testimony ended to the 
 tune of : " and that will be Dunkery, 
 and you '11 know it by the b'acon." 
 Then, obedient, we struck into a way 
 across the moor. The road rose and 
 sank with the billowing hills. A little 
 hamlet glanced out now and then, far 
 away in a dream. The sky smiled bril- 
 liantly without a cloud, and scanning it 
 for the beacon,, my eyes looked always 
 across a black bar where the bright 
 horizon line had struck them. The hills 
 were alike, delusive in their sameness. 
 At length one waving outline seemed to 
 be broken by a knot, a flaw. Surely the 
 beacon ! No path pointed thither, and 
 we struck into wild land where the 
 81
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 heather was knee-deep, husky to the ear. 
 When one of us lay down to rest, the 
 warm scrubby growth closed over her ; 
 and the other, looking back, saw only 
 the sky, the rolling slopes, the few nib- 
 bling sheep, and drank of wonder, find- 
 ing herself alone on this great ball, the 
 earth. The soul must be hide-bound 
 indeed, if in such space she will not 
 grow. 
 
 At last we were there, on Dunkery, 
 with her distinguishing cairn, her vantage 
 over purpling wastes and love-looks at 
 the ample sky, and we went back again 
 through the heather. There were seven 
 hours of it in all before home and rest : 
 seven hours without food. But we had 
 eaten the air and thriven mightily. 
 
 From Lynton to Simonsbath (still on 
 the way to Dulverton) the road affords 
 you truly typical Exmoor scenery, 
 bare, waste, and desolate. This is the 
 county of the red deer, where he is yet 
 hunted with the madness of enthusiasm 
 described by Kingsley and Whyte-Mel- 
 ville ; and the knowing tourist will scan 
 the far sinuous horizon for one glimpse 
 of a delicate antlered head. Vain desire ! 
 He is lying somewhere in covert, de- 
 82
 
 THE HAUNT OF THE DOONES 
 
 veloping his tactics for the next meet. 
 Then perchance he will slink into the 
 lair of a young stag, and send him forth 
 with a cruel push of resistless horns, to 
 draw the sportsman's eye. If that avail 
 not, he will seek some still watercourse, 
 and there cool him in the stream before 
 picking his dainty way over moss and 
 pebble, every step a move in the game 
 of outwitting the hounds, his enemies to 
 the death. But lay it not to heart, dear 
 pilgrim, if the only four-footed beasties 
 you find on Exmoor are ponies cropping 
 the homely herbage : the deer are meat 
 for our masters. 
 
 Simonsbath is dignified by the usual 
 quota of legend, though it happens to 
 be of a rather fragmentary and common- 
 place nature. The name is taken, says 
 one tale, from a deep pool in the Barle, 
 where Simon, an Exmoor outlaw of some 
 unknown period, was accustomed to 
 bathe. Another folk tradition connects 
 it with King Sigmund, the dragon-slayer. 
 But sufficient be it for us to remember, 
 when we draw up in front of the William 
 Rufus, a tavern in good and respectable 
 standing to-day as it was two centuries 
 ago, that this was the scene of one mar- 
 83
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 velous escape ascribed to Tom Faggus. 
 Here was he one night reveling when 
 the authorities suddenly pounced upon 
 him, only to be outwitted, however ; 
 for Tom had but to leap on his half- 
 human strawberry mare and ride away. 
 J. LI. W. Page, lover of the moors of 
 Exe and Dart, quotes, for the benefit of 
 the imaginative, the tradition that the 
 bog known as Claren Rocks, not far 
 from Simonsbath, was the instrument of 
 Carver Doone's tragic ending ; but, as he 
 justly adds, a certain wet patch upon the 
 side of Dunkery may, with equal likeli- 
 hood, receive the popular vote. As in 
 more vital matters, doctors disagree ; 
 and the hoarder of such uncertain detail 
 might as well look about him, within the 
 proper radius, and fix upon any bog even 
 approximately answering the require- 
 ments of fancy. The verdict has been 
 given, the case dismissed : circumstan- 
 tial evidence can do no harm. Beyond 
 Simonsbath, the road becomes somewhat 
 tame, in comparison with its previous 
 mood; and at Dulverton itself, entered 
 by a street so narrow that the houses 
 seem inhospitably to elbow the passing 
 coach, Uiere is scanty interest for anti- 
 84
 
 THE HAUNT OF THE DOONES 
 
 quary and for "tripper." You may climb 
 the hill behind the church and overlook 
 the valley of the Barle, or you may drive 
 through the wooded luxury of Earl Car- 
 narvon's park ; but it must be confessed 
 that the chief glory of the place lies now 
 in the memory of John Fry's " hot moot- 
 ton pasty." Not far away are the Tor 
 Steps, near which Mother Melldrum set 
 up her summer residence. A rude bridge 
 made of stone slabs, placed upon piers 
 and guiltless of cement, this, it seems, 
 was built by the devil for his own ex- 
 clusive use. He threatened destruction 
 to the first living creature crossing it, 
 whereupon the parson, who was amaz- 
 ingly clever in those days at outwitting 
 the fiend, broke the spell by sending 
 over "a harmless necessary cat." Pussy 
 was torn piecemeal ; and then the parson 
 himself crossed in safety, billingsgating 
 the devil as he went. The dialogue on 
 this memorable occasion must have been 
 of the tu quoque order, inasmuch as the 
 parson was called a "black crow," and 
 avenged himself for the indignity offered 
 his garb by retorting that he was "no 
 blacker than the devil." Shrewd in tac- 
 tics, it is evident that this good gentle- 
 85
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 man was yet a dullard at repartee, else 
 would he have chosen some more biting 
 rejoinder than " You 're another ! " 
 
 Let no one contemplating the coach- 
 ing trip to Dulverton be deceived by 
 the announcement that the Doone Valley 
 is among the attractions of the route; 
 for this beguiling statement merely indi- 
 cates that the driver, at a certain stage 
 of the trip, will point vaguely into the 
 purple distance, and remark that the 
 Doone Valley is " there." The greedy 
 traveler, however, hardly needs to be 
 told that he should take a carriage at 
 Lynmouth, and make a canny bargain 
 for a drive to the valley itself, prefer- 
 ably by the Countisbury Road, to return 
 by way of Watersmeet, where the Combe 
 Park and Farley Waters join the East 
 Lyn with many sparkles of delight at 
 the meeting and much pomp of fern- 
 embroidered garment. (This, however, 
 applies only to those who, like the 
 Queen of Spain, have no legs. A 
 walker will make it a day's excursion, 
 thanking his luck for the chance.) Up 
 and out into the clear air of heaven leads 
 the Countisbury Road, skirting the very 
 brow of sheer cliffs on one side, and 
 86
 
 THE HAUNT OF THE DOONES 
 
 smiled on by Exmoor from the inland 
 distance. The blue sea and the shad- 
 owy coast of Wales are the wayfarer's 
 treasure-trove. Every breath is exhil- 
 arating, sweet, instinct with beauty. 
 Presently the road inclines downward 
 and toward the right ; and Devonshire 
 is left behind for the goodly county of 
 Somerset, claimant also for the parent- 
 age of the redoubtable John. ("Zum- 
 merzett thou bee'st, Jan Ridd," said the 
 popular voice on that side the line, " and 
 Zummerzett thou shalt be.") And be- 
 fore reaching the goal of his desire, it 
 shall befall the traveler to seek out Oare 
 church, a tiny building with nave and 
 chancel all complete, like a temple of 
 Lilliput Land ; and there I wish him 
 not too exhaustive a knowledge of what 
 he is to find. For I, in entering, expected 
 merely to drink from the cup of sweet 
 memories, reflecting, " Here stood John 
 with his Lorna when Carver's shot came 
 crashing in, charged with death to one 
 and madness for her lover ; " but pure 
 surprise chased such sentimental mus- 
 ing from the field. Stepping within 
 the nave, the previously uninstructed is 
 amazed at certain tablets on the north 
 87
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 wall ; for these perpetuate the memory 
 of the Snowe family, to which Black- 
 more has vouchsafed a long-lasting ten- 
 ure of life, and one of them is even 
 adorned by the name of Farmer Nicholas 
 himself, though of another generation 
 than John's old neighbor. The Snowes, 
 so saith the chronicler, are worthy yeo- 
 men who have held land in this region 
 since the days of Alfred ; and this en- 
 during brass doth so plainly resurrect 
 them before the eye that one is tempted 
 to subscribe then and there to a sober 
 belief in all Blackmore's broidery of fact, 
 asserting, " The bricks are alive at this 
 day to testify it" 
 
 Beyond Oare, the road is less diver- 
 sified ; and at Malmsmead, a collection 
 of two or three houses devoted, as by 
 an irrevocable vow, to the upholding of 
 Doone legends, you may take an Exmoor 
 pony and ride along a sweetly sylvan 
 path into the true valley. And here, at 
 whatever season you go, so that green 
 boughs be welcoming, it shall seem " the 
 boyhood of the year ;" for everywhere is 
 budding or expanded growth, under dap- 
 pling of shadow and flickering of light. 
 After Blackmore's paean, all that one can 
 88
 
 THE HAUNT OF THE DOONES 
 
 say of the Doone Valley rings of bathos, 
 the more lukewarm in proportion to its 
 truth. For here, indeed, is the water- 
 slide, a rocky incline covered by a thin 
 streamlet, amicably flowing to meet the 
 Bagworthy Water ; but it is by no means 
 a way perilous, and its ascent need not 
 have tired little John's stout muscles 
 so sorely. The valley itself, broken by 
 the desolate foundations of a few tiny 
 huts, is hemmed in by moorland hills ; 
 but, compared with a score of Exmoor's 
 chasms and retreats, it is as Leah to 
 Rachel. We are in the home of the 
 Doones ; and very fair it is, with the 
 summer sky above us and the whispering 
 leaves at hand. But the magic picture 
 of our search we shall by no means find, 
 save between the covers of Blackmore's 
 book wonderful. Learn, however, the 
 sequel : forget not the epilogue ! For, 
 when one has turned his back on this 
 disappointing spot and taken his home- 
 ward road, he cannot forbear exclama- 
 tion, at more points than one, over the 
 actual valley of his dreams. For the 
 reality of that word-picture exists, though 
 not where tradition has placed it. Here 
 are steep inclines, hundreds of feet high, 
 89
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 down which even the anguished red deer 
 dare not hurl himself in his extremity 
 of flight. Here are inaccessible gullies, 
 foaming water, and fern -clad hollow. 
 And thus it is that he who truly seeks 
 will find, even though the prize be long 
 deferred. 
 
 There are few places in whose records 
 I take more delight than in those of 
 Tiverton and her Blundell School. Who 
 that has the heart of youth does not re- 
 call, with a responsive thrill, John Ridd's 
 tale of the Blundell boys' heaven-sent 
 holiday ? For " in the very front of the 
 gate, just without the archway, where the 
 ground is paved most handsomely, you 
 may see in copy-letters done a great 
 P. B. of white pebbles. Now it is the 
 custom and the law that, when the in- 
 vading waters, either fluxing along the 
 wall from below the road-bridge or pour- 
 ing sharply across the meadows from 
 a cut called ' Owen's ditch,' and I 
 myself have seen it come both ways, 
 upon the very instant when the waxing 
 element lips though it be but a single 
 pebble of the founder's letters, it is in 
 the license of any boy, so ever small and 
 undoctrined, to rush into the great 
 90
 
 THE HAUNT OF THE DOONES 
 
 school-rooms, where a score of masters 
 sit heavily, and scream at the top of his 
 voice, ' P. B. ! ' 
 
 " Then, with a yell, the boys leap up or 
 break away from their standing. They 
 toss their caps to the black-beamed roof, 
 and haply the very books after them ; 
 and the great boys vex no more the small 
 ones, and the small boys stick up to the 
 great ones. One with another, hard they 
 go, to see the gain of the waters, . . . 
 and are prone to kick the day-boys out, 
 with words of scanty compliment. Then 
 the masters look at one another, hav- 
 ing no class to look to, and (boys being 
 no more left to watch) in a manner they 
 put their mouths up. With a spirited 
 bang they close their books, and make 
 invitation, the one to the other, for pipes 
 and foreign cordials, recommending the 
 chance of the time and the comfort away 
 from cold water." 
 
 Peter Blundell, the founder of the 
 school, was, according to good John 
 Prince, "-at first a very Poor Lad of Tiv- 
 erton ; who, for a little Support, went 
 Errands for the Carriers that came to 
 that Town, and was Tractable in looking 
 after their Horses and doing little Ser- 
 9 1
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 vices for them, as they gave him Orders. 
 By degrees, in such means, he got a 
 little Money, of which he was very Provi- 
 dent and Careful ; and bought therewith 
 a kersey, which a Carrier was so kind as 
 to carry to London, gratis, and to make 
 him the Advantage of the Return. Hav- 
 ing done so for some time, he at length 
 got kersies enough to Lade an Horse, 
 and went up to London with it humbly : 
 Where being found very Diligent and 
 Industrious, he was received into good 
 Imployment by those who managed there 
 the Kersey Trade (for which Tiverton 
 was then very famous), and he continued 
 therein, until he was Rich enough to set 
 up the Calling of making Kersies for 
 himself. ... He came at last to a vast 
 and large Estate ; whereby he was en- 
 abled to do such noble Benefactions, and 
 bestow such large Legacies as he did." 
 
 The school itself is painstakingly de- 
 scribed by this ever-delightful chronicler : 
 
 "This House stands at the East end 
 of the Town, a very tall and spacious 
 Structure, built something like the Col- 
 lege-Halls in the Universities, with a fair 
 Cupulo in the middle. The Pile contains 
 one School for the Master, and another 
 92
 
 THE HAUNT OF THE DOONES 
 
 for the Usher, only an entry between 
 them ; both, by his Direction, One hun- 
 dred Foot long, and four and twenty 
 broad ; well wainscoted and Boarded. 
 Close adjoyning to which, is a very large 
 House for the Master, and another con- 
 venient one for the Usher: with very 
 good Orchards, Gardens, and Out-Lots, 
 belonging to it. 
 
 "Before the School-House is a large 
 spacious Green-Court, in Figure a Quad- 
 rangle, in Continent one Acre of Ground, 
 at the enterance in from the Street. All 
 enclosed with an high and stately Wall, 
 coped with yellow Purbeck-Stone, very 
 handsome to behold. It hath a fair Gate 
 at the Entry into it, over which is this 
 Inscription, cut in Stone, now rendered 
 by Time and Weather almost illegible. 
 
 " ' This Free Grammar-School was 
 Founded at the only Cost and Charge 
 of Mr. Peter Blundell of this Town, some 
 times Clothier.' " 
 
 Outwardly, alas! the Blundell's of 
 "Lorna Doone" is no more. In 1880 
 new buildings were erected, nearly a mile 
 away, and the old ones, sold under certain 
 conditions, were converted into dwelling- 
 houses. Thus it is that Tiverton is 
 93
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 sadly disappointing to a visitor weak in 
 the memory. These facts I knew, but 
 somehow they slipped my mind, as pins 
 run into cracks, and when I passed that 
 " high and stately Wall," on my way from 
 the station, I smiled at the " fair Gate " 
 leading therein, and was content, know- 
 ing how securely tradition rested there 
 and would rest. But next day's sun, 
 according to immemorial right, dispelled 
 my fancy. I might peep within at walls 
 and velvet sward, but the spirit of old 
 Blundell's had fled. I lingered, scowling 
 at the spirit of change, and then took my 
 dusty way up the hill, to glare at the 
 prosperous modern buildings of new old 
 Blundell's and greet the transplanted 
 P. B. loyally holding place at the entrance 
 gates. 
 
 " Never again, I fear," writes a master 
 of the school, "can the waters of the 
 Lowman hope to cover these honored 
 initials, at least, in the ordinary course 
 of things ; and I can hardly contemplate 
 the possibility that the ' license of any 
 boy' should extend to the length of 
 'rushing into the school-room, crying P. 
 B.' Such a course of action would not 
 recommend itself to any Blundellian of 
 94
 
 THE HAUNT OF THE DOONES 
 
 the present day as likely to obtain a holi- 
 day for the school. This luxury is rarely 
 granted nowadays." 
 
 Readers of Blackmore, himself a Blun- 
 dellian, will remember his account of the 
 perpetual feuds between boarders and 
 day-boys : 
 
 "For it had been long fixed among 
 us, who were of the house and cham- 
 bers, that these same day-boys were all 
 'caddes,' as we had discovered to call 
 it, because they paid no groat for their 
 schooling and brought their own com- 
 mons with them. In consumption of 
 these we would help them, for our fare 
 in hall fed appetite ; and, while we ate 
 their victuals, we allowed them freely to 
 talk to us. Nevertheless, we could not 
 feel, when all the victuals were gone, but 
 that these boys required kicking from 
 the premises of Blundell." 
 
 But at length did "the whirligig of 
 time," consonant to eternal word, " bring 
 in his revenges." For in 1846, accord- 
 ing to F. H. Snell, a former Blundell 
 scholar at Oxford, a dispute, which had 
 long been pending between the Feoffees 
 of the school and the inhabitants of Tiv- 
 erton, terminated in the victory of the 
 95
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 latter. These worthy citizens complained 
 that, whereas the Blundell benefaction 
 had been intended primarily for Tiver- 
 ton boys, its privileges were eaten up by 
 boarders, who not only absorbed most of 
 the scholarship fund, but despised and 
 harried the native students (or " cads ! "). 
 Proceedings ran a long and tortuous 
 course; but the final decision given by 
 the Vice-Chancellor was that "neither 
 the Master nor the Usher of the said 
 School ought to receive any payments 
 from or in respect of any of the boys 
 educated in the said School, or ought 
 to take any boarder ; and that none but 
 boys educated as Free Scholars, videli- 
 cet, Scholars free of expense in the said 
 School, . . . ought to be eligible to the 
 said Scholarships and Exhibitions." Then 
 followed a dreary period ; for the imme- 
 diate effect of the decree had been to 
 sweep away at least half the number of 
 pupils, and the provisions for teaching 
 the remainder were by no means satis- 
 factory. However, matters slowly read- 
 justed themselves ; and at the present 
 writing, Blundell' s boasts a goodly roll of 
 boarders and day scholars, who, if they 
 do loyally continue the ancient feud, 
 96
 
 THE HAUNT OF THE DOONES 
 
 doubtless proceed in the scientific fashion 
 observed by John Ridd and Robin Snell. 
 
 Tiverton herself is all lovable in her 
 assured and not too flaunting prosperity, 
 and the spirit of her people is worthy of 
 the county ; for nowhere in England do 
 you find truer and more unfailing courtesy 
 than in Devon. It was in Tiverton that 
 one short day gave me a round of social de- 
 lights, chiefly at almshouses, where dear 
 old women potter about their tiny quar- 
 ters in a flutter of hospitality, bringing 
 out their last treasures of china for your 
 sake ancient teapots and copper-lustre 
 half-pints which they lingeringly agree to 
 sell, but with such evident agony of soul 
 that you incontinently refuse the bargain 
 and flee from temptation. Yet it is to be 
 hoped that here the nimble shilling leaps 
 from your purse into some eager, wrin- 
 kled hand ; for a shilling buys much tea. 
 
 The White Horse Inn, where "girt 
 Jan " rested after his victory over Robin, 
 still exists in Gold Street, but inevitable 
 joy thereat is tempered by the fact that 
 the " souls of John and Joan Green way," 
 mentioned tenderly by Blackmore, could 
 scarcely have found there a congenial 
 resting-place ; for they have long since 
 97
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 disappeared. They may, however, be 
 heard of across the road, at Greenway's 
 Chapel or Almshouses, which are still in 
 being, and have not been diverted from 
 their original uses. 
 
 There is, perhaps, no more pathetic 
 record contained in those letters graven 
 by men who would fain assure to them- 
 selves a brief immortality than that set 
 down by John and Joan Greenway, who 
 seemed strangely timorous as to their 
 reception in the next world and extrava- 
 gantly desirous of establishing some sort 
 of lien on the kindly feeling of this. John 
 Greenway, though " of mean parentage," 
 grew "vastly Rich," and in the early 
 part of the sixteenth century founded an 
 almshouse for a limited number of poor 
 men, endowing them with a small weekly 
 revenue. He added a chapel to the 
 church ; and there, according to Prince, 
 " in a spacious Vault, . . . under a large 
 Stone, lieth this John Greenway and his 
 Wife Joan ; on which the Figures of them 
 both, curiously done in Brass, are fixed : 
 round the Edges goes a Fillet of Brass, 
 having their Epitaph engraven on it, in 
 old Characters, now partly obliterated : 
 what remains legible here follows : 
 98
 
 THE HAUNT OF THE DOONES 
 
 " ' Of your Charite prey for the Souls 
 of John and Joan Greenway his Wife 
 
 which Died . . .and for their 
 
 Faders and Moders, and for their Friends 
 
 and their Lovers. On them Jesu 
 
 have Mercy. Amen.' 
 
 " Out of the mouth of John Greenway 
 proceeds a Label of Brass, on which are 
 these Words, 
 
 " ' O ! then to thee we pray, 
 
 Have mercy of John Greenway.' " 
 
 His wife had, in her own name, the 
 benefit of the same pious wish. And, 
 though these labels have long since been 
 torn away, the chapel, even after sad 
 experience of the vandalism known as 
 restoration, bears continually reiterated 
 petitions for John Greenway's heavenly 
 welfare, and that of his spouse. On the 
 exterior are inscribed the mottoes : 
 
 " God sped J. G." 
 
 " Of your charitie pray for the Souls 
 of John Greenway and his wife." 
 
 " Oh Lord all way grant to John 
 Grenway good fotue and grace 
 and In heaven a place ! " 
 99
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 Everywhere was repeated that pathetic 
 injunction, like a cry from some far and 
 solitary land : " Pray for John Green- 
 way ! " Alas, poor ghost ! Did he find 
 this earth and his foothold at Tiverton 
 too goodly to be relinquished, or was he 
 by nature a distrustful soul, who shrank 
 from those new worlds which the poorest 
 of us must conquer ? Is he, indeed, at 
 rest, or doth his immortal part still pro- 
 test against its progress to another star ? 
 Pray for his soul ! 
 
 And in this relic-hunting of the Doones, 
 what must be the conclusion of the whole 
 matter ? That a band of outlaws two 
 hundred years ago built their huts in an 
 isolated valley, and lived there a life of 
 rapine and shame ; that John Ridd, the 
 champion wrestler and eater of beef, is 
 hotly believed in by the sons of Devon, 
 to whom legend has been handed down 
 like family jewels ; and that Tom Faggus 
 and his strawberry mare, and even Betty 
 Muxworthy, are articles of local faith. 
 But what are these but the dry bones of 
 belief? Supreme and vital walks the 
 glowing truth that a beautiful book was 
 born of their ashes, and that its fame 
 shall be ever-living. 
 
 100
 
 THE LAND OF ARTHUR 
 
 ALL over England are scattered the 
 footprints of King Arthur, legendary 
 hero and crown of chivalry. His prowess 
 is chanted by mountain streamlets, and 
 lowland rushes whisper his name. Corn- 
 wall wears the renown of his birth, and 
 most appropriately ; for it is the county 
 of giants and fairies, of saint and mythic 
 hero. To this day, it has preserved more 
 of its old-time character than any other 
 corner in England; and the traveler 
 need spur his imagination but slightly to 
 feel, on entering its borders, that he has 
 reached the land of ancient custom and 
 romance. Varied and seemingly inex- 
 haustible are its antiquities. Here are bar- 
 rows, cromlechs, stone-rings, and ruined 
 fortifications, to occupy the speculations 
 of Dryasdust. Neither need the roman- 
 tic wanderer depart unfed, for in this 
 still, secluded spot awaiteth him many 
 a delightsome morsel. By night, he 
 may hear the wailing of Tregeagle, spirit 
 haunted by demons, and doomed to ex- 
 101 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFOR 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 piate a wicked life by perpetual toil at 
 impossible tasks ; or he may steep his 
 soul in that solace which is a sort of in- 
 tellectual nicotine by turning the pages 
 of legend, from the story of the Giant 
 Cormoran to that of Britain's hero-king. 
 Cornwall, like most regions diversified 
 by a huge and rocky formation, was once, 
 according to the popular belief, overrun 
 with giants, from whom it was delivered 
 by that noble Jack, son of a wealthy 
 farmer near Land's End, who first earned 
 his sobriquet of " Giant Killer " by slay- 
 ing the terrible Cormoran, builder and 
 lord of Saint Michael's Mount. In Corn- 
 wall lived also the Giant Bolster. He 
 made nothing of compassing six miles 
 at a stride, and yet was overtaken by 
 fate in the person of Saint Agnes, whom 
 he so persecuted with offers of affection 
 that she was compelled, in self-defense, 
 to entrap him into an amiable suicide. 
 All over the duchy are scattered names 
 recalling that age of wonder. There are 
 giants' cradles, graves, pulpits, spoons, 
 and bowls ; and though one legend de- 
 clares that the devil dare not enter Corn- 
 wall for fear of being made into a pie 
 (for at least three hundred varieties of 
 
 IO2
 
 THE LAND OF ARTHUR 
 
 pasty have flourished at one time or an- 
 other on the west Tamar side), still he 
 has served as sponsor for many a natural 
 oddity. Indeed, as one antiquary de- 
 clares, in the eastern part of Cornwall 
 every phenomenon out of the common 
 course is referred to King Arthur ; in 
 the west, to giants or the devil. The 
 subject of Cornish pies, however, is one 
 which is not to be lightly dismissed. 
 The most casual consideration of it puts 
 forever to flight certain dogmatic asser- 
 tions regarding the lack of variety in 
 English cooking. Cornwall has pies of 
 beef, duck, and conger-eel, lammy pies, 
 concocted of the succulent kid : and, as 
 hath been said, star-gazing pies, made 
 of pilchards. In short, their name is 
 that of a legion alarming to the con- 
 servative foreigner. Only a temperate 
 mind may choose among such pretty 
 dishes "to set before the king." To- 
 day, pilchard fishing is the great indus- 
 try of the coast, furnishing a wealth not 
 to be despised beside that which once 
 lay in tin and copper. The local tin 
 mines are almost exhausted, scarcely 
 a subject for wonder when we consider 
 that before the Christian era they were 
 103
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 supplying Greek, Roman, and Phoenician 
 merchants with metal loaded at the port 
 Iktis, now Saint Michael's Mount. This, 
 therefore, is an old, old civilization ; and 
 here, to a very late date, have been pre- 
 served the customs of a sparsely chron- 
 icled time. Droll-tellers, a species of 
 wandering minstrel, went formerly from 
 house to house, gladly welcomed and 
 hospitably entertained, to sing folk bal- 
 lads and repeat old tales. Even as late 
 as the first part of the present century 
 two such venders of "drolls," or tales of 
 marvel and delight, were still alive. This 
 was a quaint and simple people, albeit 
 somewhat chary of communicating its 
 old-time legends to alien folk. The terms 
 "uncle" and "aunt" were freely inter- 
 changed among them in token of respect 
 and affection ; and thus did the Virgin 
 Mary come to be tenderly spoken of as 
 Modryb Marya, "Aunt Mary." One 
 subject, however, to this day rouses 
 them to wrath, the comparison of their 
 clotted cream with the cream of Devon. 
 "Ah, you can't make Cornish cream 
 anywhere else ! " said a wise old woman. 
 "It takes Cornish cows." That I firmly 
 believe ; and yet, when in Devonshire, I 
 104
 
 THE LAND OF ARTHUR 
 
 am convinced of the paramount excel- 
 lence of Devonshire cows. There is no 
 such cream as the Cornish cream save 
 in Devonshire, and none like the Devon 
 cream except in Cornwall. 
 
 The coast of Cornwall is rock-bound, 
 full of terrible crags, of sounding caves, 
 and beaten upon by mighty surges. Yet, 
 inland from its rocky strongholds, how 
 the earth smiles in leaf and bloom ! In 
 its valleys, on the south coast, blossoms 
 a tropical wealth of flowers, quite amaz- 
 ing in a country of England's latitude. 
 Fuchsias, roof-high, adorn the cottage 
 fronts ; scarlet geraniums and roses clam- 
 ber to their very eaves. Near the Lizard 
 grows the wonderful Cornish heath, 
 found nowhere else but in Portugal, 
 delicate and gracious sojourner from a 
 warmer clime. In the sweet freshness 
 of the sea winds every petal assumes a 
 brilliancy of tint unknown farther inland. 
 The heather is rosier, the gorse has a 
 more golden glow, foxgloves are reddened 
 by a lustier current. Over the headlands, 
 to the very beginning of their rocky de- 
 fenses, grows the pink thrift, and, paint- 
 ing the rocks themselves, creeps a golden 
 lichen. Its domestic features have a 
 105
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 character all their own. Tiny stone 
 cottages, whitewashed and roofed with 
 slate, stand in clustering sociability, each 
 little hamlet with its gray stone church, 
 crouching low to avoid the winds, and 
 with a square tower often high enough 
 for a beacon. Many a village is under 
 saintly patronage, like Saint Ives, Saint 
 Sennen, or Saint Just. Saints were plen- 
 tiful here ; and, indeed, one authority de- 
 clares that in the Cornish folk-lore it is 
 difficult to distinguish their deeds from 
 those of the giants. 
 
 In seeking this land of eld, my first 
 thought was of that heroic king giant 
 among his contemporaries who set his 
 seal upon the sixth century, and whose 
 name has passed into the literature of 
 France and Italy, to creep back from the 
 former into his own land by means of 
 Sir Thomas Malory's pen and Caxton's 
 press. 
 
 A public coach furnishes conveyance 
 from Newquay to Tintagel, by way of 
 Boscastle, a little town rich in a store of 
 antiquarian memories, and adorned by 
 fine headlands and a quaint harbor, cer- 
 tain to delight the artistic eye. To those 
 unfamiliar with the face of this particular 
 1 06
 
 THE LAND OF ARTHUR 
 
 region, the road reads a pleasing pre- 
 lude to the peculiar beauties of Cornwall. 
 It is monotonous compared with certain 
 drives along the Devon coast ; yet its 
 quiet charm is such as one would be 
 loath to miss. This is a country of ridgy, 
 wind-swept hills, garnished by a scanty 
 tree growth, and looking down into 
 sweet valleys, where, especially in the 
 south, lies all its luxuriance of growth 
 and bloom. The Cornish hedges are lit- 
 erally banks, made of earth and stone, 
 some of them ten feet high, and often 
 with a surface of two feet at the top, 
 either planted with shrubs or left bare for 
 a footpath. In this cementing earth has 
 taken root all manner of creeping things 
 and blossoming Me. Besides the may 
 and honeysuckle, I have gathered pim- 
 pernel, a royal yellow trefoil, thyme, and 
 foxglove from their crannies ; but chiefly 
 are they overspread with a rich mantle 
 of heath. On that day when we drove to 
 Tintagel, perhaps over the ground where 
 Iseult rode, with hawk on wrist, or Tris- 
 tram carolled, sad of name, but gay in 
 Gallic grace, the sky was full of windy 
 clouds and the air passing chill. Yet the 
 whole landscape was lightened and glo- 
 107
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 rifled by these hedges of rose -purple 
 heather, like broad, rich lines of crimson 
 laid on by a daring and prodigal brush. 
 Past quarries and great refuse-heaps of 
 slate the road leads down and then up 
 again into the little town of Tintagel, 
 or Trevena, where stood twin castles on 
 headland and promontory, scene of the 
 siege of Gorlois, Duke of Tintagel, by 
 Uther Pendragon, and undoubtedly the 
 place of Arthur's birth. Gorlois, with 
 his wife, the fair Igraine, had visited 
 the court ; and there King Uther turned 
 on the lady such eyes of favor that she 
 besought her husband to take her home 
 to Cornwall. Vain flight ! for Uther 
 Pendragon followed, killed the duke, and 
 wedded the lady. From the little village 
 of Trevena a path winds seaward, where 
 a bold promontory juts out into the deep. 
 This was once connected with the main- 
 land by a drawbridge ; and twin fortifi- 
 cations stood on either side, hand thus 
 clasped in hand, until the falling of a 
 crag had made the promontory into an 
 island. It may be reached, however, by 
 a little bridge, and over a seemingly per- 
 ilous way, from stone to stone, to a steep 
 and winding path over the very face of 
 1 08
 
 THE LAND OF ARTHUR 
 
 the cliff. Midway, the climber is con- 
 fronted by a heavy wooden door; but, 
 when this swings back, obedient to the 
 key with which he is entrusted, he en- 
 ters what was undoubtedly an actual Brit- 
 ish stronghold, if not that of Tintagel's 
 duke. Within, flocks of sheep are peace- 
 fully feeding among the huge, disordered 
 blocks of stone, once firm in towered 
 strength above the changing tide. Here 
 are the foundations of chapel and castle, 
 a possible altar-stone, and the signs of 
 a burial-place. Tintagel's coast is grim 
 and rough as mountain fastnesses. Out 
 into the sea stride its rocks like con- 
 quering giants, and the sea dashes at 
 them, disdainful, mighty, but helpless. 
 How must Igraine have trembled when, 
 shut up for safety while her lord occu- 
 pied the castle of Terrabil, she heard 
 the waves moan and the wind howl, and 
 knew for in that childlike age such 
 things were known that destiny had 
 her in toils from which there was no es- 
 caping ! A little cove, or landing-place, 
 makes its way between the two head- 
 lands ; and here perhaps the babe Arthur 
 was washed up to the hands of Merlin. 
 Or, if that tale be but idly told, Arthur 
 109
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 was assuredly born of Igraine in that 
 very castle, and delivered into the charge 
 of Sir Ector, waiting for him outside the 
 postern gate, according to the compact 
 made by the king with the magician, 
 when Merlin procured Uther Pendragon 
 access to Igraine's favor. At Tintagel 
 dwelt also those unhappy lovers, play- 
 things of an unswerving fate, Tristram 
 and Iseult. Tristram was nephew of 
 Mark, King of Cornwall. He had been 
 educated in Brittany, and brought thence 
 the embroidery of manner for which 
 France has ever been a nursery. Mark's 
 ambassador to bring home the fair 
 Iseult for her crowning, knight and lady, 
 through the craft of Iseult' s maid, drank 
 a potent love-philter, and thenceforward 
 loved deathlessly, and to their own un- 
 doing. Here did Iseult pine and surfer 
 after their separation, until Tristram, 
 wedded in Brittany to Iseult of the 
 White Hands, sent for her, in his mor- 
 tal illness, to shrive him from sorrow 
 with her kiss. Over these waves she 
 sailed ; and there in Brittany, with her 
 tristful lover, she died. 
 
 To catch the spirit of this place, one 
 must linger long in it, feeding his eye 
 no
 
 THE LAND OF ARTHUR 
 
 with the changeful beauty of the sea, 
 and pondering on the rocky might of 
 the unyielding shore. It is a coast 
 whose fist of stone seems to hold se- 
 crets of the past, of a time of tragic love, 
 of iron if mistaken resolve and of that 
 death which leads to deathless fame. 
 On one bluff, rising sheer and steep 
 from the water, stands the little church, 
 neighbored by its quiet graveyard and 
 approached through the solemn lych- 
 gate, with its stone slab for supporting 
 the coffin while the bearers rest. To 
 climb this height in the late afternoon 
 and watch the sun until it sinks into 
 the sea, with all the magnificence of a 
 changeful but silent pageant, while the 
 water ceaselessly washes on the crags 
 below, and death and worship keep ward 
 behind, is a strangely sweet and solemn 
 experience. The gulls fly, calling, from 
 rock to rock, dip their wings and wheel 
 back again, or rest an instant on the 
 unquiet deep. At such a moment, why 
 should not the red-legged chough, in 
 whose likeness Arthur revisits his na- 
 tive haunts, flit unrecognized by ? Skirt- 
 ing the headland at the left of the 
 church, winding down by zigzagging de- 
 iii
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 grees, is a path leading to the slate quar- 
 ries ; and there all day men are splitting 
 slate, cutting it into squares and send- 
 ing it over into the harbor, to be taken 
 away in boats. There they toil, seem- 
 ingly on the face of the cliff, in safety, 
 and yet, to the unaccustomed eye, at al- 
 most the perilous height where samphire 
 gatherers hang. At twilight, however, 
 they are gone, and the place is still ; 
 only, perhaps, some dark-haired, stalwart 
 miner comes striding across the height, 
 to offer you sea-birds' eggs for sale, or 
 crystals found in the quarried slate, and 
 known as Cornish diamonds. Then, as 
 the gray wings of twilight softly settle, 
 turn homeward by the lowly road sunken 
 in the valley, past the rectory, embow- 
 ered in green, and sleep, perhaps mur- 
 muring, like Guinevere's little maid, 
 
 " I thank the saints I am not great ! " 
 
 that destiny has not for all such store 
 of tragedy as it brought those childlike, 
 passionate souls of an earlier day who 
 dwelt in rock-bound castles, and chal- 
 lenged fate in the daily struggles of a 
 tumultuous living. 
 
 After the death of Uther Pendragon, 
 when many mighty lords coveted succes-
 
 THE LAND OF ARTHUR 
 
 sion to the throne, Merlin counseled the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury to send all 
 the gentlemen of the realm to London ; 
 and there they found, in the great church 
 of the city, against the high altar, a stone, 
 and in its midst a steel anvil. Therein 
 stuck a fair sword, naked, by the point ; 
 and letters of gold were written about 
 the sword saying thus : " Whoso pull- 
 eth out this sword of this stone and an- 
 vil is rightwise born King of England." 
 And many knights essayed the task ; 
 but none but Arthur could pull it out, 
 "lightly and fiercely." Then arose 
 much wrangling among the nobles 
 whether he were a truly begotten son 
 of Uther Pendragon, so that his corona- 
 tion was long deferred ; but, when at 
 last it was holden, it was at the city of 
 Caerleon upon Usk ; or, as some say, he 
 was merely consecrated there, and after- 
 wards crowned at Stonehenge. Caerleon 
 is a town of indisputable antiquity ; but 
 to-day all it can offer the most enthusias- 
 tic pilgrim is a grassy mound, several 
 acres in circumference, depressed in the 
 centre, whereon stood Arthur's castle. 
 The view from the circular grassy ram- 
 part takes in the placid valley of the Usk, 
 "3
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 a muddy little stream, fleeing away to 
 join the Severn. The valley is encircled 
 by hills, and these are flanked by others 
 still higher ; yet the prospect is neither 
 bold nor vast. It seems to mirror the 
 humble beginning of Arthur's suprem- 
 acy, before he held court at Camelot or 
 at Westminster. At the latter place, it 
 must be remembered, his seat was fixed 
 when Elaine, the " Lily Maid," floated 
 down from Astolat, or Guildford, in Sur- 
 rey. When he had married Guinevere, 
 daughter of King Leodograunce, he kept 
 his royal state at Camelot ; and, in set- 
 tling upon the modern equivalent of 
 that enchanted spot, the traveler may 
 please his fancy, if he have not a pain- 
 fully critical mind, and can be content 
 with what the wise may frown upon. 
 Was it Winchester ? That is a goodly 
 and ancient town ; and, if he choose to 
 wander by the smooth-flowing Itchen, 
 dreaming of souls more heroic than Izaak 
 Walton, who shall blame him ? If he 
 look with reverent eye upon the stone 
 coffin there displayed as Arthur's, shall 
 we pronounce him childishly credulous ? 
 Or, perhaps, with the faith of the tourist 
 in an oft-proven Baedeker, he will as- 
 114
 
 THE LAND OF ARTHUR 
 
 sume that Camelot was Camelford, a 
 little town six miles from Trevena, pre- 
 sided over by Row Tor and Brown Willy, 
 the two highest mountains in Cornwall. 
 Not far from Camelford is the stone 
 bridge called " Slaughter Bridge," said 
 to be the scene of Arthur's disastrous 
 defeat. Yet no one need waste over it 
 too deep a sentiment ; for antiquaries 
 have declared that the half obliterated 
 inscription on the slab once spanning the 
 stream (and some years ago removed, 
 to be set up in better view) has no- 
 thing whatever to do with the British 
 king. Scene of a British fight no doubt 
 it was, but not of Arthur's battle. The 
 most reliable evidence, however, is in 
 favor of Queen's Camel, or South Cad- 
 bury, in Somersetshire. There, in the 
 midst of a fertile and diversified country, 
 stands a hill, leveled at the top to form 
 a circular plain, and commanding a right 
 royal view of wood, meadow, and tor 
 beyond. At its feet lie scattered ham- 
 lets, humble cottages, each group with 
 its gray, square-towered church, mild 
 symbol of the peaceful domestic life 
 which slept and ate below that heroic 
 one of court and chivalry. Here Guine- 
 "5
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 vere and Launcelot kissed and sighed. 
 Here did the innocent glow of their first 
 bond that of knight and sovereign 
 lady deepen into that passion which 
 was crime. 
 
 The scene of Arthur's defeat, 
 
 " that last weird battle in the West," 
 
 has not been determined with absolute 
 certainty ; but the balance of evidence 
 swelled, surely, by the voluntary testi- 
 mony of those who have compared the 
 poetic values of the region is in favor 
 of Salisbury Plain, loneliest land-stretch 
 imaginable by poet or dreamer. Ex- 
 actly what it is which stamps the plain 
 with eerie awesomeness it would be dif- 
 ficult to say. Let the wayfarer wind 
 slowly up and up from spired Salisbury 
 town, past Old Sarum, and gradually 
 there falls upon him a certainty that 
 here is, if not the strength of the hills, 
 their utter loneliness. The few dwell- 
 ings and dotted trees do not in the least 
 serve to break that sweeping expanse. 
 The larks run up their ascending scale 
 of joy from the first low-brooding ground- 
 notes to ecstatic lyrics, lost in the high- 
 est blue ; the sun intermittently casts 
 down a Danae shower, yet still is the 
 116
 
 THE LAND OF ARTHUR 
 
 place an embodiment of desolation. It 
 is like a formless, monstrous presence, 
 oppressing the soul. It is the sphinx, 
 the very spirit of the desert, but the 
 sphinx become blind and dumb. Crown- 
 ing the utmost height of the plain are 
 those giant monoliths, the disordered 
 order of Stonehenge, about which clings 
 a legend of Merlin. Not far from here, 
 says tradition, was the scene of a British 
 victory, and, when the Britons proposed 
 commemorating it by a monument, Mer- 
 lin advised them to take away from a 
 mountain in Ireland the structure called 
 the Giant's Dance, formed of stones 
 stolen by giants from the coast of 
 Africa, and possessing mystical virtues. 
 It was Uther Pendragon who finally 
 conquered Ireland, and sought to re- 
 move the stones ; but, finding the task 
 beyond the power of mortal mechanics, 
 he called Merlin to his aid, who speedily 
 accomplished it by magic. There is a 
 certain dramatic satisfaction in imagin- 
 ing the battle here, under the very 
 shadow of the triumphal pile erected by 
 Arthur's fostering magician. Here was 
 commemorated the Briton's triumph 
 here was a Briton overthrown. 
 117
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 To the east of Stonehenge, in a 
 greenly wooded valley, lies the little 
 town of Amesbury, Almesbury, or Am- 
 brosebury, where Guinevere sought ref- 
 uge when she " understood that her lord, 
 King Arthur, was slain." This was the 
 scene of her last interview with Sir 
 Launcelot, most moving, in its passion- 
 ate simplicity, of all the incidents which 
 form this tragic chronicle : 
 
 "And then was Queen Guenever 
 aware of Sir Launcelot as he walked in 
 the cloister ; and when she saw him 
 there, she swooned three times, that all 
 the ladies and gentlewomen had work 
 enough for to hold the queen up. So, 
 when she might speak, she called the 
 ladies and gentlewomen unto her : ' Ye 
 marvel, fair ladies, why I make this 
 cheer. Truly,' said she, ' it is for the 
 sight of yonder knight which is yonder : 
 wherefore, I pray you all to call him 
 unto me.' And when Sir Launcelot 
 was brought unto her, then she said, 
 'Through this knight and me all the 
 wars were wrought, and the death of the 
 most noble knights of the world ; for 
 through our love that we have loved 
 together is my most noble lord slain. 
 118
 
 THE LAND OF ARTHUR 
 
 Therefore, wit thou well, Sir Launcelot, 
 I am set in such a plight to get my soul's 
 health ; and yet I trust, through God's 
 grace, that after my death for to have 
 the sight of the blessed face of Jesu 
 Christ, and at the dreadful day of doom 
 to sit on his right side, for as sinful 
 creatures as ever was I are saints in 
 heaven. 
 
 " ' Therefore, Sir Launcelot, I require 
 thee, and beseech thee heartily, for all 
 the love that ever was between us two 
 that thou never look me more in the 
 visage : and, furthermore, I command 
 thee, on God's behalf, right straightly 
 that thou forsake my company, and that 
 unto thy kingdom shortly thou return 
 again, and keep well thy realm from war 
 and wreck. For as well as I have loved 
 thee, Sir Launcelot, now mine heart will 
 not once serve me to see thee ; for 
 through me and thee are the flower of 
 kings and knights destroyed. Therefore, 
 Sir Launcelot, go thou unto thy realm, 
 and there take thee a wife, and live with 
 her in joy and bliss ; and I beseech you 
 heartily pray for me unto our Lord God, 
 that I may amend my misliving.' " 
 
 Then like a true knight obedient to 
 119
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 his lady, did Sir Launcelot answer her 
 that, although he had hoped to carry her 
 into his own realm and country, since 
 she would not have it so, he also must 
 take to prayer and penance while life 
 should last. 
 
 " ' Wherefore, madam, I pray you kiss 
 me once, and nevermore.' 
 
 " * Nay,' said the queen, ' that shall I 
 never do ; but abstain you from such 
 things.' And so they departed ; but 
 there was never so hardhearted a man 
 but he would have wept to see the sor- 
 row they made, for there was lamenta- 
 tion as though they had been stung 
 with spears, and many times they 
 swooned." 
 
 And when Sir Launcelot at length 
 rode away through the forest, weeping, 
 he came upon a hermitage and a chapel, 
 where a little bell was ringing to mass. 
 He threw away his armor, and knelt to 
 be assoiled from sin ; and there he re- 
 mained "serving God, day and night, 
 with prayers and fastings." After six 
 years there came to him a vision, charg- 
 ing him to hasten to Almesbury, where 
 he would find Queen Guinevere dead ; 
 thence should he carry her body, and lay 
 
 120
 
 THE LAND OF ARTHUR 
 
 it beside that of King Arthur. Mean- 
 time, the dying queen had learned, also 
 in a vision, that Launcelot had been 
 called to that dolorous task, and it was 
 her prayer, for the two days before her 
 death, that she " might never see Sir 
 Launcelot with her worldly eyes." For 
 the mighty passion of that love had 
 burnt on and on through hours of pen- 
 ance and prayer ; it had eaten up the 
 mortal frame, its habitation. Then did 
 Sir Launcelot and seven fellow-monks 
 bear the queen's body to Glastonbury, 
 where she was buried, with dirge and 
 requiem ; and there did he speak over 
 her those lofty words, which fitly end 
 the tragic tale : 
 
 " My sorrow may never have an end. 
 For when I remember and call to mind 
 her beauty, her bounty, and her noble- 
 ness, that was as well with her king, my 
 Lord Arthur, as with her ; and also when 
 I saw the corpse of that noble king, and 
 noble queen, so lie together in that cold 
 grave made of earth, that sometime was 
 so highly set in most honorable places, 
 truly mine heart would not serve me to 
 sustain my wretched and careful body." 
 
 Amesbury was one of the oldest 
 
 121
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 centres of British civilization, and its 
 monastery afterwards a convent of 
 Benedictine nuns doubtless flour- 
 ished under the protection of Aurelius 
 Ambrosius, the British prince who so 
 long and so successfully defended his 
 country against the Saxons. Past the 
 little town winds Avon's " troutful 
 stream," and a lonely church sits in the 
 hamlet's midst, still solitary, though en- 
 compassed by lowly dwellings. This 
 church, however, does not cover the site 
 of the former monastery : that is now 
 included within private grounds, and 
 the stones once forming the walls have 
 hopelessly lost their identity among those 
 of modern buildings. Amesbury, at the 
 present day, seen under a shifting sky, is 
 a still and thoughtful place, bearing ever 
 a haunting suggestion of romance and 
 remembrance. 
 
 Tennyson fixes the scene of Arthur's 
 last great struggle in the land of Lyo- 
 nesse, under the eternal washing of the 
 surge sweeping between Land's End and 
 the Scilly Isles. An almost uninterrupted 
 tradition declares that these islands were 
 once joined to the mainland by a well- 
 populated strip of land, a bare backbone
 
 THE LAND OF ARTHUR 
 
 of mountain stretching through the cen- 
 tre, and fertile valleys edging its shores. 
 In Lyonesse lived a prosperous and pious 
 people. Their churches were a hundred 
 and forty. What their farms and gar- 
 dens were, what must have been the 
 sweetness of the sandy reaches and the 
 calm bays, can be imagined by those who 
 have tasted the airs that are here the 
 breath of the Gulf Stream, cherisher of 
 bloom. But there came a day, says the 
 story, when doom overtook them ; possi- 
 bly not in haste, for one man had time 
 to reach the mainland before, with un- 
 conquerable might, the sea rose and over- 
 whelmed his home. As a matter of 
 fact, however, it is unknown whether 
 Lyonesse was slowly eaten away by the 
 greedy sea or whether it sank under swift 
 convulsion. That such a land once ex- 
 isted is upheld by the fact that a neighbor- 
 ing coast region was undoubtedly subject 
 to the same calamity of tidal overflow ; 
 for of the submerged forests off Mount's 
 Bay there is historic witness. Since the 
 land of Lyonesse lives no longer, save in 
 imagination, one would fain fancy it to 
 have been even a fairer and less melan- 
 choly spot than Tennyson has made it. 
 123
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 To my own mind, it has a maiden sweet- 
 ness, a springtime charm, belonging 
 chiefly to those mystic regions which 
 " eye hath not seen." 
 
 At Glastonbury, ancient nursery of 
 the British Church, rest the bones of 
 Arthur and Guinevere. This was the 
 Isle of Avalon, familiarly known as Aval- 
 Ionia, Island of Apples, from the richness 
 of its orchards. So let .us faithfully be- 
 lieve, even though it is Professor Rhys 
 who tells us that he feels "warranted 
 in unmooring the magic spot, and attach- 
 ing it to the west coast of Cornwall " ! 
 
 The railway approach to Glastonbury 
 fills the mind with a new astonishment 
 at the wonderful diversity of English 
 scenery. Here the flat monotony of 
 green field is relieved by hay-ricks and 
 stacks of black peat. As you near the 
 town, Glastonbury Tor rises to the south 
 like a huge cone, surmounted by Saint 
 Michael's Tower. A ridgy elevation, 
 extending toward the west, culminates 
 in Wearyall Hill, natural monument to 
 Saint Joseph and his blossoming staff. 
 Scarcely a spot in England has such 
 store of memories for the antiquarian 
 and romantic mind. In the year sixty- 
 124
 
 THE LAND OF ARTHUR 
 
 three, Joseph of Arimathea and eleven 
 followers, some say sent by Saint Philip 
 of France, landed in Britain, and, led 
 by the Spirit, continued their journey 
 until they reached this ridgy hill. There, 
 weary with wandering, the saint 'stuck 
 his thorn staff into the ground, and, lo ! 
 when he and his companions had rested, 
 they found that the staff had put forth 
 leaf and blossom, miraculous sign 
 that they should abide in the place. 
 Then did Joseph go down into the val- 
 ley, and seek the island covered with 
 brushwood, and to-day enriched by the 
 ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, and built a 
 little church of wood, or wattles. There 
 he dwelt and died. A priestly succes- 
 sion kept the place holy ; and round about 
 the little wattled church was built one of 
 stone, that the old and sacred walls might 
 be preserved. The present Saint Joseph's 
 Chapel was erected by Henry II. ; and 
 the great church at the east of it, con- 
 nected with it by a galilee, was completed 
 a century after his death. Not only does 
 this spot deserve the reverence due to 
 ancient and consecrated ground, but it 
 is the actual link connecting the Church 
 of the present day with the Christian 
 125
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 worship of ancient Britain. As Freeman 
 states, it was "the one great institution 
 which bore up untouched through the 
 storm of English conquest." On this soil 
 Saint Patrick dwelt and labored. One 
 tradition even declares that he was buried 
 in Saint Joseph's Chapel. Here, too, was 
 Saint Dunstan's cell, scene of his encoun- 
 ter with the temptations of a worldly life, 
 and where he valiantly seized the devil 
 by the nose. Until Henry VIII.'s van- 
 dal day, the Abbot of Glastonbury had 
 almost royal prerogatives in his small but 
 wealthy domain. He entertained mag- 
 nificently, often receiving five hundred 
 guests at a time. To his miniature court 
 were sent young gentlemen to be fitted 
 with the accomplishments suited to their 
 station. The universities were flooded by 
 his pupils. This, however, was too rich 
 a field not to attract the scent of the 
 greedy Tudor, and Henry's commissien- 
 ers settled upon the abbey like a swarm 
 of locusts. Then good Abbot Whiting 
 made his fatal mistake : he hid from them 
 some of the vessels and plate, and, being 
 discovered, was forthwith accused of rob- 
 bing his church. Up to the Tower of Lon- 
 don was he sent, to be afterwards haled 
 126
 
 THE LAND OF ARTHUR 
 
 back, and condemned to death in the hall 
 of the Bishop's Palace at Wells. But, 
 with an exquisite refinement of brutality, 
 he was executed in sight of home, 
 drawn on a hurdle to the top of Glaston- 
 bury Tor, and there hanged. From this 
 time of tragic overthrow, the abbey be- 
 gan to fall into decay ; its stones were 
 used in the town buildings, and even to 
 pave the roads across the marshes to 
 Wells. To-day the gray remains, instinct 
 with a wonderful strength and beauty, 
 having only lapsed into that desolation 
 which is never unlovely, sit in the midst 
 of a green and velvet field. 
 
 Saint Joseph's Chapel is still a thing of 
 wonder, adorned by a wilderness of bush 
 and weed striving ever to fill its crypt 
 and smother the foundations. A meagre 
 but stately portion of the large church 
 yet remains, rich in two of the magnifi- 
 cent columns which once separated nave 
 from choir, crowned now by the wild 
 rose and pink and yellow sedum. Sheep 
 are tamely feeding about the enclosure, 
 and sun and shower bless it, but the 
 monks, with Arthur and Guinevere, have 
 been so long fallen into dust that only 
 their echoing names float back into our 
 127
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 later day. In the reign of Richard I., 
 says tradition, an abbot determined to 
 dig beneath two stone pyramids standing 
 just outside Saint Joseph's Chapel, and 
 evidently placed there as monuments to 
 some important personages. After de- 
 scending sixteen feet, a coffin was found, 
 hollowed out of an oak-tree. It was in 
 two divisions. One of them, occupying 
 two thirds of the length from the head 
 downwards, contained the body of a man, 
 of such stature that his tibia reached 
 to the middle of a tall man's thigh. In 
 the lower partition lay a female figure, 
 adorned still by one tress of golden hair. 
 At this, however, a monk snatched too 
 eagerly, and it fell into dust. At the 
 same time and place they came upon a 
 leaden cross, bearing the inscription in 
 Latin, " Here lies buried in the Island 
 Avallonia the renowned King Arthur." 
 The bones were afterward removed to 
 the great church, and placed before the 
 high altar, where now the soil into 
 which they have been transmuted nour- 
 ishes the daisy-starred grass, which is 
 the carpet of ruins. But if the king 
 died not, and was but carried to Avalon 
 for the healing of his wounds, when 
 128
 
 THE LAND OF ARTHUR 
 
 shall he return ? The story " sometimes 
 represents Arthur and his men dozing 
 away, surrounded by their treasures, in 
 a cave in Snowdon, till the bell of des- 
 tiny rings the hour for their sallying 
 forth to victory over the Saxon foe ; 
 sometimes they allow themselves to be 
 seen of a simple shepherd, whiling away 
 their time at chess in the cavities of 
 Cadbury ; and sometimes they are de- 
 scribed lying beneath the Eildon Hills, 
 buried in an enchanted sleep, to be 
 broken at length by one 
 
 " ' That bids the charmed sleep of ages fly. 
 Rolls the long sound through Eildon's caverns vast, 
 While each dark warrior rouses at the blast, 
 His horn, his falchion, grasps with mighty hand, 
 And peals proud Arthur's march from Fairyland.' " 
 
 In a field adjoining the abbey grounds, 
 stands the Abbot's Kitchen, an excellent 
 example of early domestic architecture. 
 It is a building square without, octago- 
 nal within, furnished with huge fire- 
 places at the corners (wherein one can 
 stand and look up to the sky), and a 
 central louvre for light and ventilation. 
 A cruciform tithe -barn, ancient inns, 
 and two historic churches also invite 
 the antiquarian eye. The traveler who 
 129
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 climbs the stony street, lined with 
 squalid dwellings, to Wearyall Hill will 
 only be rewarded by a small tablet set 
 in the ground where stood Joseph's 
 miraculous thorn ; but all over the town 
 he will be offered slips from that mar- 
 velous tree, which must have been as 
 wide - spreading as a banyan, to have 
 been so cut and distributed. However 
 it came, there is no doubt that Glaston- 
 bury possesses a species of thorn 
 probably brought from the East which 
 blooms twice a year, once at the usual 
 time and again in the winter, though it 
 is only by a poetic license which none 
 but the hypercritical will dispute, that it 
 is said to open exactly on Christmas 
 Day. 
 
 The ascent of Glastonbury Tor, by an 
 encircling path, is difficult indeed. On 
 approaching the breezy summit, one feels 
 obliged to sit down for frequent inter- 
 vals of rest, clutching the long grass as 
 a safeguard against rolling down again. 
 But once under the shadow of Saint 
 Michael's Tower, doubtless a pilgrim 
 shrine, such breathless effort is amply 
 repaid. Below lies Glastonbury, no 
 longer an island, but surrounded by fair 
 130
 
 THE LAND OF ARTHUR 
 
 fields in place of its once glassy streams, 
 and dotted with greenery. Wells Cathe- 
 dral marks out that little town, like a 
 carven finger-post ; and in the far dis- 
 tance, beyond the Mendips, a shadowy 
 cloud on the horizon, lie the hills of 
 Wales. On the day of my visit two lit- 
 tle maids sat together under a shelter- 
 ing wall, in a field at the foot of the 
 Tor, each with her knitting. 
 
 " Is it a very hard hill to climb ? " 
 asked I. 
 
 " Oh, no, miss," said one, lifting her 
 serious blue eyes for an instant from her 
 work, " it is easy, quite easy." 
 
 But I did not find it so ; and neither, 
 I fancy, did poor Abbot Whiting, even 
 though he had a hurdle, and had left 
 responsibility forever behind.
 
 THE BRONTE COUNTRY 
 
 THE traveler who would know Eng- 
 land in all her moods must assuredly 
 visit Yorkshire as well as the smiling 
 Midland counties ; and if he be a literary 
 pilgrim, and would fain understand in 
 some measure those three great and 
 lonely spirits, the Bronte sisters, let him 
 seek out the moors where they walked 
 and meditated, and vainly explore the re- 
 gion round for one glimpse of the softer 
 brightness that is the welcome of the 
 south. 
 
 Keighley, on the direct road from 
 Leeds and four miles from Haworth, has 
 a comfortable inn, the Devonshire Arms, 
 where the tourist is made hospitably wel- 
 come. It fronts on one of the principal 
 streets ; and seated at its window, the 
 visitor is within arm's length of crowds 
 of sickly mill-operatives, standing about 
 on the pavement during the noon hour, 
 no doubt discussing the problem of keep- 
 ing body and soul together, or hurrying 
 past to the cheerless monotony of their 
 132
 
 THE BRONTE COUNTRY 
 
 unsmiling day. Keighley is a frowning 
 town. Its houses are of a dark and dis- 
 mal gray stone, and the very atmosphere 
 is overspread by that grim and unmis- 
 takable look which is testimony that 
 beauty is naught, and use alone has been 
 deified. The most forcible impression 
 made on the new-comer is that the 
 swarming herd of workmen and women 
 are victims of consumption in various 
 stages. A chorus of coughing continu- 
 ally frets the air. You may distinguish 
 all the varied notes of that tragic scale, 
 from the nervous hack of incipient dis- 
 ease to the convulsion destined to shake 
 and tear the body like a destroying fiend. 
 And the faces ! young and old, they are 
 pallid, and set in the dogged lines of en- 
 durance worn by those who have aban- 
 doned all hope, even of earning the daily 
 loaf, should the much-blasphemed will of 
 God afflict them by a dispensation of ill- 
 ness. This was always the cheerful at- 
 mosphere of the town nearest Charlotte 
 Bronte's home ; and from such grim shel- 
 ter she went up to London, on a rainy 
 afternoon, to confess the peccadillo of 
 having written one of the greatest novels 
 of her time.
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 * 
 
 Few influences are more potent than 
 "atmosphere" in determining the bent 
 of sensitive souls. Charlotte Bronte was 
 a creature so fine as to have been af- 
 fected by every mental and spiritual 
 breath. The most honest and honor- 
 able of women, she yet hesitated, at 
 times, in speaking her opinion, because 
 she had not the personal strength need- 
 ful for sustaining an argument. Her 
 tacit yielding, however, meant only that 
 she could not hold the ground of dog- 
 matic assertion. That all the unseen, 
 intangible influences of life those airy 
 spirits of the imagined world affected 
 her most keenly is evident from the self- 
 betrayal in her books, and every jot of 
 evidence from those who knew her best. 
 
 " Something seemed near me," she 
 once said, in reference to some moment 
 of prescience, when the invisible pro- 
 claimed itself the only real. Hers was 
 not a soul for fear, but one swept and 
 thrilled by every breath of nature or fin- 
 ger of event. What must she have felt 
 when, within the gloomy parsonage walls, 
 she and the two sharers of her vigil ex- 
 pected to hear that pistol-shot which 
 would tell them that Branwell, insane 
 '34
 
 THE BRONTfe COUNTRY 
 
 from opium and misery, had killed his 
 father or himself ? Or when, Anne and 
 Emily no longer alive, she paced the si- 
 lent house at midnight, unable to sleep, 
 her nerves tense with anguish and the 
 desire to touch some comfort outside 
 the barren present ? Certainly it is most 
 true that, to judge her character from 
 the inside, one must actually stand in 
 the paths where she walked, and scan 
 her heaven with a studious eye. 
 
 It was on a day woven of fanciful fab- 
 ric, shot athwart with sun, and darkened 
 by sudden misty showers, that we took 
 the train for Haworth, and leaving the 
 station, climbed that steep and stony 
 street which leads to church and parson- 
 age. There is very little satisfaction in 
 visiting the church and examining its 
 shining tablets to the Bronte family, for 
 the edifice has been rebuilt, and only the 
 old square tower is an actual memento 
 of the past. The parsonage, too, has 
 been remodeled ; and though parts of 
 the kitchen walls have been retained, the 
 most curious visitor would scarcely find 
 himself repaid for invading them. But 
 the churchyard, bleak and populous, is 
 the same; and there also is that bad 
 '35
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 neighbor, the Black Bull Inn, where 
 Branwell caroused. Still do the "pur- 
 ple-black " moors, the one delight of 
 Yorkshire, wear the face with which 
 they enchained Emily's loyal heart, and 
 spoke peace to all three battling spirits. 
 
 " My sister Emily loved the moors," 
 said Charlotte. " Flowers brighter than 
 the rose bloomed in the blackest of the 
 heath for her ; out of a sullen hollow in 
 a livid hillside her mind could make an 
 Eden." 
 
 August, or the first of September, is 
 the gala time for the heather ; then is it 
 in full glory of rose-purple, and prodigal 
 in bloom. A path leads by the parson- 
 age and through a gate out upon this 
 free moorland wilderness, where, on a 
 day of sun overhead and bloom under 
 foot, one finds a delight and exhilaration 
 suited to the mountain-tops of life. One 
 lonely figure only did we overtake on the 
 afternoon of our visit, a tall, gaunt 
 woman, with shawl thrown over her 
 head, who, swinging her great house-key, 
 had been to the churchyard where lay 
 her husband's grave. This was the way 
 to the " mo-ors," she told us, with an in- 
 describable broadening of the vowels. 
 136
 
 THE BRONTE COUNTRY 
 
 This path was called the Bronte Walk, 
 for Charlotte and her sisters had been 
 said to delight in it. It was a lonely 
 region, she confessed. She herself had 
 come here from the north to be near her 
 husband's people ; and now he was dead, 
 and she alone. A forlorn place, but 
 the " m5-ors " were company. It was 
 easy to see that they might be, in that 
 region of gray villages, of sky too often 
 clouded, of sweeping winds and drizzling 
 rain. It rained as we walked along the 
 ling-bordered path, and talked of those 
 three women whose hearts and lips had 
 been touched with the immortal fire of 
 the ideal, and yet to whom duty was ever 
 that " stern law-giver " from whose de- 
 cree they could never swerve. As we 
 wound about one knoll after another of 
 the curving moor, lo ! the clouds were 
 swept aside, and blue sky briefly smiled. 
 What tongue can speak the sad beauty 
 of the heather with the sun upon it, and 
 fleeting shadows chasing the light over 
 low-lying valleys in the distance ! That 
 day the ling was in full bloom, and 
 heather, somewhat earlier in its coming, 
 still showed rosy in the sun-patches. 
 Ling is far more sober in its general 
 137
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 effect than the common heath ; its tones 
 are colder, verging on lilac and gray. 
 Yet, close to the eye, it declares even a 
 finer grace, a more delicate loveliness, 
 than those of its hardy sister. It is the 
 Quaker maiden of the barren hills. On 
 the left, the moor goes billowing on like 
 the fixed heavings of an amethystine sea. 
 Leave the path, and take footing in the 
 crisp heather that crackles under foot 
 with a husky protest, a ringing of 
 whispering chimes, with the delusive 
 hope of hurrying to the top of some 
 knoll forming the horizon line, and from 
 which you fancy yourself able to see all 
 the countries of the earth. It is no easy 
 task. Traverse hill and hollow, and 
 there are still more knolls, heather-cov- 
 ered, and a new horizon line. Perhaps 
 he is happier who does not seek the 
 highest vantage-ground to over-sweep 
 villages in distant valleys, but goes away 
 rich in the certainty that he has not seen 
 the confines of the moors, and that their 
 extent is infinite. On and on sweeps the 
 heavenly monotony of these brown-gray 
 solitudes. If you cling only to the path, 
 you meet an occasional flock of feeding 
 sheep ; a tiny watercourse bars the way, 
 138
 
 THE BRONTE COUNTRY 
 
 or a dismal stone house, more cheerless 
 company than none, sits frowning at the 
 sky. 
 
 But what must they be, these bleak 
 hillsides, when the winter wind rages 
 across them, and lays waste the land 
 with his invisible sword ? One shudders 
 as fancy pictures the spot, and shudders 
 again, remembering how winter as well 
 as summer found three tender women 
 here imprisoned in a hermitage they 
 loved. Skies might be scowling, and the 
 heather a withered waste ; indoors they 
 must sit beneath the shadow of their 
 father's rigorous life and their brother's 
 ruin. Yet were they undaunted, and 
 clung to patience, fanning the fire of im- 
 agination until their chilled hearts were 
 warmer from the glow. Nay, happier 
 than that, they were still starved and 
 cold ; but for us, for whom they uncon- 
 sciously lived, they builded a great bon- 
 fire ; for they have stirred us anew with 
 that mighty lesson of the power of the 
 spirit. O marvelous sway of the few 
 endowed with the gift we call genius, 
 that though the body faint, and per- 
 sonal happiness dies or is still-born, they 
 have yet the strength to build for them-
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 selves monuments more enduring than 
 brass, which are as finger-posts to all 
 other striving souls ! 
 
 Over a little stationer's shop in the 
 village was then a sparse collection of 
 Bronte relics : pencil drawings, finished 
 with the exquisite care characterizing 
 every work from Charlotte's fingers, her 
 little old-fashioned shawl (somehow so 
 like her that it is more precious than 
 the whole collection), and various house- 
 hold articles bought from the auction- 
 sale after her death. The keeper of this 
 little store of curiosities was a relative 
 of that Martha who had been Tabby's 
 helpmate in the kitchen, when she be- 
 came too old for work, and yet could 
 not be discharged ; and it was through 
 Martha that many of the articles were 
 obtained. Now there is a Bronte Soci- 
 ety and a Museum : strange antitheses 
 to the seclusion of those shrinking lives. 
 
 It is impossible to look at the Black 
 Bull without an unjust feeling of rancor, 
 remembering its fascination for Bran- 
 well, and its share in his wrong-doing. 
 It is a small tavern of the gray stone so 
 unfortunately common in the region, and 
 such near neighbor is it to the church- 
 140
 
 THE BRONTE COUNTRY 
 
 yard that one can easily fancy him leap- 
 ing from its window into the yard, as he 
 was said to do, when he heard Char- 
 lotte's voice, on her way to seek and 
 draw him home. 
 
 " Do you want some one to help you 
 with your bottle, sir ? " a stranger would 
 be asked at the inn. " If you do, I '11 
 send up for Patrick." And then poor 
 Branwell (or Patrick, as he was familiarly 
 called) would be swept into those orgies, 
 of which the very suspicion covered his 
 sisters with shame and horror. 
 
 The actually " passionate pilgrim " 
 who leaves unturned no stone beneath 
 which lies the weed of remembrance, 
 will devote a thought to the Brontes in 
 London, and walk through Paternoster 
 Row with the recollection that here 
 stood the Chapter Coffee-house where 
 Charlotte and Anne, doubtless through 
 a long course of years its only women 
 visitors, spent the few days of their stay 
 in London. The house was of old and 
 great renown. Under its roof starving 
 Chatterton wrote his mother, in that 
 burst of deceptive pride, "I am quite 
 familiar at the Chapter Coffee-house, 
 and know all the geniuses there." It 
 141
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 was once the meeting-place of wit and 
 scholar ; and later, when its fame had 
 somewhat declined, country clergymen 
 and university men occasionally sought 
 it out, to hear what might have hap- 
 pened in the world of letters. The 
 Brontes, who knew of it through their 
 father's rare visits, had no idea that they 
 were doing anything unusual in making 
 it their stopping place ; and it proved a 
 hospitable and kindly shelter. Think of 
 the two little creatures clinging together 
 in a window -seat of the dingy room, 
 when their publisher came to take them 
 to the opera, and of their bewilderment 
 at the noise of " the City " surging 
 without ! Yet Charlotte always declared 
 she loved the busy City better than the 
 West End : the one existed for work, 
 the other for luxury and fashion. 
 
 Is there not heavenly significance in 
 the chord which thrills and tightens 
 when we approach the dwelling-places of 
 great and beloved souls, so that we are 
 drawn to walk in the paths their feet 
 have trod and look into the skies that 
 sheltered them ? It is more than curi- 
 osity, more than the satisfaction of a 
 romantic hero-worship. Do we follow 
 142
 
 THE BRONTE COUNTRY 
 
 their earthly footprints with such mi- 
 nuteness because we would "pluck out 
 the heart of their mystery," and learn, 
 if such a thing might be, the secret of 
 that which made them thus ? Such in- 
 fluences fostered them, we say, such soil 
 gave them birth. Shall we not be a 
 little nearer not only them, but the 
 great Source of greatness if we learn 
 the story of their sojourn here ? 
 
 It is wisely resolved, and he does well 
 who throws himself into such sympa- 
 thetic understanding ; yet even for him 
 "the greatest is behind." By diligent 
 searching, he shall never analyze the 
 divine spark illuminating the soul with 
 its own radiance of beauty. He can 
 only trace the glow left by its progress, 
 and stop where scientist and Christian 
 alike must pause, at the one unspeakable 
 Name.
 
 THE QUEST OF A CUP 
 
 ONE day at the beginning of our cen- 
 tury, Washington Irving, then browsing 
 on the Parnassus grass of England, be- 
 thought him of paying a visit to East- 
 cheap, that home of princely jest and 
 Falstaffian revelry ; and he afterwards 
 set down, in delectably humorous Eng- 
 lish, the story of his attendant search for 
 the old Boar's Head Tavern. The his- 
 tory of that famous inn exists in little, 
 and may be told while the hourglass 
 runs a measure of sand such as Queen 
 Mab might hold upon her palm. When 
 it was built no chronicle relates, but of 
 a certainty it was burned in the Great 
 Fire of 1666. Its successor of the same 
 name, sought out by Goldsmith, who 
 dreamed there of Mrs. Quickly, in the 
 naifve and delightful belief that he was 
 sitting beneath the original roof -tree, 
 had also gone the way of the dead-and- 
 alive who creep too far into a new cen- 
 tury. Unfortunately, the old Boar stood 
 in the pathway of progress, and his ten- 
 144
 
 THE QUEST OF A CUP 
 
 ement was first absorbed by shops, and 
 then swept away altogether in 1831, to 
 make way for the approaches to New 
 London Bridge. Now, the site of his 
 former glory is indicated in one meagre 
 line from Baedeker, which incidentally 
 informs the expectant tourist that he 
 will find the monument erected to King 
 William IV. "at the point where King 
 William Street, Gracechurch Street, 
 Eastcheap, and Cannon Street converge ; 
 on a site once occupied by FalstafFs 
 Boar's Head Tavern." To be thus 
 minimized, thus dragged in under the 
 shadow of a mere inheritor of crowns, 
 is it not enough to make fat Jack flash 
 out a lightning - sharp gibe from his 
 limbo, and send some colossal eulogy of 
 self hurtling back into our empty day ? 
 
 Goldsmith's vision in the tavern re- 
 built after the fire deserves remem- 
 brance as one of those performances 
 wherein the greatness of the dramatis 
 persona does away with the necessity 
 for correct scene-setting. 
 
 " Here," he says, " by a pleasant fire, 
 in the very room where old Sir John 
 Falstaff cracked his jokes, in the very 
 chair which was sometimes honored by
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 Prince Henry, and sometimes polluted 
 by his immortal merry companions, I sat 
 and ruminated on the follies of youth, 
 wished to be young again, but was re- 
 solved to make the best of life whilst it 
 lasted, and now and then compared past 
 and present times together. . . . The 
 watchman had gone twelve. My com- 
 panions had all stolen off, and none now 
 remained with me but the landlord. 
 From him I could have wished to know 
 the history of a tavern that had such a 
 long succession of customers. I could 
 not help thinking that an account of this 
 kind would be a pleasing contrast of 
 the manners of different ages. But my 
 landlord could give me no information. 
 He continued to doze and sot, and tell a 
 tedious story, as most other landlords 
 usually do, and though he said nothing, 
 yet was not silent. One good joke fol- 
 lowed another good joke, and the best 
 joke of all was generally begun towards 
 the end of a bottle. I found at last, 
 however, his wine and his conversation 
 operate by degrees. He insensibly be- 
 gan to alter his appearance. His cra- 
 vat seemed quilted into a ruff, and his 
 breeches swelled out into a farthingale. 
 146
 
 THE QUEST OF A CUP 
 
 I now fancied him changing sexes ; and 
 as my eyes began to close in slumber, I 
 imagined my fat landlord actually con- 
 verted into as fat a landlady. However, 
 sleep made but few changes in my situa- 
 tion. The tavern, the apartment, and 
 the table continued as before. Nothing 
 suffered mutation but my host, who was 
 fairly altered into a gentlewoman whom 
 I knew to be Dame Quickly, mistress of 
 this tavern in the days of Sir John ; and 
 the liquor we were drinking seemed con- 
 verted into sack and sugar. 
 
 " ' My dear Mrs. Quickly,' cried I (for 
 I knew her perfectly well at first sight), 
 'I am heartily glad to see you. How 
 have you left Falstaff, Pistol, and the 
 rest of our friends below stairs ? brave 
 and hearty, I hope ? ' ' 
 
 There was little left for Irving, the 
 pioneer of England - loving Americans, 
 but an hour of musing over past mirth, 
 and a fruitful gossip (O that some crafty 
 and unscrupulous listener could have 
 written us down its story !) with a worthy 
 woman, self-constituted historian of the 
 region, and like Mrs. Quickly in being 
 "a poor widow of Eastcheap." She it 
 was who suggested that, although he had
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 necessarily failed in looking upon the 
 tavern, he might find a picture of it at 
 Saint Michael's Church, Crooked Lane. 
 Now, not only had the back window of 
 the inn looked out upon Saint Michael's 
 churchyard, but the inn itself had passed 
 into the hands of the church ; the reve- 
 nues of Bacchus thus reverting to the 
 Establishment. Nothing therefore could 
 be more natural than that Saint Michael's 
 should preserve the counterfeit present- 
 ment of its useful ward. But, though 
 Irving betook himself there without 
 delay, no such relic was forthcoming. 
 Countless were the tombs of fishmon- 
 gers therein, for Saint Michael's lived 
 near neighbor to Billingsgate. There 
 also were treasured the ashes of William 
 Walworth, the doughty knight, most in- 
 trepid of lord mayors, who smote Wat 
 Tyler at Smithfield. In the little grave- 
 yard adjoining the church stood the 
 tombstone of honest Robert Preston, 
 drawer of renown, doubtless the succes- 
 sor of that Francis who had the im- 
 mortal honor of serving Prince Hal and 
 Falstaff, cold comfort all, when the 
 prime jewel of Eastcheap was lacking. 
 The sexton, however, perceiving Irving's 
 148
 
 THE QUEST OF A CUP 
 
 disappointment, and reverencing, as Eng- 
 lish sextons will, the spirit of the loving 
 antiquary, proposed a descent upon the 
 Mason's Arms, at No. 12 Miles Lane. 
 This was the tavern where Saint Mi- 
 chael's vestry held its meetings, as it 
 once had held them at the Boar's Head, 
 departed. Here, too, were deposited its 
 vessels, formerly guarded by the trusty 
 Boar. What he saw there, let Irving 
 himself relate : 
 
 " The old sexton had taken the land- 
 lady aside, and, with an air of profound 
 importance, imparted to her my errand. 
 Dame Honeyball was a likely, plump, 
 bustling little woman, and no bad sub- 
 stitute for that paragon of hostesses, 
 Dame Quickly. She seemed delighted 
 with an opportunity to oblige ; and, hur- 
 rying upstairs to the archives of her 
 house, where the precious vessels of the 
 parish club were deposited, she returned, 
 smiling and courtesying, with them in 
 her hands. 
 
 "The first she presented me was a 
 japanned iron tobacco-box of gigantic 
 size, out of which, I was told, the vestry 
 had smoked at their stated meetings 
 since time immemorial ; and which was 
 149
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 never suffered to be profaned by vulgar 
 hands, or used on common occasions. 
 I received it with becoming reverence ; 
 but what was my delight at beholding 
 on its cover the identical painting of 
 which I was in quest ! There was dis- 
 played the outside of the Boar's Head 
 Tavern, and before the door was to be 
 seen the whole convivial group, at table, 
 in full revel ; pictured with that won- 
 derful fidelity and force with which the 
 portraits of renowned generals and com- 
 modores are illustrated on tobacco-boxes 
 for the benefit of posterity. Lest, how- 
 ever, there should be any mistake, the 
 cunning limner had warily inscribed the 
 names of Prince Hal and Falstaff on 
 the bottoms of their chairs. 
 
 " On the inside of the cover was an 
 inscription, nearly obliterated, recording 
 that this box was the gift of Sir Richard 
 Gore, for the use of the vestry meetings 
 at the Boar's Head Tavern, and that it 
 was ' repaired and beautified by his suc- 
 cessor, Mr. John Packard, 1767.' Such 
 is a faithful description of this august and 
 venerable relic, and I question whether 
 the learned Scriblerus contemplated his 
 Roman shield, or the Knights of the
 
 THE QUEST OF A CUP 
 
 Round Table the long-sought Sangreal, 
 with more exultation. 
 
 " While I was meditating on it with 
 enraptured gaze, Dame Honeyball, who 
 was highly gratified by the interest it 
 excited, put in my hands a drinking-cup, 
 or goblet, which also belonged to the 
 vestry, and was descended from the old 
 Boar's Head. It bore the inscription of 
 having been the gift of Francis Wythers, 
 knight, and was held, she told me, in 
 exceeding great value, being considered 
 very 'an tyke.' 
 
 " The great importance attached to 
 this memento of ancient revelry by mod- 
 ern church-wardens at first puzzled me ; 
 but there is nothing sharpens the ap- 
 prehension so much as antiquarian re- 
 search, for I immediately perceived that 
 this could be no other than the identical 
 ' parcel-gilt goblet ' on which Falstaff 
 made his loving but faithless vow to 
 Dame Quickly, and which would, of 
 course, be treasured up with care among 
 the regalia of her domains, as a testi- 
 mony of that solemn contract." 
 
 There the search rested, so far as 
 Irving was concerned, and he genially 
 remarks, at the close of his paper, that
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 he leaves all this as a rich mine to be 
 worked out by future commentators. 
 "Nor do I despair," he adds, " of seeing 
 the tobacco-box and the ' parcel-gilt gob- 
 let ' which I have thus brought to light, 
 the subject of future engravings, and 
 almost as fruitful of voluminous disser- 
 tations and disputes as the shield of 
 Achilles or the far-famed Portland Vase." 
 
 The story of his pilgrimage has, in 
 the mind imbued with romance, a pecu- 
 liar charm. For my own part, I have 
 never for an instant doubted that the 
 goblet which he identified, with the 
 precision of genius, was actually Mrs. 
 Quickly's, and that goblet I had long 
 resolved to seek, should fortune take me 
 to England. 
 
 " Came a day " (speaking elliptically 
 after the fashion of Aurora Leigh), 
 when, on the top of an omnibus, with 
 a faithful gossip, I crossed the Styx of 
 Holborn and Cheapside to that land still 
 peopled by illustrious ghosts, still decked 
 in brave raiment of names that dazzle 
 the eye and stir the blood. Though 
 ancient landmarks have been effaced by 
 hurrying feet, intent on that meat which 
 is less than life, Eastcheap is to-day en- 
 152
 
 THE QUEST OF A CUP 
 
 chanted ground, and its tavern a Mecca 
 of the mind. The very names in the 
 neighborhood are redolent of good cheer. 
 Bread Street, Fish Street Hill, and Pud- 
 ding Lane each stands pointing a sad 
 ringer to the merry past when, as Lyd- 
 gate the rhyming monk relates, it was a 
 city of cooks' shops. Lydgate's period 
 was that of Henrys IV. and V., and his 
 London Lackpenny has the ring of good 
 and olden cheer. 
 
 " Then I hyed me into Est-Chepe ; 
 
 One cryes rybbs of befe, and many a pye ; 
 Pewter pottes they clattered on a heape ; 
 There was harpe, pype and mynstrelsye." 
 
 High revelry was held in Eastcheap in 
 the time of Henry IV., but, according to 
 Stow, that most delightful of antiquaries, 
 who in the face of manifold discourage- 
 ments added riches untold to the treas- 
 ury of English history, no taverns then 
 existed. No man interfered with an- 
 other's specialty. "The Cooks dressed 
 Meat and sold no Wine; and the Tav- 
 erner sold Wine and dressed no Meat 
 for Sale." 
 
 " This Eastcheap," continues he, " is 
 now a Flesh-Market of Butchers, there 
 dwelling on both sides of the Street ; it
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 had sometime also Cooks mixed amongst 
 the Butchers, and such other as sold 
 Victuals ready dressed of all sorts. For 
 of old time, when Friends did meet, and 
 were disposed to be merry, they went 
 not to dine and sup in Taverns (for they 
 dressed not Meats to be sold), but to the 
 Cooks, where they called for Meat what 
 they liked, which they always found 
 ready dressed, and at a reasonable rate." 
 
 Eastcheap in fact was very near the 
 river, that great highway of London, 
 upon which fish, flesh, and wine were 
 brought to the bank's side. Of that 
 strip of land immediately south, and be- 
 tween Eastcheap and the river, a twelfth- 
 century folio has suggestive mention, 
 thus quoted by Stow : 
 
 " In London, upon the River side, be- 
 tween the Wine in Ships, and the Wine 
 to be sold in Taverns, is a common 
 Cookery or Cooks Row ; where daily, 
 for the Season of the Year, Men might 
 have Meat, roast, sod, or fryed ; Fish, 
 Flesh, Fowls, fit for Rich and Poor. 
 
 " If any come suddenly to any Citizen 
 
 from afar, weary, and not willing to tarry 
 
 till the Meat be bought and dressed ; 
 
 while the Servant bringeth Water for 
 
 '54
 
 THE QUEST OF A CUP 
 
 his Master's Hands, and fetcheth Bread, 
 he shall have immediately (from the 
 River side) all Viands whatsoever he de- 
 sireth. What Multitude soever, either 
 of Soldiers or Strangers, do come to the 
 City; whatsoever Hour, Day or Night, 
 according to their Pleasures, may refresh 
 themselves. And they which delight in 
 Delicateness, may be satisfied with as 
 delicate Dishes there, as may be found 
 elsewhere. And this Cooks Row is very 
 necessary to the City : And according to 
 Plato and Gorgias, Next to Physick, is 
 the Office of Cooks, as Part of a City." 
 
 It was in Eastcheap, moreover, that 
 Prince Hal's two brothers fell out with 
 the watch, an episode which may have 
 served as the germ in Shakespeare's 
 brain whence blossomed such a robust 
 tree of mirth. Near by stood Prince 
 Hal's own mansion of Cold Harbour, the 
 cellars enriched with his father's gift, 
 " twenty casks and one pipe of red wine 
 of Gascoigne, free of duty." What other 
 part of London could Falstaff possibly 
 have chosen for his haunts ? Even in 
 the old play of Henry Fifth which pre- 
 ceded Shakespeare's, the Prince declares, 
 " You know the old tavern in Eastcheap !
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 there is good wine." Thus is this rois- 
 tering region so famous in contemporary 
 eulogy that it needs no bush of modern 
 criticism. 
 
 The lover of Shakespeare and of his 
 Falstaff is conscious of an excited de- 
 light in threading these murky streets 
 of "the City," worshipful, almost, of 
 the very ground whereon he treads. He 
 will stand lost in dreaming while traffic 
 surges past, and smells are ancient and 
 fishlike, mindful of memory alone. If, 
 happily, the ideal is more real to him 
 than solid earth, he will sweep aside the 
 orderly rubbish of a modern day, and 
 by force of fancy reconstruct that house 
 where "hours were cups of sack, and 
 minutes capons." Let Falstaff rise, tav- 
 ern reckoning in pocket, and counterfeit 
 a moment's life, as "gunpowder Percy" 
 should have done to fright him. Then 
 shall we see, entering beneath the tav- 
 ern's tusked sign, "a goodly portly man, 
 'faith, and a corpulent ; of a cheerful 
 look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble 
 carriage." Here stood the chair which 
 made his state, when he dared person- 
 ate his sovereign ; this cushion was his 
 crown, and here behind the arras did he 
 156
 
 THE QUEST OF A CUP 
 
 snore. Here was discussed that merry 
 jest at Gadshill, and this is the room 
 where, in the telling, FalstafPs adver- 
 saries were so marvelously multiplied. 
 Here must he have heard the chimes at 
 midnight, and here was his heart struck 
 cold with pathetic reminder of his end. 
 Remembrance throngs upon us, until we 
 are fain to cry : 
 
 " Banish plump Jack and banish all the world ! " 
 
 Last and most lustrous memory of all, 
 William Shakespeare, who saw the house 
 almost daily, on his way to Blackfriars 
 playhouse, must often have sought its 
 hospitable door for his cup of sack and 
 his merry jest with mine host. 
 
 When Lessing confessed that for him 
 the search after truth was to be pre- 
 ferred to the goddess herself, he proved 
 the depth of his true wisdom. Happy is 
 he who takes a roundabout way to Ely- 
 sium, and so is pleasantly entertained 
 upon the road ! There is no comparison 
 for blessedness between his lot and that 
 of the victim of accurate charts and in- 
 fallible time-tables. Had Ulysses formed 
 one of a " personally conducted " expe- 
 dition, a bankrupt world might well have
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 bemoaned its loss; for who by search- 
 ing can find in Cook's circular mention 
 of the Lotophagi, "who for their only 
 nourishment eat flowers," the Cyclops, 
 Nausicaa, or Circe ? Yet the Wily One 
 came upon them because he sacrificed 
 not on the altar of accurate and abom- 
 inable science. If the two Americans 
 who sought Eastcheap one golden day 
 had devoted an hour's study to their 
 problem in the British Museum, they 
 would have wandered less widely in pur- 
 suit of their desire ; nay, would have 
 concluded that there was nothing left to 
 attain, and thus confined themselves to 
 the region of narrow experience reserved 
 for those who let " ' I dare not ' wait 
 upon ' I would.' ' With the simplicity 
 of ignorance, we expected, though the 
 tavern had been swept away, to lay a 
 finger upon the link forged by Irving 
 with the past ; to look upon the Mason's 
 Arms, custodian of box and goblet, and 
 to visit Saint Michael's Church, forever 
 memorable from having held its vestry 
 meetings under the sign of the Boar's 
 Head. 
 
 King William's Monument was easily 
 found, and near by lay Crooked Lane, 
 '58
 
 THE QUEST OF A CUP 
 
 " so called of the crooked windings 
 thereof," though, as we speedily realized, 
 its generous curve had been cut short at 
 the call of traffic. A moment's inves- 
 tigation made it also evident that Saint 
 Michael's Church had in that lamenta- 
 ble doing been swept away. Even after 
 that certainty had settled cold upon the 
 heart, we walked up and down the dingy 
 street, staring beseechingly about, as if 
 perchance, church, tower and all might 
 magically rise. An appeal to policemen 
 and dusty looking idlers who played the 
 r61e of oldest inhabitant bore no consol- 
 ing fruit. Saint Michael's Church was 
 gone ; one and another declared that 
 it had not been there in his day ; and 
 when we querulously disputed the wis- 
 dom of its removal, we were urged to 
 consider the fair proportions of those 
 newer streets born to crowd it out of 
 being. 
 
 " But be not daunted," at length whis- 
 pered Hope : " the Mason's Arms may 
 still have such store of compensation 
 as it offered Irving in his quest ! " 
 
 Therefore we turned our steps in the 
 direction of Miles Lane. There might 
 the heart be warmed by the descendants
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 of Master Edward Honeyball, Irving's 
 kindly host, or even Master Honeyball 
 himself, his century brimmed over and 
 his race still unfinished. Narrow and 
 dingy is the way. Bales of goods are 
 hoisted over the head of the timorous 
 traveler, who, if he be prudent, takes 
 to the middle of the street, there to 
 be jostled by unsavory fish- venders and 
 bearers of burdens. Such hardships of 
 progress are of little moment, however, 
 to one inspired by the hope that he may 
 presently come upon Dame Honeyball, 
 hospitably alert in the doorway, over- 
 coming the scruples of the hesitant trav- 
 eler, and persuading him that her wine 
 needs no bush. May he not catch a 
 glimpse of the serving-maid with trim 
 ankles, or even a savory whiff of that 
 mutton which was a-roasting so many 
 years ago ? Vain delusion of the too 
 alert fancy! The Mason's Arms lives 
 no longer, save upon Irving's rescuing 
 page. Covering its former ground 
 stands a glaringly modern and common- 
 place " public," whither business men, 
 boys, and cabbies were that day tend- 
 ing for a pot of beer, to emerge brush- 
 ing the foam from appreciative lips. 
 1 60
 
 THE QUEST OF A CUP 
 
 Yet though that beery seclusion might 
 be reserved for the tippling male, not for 
 such reason would woman, wrapped in 
 the armor of an idea, refrain from pene- 
 trating therein. 
 
 The traveler in England soon learns 
 that here, as in the economy of nature, 
 nothing is lost, and that axiom will com- 
 fort him on many a discouraging quest. 
 Anything which Saint Michael's Church 
 had once possessed must still be church 
 property, and would undoubtedly be kept 
 in this parish, or in a neighboring one. 
 Therefore, in whatever corner of secrecy 
 and darkness its forgotten treasures lay 
 hidden, they might surely be unearthed 
 by the persistent seeker. Such reason- 
 able premises being assumed, what more 
 likely spot could there be for eliciting 
 fact or wildfire gossip than the common 
 meeting-ground of a tavern ? 
 
 The white-aproned "drawer" would 
 fain have told us all we sought, so said 
 his sympathetic manner, but he could 
 only suggest the beadle as a probable 
 fountain of Eastcheap lore. And where 
 was the beadle to be found ? He was 
 in, not five minutes ago, to take his pint 
 of beer, and he might come round again 
 161
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 in an hour. (O bibulous beadle, is this 
 thine hourly custom ?) It all depended 
 upon what he had to do. Some days 
 there were a good many burials. No 
 beadle, however, was forthcoming, even 
 after long lingering, and an ascent to 
 his room, over three flights of breakneck 
 stairs ; and choosing at random a church 
 near by which might divulge hidden 
 information, we went to Saint Margaret 
 Pattens, named for the patten-makers 
 who long ago flourished there, and rich 
 in a store of old-time memories. The 
 white - haired rector was finishing his 
 daily service to empty benches ; for, 
 though traffic surges about this and its 
 sister churches in the heart of the City, 
 it is rare indeed that man or woman 
 enters one of them to seek the bread of 
 life. They have their religiously pre- 
 served carvings, their precious organs, 
 their careful service ; they go quietly 
 beating on, like a jeweled timepiece in 
 the clothes of a beggar, and afar off, 
 but ominous, sounds the howl of " Dis- 
 establishment ! " 
 
 This gentleman was not the rector 
 of Saint Margaret Pattens, protested an 
 inner voice, when finally he was ready to 
 162
 
 THE QUEST OF A CUP 
 
 speak with the strangers. He was Trol- 
 lope's gentle " Warden." 
 
 " Have you given up that old and lov- 
 ing habit of fingering your imaginary 
 violoncello ? " one refrained with diffi- 
 culty from asking. " Has Archdeacon 
 Grantly frowned it down, and is he at 
 this moment waiting for you at home, 
 to broach some scheme of advancement 
 in which your cleanly soul will not con- 
 cur ? " The Warden held, as it hap- 
 pily proved, the key to difficulty the 
 first. Saint Michael's parish had, he said 
 at once, been merged in Saint Magnus's, 
 and doubtless took all its property with 
 it. But if we were interested in the 
 Boar's Head, should we not also like to 
 see an entry in Saint Margaret's vestry 
 accounts, of the sixteenth century, prov- 
 ing that it found the tavern a comforta- 
 ble neighbor ? From an old oaken chest 
 he drew a volume, its leather covers worn 
 rough by time, its pages yellowed and 
 stained by years, if not from use. 
 
 " Itn paide for our dynners on St. 
 Andrewse Day at the Bores Hedde i8s. 
 6<t." 
 
 He it was who suggested that the 
 parcel-gilt goblet was not a sacramental 
 '63
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 cup, but rather one used by the vestry 
 in its business meetings, which had also 
 a convivial character. Such cups were 
 known as " masers," and might be either 
 of metal or of wood, carved, and orna- 
 mented with silver and gold. An allu- 
 sion of the sixteenth century to another 
 vessel describes it as "a great cuppe, 
 brode and deepe, such as great masers 
 were wont to be." These vessels, true 
 loving-cups, were highly valued by the 
 fortunate owners, whether individuals or 
 corporations. The Warden would not 
 hear of thanks. Old customs were his 
 delight, he protested, and of all the 
 phantasms of this changing world they 
 best rewarded pursuit. He had even 
 revived in his own church the ancient 
 ceremony of " beating the bounds." The 
 children of the parish marched out in 
 due form and beat with wands the 
 parish boundaries ; but so changed had 
 the region become since the days when 
 such geography lessons were of ordi- 
 nary occurrence, and building had not 
 smothered God's earth, that one child 
 had to be let down from a window into 
 a closed court, to touch with his wand 
 a separating point. But O times and 
 164
 
 THE QUEST OF A CUP 
 
 manners ! that ye have changed is patent 
 in the fact that whereas such occasions 
 served of old as pretext for reveling, 
 to-day but one friendly baker regaled 
 the beaters with buns and lemonade. 
 Where are the cakes and ale whereon 
 they feasted once from door to door ? 
 Gone, with bear-baitings, new plays on 
 Bankside, mouth-filling oaths, and good 
 Queen Bess. 
 
 With that day and the farewell cour- 
 tesies of the gentle Warden ended our 
 quest. It even hung fire over the sum- 
 mer, for an appeal by letter to the 
 " fair parish church of Saint Magnus " 
 elicited the fact that it was undergoing 
 repair, and was therefore in no condition 
 for visitors. Thus it happened that it 
 was only a few days before sailing for 
 America that we entered the little ves- 
 try, and caught at once from the window 
 a sight more to be desired than the free- 
 dom of the city in a box of gold. There, 
 hemmed in by walls, lies a small patch 
 of green, its one ornament the Purbeck 
 stone once in Saint Michael's churchyard 
 to tell the virtues of Robert Preston, 
 and now sojourning with Saint Magnus, 
 still to rehearse his fame. 
 165
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 "Bacchus, to give the toping world surprise, 
 Produced one sober son, and here he lies. 
 Though reared among full hogsheads, he defy'd 
 The charms of wine, and every one beside. 
 O reader, if to justice thou'rt inclined, 
 Keep honest Preston daily in thy mind. 
 He drew good wine, took care to fill his pots, 
 Had sundry virtues that excused his faults. 
 You that on Bacchus have the like dependence, 
 Pray copy Bob in measure and attendance." 
 
 Truly, it is good to touch with rever- 
 ent finger each link of a golden past : to 
 renew our fondness for the motherland 
 by thumbing over the pages of her story ! 
 The rector of Saint Magnus dallied with 
 our impatience, and proffered many a 
 fillip to the appetite before he would 
 produce the nightingales' tongues and 
 ortolans of the feast. We must see his 
 church, redolent of memories ancient and 
 wonderful, and the tablet to Miles Cov- 
 erdale, wherein the godly and learned 
 do much delight. We must even try 
 his organ. But at length returned to 
 the vestry room, there appeared a sex- 
 ton, penetrated to the soul with the im- 
 portance of every detail connected with 
 the Establishment ; and in his hands 
 he bore two boxes, one of wood, and 
 the other the identical tobacco-box of 
 Irving's quest, the same, yet different 
 1 66
 
 THE QUEST OF A CUP 
 
 in the fresh glory of paint probably 
 applied in 1861, for, as the inscription 
 relates, it was then repaired anew. Now 
 be it understood that there had been 
 throughout little talk of the goblet, but 
 much of this box from which the church- 
 wardens once filled their innocent pipes. 
 It was impossible to refer honestly to 
 the former treasure in any way except 
 as a memento of Mrs. Quickly ; and 
 would even the daring scion of an ag- 
 gressive land approach a reverend in- 
 cumbent of the English Church with a 
 mention of that amiable but never con- 
 ventional woman, painful antithesis to the 
 British matron ? Perish the thought ! 
 Rather wait, hoping that box and goblet 
 had drifted down the stream of years 
 still together, and that the same incom- 
 ing wave would sweep them to the trav- 
 elers' feet. With a slow seriousness 
 befitting the occasion the wooden box 
 was opened, and there, in a green baize 
 seclusion, lay the goblet of our dreams. 
 The moment had come, and triumph- 
 antly it crowned endeavor. No one who 
 has seen that cup can doubt for a mo- 
 ment that it certainly is the one illu- 
 minated by the sea-coal fire that day 
 167
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 when Falstaff swore his perishable oath. 
 It is of a goodly shape, with a standard 
 and a generous bowl. It is lined with 
 gold, "parcel-gilt," and the silver exte- 
 rior is decorated with fanciful little fig- 
 ures in outline, shaped somewhat like 
 Prince Rupert drops. About the foot 
 runs the inscription, Ex dono Francisci 
 Wythers Armigeri. 
 
 There is an actual possibility con- 
 nected with this relic which is hardly to 
 be considered without excitement. The 
 cup, we are told, was in the first part of 
 this century "very ' antyke.' " What is 
 more probable than that William Shake- 
 speare, in his social evenings at the tav- 
 ern where it was kept, was a welcome 
 guest of Saint Michael's vestry, what 
 time the cup went round and beards 
 wagged all ? The parcel-gilt goblet was 
 ever held in high esteem, whenever it 
 was first received, and it is easy to be- 
 lieve it formed a part of the church 
 property before 1597, the earliest date 
 to be assigned King Henry IV. That 
 possibility once assumed, the mind runs 
 riot in conjecture, and almost loses its 
 balance in a mad chase after the thistle- 
 down of circumstantial proof. Who was 
 1 68
 
 THE QUEST OF A CUP 
 
 Sir Francis Wythers ? When was he 
 christened, married, or where did he die ? 
 A list of tombstones and tablets from 
 Saint Michael's contains not his name. 
 Its register of christenings, marriages, 
 and burials, beginning in 1538, holds no 
 reference to him. Did he belong to 
 some other parish, which keeps in hid- 
 ing the record of his life, waiting for a 
 lucky finder, that prince whose lot it is 
 to succeed after the many fail, or did he 
 go to the wars with Falstaff, to receive 
 burial " unhousel'd, disappointed, un- 
 anel'd"? for it is difficult to avoid a 
 strange mingling of the poetical and 
 real in such a quest. Was he one of the 
 Lancashire Withers, a family adorned 
 by George Wither, the poet, and of 
 whose founder mention is made in the 
 reign of Edward II. ? "What's become 
 of Waring ? " is no more crucial prob- 
 lem, no blinder scent, than that con- 
 nected with this elusive donor of a cup. 
 The ingenious mind will suggest that 
 there may be some mention of goblet 
 or giver in Saint Michael's audit books. 
 Even so small a matter as paying for 
 the inscription, if that were not done 
 until after the presentation, would surely 
 169
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 be mentioned. Vain hope ! The earli- 
 est parochial book is dated 1617, and 
 has nothing to say on the subject. It 
 does, however, contain two references 
 to the Boar's Head, which are of some 
 interest, like every trifle touching that 
 wonder-breeding spot. 
 
 I, for one, am determined to assume 
 that the cup has met the eye of Shake- 
 speare, and was even touched by his 
 good right hand. I shall never allow 
 the true delight of literary pilgrimage 
 to be spoiled by too close adherence to 
 possible fact. In the ideal suppositions 
 of life lie its paramount charms. He 
 is a happy man, gifted with the truest 
 wisdom, who sees in every thorn-tree at 
 Glastonbury a scion of the olden one, 
 who can bare his head in memory of 
 King Arthur at each of the several 
 places claiming the crown of Camelot, 
 and people the land with brave men and 
 fair women who, as the learned tell us, 
 were never more than "such stuff as 
 dreams are made on." 
 
 Shakespeare dearly loved to harness 
 
 every-day events to the car of poesy ; to 
 
 fit a cart-horse out with wings, and bid 
 
 him godspeed in playing Pegasus. When 
 
 170
 
 THE QUEST OF A CUP 
 
 Titania describes a strange confusion of 
 the seasons, and the resulting evils to 
 man and beast, there can be no doubt 
 that the poet had in mind the year 1 594, 
 when "the spring was very unkind, by 
 means of the abundance of rain that fell. 
 Our July hath been like to a Febru- 
 ary ; our June even as an April : so that 
 the air must needs be infected." That 
 immortal speech of Bottom, wherein he 
 entreats the ladies not to tremble, since 
 he is no lion, but "a man as other men 
 are," has its prototype in an incident, 
 probably of Shakespeare's own time, 
 which is recorded in a collection enti- 
 tled Merry Passages and Jests : 
 
 "There was a spectacle presented to 
 Queen Elizabeth upon the water, and 
 among others Harry Goldingham was 
 to represent Arion upon the Dolphin's 
 backe ; but finding his voice to be verye 
 hoarse and unpleasant when he came to 
 perform it, he tears off his disguise, and 
 swears he was none of Arion, not he, 
 but even honest Harry Goldingham." 
 
 Face-painting, Mary Queen of Scots 
 
 and her siren arts, the dancing horse 
 
 (a justly celebrated wonder of the poet's 
 
 time), a fool's leap into a custard to 
 
 171
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 excite the popular mirth, the " little 
 eyases " of Saint Paul's Cathedral, who 
 became stage favorites, to be strongly 
 and somewhat jealously censured by 
 legitimate players, dozens of contem- 
 porary allusions illustrate his royal and 
 prodigal way of sweeping up the dust 
 from the path of every-day life and using 
 it for ornament of his pageants. 
 
 The "parcel-gilt goblet at the Boar's 
 Head," - a careless mention, fit only to 
 cause a passing smile on such lips as 
 had merrily touched its brim, but to us, 
 cold under the long shadows of too late 
 a day, pregnant with wondrous meaning. 
 For to have looked upon what Shake- 
 speare saw, though it be but the infi- 
 nitely removed descendants of the daisies 
 that bloomed at Stratford three centu- 
 ries ago, to have held what his hand 
 once touched, is to have found one vivi- 
 fying crumb left from that high feast 
 when every man 
 
 "put his whole wit in a jest, 
 And resolved to live a fool the rest 
 Of his dull life." 
 
 172
 
 AN UNRESISTED TEMPTATION 
 
 THE first significant point of our 
 Warwickshire pilgrimage was Coventry 
 (I refrain with some difficulty from 
 the qualifying "three-spired," since the 
 guide-books have made it all their own), 
 and here an ancient dame, little guess- 
 ing that graver matters occupied my 
 thoughts, insisted on stopping us in the 
 street, and pointing out the head of 
 Peeping Tom. " Go to, thou 'rt naught ! " 
 I could have said, for my mind was busy 
 painting itself a picture of Falstaff's 
 scarecrow army, as it marched hereby 
 to the battlefield where the immortal 
 Jack vicariously slew Hotspur, after 
 fighting that "long hour by Shrewsbury 
 clock." Once begin to imagine that 
 tattered and straggling host, and you 
 will perforce dismiss the Lady Godiva, 
 though with a reverent mind, and con- 
 sider not architecture, albeit three or 
 thirty spires insistently call : an army 
 of such as "were never soldiers, but 
 discarded, unjust serving-men, younger
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 sons to younger brothers, revolted tap- 
 sters, and ostlers tradefallen ; the can- 
 kers of a calm world, and a long peace ; 
 ... a hundred and fifty tattered prodi- 
 gals, lately come from swine-keeping, 
 from eating draff and husks." More- 
 over, an army which needed not the 
 outfit of shirts, since, like Autolycus of 
 blessed memory, it could " find linen 
 enough on every hedge." But not 
 always may you stay to hobnob with 
 fat Jack; a wandering life has many 
 secondary joys in fee, and presently, in 
 sober and practical fashion, we engaged 
 a carriage to take us to the salient 
 spots of George Eliot's Warwickshire 
 sojourn. Now for my own part, I do 
 so heartily agree with her relatives and 
 friends in their distaste for the prying 
 tourist who would fain make his way 
 into their gardens and bedrooms nay, 
 into their very linen-chests, in search 
 of the table-cloths woven by Mrs. Tulli- 
 ver herself "and bleached so beautiful," 
 and marked " so as nobody ever saw 
 such marking," that it would take a 
 strong temptation to draw me into such 
 forbidden ways. (The temptation came, 
 in good time, let me whisper, and I 
 '74
 
 AN UNRESISTED TEMPTATION 
 
 succumbed to it, and was glad!) But 
 it is an ever-growing delight to me to 
 look on the same tract of earth and 
 the very outline of tree and roof which 
 once fed the gaze of heroes. Think of 
 the country about Stratford and its 
 influence on the mind of Master Will 
 Shakespeare, reputed poacher, and lover 
 of Anne Hathaway, the fruitful earth 
 and ever responsive leafage, the hedges, 
 lavish of bloom, the still-flowing streams, 
 great sky-spaces and far horizon; must 
 they not so have nourished and calmed 
 that great spirit that it could thereafter 
 express itself from a state of serene 
 healthfulness only to be attained in fit- 
 ful moods by one suffocated in mining 
 damps and glooms, or depressed by the 
 gray wastes of Lincolnshire? And so, 
 in tracing the steps of this woman- 
 genius, it was enough to look at the 
 outside of the Coventry School where 
 she was a shy and earnest student, or 
 at Rosehill, happy scene of her friend- 
 ship with the Brays, without in the 
 least desiring entrance, and then to 
 drive on to Griff House, where almost 
 a quarter - century of her youth was 
 passed.
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 During the progress of the road from 
 Coventry to Nuneaton, Warwickshire 
 displays a thoughtful and sober face. 
 The earth is harder and more unyield- 
 ing than at flowery Stratford. No 
 longer does it smile unreservedly. Coal 
 dust has here and there begrimed it ; 
 and at intervals a bare and ugly chimney 
 points upward a sooty finger in derisive 
 challenge to the "whip of the skies." 
 At a glance, one reads here the earth- 
 doom and history, the tale of unre- 
 mitting toil. In sweet farming regions 
 man may be baptized in his own sweat 
 and made drunk by his own tears, but 
 the gracious and deceitful earth only 
 smiles the more, and makes his home an 
 outer paradise, so that the thoughtless 
 onlooker is glad for him, and fancies 
 the poetic content of days spent in his 
 picturesque (and mildewed) thatched cot- 
 tage. But here the harder phases of 
 living make themselves rudely apparent, 
 and who can doubt that George Eliot 
 read from them her first gospel of the 
 trouble of life ? 
 
 Now, John, our driver that day, a 
 most serious man who talked as if he 
 might have been an intimate acquaint- 
 176
 
 AN UNRESISTED TEMPTATION 
 
 ance of the Great Lexicographer, was 
 impressed with a wholesome fear of Mr. 
 Isaac Evans, George Eliot's brother. 
 According to him, this gentleman had 
 suffered much from the settling of 
 tourists upon his roof-tree, very like 
 the plagues of ancient Egypt ; and we 
 could imagine that he had threatened 
 our conscientious John with dire ven- 
 geance, should he ever bring such har- 
 pies that way again. "All hail to thee 
 for a sensible man, O brother of the 
 great ! " we ejaculated mentally. " Not 
 for worlds would we invade thy peace ! " 
 
 " You can walk inside the grounds," 
 said John, drawing up before Griff 
 House. " He won't mind that. But 
 please, miss, don't go into the house ! " 
 
 Go into the house, like a monster 
 made out of Paul Pry and Peeping Tom ! 
 Though American, we were not of that 
 mould, and it was only after repeated 
 urgings from the box that we alighted, 
 and like cats in a cream-rich pantry, 
 took a few cautious steps into the trim 
 door-yard in front of the comfortable 
 brick house. And there temptation laid 
 for our feet its first cobweb snare. A 
 woman, a very decent serving-woman, 
 177
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 came walking down the path, and to 
 her we weakly apologized for our pres- 
 ence, adding that we were from over-sea, 
 and that we could not resist looking upon 
 the spot where George Eliot was born. 
 
 " She was n't born here," said this 
 sympathetic and kindly soul, "she was 
 born at Arbury Farm, though she did 
 live here for many years." 
 
 This was a blow. We had wasted our 
 emotions, we had wept and applauded 
 in the wrong place, and after a further 
 exchange of civilities we returned to the 
 carriage and. taxed John with having 
 made a mistake. (For, to our shame 
 be it confessed, Baedeker had that day 
 been left behind, and memory proved 
 but a yielding staff.) And thereupon 
 he waxed so emphatic, declaring that 
 everybody knew Griff House to be the 
 birthplace of Mary Ann Evans, and, 
 moreover, he looked so like a local 
 oracle, destined to develop into an Old- 
 est Inhabitant, that we knew not what 
 to think, and, perplexed and depressed, 
 drove on to Chilvers Coton, the Shep- 
 perton of the " Scenes from Clerical 
 Life." 
 
 Chilvers Coton, a suburb of dull, 
 178
 
 AN UNRESISTED TEMPTATION 
 
 workaday Nuneaton, is not a place to 
 invite the eye. It is, indeed, "a flat, 
 ugly district . . . depressing enough to 
 look at even on the brightest days," 
 and the little commonplace church is 
 close neighbor to a crowded yard of 
 " the happy dead people." The building 
 was locked, and thereupon we besieged 
 the comfortable, old-fashioned vicarage, 
 to ask for the key. A trim, rosy maid 
 appeared at the door, and took the 
 words from our mouths. "The key, 
 miss ? Yes, miss. And perhaps you 
 wish to see Milly's grave ! " So in a 
 half -dream we entered the little homely 
 structure, and walked into the very pew 
 where Mary Ann Evans used to sit, in 
 those years when, as she confesses, 
 " my nurse found it necessary to provide 
 for the reenforcement of my devotional 
 patience, by smuggling bread and butter 
 into the sacred edifice." The improve- 
 ments she once deplored as having 
 marred the picture retained by her 
 childish memory have yet left the 
 church very quaint and characteristic ; 
 the pews are old-fashioned, the gal- 
 leries delightful. It is easy to feel in 
 that atmosphere as if one were within 
 179
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 a very few layers of the heart of 
 country life. Then out into the church- 
 yard again, where, surrounded by a 
 high railing and weighted with a heavy 
 tombstone, lies the grave of Emma 
 Gwyther, who died at thirty-four, and 
 whose sad fortunes were mirrored in 
 those of Milly Barton. We left the spot, 
 touched and saddened, as one who has 
 looked on some most sacred relic of the 
 past; wherever Mary Ann Evans was 
 born, we had at least read here one 
 chapter of her thoughtful, image-storing 
 childhood. Thereupon, like a persistent 
 insect, came buzzing back the forgotten 
 question, " Marry, where was she born ? " 
 Not that it made any difference, since 
 she once walked among us, but that the 
 spirit of investigation forbade inglori- 
 ous defeat. And then it was that a 
 new version of Launcelot Gobbo's im- 
 mortal dialogue between conscience and 
 the fiend was again enacted, and with 
 the world-old result. " Run ! " cried the 
 fiend in conclusion, and we said to our 
 driver, "Back to Griff House!" set 
 our lips and abided the event. I think 
 John must have suspected us of contem- 
 plating some deed of darkness, for he 
 1 80
 
 AN UNRESISTED TEMPTATION 
 
 was in his turn resolute of countenance, 
 as if, should Mr. Evans charge upon the 
 besiegers, he had made up his mind to 
 fly, hot-foot, to Coventry, leaving us in 
 the lurch. But prudence had been quite 
 abandoned with decorum, and walking 
 up to the teeth of the enemy, we 
 knocked for admittance at the door of 
 Griff House. Then appeared again the 
 decent serving - woman, and we threw 
 ourselves on her mercy. We were tossed 
 about by winds of doctrine; would she 
 tell us her grounds for saying that Mary 
 Ann Evans was not born here ? She 
 smiled, as if it made very little differ- 
 ence, and yet indulgently, as one might 
 over the vagaries of uneasy Americans, 
 inclined to spend their nervous energy 
 in fighting windmills and hunting lions, 
 and repeated her tale. But in the midst 
 of it she stopped to listen, evidently to 
 a call from within, and, after a word of 
 apology, hastened up the stairs. She 
 was soon back again, this time bearing 
 a message. " Miss Evans says you may 
 walk in the garden, miss, if you like." 
 (Poor Miss Evans ! should we take this 
 as the spontaneous impulse of a kindly 
 heart, or was it a sop thrown to un- 
 181
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 known barbarians, whom she expected 
 presently in her bed - chamber ?) At 
 all events, we stayed not to question 
 motives, but betook ourselves, with our 
 gentle-mannered guide, to a fascinating 
 old-fashioned garden at the back of the 
 house, and there it was that an excit- 
 ing and terrible event befell. For she 
 suddenly exclaimed, in an undertone, 
 " There is Mr. Evans himself ! You 
 can ask him where she was born ! " and 
 fled, leaving us in the presence of a 
 tall, powerful man, clad in gray, and 
 pushing a lawn - mower. There was 
 nothing for us to do but flee also, or 
 brazenly advance ; to our everlasting 
 discredit, be it recorded that we chose 
 the latter and ignoble course. Now, I 
 confess that when I fell into talk with 
 this quiet English land-agent, it was 
 from a mood as uplifted and delirious 
 as that of one who should " see Shelley 
 plain," for it was borne in upon me that 
 here, in the flesh, was Tom Tulliver, 
 honest, stanch, indomitable of will, 
 yet not of wide vision and ever con- 
 scious of his own infallibility. ("And 
 the worst of it is," once said a clever 
 woman, "that he not only thought so, 
 182
 
 AN UNRESISTEJ) TEMPTATION 
 
 but according to recognized standards 
 Tom always was right.") This was the 
 man with whose being George Eliot's 
 own was knit during the most plastic 
 period of her life, who could admit her 
 to the highest heaven of happiness, as 
 Tom had ever the power of doing in 
 his intercourse with Maggie, and whose 
 disapproval, even over so small a matter 
 as the jam puffs, would poison the very 
 fountain of her content. This was he 
 of whom she wrote, 
 
 " My doll seemed lifeless, and no girlish toy 
 Had any reason, when my brother came." 
 
 It was Tom, the real or imagined 
 Tom, who praised her because, in a 
 moment of still and happy dreaming, she 
 caught a big fish, and learned thereby 
 how " luck is with glory wed." It was 
 Tom who was separated from her by 
 that awful soul-distance brought about 
 by " the dire years ; " who perchance 
 condemned where he could not under- 
 stand, and drew from her at length the 
 home-sick cry, 
 
 " But were another childhood-world my share, 
 I would be born a little sister there." 
 
 Here, for all present purposes, was 
 Tom Tulliver, gray-bearded, with keen 
 183
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 yet kindly gray eyes and a slow sad 
 voice, and oh, wonder ! with George 
 Eliot's own Dante nose. Do you remem- 
 ber when sweet Mary Seraskier came 
 back to Peter Ibbetson from the outer, 
 or mayhap the inner world, how he 
 tried so vainly, in his waking moments, 
 to recall her utterances, and put them 
 into the language of every-day thought 
 and speech ? Thus it happened when I 
 talked with Tom Tulliver. I meant, for 
 my own after-delight, to remember his 
 phrasing exactly as it left his lips, but I 
 can only repeat it now, hopelessly Amer- 
 icanized. 
 
 " No, she was not born here," he said. 
 " She was born at Arbury Farm, and 
 brought here when she was but six 
 months old." 
 
 " And which was her window ? Where 
 is her room ? " 
 
 " Why, she was everywhere about the 
 house," he answered, in his ponderous 
 fashion. "She lived here." 
 
 But it was evident that the George 
 Eliot of universal fame was less to him 
 than the little sister whose " tiny shoe " 
 he had guidecl over the stepping-stones, 
 so many years agone. He was half 
 184
 
 AN UNRESISTED TEMPTATION 
 
 touched, half perplexed that we should 
 be thus moved over the traces of their 
 vanished youth. 
 
 " You came from America ? " he asked. 
 "It's a long way." 
 
 And then, when we stammeringly 
 tried to tell him how we had first of all 
 sought Shakespeare's home, inevitably 
 to make this the second step in our 
 pilgrimage of praise and worship, his 
 reserve seemed to break up, as if, she 
 being dead, he would thank the humblest 
 soul for having loved her. 
 
 "And you've been to the church?" 
 he asked. " Ah, they Ve altered it ! 
 You may see the pew where she used to 
 sit, but in those days its walls were so 
 high that she had to stand up on the 
 seat to see the singers." (Still dream- 
 ing over the child, and not the girl or 
 woman ! Did she know, and was it an 
 abiding joy that ever, in the home of his 
 mind, she dwelt "a little sister" ?) 
 
 Needless to say that we did not linger, 
 afraid of outstaying his tolerance. 
 
 "And you will go to Arbury Farm?" 
 he asked, adding, after full directions for 
 finding it, "Tell them I sent you." 
 
 We left him in his garden and wan- 
 '85
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 dered at will for a moment, casting un- 
 seeing eyes at the farm buildings and 
 populous yard, where little Maggie light- 
 heartedly trudged about, or brooded over 
 the "bitter sorrows of childhood." 
 
 It was all so faithful, so real ! and 
 nothing more so than the true present- 
 ment of Tom, grown to man's estate. 
 This was the apex of human experi- 
 ence, so far as our present quest was 
 concerned ; not only could we imagine 
 the outer life of the fine spirit forever 
 vanished, but we had seen him who was 
 so responsible for a vast part of its 
 emotional stress. Yet there was, and 
 is to-day, a bitter drop in that jeweled 
 cup ; we had behaved like the tradi- 
 tional American whose gospel is " Push," 
 and had earned thereby the condemna- 
 tion pronounced upon such from of old 
 by the courteous and the gentle. One 
 grace only was left in us ; we kept our 
 own counsel, lest other intrusive spirits, 
 possibly worse than the first, should re- 
 peat our deed, and still further persecute 
 our patient host. But time and fate 
 between them have taken the seal from 
 our lips, for the master of Griff House 
 is dead. 
 
 186
 
 LATTER-DAY CRANFORD 
 
 IT is the eccentric dower of some to 
 grow quite as hot-headed and tremulous 
 over a prospective needle in a haymow 
 as ever Midas could have been on 
 receiving his gift. To such, Knutsford, 
 in Cheshire, offers a perfect hunting- 
 ground for that sort of plunder so 
 humorously resembling Gratiano's rea- 
 sons : " You shall seek all day ere you 
 find them ; and when you have them, 
 they are not worth the search." No 
 more satisfying occupation can be in- 
 vented in this ancient world than the 
 pursuit of what does not absolutely ex- 
 ist, if only the hunter be just credulous 
 enough ; bold in belief, yet " not too 
 bold." He must cling to his guesswork 
 with a dauntless zeal ; at the same time 
 he shall, for his own ease, recognize 
 the probable futility of such doggedness. 
 For to reconstruct a habitation on the 
 base of some foregone romance is to 
 strike a balance between special disap- 
 pointment and a vague general joy. 
 187
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 The present Knutsford, in toto, is 
 emphatically not the Cranford of Mrs. 
 Gaskell's homely chronicle, but it glit- 
 ters with links of similitude ; moreover, 
 a certain quaintness all its own is 
 continually stimulating the mind to 
 comparison between the fancied and 
 the real, as living perfumes summon 
 forth old memories. Here, at least, 
 Mrs. Gaskell was a child, the little 
 Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson, storing 
 up fragmentary impressions easily re- 
 traced by one who has lived even a full 
 day in the town ; here she was married, 
 and in the green and pleasant yard of 
 the old Unitarian Chapel she lies, with 
 her husband, under lilies of the valley 
 and the constant evergreen. The pros- 
 pect of figuring in biography was never 
 quite to her taste, and the simple facts 
 of her life offer little temptation to 
 literary gossip-mongers. Her mother 
 was a Holland, of the family repre- 
 sented now by Lord Knutsford. Little 
 Elizabeth was born at Chelsea in 1810, 
 and it was after her mother's death that 
 she was sent to live with Mrs. Lumb, a 
 widowed aunt, at Knutsford, where she 
 remained until marriage took her to per- 
 188
 
 LATTER-DAY CRANFORD 
 
 manent residence in Manchester. Both 
 her husband and her father were Unita- 
 rian clergymen, and one can guess at 
 her own gracious influence among that 
 slowly growing sect, a power as moving 
 as in literature and the practical walks 
 of trade. It is an old story that her 
 fiction taught the rich some of those 
 trenchant lessons known at first-hand 
 only by the poor ; but another deed, 
 more golden yet, shall be remembered 
 of her, the creation of Cranford, a 
 book to be loved so long as there are 
 smiles and tears in this April world. 
 Who could aspire to uncover its living 
 presentment ? One might as well hope, 
 some fortunate London hour, to stumble 
 on Queen Bess setting forth in state to 
 bull-baiting or the play. 
 
 The region skirting Knutsford on 
 every hand is rich in memories, but, 
 better still, it offers a loving welcome 
 to the eye. It is a placid, smiling 
 country, diversified by great estates and 
 happy in fat farmlands. Great herds of 
 cows idle about, given over to that in- 
 dustry which is no more than a drowsy 
 day-dream ; cropping and chewing, and 
 transmuting the riches of the common 
 189
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 sod into such milk and cheese as need 
 only naming for praise. Within the 
 circle of this abounding prosperity lies 
 the little town (ford of the great Ca- 
 nute, some say, with reason), a lovable 
 spot, irregular and pleasing, with individ- 
 ual corners and passages covered by the 
 dust of years, and delighting in their 
 burial. It is presided over by two 
 precise and respectable inns, both men- 
 tioned "by name" in Cranford. So 
 many of the strings of trade here are 
 held by women that it is still approxi- 
 mately, as in Cranford days, "in pos- 
 session of the Amazons." No state of 
 things could be more pleasing to us who 
 would have time "stand still withal," 
 and on the strength of it we may 
 undoubtedly assume that, even in our 
 present year of grace, "to be a man" 
 is, in this delectable place, " to be 
 < vulgar.' " 
 
 Our course thither lay through Man- 
 chester (Drumble), where we made brief 
 halt to glance at the Unitarian Chapel, 
 the old preaching-ground of the Rev- 
 erend William Gaskell, and we reached 
 Knutsford on the eve of a festival 
 calculated to rend dear Miss Matty 
 190
 
 LATTER-DAY CRANFORD 
 
 with deeper doubts than such as embit- 
 tered her first half -hour at Signor 
 Brunoni's exhibition. For the next 
 afternoon had been set apart for 
 May-day celebration, and Knutsford was 
 already the scene of a wild saturnalia. 
 It had lost its head in anticipatory 
 delirium. It was baking and brewing 
 for a probable influx of visitors by 
 excursion train. The very air was 
 tinged with the aroma of hot cakes, 
 and landladies who on any other day 
 would have curtsied profoundly in 
 Shenstonian welcome, actually held their 
 door-stone against us as though we 
 were marauding Scots, or the rogues 
 and vagabonds of a later interdict, ex- 
 plaining : " It 's so very, very awkward, 
 miss, but to-morrow I shall be so busy ; 
 and I could hardly give you the atten- 
 tion I should wish. I 'm very sorry, 
 miss, but you see how it is, miss, I 'm 
 sure ; " with that ingratiating lift at the 
 end of the sentence so commendable 
 on an English tongue. 
 
 And so perforce we went to an inn, 
 choosing, in deference to Cranford pre- 
 judice,, one under the firm and affable 
 sway of two ladies. At that modest 
 191
 
 choice, said we, the Honorable Mrs. 
 Jamieson would have been the better 
 pleased. All that evening the delirium 
 of hope and expectation continued. 
 Swings had been erected on the large 
 open space still known as " the Heath." 
 Red-and-gold gondolas, cannily set upon 
 springs, were gayly sliding about in 
 a magic circle, a lurid Venice. A 
 strange aerial railway consisted of one 
 strong wire high in air ; little wheels 
 with handles on either side were 
 arranged to fit it, and Darby or Joan, 
 holding to the handles with desperate 
 grip, went trundling through space like 
 gibbeted criminals taking to the sky. 
 The company of psychologists shall 
 henceforth be augmented by the man 
 who classifies the soul according to the 
 bodily contortions induced by an aerial 
 railway. I know not what he should 
 be called, but his course of action will 
 be plain. Especially in the case of 
 womankind might he pronounce an 
 unerring judgment, for some among 
 the lassies curled their dangling feet 
 decently beneath their skirts, some let 
 them fly amain ; others swayed like wil- 
 low wands ; but the many swept on their 
 192
 
 LATTER-DAY CRANFORD 
 
 playful way like very statues. In all 
 there was one strange likeness : they 
 took their pleasure "sadly," as became 
 true Britons. No face relaxed ; not a 
 feature gave way to emotion lighter 
 than a rigid determination to reach the 
 goal. With the onlookers, the same 
 seriousness prevailed, so that when the 
 transatlantic observer gave way to hys- 
 terics of mirth, she was regarded, not 
 frowningly, but with a solemn com- 
 passion which was in itself hopelessly 
 upsetting. And over all the din of de- 
 corous joy amid which the Knutsford 
 youth thus disported itself arose the 
 voice of china -venders and toy -mer- 
 chants, the cry of those who would fain 
 cloy their countrymen with gruesome 
 lollipop and other sweets, made only to 
 be shunned. Miss Deborah could never 
 have approved ! We tried to cloak our 
 delight under a decent thoughtfulness, 
 and went home to bed. I think we 
 should even have read a counter-irritating 
 chapter of Rasselas had that very emi- 
 nent work been at hand. 
 
 Next day, Knutsford dissolved in rain, 
 and the bakeries may well have wept 
 also. No crowd of excursionists to race
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 into the town like an invading flood, 
 some ripple of which must surely inun- 
 date the humblest eating-houses ! They 
 sank beneath their sweets, like Tarpeia 
 under her bribe, and the cardboard le- 
 gend of "Tea" at every door fell into 
 pulp and sadness. We too had hoped 
 for a sunny May-day ; but, being mortal, 
 we could not refrain from an acrid reflec- 
 tion that many a landlady must now be 
 repenting her short-sighted refusal of us. 
 Last night we were minnows, for there 
 were other fish in the sea. To-day we 
 loomed as the leviathan, and we bore our- 
 selves proudly. 
 
 Only a few optimistic citizens had 
 summoned the spirit to sand the side- 
 walk in front of their houses, an ancient 
 custom once accompanying Knutsford 
 weddings, and still employed on days of 
 high festival. Still, no one exerted his 
 genius to the utmost ; for though the 
 sand had been applied in patterns, they 
 were quite simple, suggesting none of 
 that elaboration and originality of design 
 in which Knutsford can indulge when 
 she chooses. But though the rain could 
 bully her into curbing her handiwork, 
 it could not dampen her poetic ardor. 
 194
 
 LATTER-DAY CRANFORD 
 
 Across the street, from one sandless 
 sidewalk to the other, swept a banner, 
 and this was the proud legend there- 
 of : 
 
 " All hail ! All hail thee, Queen of May ! 
 For this is our universal holiday I " 
 
 A melancholy dryness, flecked by 
 uncertain gleams of sun, succeeded the 
 forenoon, and we betook ourselves, with 
 an unadulterated joy, to the Heath, 
 where we sat, chilled and happy, on the 
 grand stand, watching the festival, and 
 reconstructing the play-day of Old Eng- 
 land from the too sophisticated pleas- 
 ures of the New. This was May-day 
 decked out in modern fripperies for the 
 public entertainment, but it was not 
 impossible to spy, beneath its lendings, 
 the simpler sports of a long-past time. 
 The procession was an historical pageant 
 of high degree. Here walked Sir Wal- 
 ter Raleigh, Lord Nelson, the Duke 
 of Wellington, Dick Whittington, and 
 Robin Hood, none of them over four 
 feet high. Jack-in-the-Green danced, 
 bear -wise, under an inverted cone of 
 hemlock ; the morris - dancers (lithe, 
 bonny youths, dressed in blue velvet 
 kneebreeches, white shirts, plaid sashes,
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 and stockings of a vivid pink seldom 
 seen outside a lozenge jar) wove a simple 
 rhythm of movement entrancing to the 
 eye, and the May queen rode in state, 
 a pygmy lady of fashion, clad in white 
 satin, elaborate, frosty, like a wedding- 
 cake. But one would fain have seen 
 her in simple white muslin enriched 
 only with posies of her own plucking, 
 gathered with the dew on them while 
 even Corinna slept. "Wake and call 
 me early," that I may hook myself into 
 a ball dress and send for my wired 
 bouquet ! Some bathos comes with 
 time. 
 
 But of all that winding throng one ob- 
 ject alone had power to thrill the mind, 
 an old sedan chair, borne midway in 
 the procession. Do you remember it in 
 the annals of Cranford ? Within that 
 very chair did Miss Matty sit, tremulous 
 but resolved, after the social evening at 
 Mrs. Forrester's, when the dear ladies 
 scared one another into panic with con- 
 fession of the bogies most to their mind. 
 From its unsafe seclusion did she cry 
 aloud when the men " stopped just where 
 Headingley Causeway branches off from 
 Darkness Lane : ' Oh ! pray go on ! 
 196
 
 LATTER-DAY CRANFORD 
 
 What is the matter ? What is the mat- 
 ter ? I will give you sixpence more to 
 go on very fast ; pray don't stop here.' " 
 Dear relic of a time more real than our 
 to-day ! Knutsford holds nothing more 
 precious. 
 
 The Maypole dance was given over to 
 a set of decorous little girls in flower-like 
 dresses, green and pink. They tripped 
 it prettily, they braided and wove their 
 ribbons round the pole, but the sponta- 
 neous joy of Old and Merrie England 
 was not in them. A dancing-master had 
 trained them for the public eye. Step 
 and look were no longer the springing 
 welcome to a day when lads and lassies 
 should no more be able to hold their 
 fervor than trees their budding strength. 
 To watch these puppets tripping it was 
 to give way for a moment to sadness, re- 
 flecting that nowadays we are ashamed 
 to be merry after we have come to man's 
 estate. We give over our great festivals 
 to children, and then sit looking on with 
 a maddening tickle in the bones that 
 ache to join them. 
 
 With another day Knutsford had as- 
 sumed her wonted air of quiescent deco- 
 rum. It proved easier to see her now 
 197
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 for what she is, a Georgian town imbued 
 with the spirit of elegance and precision ; 
 easy, too, to find Cranford in her every 
 look and word. On that morning began 
 our trial of local intelligence and belief. 
 But a step from the Angel Hotel (where 
 Lord Mauleverer very wisely took up his 
 quarters, though doubtless when it still 
 remained on the other side of the way) 
 stands the Royal George, once living 
 content under its swinging sign of the 
 saint militant, but now thrown into self- 
 contradiction by the swelling adjective 
 assumed after the Princess Victoria and 
 the Duchess of Kent had spent a night 
 under its roof. (An affectionate trait in 
 this loyal people, to weaken' a saint's pat- 
 ronymic by courtly prefix.) Now it was 
 this same George which was sought out 
 by Miss Pole on an idle morning, when 
 nothing more importunate prevented her 
 from strolling up the staircase, on benev- 
 olence intent. For, said Miss Pole, " my 
 Betty has a second-cousin who is cham- 
 bermaid there, and I thought Betty 
 would like to hear how she was." And, 
 quite by chance, she found herself in 
 the passage leading from the inn to the 
 Assembly Room, and then in the room 
 198
 
 LATTER-DAY CRANFORD 
 
 itself, where Signer Brunoni was mak- 
 ing his preparations to juggle the wits 
 out of Cranford the very next night. 
 This was the room where, on that bewil- 
 dering evening, the ladies of Cranford 
 were so astounded by the resources of 
 magic that they began to debate whether 
 they had been in the right " to have come 
 to see such things," and settled down to 
 an unalloyed enjoyment of the evening 
 only on learning that the " tall, thin, dry, 
 rusty rector," insured against feminine 
 wiles by a cohort of National School 
 boys, sat "smiling approval." Memory 
 more endearing still, it was the Assem- 
 bly Room where Miss Matty sighed a lit- 
 tle over her departed youth, and walked 
 " mincingly, ... as if there were a num- 
 ber of genteel observers, instead of two 
 little boys with a stick of toffy between 
 them with which to beguile the time." 
 To seek it out was like dreaming over a 
 bit of dear Miss Matty's shawl or a print 
 of her turban. 
 
 The George is rich in modern antiqui- 
 ties, carven balustrades, beautiful old 
 clocks, and precious work in brass. It 
 is a living example of the actual mag- 
 nificence which may be wrapped about 
 199
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 an inn when it has maintained itself in 
 dignity, and conceded nothing to the 
 flight of time or change of ownership. 
 Something stately lies in its hospitable 
 repose. Like the ladies themselves, it 
 clings resolutely to old possessions, 
 though all the world without may clamor 
 for the changes falsely named improve- 
 ment. Owing to that deplorable lack 
 of understanding which is incident to 
 the present of any age, we were con- 
 ducted, with flourish of pride, through 
 the George to the new Assembly Room, 
 aggressively fresh against the back- 
 ground of Cranford legends, and that 
 night tricked out with masonic regalia. 
 " Is this all ? " cried we, in unhappy 
 duet. " Has the old hall been quite 
 swept away ? " By no means ! Did we 
 wish to see that ? " A very plain room, 
 miss ! " And thither were we led, to 
 find it shabby, ancient, lovable, its 
 tinted walls, dull as a fading memory, 
 reflecting to the seeing eye a hundred 
 scenes of innocent yet decorous revelry. 
 Here Miss Matty took her dainty steps 
 in the menuets de la cour, her young 
 head, crowned with its soft thick locks 
 (" I had very pretty hair, my dear," said 
 200
 
 LATTER-DAY CRANFORD 
 
 Miss Matilda), sinking in shyness super- 
 added to decorum when young Holbrook 
 came to lead her to the dance. Here she 
 should have worn the muslin from India 
 that came to her too late, poor Matty. 
 Here, too, Miss Pole gleaned the fruitful 
 grain of gossip, to sow it carefully again ; 
 for in youth as in age Miss Pole must 
 ever have been the mouthpiece of the 
 world which tattles and denies. Some- 
 how I can never connect Miss Debo- 
 rah with the Assembly Room. I fancy 
 she was but an abstracted figure at the 
 balls ; wishing herself away in a more 
 serious atmosphere, dreaming over the 
 ponderous delight of sitting at home 
 and writing the charges of the arch- 
 deacon she was so eminently fitted to 
 marry. 
 
 In the old days, the George had gates 
 of its own, but now a free passage leads 
 under the building (somewhat in the 
 fashion of Clovelly's wayward street), 
 past the stables, and up a slope, where, 
 directly facing the pedestrian who as- 
 cends that way, stands a shop, pointed 
 out by universal acclaim as the one 
 where, after the downfall of her for- 
 tunes, Miss Matty sold tea and scattered 
 
 201
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 comfits. It is presided over by an ex- 
 cellent chemist, a man of solemn aspect 
 and an unconscious humor. A tradition 
 lurks in Cranford that he was once 
 sought out by the Unitarian clergyman 
 of the town, on the supposition that he 
 was an adherent of that faith. The cru- 
 cial question was asked. 
 
 " Oh, ay," responded master chemist, 
 " I am a Unitarian. Indeed, sir, I 'm 
 almost an agnostic ! " Rude, belligerent 
 word to have penetrated the sacred pale 
 of Cranford ! 
 
 We entered the tiny establishment on 
 some ostensible errand. 
 
 " Is this Miss Matty's shop ? " we 
 inquired incidentally, the while our pur- 
 chase was sought. 
 
 " Yes, miss," was the unhesitating 
 answer. "We are repairing the back 
 room a bit, or you could see the little 
 window she used to peep through when 
 she heard a customer." 
 
 Was reality so wedded to fiction ? 
 Actual windows and imaginary Miss 
 Mattys were here in droll conjunction. 
 Further questioning elicited a reason 
 strangely alluring from the very empha- 
 sis informing the chaos of its terms. 
 
 202
 
 LATTER-DAY CRANFORD 
 
 For it seems that there was in town an 
 aged gentlewoman, the only existing 
 link between old times and new, who 
 chanced to enter the shop after the pa- 
 per had been torn away, disclosing this 
 tiny window ; and she from her stores 
 of memory drew the assertion that this 
 was Miss Matty's window, because she 
 had seen it many a time and recognized 
 it at once. Amorphous logic and fortu- 
 nate conclusion ! 
 
 "Now," said we encouragingly to mas- 
 ter chemist, " of course you know all the 
 places mentioned in Cranford ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, miss," was the cheerful 
 reply. 
 
 " Where did the Honorable Mrs. 
 Jamieson live ? " 
 
 He hesitated. He looked at us wildly. 
 "Amen stuck in " his "throat." 
 
 "Give me time to think," he rejoined 
 appealingly ; and, being merciful, we 
 gave it. 
 
 Yet, returning that afternoon, and the 
 next day also, with the query, " Have 
 you had time to think ? " we were always 
 courteously but sadly answered, " No." 
 
 But authorities are not far to seek. 
 The Reverend George A. Payne knows 
 203
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 his literary Knutsford as the Reverend 
 Henry Green knew its historical and 
 archaeological aspect, and his guesses 
 are both satisfying and clever. He sug- 
 gests that the Honorable Mrs. Jamie- 
 son occupied a prosperous-looking house 
 near the lower end of the town, where 
 the old Unitarian Chapel still holds its 
 place. I am glad to think so. It is a 
 residence eminently fitting for that social 
 paragon, and it requires no impossible 
 stretch of fancy to see Carlo lumbering 
 about the yard, winking at the ladies 
 whom he mulcted of cream, or to catch 
 at least a glimpse of majestic Mr. Mul- 
 liner reading the Saint James's Chroni- 
 cle, while the Cranford dames regard 
 him from without in controlled and im- 
 potent wrath. Not far away, moreover, 
 inclosed by high, invulnerable walls, is 
 Darkness Lane, subject of that ever 
 memorable controversy on the night of 
 the panic, when Miss Matty would fain 
 have had the sedan chair "go on very 
 fast," and Miss Pole outbid her by six- 
 pence and induced the men to strike 
 into the less ominous Headingley Cause- 
 way. 
 
 At the other end of the town, not far 
 204
 
 LATTER-DAY CRANFORD 
 
 from the gates of Tatton Park, still 
 sleeps the old vicarage, a modest dwell- 
 ing in a circling yard, that yard where 
 poor Peter played his little comedy des- 
 tined to end in grief. Who does not 
 remember it, how Peter dressed him- 
 self in Deborah's gown and bonnet, and 
 juggled a pillow into the semblance of 
 a baby in long clothes, and how the rec- 
 tor came upon him as he paraded him- 
 self and his charge before the gaping 
 townsfolk ? The rest of the story is too 
 sad for any but sunny days ; for Peter 
 was flogged and ran away to sea, as 
 every one knows, while the rector re- 
 pented his angry vengeance in the ashes 
 of old age, and the ge*tle house-mother 
 died awaiting her boy's return. 
 
 The actual spots connected with Mrs. 
 Gaskell's life in Cranford need no broid- 
 ery of fancy. Looking over the Heath 
 stands the comfortable, dignified house 
 where she lived with Mrs. Lumb. Hers 
 was not an altogether untroubled child- 
 hood, suggests Mrs. Ritchie, and she 
 pictures the little girl running " away 
 from her aunt's house across the 
 Heath," hiding "herself in one of its 
 many green hollows, finding comfort in 
 205
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 the silence, and in the company of birds 
 and insects and natural things." At 
 that time, the Heath was less of a 
 trodden village common than to-day, 
 more populous with birds, richer in furze 
 and leaf. But though the identical 
 house has been enlarged and repaired, 
 its character of homelike comfort is un- 
 changed. There are happy windows, 
 with great window - seats, looking out 
 over the Heath and into the garden at 
 the back. Sun and light are every- 
 where, and in the garden beds lie the 
 richness and beauty of old-fashioned 
 flowers. 
 
 But of all spots made to please the 
 memory and stir it with suggestions not 
 to be denied is Sandlebridge Farm, 
 where lived the Hollands who were 
 Mrs. Gaskell's maternal ancestors. An 
 agreeable though unexciting walk leads 
 to it, between fields green with the won- 
 derful grass that goes to the making of 
 Cheshire cheese, and golden with but- 
 tercups. Such far reaches of field and 
 valley are here as to make a not unpleas- 
 ing loneliness in the land, even under 
 full sunlight ; and when, approaching 
 the farm, you come to a smithy and 
 206
 
 LATTER-DAY CRANFORD 
 
 mill dedicated to the uses of life, still 
 the illusion is not dispelled. For in the 
 smithy two or three leisurely men lean 
 and look in the intervals of smiling talk, 
 and the mill, sweet and dusty from the 
 breath of grain, goes on working quite 
 by itself. Great wooden beams, heavy 
 wheels, and dusty hoppers seemed, that 
 day, to be living a life of uncompanioned 
 yet happy activity, and from without 
 came the plash, plash of willing water 
 and the trickle of the feeding stream. 
 In the hazy distance loomed Alderley 
 Edge, a mammoth ridge rising above 
 the hidden caverns where nine hundred 
 and ninety - nine horses stand " ever 
 caparisoned and ready for war." 
 
 Mrs. Gaskell, when a little girl, must 
 often have visited the farm to play with 
 the Holland children ; but the spot has 
 another distinction, more potent still ; 
 for Sandlebridge is Cranford's Woodley, 
 where Mr. Thomas Holbrook lived, and 
 read " my Lord Byrron," and ate his 
 peas happily without the aid of a fork, 
 and where Miss Matty came to him too 
 late. The great stone balls are gone 
 from the pillars beside the gate (the 
 great Lord dive used to jump from one 
 207
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 to the other, when he was a schoolboy 
 at Knutsford), and the ancient deco- 
 rum of the manor has subsided into the 
 well-being of a prosperous farm ; but the 
 spot is full of a slumberous peace. We 
 were entertained in the stone -flagged 
 kitchen, with its dresser of blue dishes 
 on the wall and its flitches of bacon 
 hanging from the hooks above, and we 
 drank our milk and ate the sweet farm 
 bread with a drowsy sense that some- 
 how dear Miss Matty was with us, and 
 perhaps the sonsy Mary who tells the 
 tale. Do you remember how Mary 
 walked about the garden with that an- 
 tique lover who loved no more, listen- 
 ing to his comments on flower and leaf ; 
 and how she afterwards went with him 
 to the fields, where he forgot her and 
 strode on to the measure of his dearest 
 rhymes ? No beauty of the growing 
 world had lain afar from his full and 
 lonely life. With us, too, did he walk 
 that day. The sweet - smelling plants 
 were such as his eye must have cher- 
 ished ; the cropping cattle over the 
 happy slopes were of one family with 
 those he had fostered ; and the trees, 
 black-branched and glossy in their green- 
 208
 
 LATTER-DAY CRANFORD 
 
 ness, had made the tutelary deities of 
 his land. It is not easy to tell how 
 peacefully these fields and meadows 
 slept under the warm sky, nor how lav- 
 ishly they promised response to loving 
 tillage. 
 
 Slight hints, garrulous suggestions, 
 are constantly appealing to one in Knuts- 
 ford, not as literal duplicates of Cranford 
 customs, but as links in an affectionate 
 chain of inference. Fiction is not por- 
 traiture, but it may easily become a 
 record of those fleeting impressions 
 which make an intrinsic part of the 
 mental tissue. Names familiar to a 
 writer's youth have a way of creeping 
 into her work, nooks and corners, 
 remarkable for no story of their own, 
 crop up again when her dreams demand 
 actual habitat. In reading the history 
 of Cheshire, it is curious to note the 
 number of Peters of eminent memory, 
 and more curious still to stumble on the 
 name in the yard of Knutsford parish 
 church. It was not only of good repute, 
 but very commonly used. Cranford, too, 
 has adopted it ; for did not the local 
 grandee of Turveydropsical memory fig- 
 ure as Sir Peter Arley, and was not 
 209
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 the rector's erring Peter named for him ? 
 And let it be said incidentally that no 
 one who visits that churchyard should 
 omit reading the epitaph of the Rever- 
 end John Svvinton, of Nether Knutsford ; 
 for it must assuredly have been written 
 by Miss Deborah herself, under direct 
 inspiration from the ever admirable Doc- 
 tor Johnson. Thus it runs : 
 
 "He was happy in an excellent natu- 
 ral Genius, improv'd with every Branch 
 of polite and useful Learning. His Com- 
 positions were correct, elegant, nervous, 
 edifying, and deliver'd with peculiar 
 Force and Dignity. His Conversation 
 was courteous, entertaining, instructive, 
 and animated with a striking Vivacity of 
 Spirit. As a Husband a Friend and a 
 Neighbor He was affectionate, faithful, 
 benevolent, A zealous Assertor and an 
 able Defender of religious and civil lib- 
 erty. With Talents which would have 
 adorn'd the highest Station in the 
 Church For reasons to himself unan- 
 swerable He declin'd repeated Offers of 
 Preferment from his Friends many Years 
 before his Death. He bore his last 
 Affliction with a Firmness and Forti- 
 tude truly Christian and died lamented 
 
 2IO
 
 LATTER-DAY CRANFORD 
 
 by the Wise, the Learned and the Good 
 Dec. io /A 1764, in the 70'^ Year of his 
 Age." 
 
 Surely six-footed eulogy can no fur- 
 ther go ! 
 
 Another suggestion of Cranford lies in 
 the fact that an actual Arley Hall exists 
 to this day, the seat of the Warburtons, 
 within easy driving distance of Knuts- 
 ford. Mrs. Gaskell aimed at no need- 
 less portraiture or exact topography ; but 
 names doubtless got into her mind, and 
 lived there, like an old song, till memory 
 shook them forth. The Cranford scare, 
 moreover, when an hysteria of panic pre- 
 vailed, and blew prudence out of the 
 ladies' heads while it coaxed some gob- 
 lin in, what was that but a refluent 
 wave of Mrs. Gaskell's possible shrink- 
 ing when, a child, she heard the com- 
 mon reminiscences of the highwayman 
 Higgins ? This was the Duval of Knuts- 
 ford, who lived at the Cann House on 
 the Heathside (neighbor to Mrs. Lumb), 
 and who made nothing of flying over the 
 roads to commit a murder at Bristol and 
 returning again, within forty-eight hours, 
 to prove his alibi. It was Higgins who, 
 living the jolly life of a prosperous gen- 
 
 211
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 tleman, one night left the ball (held, no 
 doubt, in the old Assembly Room) to lie 
 in wait for Lady Warburton and reap 
 her jewels. But the lady's keen sight 
 and innocence of mind proved her sal- 
 vation ; for, putting her head out of the 
 carriage as the robber approached, she 
 called serenely, " Good-night, Mr. Hig- 
 gins ! Why did you leave the ball so 
 early ? " And Higgins, thus thrust back 
 into his role of country gentleman, rode 
 on discomfited. He was executed at 
 Caermarthen in 1767, only forty-three 
 years before Mrs. Gaskell was born. 
 This was not too long a period for tra- 
 dition to linger, painting him ever more 
 gloomily, until he loomed large, like Guy 
 of Warwick or Thor the Thunderer. 
 What affrighting falsities might have 
 garlanded his name in Knutsford similar 
 legends all the world over may attest. 
 Did the sensitive little child, playing 
 in corners, overhear the Cranford ladies 
 relating his bold, bad deeds, and trick- 
 ing them out with bewildering details of 
 their own device ? Did the child her- 
 self tremble at the spectre of Darkness 
 Lane huddling under the mantle of a 
 pitchy night ? Such emotions are the 
 
 212
 
 LATTER-DAY CRANFORD 
 
 willow twigs of memory ; swept down a 
 living stream, they are bound to reach 
 roothold, and there bud greenly in the 
 vesture of the vernal year. 
 
 One curiously suggestive incident be- 
 longs to Mrs. Gaskell's own life, though 
 to dwell on it too definitely might serve 
 merely to establish a felse bond between 
 the concrete and the ideal. Her only 
 brother, a lieutenant in the merchant 
 service, disappeared on his third or fourth 
 voyage, about the year 1827, and " never 
 was heard of more." Might such linger- 
 ing tragedy have been the secret of her 
 pathos over the heartbreak and sickness 
 born of Peter's absence ? Did she know 
 by too near experience what it is to listen 
 for the footstep that never falls ? But 
 one last proof clinches the argument that 
 Knutsford is Cranford, though "some 
 volke miscalle it." Turn to the annals of 
 Cranford, and you shall read of a certain 
 old lady who had "an Alderney cow, 
 which she looked upon as a daughter." 
 Now, this cherished animal, falling into 
 a lime pit, was denuded of all her hair, 
 and her adoptive mother, being ironi- 
 cally recommended to "get her a flan- 
 nel waistcoat and flannel drawers," did 
 213
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 indeed send her thenceforth to pasture 
 soberly clad in gray. 
 
 Return now to the chronicles of con- 
 crete Knutsford, and listen to the Rever- 
 end Henry Green, who, in spite of this 
 one concession, never bejieved in any in- 
 tentional literary apotheosis of his cher- 
 ished town : 
 
 " A woman of advanced age, who was 
 confined to her house through illness, 
 . . . asked me to lend her an amusing 
 or cheerful book. I lent her Cranford, 
 without telling her to what it was sup- 
 posed to relate. She read the tale of 
 Life in a Country Town, and when I 
 called again, she was full of eagerness 
 to say, 'Why, sir, that Cranford is all 
 about Knutsford ! My old mistress, Miss 
 Harker, is mentioned in it ; and our poor 
 cow, she did go to the field in a large 
 flannel waistcoat because she had burned 
 herself in a lime pit ! ' ' 
 214
 
 UNDER THE GREAT BLUE TENT 
 
 BETAKE yourself, in these new days, 
 to Omar Khayyam ; and what he sings 
 of the fleeting joys of life and the con- 
 soling grape, say you of summer. For 
 the long hours will weave themselves 
 into ropes of sand you may not hold, 
 and the brown leaf-stems loosen on the 
 trees ; the earth will by-and-by lock up 
 her treasure-box, now jealously opened, 
 and you must shrink back into winter 
 hiding, owning that the feast was spread 
 and you kept a foolish fast, that summer 
 stayed at your hand and you craved no 
 guerdon. Throw aside therefore the 
 fevered craving to read books and to 
 rouse the world's wonder over your 
 haste. Set the mind only upon flowing 
 water and bountiful trees, and that in 
 no studious mood, but the warm languor 
 of a midday dream. And note well 
 that an upland pasture is good hunting 
 for the soul, and so also is the moving 
 sea ; but you shall mar the spell of their 
 spirit upon you if you creep under roofs 
 "5
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 by night. For that is a sickly fashion, 
 born of fear and a crowded life ; and it 
 constrains the soul. Form a happy com- 
 pany of such as love the earth, and set 
 up your tents by sea or lake, or even on 
 the hilly pasture slopes at home. And 
 this adoption of the outer world shall 
 make a reason, not for carousing and re- 
 enacting the sports of winter, to offend 
 the face of heaven, but it shall serve as 
 withdrawal into the sanctuary of true 
 repose. There shall be long hours spent 
 " in a green shade ; " still, serene float- 
 ing on the lake, while the sunset burns 
 to gold, and deep dream-locked sleep 
 under canvas or in the open air. I 
 would not forbid you to read Stevenson 
 and Lanier, but the modern novel shall 
 be held afar from your rest. Your mus- 
 cles shall ache with tramping and the 
 oars ; you shall be bruised from stum- 
 bling through the forest when you steal 
 out by night to feel the dark among the 
 pines ; you shall find the simplest fare 
 ambrosial; and you shall be called to 
 life, every morning, by a chiming chorus 
 and the hoarse logic of the legislating 
 crows, and wake to see, oh, matchless 
 wonder ! the ferns and raspberry vines 
 216
 
 UNDER THE GREAT BLUE TENT 
 
 breathing outside your tent and painting 
 the shadow of their trembling on the 
 sunlit walls. Easy is it in England to 
 suffer a summer change into vagrom 
 ways, tramping the blossomy lanes, eat- 
 ing under hedges, and begging the kindly 
 carrier for a lift in his van ; and even in 
 America two women, comrades pledged, 
 may forswear roofs and walk abroad with 
 staff and scrip, or even set up their tent 
 in a huckleberry pasture, near some 
 farmer, lord of New England soil. None 
 so necessary as he ; for he shall be the 
 purveyor to their comfort, and give them 
 milk and eggs for the dirty bills born 
 of winter's drudgery, and turned now to 
 something worthy through righteous use. 
 The camper, to civilized minds, enter- 
 tains a bee in her bonnet, in that she 
 loves her dripping house by the wood 
 better than timbered roofs, though Solo- 
 mon had raised them. Her bee drones 
 happily, and all the little world hears it ; 
 but its very presence invests her with a 
 certain sacredness, like that of madmen 
 in days of old, and the farmer-folk are 
 her leal protectors from hunger and the 
 world. These be the tamer ways of 
 camping, and pleasant withal ; but if 
 217
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 four or more strong spirits can betake 
 them to the deeper wood where even 
 the sound of mowing and garnering in- 
 vade not, and make their summer home 
 by lake or stream, they shall seize hold 
 of the garment of their youth even 
 though she were vanishing away. They 
 shall work hard, and love it. They shall 
 cut a path to the strip of beach where 
 the water is clear over sand and beguil- 
 ing to the bather ; they shall .row miles 
 for the potatoes for to-morrow's dinner, 
 and tug mightily to pile up the sticks 
 for next day's fire. Fighting thus the 
 old battle over again, warring to fill the 
 simpler needs of life at first hand, is 
 to return with gladness to our great 
 Mother, and cling about her knees. The 
 ancient struggle for life shall be enacted 
 in little on their sunny stage ; and they 
 shall see the earth more clearly, as 
 through the eyes of old, and think, too, 
 on the stars, nearer now in that they 
 brood and smile. Certain pitiful falla- 
 cies shall be unlearned through the 
 lessoning of camp. The wise pupil, 
 stultified by civilized theory, finds with 
 amazement that no more secure and 
 solemn retreat exists than the forest 
 218
 
 UNDER THE GREAT BLUE TENT 
 
 path at night, and that darkness is as 
 little to be feared as her own cloak. 
 She grows into the acquiescence of ani- 
 mals under a summer rain ; nay, even to 
 joy therein, and gains an added lightness 
 when the' sun breaks forth. A pillow is 
 no longer the mainstay of sleep, and she 
 dozes excellent well on a bed of pine 
 needles with an arm tucked under her 
 head. And, oh, the feasting of the eye ! 
 line upon line of trembling branches, 
 enthralling shadows of leaf on sunlit 
 leaf ! The remembrance of it, to one 
 who has had that rich surfeit, is like a 
 song in the heart. Perhaps that is what 
 the thrush sings in forest aisles, when 
 twilight falls : the shapes of things, the 
 form and color, all the glorified remem- 
 brance of his golden day. Who shall say 
 no ? For after all, what but a thrush's 
 song could trace upon the mind's fine 
 tablet the outline of a leaf ? 
 
 This it is to be fortunate at home ; 
 but he who crosses the sea earns a 
 double blessing : and if he go to tramp, 
 to gypsy, he has found out what it is 
 to gather up the gold of the year and 
 garner it away for winter spending. To 
 walk is truly to live. When the morning 
 219
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 shines before you and with it a broad 
 highway, stretching straight into bliss, 
 you may throw up your heels at fate. 
 But there are roads and roads ; some of 
 them lie in the mind forever, in lines of 
 light. One such is the way out of Bre- 
 con to Llansaintfraed, where the bones 
 of Henry Vaughan have long been cry- 
 ing from a neglected grave : another is 
 the Roman road out of good Shrewsbury, 
 and a third the broad highway where- 
 by, after Monmouth, you go on to the 
 beauties of Tintern and the Severn Sea. 
 There they wait for you, conscientious in 
 milestones, relics of a conquering past, 
 and some of them beguilingly setting 
 forth the number of miles from London; 
 thereby, no matter what your loyalty to 
 green fields and beneficent sky, drawing 
 the heart out of your breast with long- 
 ing. Your only companioning there 
 shall be the infrequent farmer's wain, 
 the wandering tinker and the unmistak- 
 able genus tramp, sometimes pursuing 
 his slouching way, but oftener asleep on 
 his face under a hedge. But fear him 
 not. He is our cousin, and the comrade- 
 ship of wandering is strong between us. 
 You shall learn strange things of the 
 220
 
 UNDER THE GREAT BLUE TENT 
 
 English churl and what serves him for 
 mind, while you invade his roads and 
 valleys. It will not be long before you 
 formulate the axiom that he knows not 
 one hand from t' other ; for when he 
 sends you to the right, it is well estab- 
 lished out of the mouths of many wit- 
 nesses that he honestly means the left. 
 You must never ask him a question on a 
 sudden, for haste addles his wits, and he 
 will swear he knows not Joseph. Two 
 of us, one day, after manifold disappoint- 
 ments in such queries, which served only 
 to lock up the knowledge indubitably 
 there, arranged a set of questions which- 
 might have proved of unfailing excel- 
 lence had time and the hour given a 
 margin for their use. For instead of 
 the crass query, " Can you tell me the 
 way to Babine?" we would invent a 
 cunning preamble, thus : " Good morn- 
 ing, goodman. A fine day ! It is very 
 pleasant walking. We hope to get on to 
 the next village. We do not know it 
 by name. We think it may be Babine. 
 Pray you, what is the name of the next 
 village ? " Thus delicately jogged, Mas- 
 ter Shepherd's wits might of themselves 
 leave their wool-gathering, and he would 
 221
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 send us on equipped. But jarred too 
 rudely, denial seems his only refuge. 
 
 "Is this Tretower ? " I asked a rustic 
 one day when that heaven lay palpably 
 before us. 
 
 " No, miss," he responded. 
 
 " Is n't that Tretower ? " 
 
 " No, miss." 
 
 I turned away, adrift, but with one last 
 impulse varied the phrase. 
 
 " What is that village ? " 
 
 "Tretower." He had recovered. 
 
 And when such are awakened to the 
 point of directing you, they do it by a 
 system calculated to induce madness in 
 the natural mind. 
 
 " You see that church ? " begins your 
 informant. 
 
 "Yes." Naturally you make a mental 
 note of the church. 
 
 " Well, go you by that. You see that 
 woman walking ? " 
 
 " Yes." You speak hastily, for mean- 
 time she is in motion. You begin to 
 see what life must have been for Alice, 
 playing croquet when the wickets would 
 walk about the ground. 
 
 " There the road turns. But go 
 straight on. Yours will be the next 
 222
 
 UNDER THE GREAT BLUE TENT 
 
 one." And so by indirection, a certain 
 negative process, you learn what you 
 must not do, and come, by slow and 
 painful steps, to what you may. 
 
 " Turn up on your right hand at the 
 next turning, but at the next turning of 
 all, on your left ; marry, at the very next 
 turning, turn of no hand, but turn down 
 indirectly to the Jew's house." 
 
 Here have we historic precedent. 
 
 And ever, having finished some com- 
 plicated direction, they conclude in tri- 
 umph : " You carn't miss it ! " To some 
 of us who have missed it many times, 
 even while the echo of that prophecy 
 died upon the air, it is a terrifying 
 phrase. I have grown to consider it 
 the equivalent of the evil eye. 
 
 The good walker eats lightly in the 
 middle of the day. Save at happy 
 moments of active good fellowship, he 
 talks little. His feet settle into the 
 rhythm of the road, and his mind re- 
 poses on the happy continuance of meas- 
 ured effort. He never thinks. He is 
 conscious only of ecstatic being, or the 
 richer state of an acquiescent content. 
 He has learned what it must be to fly 
 like the pigeon, to live under water, to 
 223
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 take root in the earth and grow. How 
 effortless life may become they only 
 know who have tasted the joys of the 
 road. Here are pretty paradoxes. The 
 feel of the pack is no burden, but an 
 added gift ; but so, too, is the freedom 
 of casting it aside for the noonday rest. 
 One loses respect for clothes in the 
 main, yet conceives a tender liking for 
 some benignant article like a pair of 
 ragged gaiters, a dress too impossible 
 to be spoiled, or an old hat gloriously 
 adorned with a mad - cap pheasant's 
 feather, found by the way. The track 
 is diversified like life itself. In one 
 summer you may learn what it is to 
 tread the highway, to flee over Egdon 
 Heath, pursued by thunder-clouds and 
 Dorset tragedies, to lose breath in the 
 hot fragrance of Devon lanes, to tramp, 
 knee-deep in heather, over the Exmoor 
 hills, or scour Salisbury Plain, thyme- 
 scented, loud with larks. 
 
 What the byways of wandering may 
 be only he can guess who searches in 
 the corners of his mind for rich treasure- 
 trove cast in there on fortunate days. 
 Certain walks of our own lay placidly 
 along canals, Brecon, Llantisilio, or 
 224
 
 UNDER THE GREAT BLUE TENT 
 
 even the water way to Iffley along the 
 Thames. There was one upward range, 
 on Haughmond Abbey day, when we 
 came on great patches of brilliant 
 sward, under black-boled beeches, mak- 
 ing their own green shade. Still above 
 lay drifts of wild hyacinth, "like blue 
 peat smoke against the sky." We 
 remember lengths of Welsh road, again 
 azured by hyacinths and cool yellow 
 with primroses, where the clearest of 
 streams run swiftly, so that you seem 
 to be moving in their good company; 
 and you dip your dusty feet therein for 
 comfort and for benison. Sometimes 
 entertainment falls richly on you expect- 
 ing nothing ; at a mansion torn by Par- 
 liamentary cannon-balls, or a farmhouse 
 like one near the Battlefield of Shrews- 
 bury, where nature's gentleman gave 
 two of us to drink of milk foaming in 
 newness, and then led us in to see his 
 carven mantels and wainscoting that 
 were old when the Lords of the Marches 
 kept their state. 
 
 The world and the glory thereof are 
 
 yours, and every night you swing into 
 
 town or hamlet, eat dreamily but with 
 
 mighty appetite, and betake yourself to 
 
 225
 
 BY OAK AND THORN 
 
 sleep, wherein you seem to be walking, 
 still walking. For the muscles them- 
 selves retain the rhythm of motion, the 
 while they rest. The best legacy of all 
 is perennial, even after the prisoning 
 walls have shut you in again. Some- 
 times at night you see, beneath closed 
 eyelids, two silent figures swinging along 
 on a summer road. These are you and 
 your good comrade, though indeed they 
 do not seem to be you at all, but two 
 far more happy than imagination could 
 guess. They are walking, always walk- 
 ing, and the sun shines and speedwell 
 thrives under the hedge ; they smile as 
 they go. Sometimes, in a foolish play, 
 they divert themselves hours long by 
 snapping the bags of bladder-campion, 
 ambitious only in that rivalry. They 
 are children, rich in their changing foot- 
 hold of earth and mothered by the sky. 
 They are not you : yet the sight of 
 them brims over with peace and prom- 
 ise, and you go smiling away to sleep. 
 226
 
 Date Due
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 000 657 304 2 
 
 B7 
 
 DA62* B? 
 
 AUTHOR 
 
 Brown, Alice. 
 
 TITLE 
 
 By oak and thorn. 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 BORROWER'S NAME 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Brown, Alice. 
 
 By oak and thorn.