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 CROSS COUNTRY. 
 
 ' ) /] // 
 
 BY 
 
 WALTER THORNBURY, 
 
 AUinOE OF "BEITISH AETISTS PE03I HOGAETn TO TCENEE." 
 
 LONDON: 
 SAMPSON LOW, SON & CO., 47, LUDGATE HILL. 
 
 ISGl.
 
 PR 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The following chapiters are chiefly reprints ; they represent 
 a campaign of some ten years in periodicals. 
 
 The scenes I have sketched are to me pleasant reminiscences 
 of artist tramps in various English counties (especially 
 "Wiltshire, my foster mother), of many enjoyable rides and 
 walks on the coast of Antrim and round the arbutus-woods 
 that fringe with evergreen the beautiful shores of Killarney. 
 As for the Somersetshire Rambles, they carry me back to some 
 ten years ago, when I was a reporter and sub- editor of Felix 
 Farley's Bristol Journal, a paper now dead, but which in 
 its time had nursed the genius of Chatterton, and of nearly 
 all the Lake Poets, and to my connection with which I look 
 back with pleasure. 
 
 This volume preserves many memories that are dear to 
 me of green English hedge-rows, now wildernesses of 
 flowers and labyrinths of sweets — of Irish lakes, mirror-clear 
 and ever fairy-hauntcd — of old castles not untenanted by 

 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 grim Puritan ghosts, shrouded Banshees rocking them- 
 selves to and fro — money-hiding dwarfs and clurichauus 
 ever busy at their magic shoes — of lonely moors where the 
 Grey Man walks — of white sea-shore cliffs, pale through the 
 gloom of storms — of silent mountains, on whose tops 
 forsaken Druid altars in the sun and rain gather moss — but, 
 above all, of a certain pleasant stone cottage, not a hundred 
 miles fi'om Salisbury, up to whose mullioned windows the 
 roses of York and Lancaster now climb with offerings of 
 perfume — and above whose doorway by day in the fluid gold 
 of sunshine, and by night in the molten silver of the moon- 
 shine, the well-remembered dial still holds out its old monastic 
 legend as the warning shadow passes over it — Ita vita. 
 
 WALTER THORNBURY. 
 
 FONTHILL, WiLTSHIEE.
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. THE POETET OF RAILWAYS 
 II. ON THE WILT3HIEE DOWNS 
 III. A DAT WITH A WILTSHIRE GAMEKEEPER 
 IT. THE BUCKINGHAilSHIEE MAN . 
 T. OPENING A WILTSHIRE BAEEOW 
 TI. MT PIEST AND LAST EAILWAT COLLISION 
 YII. A EIDE TO STONEHENGE . 
 Tin. A BATHING-PLACE ON THE SOUTH COAST 
 IX. THE SQUIEE's PEAV .... 
 X. CEOMWELL's house in LONDON 
 XI. THE OLD MULBEEEY GAEDEN, NOW ST. JAMES'S 
 PAEK .... 
 
 XII. lEISH EAIEIES . 
 XIII. DEITEE MIKE 
 XTT. THE lEISH JAUNTING CAE . 
 XT. PADDY AND I . . . 
 
 XTI. BOATING IN KILLAENEY 
 XTII. A NIGHT AT KILLAENEY . 
 
 PAGE 
 1 
 
 7 
 14 
 2i 
 38 
 46 
 56 
 6S 
 90 
 100 
 
 106 
 119 
 136 
 147 
 101 
 173 
 184
 
 VI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CIIArTEK 
 
 XTIII. THE BAKSUEE'S CASTLE . 
 XTX. THE SEVEK CnURCHES 
 XX. TALES IN AN INN-KITCHEN 
 XXI. THE COUNCIL CHAMBER AT BRISTOL 
 XXII. THE DRUIDS' TEMPLE AT STANTON DREW, 
 BRISTOL. 
 XXIII. A SOMERSETSHIRE WALK . 
 XXIT. A WALK OVER THE MENDIPS 
 XXV. THE SITBUBBS OE BRISTOL 
 XXVI. A WALK TO TAUNTON 
 XXVII. BRISTOL AND ITS SIEGES — NO. I. 
 XXVIII. BRISTOL AND ITS SIEGES — NO. II. 
 XXIX. A day's FISHING AT KILLARNEY 
 
 NEAR 
 
 PAGE 
 
 196 
 
 212 
 
 227 
 246 
 
 252 
 262 
 278 
 284 
 290 
 296 
 310 
 321
 
 'GROSS COUNTRY. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 THE POETET OF EAILWATS, 
 
 PoETJEtT used to sing in tlie hedge and on tlie roof-top — now 
 it hisses in the boUer of Number Three engine, Slough station, 
 tind is audible even in that demon scream, terrible as the shriek of 
 death to tardy pointsmen and blundering old men, vdth. shaky 
 hands or rusty switches. " Voices of steam," I burst out, as 
 I unconsciously seized an angry stoker's hand at the Didcot 
 junction the other day, " ye are many-tongued prophecies of a 
 coming age — perhaps a golden one, perhaps, rather, one dyed 
 all crimson with the blood of nations — ." I might have gone 
 further, had not my sable friend's " Darn your nonsense, here's 
 the three-fifteen starting !" — cut me short. 
 
 If my friend had remained, I should have questioned him 
 of many things of much importance to transcendental poets, 
 but not much so to the railway shai^e market. However, dis- 
 gusted with the world in general, and stokers in particular, I 
 ran for a ticket, which the angry tooth of the clerk's cork- 
 presser only bit a hole through, and tumbled, meditative and 
 poetical, into the stuffed and wadded chair of a first-class 
 carriage. 
 
 Before me sat an old port-wine-coloured gentleman, with a 
 bow-window stomach, and a bunch of watch-seals as large as a 
 baby's head ; said old gentleman being wrapped up as if for a
 
 2 'cross country. 
 
 nortli-pole voyage, and having an apoplectic voice tliat forbad 
 all conversation as at once presumptuous and dangerous. After 
 a treaty of legs, I fell a-musing again on;'poetry, bygone and pre- 
 sent. Tou may talk as you like, I said to myself, I believe it is all 
 here, just as much as ever it was ; for look you, call the world 
 a box, and the poetry so much gold, it doesn't matter whether 
 I have it in gold or copper or paper — it is still the same five 
 pounds ten, and of the same value ; or call it, mind you, a 
 close drawer and the poetry a grub I put into it ; Avhether it is 
 cocoon, clu-ysalis, or black and yellow moth, still there's the 
 thing safe. It's like a plant, this poetry — now leaves, now 
 mist and gases — now away in the clouds, now down again to rain. 
 It can't escape, there's the same amount of matter. And so 
 in poetry. The poetry's here still ; and if I were to cut open 
 a hole in the floor of my friend Atkins's shop and show him 
 Erebus, he woidd believe it ; as for volcanic sunsets and colour 
 feasts of sunrises, he doesn't see much in them. So it is with 
 railways. Men see no poetry in being shot as from a cannon, 
 or passing from Bath to Bristol with the speed of a planet on 
 a tour, or a fallen star bent on pleasure. 
 
 Listen, friend of the port-wine countenance and the redun- 
 dant stomach. 
 
 " O ! that noise, I want to go to sleep. Here's the 
 Times ; wonderfu.1 article on Palmerston ! — great man, Pal- 
 merston ! — great age, Palmerston ! — great man of a great age !" 
 Very well, go to sleep, ! snore as thou wert wont to 
 snore ! But know, O insensate man, that that sound of the 
 engine is Like the champ and trample of a thousand horse : it 
 might be Tamerlane riding to conquest ; it might be Alaric 
 thundering at the gates of Rome. 
 
 Dear me, that shutting off steam, do you know, sir, always 
 suggests to me the sudden hissing simmer of a piece of cold 
 lard in a hot frying-pan. It may be I am hungry, but deuce 
 take me if I thought of anything else but a tremendous stew 
 in a gigantic pan. Look out now, friend of the exuberant 
 bowels, and tell me what thou seest. 
 
 " A confounded ugly country and six iron rails, like six 
 black lines ruled in my ledger."
 
 THE POETRY OF RAILWAYS. 6 
 
 Behold, then, the vision of the son of faith, "We are gliding 
 on golden rails that the sunset shines on, and we are just about 
 to thread an arch. Wlien we lean back, and the great smoke- 
 clouds that roll round us grow crimson in the sunlight, we 
 shall seem as if we were in the aerial ear of the Indian myth- 
 ology, and were gliding away to Paradise. 
 
 My friend suggests that I am a Londoner, and that the fresh 
 countr}- air has rather got into my head. 
 
 Insulted at this, I leave him to apoj^lexy and the Times 
 newspaper, and at the next station change to a coupe-carriage 
 close by the stoker, to watch him stab the red furnace till 
 it roars again. I mark, when he opens the door with a sudden, 
 rough hastiness, the great orange flame shine out upon his 
 Othello-like face, and turn him into the semblance of a minis- 
 tering demon stirring up a kettle of stewed stock-brokers in 
 a purgatory kitchen ; I like to see him roll in the coals, 
 and turn and twist those taps as if they were as many organ- 
 keys. 
 
 Away with a battling tramp, and scurry, and whistle, and 
 Avhiz, we go, past astonished labourers in green meadows, past 
 telegraph-wires, on which as on interminable washing-lines 
 sit wry-necked sparrows, who look at us as we fly past, as much 
 as to say, " that's an odd sort of bird, but I don't think much 
 of his plumage ;" for critics who praise, have generally some 
 compensating clause by which to make up for their moment of 
 good-nature. Like a white banner flies the engine's smoke, 
 — and away it rolls — stooping to join the great white fog that 
 has no wings, and sits and broods yonder about the damp 
 auttmm fields. Through dark caves of tunnels — through dull 
 barrennesses of high and bare embankments we rush with the 
 force of a steam-catapult or a huge case-shot that is never 
 spent — like a battering-ram — in a long race, for this steam- 
 horse, with fire for blood, never wearies, never tires. Swift 
 round curves, and swift up low hills — swift past village 
 church and park, and farm-house, and wood — over river — 
 along moor — past fat and lean, rich and poor — rock and 
 clay — meadow and street ; for this mad horse never wearies- 
 — never tires. 
 
 B 2
 
 'cross country. 
 
 I try the second-classes, and find much eating and mucli merri- 
 ment. They are more easily amnsed than the more conceited first, 
 and are less afraid to show their honest feelings. Perhaps they 
 liaye more feeling — who knows ? Do they see more of the 
 poetry of the railroad ? are they listening with rapt ears, or 
 gazing with steadfast eyes — not a whit! No, a gentleman 
 Avith a brick-red colour on his high cheek-bone, a hard pineher- 
 mouth, red hungry whiskers, and a strong whining Aberdeen 
 accent, reads of a " Dreadful railway accident near Lewes — 
 fourteen lives lost — list of sufferers." I look out and wonder 
 at the horizontal liirhtning-fashion in which we tear into the 
 tunnel and dig into the viaduct's doorways. * # * 
 
 " First-class, ma'am, this way. No, second-class." 
 
 " Why did you say first, then ?" 
 
 " Tliere's the bell !" 
 
 "O my box! — where's my luggage ? Porter!" — (in a tone 
 of hysterical anguish) — " give me my box." 
 
 " Too late, marm — next train at 4-32, — five hours to wait, 
 marm. "Waiting-room ? — yes, this way." 
 
 That is a lady's ideal of railway poetry. 
 
 " Damp seats ! oh dear, — why don't they wipe the seats ? 
 this a carriage — it's a horse-box. Here, guard ! do you call 
 this a carriage ? Infernal line — give me the broad gauge ! 
 "Window won't go up. D — n the window — door won't shut — 
 curse the door ! whish ! here's a draught enough to cut your 
 head off". Guard! what does the company mean by this 
 draught ? "Won't let a man smoke ! — give me coach travelling, 
 say I." 
 
 That is the commercial gentleman's ideal of the poetry ot 
 railroads. 
 
 " Lor ! such a hissing, and squeaking, and clatter, and 
 then that whistle — like a devil's baby ! O dear, law, it went 
 through my poor head. And then the getting out at the 
 wrong station to wait five hours for tlie next train. "What I 
 say is, Betty, give me a good jogging market-cart." 
 
 That is a coimtry-woman's ideal of railway poetry. 
 
 " "Why, I remember, sir, when I was a boy, being three days 
 and nights on a journey that you do now in four hours. Those
 
 THE POETRY OF RAILWAYS. O 
 
 were the times ; no hurry-scurry, helter-skelter — no chopping 
 up decent people with trains, no gambling shares, and ras- 
 cally share-market, -with all the bullying and overbearing you 
 hear of." 
 
 That is the old gentleman's ideal of railway poetry. 
 
 ]S'one of these, I am afraid, would listen to me Avere I to say 
 I saw poetry in a stoker's life. On rough days, for instance, 
 when he cowers behind his screen of giant glass spectacle, and 
 looks out long and steadily through the sand and mist. 
 
 He is no divinity, bless you, no ! Lord bless you ! Nor no 
 Diomed nor Hector, but only plain Jack Watford, of Number 
 four, Blue Anchor. Tet he knows every crimson star that shines 
 at stations, every emerald fii'e,and every white circle and red globe 
 that stare at you for three hiindred miles of line. He grasps 
 that handle there, when the great wind blows enough to lift the 
 train in the air like a feather, only it doesn't. Pirm he holds 
 that helm on those noisy nights, when he drives liis strong, swift 
 steam-ship on its flaming path, scattering the red-hot ashes of 
 its rage as it ploughs on. And when the rain di'ives its liquid 
 an-ows at him, he only wipes his great eyeglass, and looks out 
 a-head, or screws the engine up till it gives a long startling 
 shriek of pain, that wakes up the sleepers in the next town, 
 and makes them mutter and turn again to sleep. 
 
 Another generation, and the sense of novelty and poetry 
 will have left railroads for ever. The long tearful stare of rural 
 wonder, as the traia grows small as a fly, or a black caterpillar 
 ia the distance, will be no more observed. 
 
 The sight of a train growing out of a cloud of smoke, the 
 terror of its march, the rumour and battUng of its rush, will 
 have grown as fomiliar as the careening and rumble of the Eoyal 
 Blue, bound to 'Ornsey or 'Ighgate. The instantaneousness, 
 the obedient readiness of a train, already seem to us things of 
 course. The propulsion of lightning, the comet speed, the strange 
 contrast, such spiritual power controlled by a black fellow in 
 fustian, Caliban ruling Ariel, is never thought of by such 
 turtle-eating materialists, so grossly sunk in dirty three per 
 cents, are we. But how many steps must we go back before we 
 can return to our childish wonder at the crimson drop in a
 
 6 'cross country. 
 
 cowslip-cup, at a dark green fairy ring, or the dead men's flesh 
 ttat lias turned to mushrooms. As for Dryads, you can still 
 hear their voices in windy nights, [even in Kensington Gar- 
 dens, — when the rooks caw restlessly in their sleep, as if a 
 worm had turned cold on their stomachs, and Avhen the black 
 leaves of the Hyde Park elms flutter and talk of what they shall 
 do in the merry autumn time, when they once get loose from 
 their governors, and start in life on their own account, these 
 young things, not yet believing in winter, — not they. 
 
 What do we believe in ? Look you here, friend, great on 
 'Change, — three weeks hence, you'll drop down at the Mansion 
 House turtle-feast, and the alderman next you, absorbed in 
 green fat, will not observe vou taken out when he calls for a 
 clean plate and a cold chair, to give him a zest for his sixth 
 course. Tou will soon after, when a certain black gentleman 
 shakes his head, turn pale, and in fact die. A week later, after a 
 week's silence in a room with the blinds down, you will be car- 
 ried out after a jostle down stairs to that dull Kensington 
 churchyard, where an epitaph recording your mayoralities is 
 already cu.t, to put over your head. Of what use, then, the 
 snug detached villa, the crusty port, and the natt^'" phaeton — 
 olive green picked out with white — Answer, fool, of what use ? 
 Had it not been better to have done good, and been kindly 
 and open-hearted, and to have seen some poetry in life, and 
 not called the air blue fog, and the rose a vegetable ? Why, 
 if that railway whistle could have been interpreted to you by an 
 angel you miglit have known that it had a meaning prophetic and 
 dreadful as the Judgment trumpet. That nettle your Malacca 
 cane cut in two yesterday was a beautiful thing God made. 
 No, man! 'Change is not the end of life, gold is not the old 
 road- dust of Eden, and by no means the thing Apollyon 
 lost Heaven for. Wake up, then ! unlock your cellar, send a 
 dozen of port to poor old Binns, the poor old head-clerk, who 
 is so weak and threadbare. Eelease the orphan from Chan- 
 cery, do something for the widow's son you ruined, — above 
 all, look reverently henceforth at stokers and at all hvunanity, 
 — and peace be with you at the last.
 
 ox THE WILTSHIRE DOWNS. 
 
 CHAPTEE 11. 
 
 ox THE 'VSTELTSniEE DOWXS. 
 
 Do"^v>-SHiEE, in the map of England, stands in a quiet neigh- 
 bourly unobtrusive way, next to Eamshire, with Hillshire and 
 Hogshire north and south of it. 
 
 Like Eamshire, it is a great sheep-breeding county ; and its 
 annual sheep fair is the largest held in Great Britain. I love 
 every inch of Downshire ; its dun-coloured and emerald downs, 
 its lanes walled with honeysuckles in summer, and starred Avith 
 primroses in spring. I like the way the white roads climb, 
 with straightfoi'ward boldness, up the steep shoulders of the 
 sloping prairie country. I like the floating blue of the distance, 
 I like its lines of soldiery fii's, I like its very weeds, I love 
 even its molehills, the warts and wens, as it were, on its broad, 
 honest, simny face. 
 
 I write from Downshire now, for I am chasing Health, at a 
 hand gallop, all over the tawny downs where the grizzled 
 scorched grass is but a mere dry hide over the winter-chilled 
 earth. The saddle is not cold yet upon which I have been 
 scouring all this end of Downshire, from Crockerton Furze to 
 Stanton Corner. Jingling over the little grey bridge opposite 
 my country inn, jolts one of those country tilt-carts, with 
 strained white awnings over them, which look like eggs, in the 
 centre of which, having first scooped out the yolk and the 
 white, sits the crimsoned-faced driver, whistling a country 
 time, almost as pleasant as that of the blackbird's that sits on 
 the apricot-tree at my window. That is the carrier (I know 
 c him well), for he passes here every morning at ten, and is on 
 X his way from Spireton to Deverton St. Mary's. 
 
 Oh, that cart and its singing blithe driver have had a 
 
 ^^ pleasant trip of it since sunrise, passing fields all of a trans- 
 
 p^' parent emerald flicker with the thin curling tender blades of 
 
 spring wheat, among which strut, and plume themselves, and 
 
 hover, and flutter, the rooks, who are engaged in entomological 
 
 1 
 
 -<8
 
 8 'cross country. 
 
 researches, and large aucl glossy as black kittens ! They have 
 stirred lazily as the cart approached, have thrown out their pen- 
 dent legs behind them, have worked up and down their wings 
 ragged at the edge, and have then resumed their studies almost 
 before the cart has well jogged past the milestone, orange and 
 black with twenty years' lichens. Young orchards, where tiles 
 are hung to the top boughs to bend them over to a basket shape ; 
 fields spotted with flint heaps; folds full of the voices of sheep 
 waiting to be fed, has the old cart passed by. Many long pro- 
 cessions of waggons, baled with hay, or dark with faggots, has it 
 passed, many horses proud of the crimson and yellow shaving- 
 brushes on their heads, and of the sharp tingKng bells upon 
 their harness that chime far along the glaring white road along 
 which they ti*ample smokingly, the boiling dustclouds following 
 them as if the roads were on fire. 
 
 But let the egg-shell jog on the pleasant road, dappled as it 
 passes under the Deveril Pai'k trees, and let me sketch a 
 Downshire village with its russet thatch roofs, and here and 
 there, at the post-ofiice or the farrier's, a blue slate or a red 
 tile one, for the thin blue plumes of wood-fire smoke to feather 
 over. There is something to my mind specially sheltering and 
 cozy in the look of thatch, cut away over the windows, level 
 yet spiky like a rustic's hair on a fair-day or holiday ; nor do I 
 like it the less if it be sponged and padded here and there with 
 green crystalled moss. G-reek and Eoman workers are all very 
 well, but they seem fools, in my Downshire mind, to the brave 
 souls that devised those hearty lovable Tudor cottages, built of 
 stone, warm and lasting, scornful of the weather, that mellows 
 them to the exact tone and crustiness of the outside of a 
 Stilton, and covers them with lichens all in orange blots, and 
 frosty patches, and grey scales and shadings up to the top ridge 
 of the breathing chimney where the starlings chatter and twist 
 their glistening necks in a coquettish and fantastic way. I 
 honour those wise and comfortable thinkers in ruffs and 
 doublets, who devised the Tudor cottages of Eamshire, with 
 their porches so hospitable and kindly in cold and rain, and. 
 their strong mullioned windows so free to the air and light 
 yet so lordly-looking, so good for children to look out of, and.
 
 ox THE WILTSHIRE DOWNS. 9 
 
 old men to bask iu. I like to see the little cottage beehives iu 
 the gardens, among the cloves, carnations, and roses, with their 
 little bee merchants dragging down all the flowers around. I 
 like too to hear, in the evenings when the moon has a golden halo 
 round it, as if it were melting into shapeless brightness, the 
 drag and tinkle of the spades at work in the cottage gardens, 
 just beyond the vicar's laurels, where the thrushes are re- 
 hearsing for their daybreak concert. 
 
 The high downs, moreover, are my special delight ; not those 
 that rise in broad gTeeu shoulders on either side the road, shutting 
 out all horizon ; not those, though they are in places as high as 
 sea clifts, sown and bunched with thousands of primroses, 
 and pendent ^^dth long deer's-tongue or the branching feathers 
 of fern, where the twisted beech-roots are velveted with green 
 moss, and where the violets carpet the ground under the pied 
 hazel-boughs which just now are tasselled with catkins. No ! 
 those are the low do^ivais that rapidly turn into the trim fields 
 and cattle-dappled pastui-es of ordinary civilisation, and from 
 them, down in the low countiy, you may in the distance see 
 the train, which four hours hence will be in London, passing 
 along, with a running smoke of steam like fire running along a 
 train of gunpowder. I myself like the high downs where the 
 horizon is a dim blue one of twenty miles' distance, far as a ship 
 can be seen at sea. I like the prairie grasp and comprehension of 
 those high Eamshire Downs, black with furze, lined with plan- 
 tations, studded with sheep, alive mth rabbits ; their keen, thin 
 blue air vocal with plovers, and blithe choruses of larks. 
 
 You are not in solitude or uncheered there, for on the high 
 roads you meet the Autolychus tramp on his eleemosynary 
 progress from Deveril to Todminster; now and then, some 
 soldiers on leave, with their wallets behind them ; carriers and 
 flour- waggons, and that scarlet-runner, the reckless mail cart ; 
 not to mention chance travellers, clergymen on their rounds, 
 and, often in the season, red scuds of fox-hunters on their way to 
 covert— to Eailton-Spinney, or Waterdyke Corner. Nor can 
 you go half a mile without some dozens of rabbits charging 
 with timid temerity across the road, so swiftly that you see 
 little but a flirt of white tail near a furze-bush, as they
 
 10 'cross country. 
 
 disappear like Eoderick Dliu's clansmen. You know tliat 
 every thoru-busli you pass is peopled. Then the blackbirds 
 run like rats about the thorn-bushes, or break out with a chink 
 and fluster, as if in their conceit each bird thought the whole 
 world specially in pursuit of him. Or perhaps, if you tread 
 softly on the turf, you will be amused by coming on one of 
 those blind diplomatists, the mole, like a little roll of black 
 velvet. Then, on tlie fallows beyond the downs, you will surely 
 see the crested plover, with his white belly and dark wings, 
 swooping about, and making signals of distress with that strange 
 "peewit " note which I think I could imitate exactly on the 
 violin ; and then, like a dark star, falls the lark from heaven, 
 or rises, trembling, to the cloud ; Avhile the new-come cuckoo 
 echoes his own Indian name in the fir wood that pulses with the 
 lidling murmurs of the wild doves, where the squirrel curls in 
 his nest, and the great black raven tolls out his sullen croak, 
 as if a friendly lamb were seriously ill in the neighbourhood, 
 and his (raven's) benevolent mind were troubled by his friend's 
 indisposition. 
 
 But these are all episodical pleasures of the high downs, for 
 the standing dish of delight there is the incomparable glory of the 
 far distance, with its heavenly radiance of cloudy blue, and its 
 softened ghmmer of pearly colour, neither grey, nor blue, nor 
 opal, but a imion of all, with its many inner depths and glories 
 to be wrought out only by the patient and loving eye. 
 
 I am no great believer in the poetry of sheep (uncooked), 
 nor in lamb (without mint-sauce), but in Eamshire the sheep 
 do throw themselves about the landscape as if they were trained 
 to group themselves effectively — as my friend Mediochre, E.A., 
 says. They sprinkle down the dun slopes, they cascade dovtn 
 the sides of the lanes, they come smoking along the dusty 
 roads, they bleat in great multitudes. They are seen melting 
 away in little yellow and brown spots, into the fairy azure of 
 that magical distance through which glimmer pieces of green 
 corn, brown fallows, golden stacks, white veins of chalks, grey- 
 stone patches, emerald pastures, dun mounds of firs, and dark 
 thickets of almond-scented furze, that, gradually getting 
 thinner and thinner, break at last into single specks and dots
 
 ON THE WILTSHIRE DOWNS. 11 
 
 of bushes wliicli variegate the do^Yn as with an eruption of 
 molehills. 
 
 Add to these variations of surface, some firs in the foreground, 
 •even as the teeth of a small tooth-comb ; some round chalk basins 
 cut by the shepherds to catch water ; some grassy mounds of 
 an old Eoman camp, rising in triple terrace one above the 
 other ; and you have some idea of the higher downs taken in 
 their generalities. To describe them, indeed, in detail would 
 take a year: for the beauty of their atmospheric changes 
 alone are infinite and wonderful. 
 
 But can I leave the Down country, with its quivering blue 
 horizon, out of which the eye gradually evolves long funeral 
 processions of firs; little toy farm-houses, so small in the 
 distance that they are no bigger than a giant could carry on 
 the palm of his hand (I mean a small giant, because, of course, 
 -a great giant like Brandyborax or Aldeboron has a palm to his 
 hand as big as Salisbury Plain); grey spires, sharp and small 
 as darning-needles ; black specks of furze and bramble ; and 
 lesser specks, where glossy crows feed, or vibrate their wings — 
 must I, I say, leave the high downs without describing the 
 little stone tea-caddy of a Downshire church, built by that 
 worthy but noseless man whose battered mummy of an efiigy 
 still lies, in a patient but ill-used way, on a flat tomb in the 
 chancel ? 
 
 I like the simple church, with the dial over the porch, erased 
 by time. It is old as the Normans, I should think, that square 
 tower, so massy and low ; it is firm as the rock, so phalanxed and 
 solid is its imperturbable immovability. The sunshine wan- 
 ders over it, the rain beats it, the vnud torments it, but it still 
 remains as it has stood for centuries. The green waves of that 
 dead sea around the yew-tree, rise and fall, century after 
 century, but the tree is fixed as the good ship's mast : and 
 daily casts its moving shadoAv into the chancel to flicker about 
 the latticing sun and shade, as from the movement of pass- 
 ing wings. 
 
 There are many country moments when the songs of birds 
 sound sweet from their very strangeness, and arrest the attention 
 from their intrusion on scenes with which they have never been
 
 12 'cross country. 
 
 associated. I like to lie abed early on a spring morning, and 
 hear all the sounds of life outside tlie window that cheer but 
 do not disturb you, so that you fall into a doze of spring-time 
 thoughts, as you are trying to listen, until you are roused broad 
 awake by the fuller chorus of young thrushes in the laurels, 
 who seem to be practising in a Hullah class, perpetually put 
 right by the fuller voices of the parent birds ; but, best of all, 
 I like to hear on Sunday, in the Downshire church, between 
 the pauses of the psalm and the hushes in the Litany, the 
 response of the vicar's blackbirds coming in as if they had 
 been trained, like little choristers, in God's great open-air 
 cathedral. 
 
 Tour contemplative Jacques can find pretty employment 
 in the oak coverts that here and there strew the surface of 
 Downshire, very aviaries of song in the pleasant May-time, 
 when even at noonday the nightingale may be heard gurgling 
 out rich soprano passages. There, the negro blackbird, with 
 the orange-bill, repeats his musical monotones, and the thrush 
 flings forth his lavish, careless carolling upon the blue spring 
 air. There, the robin, with breast stained ever since that 
 "dreadful murder" of the Children in the "Wood, bides his 
 time, when in autumn he shall flaunt it on the DoT^nishire 
 lawns. Let us enter the covert through a fir wood, where, 
 between straight rough-scaled stalks, that ooze balmy tears, spots 
 of moving sunlight flicker about on the dry pale leaves of last 
 year, here and there brightened where an angel's visit of clear 
 light from Heaven pours through and irradiates some churlish 
 bramble, for all the Avorld like woman's love hallowing some 
 unworthy object : some Caliban of a husband, some Quilp, 
 some rude Cymon. 
 
 Erom these delights, I stroll botanising to the fretful nettles 
 — their white flowers soon to be black with bees — that edge 
 the outer skirts of the fox covert, where the waterproof buds 
 of the chesnut are throwing off their mackintoshes, and the 
 beech is unrolling his sharp-spiked buds ; where the pied hazel 
 is fluttering its green-winged rods, and the banks are strewn 
 with primroses — those daylight stars, soft green where the 
 transparent leaves hood them iu like nuns, soft gold in the
 
 ON THE WILTSHIRE DOWNS. 13 
 
 sunli^W and paler in the shadow ; where radiant bunches of 
 ■nolets purple the moss that wads the walks and velvets it for 
 little fairy feet. Or, I find amusement in tracking the wood- 
 pigeon to his nest by the piles of split beech-nuts under the 
 selected fir; or, in judging that I coidd find a squirrel in his 
 hammock up aloft when I see a plateful of nibbled nut-shells 
 under the tall larch, gay with its tender pink blossoms ; and, 
 could I pursue the brook that lurks reedily among the ti-ees, I 
 might discover that eccentric angler, the heron, sitting on his 
 nest, with his two legs hanging through, like a Avooden-legged 
 midshipman up in a man-of-war's cross-trees. If I had orni- 
 tholoo-ical skill, I would may be seek out that feathered attorney, 
 the cuckoo, and turn him out of the hedge-sparrow's estate 
 that he has unlawfully seized ; or, I would hunt for rare birds. 
 Then there are broader tracks of the covert, where the grim 
 oaks stretch out their muscular arms defiantly, and tie them- 
 selves in robust knots, where the clean-rinded beech has belts 
 of dark moss and spots of feathery emerald, which look like the 
 green plush stolen from a duck's neck, mixed up with snatches 
 of the living emerald from the eyes of a peacock's fan. Then, 
 there are huge antlered bushes of ash, strong and vigorous, 
 butting aside the meek dog rose and the scrubby elder ; and here 
 and there among the spiked thorn-bushes whose snow is not 
 yet in the bloom, there are flowers of burning gold, kingcups 
 whose nectar the bee drmks thirstily ; and when you turn the 
 comer of a wood walk, there is a stinging buzz of startled flies, 
 and a great black humble-bee flies at you like a bullet ; and 
 this gay buzz and sense of life in every square inch of air, is, I 
 think, one of the most joyous and delicious symptoms of warm 
 spring weather, especially when you add to it over and above, 
 a perpetual pulsation of cooing doves, a singing contest of birds, 
 and a general unfurling and unpacking of the little green fairy 
 dresses that are hereafter to be called leaves, and will eventually 
 club together to form the shroud of poor dead King Summer. 
 Then perhaps you startle a great raven from a tree where he 
 sits complaining of the exorbitant price of mutton at Eamsbury 
 market, and you come out in the open where some moles are 
 making a small parody of that useful but mouldy institution,
 
 14 CROSS COUNTRY. 
 
 the Thames Tunnel, or you emerge in a small glade, with a 
 view through oak boughs, barred with sun and shadow, of a 
 great slope of down, miles away, -with a long slate roof shining 
 in the sun, a cascade of sheep, and in front a green square of 
 meadow where some cows are on their knees in flowers, that 
 look from here like a gold carpet, woven without seam, perfect 
 from the top throughout. 
 
 It has been a glorious day in Downshire ; the merry wind 
 driving about the cool wavering shadows ; the cuckoo echoing 
 in the woods at Colonel Hanger's, where the pheasants cluck 
 and strut, proud of their fat, of their market value, and of the 
 brazen lustre of their fiery and emeraldine plumage — no great 
 things at a poulterer's door, but here, in the living sunshine, 
 flashing past us exquisitely. The wind has been blowing the 
 dust along the glaring white roads in smoking simooms, the 
 swallows have been glimmering and crescenting about the 
 water meadows, like so many . wild horses, and now I am 
 standing on the dewy la\vn of my little country inn — the Three 
 Crows-»-in the evening, watching the stars light up their little 
 diamond illumination lamps in honour of a young May moon, 
 that is just at the full. 
 
 " Now, the moon," says the landlord, coming out with his 
 white yard of clay and a burning "Waterloo charge of bird's-eye, 
 to be sociable with his guest, " seems to me to-night like a bit 
 of butter that is beginning to melt on a hot toastess." 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 A DAT WITH A WILTSHIRE GAMEKEEPEE. 
 
 It is my fervent belief that the natural history of England will 
 never be written properly till it is taken in hand by the English 
 gamekeepers : given to those sinewy, stalwart men addicted 
 to velveteen shooting jackets and leather splatterdashes, and 
 taken from the ink-stained hands of those pale, weak-legged, 
 purblind men in spectacles, who review everything second hand.
 
 A DAY WITH A WILTSHIRE GAMEKEEPER, 15 
 
 I maintain that old Targett, the gamekeeper at my friend 
 Colonel Hanger's, who spends all day waiting for vermiu, trap- 
 ping, and shooting, and all night watching for poachers, in 
 Eedland "Woods, must know more about the habits and customs 
 of the fox, the badger, the marten, the rat, and the rabbit, than 
 Professor Mole of St. John's AVood, who never goes into a 
 field, never rode after a fox in his life, was never present at the 
 " drawing" of a badger, never fired off" a gun, never dug out a 
 dog-rat, and never bit the tip of a bull-dog's tail to make him 
 stop fighting ; who does not know how pheasants roost, could not 
 catch a weasel asleep, or othemase, is, in fact, a poor, respect- 
 able, over-civilized, rheumatic, narrow-chested Professor ; very 
 great with his books and lamps, but a mere ignoramus down 
 beside our tough friend Targett, who cannot write (who, in fact, 
 I caught the other day tearing up an old volume of Cuvier to 
 make wadding of the covers), but who has spent his life, not 
 in reading other men's thoughts, but in observing living things, 
 and studying their ways. He has never heard the word Mam- 
 malia, but he knows the individuals of the class, knows how to 
 feed 'em, snare 'em, and generally circumwent 'em. Yet in 
 fact, all he Icnows is merely how they Hve, eat, drink, and sleep ; 
 what they feed on, to what extent their instinct goes ; how far 
 they can be tamed ; their times of breeding, and haunts — 
 things which Professor Mole merely writes about. 
 
 It is a sad thing, as I often observe to my friend Mr. Fox, of 
 Great St. Andrew Street, who stuffs birds and sells them, that 
 men who know a subject generally, cannot write, and those who 
 know nothing about it, but only think they do, can. Here, 
 down in Wiltshire, we have Targett, who knows more about 
 English natural history than all the P.Z.S.s and presidents of 
 societies in the Avorld, yet he cannot sign his name, and always 
 puts a cross to his sharp son's weekly register of game killed 
 that is sent in to Colonel Hanger. Professor Mole, who does 
 not know a polecat from a ferret when it flashes across a country 
 road, yet compiles his " naturalist's library," &c. &c., the only 
 books where an Englishman can learn anything about the ani- 
 mals of his own country, though he may go to the Eegent's 
 Park and make faces at the lion, or throw a bun to the bear
 
 16 'cross country. 
 
 with impunity. In fiict, the more I read Cuvier, and Jardiue, 
 and " the whole bilin' of 'in," the more I feel that English 
 natural history is yet unwritten, and is to be compiled from 
 the half-century wisdom of earth-stoppers and gamekeepers, O 
 woe be to the infant science if we stop till these old men go to 
 earth, or death makes game of our gamekeepers. As the Dodo 
 and the Mammoth have perished ; as the Great Sea Serpent 
 of the Indian Seas, and gigantic Kraken of the Northern 
 Ocean, have passed into myths, so will pass the English badger, 
 the wild deer, and the corncrake. The wild cat is almost 
 gone, the fox in time will follow, and where will be their his- 
 tories ? 
 
 Our children of the year two thousand and fifty, dressed in 
 crimson silk breeches and satin and cloth-of-gold night-gowns, 
 going out to dinner in steam balloons, and using electric tele- 
 graphs to ring the bell with, will, 2^erhaps, some day, want to 
 know what the fox people hunted in one thousand nine hundred 
 on steam-engine horses, was like. This student goes to his 
 cupboard of thirty thousand books, and running roimd the 
 tramroad lined with shelves on a velocipede, he takes down a 
 dusty Erench book, Dictionnaire Classique, or I'Histoire Natu- 
 relle, and finds to his delight that " the Eenard is a Canis Vulpes 
 of the order man." He is also overjoyed — this enthusiast for 
 antiquarian Imowledge — to find that " Eenarde is the female of 
 Eenard. ' ' The food of the almost forgotten animal and its habits 
 was too trifling a fact for scientific men to give. But stiU. he is 
 gratified and comforted to learn, on the conjoint testimony of 
 MM. Bourdon, Pierrot, De Candolle, Delafosse, and others, 
 that the fox is a species of the genus dog, and that it is a cun- 
 ning and greedy animal, that its odour is unpleasant, and its 
 fur of a reddish brown colour. 
 
 Stop ! the historian gluts our enthusiast with information. 
 Here is more news : " The tail of the Eenard is bushy and of 
 considerable magnitude." O these valuable and laborious 
 Erench writers ; what years of watching beside damp fox earths, 
 under ash roots and behind tight-rinded oaks they must 
 have spent in accumulating aU this information, in addition to 
 what Adam observed, as the great procession of birds, beasts,
 
 A DAY WITH A WILTSHIRE GAMEKEEPER. 17 
 
 and fishes passed to the baptism. If Adam had written natural 
 history, then we shoukl have known if we have yet classified 
 half the existing creatures, or have settled the question of 
 that troublesome sea-serpent who keeps putting in alibis 
 in different degrees of latitude, and whose existence (you 
 need not go and mention it) I fervently and persistently be- 
 lieve in. 
 
 It is my fervent belief also — and I love heterodoxy, because 
 it keeps one moving — that no one can paint a thing which is not 
 before him as he paints ; that no man can describe a place but 
 on the spot ; that no one can write on animals till he has 
 chased, and shot, and petted, and watched them. Xatiu-al his- 
 tory is not to be written by professors in spectacles — timid, 
 twittering, unsophisticated men — from stuffed animals and 
 bleached skeletons. Wliatwe want is open-air natural history, 
 such as Audubon, and "White of Selbourne, and Grould wrote ; 
 more of it and deeper of it. What we want is gamekeepers' 
 societies, and discussions duly reported : Leatherstockings pre- 
 sident, Shotpouch corresponding secretary (if he could only 
 ■^vrite) — but no Monocluses and Moles, thank you. Then we 
 might have something like natural history, and know where we 
 were, and what to beat. When fish are bred and brought up in 
 aquariums, and butterflies and reptiles in vivariums, then we 
 shall know something about them. Till then, under the head 
 English jSTatural History, write Chaos ; which, being inter- 
 preted, means blackness and old night, for it is the land of 
 Boslien and of fog. 
 
 Let me turn to the word "fox," and see what these dull, 
 unadvancing pedants say — men who ought to discuss and 
 chronicle every newspaper paragraph relating to wild or tame 
 foxes, and examine the very length and breadth of their subject. 
 
 What does Professor Mole say ? Here is his book, with a 
 dauby, inaccurate, burnt sienna drawing of a fox, that a whip- 
 per-in would laugh at. The text occupies about two pages ; it 
 could be read in five minutes, yet it was only last November 
 I had a burst of forty minutes after a fox that broke away 
 from the Blackmoor Vale hounds, near Windwhistle Inn, and 
 every minute of that timC; I can assure you, fui'nished some 
 
 c
 
 IS 'cross country. 
 
 fresli instance of this incomparable animal's instinct. Eidiug 
 home, the old whip told me enough stories about the fox's 
 habits to fill a large volume of the Professor's Avorks. And 
 this is history ! Sliall I be ever driven to bring out that great 
 exposure of mine, called " The History of Historians ?" 
 
 WeU ! let us get to Mole's book. Here it is : " Pox— vulpis 
 vulgaris — supposed to be indigenous to England — tradition 
 says it was taken over to America by the Pilgrim Fathers — 
 measures two feet five inches (I have known some hundred 
 exceptions) ; tail cylindrical, one foot three inches ; head 
 broad, snout sharp, eyes oblique, nose and forehead rectilinear." 
 On the colour of this little known animal the Professor is very 
 minute, stating the fur to be yellowish red, shading ofi" to a 
 paler yellow (few naturalists can describe colours, never using 
 similes, the only way to express clearly and vividly subtle dis- 
 tinctions) ; this malt colour, or ripe corn colour, is mixed, it 
 appears, with grisly white and black hairs ; or ash colour breaks 
 out on the forehead, rump, and hams ; the lips, cheeks, and 
 throat are wliite, and there are white lines on the inner surface 
 of the legs ; the breast and belly are whitish ; the ears and feet 
 black ; the tail is tipped Avitli white, and sometimes ringed 
 with black. The Welsh foxes, wishing for heraldic difference, 
 and being probably of old Pendagon blood, and of a richer and 
 stronger smell, leave out the black ring. 
 
 The Professor having here exhausted his limited palette of 
 colours, branches off" to the Syrian fox, that Samson caught 
 and tied firebrands to, to the silver fox, &c. The Professor's 
 mode of writing, however, is sometimes rather confused, for he 
 describes an Indian fox that is so agile that it can turn nine 
 times within the sjDace of its own length — agility that even our 
 English M.P.s could scarcely rival. More w^onderful still, it 
 feeds on " field mice and white ants, with tails lilte squirrels." 
 Wliat a terrible thing an ant with a squirrel's tail must be ? 
 
 The great delusion of historians seems to be that they must 
 write about nothing but the crimes of kings. The delusion of 
 Professor Moles seems to be that their special mission is to 
 desci'ibe in conventional language (generally second-hand) the 
 colours of animals. This done, their task is over. Give me
 
 A DAY AVITH A WILTSHIRE GAMEKEEPER, 1 9 
 
 an old poacher ; you take Jardinc. Give me Targett then, you 
 take Mole. I believe in fevr things, but the one thing I do 
 believe in is the value of personal observation. All second- 
 hand things are bad ; for second-hand information is generally 
 first-hand ignorance. 
 
 As for fish, I give up all hope of ever knowing anything 
 about them. The turtle, turbot, cod, and sole I have dissected, 
 and I think know pretty well ; but who is to spend months 
 off the Doggerbank, the Knock, or the Silver Pit sands, to 
 study the habits of the tabbied mackerel and the pearl-coated 
 whiting ? who will go and live in a diving-bell, and see them 
 play and dance, and feed and fight, and make love and go to 
 war. 
 
 But the fox. Is it not dreadful to a progressive mind to 
 tear that stagnant old INIole, surrounded by his glass-cases and 
 stufted deaths, potter on in this vein : 
 
 " Upper shades of the body red fulvous ; muzzle dark ru- 
 fous; on the back waves of whitish; chest grey; anterior 
 line of the fore-legs deep black; tail mixed fulvous and 
 black." 
 
 "Wliat is fulvous and rufous ? Why, Mole, do you not go to 
 the colour-seller and learn the names of colours, for are not 
 maroon and burnt sienna more intelligible than your gabble of 
 fulvouses and rufouses ? And perhaps all this time, thou one- 
 eyed writer for blind people, thou art only describing an excep- 
 tional fox, no more like the average foxes than an Albino is like 
 an ordinary man, or a Yankee like an Englishman : 
 
 " Foxes have the lateral crests of the skull, which serve to 
 attach the chrotaphite muscles in the shape of an angle, but 
 slightly prolonged before they unite on the frontal suture." 
 
 Is not this throwing a stone at us when we ask for bread ? 
 Is not this pelting us with barbarous Latin and dog-Greek 
 when we ask to know something about foxes ? 
 
 Another quarrel of ours with jNIole is that he is the dog in 
 the manger — he does not write natural history himself, and he 
 barks at any one else who v/ants to. And singular, although 
 half his science seems to consist in the mere classification of 
 animals, he always gives us careless daubs of them — rude, raw, 
 
 c 2
 
 20 'cross country. 
 
 and impossible in colour. Here, for instance, is the tri-coloured 
 fox of Virginia, in an expensive work on natural history, 
 coloured as barbarously as if it was a Cupid holding a pin- 
 cushion heart in a penny valentine. " Silver-grey" is repre- 
 sented by a wash of lead-colour, and " rufous" by raw sienna, 
 which also daubs up the eyes. Surely no colour is better than 
 wrong colour, any day in the week. 
 
 But Mole has not yet exhausted his handbook to the fox. 
 Under the head Canida? he kindly tells us— Sub-Genus 3, 
 Vulpes— the foxes— that " the pupils of their eyes are ellip- 
 tical, or contractile into a vertical slit— tail long, bushy— lower 
 on the legs in proportion to the body— far finer— habit noc- 
 turnal." 
 
 And, wonderful to relate, I also find, under the head " Im- 
 portant to Eox-hunters," the following interesting bit of al- 
 gebra : 
 
 G 1-1 6-6 
 
 " Incis. "n-^ earn, -jp: ; cheek, ^ = 42." 
 
 "Which looks more like a calculation in arithmetical cypher of 
 the Professor's income than anything else ; but at last I get on 
 dry ground, and read, as an alchemist's boy might read his 
 absent master's secret : " Muzzle elongated — nostrils naked, 
 binular, and open at the sides — tongue soft — ears erect — feet 
 anterior pentadactylus, posterior tetrodactylus, walk on the 
 toes — mammae both pectoral and ventral." This is, indeed, 
 knowledge — something like knowledge ! 
 
 Why is not this printed in a cheap form, placed between an 
 orange-tawny cover, illustrated with a Flying Dutchman fox- 
 hunt, and sold on railway stalls for the use of young fox-lovers 
 who run about England after a bad smell when they might get 
 it in full perfection in the Thames without running at all ? 
 "What a fine sight it would be to see a baud of scarlet youths, 
 while waiting at the covert side some biting January morning, 
 instead of idle smoking, and scandal and gossip, improving 
 their minds by studying Professor Mole's (un) natural History 
 of the British Pox. 
 
 And fancy, too, in that golden age, when all fimcies become
 
 A DAY WITH A WILTSHIRE GAMEKEEPER. 21 
 
 true, and all good men's wishes are fullilled, foucy the Pro- 
 fessor roaming about by moonlight with sangiiiuar\'' Jem the 
 poacher, studying with the zeal of a Columbus the natural 
 history of the British rabbit ; or mounted on a thorough-bred, 
 trying to learn the habits and tempers of that " noble quadi'u- 
 ped" the horse. True, the gallant professor might catcli cold 
 sitting down in the wet fern, and he might be pitched into 
 the thorn cage of a bullfinch. But what of that ? Has not 
 science also its martjTS ? Was there not once a Park, once a 
 Perouse, once a Cook ? '\\niy then should there not be a Mole ? 
 " Now for your own history of the fox, the rat, the dog, the 
 badger, and all kinds of creatures," says Mole, spitefully. 
 
 No, Professor, it does not follow that because I see a shot- 
 hole in the side of the vessel of science that I am necessarily 
 sea-carpentet enough to at once plug it. I see the howling 
 barrenness of your book, but I can only hint at the flowers 
 that might turn it to a garden of Eden. I have certaruly a 
 few gamekeepers' notes that I keep as proofs and evidence. 
 More I have had and lost ; but still, what I have are a good 
 specimen of the vein I have struck. 
 
 It was only last week I was down in a "Wiltshire village ; 
 and, having studied the church — where on Sundays you hear 
 the blackbirds in the rector's garden laurels making their 
 blithe responses between the pauses of the Psalms, and where the 
 arrow-fleet swallows often zigzag in and out the aisles between 
 the lessons — and, having watched the reapers, with their steel 
 crescents, busy in the gold rows of the sloping cornfields, and 
 having read all the red and blue handbills on the folding-doors 
 of the only empty barn in the place, I began to grow a little 
 weary of lying down in the clover-field, and watching the bee 
 excisemen, so I determined to follow the dark green line of path 
 that led tlirougli tlie meadow where the young pheasants were 
 dusting and sunning themselves round their coops, and go and 
 have half an hour's quiet "crack" with old Targett, the head 
 gamekeeper. 
 
 Off' I went, reusing the dozing larks to their chorister duties, 
 wliipping the purple cushion heads oft' the thistles, taking 
 the way to the hanging wood, in the heart of which our "Wilt-
 
 22 'cross country. 
 
 shire Leatlierstocking lives. I love the deep greenness of the 
 old j)lantations, where the ferns are high enough for a stag to 
 pass under, without his antlers touching the keystone of the 
 arch, and the honeysuckles vidnd so close together that they 
 seem like chains twined with flowers. Hei"e were glades, too, 
 quite dry, and coated with the red brown aromatic dead 
 needles of the fir ; and, up in the tall beeches, whose grey 
 trunks threw quite a light around me, I could see the bush of 
 the squirrel's nest. 
 
 At last I got to the break looking down on the stubble-field 
 where the keeper's cottage was. It was bosomed in woods, and 
 down below, and before it, was a stile grown round with docks, 
 and a blue Gainsborough glimpse of a church tower with the 
 weathercock on it glittering in the sun like a burning diamond. 
 A great white setter lay at the door; it had been too much 
 with gentlemen to bark at seeing me. I entered. There was 
 the old gun on the rack over the fireplace, and a stuffed 
 white owl staring at you with glassy unblinking eyes from 
 above the American clock. There was Targett busy chop- 
 ping up rabbits for the young pheasants, while a nice old 
 woman, with all the blandness and ease of a duchess, wiped a 
 chair clean for me, and then smiling welcome, went on stirring 
 the oatmeal over the fire. As for the younger Targett, he was 
 stuffing a hawk to nail up over the window. 
 
 We first discussed the wonderful skill and readiness of 
 poachers ; how they bewitch trout with quick lime, and so send 
 the three-pounders floating down the stream from under the 
 weeds ; how they use cherries with the stones out, and young 
 grasshoppers and wasp-grubs, and salmon-roe, and all sorts of 
 unlikely things for trout that the fish could never have tasted 
 or heard of, yet always bring the poacher's creel home heavy. 
 On moonlight nights, when they could see the hares, " these 
 gentry" were sure to be about. He told me, too, that the 
 herons had an oil in their legs that attracted the fish round 
 those meditative birds as they stood in the shallows, and that 
 poachers, it was said, about the Trent, extracted this oil, and 
 used it with great advantage to dip their bait in ; this was one 
 of those things, he thought, that " gents as wrote on natyral
 
 A DAT WITH A WILTSHIRE GAMEKP:EPER. 23 
 
 'istory" and Avere wide awake, sliould inquire into. He liad 
 no time to do it ; it was quite enougli for him to see the dogs 
 were fed, and the vermin killed, and the rabbits snared to feed 
 the pheasants with. As for all those bright varnished rods 
 and expensive reels gents brought down with them, and won- 
 derful flies with " mouse's bodies and peacock's wings," he Avould 
 wager any night to catch a basket of perch with one gudgeon's 
 eye on the hook — ay, even with mere line and no rod at all. 
 
 Then about foxes — they were cunning sure/y. Many a night 
 watching he had seen them in the hare runs, practising how 
 far they could leap from a certain bush so as to be sure of their 
 'prej, to the very inch, and otf before the best of shots could 
 get his gun up. Didn't they eat too, and spoil more than they 
 eat ? He had known a dog-fox, when it had cubs in an earth 
 hard by, kill thirty ducks one night ; and, a week after, thirty 
 pheasants. Couldn't eat half of them, of course, but dug 
 holes in ditches and buried the overplus. It often happened 
 Fox forgot Avhere he buried them, or at least never dug them 
 up again. Why, he had seen them down in the water-meadows 
 try a plank that crossed a brook, try it a dozen times, before 
 they would go over ; and he had marked them dip their tails in 
 urine, and then drag a trail from a stone-heap in a field to 
 v.here they lay hid. Presently, out ran the mice, followed the 
 trail, and were instantly pounced upon. He had met them, too, 
 with geese tlirown over theii- backs, and the gooses' necks in their 
 mouths. As for trapping them, it was difficult. Why, if you 
 put a gin at the mouth of the earth, they would scratch out 
 abo^e it, or scratch out backwards, and so make the throA\n- 
 out earth spring the trap. Even when caught, they would 
 sometimes bite off their broken leg and escape. 
 
 " Did they really read the newspapers to see where the 
 hounds met next morning?" 
 
 " Well, that was a woundy good 'un !" (Here Targett beat 
 his thigh jovially.) No, but he thought the varmint did every- 
 thing but that. They had been known to breed on the top of a 
 church, getting up every day by the ivy boughs, and had been 
 at last killed by the hounds on the very church roof. They 
 had been found with their cubs in the hollow top of pollard
 
 24 'cross country. 
 
 trees, tliey had been kno-vni, when cliased, to take to tlie 
 water and hang on by their teeth among the osiers to a willow- 
 bough, their body being invisible. As for their cubs, the vixens 
 will carry them any distance ; any disturbance or noise near a 
 hole will make the vixen and cubs change their hole. As for 
 the mange, that scoiu-ge of dogs, they " have it dreadful," and 
 have been found as bare as an old trunk, and without a hair 
 in their tails. Foxes would run twenty miles straight without 
 turning ; even foxes hid in sea cliff that seldom ramble far, 
 perhaps liviug on fish ; and I must remember, too, the fox was 
 always taken at a disadvantage, generally full in stomacli and 
 tired with the night's prowl ; an evening fox fresh from the 
 day's sleep few dogs could catch. 
 
 Here Targett, junior, who had, been burning to put in his 
 oar, and was dancing round me with a half-stuffed hawk in his 
 hand, broke in to tell me how last night, outside the warren, 
 he had heard a dreadful shriek, as of a woman being murdered, 
 round the corner of a wall. He looked and saw a hare, its 
 head sopped wet crimson with blood, tearing along, and a stoat 
 riding on its neck, sucking like a demon at the spine. As he 
 got up the hiire fell dead, and the stoat slid away. 
 
 I don't know what I might not have heard to enrich our 
 meagre natural history, had not at this moment the squire's 
 dinner gong boomed out an imperious summons for me, which 
 even my zeal for science was not strong enough to induce me 
 to disobey. 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 THE BUCKINGHAMSHIEE MAN. 
 
 A BULLET that " had really killed a man" at "Waterloo, was one 
 of my playthings when a boy. 
 
 That bullet was as terrible in my eyes, and as much a fetish, 
 as the spotted snake that " had really killed a man " in India, 
 that we kept in spirits in a long bottle on the top of a book- 
 case. As that snake represented in mine eyes the whole India
 
 THE BUCKINGHAMSHIRE MAX. 'Zo 
 
 of snakes, caue brakes, jungle clumps, plain and mountam, 
 Deccan and Punjab, from Caslimere to Cape Comorin, so was 
 that dull little battered leaden bullet a sort of a little sphere 
 which became transparent as I looked at it, and disclosed 
 embattled nations, in all the shock and grapple of mortal con- 
 test, or pouring along in headlong rout, with torn colours, 
 broken weapons, and shattered gun-carriages. 
 
 jMy next step, after a personal taste of single combat at 
 school, was to discoyer a man who had really been in a battle. 
 I found him in no less a person than our old gardener, who did 
 not seem to be especially proud of it, and took it very much as 
 a matter of course. There was nothing specially divine about 
 the man as he leant on his spade, cleaned it with a wooden 
 scraper, and put a fresh plug of tobacco in his cheek ; no 
 special lustre lit his eye: yet he had been "baptised in fixe," 
 as Napoleon called it. I saw no special result produced by 
 such a ceremony, but it is all in him, I thought, full of my 
 Thermopylajs and Marathons, Bannockburns and Zutphens, 
 and my shocks of spears and clouds of arrows — it is all in him. 
 He is as a cask of very precious liquor, and I am the spigot 
 that is to let it out. I shall now know what I have long 
 thirsted to know — the feelings of one's first battle, and the 
 details of what is actually done. 
 
 "Eanger," said I, with all the earnestness of fourteen, 
 talking to him as if he was on oath, " did you ever shoot a man 
 in battle ?" 
 
 This I thought was quietly breaking the ground, and laying 
 it open for innumerable tales of bloodshed. He spoke, after a 
 minute, during which he looked down at the fresh mould, then 
 up at the blue sky. 
 
 ""Well," said he, "Master Joe, not as I exactly knows on ; 
 but I've fired into the thick on 'em a score of times." 
 
 T was disappointed at the time, and began to suspect there 
 was no poetry in life if it was not to be found in a battle ; yet 
 when I began to turn it over, I think the answer was not 
 so bad. 
 
 Tes, into the thick on 'em. I can see 'em now — rows of 
 broad-topped shakos and red side-plumes, fierv eyes and mouths
 
 36 'cross country. 
 
 fierce, black with biting tlie cartridges. Twist and ram the 
 grape. Pire ! one man falls on his luiees — another staggers ; 
 two miore hide their eyes ; for, they are shot in the face. 
 Closing lip to the front, fresh men step in their places. Charge ! 
 away goes the level line of bayonet with three cheers. The 
 French reel — they break. The colours are taken — they fly — 
 victory — Victoet ! 
 
 True, I have ludicrous images of the Finsbury volunteers, 
 of their ramshackled march, their intermittent fire, the ravages 
 they made of poultry in their marches, of their general 
 cumbrous and inefiicient look. No wonder the local militia 
 used to be called " The Locusts," for they cleared the country. 
 Then the Yeomanry, and their dusty triumphal entrance once 
 a year into Diddleton, shall I ever forget ? No charge of 
 Cromwell's could have emptied more saddles than a wheeling 
 manoeuvre used to on field-days ; and as for the fat major, how 
 his hat used to blow oif, and how the colonel's horse, if be ever 
 dismounted, used always to break away ! How hot and dusty 
 they always were, how they seemed bursting through their 
 dragoon bob-tail jackets, how those huge^ swords used to 
 chink about the streets, how the gallant men used to brag 
 and drink ! The city, while the Teomanry were there, seemed 
 always as if it had just been sacked in a most comfortable 
 way. 
 
 A good old country gentleman I once'knew used to tell three 
 times a day for forty years his adventures when he served in the 
 City Light Horse Volimteers, a gallant corps, indeed, of City men, 
 light perhaps on horseback, but I should think unsurpassably 
 heavy in conversation, to judge by my friend. He lived in his 
 early heroism, left his sword and sabretasche hung up in his 
 study to provoke remarks, had regular traps and means to lead 
 on to his stories, and always began them by swelling out his 
 chest, perldng up his chin, and saying, " I once drew my 
 sword in defence of my country." His forced march to Ealing 
 (like Major Sturgeon's) surpassed Napoleon's attack of Lodi, 
 and the return to Hackney was something like the retreat 
 from Moscow, only shorter, and in the summer. If that gal- 
 lant corps — and I say it advisedly — had had the opportunities
 
 THE BUCKINGHAMSHIRE MAN. 27 
 
 tlie regulars had, they would have done gallant things — but 
 they hadn't. 
 
 The other day I chanced to meet an old militiaman who was 
 great about the old days, and in the bygone glories of Stowe 
 and the Dukes of Bucliiagham. I met him in a raQway car- 
 riage thus : 
 
 I was on my way to Ireland, to establish a company for 
 " Draining the Bogs of Allan in search of a Danish Treasure," 
 which had been recommended to me as a good thing to invest 
 money in. 
 
 I had refused to buy an " Illustrious JSToose ;" I had been 
 driven at " by your leave" by ploughing perambulating trucks 
 full of luggage ; I had had my ticket nipped by something 
 between a dentist's key and a cork-presser ; I had at last taken 
 my seat in a second-class carriage, arranged my plaid, laid 
 my Times in a sort of Freemason's apron over my knees, and 
 was getting all ataut. The day was burning and golden, the 
 sky blue and spotless, except where the Avhite clouds billowed 
 and toppled about like poised avalanches. The bell rang, the 
 guard waved his red flag, we were ofl" with a hiss and trample, 
 and a pulsation as of some angry giant's heart. 
 
 I settle myself down in the spare box of a carriage, I establish 
 a treaty and alliance of legs with the Buckinghamshix-e man, 
 who I find has been a militiaman, which is a tie between vis. 
 Lady's-maid, sallow and Avaxy with sitting up late at night, 
 cheerless, for ladies coming home from gay parties, subsides 
 into a stupor of rest, in the corner. The drummer — such a 
 drummer ! — a httle pink-faced boy, say about fourteen, frank, and 
 at his ease, with his great white buff'belt, with brass scutcheoned 
 buckle, lying before him on a vacant seat, beside his knapsack, 
 only numbered with name, No. of company, and detachment. 
 How firm and disciplined, and ahnost gentlemanlike, he looks 
 with his black trousers lined with red cord, and his little 
 scarlet frock, fringed white at the shoulders, and striped and 
 epauletted with white lace, and studded with blue fleur-de-lis 
 reminiscences of Cressy and Agincourt, and our old French 
 claim. 
 
 The Buckinghamshire man, in an energetic and robust way,
 
 38 'cross country. 
 
 iinnoimced himself to nie as having been for thirt^^-jBve years 
 watebmau of Olney parisli, sbeep-sbearer, brewer, and guide to 
 CoTv^er's cottage, where the poet kept his tame hares and 
 wrote the hymns, and other curiosities. He was a cheery, 
 ruddy, large-made man, with eyes of washed-out blue, big, 
 round, and staring; in his gestures demonstrative, stamping, 
 and redundantly energetic. 
 
 But I must go back to the starting. Ching, clang ! ching, 
 clang ! ching, clang ! went the Euston-square bell. Whew ! 
 whew ! whew ! went the guard's whistle. Another drummer- 
 boy, with two medals at the breast of his scarlet coat, and who 
 had come to see his younger comrade off, thrust his hand in at 
 the window to give him a last shake. 
 
 " Good-by, Tom," said the rough, kind stripling, "take care 
 when you get to the station to go straight home, and don't let 
 any blackguard wheedle your money out of you ; get to your 
 father and mother, then you are all right. Think of the 
 regiment. Mind and write to the drum-major." 
 
 A demon-thirsting scream gave the signal. 
 
 " G-ood-by, Tom," said the lad. 
 
 " Good-by, Jack," said the boy. 
 
 The little fellow would have liked to cry, but he was a sol- 
 dier, and a soldier's son, and he didn't, but he gave a rather 
 rueful look at the blank, square mndow — no kind, sturdy face 
 there now — and to hide his faint heart set to work buckling up 
 and arranging the great, square, black knapsack, on which his 
 name, " Thomas "Wilson, Scots Eusiliers, 27, 3rd Company," 
 was inscribed in great white letters. Then he shifted his linen 
 bag, or haversack, which was slung at his side by a linen belt 
 passing over his shoulder; he adjusted his smart foraging- 
 eap, with the strap on his lip, and loosened, just to feel he was 
 out of Trafalgar-square barracks, his white buckskin belt with 
 the brass badge of a buckle. He was not going to compromise 
 the character of the army among civilians. 
 
 We passed out of the great shadow of the station tunnel 
 that fell on the white page of the book I was reading like the 
 broad shadow of some evil angel's hand. Champ, champ ! rattle, 
 rattle ! like the roar of a million of Parthian cavalry chafing at
 
 THE BUCKINGHAMSHIRE MAN. 29 
 
 our heels — a battling, angry din that deafens and excites — and 
 ■we break out into the free light, 
 
 Xow, no noise but the gentle puff of the engine far away, and 
 the white cloud at tlie window, as of the pipe of the great 
 Manitou of the fVaiin a nomen, breathing sleepily on this pleasant 
 autumn day ; liigh in heaven all sapphire. Now, no brooding, 
 noisy darkness, but a broad column of light like that of a sudden 
 resurrection, or as the sunshine coming to us out of the grave of 
 an eclipse. "We settled ourselves to our places for the next 
 forty miles' rush and roll, and the great white clouds of steam 
 floated round us as if we were being borne on the Hindoo 
 car of Paradise to the gardens of Indra. 
 
 "We began to settle ; the lady's-maid took out a limp, ill-used 
 novel ; the drummer began, with true boy's himger, to pinch 
 suspiciously certain projections in his haversack that seemed 
 edible ; the Buckinghamshire man's eyes fixed intently on him 
 with mingled admiration, sympathy, wonder, and sagacity. 
 He was eminently sociable, and began the conversation at once 
 by aiming a playful blow at the drummer's chest, and asking a 
 question so abruptly, and in such a deep chest voice, that it 
 
 sounded like a blow too : 
 
 " Isn't a volunteer better than two pressed men, youngster ?" 
 
 said the Bueksman, as if contradicted and put out. 
 
 Tom laughed, and said he rather thought so. " This is a 
 
 queer card," thought he, and looked so. 
 
 " I say," said Bucks (let us call him Bucks for shortness), 
 
 with a sorrowful shake of his rusty hat and grizzled hair, at the 
 
 same time wetting his lips to show that he was going to begin, 
 
 " those were nice ones at that public-house. with your comrade 
 
 there and the other soldiers. Oh ! they were bad ones, bad lot." 
 "Yes, they were," said Tom, in a neat, disciplined voice, 
 
 recognising Bucks as having been with him at the " ale-us " 
 
 before starting. 
 
 " Very bad lot ; I should be sorry to see sous of mine like 
 
 those gentlemen with the pack of cards. Did you see one of 
 
 them pull the sergeant's sword and make a slash in fun at him. 
 
 Oh ! they were bad ones. I was sorry to see it. Bad ones, 
 
 bad ones."
 
 30 CROSS COUNTRY. 
 
 Euclvs relapsed into silence after tliis simple homily on virtue, 
 and proceeded with his staring blue eyes to take a careful in- 
 ventory of the drummer's fantastic dress from top to toe : his 
 scarlet coat, a little purple and faded in places, its long stripes 
 of dull white lace worked with blue fleur-de-lis (strange 
 tradition of the old Agincourt quarrel), his stifi" collar, with its 
 ruff of blue and white lace, his neat belt and shining brass, and 
 his soldierly trousers of black, corded down the seams with red. 
 Bucks never seemed to have enough of it. 
 
 " This is the stuff to make a soldier," said he suddenly, witli 
 intense enthusiasm, such as men who remember the old Erench 
 wars and volunteering days can only feel now it is the fashion 
 to be so philosophic and cosmopolitan. " Wert in the Crimear, 
 lad, eh ? Did'st box the Eooshians, lad ?" 
 
 " No," said Tom, stoutly and honestly, " but that comrade 
 of mine, who you saw shake hands with me, was, and was 
 wounded, too. The band, you [know, have to carry off the 
 Avounded." 
 
 " Look at this lad nowf" said Bucks, addressing every one, 
 and proudly, as if he w^ere his father, with stentorian, voice, 
 hitting his corduroyed thigh violently with his clenched fist, 
 " I saw, last week as ever was, a regiment pass through Tring 
 with a drummer-boy no bigger than him, and they stopped at 
 the public-house the Malt Shovel,in Tring, where I was brewing. 
 Lor' bless you ! what a stir the farmers made with t' lad. I 
 do believe if he could have eaten gold they'd have given it the 
 little lad." (All this our honest friend spoke as if he was 
 chewins: every word, forte e molto staccato.) " Bread and 
 cheese, good Lord ! I should think so ; good strong ale (six 
 bushels to the barrel), and rattling good double Gloucester till 
 he could not eat any more. I thought they'd have made him 
 dead drunk, but the brave boy (he was the bugler) pushed 
 back the glass at last, and said, as stout as a lion, 
 
 " ' Thankee, gentlemen, all the same, but I'll take no more, or 
 I shall not be able to do my duty to-morrow — thank you all 
 the same.' And he did ifOT, for all the pressing. Ah ! 'twas 
 a brave bugler lad, that was." 
 
 The drummer was intensely interested, and unconsciously, as
 
 THE BUCKINGHAMSHIRE MAN. 31 
 
 Eucks spoke, kept unbuckling his knapsack by a nervous rest- 
 lessness of fingers. 
 
 " Well, next day," went on Bucks, " I saw this bugler go 
 i;p to the sergeant, who had stopped his week's money to pre- 
 vent his spending it. It was all kindness of the sergeant, 
 but still be had no business to do it." 
 
 " ]S'o sergeant had no business," said Tom, determinedly ; 
 " a sergeant can't interfere with the boy's pay unless he has 
 behaved bad." 
 
 '• Well," continued Bucks, encouraged, " the bugler boy 
 went up to him, brave as a liox " (roars so that the lady's- 
 maid drops the limp novel, thinking there is a collision, and 
 henceforward listens like a wise woman), " ' Wliy have you 
 stopped my pay, sergeant ?' said he. 
 
 " The sergeant said, ' Never you mind, boy.' 
 
 '' But he said, ' I will mind. I'll have my fair money.' 
 
 " Then the sergeant said, ' I'll report you.' 
 
 " But the drummer went on saying, ' If you don't give me 
 the money, I'll report t/ou, sergeant.' 
 
 " Then the sergeant, in his burning rage and furious spite, 
 called out to another boy to sound the bugle, and lie did it — • 
 sounded a sound, but rather weak and poor like, and the men 
 who were by, laughed, and tapped their muskets on tbe floor. 
 Then the boy stood up again as bold as a hero, and said, ' Is 
 that the way you sound a sound ? Give it me !' And he took 
 the bugle, and blew such a sound, so clear and true, it was 
 good indeed to hear. He said, ' That is the way, sergeant, to 
 blow the bugle-call !' " Imagine this story told in a jovial, 
 unflinching crescendo of voice, ending with a complete burst 
 of laughter that stunned us. 
 
 We all laughed, which encouraged Bucks, and made him ten 
 times noisier and redder. His face now was a burning coal — 
 he must have been drinking. He now amused himself by going 
 over all the boy's accoutrements. " This," says he, " is where 
 you put your clean shirts in for home, your pipeclay, and your 
 brushes ; this is for your prog ;" and so on, touching each 
 article like a showman as he went on.
 
 32 'cross country. 
 
 " Did you ever put your head in a beeliive ?" said Bucks^ 
 turning sharp round on me. 
 
 " No," said I, smiling, and watching his light blue Saxon 
 eyes and inflammatory face. 
 
 " AVell, then, that's just the feeling I have in my ears after 
 being a bit in London — dang'd, dirty, noisy place ! How 
 glad I shall be to get back to Olney ! I've worn this," said 
 he, touching the boy's red uniform, "though you wouldn't 
 think it." 
 
 " You have ?" said I, with an expectant surprise, which was 
 as good as saying, " Let us hear, then, all about it." 
 
 Bucks began by clenching both his red fists, and placing 
 them firmly on his two knees ; then, putting his head on one 
 side, he opened fire thus : 
 
 " I Avas in the Bucks Militia myself when I wor eighteen 
 — yes, I wor — eighteen as never comes agin, when one doesn't 
 care for the king on his throne, not us !' (Yiolently, though 
 no one interrupted him, but his nature was combative.) " I 
 remember when the old Dook of Buckingham, father of the 
 present dook (he's not worth a bad farthing now), reviewed 
 eight hundred of us in the great park at Stowe. He was a big 
 man, he was, a rattling good waggon-load of stufi", he was." 
 (Laugh.) " Seventeen stone, if he weighed a bounce, gentle- 
 men. He used to come in his open yellow barouche every 
 parade day, and have his two greys (he always drove greys) 
 drawn up with their two noses exactly opposite the two big 
 drums " (digs his two hands into two typical places on his two 
 thighs), " so as to accustom 'em to the noise, so as they 
 shouldn't never shy. Yes, I remember as Avell as if it was 
 yesterday the speech he made to us the last review day — ah, as 
 well as if it was yesterday ! I was only eighteen then." 
 (Tone of manly regret not incommendable.) " This is what 
 he said, said the dook : ' Oiflcers and men of the regiment of 
 the Eoyal Bucks militia, I thank you heartily for the admirable 
 manner you have conducted yourselves under arms' (so we had 
 — we had all presented arms when the dook came on the 
 ground), "and I invite you all to dinner this afternoon in a 
 tent in my park ; and all those who have fathers, mothers,
 
 THE BUCKINGHAMSHIRE MAN. 33 
 
 sisters, or sweethearts, let tliera briug them with them. 
 Officers and men of the Eoval Bucks Militia, I wish you fare- 
 well and good appetite !' " 
 
 " Bravo !" said I. 
 
 " Ah, bravo, indeed !" said Bucks. " Tliat was acting like a 
 ]£iiig — ay, he was a king! — and we all went. Every man 
 jack of us had as much roast-beef and plum-pudding as 
 he could eat: good streaky beef, too, jolly good pudding, 
 plenty of plums, and a quart of strong ale — Burton — that 
 would stand by itself ; and every one had a pound and a half 
 of it to his own cheek, besides a large three-corner cocked-hat 
 slice to take home for one's friend or sweetheart. I took mine 
 home to a sick brother." 
 
 " Good," said I, " that showed the heart in the right place, 
 that did." Drummer's eyes kindle at the memory of pudding, 
 — pudding being a sort of divinity with boys. Then, ashamed 
 of being caught worshipping pudding, he looked at his red 
 corded trousers, and arranged his belt. 
 
 Bucks continued stormier than ever. " Well, and every five 
 of us militia had a sort of flower-pot thing to put his grub 
 in, and a cup — a new tin cup'— to each one for his malt 
 liquor." 
 
 " Much speaking ?" I threw in. 
 
 " Lor' bless you !" said Bucks, " I should think so — toastesses 
 and cheering and stamping. How I got home to Bucks I don't 
 know, but I did it in time, by zigzagging all through Stowe 
 Park and the long avenue. 
 
 " Lor' ! to hear the speech-making in the red-striped tent 
 and in the house, both at the same time, two or three rising at 
 once. It loas darned good fun, I can tell ye. (Slaps his knee, 
 the nap of which many thousand previous slaps have altogether 
 removed, and doubhng up with a colicky chuckle that was 
 almost too much for him, at which the limp, pale lady's maid 
 smiled dolefully, and in a way that implied smiles were irreli- 
 gious, unbeseeming, and ungcnteel). "Speech-making! / 
 should rather think there was, plenty of it, all under the 
 flags in the marquis, as they called the tent set up on pur- 
 pose for us to dine in, near the Flaying House, as it was. 
 
 D
 
 34 'cross country. 
 
 called, where the deei* killed in the park used to he prepared ; 
 and every time a toast was drunk the yeomanry guns fired 
 three times" (shakes his head) — " yes they did. Then the dook 
 gave the best men prizes for running in sacks, grinning through 
 a collar, shooting at a target, dipping for sixpences in treacle, 
 and all sorts of pastime, for the gentry likes to see the 
 tenantry husy about in these gala days." 
 
 " That was doing it like a king," said I. 
 
 " "What fun !" cried Drummer Tom. 
 
 "It was doing it like a king," said Bucks ; "and he wor a 
 king : more than another dook I know of was ; he who was 
 pelted with what I should not like to mention" (dreadfully 
 mysterious), " in the streets of Buckingham, and who then swore 
 he would do for the place, and make the grass grow in the 
 streets." 
 
 " And so it did," said I, " when I last saw it ; it was fast 
 asleep was Buckingham, and snoring." 
 
 " Tes, the dook he moved the 'sizes," said Bucks, fiercely, 
 " and all that, to Aylesbury, to pay them out. Dear me, what 
 a grand place Stowe was in the old days ! It was a reg'lar 
 little kingdom, was Stowe, shut in with] a ring fence — south 
 front nine hundred and sixteen feet from east to west — I've 
 paced it a thousand tiuies — massy stone lions, and Corinthian 
 statuaries, and all that, picters, and hundreds of weight of 
 books, and water, and green tiu-f, and bushes, and a flight of 
 thirty-one steps from the entrance to the lawn. It wor beau- 
 tiful. You never clapped eyes on — no, that -you didn't " 
 
 " I suppose you know Bucks well ?" said I. 
 
 " Ah ! that I do," said Bucks, " and enough, too, Eisborough, 
 and Leighton Buzzard, and Berkhampstead, and Wendover, 
 and High Wycombe (good ale there), and Beaconsfield, and 
 "Woburn, and Newport Pagnell. Bucks, too ! Tou should see 
 the gilt swan in the Town-hall how it used to shine on market 
 days." 
 
 " What, after the fall of Stowe ?" I inquired. 
 
 " 'No," said Bucks, " no, no, sur, long ago ; and I knows 
 Olney, too, well, that I do. I've been watchman there, man
 
 THE BUCKINGHAMSHIRE MAN. 35 
 
 and boy, thirty years. Tou've heard of Muster Cowper, the 
 poet ?"■' 
 
 " Of course I have, and his Olney Hymns, too," said I. 
 
 Bucks (enraptured) cried, " Yes, yes, and Mrs. Uuwin, and 
 the pet hares, and all on 'em ! "Well, I show gentlemen and 
 ladies the house and summer-house where he used to write, 
 and tlie garden, and where the Throckmortons, who were his 
 friends, used to live. The Ouse, you know, runs through 
 Olney." 
 
 " it was a melancholy, dull place, for a melancholy man to 
 go to," said I. 
 
 Bucks took no notice of this remark, but broke fresh ground. 
 " We have had a powerful lot of fires lately," said he—" incen- 
 diary fires— in Olney : a dozen cottages or more burnt down 
 in a year or two." 
 
 " That's a bad job," said Drummer Tom. 
 
 " It is a bad job," said Bucks. " How they goes and breaks 
 out I don't know, and nobody knows ; but we must try and 
 get at the bottom of it, we must. There is no ill-will between 
 master and men, not as I know of" — (stops a moment and slaps 
 his knee) " the whole thing is a mystary, a perfect mystary. 
 P'r'aps it's the gipsies." 
 
 " Tou've seen hard work, I shoidd say, to judge by your 
 face," said I. 
 
 " Ay ! that I have, sir. I tell you what, sir, I have stood at 
 sheep-washing every day for three weeks, from six in the morn- 
 ing till eight at night, and hardly taken bit or sup from week's 
 end to week's end— hadn't taste for it— nothing but drink for 
 me then." 
 
 "Well, but one farmer's sheep would never last three 
 v/eeks ?" I inquired innocently, knowing no better. 
 
 " One farmer !" said Bucks, contemptuously; " why, I washed 
 for half the county, so much the score. Tell you how I did it. 
 I stood up to my lines in water, ready to take the ship ; then 
 my mate , passes me the ship, I takes him head and tail, 
 rubs him well all over, back and belly; then ducks him, and 
 passes out to the mill tail. All the wool as comes off in my 
 hands goes to me for parqui sites— it does, true as I sit here, 
 
 B 2
 
 36 'cross country. 
 
 gen'lemen. Terrible hard worlv, cramping work too, worse tliau 
 salmou-fishiiig. Of course you come out now and then for a 
 drop to mix with all the water you've sopped up," he said, 
 sympathisingly. Bucks winked, clenched his teeth, and rubbed 
 his eyes, like the maddened gambler in Hogarth : " I tell you 
 what, muster, I've drunk as much as nine or ten quarts of 
 strong ale a day, besides spirits, and it had no more effect on 
 me at the time than mere water, believe me ; but afterwards 
 I had a raging, burning fever, as they called the deliddleum 
 trimmings, orful bad it was — no that worn't the name, it was 
 something like deleerium screamens, I know there was rum in 
 it. But now, thank God (God be thanked !), I have not touched 
 ale or spirits for these six months ; and look here" (tremendous 
 energy ; invites me to pinch him ; and pinches the frosty 
 healthy reds and purples of his cheek) — " you'd think I'd 
 been just flushed with gin, wouldn't you ? Didn't you ?" 
 
 " I confess I thought you had been taking a farewell glass," 
 said I. 
 
 " No, not a drop," said Bucks, evidently exhilarated. " Feel 
 this arm : this colour is all nateral colour, and if it wasn't 
 for a little ailment and sourment occasionally, I don't know 
 now, at seventy, whether I was ever better in my life." 
 
 " So you have been up, I suppose, to have a day's holiday in 
 London — to see St. Paul's, the British Museum, and Madame 
 Tussaud's wax-works ?" said I. 
 
 Bucks whispered, putting his face close to mine, " I'll tell 
 you all about it, for you and I put our horses together very 
 well, and I feel quite neighbourly towards you, though you're 
 a gentleman and I a poor working man." 
 
 Guard cries, "Stafford! Stafford!" Bing, bang, goes the 
 
 bell. 
 
 " Here's how it is : George — my son George — is in London, 
 his "going came about thus : he had been a long time with- 
 out work, and he and his wife were living on me, and that 
 preyed on George, so he got silent and moody like, and sat 
 alone and said nothing, and mumped so that one would have 
 thought he had fallen out with me (my missus, poor dear old 
 'oman, you must know, has been dead these five year). "Well,
 
 THE BUCKINGHAMSHIRE MAN. 37 
 
 one morning, a year ago, long afore it was liglit, I was awoke 
 by sometliing pulling the bed clotlies, and I says, says I, ' Wlio's 
 there ? wliat's np ?' and somebody says, ' It's I father.' 'Who's 
 I ?' ' Why George ; I am going up to London to try and get 
 work, for it breaks my heart to prey upon your little means 
 like this. Good-by, father.' Then I sat up, and tried to reason 
 with the lad ; but lor', it wor no use. No. ' So,' said George, 
 ' don't waken my wife, but make it up for me when I'm gone ; 
 and pawn this watch of mine for her ; and as soon as I can hear 
 of anything I ^dll retm-n, but not a moment before. Don't say 
 anything, father; there's the watch. Good by !' And George 
 went. We never heard of him for nearly a long twelvemonth 
 arter, tiU last Monday was six weeks, when down comes a letter, 
 sealed with a brave man's thumb — no bad seal neither — telling 
 xis as George was doing well, had got regular work in a London 
 brickyard, and was very much respected by all as knew him, 
 and specially by his employer. Says he m the letter, ' Come up, 
 father, directly, and come and arrange about bringing up Mary, 
 and letting us live altogether, comfortable like ; and here's money 
 to get my silver watch out of pawn,' says he, in the letter. 
 Well, we were glad, I believe you, and so off I went. I didn't 
 know George at first, with his Crimean beard. ' That isn't 
 George,' said I, to the woman of the house. ' It is George,' 
 said he himself, with his own voice. And so it was. 
 
 " Well, the next morning when I awoke, I looks around and 
 wondered where I was. ' Wliat's up,' says T, ' where am I ?' 
 ' AVith George, your own son George,' says he, from the other 
 "bed ; and so I was. And now I'm going down to Olney, to have 
 a sale, give away and sell all my things, send up my bedding by 
 waggon — because George has got only one bed — and am going to 
 settle in London, convenient to the brick-yard, seeing as how 
 I'm getting a trifle old, and don't like living all alone. Olney 
 is not what it was." 
 
 "I see how it is," said I; "all your old friends have [died 
 off, and you feel in the way among the young folks who jostlo 
 for the now paths." 
 
 Bucks replied approvingly, " Yes. Well, I suppose that's 
 about the size of it. But here's my station, Little-Buzzard ;
 
 38 'cross country. 
 
 so good morning to you, sur ! I wisli you a pleasant journey 
 and every excess." 
 
 Thus the Bvickinghamshire man and I parted. 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 OPENING A WILTSHIEE BAEEOTT. 
 
 "When a friendly letter came to me one bright day last spring, 
 from Oldbuck, a country squire down in Eamshire, that great 
 sheep-breeding country, begging me to come and assist at the 
 opening of one of the great Earn shire tumuli, I lost no time 
 in at once packing up my portmanteau and setting olf by the 
 S. W. E. to visit my old antiquarian friend, my chum at Eton, 
 and my comrade in the hunting field. 
 
 There is a charm in opening anything, whether it be a 
 parcel from the country, or a box of books, I like the first 
 analytic cut at a Stilton, the first ride over a new line of 
 country, the first dip of the line in a new stream. There is a 
 hope and expectancy about it, coupled with a mystery in the 
 unsounded depths of the untried, which I suppose produces the 
 pleasure. 
 
 But here the mystery sets one's antiquarian imagination in- 
 deed on the burn and on the boil. We might find a skeleton in 
 armour, one of Death's sentinels, Avith spear and sword laid ready 
 besides its flesliless hands. "We might for all I knew, dig 
 up Caractacus himself, or Boadicea's first cousin, or some silent 
 Briton who had seen Csesar, and drawn a bow at the legion- 
 aries. "We might see through the fresh, dark earth a great 
 gold torque, one of those collars of twisted bullion that the 
 ancient British kings wore, or one of those tiaras of gold plate 
 that the arch-Druids donned on great mistletoe-cutting festivals,, 
 when the men with the white and blue robes and the golden 
 sickles rehearsed iN'orma on the most tremendous scale iu the 
 oak forest, or round the sacred circles of grey stones. 
 
 A dog-cart, steered swiftly by Oldbuck, bore me from the-
 
 OPENING A WILTSHIRE BARROW. 39 
 
 station to the pretty Eamsliii-e cottage, where my antiquarian 
 bachelor friend hoards his flint-axes, elk-horns, torques, old 
 coins, and bronze spear-heads. All I remember that night was 
 a drive under a mile or two of black-boughed elms, among which 
 the stars seemed to hang like fruit, or like the little tapers that 
 twinkle in a Christmas-tree, a door opening into a glowing 
 room, a supper, some seething grog, and a plunge into a 
 feathery ocean of best bed. I dreamed of Caradoc and Vorti- 
 gern, of Boadieea in Bloomer dress and pink parasol, on a 
 velocipede leading a charge of perambulators on the X 
 Legion, Colonel Bibo commander. I remember a large modern 
 dinner party, Avith Oldbuck waving a knife and fork at one 
 end of the table, and sAvearing because the servants did not 
 bring the saddle of mountain ; and, when the joint did appear, 
 lo ! it was a great tumulus that covered all the table, and at 
 which we all began digging and scratching as if we were so 
 many rabbits. 
 
 Wlien I awoke next morning, I thought at first I was in a 
 cathedral, and Avas staring through a great crimson stained 
 windoAv, but it proved only to be the sun-light shining through 
 the red curtains. They were not angels as I had dreamed in 
 the choir, but the thrushes and blackbirds singing in the 
 laurels outside, boasting of their blue eggs, and their tlu-iving 
 families, and running ofi" such roulades and fiorituras for 
 all the Avorld like a set of angelic music-masters practising, 
 or a little choir of cherubim out for a holiday. "When I 
 wrenched myself from bed and looked out at the sky, the colour 
 of a forget-me-not, and saAV the sun actually blazing on the 
 glossy laurel leaves, and the sAvalloAvs studying entomology like 
 so many transmigrated Kirbys and Spences and Kev. Mr. 
 "White's of Selborne, I felt quite ashamed of myself in not 
 having been up to watch the pyrotechnics of a Kamshire sun- 
 rise, the only thing which Oldbuck acknoAvledges to be as good 
 as it was in the thirteenth century. 
 
 I was busy down stairs Avatching a monster of a speckled 
 thrush pulling a Avorm out of the laAvn, Avhich he did Avith a 
 give and take, pull-baker pull-devil principle, like a sailor boy 
 at a rope a little too heavy for him, when the breakfast gong
 
 40 'cross country. 
 
 went off and Oldbuck appeared instantly, like Zadkiel at the 
 same summons, in high spirits — with Colt Hoare's "Wiltshire 
 under his arm. It lay on the side table beside the frilled ham, 
 and was occasionally referred to during oixr meal by my enthu- 
 siastic friend. 
 
 Breakfast done, the dogs loosed, in case of a rabbit, off we 
 set to Peterwood, a fir plantation about a mile away on the 
 downs, where the resting-place of the ancient Briton we were 
 going to wake up, lay. The keepers were to meet us on the 
 upland with pickaxes, spades, and other resurrectionary appa- 
 ratus. 
 
 Oldbuck was great upon the pugnacious, illogical Celt, on 
 the boat-headed Pict, on the long-headed Scot, on the Belgae, 
 and the AUobroga), and the Cangi, on the slow struggle that 
 the Eomans had for llamshire, winning it red-inch by inch, and 
 dyking back the blue-painted deer- slayers with trenched camp 
 and palisade and mound : for the eagle was no dunghill cock, 
 and never turned back to its eyrie till it had driven its beak 
 clean into the brain and heart of its enemy. 
 
 It was such a day of soft burning blue, with now and then a 
 triumphal arch of rainbow for Queen April to pass under, weep- 
 ing like a bride in mingled joy and pleasure. The roadside 
 banks were starred with cowslips, weighed down by tax-collect- 
 ing bees, and under the tasselled hazels the royal purple of the 
 violets formed a carpet fit for the foot of Venus. As for the 
 bosoming white clouds, their edges were so round and sharp 
 cut that, had they been so much white paper cut out and 
 stuck against the sky, they could not have looked harder 
 edged ; but they perpetually changed shape so often, and 
 folded, and lifted, and scattered so much like snow turned into 
 vapour, that they relieved the inquisitive and unsatisfied mind. 
 In the farm-yards that we passed, the pigs Avere, as usual, 
 wallowing in the straw jungle, or lying on their sides in the 
 sun, in sleeping ecstacy ; while the cock, his crest trans- 
 parent crimson, Sultanised on the sunny side of the rick, 
 where the elder boughs were budding fresh and free as Aaron's 
 rod. 
 
 Now we reached the grizzled down, speckled with furze,
 
 OPENING A WILTSHIRE BxVRROW. 41 
 
 churlishly blossoming yellow amidst its thorns, and striking up 
 an old Eoman road, called the Ox Drove, we made straight for a 
 white board, with its legend warning oft* trespassers who could 
 not read, just on the skirts of the fir x^lantation, where the 
 barrow was. A long line of tumuli, the labours of that mo- 
 dern barrow-maker, the mole, pointed our way. A shout Irom 
 the interior of the wood showed us we were right, as Oldbuck, 
 quoting Chaucer, a sure sign of his being in the highest spu'its, 
 made a plunge among the firs, and I followed him. 
 
 Here was the Briton's burying-place— a low mound, covered 
 with scanty grass, and brown fir needles, and resinous scaly 
 'Sr cones, and just a violet or two, such as sprang from the 
 tears of the children in the wood. It had been nibbled away 
 by time, and rains, and heat, and the friction of winds, and 
 rabbits' feet, and foxes' scratching, till it was now a mere small 
 wen of earth, half hidden among the coppery fir-trees ; it was 
 very many centuries since that mound Avas soft, fresh earth, 
 and since the warm tears fell fast upon its surface. He has slept 
 long enough. " Very ancient Briton, it is time for you to rise. 
 It is a fine morning. Tou will find the country improved. 
 Steam, sii-, that wonderful invention, has revolutionised the 
 world. I will lend you Pinnock's Catechism, and you shall 
 read the History of the Norman Conquest, my good man. 
 These late habits never led to good." 
 
 The two keepers, who look like the sextons in Hamlet, are 
 of a coppery, winter-apple colour, and are of a strong build, 
 well adapted for grappling with poachers. They both wear 
 velveteen jackets, stained with hare's blood, and smeared with 
 fish slime, and their legs are cased in hard leather gaiters, that 
 look like greaves of rusty iron. To it they go, as if they 
 were digging for treasure, paring oft" the pads of turf, chopping 
 at the clawing roots of the firs, and picking out the broken 
 bones of mother earth, that men call flints, and geologists 
 sponges. 
 
 Oldbuck advised strongly at once cutting to the centre of 
 the mound on the Colt Hoare principle, in order to reach the 
 central burial chamber, which is generally found constructed 
 of four square stones. "VVe opened, therefore, two trenches, one
 
 42 'cross country. 
 
 in a perpendicular, and the otlier in a horizontal direction, so 
 as to meet in the centre. 
 
 Oldbuck took a shovel, I a spade, and we worked as well as 
 the best ; no navigators ever earned their wages more satis- 
 factorily than we did. The elder keeper, with the white moth 
 trout-flies round his rusty hat, toiled after us in vain. We 
 soon came upon the remains of bodies, at first merely small 
 finger bones, brown, and not unlike the mouthpieces of pipes, 
 then the ends of ribs, protruding like roots from the slabs of 
 clay, then empty boxes of skulls, men's and women's, then 
 puzzle-pieces of disjointed vertebrae. Oldbuck was in raptures. 
 
 Some bits of rude, black, unglazed pottery were next thrown 
 up, and the brown bones, piled up at the foot of a fir-tree, 
 began now to grow-into a heap that, when put together, would 
 have been sufficient to build up six or seven human beings. 
 But bronze spear head, or brooch, or Celt axe, we found not, 
 much to Oldbuck' s mortification. 
 
 I could not help thinking that as for the glazed pottery it 
 looked wonderfully like the fragment of a modern Briton's 
 black teapot ; but I dared not say so to Oldbuck, who was 
 hanging over it as Romeo might have done over Juliet's glove. 
 It was certainly the base of some culinary vessel, rudely 
 fashioned into a round shape, and totally without ornament, 
 not even that toothed edge, which so resembles the decoration 
 round the edge of a beef-steak pie, and which the modern cook's 
 knife so readily execvites. 
 
 As for the leg-bones, which had left moulds of themselves in 
 the clay they had so long been imbedded in, they were sadly 
 crumbly and porous, white thread-like roots of bent grass had 
 crept into their sockets, the blue poisonous fibres of couch- 
 grass had groAvn through their tubes, and matted round the 
 caps of the thigh bones. But the skulls, some male and some 
 female, sent Oldbuck into paroxysms of theories and into pro- 
 phetical utterances of new ethnological systems. 
 
 They were certaialy curious, and adapted to set one thinking 
 ahout the dwellers in the wattled houses, and the blue-stained 
 men who had trod the pleasant downs of Eamshire so many 
 centuries ago. Oldbuck declared violently that they served to
 
 OPENING A WILTSHIRE BARROW. 43 
 
 establish iugenious Mr. Wright's theory about the deformed 
 skulls found at Uriconium where the Eomau swords had 
 operated upon them. 
 
 They were of a mean ape-like character, low, flat, and with 
 scarcely an inch of forehead, though the bones over the eyes 
 (where the perceptive faculties are situated) were coarsely 
 prominent. They might have belonged to a sort of aborignal 
 race, scarcely of greater mental capacity than the Bushman, 
 that had been destroyed by the Celt. The bones of the male 
 skulls were of enormous thickness, twice the thickness of skulls 
 of our owTi day ; so thick that a bronze axe could hardly have 
 split them ; while the female skulls were thin as terra-cotta, 
 and fragile as delicate pie-crust. Oldbvick suggested that the 
 men, bareheaded, were out all day in the fen and forest ; while 
 the women remained in their huts, so that their bones remained 
 finer and softer. I reminded him of the old story in Herodotus 
 of the battle-field, when it was easy to tell the Persian's from 
 the Egyptian's skull, because the one that had always been 
 kept coddled in a turban was soft, and could be cracked by a 
 stone, while the other, that had been ever exposed to the sun 
 and wind, resisted the utmost degree of violence. Oldbuck 
 kneading some clay out of the ca-\T.ty of a Briton's skull witli 
 his finger and thumb, said the story was "very well indeed," 
 and he would make a note of it for his paper on the subject of 
 this barrow. 
 
 Some teeth, too, that we found set Oldbuck ofi" again. They 
 were of a curious, low, animal kind, very narrow and long, more 
 like the front incisor teeth of a beaver than a man's. They had 
 belonged to a young man in the age before dentists ; they were 
 still covered with beautiful white enamel, and their edges Avere 
 not the least worn — only just a little deer's flesh the owner 
 had gnawed ; then, the struggle of swords, the blazing huts, 
 the glare of the advancing eagle — then darkness, and this 
 long sleep under the moimd. 
 
 All this while that Ave mused and ravelled out our dim 
 theories, the fir wood was pulsing with the brooding, motherly 
 note of the innumerable Avood pigeons, the leaping squirrels 
 eyed us from above, the little birds, j^erpetually thanking God,
 
 44 CROSS COUNTRY. 
 
 sang their secrets to each otTier among the bristling fir-apples, 
 and over the golden floor of moss and the last year's leaA^es 
 raced the rabbits, frightened, yet purposely and uurestrainably 
 inquisitive. 
 
 " And here, then," cried Oldbuck, putting himself in a Hamlet 
 ^Dosition, with a skull of the low barbaric type in the palm of 
 his thin, pale, intellectual hand, " under these draughty trees, 
 with the surf sounding ever through their prophesying branches, 
 -must this Bushman tribe of himters and fishermen have dwelt, 
 long centuries ago. Here their women must have cooked the 
 deer's flesh, and plaited the wattled huts, and spread the fern 
 leaves for the beds, and prepared the arrows, and nursed 
 the children ; here the sinewy men, with the low brows and 
 blue-stained limbs, must have wielded the flint-axe, darted 
 the spear, and raced with naked feet over the springy down, 
 with no thought of Eome, or of the swift-winged eagle, till one 
 brooding day came the legionaries in close phalanx, with a 
 blaze of gold and purple, with a cloud of stones from the slings 
 heralding their approach, and stinging showers of arrows from 
 the light armed. They circle the wood, there is a crash of axes, 
 a jar of swords, a burst of groans and curses, keen flames start 
 np in a sudden volcano of vengeance ; then a great silence, and 
 through the twilight I see grassy mounds rising on the skirts 
 of the wood, looking towards the lower country." 
 
 Here the keeper wiped his forehead, and threw out some 
 more bones, with a reflection that they were "mortal old," 
 which seemed to cover all he thought upon the subject, though 
 he did go on to tell us that the barrow we were opening was in 
 a line with two others, some distance off", and that the trench 
 from which the earth was taken for the barrow then specially 
 under consideration, was still to be seen a few hundred yards 
 ofi". It was his " kippur's " opinion that the large flmts found 
 immediately over the bones were trod in upon them for security, 
 and with malice aforethought. The "kippur" also was of 
 opinion that the black particles here and there among the earth 
 were wood ashes, whether placed there on purpose or not he 
 could not tell, not he. 
 
 Oldbuck here remarked that it became me to observe that
 
 OPENING A WILTSHIRE BARROW. 45 
 
 tlie six or seven bodies Lad evidently been buried in a hurry, as 
 after a battle or massacre, and had cei'tainly not been interred 
 with decency, or with care, or affectionate consideration. Had 
 this tumulus been that of a chieftain's in time of peace, it 
 woiJd have contained amber beads, or gold torque, or spear 
 head, or flint axe. 
 
 Here the "kippur," who had been examining the barbaric 
 skull, put his enormous dirty notched thumb on a dent in it, 
 and asked Oldbuck, sharply, " "What that was ?" Oldbuck at 
 once — with an antiquarian's usual daring imaginativeness — 
 boldly said, " An evident contusion from the blow of a blunt 
 instrument, probably an axe;" which seemed to satisfy the 
 keepei', and set him digging more savagely than ever. Oldbuck 
 bade me observe that the bones lay all near the centre of the 
 mound, and towards either side beyond the centre they ceased 
 altogether. 
 
 Oldbuck was very entertaining on his way with me to the 
 station. He told me how the finest gold collar ever found in 
 Britain had been discovered in the loose earth that a fox had 
 scratched out ; how in Scotland a curious helmet of the Bruce 
 period was foimd jammed between two rocks ; and how in 
 Ireland the relic case] of a bell of great antiquity was dis- 
 covered on the top of a mountain, where, if not placed by 
 some rebels for safety, it must have remained for centuries. 
 
 "Wliat a walk back we had over those Eamshire downs, where 
 the young winds seem to be put out to nurse. "What mists of 
 liquid opal and pearl veiled the grassy slopes, what white fans 
 of sunbeams pointed me out my way to Chalkton, whose grey 
 steeple I could see in the distance with the gilt weathercock 
 on its apex, blazing as if it were melting in the sunshine. How 
 beautiful are the diflerent cloudy blues of the distances getting 
 more radiant and spectral as they receded from you. 
 
 The awkward hares limped before us on the dark chocolate- 
 coloured fallows, or over the broad dim sward of the down, 
 speckled black with furze-bushes, or round by the dark batta- 
 lions of firs that seemed filing down to meet some invisible 
 commander-in-chief at some special spot of concentration. 
 The rabbits cantered over the road as if running perpetual
 
 46 • 'cross country. 
 
 errands, and tlie bladcbirds cliinked and shot to and fro like 
 pall-Biaker's black slnittles. 
 
 The shadows raced before us along the broad white road, 
 putting out the sunshine with £tful extinguishment, having the 
 effect of an opening and closing eye perpetually on us as we 
 walked. Even the old battered milestones, grey with lichen 
 and spotted orange here and there, cheered us by their les- 
 senincf numbers, and soon the brown thatched roofs and white 
 walls of Chalkton appeared before us in a vision of sunlight. 
 
 Hearty red faces were on the platform, and round hats and 
 pleasant eyes under them ; and just as the train came champing 
 and snorting up, sleAving round its vertebrated back and tail, 
 Oldbuck shook my hand warmly, and slipped into it the brain- 
 pan of an ancient Briton, as a remembrance of the opening of 
 a Eam shire barrow. 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 MY FIRST AND LAST EAILWAT COLLISION. 
 
 If you mount the steps leading to No. 3, Upas-ti'ee Court, 
 Inner Temple (third floor, left hand), you will find on the outer 
 door, in Avhite letters, black rimmed, on an oak ground, my 
 name. 
 
 On a foggy morning on the twenty- second November, that 
 gentleman (myself) had resolved to go down on important legal 
 business (first brief) to Wiltshire, my native county, 
 
 I was deep in a legal dream, and wandering through a cloudy 
 "Westminster, where difficulties entangled me, and getting into 
 a sort of Castle-in the-Air Chancery, when I was knocked back 
 into life by Mrs. Dustall, my laundress, calling out, 
 
 " Seven o'clock, sir, and such a nasty morning." 
 
 (She needn't have said that.) Thump went my boots. In 
 a moment I was splashing in my bath like a tame merman 
 learning swimming. But something troubled me, and hung 
 about me, like a damp shirt. What was it ? 
 
 IT "WAS A PEE SENTIMENT. 
 
 A foreboding of evil it was, and I will say it to the day my
 
 MT FIRST AND LAST RAILAVAY COLLISIOX. 47 
 
 death, and would have said so even if notliing liad liappened. 
 It was as a nail in my boot, as a whitlow on my hand ; as an 
 invisible millstone it hung about my neck ; and I coidd not 
 find the string that tied it on, so that I might cut it. 
 
 Breakfast. Butter in pats, clean-stamped as Greek cameos, 
 bread floury white, toast warm and absorbent, tea balmy and 
 fragrant as Nepenthe — Avhich some suppose it was — mutton- 
 chop juicy as a peach. 
 
 " Mrs. Dustall, tie on that direction. See if that barrel of 
 oysters has come. There ! bless me ! I've forgotten my boot- 
 jack ! Strap up that portmanteau. Thank you, Mrs. Dustall. 
 Now call a cab." The laundress runs to St. Clement's cab- 
 stand, soured at being driven out in curling papers into the 
 cold and wide, wide world. She calls the seven-caped cabman 
 reading aloft, upon his aerial seat, his reeking Daily Telegraph. 
 But I take five minutes more to glance at the Times. 
 
 French Invasion. Leader on Thames Drainage. Another 
 
 leader — Abolition of the Lord Mayor's Show, &c. A bottom 
 
 paragraph, at the bottom of the third column of the fifth 
 
 page: 
 
 "terrible railway accident." 
 
 Let me skim it. " Carelessness of pointsman — red signal 
 mistaken for blue. Old story — foggy weather. Only three 
 men killed — stoker mortally injured." Cambridge line, of 
 course. Old story — Why not hang a director ? "Who cares to 
 read railway accidents ? 
 
 " Oh, cab ! Thank you, Mrs. Dustall. Call the Cabby up for 
 my trunk and hat-box. Mind and send my letters on. Keep 
 my door safe shut. Good-by !" 
 
 I longed to breathe on the "Wiltshire downs, where the strong- 
 limbed hares enjoy a vacation uninterrupted by the opening of 
 law courts, and where rabbits are regardless of "Westminster. 
 Tidd is on my hat-box, a neat little book on Eeal Property in my 
 great-coat pocket. I was ofi". I passed through the black 
 jaws of Temple Bar, but for one trifling regret, a free and 
 happy man. I knew that in less than an hour I should pass, 
 as out of a cave,' from the tawny city fog into the briglit autumn 
 air, -with just a dash of ice in it, so that the streams wliich bi-
 
 48 'cross country. 
 
 sect our partridge stubble-fields down iu Wiltsliire will look 
 like iced sherry aud water. 
 
 But "there's always a somethink," as .my laundress, Mrs. 
 Dustallj who is given to forming proverbial lozenges from her 
 life experiences, says ; and there Avas " somethink" now. We 
 all of us have Damocles' swords hanging over our turtle-soup 
 dishes. There is always (if I may use the homely but most 
 powerful simile) a button off the shirt of our temper. There 
 is always a corn twitching upon the mental foot ; so that our 
 perfect balance of health, temper, and wealth is not very long 
 torrether maintained. 
 
 A fretful presentiment of a key lost, or a desk left unlocked, 
 buzzed about me like a little mosquito demon. In and out it 
 went, almost visible, through this cab window and out at the 
 other. "What was it ? I locked my dressing-case, my studs 
 are all right in my shirt-front, my desk I put away in a fire- 
 proof cupboard. Wliat Avas it ? " There's indeed always a 
 somethink," philosophical Mrs. Dustall ! 
 
 I crane out of window : yes, trunk with the red star all right, 
 parchment label fluttering prettily in the wind ; hamper, " Glass 
 with care ;" all chained to the rail on the roof of the cab ; hat- 
 box, plaid, umbrella in oilskin case all right. Yet still that mos- 
 quito of evil. Still the demon gnat flying over my nerves. 
 "What can it be that pinches me like a tight boot, and yet has 
 no name? I have it. It was that I'ailway accident I was 
 readinc/, falling upon that previous presentiment ; it was that 
 which, finding some unguarded loophole of my nerves, had got 
 in, disagreed with me, and done the mischief Strange that I, 
 who have skimmed over hundreds of railway accidents, to get 
 quickly to the end and see the total deaths, should be moved 
 by the loss of three men on the famous Eastern Counties ! 
 
 I arrive at the station. A slamming of doors, the wave of a 
 red hand-flag, a smother of white steam imder the station roof, 
 and we are ofi": shot out into the fog, that wraps us at once 
 in its dingy arms : rattle, battle— that is the brick walling by 
 the engine sheds'; clamp, champ — that is the great fire-horse,, 
 striking out its brave limbs ; jolt, rattle ! jolt, battle ! — that is 
 crossing the tvirn-tables : that fellow in the green corduroy
 
 MY FIRST AND LAST RAILWAY COLLISION. 49 
 
 jacket, beudiug ou tlie low crank-handle, is, I believe, the 
 pointsman. 
 
 " Pointsman :" — something bit me, as if a flea had got into 
 my mind. Wliy, that is what they called the fellow killed yester- 
 day at Splashread Bridge, on the Eastern Counties line. What 
 malicious demon is it puts these things into a nervous man's 
 head just as he is settling himself comfortably in the corner of 
 a railway carriage, with Tidd on the seat before him, and a neat 
 little book onEeal Property fastened to it by a strap ? I sup- 
 pose it is that special small demon whose peculiar province it 
 is to disturb men's equilibrium, and generally unchristianise 
 one by blimting one's penknife, spoiling one's pen, ironing 
 off one's shirt-buttons, mislaying one's studs, making one's 
 boots pinch, and rendering it impossible to arrange one's white 
 tie with the bow anywhere but at the back of the neck. The 
 fog thins ; it is getting positively bright, though we are not at 
 Kingston yet ; fields vtdden, trees and hedges flow by us as if 
 an inundation was bearing them away, or as if we were in the 
 ark, and were drifting on fast past them, 
 
 Tliree stations soon distanced. "Whiz, faster ! — whiz, faster ! 
 slide like a bullet through a gun barrel. Wlaiz ! — that's a viaduct 
 arch. Wliish ! — click ! — clack ! that's another station and some 
 shunting rails. 
 
 Plight of white telegraph washing-lines, miles of signal posts, 
 and split red and white targets, and dull red and green lamps, 
 like prize jewels. Paster, till it takes the breath away. Out 
 with the repeater and time it. Past as the pulse — one, two, 
 three ! — fifty miles an hour if it is a yard. 
 
 Slower ! slower ! now we slacken ! I thought we could not 
 hold the pace. Slower ! My opposite friend gets anxious and 
 looks out of window. We can't be going to stop at Parn- 
 borough station ? . . , 
 
 Ceasii ! SMASH ! BASH ! 
 Here imagine the end of the world. Pauey yourselves animal- 
 culse, shut up by accident inside a huge Brol)dignag farmer's 
 watch with a hizz, whiz, and centrifugal railway rush, when 
 snap goes the mainspring. Imagine those small creatures' 
 feelings of horror, surprise, and astonishment, and you 
 
 E
 
 50 'cross country. 
 
 have ours, minus the fear. I felt uo uerve sliakeu, tliough 
 my head was giddy and my spine was numbed. Imagine a 
 solitary man in a factory when a boiler bursts in the room 
 above, and the mill falls to pieces like a card house suddenly 
 round his ears. Imagine a quiet man looking out of his bed- 
 room wuidow, accidentally, as he is shaving, and seeing the de- 
 luge coming up to the front door for a morning visit. Imagine 
 a Pompeian just home from Athens, and awoke by the red 
 lava stealing under his bedroom door. * * * 
 
 Bano- ! shiver ! smash ! bash ! then an awful luU and death- 
 stop as of a mainspring run out. It was as if the train had 
 been struck full butt by a successful Armstrong shot. It 
 was as if we had been riding inside a battering ram, and had 
 at last come full smash on a wall which had been too much 
 for us. I never rode on a cannon-ball, and don't want to do 
 so ; but an eighty-pounder when it beats in a French ship's 
 bidwarks could scarcely, I think, hit harder than this. 
 
 Open fly the doors, some dozen white-faced men sprang 
 through the windows like harlequins in a practising class, out 
 poured the frightened people, lately so red and jolly ; but a 
 minute ago flirting, dogmatising, sneering, scandalising, frown- 
 ino-, disputing, now all fuU of one thought of terror, all become, 
 in that one terrible moment, as brothers and sisters : so level- 
 ling is misfortune. "We were lately in a good ship, all sail set, 
 flags flying, no danger aft or fore or on the lee. Suddenly 
 we had struck on a reef; we were leaking— we were suiking— 
 we were a total wreck. Heaven knew only what still was left 
 for us. It might be but a moment to live for some of us. 
 Perhaps already bleeding men were groaniug their last under 
 that pile of ruin where the red flame rose from. 
 
 The guards, white as wood ashes, were running about, flags 
 in hand, like the fuglemen of a scattered regiment. Far away 
 to the left, at the end where the charge had been, the engine, 
 a heap of broken metal, was roaring like a lion taken in the 
 toils, and sending up waving pillars of flames ; its wood- work 
 had taken fire, and was spreading to the fragments of the next 
 
 carriage. 
 
 As for the passengers embracing, or silent in staggered
 
 MY FIRST AND LAST RAILWAY COLLISION. 51 
 
 groups, tiiey were unanimously white iu the face. One strong- 
 faced man was being helped from a carriage, his face seeming 
 to ooze everywhere with blood. A lady was carried away, 
 cut, bruised, and nearly insensible, to the little shed of a station. 
 A young farmer, seated on his striped carpet bag, was covering 
 his face with his hands to squeeze out a jarring braiuache, pro- 
 duced by his being di'iven against a man opposite. Others 
 stunned, shaken, and bruised, were consoling, or being con- 
 soled, or running to see what damage had been done to the 
 train, and what danger still existed. There were messengers 
 racing to Farnborough, three miles off, to telegraph to 
 London for help ; there were guards and porters running up 
 and dovNTi the line to put up danger signals, and keep trains 
 nearly due from heaping more ruin on us. 
 
 My presentiment had then come true. 
 
 My first business, on seeing no lielp was needed, was to wrap 
 up my plaid and books, and run to the ruin of the engine and 
 the actual spot of the smash. I found that we had driven, at 
 almost express speed, into a ponderous goods train, laden witk 
 timber and blocks of asphalte, massive and unyielding as stone. 
 This we liad partly driven back and stove in, pounding the 
 guard carriage behind to rags and pulp. On this bulwark our 
 own engine had beaten itself to pieces, by a series of leans, 
 jolts, and charges : it lay a wreck, the funnel torn to pieces 
 and scattered about the platform, the iron plates jammed in, as 
 if they were deal wainscoting ; the buffers broken to morsehi ; 
 the giant wheels dismounted and buried in the earth; the 
 whole crushed and powerless as a silenced battery. 
 
 Beyond, and some yards further, lay the timber-truck, its 
 roof torn off ; at a distance lay the planks splintered ; as for 
 the guard-carriage, it was torn to pieces as a band-box might 
 be when a drunken man has stamped on it and trod it 
 to bits. It lay in pulpy shreds and fragments as of rotten 
 wood, without shape and void, and out of the pounded mass — 
 reduced as in a pestle and mortar, iu a desperate attempt of 
 some starving apothecary to make deal soup — we picked a torn 
 rag with a fragment of the stoker's bread-and-cheese, and two 
 
 E 2
 
 52 CROSS COUNTRY. 
 
 jammed and squeezed red books of by-laws, wbicli looked as 
 if tbey had been disinterred at Pompeii. 
 
 But the torn planks and broken iron, and snapped-off wheels 
 and rods, were as nothing to us — though tkey rose, like the ruins 
 of a cottage destroyed by a hurricane, on the rails — when the 
 fire of the engine began roaring up in a smoky red and yellow 
 pyramid, with a bellow and troubled roar as if howling for vic- 
 tims. There, busy amid the ruins, the scared fireman and black- 
 faced stoker were shovelling in gravel to prevent the boiler 
 bursting or the flame spreading. Before the great leaping-out 
 violence we all fell back like the Babylonians in the old prints 
 Avhen the furnace doors were opened to swallow up the children 
 of Israel, and the furnace was heated " seven times hotter than 
 it was wont to be heated :" we were all then, I suppose, in 
 that unconscious state of excitement, that if the earth had sud- 
 denly opened and swallowed us all up, train, wreck, passengers, 
 we should hardly have made a remark. 
 
 Having once seen the pile of debris, carriage roofs, iron bars, 
 planks, and wheels, I employed myself, in accordance with old 
 habits, in beating slowly over the whole scene of the disaster, 
 determined by graphic observations, fresh as I was to such 
 scenes, to realise fully the horror and danger of such accidents. 
 As I walked along the line of carriages, here and there crushed 
 or sprung, the first thing I stepped on was a round bar of iron 
 or steel, thicker than my wrist when my two coats are on ; it 
 had been, I imagine, part of the under work of the engine, and 
 was snapped short in two. The next thing I picked up was a 
 jagged piece of the funnel, still black and smoking : it now 
 stands on my mantelpiece, a lively record of my escape. I also 
 found and handled a huge screw made of iron, bound with 
 brass, which, perhaps, had formed the inner socket of one of 
 the buffers. It was cleft in two, as a sharp knife would chop 
 an apple at one stroke. 
 
 Under the carriages, blocks of iron, like the fastenings of 
 sleepers, were strewn for thirty or forty yards ; and in one of 
 the carriages ten or twelve from the engine, the floor planks 
 were torn up in great jags, protruding three or four feet, show- 
 ing beneath them (between them and the ground) broken
 
 MY riPtST AND LAST RAILWAY COLLISION. 53 
 
 \rood, iron lioopiug, and huge gutta-percha cii'cular slabs — 
 probably breaks or springs — torn violently in two. On one seat 
 lay a crumpled Times, with holes rent in it ; and on another a 
 tumbled shawl, the fringe of which was entangled in the teeth 
 of the splintered and started planks. When I remembered an 
 old tradition about railway accidents, recommendiug you in 
 such cases to lie down flat on the floor, I trembled to think of 
 the paralysed victims of such a theoretical folly. 
 
 Now we were all safe, some of us began to grow cheerful, 
 wishing to remove the ladies' fear. A young barrister who 
 was near me, proposed, if we were kept many hours waiting? 
 to attack the luggage-van, and distribute the barrels of oysters 
 among the hungry passengers. Others asked the guards at 
 what o'clock the next collision would take place. I believe we 
 were all grateful to Grod for our escape. We must have been 
 scarcely human if we had not been ; but the mind, when over- 
 strained, finds comfort in such relief, and so, to the end of tho 
 world, droll witnesses at murder trials and odd events at the 
 reading of wills must produce an irresistible laugh. 
 
 While we were waiting for the express engine laden w^ith 
 navvies from London, and for help from Farnborough, I strolled 
 away from the reassured passengers through a side gate, to 
 which a farmer's gig was tied, and walked along the quiet 
 country road, enjoying the calm fresh sunlight and the bright 
 chill Xovember blue air. 
 
 It was humiliating to man, the monarch of the universe, to 
 see what little efiect the all but death of some three hundred 
 human beings had caused the animal and vegetable kingdom of 
 lleetpond, near Farnborough. The white and dun cows were 
 feeding leisurely and untroubled in the meadows, the rooks were 
 tossing about over the heath, the sparrows were visiting from 
 tree to tree, and the dead leaves were fistling in troops down 
 the lanes as if returning gay, in companies, from the funeral of 
 Summer. And there, where the beech shone red, and the few 
 birch leaves, dry, and yellow, and wrinkled, were wet and 
 golden with the morning dew, I could hear a farmer pulling 
 up his gig on the crown of the red-brick railway arch, just 
 above where the trains' smoke had blackened it, discoursing as
 
 54 'cross country. 
 
 an eye-witness of tlie late collision or duel of tlie trains. Thus 
 lie put it to the friend he met, pointing with a shake of his fat 
 head at the wreck. I was a long way from him, but I have the 
 keen, practised ears of a liunter, and the air was clear and 
 resonant, so, puttiug my head on one side, I caught it all as in 
 a net: 
 
 " Lookun here, Friend Jackson, I was just crossing this 
 bridge when th' express passed, and by the time I got up to 
 yon, where the lady and children are coming, I sees the other 
 train on the same line. I knew there would be something 
 happen, so I push the old mare to a gallop and got up just as 
 Tir run into un." 
 
 He was not a graphic man, and seemed to have no further 
 thought of the accident. 
 
 One thing was quite apparent, and formed my moral of the 
 affair : — that it is the universal custom in railway collisions to 
 hush up everything as much and as soon as possible. The broken 
 iron was spirited away, the doors of the carriages where the 
 floors were crushed were closed, the bruised persons led away, the 
 ruins patched up, and the earth smoothed over the might-have- 
 been grave as craftily and quickly as possible. Every moment 
 the memory of the guards became more and more indifferent. 
 A fog every moment opaquer rose between us and the accident. 
 No one was hurt, nothing was injured. The engine, worth two 
 thousand pounds, was a trifle, and might be repaired. The 
 stoker was unharmed. The line would soon be cleared- We 
 should be sent on to Basingstoke, where the Salisbury train was 
 waiting us. It was no one's fault ; no guard present had ever 
 been in more than two collisions before. The head porter at 
 Earnborough thought it better not to speak ; it was " not his 
 place, you know," and the company did not like speaking. 
 Ton never, from anybody, could have gathered that we, the 
 express train, had run into a goods train that ought not to have 
 been on the line, that they were shunting to get out of our way 
 a bad ten minutes too late ; and lastly, that danger signals, 
 both at station and on train, if up, had been utterly useless, 
 and had been disregarded. One would really never have
 
 MY FIRST AND LAST RAILWAY COLLISION. 55 
 
 tliought that three hundred Englishmen had just been driven 
 over a place of graves and escaped by a miracle. 
 
 The next morning, as I sat at a quiet rectory wdndovr in 
 Wiltshire, I opened the Times and read the following : 
 
 " Feightful Accident ok the London and South- 
 western Eailwat. — An accident of a very alarming character, 
 and which might have been attended by a most fearful sacrifice 
 of human life, occurred on Tuesday at mid-day at the Pleet- 
 pond station of the London and South-Western Eailway. It 
 appears that the 11 A.ii. express train left the Waterloo ter- 
 minus at the fixed time, and proceeded with safety, notwith- 
 standing the density of the fog which prevailed, until within a 
 few miles of its first stoppage, Basingstoke, where it was due 
 at 12.15. The Fleetpond station is a very small place, and the 
 ofiicials there having a goods train in charge, proceeded to shunt 
 it, in order to allow the express train to pass. To prevent any 
 accident the usual signals were displayed at the station and by 
 the goods train, but it would appear that, owing to the fog or 
 some other cause, the driver of the express train could not see 
 them ; nor were the men at the station aware of the approach 
 of that train, for without any warning the express rushed 
 tlu-ough past the station at a rapid rate, and crushed the back 
 portion of the goods train. The collision was most fearful, and 
 it is nothing short of a miracle that the lives of a large num- 
 ber of people were not sacrificed. The locomotive belonging 
 to the express train — a very magnificent engine, worth upwards 
 of £2000— was almost broken to pieces ; the tender and guard's 
 van of the express train were also destroyed, as were likewise 
 a number of the trucks belonging to the goods train. The 
 shrieks of the passengers were awful, and it was feared at first 
 that several were killed ; as soon, however, as the first shock 
 was over, an investigation was made, and it was found that, 
 although the passengers had received a terrible shaking, and 
 several were more or less bruised, yet no loss of life had occur- 
 red. It may be a matter of surprise how the driver and stoker 
 of the train escaped with their lives, considering that the engine 
 was destroyed ; but we arc informed that these two men, on
 
 56 CROSS COUNTRY. 
 
 seeing the immiueBt danger tliey were in, threw themselves 
 down, and thus escaped injury. Information of the catastrophe 
 was at once forwarded to the "Waterloo station, and a number 
 of men were immediately despatched to render what assistance 
 they could, and to clear the line, but, fortunately, the line had 
 been cleared before their arrival, so that the traffic on the rail- 
 way was not impeded." 
 
 All the evening of the day of the collision I felt like a man 
 who has been thrown heavily out hunting, not bone-broken, 
 but jarred from top to heel, with brow headache and general 
 sense of disturbance. Now I began to understand why timid 
 men shut the carriage window when a black tunnel swallows 
 them: why, when a train slackens speed or stops, a dozen 
 staring, a nxiousheads emerge like tortoises from carriage win- 
 dows. Now I know why fretful men tlirust the reeking Times 
 into your hands just as you leave a station, and with fore- 
 fingers jammed on a small paragraph about a collision, ask you 
 angrily if " it isn't shameful, sir ?" 
 
 CHAPTER Yll. 
 
 A EIDE TO STONEHENGE. 
 
 "We were lapped in a rose-coloured cloud the last five miles 
 from Salisbury to Wilton, as the train that bore me towards 
 the breezy "Wiltshire downs drove through the sunset which 
 tinged red the white vapours that drifted on either side of us 
 from the wide black cannon-mouth of the engine funnel. I 
 imagined myself in that " ship of the gods," or divine balloon, 
 so famous in Hindoo mythology. I was rushing through the 
 clouds at the rate of forty miles an hour : did the old Pagan 
 divinity travel faster than our modem Clnistian mortality ? — I, 
 trow not. 
 
 Need I say what I noted down as interesting from the square, 
 window of my padded carriage ? Pancies not worth the noting.
 
 A EIDE TO STONEHENGE. 57 
 
 the reader may perhaps think : " stubbles bristling like yellow 
 hair-brushes;" "green weeds wavering on the brook like drowned 
 Opheha's hair, or a mermaid's emerald tresses ;" " the shy 
 slant, shunting off the rooks as they cross the train's double- 
 columned path ;" — verse-notes, such as " a crow song :" 
 
 " With a flapping, flap, flap, flap." 
 
 At length I, a knight-errant of literature free for a day from 
 the smoky riot and the swampy mud of Babylon, shut up my 
 note-book, pocket my pencil, and lie back to hear tlie gossip of 
 the carriage ; a second-class carriage, full of damask-cheeked 
 country people, hearty, honest, and luitroubled by fears and 
 suspicions. There is a large farmer, whose broad stomach is 
 tapestried by a huge flowered waistcoat, whose seals are as big 
 as a child's fist ; and some young country " chaps " out for a 
 holiday. Their eyes converse in kindly exchange, but their 
 tongues are not fluent. Listen to them for a moment, just as 
 if you put your ear to a countiug-house spealdng tube. " Well, 
 Jim, how was you?" " Well, I be nicely. How's mother ?" 
 " Thankee, she be purely. And how's Harry ?" " Pust rate." 
 " That's right. Where be you going ?" " T' old folks." 
 " Tliat's bravely." 
 
 Here I cork up the tube. After some discussion on wool, a 
 sharp little man in the corner, with staring blood-shot eyes and 
 a droll mouth, informs us generally that there was a capital 
 card in the carriage with him from Warminster — "a good'un, 
 sure-/y ;" he had a bottle of port and a bottle of brandy, had 
 the good'im. It appeared he had distributed the fluid largely, 
 particularly to the little tailor with the tell-tale eye-balls ; he 
 was volubly enraptured ^vith the wit and vivacity of the 
 " good'un," who seemed to have been a returned digger ; for at 
 the stations where he got out for beer to wash down the port 
 and brandy, he had always called to them to make haste, for 
 "the big smoke" (tlie train) was just going off. The little 
 tailor was (episodically) severe against the modem banltruptcy 
 laws, and advised any one who was going to fail to do it for a 
 large sum while he was about it. He was also satirical on the 
 severity of rich men on poor men's deliucj[uencies, particularly
 
 58 'cross country. 
 
 drunkenness (here lie innocently smiled). If poor So-and-So 
 got drunk at his club-feast and missed work next morning, Mr. 
 So-and-So was astonished, and stopped the day out of his wages ; 
 but if Mr. So-aud-So was the worse for liquor, lord he Avas at 
 his own house, and could get from under the table without being 
 seen, steal off to bed, and tell every one next day he had been 
 confined with a cold. " Oh, I know all their tricks," said be, 
 and his eyes grew redder and funnier than ever. 
 
 " Ashcliff," cries the guard, and the little tailor, rolling out 
 n small avalanche tied up in a blue handkei'chief from under 
 the seat, wishes all the gentlemen a very good morning. The 
 door slams — the whistle sounds — and we are away. 
 
 Then, to break the silence, a muffled-up man with a weak 
 voice, and a wrapper round his mouth to give him still more of 
 a conspirator effect, begins about America. He vfas on board 
 the " Arab," going to America, when Mrs. TroUope was writing 
 her impressions of a country she had not yet seen. He 
 wondered where Catlin was gone to ? — Catliu, whom he had 
 travelled with down the Yellow Stone Eiver, when the Black- 
 feet were on the banks looking for buffalo. He had complaints 
 of the arrogance of John Fenimore Cooper. He had laughed 
 with Sam Slick at his Novia Scotia stories. He had seen Irving 
 at Astor House. He chatted about Barnum's ploughing with 
 elephants, and starting an exhibition of photographs of all the 
 unmarried beauties in America. He had been in the theatre 
 the night when the papers Avere to be read, in competition for 
 the pi-ize of one hundi'ed guineas, offered by the Editor of the 
 New Orleans Picayune for the greatest lie that could be in- 
 vented. The hotel dinners in America, were they good ? He 
 should rather think so. Once, at Cincinnati, a man cried to 
 him 'cross the table, " Why, stranger, we began together, yet 
 you've got down to prairie turkey, and I am only at my 
 roast meat. I guess, if you carry on business half as smart as 
 you do eating, you'll lick every tarnation soul in this darned 
 great city." The fact was, the poor fellow had thought it 
 necessary to eat his way right tlirough the bill of fare. The 
 Indian element in the Yankee blood, the effect of a subtle 
 climate on the Saxon brain, and the result of the junction of
 
 A RIDE TO STONEHENGE. 59 
 
 Irish and American fun, kept lis talking till tlie guard cried 
 " Wilton," and I had to shake Mystery by the hand, and wish 
 him good-bye. 
 
 I was soon in the Wiltshire Inn, where the landlady, a portly 
 dame with the softest bloom of rose possible npon her cheek, 
 received me with due formula. In sheets well blanched and 
 lavendered I rehearsed my burial, and lowered myself down 
 into a temporary grave of sleep. Next morning, directly after 
 breakfast, I had my horse saddled, to start for Stonehenge. 
 
 While the horse is preparing, and his stable toilette is com- 
 pleting, I go into the inn-yard. The stable-door was a sort of 
 Family Bible to the ostler. It was a genealogical tree, a bundle 
 of Fasti, a Eagman's EoU, a Doomsday Book, all in one, to the 
 sporting landlord. It was nailed on the inside with four or 
 five tiers of racers' shoes, inside each of which semicircles was 
 a narrow slip of parchment, inscribed with the horse's name 
 and deeds. Such names, and such deeds ! suggestive of glossy, 
 satin- coated chestnuts ; flea-bitten greys ; pepper-speckled 
 blacks ; white-nosed jet mares ; strong-chested and sure-limbed 
 fiery roans, to whom rails were mole-hills, and seventeen-feet- 
 wide brooks petty obstacles to snort and fly over ; all duly 
 recorded in broad, clumsy, or fairy shoes. 
 
 The inn was a pleasant little Wiltshire cottage, with a pen- 
 dant bird's nest of an oriel window hanging over the porch ; 
 just such a one as you might expect Benedict, in slashed blue 
 hose and carnation-coloured cloak, to serenade with theorbos 
 in the dead of night. The grey thatch looks neat and grave as 
 the combed- doAvn hair of a rustic on Sunday. There is a sort 
 of Sabbath peace in the air ; a truce of Grod is in the sky, 
 those larks going up through the blue are its heralds. God 
 bless them ! The laurels glitter in the sun like so many little 
 emerald mirrors; the standard roses struggle with the bass 
 bandages that imprison their young beauties to the old dead 
 sticks, their withered husbands. I can read the titles on their 
 curled and sodden parchment labels, as they flutter with gay 
 promises in the January sun,—" La Eeine Margot," " La belle 
 Duchesse." The crisp sharp grass glitters with a rainbow 
 blossom of dew that, out of the suu, lies on it in a grey plush
 
 60 'cross country. 
 
 gloss, like tlie nap on new cloth of silver. I can see the foot- 
 prints, duller and deeper in colour, where the landlord has 
 passed this morning, to go and pick Brussels sprouts. They 
 trend round by that empty pond, where the dimple which is 
 the spring is candied over with ice, just as you would spread 
 candied silver paper, not less thin, crystalline, and transparent, 
 over a pot of new-made jam. "Winter would pot us all if he 
 could, like this spring ; but we will not remain potted, though 
 he does paint our windows with ice-flowers, and fur our palings 
 with crystal ermine fur. I observe with a painter's relish the 
 little white trench the drippings have made under the eaves, 
 the little net of blood-drops that dark-leaved creeper is spreading 
 over the waU, and especially the stars of white and yellow 
 lichen black and savage Time is writing his ciphers in, in his 
 own difficult language, over the stones. I remark with new 
 delight that burning-bush of the holly-tree, that burns but does 
 not consume, its berries red and glossy as sealing-wax kisses 
 on February love-letters ; I marvel now to see it with leaves 
 as of gilt transparent to the sun, so that a sanctity and con- 
 secrating halo seem to surround the tree which old legend- 
 makers, marking its thorny leaves and blood-drop berries, 
 declared Avas the bush that furnished the crown of thorns for 
 our Saviour's suffering head. As for the windows, they shine 
 and sparkle like so much gold plate, so that the meanest cot- 
 tage seems now to be the residence of some ostentatious gold- 
 smith, lavish in his display. 
 
 With a largesse to the ostler and the boots, and cheered by 
 their ostentatious blessing as they give a last pull at my horse's 
 belly-band, so that now no lady in the land is laced one half so 
 consumptively tight, I push forth, humming over my scraps of 
 rhyme ; hammering at this one's rivets, soldering up that one's 
 leaky joint, or welding together two stray but congruous verses, 
 like any wandering troubadour of the good old times, when 
 nobody grumbled, and everybody insisted, from sheer good 
 nature, on paying double taxes. I ride by navvies with brick- 
 red cheeks, heavy, clay-clogged boots, tucked-up trousers, and 
 smocks knotted across their bull-chests. I think of the Berse- 
 ker Norsemen striding to their ships, and almost expect to see
 
 A RIDE TO STONEHEXGE. 61 
 
 the Black Raven banner leaning against the wall of the " Swan's 
 Xest Inn " I have just left. Tlie very first person I met as I 
 left the old house behind me where Sir Philip Sydney once 
 wrote his life and his heroics, and Spenser his Faery Queen ; 
 where Ben Jonson walked, and Shakspere perhaps acted ; was 
 the village blacksmith, sturdy in his leather apron, carrying in 
 his arms a heavy trayful of blue-grey horseshoes ready for the 
 stable, calcined and fresh from the fire ; he carried them, good 
 man, as gingerly as though they had been new caps going home 
 from the milliner's ; and behind him came that cheerful sight, 
 an old English labourer going to his daily toil, followed by his 
 warning shadow nodding along the road-side wall. 
 
 " Old Humphrey plods to his daily toil, 
 His shadow lags after, liigh on the wall ; 
 Eoth are bowed, and crooked, and bent, 
 Tor the workhouse still is the end for us all." 
 
 So, thought I, not unjustly will sing the Chartist poet, who 
 sees the cruel end of our kbouring poor. 
 
 On I rode, now breaking from the walled-in lanes, glittering 
 with wet, where the sun shone on the water-channelled ruts, 
 driving clouds of frightened bii-ds before me from the hedges 
 or the loaf-shaped wheat-ricks, as T pushed my mare, Eed 
 Nancy, over the low fence, where the poplars nodded in stately 
 company; I toiled up over the white stubble to the higher 
 down, sldrting the young wheat-fields that, like bucklers of 
 emerald, spread themselves against the sunny horizon that was 
 serrated with files and squadrons of lancer firs, that seemed 
 marching and gathering for miles over the slopes. As for the 
 downs, they stretched their dtm-hued and crop-eared banks, 
 spotted dark with furze, far as I could see. I looked out on 
 the horizon as on a praii-ie of rolling bluffs, or on a great chart, 
 with its squares and triangles of various shades of brown, yel- 
 low, and green. You could sec where larger masses of the furze, 
 dark and thorny, had sent out skirmishers and outposts of 
 seedling bushes, which stretched beyond the main body in dots 
 and specks as far as the chalky cups that the shepherds dig to 
 catch the rain-water in. 
 
 JS'ow as I feel my horse like a proud sea under me, a per-
 
 62 'cross country. 
 
 petually advancing billow leaping and moving, with me riding 
 on its crown, and hear the pad, pad, of the hollow turf under her 
 ringing hoofs, I troll out a care-defying song, half-memory, 
 half improvise : — 
 
 tinkle went the bridle rings, 
 O pad, pad, went the hoof, 
 
 The merry sound made the heart of me glad, 
 And the blue devils keep aloof; 
 They'd hounded me long, but I left them behind 
 As I tracked the sun and hunted the wind. 
 
 Chink went the stirrup -steel and spur, 
 Chink went the gold iu my purse ; 
 
 1 galloped on with no thought in the world, 
 Happy as child at nurse. 
 
 After me flew the bullying blast, 
 Before me the wliite cloud flew fast, fast. 
 
 Ting, ting, chorused the bridle chams. 
 
 Talking to one another ; 
 As I galloped over the down and moor j 
 The blue sky, like a mother. 
 Watching me still with unswerving eye, 
 Chided me because I tried to fly. 
 
 Tink, tinkle went the chattering bit, 
 
 And pad, pad, went the shoes ; 
 Both striving strong with an equal song 
 In time to my carolling muse. 
 The blue-devils raced, and galloped, and ran, 
 But they could not catch the laughing man. 
 
 I dash past numberless fir plantations, where the thick green 
 crystals of the firs contrast with the silver stripings of the 
 birch, and the tight dull silver of the beech-bark. "What is 
 that white board on a pole that stands out sharp and keen 
 against the dark wood ? — a knightly challenge to all comers 
 from some golden statue of an elfin who is living iu the green 
 darkness of this dim wood ? No ! the usual game-laws' 
 churlish threat : 
 
 " Alii PEESOKS FOTmD TEESPASSIKQ- 
 WILI BE PEOSECriED WITH THE tTTMOST " 
 
 " rigour of the law," probably : but here some sturdy poacher's 
 knife had split off the rest, and left it as a laughing-stock.
 
 A RIDE TO STOXEHENGE. 63 
 
 Away I go past water-meadows, through village!?, through 
 Winterhourne Stoke, where I bent to the long up-and-dowu 
 Amesbnry road, that leads to the higher down, where is the 
 Giants' Dance, as Stonehenge is called by Geoflrey of Mon- 
 mouth, who, lying with his usual dignity, declares that all the 
 stones were brought from Kildarc by the enchanter ]Merlin ; 
 the Emperor Ambrosius, who had put Hengist the Saxon to 
 death, wishing to commemorate his victory, and celebrate the 
 great massacre of King Vortigern and the 460 Britons, by a 
 suitable monument. 
 
 That side of the sun shone only that shone the way to Stone- 
 henge, whither the long gold-ruled lines of sunbeam pointed 
 me as with golden rods ; in the distance I could look back and 
 see the weathercock of Winterbourne Stoke chiu'ch shining like 
 a burning diamond in the sxmshine, wherein the tower seemed 
 to float like a great ark, for then the morning's fog had all burnt 
 into blue of a liquid sapphire colour, and the white clouds were 
 swollen out like the sails of angel-manned vessels. Flying 
 clouds, would I could mount you, and so get quicker to the 
 old Druid's temple ! But as this, I suppose, is hardly pos- 
 sible, I dig my spurs into Bed Nancy, who answers the appeal 
 T\4th a leap like a deer, and away we go at a pace that is a 
 caution to Hvery-stable keepers, printing the dry, dim hide of 
 the down turf with Greek omegas, and spurning out the blunt 
 parallel lines that the wheels of the turf- waggons have made ; 
 soon rising over the left-hand bank of do"\^ai, I see the huge 
 wide stones which form the old Temple of the Snn, that Dio- 
 dorus Siculus mentions: that is to say, he mentions that 
 there was a sacred temple of Apollo in Britain, which is 
 quite enough for your imaginatively hot though grey-headed 
 antiquarian. 
 
 This is that ring of vast pillars of hewn-out sandstone, 
 brought from somewhere near Marlborough, that wrong-headed 
 Inigo Jones would have it was a Eoman temple, about which 
 there has been more ink than enough shed. This is the Stone- 
 edge, or rather Stone-hang, the Saxon hanging-stones, that, 
 according to those twaddling fairy-book old chroniclers, came 
 first from Africa to Ireland, and then from Ireland to Wilt-
 
 64 'cross country. 
 
 sMre ; which, considering that Piekford and his vans were then 
 in chaos, must have been rather an expensive transportation 
 than otherwise. Old Caxton -wrote about them, and that addle- 
 pated gossip, Aubrey, too, who compares them to the celebrated 
 Grey- wethers near Marlborough. They look very wild and 
 grey as I ride up to them on Eed Nancy, who paws and snorts 
 as if I were spurring her to do battle with a ring of giants. I 
 draw up under one of the great Egyptian doorways, my head 
 coming but half way up the grey shaft, which, as it is twenty 
 feet high, is no wonder. As I stand chipping at one of the 
 plinths, which, though tufted with a grey hair of moss, and 
 much starred and crusted with dusky grey and orange lichens, 
 breaks red and fine in the grain, as if just from the quarry, a buzz 
 as of a tremendous organ-pipe strikes up a hymn of peace and 
 Christian civilisation from the little trim farm on the neighbour- 
 ing slope, where those new barns and gates stand. Christian 
 men dwell now within hail of the old Pagan-work. Twenty of 
 the forty stones of the outer circle rem«,in, and some eleven of 
 the inner nineteen. The outer still stand in threes, or door- 
 ways, two stones supporting the joining one that lies across the 
 top ; under which great slab you can, b y changing your point 
 of view, get all sorts of strange combinations, — fallen pil- 
 lars, glimpses of down and intersecting lines of sloping turf, 
 while you look either towards the Amesbury and "Wiley road, 
 or the Heytesbury and Warminster way. This great Druidical 
 temple lies stranded on a small turf triangle on the open down, 
 between these two roads, and though once a lonely place enough 
 for the winds to whistle round, and the plovers to dip and 
 circle over, is now almost frayed by the wheels of passing carts, 
 and is not a greyhound's breathings from the park-palings of 
 the old Duke of Queensbury's property (now Sir Edmund An- 
 trobus's), not a gunshot from a new farm, and within two miles 
 of the village of Amesbmy. 
 
 As for Camden, he notices the great mortised stones hang- 
 ing on each other, twenty-eight feet high, and seven feet 
 broad ; but he half supposes they were made of some cement, 
 exaeo-erates the hei":ht, and reduces the four circles, of which 
 traces exist, to three. So much for Camden ! Inigo Jones,
 
 A RIDE TO STONEHENGE. 65 
 
 wliom that slobbering sclioolmaster, James I., set writing upon 
 these wonders, runs quite astray : he calls it a Roman-Tuscan 
 temple, built about the time of Vespasian, who conquered the 
 Belgic tribes of Wiltshire, and threw up enormous ramparts 
 and earthworks — those huge rude hills, overgrov,-n with grass, 
 at Amesbury and Yarebury adjoining. Indeed he tails into all 
 sorts of blunders (all the worse for being learned) : calls the 
 in ner circle a hexagon, falsely describes the entrances as three, 
 and missupposes that the ring is built on higher ground than 
 the neighbouring down. A few years later, Mr. Charleton, a 
 physician, refutes Inigo's theory, and plunges himself ten times 
 deeper into the ink-pot. He attributes it to the Danes during 
 Alfred's retirement in the Somersetshire marshes. The next 
 champion of these never very clear writers is Mr. Sammes (1676), 
 who hands it over scot and lot to the Phoenicians. He is fol- 
 lowed by Mr. Keysler, a Hanoverian, who equally resolutely 
 passes it to the Anglo-Saxons. In 1754, however, arose 
 Mr. AVood, a Bath architect, who finally all but ended the 
 contest by agreeing with the eloquent and erudite Dr. Dummel 
 that the whole work was palpably Druidic and British, and 
 probably erected about a hundred years before the Christian 
 era. Since that, the "Welsh, fierce in their charge upon Celtic 
 remains, have laid violent hands on these ruins, and have spun 
 all soi'ts of astronomical theories about these stone circles. It 
 is certain that the "Welsh triads do allude to whole tribes 
 toiling at piling up mounts, lifting stones, and building works ; 
 and the Egyptian antiquities prove to us, that at a very early 
 time, by means of earth-propping, rollers, and the use of the 
 lever, the carriage of such stones was not impossible. As for 
 the Druids' doctrines, I am not going to bewilder my readers 
 with telling them how the old logans are types of the ark, or 
 how their night sacrifices were telegraphed across the country 
 by waved torches and fiery signals. 
 
 So I will get back to Stonehenge, with its circles of grey 
 gateways gapped out here and there, and especially levelled on 
 the Wiley side, as if destruction had come specially froni 
 that corner. As for the great outer circle and rampart, single 
 entrance, and walled avenue, all that the piu-blind uuantiqua- 
 
 F
 
 Q6 'cross country. 
 
 rian eye can see now is but an irregular rising and falling of 
 the ground till you come to the Friar's Heel, a single leaning 
 stone, sixteen feet high, grey like the rest, except where 
 hollowed out by the rain-drops of centuries, or scooped in 
 notched ladders for the shepherd boys to watch their flocks 
 from. No flowers ever grow from their chinks. 
 
 The stones are not, as might be imagined, Colt Hoare says, 
 of the same strata and character. The fallen " slaughtering 
 stone," the outer circle, and the five trilithons of the grand 
 oral, are Sarsen stones, that is, silicious sandstone, drawn from 
 the quarry in their rude state ; probably from near Abury, where 
 three such stones, perhaps dropjied in transitu,a,ve to be seen, two 
 in the fields and one in a river. The modern geological theory is, 
 that in some great Avater-change the strata of sand containing 
 these stones was washed away, leaving them stranded on the 
 lower chalk, now tufted over with downs. The altar-stone 
 is fifteen feet high, of a micaceous fine-grained sandstone. 
 Others are of hornstone, or silicious schist, — " most probably 
 from Cornwall or Devon," says one antiquarian. 
 
 And now to turn surveyor for distances. I was told that 
 the inside diameter of the circle is one hundred feet ; the width 
 of the entrance into the inner cell from the trilithons, forty- 
 three feet. Industrious men, digging for treasure, have at 
 various times found in the grassy area, — where uninvestigating, 
 but stiU antiquarian-looking, thoughtful sheep nibble about — 
 heads of oxen, pieces of our British and Eoman pottery, 
 charred wood, and an iron arrow-head. They say that in 
 the old ox-road and Eoman bridle-paths and waggon-roads 
 round Stonehenge 3^ou still find chippings of the temple 
 stones. 
 
 So much for the blind leaders of the blind, whom we can 
 only follow, as we do moles, by the heaps of dirt they throw up 
 from their sunless subterranean workings and dull books. 
 There are the great stones bearded with moss, still clinging 
 together, doing their long, patient, juggling tricks, and support- 
 ing each other in derision of poor weak mortals, and for the 
 untiring amusement of the sun and moon. Here is that great 
 disjointed stone puzzle that no man can again put together, but
 
 A RIDE TO STONEHENGE. 67 
 
 only stares, eats his sandwiches round, makes notes on, and 
 rides away from, wondering. 
 
 Is that an old British MS. hlowing about in and out the 
 stone doorways, where the white-robed Druids, croAvned with 
 oak, once paced ? 'No ; it is only a Times supplement, the relic 
 of a yesterday's picnic — for we, poor mortals, are here to-day 
 and gone to-morrow ; but these stones are like the sure-set 
 mountains, and remain. Is that a war-car of the ancient 
 Britons, with scythes tied to the wheels ? No ; that is a yellow 
 postchaise, with a party of wandering German travellers from 
 the " "White Hart" at Salisbury. Is that Boadicea ? No ; 
 that is Mrs. Alderman Rogers, of Portsoken Within, with her 
 pretty daughter sketching. Is that one of the ancient Belg^e 
 turning up the soil yonder ? No : Lord bless ye ! that is John 
 Giles, who works for Farmer Smith, of the Down Farm, with 
 his master's new patent plough — Mechi's patent — very good, 
 only it won't work quite well at first, and that's why it creaks 
 so, and why Giles uses so many loud adjectives, wishing Mechi 
 would stick to his brown-paper tea-caddies. 
 
 So I bow to the great stone ring, and the Egj^tian doorways, 
 the fallen altars and blood cups, and the little stone posts, and 
 the circles that want so much humouring in ground plans 
 before — even to an imaginative antiquarian eye — they assume 
 any reasonable and harmonious shape ; I take a last look 
 at the German travellers and the ladies in the blue " uglies," 
 and the watchful, cackling hen of a mamma, who wonders why 
 the ancient Britons painted themselves with Prussian blue, ia 
 patterns like the corazza fancy shii-ts, dig my spurs into Ked 
 Nancy, and am off.
 
 68 'cross country. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A BATHING-PLACE OIT THE SOUTH COAST. 
 
 "Who invented sea-bathing? Chaucer's wife, of Bath, says 
 A 1. A 2 says it is a sham, a fancy not fifty years old, and 
 means only idleness, exercise, pure air, and unlimited washing. 
 Men, before nerves were invented, never bathed ; men who did 
 not use umbrellas for the sun — who, in fact, did not use 
 umbrellas at all — never bathed. A 2 goes on to say that half 
 of those who do bathe, bathe injudiciously, and do themselves 
 harm ; and he asks, with a wicked "Wilkes-and-45 look, do the 
 inhabitants of Dippington, where we are now, bathe ? I trow 
 not. I never saw them. "WTiat first sent all of us, wben the 
 dog-days set in, rushing down steep places into the sea ? I 
 don't know, yet here I am, somebody telling me, " You want 
 bracing." It takes a good many gu.ineas to " brace " me, I can 
 tell you, and guineas rhyme to " ninnies." I came down by 
 railway, was sucked into dark pea-shooters of tunnels, spat out 
 again into the sunshine, and was first aware of my propinquity 
 to the sea by finding the trees diminish, and the fields get 
 larger and wilder. Suddenly the great grey shield of the sea 
 displayed itself. 
 
 A philanthropic grocer, who afterwards touted for my custom, 
 showed me lodgings. I contracted finally for rooms with two 
 old maids — one deaf, the other with a wax nose. I looked out 
 on the sea. 
 
 The first thing Dippington mothers seem to tell their children 
 about the sea is to learn to get something out of it. They are 
 at it all day, dipping into it as if it were a lucky-bag, and had 
 never swallowed their fathers or brothers. There they are now, 
 hooking out star-fish, jellies, crabs, shrimps, parchmenty rib- 
 bons of seaweed, purple strips, pink roots, yeUow shells, rubbed- 
 down pebbles, cuttle-fish, shreds of liquid glue, green slimy 
 weed, round bits of slate, and other scraps and trifles from the 
 great marine store shop and lottery. They never leave the
 
 A BATHING-PLACE ON THE SOUTH COAST. 69 
 
 beach, those Dippingtou children, never, for the chalky walks 
 on the cliiFs, where the poppies picked to pieces show where 
 lovers have been walking. No, they like better to see the boats 
 building, or the signal-staff" painting. The wetter they get, 
 the happier they are. 
 
 THE SEA AT DIPPINGTON. 
 
 The sea at Dippington is, as fiir as I can discover at present 
 from my window at the Marine Crescent, much the same as it 
 is at Shrimpington, "Whitecllff, or any other fashionable bathing- 
 place. This rippling gown of Amphiti-ite has always a white 
 frill round the skirt of it. In the morning, when you go to 
 bathe, there is a silver tinsel shimmer on it, and at dusk a soft 
 blue gi'ey haze seems to join it to heaven. It can never make 
 up its mind whether to come in or go out, and the great object 
 of existence here at Dippington seems to be to sit exactly 
 opposite it all day, and stare yourself stupid, by looking at its 
 broad, vacant face. The result of this is extreme sleepiness 
 and a tremendous appetite. AViggle, the great art-critic, is 
 great down here with his telescope inider his arm, his dust 
 coat, his buff" slippers, and his boating-hat. He asks the diving- 
 machine men what such a' vessel is " in the ofi&ng," and puts 
 on a maratine air, though I know he begins to get sick when he 
 passes Gravesend. Excuse the transition, but that charming 
 Miss Trippet, the belle of Dippington, has just passed down 
 the Parade with such a little pink cockleshell of a bonnet on, 
 and a little blue parasol, like a grown-up air-bell. I wish you 
 could see the pretty fits of abstraction she throws herself into 
 on that seat under the flagstaff". Three youngsters have just 
 passed — all tln-ee sputtering — a certain sign, if their dank hair 
 did not prove it, that they have been bathing. Indeed, it is 
 surprising how every small thing cries aloud to one in a water- 
 ing-place and says, " You are at Dippington, behave as sich." 
 I look out of window now, and lo ! on the green, crackling roof 
 of the verandah below I see a Avhite shell, and a dry, crimpy 
 star-fish, dead and colourless, that have been, I suppose, thrown 
 there by the last children who occupied this room — this Dipping- 
 ton tabernacle — that has known so many occupants, but which a
 
 70 CROSS COUNTRY. 
 
 sanguine imagination miglit think had been tossed up there 
 some stormy night by the sea down below there, for there is 
 only a road, a railing, a grass-plot, an esplanade, and a clilf and 
 the sands between my balcony and the Poluphlosboyo. 
 
 Besides staring yourself into idiotcy, walking your legs to 
 pieces, and getting your feet wet, I see nothing to be done at 
 Dippington. A little flirting, a great deal of tea and shrimps, 
 billiards, novels, and talking to the sailors, that is our life — 
 that is the creed and constitution of Dippington. Do anything 
 else, and you become a Crusoe on a deserted isle. 
 
 " I assure you that last night," said Wiggle to me, as we 
 were on our way to the billiard-table for a game of pyramids — 
 " that last night, as I stood by the brink of that mighty ocean, 
 and looked out over its changeless [ immensity — its great burial- 
 ground of fleets and navies — its miser hoards of treasure that 
 shall never see the sun — its millions of unrecorded and forgotten 
 dead— I felt " 
 
 " Like a shrimp, a stale whiting, a dried haddock ?" I 
 suggested. 
 
 " — I felt a mere insect — a transitory creature of less value 
 than the spray that rolled white at my feet. I returned to my 
 hotel " 
 
 " And called for sherry and soda ?" 
 
 " Be quiet ! for my bed-candle ; and retired to my couch a 
 better and a wiser man." 
 
 More wrecked-looking men going home from bathing. Then 
 a great lull — that is breakfast. Breakfast at Dippington is a 
 solemn thing, so is dinner, so is tea. 
 
 The sirens still haunt the sea-side, I think, only they have 
 taken to a more respectable dress, and no longer sit rasping 
 their fingers sore on Erard's harps. The sirens now are fas- 
 cinating widows, with becoming grief in their beautiful eyes ; 
 and bewitching maidens, just budding into womanhood, with 
 round hats and azure "uglies." The siren widow passed just now, 
 looking down, thinking either of the last wedding breakfast or 
 the one that is to come, with violet ribbons fluttering about 
 her black shawl — poetical grief-shroud, Avith a touch of hope
 
 A BATHING-PLACE ON THE SOUTH COAST. 71 
 
 'trimming it. Yiolet, or was it mauve ? — beautiful comprcmise 
 with despair ! 
 
 "Wonderful air of Dippiugton, that, smelling of nothing, is 
 yet so odorous of that nothing ; so fresh, yet never cold ; so 
 balmy, so summerful, so flower-kissing, so health-giving! 
 Blessed air, unpolluted by tlie fetor of cities ! air that number- 
 less interjections can alone describe, and then only by showing 
 a redundant sense of pleasure — a freer pulse, a fuller heart, a 
 brighter eye ! Let the old writers say what they will of the 
 unsuccessful voyages in the time of Columbus to discover the 
 miraculous " Fountain of Youth," here it is : 
 
 'JHE BATHING-MACHIKE. 
 
 The first thing, of course, I did when I got settled at Dip- 
 pington was to inquire about the baths. In the true spmt of 
 a discoverer, the very night I arrived I found my way by 
 sloping paths to the beach, attracted by the ship lights, the red 
 signal at the pier-head, and the sharp clear sound of the ship 
 bells. I saw nothing before me but the boundless, the 
 illimitable, the delight of the hardy Norseman, the terror of 
 the squeamish, the silent highway, the green bank whose lock 
 no burglar can pick, the unfillable graveyard, &e. The waves 
 raced in, white-maned, many -trampling, and swift. They rolled 
 in, twenty thousand abreast, and faded away like a charge of 
 fairy Norsemen. I looked round : there stood the machines, 
 solemn in the twilight, hooded-like sibyls, mysterious as the 
 Pythonesses or the Fates, looking like the gigantic ghosts of 
 the Titan bathing- women of the earlier ages. 
 
 " Do you want a machine to-morrow ?" said a voice. 
 
 It was the disgusting voice of materialism and common 
 sense, whose brutal foot (excuse the transition of metaphor) 
 will trample on the fairest spots, and dissolve the spell of all 
 the enchantments of even the strongest imagination. 
 
 " No," said I, with all the severity, but less of the truth 
 than the occasion demanded. 
 
 I write at a window, so you must pardon side-notes of 
 digression. A moving tulip bed, or rather a flower bed of 
 parasols, is floating by to take an airing. It is just meridian —
 
 72 'cross country. 
 
 oiiglit I not to say so many bells ? Last night, sleep wrestled 
 with, and tlu'eAv me at an early hour With the crescendo of 
 the surge in my ears I went to bed (0 divine snowiness of 
 country beds !), desiring to be called at half-past six for 
 bathing ; the consequence of which, of course, was, that I woke 
 at six, and lay grumbling till a quarter to seven, when a voice 
 dropped my boots with a double clump at the door. Getting 
 up for a first bath is, to a nervous, imaginative man, like 
 Twitter, the epic poet, a dreadful thing. 
 
 Podgers, the cheesemonger in Fetter Lane, has just passed 
 with his six children, who all seem to have been born on the 
 same day. Query : Can you call six children twins ? ought 
 not three to be called trines, and so on ? Podgers wears a high, 
 brown, flower-pot hat, and, of coiu-se, black trousers. His 
 crafty hole-and-corner face jars on the broad, frank, impatient 
 sea. N.B. He has brought his day-book down to amuse him- 
 self with to-morrow (Sunday) while the Sextines are gone ia 
 procession to church, each with a large Common Prayer-Book 
 folded in a clean white handkerchief. 
 
 To return : I got up, trying to think it was very delicious, 
 which it wasn't. I roped on my necktie, sloughed on my 
 oldest boots ; and buttoned up like a spy, a crimp, or an escaped 
 smuggler, wallced dowTi towards the sea, now a laughing 
 glittering green in the early sunlight — the shining opal collar 
 that nature placed round a dove's neck was nothing to it. At 
 the corner of the jetty a band of half-sailors, hah-fishermen. 
 beleaguered me with pulls at their forelocks. 
 
 " Want a machine, sir ?" said one. 
 
 " Just look at this towel, fine white diaper," said another, 
 with a white slab of a towel balanced on his hand. 
 
 No. 802 was already out. No. 910 was having the horse 
 put to. Screams and laughter were pouring from 605, and 
 from under the hood of 703 there was a splashing as if 
 Kempenfelt and all his men were going down together in the 
 Eoyal George with one consent. At the door of 320 a res- 
 pectable City tradesman, well known on the Corn Exchange, 
 was combing his hair inside the machine, and looking wet and. 
 bedraggled into the glass.
 
 A BATHING-PLACE ON THE SOUTH COAST. 73 
 
 Ko. 450 was mine. A man they call som ething like " LoUer" 
 hands me three dirty-white tickets to frank me for three 
 mornings' admission to the ocean — as yet unallotted or park- 
 paled — one shilling. Then he asks me for one of the three, and 
 takes it just as a man does who is teaching you a game of 
 cards, and is playing both sides. I am introduced as a victim 
 to a brother in red-plush breeches and jack waterproof boots, 
 who is the driver. I am handed two towels — sent up the steps 
 of the "cairywan," and shut in. I am shouted to that when 
 I have had enough of it I am to open the door and call. 
 
 I am scarcely in it before the machine begins to jolt. I feel 
 like Jonah inside the whale. We go out to sea. There is a 
 chink of chains — a crack of a whip — a shout — lower — lower. 
 I try to keep my footing, I feel myself in a cart and yet in 
 a ship. I undress and hook up everything to the nails round 
 the wall. I don't know how it is, but I never in my life went 
 down to the sea in a bathing-machine but I compared myseK" 
 to Pharaoh entering the Eed Sea in his chariot in hot pursuit 
 after the Israelites. " Suppose," I say to myself, " there was 
 a leak in this crazy hut ? suppose it broke away from the 
 wheel, and drifted out to sea, to be nosed and bumped by 
 whales, and sniffed at by sharks ? Suppose " 
 
 Here a tremendous wave thumped at the door, as much as 
 to say, " Come out and let us look at you, miserable creature 
 of clay !" I am now without the cloak that shadowed Borgia 
 — in Adam's livery — a poor forked, pale creature, shivering aa 
 if for charity ; trembling like Andromeda when the great sea- 
 serpent approached. The floor is gritty, the small slab of 
 carpet is sodden and briny. I uudo the door and look out, 
 kicking down the tilted hood, aud clinging to the rope that is 
 fastened to the outside of the machine, and whicli, like every- 
 thing else belonging to it, is crisp and salt. With crippled, 
 crumpled feet, I descend the steps ; a wave lashes up, and all 
 but washes me off— surfing me up agahist the hood, and all but 
 whipping the rope from me. A singular creeping feeling of 
 the blood as I step in waist high — a pull at my heart, as if 
 the blood were driven back to the citadel, then rallied, and 
 spread victoriously through my veins — a taste of salt surf in
 
 74 'cross country. 
 
 my mouth — now a duck under. I emerge, blinded and drip- 
 ping, and wade out beyond the hood. I come out as from a 
 cave, and am in the wide, wide sea. The horizon towards the 
 North Poreland is a line of trembling silver — the junction of sky 
 and sea — the welding line — the tenderest grey blue, which is 
 neither opaque nor transparent — a soft apricot-colou.red bloom 
 in the eastward, Dover way — is here and there a sail catches 
 the sun, and shines the colour of a light waU-flower. The 
 challc cliiFs, cleft in horizontal lines, and bushed with wild 
 mignionette and wild geranium, look blocks of opaque silver. 
 
 But I don't come here to study landscape, but to tear health 
 from the jaws of the sea : and health I wiU have — so here goes ! 
 How soft the sand feels under my naked feet ! I wade out 
 to meet the waves — one, two, three. Here comes a huge one, 
 cresting and combing over with a metallic shine, but without 
 foam : it laps over me and lifts me off my feet. I stagger on 
 defiant. Here comes one twice as high — the froth already out 
 there rises high above my head. Nearer, firm, prepare to 
 receive cavalry ! form square ! bang ! wash ! splash ! It beats 
 me over, it foams over my head, and passes on to lash and 
 rage up the steps of my machine, as if it were looking for me. 
 I am cuffed and slapped warm, I am in high spirits — braced 
 and nerved. Now I understand what Dr. Bleadon meant by 
 always saying to my wife, " He (meaning me) wants bracing — 
 he must have bracing." Here I am bracing — hard at it ! 
 Here comes another roUing monster. Hurrah ! Brace away ! 
 I leap at it, but it has me down, and tramples on me in 
 a moment. 
 
 I am back under the hood. I got into the wrong machine 
 first — they are so very much alike — and found myself in the 
 presence of the Eev. Mr. Bellow, rector of the celebrated 
 church of St. Barabbas. But then did I not see swimming 
 near me just now, like a Ceylon diver going all naked to the 
 shark, fast young Latitat, of the Middle Temple, swimming 
 as if he were flying from the bailiffs, or as if Grinder and 
 Crusher, the great attorneys, had sent for him to their 
 chambers ? 
 
 As I waded up the steps I met Bellow coming down. I
 
 A BATHING-PLACE ON THE SOUTH COAST. 75 
 
 bowed and he bowed— he laughed ; I laughed, and splashed 
 oft; like a merman who has been paying a morning visit, I 
 emerge from the wave and climb my steps. Delicious glow — 
 warm'th of health and life, enough to revive a dying man— rosy 
 glow of invigorated and purified blood ! I begin a Norse hymn 
 to the sea, such as " Harold of the Blue Eyes" might have ad- 
 dressed to his sword, " the Land-giver :" 
 
 Health-giver, I hail thee ! 
 Man-slayer, I fear thee ! 
 Hope-bringer, I greet thee ! 
 Dirge-singer, I fear thee ! 
 
 I ffave the signal for being restored to land. The horse is 
 
 put to. 
 
 " Eight you are !" cries a voice, and a jerk nearly sends me oft' 
 my legs. I leap down into the soft ancle-deep sand, wished 
 "good morning" by the "two noble kinsmen," and depart 
 to punish my breakfast ; my chest expanded, my heart larger, 
 my eyes brighter, my moral nature improved, my physical na- 
 ture padded out and developed. 
 
 NIGHT AT DlPPINaTON. 
 
 Night at Dippington is " mighty pretty to behold," as Pepys 
 would have said. You can see the red light on the pier casting 
 a quivering column of liquid ruby, like so much burning sea, 
 below it in the harbour. Far away in the distance, starlike 
 over the waters, twinldes the North Foreland light, answered 
 right and left by corresponding guardians of the coast. Through 
 the dusk you hear from your open window the buzz of a beetle, 
 telling by association of the thundery warmth of the summer 
 night, and of the hush that must be away there in the fields 
 that lead down to the clift", in the dense dark clumps of elms, and 
 in the light feathering ashes. The ship's bells tell the hour with 
 their monotonous but clear and decisive cling-clang, in the har- 
 bour where they are moored near the red light, and everywhere 
 — whether in the high streets, between the rows of lamps by 
 the market-place where the fisherboys stand, in the sea-sido 
 billiard-room, on the cliff's by the white lighthouse, or by the 
 platform (as like a quarter deck as possible) where the coast-
 
 76 'cross country. 
 
 guard man in white trousers, and the eternal battered telescope 
 luider his arm, paces — you hear the roll, and surge, and lash, 
 and chafe, and splashing drag, and tumble of the breakers, that 
 spread white through the night. Now, one by one, on Terrace, 
 and Parade, and Esplanade, and Side-street, and Cliff- crescent, 
 the pleasure-seekers put out their lamps, and as they close like 
 so many closing eyes, I turn in, and put out mine likewise. 
 
 MOBNING AT DIPPINGTON. 
 
 One hour ago, by this repeater, and I was up to my chin 
 in the green sparkling waves, feeling a little anxious as the 
 sand seemed suddenly to recede from the extended half of the 
 great toe on my left foot, and I looked back, and I saw I was 
 fifty yards from No. 68 machine, and seemed bearing out every 
 moment imperceptibly a little further from the white cliffs, and 
 that man who, shining white through the waves, is floating on 
 his back, calmly, some twenty feet off. Now, I am here, calm 
 as Cato, at my tea and prawns, divesting those mollusca of 
 their pink armour, and looking out, delighted at the diamond 
 sparkle of the morning sea, the mile-long bars of purple cloud- 
 shadows, the broad green field of opaque emerald, and the long 
 dim blue line of land, that seems but consolidated cloud, yes- 
 terday cloud turned solid, yet barely soKd. It is a sight to 
 make an old man young again. The line of foam that breaks 
 along the shore glitters like quicksilver ; a dancing diamond 
 twinkle and restless glimmer is on the sea ; and the brown 
 sands, where the sea washes, are transparent and luminous as if 
 they were covered with a thin glazing of ice. Children laugh 
 on the balconies and on the terraces — they hop up and down 
 in the water like so many chickens round the old mother hen 
 of the machine. Bathing-women, witch-like and hideous, in 
 sodden blue flannel bathing-gowns, float about like stale mer- 
 maids or water ogresses seeking their prey. The sands are 
 one immense laundress's drying ground, with strings of coloured 
 bathing-dresses, towels, and other apparatus of sanitary ablu- 
 tions. The machines in the water remind one of a Trench vil- 
 lage during the inimdations ; those on shore, of the first en- 
 campment of a fair. The machines echo with screams and
 
 A BATHING-PLACE ON THE SOUTH COAST. 77 
 
 lau^liter. The proprietor of tlie batliing-machines, a lame man, 
 ■who SAvims like a frog, walks about the sands with a contem- 
 plative, benevolent air, with his hands behind him. There are 
 ships in the distance at all degrees of obscurity, from the pal- 
 pable black boat that seems made of sticking-plaister, like the 
 profile likenesses, to that brig out there, grey and dim as the 
 Plying Dutchman. Truly, Dippington, of a bright morning, 
 when the very air laughs, is a pleasant and cheering place. A 
 little time, and it will be a desolate Sahara of fishermen, moping 
 lodging-house keepers complaining of taxes : no children, no 
 laughing, no nothing. The wooden spades will gather dust at 
 the shop door — the buff slippers hang purposeless in the win- 
 dow. 
 
 CHAEACTEES AT DIPPIXGT05T. 
 
 I am just home from a burning walk along the top of the 
 chalk cliff, where the pink valerian bushes over into the blue 
 air, some giddy eighty feet, where the wild geranium lures 
 the bees into its veined honey-cups, and where the wild 
 mignionette spires up, crisp and perfumeless. Here I have 
 been lying down on the scorched, half-burnt-up, wild barley, 
 by the side of the chalky path, where the wheat shoulders and 
 billows ; I especially enjoy the quiet cliff walks outside Dipping- 
 ton, where the park palings, as you pass, wake into a hot sting- 
 buzz of flies, and where the great orange and black bumble- 
 bee, bullying robber of the summer flowers, rifles the poppy 
 that lies hid among the guardian spears of the wheat-field — a 
 second Jason seeking his Medea. Am I to be called an idler, 
 because I lie down on my rough bed of half-burnt-up white 
 clover, and listen to the lark rising, through vistas of blue, to 
 the inner heaven where the angels call him ? 
 
 " There ain't no thoroughfare this way, leastways there is no 
 public road, but if you like to climb up, as I'm going off duty, 
 and will come up through this gallery cliff, you're welcome." 
 So said a coast-guard to me, as I find myself blocked up at a 
 comer of the sands, and want to get back to Dippington. 
 
 I accept his proposal, and follow the sunburnt Neptune up
 
 78 CROSS COUNTRY. 
 
 a dark gallery cut iu the chalk, with loopholes here and there^ 
 letting in the clear daylight. 
 
 " Dull Hfe this, isn't it ?" 
 
 " Tes." So he was on board a man-of-war — petty officer, 
 too — thirteen years, and wouldn't be here now but for an acci- 
 dent four months ago. He had been on the coast of Africa, 
 passed Gibraltar a dozen times ; didn't care for any sort of 
 weather purwided there was plenty of sea room, which there 
 was not when he once was in a sou-wester in the Mozambique 
 Channel. No, a tornado was not sudden ; contrairy, it always 
 gave you three quarters of an hour to take down sail, and get 
 all square. No captain, if he was really captain in his own 
 ship, and not a sort of foster-child of the first lieutenant, had 
 any right to let any of his men get wet in a tornado ; there 
 was time enough to put all under cover afore the tornado broke. 
 Some of them white squalls was twice as bad. A captain as 
 really was a captain in his own ship, such a man as Captain 
 Eood as the Amphitrite buried when she was taking in money 
 at Chili, was the captain as he liked to serve under. Did he 
 carry pistols ? Yes, one by day and two by night, for signals ; 
 rockets too. Dippington was a troublesome station, be- 
 cause they wanted watches on the pier night and day to see 
 everything as came in, right or wrong, rigler or unrigler. He 
 wished me a very good night. That was eight o'clock ; he was 
 oif duty now, and came on again at four in the morning. He 
 wished me a very good night — " Good night, sir." 
 
 A gorgeous flame tableau was in the sky, wrangling with 
 a pile of electric ash-grey clouds. The sea was rose-coloured 
 — the sky deepened to purple — it was dark before all the stars 
 lit their lighthouse lamps, and so did the North Poreland, 
 which shone out like a small sun among them. Here my 
 friend Mac-Hanno, who prides himself on his Carthaginian de- 
 scent, would quote Horace, but I will not, on any account ; 
 a truism not seeming to me anything wiser because it is in 
 Latin. 
 
 I had need of a barber. I found one who kept the circula- 
 ting library. He requested my name. He told me it gave him 
 the greatest trouble to get distinguished visitors' names cor- 
 
 O DO
 
 A BATHING-PLACE ON THE SOUTH COAST. 79 
 
 rectly. "Would I believe it, only that morning a Mr. De Frieze 
 had come and complained he was put down De Sneeze. Names 
 were always getting into knots. 
 
 My friend was a perfect specimen of the poor watering-place 
 barber. The weather was very catching (short or long, sir ?) ; 
 always observed it was so after a long prevalence of the east 
 vrind (hair very dry, sir ; do you use any pomade ?) Now it 
 was first the wind, then the weather, got the upper hand— wea- 
 ther and wind, wind and weather (short over the ear ? Yes, 
 sir) ; glad to see I wore beard and moustaches, advised ever}^ 
 gent to do so ; acted as respirator, protected the tonsils, 
 kept out the dust ; had a brother, a fine tenor, yes, sii-, who 
 could get up to A and B with the greatest ease ; he held out 
 against beard for a long time, very long time ; left for three 
 months, came back with a swingeing pair of moustaches (look 
 in the glass, and see if that is short enough) ; had a dread now 
 of their being sandy ; advised him a certain wash that tinged 
 without dyeing ; it was a secret, but he did not care mention- 
 ing it ; he told him — it was the very thing ; he ordered a five- 
 and-sixpenny bottle from London, and the efiect was astonish- 
 ino-. Had I ever had excavation of blood on the head ? Some- 
 times the effect of injudicious bathing. Could he recommend 
 me any wash for the head ? Certainly he could. Had I never 
 heard of his celebrated Golden Oil ? Agents all over London 
 — cases sent away every day — surprised ! Desk full of letters 
 — sent off that morning a case of six to Hon. Mr. Foozle, 
 Whitewash Villa, "Worcester. A letter yesterday from Cap- 
 tain O'Toole, some castle near Dublin, couldn't remember the 
 name of the castle ; letter from Dr. Hardbox, mentioning as- 
 tonishing effect of oil on Mrs. Blackline, who had evinced 
 symptoms of baldness in lateral regions of the scalp — at once 
 tonic, cleanser, and strengthener. The miserable London po- 
 mades left a deposit, and turned acid— that was the end of it- 
 turned acid. This was what he lived by, making the Golden 
 Oil. Dippington season only three months; couldn't live 
 without patent for Golden Oil. Did I see that transparent 
 bottle ? that was the beautiful and nutritious Golden Oil. Did 
 I see that dark liquid ? that was the Eoyal Odoriferous Fluid
 
 80 'cross country. 
 
 expressly made to be used witli it, and whicli, shaken togetlier, 
 formed a mellow and invaluable cream. 
 
 My personal friend Coxen, who calls liis boat by the apho- 
 nistic name of " Help me, and I'll help you," is a good type of 
 the Dippington boatmen. He has not a quick imagination, nor 
 is he lightning-quick at repartee, but he is a brave, honest, 
 stolid, unflinching, faithful, crafty old sailor, and I respect him, 
 though he does hammer for half an horn* at the same idea, and 
 leave it at the end of this time rather bruised, distorted, and 
 misshapen. His craft (I don't refer to the " Friend in Need " 
 sailing-boat) consists in simply trying to charge you twice as 
 much per hour as any one else, and in scudding you out to such 
 a distance from any known land, that no canvas wing, or flying 
 jib, or any shaking out of canvas, will get you in at the time 
 you expected and intended to pay for ; otherwise he is a rare 
 old Neptune, and his stories of diving, smuggling, and wreck- 
 ing, throw great light on the manners, customs, and moral stan- 
 dard of Dippington, which, with its golden and emeraldine sea, 
 and its chalky ramparts of clifi", I take to be quite a type of 
 Cockney sea-side places. 
 
 It is a sight to see him wdth the massy red braces, a foot wide 
 each, crossing his indigo-coloured Jersey, that fits his brawny 
 chest and arms like a Norse body-suit of mail, his enormous 
 full-bodied breeches, reaching up almost to his arm-pits, his 
 alert, nimble feet (sailors' feet are generally small), cased in 
 canvas shoes, his strong brown hands, white at the knuckles, 
 grasping lightly, yet surely the familiar oar, whose broad blades 
 force the boat on with such quick, strong, and equal pulse. 
 My young friend Parkins sits gravely holding the tiller-ropes 
 and nodding at us (me and Coxen), as we bend, like two por- 
 tions of the same body, simultaneous at the oars. 
 
 Coxen, like Dogberry, prides himself on " having had losses." 
 If right was right, and all things was as they should be, which 
 they ain't, Coxen would be, by his own account, the lord of 
 half Dippington. If you ask him how all these enormous 
 territories passed from the family of Coxen, he will tell you, 
 with a grave shake of the head, " that it was the want of 
 laming " that got it all " signed away." There cannot be the
 
 A BATHING-PLACE ON THE SOUTH COAST. ] 8 
 
 smallest doubt that Coxen's (let me see) uncle's father — no, 
 aunt's sister — no — yes — father's uncle's mother — was descended 
 from two East Indian captens, Capten Mover and Capten Red- 
 wood, which came to Dippingtou to moor quietly, and left their 
 property tied up by the most solemn oaths and specific direc- 
 tions to the Coxen family to descend lineally and inalienably. 
 There can be no doubt about this, because Coxen knows where 
 to lay his hand on the house in Dippiugton whose best room 
 contains a portrait of Captain Redwood in an oval gilt frame, 
 and laying his fist on a terrestrial globe ; and, moreover, the 
 captains lie together under a flat black stone just as you enter 
 to the right of St. Lawrence's church ; and not only that, sir, 
 there is, or was, in the same church a glass case, through which 
 you see the worthy captain's will, leaving so much bread and 
 meat to certain inhabitants of St. Lawrence's parish. And if 
 anything else was wanted, there was a pilot as died last June 
 was a twelvemonth, as told him (.John Coxen) over a glass of 
 rum and a pipe in the parloiu' of the Tartar Frigate Inn, that 
 there was parties who could speak about that 'ere pier property 
 if they had a mind ; and, what was more, he (Coxen) had seen 
 maps of the property which covered the site of the present 
 Exmouth Crescent, and all the ground where the pier now 
 stood. How the alienation occurred, no one could see, but all 
 he knew was, that there was an uncle of his who always knew 
 what lawyer to go to for a pound, and I suppose he was told 
 that the site of certain property could not be secured without 
 Mm, and that it was of no consequence, and " sichlike," and so 
 it went, all through "a want of laming," in a certain drunken 
 branch of the Coxen family, who, if " right was right," ought to 
 be gen'lemen. 
 
 On a morning misty with intense heat, I and Parkins stroU 
 down to the Pier- gate by appointment, to meet Coxen, and 
 take a row and sail up the Stour river towards Sliinglewich. 
 The machines are all down on the beach, like an encampment 
 of Tartar gipsies in an inundated steppe — a cutter with sun- 
 burnt sail is passing, dark in shadow. The bathers are 
 bobbing up and down like floats fidgeting under a nibble. 
 The delicious emerald water is lapping in, and frothing and
 
 82 'cross country. 
 
 splaslimg about tlie scarlet wheels of tlie machines, and rolling 
 in froth on the shore, as if white soapsuds were being swilled 
 out. Eedgauntlet sort of amphibia, in flaming plush breeches 
 and bare feet, are riding on draggle-tailed horses at a merry 
 trot knee-deep into the sea, to link to the machines, whose 
 open doors announce their ripeness for return to land. A fop 
 in a Tweed suit has just loafed by with an umbrella up — fright- 
 ful example of a nervous and debilitated age. Children are 
 grubbing about in buff slippers and with wooden spades, as if 
 to be a " navvy" or a gold-digger were the natural object of 
 every man. The shore, rolled brown, level, and hard by the 
 sea-mangle, is strewn with little green films and scarlet roots 
 and purple shreds of sea-weed, and here and there is piled 
 with strips of parchment-looking fucus and the bladdered tea- 
 leaves-looking refuse of the waves. The green light on the 
 pier, that looked last night so spectral in the gloom, is in- 
 visible ; the distant Knock Sand and the North Foreland have 
 no star lit. There is a fretted sparkle on the waves, and on 
 the rolling crest of the surf there is a glow as of gold plate. 
 The bathing-women are floating out like Norse witches wading 
 off to curse a departing vessel and fling a fonl wind on its 
 track, as the falconer whistles his Peregrine after a flying 
 heron out on the cliff. The upper flowers sway and nod, and 
 mock at the danger, and the lark sings above the barley that 
 rolls in glosses, like the wind over an animal's fur. 
 
 Now we walk down the pier, passing the shipwrights busy 
 with their heavy hammers, boiHng tar, and caulking, piecing 
 the ship's skeleton in the dry dock ; the old boatmen with 
 red button-holes of eyes and worn-out telescopes ; the boys 
 playing in boats ; the life-boat, with its padded-looking sides ; 
 the floating shells of boats, like empty green pea-cods ; the 
 huge buoys of the Trinity House, looking like floats used 
 by giants, or enormous iron fungi — and we are in Coxen's boat, 
 stepping by a ship-boy of dandy habits, who is washing his 
 shoes and bare legs with a stray cabbage-leaf. 
 
 We are in, past the keen-edged steamers, the yachts and 
 pleasure-boats, past the dense wedging soimd of the ship- 
 wrights' hammers ; past the cranes, clicking capstans, and water-
 
 A BATHING-PLACE OX THE SOUTH COAST. S3 
 
 steps ; past the clredging-macliines, and sluices, and great black 
 and white diamond buoys that tell strange vessels silent tidings 
 of the depth of water in the harbour. 
 
 "We are off. There has been a scrambling out of oars, a 
 hauling of ropes, an unbending of sails. "We skim round the 
 fort-like angle of the pier, with its massy stone-work and its 
 green-slimed and barnacle-crusted bulwarks, and are out at 
 sea. The nor'-west catches the sail and strains it forth ; we 
 leap and dance over the luminous water, which seems like so 
 miich opaque sunshine — yesterday's sunshine in fact — faster 
 than even those white-tipped, omega-shaped gulls that float ques- 
 tioning round our little red thread of a flag. The boat drives 
 like a steam-plough through a trough of the waves, or dips 
 down on one side till the gunwale nearly lips the tide. A boat 
 lagging along slowly in the opposite direction, looks at us 
 admiringly, and one of the sailors in it hums something. 
 " What did he say, Coxen ?" 
 
 " Only a werse of a hold song," smiles Coxen — " ' Oh,' scud- 
 ding under easy sail,' — and we was scudding just then, sir, like 
 flying Isaac, as they say. Now, it's a curious thing" — on 
 these reflective occasions Coxen always stopj)ed rowing, tucked 
 one oar under his knee, took oflf his cap, wiped the " prespi- 
 ration" from his forehead, and leant forward with appropriate 
 gesture, laying the chopped forefinger of one hand in the 
 woody palm of the other — " now, it's a curious thing, sir, that 
 a man in a boat always thinks that the boat he see is going 
 faster than he is. Many's the time as we've been going like 
 glory, and the gentleman I've been a rowing of seen another 
 boat not half as fast as we was, and, says he, ' Lord, Coxen, 
 how that boat is walking along! what a lively boat!' says he, 
 * Coxen ;' but it ain't my place, you know, to say anything; so, 
 on I pulls. 
 
 "Tliere," said he, "that's the Belly View (Belle Vue( 
 Tavern, and now we steer straight across for the buoy there, 
 at the mouth of the river out by Shellness ; but to return," 
 said he, " about that there crinkle on the water. People often 
 says to me, ' Why, dear me, Coxen, how could you tell the 
 wind was coming 'i' Ignorant them Londoners as the dirt you 
 
 a2
 
 84 'cross country. 
 
 tread on, and worse too. Pull home, sir ; keep time, not too' 
 quick ; capital stroke, sir ; keep your oar a little more in. 
 I've been out once before to tbe Goodwin Sands this morning, 
 witli a young gentleman and lady. I think as they was a 
 courting — I thinks they was." 
 
 Coxen here rambled on to a long and intricate statement of 
 his ill-luck during the last year. This was an inexhaustible 
 subject with him. He had a little house to let just up by the 
 Subscription Billiard-room on the South Parade ; he had not 
 let it yet — such a thing had never happened before for twenty 
 years. As for his old woman, she never went out for fear of 
 anybody coming, but " yesterday a young fellar in the town 
 who had been in the Lancers, came back from India, and was 
 brought in from the pier with a band, and in comes Mrs. 
 Jones from next door, and says, ' Come along, Mrs. Coxen, 
 put on your bonnet,' says she, ' and come down and hear the 
 band.' Away went my wife. Why, will you believe it, sir, 
 in that very hour comes a lady and gentleman to see the 
 house, drat it ! Then there was him and the boats, when he 
 ought to have been painting and doing 'em up for the season, 
 he was out in a lugger off the Goodwin Sands, looking out for 
 salvage — (pull left-hand tiller rope, sir ; leave that buoy to the 
 right) — and noAV, when he ought to be looking out for gentle- 
 men and sailing parties, he had to snatch a moment or two to 
 paint and do up the Smiling Sally and the Priend in JN'eed." 
 
 Coxen's notions about the morality of the salvage were pe- 
 culiar, and would not, perhaps, be thought orthodox out of 
 Dippington, as you will see. I asked him about the wrecks in 
 general, and he again tucked his oar under his leg, and 
 volunteered a varn. 
 
 " It's hard life, sir, out there by them sands, when a heavy 
 sou'-sou'-west is blowing, and there's no rum or baccy aboard. 
 Hard work beating round the nine miles of Goodwin Sands, 
 and the sea washing over you so that you can't look to wind- 
 ward, and it pours off your back in bucketfuls. Sooner be off 
 the Knock Sand, or the Galloper, or plain out in the Gull 
 "Way than that. There we lay four nights, running, maybe, 
 half asleep on the boards ; no room for beds in a hoveller ; half
 
 A BATHING-PLACE ON THE SOUTH COAST. 85 
 
 on watch, ten of us altogether, and maybe rousted out t-svice 
 a night, aud frightened out of your wits." 
 
 I asked if they gave warning to vessels that they saw likely 
 to get on that burial-pit of sailors. 
 
 "No," said Coxen, with, a sarcastic shake of the head, "not 
 we ; we don't rough it for that. Captains wouldn't give us 
 anything for giving them notice. We are there to get 'em off, 
 not to prevent 'em getting on. It was only last week we were 
 there getting up pig-iron, with the nipping tongs as we use, 
 from a wreck, and we were rousted out by the watch, because 
 a French brig was going between us and the sand. Another 
 moment, by the Lord, and she'd have been safe on, when one 
 of our mates cries out, ' Helm a starboard !' and she Avas off it. 
 "We asked him afterwards, but he couldn't tell why he cried 
 out — he couldn't help it." 
 
 I thought to myself of the old story of the dumb boy 
 speaking, and of the natural outcry of the heart ; but I said 
 nothing. 
 
 " Wlien the Groodwin lighthouse sends up a rocket we know 
 it is time to go off, for some ship is in distress, and off we 
 bundles. Often and often the men in the Goodwin light-ship, 
 who mayn't, whatever happens, leave to help any -wreck, hear 
 the drownding men a singing out, though they are two miles 
 off. Sometimes when we get out we finds the ship a bumping 
 and bumping, and a driving and a tearing, and the sand all in a 
 boil round them, and the waves ripping off their copper." 
 
 " Great moment," says Parkins, leaning forward with the 
 strained tiller-ropes in his hands, his nautical straw hat and 
 blue ribbon on one side, his spectacles in a glassy stare of ex- 
 pectation, his cigar going out in his hand ; " the joy of saving 
 a human life, the transport and tears of gratitude !" 
 
 " Not tliey," says Coxen, winking at a passing gull ; " not a 
 bit of it. Last December twelvemonth as ever was, will you 
 believe me, gentlemen, a vessel had gone down, and we was 
 patrolling, as you or I might do, round the Goodwin, looking 
 out for stray casks or an anker of brandy, or summut of tliat 
 sort. Well, we heard a scream, and went up and found a man 
 clinging to a spar. We went up and picked up a young
 
 86 CEOSS COUNTRY. 
 
 Frenchman, who had been clinging there nine hours, till his 
 hands would scarcely come straight again. He had been 
 washed off once, and made his way to it again. Well, we got 
 him up, and then^ we picked up the captain. We nursei 
 them up, and rubbed them, and gave 'em clothes and some 
 rum, and I'll be hanged, next day, when we met them in High 
 Street, if they would even speak to us ; but, then, there is one 
 thing, they was parley voos." 
 
 " Do you find them on their knees'?" asked Parkins, timidly. 
 
 " We find them praying or shrieking, or anything ; some-^ 
 times they have been a drinking, and, in that case, often they 
 won't leave the wessel, say what you will, and swear and curse 
 at you." 
 
 "And what do you do," said Parkins, "in these distressing, 
 circumstances ?" 
 
 " Do," said Coxen, indignantly, as if all pity for anything 
 but a family who had lost their property tlu-ough want of 
 learning was wasted — " do, young gentleman ? why, leave 'em 
 alone — leastwise if it is the master or capten ; if it is only a 
 common sailor, the rest force him into the boat — generally." 
 
 " Do they cheer," says Parkins the enthusiastic, " when they 
 see the gallant fellows coming to their rescue ?" 
 
 "Not they. What has ever put such things into your 
 head ?" said Coxen. " I never touches 'em either, till we have 
 made a regular bargain what we're to get, or oiir salvage 
 wouldn't be much. Generally the leak is coming in hot and 
 fast on them, for a vessel gets above its mast-head in the Good- 
 wins in three tides, and they want us at the pumps, and tre- 
 menjus hard they work us, and then sometimes won't give us 
 even a Schnapps over. ' What for you Euglish talk always so 
 much about Schnapps ? I no Schnapps for you.' They are of 
 all sorts ; some think nothing at all about it, others again cat 
 it close and niggarly — there's where it is ; and when the sal- 
 vage money comes it has to be divided among a many hands. 
 We saved a ship last year, a German emigrant vessel from Bre- 
 men, and got four hundred pound for it in the Salvage Court ;. 
 the Admiralty don't allow money as isn't well-earned, and I got 
 only thirty-five pound out of it. Unlucky vessel that was.
 
 A BATHING-PLACE ON THE SOUTH COAST. 87 
 
 too : dang if it didn't run against Dippington pier, trying to 
 come in ! "Well, all her goods were taken out and reshipped 
 for Bremen. Back they went, and came here again in another 
 vessel, and dang if that didn't rasp the same place and all but 
 go down, too ! There is a luck about some things." 
 
 " "Were these Germans grateful ?" said I. 
 
 " They were that," said Coxen, bending Titanically to his 
 oar ; they " hidolized me, sure-ly. "Wouldn't leave nohow ; and 
 if I went into a public-house they all came too, and stopped 
 till I got up to go." 
 
 I pointed to some gulls, looking like specs of froth thrown 
 from a wave, that were dipping and wheeling round the sole of 
 an old shoe that was tied to a pole in the river to mark the 
 practicable current. The " leather," as it is called, alternating 
 with " twigs," placed here, probably, just as they were in King 
 Canute's time. 
 
 Coxen looked at the Avild birds with the tender eye of a far- 
 mer looking at his own poultry. " Yes," said he, " they don't 
 come much here till the winter ; in the summer they keep out 
 at sea. Lord ! you should see them stalliing about the Good- 
 win Sands" (Coxen mostly spoke of them as the Goodins) " at 
 low water, as large as fowls, looking out for drownded men." . 
 
 " Have you ever been to London, Coxen ?" 
 
 " Yes," said Coxen. ""Wlien I goes I like to see Ilashley's 
 and the Monyment, and the theaytres. Lord!" (tucking the oar 
 again chattily under his left leg) " how the gents as come down 
 here do like to get out of that suffocating place ! ' Coxen,' says 
 they to me, ' how glad I am to get out of that filthy London !' 
 What with the bugs and the rats, I think they has a hard time 
 of it ; and all I wonder is, with the jamming of houses and 
 people, they escape being smothered." 
 
 Prom this our conversation turned to rats, about which I told 
 Coxen the story of how, in George the First's time, the brown 
 rat came from Norway, and, killing all the indigenous black 
 rats, conquered the country. But Coxen, putting aside this 
 story, would have it that London was the centre of all rats as 
 well as of all evil. " There was a craft," said he, " the Simon 
 Taylor, laden with sugar, as struck and was sinking just as me
 
 88 'cross country. 
 
 and my mates was a coming up in our lugger. One of us stuck 
 liis crowbar in the coating of the mast, and found the ship was 
 choke-full of rats all under where the wedges of the mast was. 
 I tell you what, sir, those rats will get so numerous that the 
 saUors have to put victuals and drink for them reg'lar, or they 
 eat the very planks tlu-ough. They'll eat the horn buttons off 
 the sailors' jackets, and the thick skin off the heels of the meu 
 as they lie in their hammocks." 
 
 A broad vein of dull purple here spreading through the light 
 chrysolite green of the sea, arrested Coxen's weather eye, who 
 declared, as it moved along, that it must be a " school" of 
 mackerel. It proved to be only the flying shadow of a grey 
 cloud, but it was sufficient to turn the conversation on fishing, 
 for, just at that moment, row after row of floating corks, branded 
 with the letters of their owners' names, and indicating sunk 
 lobster-pots, brovight us on to some busy boats of fishermen, 
 who were drawing up the net cages, weighted with fliuts, inside 
 which hung strings of dead plaice. 
 
 A word of mine about the fishing cormorants of China, and 
 the chance of tamiag the fishing eagle, led Cosen to curious 
 revelations of the fish world ; about the devil-fish, the jelly-fish, 
 the fiddle-fish (shaped like the butt of a fiddle), the stotter, and 
 especially the dog-fish, the special enemy of the fishermen of 
 Dippington and everywhere else. 
 
 "Lord!" said Coxen, "you should see how them dog-fish 
 tear bits out of the net, and swallow the lobster-nets right 
 down in their hurry to get at the fish. I don't mean the piggy- 
 dogs, the fellows aU over prickles like, but the spur-dogs, the 
 largest ones. The fishermen know when they are coming, they 
 can smell 'em a long way off, when the dogs are coming in packs 
 after the whitings, they are so oily and ranky. Why, I saw one 
 just now on the pier as we pushed ofl", that one coidd not 
 bear one's nose near. They're as bad as the gannet, that the 
 sailors declare lift up the net for each other to get the her- 
 rings out." 
 
 Here we sighted two Hastings flshing-luggers in which a crew 
 of sturdy giants in orangy blouses, under their black, patched, 
 and tawny sails, were uproariously shouting and rejoicing at
 
 A bathi>'Ct-place on the south coast. S9 
 
 ia^Tiig secured a boat and a half, fourteen thousand herrings in 
 one night. 
 
 This event having passed, we returned to the dog-fish, just 
 as our boat passed a ruined castle on a cliff, whose broken 
 towers cut dark against the great shining disc of the setting 
 sun. 
 
 I inquired if the whiting were a peculiarly timid fish. 
 
 " Thafs right," said Coxen, dipping his oar in the water to 
 try the depth ; " they run from them dog-fish like a rat from a 
 dog, or a mouse from a cat. You see, sii', the herrings are too 
 fast for them tiU the nets stop them, so that directly they come 
 up to the nets, they gap at them ; when they do catch these 
 customers, the men take and cut them up piecemeal, or stretch 
 them across with a spritsail-yard. Same Avith crabs. Don't 
 you buy those red prawns they hawks about, they're only bas- 
 tard shrimps. We have no prawns ; they've left the coast these 
 twenty year. I can remember when I used to go on the main 
 head, and pass the net up the weeds off the pier, and hear them 
 rustle in— a good basketful. The haddock, too, has left the 
 coast. I don't know whether their food is gone, or how it is. 
 I remember when they were a dozen for a s hillin g in these 
 parts." 
 
 These parts meant Splashington beach, which was by this 
 time scraping our keel. 
 
 EOWIKG AT DIPPINGION. 
 
 The greatest jealousy exists between the people of Dipping- 
 ton and those of the adjoining watering-place of Splashington. 
 "The Splashington people," according to Coxen, " are all bounce, 
 — awful bounceable, they are, surely Their boats are allays 
 the best and the fiistest, and when a gentleman asks tliem to 
 have a nip of grog, they allays mention a shilling's worth." 
 
 " Bragging fellows ?" 
 
 " That's right. Splashington for pluck, is their cry, and Dip- 
 pington for money." Coxen had never seen the like of them, 
 he hadn't. 
 
 Indeed, there had once been a regatta at Dippington, and he 
 (Coxen) had to pick his crew, and he chose two Splashington
 
 90 'cross country. 
 
 men who was good hands, they was ; but they came after a 
 boosing party of three days, during which they had eaten 
 scarcely anything, and so lost. " Oh, they were a queer lot, 
 they were, at Splashington — no account at all." 
 ; Now came Parkins's rowing lesson. 
 
 " Keep time, sir ; no chopping, like a man-of-war's-raan — 
 hands closer together, sir — oar more aft, sir — now well home !" 
 
 The "well home" consisted in Parkins's missing the surface 
 of the water, " catching a crab," and being nearly knocked off 
 his seat. 
 
 More directions to Parkins's confused and troubled mind : 
 " Dip your oar a little deeper in the water, sir — to the end of 
 the blade ! It is no exertion if you lean well back, and then 
 pull the oar home — well home." 
 
 Coxen might be right, and rowing may be no exertion, but 
 Parkins certainly at that moment looked as if it was. His coat 
 was off, his braces undone, his face a vivid carmine. 
 
 " Steer straight, sir, for the Belly View Tavern — keep time, 
 sir, or it's no use — the faster you go, you see, the worse you 
 does. Now, one — two !" 
 
 And so we returned to Dippington, and that night I finished 
 my Epic. 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 THE SQUIEe's pew. 
 
 (a deeam that caeeied me back a htjndeed years.) 
 
 *' And other faces fresh and new 
 Shall fill agahi the Sqmre's pew." 
 
 One day last summer, I went down into "Wiltshire on a little 
 antiquarian tour with my friend St. Ives. 
 
 His chief object was brasses — mine was tumuli and Eoman 
 camps. He cared nothing for camps, I for brasses — the day of 
 which I speak, we had started from Hindon in a trap for Beau- 
 lieu, a little retired village on the "Wiltshire Downs, ten miles 
 from "Warminster — the church there being celebrated for its
 
 THE squire's pew. 91 
 
 brasses — we reached it after a pleasant drive over breezy- 
 downs, glorified with sunshine and dotted black with rooks — 
 we got the key from the sexton ; to work on his knees went 
 St. Ives, with tracing papers and rubbers in due form. I soon 
 got tired of watching the enthusiast, and retired into the 
 Squire's pew, up in the gallery, to spend an hour over 
 Hobbes' Behemoth, which I happened to have brought with 
 me. But somehow or other, Hobbes' heavy dialogue and the 
 heat of the day soon sent me to sleep, and my dream (written 
 out that night at the Hindou Inn) took somewhat the sub- 
 joined form: 
 
 DKEAM. 
 
 Methought it was a bright Sunday morning, in the year 
 1761, and I had strolled into Beaulieu church just in time to 
 see the worthy old Jacobite baronet, Sir Henry Cantelupe, 
 enter his pew — the one I had my dream in— it was an old 
 family prayer-book, embossed with fine old arms, and stamped 
 1760, that had set me off. 
 
 ,;. I looked, and behold, five minutes before the commencement 
 of divine ser\dce, the right hand door of the squire's gallery 
 opened, and Sir Henry entered ; it did me good to see that 
 brave old gentleman hide his face for a moment in his gold- 
 laced cocked hat, as though acknowledging that he had entered 
 the Presence Chamber of the great Lord and Master of us all ; 
 and this grave and sincereact of homage was all the more com- 
 mendable, because there was much in that old church to rouse 
 the pride and vanity of a Cantelupe. 
 
 In the first place the moment the brass handle of the gallery 
 door had begun even to move or jostle from the outside, that 
 moment it had been the custom in Beaulieu church, for a good 
 forty years, for the choir of Beaulieu parish to tune up. The 
 choir consisted of, imprimis, Robert Lightfoot, carpenter, first 
 fiddle; secondly, Tom Teddington, grocer, second fiddle; 
 thirdly, Jeptha Heavytree, blacksmitli, bass viol; fourthly, 
 Obadiah Maybolc, a farmer's son, who performed on the flute ; 
 and lastly, but not least, that rival of the maddest wild goose 
 as to upper notes, and as to chalumcau no mean competitor
 
 92 CROSS COUNTRY. 
 
 with the bull ; "Will Groliglitly, farmer, on the clarionet. The 
 choir began to strike up an appropriate anthem — such as 
 " Lift up your heads, O ye ffutes," Blow ; or " Why hop ye so, ye 
 high Mils f " Pursell ; or some other burst of exultant religious 
 music that might not appropriately be construed by a profane 
 stranger into a compliment to the squire on his entrance into 
 the church. Indeed, there can be little doubt that the Squire 
 so construed it, as he generally after his short prayer rose up, 
 hung his laced hat on a curved peg which jutted out from a 
 neighbouring mural- monument, and taking the large quarto 
 silver-clasped red-edged common prayer from the velvet-lined 
 shelf, for a moment stood up, slightly inclined his manly head 
 to the congregation, many of whom rose too, and stroked 
 down their forelocks or nodded in the direction of the vSquire's 
 pew. Then the Squire sat down and calmly looked round to 
 see who was present — or if anyone was away who ought not to 
 be ; and just as Parson Greenoak sails in, worthy old vicar, in his 
 white clear-starched gown puffing as a swan's breast, and banded 
 by the crimson hood of Oxford, he looks up at the Squire, do\Mi 
 the chancel to the school-children, smooth-haired and red- 
 cheeked, then buries his face in his hands, and is absorbed for 
 a moment or two in prayer. 
 
 Hitherto the choir has been jubilant, but subdued; now the 
 members of it break out into extreme and enthusiastic violence 
 from the benches at the west end, which are their chosen seats. 
 Lightfoot's fiddle-bow balances and saws with dolorous ex- 
 citement ; Teddington, who is strong in his bow hand, rasps 
 the strings as if his sole purpose was to drown and oblivionize 
 his worthy colleague's instrument ; Mayduke, who is a sturdy 
 young farmer's son, the buck of the village, cannot get his 
 lower lip quite comfortably on the aperture of the box-wood 
 flute, but "Will Golightly comes to his rescue, and shrieks into 
 his clarionet loud enough to awake old Sir "Walter Cantelupe, 
 who sleeps on his back in an alabaster suit of mail in the south 
 chapel : as for Heavytree, who has but one arm, and holds the 
 tremendous bass-viol with an iron hook (he lost his arm 
 thirty years ago, in one of Queen Anne's battles), he toils 
 away with the solemnity of a man in a saw-pit at the huge
 
 THE squire's pew. 93 
 
 instrument between his legs, that roars, and groans, and bellows 
 in a way that is not merely praiseworthy, but tremendous. 
 
 jS'ow as we do not intend to follow Sir Harry through 
 all the grand liturgy or solemn prayers of the early saints, 
 martyrs, confessors, and last, not least, reformers of our great 
 English church ; let us explain what we mean by saying that 
 incitement for worldly pride existed within that church of 
 
 Beaulieu on that pleasant autumn Sunday of the year of 
 
 the Hanoverian Monarch King George ; well, in the first place, 
 the old church would seem to a sneering man, it must be 
 confessed, to have somehow or other forgot its primary desti- 
 nation, and from a church erected by good men for God, to 
 have grown by an almost unconscious progression into a 
 church erected to the Avorship of the Cantelupe family, whose 
 rich-coloured arms — per bend or and azure — three dexter 
 hands couped and erect gules, with the crest a dragon's head 
 cloven, and the proud motto, " tet me," shone and glistened 
 in every part. Its luminous red and azure outshone the old 
 quaint crucifixion in the east window, and quite hid the sun 
 and the moon, which the artist had tried to represent as 
 eclipsed. It was let into the centre oak panel of the squire's 
 pew, amid a nest of long apples, and strings of flowers, and 
 fruit, executed by the hand of some disciple of Grinliug 
 Gibbons, but who had not his great master's art of turning 
 hea\y wood into airy and pendant flowers. It came out in 
 full force in the chancel, where the school-childi'en huddled 
 and chattered m under-breath, quite regardless of the rhyth- 
 mical prayers that rose like perfume from a silver censer from 
 the good vicar's lips. It blossomed on Sir Eoger Cantelupe's 
 tomb — Eoger the courtier, who Elizabeth herself smiled at when 
 out hunting one day at Hampton, and declared that " stout 
 young Sir Cantelupe was a very tall man of his hands," and 
 who eventually falling into disgrace for secretly marrying 
 pretty IMistress Anne Beauflower, a maid of honour to the old- 
 maid Queen, was disgraced, and retired to forget miserable 
 court intrigues, and be happy in the Wiltslm'o Do\vns, even- 
 tually to come and lie here in stone-ruifs of countless quills, 
 pease-cod doublet, Yeuetiau hose, and stiffened shoes, sump-
 
 94 'cross country. 
 
 tuous in alabaster, beside Dame Anne bis wife, guarded by a 
 little band of sons and daughters, who kneel round bis tomb 
 in relief, all with ruifs and fardingales like tbeir good parents. 
 Then opposite them broke out the or and azure again, on 
 tbe cavalier General's tomb, brave Sir Peter, who fell for bis 
 king at Northamptonshire, bravely — there he was, not a bit 
 more humble than the Crusader in the chapel or his Eliza- 
 bethan ancestor opposite, in the chancel, resting on his left 
 hip ; a General's truncheon in his right hand, on which is a 
 fringed cuff glove ; while he wears a serene expression of loyal 
 determination in his oval face, which is so like his foolish, un- 
 fortunate master's. 
 
 It is true there is no or and azure, and cloven dragon's head 
 on the whitewashed ceiling, nor in the carved oak pulpit, nor on 
 the font — but why go on cataloguing the church, for it is carved 
 on the great blue flag-stones in the side aisle, it is on that 
 scrolled marble shield slab, with its cherubs, skulls, hour-glasses, 
 and thick dismal bordering — it is of various degrees of lustre 
 in every window but one, and that was smashed by a Puritan 
 clerk in a fit of drunkenness during the Sacheverell agitation, 
 and never yet replaced. We do not mean to say that this ela- 
 borate emblazonment of the whole church, as if it were a family 
 salver or punch ladle, has arisen from any irreverent or ar- 
 rogant pride of any individual Cantelupe ; but the race is a 
 proud one, and it is the result of a long crescent pride here re- 
 presented in aggregate. From the Crusades, Avhen Sir "Walter 
 or Cantelupe took the Dragon Crest from some monster of un- 
 known name and fabulous attributes he slew in Egypt, down to 
 the time of the present warm-hearted, good old Sir Harry of the 
 keen brown eye, and cheek of frosty red, every century has but 
 added to these heraldic records : one knight has given a window, 
 another has erected a tomb ; one gave that carved goblet of a 
 pulpit, with that strange stalk to the sounding-board that is 
 meant for a palm tree, but looks hugely like a great gilt stick 
 of celery, the sounding-board that mushrooms out above 
 like the dial face of a compass being starred and lined with 
 magnet-rays of light and dark woods. It is something solemn 
 and reproving, though, to human pride to think how many gene-
 
 THE squire's pew. 95 
 
 rations of the name of Cantelupe have sat in that pew lined 
 ^^-ith blood-red velvet, faded here and there to yeUow brown, or 
 looked down on those green lined, high sleeping boxes that came 
 in with Queen Anne; one after the other doled out by Time, 
 and snatched up by Death in their great card match at which 
 the stakes are human lives. Cantelupes not only lie under the 
 pews, and at the door, and in the chancel, but in the niches of 
 the wall, where the builder himself slumbers. It is a short 
 time is man's life — not many clock beats, not many buddinf^s 
 and leaf falls — not many ebbs and flows ; a little longer than 
 the birds — a little shorter than the avenue trees, yet time enouo-h 
 to be proud in, and time enough to earn HeU or win Heaven. 
 
 But we are getting too serious : now there was nothing dole- 
 ful or whining about that day's religion in Beaulieu church, in 
 the county of "Wilts. Parson Greenoak stood up erect in his 
 hearty age in the high reading desk so bathed in the slant white 
 sunlight that fell darting through a near window, that to those 
 in front of liim he appeared in his white robes like the spirit 
 of some departed prophet appearing in vision of glory to a 
 dying saint ; but this eftect was marred somewhat by the thi-eads 
 of light which strung across like some angel weaver's woof, 
 shining here and there behind good Parson Greenoak, on the 
 crimson velvet of the pulpit cushions, which were stamped in 
 the centre with tlie arms of their donor, Sir Harry, who gave 
 them to the church on his marriage day, now thirty years ago. 
 Apart, however, from all spiritual resemblance, which a touch 
 of worldly pride thus profanely broke in upon, it was a pleasant 
 sight to see the October sunlight mottle the opposite wall of 
 the Squire's pew with a glowy, quivering, golden mottle, that 
 as the service progressed, slowly passed further eastward, as the 
 sun rose higher towards noon. No wonder that when these 
 errant lights and fragments of glory glowed around the semi- 
 bald head of Lightfoot, Heavytree, and their tuneful band, one 
 old woman, whom many people thought a witch because she 
 was presumptuous enough to say she saw visions, declared in a 
 whisper to a red-cloaked gossip as the strings of the fiddle-bow 
 ehone gold and transparent, and the heavenly but rather nasal 
 music rose up in a thick and almost visible steam, that she
 
 96 'cross country. 
 
 never beheld anything so like her idea of the Elders with their 
 golden harps except once when she saw King George attending 
 service in Salisbury Cathedral. " Poor Goodie," said this wor- 
 thy vicar, when somebody told him this, " wiser people than 
 you have had meaner ideas of Heaven ; you had better think of 
 God visibly up in Paradise than in no heaven and no hell, 
 like that poor Atheist they make so much ado about in Paris." 
 Good man, he had always an excuse even for bad people ; and to 
 hear him you would think that we were living in the golden 
 age, and that gold-worship was generally becoming extinct. 
 
 True, that a man like Swift, at this time fast sinking into 
 idiotcy, (dreadful punishment of wasted and perverted intellect,) 
 would have smiled cynically to have seen the way in which the 
 excellent vicar seemed unconsciously to direct all the prayers to 
 the Squire's pew, as if that was the first turnpike gate on the 
 road to Heaven. He would have scoffed in the churchyard 
 afterwards at the vicar's bowing that way in the creed, waiting 
 to begin the gospel till the Squire's pew was well on its legs, 
 and in the sermon abstaining from touching anything but poor 
 men's ills. There was nothing about pride, but a good deal 
 about poaching ; no word about the rich man stuck in the 
 needle's eye, but a good deal about laziness, sottish idleness ; a 
 severe logician might almost have gathered from the sermon 
 that poverty was a sin, and that no one but a child of the devil 
 was either poor or was wicked enough to remain so. The 
 church of Beaulieu was, in fact, rather a dangerous place for a 
 keen observer, unless he could chain up his eyes ; for it was 
 amusing to see the old clerk John JN^ightwork, village under- 
 taker, who sat under the pulpit, folding his arms on his breast, 
 and deliberately dozing with a set expression of serene and 
 tranquil enjoyment on his wrinkled mask of a face. It was 
 amusing to see at fervid moments of the discourse, when the 
 vicar got excited about some perverted text of Polycarp's, and 
 drove down his hand on the desk and cushion with half the 
 bang and almost the dust and smoke of a cannon ; to see how 
 the clerk looked up and nodded his head approvingly, as much 
 as to say, " I knew very well it would come to that, and here
 
 THE squire's pew. 97 
 
 I am sound awake to show I was listening." Sometimes it 
 would disturb the squire, who was no great hand at theology, 
 and he would start, open his eyes, look roimd rather as- 
 tonished, half rise up, shift his legs, and subside again into 
 a smiling doze of nodding approval. The clerk had been 
 kno^Ti to say " Amen" loudly in the midst of the sermon ; 
 but we believe he tried to prove that it was an unconti-ollable 
 token of admiration, and meant in the Greek " so be it," 
 alluding to " the original Greek," of which he knew about as 
 much as of Chaldee. It was, indeed, one infallible move 
 Kightwork had of ending all theological disputes at the Duke 
 of Marlborough, in which he was a distinguished disputant. 
 
 The poetical observer and listener in the church might al- 
 most, without losing the thread of the vicar's discourse upon the 
 heroism of Judith, coupled with denunciations of the excessive 
 use of ale by the poor, illustrated by the not very appropriate 
 example of Holofernes, who never drank any, have had many 
 pleasant soimds mingled with the divinity that found its way 
 into his watchful ear. First, the deep roused tick of the clock, 
 which came as regular as a giant's breathing, from the belfry 
 upper chamber, with a drowsy and unceasing monotony that 
 furnished some excuse for the Squire's attention, that seemed 
 now gradually to have settled down into what men call sleep. 
 Secondly, the pleasant, soft, soothing cooing of the Squire's 
 doves as they perched themselves on the ledge of the said bellry 
 window. Tliirdly, the noisy, but innocent chattering chirrup of 
 the pagan sparrows in the churchyard lime trees; and lastly, 
 not to mention the delicious glimpse of a fading rainbow 
 through a side window, there was the incessant low whisper 
 of the village children, which came like an luider-current 
 athwart the parson's sermon, and stood for the voice of the 
 world negating the voice of religion. 
 
 It was quite proof enough of the vicar's being a good Chris- 
 tian, that he never once looked angry over his silver specta- 
 cles at the incessant barking coughers that seemed trying to 
 cough him down, and put an end to protesting Christianity. 
 Now, certainly, it sank to almost a whisper, but no soouer had 
 it done so than some bell-wether croaker broke out in a deep 
 
 II
 
 98 'cross country. 
 
 bass, followed by a dozen or so of ligbt skirmisbers, wbo answered 
 eacli otber witb a dropping file fire that seemed really intended, 
 as I have said, to put down Christianity altogether ; as far as 
 the vicar, in that church at least, could expound it. Then a 
 sleeping boy fell ofi" a form, or a book dropped, or the clock 
 struck ; and through such conflicting obstacles it was that the 
 good man fought his way to Heaven. 
 
 But we must not be stopped by futile delays, but describe the 
 soft, green wandering light that on summer afternoons strays 
 about the white walls of the church at Beaulieu, and that now 
 in this autumn time had changed to a pale orange glimmer ; 
 the lime-leaves now were all so much leaf-gold, among which 
 the orange-breasted robin piped like a child tired, thoughtless 
 of what it disturbed, at the church porch ; one would have 
 thought it longed to come in and serve as a chorister, but 
 not daring, sat like a fairy bird without, and sang its little 
 old world, mournful, and unchanged hymn alone on the cold 
 bough, over the graves, waiting a minim rest or two be- 
 tween each verse of the spontaneous little anthem, as if 
 first to hear if anything was said about it ; but hearing only 
 a bull-frog croak from Heavytree, the bass-viol player, half 
 sti'angled by a rheum in his first sleep, beginning again, paying 
 no heed, no, not a whit, to the admirable divinity of the sermon. 
 
 Now the sermon was a good one ; but I am inclined to 
 think too learned and disputative by half for the rustic con- 
 gregation, whose minds, unaccustomed to be focu^ssed to 
 attention, would have grown cataleptic with a forty minutes' 
 strain of such compulsion, though the subject Avere Heaven 
 and their own heavenly mansions. If Sir Harry, the Squire up 
 at the hall, and the churchwarden slumbered, what could be 
 said to the smaller fry ? in fact,'who could have girded at them 
 but the vicar ? and he was too rapt in his own earnestness and 
 his heavenward flight to observe them, unless one snored him- 
 self awake, and then looked up at him guilty red, as the 
 vicar swept the area of pews over his spectacles. An Indian 
 brouglit for the first time into that big wigwam, would have 
 thought that the seventy heads were nodding in approbation 
 of what the man, up the tree was saying, or he might have
 
 THE SQUIRE S PEW. 99. 
 
 tliought the heads, if he knew our customs, nodding for bids 
 round the man at an auction, or saluting each other at some 
 silent feast with friendly noddings, certainly anything rather 
 than— — 
 
 But why am I to chide my weaker brother ? have I not, 
 too, slept when I meant to be attentive ? have I not, when I 
 should have listened, caught myself taking notes of the side 
 twitches and noddings of sleeping men, who have jogged 
 themselves awake, stared awhile at the preacher and smiled, 
 as much as to say, " that last argument was a clencher," and 
 drawn back again into the blank, dark land of sleep ; besides, 
 did not Sir Harry just now, nodding, open his eyes at the two- 
 and-thirtieth minute, unfold his legs, look complacently at his 
 shining shoe-buckles, blow his nose with watchful dignity, 
 at which all the twenty sleepers awoke, as he looked at them 
 with mild reproval, repeating to himself " Homerus aUquando 
 dormitat^'' in a low voice, as if it was a text. 
 
 Who says that the sermon was a bad sermon ? yet it consisted 
 chiefly of angry replies to some imaginary subverter of the 
 Christian faith about the time of Cyprian ; still it was a vigo- 
 rous attempt to refute the errors of Arianism, which, however, 
 certainly did not prevail much in the parish, the very name 
 of that illusion in fact, but for that forty minutes' sermon, 
 having, after so many centuries, not yet reached the tranquil 
 village. 
 
 The Latin quotations, which were numerous, struck awe to 
 the minds of the rural congregation, who the sudden transition 
 of sound generally awoke just as the angry clashing and tramp- 
 ling of yoiu' railway train suddenly diving into a tunnel awakes 
 the railway sleeper. The clerk always stirred at the sound of Latin, 
 and nodded angrily and with dignity at some playing boys in the 
 school benches. Now the sermon begins to wane, there are symp- 
 toms of its conclusion. The vicar looks forward over the last 
 leaf. His voice perceptibly sinks, the cough chorus, hitherto in- 
 creasing in violence or iitfully breaking out in gusts, as if one 
 incited the other, lulls as if the thought of getting free 
 sympathetically does everyone good — now with a benediction 
 the vicar dismisses the people. The instant the last word is 
 
 u 2
 
 100 'cross country. 
 
 uttered, the turbulent cliildren rush out with a jostle and 
 tumbling scuflBe, impatient for play or dinner — a few red- 
 cheeked village beaux wait at the door for their sweethearts — 
 there, too, the old men rejoin their wives, and go tottering 
 past the place where they will soon rest for ever, while the boys 
 run in and out, careless, between the grassy mounds. 
 
 Gravely after the last lagging alms-woman emerges- the 
 good vicar, who sails home to dinner in his white robes, &c. 
 
 I was still simmering on in a cozy warm sleep, when a shout 
 from St, Ives, about a new brass that he had found under the 
 matting in the north aisle, awoke me —I now took a turn at 
 rubbing, and in twenty minutes more our trap was bowling 
 back again across the Wiltshire Downs. 
 
 That night I wTote down my dream of the Squire's Pew. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ceomwell's house iisr London. 
 
 The dark, massy ghost of Cromwell haunts more than one 
 locality of London. It has been seen a pillar of mist in Long 
 Acre and Brompton, at Bermondsey and AYestminster, in all 
 which places the great Protector alternately lived. 
 
 Of all the London ghosts, except Dr. Johnson's, Cromwell's 
 is, perhaps, the most corporeal and sturdy. Black suit and 
 cloak it wears, and long boots ; the hat, such as he donned 
 the day he was proclaimed Lord Protector, has a broad gold 
 band, in fashion not unlike a crown, girding it round. 
 
 Where shall we follow the stately ghost first ? To the far 
 Bermondsey ; to the old house now the Jamaica Tavern, that 
 is embalmed by the horrible fumes of the glue-makers and the 
 tanners, whose steeping pits, filled with a dark liquor the 
 colour of spiced ale, has a dust floating on the top of them 
 that (follo-wdng the simile) looks very much like grated nut- 
 meg. All green then, I daresay, with bushy elms, when 
 Cromwell perhaps brought his bride here from St, Giles's,
 
 Cromwell's house in London. 101 
 
 Cripplegate, or mounted at the door for Naseby or Dunbar, 
 "where the godless cavaliers and rebellious plaids fled before the 
 battle-psalms of Oliver's troopers. Only a slice of the old 
 building now remains ; the other half has gone to the vrinds 
 years ago ; but in the half still left there are staircase beams 
 stamped with carved quatrefoils and flowers ; and there are 
 old bolts that the mighty Protector of England may have 
 stopped and loosed ; long and high tables, larger than those 
 of these degenerate times, old black settles that the Ironsides 
 may have slept or watched round ; and oak wainscoting that 
 Oliver's breast-plate may have shone upon and his sword have 
 clashed against. 
 
 ]S"o wonder the ghost rarely visits Old Brompton, for Crom- 
 well House is gone to the ground years ago, and the old gi-een 
 lanes are now streets. Besides, ghosts lead and point and 
 shake their heads, but they will not enter into discussions with 
 you ; and I do not find much evidence that Cromwell ever did 
 live at Hale House, Brompton, the seat of the Methwolds, 
 though Henry Cromwell perhaps did so before he went the 
 second time to Ireland, and not improbably even married from 
 hence. As it is a bygone house, we will speak no evil of it ; 
 but we may just say that it was a mere square brick chest, 
 with a room in it lined with Dutch tiles. Nor are we, indeed, 
 lucky with our other Cromwell residences ; for our next trip 
 is to the present Privy Council Ofiice in Whitehall, where once 
 the Cock-pit stood, in which locality dwelt the great country 
 gentleman who governed England so well, and made her the 
 terror and admiration of the world. It was to his wife, living 
 at the Cock-pit, that Cromwell wrote the news of "the 
 crowning victory" at Dunbar. Thousands of omnibuses roll- 
 ing past to and from Weetmiaster have, however, long erased 
 all footsteps of our great Cromwell. 
 
 But the greatest portion of Cromwell's career, before he 
 became Protector, was spent in King Street, Westminster, in. 
 an old wooden house lying between the Blue IJoar's Head 
 Yard (to be exact) and Ham's Mews. The street then ran 
 straight from Charing Cross, past AVhitehall, to Westminster, 
 and had a great arch standing across it. It was a well-to-do
 
 102 'cross country. 
 
 street ; for tlion gli poor Spenser the poet had died of starvation in 
 it, Queen Elizabeth's Lord High Admiral had held Privy Councils 
 there — councils so disastrous to the Spaniard. Through this 
 narrow street the halberdiers brought King Charles in a close 
 chair to "Whitehall, after his trial at Westminster, and from 
 its latticed windows Cromwell himself may have looked with 
 stern sorrow at the sedan that bore the faithless king. 
 
 But I never meet Cromwell so often, even a dim shadow, in 
 the sunshine, (for it is all nonsense about your ghosts walking 
 only by moonlight : the mind's eye, to which alone they are 
 visible, can conjure them up by day or night,) as in Long 
 Acre, that quiet street of coach-builders. I [specially love to 
 track my sober ghost hither, because I know, from a dull, 
 industrious book-grubber of my acquaintance, that my friend 
 Oliver lived here quietly from 1637 to 1G43, (eventful years 
 for him, as for others,) where he was rated for the large siim, 
 in those days, of ten shillings and tenpence. My date-grubber 
 is even kind enough to inform me that the same not unknown 
 Captain Cromwell lived on the south side, the Strand side, two 
 doors from one Nicholas Stone, a sculptor. 
 
 And here I shall refuse to go any further with my ghost, or 
 he will keep me half the night leading me about — to the Star 
 Tavern, in Coleman Street, where he used, before the king's 
 fall, in the dangerous and troublous times, to meet his ad- 
 herents ; or to the Blue Boar Inn, High Holborn, where he 
 intercepted the treacherous letter of the king ; so here I must 
 stop him, for even a ghost may be troublesome. It was not in 
 Long Acre, in the quiet Captain's house, that Cromwell kept 
 his seven tables spread, as he afterwards did at Whitehall, nor 
 his twelve footmen in grey jackets laced with silver and black. 
 It was not here he saw his famous "Coffin Mare," with his 
 favourite groom Dick Pace on her back, fly over the green 
 turf; nor from this house did he ride to waken the echoes of 
 Hampton Park, or to shake down the chestnut bloom of Bushy 
 with the sounding feet of his Flemish hunters. 
 
 How often, as I walk in the sunshine through that busy 
 coach-builders' street, do I fancy I see coming towards me a 
 form of massive stature, with leonine head, which, by the wart
 
 Cromwell's house in londox. 103 
 
 on'the riglit eye-brow, wbicli marks his frown so dreadfully, I 
 know to be Cromwell, whose early life was spent in this neigh- 
 bourhood. I know well his heavy eyelids and his full aquiline 
 nose, his broad lower jaw, his strong chin, and the long, soft, 
 curlless hair streaming down over his plain doublet collar and 
 steel breastjilate. There is a natural majesty about the Hunt- 
 ingdon country gentleman, indeed, such as kings rarely possess. 
 
 How imlike this Long Acre, witli its black still houses, to 
 that great yellow brick mansion at Huntingdon, where Crom- 
 well was born ! that house, not far from the dark Ouse, that 
 passes on sullenly to the Fen country through rows of dull 
 alders and drooping willows; or the stately ancestral house where 
 Oliver's grandfather entertained James I. Avith almost regal 
 splendour. jSTor can we here help stopping for a moment to re- 
 mind our readers that Cromwell was of no mean family, if truly 
 to be of a mean family is a disgrace in the estimation of any but 
 a mean mind. Cromwell was sprung of noble Welsh blood, 
 especially from a certain Dick of the Diamond, whom Henry 
 YIII. knighted for his unrivalled prowess in a Court tour- 
 nament. On both father and mother's side, by descent as well 
 as by various intermarriages, Cromwell's family was deeply 
 connected with that brave middle class which has produced 
 Eno-land's best and bravest men. He was educated at Cam- 
 bridge, and studied law at I-incobi's Iim. 
 
 He returned home to become a careless roysterer, fond of 
 cards, quarter-staff, and rough country sports, till a great 
 darkness fell on him, and slowly through that darkness broke 
 the light from heaven that brought joy and peace. In country 
 quiet and ease he lived, " nursing his great soul in silence," as 
 his friend Milton said afterwards of him. It was no adven- 
 turer of restless ambition who became really King of England, 
 but a brave, pious, industrious country gentleman, who, at the 
 mature age of forty-one— more than half life over — took his 
 seat in the Long l^arliament as member for Cambridge, re- 
 solved to throw himself into the front rank as a buckler for his 
 Buffering country. 
 
 Still, through the pallor of ghostliness, (it is a long way to 
 walk from Connaught Place, where, under Tybiu-u gallows,
 
 104 'cross country. 
 
 base hands threw the great man's corpse,) I can still see the 
 bluff Oliver's tanned dyspeptic face, that ITudibras and the 
 other cavalier wits thought it not disgraceful to mock at ; the 
 heavy red nose, too, the result of fen agues, I am not insensible 
 to. But I forget it all in that glance of blended love and 
 majesty that Dry den mentions so beautifully. I bow, there- 
 fore, with reverence when I meet the ghost of that good and 
 truly great man. The ribald cavaliers — such men as Eochester 
 and Buckingham — talk of him as the moody Puritan ; but I 
 know that he loves music, and will listen for hours to voice 
 and instrument, with Milton his friend dreaming at his elbow. 
 They call him the red-handed murderer ; I know that he loves 
 children, and is the tenderest of fathers. They think him a 
 melancholy madman; I know that he loves an honest jest, 
 and roared with laughter at seeing a soldier jam his head 
 inextricably in a Scotch churn. They call him niggard ; I 
 know that he feasted all the Parliament House, each Monday 
 dined all his officers, and every day kept all but open table, 
 though in his own diet truly he was spare and costless. They 
 call him an ignorant brewer ; but Milton tells me that, had 
 he chosen, Cromwell's natural capacity was so great that he 
 might have equalled the greatest masters. They call him a 
 h}^ocrite ; but I know that he begins and ends every work 
 with prayer. 
 
 I see him in Long Acre — this great, good man — walking 
 with that dear stripling son Oliver, the news of whose death 
 went like a dagger to his father's heart, with lazy, careless 
 Eichard, or his dear Dorothy (his daughter-in-law). That 
 hooded graceful old lady, with the pure simple pearl necklace, 
 must be the dear mother he loved so much ; she of whom he 
 always wrote with such respect and love ; she who, in parting 
 from him, gave him her blessing in these fond but broken 
 words : " The Lord cause his face to shine upon you, and bless 
 you, and comfort you in all your adversities ; and make you to 
 do great things for the glory of your most high God, and to be 
 a relief unto his people. My dear son^ I leave my heart with 
 thee ; good night." 
 
 Surely, when we reckon up the mothers to whom great mea
 
 Cromwell's house in London. 105 
 
 have been indebted for their greatness and their goodness, we 
 must not forget Cromwell's. I love the dear old mother that 
 never heard a gun shot off at Hampton or AVhitehall, but she 
 trembled for the life of her dear Oliver. When I meet her 
 now, she wears a plain white satin hood, fastened with decent 
 gravity under the chin ; her broad lace handkerchief, drawn 
 closely round her neck, is tied vnth a black string ; and over 
 all this there comes a green satin cardinal, fastened with one 
 simple jewel. Indeed, I often meet all the fine Puritan family in 
 Long Acre— for ghosts love the home of their youth. Here I 
 overtake his favourite daughter, Mrs. Claypole, who had the un- 
 fortunate Eoyalist bias ; the more austere Lady Ireton ; and 
 Frances, whom Oliver's chaplain courted, but a Gloucester- 
 shire gentleman married. 
 
 I often think, when I see the stalwart ghost, that I respect 
 him more as the kind father and firm friend, than even as the 
 conqueror of Dunbar or Naseby— more as the retiring country 
 gentleman, who would have been glad to live under his " wood- 
 side shade and have kept a flock of sheep," than as the kingly 
 Protector, trampling down the cavaliers at Marston Moor. I 
 love and venerate the man who, amid the cares of state, found 
 time to console a bereaved father, and to recommend a dead 
 ofiicer's children to the consideration of Parliament. 
 
 I remember him as the most tolerant of men. He protected 
 our universities, and preserved the dead king's scattered works 
 of art. Sectarians of all sorts, and even Eoman Catholics, 
 met at his table. To Ussher the prelate he gave a pension ; 
 Baxter he sought to make a military chaplain to the Ironsides ; 
 Milton, the ideal repviblican, was his secretary. 
 
 I venerate him as the armed apostle of reformation, as the 
 sworded advocate of liberty of conscience, as the Gustavus of 
 England, as the warrior of Protestantism. He saved the 
 bleeding Vaudois, he encouraged the Swiss, he threatened 
 Turin, he scared the Pope, he humbled the Spaniards, ho 
 defied France. In all treaties he stipulated for a toleration of 
 Protestantism. He planned a great armed alliance of the 
 Protestant powers. He protected a society that was to cor- 
 respond with all parts of the world, to encourage, aid, and
 
 106 'cross countey. 
 
 defend Protestantism. Universal toleration, evangelical alli- 
 ance, and all our grandest missionary work, were foreshadowed 
 by this great man. It was not in Parliament or in power that 
 this ghost of ours spent the best part of his life; no, but in 
 grass farming on the flat banks of the Ouse among dank 
 willows, in prayer, in preaching, and in the tranquil pleasures 
 of home. 
 
 I gaze at the aguisb ghost of the Protector, whicb I follow 
 afar off, as children do a street show, with resj)ect, yet with, 
 awe, whether he go towards Drury House or towards 
 Whitehall, where the bad king lost head and crown at one 
 blow. 
 
 But I must part from thy great shadow, as I have had to 
 part from so many others. Oliver CromweU ! I see thy stern 
 eyes and grave large features melt into vague sunshine as I 
 still address thee. Now thy sword is gone; now thy grey 
 stockings ; now half thy mirror of a breastplate ; now thy 
 faj-ling bands ; now a radiant brightness that enwraps thee. 
 Blessed spirit, may thy doom be mine, Grlorious sha- 
 dow of immortality, may I one day be as thou art, though 
 my life shall have been to thine but as that of a pigmy to 
 a giant. Illustrious among the crowned angels, may I learn 
 more and more to venerate thy memory — a true king among 
 men, a true saint before God. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE OLD MULBERRY GARDEN, NOW ST. JAMES'S PARE. 
 
 Time, who is a harlequin, famous for his tricks and changes, 
 seems to treat London as the scene of a pantomime that takes a 
 great many centuries playing, but still must come to the green- 
 curtain drop at last. Wonderful are the changes and tricks 
 he effects, telling, too, all the gentlemen of the stage, whether 
 clown or king, the proper time for their entrance and their 
 exit. His scenes are on a large scale, and they flap and slide
 
 THE OLD MULBERRY GARDEN. 107 
 
 about just like the scenes of the pantomime of my simile— (this 
 hot weather it is impossible to keep metaphors quite congruous), 
 Now a king's London palace, at a slap of his wand, becomes a 
 hospital ; now a gallow's green becomes a fashionable street. 
 Perharps Harlequin Time wills it that now a Niagara sausage- 
 machine roar in the cellar where Mrs. Brownrigg murdered her 
 apprentice, now that a coal-wharf shall take the place of the 
 Norman castle that once frowned upon the banks of the crystal 
 Thames, the " silver-footed Thamesis," whose strand the poet 
 Herrick, exiled to his rough Devonshii-e vicarage, longed to 
 repace, or " reiterate," as he somewhat fantastically calls it. 
 
 The harlequin Time, with his changeful wand ever vibrating 
 over our dear black-faced, chaugeful, dirty, delightful city, has 
 played, and is still playing, strange tricks. There was the little, 
 swift, crystal streamlet, the Fleet— swallow-swift and fleet- 
 chasing ripple after ripple, from its hilly source in some 
 Hampstead meadow, it is now a vaulted-up, loathsome, poison- 
 breathing sewer, full of rats and odours that are so strong 
 they run about in visible shapes, and is no more fit to be seen 
 than a charnel-house, or a plague-pit newly covered. The little 
 fairy nymph of that Fleet stream has long since died an Ophelia 
 death, and lies buried forty fathoms deep in this fat and stag- 
 nant Styx of subterranean London— a sad type of all the bright 
 youth and childhood that has grown old, and wicked, and 
 festering, bad, and has died, and corrupted away, in this our 
 wicked old London. The Fleet seems to me— if I may be 
 allowed to draw a simile from a book I love much — the unhappy 
 Little Nell of rivers; the Babe in the Wood, killed by its 
 nauglity uncles, the nightmen of London. Shall I stay to trace 
 its decline, as it thickened and darkened like a painter's glass, 
 when he washes his Indian-ink brush ? Shall I tell how it 
 flowed under the cruel thieves' haunts of the bad cocked-hat 
 time— the heartless, false, artificial time— when, through bloody 
 trap-doors and secret apertures, often by moon glimpses at the 
 dead of night, stabbed and battered bodies were splashed into 
 its waters by masked highwaymen and blaspheming wretches, 
 with pistols still sraokiiig, sticking from their huge flapped 
 pockets. This is Chanye No. 1.
 
 108 'cross country. 
 
 Change No. 2.— Lincoln's Inn Fields, where tlie Duke of 
 Ancaster and other of Horace AValpole's grand, patched, and 
 perriwigged, false, fribbly friends lived, with sprinkle of judges 
 and great men (brain great, not pocket great)— fading to the 
 stony row of silent chambers of 1861— where the grimy laun- 
 dress sweeps the foot-marked door-steps, and where sparse grass 
 grows between the bald white stones of the courtyards. 
 
 Change No. 3 of my sample changes ; taken at random. The 
 site of the National Gallery, in the middle Ages the King's 
 Mews ; where, in grassy plots, the dandelion balanced its hol- 
 low globe of down, like a floral acrobat, with only one trick, or 
 spread its yellow shield flower, while the white falcons of 
 Norway fluttered and whistled on the gloved hand of some 
 lucky accident that wore the regal coronet, and strutted like a 
 deity got down from its pedestal. 
 
 Change 4.— Thesilent andblocked-upwarehouses,wherechain3 
 dangle, and custom-house cats collect revenues of mice, where 
 hops smell sweet, and hay spreads about— dry memorial of 
 summer fields— and bales of spices tell stories to each other at 
 night of Ceylon cinnamon- groves and Malabar jungles — stand 
 now where once the Globe Theatre stood, where for the first 
 time the great Elizabethan men sat and wondered at the magic 
 world unrolled before them by that short prick-bearded Shaks- 
 pere, who sat on the stage among the smoking gallants and 
 their pages. 
 
 But I might go on all day, showing the pantomimic changes 
 of harlequin Time ; showing how London has eaten up all the 
 green fields round it, and spread like a gangrene, killing and 
 deadening as it spread. I could show how the rich citizens' 
 houses of middle-age London are now chandlers' shops in small 
 alleys, and that where Jane Shore, with her jewelled hair, sat 
 
 and waited for the king, is now but I must get at once to 
 
 my special change— the change of the old Mulberry Garden of 
 Charles into the modern Buckingham Palace ; the change of 
 St. James's Park from the swampy meadow walled in by Henry 
 VIII., to the trim modern triangle where the children jday, the 
 ducks strut, the swans pout, and the cows stand so patiently 
 to be milked : where once fat Prior and black-browed Swift
 
 THE OLD MULBERRY GARDEN. 109 
 
 walked together, to better, not tlie English constitution, but 
 their owoi. 
 
 It is delightful even now going down the tumultuous Strand 
 — to pace which Dr. Johnson thought the glory of existence, 
 and the whole Butij of Man ; to pass the pert statue of Charles 
 I., with the honeycombed pedestal ; and to thread through 
 those iron Horse Guard gates, under the infallible clock; and 
 between those mirrors of knighthood, the two horse-guards, 
 who seem always so bran new, so veneered, so brushed, so 
 Windsor-soaped, so killing, so fatal, if not to their enemies — 
 whom they never meet — certainly to the Carlton Terrace nurse- 
 maids, who regard them as demigods and Achilleses — as pro- 
 bably they are, if Paris Avere to be again troublesome. I still 
 like to pace the hard clean walks that border the lipping water, 
 where the yellow puffs of ducklings scull about, and where the 
 frowniug swans spread all their canvass to the blue June air — 
 just as some chiding monitor of time — some dull mechanic 
 sexton of the day — kueUs for the bygone hour over Westminster 
 way, and announces, with the indifference of a herald, the 
 coronation of a new king of sixty minutes. I like the barrack 
 sidewalk, where you hear the drum noisily vibrant, reminiscent 
 of Waterloos, or of many Yittorias. I like the open breezier 
 palace-end, where the fountain sows rainbows, and the once 
 royal home, so unhealthy, as Leigh Hunt will have it, raises 
 its wealthy but unmeauingbulk. I like to look at the hideous 
 monster of Mr. John Nash, architect — the place that bluff old 
 "William IV. would not inhabit, and that, tinkered up from 
 time to time, was originally nothing but a cheating enlargement 
 of the old Buckingham House, by that heartless, cunning fellow, 
 George IV., who thus intended to trick parliament into building 
 a new palace. I remember, without even the intelligent aid 
 of Mr. Peter Cunningham — whom so many old writers have 
 aided — that this was originally a house built for Dryden'a 
 Duke of Buckingham ; that it was again rebuilt and sold to 
 George II., when a " pouting" Absolom ; that then George IV. 
 played his tricks with it ; and so, with some modifications 
 and enlargements, it now stands scaring the sun and frightening 
 the moon — a very hideous modification of the wattled cabin of
 
 110 'cross country. 
 
 tlie early British chief. I like, too, the centre walks, where 
 our little Benjamins of London play, and cry, and babble, where 
 seedy meditators, and oiit-of-doors and sometimes ont-of- 
 elbow philosophers think and doze, then wake, and doze, and 
 think ; where the thin, nervous, fine-fibred grass struggles for 
 a living, and where the pampered swans steer past with their 
 orange feet. Here, too, sometimes seated between an oily 
 farmer up for the " show," who rubs his red face with a silk 
 mainsail, and a gentlemanly vagabond, v.-ho tells me he has 
 been in the "Bifles," and who looks rather like a rifler — 1 
 sometimes, in a day-dream, find myself asking the farmer who 
 that swarthy man in the dove-coloured velvet and cloth-of-gold 
 sword-belt is, who stands just opposite, throwing showers of 
 dry hemp-seed to the ducks. 
 
 " I see now't — sartin I don't," says the farmer. 
 I appeal to the ex-oflicer of the Bifles. 
 " "Ton haven't sixpence aboiit you, honoured sir?" is all the 
 reply I can get from the subaltern with the packet of greasy 
 letters. But yet I do see him ; my retina takes the full image. 
 By the apple of my eye, I know now that grim dark face, that 
 heavy eye, and black wig, that strong sure walk, and that train 
 of little waddling spaniels. Charles II. is watching the three 
 hundred men at work, and talking with some French gardener 
 about throwing all the ponds but Rosamond'' s into one strip of 
 water, with islands for the ducks ; there is to be a rising fence 
 for deer, decoys for ducks, broad gravel walks instead of nar- 
 row winding field-paths ; Italian ice-houses, avenues of trees, 
 and, above all, a mall. I suppose the king got his love for 
 ducks in Holland, where he brought the use of skates from. 
 No use now, decoys for wild fowl in the Bark ; the wild fowl 
 that Charles saw on their own nests are gone far from the roar- 
 ino- city, gone like the " fat and sweet salmons " that the his- 
 torian Harison saw daily taken in the Thames— gone where 
 the woodcocks of the West End squares are gone, and where 
 the whitebait of Greenwich will follow, if the Thames goes on 
 still getting worse as it gets older. 
 
 St. James's Palace was once an hospital for fourteen leprous 
 sisters, and dedicated to the Spanish Saint who gave a name to
 
 THE OLD MULBERRY GARDEN. Ill 
 
 so long a line of Scotch kings, tlie dregs of wliicli line we had the 
 blessings of in England till we tossed them on to a foreiiin 
 dunghill, where they ceased to trouble us, death shutting them 
 all up, the lost drunkard, with the other bigots and mauvais 
 svjets, in a certain quiet mortuary chapel of the Vatican that I 
 have often visited with much thankfulness. Henry YIII., 
 hateful to God and man, laid his fat hand on this charitv, as 
 the English Eehoboam did, wherever he could on church or 
 manor-house. 
 
 The site of Buckingham Palace was once, as I have said be- 
 fore, a suburban mulberry garden, or Cremorne, that existed 
 when Cromwell shut up Spring Gardens and they were built 
 upon, and before Vauxhall was opened. It was a fashionable 
 botanical-garden sort of place, where you ate tarts, and had 
 wine and cheesecakes. Lord Goring lived close by, at the 
 house that the Earl of Arlington and the Duke of Buckino-ham 
 successively inhabited ; and there was good air there and o-ood 
 company, and here, at a glass-smashing banquet, Charles II. 
 himself violated his own decree against pledging and the drink- 
 ing of healths. Ever since Cromwell shut up Spring Garden, 
 the jMulberry Garden flourished. 
 
 But of that anon. This garden originated in a planting of 
 mulberries near AVestminster Palace, by that erudite and most 
 wise simpleton, James I.,— the man born for a village school- 
 master, or a country Shallow. It consisted of about four acres 
 twenty-two perches of land, and stood on the north-west side 
 of the present palace ; it was intended to set an example, bor- 
 rowed from some Italian traveller, of the cultivation of the 
 Eastern tree, the poor witch-frightened pedant havino- some 
 gleam of an idea that such culture would promote the manu- 
 facture of English silks. At that time, even in Scotland, the 
 first principles of political economy were unknown, or the 
 murderer of Ealeigh would have known that new trades may 
 be grown, but cannot be forced by the hotbed of royal decrees. 
 The miJberry-garden silk— the due time of decomposition hav- 
 ing'come — like Chelsea china and other artificialities, " exhaled 
 and went to " — limbo. Charles I., that melancholy and wife- 
 ruled bigot, before its complete decease, granting it, mulberries
 
 112 'cross country. 
 
 swaddled silk -worms and all, to the care of Lord Aston for 
 " own and son's life," as laborious but dull Mr. Peter Cunning- 
 ham has discovered, after much dusty grubbing, and dry diving 
 into registers. 
 
 I will not stop to restore the old mulberry garden even in 
 imagination ; let the old haunt of folly be buried under the 
 kitchen paving stones of the unhaunted palace. Let us pic- 
 ture only for a moment, if we like, and then dismiss for ever, 
 the great shrubby unnaturalised tree of Palestine, with the 
 thick sappy boughs, and large green toothed leaves, — what time 
 the ground under their dark shadow during Charles I.'s anguish 
 were purple, blood-stained with fruit, as if some Cavalier and 
 Puritan had indeed been struggling for life or death under the 
 fruit-laden branches ; we may picture the Vandyke men, in 
 suits of white silk or carnation velvet, pacing on the turfen 
 bowKng- greens, roses in their shoes, swords by their side, their 
 hats plumed with blue or crimson, their bearing stately and 
 grave, as befitted the gentlemen of whom [Falkland and Hamp- 
 den are the two contrasting types. Here, perliaps, too, grave- 
 faced Puritan divines — Hugh Peters and his brother preachers 
 — in sad-coloured raiment, short cropped hair, and black skull- 
 caps on their heads, paced up and down, between the fountains, 
 the silver columns ; the flower beds — that seemed to rebuke 
 melancholy as sinful, — and the large-leaved mulberry trees. 
 Here, with heavy folio volumes of Prynne, and other faithful 
 men, imder their sinewy arms, they repeated the story of how 
 King David once waited for the Philistines in the valley of 
 Eephaim, and went forth to battle to smite them utterly by 
 God's direction, when he heard a sound as of a rushing wind 
 in the tops of the mulberries. It is true, says Brother Hew- 
 Agag-in-Pieces, afterwards trooper in Cromwell's Ironsides, 
 that the Douay version for " mulberry trees" substitutes " pear 
 trees," [" but what is the Douay version ?" — Drawer, bring 
 three stoups of wine, — and again in the Psalms Ixxxiv. 6, we 
 hear of him ' who passing through the valley of mulberries ;' 
 — " and. Drawer, some pasty, if you have it."] 
 
 Here, without stopping to sketch that good and virtuous 
 Surrey gentleman, Mr. Evelyn, who loved gardens so much
 
 THE OLD MULBERRY GARDEN. 113 
 
 that he expressed a wish to be buried in one, and who was 
 treated to wine and cakes at this spot we speak of, on a certain 
 afternoon in Cromwell's time, just after that iron-handed man 
 had shut up Spring Gardens, and left the Mulberry Gardens 
 as the only place of refreshment where " persons of the best 
 quality could be exceedingly cheated at," — we can but wonder, 
 in a bhnd sort of way, at the quiet decorum with which so 
 good a man must have moved stoically among the ladies and 
 gallants who selected this place as one for special, and too 
 often guilty rendezvous. He must have been a little reproving 
 and chilling, and sad in face, for that loud-laughing, many- 
 tongued place, where wanton satins swept the sward, and 
 wanton fans beat the blue air, keeping time to amorous lutes, 
 and satin shoes measured out the minuet, and much dangerous 
 smiling and mischief were wrought on the primrose edge of 
 the abyss of ruin. 
 
 But though Milton may have strolled here, thinking of 
 Comus, and his revelling rout, and Cromwell have strode up 
 and down thinking of how he should best bruise the foul 
 fiend's head, trusting much in Providence, yet taking care to 
 buckle his secret breastplate firm and tight ; and Selden have 
 mused on rabbinical lore, and K'ewton have looked at the stars, 
 and AVren have traced out St. Paul's on the orange gravel, — 
 we pass to a far more congenial figure, and one more befittiut^ 
 the wanton pleasure garden and tlie silken Circes of the lamp- 
 lit arbours, than grave Mr. Evelyn, the sober and 'v\-ise country 
 gentleman. 
 
 Xeed we say we allude to Mr. Pepys— Mr. Samuel Pepys of 
 the Admii-alty, that fat-faced, rather pompous looking, fussy 
 official, — not too moral, and an arrant time-server ; a Puritan 
 once, which he does not wish known, — a tailor's son, which he 
 wishes forgotten, — in a word, a selfish gossip ; but, neverthe- 
 less, a useful, hard-working, tolerably conscientious man, par- 
 ticular with his wig, expensive and showy in his dress ; fond of 
 amusement, and not unknown at the Duke's Theatre. 
 
 It is a May day, also, but long after Evelyn's visit, that wo 
 find Mr. Pepys here for the first time, eight years after the 
 Ilcstoratiou, — about five years before the place was finally 
 
 I
 
 1]4 'cross country. 
 
 closed, and its encliantmeut broken up. Mr. Pepys found it a 
 silly place, worse than Spring Garden, but tbouglit tbe " wil- 
 derness " somewhat pretty ; and April next year be was bere 
 agaiu, treated by some one witb an olio made by a cook of tbe 
 place, wbo bad been to Spain witb Pepys' great patron. Lord 
 Sandwich ; be found the podrida " a very noble dish, such as I 
 never saw before," — and let us hope digested it ; then be took 
 a walk, and eventually returned again, to sup on what he had 
 left from tbe dinner at noon. 
 
 And wbo dare call us to task if we choose to presume that 
 in the next arbour might have been seated a certain, not un- 
 known, poet — one Mr. John Dryden ; not in his old book- 
 seller's back uniform suit of Norwich drugget, but rather fresh- 
 coloured and grand, in bis sword and Chedreux wig, drinkiag 
 Ehenish and nipping cheesecakes with a lady in a mask — one 
 Madame Eeeve, tbe fair actress. Perhaps be is reading to her, 
 under breath, bis Ode to Charles II., which is poor compared 
 witb that be wrote to Cromwell, because, as the poet wittily says, 
 in bis quiet way, " Poets succeed better in fiction than in truth." 
 " Well come off," laughs Madame Eeeve, putting down her 
 slender wine glass, and flashing out so bewitchingly witb her 
 sparkling white teeth. 
 
 It was to this bygone Circe land, Sedley, Etherege, and 
 "Wycberley, better poets than men, came to glean from 
 life. Here they sat, and watched their Modisbes, and 
 Wildishes, and Snappems, their musicians and dancers, their 
 'prentices and sedan men. their young-old beaux and their old- 
 young prigs, their citizens, servants, and children. Here (to 
 Colby's) came gallants full of French oaths, and their new 
 perriwigs and sword-belts, fresh from " dozens of champagne," 
 and riding races round Hyde Park. Here, tired of Ombre, or 
 of presenting oranges at the theatre, came the sparks to see 
 the country ladies, whose great resort the gardens were, after 
 the play had closed and tbe park had been visited. Here men 
 came fresh from their dish of coffee or tea, to spill some Bm*- 
 gundy, and to drink toasts in brimming glasses. Here ruffians, 
 fresh from the filthy dens of the Pleet, came to brag, and bully, 
 cheat, and pick quarrels.
 
 THE OLD MULBERRY GARDEN. 115 
 
 To judge by Shadwell, tliis garden must have been a place 
 not always undisturbed by tbe clash of swords and the trample 
 and scrunch of broken glass ; for spirits were high in England 
 then, and swords were ever ready for sudden murder or duel- 
 ling, which is analogous to it. Fat Sbadwell, whom Dryden 
 attacked as a fool as unjustly as Pope did Dennis, talks of the 
 "pleasant divertissement " in the Mulberry Garden — and one 
 of his Frenchified humourists says : " Ay, I was there, and the 
 garden was very full of gentlemen and ladies, that made love 
 to each other till twelve o'clock at night — the prettyest ; I 
 vow 'twould do one's heart good to see them." 
 
 And here a word or two about that unknown vice of the 
 present original day — plagiarism. I should be sorry " to rob 
 Peter to pay Paul ;" that is to say, to quote Mr. Peter Cun- 
 ningham's useful if not brilliant book on London, when I had 
 his authorities myself to go to, and some knowledge how to 
 use them. 
 
 For in these times of literary filching it highly becomes a man 
 of honour, — if he have any generous fire in him, — to sit down 
 and settle this question of " plagiarism " with himself — how 
 far honest quotations can be used without becoming dishonest 
 thieving, and how far, when practised on oneself, stealing is to 
 be resented, posted, and exposed. Now, Mr. Peter Cunning- 
 ham, being a bus}'", not always accurate, compiler from all good 
 books in London — such as Leigh Himt, Smith's Eainy Day, 
 <fec. — mu.st needs be used seemingly, though one go first hand 
 for everything, and even set right, and fill up his numerous 
 short-comings — the sin, not of error but of omission, being his 
 most special one. 
 
 Tliis settled, and feeling easier now having nailed the colours 
 of a principle to my mast, I go back to the garden tliat changed 
 into a palace about the same time Spring Gardens became 
 Lockett's tavern, the great resort of the Queen Anne wits ; and 
 from here, where mulberries no longer stain pretty crimson 
 mouths, let us return to the St. James's Park and the quiet 
 cows, that West, that most smooth and intolerable of all dull 
 artists, once painted. AVe have already in an erratic way, as 
 becomes the legendary stroller; described how tluit fat tyrant,
 
 116 'cross country. 
 
 Henry VIII., turned St. James's Fields, tliat were probably 
 the people's lands, into a small chase ; and how, in his corrupt 
 and vicious cruel old age — this favourite of Mr. Fronde, the 
 crotchety and the changeable — turned out the fourteen leper 
 ladies and the eight monks who kept up daily prayers. Here 
 this " soul of leprosy," as Leigh Hunt, generally rather minc- 
 ing and affected, finally calls him, lodged his " swathed and 
 corrupt body." The very year he married Anne Boleyn it was 
 that this tyrant of so many flocks and herds took away the 
 poor man's " little ewe lamb." He who had seized on good 
 men's lands — who had revelled, Belshazzar-like, out of even 
 sacramental cups — now spared no one ; his thirst for lust and 
 revenge grew like Nero's. He had dead Wolsey's "Whitehall 
 and Hampton Court, he had Eoyal Windsor, he had many 
 palaces, but he must, too, have this little leper's hospital, this 
 Naboth's vineyard, so he clutched it. The black red-brick 
 gateway of it, dull and drear, still stands facing the steep street 
 of clubs, and the initials of Henry and Anne still stand toge- 
 ther in the " chimney-piece of the old presence-chamber." 
 
 It was the same royal murderer of More, Fisher, and Sur- 
 rey, who made a tilt-yard and cock-pit where the Horse-Guards 
 (equally useful) now stands. But now no blows are exchanged 
 there, and military millinery is all that remains of the old brave 
 buffeting that was the horse-play of Henry's time ; that king 
 who made up for a good youth by so -^^acked and corrupt an 
 old age — Henry, the Vitellius of England. 
 
 History, as hitherto written, has been nothing but a record 
 of the crimes and blunders of kings. The history of the En- 
 glish people I hope some day to enter the lists for, caring myself 
 more for the species man than the genus king. Of king-history 
 St. James's Park gives us plenty. We see that false king, 
 Charles I., with his dull, sad face, pacing across it on his way 
 to his execution outside the Whitehall window. There is 
 Charles II., his hopeful son, talking to Nell Gwynne over the 
 garden-wall of the Mall. There is James II., thinking of the 
 bishops, and wishing they had but one neck. Then dull Queen 
 Anne, nibbling her fan for want of a repartee. George I., 
 short, snub, and pale, with his fat German mistress or biu'ly Wal-
 
 THE OLD MULBERRY GARDEN. 117 
 
 pole by liis side ; George II., coarse and rough, witli his aquiline 
 nose ever pointing to Cliatliam; George III., scarce saved with 
 Pitt, the lean ; and George IV., the handsome and vile. 
 
 There are wonders too, hidden in this avenue of trees bej'ond 
 the sooty Egyptian cannon. There grow sable descendants of 
 that tree that King Charles pointed out, as he paced bravely 
 to execution — soldiers before, soldiers behind — as the very tree 
 planted by his unlucky brother. Prince Ilenry. Is that the one 
 the Horse-guard sits with his back against, or was it that tree's 
 grandfather ? Might it not perhaps, too, have been that tree 
 under which, on a certain fair November evening, the Lord- 
 General Cromwell took aside that heavy man, AVhitelocke, having 
 first saluted him with more than ordinary civility, as he met hini 
 on horseback, or, worn -with business and State papers, which are 
 not light reading (as dull men call all reading which is amus- 
 ing) — was it here, with saturnine face, dyspeptic red nose, and 
 wart on the left temple, the great general put that very lead- 
 ing question to a cautious statesman — " Whitelocke, what if a 
 man should take upon him to be king ?" — to Avhich answers 
 Bulstrode, reasonably honest, " I think that the remedy were 
 worse than the disease"? 
 
 Is it possible that the great saviour of England did plan this 
 step, feeling no hope of doing permanent good Avithout thus 
 settling that question of Divine right for ever, and did this 
 sounding satisfy him, and scare him for ever from the abyss ? 
 Or is it possible that Bulstrode — in the retirement of his 
 Wiltshire house, and surrounded by those sixteen children to 
 whose society Charles II., forgetful of friend and enemy, had 
 dismissed him — invented this conversation in order to blacken 
 Cromwell, as the manner of the age was ? A man who serves 
 first one party, then another, may be admired for his talent, 
 but can never be respected. Like woman's virtue, political 
 character is irretrievable. Perhaps some of those numerous 
 State papers that Bulstrode's wife burnt after his death might 
 have explained away or contradicted this momentary weakness 
 of Cromwell — the true-hearted. 
 
 There must have been great walking in St. James's Park 
 in the Queen Anne times, so dear to old students of the
 
 118 'cross country. 
 
 " Spectator," of Pope, Prior, Swift, Arbtithnot, and Gay. The 
 Boscobel oak acorus tliat Charles II. planted and lauglied over 
 with Eochester and Sedley, and Killigrew and Arlington, are 
 gone, the very lines of the Green "Walk and the Jacobite Walk 
 (or Duke Humphrey's "Walk, and the Close "Walk), and the Long 
 Lime Walk, are forgotten and scarcely traceable ; but there 
 is still Duck Island or its successor, that St. Evremond, the 
 wit, was made governor of, as a joke, by that " Merry Monarch" 
 who made so many of his subjects weep. One can stiU see 
 the Parade where Le Sueur's bronze gladiator stood on its 
 stone pedestal, but it is difficult to imagine the green ditches 
 and mounds that Charles II. had levelled, and the trees he had 
 cut down, and tlie avenues lie made, and the fruit trees he 
 planted, or the bridge that he removed. 
 
 But here Mr. Leigh Hunt's reminiscence of the " Music in 
 the Park" recalls a fine chivalrous legend ] of the place, which 
 interests us more than that measured tramp or that thrill of 
 the drum. It refers to the stanch fidelity to a fallen cause of 
 old Lord Craven, the supposed lover in early life of James the 
 Pirst's daughter, the exiled Queen of Bohemia, whose great 
 house stood on the present site of the Olympic theatre. He it 
 was who was on duty at the palace the day the Dutch troops 
 Avere marching triumphantly and bloodlessly into the park. The 
 blood of the old soldier of Gustavus — the Dalgetty of a cor- 
 rupt court — fired up ; he would have borne down with half-a- 
 dozen men on these pickle herrings, and died fighting among 
 their swords ; but his master forbade him, and he strode away 
 " with sullen dignity." 
 
 But here, too, as we look towards the forsaken palace-court 
 of St. James's — never a lucky home for royalty since the poor 
 leprous sisters were expelled — arise unhappy memories. Here 
 George IV. was born to bless the nation ; and here the 
 unlucky Pretender—" a warming-pan" changeling, as the Whigs 
 said ; here Charles I. parted with his children— the swarthy 
 boy who was born here, and his large-nosed brother of York ; 
 here Mary died, and Prince Henry, the lad of such promise, 
 who pitied Ealeigh. Like other London houses less cele- 
 brated, much good and evil has been done in that palace—
 
 IRISH FAIRIES. 119 
 
 many heads and many hearts broken — much joy and much 
 sorrow has entered there. 
 
 And now, before we leave the Park, we remember how 
 othenvise it has altered. Being no longer a sanctuary from 
 bailiffs, there are no hoUow-cheeked men now gasping about 
 on benches; and if a modern Lady Bradleigh had an en- 
 thusiasm to see a great novelist, such as Eichardson, she 
 would not ask him for an elaborate " Hue and Cry" description 
 of himself, that she may know him when, on a certain day, the 
 author of " Clarissa" walks in St. James's Park. 
 
 But now, with the clash of cymbals in our ears, mingled 
 with the mUd lowing of cows, and with a gleam of scarlet and 
 flash of steel in our eyes, we must quit the park, the swamp of 
 the ante-iS'orman days, the fields outside the lonely isolated 
 leper-house of the fourteen sisters, the Duck Island of St. 
 Evremond, and the walks the swarthy Charles paced, and hie 
 to other legendary scenes, where we may again meet the 
 reader. 
 
 The Horse- Guards' clock, with both hands for once united, 
 points to twelve — I must away — I hear a 'bus conductor you 
 cannot hear — I see his tin whistle which you cannot see— and 
 his cry is, " Bank, Bank," which is my way to London Bridge. 
 
 CHAPTEE XIL 
 
 lEISH FAIEIES. 
 
 I WAS, knapsack on my back, with occasional lifts on jaunting- 
 cars, making a tour of Ireland, hearing shillelaghs rattle, seeing 
 whisky drunk, and listening to rebellious songs all about pikes 
 and the Shan van vocht, or the old prophetess who in '98 pre- 
 dicted the arrival of the French. 
 
 I was a tourist on my way through Connemara, determined 
 to hear as much of the brogue, see as much of the big blue 
 mountains called "the Twelve Pins," and pick up as many 
 stories of banshees and Eibbonmen as I could in a dozen weeks. 
 I had come from Killarney, where the spectre king, O'Donohue
 
 120 'cross country. 
 
 mailed in sunshine, rides over the lake every May morning, 
 and I was going to Donegal, the country of rock dwarfs, 
 smugglers, and mine spirits. I knew if there was a fairy to be 
 found in Ireland I should hear of it from Dennis O'llanagan, 
 who was to drive me in the jaunting-car between Ballyrobin 
 and Ballynabrig, and so it proved. 
 
 The day had turned out wet, the rain fell in long slanting 
 cords, and beginning first by covering the window-panes of the 
 inn at Ballyrobin (where I was detained) with silver scratches 
 like so many feeble attempts at autographs by some traveller 
 possessed of a diamond ring, had at last come to a wide, washing 
 stream that flooded the glass, and kept it dripping, like a 
 thatched roof on a wet day, the bright drops matching each 
 other in races to the bottom, as if they had determined to be 
 merry, and to get up small Derbys on their own account.^ The 
 car waited till the cushions got wet, and Dennis then drove it 
 back again under cover. 
 
 In my room there was not much to amuse a weather-bound 
 traveller. The only books on the shelf over the illuminated 
 tea-tray were a Catholic Testament in the Irish language, a 
 dismembered Tolume of Tom Moore's Irish Melodies, and a 
 History of the Irish Eebellion, black-greasy with thumbing. 
 The mantelpiece was stuck with bagmen's cards. There was 
 nothing in the room peculiarly national except the peat fire and 
 the big peat basket, which in Ireland stands wliere the coal- 
 scuttle does in England. There were the lumps of dried black 
 turf, looking like small oblong cakes of chocolate, burning, or to 
 be burnt. There is no blaze about a peat fire, but only a quick, 
 earnest, white flame, that slowly burns the sods (where once 
 the snipe and wild duck fed and nestled ; where the moping, 
 bankrupt heron brooded over his irremediable misfortune; 
 where the hooded crow watched the lamb, and the endless 
 magpies strutted and fluttered) to a blinding piu'e crimson, so 
 pure and intense, that it gradually alchemises into a bloom of 
 colourless radiance, and then, lowering and sinking, lapses into 
 white stillness preparatory to fusing into the mortuary ashes 
 of old age and repentance. There is something primitive and 
 eavage in the tall basketful of dry turf, and I like to throw it
 
 IRISH FAIRIES. 121 
 
 on the fire, fanmng myself Caractacus, or Plielim O'Toole, tlie 
 first King of Munster. 
 
 The Three Salmons at Ballyrobin is not an hotel like the 
 Hotel du Louvre at Paris. It more resembles an English vil- 
 lage inn, with a dash of the English beer-shop. On the mantel- 
 piece was the gresset (cresset), or rush wick in a pool of grease, 
 that flared for me last night Avhile I chilled my blood with 
 stories of the Irish pikemen, and warmed it with sips of whisky- 
 toddy. Then there is the rude deal table, which appears to 
 serve the landlady's family for a sort of register or family 
 Bible ; for it is carved with hieroglyphic notches of past scores 
 and initials of great men of the Joyce (landlady's family name) 
 lineage now dead. O'Elanagan, when he came in to tell me 
 that he thought there was a bit of blue showing over Benabola, 
 and that the weather would hold up yet, was great in his com- 
 mentaries on these initials. He said what I took for J for 
 Joyce, was no J, bedad, at all, not a hap'orth of a J, but F for 
 Elanagan, flaming O'Flanagan, his great-great-grandfather, who 
 held the inn before the Joyces was born or thought of. He 
 was of the O'Elanagans — the flaming, combustible, mad, burning- 
 liot O'Flanagans — the ould Irish chiefs that the monks used to 
 mention in their litanies, and pray specially against, chanting, 
 as the candles twinkled, the incense smoked, and the beU 
 tinkled, " From the wrath of the O'Flanagans — the flaming 
 O'Flanagans — good Lord deliver us !" Well, but about the 
 initials : there was M. F., that was Murphy O'Flanagan (rest 
 his sowl !), that bet the big grazier at Ballinasloe, and was 
 kiUed at last by a foul blow on the back of the liead of him 
 from a thunderiDg stone in an old woman's stocking. There 
 was D. F. — that was Dennis O'Flanagan, who, at Dounybrook, 
 wopped Slippery Sam, the English drover, and was transported 
 for so getting the better of him. P. F. — that was Paddy 
 O'Flanagan (Dennis's father, rest his sowl!), who ended his 
 life bravely on the drop at Derry, for cutting the ears off of a 
 " dirty blackgaird" of a Dublin land agent. 
 
 AVhile Dennis, really trusting it will hold up, goes to get 
 out the car, I turn over all my Irish stories, whether of ban- 
 shees or ribbonmen, of Icprechan, crock of gold, changeling,
 
 122 'cross country. 
 
 demon horse, croppy, fairy, or wliat not, I bethink me of how 
 a Doolan once tamed the demon horse, and of how the famous 
 O'Kourke went up to the moon, and was left there by the " big 
 thafe " of an eagle. Tilled at last of my rumination, and finding 
 no one coming, I rouse myself and go out into the kitchen 
 to see what delays Dennis and the car. I find Dennis, totally 
 forgetful of me and the journey, intent on teazing Mistress 
 Joyce's eldest daughter, a little wicked, black-eyed colleen, 
 who has her back to me, and is arranging her long hair, which 
 looks something like a horse's mane, by means of a cracked 
 three-cornered bit of looking-glass stuck on the second row of 
 plates on the dresser, and singing like a mermaid as she weaves 
 her tresses : 
 
 " Sweet Molly Carew, 
 It wasn't for you 
 
 That I gave in the banns to the parson, 
 Yet for you I'd do murther, 
 Yes, trayson, or further, 
 Stale, felo de say, or rale arson." 
 
 On one side of the crystal triangle sacred to female vanity, 
 was a truculent, black-browed, burglarious portrait of Dean 
 Cahill ; on the other, a fubsy caricature of Napoleon, who is 
 still the idol of the Irish peasantry, though he never did any- 
 thing for them ; these impulsive, inconsequential Celts always like 
 best those who serve them least. Three brown, smoky lumps 
 of ham contributed by the deceased " gintleman who pays the 
 rint," depended from a beam over my head, like swords of 
 Damocles. In one cox-ner of the earth floor roUed a heap of 
 " pink eyes," mixed in brotherly union with the " baskets-full," 
 the genus potato the Joyces especially afiect. On the shelf 
 near Dennis is a suspicious green bottle half uncorked, and as 
 he hears my foot, Dennis drops his whip, cries "Whisht! in a 
 moment, your honour !" and is ofi" to the stables, while Kathleen 
 looks round, colours, and brushes a stool clean with her apron for 
 me to sit down on, then kneels down and pufts at the smouldering 
 peat fire, which she had nearly let out while Dennis had been 
 whispering soft nonsense in her little pink ear. I observe on 
 the mud floor, which is scooped out in hollows, and is anything
 
 IRISH FAIRIES. 123 
 
 but level or clean, the sliavings of an alpeen (shillelagh) -vrhicli 
 Dennis has been long seasoning in the dunghill, and which ho 
 has just now been shaping into a terrific mace, intended to thin 
 the ranks of the base anti-Flanagan faction ; a rope of onions, 
 in their smiling, bronzed, red-yellow skins, dangle overhead, 
 and a salmon rod, with a spear at the butt-end, rests in a 
 corner of the room. Kathleen, her mermaid dressing over, is 
 now sitting down at the back door, on a chair without any 
 particular seat, with one eye on Dennis, who is putting-to the 
 car, and flapping the blue cushions, and with the other on a 
 she-goat, that feeds, tethered, near the stable, and is waiting 
 for Mrs. Joyce to milk her. At Kathleen's feet rolls, not over- 
 dressed, young Teddy Joyce, playing with his mother's beads 
 (the rosy darlint !), the very beads she counted as she went last 
 week on her pilgrimage up that holy mountain near Westport, 
 Croagh Patrick, which is as conical and nearly as steep as an 
 extin finisher . 
 
 Dennis gives a howl of delight — one of those howls that you 
 may still hear even in a Dublin concert-room — as the last 
 buckle of the harness is slipped into place. He reappears in 
 a large blue great-coat that reaches down to his heels, and with 
 a rusty hat with a flapping lid that goes up and down, twined 
 round with white shiny lines of gut, and studded, not with 
 brooches, but with, gaudy " macaws " and " golden pheasants," 
 as the best salmon-flies are called. Amongst these, like a gun 
 from an embrasure, obtrudes the old Irish Adam, in the shape 
 of a black dhudeen pipe, oily and odorous. 
 
 A truly Irish hubbub announces our departure. Mike 
 Joyce emerges from some cellar, or secret distillery, red and 
 rejoicing ; men come out and shake hands with Dennis ; Mrs. 
 Joyce, with her white frilled cap and pleasant staring face, 
 insists on mixing me a " stirrup cup," in the shape of a glass 
 of whisky-toddy : the sight of the sugar distilling down in a 
 silvery shoAver in Avhich, gives me quite a new impression of 
 the charms of chemistry. 
 
 I shake hands with everybody, as if I was one of the Allied 
 Powers in a popular print. I balance myself sideways on tho 
 shelf of the jaunting-car, feeling as an Englishman at first
 
 124 'CHOSS COUNTRY. 
 
 always does in that wild, erratic vehicle, as if I was on a side- 
 saddle, or rather on a chair which was being drawn from 
 under me.. 
 
 I felt slightly qualmish, and clutched at the back rail as we 
 started with a spurt and jerk that nearly unseated me. 
 
 " Hurrah !" called out the Joyce family. " More power to 
 ye !" said Mrs. J. " Good luck to the worst of ye !" said 
 Kathleen, looking up with a smile at Dennis from her stocking. 
 
 OiF we were — that is to say, off I nearly was — but I managed 
 to keep my seat, which is more than some M.P.s can say, and 
 away we went at that headlong, reckless, generous, pelting 
 pace that Irish carmen, reckless of wear and tear, always do go 
 in the south of Ireland. Ballyrobin faded behind us. Now, 
 you who have laughed at the incomparable traveller who told 
 you of coals being brought up on a china plate, guess what 
 luggage we had in our car. Eats in a bottle ? An elephant 
 in a jam-pot ? But you would never guess. A turkey in a 
 bandbox — yes, positively, a turkey sent in an old bonnet-box 
 to Baliynabrog market by Mrs. Joyce the prudent. I have 
 seen a few droll things, but never anything odder than that. 
 A swan in a basket at Basingstoke, with his neck out and a 
 parchment direction round it, is droll ; but the turkey in Mrs. 
 Joyce's bonnet-box was irresistible. 
 
 Dennis is a Connaught man, pale and whiskerless, but with 
 straight black hair and good features, with a serious, earnest 
 manner, changing rapidly to rollicking fun and drollery, and 
 with a fine swelling low-toned voice, capable of much rise and 
 fall, much in and out, and endless subtle gradations of 
 feeling. 
 
 It is rather startling to a sober, cynical, sceptical English- 
 man, who believes what he sees and can handle, and little else, 
 to hear, for the first time, an Irishman telling you a fairy story 
 with a quiet, almost sad, air of intense conviction and feeling ; 
 it is startling to one accustomed to see sham ghosts brought 
 up at police.courts and sentenced to the tread-mill, one accus- 
 tomed to hear aerial voices and winking statues accounted for 
 by spectacled men on scientific principles, to find a person 
 soberly and calmly relating, -with a voice thrilling with emotion,
 
 IRISH FAIRIES. 125' 
 
 Bonie narrative of a dumbly prophesying banshee, or a cliikl 
 stolen by the fairies. At once a great mist rolls away, and 
 YOU see the centuries that roll between the Protestant and 
 Catholic, the Saxon and the Celt. Tou feel tliat you are in a 
 twilight country, where faith is still unreasoning and supreme ; 
 where miracles and relics, and ghosts, are still believed in ; 
 where ghost stories are matter of life and death to men ; and 
 where the beautiful monsters of our nurseries still walk, even 
 in the daylight. Dennis has heard the banshee in the blue 
 cloak, with the grey dishevelled hair, wailing under the peat 
 heap ; he has seen the phooka, or demon horse, tear past at 
 night, with fiery mane and phosphorescent eyes ; he has seen 
 tlie fairies in green, garlanding the mushroom ; he has beheld 
 O'Donohue on his white horse rise from the tranquil mornino- 
 lake ; he has stolen up and heard the cluricaun, or little dwarf 
 in the cocked-hat and scarlet Hogarth coat, tapping at a shoe 
 on the sunny side of a haystack ; and here am I, who love 
 everything Irish, quite an outer barbarian, who has never been 
 granted any of these privileges ! The banshee I saw near 
 Cork turned out to be old Mary Burke, drunk under a hedge, 
 crooning a croppy song to herself; my phooka near Ballycastle 
 was a tinker's Kerry pony ; my leprechaun an itinerant cob- 
 bler, mending a shoe under a bramble hedge outside Blarney 
 Tower. 
 
 I was interrupted in these mythological reveries, and was 
 prevented from coming to my final conclusion tliat more of 
 the old , Paganism ' remained in Ireland than in any other 
 European country, by a tremendous split and crack of some 
 part of the car. 
 
 " Be aisy," said Dennis. "You get on the 'crow's-nest'" 
 (the little nook for the driver in front of the car and between 
 the two seats, where no Irish driver, if he can help it, ever 
 sits) . " I'll stand up by you, and it'll be all right. The car's 
 not so young as it was, but it's " 
 
 Here we gave a tremendous bump against a roadside post. 
 
 " Bedad ! not many a car 'ud stand that, and be the better 
 for it!" 
 
 Just then the rain began again— such rain ! grape-shot and
 
 126 'cross country. 
 
 razor-blades— as we tore on — " slipping tlirougli it," Dennis 
 called it — between walls of mountains capped with cloud. 
 For more than an hour, head down, we butted through this, 
 our shining yellow waterproofs glistening like gold. 
 
 At last it cleared up, out came the laughing blue. The 
 bedrenched horses struck out sprightlier than ever. Dennis 
 began to sing, then to talk, and our talk fell on a certain moun- 
 tain we were passing, called the Giant Mountain. 
 
 Now, Dennis was great in giants, being one of an old 
 family who had numbered many giants in its ancestral roll. 
 
 " Did you ever hear of the giant who could hear the grass 
 growing ?" said I. 
 
 " No," said Dennis, " he couldn't have been a native of these 
 parts. (Well, that's a good one too.) But I have seen a 
 giant's grave there away in Ennis, your honour. They say 
 that he had the biggest bones of any man in those parts, but 
 that his wife, falling in love with an ould haythen King of 
 Clare, with the big gold crown on him, so that he looked like a 
 walking jeweller's shop, snigged off his head with his own 
 sword, for no other had any power over him. Many's the 
 time I've sat making salmon-flies on that giant's gravestone. 
 It wasn't twenty years ago that a party of the Green Horse 
 came by that way, and stopped there, at the very stone, to 
 water their horses. 'Wliat's this?' says the corporal to a 
 countryman, who was digging praties foment it. ' It was the 
 work of a big Irish giant in the ould times,' says the country- 
 man, civilly. ' Well,' says the other, ' then it will be the work 
 of a young Scotch giant in these new times to remove it,' So 
 he tries, and tugs, and tugs, and gives it a terrible howge, but he 
 couldn't make anything of it. (Laughs.) Och ! the giant was 
 too much for them — for it's there now." 
 
 " I suppose," said I, " the banshee is seen sometimes here- 
 abouts." 
 
 " 'Deed they are, your honour," said Dennis, seriously ; "we 
 generally hear them in the evening, or at twihght-fall, and we 
 know then it is no human voice keening, because it is so 
 sweet and mournful, like a sorrowing angel in purgatory (rest 
 their sowls !) for all the world; your honour. The noise is just
 
 IRISH FAIRIES. 127 
 
 as if it was some old woman was sitting down under tlie wall 
 yonder, and beating her thighs at intervals with the flat of her 
 two hands, then flinging them up over her head and clapping 
 them together, as the country keeners do when you hire them 
 at a funeral to chant out the Ologaun." 
 
 " She dresses, I have heard," I said, humouring his belief, 
 " in an old blue cloak, with her long grey hair falling over her 
 white staring face, which is generally wan and famished. At 
 Dunluce Castle they showed me a round room at the base of a 
 tower overlooking the sea. It was once the prison of the Earls 
 of Antrim — some foul deed must have been done there in the 
 black old times. The earthen floor of this banshee's tower is 
 always kept clean and free from dust, and people say it is 
 swept daily by the banshee." 
 
 " To thijak of that, now, your honour !" said Dennis, with 
 intense interest, feeling his faith confirmed. " Well, a banshee 
 was heard the night my mother died, and it was in an old 
 Danish fort at the end of our praty ground ; when my poor 
 mother, and she in her death-struggles, heard that terrible wail 
 that she knew was not human, and she down in the fever, she 
 says to my father, says she, ' Dennis, I must go,' and sure 
 enough she died that day week, at the very hour — and the 
 same thing had happened to all her family, for she was of a 
 good owld stock, your honour. A year or two after, what did 
 she do but appear to Teddy, one of my little brothers. He 
 come in one summer evening, and told us that as he was playing 
 about with the yellow flowers that grow in the bog-holes, 
 making them into necklaces and belts, and what not, he feels a 
 sort of warning, looks up and sees mother sitting on the stile 
 just as she used to do, but now very sad and pale. He ran to 
 her, but just as he got near her, she melted away and disap- 
 peared. Then he got frightened, which he wasn't before, and 
 run screaming home and towld us ; and I remember it more, by 
 token it was tSt. Dennis's day, and he is my patron saint, rest 
 his sowl !" — crossing himself five times. 
 
 " Did you ever see a cluricaun, Dennis?" said I — " one of 
 those little wizen fellows in red-heeled shoes, scarlet coats, and 
 laced cocked-hats, who is seen hammering at a tiny brogue
 
 128 'cross country. 
 
 inside the ruins of a chapel, and who, if you gripe him, tells 
 3^ou where the crock of gold is ?" 
 
 " No, your honour," said Dennis : " but I met a fairy man 
 once when I was a boy. It was up a high mountain, where I 
 went to cut a stick, for it was all shaking with hazel-nut bushes, 
 and I didn't care then for the story of the old folks that it was 
 slap full of fairies, and what not, being a devil-me-care gossoon. 
 I got up the hill, scrambling through the stones and dry fern, 
 frightening rabbits, and startling thrushes, treading the swate 
 breath out of the dry purple thyme, thinking of my girleen, as 
 I always did when I saw anything specially bright, sweet, or 
 in any wise purty ; up I went and up, now pushing through 
 the thorn bushes, and now getting out of the green dark into 
 the broad blue brightness and sunshine, till I got nearly to the 
 top, and looking out clear over bog and river, thauked God 
 for having made such a country as ould Ireland. Then, look- 
 ing above, what do I see but, twenty yards off, as nate a stick 
 as I ever saw in my life, and, by my sowl, I didn't forget to 
 cut it, and just as I was stripping oif the broad woolly leaves, 
 singing ' Ould Ireland's native shamrock,' I looks up and 
 sees a common-looking queer sort of ould man coming straight 
 towards me along the path. ' What do you do, you spalpeen,' 
 says he angrily, ' cutting my trees ?' And he spoke as if they 
 all belonged to him. Well, though it give me a little tremble, 
 I wasn't to be put down, and thmks I, I'll walk nearer to you, 
 and see vv^hat sort of a man you are— for I was ready then 
 with my hands, your honour, and I walked straight on — 
 straight on. But when I got to the place, tare an 'ouns, where 
 he had stood, he was gone — gone. I looked everywhere, under 
 the trees, behind the bushes, over the big stones, but no man. 
 So, thinks I, it's a fairy, sure enough, and with that, as if I 
 had been shot down, I ran like a fellow from a mad dog. 
 Och ! it was divil a time I run faster in my life but once. 
 Sod, wall, stone heaj), bramble-bush, water — gap, nothing 
 stopped me, till I got home, three miles off, torn, wet, dirty, 
 red-hot, and frightened." 
 
 " But did you keep the enchanter's stick ?" said I. 
 
 " Och, faix did I," said Dennis, " for a year or two, and the
 
 IRISH FAIRIES. 129 
 
 old man never claimed it ; still, I always felt rather quare with 
 it in my hand, and thought it would get me a bating maybe at 
 a fair, or bring me into some bad luck ; so I never took it to 
 a faction fight, but one night, getting drimk, I lost it at 
 Westport." 
 
 " Didn't you tell me," said I, " your father died for grief at 
 a bating he got at a faction fight ?"' 
 
 " True to you, your honour," said Dennis, clicking his whip, 
 " or may I niver spake again. He was the champion of 
 Knockmagee, your honour, he kept all the Joyces and the 
 rest of them at bay, tiU one day twelve men of them got round 
 him and bet him down when he was tired. I saw his shille- 
 lagh the other day over the chimney of a cousin of mine ; it 
 was twice as big as any other shillelagh. Och ! he was a 
 powerful, strong big man, your honour (rest his sowl !), but 
 they put him in gaol for the fight, where he was hurt, and it 
 broke the heart of him not to be able to pay them out. That 
 was a dreadful day to see the women with the stones in the 
 stockings, and as for the loaded sticks clattering, you could have 
 heard them two hundred yards oflT. Och ! but I owe it to those 
 Joyces, though Mike is my master. He had an extraordinary 
 way of holding his stick, your honour, in the middle, and 
 letting the end cover his arm and elbow, that has never been 
 aquaUed since. He had seen some ghost sights, too, had my 
 fayther." 
 
 " What ! more banshees ?" said I, anxiously. 
 
 " Oh, no, your lionour, but fairy pipers — the fairy pipers, 
 your honour. He was one day near the Danes fort, as we called 
 it, at BalljTobin, which is now little better than a grass hill with 
 a hollow inside to it, when he heard, as he was driving the cows 
 home, some sounds he thought was some neighbours staling 
 his hay, which was making at the time, and lying about in diy 
 heaps, your honour ; so he goes home quietly, and gets an old 
 rusty bagonet, and what does he do but lies down to wait for 
 them behind a large hay-cock outside the fort. Presently, 
 what should he hear with his two ears, but a blessed sort of 
 music oo/ing out of the fort, just like a thousand birds singing 
 together on a May morning. Och ! your honour, it vras
 
 130 'CROSS COUNTRY. 
 
 notliing but tlie good people dancing and figm-ing inside tlie 
 Ml. AVell, before my father could make out where it came 
 from he fell in a sort of swound, and when he awoke he was 
 outside the fort, two fields away ; it was quite dark, and as for 
 the bagonet, where was it but stuck in some hay just behind 
 him ! "Well, never a word did he brathe of it till his dying 
 day, when I leant over to catch his last gasp. But I'm tiring 
 ye, your honour." 
 
 " Not a bit, Dennis," said I. " It prevents me counting the 
 milestones." 
 
 "AVell, then, I'll be telling' you how there was a young 
 Scotchman who took the farm after we went, and who used to 
 be always laughing at the humbug about the fairy piper. ' Pipe 
 away,' says he, ' and be plagued to you ! So long as I don't 
 have to pay, its chape music is that same.' Thim's the words, 
 or very near, he made use of at the markets and patterns, till 
 one evening he was coming through the snipe meadow, and 
 what does he hear but a piping just as if it was underground, 
 and underground was heaven, and these were the sowls of bap- 
 tised children making merry and dancing for joy. As it was, 
 as soon as he got home, ' Ma lanna vicht,' says his mother, who 
 was half Irish, ' saints in paradise, what's turned your blood, 
 jewel ?' Then they teazed him, especially the girleens his 
 sisters, tiU he recovered a bit, and up and tould them he had 
 heard the Macarthy's fairy pipers." 
 
 " Those Protestants are very slow of belief, Dennis," said I. 
 
 " Och ! and you're right, your honour," said Dennis. " Pe- 
 nance, pilgi'image, cross, mass, it's all one with them. Faix ! it 
 puzzles me to say how the likes of 'em will ever find a back 
 way to get into heaven without paying St. Peter's turnpike. 
 But has your honour ever heard of how the fairies change 
 the children in ould Ireland ?" 
 
 " Of course I have, Dennis," said I. " Don't we all know 
 how they pine and pine and get wizen, and knowing, and say 
 things any old men could say ; and then the mother, after much 
 praying, rushes at them suddenly in the cradle with a red-hot 
 poker, which she has been getting ready for the hour past, and 
 then, with a scream, the change comes, and she finds, instead
 
 IRISH FAIRIES. 131 
 
 of the little knowing dwarf, her o\ni fine rosy child again, 
 crying for the breast." 
 
 '• Bedad ! Tour honour," said Dennis, " has got it all by 
 heart, like a schoolmnster gets Latin ! "Well, I heard a case 
 of this kind the night of a birth only last Paschal. A friend 
 of mine who drives a car was coming along the road, and sees 
 something white at the window of his brother's house yonder, 
 so what does he do but get out and creep up closer did Patsy, 
 and what should it be but an old woman, wrapped up in grey, 
 handing a child out of a lattice to another ould creatiu* in 
 grey, who held up her arms for it down below. ' Have you got 
 it ?' says she. ' I have,' says the other. "Well, he thought it 
 was all witchery, and that, perhaps, it was a little owing to the 
 ■whisky he had drunk at the fair ; but, sure enough, next day, 
 he found his brother's child had died at the birth. So he knew 
 ■what had become of it, that what they buried was a mere trick 
 of flesh, and that the real child was snug and safe in fairy -land 
 — which was a comfort to him, though he kept it to himself. 
 So, niver mention it, your honoiir, or it'll hurt the family." 
 
 " Why, Dennis," said I, " you are as full of old stories as an 
 egg is full of meat." 
 
 " And fuller too, begging your honour's pardon," said Dennis. 
 " I remember hearing a neighbour of ours at Kilmore tell me 
 that the night of the last great storm she and some other women 
 were sitting round a fire in a cottage, listening to the pelt and 
 drive of the rain, and the fluster and worry of the wind out- 
 side the cabin — crossing themselves, I'll be bail, and thinking 
 of the forrior ganogh (bitter sadness) of those who had gone 
 to Ameriky, and might be then on the broad say (rest their 
 sowls !). All of a sudden there came a bigger roar than evei-, 
 as if a wild baste and the divil on it was waiting himgry at the 
 thrashal, and bang the door flew open ! some of them saw noth- 
 ing more but some windle straws (larsar lena) blowing round 
 the floor, but she I spoke to saw distinctly troops of fairies 
 riding round on horses no bigger than small birds. Then the 
 door slammed again, and they heard a clash of swords outside, 
 and a hmry as if there was a scrimmage going on in the air, 
 which passed down the road, and gradually died away in the 
 
 K 2
 
 132 'CROSS COUNTRY. 
 
 distance. The next morning, sure enough — and the woman 
 who told me saw it with her o-mi eyes — there come news to 
 Galway of the battle of Salamanky, and there was drops of 
 blood seen for a quarter of a mile down the causeway ; so no 
 doubt but that was a fairy battle." 
 
 " Wliich clearly accounted, Dennis, for the big wind and the 
 ships that went down," said I. 
 
 " Not a doubt else, and hear me now. Tlie only way in such 
 perplexities is to go to the fairy doctor, who knows all about 
 the blast and the changes and the meal cure. Try a drop of 
 Parlemiut (legal whiskey), your honour; it keeps the cold out 
 of the stomach and the heat in it. Grood lack to thim who 
 invented it (rest their sowls !). Well, as your honour sames so 
 fond of these old pishogues (Grod between you and harm!), I 
 must tell you about the fairy cow that used to feed every 
 third night inside the ruins of Castle Ballynock, till the naygur 
 who kept it, who was a relation of ours (a third cousin) on my 
 mother's side, kilt it, and laid the skin to soak on his dunghill. 
 From that time everything went wrong with him : the cattle 
 died, his sheep had the rot, and he got into a lawsuit (rest his 
 BOwl !). "Wliile he was puzzling his head to Icnow what brought 
 all this mischief on him — whether it was missing mass, or not 
 going to St. Bridget's "Well, or up Croagh Patrick and doing 
 the stations, as his dacent father had done, or what — a fairy 
 appears to him one night in a dream, and says she to him, 
 ' Mr. Planagau, that cow you killed was my grandfather, and 
 that's my grandfather's skin, you spalpeen, you have got soak- 
 ing in your dunghill. You blackgaird, if you have any man- 
 ners, go take and lay it in the fort to-night, and when the cow 
 comes to life and runs round the enclosure, turn your back, you 
 villain, and take care not to cross yourself, Mr. Flanagan.' 
 This he did, and glad enough, and out come the cow ; he heard 
 a voice thanking him for retui-ning the skin, and all went right 
 with him ever afterwards." 
 
 After this, Dennis grew silent, and I fell musing. " The old 
 superstitions of Ireland," thought I, " are dying out like the 
 old language, still Munster has its cluricaun artisan, its Mer- 
 row and Duhallane, its O'Donohoe and its Macgillicuddy. The
 
 IRISH FAIRIES. 133 
 
 islanders of Shai-k and Baffin have their Terence OTlaherty, 
 as the Connaught man has his Daniel 0"Eoiirke, who rode on 
 the eagle all the way from the moon to Monster, while the 
 May-day bonfires still redden the sky in remembrance of Baal. 
 The Irish philosophy of fairies is that they are fallen angels, 
 who, being neutral beings not altogether lost, are sent to sutFer 
 a farther probation on earth before they are raised again to 
 heaven or sealed up for ever to perdition. The Ulster men 
 think the " wee folk " live wherever they at first fell. The Irish 
 fairies are generally old, ugly, lame, and wizen, but have a 
 power of assuming shapes, as a witch can change to a hare or 
 a cat. They use these shapes only to reveal themselves to men 
 in. They haunt old ruins, where they dance and revel, and, if 
 possible, they injure or allure men. Sudden deaths are generally 
 attributed to their agency, merely from such deaths being un- 
 accountable, and so, petitio principii, supernatural. The Deny 
 and Antrim moimtaiueers have their brownie, who with Scotch 
 industry labours for his " cream bowl" duly set ; in other words, 
 the brownie is a sly servant, working overtime. Still if on a 
 summer's day, when the sky is burning blue and hot, the 
 Irish labourer, going to the bog for turf, sees a whirl of dust 
 twisting playfully in the air, he ceases to sing aud laugh, holds 
 his breath, looks down, repeats a prayer, and crosses himself, 
 for he knows that that whirl of dust contains a flock of the 
 " good" people. 
 
 These days of simple faith are, however, fast going for ever, 
 even in Ireland. Fairies disappear before the red- whiskered bag- 
 man, with his tin boxes and bundles of pattern cards ; before 
 the snort and tramp of the steam-engine ; before fashionable 
 tourists and fasliionable guide books. O'Donohoo no longer 
 rises on his white horse from the lalic on May-day morning. 
 No longer the Antrim brownie, hairy and rude, sweats at his 
 kindly task, more grateful than man ; no longer fairies circle 
 the mushroom, or minuet in and out between the rows of daisies. 
 
 The great granite mountains, scathed with thunder aud fur- 
 rowed by the lightning's stroke, no longer see the giants strid- 
 ing from peak to peak through the violet-coloured mist. No 
 longer the banshee wails under the leafless thornbushj no
 
 134 'cross country. 
 
 longer the tap of tlie cluricaun's hammer is heard by the gold- 
 seeker. The black bog pits have yielded almost their last gold 
 chaiu and brooch of the old Danish king, slain long since, and 
 buried amid gigantic elk bones blackened pine trunks, and 
 stone-axes, down far below the quaking surface, over which 
 the snipe zigzags or the bittern booms. The tumbling waggon 
 jolts by with its cargo of laughing revellers, where the croppy 
 piper was buried under the sign-post during the troubles ; or 
 by the heap of stones, once a happy home till the red night 
 that the Shanavests, Carders, or Hearts of Steel, hemmed 
 round its burning roof. No bleeding nun or ghost of the blas- 
 phemuig foxhunter, who chased the vermin to the very altar, 
 appears now to scare the English pedestrian ; for even the 
 ghosts have emigrated out of Ireland since the Union. Catho- 
 lie spirits, abhorring Eepeal, will not take the trouble to scare 
 Protestant land agents sneaking about in disguise, for fear of 
 the flint-piece and the sight behind the wall. The good old 
 days of female hangmen, and processions of corpses in crimson 
 carts, are gone by ; the ribbonmen no longer flaunt their ribbons 
 at night upon the Curragh or in the bawn ; the gully, where 
 the foses are, no longer has its black peat water stained with 
 the blood of Molly Maguire's children ; the tuUagh's slope is 
 untrodden by the insolent hoof of the butcher yeoman's char- 
 gers ; the tubber (spring) is left by the barefooted pilgrim to the 
 snipe and the moor-hen ; but still the sliebh is bluer than ever, 
 because a brighter sun shines on its mountains of piled sap- 
 phire; the old night stars shine cheerier over the scorched 
 headland where the gull screams and the great droves of silver 
 salmon still leap and swim ; the Dane's rath grows greener, and 
 the Druid's ghost lies at rest on the grassy knoll by the sea, 
 listening to the old ocean hymn. 
 
 Tide of Lough Erne, let thy floods rise and hide the ruins 
 of dead men's graves, so that old wrongs be hidden away and 
 forgotten ; let the Croagh's peak point to a new heaven and a 
 new earth, so that the crimes of the old blood-boltered Don 
 and Donagh be forgotten ! Eound towers, where the squaU- 
 crow and starling only build, echo once more with the voice of 
 the prophecy of a happier future ! Shall wo never see the day
 
 IRISH FAIRIES. 135 
 
 when the coast of Ireland shall be starry at dusk Avith the au- 
 s-n-ering lustres of the warning light-houses ; when her moun- 
 tains shall be circled— not with black Phlegethons of bog, but 
 with smiling Helds and belts of cottages ; when fleets of fishing ■ 
 boats shall fill her bays, and her roads shall be crowded ^\-ith 
 merchandise ? May the blessed day soon come when her cities 
 shall widen and her commerce increase ; when her fislieries 
 shall become as numerous as her manufactories, the north be 
 white with bleachiag-fields, and the south be yellow with flocks ! 
 
 Dennis here became uneasy about a seat-cushion he had 
 lost. " We are sure," he said, " to meet the masthur. He'll 
 want to get up just because it's dropped somewhere on the 
 road. jSTow, if I had them all right (bad luck and the devil) 
 I shouldn't have seen the sole of his foot." 
 
 " What shall you do ? The agent will be stopping your 
 wages," said I. 
 
 " If I don't find it to-morrow, I'll just stale another," said 
 Dennis in a low, quiet voice. 
 
 " Who is that thin man in front, Dennis ?" said I. 
 
 " Oh, that's a schoolmaster," said Dennis. " I Imow by his 
 cut, but I won't see him, or he'll be wanting me to take him 
 to Clifden, and pay me with a writing lesson. Sorra a one 
 that we meet but I know, yet they don't know me, that's the 
 best of Here's the two IVIr. Bradys. The top of the morn- 
 ing to you, Mr. Brady ! They're brothers ; yet you wouldn't 
 think, your honour, there was a drop of blood between them, 
 no more than there is between you and me" (abruptly, with 
 true Irish discursiveness). "Do you see their oiled coats? 
 It'fi^better than any mackintosh ; it's soaked three months in 
 oO ; it's better than all your mackintosh, or the soft soap and 
 ingy -rubber." 
 
 We were now entering Ballynabrig, along whose suburban 
 road was, pouring a train of country people returning from the 
 fair. JS'ow, it was a primitive tumbling car, with its flat 
 shelf and outrigger crowded with grey-stockinged farmers and 
 laughing colleens ; now, it was a cage-cart fdl of pigs, -who 
 looked out between the bars, with that calm, observing, friendly 
 independence peculiar to the Irisli pig ; now, most amusing of
 
 136 'cross country. 
 
 all, it was a rough, conical-hatted, old, raw-boned schoolmaster 
 riding a donkey, with his splay feet stuck in hay stirrups ; now, 
 we met rough graziers wrapped in frieze ; countrymen of all 
 ages in the constitutional tail coat, gilt, buttons, and knee- 
 breeches, and the slip of a stick stuck imder the arm. Every eye 
 was bright with good-humoured whisky — some sang, while all 
 greeted us with a shout, a flourish of sticks, and a joke. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 DKIVEE MIKE. 
 
 How can I find words to describe the barrenness of Connemara, 
 except by comparing it to that of County Mayo ? and how can 
 I describe County Mayo except by comparing it to Conne- 
 mara ? 
 
 Here have I been riding on one of Bianconi's cars ten miles, 
 from Clifden to Galway, and have not seen a soul yet, and 
 scarcely abody, except the two half-naked children that were play- 
 ing round a peat-heap at Ballyrag, and the old woman with the 
 grey hair tied in a knot who put-to the horses at Croppy town. 
 Kot a house either but that one hut, beyond the old castle of 
 the Martin in the lake, which was announced to us by two or 
 three spindly trees full an hour beforehand. 
 
 Still bog, bog, bog, mountain, lake, like the enchanted, 
 doomed country in a fairy story. 
 
 Two inns to-day — the first kept by a Church of England 
 clergyman, the second by the parish doctor — do not indicate 
 much trafiic or commerce in this beautiful region of blue mist 
 and brown, burnt-sienna-ish bog. It remains, I should think, 
 much as it did when St. Patrick, in his white robe, tramped 
 barefooted to seek audience of the savage Irish king, who was 
 dressed in wolf-skins, and had a spiky mace for a walking-stick ; 
 much the same as when the black Danes carried their raven 
 banner through it ; quite the same as in the croppy times, or 
 •when cocked-hats and swords were seen in Galway streets.
 
 DRIVER MIKE. 137 
 
 A heron stands on one leg, in a meditative way, like a one- 
 legged pensioner ; waiting till the coach- wheel nearly touches 
 him, as if he were stopping there to hand the coachman a 
 parcel. Eushes, with their little green tubes, burnt red-bro\^-n 
 tops, and little tufts of flowers, are pretty enough ; but ten 
 miles of rushes is too much of a good tiling. If we do see any 
 children, ragged and picturesque, in the scarlet frocks worn by 
 the Connemara peasantry, they run from us frightened, like a 
 parliament of rats disturbed by the appearance of a terrier. 
 
 There are two other depi'essing things about Connemara. 
 One is, that the roads are so -nold, and mournfully desolate, and 
 impeopled, that wild creatures have claimed joint possession, 
 particularly the wild ducks and the magpies. They form a 
 feature in all the wild parts of Ireland. Looking far ahead 
 dovra the dry, blue, hard road, you see suddenly a flock of 
 black spots in the centre of it, perhaps a hundred yards ofi: 
 As you get nearer you find this is a batch of little, callow, half- 
 fledged wild-ducks, brought here by the fussy mother to dust 
 and sun themselves from some adjacent bog-hole or clump of 
 friendly rushes. The young ones have never heard of coaches, 
 and would not rise at all but for the pecks and bustle of their 
 mother, who fluflfs them up and scrambles them off" just in 
 time to be saved from oiu' swift revolving wheels. Oft' they 
 waddle, only disturbed for a moment ; and, as you look back, 
 you see them again just where they were before. 
 
 Then the magpies — those black and white clerical-looking 
 birds you see in England, perhaps once in a long summer day's 
 walk — here you put them up in couples, ten in a mile, with 
 their long tails and their shy, mischievous manner, jerking 
 about on the road-side trees (when there are any), or balancing 
 awkwardly on the clumsy stone walls. 
 
 Then, as for weasels running aci'oss the road, and carrion 
 crows looking out for lamb, they are seen constantly, and, in 
 Connemara, eagles too, as you will hear. But let me get to my 
 account of the energetic Italian Bianconi, who single handed 
 has permeated all Ireland with cars, and done more good to 
 poor Ireland in twenty years than But I am getting treason- 
 able. In the midst of these observations, my Bianconi di-iver
 
 138 'cross country. 
 
 Mike Joyce, breaks out with a song, -written by tlie school- 
 master at Derry Knowing, and, as it is not devoid of quaintness; 
 I giVe it : 
 
 Tune of the Nate Gould Rina. 
 
 " O gra maclu'ee, 
 You don't love me, 
 Or else you wouldn't lmgei% 
 Tills little ring, 
 Which now I bring. 
 To slip upon your finger. 
 
 " Colleen asthore. 
 My heart is sore, 
 Too long I have been waitmg ; 
 I've feed the priest, . 
 And cooked the feast, 
 It is no lies I'm statmg ; 
 It's truth, bedad, I'm stating. 
 
 " Mavourneen, then, 
 Be one in ten, 
 And do not look so tazing ; 
 The pig is bought, 
 Tlie fish are caught, 
 Tlie day and hoiu' are plazing ; 
 O, Kitty, ain't they plaziug. 
 
 " Y'ou smile at me, 
 O, gra maclu'ee, 
 Love, dear, you will not linger. 
 * No blarney, Tom !' — 
 I'm deaf and domb. 
 The ring is on her finger 5 
 Whoop, boys, it's on her finger." 
 
 I had complimented liim on his song, when who should get- 
 up at a road-side whisky-shop where we changed horses, but 
 two bagmen ? who, having hoisted in their tin boxes and 
 mackintosh-covered bundles of patterns till the car groaned 
 again, began at once, before the car moved off, playing at gam- 
 bling games of cards, with an ardour worthy of a better cause. 
 We were still in sight of Benabola, king of the Twelve Pins (or
 
 DRIVER MIKE. 139 
 
 skittle mouutaius), and tliey were on the seat with their backs 
 to me and Mike, who drove sideways, as carmen love to do. 
 
 Mike cast a malign glance at the bagmen, as they imperiously 
 stowed away their tin boxes. 
 
 " One would think," he muttered to me, " it was the Juke 
 of Wellington and Admiral ^STelsou out, arm in ami, for a 
 boHday. I'd upset them in the next bog-hole for a tinpenny." 
 
 But the red-whiskered, fresh-coloured, pompous, slangy bag- 
 men went on throwing down the red and black pipped cards on 
 the car cushion between them quite unconcerned, the money 
 lying between them in reasonable pools of silver. If we had 
 been di-ivkig through Paradise they would not have looked up. 
 
 As a road-side dog broke out on us from a cabin, Mike began 
 to talk. 
 
 " There's a power of agles," said Mike, suddenly, " up in 
 Derryclare, there. I sometimes am getting them at three-and- 
 sixpence the couple for gentlemen that keep menageries on 
 their lawns. I'll tell you a story about them." 
 
 " Grive that yelping dog a cut with your whip, Driver," said 
 the gamesters. 
 
 Mike replied, seriously, bending down to them, " Perhaps 
 one of you gents would be kind enough to fling half-a-ci-own 
 at him. "Well, as I was saying when the dog interrupted me, 
 I had a man from Letterfrack on the box the other day, who 
 was a powerful one on agle stories, but they're not worth telling. 
 Hold up. Jinny !" 
 
 " Oh, the story, by all means, Mike," said I. 
 
 " A year or two ago," said Mike, " it may be more — there was 
 a poor widdy had her slip of peaty ground not far from the 
 foot of Benbaun, that big blue fellow there to the right. She had 
 just her handful of goats, that nibbled about Bencullaghduflf, 
 and her slice of bog, and such parquisites as she had got given 
 to her by one of the great Martins of Ballinahinch, before old 
 Cruelty to Animals reigned in Connemara (rest his soul !). 
 Convaynient to this widdy lived an eagle. ' Do you see that 
 tree we're passing ?' said the Clare man to me. ' To be sure 
 I do,' said I, ' how can I help it ?— did he live in that ?' ' Xo,' 
 uays he, as pat as could be, ' he didn't, but he built on that
 
 140 'cross country. 
 
 wall just beyont it.' "Well, one unlucky Friday, the wi(idy'a 
 sons — two stout lads ready for any mischief, and more fond of 
 snapping at snipes and listening to the gentlemen's beagles 
 than work — climbed up that wall of a rock, pulling them- 
 selves up by the long green strings of ivy and the little 
 hoUybushes that grew in the clefts, and, when up there, 
 what did they do but bring down two of the young birds. 
 Soon afterwards, the widdy's lambs began to decrease in 
 number (it was yearning season at the time), and so it went on, 
 till only forty out of seventy were left. The widdy, thinking 
 it had been the herd, had him watched, and then found out, 
 sure enough, it was devil a one but the ould thafe of the world, 
 the agle. So she goes to a wise gossip, and asks her what 
 was to be done. Says the gossip to her, ' Have you never 
 done any provocation to the agle ?' And the widdy says to 
 her ' that her sons had taken two of the young birds to bring 
 up in the house as pets.' ' That's it,' says the ould woman, 
 ■ and there'll never be good blood between you, "Widdy Grattan, 
 and the agle, till you give back them cubs, and the boys go up 
 again and put back the birds, and make all smooth.' The boys 
 then took back the eaglets, and from that day no more lambs 
 were taken out of the flock ; nor was that all, for the agle be- 
 haved like a jintleman to her, and because he couldn't give them 
 back — seeing as how they were picked to the bone — he flew 
 forty miles a day for thirty days running into county Clare, 
 and brought back every day a lamb, to make up the number 
 he and his family had eaten. And this is how it was found 
 out. The man that told me, and who lived near the widdy, 
 had lately married a "Westport woman, he came out of Clare 
 into these very parts, and he declared the brand on the lambs 
 the agle brought back was the brand of a squireen from his 
 own neighbourhood. Now, isn't that mighty quare ?" 
 
 " It is, indeed," I said, believingly. 
 
 Mike continued : " "Well, this same Clare man told me 
 another story of an agle that beats Banagher. There was a 
 countryman near Bencore who used to cross a ford every day 
 to cut his little slip of turf to boil his wife's praties with. One 
 day, as he goes across with his spade over his shoulder and his
 
 DRIVER MIKE. 141 
 
 kippen at his back, balancing himself on the stones, that the 
 water dips and tumbles over, what does he see but a big baste 
 of an agle, with wings as big as a fishing-sail, sitting on a rock 
 half-way across, ating a salmon with all the relish of a priest 
 at a wedding ? The man up's with a cleayer he has with him 
 to cut a stick or two of bog-wood, lets fly at the agle, who 
 drops the salmon down at his feet, and, without waiting for 
 the change, flies ofi", as Eory thought, to his wife and family in 
 Bencullaghdufl'. Pleased enough, the man goes into the bog, 
 scoops out his kippeenful of the driest turf, ties the cords 
 across, hoists the fish, shining like a new dish-cover, in 
 between the fastenings, and hurries back to the cabin, glad to 
 bring Biddy, who was ailing, so pretty a dinner without 
 changing a one pound bill for it. But he hadn't got the pot 
 that was to boil that fish ; for, as he just got half across the 
 water, flop comes his friend the agle down on the creel, pitches 
 on his head, gives him a bufieting with his wings that half 
 blinds him, and flies off with the salmon in his claws." 
 " Teachmg him to do as he'd be done by," said I. 
 " Divil anything else," said Mike. " ' Bedad !' says the 
 man to Biddy, ' I'm not the Christian to be made a fool of by 
 an agle that has only two legs and no arms. JS'o,' says he, 
 and he loads a blunderbuss up to the muzzle with swan shot, 
 and goes off to the ford the very next day, and hides under an 
 alder bush to wait for the agle when he came to drinlc. In 
 about half-an-hour he sees a dark spot over Derryclare that 
 gradually gets larger as it gets nearer, and by-and-by turns 
 out to be the agle. Now, I'll tache you manners,' says 
 Murphy Joyce, but before he could pull the trigger, which 
 was rather stiff— it liadn't been used much since the throubles 
 in 'ninety-eight — the agle was down upon him again, and gave 
 him such a dose of it as knocks his senses quite out of him. 
 He could not see out of his eyes for a month afterwards, 
 and I don't think would have ever seen again, if he hadn't 
 made a pilgrimage to Croagh Patrick, and drank out of the 
 Holy "Well three mornings running, fasting." 
 
 The moral, thought I, of which is : Never take a salmon 
 away from an eagle without remembering his bill.
 
 142 'cross country. 
 
 " How can tliose fellows go on pla5^ing at cards instead of 
 listening to your good stories ?" I whispered to Mike. 
 
 " Oil, bad luck to tbem," said Mike, " they always make up 
 their losses from the first fool they get hold of Hear me now." 
 
 " The twelve Pins look well, gentlemen," said I, stooping 
 
 dowD. 
 
 The gents, looking up in a desultory way,' said, " Oh, very — 
 wonderful ! Eifteen-two and a pair are eight — that makes me 
 three-and-sixpence." 
 
 " Oh, let them be, the nagurs," said Mike, with extreme 
 contempt. 
 
 Just then, a pig-driver passed, trimly dressed, driving, with 
 unnecessary noise and solemnity, four pigs, completely tattooed 
 with red bars across the back. 
 
 " That's a young pig-jobber, I know," said Mike. 
 
 " How do you know he's ouly just begun business ? " said I. 
 
 " Why, there's too much ruddle. He's more ruddle than 
 pigs. As he gets older he'll put less." 
 
 Mike, the Connaught man, was a shrewd, good-humoured, 
 sagacious madcap ; with a man's body and a boy's heart, like half 
 his countrymen; his voice stammering with fun, became, when he 
 grev/ serious, deep, rhythmical, earnest, and pathetic. Having 
 sounded him in legends, I waited till moon-rise for his ghost- 
 stories. 
 
 After a short stare at the horses' ears, which passes with a 
 car-driver for meditation, Mike said abruptly, " Did you like 
 Sligo, your honour ?" 
 
 In the course of my reminiscences of Sligo, I mentioned a 
 one-eyed and left-handed waiter. 
 
 Mike laughed, and said, " I know that waiter. Ben and me 
 have an old grudge ; he's one of the ferocious OTlaherties." 
 
 Here our recollections of Sligo were interrupted as we ap- 
 proached Letterfrack, the Quaker settlement, by a sinister- 
 looking old man with bare feet, and a patched great coat, 
 with a scrubby ram's-wool collar, who bore on his back an 
 enormous round bundle of old clothes wrapped in a rug, that 
 gave him the air of Atlas, learning the use of the globes. After 
 much higgling he gets up to ride to Clifden, and ties his 
 bundle to one of the jaunting-car rails.
 
 DRIVER MIKE. 143 
 
 " Is your portmanty safe, Tom ? Are you iusiu-ed from 
 fire, or won't tlaey insure tinder ?" said INIike in a kindly ^-oice. 
 
 " I'm all right, Thad, and thanks to you," cried grateful Tom. 
 
 " Very well, Tom. (Then chip. Jinny.) I thought you were 
 off to Coleraiue, Tom ?" 
 
 "ISo; I've just been reprimanded" (he meant remanded). 
 
 The picking up of passengers makes a long day's ride, on au 
 Irish jaunting-car, one of the merriest things in the world. 
 Xowhere can you pick up stranger sayings or more pleasant 
 bits of obsen-ation to chew the cud of in after and duller days. 
 Xow we drew up at a white-washed cabin, ^dth its brown pool 
 and dimg-hill before it, the pigs nuzzling at the potatoes, 
 that smoked straining in the basket-lid before the door. 
 Facing the door, slops down a peat buttress, which feeds the 
 fire ingeniously enough, and also keeps out all the pure air from 
 the circle rovmd the red-hot peat. Our friend Tom, the pedlar, 
 was already snugly established as a balance to the commercial 
 gentlemen, who, with antagonistic rows of half-crowns, were 
 now absorbed in the mysteries of blind hookey, and were blind 
 to everything else except an occasional tinted yellow glass of 
 whisky, brought out from a shabeeu by a bare-footed urchin 
 who acted as pot-boy. 
 
 A turn of the road brought us to one of those cottage 
 stations where Biaucoui keeps his relays of horses. A thin, 
 cheery old woman, with her dry gi-ey hair bloA^-iug in wisps 
 over her face, ti-ipped out, and began to put to the horses. 
 " Fergus and Eatty" were marked by Bianconi's royal decree 
 upon the collars ; so that Fergus should never wear Kitty's 
 collar, nor Kitty Fergus's. She slipped in the buckles and 
 whipped up the cheek-straps as deftly as a smart young ostler 
 of sixteen. She even smeared some black ointment on Kitty's 
 cracked hoof, and had the leather case on before the Con- 
 naught man could get round and help her. I rejoiced to see 
 her slap the wet flank of Jinny, to send her into the stables, 
 and pull Brian's mane as a token of recognition. Five mirmtes 
 more and Mike was on the yellow box, tucking the oilskin 
 apron over my legs, and hoping I had room. 
 
 " Now, your honour," said Mike, " for the next ten miles
 
 144 'cross country. 
 
 you'll have as pretty a rocking as ever a rowler tourist had in 
 his born days. You might as well be at sea in a gale of wind." 
 
 The next time we stopped, Mike exclaimed : " Tou see that 
 nate little gurl that brought us the parcel at the gate ?" 
 
 " Yes," I replied. 
 
 " Well," says IVIike, " she's one of the jumpers.'''' 
 
 " Jumper. What's that ?" 
 
 " Why, one of the soupers that went over to the black faith 
 in the famine times for soup. She is a nate little girl, and 
 takes in millinery. I've seen fellows change their faith for a 
 pail' of breeches." 
 
 " No ?" I said. 
 
 " Is it no you say ; it's yes I say," cried Mike. " There was 
 a young Brady, of Mollycullen. WTien the committee was 
 giving away the clothes, he sees a pair of breeches as mightily 
 takes his fancy. ' Give me them,' says he, ' and I kiss the 
 Bible.' WeU, next day when he went, they'd been given to 
 somebody else, so what does Brady do but come back again 
 to the ould faith, though divil of a haporth of credit he is 
 to that same. Look there, your honour, at that field where 
 the potatoes are lying out in clean rows. What young 
 children for work, and how purty that handsome girl with 
 the bare legs shows them how to use the long spade. That 
 land was all bog four years ago, and all that track furnent. 
 It belongs to a Scotch farmer, who turns out his children to 
 work directly they begin to thrive, from six years old to 
 sixteen, aU the same. That girl is the beauty of the place. 
 Now if he had been Irish she would have been working at her 
 piany, and had her big lump of a novel, and have been merely 
 looking out of the window for the purty young man." 
 
 " Yes," thought I, and fell into a reverie, " the Scotch are 
 conqiiering Ireland. The old hard-drinking, open-house days 
 are gone by for ever ; witness the Martins, who ruled half 
 
 Connemara and had the lands of a prince ; witness and 
 
 and all the old clans." 
 
 Before I could finish my apostrophe on the Middleman 
 question, the Orange and Green question, the Absentee ques- 
 tion, the tithe question, the Popery question, and some others,
 
 DRIVER MIKE. 145 
 
 I was mterrupted by our stopping to take up one of the countj- 
 constabulary, a force whicli few armies of Eiu'ope could match. 
 The smart young fellow, in his light rifle green coatee, flat cap, 
 and side bayonet, leaped up with a soldierly-like nod to the 
 driver, bound for some session then sitting. 
 
 As he alighted a mile further on, Mike said, " Good luck go 
 with him, it's some poor -widdy's heart he'll make ache to- 
 night, sorra guide him !" 
 
 " Have you been long in Bianconi's service, Mike ?" 
 
 '■' Ten years last Rogation." 
 
 " Have you ever seen him r" 
 
 "Have I ever seen him! Often and often, your honour. 
 He's a little, smart man, with a quick eye, and have heard him 
 teU his own story how he was shipwrecked, when he was quite 
 a boy, on his way from Eome, and left with only three shillings 
 in his pocket on a desert island. With these he came and bought 
 some pictures that he saw in a window in Dublin, and selling 
 these got more, and so on, till he started a car, and then another, 
 till now he employs ever so many hundred drivers, and the divil 
 knows how many horses, and lives in a grand place near 
 Clonmel. They say if he gets a halfpenny a day from every horse 
 it pays him." 
 
 " I suppose that B on the harness stands for his name," said I. 
 
 "An' be sure it does," said Mike. "Every horse has its 
 own name and its own harness. He's mighty sharp. He has 
 travellers to look after us, who come about on the road and are 
 taken up as regular fares, who note down the time they get on 
 and ofl" to compare it with our bills at the station. Now in 
 London, they tell me, they do it by getting into an omnibus 
 with a right-hand pocket full of marbles. Tor every one that 
 gets in, they move a marble into the left-hand pocket ; isn't 
 that cute ?" 
 
 " Very," said I ; " but is he kind to the poor ?" 
 
 " He is," said Mike, " and to his old drivers, if they do their 
 duty, but if they ruin a horse he is out with them in a jifty. 
 His way of rewarding is by taking you off" a wild, scanty road, 
 and putting you on a good one ; or by changing you from 
 night to day duty. He tried me once, but I bet him. I had 
 
 L
 
 146 CROSS COUNTRY. 
 
 to take some liorses for him down into Tipperaiy, and wlien I 
 got near his house my money ran short, and I went up to his 
 place, told him my case, and borrowed five shillings. ' Be 
 sure you pay it again, my man,' says he, ' next time we meet.' 
 I thanked him, drove off, and sis months after this he met me 
 somewhere about here, and got on my car to go as far as 
 Clifden. jS"ow I knew he had my five sliilling down in his red 
 pocket-book, and remembered it, so I went up to him and 
 said, ' Here's the five shillings, Mr. Bianconi, that I borrowed 
 at Clonmel, and thanks to you, sir.' ' Keep it, my good man,' 
 said he, with a pretty smile that did me good. ' I like to see my 
 drivers remember their debts.' I'd had as soon put my head 
 into a menagerie of wild bastes as see him again if I hadn't." 
 
 Our next passengers were two decent country- Avomen, with 
 their gowns tucked up and their shawls drawn over their 
 heads. 
 
 It was getting cold, and as it grew cold we grew silent, 
 only now and then blurting out a sentence when we got down 
 sullenly, with heads butting at the bullying wind, to walk 
 slowly up a hill beside the car. But it was every moment 
 with Mike some kind, encouraging, cheery words. 
 
 " "Well, girls, how are you by this time ?" cried Mike. 
 
 A chorus of women replied, " Och ! dead entirely with the 
 chill." 
 
 " And if I sat like that," said Mike, reprovingly, " all the 
 time in the car wouldn't I be as dead as the fur that was 
 under me ?" then added, under breath, " There's no worse 
 driving than the women, 'cause they never get out to spare the 
 horse, poor craytur." 
 
 "With the exception of a dark avenue just as we entered Gal- 
 way, which was rendered dangerous by a rush of cars coming 
 home from the fair, filled with reckless, exhilarated country 
 people, we had no risks to encounter on our way to the semi- 
 Spanish city where Judge Lynch hung his OAvn son. 
 
 We had traversed that day a wonderful panorama of Irish 
 scenery, bog, coast town, arms of the sea, lakes, and mountains 
 — a country wild as Siberia, ending in civilised city, with rich 
 suburbs, packet station, and commerce. In the morning, a
 
 THE IRISH JAUNTING CAR. 147 
 
 stone-built whiskj'-shop ; in tlie evening, a ci^-ilised liotel, -witli 
 conventional waiter, and all other sophistications. This morn- 
 ing, untrod mountains, miles of snipe track, and wild duck 
 coimtrj ; to-night, paved sti-eets, neat shops, and starry rows 
 of columned lamps. It was like coming from the thirteenth 
 centuiy into the nineteenth, and I felt gi-ateful for the change, 
 yet pleased with the experience. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE lEISH JAUNTIlfa CAB. 
 
 I WAS on a "Wicklow jaunting-car that was climbing one of 
 those steep hills that lead into the mountain country, that you 
 see blue and tempting, smiling to you with promises of fairy- 
 land, from the pleasant green deer-walks of Phoenix Park, 
 Dublin. The car was the old Irish car, with the two hanging 
 shelves back to back, and the little iron-bound crow's-nest in 
 front, but where the carman never sat, preferring to sit side- 
 ways and drive, sharing in the gossip of the passengers, be they 
 priest, labourer, or quarryman, or black-eyed girleen, we picked 
 uj) by the way. 
 
 My temper clarified as we slanted up the blue billiard-board, 
 dry, hard roads peculiar to the mountain districts of Ireland. 
 'Not an hour ago I had been in a dreadful state of rage and 
 indignation. They had told me in Dublin, at my hotel opposite 
 the College, that the "Wicklow car started at two o'clock. At 
 two o'clock, therefore, the vauguard of our army moved on 
 O' Grady Street, where the car was reported to start, and was 
 deposited there, with " the blessings of the Lord" upon it, by 
 Tim, the incomparable boots. If I waited in that dii-ly street 
 opposite that little spirit-shop — where they also sold herrings, 
 biscuits, and candles — ten minutes, I waited two hours. I re- 
 connoitred all the neighbouring streets, looking at prints of the 
 last ill-favoured saint. Doctor "Wiseman, Napoleon, and Daniel 
 O'Connell. I became the scorn of tlie adjacent clothes-cellar,
 
 148 'cross country. 
 
 where the faded regimentals dangled in the wind, and the very 
 I'ed painted Gorgon masks over the doorways lolled out then- 
 tongues at me. I was the butt of a select clump of greasy 
 beggars from the slums of the Liberty. The eai^men leered at 
 me as if I was the first invading Saxon that had set his foot 
 on Erin's shore. The boys, striped with rags, walked round 
 me suspiciously, as the street dogs at Constantinople do round 
 a stranger, suspecting his creed. 'No signs of the car, in spite 
 of all the anathemas I heaped on the inconsequential, hare- 
 brained, reckless Celtic race. 
 
 All I got was ridicule. For instance, when I asked a woman 
 who was driving about coals in a cart, with a bell jingling in 
 front, if the car was not punctual, 
 
 '•' Punshill !" says she, showing all her yellow teeth, and 
 flinging up her dirty hands with a laugh as she drove on — 
 " punshill is it ? What, Jack MacGran punshill ! Away wid 
 ye!" 
 
 "Did ye' ever hear the likes of him ?" said a woman, passing 
 with a square of brown cat's-meat on a skewer. 
 
 Some thought me cracked, others foolish, but the majority 
 shrugged their shoulders and said, " Can't ye see, Biddy, he's 
 an Englishman, the cratur !" 
 
 Then a horrid crowd of armless, eyeless objects surrounded 
 me, baring their stumps and thrusting out their snuify, lean 
 hands. One said he had a "family of ten orfins to maintain, 
 your honour ;" another, turning up his pulpy, opaque eyes, 
 said, " I've been dark these thirty years, your honour." It 
 might have been so, but the dirty rascal looked scarcely nine- 
 teen, which rendered the optical delusion a difilcult feat. 
 
 At last, innocently, shambling, calm, and resigned, came Jack 
 with the rickety car, which he proceeded to build up vrith 
 parcels. Touching his brimless hat to me with an air of con- 
 sequence, business, and authority, he drove off the beggars, as 
 a -sillage cur would have chased away a flock of geese. The 
 man was one of those wild-eyed, reckless-looking fellows you 
 seldom see among the dull-blooded Saxons. He caught up the 
 reins more like Phaeton out for a mad holiday than one of those 
 steady English coachmen who sit as if they had grown to the
 
 THE IRISH JAUNTING CAR. 149 
 
 box, and are immovable till some operation has been performed 
 with a head-stall or splinter-bar. 
 
 At last he got under way, first running into the spirit shop, 
 to exchange half-a-dozen jokes, and to toss ofi" a glass of some 
 shining quicksilver, which I suppose was whiskj', for he went 
 in lausfhing and came out singing. We drove oft* from that 
 squalid side street on our uneasy throne, with our feet on that 
 swinging leather shelf which is at first so fickle, unstable, and 
 impleasant. AVe bumped against a post, which rather tickled 
 Jaclv, tied up the harness, which subsequently gave way with a 
 snap, and got into the more fashionable quarter, where, by dint 
 of pounding along in defiance of eveiything, a screech on a 
 battered horn, and a crack of Jack's whip, we produced rather 
 a sensation among the fashionable and graceful loungers of 
 Grafton Street. 
 
 Once between the whitewashed \alla walls, and climbing the 
 hard blue road of the suburb, Jack was happy and talkative. 
 Now he gave each of his parcels an adjusting kick — leaped 
 out and pulled up his horse's buckles tighter, tied a fresh 
 knot in his short whip, caught up the lash in a knowing way, 
 after flipping a fly off" his horse's left ear ; then shuffled his 
 coat easier, and rubbed his brimless hat round with a twirl of 
 his elbow. Jack was anything but an hypochondriac ; in fact, 
 his spirits, in comparison with those of any ordinary English- 
 man, were the spirits of inebriation. 
 
 But Jack had not a " hair turned " with the whisky. "We 
 soon began to pick up passengers, but from Jack's uneasy and 
 sideward eye, I could see he still waited for some special addi- 
 tion to his load. Could it be some colleen bawn (fair-haired 
 girl) he expected ? or was it some police sergeant, tithe proctor, 
 or notice server whom he dreaded to meet ? 
 
 " Sir to you," said Jack, suddenly snapping round on me, 
 ceasing to mechanically flog his horse, " it's the Doctor I'm 
 waiting for ; we were to take liim up at the Knockmadowu 
 four cross-roads, and we are within a ha'porth of them now. 
 It's perhaps one of the pleasantest gentlemen you ever spoke 
 to, the best shot, rider, and fly-fisher in all Wicklow, so quick 
 with the tongue, and always his reply as pat Och ! but
 
 150 'cross country. 
 
 liere Lc comes : aiid it's preteudiug I don't know him I'll be. 
 Saints above us, liow lie's running!" And Jack slapped his 
 thigh to express supreme delight, looking away from the coming 
 man, and driving slowly on. 
 
 However, to Jack's great vexation, the runner turned out to 
 be only Mr. Plunkett's man, with a parcel for Eathdrum. " 1 
 wouldn't miss Mr. Saul for forty pounds," said Jack, pulling 
 up at the cross-roads ; "it does me good, like medicine, seeing 
 him ; besides, I want to see him about Crazy Jane " 
 
 " Some poor insane relation," I thought. 
 
 " — for she can't take her grass." 
 
 "A vegetarian," I said to myself 
 
 " Millia murder !" which means ten thousand murders iu 
 English, cried a passenger, " will the Docthor never come ?" 
 "We were waiting at the cross-road for the take up. 
 
 "Here he comes!" cried a bagman, who was stamping at 
 the delay, " looking like a ha'porth of soap after a long day's 
 washing." 
 
 " Och ! the mummy of a monkey. Look at him 1" ciied a 
 third passenger — " look liow he pulls his legs after him, as if 
 they were only borrowed for the day!" 
 
 " If you don't make haste, sir, vre can't be waiting," said 
 Jack ; and Mr. Saul, with " Don't you know me, Jack ?" tum- 
 bled up. " Cross about us ! Don't you know me, Jack, ma 
 bouchal ? Give us a light. Haven't I been running lilce a 
 madman to Bedlam to catch the bit of blood there you're driv- 
 ing three miles an hour to the knacker's ! Give me the whip 1" 
 He was at home with all of us in a moment. 
 
 " Och ! is it you, Mr. Saul ? And how's somebody's sweet- 
 heart, the black-eyed widdy's daughter at Eathdrum, Doctor ? 
 "When's the banns to be up ?" said Jack with a bit of fine acting. 
 
 " Och ! be asy, Mike, get out of that," said Saul, coloiu-ing 
 and flogging the horse. 
 
 " "Who is this ?" I said in a whisper to the man next me ; 
 "he does not look like a doctor ?" 
 
 Said Jack, sotto voce, " A cow-doctor, your honour, but we 
 call him ' the Doctor,' out of respect to his father, who is the 
 great farrier in Eathdrum ; and sure hasn't he got the brass-
 
 THE IRISH JAUNTING CAR. 151 
 
 plate and the knocker, and tlie red and green bottles and the 
 pounder for the salts, and what would a rale doctor want more ? 
 And a tidy bit of land, too, foment us." 
 
 Jack, oui- driver, was a bugler in the Wicklow Eifle Militia, 
 and he was now driving bare-headed and in an easy undress, 
 consisting of a dirty, ragged, red militia jacket, much the worse 
 for stable practice. In his military capacity, Jack was pugna- 
 cious and talkative, brusque and abrupt, but in his civil and 
 Augean pro\-ince, silent, stolid, quiet and social. 
 
 Our new passenger, Mr. Saul, the doctor, was a wiry young 
 man of some five-and-twenty shooting-seasons, fonder of salmon- 
 fishing than farriery, and of giving himself whisky than of 
 giving invalid horses drenches. He wore a soiled green shooting- 
 jacket, a loose, untidy velvet waistcoat, and a red rope of a 
 handkerchief strangled round his neck, which gave him at first 
 sight the appearance of ha\ing unsuccessfully attempted suicide. 
 As for liis face, it was thin, pale, and I must confess rather 
 debauched-looking ; bis eyes were wild, excitable, and blood- 
 shot ; his cheek hollow and hectic ; his mouth wide, wavering, 
 and witty. He was always mercuriaUy shifting his seat : now 
 he was on this side, now on that ; now driving, now leaping 
 out to a walk ; now singing, now shouting. 
 
 " Jack's a soldier ; you should hear him on the bugle ; bedad 
 he's powerful," said Mr. Saul, pati'onisingly looking at Jack. 
 
 " Get out of that, doctor," said Jack, colouring. 
 
 " A pui-ty regiment it is too," said Saul, becoming ironical 
 suddenly. "Divil a one of 'em could hit a tree at twenty 
 paces. They might rifle the inimy — bedad if they'd shoot 
 'em !" 
 
 "You ought to know, Mr. Saul," says Jack, reprovingly 
 and hurt, " how many feet off we were when you saw us firing 
 with the rifle at the butt — was it twinty ?" 
 
 " IS' one of your brag. Jack," said Saul, laughing him down, 
 " or I shall have to thrash it out of ye. Why don't you learu 
 to box. Jack ? The fist never misses fire." 
 
 " Last time as ever I went to Dublin, didn't I box a porter 
 and two carmen before I got to the end of the first street, little 
 as I am, say now, Mr. Saul r" said Jack.
 
 152 'cross country. 
 
 "Weren't jon rejected twice as a soldier? What did tie 
 old sergeant at Eatlidrum say of you ?" said Mr. Saul : '" I 
 Avisli the Rifles luck !' " 
 
 '• Oh, this sergeant's nothing!" said Jack, " or why does he 
 take to black clothes ?" 
 
 " Bedad," said Saul, " get out of that. He's a braA'e man, 
 Jack ; and I'll knock down any one who says he isn't. Ton 
 linow as well as I, Jack, the Sergeant was of the Seventy-eight 
 formerly, who they stripped the colours of because they would 
 beat to mass against government orders." 
 
 Here we came to a shibbeen, and for the third time the 
 young doctor got down and called for whisky. Mr. Saul was 
 not a teetotaller, no more was Jack. We all got down. 
 
 "I hope you won't care, Mr. Saul, but here's some of the 
 crathur we haven't had time to get christened," said the widow 
 landlady, evidently knowing her customer. 
 
 " All right, widdy ; bring two dandies," said Saul, seizing a 
 glass, "and some cordial. Faix ! an' this is I'ale Innishowen " 
 (smacks his lips), " divil a bit else to me! The beer's bad 
 about here — all " (learnedly, and with chemical authority) 
 " because of the sulphurous vapour, and having no elixir of 
 oxygin in the centhre of the wather. AViddy, some soda-wather ! 
 I had too much stuff last night at the fair, and I'm still thirsty, 
 though I drank four jugs of cold pump-wather this morning, 
 besides two bottles of porther. Take a dandy, sir, there's no 
 headache in Irish whisky. A¥ell, then, I'll take it to prove to 
 you. By all the Byrnes and O'Tooles in Wicklow — and that's 
 saying something this side the Scalp — you're the best fellow 
 I've seen for many a day !" 
 
 A scene more intensely Irish and more intensely un-English 
 could scarcely be conceived. Here was a car reckless of delays, 
 a consequential, drunken, sporting farrier passing for a real 
 doctor, and a driver quite indifferent to punctuality, parcels, 
 passengers, or nightfall, stopping at the bidding of a half- 
 drunken cow-doctor at a roadside whisky-shop. I saw it was 
 no use to lose my temper. There was nothing to do but to 
 observe the humours of Saul, the cow-doctor, snipe-shooter, and 
 salmon-fisherman.
 
 THE IRISH JAUNTING CAR. 153 
 
 As for Saul, Avlieu be was not bragging of tbe reputation he 
 mio-bt bave attained in medicine but for bis fondness for snipe- 
 sbooting, he was tossing off burning tbimblefuls of whisky, ral- 
 lying Jack about his regiment, courting tbe landlady, siuging 
 snatches of songs, or enlightening me on Irish customs. 
 
 ]Mr. Saul Avas just one of those reckless, idle prodigals who, 
 with much good-nature and many social companions, become, 
 when squireens with a Httle money and a little land, the special 
 curses of an improvident country — 'just the man who, in 
 Tsinety-eight, would have been beguiled into a secret club, aud 
 have headed a clump of pikes at Vinegar Hill ; who, later, 
 would have floated his friends in claret, ridden over his hall- 
 table on his spanking mare, or got up, on true Lever priuciples, 
 some wet day, a fox-hunt inside the old house at Tubbermore. 
 Impulsive, quick blooded, he would be led about by cunning 
 priests, and die of delirium tremens before thirty. At a fair 
 dance, at a faction fight, or at a race, Saul was, I could see, the 
 leader of the Wicldow hot-bloods. 
 
 As for Jack, who sat there perfectly merry and at his ease, 
 with no trouble about his passengers, parcels, or horses, with 
 his whiplash serpenting about the hard-trodden mud floor, 
 and his dirty red jacket open, fluttering in the draught, he 
 was quite a type of the southern Irishman, choleric, generous, 
 thoughtless, impulsive, with aU the materials for a soldier or a 
 poet burning within him, a man who, now laughing from ear to 
 ear at Saul's songs aud local jokes, and telling stories of his 
 Dublin fights, with the widdy's child daucing on his knee, might, 
 years ago, under certain provocations, have been to-morrow night, 
 pike in hand, lurking round some Protestant farmer's burning 
 homestead, stabbing at a slashing English Dragoon in a rebel 
 fight, or Avaiting with clenched teeth behind a stone wall, where 
 the ferns grow, for the hard landlord quietly ambling home from 
 the sessions meeting. 
 
 I got so tired of the noise and delay, at which I saw it was 
 no use grumbling, that I suppose I fell asleep over the red 
 peat fire, for when I awoke after many nods and uneasy 
 twitches, I found Mr. Saul, Jack MacGan, and three other 
 passengers, joiniug hands round tlie wliisky bottle, and singing
 
 154 'cross country. 
 
 a croppy song from, the Na^tion newspaper, evidently not un- 
 pleasing to them. The only bit of it I remember is : 
 
 Croppies, arise ! Croppies, arise ! 
 Let the old angry light burn in your eyes ; 
 Eig the old scarlet drnm ; banner of green, 
 Now shall thy dusty folds once more be seen. 
 
 Croppies, arise ! Croppies, arise ! 
 
 Once more the green flag of Liberty flies ; 
 
 Now by the stone walls, and long level dikes 
 
 Shall glitter bright ranks of our bayonet and pikes. 
 
 Dragoons may rush down, with their sabres abroad, 
 Tory statesmen may come with their prating and fraud. 
 But we'U scourge them away, witli their tricks and their lies. 
 When the brave croppies shall once more arise. 
 
 " 'Now thin, jintlemen all," says Jack, with an air of a 
 pvmctiKoiis man of business, " I think it is time to be moving.'' 
 
 " G-lasses round !" roars Saul, " d'ye hear, widdy ? not for- 
 gitting the Saxon jintleman who has this day honoured us with 
 his company amongst us. Glasses round, and we'll be off." 
 
 And off after that we went, Saul driving like a madman to 
 make up for lost time, but no accident happening. Indeed, a 
 jaunting-car is a very safe vehicle, for if it upsets it only dis- 
 jjerses its passengers into roadside bogs, dikes, or rush bushes^ 
 with now and then a concussion atrainst a stone wall or the 
 roadside post, that foolishly and unluckily does not get out of 
 the way. 
 
 Saul, elated with whisky, grew laudatory of himself, and 
 said : " If it hadn't been for the cock-shooting I should have 
 stood as high, I think, in docthoring as the best man in 
 Dublin ; but some time ago I had a fever from checked per- 
 spiration and the bile — biling over ! — and ever since that I've 
 lost my retention of memory. Before that I used to be a great 
 dab at Pope : 
 
 Order is Heaven's last law, and this redressed, 
 Some are, and mtist be fatter than the rest. 
 
 Do you remember that ? You see I'm down upon ye." (A
 
 THE IRISH JAUNTING CAR. 155 
 
 wliisper.) — '" I've got a remedy for javiiiclice,bedad, in my resate- 
 books that will cure it in any stage" — pauses solemnly — " ex- 
 cept the stage of daijcomposifion." (Abruptly breaking off.) 
 " The man who isn't sociable is a fool, and if he likes I'll box 
 
 him." 
 
 " Give us a song, ]Mr. Saul," cried Jack, looking round. 
 " The cup of O'Hara, or the Black-haired Rose." 
 
 " Why not leading the Calves, Jack ? or The twisting of 
 the Eope ? But now, come, I'll give you a snap of my own, 
 written under whisky on a frosty morning to the old tune of 
 Cormac Oge. You've seen jS'eUy : 
 
 O little Nelly Counellin, 
 
 Gra macliree, my soul, my beauty ! 
 
 Loving ye is just a duty. 
 
 Don't say kissing is a sin, 
 
 Little NeUy Connellin, 
 
 Begin. 
 
 Little Nelly Connellin, 
 Gra macliree, coUeen asthore ! 
 But one kiss ? Ye've plenty more. 
 Kissing never was a sin, 
 Little Kelly Connellin, 
 Begin. 
 
 "Widdy, give us another dandy, and put it do-nii to me — tliat 
 makes three. Och ! there's no widdy ! we're driving, I see. 
 Hurrah! we're driving. Larrup 'em, Jack!" 
 
 " Is there much snipe about here ?" 
 
 " Is it snipe ?" said Mr. Sanl, angrily. " I believe "you, and 
 salmon too. If you'll come and stay with us next year, we'll 
 
 show you as pretty shooting and fishing It's that takes me 
 
 away from medicine, or I should soon be a match with those 
 fellows in Dublin ; but och ! I'm always on the blue gravel, or 
 up to my armpits wading after the heavy twenty-pounders 
 for hours without coming to land. Then there's the races 
 
 Stay awhile, Jack, how often can you load in a minute ?" 
 
 (Abruptly, as usual.) 
 
 " Three times," said Jack ; "but the buglers don't have gim 
 exercise."
 
 156 CKOSS COUNTRY. 
 
 " Wliy, heart of faith!" said Mr. Saul, fervidly, "what use is 
 
 bugling, when a man should be I've a good mind to go ou 
 
 with you and have a wake's diversion in Dublin. "What I do 
 is drink, and eat, and sing — that's what I call real happiness. 
 The man who is not sociable is a fool, I say. Put me on a 
 horse, and I'll go anywhere and over anything. This isn't my 
 best hat, this is a disabil beaver" (rubbing it round with his 
 sleeve). "I'm a nice young fellow, I've got a little property, 
 and I want to see the world. Sit forard, Jack." (Takes the 
 pipe out of the coachman's mouth and puts it calmly in his 
 own.) 
 
 At the next stage Mr. Saul got down. 
 
 " Good-by, Mr. Saul ; mind you remember me," said I. 
 
 " Eemember ye !" said Mr. Saul; "yes, tiU the da}^ of my 
 death ; ' While memory,' &c." 
 
 What a look his wild whisky -and- water, religious, poetical, 
 random eye gave me as he squeezed my hand blue. 
 
 Here, too, I parted with the Wicklow bugler, and Darby 
 Doolan, a quiet, buttoned-up, moody man, now taking the reins, 
 our conversation fell on dress, upon which subject Darby had 
 very serious and esoteric opinions. 
 
 " Grentlemen," said Darby, gravely, " don't wear stays now as 
 they used to do. Och ! it was dreadful ! Sure if I was a lord's 
 son I shoiddu't like to wear any more than my own bones 
 about me, let alone a big baste of a whale's. Did you ever see 
 those dolly pegs they use in washing in England?" 
 
 Somewhat confused, I asked what a dolly peg was. " jSTo — ■ 
 yes — no. I think not." 
 
 " To see how my wife slaves," said Doolan, " while them 
 ladies sits at home all day curling their hair, not thinking of 
 the dirt in their yesterday's gown-tails, nor caring for all the 
 grinding and the elbow-grease it takes to clean them." 
 
 " What does that mean over the grocer's shop, there ?" said 
 I, pointing to a shop we were passing. " Top Tay ? What's 
 top tay ?" 
 
 " Top tay," Doolan said, with a long look of pity at me, 
 " why it means topping tay, of course — our tay as tops all other 
 tays."
 
 THE IRISH JAUNTING CAR. 157 
 
 A di'unken sailor, wlio had got in at a turn of the road, now, 
 by various marine eccentricities, amused me, but disgusted 
 Doolan. 
 
 " Skipper," (that was Doolan) said the sailor, " let me get 
 in the head (that was in front). AVhat is that woman dancing 
 bare-legged in the tub, there ?" 
 
 " Oh, she's treading flannel," said Doolan. " Bedad, if she 
 had but a partner in a tub opposite, there would be a pair of 
 'em." 
 
 " Have you been always on the road, Doolan P" said I. 
 
 " jSTo, your honour," said Doolan, " I was ten years at Bar- 
 badoes with the iS'inety-first. I used to mind the colonel's 
 horses, and ride them to exercise. Many'a the thing I've seen 
 there among the niggurs, particularly the Johnny Canoe riots, 
 when they used to take to the bush and slap at us from behind 
 the trees. I remember once, your honour," Doolan went on, 
 " I went out in the bush to cut supple jacks, and before I had 
 gone half a mile, what should I see on a flat rock under a sand 
 box-tree, but a great brovra snake with his flat head up ready 
 for me. So I makes no more to do, but raps at him with my 
 stick, and never stops wopping till he's dead as Pilate. Then 
 I puts a bamboo in his jaws, and carries him home on my back, 
 eight foot of him." 
 
 Here the sailor became troublesome. 
 
 " Drunken baste, where's his manners ?" muttered Doolan. 
 
 Now Doolan bit his lip and swore inwardly, talking it out 
 of the horse, which he flogged viciously — uow our maritime 
 friend and brother would stand up to see if the tackling was all 
 safe — but how he wanted to drop anchor at every whisky-shop— 
 how he cried out alternately, with the voice of a boatswain in 
 a storm, " Belay !" and " Eeef !" — how he rolled and sang— how 
 he wanted to cry " Starboard !" at every turnpike, and to board 
 every rival car that passed us — I leave for other chapters. At 
 the next change of horses he got down, and I left him fast 
 asleep at the shebbeen fire. My Barbadoes friend now resigned 
 his throne to a brisk dare-devil Connaught lad, with a slight 
 squint and a weak chin, warping an otherwise handsome face. 
 Tom Eeilly's peculiar hobby was a fondness for practical
 
 158 'cross country. 
 
 jokes, and an admiration for O'Connor, a famed barber at 
 Wicklow. 
 
 " Ocli ! lie Las sucb a tongue," said Eeilly ; " you should 
 bear bim. I do like a turn with tbat barber ; it bates cock- 
 figbting, and tbere's sport in tbat, too. I'll just tell you a 
 thing be did only tbe otber day. Bedad ! it bangs Banagber, 
 and Banagber banged tbe divil, your honour. I'm ready to 
 burst when I think of the fun of that barber. There were two 
 countrymen, with their sickles wrapped round in haybands, 
 comes into bis shop, on their way home from the harvest with 
 those nasty foul people the English, and says they, ' Barber, 
 we want a shave for a halfpenny.' ' I don't shave for less than 
 a penny,' says be, ' my bouchals.' But at last, after a dale of 
 bigglino:, be agrees, and both of them sits down. Tbe barber 
 froths both tbe chins and tbe two months' beai-ds, and says be 
 to me, ' Tom, run for my Ballysader razor,' for he keeps this 
 for tough jobs, and when he gets it he shaves half the chin of 
 one and half the chin of the other. ' I fear I'll never level it 
 now,' says he. ' I fear it was not a man of business cut your 
 hair the last time.' Then, after dancing roimd them and figur- 
 ing about for some time, he washes off tbe lather, whips off the 
 cloth from under their chins, and gives them the handglass to 
 see themselves in. ' Why, you've notched us like forks ; we're 
 only half shaved,' cried both of the reapers. ' That,' says tbe 
 barber, ' is what I do for a halfpenny.' "Well, you'd have 
 killed yourself with laughing to have seen tbe two Munster 
 men look at the glass, and then at each other, turning the pence 
 over in their pocket, then rubbing their chins, till at last they 
 out with twopence each (twice the usual sum) and sat down 
 and were shaved like Christians. 
 
 " And this reminds me of the trick I played a Dublin bag- 
 man at Gal way once. There was a lot of us at tbe Malt Sho- 
 vel Inn, where the Clifden coach, which I then drove for Bian- 
 coni, stopped, and the loudest talker was a tailor bagman, who 
 you'd think was made on tbe eighth day ; all by himself be Avas, 
 so svv-elling with bis pudding-bag sleeves and peg-top breeches. 
 "We fell a talking, and at last he bet me a quart of ale that 
 I could not smoke a pipe of tobacco Avhile he walked once
 
 THE IRISH JAUNTING CAR. 159 
 
 round tlie green. 'Well, I took care to pack it very loose, and 
 away he went ; but I beat him, and brought it all to ashes before 
 he returned. Then I must let him do the thing again, to give 
 him his revenge, for he swore he had been so sure of beating me 
 he had taken no trouble to walk fast. I was determined to 
 play him a trick, so I challenged him again, and away he went. 
 In the mean time I sent out and got a rapping dose of tartar 
 emetic, and slipped it in his quart of ale, that was ready froth- 
 ing for the winner on the bar. Presently in comes my gentle- 
 man as proud as ninepenee, puffing and blowing. ' A^'^ell,' says 
 he, ' have I won ? — have I won ?' ' Tes,' says I, ' you have ; 
 there's your ale : drink it. I am dead bet this time, anyhow,' 
 he says, and oif he drinks the whole pot, without resting his 
 elbow. "Wasn't he sick ; faix ! his worst enemy wouldn't have 
 wished a better sight than to have seen him holding his sides, 
 as blue as the devil when St. Patrick took him by the nose 
 with the red-hot pincers." 
 
 "Are you fond of driving, Eeilly ?" said I, lighting a cigar, 
 and giving him one. 
 
 " Not over and above, your honour," said Eeilly. " Put me 
 on top of a hot chesnut and I'm at home ; but this rolling on 
 a rickety coach-box spiles the digestion. Och ! there's no 
 greater divarsion now to my mind than to sit on a hill and hear 
 the music of the beagles down in the valleys. Och ! the echoes 
 talk and jangle to each other ; it's mighty divarting, and the 
 piuiiest thing in life of a bright blue Autumn morning. I had 
 two beagles when I was a young man ; I called one Fly and 
 the other Bird. I should say, in all Ireland there was no two 
 better dogs to turn and wind a hare ; for faix, they plaj-ed 
 into each other's hands just like two players at whist." 
 
 " And what became of your beauties ?" said I. 
 
 Eeilly sighed. " Wliy, Bird was killed leaping over a clij9r, 
 and Ply ate a poisoned lamb they'd set for these carrion-crows 
 that kiU the game on the hills. He swelled up as big as a 
 barrel, and died wliilc I was carrying him home." 
 
 " Poor Ply," said I, lighting a sweet-scented fusee. 
 
 " By the powers, your honour," said Eeilly, " as a boy, I 
 should have got down from a gibbet, I think, if I'd heard tlie
 
 160 'cross country. 
 
 dogs' tongues and seen the scarlet topping tlie stone walls in 
 little lines of red, till they all joined into one great red sea at 
 the blackthorn covert side. Blood-and-ouns, that makes my 
 blood bile and the pulse go like a steam-ingiue. One day, 
 when I was a bov, I and five other lads were c-oino; to school 
 with two sods each imder the arm for the master (that's liow we 
 paid him in the poor parts of county Mayo), and presently we 
 saw the hounds coming up in full cry after the bushy tail. 
 jVow mother had said, ' Patsy, whatever you do, don't go after 
 the hounds.' But she said nothing about going before them, 
 so away we went, hedge and ditch, barefoot, splash through the 
 black bog-holes, tip tap over the hard blue roads, and hop- 
 and-hop over the ploiigh, and skim and drop over the stone 
 croppers, till the fox was run into. May I never hear mass 
 asain if we weren't some ten miles from home then, and we with- 
 out our dinner. "Well, just as we were looking about for berries, 
 mushrooms, or anything, what should we see but a dish of 
 smoking maly potatoes, laughing themselves out of elbows, at 
 a cabin door. Sorra guide me, but before I knew what I was 
 about, I had it under my arm, and was a mile off under a bush 
 counting them out, and trying if the sort could be spoken well 
 of. At the next turn of a road, what should the great tempter 
 show us but a large flat-head cake cooling in a window, and 
 that one of the fellows took and ran ofl" with too. So that's 
 the way we made out our dinner. Do you see that house yon- 
 der, sir?" 
 
 " Yes ; you mean the white one, with the slate roof," said I. 
 
 " Yes," said EeiUy ; " that belonged to a magistrate that they 
 tell a good story of. He was always in debt and being watched, 
 but he kept himself so close, that divil a fy far or a car sar 
 could the bailiffs serve, till one day a Bray man, one Phil 
 O'Shaughnessy, determined to be up to him, so what does he do 
 but sham drunkenness outside the magistrate's door, for he 
 thought he saw the man he wanted peeping through the window- 
 blind ; out rush two policemen, and take him to the station- 
 house, and presently before the magistrate. ' Who are you ?' 
 says the magistrate. ' Eead this,' said the baihff", handing 
 in the latitat, ' and you'll see.' And so he gi-abbed him. Mighty 
 nate it was, anyhow."
 
 P.U)I>Y AND I. 1(51 
 
 "AVhose is this cottage, Eeilly r" said I. 
 
 " Oil, that's," said Eeilly, " the i)riest's, Father O'Dwyer ; 
 and there he comes, in his Hessian boots, on his little cob. 
 He's not so poor as Father M'Guire, in the next village, "U"ho 
 lives in a little boreen, in a cabin mth only two whitewashed 
 rooms. It's as much as he can do to li^-e, though he's the 
 sot/art h aroon, the darling of everybody ; and just over agin 
 him is the Protestant clergyman's, with his snug glebe and lawn, 
 and the divil knows Avhat not." 
 
 '• What a crop of grass there is on that cottage roof," said I. 
 
 " Sure," said Eeilly, strongly agreeing, " the man might keep 
 a cow there, and no hurt to the crop." 
 
 It was, indeed, such a sluggard's roof as one only sees in Ire- 
 land ; a centmy old thatch, long, brown, and jagged, sunk into 
 deep clefts, and hollows, and furrows, covered moreover with 
 clumps of nettles and tufts of long shaking grasses, tall enough 
 to hide a man in. There was here the antiquity of decay, the 
 pride of sluggardness, the triumph of corruption. Wlien we 
 got nearer, I saw that the gable end had fallen, and that one 
 window was a blind heap of stones. 
 
 " Wliy it's a ruin, Eeilly ?" I said, inquiringly. 
 
 Eeilly, looking away, said, in a low voice, " That's the house 
 of the degraded priest ; and about this priest I have a terrible 
 story, but too long for to-day, your honour." 
 
 CHAPTSE XV. 
 
 PADDY AKD I. 
 
 When I heard a grave gentleman-like man, at the Ballybrogue 
 Station of the Great Punster Eailway, say to a friend, who 
 asked him liow he should spend the half-hour he would have to 
 wait, that lu* should spend it thinking of all the kind things he 
 (the friend) had been saying to him, I said, " The Irish are a 
 polite people"
 
 162 CROSS COUNTRY. 
 
 "WTien I saw, at a Dublin theatre, the whole house to a man 
 get on their legs, and howl at the manager because he wouldn't 
 introduce a national jig in the middle of La Sonnambula, I said, 
 " The Irish are an excitable people." 
 
 "When a Killarney guide swore to me on the tomb of his 
 grandmother that there was a small lake up in IMuUacap, county 
 Kerry, which contained a giant eel, that swam twice round the 
 enclosure every day at two o'clock, with a pan of ould gold tied 
 to his tail, I said, " The Irish are a superstitious peopled 
 
 When a Tipperary landlord, in a Galway railway carriage, 
 told me he was surnamed " the "Woodcock," because he had 
 been shot at so often by the " noblest tinantry" and missed, I 
 said, " The Irish are a revengeful people. 
 
 "When I saw my friend Mike Eooney's best blue breeches 
 stuffed into his cabin window to keep out the rain, I said, " The 
 Irish are a thoughtless peopled 
 
 And lastly, when I refused the beggar-woman at Castlebar 
 a half-penny, and she ironically hoped " the Lord would make 
 my bed that night in heaven," I said, " 7'he Irish are a witty 
 people." 
 
 But this is nothing to do with my story ; for what I want to 
 say is, that I got into "Westport on the fair-day and the ses- 
 sions-day, and found the coffee-room full of bagmen and 
 sessions people, just hot from a case in which an action had 
 been brought against the owners of a steamer for putting a 
 cargo of eggs with which they had been intrusted too near 
 the funnel, in consequence of which half the eggs had been 
 hatched and half addled. I first threw myself heart and soul 
 among the bagmen; those whom I chiefly valued were a 
 big-headed elephantine Smith, in the hardware way, and Fitz- 
 gibbons, an invalid — a neat-featured, droll Dublin man, — very 
 full of anecdote. Thus they began : 
 
 "AVhy, what's the matter. Smith!" said Pitzgibbons the 
 Dublin bagman to the big-headed gentleman in the hardware 
 line. 
 
 Smith had thrust his hands in his pocket, shut up with a 
 bang the order-book, in which he was making memoranda of 
 the day's work, stretched out his shapely legs, and seemed
 
 PADDY AND I. 163 
 
 entirely intent on staring with a quaker-lilce concentration at 
 tlie tips of his boots. 
 
 " I tell you vrhat is," said Smith moodily ; " I can't get on 
 without my claret." 
 
 " The house is going to rack and ruin since Proger's death," 
 said a neat band-box man in the floor-cloth line. 
 
 " O, you shouldn't be hard on the house. They do their 
 best," said the full-whiskered, neat-featured Fitzgibbous. 
 "Have you over heard, Smith, that story of Dwyer, the Dublin 
 'beak?'" 
 
 " Xo," said Smith, not yet rallyiog from the effect of the 
 absence of his favourite wine, but wishing to be amused. 
 
 I was somewhat tired of the endless ceremonial of " Mr. 
 President, may I be permitted," "Mr. Vice, I am intruding, I 
 fear, on your province," and bridled up to hear the story which 
 the- eccentric dispenser of justice had himself told Fitz gibbons. 
 
 " Fill your tumbler, old fellow, before you begin," said Smith. 
 
 " Thank you, old boy," said Fitz, twisting his mouth into an 
 elongated tube adapted for probationship in " screeching" hot 
 whisky and aqua. 
 
 " I'll tell you the story, boys, as the ould jintleman himself 
 told it me. ' The other day,' said he, in his own mealy brogue, 
 ' as I was sitting for the administration of justice on my 
 judgment-sate in Ormond Street, a little boy was brought up 
 before me charged with robbing an orchard out somewhere by 
 Donny brook. The case was clearly proved ; and the keeper of 
 the nursery-garden deposed that the boy was an old offender, 
 and that he had visited the place so often that he had cleared 
 it of every sort of fruit. Having no pity on such villainous 
 young marauders found guilty upon the clearest possible evi- 
 dence, I sentenced him to three months' imprisonment, not 
 forgetting to add the usual whipping, — the peculiar prerogative 
 of juvenile offenders. Just as 1 had delivered this sentence 
 with a solemn air, I looked in a dignified way rouiid the court, 
 and to my surprise observed the old gardener, who lingered in 
 the witness-box, standing there still, pulling down his fore- 
 lock as if he wanted to speak to me, and had something on his 
 mind. " If you plase — " he said. " "What are you wanting, 
 
 M 2
 
 164 'cross country. 
 
 fellow ?" said I. " If you plase," said the man, " I've got a 
 pecviliar favour to ask." " Wliat is it ?" said I. " Wliy," said 
 he, " if it plase your honour's worship, that I may see the little 
 boy receive his sentence." " "What, be whipped ?" said I. 
 " Yes ; be whipped," said he. "Well, as soon as the business 
 of the day was over. I went down into the back-court, feeling 
 anxious to know what sort of morbid curiosity impelled the 
 man. "When I got there, the little boy was receiving his first 
 lash, and I saw him, all in a shivering heap, cramming his dirty 
 knuckle into the extreme corner of his left eye ; and there, in 
 the corner, stood the prosecutor looking on and rubbing his 
 hands as if it was, 'pon my sowl, the Eoyal Theatre he had got 
 a dress-box in. Well, I watched him ; and before the whip 
 could come down again on the poor little devil's dirty hide, he 
 goes up to the urchin, and giving him a dig in his very small 
 ribs, cries out, " There's a Mogul plum for ye ;" and the next 
 time the whip came down, he goes up on the other side, and 
 cries, " There's a jargonelle for ye ;" and the third time it was, 
 " There's a Kerry pippen for ye ;" and so the cruel villain went 
 on, till, I'll be bail, there wasn't a fruit or vegetable known in 
 Paradise, much more in Ireland, that he did not mention to the 
 poor boy." (Loud laughter, &c.) 
 
 Smith. It's a good story now, ain't it ? 
 
 Fitzgibhons. "Why, you never heai'd it before. 
 
 Smith. Och, haven't I ! "Weren't we all half kiltT\dth it the 
 other week at Derry ? 
 
 Fitzgibhons. Bad luck to the big head of ye, so I did. "Well, 
 it's a good story, ain't it ? Tet, hang it, I towld it the other 
 day to to a man who couldn't for the life see the point of it. 
 " Why did he say, ' There's a Mogul plum for ye ?' " he kept 
 repeating; " 'Ah, there's a jargonelle.' Now, why did he say 
 'jargonelle ?' " I could have laid hold of the boiled leg of 
 mutton, and beaten him into capers with it. 
 
 After this, the neat little man in the floor-cloth way volun- 
 teered a long and pointless story, all about " a clock " running 
 up a wall. Now, I could imagine a clock on a wall, or a man 
 running away over a wall with a clock ; but what was this ? 
 
 It was a new hotel, and he had just gone to bed, when he
 
 PADDY AND I. 1G5 
 
 heard a mysterious noise, and presently saw "a clock'' run up 
 the wall. 
 
 "A clock?" said I, unable to contain my amazement. 
 
 Smith. O, thej call t'liem in England beetles. 
 
 "Well, the clock did not end tlie story; for the small neat 
 man went on to say, that in all his circuit he had never seen 
 such a place. All night he was kept awake mth the gnawings 
 of something sharper than even conscience. Day broke, and yet 
 no sleep. He really could not stand it ; he leaped out of bed, 
 and rang a yawning peal that made night hideous and roused the 
 whole house. Soon at his door came the half-dressed indignant 
 landlord. Our friend gi-ew tranquil ; he asked if they'd any 
 toast-and-water ready made. The landlord was furious. " Look 
 here," said I, drawing him to the bedside ; and flinging back 
 the clothes, I showed him the white sheets spotted with black. 
 ^' Lord !" says the landlord, with an expression of mingled as- 
 tonishment, pity, and indignation, " tvhi/ it's only a 'parcel of 
 hed-hugs ;" and he went shuffling off, and grumbling at being 
 rung up at such an hour about so mere a trifle. 
 
 Fitzgihhons. That's a neat little mare you drive in your trap, 
 Grrady ; but Avhere's the cob gone ? 
 
 Grady. Grone ? why, where the good niggers go, — to the 
 knacker's. 
 
 Fitzgihhons. "Well, I hope you sent him to our ingenious 
 friend at Sandymount. You have heard his way of doing busi- 
 ness, haven't you ? No p Well, I'll tell you. AVhen a man 
 takes his horse there, he generally leaves him in the yard, 
 panting and wheezing, vvdiile he goes into Geoghean, in the 
 little box of a counting-house, where he finds him, pen behind 
 his ear, running his finger down a ledger, and sharper than a 
 Tipperary fox. They cannot come to terms at all. Our friend 
 asks 3/. ; Geoghean won't give more than 21. 2s., and wants the 
 harness in besides. At last, in a tiff, off goes the oAvner to 
 get up in his cart and Avhip home again. In the mean time, 
 however, Geoghean has slyly sent out one of his men to knock 
 the beast on the head, and there he lies stone-dead between the 
 shafts. The owner docs not know what to do. He won't 
 take the price ; but he cannot get the carcass home^ an if
 
 166 'cross country. 
 
 he does, it Avou'fc keep. While ho is trying to flog his brains 
 for a plan, out comes Geoghean in a burning, stoi'ming rage^ 
 threatens him ^vith prosecution, orders him directly -with his 
 own hand to remove that carrion from his yard, or he will 
 charge five shillings for every hour it is kept there. In de- 
 spair, the mortified owner re-opens the negociation ; but 
 Geoghean, stern and obdurate, will not now give more than 
 1/. 155., and at that miserable and insufficient price the bargain 
 is closed. 
 
 Smith. And mighty ingenious too. The coup-de-grace most 
 judiciously applied. (Seriously.) This house isn't as it used to 
 be in Eooney's time : there was no talk of a gentleman wanting, 
 claret then 
 
 Fitzc/ibbons. Och, man, never mind the claret ; tell us the 
 story how you took in the Dublin carman. 
 
 Smith. Oh, it's not worth the telling. It was last year, I was 
 coming home from my circuit, and I arrived by the seven-o'clock 
 train at the Drogheda station in Dublin. I thought I would 
 have some fun, — for I had a white hat on at the time, and 
 looked mighty like a tracker (pedestrian) ; so I went staring 
 about the station, and called for a jaunting-car. Three men 
 ran up, whip in hand : one would drive me for nothing, and 
 give me a dram besides ; another had a horse that would make 
 the tay-kettle's steam-boiler burst ; a third would go bail that 
 his horse could drive all the rest before him. I hired one, 
 clung on the side-seat like a stranger, and told him to drive to 
 the Gresham. " The Gresham, is it ?" Away he went,— such 
 a drive ! — round by the Quays, and the Phoenix, and Grafton 
 Street, and the Liberty, and back to Sackville Street. Then he 
 pulls up at the lamp with a start, leaps off as if he had done 
 the thing well, and waits for his fare, expecting a cro^vn or so. 
 I handed him the statute sixpence. " What's this ?" said he, 
 looking at it as if it was a bad one. " Is it bad ?" said I. " No," 
 said he ; " but I want four-and-tinpence." " For one set dow^n 
 vithin the municipalities," said I, "fare sixpence." " 0, by 
 Jabers," said he, " the mealy-mouthed rascal ! To the ould 
 Harry with your municipalities ! Sorra to your big head, if 
 I didn't take ye for a rowler (tourist) !" (Laughter.)
 
 PADDY AND I. 167 
 
 I. They tell a story in Dublin of a magistrate there who has 
 a peculiar mission for putting down carmen. His object in 
 life is to check extortion ; he lives to suppress carmen. One 
 (lay he sent his little girls to school in a car, putting them in 
 at the turnpike to save over-fare, and directing them with 
 many precautions to get out this side the municipal boundary. 
 "When they get out, they hand the carman, who had prepared 
 himself to pluck his young fare, sixpence. The carman looked 
 at it first, and then at them. "Wliat's this dirtyiug my 
 hands?" says he. "It's your sixpence." "Is it sixpence?" 
 says he. " It's your proper fare," they said, " and we shall not 
 give any more." " You'll not give any more ?" " Iso ; it's 
 VN'hat papaw told us to give." " And who is your papaw '^* 
 (with a voice of drawliag disgust). "]Mr. Elannigan, the 
 police magistrate." "Mr. Flannigan!" (wdth a look of dis- 
 comfiture rising to terror, regaining his seat, and whipping 
 off)- "Och ! then good morning to ye, my little darlints, and 
 remember me to your papaw." 
 
 Smith. There are two magistrates, Flannigan and Flaherty, 
 of whom many good stories are told. One is peculiarly hard 
 on people who are found incapable of taking care of them- 
 selves or of anyone else, and who, because they have been 
 generally already robbed, are also fined. The other is equally 
 forgiving. I heard a drunken fellow once, lying in the gutter 
 and talking with his wife, who was swearing at him for not 
 coming home. " AYhere's your manners, ye dirty baste," she 
 said, pushing him vdth her foot, " bringing disgrace on the 
 ould name and the ould blood ? Och ! you big baste, to leave 
 your poor neglected wife and childer; — get up Avith you." 
 "Biddy," said the di'unken vagabond from the kennel, "for the 
 love of the Virgin and St. Patrick, just rowl me over to Flan- 
 nigan's side of the street, and I'll be all right in the morning." 
 Fltzyihhons. He's the magistrate who examined the man of 
 straw as to the value of his property, " "Will you swear," he 
 said, " that your holdings are worth tv/enty pounds ?" " Be- 
 dad," said the bail, wlio was holding his nose as if he was rub- 
 bing it, " I swear that I wouldn't part with my holdings for 
 twice twenty pounds." So he was admitted.
 
 168 'cross country. 
 
 As a change from tlie bagmen, I turned to tlie sessions-table, 
 where the chief speakers seemed to be a Mr. Joyce, a low attor- 
 ney and parasite, a f\it Falstaft", with a wavering cunning eye ; 
 Mr. O'Donnel, a barrister; and Mr. Muffington, the owner of 
 the steamer in fault in the egg-question. He had a swollen-look- 
 ing red face, and a punchy, vulgar little body ; but Joyce spoke 
 of him as the prop of the town, and the glory of county Mayo» 
 Joyce was not a peace-maker, as we see when he gives tongue. 
 
 Joyce. I go on the broad principle. I say, put a six-bar- 
 relled revolver to their jaw, and blow them to everlasting 
 blazes. 
 
 I. Gently, gently, Mr. Joyce ; the law will see us righted. 
 
 Joyce, (squeezing a lemon viciously) . What I told them 
 was, when you're all dead and rotten tlie steamer will go 
 ahead. "Westport for ever ! What I want is a revolver — a 
 legal revolver. Eevolver is legal ; who says it isn't ? I should 
 like to see any one say it isn't. "Where is he ? I'm not too 
 old yet to fight ; and I can hit a gnat at forty paces without 
 telescope-glasses. 
 
 Muffington. We shall win our action ; there's no doubt about 
 it : Counsellor Brady says we shall. 
 
 Joyce. Snaffle him, that's what I want ; just as I did for 
 Captain House. Is the country to be destroyed, that's what I 
 ask. Is it to be ruined ? Och ! rascal ; och, the murthering 
 villains ! Take it patiently ; yes, I wiU. Let me purpose as 
 a toast, " Muffington and the steamer." Hurrah ! give it 
 
 STAMPIJs^G. 
 
 Toast drunk with dance and jingling acclamations. 
 
 Mr. Mufiington, the little podgy, red-faced, swollen sort of 
 man, got up and proposed the health of the counsel for the 
 defendant — Mr. O'Donnel. 
 
 Drunk with fresh glass, dancing. 
 
 Joyce. That's what I like. I hate all your finical dirty talk. 
 Grapple with 'em ; drag them to blazes ; throw rotten eggs at 
 'em; pillory them. Och! that's the way; give 'em Lynch 
 law ! 
 
 Mr. O'Donnel, a spare, care-worn, pale, clever-looking man, 
 his thin face working with excitement, got up and made a speech
 
 PADDY AND T. 169 
 
 to retiirn tbaiiks. He had striven to do his duty, as he always 
 tried to do, without acrimony or personal feeling, as he always 
 tried to do it. His name was, he hoped, a respected name in 
 the county — 
 
 Joijce. Bravo for the O'Donnels ! 
 O'Donnel. It has been known in Mayo for centuries. 
 Jorjce. The Tyrconnels ! ! 
 
 O'Donnel. But he could not sit down without saying, that 
 he thought he never, in his small experience, liad conducted a 
 case which reflected more discredit on the plaintiffs. 
 
 Joyce. Mat, get a six-barrelled revolver, and blow them to 
 ould iS^ick. 
 
 A quiet farming-man in frieze rose to propose the health of 
 a gentleman well known in AVestport, — a gentleman respected, 
 he believed, by all who had the pleasure of knowing him, — he 
 meant Mr. IMufiington. 
 
 Tremendous cheers ; old Joyce beating on the table with 
 both fists, and continuing two minutes after every one else had 
 finished. 
 
 Joyce. Shoot them all, like d — d rapparees, as they are ; no- 
 thing less. I say it emphatically, be gad, shoot them all ! I go 
 upon the broad principle. 
 
 I (aside). Good heavens, what a man for an attorney! 
 Bystander (in a whisper). He used to keep his carriage and 
 four ; but he drove through all his property, and is now known 
 only for his chicanery and trickery : as an attorney, sir, he is 
 sunk to the lowest depths. 
 
 Joyce. Play up, Larry, — " Mike Eooney's Ganther." Put 
 'em in the pillory, tliat's my way; give 'em good musical and 
 pistol law. Every one knows Phil Joyce. He has a fine con- 
 stitootion (slaps his stomach), and never goes beyond his 
 nointh tumbler ! Shoot 'em all, I say ! Send roimd the hat 
 for poor dark Larry. 
 
 Larry. More power to ye, IMr. Joyce. 
 
 Joyce. There's an ould proverb about the transplanted tree. 
 Jfow Mr. Mufiington is a transplanted tree, whose roots have 
 taken great and deep hold in this Irish soil ; and all I wish to 
 do is to end my days under the shadow of the Mufiington tree, —
 
 170 'cross country. 
 
 may it live for ever, I say, and a day longer. The chairman is 
 the man who knocks down any one that disagrees with him, and 
 so will I any one who says the word against " Muffington and 
 the steamer." I'm for morality and all that sort of thing. 
 !N"ow, then, we must remember Larry. IS'o one will grudge 
 sixpence for poor Larry. Mr. Mufl&ngton, I respect ye ; the 
 Muffington tree is what I hope to die under, when this last — • 
 John, some hot water, — quick, you. divil, — and more spirit on 
 the top of it, you blackguard. 
 
 Tired of this scene of blarney, confusion, and noise, I broke 
 from the turbulent coffee-room, crowded with witnesses and 
 attorneys, and got out into the pure air of the street. It was 
 fair-day, and the town was alive with moving wheels, bellowing 
 oxen, and expostulating pigs. There, in a snug corner, was 
 the indefatigable brogue-seller, with one hand in a shoe and 
 the other rubbing it, as he spit upon the leather. " If it does. 
 this with a spit, what will it be with a black ?" is his argument. 
 There, safe under the church-tower, were the women with their 
 stalls of clean printed calicoes, running their fabrics between 
 their fingers and thumbs, to the intense admiration of the 
 dark-eyed Colleens, the young sisters that clung to their skirts,, 
 and the boy who stopped the slip of the " peg " with the long 
 hayband tied to his left hind-leg as a sort of rein. There 
 was the bowl-seUer, with his nest of bowls, cogs and noggins, 
 at whose store stood the sturdy farmers with buttoned-up 
 frieze and stout blackthorns under the arm. There were gin- 
 gerbread-stalls, and men selling halters and whips, all ranged 
 in rows on either side of the High Street, round the chief inn, 
 through whose door worked in and out a jostling crowd of 
 graziers and drovers, from the mere cotter, who had brought 
 his single pig — the hope of the family — as a great venture, to 
 the lordly grazier, with his five dozen bulls of Bashan, and his 
 big pocket-book, swollen with greasy one-pound notes. And 
 through all this chatting, laughing, excitable, cheerful, eager, 
 good-natured crowd, with variegated colours flying, came the 
 band of the Galway militia, — the non-commissioned oflicers, 
 four abreast, as large as life, with drawn swords ; the drum in 
 a painful state of apoplectic excitement and inflammatorily red
 
 PADDY AND I. 171 
 
 in the face ; and last, four abreast, arm-in-arm, the newly-caught 
 recruits, shouting their sanguine and sanguinary anticipations 
 of endless booty and tremendous glory. Eaw Irish lads, just 
 caught from the bog, they looked as green as the laurels that 
 a phantom without a head waved above their as yet unbroken 
 skulls. 
 
 "IVIilitia is domg better than the line," I said half-maliciously 
 to a grizzled recruitmg sergeant of the 52nd leaning against a 
 chemist's door-post, his stained scarlet matching very well with 
 the adjacent blue bottles. 
 
 " Och," said he, with a professional and craftj^ smile, " they're 
 only decoy-ducks, sir." And away they went, ruffling the fair 
 with their parchment-thunder to the Spartan-like bray of the 
 
 " Tow, ro-n-, rovr 
 Of the British grenadiers." 
 
 Pushing through the crowd of hot rosy girls, imcomfort- 
 ably fine farmers' sons, and sagacious old Avomen, and farmers 
 with hay stirrups, narrowly escaping a violent Juggernautic 
 death from cage-carts of anxious-looking and self-conscious 
 pigs, wondering empty-headed calves, and mischievous-looking 
 runts, di'iven with yells in the Irish language, and thwacks not 
 needing translation, I worked slowly through the gossiping, 
 busy, chaftering crowd, till I got to the low stony hill with the 
 turf trodden off it, where the cattle market was held : it was 
 a bovine Witenagemote, an JEsop parliament. The money- 
 market I saw was tight, by the buttoned-up look of the old 
 farmers, and the reserved and cynical manner of the splashed 
 graziers, who eyed the cows with contemptuous criticism, 
 nudged their stomachs with Abernethy-like roughness, and then 
 walked off, beating their muddy boots with their ground-ash 
 sticks. Between the countless horns of leathery dry-looking kine, 
 country girls and farmers' sons with meteor-like neck-handker- 
 chiefs exchanged meaning nods, in spite of watchful mothers heed- 
 ful of bargains, and Fardorougha-like fathers. The busiest men 
 were the small higglers and jobbers, with only two dirty pound 
 notes or so to invest, and determined to specvilate desperately in 
 some moribund cov.' or spavined horse. I saw one of them
 
 172 'cross country. 
 
 leading about anytliing but the fatted calf ; its hide a vamped 
 old shoe, its hair like an old school trunk's, its eye fishy, its 
 gait feeble. A jolly E,ory O'More offered him a pound-bill 
 for it, and said it didn't look likely. " ]N"ever judge a book by 
 the cover," says Jim, doAA^n upon him with an old saying. 
 " Don't be wiser than wise," says another O'Eourke to a well- 
 to-do farmer, who is sticking out for a high price. Talk of co- 
 quetting ! these graziers know every trick of the art. Look 
 at that fellow with the frieze-blanket coat, how much he longs for 
 those tight-skiuned active pigs — pure Connaught ; but he fights, 
 and scolds, and beats his hands, and buttons his coat, and scares 
 the pig-jobber, and now that all is nearly over, he actually claps 
 on his hat tighter, puts liis shillalah luider his arm, and walks 
 coolly off to one of the long waggon-tilt booths for a " half-one" 
 of whisky. That bold act is a fine stroke of generalship ; it is 
 tlie coup-de-grace ; it wins the day. The pig -jobber, almost 
 tearing his hair, runs after him, claps the earnest-money in his 
 expectant palm, and cries, " Mike, the pigs is yours." Then 
 with stentorian violence to the boy, he roars " Call 'em back ! 
 Tou've got them dirt-cheap." Out comes the pocket-book, out 
 come the notes ; and observe the dry smile of the satisfied pur- 
 chaser, and the feigned discomfiture of the diamond-cut-diamond 
 jobber. The long low booths — so low that you cannot stand 
 upright in them, — are worth a visit. See the little peat-fire at 
 the door, with its pleasant whiff of curling blue smoke ; that's 
 for the hot^water, and the hot water is for the whisky. Within, 
 facing each other, on long low benches, sit the drovers and 
 farmers, scraping their boots Avith switches, with bauds on 
 Icnees, they laugh and chaff with thorough Irish lightness of 
 heart. They do loA'e pleasure, these Celts. French or Irish, 
 they Avork at play, and play at work ; they dance themselves to 
 death, but they dig Avith the listlessness of convicts. 
 
 Between the rows, smoking jug in hand, passes the Aviddy 
 Grattan, Avith alAA^ays some story to teU you of AA'hat M'Cor- 
 niac's pig said to King O'Toole. the pleasant bustle and 
 flurry of those simple-hearted, happj^, wretched-papists, who 
 should be miserable AA'ith pigs, priests, mud-floors, and dung- 
 hills, yet are so obstinately jolly while Paddy's rich morbid
 
 BOATING IX KILLARXEY. 173 
 
 brother John is hipped iu spite of mahogany, port--\vine, and 
 roast-beef! Shall I ever forget, dear Ireland, the fun and witty 
 bantering on that grasslesis hill, where shock-headed boys ran 
 about madly after moimtainous short-horns ten times their 
 size, where pigs nuzzled in straw, where horses trotted in and 
 out, where everybody shouted, sang, bellowed, and brayed in 
 noisy competition ? How the farmers' wives culled the fairest 
 pigs with the proud air ofexperience ; how the jobbers rushed iuto 
 butting knots of oxen, and picked out their own special brand ; 
 how everybody escaped goring, and made a bai'gain, and finally 
 went home, driving like drunken goblins, singing and racing, — 1 
 still remember well ! In a little green field of my mind, that 
 grassy hill, stands up the Acropolis of my Erin, the echo of a 
 perpetual laugh always round it, and the smell of the peat-fire 
 dew ever filling its soft nimble air. 
 
 CHAPTEE XYl. 
 
 EOATIXG IN KILLAESET. 
 
 Heee we are, then, in the boat that rocks at the little stone 
 jetty fronting the Lake Hotel, Killarney. A morning of a 
 bright October; the water clear, — as water should be that is 
 the crystal roof and skylight of the " oiddest fairies in Ireland." 
 The trees are aU a-flutter with leaf-gold, the thin blue air is 
 busy and aKve with thousands of Avinged clouds. 
 
 The oars poise in the rowlocks, when Phil O'Donohue, the 
 head-boatman, shakes his head, pauses, deliberately takes out 
 his short, black, oily dudheen, places it in the obedient and 
 grateful mouth of AVill Macarthy, his subordinate, — a silent 
 and imperturbable man, except on the subject of fees and 
 finance, — girds up his loins, gives a cheering yell after the 
 manner of his countn", then leaps out of the boat, and runs 
 towards the hotel-door with the f^peed of a s-tartled buck. 
 
 "Decided dementia; disturbance of the cerebral functions "
 
 174 'cross country. 
 
 said one of my compfinions, a Dublin medical student, with a 
 pleased manner, at tlie same time scraping out bis pipe. " Is 
 it colouring ?" be said, rubbing it and holding it up to our 
 third friend, — a little pragmatic, wizen, bow-legged Welsh com- 
 mercial traveller from the coal-districts, — just as a mother 
 would show her firstborn to her gossip. The Tore mountain 
 might hold up its bragging arms to catch the clouds of Kerry, 
 but he (Brady) was only solicitous about his eldest meerschaum, 
 ornamented with the playful skull and cross-bones. 
 
 " What is the matter with Phil ?" said I to the stolid boat- 
 man. " Is he gone for the salmon-rod ? It's a pretty day for 
 fishing." 
 
 " Is it Phil ? (with a puzzled and inquiring air). Sure he's 
 gone for the whisky, — the cruiskeen-lawn, — your honour." 
 
 " Lawn, lawn, lawn !" shouted Brady, still screwing at his 
 pipe with a sculptor's care. " Bad-luck to him, am I never to 
 get a patient ? Then it's not dementia." 
 
 We looked, and sure enough we saw afar otf our favourite 
 waiter Tim — the horseman, the fisher, the fiddler — handing with 
 religious care a deliciously green transparent bottle of the best 
 Bush Mills — potent, fragrant — to Phil, who received it as a 
 proselyte would the viaticum. He wrapped it in the breast of 
 his jacket as a father might a frost-bitten lamb in a snow-storm 
 among the hills. He came back at a bound over the pier, with 
 a cheer from Tim, and a " good-luck to us " from the bugler 
 and a dozen hangers-on, who were waiting about the door with 
 a score of ragged ponies, ready for Mangerton and its stony 
 clamber. 
 
 "Is it right?" said I. 
 
 " It's right, your honour," said Phil with a look of sagacious 
 approval. " There's the rod by the jintleman that's nursing 
 the big pipe : and the bugle, ready for Paddy Blake, by the 
 jintleman with the spy-glass on him. Now then, give way, 
 Macarthy, and remimber that I'm an O'Donohue ; and don't 
 let me do all the pulling, you boduffh.'^ 
 
 " Be asy, Phil, be asy ; the day's before us." 
 
 Away we went, cutting the water like a ploughshare does
 
 BOATING IN KILLARNEY. 175 
 
 the clay furrow, straight for Eoss Island, and the ould castle 
 that big thief Cromwell pounded to smithereens, "or at laste his 
 son-in-law; so that it was all in the family." Probert, the little 
 "Welsh bagman, gave a spasmodic bob forward as we throbbed 
 on ; Brady lit his meerschaum with a red sod, brought for the 
 purpose, and declared the scenery would be d — d fine if the 
 mountains had only been taller and the lake wider. 
 
 " Will your honour tell me how to put the say in a whisky- 
 bottle ?" said Phil, brushing his mouth with liis sleeve, and 
 readjusting his feet against the holdfast. 
 
 " None of your impertinence, sir," said the bagman. 
 
 Phil only pulled viciously, and asked me if I had ever heard 
 of what the piper of Ivillaloe said to Macgillicuddy of the 
 Eeeks when he gave him a bit of his mind, and called him an 
 infernal spalpeen. 
 
 "Xo," said I. 
 
 " Faix, then I'll tell your honour some day when the wind's 
 favourable and the company selector," with a wink at the 
 irascible bagman, who was inquiring of Brady the price of coal 
 in Dublin. 
 
 " If it was tobacco, now," said Brady, "I'm your man." 
 
 " Impertiaent pody !" said Probert, still sore at Phil. " T — d 
 peatman, t — d poat !" 
 
 " Will it be fine, Phil ?" says Brady, looking up at Manjrertoia 
 with pipe sideways in his mouth. " I fear it'll be soft." 
 
 " It will not," said Phil. 
 
 " How do you know, poatman ?" said the bagman pertly, 
 as little men generally speak, and looking as if he had caught 
 Phil in a dilemma. 
 
 " Well, God iUmighty didn't tell me," said Phil. 
 
 " I was up doosed early, bedad," said Brady, " and I don't 
 like the look of things." 
 
 " But Grod Almighty," said Phil triumphantly, winking to 
 me, " was up before you ; and it will be fine. I know by the 
 look of the Purple Mountain, by the flies on the water, by 
 the leaves of the arbutus on the little rock there, imd by — " 
 
 " Now then, men," I said. " Pull away for Eoss Island. 
 Brady, chorus." I sing improvising :
 
 176 'cross country. 
 
 " To Diuas, to Dinas, we pull, we piill, 
 With the leap of a stag and the rusli of a bull, 
 With our gurgling bottle and hamper fidl. 
 
 Hurrah ! 
 
 Wliere the green holly dips its berries of red 
 
 Over the fairies' fern-leaf bed. 
 
 Where the drowned monk sings a mass for the dead. 
 
 Hiu-rah ! 
 Over the silent reefs we sail, 
 The boatman telling a banshee tale, 
 The fi-esh night wind is her mourning wail. 
 
 Hurrah ! 
 Then a health to the King O'Donolme, 
 Who dwells far up in the moimtain blue, 
 Macgillicuddy, with you, with you. 
 
 Hurrah !" 
 
 " Long life to you," says Phil ; " and may we have many more 
 such jintlemen with the tongue well hung, and the lieart in the 
 right place. (Looks on the bagman.) Isn't it beautiful ?" (to 
 Macarthy, who had been eyeing Brady's pipe attentively for 
 some minutes, to that enthusiastic gentleman's almost coquet- 
 tish delight). 
 
 " Och, beautiful entirely" (waking up). 
 
 Probert thinks, as it is a little cold, he will take a pull, and 
 lays his hand on O'Donohue's oar. 
 
 " Xow get out of that ('you leprecaun^ under breath); sure, 
 and an't I Phil O'Donohue, boatman and guide of Killarney 
 Lakes, descended from the great O'Donohue of the Grlins, — 
 and am I to give up my trust, and sit like a fat priest doing 
 nothing r" 
 
 "Nonsense, pother! Didn't you let this gentleman pull 
 but half an hour ago ? I will pull ; pody and soul, I will pull 
 —by St. Tafid, I wm !" 
 
 " Mr. Probert, keep your temper. Phil, be decent. Here's 
 a big lump of a rock : what's this called, Phil ?" 
 
 " That's O'Donohue's dining- table, your honour, where's he's 
 seen dining on the turtle-soup and the j)ig's trotters, and all 
 the dainties mortal man can think of." 
 
 " It is ferry pig," said the Welshman, forgetting his anger
 
 BOATING IN KILLARNEY. 177 
 
 and staring at the huge slab of roclf,— square, flat, and vast aa 
 the key-stone of the ruined gate of Eden, which Irishmen say 
 was undoubtedly hereabouts,. — with the little playfiol waves 
 kissing its rough cheeks, and racing round its giant angles. 
 
 " It is not a pig at all, your honour," said the wilful Phil; 
 "but a table — O'Donohue's table. You've maybe heard the 
 old story, — how, on the 1st of May, once in every seven years, 
 O'Donohue o!:" Eoss, an ovild king of these parts, rises out of 
 the lake, and takes possession of his ancient demesne." 
 
 " And collicts the rints," said Brady. 
 
 " Exactly, your honour ; that's it." 
 
 " Has any pody seen him, then ?" 
 
 " Dozens upon dozens, jomt honour ; and my father among 
 'em." 
 
 "And how does the old buffer look?" said Brady with 
 philosophical anxiety. 
 
 " "Well, then, (rests on his oars at Eoss- Castle landing-place, 
 where the bHnd piper with the pretty daughter is blowing him- 
 self to pieces for the small sum of one halfpenny) — Larry, you 
 ould Trojan, play the Eox-hunter's jig, — and look alive ; that 
 ologaun gives me the stomach-ache." 
 
 Phil continues seriously : " "Well, your honour, my father 
 described him as a bould-looking man, in scarlet, on a white 
 horse, with a three-cocked hat and a rijimintal band playing 
 behind him." (Eoars of laughter, which almost capsize the 
 boat. "When we stop, he continues with unbroken gravity.) 
 
 "A what on his head?" says Brady. 
 
 Phil (sternly). A three-cocked hat ! (Fresh roars.) 
 
 " A what behind him ?" said I. 
 
 "A rijimintal band. (Increased laughter.) They Avent 
 marching along in the early morning close to my father's boat ; 
 but when he followed them, they disappeared. You see, jin- 
 tlemen, there was two of 'em — O'Donohue of Eoss, and 
 O'Donohue of the Glins. The great O'Donohue was just and 
 honourable ; but the O'Donohue of the Glins, who I come 
 from, was bloody and tyrannous ; then there was Macarthy 
 Moore and Macgillicuddy, — all great men about these lakes. 
 
 Tore and Glena were their hunting-mountains." 
 
 TS
 
 178 CROSS COUNTRY. 
 
 "I shouldn't like to liave gone to their meets," said Brady 
 contemplatively. 
 
 " O'SuUivan, too, had bloody wars with the O'Donohues in 
 ould times — But the whisky is getting quite mouldy, your 
 honour, for want of drinking." 
 
 " It's a long pull, your honour," said Maearthy, wiping his 
 forehead. (The spirituous essence of smoke is handed round.) 
 
 Phil. Tou mane the pull you took at the bottle. (Larry, 
 play up " O'Sullivan's Joy ;" and handle the keys as if you 
 smelt the rale stuff, and a glass of it was pouring out for yoii. 
 "Well done, Larry ; play up ! Och, nivir spare the bags !) If 
 there's no one here of the wrong way of thinking, maybe I'U 
 give you a Croppy song. 
 
 " He has a beautiful pipe of his own," said Maearthy, criti- 
 cally, putting his head on one side ready to listen. 
 
 Phil spits and looks hard at the bottom of the boat. 
 
 " Now then, Phil, no nonsense." 
 
 Phil sings. 
 
 " Och for the day we marched into Athlone ! 
 Didn't the aldermen give us a groan ; 
 Seeing the sogers race out of tlie town. 
 Major, the bodagh, went off in a swoim. 
 
 Down, down, Orange He down ! 
 
 Thunderin' thick were the crowds of the pikes, 
 A musket a piece for whoever that hkes, 
 And a drum siire as big as e'er butt in the town. 
 With, och, such a beautiful musical soim' ! 
 
 Down, down, Orange, lie down ! 
 
 There was O'Brady, the top of 'em all, 
 Clieering the boys from the ledge of a wall ; 
 If but a Croppy gave even a frown, 
 For mercy men fell on their marrow-bones down. 
 Down, down, Orange, lie down ! 
 
 The Green flew above and the Orange below ; 
 A rush at the guns, they wei'e ours at a blow. 
 Then blast aU the bugles to frighten the town 
 F©r Liberty's up, and the Protestants down. 
 
 Down, down, Orange, lie down !" 
 Chorus, 8^'c.
 
 BOATING IN KILLARNEY. 179 
 
 Omnes. Well doue, Phil. 
 
 Brady. Infernal good song. I must learn that. Try a pipe 
 of Canaster, old fellow. Smokes doosed well. 
 
 Phil. Thankee, your honour. More power to ye, Mr. Brady. 
 
 Prohert. It's a fery coot song ; but I prefer " Of noble race 
 was Shenkin" (that is a coot tune) ; or " Codiad yr Hedyd," 
 or " Codiad yr Hyllion." 
 
 I. But now, Phil, something more about the jintleman with 
 the three-cocked hat and the rijimental band. 
 
 Phil. Well, your honour, there was a Scotch gardener, who 
 worked for Mr. Herbert on the INIuckross demesne, who always 
 used to make his jeers at my father when he talked of the 
 O'Donohue (rest his sowl). Play up, Larry, you villain ! That 
 is "The Pox-hunter's Schame" he's playing, your honour. 
 Play up, Larry. "Well; and it went so far that they had 
 words between them about it ; the Scotchman saying, that 
 upon his sowl he was ashamed to see so sinsible a man talking 
 such trumpery. My father was but a gorsoon then, or maybe 
 he'd have up with his shillalah and knocked the impudence out 
 of him. 
 
 Brady. Go it, Phil ; I like your pluck. 
 
 Phil. Well, my father and he were up early one morning in 
 the autumn, cutting down some young birch-trees that hid the 
 view from the sketching jintleman that came to the Tore water- 
 fall to look for something they call " the picturest." The fog 
 in a silvery stream was smoking up from the blackberry 
 bushes ; and the broom, and the fern, and the blessed sham- 
 rock, lay with a silver beading all over them as if, bedad, the last 
 night's fairies had shed their jewels as they ran away frightened 
 at the first beam of the peeping curious sun. The rabbits 
 were hopping over the dead leaves that lay about like great 
 heaps of bullion-gould ; and if you listened carefully, you could 
 hear now and then the belling of a buck on Glcna (and a 
 purty sound it is in the fresh morning). Well, my father and 
 the Scotchman were busy as pipers at a wedding with the bill- 
 hook and axe, when the Scotchman, who had been looking for 
 a long time at the lake, and the island showing through the fog, 
 suddenly gripes my father by the arm, and asks him, for God's 
 
 K 2
 
 180 'cross country. 
 
 sake, if lie ditlu't hear anytliing. " No," says my father. " Why, 
 you must be deaf," says he. " There," says he, " for all the 
 world like a flock of floating angels passing low over the lake." 
 " I hear nothing but a squall-crow on the firs yonder," says 
 my father. " Ton must be a fool, then," says the Scotchman, 
 quite scared ; '■ for there it is again." 
 
 " It was the rijimintal band of angels," says Brady. 
 
 Fhil. "Whatever it was, it was too much for the Scotchman ; 
 for he went home, sickened with a fever, lay at the gasp for 
 three weeks, and never laughed at the stories of the O'Donohue 
 again. 
 
 Brady. Why, you omadhaun, the thing is as clear as the 
 nose on your face, — and an ugly one it is. Sandy was deliiious 
 with a fever; the blood was heated in the vessels of his 
 upper gastric region. 
 
 J. Excuse me, Mr. Brady, but we must land. 
 
 And we did land, and dined and sang and rambled all over 
 the blessed old ruin, that was the last hold in Munster to yield 
 to Cromwell, that is, Ludlow. We saw the great gun with 
 the big Irish name that burst in exultation Avhen it almost 
 knocked down Killalea tower, that was brimful of sour 
 Piiritans, with their great clasj)ed Bibles, buiF suits, Andrea 
 Ferrara swords, and endless sermons. There the cannon grin 
 at you with hard silent mouths from ivied loops and crumbling 
 ramparts, where "bog-oak girls" teaze you in the prettiest 
 brogue to buy arbutus-wood card- cases. 
 
 Brady. What a jolly old place ! 
 
 Probert. A fery prave place, but not so prave as some of 
 ours in Wales. 
 
 Brady. When I walked the hospitals — 
 
 Phil, (who had followed us up the stairs to the O'Donohue 
 dining-room). Begging your pardon, jintlemen, this is the 
 O'Donohue's dining-parlour. (How the bees are humming on 
 the ivy -blossom, the craturs !) That window looking on the 
 lake is the one which O'Donohue leaped out of. 
 
 Omnes. The story, the story, Phil. Here, wet your lips with 
 whisky. 
 
 Phil. Well, you see, this O'Donohue was a mighty grate en-
 
 BOATING IN KILLARNEY. 181 
 
 chanter, and liad daliugs surely ^x\t\\ the oiild jintleman that bit a 
 bit out of the mountain forenent the Punch-bowl there. Now 
 his wife got curious about these tricks of his, and one day tazed 
 him till he would show her some proof of his power ; " Por," says 
 she, " O'Donohue, I belave it's aU sham, so I do." " AVell," 
 says he, " go up in the tower, and look out of the window, and 
 you'll see what I can do, devil a doubt of it." So she goes 
 and looks ; and presently comes O'Donohue like an elephant, 
 and roars till every stone of Eoss Castle shakes again. But 
 the wife wasn't a bit troubled ; and so he turns into a leaping 
 fire and a whale, and a red deer with a salmon's head, and then 
 into a lion in a cocked-hat — and she wasn't troubled, — till at 
 last he comes climbing up to this window like a big, rolling, 
 fiery serpent ; and when the lady sees that, she out with a prayer, 
 and O'Donohue leaps from the window and disappears for ever 
 in the lake. 
 
 Brady. Yerdict, " Felo de se.'' I should like to have sat on 
 his body, Phil. 
 
 Fhil. There's no end to thim stories, jintlemen. Come up a 
 little higher to the top of the tower, where we can see all 
 the island below, and you shall hear some more. 
 
 Brady. Take a pull at my pipe, Phil ; it ^^doesn't draw quite 
 right. Pull harder. Tlmt's it. 
 
 Probert. It's fery peautiful ; but not so peautiful as Peth- 
 gelert. 
 
 Brady (looking critically on the scenery as ho pinches a 
 pipeful of Canaster out of his seal-skin pouch). O, not so 
 peautiful ! Get out wdth ye ! "Wasn't civilisation in Ireland 
 before "Wales was aven invinted? I ask you that now. 
 
 Prohert. "What does the pody mean? "Wasn't Cadwal- 
 lader — ? 
 
 /, Take some whisky, Mr. Probert ; we really musn't lose 
 our time in discussions. jSTow, Phil, tell us the story about 
 O'Donohue and the countryman. 
 
 Phil. jMore power to your honour, sure and I will. Well, 
 it happened thus. It was just a pig-jobber, jintlemen, who 
 was coming home round by Brickeen Bridge in the dusk, 
 driving a little pet bonoveen, — a slip of a pig, — by a garter tied
 
 182 , 'cross country. 
 
 to his left leg. Pat was sad enough ; for he had not been able 
 to sell the pig in that day's market at Killarney. He was 
 going along, head downwards, like a mare that has lost her 
 foal ; for his landlord was a cruel ould hunks, and had swore a 
 week before, that if his rent wasn't paid by that Eriday night, 
 he'd sell Pat's very bed from under him, and seize his two milk- 
 cows. "Well, at the tiirning of a road, Pat hears a step behind 
 him, and looks up and sees it is the O'Donohue riding, with his 
 three-cocked hat, on his white horse, grand as a jineral. " Good 
 evening, sir," says he. " Good evening, Pat," says O'Donohue; 
 "you look but sadly." Then Pat out and tells him all his 
 troubles. " Pat," says he, " you'i'e an honest sort of a man ; and 
 I'm sorry that you are fallen into the hands of such an ould 
 rip of a tyrant as that landlord of yours. Give him this for a 
 qidttance ;" and he j)oured a heap of gould into Pat's hand, and 
 then, before Pat could turn round thank him, or make his bow, 
 he had gone. Next morning early, down comes the landlord. 
 " Pat," says he, " I'm come for the rent ; and as you haven't 
 got it I shall take your cattle ; so let's go to the stable." 
 "Stop a bit," says Pat, "here's your rent ;" and he asks for a 
 recate. " What's all this ?" said he, as Pat whips out O'Do- 
 nohue's bag of money and puts it in his hand. " Talce that," 
 says he ; " and, by the holy poker, it's me is the boy that would 
 like to see you putting a finger on the cattle." So away went 
 the landlord with Pat's rent, grumbling and swearing like a 
 Tom-cat at dinner-time. And, faix, he didn't make much of 
 the money either ; for when he came to look in his greasy ould 
 drawer next morning, what had it all turned to but a parcel 
 of dry leaves ; but he never could come down upon Pat, who 
 had got his big recate as snug and sure as the Pope's Bull. 
 
 Brady. Verdict, " Sarved him right." I say, Phil, is this 
 a crack coming in my pipe ? 
 
 A pleasant hour it was we spent in old Eoss Castle, the 
 fallen stronghold of the enchanted chieftain of the Lake, the 
 magician of Kerry, the sworn enemy of the O'Donohue of the 
 Glens, the Macarthy More, Maegillicuddy of the Peeks, and 
 that big thafe CromweU, whose red nose local legend duly 
 chronicles. We groped up the winding staircase, and walked
 
 BOATING IN KILLARNEY. 183 
 
 cautiously along the defaced battlements ; and everj^ where — 
 by embrasure, loop, old fireplace, door, and window — sang the 
 bees on the ivy-blossoms their half-angry purposeless melody, 
 as our eyes glanced from island to mountain, where the cloud 
 poised above the coloured shadow, its spii'it sister, that watched 
 below. 
 
 Now a tumble into the boat ; and with a merry tune of 
 Larry's (" Couldn't you lave the rose-bloom alone, Katty, and 
 not stale it all for those cheeks ?") we pulled for Innisfallen, 
 the island of the ruined abbey, with the fat lawn-pastvires and 
 the patriarchial holly -trees. 
 
 Phil. Play up, Larry. (He's been dark, your honour, ever 
 since his mother knew liim ; but a purtier fmger for the silver 
 keys isn't in all Kerry.) Try the line, your honour ; there's a 
 nice curl on the water now. Did you ever hear of O'Douohue, 
 and the challenge he sent ? 
 
 Omnes. Xo : out with it. 
 
 Brady. I like the old buffer with the three-cocked hat, 
 (Whispers to me) — This Phil is of grate value. 
 
 Fhil. "Well, your honour, if you must hear it, this is how it 
 was : Once upon a time, there was a cowherd, and as he was 
 driving his cows one morning to the field, who should he meet 
 on a grand white horse but the O'Donohue ; and says O'Donohue 
 to IMike, " Mike, I've got a letter here which I want you to 
 take to the other side of the lake, and give to the first jintleman 
 you meet riding on a bang-tailed chestnut," says he. Well, 
 without more boderation, INIike takes the letter; and sure 
 enough, just over, not a mile from Killaloe, who should he 
 meet but three jintlemen horsemen, and the first of the 
 three was on a bang-tailed chestnut. So Mike out with the 
 letter, and gives it him boiild. " It's fighting he manes," said 
 the man on the chestnut, curling up his nose as fierce as a 
 boar-pig when he read the letter, naming the place and hour 
 that the O'Donohue had fixed on. Now, Mike, Avho was ready 
 with the stick, determined to see the fun, and goes at the time 
 appointed, and gets up in a willy tree, snug and safe out of 
 sight. In half a minute both the armies come into the field, 
 and such a scrimmage begins as I make bould to say even
 
 184 CROSS COUNTRY. 
 
 Donnybi'ook coiildu't matcli. Heads and arms flew about like 
 sods at a hedge-seliool wlieu tlie masther's away — " 
 
 There is no knowing where Phil's eloquence and power of 
 invention would not have carried him, had not the boat-head 
 been half an hour since turned homeward, and a cry from Brady 
 now announced that the lights of the hotel began to be visible. 
 There they shone, low on the water, now dark, now lurid, 
 guiding us to our desired haven. 
 
 I. What a night for the O'Donohue to be abroad, with the 
 banshee of the family riding pillion ! 
 
 Brady. O boderation with the banshee ! what I want is a 
 good rump-steak and some bitter. 
 
 Probert. What /want is peer. 
 
 TSventy minutes' strong pulling brought us again to the 
 jetty ; two minutes more brought us to a white-hot peat fire, 
 with a darling kettle singing all to itself. What a breach we 
 made in the peef, as Pi'obert called it ! That night we had 
 pleasant dreams of monks praying on lonely islands ; of O'Do- 
 nohue in his " three-cocked hat ;" of Cadwallader boxing with 
 Macgillicuddy of the Eeeks, and getting the worst of it ; of 
 hospitals, pipers, and pipes. The first thing I heard when I 
 awoke the next morning was Brady in 32 — I was 31 — calling 
 faintly to Tim the waiter for another glass of bitter. 
 
 CHAPTEE XVII. 
 
 A NIGHT AT KILLAENET. 
 
 I. Being another matarial, Tim, for Mr. Brady. 
 
 " Matarial means, in Irish, whisky-and- water," said I to a 
 tall, thin, soured, wondering-looking man, who I found to be a 
 London land-surveyor, with a very bad opinion of the Celtic 
 race as his predominant peculiarity. He generally spoke in 
 spasmodic short sentences, and uttered them with a snap as if 
 he had stung you. His name was Dabble.
 
 A NIGHT AT KILLARNEY. 185 
 
 Babble. 0, " matarial" is wliisky-aud-water. "Wliy can't 
 they speak proper English ? 
 
 We had just finished dinner at the Lake Hotel ; the salmon 
 was our own catching, the snipes our o\ra. shooting. We ate 
 like creatures who had pouches rather than stomachs ; and now, 
 the table pushed back, the red cloth brushed, the tumblers 
 waiting, the little trays set ready for the white cigar-ashes, the 
 volcanic fire heaped up with slabs of chocolate-looking peat, 
 we drew roimd our chairs like true fire-worshippers, and sat 
 hungry for talk. Tim entered ; and with the knowing smile 
 A\-ith which waiters always bring in Avhisky, deposited on the 
 table four little cruises of the brown smoke-spirit. 
 
 Tim. There's the ci-atur, jintlemen. You Avon't cry out 
 perhaps if I tell you it wasn't christened, that same. 
 
 Brady. More power to ye, Tim, that's the sort. And, Tim, 
 more spoons, and some small glasses to sip the dear thing in. 
 
 Probert. It's such a devil of a place for bad seeze ; I never 
 tasted such seeze, indeed. In Wales they would throw such 
 tammed seeze out of A\andow. 
 
 Babble. Why, Lord bless you, these fellows are beyond all 
 improvement. As long as they can save stooping with their 
 twelve-feet-long toy-spades, and pick and play at work, what 
 do they care. I never was iu such a country before, and God 
 keep me from coming to such a country — 
 
 Brady. Keep a civil tongue in your head, sir. I am an 
 Irishman ; and I won't have the gem of the sea run down. 
 When I was at the hospitals, if a man — 
 
 1. Xo words, gentlemen. Hot water, Tim — boiling. 
 
 Tim. Is it biling ye want ? 
 
 Babble. Look at this (holding up his tumbler) ! why, tlie 
 very whisky's made of bog, I may say puddle-water. Ugh ! 
 
 Brady. It's a pity to poison you before your time: don't 
 drink it. 
 
 Babble. 0, I don't mean to say the spirit is in itself bad 
 (sipping it). 
 
 Brady. I hate to see a man fall out with his drink. It's not 
 right, Tim, is it ? 
 
 Tim. It is not, your honour.
 
 avenmg 
 
 186 'cross country. 
 
 Brady. Have you had many tourists this year, Tim ? 
 
 Tim. Divil a year more, your honour, bad luck to 'em ! There 
 they go out in the cars of a morning, and some of 'em sure 
 have their maps as big as the thrawing-room table ; and vs^hen 
 I drive they sit as stiff as a poker, and never ask the name of 
 nothing, but say to their mves, " This must be Ballyswilly," or 
 "This must be Killaloe ;" and by the holy jabers (slapping his 
 knee and doubling up in a choking laugh), ten to one but it's 
 Stranorlar or Killygordan. But I'm not going to interrupt 
 them, or it would be, " AVhat an impertinent fellow that driver 
 is !" and there'd be the bright sixpence less to take home to 
 the wife. 
 
 Dabble (to Probert, apart). What an ignorant fellow this 
 is! 
 
 Probert (to Dabble). Fery, fery ! (shaking his head). 
 
 Tim. May I go on, your honour ; or am I stopping the 
 ? 
 
 I. JSTo, no, Tim ; let's hear more about our friends the tour- 
 ists. 
 
 Titn. Then the wife, with the rosebud of a mouth, God bless 
 her! says, " Dear me, James, how picturest!" — always "^m'c- 
 tiirest.'" Divil if I know what it manes ; and bedad, Father 
 Eeilly couldn't tell me, for I asked him the last blessed Simday 
 as ever was after mass. Well, then, there are the five sisters 
 all in a row, just like so many goslings, — with always half an 
 eye, and more nor that, for any dacent young fellow who is on 
 the car, — who all open their mouths together, that you'd think 
 they'd swallow the lake, mountains, and all, like so many red 
 herrings ; and they all call out, especially when the dacent yoimg 
 man looks their way, " How picturest !" 
 
 Brady. The little hypocrites, how I should like to stop their 
 mouths ! Och, the craturs ! — I say, my dear fellow (to me), 
 just look how this meerschaum's colouring. Tou don't think 
 that is a crack, eh ? 
 
 Tim. And why do the darlints call out " picturest ?" when the 
 place is not plisant game- feeding land, but just the mere 
 scrapings and rakings of the world. 
 
 Brady (to Tim, maliciously, to vex Probert). And have
 
 A NIGHT AT KILLARNEY. 187 
 
 you many of the bagmen, Tim, withtlie great tin-boxes andtlae 
 mackintosh bundles ? 
 
 Tim. Bedad, sir, we have ; and as much fuss with their dirty 
 tin boxes as if they was Lord Lucan or Lord Eagland, bad 
 luck to the big heads of 'em ; and every third Avord they utter 
 is, " He's not a business-mixxi, sir." (Bell rings.) But there's 
 the masther ringing like a Bengal tiger. Ill be in upon you 
 in a brace of sliakes ; od, if the tin toes isn't all but off my feet 
 with this running up aud down. 
 
 Probei't. "WTiat a tammed trouplesome chattering fellow ! 
 AVhy, a "Wels waiter would no more dare to talk to his pet- 
 ters — 
 
 Babble. O, they're all alike ; quite hopeless, quite hopeless ! 
 
 Brady. More water, sir ? (Burns Babble's finger.) Och ! 
 it's sorry I am, because these sort of kettle-burns lead often to 
 the cusaneous erasypilitis and the grand scurvy. (AVinks to 
 me.) 
 
 /. Well, what did you think of Muckross Abbey, Mr. 
 Brady ? 
 
 Brachj. Infernal duU, and infernal dear. 
 
 Probert. A shilling a head was plackguard cheating. 
 
 Dabble. Nasty, lazy, lying set. Ugh ! Pigs under the bed, 
 pigs everywhere. 
 
 Brady. No, no ; bacon in some places. 
 
 Dabble. Dunghills at the door, and the wretched people sit- 
 ting as if dunghills were always intended to be at doors. Ugli ! 
 Drinking and fighting. Ugh ! 
 
 I. The happiest people in the world. 
 
 Dabble. Yes ; thoughtless, that's the worst of it : dancing 
 at funerals. Ugh ! 
 
 I. But about Muckross. Isn't it solemn ? with that yew in 
 the courtyard, spreading over its dark banshee arms as if pro- 
 noanciug an eternal malediction, keeping out the sunshine and 
 starshine of centuries from the humble mikno\\Ti gi'aves they 
 have tried so long to visit. 
 
 Brady. Sarve the old buffers right ; they were always eat- 
 ing and drinking, and playing the divil's own mischief. 
 
 Dabble. Popery, Popery, gentlemen, is the curse of Ireland.
 
 188 'cross country. 
 
 I. So I have heard ; but England got on very well with it once, 
 and the whole world too. Some good men have been Papists, 
 I suppose. Under the darkness of that yew thirty monks met 
 daily for some three centuries, parting, after prayer and praise, 
 to climb higher than the eagle, to ford torrents, to wade through 
 swamps, to carry God's message to the dying, and to lift the 
 cross before their glazing eyes. 
 
 Prohert. Put dou't forget the putcher's pill. 
 
 I. Well, suppose they were fat, and did enjoy the spotted 
 trout and the wild deer's haunch, what then ? Are good men. 
 to starve ? Can good works never be wrought but by skele- 
 tons ? Must all fat men be sent to hunt whales and live on 
 blubber ? JN"©, we must not think of such a thing. — It must 
 be a solemn sight to see a funeral iu the old burying-place of 
 the O'SuUivans and the M'Carthys. 
 
 Brady. Yes. Shillibeer's cheap funeral — £3 3*. 
 
 I. The country girls with the shavvis over their heads, the 
 old crones raising the Jceene or ulagaim, ilinging up their skinny 
 arms and clapping their hands. 
 
 Brady. Telling such thundering lies of all the O' Grady s 
 the dead rascal had wollopped, and not a word about the times 
 he had been in gaol or before the beaks. 
 
 I. Leave some poetry in the world, Brady. Think of the 
 neat gate and the sloping shaven lawns, with old thorns bushy 
 red with berries, among which the blackbird pipes his solitary 
 matins over the monks quiet under the turf beneath ; of tlie 
 black funeral yews dull and grand, like stupid rich people ; and 
 the blossoming ivy round the clean cut gray stone, fresh as if 
 quarried yesterday from Tore mountain yonder — 
 
 Brady. And Mr. Herbert's gate-keeper,— the old bufier, 
 with the frosty red face, gray whislcers, and baggy black velvet 
 shooting-jacket is of grate value. Bedad, there wasn't a word 
 I told him about the hospitals that he didn't say, " my !" 
 with his Kerry brogue on him, the omadhaun. 
 
 I. And did you hear, Brady, about his once visiting England, 
 and meeting the great stage-actor Mr. John Kemble ; and how 
 astonished he was at the civilization of England, and especially 
 the warm plates : only to think of that, above all things, — not
 
 A \IGHT AT KILLARNEY. 189 
 
 steam-engines, Income Tax, Thames Timnel, or St. Paul's, — but 
 — warm plates. (G-eneral laughter.) 
 
 Voice at the door, which opens. my ! (in sLriU voice). 
 
 Brady. Hush ,you spalpeens ! here's the old codger himself. 
 No ; it's Tim. Tim, if you come here again with your tricks, 
 I'U break the head of you. 
 
 Tim. Be asy, ]Mr. Brady. Is it more hot wather ye rang 
 for? 
 
 Brady. We didn't ring, and you know it : it's whisky we 
 want, and plenty of it. 
 
 Tim. By jabers, it isn't fair on the ganger. 
 
 Brady. And to return to the old buffer. Did you observe 
 how he kept bowing and pointing to the board I longed to 
 knock his ould head against, saying : " The attendants are for- 
 bidden to ask for ofratuities ?" What a confounded careful 
 emphasis he laid on that same word ! — Well, go on and tell us 
 about Muckross ; for I wasted my time writing nonsense in 
 the visitors' book. 
 
 /. I love the old abbey of the lake, vdth its little porch, 
 belfry and windows, where no stained glass now stops the sun, 
 with the great square fireplace in the refectory ; and the niche, 
 Avhere, doubled uncomfortably, the wistful unheeded novice once 
 read to the revelling monks ; vnth. the old dim cloister, with 
 glimpses of sun scattered about here and there just to light up 
 a hood, or cast a shadow on the saUow, hollow face of some 
 ascetic father ; and, most of all, I loved to watch the specks of 
 suusliine move about the wall, like scraps of faded gilding on 
 a niched-surface tomb. for some chant of Palestrina to have 
 risen like incense then from the vaults below our feet ! 
 
 Probert. Tidn't I sing, " Ap Shenkin," eh? Look you 
 now, that's a coot tune. 
 
 I. You may climb Glena to hear the Avild buck bell above 
 the Eagle's Nest ; you may feast on salmon broiled on arbutus- 
 sticks at Dinis — 
 
 Prohert. Ah, salmon on arbutus is fery coot eating. 
 
 1. Yes, pretty picking ; but you needn't have spoiled my 
 apostrophe by bringing in Soycr's cookery-book. You may 
 listen to Tore spilling its silver treasures over its rocky brim ;
 
 190 'cross country. 
 
 you may thread the gorges of Dunloe ; you may rise into 
 heaven by way of Mangerton ; you may storm Glenacuppal, 
 Coom-a-Duv, and Stoompa ; brush through the green glossy 
 arbutuses with the crimson sorbs, or press the yellow moss on 
 Caran Tuill— 
 
 Brady. "Well, what then, when you have done all this ? 
 
 /, "Why (have a bit of patience), you will find nothing to 
 surpass the placid beauty of the Monlc's Island, Innisfallen. 
 
 Brady. Killarney is very well ; but I like it best on a 
 regatta day ; or when the wild deer of Glena are being driven 
 down into the lake. 0, it's beautiful then, entirely, to see the 
 boatmen breaking each other's heads with the oars, to try which 
 shall secure the bit of venison first ! Every rock then has a 
 tongue of its own, and every echo begins babbling and calling 
 to the dogs, as if Paddy Blake and his big brother, who lives 
 up in the Eagle's Nest, were all out after the dogs ; and then a 
 horn wakes up in a rale Irish yeU, which is sweeter — 
 
 Tim (looking in). Thrue to you, Mr. Brady ; that's no lie. 
 
 Brady. Tim, you villain, more sugar ; and send for the 
 piper, that we may have a jig in the Idtchen when all the boat- 
 men have come in. That pretty girl in blue in the bar can 
 take her part in a reel, I know, as well as any lass in Kerry. 
 
 Tim. She can, your honour (with tremendous energy). 
 Larry will be here in half an hour. 
 
 Brady. I suppose you have been through the Gap ? 
 
 /. Of course, or Avhat was I born for ? Didn't I enter in 
 triumphal procession, driven by a bugler of the Kerry mi- 
 litia, in a red jacket, singing " Brian O'Lynn," and " Leslie 
 Poster," to the tune of "Lesbia has a beaming eye ;" and 
 telling me stories of his father, who died broken-hearted 
 because he was bet by the O'SuUivans in a faction-fight? 
 Didn't I go through the Pike like a Csesar, attended by a retinue 
 of bog-oak girls and goat's-milk and potheen sellers, aU with 
 their red bare feet, dusty haii', and wild looks,— not to mention 
 the two cannoneers, ready for the echo, running by my angry 
 side, with the long slips of peat blowing red in the wind ? 
 
 Brady. What struck you most in Killarney town ? 
 
 I. Not the Bishop's-chair Tower, nor the Eound Eort,
 
 G 
 
 A NIGHT AT KILLARNEY. 191 
 
 •svbere the gold-seekers grub and burrow, nor its suburbs Agha- 
 doe and Killalee ; but what always does strike you as most 
 costly and grand in every Irish town — the unioa work-house 
 and the lunatic asylum. 
 
 Babble. They're all poor or mad. Ugh ! 
 Brachj. Be civil, you spalpeen, or, by the holy poker, I'll — 
 I. ISIr. Brady, Mr. Brady ! AVell, we got out of the car at 
 the hut of the granddaughter of Kate Kearney (0, Lady Mor- 
 gan,— such a hag!— with her yellow whisky and her snowy 
 milk !) ; and as we entered the pass between the Eicks (Eicks) 
 and the purple mountain, which is just a long shoulder of the 
 Toomies, and prepared for our four-mile mountain-plod, past 
 the Fathomless Lake, and the stream of Loe, and the Cumi- 
 neen Thorneen pools, our five senses were driven out of our 
 head, and sixpence out of our pocket, by the blast of Ted 
 Eafferty's cannon, with which he calls to the echoes. Then, 
 followed by old women with strings of stockings, who run 
 about and talk Irish, who curse your long legs in Celtic, and then 
 bless the beautifid face of you in English; arbutus- wood girls— 
 Brady. With divil a thing that is not yew in their boxes. 
 I. And urchins praying, " long life to your honour, and may 
 the merry dancing sixpences you give them be put down 
 in big letters to your account in heaven." 
 
 Brady. Before you got to the Cave of Dunloe, where the 
 Ogham letters are on the stones, did you mark the iligant de- 
 tached villa residence of the great Dan's brother ? 
 
 /. Not I, Brady ; nor the beautiful demesne of the great 
 O'SuUivan More. I don't come to Ireland to see uate villas, 
 ■with the fir-trees all in a row, like the teeth of a comb. This 
 beautiful county — 
 
 Babble. Beautiful! Ugh! 
 
 I. AVell, we won't dispute. Oli, on I went through the Grap 
 with that sort of uneasy delight with which one always pene- 
 trates such gorges, made to be manned and kept. 
 
 Brady (quite abruptly, but thoughtfully stooping down his 
 head). J vist feel that lump ; that's one of Flynn's tumblers. 
 Flynn's tumblers are so cursed thick: by the powers, I'll wager 
 they're n, good half inch at the bottom of solid glass. Excuse 
 the interruption.
 
 192 'cross country. 
 
 /, Don't mention it, Brady. The Gap is quite an Irish 
 Thermopylae— sea, bog, and all perfect ; and I half expected to 
 meet there the red Earl of Ulster, Brian Boru, or the Des- 
 mond, at the head of their kerns and gallowglasses, with their 
 jingling mail — 
 
 Prober t (who has been asleep). It's a pad place for the mail. 
 
 /. The gray, bare, beetling walls are black with the silvery 
 spills of water that splash and trickle down them ; here and 
 there, in cleft and chink, the ivy-bushes or the heather- 
 tufts nestle in. It is fairy-land; and every moment, from 
 bridge or the lake, where St. Patrick flung the last serpents, 
 I look for the castle of the giant. Then comes the Black Val- 
 ley, which we see as the Gap opens into slopes of rock and 
 heather, stretching like a by-way to the right, lone and deso- 
 late, — the Valley of the Shadow of Death ; with the lake of the 
 red trout, black as Acheron ; the rocks blasted and calcined ; 
 the cascades here and there jerking down like fairies' silver 
 ladders. 
 
 Brady. I like the lake islands,— the Lamb, the Elephant, the 
 Horse, the Crow, the Heron, the Gannet, the Books, the pri- 
 son-islands, and Darby's Garden, that Lord Kenmare gave the 
 old fisherman who made him a present of a salmon. How 
 loaded they are with the arbutus with the crimson drops, like 
 deer's blood, and those broken rocks, where the herons sit and 
 think ! 
 
 /. Yes ; Killarney is never so beautiful as now, when the 
 red rain of autumn comes streaming down into the lake, 
 and the leaves come swirling from Glena, as if the ghost of 
 O'Donohue were throwing his treasure down to an awaiting 
 crowd below ; when the blue of the mountain grows opaque, 
 and the cloud hangs heavy, moored to the peaks, or at sunset 
 blows from it in a long thin sail, like a crimson ilag half shot 
 
 away. 
 
 Tim (looking in). Now, that's what I call beautiful! 
 
 Brady. Bring a sod, Tim. 
 
 I. Ton seem rather dull to-niglit, Brady. Perhaps I bore 
 you with my poetising in this region of perpetual honeymoon. 
 
 Brady. Not at all, not at all, Mr. Edithor. It's myself that
 
 A XJGHT IX KILLARNEY. 193 
 
 wislies I had a laimdred ears to listen uiglit aud day. — To tell 
 you the truth, I'm expecting to hear every post whether I have 
 passed the college. I'm rather afraid I shall go a mucker. 
 
 Prober f (to me apart). Wliy doesn't he speak coot English, 
 like me. What's a " mucker," Brady ? 
 
 Brady. Why, I'm afraid I shall come to grief. Isow, I'm 
 perfectly sure if I only got my diploma, and gave up the whisky 
 and the cock-shooting, I should very soon chaw up the best 
 men in Dublin, not to be the laste concaited. "Why, I've got 
 a pill for jauudice that'll— more glasses, d'ye hear, Tim, you 
 blackguard, aud Tim, another matarial. (Sings) 
 
 " THE WHISKY CASCADE. 
 
 O have you ever heard, my boys, of the holy man of Euuis, 
 Who asked O'Siillivan for alms in the name of good St. Dennis ? 
 The ehieftam gave liim ring aud robe, and a kicking chestnut filly, — 
 A pvu'ty thing for jaunting-car, for market-cart, or dilly. 
 
 The saint he touched Tore mountain-side, and looked up to the ceiling ; 
 He groped about, for he was blind, and found his way by feeling. 
 ' My blessing on O'SuUivan, his wife and son and daughter ; 
 Accept a poor man's benison upon this holy water.' — 
 
 He would have added twice as much, but lashing out beliind, 
 The chestnut, hot as gunpowder, flew off before the wind. 
 Stone walls to her were lumps of sod, the hermit gave her head ; 
 Her mother was the ' CoUeen Og,' and almost thorough-bred. 
 
 The chieftain cried, ' Good luck to liim ! I hope he'U not be silly. 
 And use the spur, or throw her down : I'm sorry — for the fill}'.' 
 Then stooping down, he di'ank a sup, and leapt up mad aud fi-isky : 
 ' More power to him ! By jabers, sir, he's turned the stream to whisky " 
 
 Ah, sure enough, by my ten toes, it was enough to scare one ; 
 He'd gone and done what Moses did before the nose of Aaron. 
 Through woods of oak and alder gray, and birch tlic silver twinkled, 
 The wliisky ran, a mad cascade, and fern and foxglove sprinkled. 
 
 O'er giant slab of level rock, green with the nodding bramble, 
 The whisky broke in froth and foam, then stole away to ramble 
 In silver pool and inky deep, far, far from human folly. 
 Deep hidden by the branching broom and the red-berried holly. 
 
 O
 
 194 'cross country. 
 
 Bedad, if man and boy and girl, down to the oldest cripple, 
 Did not soon come to drink and sip, to sot and soak and tipple 
 The priest he brought his shovel-hat to dip in as a ladle ; 
 Begor the ganger's second wife came with her largest cradle. 
 
 Such bottling and barrellmg, and broken heads and cursing, 
 Such maudling, and shaking hands, and gossiping and nursing ! 
 TOI all at once, one April day, — it must have been the fii'st, sir, — 
 The whisky changed to water back ! tlie change was for the worse, sir. 
 
 Och ! one by one they stole away — the priest unto his village ; 
 The farmer to his yellow ricks, his cart and horse and tillage ; 
 Tlie gossip, making faces som*, ran scolding back her daughter ; 
 ' Eheiimatics, spasms, colic, gout, all come of moimtain water.' 
 
 It's Tore Cascade they call the place ; you still may see it splashing 
 O'er broken rock and ledge and shelf, like crockery that's smashing. 
 It's only sixpence at the gate, to Mr. Herbert's porter ; 
 It is requested on a board you do not stay to court her." 
 
 (Laughter.) 
 
 Babble. ]S"o hope for Ireland till tliey all turn teetotalers. 
 
 Brady. Fill your tumbler, sir, and don't quarrel with your 
 liquor. 
 
 Babble. Tour sociability, my good sir, -will be your ruin ; 
 but our thanks for your song. Is not the Tore Cascade a good 
 place, sir, for the Lichomanes sjieciosum and the Hymenophillum 
 Tunbridgense ? 
 
 Brady. Divil if I know. It's a rale good place for a veal pie, 
 champagne, and a Colleen Og, with the nate blue eyes to smile 
 on you, and to talk love to as j^ou pop off the cork. 
 
 I. Capital, Brady, quite Irish. Now that's a miracle worth 
 working. I can fancy the nation getting extremely pious, and 
 extremely drunk, as the holy water came running and tumbliog 
 and jerking and frothing through the silver birches that fea- 
 ther over the mossy rocks. 
 
 Babble. Those waterfalls are always such confounded places 
 for catching colds. Ugh ! 
 
 Brady. To the divil with your colds ! 
 
 Probert. A colt is pad. 
 
 Brady. So is a spavined horse. 
 
 Tim (rushes in breathless, executing a double-shuffle step).
 
 A XIGIIT IN KILLARXEY. 195 
 
 The piper's come, jintlemen. and the kitclien's swept and da- 
 cent. 
 
 Bradij. Famous ! Xow, Dabble. 
 
 Babble. I shall go to bed. I hate dancing — it's foolery. Ugh ! 
 
 Brady. So it is when fools dance ; but then fools may go 
 to bed. Whoop ! (Gives a war-yell, and runs out.) N^ow 
 for " Planxt)- Drury" and the " Tatthering of the Quilt !" 
 
 Tim. And "Jim O'Halloran's Ganther." Whoop! 
 
 Scene changes to the kitchen. Boots seated meditatively on 
 a pile of peat ; chamber-maid in buff, chamber-maid in pink, 
 man-cook in white jacket, charwoman in bare feet, drawn up 
 in rows, and in high spirits. In the back-ground, relays of 
 more chamber-maids, fat black-eyed landlady, cheery landlord, 
 and nimble clerk of the establishment. Larry, the blind piper, 
 is seated on a barrel turned upside down. 
 
 Brady. Now then, Larry, " The Fox-himter's Schame." 
 (Larry plays a wild sporting time, which he ekes out by ver- 
 bal remarks and comments : as, " Here the huntsmen come up ; 
 that's the whipper-in's horn ; this is them laping a sod- ditch ; 
 that's a fall ; here's the death — of the fox." Every one cheers.) 
 K^ow then, sixpence each in my hat for Larry. 
 
 Larry. More power to ye, Mr. Brady. Gintlemen, take 
 yoiu* places, pigeon's-wing, and cut the buckle. 
 
 Then the jig began, fast and furious. Brady's partner was 
 tlie bare-legged, girded-up charwoman, an old body who 
 danced with ten-horse power. How we twisted round, and 
 imwound, and advanced to partners, and toed and heeled and 
 shook the toes, till the kitchen-roof rang again with the fun ! 
 Hands across ; and when the dance flagged for a moment, there 
 came such a yell from the man-cook to hearten us on to ten 
 times more intrepid exertions in the most pleasant of all 
 dances ! 
 
 To use Brady's expression, the fat landlady's performance 
 was of " grate value," the boots was serious and misantliro])ic, 
 tlie bufl" chamber-maid was vigorous, the pink chamber-maid 
 agile ; but as for the thin clerk, he was at once stupendous and 
 surprising. He performed all sorts of Irish feats with his feet ; 
 he danced do\^'n everybody, and was the incontestable champion 
 
 o 2
 
 196 CROSS COUNTRY. 
 
 of the evening. Tim was glorious and gorgeous ; Brady could 
 only be compared to a demoniac dancing-master. As for Pro- 
 bert, be was pragmatic, bow-legged, and sententious. Dabble 
 twice rang for hot water merely to interrupt us, and then was 
 beard of no more. 
 
 * # # # « 
 
 As we were going up to bed, Brady suddenly stopped, gave 
 a twitcb at his pocket, and pulled out a letter. 
 
 " Bedad," said he, " if this letter didn't come for me just as 
 we went into the kitchen, and I forgot to open it. It's the 
 college seal." He read it. 
 
 " Have you passed ?" said I. 
 
 " No ! By jabers," said he, " if I haven't gone a crojyper 
 again .'" 
 
 CHAPTEE XVIII. 
 
 THE banshee's castle. 
 
 There was, we heard, a Banshee-haunted Castle, on the An- 
 trim coast, and I and my friend Yaughan, the artist, were on 
 our way to find it out. 
 
 Our campaign had been planned, we were to start that 
 morning, Avhen the shrimps were cleared away and the loaf 
 and eggs had melted into air, thin air. Wlien we had seen 
 the ghost castle we were to talie the car, and go on to the 
 wonderful Salmon Bridge, near Ballycastle, and the next morn- 
 ing to the great promontory of Pairhead, and that wonderful 
 legendary passage through the cliff called by Antrim fishermen 
 and smugglers "The Grrey Man's "Walk." 
 
 " Our work was cut out for us," as Vaughan said, and we 
 were ready to do it. 
 
 It was a grand day. The sea ran on the side of us in a 
 dancing sparkle of glimmering emerald, we were intoxicated 
 with air and sunshine. AVe were fresh from the rugged west 
 of Donegal, and the warning tone of the sea in that blow-pipe
 
 THE banshee's castle. 197 
 
 cavern called " M'Swiue's Gun," was still in our ears. "We bad 
 fished together in the salmon-haunted river Bawu, and we had 
 stared together at the Skerry rocks, lying like dead whales out 
 in the broad blue of the Antrim sea. 
 
 Yew vessels come this side of Ireland, and none were in 
 sight, but here and there a brown fishing sail tossed and 
 rocked over the dancing tumult of the waves, that rolled and 
 tossed like a tumultuous multitude round the tall giant clift' on 
 which the Banshee Castle stood, spectral and forlorn, and ap- 
 parently insulated and inaccessible. At last Ave had neared 
 the Banshee Castle of the M'Quillens, of the conquering 
 M'Donels, and, lastly, of the Earls of Anti'im, now haunted by 
 the wailing Banshee, who lodges there in permanence. AVe 
 only passed one man on the road, and he was a little bandy- 
 legged, pragmatic AVelshman, with light plaid trousers and 
 shooting jacket. He carried a large carpet bag slung to the 
 end of a crab stick, and by his side, attached to a cross-belt, 
 hung a padlocked fishing-basket, that seemed full of books. 
 "We challenged him at walking, but the wiry little Celt beat ua 
 ofi" bravely, and when we were dead tired, set to and actually 
 ran a mile. I am inclined to think he was " no canny," and 
 some third Welsh cousin of the Banshee, sent to lure us to 
 destruction. 
 
 I had on my old macintosh soiled, serviceable knapsack, with 
 the handle of a refractory hair-brush sticking out of a side 
 compartment. Vaughan had his portfolio and fly rod, and liis 
 paint-box of moist colours. Vaughan was an open-hearted, 
 cheery fellow, ftiU of humour, [and with a lynx eye for the 
 picturesque. We were all bent on mischief, being hard of 
 flesh and pliant of limb. Hope and merriment danced in our 
 eyes. We snified the sea-air like the horse in Job, who said 
 ha! ha! to the sound of the trumpet. The sea was our 
 trumpet, the merry wind our herald. We tightened each 
 other's straps, we arranged buckles, we shifted loads, we jerked 
 up knapsacks, we tossed off some Dublin porter, whose brown 
 froth was pleasant to the sense, and then started on the sea- side 
 road, stepping out like Bausliees bound on pleasure, deter- 
 mined to go down and up everything, to sec every cave, ruin.
 
 198 'cross country. 
 
 foreland, or cliff in Antrim. Glory be to it. Our first lion 
 was the wonderful eagle's nest of Dunluce, where the Earls of 
 Ulster and Antrim once looked down on the sea, almost ever 
 since there was a sea ; for, indeed, so grand were these M'Quil- 
 lens, that they seem to have looked down on every one and every- 
 thing. 
 
 To see the wild blue sea after the trim white-washed inn was 
 a pleasant contrast. As those fretted arches and chasms in 
 the limestone cliff are to the dreary bogland grave of MacPhe- 
 lim, MacBryan, MacNeill, of Clandeboy, so those white gulls 
 are to the dark, heavy ploughland they flap over, thinlving it 
 some dark, dismal, frozen sea. Not ten miles, and we have 
 seen twenty caverns at least — mere rat-holes from here, but 
 really great bays for the northern waves. How fluctuating 
 and restless the sea is compai-ed with those steadfast towers of 
 Dunlnce, on their hundred feet of perpendicular rock, now 
 bannerless, rent, and smitten. 
 
 Yaughan had been on this coast often with Stanfield, who 
 sometimes comes here for new sensations when he begins to lose 
 his sea legs by stopping too long on London Turkey-carpeted 
 floors. That next gate to the left leads us down to Dunluce 
 and the Banshee's Tower. 
 
 We entered the gate, passed a sloping meadow bound in 
 with stone walls, and saw before us a great pile of ruins, bat- 
 tered ramparts, crumbling turrets and enclosures, now scarcely 
 definable as either square, round, or oblong. Here was the hall, 
 there the lady's chamber ; here the kitchen, there the chapel — 
 one of the -uildest places to live in surely, man for safety or de- 
 fence ever built. Yet this, for centuries, was the night-star for 
 mariners, a beacon rock for the sailor to shun and yet to steer 
 by. The outer walls were but continuations of the rock. A 
 seagull could not rest on any intervening ledge there is visible. 
 Prom this rampart dizzy workmen fell headlong, and slain 
 knight fell plump down into the greedy waves that opened 
 for their prey and closed the mailed corpse in the living tomb, 
 so that till the judgment the white bones locked in steel might 
 stare through sunless day and moonless night at the bulwarks 
 of its mortal home, so regardless of its fate. Here the Ban-
 
 THE banshee's CASTLE. 199 
 
 sliee wails over the greyuiglit sea for tlie dead Earls of Antrim. 
 Here the — 
 
 " AVe never take less than a shilling," said the guide, " and 
 it's little of that goes to us." 
 
 " Perhaps, mj dear felloAv," said Yaughan, " when 3'^ou have 
 told us all that ever was here, you will go on in a second 
 volume to all that never was here, so that your reader can take 
 his chance." 
 
 " The causeways is a poor thing after this," said the guide. 
 " Don't listen to all the stuff the carman crams you with. Dun- 
 luce is generally reckoned the first thing of the kind in Ire- 
 land, and bedad, I wish I had all the fees : but of course they 
 ^always give apples to the man \\-ith an orchard, so I get only 
 the paltry pence, and me with the flenzy on me, and the lum- 
 bago in the lines." 
 
 " The carman," said Vaughan, " would have it that you keep 
 all his journeyers staying about here, and that there is nothing 
 .to see." 
 
 "Hear him!" said the rival showman; "what, not the big, 
 tall Castle, and the cave under it, and the Banshees, and the 
 narrow bridge that the lady with narves fell over and was saved 
 by the balloonness of her petticoats, which landed her clean and 
 ;5afe at the bottom of the rock ? The ignorant craturs, to talk 
 of the causeway. To tell you sober truth, as I wish I may be 
 hung — I don't see much in the causeway, with the holes they 
 call caves, and the lies about Fin-maecoul — it's a good deal 
 boderashun." 
 
 Threading our way through ruined court-yards, past defaced 
 chapels, dining-halls, guard-rooms and prisons, we began to see 
 the plan of the whole. Tlie outlying grey walls and enclosures 
 ■were mere baiTacks and outposts. The castle itself lay before 
 xis on an island of rock, moated by the sea ; the only approach 
 to it was a plain wall of earth, over which a portcullis, now 
 destroyed, once ran. 
 
 " Come along, Vaughan," said I, " follow me, and we will 
 storm this Banshee's Castle. Here, come over, don't look 
 down, it makes the eyes dizzy." 
 
 " It's all very well to talk," said Vaughan ; " why, it's worse
 
 200 ■ 'cross country. 
 
 than the top of a garden wall, and sixty feet di'op. My feet- 
 stick as if I were chained to the ground. I could not move if 
 a man with a sword were pricking me on. It is a dreadful 
 nio-htmare feeling. I feel giddy and sick. I shall he like that old 
 gentleman at Snowdon, you remember, that the guide had to 
 carry on his back over Crib Coch, or he would have actually 
 crawled over on his belly like a big turtle, as he was." 
 
 " Come along, Vaughan ; why I've seen you break through 
 a hundred twirling oak sticks at Donnybrook, as easily as if 
 you were elbowing your way through an illumination mob." 
 
 " But it is no joke really for me, my dear fellow," said Vaug- 
 han. " Come and lend us a hand, and don't stand preaching 
 there like a second-rate^ Spurgeon. And I say, you Banshee 
 keeper, lay hold of my coat-tails behind, for, by heaven, that 
 yawning pit seems to me to be the very mouth of Gehenna." 
 
 He crossed, trembling. 
 
 " Well, now we are over," said I, "my brave man, mix a little 
 vermilion for your lily-livered cheeks, and take courage. The 
 castle is our own — the men-at-arms have aU been stabbed and 
 thrown over the walls to feed the guUs. A pocket handkerchief 
 with my initials and cognizance waves upon the highest chim- 
 ney-pot. The bastard king gnaws his flesh in the dungeon, 
 the ladies wring their hands in their barred-up chambers — Lord 
 of Dunluce, welcome to the castle of the chasm. I will have 
 the corpses all cleared, the liing put in chains, and the prisoners 
 fettered. And when the smell of powder is gone ofT, bring up 
 my dinner. To leave the mock-heroic, victorious De Courcy, 
 what a scene this must have been for a scrimmage. Fancy the 
 fight below in the underground cavern — the grapple of mailed 
 men in the boat — the battle of bloody and broken oars — the 
 push of spear — the clash of axe — # * * # * 
 See the lichen stones, and the hanging turret, where the 
 dry grass nods and blows. Pancy the rush over this hanging 
 chasm, piled up with red smeared men, groaning and screaming 
 in a knotted heap. Then the fight up the narrow tower stairs, 
 and the slow retreat backwards to the edge of the sea-waU,. 
 where death hung in air waiting for his prey with black and 
 outspread arms."
 
 THE banshee's CASTLE. 201 
 
 " Lend us your whisky flask." 
 
 " Of course, said Vauglian, " you know the legend of this 
 castle." 
 
 " Not I." 
 
 " Well then, here goes. On a stormy night in Kovemher, 
 loSO, as Newby's novels would begin, a vessel, bearing Colonel 
 M'Donald coming to Ireland to assist the Turconnell against 
 the O'Xeil, saw the lights of Dunluce, and bore into Portrush, 
 not knowing that M'Quillen, tlie lord of Dunluce, Avas an ad- 
 herent of the race he came to exterminate. M'Quillen, con- 
 cealing his name, feasted him on his fatted beeves and strongest 
 ale. It is not impossible that whisky above all proof was pro- 
 duced, L.L. whisky, strong enough to draw its own cork— stulT 
 that would bring a dead buffalo to life. The name disclosed, 
 the itinerant colonel's generosity was aroused, he became the 
 friend of M'Quillen, and to prove it spent the winter in the small 
 castle, his men being quartered on M'Quillen's vassals. He 
 eventually ran away with Nora, his pretty daughter, in order to 
 avoid a conspiracy of the Irish, to murder the Scotch intruders 
 — when the faithless stranger returned, he returned to make 
 himself, by fire and sword, lord of these poor ruins you now 
 see. The M'Donnels have passed away, the M'Quillens are 
 now become serfs." 
 
 " Nor to forget," said the guide, " your honours, gentlemen, 
 the story of the kitchen wall falling into the sea, just as the 
 countess, in Ehzabeth's time, was about to return from London 
 to the castle, which had been rebuilt after a fire. I don't 
 know how many cooks or workmen did not fall in tlie say." 
 
 " True," said I, " but be quiet, M'Cormac, while I relate 
 the sins and sorrows of the old castle. In this very room, the 
 stately Earl of Antrim, with his black velvet suit, peaked beard, 
 and point lace collar, received as guest the Parliamentary Gene- 
 ral Munro, wlio suddenly, as the third course came up, stamped 
 his foot ; instantly the muskets, halberds, and pikes flocked in, 
 and arrested the struggling earl, the brave gentleman, the gal- 
 lant cavalier, and dragged liim to Carrick by the sea, from 
 whence he broke away soon after, and got himself to England, 
 then streaming with cavaliers' blood."
 
 202 'cross country. 
 
 " Very well, then, give me the whisky bottle," said Vaughan. 
 
 " We had better be off," said I. 
 
 So away we went along the bold road, through the North of 
 Ireland fields, where the white birds flew about over the choco- 
 late-coloured fallows, skimming after the trailing plough, drawn 
 by the black and white horses with ponderovis broad chests ; a 
 deserted and unoccupied country, except for two or three of 
 the soldier-like police, in their green rifle uniform, and a young 
 girl or two with the neat shawl over her head — dangerous as a 
 mantilla, and wonderful target for black eyes watching for 
 hearts. Leaving the causeway mth the angel's building stones, 
 the unfinished sea pandemonium or Irish rostrum, dedicated to 
 the forgotten and discro-wTied Neptune, we walked away merry 
 past scattered tracts of Avhite-washed stone cottages, where 
 strings of dried herrings waved over the door. 
 
 " Do you see the line of land yonder ?" said Vaughan. 
 
 Well, that was Islay, the nearest of the Orknies. The boatmen 
 offered to take us there for four-aud-twenty shillings, but I 
 was afraid of being locked up by contrary winds, or of a 
 rough night coming on. I said, " AVill there be wind ?" They 
 said, " God willing," and I would not trust myself Fancy such 
 a boat and every man drunk. M'Namara pulling at wrong 
 ropes, fighting about the helm, swearing at the sea, some draw- 
 ing knives about the way to steer. Horrible ! it makes me 
 sea-sick to think of it. 
 
 It is pleasant to feel near Eobert Bruce's Scotland and Burns' 
 Scotland. Presently we come in sight of the Mull of Cautire, 
 only fourteen miles off, then the great lump of Ailsa Craig 
 looms in sight like a great stranded whale — such a monster as 
 heaves its emerald mountain of a back through the green waves 
 of northern seas. That line of rock away there is the island 
 where Bruce flew with his three hundred men to escape Baliol, 
 the angry rebel that hounded him over moss and moor. There he 
 could look at Scotland, and think of fresh Bannockburns, red 
 with Norman blood. There is eight miles of it, and its clifts 
 are fronted with basalt columns, which, at a distance, look like 
 the walls of some sea Carthage. Here is Duusverick. Tes, 
 here Avas Duusverick, ancient nest of the O'lvanes, on the
 
 THE banshee's CASTLE. 203 
 
 tare island of rock ; its fragment of yellow tower, with as 
 sharp and clear an angle as if it was pulled down yesterday, so 
 gently time visits the old place. There the O'Kanes of the 
 saffron mantles and matted hair looked out on Euthlin, or right 
 away to Islay, with the green, glassy sea stretching between, 
 as safe from the Englisli of the pale as the eagle on the top of 
 his purple mountain. There is still the basalt rock, flattened 
 at the top for the mangonel and the watchman, and down on the 
 south side is the great gap of a bay, where the boats look as 
 small as walnut shells. 
 
 ]N'ow as it gets towards twilight, between the fishermen's 
 houses, and just over the grey stone walls, down the dark bay, 
 and between the bleak heap of rocks, the twin-lights of the 
 distant island move and twinkle like two lone stars, the first 
 blossoms of the evening heavens. 
 
 "We pass through a wild bit just in the dusk, a dark tract of 
 a bog— glistening here and there, where the setting light glances 
 in the rain-pools— the brown pared walls, where peat has been 
 cut, still showing the trenching marks of the spade. Just as we 
 approach the stone stile leading to it, Nora trips over, show- 
 ing as pretty an ankle and as trim a leg as ever trod Irish 
 earth. She colours a little on seeing us, and with a gentle 
 " save you," tells us the way to Ballycastle, speaking even more 
 broad Scotch than the Antrim people are prone to do. 
 
 " Just push up my knapsack," says Vaughan. 
 
 " Just buckle my chest-strap, Vaughan," say I ; we had 
 reached a stage of feeling familiar to knapsack tourists. 
 
 The knapsack has grown heavier, the two straps slightly gall 
 the collar-bone, the fastening across tlie chest pinches ; we 
 require frequent jerks up to change the bearing of the load. 
 There is a slight straining sensation down the front of the shin, 
 a slight ache in the calf of the leg, a slight soreness from the 
 hard limestone about the soles of tlie feet. Now we get 
 silent, and disposed to stop at those parts of the road particu- 
 larly near a wall, where you can lean your knapsack against. 
 "Wonder how we could have been fool enougli now not to come 
 by car ; iresolve never to walk with a knapsack again ; a light 
 shines out in the distance — another — then half-adozen —
 
 204 'CIIOSS COUNTRY. 
 
 hope revives — the heart jumps for joy — the brain clears and 
 quickens — the pulse enlivens- — we step out — give one stare — 
 then on we push, determined by the last spark of daylight. 
 " Blind man's holiday," indeed, to look dowoi the winding road 
 that branches from our due road to Ballycastle, to Carrick a 
 Rede, the rock in the road, where we know the salmon bridge 
 was. A winding terrace brought us into a field, and the rock 
 lay before us. The bridge had been taken up for the winter — 
 the rock stood alone some sixty feet from the shore ; the top 
 looks so thin, it seems as if no one could keep on it ; unless he 
 clung with his hands and feet, be blown off, or topple off, he 
 must be it, seems. Half way down the side of a rock you see 
 a rude cottage, where the fishermen dwell during the summer, 
 (by day only, as a boy told me,) but in the winter the bridge 
 is taken up and the cottage deserted. We saw the place where 
 the fishermen fasten the bridge-ropes — and even to look at 
 that made me giddy. 
 
 A rough fisherman's sou, with rough red cheeks, and fell 
 of black hair blowing about his eyes, told us he had often been 
 over the bridge wdth a load of silver salmon on his head. It 
 was rather springy and planky like under your feet, jou had to 
 trot it, it wasn't safe to walk, and seventy feet was no joke to 
 fall, otherwise there was no danger. * * * 
 
 " I liked Conuemara," said Vaughan, placing both feet on 
 the hob, and trying to roast himself simmeringly. " I liked 
 the red petticoats and the bare feet." 
 
 O Lord, how it poured next day in streams. "We were ac- 
 coutred in tremendous oil-skin, covering us from chin to toe — 
 not flexible water-proofs, but good, stiff sail-cloth, such as the 
 captain of a whaler might put on when a sou'-wester was blow- 
 ing — the rain poured down in heavy black drenches. It was 
 no summer rain skirting sunshine, it was no sliort spring 
 shower, but a day of ill-tempered, sullen wind and rain we 
 were eoins: to encounter: so we hitched on our oil- skin 
 hats, pulled down the flannel-lined flaps, and took our seats 
 sullenly to bear the storm. Our two umbrellas bent down de- 
 precatingly before the wind, and arched over our Reads like 
 bronze tents.
 
 THE banshee's CASTLE. 205 
 
 Taughan regarded rain as an indifferent thing, and disdained 
 to do more than button his coat, with a sort of spiteful twist, 
 as if he was trying to dislocate himself, or alter the arrangement 
 of his spine. 
 
 " Have you been to AVicklow ?" said Vaughan. 
 "All over it" said I, "especially the ancient Churches." 
 " That's brag," said Vaughan. " Have you seen much of the 
 emigrators ? There is a power of them ready to leave the old 
 country." 
 
 " Yes !" replied I, " much ; at Dublin the country people, in 
 their frieze coats and grey stockings, were sitting on their 
 bundles outside the emigrant offices on the quays — father, son, 
 mother, daughter, waiting with frightened, listless, torpid ex- 
 pectancy for the steamer's starting — the same by the water's 
 edge, and by the ferries. At the Kilkenny station, too, the 
 whole place was crammed with peasants, strange, eccentric, hard- 
 featured fellows, in bob-tail blue coats and knee breeches, lag- 
 ging about two and two, huge clothes chests — hurrying them 
 into wrong carriages, and getting in everybody's way — then 
 came the old father, or the pretty daughter, with her hand- 
 kerchief round her head ; and wandering, anxious matrons, too 
 excited to cry, though the children were bursting into tears. 
 
 " ' Take your places,' cries the guard in his mechanical mono- 
 tone, the confusion grows hopeless ; more boxes — more goods 
 crushed — more crying — more rapid interchange of Irish fare- 
 wells. Quick goes the engine— the wheel moves — then arises 
 such a yell of grief and sorrow — of passionate heart-breaking 
 at this farewell, such as I have heard at the grave-side, and no- 
 where else. I love to see them too reading an American letter 
 in some lone part of the county Mayo, under a peat stack, the 
 father leaning on his long six-fork spade, as the little sister 
 spells out the good news from the joyful letter from America," 
 The next morning early we started for Fairhcad, the great 
 promontory of Antrim. " AVhat are you suicidally thrusting 
 your head out of the umbrella for ? you'll be wet to the skin in 
 two minutes." "Why," said Vaughan, "I think I see just a-head 
 that drunken villain who drove me to Portrush the other night 
 from the half-way house. I told him that I should give him a
 
 206 'cross country. 
 
 return tlils morning, if lie waited till ten o'clock. He agreed^ 
 but the first thing I lieard when I got up this morning, was 
 that he had gone off at seven." 
 
 " Hark to him," said I, he is just within reach.— jogging on 
 with his side to the horse, as if no guilt were in his soul." 
 
 " Hallo ! you fellow," cried Vaughan, standing up like Carac- 
 tacus in his war chariot, one hand gracefully waving an umbrella 
 for a sceptre. " What do you mean by leaving us this morning, 
 and putting us to the expense of another car ? What do you 
 mean ? I shall be representing the matter to your master at 
 Westport. Take my word for it." 
 
 The fellow turned round, and, to my amazement, instead of 
 merely confessing his fault, drove full in our way, and com- 
 menced a volley of abuse, in the voice of a stage bandit, whicb 
 was caused by a cold he had lately caught, as he lyingly said, 
 from having been kept locked out of his hotel all night, and 
 made to wait at the gate in the rain, without food for himself 
 or horse. 
 
 " Go on yom-self," said the bellicose Mike, " you murdering 
 divil, with your gentleman-jacks, and your winning manners — 
 go on, ye Irish Sepoys— go on, you spalpeens, and the Devil's 
 blessing go with ye for laving a poor man in the bitter winding 
 could all night ; and he with a wife and family. Too much is 
 it, your dirty blackguard— yon sink of iniquity — you dishonest 
 Philistine— you miserable nagur, with your too much." 
 
 " If you won't go on," said I, " let us pass you." 
 
 "You shan't pass— you shall keep behind me for thirty 
 miles. Yon big imposthumes— you bad half-pence— you— you 
 miserable hypotheses." 
 
 " Let meget at him," said Vaughan, trying to get down. 
 
 " The man is drunk," said I, " and he is old— let him alone." 
 
 " Get out of that!" said the rogue, gaining courage, seeing 
 we were for peace, " clear the way there !— get behind, will ye ?" 
 
 " Make room for your betters, sir." 
 
 "I must get down," said the fiery driver. 
 
 " Be quiet," said I, " his mare is dead beat ; she has had no 
 food or rest aU night— see how her hind legs totter, and come 
 down shaking— she cannot keep up for two.[miles more, whip 
 past him, and when he races us he will soon founder."
 
 THE banshee's CASTLE. 207 
 
 "Wlioop ■ away we went, whipping at him as we passed, for he 
 had now cursed himself hoarse, and letting the rems hang ahout 
 the horse's legs, was walking by the side of his car, threshing 
 his horse in a mad-drunk, torpid way. 
 
 In a moment he was up on his side seat, and off after its ; 
 hut then his greasy hat blew off, and he had to zigzag after 
 that, and by the time he had got up again, we were some 
 distance off. His cries of " och, you murdering craturs ! 
 villaius ! Och, you thundering thaves !" came to us on the 
 %vind as we passed on. 
 
 When we got to the next town, Yaughan went instantly to 
 complain to the car-proprietors, atIio promised to punish the 
 insolent fellow, whose misdeeds and neglects were not for the 
 first time chronicled. 
 
 "We had set out to see the green promontory of Fairhead. 
 The sky was an overgrown forget-me-not ; the sand downs by 
 the sea were ali^'e with a thousand rabbits, trotting in and out, as 
 if they were playing at hide and seek. The low, quick wave 
 washed on the pebbles, and turned them into carnelians and 
 garnets by the moment's transparency — fragments of rainbows 
 frittered away on the beach, where dull sheaves of brown, 
 bladdery sea- weed lay like old clothes drying on the walls, ready 
 for the kelp burners, who, wet and eager, scrambled it up. Tlie 
 nets were drying on the cottage roof — on every stone, the 
 yellow oil-skiu-wrapper dreadnoughts of the fishermen were 
 spread, sure sign of the last night having been rough, yet there 
 was the guilty cannibal sea, as gentle now as if it had never 
 done harm to any one — as clear and level as if it never could 
 rise into great hollow hills, capped with foam, A\Tathful and ter- 
 rible. As we clamber past the hollows the cross beam engines, 
 and tramroad slack heaps, every minute came a cracking 
 burst of blasting powder, like the sound of a cannonade at 
 sea, with thundering thumps, and shocks of sound that 
 seemed to bellow to the (distant sailor. 
 
 A guide took me over slopes of bare land, and past vast 
 blocks of green stones stubbed with heather ; past the Black 
 Cape, and the lake of the Druid's Island to the Grey Man's 
 Path — the extraordinary scene of one of Antrim's interesting
 
 208 'cross country. 
 
 legends. It is a fearful rent some nine feet wide in the edge of 
 the cliff, down whicli a strong dangerous scramble — a goat's 
 patli unchristianly dangerous, leads to the shore, which, lonely 
 as a churchyard, is covered with innumerable monumental- 
 looking stones, gray with moss. Across this gap rests, high up, 
 a pillar of green stone, firmly wedged in, under which you de- 
 scend to the shore. This is the path of the Grey Man — a sort 
 of kiugly mysterious phantom that in great storms and troubles 
 is seen here through the sea fog, standing and waving his hands 
 — ^ia fact, telegrajDhing in an imperfect and vague way to the 
 viewless spirits of sea and air. 
 
 " Do you see that large stone on the beach — the white one ?" 
 said our guide. 
 
 We did. 
 
 " Well, I found a man's skull there on Tuesday week, and 
 the foxes had been fighting for it." 
 
 My bed that night, at Ballyna, was a dreadful phenomenon 
 of upholstery. It resembled a turtle's back ; it was high and 
 round, and unless you nailed yourself on the apex, you might 
 as well have tried to sleep on the top of a crocodile. It was, 
 I believe, firmly stufied with tin-tacks or tenpenny nails. I 
 kept firm awake all night, and at three in the morning found 
 myself still restless and worn out, staring at a truculent por- 
 trait of Dr. Wiseman, on the opposite wall. If this dreadful 
 lump of a bed had allov/ed me to sleep, two other monsters of 
 evil were waiting to hinder it. IMy door would not shut, and 
 it opened by steps into the smoking-parlour, so that it was just 
 convenient for the tap-boy to have cut my throat and gone 
 off witli my watch. This, and several other stories of inn 
 murders, arose in my memory as I rolled out of bed for the 
 eleventh time. A lively story, too, of a Tyrolese landlord, who 
 to murder his guests and throw them down a precipice behind 
 his house, would not let me alone. 
 
 Idozed and sawthe sanguinary landlord. He wore a red waist- 
 coat and chamois leather smalls. Another grievance was the 
 fact of my being over the inn stable ; the floor was chinky, flat, 
 and unplastered. All through that dreadful night I heard the 
 car horses drag their manger chains to and fro, and stamp and
 
 THE banshee's CASTLE. 209 
 
 move their lioofs, and snort in that restless and sleepless way 
 that horses do. Every now and then a lieav}^ turn announced 
 the awaking of some steed who had dreamed he was over- 
 driven. To my excited fancy it seemed that one particular 
 animal was trying to gnaw through the ceiling, and tear a 
 mouthful of hay off my troubled bed. 
 
 Three o'clock ! — One — two — three ! I am drowsy — two 
 sounds fomter than one, three softer than two. I am going at 
 last — low music rises ; to that opiate serenade I am sinking 
 a million fathoms down through the blue yielding Hellespont. 
 I am lost — I have fallen from the ram with the golden fleece, 
 three days tlu-ough the air, and three nights through the sea — 
 going, going, going ; but not gone. — Millions of demons bear 
 him to torture, fiery whips and sulphiu- whirlwinds — it is the 
 stable-boy come to begin work. Shall I ^fire down at him 
 between the chinks ? ISTo, that wHl not do. Shall I call and 
 deprecate ? jSTo, he speaks only Irish. Dreadful wretch, witli 
 what insolent alacrity he begins his daily toil; with what 
 gratuitous and unnecessary clatter he hurries about the iron- 
 rimmed buckets, knocks do^^^l the horn, smashes back the door, 
 splashes and mixes the water. The fool is a cheat — he cannot be 
 a stable-boy — he must be and is a Corporal Starlight trying to 
 destroy and fire the premises. Eu-e — ha ! save me !— yes, it 
 gets hot — I'm warm — warmer — help ! engines ! murder ! I am 
 roasting, every plank under me is a red-hot bar. Help ! I won't 
 be another St. Lawrence — wasn't one enoiigh ? Here, some- 
 Ijody— -landlord ! I'm a Protestant, and no saint — help ! ]S^o — 
 jio — it's all right — he is only doing the horses. I can hear the 
 rap,' rap of the currycomb on the stone. I hear him hiss. I am 
 l)lcased with that hiss. Bravo! lie's a good fellow after all. 
 1 am going again, sinking, sinldng — going, going, ffone—Rvm 
 as a church. 
 
 This was four o'clock ; at six an importunate and officious 
 rap at the open bed-room door awoke me. I start up, and, as 
 a necessary consequence of any movement on the turtle back, 
 roll out of bed. 
 
 " Good morning, sir," said the waiter, eyeing me througli 
 the door with admiration and surprise, belicAing that I usually 
 
 p
 
 210 'cross country. 
 
 got up in that gymnastic way, and with the military prompt- 
 ness of a Wellington. " AYhat will you take for breakfast, 
 sir ?" 
 
 " A roll and an egg. Shut the door," said I, rubbing my 
 shin vexatiously. 
 
 " Bedad, and you have had the roll ali-eady, I think," I heard 
 the impertinently witty fellow say as he shuffled off ; " well, if 
 ever I saw the like of that same." 
 
 " Waiter !" I cried, rushing to the door, " bring me more 
 water." 
 
 " Would you be wanting a tumbler ?" he said, holding his 
 mouth with his hand, and then blowing off the steam with a 
 burst of horse laughter. 
 
 " Waiter (it would not do to appear annoyed) ! have you any 
 mutton chops in the house ?" 
 
 " Well, your honour, Ave have a shin of beef." 
 
 Drat him ! why did he look at the leg that I was holding, 
 and lay such an emphasis on the word shin. 
 
 In half-au-hour I was down. Mary — fie on ye, Mary — the 
 affianced of Tim the waiter, was heaping sods on the fire that 
 already covered both hobs, and rose in a roaring pyramid of 
 flame, which would in England have been thought extravagant 
 in the house of a man with ten thousand a-year. The broiled 
 ham, red and unctuous, came in — the porcelain-shelled egg, 
 the fragrant coffee, the home-made bread, so brown and savoury. 
 I forgot my bed and my martyrdom. I arose and went to the 
 window with that sort of dreaminess and quietude that a bad 
 night produces. The chapel bell was going. The pretty neat 
 country girls Avere passing to church — all was calmness and 
 quiet. Opposite me, under a dead wall, on which was a torn 
 bill announcing 'the sale of a farmer's effects, including the 
 usual " Bai/ mare and piano " — sat Kitty, the old beggar 
 woman, who had been " dark these thirteen years." Slie was 
 crouched up, telling her beads, and mumbling some prayers in 
 a low voice, looking up when she heard a footstep, praying the 
 rich for alms, and giving the poor her blessing gratis, for she 
 knew them both by their voices as they accosted her. I saw 
 no one who did not bestow some mark of recognition.
 
 THE banshee's CASTLE. 211 
 
 That next night we got to Belfost, and tlie next afternoon 
 started for Dublin, Yau2;han and I. 
 
 Belfast Quay. — Three o'clock. — Grey October day, with a 
 dancing, breaking froth to windward, that is ominous. Anxious, 
 buttoned-up men, ask busyiug sailors nautical questions diffi- 
 cult to answer. It was rather rough last night, but on the 
 whole a very good passage — men run about with briny ropes, 
 race up and down the brazen-bound engine-room stairs, or toil 
 about like small Arrowsmith's atlases, with swollen portman- 
 teaus, and strange packages, containing everything, from peri- 
 winkles to air pumps. I look down on the great monster engine, 
 whose lungs seem chronically out of order, and whose tlu'obbing 
 mouth the pale, perspiring stoker feeds and crams so pertina- 
 ciously with shovelfuls of carbon. I go below, and find experi- 
 mental men knotting themselves up in various recumbent 
 attitudes, or trying the smiling steward's bottled porter — I 
 admire the daring men who, till the vessel gets into trouble, 
 turn down the flaps of their travelling caps — light their beaming 
 cigars and pace up and down with the determined air of 
 Sebastian Cabots. But my attention was at once riveted on a 
 horse-box, a sort of square wooden crate, in which, fastened 
 securely up, stood a race horse, whose frightened eye — of 
 which the reddened- white only shows — indicates great alarm. 
 Its guardian was a tight-legged, broad-shouldered, middle-aged 
 groom, in a green shooting jacket, fastened knowingly by only 
 one button at the throat — neck-handlcerchief stamped with white 
 wafers— cheeks, a duU purple, with cold and anxiety ; small, 
 wrinkled, winking eyes, artful, but anxious. Such was my 
 Linna^an definition of the two animals I saw before me. Tlie 
 man left feeding the horse, who takiug the hay, mechanically 
 champed it up, fast and voraciously, and then beat with its 
 front hoofs against the wooden box for more. 
 
 The Yorkshireman with the tight-skinned legs had a re- 
 gular programme, which he repeated, with petulant indifterence, 
 to every questioner. It ran thus : — " Yes, sir, good morning, 
 sir, — quietly, old 'os, quietly. — This is the well-knoA\ni stallion, 
 Ildcrim, sir — almost tliorough bred — by Jiarley Bree out of 
 
 Cherry Pie. Father won the St. Leger — mother won the Oaks. — 
 
 p 2
 
 212 'cross country. 
 
 Quietly, old boy !— don't be friglitened— Bother this small box 
 —he'll hurt his knees — I only wish we was safe on shore ; 
 that's all I wish. — Try a mouthful of hay — the swell frets him 
 go — there, gently, old fellow — I've taken him safely all over 
 Ireland, and now we shall come to grief at last. Drat this old 
 horse-bos ! — There's the wind rising, too, — gently, lad — How 
 long more shall we be, cap'en ?" 
 
 " Why, all the week if the north- west and east-west goes 
 on blowing as it have done, and we have to reef the inain jib- 
 boom, and set the mizzen halliards." 
 
 The Yorkshireman patted the horse and looked dejected. 
 
 But we did at last, after some " sea changes," duly reach Dub- 
 lin-— the fast-asleep city — but whether^ Ilderim and the insuffi- 
 cient horse-box got safe on shore I never heard. 
 
 CHAPTEE XIX. 
 
 THE SEVEN CHTJECHES. 
 
 Not of Asia— but of County "Wicklow. More power to ye ! 
 "Where am I now but in the heart of those mountains that look 
 go blue from Phoenix Park, Dublin. 
 
 A lazy, wild Irish lad brought me to the snug inn, and from 
 there I, with Mike Doolan the guide, had begun my tour of the 
 valley and the mournful lake that mirrors its ruins. There was 
 the old round tower, like a vast factory chimney, and to make 
 it more like, the conical roof was off, and crows were screaming 
 in and out ; then a little stone hut, which was once a church, 
 with a little tower built into it so as to make it look like a 
 kitchen ; then a httle ruined churchyard with many crosses ; 
 then another ruined chapel at the foot of a wood ; and, lastly, 
 up a rock hanging over the lake, the cell of the hermit, whose 
 fame and sanctity led first to this early Christian settlement. 
 
 This is one of the most characteristic and interesting places 
 in Ireland— not more than a day's journey from a large city, 
 yet wild ae the recesses of Horeb or of Sinai. The lake, inky
 
 THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 213 
 
 dark, is girt by bare, stony mountaius, that run down steep 
 into it wild and grassless. Here, to the site of the old fire wor- 
 ship of the Druids, came the hermit, the friend of Columbkill, 
 to burrow in the rock and pray and meditate far from man 
 and man's sins ; and here, to his grave, sprang up a seat of 
 learning and religion that made an Eden of this lonely valley 
 — that the Danes and English over and over again burnt and 
 ravaged, and now time, more ruthless than Dane or Saxon, 
 laid waste. As good men as ever knelt to God rest under these 
 seven cliurches, imder the light shadow of these ash trees, and 
 imder the rude stones in the churchyards, where the beggars 
 now sit and coimt their beads. 
 
 The vales of Laragh, Clara, and Glendalough meet here in 
 a lone wilderness, where, hundreds of years ago, the hermit 
 Kevin came to seek God and shun man. It is a place for 
 mountain goblins and witches' dances ; Great Britain has not 
 a sterner place. Elijah, wheu fed by the ravens, had never a 
 stonier, drearier home than this, with its dark, deep sullen 
 lake, walled in by its barren rainy mountains. On these peaks 
 of Derrybawn, Lugduff, and MuUacup, the saint's eyes rested 
 in the intervals of prayer. This strange round tower he 
 ascended ; in this lake he fished or swam ; in this hut of a church 
 he prayed and mused ; in this scooped-out hole in the rock he 
 read the gospels and thought of the blessed apostle at Patmos. 
 Here wild men in wolf skins came to hear him. Here met 
 kings with yellow mantles and war axes, and knelt before the 
 cross he upraised, for tliis was one of the starting-places of 
 Irish Christianity. 
 
 That night, in the Glendalough Inn, by a white hot, fierce 
 fire, and with our whisky tumblers smoking before us, I and 
 Darcy, the reporter of a Dublin paper, who had been attending 
 an inquest on a murdered landlord in the neighbourhood of 
 
 , had a warm discussion upon the traits of dill'erence 
 
 in the English and Irish character. 
 
 "Well," said I, throwing on a lump of peat, "Mr. Darcy, I 
 suppose Ireland is now prosperous — at least, so your papers say." 
 
 " Pretty well for that," said Darcy, and looking at his face 
 as it elongated itself in the bowl of his spoon.
 
 214 'cross country. 
 
 " Pretty well !" said I; " why, you have drenched your green 
 island with landlords' blood, and the only proprietors you have 
 spared have been the absentees. Tou have had a healthy, 
 hungry famine ; a hearty fever has thinned down your redun- 
 dant population, according to strict political economist prin- 
 ciples ; and having been further bled and sapped by the departure 
 of so many thousands of your strongest, richest, and happiest 
 peasantry, Ireland is now, according to smirking diplomatists, 
 declared to be ' most flourishing.' God help England from 
 that sort of flourishing." 
 
 " You're right, sure," said Darc}^, filling his glass ; " you 
 might as well congratulate an apoplectic man on the fine colom* 
 in his cheeks, or a dropsical man on his stoutness — unfeeling 
 spalpeens. So you found us hospitable ?" 
 
 " Indeed I have," said I, " almost carelessly generous, and, 
 without any cold-blooded class pride ; we English do a kind- 
 ness, as you put out money to intex'est, not throwing it away 
 on pleasant strangers, or for mere caprices of good humour ; but 
 you are an excitable people ; I will give you three instances of it. 
 The first night I arrived in Dublin, having admired and walked 
 round the great black Bank, and the old houses of Parliament, 
 and the stately domed customhouse, having passed by its river 
 moat, and its thicket of lance-pointed masts, flags, and brown 
 banners of weather-coloured sails, ha^ing circumnavigated 
 Merrion Square, admired the curious coal-carts, Avith their Avag- 
 gling bells, and the rakish-looking, disreputable cheap hearses, 
 with the dirty white plumes ; having waded through tlie 
 Libei'ty, visited Swift's monument, and performed other reK- 
 gious ceremonies of the Saxon, I went at night for a recreation 
 to a grand concert at the Eotunda. Eound the same full of 
 black eyes — natural ones I mean, those who entered contrasting 
 favourably with the selfish, boorish English crowds, who too 
 often jostle for places. 
 
 " The concert began ; Miss Elvina somebody, in white muslin, 
 sang something in Italian, aU about ' Crudel, perfido.' She 
 finished, and curtsied as she i^etired. To my utter astonish- 
 ment a row of thorough gentlemen behind me gave a whoop of 
 applause, more worthy of Donnybrook fair, I thought, than
 
 THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 215 
 
 the stalls of a concert room. I attributed it to ill-regulated 
 spirits, aud forgot it. The next niglit I went to the Theatre 
 Eoyal ; to my utter surprise, when a favourite actor was called 
 on the stage, after the success of the first piece, the whole house 
 gave just the same sort of yell I had heard in the concert-room ; 
 and iiot only this, but in the farce, when one of the actors 
 fell into the orchestra, as he did every night at the same hour, 
 every one present not only gave a yell, but leaped upon the 
 seats with an excitability that no real event could produce in 
 the more stolid Saxon mind. I assm-e you that the Shoreditcli 
 Theatre, on Boxing night, could not equal the noise of the 
 gallery boys in the Dublin Tlieatre any day in the week. An 
 Irishman's blood is champagne aud fire." 
 
 Darcy smoked and listened — I went on. 
 
 " I'll give you another instance of what struck me as a proof 
 of your universal pugnacity. Last Mondaj'^ I was on my way 
 from Bray to Dublin by train, I amused '^myself by watching 
 the green whale back of a headland melt into the blue of ob- 
 livion, when a jerk of stopping aroused me from my musings. 
 It was Bally brag, a quiet little place as need be, mth its little 
 cottage of a station, and its level stone terraces; when I passed 
 it two months before, it might liave been a station for Drowsy- 
 land ; now, it was up in arms, crowded with eager faces, and 
 pugilistic, combative-looking passengers, who had poured out of 
 a train that stood alongside, of ours, as if preparing to board 
 us. Every eye flashed, every fist clenched, every arm worlced 
 as if the biceps could not rest, and was longing to set inaction 
 the flexors and extensors. Prom the guard, with the whistle 
 round his neck like a cliild's coral, down to a clergyman — a 
 rural dean, in snow-white neckclotli and spotless grave black 
 clothes — every fist shook and nioved,^every eye glared. 
 
 " ' Wliat is the matter ?' said I, to a porter. 
 
 " ' Matter,' said lie, ' the station master lias just cauglit two 
 Dublin men and a dog trespassing on the line, just squint by 
 the tunnel, he's bringing them along by the collar, single-handed. 
 Hurrah for him.' 
 
 '"Whoop for him,' said the rural dean, aud we all gave a 
 yell worthy of Brian Boru's days.
 
 216 'cross country. 
 
 " ' I saw theii" arms up as we passed,' said a lady next to me, 
 as much interested in the fray as if she had been Mrs. 
 Bellona." 
 
 Darcy laughed, and said, rocking himself in the chair, " It's 
 true, it's true — vre do like a scrimmage, it warms the blood, 
 and prevents spiteful things rankling. I am always afraid of 
 your professing Pharisee. I always notice he has some mean 
 way of taking it out of you, if he wait even ten years for 
 his chance. Forgive, but knock him down first, and forgive 
 him afterwards, or else you'll have to be knocked down, and 
 then have to forgive him, which is much harder on the ould 
 Adam." 
 
 " The next day after Bray," said I, laughing, " I went to 
 Howth, climbed the hill, and crossed to the Eye." 
 
 " Of course," said Darcy, " and went to see where the villain 
 murdered his wife, a shilling a piece more for that. Nobody 
 cared for the Eye before that." 
 
 " Well," said I, " and a rare tumbling, see-saw pull we had 
 from the pier to the island. ' Is it going to the Eye you are ?' 
 had said a brown-faced, amphibious fellow, carrying wet 
 strings and flakes of sea-weed to burn for kelp ; ' it's too wild, 
 and it will be rougher yet, if the Lord will.' But I am of tLe 
 bull-dog breed, and alwaj's do a thing if I'm told it is difficult ; 
 so I went and talked to a disappointed-looking Peter who had 
 been toiling all night and caught nothing but a small, ugly, 
 large-headed, dog-fish, which he was going to cut down the 
 back, trim and fry for dinner. We agreed for three shillings, 
 and got a lame-footed fellow, who steered, while I took the heavy 
 sixteen-foot oar we had borrowed fi'om a smack in the har- 
 bour. ' That's a man to take a glass of grog without help,' said 
 Peter, pointing to his mate aj)provingly. Peter's conversation 
 was laconic and ejaculatory. He talked of increasing the fare, 
 because the wind was so high and the pull so hard. I cut him 
 in two with an angry negative, and bade him keep to his bar- 
 gain. ' Sure,' said he, ' we're poor, but we're honest.' He 
 pointed to a screaming, whirling gull over our head, and 
 talked of his trade. He usually Avent out a mile to sea, and 
 baited with whelks for cod and haddock. If they were blown out
 
 THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 217 
 
 further there was no land to put into nearer than Holyhead. 
 He showed me where George IV. landed. ' But that,' said he, 
 'was before you came to these countries,' (a metaphorical 
 way of expressing a time before my Anno Dominis began). 
 "FishJTig was an uncertain life ; sometimes days of dearth, then 
 a great catch and plenty galore for a time. The great hauls 
 were not great profits ; because too large a catch reduced the 
 price, and witli the price fell the fislierman's profit. Howth, 
 they told me, Avas a great place till Kingstown sprang up, after 
 George lY.'s -^-isit. Tlie Eye was where St. Frennau built his 
 chapel ; the small, round bell tower still stands, and the bramble 
 throws its strong arches about over the altar. I saw the Stags 
 and the Eowan rock, scurried the deer over the slopes, and saw 
 the wares beating the transformed ThuUa. When I got out of 
 the boat to land, Peter shouted after me, holding my umbrella, 
 ' Here's your parasol, sir.' That was his joke at my being 
 afraid of rain. 
 
 " jSTever believe an Irishman's feigned ignorance ; he was only 
 lauKhinjr at me. What struck me most about Dublin Avas the 
 provincial character ; its Mullingar canal, lined with trees ; its 
 suburbs of cots, made of clay, whitewashed, and its black-peat 
 stacks on the Drogheda road ; its transitions from Sackville 
 Street to the Liberty, from its Grafton Street shops to the 
 sheds, witli fresli sprigs of heather stuck in the new dry peat 
 loads ; its highly-coloured pictures of saints in the window ; its 
 large Protestant churches and humble chapels: its lamplit 
 apple-stalls, and its crowds of sea-gulls, foraging up the noisome, 
 dark Liffey, that unarched sewer." 
 
 " Wellj if it is a sewer, you needn't be too hard upon it ; 
 even a sewer has feelings, I suppose," said Darcy, as he rose for 
 bed. We arranged before we parted that night, my second visit 
 to the churches on the morrow ; he himself had to be off by 
 the first mail car. I arose the next morning an hour after he 
 had knocked at my door, and wished me good by ; dressed — 
 took a hasty brealcfast, and started with Mike, the guide. We 
 began with a short car trip. 
 
 " That mountain foment you is the Three Crowns, and that 
 bit of a hill to the left is Kit of Galloway ; she was either a
 
 218 'cross country. 
 
 great queen or a great witch, and liad that mountain all to her- 
 self for a kitchen garden." 
 
 That's what the Kingstown carman talked about, but here 
 on the 'Wicklow mountain roads the talk is all about the Sugar 
 Loaf, and the Scalp, and the Gap o'Crockan, and Derrybawn, to 
 say nothing of Louglmaquilla, Croughanmoira, and Blackmoore. 
 " He's as supple as a buck," said Mike the driver, as he 
 pointed out these great hills, referring to a stonemason from 
 Pembroke dockyard, who kept leaping off the car, and racing 
 up the hill in sheer wantonness of health and strength, much 
 to the annoyance of a quiet fellow, his companion, who sat be- 
 side me. The one was a stone-dresser, and the other a stone- 
 setter, though the first could also set, and the latter also dress, 
 stone when times were bad. The one was a wild, handsome 
 looking fellow, in a blue cotton-velvet cap, new black coat, and 
 showy waistcoat ; while his friend wore the plain, honest fustian 
 shooting-coat and worn cord breeches of his every-day trade. 
 He was learned in hard and soft stone, and criticized every wall 
 we came to ; he told me of the various diseases of the eye and 
 lungs that the soft-stone men experienced, and that the hard- 
 stone men escaped. He was prosy and diffuse on the black 
 eyes and decent behaviour of the Pembroke lasses ; he told me 
 of the fights and jealousies of the Welsh and Irish, and ha- 
 rangued upon the old castle where " Henry I.," as he would have 
 it, was born. Behind him, in the car, was his bimdle, tied up 
 in a red handkerchief, with his stone hammer tucked in the knot. 
 
 " I'm glad I've put down those women," said the ungallant 
 Mike ; " I'd sooner have a load of wheat any day than a load 
 of women." 
 
 " It is not every one," said the buck in the blue cap, "that 
 can get rid of them as easily.' " 
 
 " Thrue to you," says Mike ; " but here's your place— look 
 sharp. Thank you ; good morning. Whist ! That's a wild 
 one," said Mike, giving a valedictory look after blue-cap. 
 
 " Do you think they escape colds by going without stock- 
 ings?" said I,as a quantity of bare-footed children passed by. "It 
 must kiU the weak ones, and leave only the strong to grow up." 
 
 " Listen to me," said Mike, pointing to a steep mountain,
 
 THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 219 
 
 " hare feet never slip, that's our Irish saying ; the hare foot 
 wants uo shoeing, and the same soles lasts us out." 
 
 The only persons now on the car were a land agent and a 
 farmery-looking nian fresh from Australia. The land agent 
 was a nervous, muffled-up man, who seemed in a perpetual state 
 of masquerade, with a comfoi'ter round his throat, and his hat 
 drawn over his eyes. His views of Irish politics were practi- 
 cal, hut not sympathising. He approved of emigration. " Draft 
 off all your surplus population." " Get rid of all your super- 
 fluous motiths." " Enlarge your farms, and get more respon- 
 sible tenants." 
 
 " But this dread of your life must be painful ?" 
 " It was at first," said he, " but one gets accustomed to it. 
 I have had my life attempted three times. AVhen I began I 
 used to think how dreadful it must be to watch every stone 
 wall as you rode along for the spurt of fire and the pale face ; 
 but I thinlv nothing of it now, for these crimes grow scarce." 
 
 "But there was a murder in Tipperary last week," said 
 I. " A barricade was set across the road to stop the land- 
 lord's gig : and, when it stopped, a man rau up, blew out the 
 driver's brains, and whipped the horse back to the house. The 
 gig passed back through Templemore with the dead body lying 
 on the seat, a dreadful sight." 
 
 " Don't talk about it," said the agent, " I am just going my 
 Tipperary round : but still these crimes are now few ; rents are 
 higher, and are regularly paid. The famine made Ireland pros- 
 perous." 
 
 " The famine," said I, " was a dreadful cautery for a dreadful 
 ulcer. Last week I was in Donegal. I drove on a cold Sunday 
 morning rightfrom Londonderry to Lough Swilly with a pleasant, 
 witty fellow, and his trunk and fishing-rod. It was a long, cold 
 drive ; and when we got to the bare, wild, pebbly shores of the 
 lake, we had to go up to a hill and burn a bundle of hay as a 
 signal for a boat. We then hoisted a flag to tell the man on 
 the opposite side to send for a car, and waited on the rough 
 stone pier, where the little waves washed and rippled, till the big 
 clumsy boat came tacking across and bore my friend out of sight." 
 " Well, who was he, your honour?" said Mike.
 
 220 'cross country. 
 
 "Why, a laud agent and attorney, from Cork — sent [for 
 by a Scotcli farmer just over Lougli Swilly, who has just 
 had a thousand sheep destroyed last year by the peasantry, 
 who won't allow him to settle there ; they kill his lambs, carry 
 off his sheep, and no one is detected. If I had raised my hand 
 then they'd have flung him in the Lough, for the sea birds 
 to scream over ; but I didn't, for I suppose even an attorney 
 has claims as a man." 
 
 To my siu'prise the agent went on to take the popular side of 
 the question, andrecounted many stories of landlords and tenants, 
 and their forgetfulness of the love of the Irish for the soil. His 
 whole endeavour Avas now, he said, to induce men to emigrate. 
 All this was uttered in a low voice, with frequent interruptions 
 and looking round. The next time I saw my friend he was 
 perched on the top of a coach, with a travelling cap's flaps 
 drawn over his ears. He looked the very image of a suspicious 
 spy, risliing his life for small gains and mean purposes. Yet 
 he talked of foreign tours, and seemed in dress to be a gentleman. 
 
 As for the returned Australian, he was a burly elderly man, 
 with sorrowful eye and a compressed mouth. He was dressed 
 well, and wore a thick, curly wool waistcoat of pure Australian 
 make. He had been ten years away and seemed stunned by 
 the changes he saw. 
 
 " I wouldn't live in Ireland now for five-hundred pounds a- 
 year," he said. " The potatoes are grown smaller, everything 
 is^changed, (yes, may be better) ; but I vvaut to get away." 
 
 Australian. Is Doolan of the Bawn dead ? 
 
 Mike. Yes, and his son too. 
 
 Australian. "What ! Tim, the soldier ? 
 
 MiJce. The same. 
 
 Thus they went on till every recollection was demolished. 
 This friend was bankrupt, that dead. He was eloquent about 
 stringy bark trees, kangaroo soup, bush-rangers, 'possum-traps, 
 gold cradles, &c. There was something sad and complaining- 
 about his eyes, which was strangely in contrast with his well- 
 to-do dress and self-conscious air of prosperity. He wanted 
 to get back : all he wanted was to get back — Ireland had no- 
 thing for him now ; but he should take back a broad sod from
 
 THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 221 
 
 the old coiuitiy to cover liim with in liis grave iu liia new liome. 
 "WTien I saw that agent, whose head loolvcd alwavs duckiucr 
 from bullets, who seemed shrunk and thin, as if he had just 
 been pumped on to cool him after a bating, and when I saw 
 that rich Irishman in the Australian wool waistcoat, and with 
 a pocket-fidl of the newest gold of our antipodes, and yet with 
 a heart gro-mi cold to the old mother countiy, I thought to 
 myself here I see two types of the miseries of this dear laud — 
 the exile and the agent ; the exile who has forgotten his native 
 land, and the agent who never cared for it. 
 
 " But, good heavens, Mike," said I, "what's that?" seeing 
 wliat seemed like Cleopatra's needle rising before me. 
 
 " Wliy, bless your honour, that's the round tower of Glen- 
 dalough, one of the wonders of Ireland. There's nothing now 
 in it, you see, but the squall crows that come in and out, for 
 a storm has blown off the top," (he assumes a look of awful 
 deliberation, stops and points with his whip.) "There has been 
 a great dicision about them round towers among the rantiqua- 
 rians. Now I've seen eighteen of them towers, and never saw 
 one that wasn't near a church. Some think they were belfries ; 
 others that they were watch towers ; a few that they were for 
 fireworks, and such like, in honour of Baal. But if they were 
 for signals, what I say is, why wasn't they built on that hill 
 yonder, and not here in a hollow, where nothing can be seen 
 but the rocks ? If for sun worship, why not on the hills, where 
 the sun is seen long before it touches the valley ? Now wait 
 awhile, your honour." 
 
 " Then, Mike," said I, " as you doubt everything, what were 
 they ?" 
 
 "Belfries, your honour, divil a thing else — begging St. 
 Kevin's pardon. Look at St. Kevin's kitchen, and you'll see 
 the belfry : for what the people, as ignorant as the childer, call 
 the chimney, is nothing more than a round tower, witli a little 
 chapel built on to it. Now I've been up tliis one, and I can 
 find no traces of stairs, or of beams for the bell ; so that it 
 must have been only for defence for the women and valuables, 
 when the Danes came up to the valley. [Sings.]
 
 222 'cross country. 
 
 " And if yoii come on any day 
 
 'Twixt twelve and one o'clock, 
 Wliy, there you'll see the geese may be, 
 
 On the lake of Glendalough." 
 
 " Why, what's that song about, Mike ?" said I, much amused. 
 
 "About, your honour? why, about King O'Toole being 
 changed into a gander, with his seven sons, because he didn't 
 keep his promise to the blessed St. Kevin ; but here's the Grlen- 
 dalough guide." 
 
 The guide was waiting for me. The guide, Eegan, was a lean, 
 wild, hungiy-looking fellow, scantily dressed, and with red, 
 bare feet. I slided about the splashes of bog, but he made 
 clean leaps, and effected a steady picked-out progress. 
 
 "We got into some hillocky, greasy ground round the cathe- 
 dral and St. Kevin's kitchen ; two small stone chapels, now 
 ruins, about twenty feet long, the roofs formed of stone shingles. 
 
 "This is the ancientest of the seven churches," he said • 
 " there used to be service here even a few years ago ;" a few 
 yards off is a lai'ge slab of stone, with a round scooped hole 
 in it, as if it had been used by the monks for a font. There is 
 a legend about a poor widow with a sick child, who met the 
 saint here one day as he came from his cell up in the cliff over 
 the lake, and begged him for milk. He instantly sent her 
 down a milch hind, whose milk the widow poured into the 
 stone cup. 
 
 " That was a great miracle, your honour," said Dan, winking, 
 (cross about us). " This is the stone that's worn away with the 
 albow of the ould woman, as she sat waiting for the milk St. 
 Kevin promised her, and here's where her fingers went " 
 (pointing to five small indentures, with a cunning leer, seeing 
 me incredulous, and wishing to show himself to a Protestant 
 above superstition) ; " and sure I ought to know, for didn't I 
 chisel them myself?" 
 
 " It's only a quern," said I, to try him, " where the women 
 used to bruise the com before handmills became common." 
 
 " Thrue to you, your honour, but I never give it them so at 
 all. They miist have the fine stories, so I makes them fresh 
 and fresh. I hope it won't rain, your honour, for when it rains
 
 THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 223 
 
 liere, it manes it. The round tower you see there is one hundred 
 and ten feet tall, and fifty-one feet in circumbendibus ; it's 
 built all of granite, for the slate in it is not worth men- 
 tioning. There are two windows near the door, and four more 
 near the top. The story is, that the Druid used to go up every 
 morning, and when he saw the sun rise in the horizon, then he 
 took otf his hat and bawled out ' Baal !" north, south, east and 
 west. It must have given him an appetite for his breakfiist : ' 
 but, the haythens, they had no tay, and what's brealdast with- 
 out tay? [Sings.] 
 
 " Saint Eeviii says to King O'Toole, 
 
 I do not Ycant to wander ; 
 So give to me, foi' a little see, 
 
 As far as flies the gandther." 
 
 " Do you like peat better than coal, Dan ?" said I. 
 " "Well, it's no cheaper, and takes some trouble to light," 
 said Dan ; " but there's no smoke, and we thinks it agrees 
 better with us. Now, your honour. Trinity church and its 
 high round tower, you passed at Laragh and St. Saviour's 
 Abbey, makes the last of the seven churches." 
 
 AVell, thought I, here I am in the centre of Irish tradition. 
 Lough Dan, yesterday morning, where Holt used to lurk, and 
 Anamoe, where Stern fell through the mill-race ; then Castle 
 Kevin, on the green, once Pierce Gavestou'p,and where afterAvards 
 the O'Tooles, the great clans of Wicklow, lived to fight and 
 fought to live : now Grieudalough — the treeless, grey, stony 
 valley, where the dark Gleneoloe feeds St. Kevin's lake ; to- 
 morrow Avoca, where the sweet waters meet, and Kathdrum, 
 where the chiefs used to assemble. Here I was, in the Irish 
 lona, where, in the dark, bloody times, St. Kevin the companion 
 of Columbkill, came, between the two lakes, to lead a lioly 
 life. Here Kathleen tempted him, and here he pushed her into 
 the lake. 
 
 " Ah ! you saints Lave cruel hearts, 
 
 Sternly from bis bed he starts, 
 
 And, with rude, repulsive shock, 
 
 Hurls licr from the beetling rock. 
 
 Glcndalough, thy stormy wave 
 
 Soon was gentle Kathleen's grave."
 
 224 'cross country. 
 
 Eound that hermit's grave sprang tip a cathedral, a city, and 
 a seminary of learning. Burnt down several times by the Danes , 
 and rebuilt, it was then destroyed by a flood; and finally, when 
 restored, fired by the invading English, who the Irish, then in 
 vain, wished to become absentees. Here are stone crosses to be 
 seen, and ruined chapels and abbeys, and burial groiinds, and a 
 round tower, and the lake where St. Patrick shut up the last 
 serpent (not priestcraft), and the lake where Kathleen of the 
 blue eyes and the honey breath perished ; last of all, there is 
 the hermit's bed and the outlaws' den. 
 
 True the seven churches are very poor, the crosses mere 
 blocks of almost shapeless stone, the lake but a black pool ; the 
 round tower a factory chimney with no smoke coming out, and 
 the saint's bed a mere crevice in the rock ; but then, a glass or 
 two of whisky fires the imagination, and what with a song, and 
 a climb, and a row, and a little discussion, by the time you get 
 to St. Kevin's Bed, you are ready to believe the yarns of Sin- 
 bad the Sailor, or anything else. 
 
 Dan (in the cathedral) said to me (his victim) — " This is 
 very ancient and antique, but it has been pulled about by fellows 
 mining for treasure. It was all built during the Pagan perse- 
 cution and war. This cross was the monument of St. Laurence 
 O'Toole." He and the saint were great friends. 
 " Did they take their tay together ?" 
 
 " Sure they did ; and their beer too, which is a trifle 
 stronger, as you read in the old writers." 
 
 Leaving the grey turrets of the seven churches and their 
 scattered burial-places, we got into a sort of plantation, through 
 which we saw St. Saviour's Abbey, half hidden by mossy ash 
 trees whose slight leaves flickered round the broken walls. To 
 the left, a mountain stream poured down, sliding, sli]Dpiug, 
 trickling, and crushing past tree trunks, and over flat slabs of 
 rock and giant stepping stones ; " like running whisky," said 
 Dan, as he tripped before me to show the way. 
 
 "And divil a lark," said Dan, " is ever seen over the blessed 
 lake, more by token, yoiu' honour, there's a story about it. 
 Some say that as they had no repaters in them days, St. Kevin 
 taught the skylarks to wake the men who builded the churches.
 
 THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 225 
 
 "Well, when the last nail was put in, says St. Kevin, ' As no 
 birds will ever be your aquels, there shall be no more larks 
 seen over Glendalough ;' and the ha'porth of a one there has 
 been since, so he spoke true, if no one else ever did." 
 
 " I have heard a difterent story, Dan," said I. 
 
 '' The landlord told me the mason men swore to the saints to 
 get up with the lark and lie down with the lamb ; to be dacent 
 people, as the O'Byrne's kith and kin always were ; but the 
 larks rose so unconscionably early, that the men didn't get 
 their natural sleep, and so many died, that the saint, in sheer 
 compassion, at last, issued a proclamation that no lark shoidd 
 sino- acain near the Seven Churches, and so he saved the men's 
 oaths and their liA^es too." 
 
 "jS'ow," said Dan, "I've shown you the sacristy, where all 
 the clargy are buried, and where any one who is lucky enough 
 to lie, seciu-es a snug berth in heaven ; and you've heard all 
 about poor Kathleen with the blue eyes, who followed St. 
 Kevin, praying to look at his shadow, or to hear if it was biit 
 the call of his voice. All she wanted was to be like a dog at 
 his feet, to take penance for his sins as well as her own, and 
 even in prayer to remember him before herself— everywhere 
 she followed him till he took to that hole in the rock. E\eu 
 here she followed him : and when he awoke on his hard bed, 
 her blue eyes were always watching him, with the tears frozen 
 in them, like rain-drops on a spinach leaf. You've heard lastly 
 how the saint leaped up, and what does he do, but push poor 
 Kathleen in the lake." 
 
 All this time we had been paddling a boat along the lake, 
 whose waters lay sullen under our keel. 
 
 " Here we are," said Dan, " and yonder is the path where 
 Kathleen came down for the last time to St. Kevin. Leap out 
 on tliat ledge of rock, and take care you don't slip." 
 
 I looked up, and saw a shelving wall of rock, scarped and 
 smooth ; stubbed with heather tufts here and there. 
 
 " There is no way here," said I, " for me, whatever there was 
 for Kathleen." 
 
 " Aisy, be aisy," said Dan ; " put your first foot in this hole, 
 and your fingers in this slit ; now your foot in that broken
 
 226 'cross country. 
 
 biTsb, and your fingers in tliis corner rock — that's it ; tliere, 
 now your foot on tliat round block, and your fingers on tliat 
 ledge, and swing yourself in. This is St. Kevin's bed. Now, 
 tell the saint your best wishes, and maybe you'll get tliem." 
 
 I found myself jammed in a little cave — a regular smugglers' 
 den, twenty feet sheer perpendicular over the sullen lake. 
 That is poor Kathleen's grave — mournful, lonely; no fisli 
 springing, no bird flying, no tree growing on the bank. At the 
 end was a ledge for the saint's head. 
 
 " Why, what are you laughing at, Dan," said I, " cooped up 
 in this oven of a place ?" 
 
 " Ton may call it an oven," said Dan, "for it is here I make 
 my bread. What's your Christian name, your honour ? 
 Maybe you'd like it wrote up here on the rock. AVill you 
 have it chiselled or whitewashed ? Chiselled, a shilling ; wash, 
 sixpence. Wash rubs out. Many a shilKng I've chiselled 
 the rowlers out of Here's Sir Walter Scott, you see ; and 
 here's Mr. Tommy Moore, and Lady Morgan." 
 
 " Thank you," said I, " but how shall I know you ever write 
 it ? What do you do in the winter, Dan, wben tbe tourists 
 cease ?" 
 
 Said Dan, " I sit at borne, and invent lies to amuse them in 
 the summer ; and when I've done that, I go to Liverpool, and 
 get work at the stone-masing. But the truth is — (encouraged 
 by my fee) — 
 
 " This King O'Toole, bedad no fool. 
 Had sons and daughters seven ; 
 To swans and geese, each one of these 
 Was turned by good St. Kevin. 
 
 The king had sworn by crown and hose 
 
 To give him land and holdings ; 
 
 If the old blackguard had been feathered and tarred. 
 
 It might have stopped liis scoldings." 
 
 With a shout from Dan, to rouse the ghostly echoes, we 
 turned back to the inn. 
 
 The next day I started for England.
 
 TALES IN AN INN-KITCHEN. 227 
 
 CHAPTEE XX. 
 
 TALES ijf a:?^ INN-KITCHEK". 
 
 'TwAS after a long day's ride that, on a January sunset, I leapt 
 from my horse at the door of a small inn, in a village between 
 Eoss and Monmouth. 
 
 I had been struck at a distance with its sign, which, glisten- 
 ing in the setting sun, like a golden shield, looked like that 
 wayside summons for a feat of arms Avhich in the old days was 
 hunsr forth as a beacon to the errant knight. A shock-headed 
 ostler, with bowed legs, shambled out to take my horse to its 
 stable, while I, parting company with him for the first time for 
 six hours, followed the landlord, who waddled before me, into 
 the iani's best room. I fairly shook with cold when I cast my 
 eyes round tlie gloomy and tawdry faneral-plume splendour of 
 the large cavern, in whose grate a newly-lit fire crackled and 
 spitted. 
 
 " There's a better fire in our Ivitchen, sir," said the landlord, 
 apologetically and inquiringly ; " but, of course, you wouldn't 
 like to go there." 
 
 " I'll go there with all my heart," I replied, "if I shall not 
 intrude on your other guests," my last spark of pride com- 
 pletely extinguished by the cheerful hum of voices and the 
 merry laugh that came in fitful gusts thi-ough the opened door, 
 and was followed by a deep lull. 
 
 " AVe've no one there, sii'," he said, " but old AVatson — who, 
 I dare say, you know — old Watson, who drove the Eoss coach, 
 and our village blacksmith and schoolmaster — worthy people 
 all. Follow me, sir ;" and with the patronising air of a cicerone, 
 or rather of an old hen introducing her last chicken to the world, 
 he led me into the bar, and drew a seat for me to the fire, 
 which blazed up as brightly as if it had absorbed all the flames 
 of the whole village into one roaring furnace. 
 
 I did my best to look companionable and to "the manner 
 born," but there was a smell of cold air about me that jarred 
 with that mirth, — there was a lull. The landlord filled his 
 pipe — the blacksmith eyed the fire as he would his smithy — 
 
 q 2
 
 228 'cross country. 
 
 tlie sclioolmaster whispered in an under-tone to tlie coacli- 
 
 man — 
 
 "Do you ever," I said, addressing tlie blacksmitli, "find any 
 traces of tlie old battles in these parts ?" 
 
 "Aye, sir, that we do; flint axes and swords of rough 
 
 forging 
 
 "And you forget, friend Jenkins, the skeleton discovered 
 some twenty years ago," said the schoolmaster, with an air of 
 authority, " in a cleft of a rock overhanging the Wye." 
 " How was that r" said I. 
 
 " It was found by some quarrymen in a small cave, the aper- 
 ture of which seemed hardly big enough for a rabbit to get 
 through. It was the skeleton of a large man: one bony hand 
 still clutched a spear, the shaft of which had fallen to ashes 
 centuries ago ; the legs were drawn up convulsively, as if the 
 soldier had died of famine. He must have crept there like a 
 hunted fox for shelter. Some say he was one of Vortigern's 
 army — yet this seems a baseless fancy ; but certain it is that it 
 must have been some British chief who fled hither during the 
 wars that ended in his nation being driven across the frontier, 
 and leaving behind him the beautiful land, with its winding 
 river and its wooded hills, on which Caractacus had struggled 
 for freedom — leaving behind him those mysterious stones on 
 wnieh the rites of his religion had been performed." 
 
 " You seem deep read," I said, " in the traditions of this 
 county." 
 
 " I'm half a "Welshman," said the schoolmaster, " and my 
 mother, Lucy Grrifiiths, was of a good stock, and claimed 
 descent from a royal tribe ; but, as I was a-going to say, this 
 chieftain— for so he must have been — was perhaps wounded 
 here, for there are still signs of a camp, as there are indeed, 
 either Eoman or British, on all these river hills ; and from these 
 watch-hills a beacon flame would have been seen almost to the 
 mountains of Abergavenny." 
 
 " How they could have lived, poor critturs," said the land- 
 lord, " and fought, without a glass or two of humming ale, I 
 can't imagine, for they tell me they only drank a liquor 
 brewed from heath mixed with honey."
 
 TALES IN AN INN-KITCHEN. 229 
 
 " And their iron," said the blacksmith, " was such stuff as 
 I'd be ashamed to hammer on a stitliy." 
 
 "They beat the Eomans with it," said I; " that's more 
 than most men could do with better weapons, and their scythed 
 chariots made dreadful chasms in the rank of the spearmen." 
 
 " Vos them ei'e chariots," said the coachman, taking his 
 pipe from his mouth, and for the first time breaking the silence, 
 " anything like a chariot von sees now turned out ?" 
 
 " iNot at all," said I, with difficulty repressing a smile ; 
 '• they hadn't yet learnt the art of linking four spanking tits to 
 one A'ehicle." 
 
 " Aye, that vos reserved to a more henlightened age," said 
 the coachman, refilling his pipe, and borrowing a spark of Pro- 
 metliean flame from his friend, the landlord, who, overcome 
 with disgust at the " salvages" who were ignorant of beer, had 
 now di'opped aside from the conversation. 
 
 There was a momentary hush, for at this instant the storm, 
 which the pale sunset had foreboded, seemed to bm-st forth at this 
 moment with all its fury upon the earth — a blast, fiercer than 
 its brethren, struck the inn, and shook it as a vessel might 
 when smitten by a head sea. We drew closer round our 
 hearth the more it seemed threatened by the wind that howled 
 deep thunder down its chimney. It seemed muttering up aloft 
 as if a wliirlwind Avas plaiming a descent that way, but was 
 driven back by the stings of flame that went roaring and shout- 
 ing up the black orifice. It shook the shuttered window as if 
 enraged at tlie festivity within, unfitting so Avild and chaotic a 
 night. It went moaning down the street and througli the 
 churchyard, like the spirit of departed villagers revisiting their 
 homes on some Purgatorial holiday. The village constable, 
 who entered, after slowly disentangling himself of piles of 
 clothing, and vmswathing himself of bandages of comforters, 
 like a revivified mummy, seating himself by the fire, said 
 "it was a night in which no dog, much less a Cliristian, should 
 be out in. It wasn't a night for a decent parish constable to 
 be abroad," he said, " so he had come to keep the peace among 
 his neighbours." 
 
 This small joke being much applauded, the landlord pro-
 
 230 'cross country. 
 
 posed a bowl of rum-puncL, wliicli he made, and ladled fortli with 
 the air of a monarch to a band of perfectly contented subjects. 
 The constable proposed that the schoolmaster should tell a tale, 
 to which proposal, after much pressing, he acceded. 
 
 " As we've been talking of Britons of the old times, I'll tell 
 you the story of David Thomas, the one-eyed cobbler, and how 
 from a drunken vagabond he became a thriving farmer, which 
 seems to spring very naturally from our conversation. I 
 was quite a boy when David Tliomas came from Caernarvon- 
 shire and settled here, but he never got on, for he spent half 
 his time paddling about in a coi-acle, and the other half in this 
 kitchen. He was a clever, shrewd fellow, and did nothing 
 badly but cobbling. He was a good fisherman, knew every 
 stone in the river, swam like a duck, was shrewdly suspected 
 of poaching, could snare any animal from a mouse to a badger, 
 played the fiddle, and, in fact, was the minstrel at every merry 
 meeting in the two counties. He was the idol of all the boys 
 of the village, of whom he had always a tale, soliciting him for 
 whistles, imploring him for mole traps, or bartering with him 
 for rude Pandean pipes. He had the entry of every house, for 
 he was the self-circulating newspaper of the village ; and when 
 Boney's battles were toward, he used to read to a congregation 
 every day more numerous and far more awake than ever girded 
 round the pulpit of our minister. He had always a sly joke 
 for the maidens — some allusion from an old Welsh poet, for he 
 was a great reader of the Bards, or some kind word of praise 
 of their absent lovers that sent a blush mantling up to their 
 cheeks, and presenting you in the short space of two moments 
 with the white and the red rose, shifting into hues diftering, 
 and yet alike. So have I seen the eastern sky melting its pearl 
 light into the choice radiancy of " 
 
 " Now, none of them ere poetical flights of yourn, mind," 
 said the coachman authoritatively. 
 
 The schoolmaster smiled blandly, and proceeded — 
 
 " He was a favourite, too, with the village striplings, plan- 
 ning foot-ball matches, making them snares or teaching them 
 all the tricks of the diver in the deep spots of the "Wye ; or, in 
 an evening, playing his bow all the faster for the ' cog of good 
 ale,' which stood well replenished at his elbow.
 
 TALES IN AX INX-KITCHEX. 231 
 
 " But all this did not make Lis own fii'e bui'n brigliter, and 
 his fiddle bow was plied oftener than his awl. In spite of the 
 grotesque cast of his features, there was a something myste- 
 rious about the one-eyed cobbler, that kept up the A^illage 
 curiosity about him. He had fits of depression, when he would 
 wander all day among the amphitheatre of woods, from whence 
 the soimd of his fiddle, playing strange Avild snatches of Welsh 
 airs, could be heard by the distant ploughman. At these times 
 he came home only late at night, and during the day would 
 do such mad freaks that men whispered that David Thomas, if 
 he was not half crazed, had surely committed some crime in his 
 youth for wliicli his troubled conscience A^Tacked him. He would 
 get the key of the old church from his brother the sexton, and 
 shut himself up for hours amongst the tombs in the chancel, 
 or ciimbing up, for he climbed like a squirrel, to some al- 
 most inaccessible chamber of the only remaining tower of the 
 castle on the hill j-onder, might be seen looking out from 
 a shattered embrasure like the ghost of some murdered knight 
 in the moon-light ; and some of his dearest intimates said it was 
 particularly about early springtime that he rambled about in 
 those awful places. 
 
 " I remember well myself, when I was a boy, coming late 
 one stormy January evening through the churchj-ard, walking 
 timidly, and with head turned, through the path that led up to 
 the house of God, even in my awe, for the wind was howling 
 through the belfry loopholes, thinking of this Godsacre, where 
 rich and poor met for the first time in real equality, with no 
 richer robe above tlieir cold breast than the green turf, studded 
 witli daisies ; when from behind a grave I heard a groan which 
 shook me with fear. I looked ; it was the merry cobbler 
 poring over a grey tombstone, and spelling each letter as one 
 would the Bible's page. A corpse light threw a horrid glow- 
 worm gleam upon his strange features. I was afraid to speak, 
 but a sort of fascination compelled me to crouch down behind 
 a raised tomb and watch him. Presently he rose, looked at 
 the sky, beat his brow, and muttering words which I thought 
 were ' God save her soul,' paced out through the wicket gate 
 that led into the village.
 
 232 'cross country. 
 
 " Then I rose, breathed deeper, and stealing to the stone from 
 which I had never taken my eye, marked it with a cross 
 scratched with my pocket knife, for the momentary light bred 
 from corruption had gone out, and I could only feel its letters. 
 I went home pale and trembling, but saying I felt ill and tired, 
 hurried to bed. To my mother, for my poor father was already 
 dead, I said not a Avord ; a feeling of mystery brooded over me ; 
 I felt that I dared not tell what I had seen, and yet I felt that 
 concealment was a sort of crime. Heaven pardon me, if then 
 I first brushed ofl* the bloom of innocence from my youth. 
 I awoke after a night of feverish dreams before daybreak, went 
 down before anyone was stirring, and flew, rather than ran, to 
 the churchyard. The grave lay calm in the grey light of dawn, 
 the weather-cock, like a morning-star, catching the first glimpse 
 of day. I found the spot ; I knelt down ; there Avas the 
 hasty cross : — ' Lucy Owen, a?t. 18, departed this life Novem- 
 ber 13, 1802.' Below, ' Mary Owen, her mother, November 
 20. Lovely and pleasant in their lives, in death they Avere not 
 divided,' Owen — I had ne\'er heard the name. The mystery 
 still lay heavier in my heart. I hui'ried home, and came down 
 to breakfast AA^th clouded brow and troubled eye. My mo- 
 ther's fond eye observed it, but I complained of a slight fever, 
 and she Avas quiet. Days Avent by, and though I di-eamt 
 of that horrible scene in the churchyard, and of the cobbler, 
 time soon erased it from my young brain, and I drove it from 
 my thoughts. But still I never folloAved the cobbler as I had 
 done, never dared to ask him for traps or whistles. The church 
 now seemed a dreadful place, and I turned aAvay from the old 
 tower if I heard his fiddle sounding mournfully within its ruined 
 chamber. I saw him often, gay, telling strange tales, and as 
 merry as before, but to my eye there was now a shadoAv upon 
 him, AA^hich seemed to me to give a ghastly hue to his features, 
 and Avhen I saw the glimmer of a cottage fire light up his face, 
 I shuddered as I thought of the stormy January night and the 
 haunted churchyard. 
 
 " It was some years after this that as I was reading one day 
 an old fairy story to a crone of a neighbouring cottage, and 
 had just completed, with all the enthusiasm of a youth, the
 
 TALES IN AN INN-KITCHEN. 233 
 
 rhapsodical descriptiou of my heroiue, that the okl woman 
 touched my arm, stopped her spimiing, aud exclaimed, ' Why 
 there was never one in these parts ever like that, but poor 
 Lucy Owen.' 
 
 " ' Lucy Owen,' I exclaimed eagerly ; ' who was she ?' 
 
 " ' Lucy Owen ; why tlie belle of the village twelve years 
 ago, who was foiuid dead in her room the night before her 
 marriage.' 
 
 " ' And her mother,' I said, ' what of her ?' 
 
 " ' Aye, her mother ; there was a mother ; why, she died 
 within a week, quite broken-hearted.' 
 
 " ' And who was to liave been her bridegroom ?' I said. 
 
 " ' Why, young ]Morris, whom you never saw, for he sold his 
 farm soon after that, and started for America, and has never, 
 as far as I know, been heard of since ; but the strangest thing 
 of all was (but you mustn't mention it) is that they said the 
 one-eyed cobbler was a suitor of poor Lucy's, and he followed 
 her to the grave.' 
 
 " And so our conversation ended ; the mystery seemed to 
 grow darker. Could this then be the Lucy for whose un- 
 timely fate he mourned ? 
 
 " I still shunned Thomas, and he seemed to observe it ; and 
 again I sought my crone, and haAiug revived her memory, 
 learnt some further and more interesting particulars of the 
 death of Lucy. She told me that she had watched beside the 
 dead, and on the second evening, almost at the dawning, when 
 all were still, and deep sleep had fallen upon men, and one bird 
 singing at the window, gave only a deeper sliade to the 
 awfid silence and tlie calm serenity of the corpse, she went 
 down stairs for a few moments to light a fire, which had gone 
 out in a short sleep into which she had fallen. She returned 
 in a few minutes ; to her horror, she saw the hand of a man 
 hanging from the sill of the open window. He dropped heavily 
 at the alarm, aud she heard his soft footsteps as he crept away 
 under the wall of the house. Recovering herself in a moment, 
 she looked forth, and could just catch the glimpse of the de- 
 parting form ; it was that of a short man ; but the light was too 
 dim to distinguish more. On looking round tlie room, she saw
 
 234 'cross country. 
 
 in a moment that it was a thief who had thus entered the 
 claamber of the dead, for a small coral cross, which Lucy had 
 worn since she was a child, and which had been left in an old 
 oak bureau that stood beside the bed, was gone. 
 
 " I listened open mouthed. ' Could it have been the cobbler ? 
 And what did Lucy Owen die of then so suddenly ?' I enquired. 
 
 " ' The fisherman said as how it was disease of the heart, of 
 which her father had died.' 
 
 " Dreadful forebodings filled my mind ; an instinctive feeling 
 of hoi-ror rose in me. I dismissed it from my mind, and resumed 
 my usual course of lonely wanderings and readings in the 
 woods whenever I could escape from the fields, for even at 
 this time I longed to live and die a schoolmaster. 
 
 " It was a November day ; I remember it well. It was a day 
 of decay, of rain, of gloom ; the leaves new fallen, paved the 
 walks of the woods v/ith sere and withered forms of corruption ; 
 a pale sunset was tinting the wood, almost bared, with a faint 
 golden light, that looked like a mockery of summer : it was 
 like the smile on the lips of the dead ! I wandered forth by the 
 lonely path which leads from the meadow of the ' battle- 
 heaps,' up to the top of the hill where the ' stone of power,' 
 the rocking-stone of the Druids, rests. I Avas walking silently 
 and musingly along, making no more noise over the dead leaves 
 than the rabbits that I every now and then disturbed, and that 
 ran bounding through the brake ; when I saw in the meadow, 
 not twenty yards from me, Thomas, standing near one of the 
 mounds with a spade in his hand. I was in a sunken walk, 
 hidden from him by a thick clump of beeches, whose red 
 leaves still rustled in the autunni wind. I stood there half 
 frozen with astonishment, as I watched his motions, for those 
 mounds I had been taught to think were the graves of great 
 chieftains who had been slain in battle with the Eomans, when 
 the eagle flew on the heights above ; and the boys shunned the 
 place after night-fall, for we noticed that no dark fairy rings 
 were ever there, in that field on the border of the wood ; and 
 we thought that where the fairies would not trip, no good 
 thing could be ; and I thought of stories I had heard of Trojan 
 kings, who slumbered by the light of one gem, or an ever-burning
 
 TALES IN AN INN-KITCHEN. 235 
 
 lamp, in encbanted tombs beneath the greensward of a bill, 
 and of demon denizens of caves and mine spirits ; and all 
 tbese I blended, as I stood tbere trembling at the falling leaf 
 that rustled to the ground, strange thougbts of tbe cobbler, 
 and tbe scenes where I bad seen him, tinted darker by tbe 
 shade of fancy : what could he be doing there, in a place as 
 consecrated by village tradition as the very churchyard, that 
 silent city of graves, where the inhabitants come together but 
 speak not, though but an earthen wall divides them ? Thougbts 
 of crime, of buried treasure, thronged through my mind. He's 
 digging, he's been digging for half-an-hour, still I lie cowering 
 in my shelter. The moon comes forth, and lights his grim 
 earnest face ; he pauses — looks up — looks round — wipes his 
 brow, and digs with renewed vigour. An apertm'e discloses 
 itself: he works — starts back — again looks iu, drags some- 
 thing forth, and puts it in bis bosom : recovers the entrance, 
 ■ndth care replaces the turf, falls on his knees, lifts bis hands to 
 heaven, then looks round like a guilty thing upon a fearful 
 summons, and hurries away Avith stealthy steps. Then, and 
 not till then, when his shadow was lost iu the night of the 
 wood, I arose trembling with excitement, and from my biding 
 place I, with a dozen bounds, stood beside the chieftain's grave. 
 Tliere it lay beneath the moon, surrounded by that silent mul- 
 titude of woods, which told by their falling leaves that Death 
 still reigned upon the earth. I looked at the aperture that bad 
 been closed so carefully with the sods, that no marks of removal 
 could be discerned. A superstitious awe crept over me at that 
 silent hour, when I felt I was in such a place. Soaiething 
 glittering caught my eye, and amid a heap of seared leaves that 
 the winds, Avinter's fierce myrmidons, had torn from their 
 parent tree, and driven together. Good God ! it Avas a ci'oss ! 
 a small coral cross, tipped AA'itb gold, which had caught the 
 moon's rays. A cross like that the old crone had told me 
 of. A thought of guilt flashed through my mind, an instinctive 
 breathin" of the God. I felt that I bad been marked out from 
 Heaven as the aA^enger of blood ; there was then blood on the 
 hand that had touched that funeral mound. I saAV it all, I felt 
 it, I Avas sure ; the sudden death, the gnawing of conscience.
 
 236 'cross country. 
 
 the churchyard scene. Slowly I retraced my steps, as if in 
 some fearful dream, past my hiding place, giving one more look 
 at the mound, frosted with the moonbeams that fell upon it 
 lilce on a pure heaven. Again a form steals forth from the 
 wood ; was it some shadow of the dead ? It is the cobbler ! 
 He sees me not, though he passed me almost close, for his 
 eye was bent on the ground to grope for something lost- 
 He turned over every heap of withered leaves, every knot of 
 rushes, every bunch of dry white grass. He turned his face 
 suddenly, "g O sorrowing angels ! what a face ! torn with deep 
 anguish, remorse, 'and fear. Slowly and stealthily as a beast 
 of prey I stole away, and ran down a lonely lane into the 
 village. 
 
 " ' News, Jemmy,' said my mother ; ' who do you think has 
 come from America? "Who but young Eichard, who years 
 and years ago was to have married poor Lucy, a village 
 beauty, whom I dare say you never heard of, who died sud- 
 denly in her bed. He is rich, and tells me he means to settle 
 here. He asked after you, and I told him that you were going 
 to be a schoolmaster, and gave your whole life to reading, and 
 wandering about among the woods. He laughed, and said his 
 life had been spent in cutting down woods. The old cobbler too, 
 (I started), why do you start ? of course he knows the cobbler, 
 though there is no great love lost between them, as I believe 
 they even interchanged blows before they parted. I believe 
 they were both suitors to Lucy ; but what chance had the 
 cobbler, ill-favoured, idle dog, with a youth as straight as a 
 maypole, and so handsome that half the lasses in the place 
 broke their hearts for him.' 
 
 " ' Was there any suspicion,' I said, ' of the cause of Lucy's 
 death ?' 
 
 " ' Suspicion, child ! No ; she died of a heart complaint, 
 like her father, with whom I have often danced in my young 
 days.' 
 
 " I saw no more of the young farmer for nearly a month, 
 for he had friends to see in another part of England. It was 
 the day before Christmas when he returned. During this time 
 the change that came over the cobbler was perceptible to
 
 TALES IN AN INN-KITCIIEN. 237 
 
 all. The fiddler cliided the boys wlio followed liim, or even 
 struck them iu liis moody fits. He remained in his shop, 
 ■n'orliing sullenly late into the night ; for even at midnight a 
 light might be seen burning in his Avindow. Occasionally I met 
 him, but shuddered to see a face so full of remorse and evil 
 passion. Ton could no longer fancy his grotesque features 
 writhing into a joke, bending over his fiddle, but thought of 
 charnel-houses, and vaults, and death ; at least, so it seemed to 
 my wayward fanc}^ always strong, and now doubly excited by 
 the forebodings of crime which I felt sure I had detected, 
 
 " Again Eichard came to our house, and greeted me kindly. 
 As he left, I went out with him, and whispering in his ear that 
 I had something of importance to communicate, took his arm, 
 and led him to a retired spot near the ruins of the old castle. 
 He turned pale when I mentioned the name of Lucy Owen. 
 After twelve years her love was still warm at his heart. I 
 told him frankly my suspicions, my glimpses of evidence, the 
 scene I had witnessed, and, above all, the cross which I had. 
 picked up. He trembled, and would have fallen had I not 
 supported him. He wept over the trinket. I wept too, in 
 sympathy, for I knew the thought it must call up ; and I, too, 
 had loved. 
 
 " ' Bloody murderer I' he cried, starting up like a maniac ; 
 ' and yet it cannot be ; though I distrust him, and always did, 
 I thought not so ill. Xothing but a fiend could have separated 
 a soul from such a body, and so young ' 
 
 " ' There are means,' I said, ' by which men even can destroy 
 life, and leave no sign of guilt.' 
 
 " ' You are wiser than I,' he replied ; ' you have thought 
 much. There is truth in what you say, but time may bring 
 forth more: we had best delay. The village would call the 
 story the dream of a crazed lover and a fanciful boy. The 
 villain, hardened in crime, would brazen it out, and wc should 
 be branded for ever. But I have not seen him yet : I will go 
 and observe his manner, his eye, his face. I have been accus- 
 tomed to loolc for intelligence in the countenance of the 
 Indian, and I know the traces that guilt leaves behind. For once 
 a wretched settler of ours murdered a tra])per, tied a stone
 
 238 'cross country. 
 
 to his body, and threw it into a rocky stream, where the very 
 rippling seemed the voices of invisible beings : but God sent 
 the beavers, and they gnawed the rope, and the body floated ; 
 and the mni'derer owned the hand of Grod was in it, and 
 confessed his crime ; and we hung him in the Deadman's 
 Hollow, on a withered pine, and there he bleaches now.' 
 
 " As he told me this, we had arrived opposite the squalid 
 stall of the cobbler: we looked in — no one was there; we 
 stepped in quietly without chinking the latch, and listened. 
 There was a muttering up the turnpike stair that led from the 
 shop to the poor bedroom above. It grew louder and more 
 distinct. It was the cobbler's voice, as of one in agony and 
 prayer. We listened. The words came to our ears like the 
 last trump — ' God, cleanse these hands from blood ! O God, 
 cleanse these hands from blood !' was his cry. "We waited for 
 no more ; silently we went forth into the street : what a change 
 had come over the face of Eichard ! There was deep deter- 
 mination in that compressed mouth ; energy in that clenched 
 hand. For a moment we looked on each other, but spoke not : 
 that silence expressed more, far more, than speech. ' It is 
 Christmas eve,' I said ; ' years back they had a custom here 
 of singing hymns in the church at midnight, to hail the blessed 
 day. The cobbler will be there ; there, in the presence of 
 all, I wiU confront him, and charge him with the deed of blood. 
 Touch not the murderer till then,' I exclaimed beseechingly. 
 
 " ' Twelve years since,' he replied, in a voice deepened by 
 emotion, ' when the blood ran hotter in my veins, I could not 
 have foreborne, but rushing in, I should have clutched the 
 hell-birth by the throat, and with a curse have trampled out 
 his horrible and misshapen soul.' 
 
 " "With a warm clasp of the hand we separated. It seemed 
 a year to midnight. No lover felt the hours creep by at slower 
 pace. I thought the dull grey sky, the frowning heaven, would 
 never veil in the night. It came, night came, and disclosed 
 another world, the mere shadow of that glorious sunny earth 
 in which we live ; fairest stars shining where the sun had 
 stood ; the moon hid her face, and one star brighter than the 
 rest, shone as red as blood.
 
 TALES TN AN INN-KITCIIEN. 239 
 
 " I met Eicliard at a corner of tlie cluircln-ard, and entering 
 it mtb. liim, we seated onrselves in a dark corner, unlit by tlie 
 few candles that scattered tlie darkness in faint circles of light. 
 The cobbler was there, seated in a front bench almost opposite 
 the altar ; his head buried in his hands, as if in praj'er : 
 one by one, or in small groups, the Aillagers stole in like 
 shrouded ghosts from the churchyard without — old men, maid- 
 ens fair as the murdered one, childi'en awe-struck at the dark- 
 ness of the church, and the novelty of the scene. From the 
 dimly-lit gallery suddenly biu'st forth a strain of melody, as 
 sweet in that stillness of night as if the choir of angels that 
 the shepherds heard had again snug forth in the heavens. The 
 calm melody contrasted dreadfully with the turbid fever in our 
 hearts. It was like the placid tranquillity that reigns upon the 
 dead, compared with the sorrow that sits upon the mourner's 
 face that bends over the bier. A voice, deep as from a vault 
 below, rang through the church high above the childish choir — 
 * A voice from the grave of the murdered calls for vengeance !' 
 It was Eichard : as he pronoimced the words that hushed 
 the praises that were rising to heaven, he strode towards the 
 altar. The cobbler threw himself on his knees, as if some 
 spirit had struck him to the earth. 'Mercy!' he cried; 'let 
 man have pit}^ for Heaven has mercy !' ' The mere}"- thou 
 showed to the dead!' said Eichard, felling him to the ground. 
 We rushed forward. There were shrieks from the maidens, 
 cries of horror and surprise from the men. ' What means 
 it ?' ' Spare him !' ' Keep him back.' I seized Eichard by 
 the arm. He would have struck me in his demoniacal rage : 
 Three men held his arms, and he lay foaming and maddened in 
 their grasp. I told my tale to those who crowded around me ; 
 I told of the scenes of remorse that I had witnessed ; how 
 thoughts had grown into suspicions, and suspicions into proof: 
 I showed the cross. ' It is hers ; it was the murdered angel's,' 
 said Eichard, and again he struggled to escape. Again rose a 
 murmuring of voices. As slowly, like a corpse revived might 
 rise from a trance, rose the cobbler. He trembled, and the 
 tears poured down on his cheeks. 
 
 " ' Priends,' he said, ' God has smitten me. I am guilty :
 
 240 'cross country. 
 
 tlie brand of Cain is here. Hear me ere I go to death, I 
 was not always thus. In my youth I was fair, till disease and 
 vice distorted these features. I loved Lucy Owen, I served 
 her like a hound does its mistress — I ran, I swam, I did all for 
 her : but a handsome stripling came, and I was slighted. The 
 ■wedding day w^as fixed. It was in the inn-kitchen that I first 
 heard the news. I rushed forth, and roamed about till mid- 
 night, half maddened at tidings which had blighted me, as 
 frost does the early flower. It was a summer night, I crept 
 to the Owens' cottage. Lucy's broad casement was open, 
 though her room was dark. A devil's thought came into my 
 mind, and drove back all recollection of heaven. I clambered 
 silently up the vine, entered the room which was half lit by 
 moonlight, half in shade, lay a moment silent, watched the 
 sleeping spirit ; then, like a fiend of hell, stifling her mouth, 
 I sufibcated her with the pillow. Again I laid the body 
 of onB whom I loved and hated, calm as if in sleep, and crept 
 down as I had come. I felt no remorse ; I thought it a just 
 punishment for the cruel rejection of my love. I dreaded that 
 another should share the love of one who despised me. But 
 the devil forsook his victim, and remorse stole in ; it was in 
 moments like these that my wounded spirit, not yet entirely 
 lost, found relief in those groans and prayers which you (turn- 
 ing to me) heard. 
 
 " ' The mound that I dug in, when I lost the cross which I 
 stole from the room of one whom I could not forget, was a 
 funeral heap, Avherein I had heard gold was often foimd. I 
 wanted to escape to some other land. I found a gold wreath 
 there, round the neck of a slieleton, but I started back when I 
 first looked into that vault, for the glimmer of my own eyes 
 lit it as with a lamp ; even in such scenes thoitghts of my guilt 
 haunted me, my name seemed written in Lines of decay on 
 every leaf, the stars looked down like the eyes of a judge 
 upon me ; everywhere the avenging angel was looking.' * * 
 
 " With looks of horror we led him from the church, be- 
 fore the morrow he was in the cell of Gloucester prison. I 
 was present at his trial. He was convicted, and was hung, 
 and thus did God discover a crime that had so long lay hid.
 
 TALES IN AN INN-KITCHEX. 241 
 
 ' Murder will out,' says the proverb ; ' Vengeance is mine, 
 and I will repay it, saitli the Lord.' " 
 
 "We breathed deeper as the schoolmaster concluded his tale, 
 and wiped away something like a tear that hung from his eye. 
 
 The old polished clock in the corner, after experiencing 
 the usual convtdsions that village clocks experience luider such 
 circumstances, struck twelve as we were expressing the interest 
 we had felt in the tale of the poetical schoolmaster ; and hav- 
 ing distinctly articulated that solemn hour of midnight, and got 
 very satisfactorily through its mechanical feat, it subsided, after 
 a slight agitation, into a quiescent state, its labours for the 
 next feAv hoiu-s being of a much milder character. We were 
 still commenting on the infallible discovery of crime by man, 
 or beast, or bird, or tree, or flower, when the landlady, who 
 had been buzzing about the next room, suddenly burst in, and 
 with a withering look at her alarmed husband, asked him if he 
 knew that it was getting very late. 
 
 "There's just half of the last bowl of punch left, my dear," 
 said the landlord blandly, and regarding complacently the'ram- 
 part of friends that, interposing between him and his angered 
 dame, protected his only exposed flank. 
 
 Boniface was a good general in domestic broil, and felt 
 his advantage. The landlady, a gaunt, withered-looking 
 woman, who paid willingly the penalty of treating her 
 spouse with elaborate respect before strangers, for the privi- 
 lege of Iveeping the keys of the treasury, and rviling behind 
 the scenes, muttered something very like " pretty hoiirs for 
 christian folk," and slowly retreated from the room, discharg- 
 ing as she retired some Parthian glances at her spouse, harmless 
 for the present, but ominous of future storm. They did not, 
 however, sinli very deep into the heart of the worthy man, or 
 abate the relish with which he gave a circular sweep with the 
 ladle and filled the glasses of the company. 
 
 " Sorrow is dry," he said, "care killed a cat ; so I'll just enliven 
 you a little, by telling you a hanegote of a thing that really 
 happened to my father, good man, who's dead and gone, the 
 year this very rum came into my cellar. He was a coachman, 
 and druv for many a year the Hereford coach, about as good a 
 
 K
 
 242 'cross country. 
 
 coach as four spanlving tits ever drew along a road. "Well now, 
 my father was a man who liked his glass, to keep out the cold, 
 and keep iu the warmth, as well as any man, and lie was as 
 univarsally respected as any man that ever sat on a hox ; he 
 was the busuni friend of every] landlord in the county, the 
 jarvey best liked by his mate on the road, and a great favorite 
 with all the buxom bar-maids ; but he had one failing, he was 
 a man as had fancies about his health, which was as good as 
 any man could have, and if you'd seen him with his box-coat 
 and his belchers on, with his jolly cheek and merry eye 
 you'd have said, if Methuseley ever druv a coach, he was the 
 mortal picture of that respected patriarcli ; lie never tra- 
 velled without a draught in each pocket, which occasionally 
 breaking over a ladies' parcel, made a pretty mess ; but, Lor 
 bless you ! he Avas that well spoken, that he generally made it 
 out that such a'parcel was peculiarlj^ difficult for such as he to 
 carry, and if it had been any one else it would never have 
 arrived at all. And his waistcoat pockets, which were as large 
 almost, what with the custom of the age and his nateral cor- 
 pulence, as a small ridicide, were lined with tin, in one of 
 which was lozengers, and in the other pills of a peculiar make ; 
 not that he shirked his glass, but on the plea of health gene- 
 rally looked piteously at [the landlady, and desired it, as an 
 invalid, to be made particularly hot ; and he had a habit of 
 feeling his pulse at the smallest provocation, so that ignorant 
 persons might have imagined he was undoing a haadcufi". 
 All human beings, as the Parson said on Sunday, is liable to 
 error, and this was the error of my guvenor ; but the most 
 aggerawating thing was, that when he did come home on 
 Sunday night, he choose that peculiar time, about midnight, 
 especially if it friz, to ring up the house and say he was 
 dying, give us his blessing, and make over to me his silver 
 chronometer and appendages, which I had always to give liim 
 back when he recovered the next morning, in time to take a 
 larger breakfast than usual before he started. But 'wolf was 
 cryed so often that we soon didn't believe it, and after grumbling 
 for some time as we turned out of our warm beds, I got at last 
 restive and didn't go at all, and there was a pretty scene, for
 
 TALES IN AN INN-KITCHEN, 243 
 
 the old fellow got up remarkably quiet for a dyiug person, and 
 coming to my bed -with a horse- whip, gave me such a leather- 
 ing that I never failed after this to attend his dying sum- 
 mons as a dutiful son should do. Well, there were highway- 
 men occasionally seen along the Hereford road, and one night 
 my father, who had gone out a perfect mass of great coats, so that 
 he had to be helped on his box by the ostler and staif, came 
 into the inn with a hole in his hat, just as if a bullet had 
 passed through it ; and my father, who was just mixing a 
 powder for a stiff glass of grog, could give no further explana- 
 tion of it, but that about ten miles from Gloucester a man 
 hallo'd out to him, and he, thinking it a passenger, said the 
 coach was full, and drove on. This he thought might have 
 been a higliwayman, particidarly as he recollected hearing a 
 pistol go off, as he thought, in a field near the road, about ten 
 minutes after. The guard, it appears, as usual, had been asleep, 
 for when they stopped to water the horses, about five miles 
 further on, he blew his horn, thinking they had arrived at 
 Hereford ; not but that he always carried a blunderbuss, which, 
 however, report said had never been discharged within the 
 memory of man, was imperfect about the lock, and not very 
 sound about the barrel. 
 
 "^ly father, thereupon, being a good deal galled with the jokes 
 cut on the occasion, when he next went to Grloucester bought 
 a pair of old cavalry pistols of immense leugtli, and then laying 
 in a bag of bullets and a few dozen charges of powder, an- 
 nounced to his passengers, Avho assembled in a sort of parlia- 
 ment to hear the harangue that he made the necessity of a 
 defence in case of attack — tlie good man had, in fact, 
 worked himself tip to a pitch of patriotism almost equal to 
 Nelson on tlie eve of Trafalgar. Most of the passengers quite 
 warmed to tlie affair ; though some, concluding from the extent 
 of the munition supplied, that there was a chance of not a soul 
 escaping alive, refused to go ; but the rest, concealing their 
 fears under an overdone display of courage, manifested great 
 determination, and, after tlie third glass of brandy-and-water, 
 expressed their unflinching resolution to cut their way to 
 Gloucester — a promise which, if any one had taken them at 
 
 u 2
 
 244 'cross country. 
 
 their word, tliey would have been rather puzzled to perform, as 
 the whole company hadn't more than two pocket-loiives be- 
 tween them. Like the vetei'ans of a forlorn hope, with con- 
 solatory remarks as to the fiite of various unfortunate travellers 
 on the same road, the coach started. The ostler drew off the 
 cloths with the same spirited jerk as ever : there was the same 
 throng of chambermaids, hangers-on and admiring townsmen, 
 as ever ; but there was a gloom on all, for my father had 
 spread undue alarm by the extra number of piUs lie had taken, 
 and the ferocious way in which he had flourished his pistols and 
 talked ' of selling his life dearly.' 
 
 " But, for my life, I had nearly forgot a material point in 
 the story, which is, that the most prominent of all the passen- 
 gers, and the one who acted as a sort of prime minister to my 
 lather, was a stranger — a man with an immense pair of whis- 
 kers and a large drooping moustache, who seemed, by his 
 frogged coat and military air, to have been in the army, had, 
 indeed, his conversation not abimdantly shown it ; for he talked 
 boldly of skirmishes and cavalry affairs, ' and, stap his vitals,' 
 he was for slaying every mother's son of them. K'o waiting 
 for tardy justice, but a rope and the nearest tree ; a proposi- 
 tion rather ' pooh-poohed' by my father, but applauded voci- 
 ferously by a wixen little attorney, Avho said ' he'd have the 
 law of 'em, if they dared to touch him.' Our military friend 
 took a great interest in the defensive preparations, and in- 
 sisted himself on loading my father's pistols and the guard's 
 blunderbuss, having, as he said, once, by a peculiar system of 
 loading, winged a duellist, who had slain his five men, and 
 thought no more of shooting an antagonist than a proper 
 Christian would of putting a bullet into a mad dog. And then, 
 assuming the generalship, for my father's courage towards the 
 time of starting, if it hadn't decreased, had at least assumed 
 somewhat less of a bellicose character, he advised the secretion 
 of all valuables ; and heightening their courage by undoing a 
 sort of box in the heel of his shoe, placed carefully therein 
 a, roll of bank-notes, which, as he quite accidentally let out^ 
 were of an immense amount. This, and the glitter of a 
 diamond ring on his finger, excited a general communicative-
 
 TALES IN AN INN-KITCHEN, 245 
 
 ness ; so that from all sorts of purses and rouleaus luoney was 
 produced, and stowed into hats and wigs, while watches were 
 taken off and stuffed in the interior of cushions — a proceeding 
 which, though it somewhat resembled the prudence of a general 
 who divests himself of his stars before he enters into an engage- 
 ment, augured badly as far as the giving battle to highway-men 
 went. 
 
 " Away they went, as I said before, and changing horses at 
 Eoss about sunset, witliout anything material occurring, and 
 with a fresh cup to still more stimulate tlieir reviving courage, 
 they started forth, congratulating themselves on their extreme 
 valour, their great prudence, and their still greater good for- 
 tune, ^ly fatlier even stopped at one place, and harangued 
 them as to the manner in which they should enter Hereford, as 
 he thought that a show of fire-arms and a determined manner 
 naight have a good effect on those highwaymen who heard of 
 it. This proposal was received with loud cheering, particularly 
 by the military passenger, who, collecting the fire-arms, pro- 
 posed they should take out the balls and leave in only the 
 powder, in order that they might fire off" ^ feu-de-joie ere they 
 entered the city. At a turn of the road the coach suddenly 
 stopped, much to the horror of the passengers ; voices in dis- 
 pute were heard without, and the trample of a horse. Our 
 military friend leapt out, armed with all the defensive weapons. 
 In a moment he had pulled my fiither from his throne. Our 
 military friend was a highwayman. 
 
 " ' Valiant gentleman and fair ladies,' he said, opening the 
 door of the coach, with a complacent smile, ' oblige your 
 humble servant by handing me the useless paper and the 
 bullion which you found too heavy for your pockets.' 
 
 " There were laurmurs and signs of resistance ; but he cared 
 not a whit for that, but drawing a pistol from liis pocket, 
 cocked it, and presented it at the window. 
 
 " ' I have here,' he said, in a bland voice, ' a friend of the 
 most persuasive eloquence, who never fails to convince those 
 whom I cannot.' 
 
 " He held his hat ; in a moment it was filled with 
 watches, notes, and guineas. He bowed and withdrew.
 
 246 'cross country. 
 
 " ' I've one more account to settle,' lie replied, ' before I go. 
 ISTimming Jack,' lie cried, to a flasliilj-dressed companion, 
 whom no disguise could liave turned into anything but a 
 second-rate kniglit of the road, ' bring that old gent, there in 
 sicrht of this window.' 
 
 " They dragged my father forward, and put him on his knees 
 betw^een them, a living mass of great-coat. ' I've no money, 
 gen'lemen,' he cried, in a voice of extreme terror, as his tor- 
 mentors, shouting with laughter, emptied his pockets of pills 
 enough to fill a beaver. ' Open your mouth,' they cried ; and, 
 pulling it open, they rammed a fist fall down his throat. He 
 rose a wiser, but a sicker man than he had knelt down. 
 
 " ' Adieu, gentlemen and ladies,' said the military surgeon, 
 bowing a mock farewell ; ' and as for you, old Jarvy, don't 
 listen another time to military surgeons. I've a great mind to 
 give you a blue pill at parting, but I'll spare you to kiU a 
 coach-full of passengers some day by bad driving.' Then, 
 mountiug a led horse of his companion, he galloped off. 
 
 "When he w^as fixirly out of sight, there were proposals 
 made to pursue, but nobod}^ seconding it, they determined to 
 fire a salute after him, to intimidate him and prevent his re- 
 turn ; and this would liave been done, had not it been found 
 that the pistols had been stuffed with pepper instead of 
 powder, in Avhich the bullets lay imbedded, and had been stopped 
 up to tlie muzzle with paper. 
 
 " The coach, lightened of its burden, entered Hereford with 
 a sick coachman and crest-fallen passengers." 
 
 CHAPTEE XXL 
 
 THE COUNCIL CHAMBER AT BEISTOE, 
 
 How many recollections these simple w^ords call up from the 
 dark abyss of memory ! "We figure to ourselves grave senators 
 in solenni deliberation; — "potent grave and reverend seignors," 
 the great ones of proud Venice, or beauteous Florence, in pro- 
 found debate. "We think of the great republican, or oligar-
 
 THE COUNCIL CHAMBER AT BRISTOL. 247 
 
 cliical senators of the media'val state, each a prince, discussing 
 soleimily, amidst all the gorgeousness of Asiatic luxury, the 
 affairs of their respective states. Then think we of the Doge, 
 or the still more solemn conclave of cardinals in the eternal 
 city of Eome. With rapid transition Ave recall the secret tri- 
 bimals of Westphalia, and the dark mysteries of the inqui- 
 sitorial assembly, or night meetings of conspirators, the 
 veiled and masked leaders, are remembered by us in a min- 
 gling of associations. Dim visions arise before our eyes from 
 the pages of the world's history. Councils held by trembling 
 men as the enemy is before their gates ; — senates receiving 
 their victorious generals ; — and, above all, the majestic senate of 
 Home, whose every councillor, a Gothic ambassador said, I'e- 
 sembled a king. But a truce to the ideal, let us return to the 
 plain " work a-day world." 
 
 Leaving, therefore, the motley associations suggested by 
 such places, I the other day, as citizens sometimes should do, 
 strolled into the Bristol council chamber, the room where the 
 civic parliament is wont, at stated intervals, to hold its deliber- 
 ative meetings. Undisturbed by any parrot guide, my eyes 
 glanced with pleasure over the autograph letters of the great and 
 the brave wliich depend from the walls. There always seems 
 to me something solemn in a solitary room oranempty chamber— 
 " When the festive lights are out, 
 And the guests are aU departed." 
 
 But the chamber is hung with paintings, and we never feel soli- 
 tary with them, for there is ever a silent, calm companionship 
 about a good portrait. A spirit seems to watch you from the 
 canvass, and those inanimate eyes seem almost capable of beam- 
 ing with expression. They remind me of the statues of 
 Pygmalion, only remaining for ever unfinished and lialf animated. 
 And what painting ever had more magic powers on tlie imagina- 
 tion than that of yonder noble cavalier by A'andyckV We 
 mean the full-length of Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, in 
 his robes of office as High Steward of Bristol. The chivalric- 
 visaged noble wears a red cloak lined with white, and bears in 
 his hand the white stall" of office. Near liim reposes his ducal 
 coronet. ][e boasts what Prynne would call the " unloveliness
 
 248 'cross country. 
 
 of love — locks " in the shape of flowing hair. A lace em- 
 broidered collar falls over his cloak. His stockings, like Mal- 
 volio's of comic fame, are yellow, but, unlike that ill-starred 
 steward, he is not cross-gartered. " It breeds somewhat an 
 obstruction in the blood, this cross-gartering." His shoes bear 
 the large ribbon roses of this time. We never saw a more 
 beautiful painting by that noble artist, Yandyck, not even 
 his portraits of the unhappy Charles, although in them we 
 trace so well the deep sorrow and stubborn resignation of that 
 monarch. It is as admirable for the truth, freshness, and ex- 
 quisite clearness of its tints, as for its spirited and wonderful 
 execution, and the lights are brilliant and delightfully modu- 
 lated by the darker portions of oscuro. We realise at once the 
 tradition which admiring artists tell, that tliis great painter 
 always painted on a white ground. Hence proceeds that deci- 
 sion and lucidity of general tone which distmguishes this 
 painter's productions from the exaggerated chiaro-scuro of 
 Tintoretto or Rembrandt, grand masters of colouring as they 
 may be. Never in his works do we find tlie senseless impasto, 
 to use a term of the studio, or the daubing on of paint as with 
 
 a trowel, adopted by and some other modern masters. 
 
 How truthful, too, are the carnations, so pei'fectly aping the 
 embrowned, ruddy glow of health in a manly cheek. This 
 picture is so valued, both as a work of art and from its associa- 
 tions, that it is said that the present Pembroke family have 
 oftered to give the city for it as many gold pieces as would 
 cover its canvas. Tliis same Pembroke family have contributed, 
 perhaps, more great and brave men from their males than any 
 noble house in England. Amongst them we find the illustrious 
 Lord Herbert of Clierbury, whose treatise, " De Veritate," is 
 esteemed by every philosopher. The tale told by this chival- 
 rous man, in all the ardour of a glowing imagination, and how 
 he imagined he saw the Divine One in all His majesty, is well 
 known. Besides various illustrious barons of the middle ages, 
 intimately connected with this fiimily by marriage, we have the 
 gallant and the good Sir Philip Sidney, the most chivalrous hero, 
 and the most generous in his bravery, that England, with all her 
 noble sons, ever saw. The beauties of his romantic " Arcadia,"
 
 THE COUNCIL CHAMBER AT BRISTOL. 249 
 
 and the sweetness of Ins sonnets are " oft-told talcs." At 
 Wilton, too, lived William, Earl of Pembroke, the lather of 
 the High Steward, a man of princely generosity, but sullied 
 by an extreme love of pleasure. This princely noble patronised 
 Ben Jonson, and, it is supposed, Shakspere. He gave them 
 money, and they gave him in return for " gold that perisheth," 
 IMMOETALITT. Griorious Beu wrote his matchless epitaph on 
 a Countess of Pembroke, mother to Earl William. Docs not 
 every one know it ? 
 
 " Uiiderneatli this sable hearse, 
 Lies the subject of all verse ! — 
 Sidney's sister, Pembroke's motlier. 
 Death ! ere thou hast slain another, 
 Learn'd and fair and good as she, 
 Time shall throw a dart at thee." 
 
 To this Earl, Ben Jonson dedicated his book of stinging 
 epigrams. Tlie tone is eulogistic, and therefore honoui'able to 
 the earl, for when was Ben insincere ? He says — 
 
 " Thou, whose virtues keep one stature stUl, 
 And the true postm-e keep in spite of ill ; 
 Or what ambition, fasliion, pride can raise, 
 Wliose life, e'en they that envy it, must pi-aisc." 
 
 and again ho dedicates " to the great example of honour and 
 nature." "While I cannot change your merit, I dare not 
 change your title ; it was j'ou that made it, not I ; I mui<t 
 expect at your lordship's hand protection while you are con- 
 stant in your goodness." With respect to Shakespere, a great 
 cloud of mystery envelopes the Pembroke family. The sonnets 
 were originally pubhshed, dedicated by T. T. (Thorp) "to 
 their only begetter, JNfr. AV. H." Critics translate this into 
 the vernacular as meaning William Herbert, Earl Pembrolce. 
 It is possible tbat some of his sweet sonnets were ^^Titteu by 
 Shakspere to liis noble patron. They breathe the exaggerated 
 idea of fricndsliip peculiar to the age, whereon Coleridge, 
 iji his Table Tallv, has some remarks, full of his usual sensibility 
 and sagacity, speaking of the sonnets as generally believed to 
 be addressed to the Earl of Pembroke, the most beloved man
 
 250 'cross country. 
 
 of his age, although his licentiousness was eqnal to his virtues. 
 "I doubt this," he says, "I do not think that Shakspere, 
 merely because he was an actor, should have thought it neces- 
 sary to veil his esteem towards Pembroke under a disguise, 
 although he might if the real object perchance had been a 
 Laura or a Leonora. It seems to me that the sonnets could 
 only have come from a mau deeply in love with a woman ; and 
 there is one sonnet, which, from its purposed incongruity, I 
 think to have been an intentional blind. The sonnets are, in 
 fact, a poem of several stanzas, of so many lines each, and like 
 the passion that inspired them, always the same." Coleridge 
 proceeds to remark on their harmony, condensation of expres- 
 sion, and considers them, like the Venus and Adonis, the evident 
 olfshoots of a young poet. "We think no one can differ from 
 Coleridge who has once read the sonnets, and who has not ? 
 The 28th, for instance, is evidently addressed to a loved mistress ; 
 while others, like the 104th, " To me, fair friend, thou never can 
 be old," are quite consistent with the glowing gratitude of a 
 poet to his beloved patron. So also the 30th, that beautiful 
 one beginning 
 
 " Wlien to the session of sweet silent tlioiiglit 
 I summon up remembrance of tilings past." 
 
 Some modern writers suggest that Ann Hathaway, Shak- 
 spere' s wife, may have been seduced by the Earl, but we would 
 not willingly entertain so illiberal a suspicion. The 152nd, 
 " In loving thee thou knows't I am forsworn," would hardly 
 bear this harsh interpretation, and rather refers to some lover's 
 quarrel. A temporary divorce is indeed said to have taken 
 place between him and his wife, who died some dozen years 
 after him. The sonnets were published by Thorpe in 1609, 
 while William Herbert succeeded his father in IGOl ; this, at 
 all events, makes the dedication to Mr. W. H. rather un- 
 courteous. The first folio of 1623, edited by Hemmings and 
 other fellow-comedians, was dedicated to theEarl,who waskno^\ai 
 to be of literary taste. This mystery, perhaps never to be solved, 
 adds a thousand-fold interest to this beautiful picture. The 
 mother of this Earl was a daughter of the Duke of Northumber-
 
 THE COUNCIL CHAMBER xVT BRISTOL. 251 
 
 land, his father's first wife being of royal blood, but dying 
 Avitliout issue. 
 
 Lord Clarendon speaks in the highest terms of this Earl. 
 He says, " he was the most loved and esteemed of any man of 
 that age, and having a great office (Chamberlain) in the court, 
 he made the coiu-t better esteemed and more reverenced in the 
 country. He had a great number of friends, and no enemies. 
 He was well bred, and of excellent parts, an excellent- 
 humoured man, and brother-in-law to the Earl of Shrewsbury. 
 His expenses were only limited, by his great mind. He was 
 not loved by James. He succeeded in oflElee the famous Carr, 
 Earl of Somerset, the senseless favourite of a pedant, who was 
 more fit to wield the ferule than the sceptre. He had no 
 ambition, but loved his country. He was excessively addicted 
 to pleasure." His mind was injured by these excesses, and he 
 finally died of apoplexy, after a hearty supper,— a retributive 
 death which many epicures have met. Clarendon speaks of his 
 death as happening happily for his fame, just as the flame of 
 civil war broke forth. His brother, we believe, succeeded to 
 his office. He had been, from the beauty of his person, a great 
 favourite with James, but with a prudence peculiar to his 
 family, he gave way to the rising fortimes of Carr. He also 
 endeared himself to the king by liis love, real or assumed, for 
 that gentle craft, hunting. He became in Charles's time 
 Governor of the Isle of Wight, but, alas ! sullied the honour 
 of his family by treating with the Puritans, and preserving a 
 traitorous sort of neutrality,— trembling for Wilton and his 
 broad domains. His temporizing proceeded rather from fear 
 of consequences than from a disloyal heart ; for during the 
 KinfT's residence in Holland, the faithful Clarendon always 
 speaks of the Earl as one on whom they might count. As a 
 Puritan would say, he ever remained a concealed malignant, 
 or as we should reply, the base fear of temporal losses neve 
 extinguished the innate loyalty of his heart. The beautiful 
 seats connected by association witli the family are Pensluu-st, 
 in Kent, sung of by Ben Jonson, and Wilton, where Sir Philip 
 Sidney WTote his Arcadia. A descendant of the family. Lady 
 Dorothea Sidney, was wooed, but wooed in vain by the poet
 
 252 'cross country. 
 
 "Waller. His poems addressed to her under tlie name of 
 Sacbarissa (my svv-eetest) are still preserved. Memorials of all 
 tliese celebrities are preserved at the tvv'o places. 
 
 Sucb recoUectious did this noble picture call up in my mind. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE DRUIDS' TEMPLE AT STAIsTON DREW, NEAR BRISTOL. 
 
 " Alter Zeiten alte treue Zexxgen 
 Sclimuctt eueh doch des Lebens fi-isches Grim, 
 Und der Vorwelt krilftige gestalten, 
 Sind iius nocli, in eur Praclit erhalten." 
 
 " Ye old trixe -witnesses of times long fled, 
 Life's freshest verdiu'e tricks each ancient head, 
 And mighty forms of ancient worlds gone by, 
 Stand roimd us, robed in antique majesty." 
 
 Die Ziehen of Korner. 
 
 " Four stones, with their heads of moss, are the only memorials of thee ; 
 the grass grows between the stones of the tomb ; the tliistle is there alone 
 shedding its ancient beard. Two stones half siuik in the ground, show 
 theu' lieads of moss. A ^tale of the tunes of old — the deeds of the days of 
 other years." — Ossian. 
 
 Commend me to the walks round Bristol, for natiu^al beauty 
 and interest of association. The poet may wander at the 
 foot of thick fairy-hauuted woods, by the side of the brown 
 Avon, where Southey, Coleridge, and Lamb have rambled before 
 him ; or from the hill of Almondsbuiy he may admire the 
 lovely landscape that opens to his view, where the silver Severn 
 pouring its tributary flood into the ocean, while in the far 
 distance the blue mountains of AVales melt into the horizon, 
 Avhich is scarcely of an azure less intense than the sky which 
 floats over the scene ; or he may saunter on the Down, whether 
 it be decked, as the seasons change with the snowy May bios-
 
 THE DRUIDS' TEMPLE AT STANTON DREW. 253 
 
 som, the golden gorse, or the purple heather, and gazing from 
 the beetling crags, or iar across the plain, he may thinlc of 
 bygone times, when British huts covered that area, and in the 
 distance was heard the tramp of the legionaries and the rumbling 
 of war-chariots, while the Eoman eagle might be seen as if 
 ready to pounce on its prey. Then to the mind's eye blaze up 
 ruddily the signal-fires on the top of Brandon's hill, whic-h are 
 answered by a flash from some distant cliff, as througli the 
 Avood gleams a fii'e on an opposite headland, and the painted 
 Britons grasp their hatchets, aud leap into their scythed 
 
 chariots, and but does not every walk oj)en fresh tableaux 
 
 of history ? And whether we watch the silent Avon stealing 
 on its way to the sea, glance at some old grey tower, or pass 
 through a street of old fantastic houses, all here seems more 
 redolent of tlie past than the present. 
 
 But of Stanton Drew : — The walk from Bristol is pretty 
 enough, were there even no witnesses of the past awaiting you at 
 the goal as a reward for voluntary labour. The high road 
 winds like a river, at " its own sweet will," amid wooded hills, 
 through quaint villages, to which old Elizabethan houses give 
 an antique character, aud prepare the mind for those " ancient 
 of days," the Druidical stones of which you are iu quest. At 
 the very outset, there is a beautiful vievv^ of the cit}^ aud environs 
 from a commanding point. In the hollow of an amphitheatre 
 of hills lies our miniature Eome, the city on seven hills, the 
 city of churches. iS"ear, but below us, rises the battered 
 gray tOAver of Temple, nearer still the truncated spire of old 
 lledcliff, while even now, its chimes comes sighing towards us 
 iu the wind, and blending with the hum of the great city. 
 Beyond lie in a cluster the Grecian towers of Christchurch, 
 and the old Gothic ones of St. "Werburgh, All Saints, and 
 Mary-le-port, and far above all rises the airy beauty of St. 
 Stephens. Below, in dark and almost an indistinguishable 
 mass, lie the four cross street.s, the ancient nucleus of tlie city, 
 the old city gate of St. John's, the Avon we see flowing through 
 all, and that black Lethe-like stream, the Frome, once called 
 the fair ; around lie white villages dotting the hUls, looking 
 like colonies from that one great black swarm, and amid«t them
 
 254 'cross country. 
 
 rise many lieaTen-poiutiug spires. Over all, althougli it is 
 September, and the leaf is rustling doAvn, the sun shines 
 sweetly, and the sky is blue overhead, Avhile the lark pipes 
 aloft at "heaven's gate." Autumn seems to be mimicking 
 summer, and aping, with her withered cheek and wrinkled 
 brow, the smiling joy ousness of youthful summer. 
 
 But we must on our way. It is Autumn, reader, a season 
 which we love, and all around, in Nature, seems to harmonise 
 with the association of bye-gone ages. These monstrous tomb- 
 stones of the past, these monuments of departed centuries 
 should be seen in autumn. AYe venture to lay this down as a 
 most oracular dictum. Spring, with its budding leaf and 
 springing flowers, is too joyous a time to think of the dead ; 
 summer, again, is all too merry, and too full of " gauds." But 
 melancholy Autumn is the time, when the berries shine ruddy 
 on every hedge, and the brown leaf rustles to the groimd, and 
 its companions turn crimson, and golden, and brown, and a 
 thousand other colours, as if they could escape the grasp of icy 
 winter by these Protean changes. INTow, too, we hear by the 
 roadside the little brooks rippling louder, and they seem to be 
 prating musically to pray cold, chilly "Winter to tarry, if but for 
 one little week longer, in his snowy palaces of the north. But 
 he comes relentless, and the swallow prepares for his flight to 
 burning Africa, and the robin alone pipes, and sweetly too, from 
 yonder hedge, which, though it has all the summer been a 
 beautiful entanglement of eglantine, and hawthorn and Avild 
 flowers, now begins to look dreary, as the cold bleak, piping 
 winds, winter's avant couriers, whistle through it. This is the 
 time for thoughts of the past, now that the sunsets no longer 
 tint the clouds with a thousand gorgeous hues of fiery and of 
 golden light ; and there is but a chill, ruddy farewell gleam in 
 the "West, while in the pale morning the East is drear and 
 gTey. 
 
 In this dim light, at a season when the sky is but a 
 mass of dull leaden-coloured cloud, did we sally forth for 
 Stanton Drew, or, in other words, " the stone town of the 
 Druids." There is no flat monotony about the road, Avhich 
 Avinds snake-like as a river, through quaint hamlets, and cot-
 
 THE DRUIDS TEMPLE AT STA^'TON DREW. 255 
 
 tages x^ntli the rose still blooming round their diamond panes, 
 and past old hostelries too, with signs representing obscure 
 naval heroes, whose fame and bodies have long since been 
 gathered to their fathers' mausoleum. Here the road is half- 
 shaded by trees ; for the golden-leafed elm, and the silver- 
 shafted birch, and the giant oak, its trunk of a dusky brown, and 
 the alder, with its stem of frosted silver, and the primeval pine 
 are all there ; and then we catch glimpses of sloping meadows, 
 which are each, mayhap, the whole world of some rustic boy, and 
 perhaps, if he has a sense of the poetry of life, a world filled 
 with a thousand forms of beauties. Another winding, and we 
 see a little brook ripple over its pebbly bed through entangled 
 shrubs, and even this tells of Autumn, for its little current is 
 strewed with yellow leaves. Here is a lone meadow with a 
 dark pond, over which a willow hangs ; such a place as we 
 dream of, and think of poor Ophelia's fate. Bridle paths here 
 and there lead from the road, into wooded recesses, where one 
 might expect to find none but the monarch Pan or some 
 attendant Dryad. Around us and about us, on all sides, as f;ir 
 as the horizon, are hills and sloping fields, which blend in the 
 distance. 
 
 And over all these scenes which our imagination may have 
 coloured, there is impending like a thunder cloud the solemn 
 stillness of Autumn. The only sounds are the fiiU of the 
 whirling leaf and the robin's mournful note. All nature 
 seems preparing for her winter's sleep. 
 
 "Is this the turning to the Druidical temple?" said we, 
 majestically, to an old animated skeleton, who, in accordance 
 with England's admirable system of relief, was kneeling breaking 
 stones by the roadside. The poor old wretch, half in his grave, 
 should rather have been enjoying the genial heat of his own 
 hearth, surrounded by half-a-dozen chubby grand-children. 
 
 " Templet' said the animated skeleton, evidently pozed, but 
 not liking to show it, resting on his hammer, and scratching his 
 head, and speaking after awhile in a tone of savage rebulvc. 
 " You mean the stauns at Stanton ? First turning to your 
 right from my next stone heap." 
 
 AVe thanked the old man and plodded on ; the animated
 
 256 'cross country. 
 
 skeleton's hammer we could liear feebly chipping for half-a- 
 mile. Not many persons did we meet; a few old couples, 
 regular Baucis and Pliilemons, going on their weekly visit to 
 Bristol, their great metropolis ; a recruiting sergeant, with two 
 entrapped bumpkins with ribbons on their caps. "We walked 
 two miles and met not a soul. But we have passed through 
 some pretty dells, where the tops of the trees have been level 
 with the road, and we have passed a deserted house, which is 
 always food for conjecture. The pathway to the door was 
 grass-grown, and the garden had run wild, but, amidst all the 
 ruin, a few roses wei^e still blooming profusely. Now we 
 quicken our steps, for just at the bend of that hill in the dis- 
 tance we discern a pedlar, one of a craft which we have loved 
 ever since we read, at ten years of age, of the doings of that 
 merry knave, Autolycus, " the picker-up of unconsidered 
 trifles." That stifii"hill has pulled him up, for liis pack is heavy^ 
 and we are now upon his heels. Ha ! that is a French vaudeville 
 he hums — 
 
 " Mais le plus grand plassir 
 Que le Printems me clonue, 
 Cast quancl le vigne bovirgeonue." 
 
 We have come up to him now, and find he is a Frenchman. 
 "We enter into conversation, and get familiar on the lonely way. 
 He tells us, with all the gaiety of a ruined Graul, that he was 
 born in beautiful Le Vendee, that seat of ancient loyalty, and 
 had finally settled as a jeweller in the Palais Royal, and having 
 Ta.^YYiQ(\. {telle femme !), and was prospering, too, when that 
 revolution maudite broke out. He described to us the " silence 
 friste et morne^^ of that horrible night of blood, when nothing 
 could be heard but the wail of the tocsin, the rumble of artil- 
 lery and caissons, and suddenly the thundering clang of cavalry. 
 Then he rose andjoined the National Guard, and fought at the 
 barricades against those " Coquius and larrons," the Eouge 
 Republicans. He had received a pike wound while storming 
 one of those obstacles to peace in the Faubourg St. Antoine, and 
 fell. A republican hag stabbed him, but his brave comrades 
 bore him oft, and he soon recovered. But, alas ! since the
 
 THE DRUIDS' TEMPLE AT STANTON DREW. 257 
 
 peace, trade was gone, and he was, after all, compelled to sluit 
 np his shop, send his wife and children to " dear La Vendee," 
 and trudge to England, pack on back, and visit the land of 
 '■ milords " and rich millionaires, as a pedlar. 
 
 " C'est tout, me A-oila," said our companion, smiling good- 
 naturedly, as he left us, for he wanted to offer hi^ wares at an 
 old farm-house on the brow of a neighbouring hill. 
 
 AVe parted from him with the less regret, when about half-a- 
 mile further on we found an Italian organ man sitting on a 
 heap of stones by the way-side. "We passed him with a 
 " Buon giorno." 
 
 " Parlate Italiano, Signer ?" he said, getting up smiling and 
 trudging on with us. 
 
 We said " Si," and began talking to him, in la dolce fa- 
 villa, the mellifluous language of his country, of the state 
 
 of Italy, and of its patriots Garibaldi and . He seemed 
 
 delio-hted, for he had left before the outbreaks, and had heard 
 but very incorrect accounts of them at his nightly meetings 
 with his coimtrymen, in trampers' lodging-houses ; and how 
 his eyes sparkled with dehght, as we recited in an enthusiastic 
 tone that beautiful sonnet of Filicaja's : — 
 
 " Italia, Italia, tii cm feo la sorte 
 Dono iufelice de beUezza, 
 Dell fossi tu men bella o almen piu forte." 
 
 " Italy, Italy, to whom, in unhappy hour, the fatal gift of 
 beauty was given, would thy beauty were less, or thy power 
 
 more." . 
 
 At first he grasped liis organ staff hke a sword, and agam 
 
 looked more moni'uful than ever when we came to the final 
 line — 
 
 •' Per serrir sempre, o 'viacitiice, 6 vinta." 
 
 He had heard of Filicaja, for his i^adrone would have brought 
 him up as iraprovisatore, had he not disliked the ' dolce far 
 niente' (the sweet pleasure of doing nothing), and preferred a 
 wandering Bedouin aort of life. He then told me that he was 
 born near the Ghetto, or Jews' quarter, in Eome. 
 
 s
 
 258 'cross country. 
 
 " All !" said we, " Eoma, Eoma, non era piu com era prima," 
 quoting a song of the Campagna. 
 
 This touched too tender a chord by far, he stopped and sat 
 dovrn on the bank by the road-side, and burst into tears, 
 burying his face in his hands. 
 
 "We passed on. Eeproach him not, reader, for you know not 
 what deep thoughts of home and his loved ones those simple 
 words may have awakened. 
 
 One winding lane more, then past a mediaeval thatched, 
 conical, comical turnpike-house, and we are landed in Stanton. 
 A pretty and clear trout brook runs through the village, which 
 in the summer is greatly haunted by urchins, who dabble 
 about and scare away the speckled trout with crooked pins, 
 much to the rage of old Izaak "Waltons. Then here and there, 
 on the right hand and on the left, are tranquil-looliiing mansions, 
 possessing in the highest degree that mixture of ugliness and 
 comfort in which a true Englishman rejoices. There is one 
 with an old dial on the lawn in front, and another of an Inigo 
 Jones sort of air, and besides these there is a one-roomed 
 "public," (so called by courtesy), "house," where the best 
 " apple wine " and home-baked bread are to be procured. An 
 Elizabethan house, a fine farm yard, some old cottages with 
 arched doors; and, above all, an old mediaeval grey church, 
 full of monuments, and surroimded by a " God's acre," in 
 which "the rude foi'e^ithers of the hamlet sleep," complete the 
 village. If every cottage were an alms-house for an ancient 
 Druid, the place could not be more quiet. A whisper rever- 
 berates through the village, a loud footstep attracts as much 
 attention as a troop of cavalry woidd in a city. Every house 
 looks unaltered since the days " when good King Charles was 
 king," and no great effort of the imaginative faculty is re- 
 quired to picture a troop of cavaliers or Ironsides riding through 
 in hot pursuit. "We asked for the "stoans" of a very pallid 
 "baker, who was slowly driving on foot a cart containing a pretty 
 xosy-eheeked child, seated on a pile of quartern loaves, lilvc a 
 victim on an altar. "We found them, after receiving an ironical 
 round of cheers from a party of juvenile Somersetshires, who 
 expressed it audibly, as their private opinion, that we were " a 
 .spinning along like anythink."
 
 THE DRUIDS' TEMPLE AT STANTON DREW. 259 
 
 The old monsters of the past stand in a tranquil field 
 adjoining an orchard and a farm-yard, and the first view of 
 these stony skeletons is very impressive, although the blocks 
 are at a considerable distance from each other. The Druids had 
 planned three distinct circles, forming the circus, emblematical 
 of the sun's supposed revolution, and composed of stones, some 
 of which are four yards square. The first great circle is of five 
 stones, many of which the local savages, aided by that great 
 savage. Time, have considerably injured. Then there is a 
 circle of eight, with a diameter, says Seyer, of 96 feet, the cir- 
 cumference of which is just 150 feet distant from the other. 
 Next, is the south-west circle, or lunar temple, also emblematical 
 of planetary revolutions. It is composed of eleven stones, 
 having a diameter of 1-iO feet, and being distant from the centre 
 of the great circle 714 feet. There is also, about 100 yards to 
 the north-west, a cave, so called, ten feet wide, and eight feet 
 deep, formed of three large flat stones, eighteen inches thick. 
 North of this are two large stones, lying flat in a field ; and 
 beyond an adjoining brook, is a very large stone, called, locally, 
 " Hachell's Quoit," being, we presume, the supposed work of a 
 
 giant. 
 
 Local intellect is undoubtedly highly mystified as to these 
 relics. The children of the hamlet don't play at " hide and seek " 
 about them after dusk, and if public-house oracles are infallible, 
 groans, &c. are not unfrequently to be heard in the stone-close, 
 " when the moon is out," towards tlie sma' hoiu-s. One gaping 
 rustic told us, " as how some do zay that it's a wedding, and that 
 the fiddlers and the bride and groom were all petrified as they 
 went to church." Now this idea is probably a fiible of the 
 seventeenth century, wlien music always preceded a couple to 
 church. Another old dame said, " Others do zay, nobody can't 
 count 'em ; certain 'tis a baker did try with loaves on each, and 
 they never could come right. But there 'tis, some do zay one 
 thing, and zum another, that there's no believing none of 'cm." 
 So we thought, reader, don't you ? An intelligent old fanner told 
 US he had seen men dig several yards down without getting to 
 the foundation of one of these stones. The stone is certainly 
 not of the neighbourhood, being chiefly old red sand-stone, half 
 
 B 2
 
 260 'cross country, 
 
 vitrified with intense heat in some great convulsion of our globe. 
 Some of them, however, were of limestone, and have been used 
 to pave the roads. May the bones of those who did it be mixed 
 Avith tlaeir dust. One or two of these antique giants have now 
 fallen from their high estate, and others are tottering to their 
 ruin ; we saw no Druidical rock basins in any of them, but 
 time had cloven in all of them vast gaps and fissures, which 
 were full of rain water ; all were covered thick with various 
 sorts of lichen, and on many grew wild flowers, blooming, 
 as if mocking at decay ; we need hardly tire our readers with 
 the natural association of such a scene. The centre altar-stone 
 of the chief circle is a gigantic block as large as an Egyptian 
 obelisk, on which, doubtless, human blood has often been shed, 
 Avhen the Prince of Cornwall, before the time of Stonehenge, 
 ruled over Cavenodor and all the west of England. 
 
 "We thought — who could help it ? — of the Druids, those white- 
 robed believers in one God, those teachers of a pure Sabaism, 
 of a metempsychosis, and a future state. All the lays of the 
 bards their attendants rang in our ears, for does not old 
 Taliesin say : — 
 
 "They talk of the proud and magnificent circle round which the majestic 
 oaks, the symbols of Tayreuy, the Grod of thunder, spread then' arms." 
 
 And again, when he is watching the rock-basin, he says — 
 
 " A cormorant approaches me with large wings ; she assaults the top 
 stoue with her hoarse clamours ; there is wrath in the fates, let it burst 
 through the stone." 
 
 Then we think of the priests of Baal, so often mentioned in 
 Scripture, who cut themselves with knives in honour of their 
 God. Aneurin, too, says, like Taliesin — 
 
 " Let the tliigh be pierced in blood." 
 
 And again — 
 
 " In honom- of the miglity king of the plants, the kmg of the open 
 countenance. I saw dark gore arising from the stalks of plants, and on the 
 clasps of the chain ; while the circular evolutions were performed by the 
 attendants and the white bands with graceful extravagance. The assem- 
 bled train were dancing after their manner, and smging in cadence with the 
 garlands on their brows."
 
 THE DRUIDS' TEMPLE AT STANTON DREW. 261 
 
 "We have no doubt tliat the Druids first taught a pure Deism, 
 in temples of stone, intended to represent the sun, the supposed 
 abode oj' God. But soon this faith became corrupted, and the 
 belief which they had brought from Tartary changed into the 
 ■norship of Hertha, and the god of war, and the oak god, or the 
 quickener,&c. Indeed, Oriental scholars trace a strong connection 
 in Druidism with the faith of the Hindoo ; the very names of 
 their deities can be detected; their symboKc circle is the 
 emblem of Brama ; their crescent, of Siva ; their crucial cross 
 is E-jvptian ; their made rod resembles that of the Brahmins ; 
 their reverence to oxen is like the worship of Apis ; their beads, 
 and; lustrations, and tiaras, are all Oriental ; their astrology 
 is Chaldaic. What a pure morality did they teach. These 
 were their laws — " The universe is eternal— the soul is im- 
 mortal. Honour thou nature, defend thy mother, thy country, 
 the earth. Admit Avomen in thy counsels. Honour the 
 stranger, and put aside his share in thy harvest. Let the in- 
 famous be buried in mire. Do not raise temples, and trust the 
 history of the past to thy memory alone. Man, be free— be 
 without property. Honour the old man, and may never the 
 young one be a witness against him. The brave will be re- 
 Avarded after death— the coward will be punished." 
 
 The stones which form these temples are covered with lichens 
 and a grey moss, which seems to furnish a soil for numerous 
 plants. 
 
 A local historian sums up the statistics of this rare old 
 place, whicli are too unromantic for us. He says, " There 
 are altogether three circles of stones, the largest of which, hke 
 Stonehenge, is in reality a sort of ellipsis. Within is a great 
 altar-stone, as at Stonehenge, placed towards the east ; the 
 greatest diameter of the large circle is 12G yards ; the largest 
 stone is 9 feet high, and measures 22 feet in circumference; 
 thirteen stones remain, with foundations of others ; the original 
 number is supposed to have been thirty. The circle of eight, 
 on the eastward, is 9G feet in diameter, and the uioon's temple 
 120 feet across. Mr. Tlielps, the Somersetshire historian, 
 says, "These remains may be classed witli Abury, in Wiltshire, 
 from the rudeness of their execution, and they bear a close resem-
 
 262 CROSS COUNTRY. 
 
 blance to those of Carnac, in Britamiy," — that land of forests 
 and Armorican tradition. Near Dundr j we also observed a large 
 cistvaen, or sepulchral mound, beneath which repose, perhaps, 
 the bones of some ancient British prince. It covers the area 
 of a whole field. The soil all around Stanton is impregnated 
 with iron, and its rich red hue gives a fine tone to the land- 
 scape, cheering to the heart of the farmer, as it tells him of 
 hidden geological riches. 
 
 "We have no doubt that these monstrous stones were dragged 
 thither by the united strength of a whole tribe ; indeed, some 
 of the "Welsh triads distinctly refer to such eiforts when they 
 talk of great undertakings being " like the labour at the stone 
 of strength." 
 
 Just a little below these remains of Paganism, stands the old 
 church, founded by the holders of a purer religion, which was 
 unknown when these stones were first dragged to their present 
 position. 
 
 But a chapter on the Druids would involve a volume. So 
 imagine us, prithee, good reader, plodding home, and, when 
 arrived there, sitting down to our desk and writing the above. 
 Parewell, " a word that has been, and that must be," 'tis 
 spoken with regret, but still, — Farew^ell. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIII. 
 
 A SOMEESETSHIEB WALK. 
 
 " But here no more soft music flows, 
 Ko holy anthem's chanted now ; 
 All hush'd, except the ring-dove's note, 
 Low murmuring from the beecheu bough." 
 
 "What a dismal thing is an Autumn morning. So we thought 
 as we looked out from the diamond-paned window of an old- 
 fashioned inn in the pretty monastic little village of Banwell. 
 Our hostelrie, reader, was one of those which are eulogised in 
 so Bweet a manner by old patriarchal Izaak "Walton — " "Where 
 the bed with its clean sheets smeUs of lavender, and the walls
 
 A SOMERSETSHIRE WALK. 203 
 
 are decked xvitli somo simple ballads." Or, as Keats says, 
 more poetically — 
 
 "^There azure-lidded 'sheep 
 May rest ou beds, all blanched and lavendered." 
 
 It was a little before da-\yii wben'] we looked out towards the 
 Mendips, which, covered with a blue mist, stretched away 
 towards the sea, their outline looking fainter and fainter, till 
 they blended with the cold grey mist of the morning. Almost 
 at the very instant we looked forth the dtiwa comnaenced, with 
 a faint, pallid glare in the East, which anon turned into a pale 
 crimson glow, and soon subsided into the misty, leaden-coloured 
 obscurity of an October morning. It was a very ghastly imi- 
 tation of a July morn, and a miserable aping of the aerial pa- 
 geantry of summer. We were getting quite abusive against 
 autumn, when suddenly the sun gleamed forth through the 
 chill air and lit up the whole scene before us, the hill-tops in 
 the distance, the old towers of many churches that rose around 
 us gleaming coldly, while its rays gave a look of cheerfulness 
 even to the trees, clad in their golden-coloured foliage of autumn. 
 AVe took a hasty breakfast, and sallied out through the hamlet, 
 which antiquarians say is so called from Bann (deep) and 
 IVeilgi (sea), having been in former ages covered by the waters 
 of the sea and the Severn. The village, situated in a rich 
 valley, is about six miles from Axbridge, and thirteen from 
 Bristol. Nothing can be more interesting than its legendary 
 and historical recollections. Like most of the Somersetshire 
 hamlets, its associations are of great antiquity, a monastery 
 having been founded here by one of the West Saxon kings, at 
 the time when England was split up into little kingdoms. The 
 great iVlfred appointed to this ecclesiastical establishment his 
 well-known favourite Ayser. It was destroyed during the 
 Danish wars, probably by piratical bands, who landed on the 
 adjacent Somersetshii'c coast, but was, however, soon restored, 
 for Edward the Confessor took it from that ambitious chief, 
 Earl Harold, and bestowed it on Dudaco, the Lombard Bishop 
 of Wells. In the fifteenth century, about the time of Henry V.> 
 an era when many of the beautiful and richly-decorated
 
 264 'cross country. 
 
 cliurclies of Somersetsliire were built, this bisliop erected au 
 episcopal palace liere, whieli was pulled down many years since, 
 after having been first turned into a modern mansion. The 
 monastery once belonged to the Duke of Somerset, but after 
 his attainder, ruthless Queen Mary restored it to the bishopric 
 of Wells. This same mimificeut prelate built the fine old 
 church of Banwell, dedicating it, we believe, to St. Andrew. 
 The tower, richly decorated, is 100 feet high. There is some 
 good painted glass within the holy pile, and a fine brass, dated 
 1554. There are, besides, part of a rood loft, an old font, 
 some parish records, commencing ISOG, and other objects of 
 Interest. The village is, in fact, full of monastic reminiscences, 
 and there are still remains of parts of the old monastery, and a 
 market cross. Bishop Paul Bush, of Bristol, whose skeleton mo- 
 nument is in Bristol cathedral, was once connected in some way 
 with this place. There is also a mineral spring in the village. 
 The adjacent hamlets are Eolston, AVestwick, Towerhead, 
 Knightcot, Yarborough, &c. It is in a place lilve this that we 
 forget all the errors of the monies, and thiulc of them only 
 with gratitude as the heralds of civilization in these wild dis- 
 tricts, and the precursors of a purer religion. As we give a 
 parting look at the old tower, we think too — 
 
 " How many hearts have here grown cold. 
 
 That sleep these mouldering stones among ; 
 How many beads have here been told, 
 How many matins have been smig." 
 
 Passing on, we wended our way to the antediluvian caves, 
 which are situated in the grounds of a cottage built by the 
 late Bishop of Bath and "Wells, the grounds of which are laid 
 out with much taste, on the western side of a hill above the 
 village. A beautiful A'iew from the summit repays the travel- 
 ler for a clamber up a steep ascent, and an unrivalled panorama 
 lies before us in a bird's-eye glance. Behind us lay the dark 
 chain of the Meudips, among which Bleadou (Bleakdowu) 
 rises boldly towards the sky, and Brent knoll is hardly less con- 
 spicuous. To the south the splendid spire of Bridgwater 
 church points its stony finger to the sky. To the north rises
 
 A SOMERSETSHIRE WALK. 2G5 
 
 tlie spire of tlie old Bristol hamlets of Conp'esbuvy aud Yatton, 
 and towards the west lie Weston and Worle. Beyond the 
 Severn sea, which stretches, gleaming in the sun like molten 
 silver, in the furthest horizon, extends the dark line of the 
 Monmouthshire coast, broken by the Abergavenny moimtains. 
 This beautiful spot on which we stand, some thirty years ago 
 was nothing but the bleak hill side, occasionally quarried for 
 its hidden treasures of lapis calamiuaris, ochre, and lead. 
 While blasting some inunense piles of mountain limestone, the 
 astonished miners accidentally struck upon a cavern, which, in 
 times before the flood, is supposed, by fair induction, to have 
 been the den of the wolf aud the grisly bear. This immense 
 orifice, consisting of a large area, with two diverging galleries, 
 was found filled wdth loose alluvial earth, intermixed with the 
 bones of the buffalo, the stag, the rein-deer, the fox, the wild cat, 
 and the bat, and of the older tenants mentioned above. Fol- 
 lowing the gardener as our guide, we explored the cavern, 
 lighted by torches. ]S'othing could be more impressive than 
 its dark recesses, lighted by a feeble glare that hardly disclosed 
 the dark, irregular masses of rock which formed the roof. The 
 great geologist, Dr. Buckland, who Avrote without visiting the 
 place, calls them,inlus Br'uhj water Treatise, one of those caverns 
 which are filled by the bones of animals which'.fell in or crowded 
 here together for safety at the deluge. But the immense 
 quantity of these bones, which were piled up in large heaps and 
 columns on the floor of the cave, prove that it was the haunt 
 of bears, who preyed on the buftalo roaming in the wooded 
 valley beneath, and whose carcases they dragged hither to gnaw 
 at leisure. Indeed, many of the ox bones appear gnawed at 
 the place where the cartilage joined the bone. Our guide 
 seemed to have a personal acquaintance with every bone, and 
 talked as glibly of the "ulna," "radius," "humerus," and 
 ''tibia," as a young surgeon would of the contents of his 
 dissecting-room. Many of the bone relics are quite colossal 
 in proportion. Islv. Beard, a clever antiquarian of the neigh- 
 bourhood, has preserved some very fine specimens, which prove 
 the animals to have been of quadruple the present size ; one 
 leg bone of an extinct species of elephant is as large as a man's
 
 266 'cross country. 
 
 tliigh. lu a curious cave iu Bleaclou-liill, the bones of ele- 
 phants, hyrenas, rhinoceri, and other tropical animals, have also 
 been found, but no remains of man. "Who can imagine the 
 Mendips haunted by monsters, against whom all tlie strength 
 of man would have been ineifectual. 
 
 The roof of Banwell cave drips with liquid carbonate lime, 
 which tends to preserve the bones, and some of the oozings 
 from the rock have already petrified into stalactites. These 
 interesting remains have been carefully preserved almost ex- 
 actly as found, by the wish of the late Bishop. On the wall 
 of the garden are some marble tablets inscribed with appro- 
 priate lines of a devotional character — alkiding to the hill 
 having once been a spot devoted to Druidical rites. The only 
 drawbacks to the tout ensemble are two Cockney -looking 
 grottoes, which, are whitewashed and decorated in the worst 
 possible taste, and on a mound of turf near is a sliam Druidical 
 altar. A short wallv tlu-ough the grounds brought us oiit on a 
 bridle path on the bleak fern-covered hill, and we turned our 
 faces towards " MaxAvell mills." Before us lay many ranges 
 of hills, stretching as far as we could see on either hand, oc- 
 casionally broken into dells by mutual intersection. Many 
 of them are partially cultivated, and the stubble gleamed yel- 
 low in the sun on the dark hill side. Some of them, the high- 
 est of the chain, rose far in the distance, and were tinted by 
 the sun's mellow golden light, Avhile those nearer still v/ere 
 dark and over-shadowed, as if by the vast black wing of some 
 evil spirit. Here and there, on the side of a hill, a man might 
 be seen ploughing on places so steep, that it seemed proble- 
 matical whether in some unlucky lurcli, plougli and ploughman 
 rniglit not roll together into the valley below. "We traversed a 
 rough field path, pushed through a picturesque field or two, and 
 passing some tranquil-looking cottages, and a public-house 
 with a great elm-tree before the door, under whose shade, aud 
 under the sign, as if imder the banner of their liege lord, 8ir 
 JohnBarleycorn, sat some sages, discussing a capacious pot of old 
 ale, and the newest news, we got into the main road. "VVe passed 
 througb some pretty lanes, turned up a high road, at the side 
 of which a spectral sort of sign-post pointed its lank-black
 
 A SOMERSETSHIRE WALK. 267 
 
 finger, and we reached jNIaxwell. There a little stream, 
 dammed up till it had formed quite a miniature lake, turns a 
 mill, and having performed that piece of industry, wanders 
 about among the meadows in a very reckless sort of way in- 
 deed. Autumn's rule was evident in every tree and bush, 
 even in the sallow flags and rushes that peered out of the 
 brooks, that rippled cheerfully by the wayside. Every tree had 
 lost its gay livery of Summer, and seemed as golden as if 
 Midas, in a freak of regal fancy, had coined each leaf into a 
 little plate of the precious metal. One might fancy that we 
 were in the realms of the Arabian Sorcerer, or those regions of 
 Mammon, where the trees bear jewels instead of leaves. 
 
 These are the beginning of the enchantments of that aerial 
 wizard "Winter, who after tiu-ning them to gold, tinting them 
 with a thousand ruddy hues, and stamping them with the 
 livid plague-spots of decay, sends his "piping winds" to 
 strip them from their parent tree, and to drive them with a 
 cruel persecution over the hill and the moor, and the ploughed 
 field and up the lane, and over the high road, wherever they 
 assemble in little knots, these withered leaves, as if whis- 
 pering conspiracy, these savage myrmidons of the ic}^ king 
 rush at them and send them rustling to the four quarters of 
 Daven. And the sun, too, that great alchemist, now tints the 
 already golden leaves with a deeper yellow, and the great fanlike 
 leaves of the chestnut. The carvelled leaf of the eastern 
 sycamore and the flowerlike keys of the ash, and in the orchard 
 by the wayside, the ruby-dyed foliage of the apple, whirl in 
 the wind and come eddying to the ground, and every now 
 and then, across the hard, dry road, a leaf crackles driven by 
 the breeze, and that is the only sound. Banwell is a sort of 
 nucleus of field and road, vv'here at night you might expect 
 some will-o'-the-wisp with his livid torch might beguile you to 
 muddy death in the horrible depths of some dark swamp. But 
 enough of Autumn ; a few more turns, after a judicious enquiry 
 at a cottage window, of a blooming Somersetshire maiden, 
 bring us to Winscombe Hill. After passing through an irregular 
 street, with a few cottages, and a ruined barn, &c., which form 
 the village, you see an old church that stands at a little distance
 
 268 'cross country. 
 
 to the right of the roaii. It is a lofty decorated buildiug, with a 
 beautiful tower all earvelled and enriched in the most gor- 
 geous manner that stone is susceptible of. Some fine old 
 trees, emblems of immortality, stand in the " God's acre," 
 "where the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep." "We were 
 r^lowly toiling up Wiseombe Hill, which runs through a pretty 
 defile, we had just reached the top, we say, and were lis- 
 tening to the rushing of the wind amongst the branches of 
 some funeral-looking pines Avhich deck its brow, when we were 
 overtaken by a cheerful-looking old farmer, Avith a scarlet 
 waistcoat, on his way to Axbridge. We gathered from a chat 
 with him, and his broadest " Zumerzetshire" dialect, full of 
 " zurs" and " thicks," &c., that he had just sold at a very satis- 
 factory price, to another farmer, an old white mare, which for 
 many years had alternately pulled at the plough, and bore him 
 once a week to Wells market. ]N"ow this very satisfactory sale 
 had thrown our friend into a state of great placidity, and had 
 given him a very good opinion of the world in general. An 
 ominous jingle in his pocket at each step told us of "hid 
 treasure," and the shadow of a smile of ill-concealed self-com- 
 placency lurked about the wrinkled corners of his mouth. After 
 having, in the bubbling over-warmth of his heart, pulled 
 out a sort of portable bracket-clock, alias a watch, Avhich he 
 carried in his pocket, and then offered us a pinch from a huge 
 sarcophagus, which we courteously called his snuff-box, he fell 
 unsolicited into an amusing gossip of his youthful recollections. 
 We won't trouble the reader with his tales about his " old mis- 
 sus," or his opinion of the minister, whom he thought "a great 
 scollard, and a good Latiner," but we will briefly relate what he 
 told us he had heard his grandfather " zay" about the highway- 
 men that once haimted that pass. The stages used to be fre- 
 quently stopped there, and single travellers were often robbed 
 in the winter as they passed over Axbridge Moor by night. 
 Once, he said, a gentleman who had " taken the road," let the 
 passengers of a stage pass on trust, on condition that a pretty 
 lady inside would dance a minuet with him on the moor. 
 " And he was quite the gentleman, and never would rob the 
 poor, but would give them a guinea or two now and then, when
 
 A SOMERSETSHIRE WALK. 200 
 
 lie called at their Louses for anything hj night." This anec- 
 dote reminded us of something ^ve had lieard of Claude Duval 
 iu Charles II.'s time, but we did not interrupt the worth}'- 
 farmer. 
 
 While our garrulous friend was thus haranguing on '• the 
 tales of the days of other years," we had reached Axbridge 
 Moor. A Eoman road is here half visible amongst the grass 
 on one side of the road, while the little river Axe flows at a 
 little distance below. The great Bridgewater road crosses to 
 the right, and the Mendips stretch nobly away towards the sea 
 in the distance. Here the poor people believe the " good 
 folk" (fairies) still linger and gambol by the liglit of the 
 moon, under the shadow of the hills. We catch a view of a 
 wooded slope, rich with the tints of autumn, and we enter the 
 long street which forms the village of Axbridge. But this, 
 although it is very quickly written on paper, took us some con- 
 siderable time in walking ; and before this we had met an old, 
 lank man in seedy black, a friend of my new companion, who, 
 making a rustic bow to us, entered into conversation with him. 
 He proved to be the " Croquemort," alias sexton, of some ad- 
 jacent hamlet. Our good-humoured farmer drew him out for 
 our especial amusement, and for about half-an-hour we talked 
 of nothing but " graves, and Avorms, and epitaphs." He told 
 us several curious anecdotes of his ghostly craft, one of the 
 most curious of which, and the only one worth repeating, was 
 his digging up, some years back, the wedding-ring of liis wife, 
 whom he had buried sixteen years before. Not a bone of her 
 body could, however, be found, and he believed that it had 
 been carried off by resurrection-men ; the ring dropping from 
 the shrunk finger, had probably been trodden into the loose soil- 
 He knew the ring, he said, well, by a mark he had himself 
 made upon it at his marriage. Just then we entered the in- 
 teresting old village, and our farmer turned off to refresh him- 
 self with a cup of cider at a friend's house with the sexton ; and 
 they were received, as we could see through the window, by a 
 pretty dark-eyed maiden, who, w^e doubt not, is the belle of the 
 
 village !
 
 270 'cross countuy. 
 
 WRINGTON. 
 
 A few miles fartlier brings us into Wrington, after wauder- 
 ing tbrougli some pretty laues, after passing an old posting 
 inn which was shut uj) long ago, and vv-hicli looks like some 
 vast mausoleum reared to the genius of coaching, an effete 
 science ; and above all, some orchards, where the trees are 
 bowing down with the weight of ruddy apples, and where some 
 urchins, with cheeks as rosy as the apples, are pelting each 
 other with the fruit, in spite of all the remonstrances of a gray- 
 headed grandfather, while the orchard re-echoes with their sil- 
 ver-toned laughter. 
 
 A long lane leads us into "Wrington ; the houses begin to 
 thicken, hostelries get more ninnerous, and above them 
 the fine tower of the village church peers over all, the 
 streets thicken and diverge as from a nucleus of four. "We 
 anxiously enquire for the house of the great Locke, who, we 
 know, was born here in the year 1G32. To our great delight, 
 every boy in the street, even the group ])laying for " dear life" 
 at leap-frog near the chief inn, knew all about " Mr. Locke ;" 
 and under the guidance of the head boy, who volunteers to 
 pilot us, with an ultimate eye to a prospective penny, we saUy 
 on. A short turn up a little half-paved lane, past a row of 
 clean cottages, in many of Avhich a pleasant fire is glowing, 
 and we arrive at the object of our pilgrimage. It is an hum- 
 ble, clean, thatched house, close to the churchyard, the last of 
 a row leading from one of the principal streets. It consists of 
 two stories, and, in our own day, might be the fit abode for a 
 gardener or higher order of labourer ; although Locke's father 
 was a man of some landed property, and of Dorsetshire extrac- 
 tion. A man who cou^ld afford to send his son to college, and 
 train him up to one of the liberal professions, would hardly live 
 in such a cottage at the present day. 
 
 Never did saint feel more devout when he reached the shrine 
 of his patron saint, never crusader at the sight of Jerusalem, 
 than we did at the sight of a house so connected with the 
 memory of the greatest philosopher of England in modern, or, 
 perhaps, any time, — that great man, who first made an intelli- 
 gent use of the sublime principles laid down by Eacon ; who
 
 A SOMERSETSHIRE WALK 271 
 
 earnt from tliat sage to Avateli nature in lier laboratory, and 
 trace her works; he who first cleared the science of meta- 
 phvsics from all the barbarous jargon of the schools ; and, as 
 Shaftesbury says, " brought philosophy into the use and prac- 
 tice of the world, and into the company of the better and politer 
 sort, who might well be ashamed of it in its other dress ;" — the 
 great man, who, first clearing the science of the mind on the 
 one hand from the ideal obscurity of the Platonists, and on 
 the other from the debasing materialism of the disciples of the 
 Stagyrites, taught us, as if with the voice of a god, that all our 
 ideas proceed from two simple sources — sensation and reflec- 
 tion. The senses furnish the raw material to the brain, which by 
 its reflection and contemplation is worked up into innumerable 
 thoughts. 
 
 That great authority, Sir James Mackintosh, says, " Locke's 
 works have contributed much to rectify prejudice, to under- 
 miue established errors, to difi"use a just mode of thinking, to 
 excite a fearless spirit of enquiry, and yet to contain it within 
 the boundaries which nature has prescribed to the human un- 
 derstanding. He has left to posterity the instructive exam- 
 ple of a prudent reformer, and of a philosophy temperate as 
 well as liberal, which shares the feelings of the good, and avoids 
 direct hostility with obstinate and formidable prejudice. If 
 Locke made few discoveries, Socrates made none. Yet both 
 did more for the improvement of the understanding, and for the 
 progress of knowledge, than the authors of the most brilliant 
 discoveries." Perhaps few men have led a life so happy as our 
 philosopher. Xeither Plato with his dreary years of sorrow 
 and sufi"ering, or Aristotle with the toil of his disciples, coidd 
 boast such advantages. Locke learnt toleration iu the school 
 of persecution, acquired liberality from the doctrines of the 
 Independent divines, and a love of freedom from his dissenting 
 friends. He was born iu an age when experimental philosophy 
 was making rapid strides, and the Eoyal Society was only 
 lately established. He was an intimate friend of ]N"ewtou's, 
 of Le Clerc, and other continental men of science. The 
 generous liberality of the Earl of Sliaftesbury enabled him to 
 devote his life to study ; he studied wisdom in men as well as
 
 27.2 "" 'cross country. 
 
 in books, and mixed Avitb every rank of society. His life glided 
 on peacefully towards eternity, like some migbty, silent, flowing 
 river. He realised those fine lines of old enthusiastic Crash aw : — 
 
 " Sydneyian showers 
 Of sweet discourse, whose powers 
 Can crown old Winter's head with flowers. 
 
 Soft silken hoiu's, 
 
 Open suns and shady bowers, 
 
 'BoTe all nothing within that lowers. 
 
 Whate'er dehght 
 
 Can make day's forehead bright, 
 
 Or giye down to the wing of night." 
 
 His was 
 
 " A happy soul, that all the way 
 To heaven had a summer day." 
 
 He died at the seat of Lady Masham, at Ongar, in Essex, 
 while his patroness was reading him a chapter in the Psalms. 
 "We will not say a word on the absurd imputations of mate- 
 rialism once thrown out against this great Christian philoso- 
 pher; for no writer in the Euglisb language is more pious or 
 devout. It is difficult to say whether Locke did most for the 
 cause of true science, religious toleration, or education. He 
 found them all hidden in Cimmerian darkness, and besmeared 
 with corruption ; he left them almost restored to their pristine 
 beauty. 
 
 The most delightful trait of Locke's private character is his 
 behaviour towards Sir Isaac Newton, who became insane from 
 grief at the destruction of some MS. by fire. Pepys alludes 
 to it. Newton, soon after this dreadful visitation, wrote to his 
 friend a letter, beginning strangely thus : — 
 
 " SiE — Eeing of opinion that you endeavoured to embroil me with wo- 
 men, and by other means, I was so much affected with it, that when one 
 told me you were sicklyj and would not live, I answered 'twere better if you 
 died," &c. 
 
 Newton then apologises for this, and also for having said that 
 Locke's principles " struck at the root of morality." Our phi-
 
 A SOMERSETSHIRE WALK. 273 
 
 losopher answered vfith. all the Christian charity of an apostle 
 and the affection of a true friend thus : — 
 
 " Sin, — I hare been, ever since I tnew you, so entirely and sincerely 
 yoiu" friend, and tlionght yon so much mine, that T could not hare beliered 
 what you tell me of yoiivsclf, had I heard it of anybody else ; and though 
 I cannot but be mightdy troubled that you shoidd hare so many wrong 
 and unjust thoughts of me, yet, next to the return of good offices, sucli as, 
 from a sincere desire of good wiU I hare erer done you, I rcceire your 
 acknowledgment of the contrary as the kindest thing you coidd hare done 
 me, since it gires me hopes that I hare not lost a friend I so muchralued ? 
 .... Gire me leare to assure you tliat I am more ready to forgire you, 
 than you can be to desire it, and I do it so freely and fully, that I wish for 
 nothing more than the opportimity of conrincing you that I tridy lore and 
 esteem you," &c. 
 
 Locke then alludes to Newton having signed himself " your 
 most humble and unfortunate servant," and concludes. Xew- 
 ton soon after this wrote a letter to Pepys, reproaching him 
 with treachery, and then the next week apologised. This won- 
 derful man never fully recovered his iutelleet, and died with a 
 clouded brain, before he had finished his great theory of light. 
 In heaven he will see God with undimmed vision, and to him 
 will be revealed all those great mysteries, of which, even he, saw 
 but a faint glimpse while on earth. 
 
 We should like to have every village in England raising a 
 fund to rear a statue to their worthies, to excite its youth to a 
 noble and generous emulation, to ornament their streets, and 
 to encourage science : then would Bristol boast its Chatterton, 
 its Cabot, its Colston, its Sir T. Lawrence, its Canning, itc; 
 Berkeley its .Tenner, and AVrington its Locke and Hannah 
 Moore. "VVe cannot imagine a nobler encouragement to patri- 
 otism, and a desire for glorious fame, than this would give 
 throughout all England. 
 
 This interesting village, "VVrington, has many legendary as- 
 sociations. It is said to have been given by the Saxon Icing 
 Athelstane to the Abbey of Glastonbury, and the savage Queen 
 Mary bestowed it on a favourite courtier. 
 
 The church is one of the most elaborate specimens of the 
 last glorious simset of Gothic architecture to be met with in
 
 274 'cross country. 
 
 fill SomersetsMre. The edifice is 120 feet long, and 52 wide ; 
 the tower 140 feet high, aud every little ornameut of the 
 building is elaborately finished. ^Ve particularly noticed the 
 east end, on each corner of which are niches for statues ; while 
 above, gurgoyles, in the shape of dragons, seem to scramble 
 down the wall, and vomit the water from their stony mouths. 
 There is also a nave, chancel, and porch, comprising every re- 
 quisite of this architectural period. The tower contains a good 
 peal of bells, which sound musically as the traveller catches their 
 chime faintly on the distant Mendips. A new church has 
 been built in the adjoining liamlet of Eedhill. The well-known 
 "Waterland once lived here ; and there is a free school in tlie 
 parish. The teazel is gro^Ti largely for the uses of the cloth 
 trade in this neighbourhood, towards Broadwell down ; and 
 zinc and caliminaris are found in abundant quantities. The 
 village, situated near Burriugton, is about twelve miles from 
 Wells, and eleven from Bristol. We were sorry to learn from 
 a villager, that the inhabitants of this rich village have been for 
 half-a-dozen years collecting subscriptions to buy an organ for 
 their beautifid. church, and have not yet succeeded. 
 
 The great object of interest here, after the birth-place of 
 Locke, is Barle^j Wood, a pretty little cottage, where the excel- 
 lent Hannah More resided with her band of loving sisters, after 
 she gave up their school at Stapleton. Here, after publishing 
 Bas Bleu, her plays, and " Caleb in search of a Wife," that 
 novel so " saintly and solemn," she retired as to a hermitage ; 
 and here, after having acquired a vast deal of literary fame, 
 and having contracted friendships with Dr. Johnson, Eeynolds, 
 Bur^e, G-arrick, &c., she devoted herself to works of charity 
 and mercy. Penetrating the wilds of the hills, like a nun of 
 old, she established schools in the rocky fastnesses of Cheddar ; 
 and before her death had that inexpressible delight, which only 
 the virtuous can conceive, of seeing above a thousand children, 
 with several female clubs of industry, assemble at an annual 
 fete on those rocky heights. Then might this excellent woman 
 have said, " l!s'ow let thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes 
 liave seen thy salvation." Of £30,000 made by her writings, she 
 left legacies to charitable institutions amounting to £10,000.
 
 A SOMERSETSHIRE WALK. 275 
 
 "Was ever money got by purer means, or spent to a more lioly 
 purpose ? To the rough nimers wlioni she visited, living in 
 districts as uucultiired as the Avilds of Africa, tliat pious band 
 of sisters must have seemed like ministering angels. She died 
 on the 7th of September, 1S33, aged eighty-eight, full of years 
 and full of hope. She was gathered in like a sheaf of the ripest 
 wheat into her Sa-viour's garner. A merry, plethoric, old laud- 
 lady at an inn Avhere we took dinner remembered all the family. 
 They were carried to the gi'ave, she said, all live, one after the 
 other, and poor Mrs. Hannah More, " dear soul," the last. 
 " There's her grave, sir, with the weeping Avillow over it." It 
 stands, reader, near the road, and a willow does bend its leafy 
 branches over it. " And," continued the good Mrs. Boniface, 
 ■" there's a grand monument to her in the church, with such a 
 hepitaph, it would take you a quarter of a hour to read it." 
 This is vulgar fame. The worthy hostess would have suffered 
 death at the stake, if she could have insured herself a hepitaph 
 that would take half an hour reading, beating IMrs. Hannah 
 by a good quarter ; ladies said she came down and prayed the 
 villagers to copy it, as they haveut time to wait. We got quite 
 chatty with the old lady ; and having praised Locke and Han- 
 nah More in a flowery oration that consumed half an liour by 
 the great inn clock, that ticked lugubriously, we so won her 
 heart, that having unfortunately made an observation on the 
 crop of apples being deficient, the old lady forcibly and power- 
 fully convinced us of the contrary, by not allowing us to depart 
 till we had filled our pockets to repletion with the ruddy pro- 
 duce of her o^vn orchard. AYe left as heavily ballasted as a 
 Dutch East Indiaman ; and having taken a stirrup cup of ex- 
 cellent cider of this year's brewing, went on our way rejoicing, 
 light of Iieart but heavy in pockets. 
 
 Like Autolycus, Ave sang on our way to Congresbury, pro- 
 nounced cachophonously Coomesbury, 
 
 "Jog on, jog on, the footpath way, 
 And merrily hent the stile a. 
 A merry heart goes all tlie day, 
 Your sad tires in a mile a." 
 
 T 2
 
 276 'cross country. 
 
 Just as you get on any of the heights here, a mansion half 
 hidden with foliage meets your eye — 
 
 " Bosom'd bigli in tufted trees, 
 Where perhaps some beauty lies, 
 The cynosure of neighbouring eyes." 
 
 "We believe it is called Mendij) Lodge. A more beautiful situa- 
 tion could hardly be conceived. 
 
 COKGEESBUKT 
 
 is associated with the legendary of a hermit named St. Conger,, 
 who is said in very recent times to have come to England, after 
 being a monarch of the East. This benefice was given by the- 
 tyrant, John, to Joceline, Bishop of "Wells. There is a beau- 
 tiful view from hence of the vale of Glastonbury and its monas- 
 tic ruins. Travellers should always visit a place where hermits 
 are said to have lived ; for both that pious fraternity as well as 
 the founders of monasteries had a wonderful keen eye for the 
 beautiful and sublime, and none felt more keenly the loveliness 
 of unadorned nature — 
 
 " When unadorned, adorned the most." 
 
 A long walk through a devious lane and winding road 
 brought us, after a careful consultation of the half-obliterated 
 hieroglyphics on many a sign-post, to 
 
 BEOCKLET. 
 
 Let us bury for ever in dark oblivion our conversation with 
 a miner, our chat with a collier, and, lastly, although we drop 
 a tear as we Avipe it off our tablets, the meeting with an old 
 man and his -wife, who were going to an adjoining workhouse. 
 They wept as they went along ; because they loiew that, after 
 living together for thirty years, and sharing the world's smiles 
 and frowns, the showers and sunshine of fortune, they were to 
 be torn asunder for ever, and not to meet, no, not even in the 
 grave. "We were still thinking over the frison-relief system, 
 that inflicts such deserved punishment on the atrocious crime 
 of poverty, when we entered the wooded Coombe, and its wild 
 beauty soon swept away all thoughts of the sufiering of our
 
 A SOMERSETSHIRE WALK. 277 
 
 fellow-meu. It is wonderful, by the bye, reader, how soon the 
 misery of others vanishes from the mind. The Cooinbe is a 
 beautiful glen, with crags on eitlier side, now frowning and 
 precipitous, now sloping into a plain, through which the road 
 glides. Every tree known to otu* land seems to grow on 
 these heights with all the luxuriance of the tropics — the ches- 
 nut, the horse-beau, the oak, the ash, the elm, the beech, the 
 lovely birch ; and over tlie shingly grey pebbles, which cover 
 the banlvs, hang wild flowers, among whicli the brambles clmg 
 ■everywhere. Beautiful is the scene in summer, but in autumn 
 it is matchless. Wood njnnphs might sport and not miss 
 Arcadia. Fairies, we have no doubt, love the spot and nightly 
 revel here. Decay Avas already stamped on every leaf when we 
 passed, and winter seemed to have begun its triumphant march, 
 like an icy conqueror as he is, through this lovely glen. 
 
 A short walk through a village, over which the Mendips seem 
 to impend, brought us to the Nailsea station. "VVe were just 
 in time for a train. We plunged into tlie recesses of a first- 
 class carriage ; and in a few minutes the fiery monster, panting 
 as if his iron heart would burst, and vomiting fire like the 
 liippogrif of the magician, Aldihorontos j)hosciphornio, bore ns 
 through a dense cluster of tiled roofs and smokey chimneys to 
 old Bristol. The stars had 
 
 "'Gun to pale theii" ineffectual fire " 
 
 when we reached our domicile.
 
 27S 'cross country, 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIV. 
 
 A "WALK OVEE THE MEXDIPS. 
 
 ",Tiac chilly close of an Autumn's day, 
 When the leaves fall thick on the wanderer's way ; 
 And riistling pines with a hollow sound 
 Foretell the tempest gathering round ; 
 Wlien the skirts of the western cloud are spread 
 With a tinge of wild and stormy red, 
 That seem, through the twilight forest bowers, 
 like the glare of a city's blazing towers."— il/rs. Hemans. 
 
 " When Autumn has laid her sickle by, 
 And the stacks are threepit to keep them dry ; 
 And the sapless leaves come down fra' the trees, 
 And dance about in the fitful breeze ; 
 And the robin again sits burd alone. 
 And sings his song on the aidd peat-stone." — Captain Gray^- 
 
 CHEDDAE, 
 
 "And Cheddar for mere grief, his tcene he could not wreake, 
 Gusht forth so forcefid that he was like to breake 
 The greatest banks of Ax, as from his mother's cav e, 
 He wandered to the sea." — Drayton. 
 
 This gem of a village is interesting alike from the natural 
 magnificence of its scenery, its manufactures, and its antiquities. 
 Like Axbridge, it was originally a royal demesne belonging to 
 the Saxon Kings. King John gave it to the Bishop of Wells, 
 from whence it derives its name of Cheddar Episcopi; the 
 former name being derived from the British word Ced, a height, 
 and Bwr (Dwvr), Avater, as Dover, &c. In the reign of Edward 
 YI., it was sold, and finally came into the possession of the 
 Marquis of Bath, to whom it now belongs. Passing an old 
 market cross, only the shaft of which remains, we go through 
 one or two irregular streets, passing several picturesque water- 
 mills, and a dark den, whence the red sparks are flying out 
 under the ponderous hammer of a stalwart smith, we arrive at 
 the clifls. A road by the side of a clear brook, here and there 
 dammed up for the use of mills, leads you into a rocky ravine. 
 On one side is a gentle hill, well wooded, and glowing in the-
 
 A AVALK OVER THE JIENDIPS. 279 
 
 yaried colourf* of autumn, at the foot of wliieh are some iniuers' 
 cottages ; on the other rise the cMd, 400 feet high, frowiiiug iu 
 aw'ful grandeur. The grey rocks are here clothed with nature's 
 tapestry ; the dark yew, the clinging ivj, the fiverwort, and 
 the fengren. i\t the foot, and on little ledges below, every- 
 where blooms the sweet-scented basil and the wild rue. At 
 some seasons of the year, too, these dark gi'cy rocks are covered 
 with red clouds of the rock pink, and in summer by the blue 
 hare-bell, which blossoms iu every crevice and fissure of the 
 cliffs. In some places the rocks swell forth with bold pro- 
 minences, like the bastions of some ruined Icecp, and at others 
 sink into dark chasms. Many deep caverns are found in various 
 parts of the rocks. In one of them an old woman lived for 
 twenty years. Another abounds with the most beautifid 
 stalactites, and in "a third, human bones, as well as those of 
 beasts and oxen, have been discovered. At one point the cliffs 
 rise to a height of 420 feet, nearly 100 feet higher than those 
 of St. Yincent, at Clifton ; and nothing can surpass their 
 sublime grandeur at this spot. A Avinding ascent of two miles 
 brings you through this rocky pass to the summit, which is 
 still 100 feet below that of the highest Mendip. Here five 
 sister-springs gush out of the rocks, and, imiting together, pour 
 their crystal stream, which is filled by dark green aquatic 
 plants, and the blue shells of limpets below. 
 
 As at Clifton, the geological strata point out, by their resem- 
 blance on either side of the defile, the dreadful convulsions 
 which tore them asunder. The delighted visitor is tormented 
 in this place by guides, who insist on pointing out what they 
 imagine to be objects of interest, and " beautiful jimpses," with 
 the monotonous voice and whining tone of the craft. The 
 stones and spar they offer for sale are dug some miles off. 
 
 An interesting legend appertains to these crags. An old MS. 
 in the possession of the Axbridge Corporation, of the eleventli 
 century, mentions that Edward the Confessor, a.b. 9/5, 
 came here to hunt, during his retirement at Glastonbury, soon 
 after the disgrace of St. Duustan. In the ardour of the chase, 
 the stag and the hounds were carried together over the cliffs, 
 and dashed to a thousand fracmcnts. The kind's horse was
 
 280 CROSS COUNTRY. 
 
 following tliem at the height of his speed, when Edward, sud- 
 denly breathing a vow of repentance and forgiveness of Dunstan, 
 was preserved by his horse suddenly stopping on the edge of 
 the yawning chasm. Struck with awe at Grod's goodness, he 
 returned to Axbridge, and restored St. Dunstan to his former 
 honours. So says the monkish chronicler. 
 
 We tore ourselves away and turned back to visit the church, 
 which is dedicated to St. Andrew, and was probably built in 
 the fovirteenth century, by Sir Eobert de Chedder, the son of a 
 Bristol burgess, who lived in Broadmead ; his tomb still stands 
 within the communion rails, and a fine bi'ass on this monument 
 represents the knight " clad in complete steel :" while a figure 
 of Isabella, his lady, is on the floor below. There are also in the 
 church two piscinas, a fine stone pulpit, painted and gilded by 
 the monks of old, a lectern with a half-destroyed copy of Foxe's 
 Martyrs, part of a rood-loft, and a gilded and carved roof The 
 vestry is an old chantry, and another chapel of tliis rare old 
 church contains a statue of some saint, much mutilated. In 
 the windows are some good fragments of early-stained glass, 
 one or two of the faces in which have a holy, placid expression, 
 rarely found at so early an age. An old tombstone, a.d. 1595, 
 of Ed. Roe, wdth an English inscription, is on the floor, and 
 the remains of a stone with a floriated cross. 
 
 There are two chapels, dedicated to the Holy Virgin and the 
 Trinity. In one of them is part of a very old defaced monu- 
 ment, on which the arms are a " heart between hands and 
 feet." The tower, adorned with pinnacles, and an elegant 
 parapet, is 100 feet high. The nave and aisles have pierced 
 parapets, and the ceiling of the belfry is richly decorated. As 
 we were in the church, a pale ray of sunlight lit up the tombs 
 with a beautiful, yet melancholy light. One of the Cheddar 
 family was married to Lord de Lisle, who perished in the battle 
 of ISTibley Green, in the reign of Edward II., when William, 
 Lord of Berkely, was his opponent. The church is 129 feet 
 long, and in the north and south porches are stone seats and 
 niches, Avhere the images of the patron saints once stood; 
 a fine yew-tree grows in the churchyard. On Cheddar Moor, 
 many battles are said to have taken place between the British
 
 A WALK OYER THE MENDIPS. 281 
 
 and the Saxons; and the bones of the shiin are often found in the 
 caves of the rocks. From the stone signal stations, the British 
 sentinels could see over the whole vale, from the sea to Glas- 
 tonbury. There were once forty -three mills in this parish, now 
 there are only three — two of paper, and one of corn. The 
 cheese made in this village is known all over Eughand. Cam- 
 den says, " that it is like that of Parmesan." There are some 
 excellent local charities, including a school, established by the 
 excellent Hannah More. 
 
 There are several feudal remains of old mansions round the 
 hamlet, and traces can be seen on the Wells road of an old 
 episcopal palace. One of the Cheddar mansions is now a 
 farm-house, another is occupied by a gentleman named Birch, 
 who has published a very clever and iuteresting little work, 
 full of antiquarian lore and general erudition, on the lions 
 of his native place, which estate was originally granted to 
 Cheddar Fitzwalter, by the Conqueror, and afterwards to 
 Malherb, by the usurper Stephen. Although partly rebuilt in 
 the last century, it is still a quaint and interesting old-fashioned 
 mansion, with a spacious hall hung with family pictures. 
 
 Quitting Cheddar, repassing its old market-cross and beau- 
 tiful church, we turn back towards Axbridge. Now turn up 
 to the Bristol road towards Shipham. Bleadon, or Bleak- 
 down, rendered interesting by the residence of the great 
 Casaubon, and its connection with tlie celebrated Earl Godwin, 
 wc did not visit. The silence of Autumn prevailed ; the only 
 sound was some robin " wliistliug from a garden croft," or the 
 winds piping o'er the moor. The hedges Averc decked with 
 clouds of ruddy berries. The road here lies through deep 
 ravines of rock, occasionally sloping to a plain, and humble 
 •cottages are seen here and there along the road-side. Near 
 Eowberrow, the rocks on one side of the road, on a distant 
 moor, rise up to a great height out of the earth, lilce the'grey 
 battlements of some old Britisli fort. The wind whistling 
 against this rocky barrier, sounded like the roar of some distant 
 ocean. Tlie moor by the road side was covered witli fern and 
 
 gorse. 
 
 " Beside the straggling fence that sku'ts the way, 
 Blossoms the furze, improfil ably gay."
 
 282 'cross country. 
 
 Every now and then there is a plantation sloping to the road- 
 side, or the road itself winds down into a valley, or stretches 
 across a plain. Hero and there is a fine vicAv of the channel, 
 which stretches wide in the distance ; and just aw^ay from the 
 high road there are some pretty snatches of scenery — the rocks 
 become precipitous, and a rivulet gushes forth, as the mining 
 population would say, like silver ore when it is molten. And 
 this pretty village is associated with Bristol, for Henry VIII., 
 with all the generosity of a royal robber, gave this vicarage to 
 Bishop Bush, the skeleton eiEgy of which worthy man rests 
 in the chancel of Bristol Cathedral. The vulgar tradition 
 there is, that he Avas starved to death by the Eoman Catholics ; 
 but skeleton ef&gies, having a figurative meaning, are frequent 
 in old churches. Antony a "Wood gives a good accotmt of this 
 prelate. A short walk brings us on to 
 
 SHIPHAM. 
 
 Just below the road, the rocks sink into a wild, craggy vaUey, 
 most picturesque and beautiful. A more charming spot for 
 the pencil of a Salvator Eosa cannot be imagined. Erom hence, 
 on a clear, cloudless day, can be seen all the coast of South 
 Wales, and the " roc]?: of the chasm," and other mountains 
 near Abergavenny. The Saxons and Danes once fought here, 
 and stained this spot, where nature seems so wild and beautiful, 
 with blood. Lapis calaminaris is found in considerable quan- 
 tities in these rocks ; an industrious man quarrying for it can, 
 I am told, earn a guinea a-day. This stone, when powdered, is 
 used in the manufacture of brass ; when fused, the metal is con- 
 siderably increased in weight. This mineral is probably nothing 
 but lead in an oxidized form, being always found over a vein of 
 that metal. The subterranean riches of Somersetshire are yet 
 but half developed. A new church, possessing a good deal of 
 simple beauty, has lately been built in this parish. St. Leonard 
 was, we believe, formerly the patron saint of the hamlet. 
 
 A mile or two further, after enquiries from a throng of 
 chubby children, who are absorbed in the delight of a game of 
 " ring-taw," and again, of a corpulent, mei*ry-looking old land- 
 lord, who stood at the door of his inn, as if to show passers-by
 
 A WALK OVER THE MENDIPS. 283 
 
 what capital effects liis XXX produced ; so have we seen a fat 
 old spider, l3-ing jierdu in ca corner of bis web, waitmg for some 
 intrusive flies. Several anxious questions of stone-cbippers by 
 tlie road-side, who served us as animated mile-stones, brought 
 us to 
 
 CnUECHILL. 
 
 One thing, however, did we notice in an adjoining hamlet, 
 which afforded us an inward smile. In the principal part of 
 the said village stood an attorney's house ; its varnished door 
 and ponderous knocker spoke of flocks of litigious clients. The 
 house looked purse-proud and important, and looked down at 
 you with its great glass eyes, quite contemptuously. A few 
 doors further on, however, we came to the humble house of a 
 junior limb of the law, evidently an unsuccessful practitioner, 
 for tbe house looked emaciated, and weeds were growing roimd 
 the door. The business of Jolm Doe seemed evidently to have 
 been absorbed in the whirlpool of Tiichard Eoe. So have we 
 seen a black corpulent spider live for a long time in the corner 
 of a window-pane, enjoying a bloated state of prosperity, till a 
 rival practitioner has established himself in an opposite corner, 
 and speedily first drawn away, and then swallowed, all his 
 clients. We pitied the absorbed practitioner, and passed on. 
 
 The village of Churchill lies near the great Bridgwater Eoad, 
 and under the north brow of Doleberry Hill. This fine old 
 rugged [eminence has served as a place of encampment for 
 every nation that has ever invaded England. The Britons have 
 built hero their wattled huts, and on it, and from hence, have 
 blazed their beacon fires, gleaming over the vale of Glastonbury ; 
 and the eagle of the Eomans, and the white horse of tbe Saxons, 
 liave alike waved from its summit. The peasants still believe 
 the height haunted, and imagine that vast treasures lie con- 
 cealed beneath its roclcy surface. 
 
 " If Doleberry digged were, 
 Of gold should bo the share " — 
 
 runs the local adage. Ti-aces of encampments still remain, 
 many acres in width, parallelogram in shape, and open at either 
 hand.
 
 284 CROSS COUNTUY. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXV. 
 
 THE SUBURBS OF BRISTOL. 
 
 " Tlie knowledge of scenery ■which is achieved by such excursions is all 
 clear, unalloyed, and priceless gain, for it not only enriches the chamber of 
 memory with pictures wliich can be expanded at will, but nourishes the 
 power of appreciating all other kindred scenes, and redoubles the charm 
 of those we may afterwards enjoy." — Serjeant Talfoiibd's Vacation 
 Eambles. 
 
 The enterprising pedestrian who sets out witli intent to visit 
 the hamlets which form the text of our present chapter, must 
 leave the citj by the side where tlie tower of Lawford's Gate 
 once commanded the town wall. Passing along a dull and im- 
 interestiug road, he will first arrive at Easton, a scattered vil- 
 lage, chiefly inhabited by miners from the adjoining coal-pits. 
 There is nothing here to detain the eye for a moment, if we 
 except the old manor house of the village, an erection 'of the 
 time of Queen Aaine, or perhaps older, which is now divided 
 into two houses. A sun-dial still remains over one of the 
 doorways, and the old-fashioned terrace is ascended by a few 
 steps, on each side of which, like guardian deities of the soil, 
 grow two enormous bay trees. A little further on, down the 
 same lane, away from the road to Stapleton, brings you to a 
 modern church, a massive building of the early Norman style. 
 The architect, in his love for the Grothic ideal, has retained e\en 
 the bax-barities of other days, for doMoi the roof of the tower 
 sprawl uncouth monsters, half beasts, half fiends, who do not 
 answer even the excusable purpose of gurgoyles. This church 
 seems quite like a missionary station among this rude and 
 neglected population, Avho, for so many years, with the ex- 
 ception of a small chapel, of some fanatical sect, have lived in 
 as savage and uncared-for a state as could any tribe of un- 
 washed Ethiopians, whom, by-the-bye, this begrimed population 
 exceedingly resemble. 
 
 Leaving Stapleton, with all its Hannah More associations, to 
 the left, we cross some dreary waste-looking fields, just such as
 
 THE SUBURBS OU BRISTOL. 285 
 
 might be found in the vicinity of a great city, and which con- 
 stitute that impicturesque " debateable land," where you cannot 
 tell where town ends and country begins. To our left looms 
 in the distant fog a great bastile sort of building, which, once 
 a repository for Prench prisoners, is now tm'ned into an equal 
 penal place — a union workhouse. Here those wretched beings, 
 whom the heinous sin of poverty has reduced to beggary, draw 
 out the last weary moments of an unhappy existence. Here 
 they ply, stupefied with misery, the wretched toil which Clia- 
 rity demands as the pay for their miserable pittance of food. 
 Here the only welcome sound to their ear is the sullen harsh 
 bell, which tells of the hour of rest. Here the poor indeed 
 learn by bitter experience Avhat is 
 
 " The cold charity of man to man." 
 
 In this palatial, gloomy house, half mansion, half prison, 
 are huddled the depraved and the virtuous, the A'icious and the 
 wretched, in one festering mass. Here the aged couple who 
 have borne for so many long years all the buffets of time, are 
 torn asunder, as if even the miserable comfort of sympathy in 
 wretchedness must be forbidden. But as it is exceedingly pro- 
 blematical if we shall ever get to Abbots Town if we once get 
 into an harangue against tlie cold-blooded Poor-laws, we will 
 conclude by saying that from this building the French officers, 
 dismissed on their paroles irhonaeur, used to sally foi'th, and 
 visit the adjoining villages, forgetting in the short-lived plea- 
 sures of the moment all the sorrows of a prison life. These 
 poor fellows were in the habit of putting up their Avatches and 
 other articles of value, for raffle, as a means of raising a few 
 shillings ; many of them broke their paroles, escaped to France, 
 joined their owa ranks, fouglit against us, and were again cap- 
 tured before the war ended. "VVe believe that it was here that 
 the celebrated General Lefebre was imprisoned. 
 
 Escaping from these fields we strike back into tlio road and 
 proceed on towards Kingswood, the centre of the colliery dis- 
 trict. The whole of our way to Abston lies on the summit of 
 a plateau, the road the whole way winding along the level sum- 
 mit of a ridge of hills, which, beautifully wooded, stretch below
 
 286 'cross country. 
 
 us, before, and on either hand. "We seem to be entering into 
 the A-eritable reahns of old Ktng Coal, the great grim mo- 
 narch of nursery fable ; the roads are paved with coal, the leaves 
 of the trees that fringe the road are black ! the men that pass 
 us with candles in their caps are very dark, so are the donkeys 
 they drive ; the children that shout along by the way-side are 
 "black as Erebus ;" the houses are as dark as if they had been 
 cut out of blocks of coal ; the stones we walk on, seem coal ; and 
 the air, as far we can see, is blackened with dark wreaths of 
 smoke. 
 
 Colliers are evidently an ardent and bibulous set, for public- 
 houses seem innumerable ; there are the Mason's Arms, and the 
 Eoyal Ai'ms, and everybody else's arms, enough to tire the 
 Clarencieux king of arms himself to enumerate. 
 
 Amongst this strauge semi-barbaric population Wesley began 
 his labours ; his fervid enthusiasm and homely style made 
 thousands of converts. Among a race, to whom to speak of 
 " Christ, and heaven and hell," were unheard-of things, dissent 
 gained ground, because the Church had never raised her banner. 
 Whether dissent still prevails we cannot say ; but we only saw- 
 one chapel by the side of the road, and a more hideous defiance 
 of the ungodly law of beauty we never saw. It was devoutly 
 ugly. A great part of the low lands of this parish are devoted 
 to market gardens, a purpose for which its dark, friable, alluvial 
 soil well fits it. The produce is brought to Bristol by the 
 female inhabitants, chiefly the wives of colliers, who affect a 
 most primeval dress, and rejoice in j^eculiar and rather pictu- 
 resque bonnets, which seem derived from the gipsy hat of 
 George II.'s reign. The village of St. George contains nothing 
 of interest. A part of the hamlet, bearing the mysterious 
 name of Don John's Cross, derives its romantic title from a 
 cross formerly erected here, in the time, we believe, of Eliza- 
 beth, to commemorate the halting of the funeral possession 
 of Don Juan, a rich Spaniard, whose body was brought to 
 Bristol to be exported to its native country. Eemains of its 
 shaft are said to be still somewhere preserved. 
 
 The houses about Kingswood have an uncomfortable, unrural 
 air ; about some of them there is an ill-m.aintained air of res-
 
 THE SUBURBS OF BRISTOL. 287 
 
 pectability, ancl about all of them there is dirf. Colliers loll 
 roimd the doors smoking, looking clingy out of windows, and 
 the roads are perpetually crowded with waggons full of coal. 
 The juvenile part of the population seem to grow up colliers 
 precociously. Infant carters, clad in profuse ancestral waist- 
 coats, '• a world too wide," and moi*e lilce great coats, drive 
 along carts, looking like little models of their fjithers, who 
 walk befoi'e. Itinerant vendors of different commodities fill 
 the air Avith their hoarse cries, in rival eagerness to tempt the 
 inhabitants to purchase. "We pass two neat modern churches, 
 and breathe a little pure air as Ave approach Syston. Here 
 mysterious-looking chains cross the road, belonging to some 
 coal works ; a brook i"ipi)les by the waj'-side, it sounds romantic 
 — but it is of boiling water, and flows from the engine-shed. 
 Unearthly clangings are heard, the only sound is the throbbing 
 of the steam-engine ; the yards are filled with miners' " picks." 
 "VVTio would think that this unromantic mining district is the 
 seat of numerous historical associations. To Syston Queen 
 Anne used to come, to drink of the water of some medicinal 
 spring, wliich here wells up from the ground. At Pueklechurch, 
 adjoining, is an old farm-house, which stands on the site of a 
 palace of the Saxon Kings, one of whcm, Ethelred, as far as 
 we remember, was stabbed here, at a great feast, by a famous 
 robber, who enraged the monarch by his intrusion, in defiance 
 of his authority. 
 
 Every now and then we pass some picturesque old gable- 
 ended house, redolent of the days of Teniers. One of the inns, 
 " the Maypole," Avas probably built on the scene of the village 
 festivities. 
 
 At Bridge Yate the road passes through a pretty common, 
 and near a most picturesque hosteMe. The house is gable- 
 ended, Avith those ornaments on the ridge-front which are pe- 
 culiar to the age of Charles II. A vine clambers over the 
 walls, and round tlie Avindows, and over the old porch. And 
 here, by-thc-bye, a Avord about the ])orch as a peculiarly En- 
 glish adjunct to a house, most suitable to our climate, and Avell 
 worthy the attention of all modern architects. Well managed, 
 it might be made a great ornament to the house of a mm\ of 
 middling rank.
 
 288 'cross country. 
 
 The common here is a beautiful little bit of English village 
 scenery ; the high road traverses it, while on one side it is 
 edged by a gronp of old-fashioned houses, and on the other by 
 wooded hills ; and you can just see the heights of Lansdown. 
 Diverging to the left, and traversing a hilly road, Avhich is now 
 sunk between high embosked banks, all yellow with the death- 
 tint of decay, and now rising higher, leads you over the sum- 
 mit of a hill, on each side of which, below, the country rises 
 and falls in beautiful irregularity. 
 
 A sudden turn of the road brings you at once into Abston, 
 opposite the church, which rears its grey head on some rising 
 ground, above the few scattered houses that now constitute 
 what once was so important a place. It derives its name, " Ab- 
 bot's-town," from the circumstance of there having been once a 
 monastery here ; and few villages, perhaps, in the wide realm of 
 England have been the scene of so many events. Zealous 
 local antiquarians even assert it to have been the Abone of An- 
 tonius. Though this may be more justly claimed for our own 
 Clifton, or Sea-mills, it cannot be denied that Abston was a 
 well-lcnown halting-place for the Eoman legionary on his way 
 from the Severn, via Clifton, to Aqua Solis (Bath). 
 
 Here, and at Wick, Eoman coins and other remains have 
 been found ; footpaths can be partly traced here, and a field, 
 called the " Chestles, or Castles," is still pointed out as the 
 scene of a great battle between Ceaulin, a Saxon chieftain, and 
 three British kings, all of whom fell beneath his sword. It 
 took place about the year 577. The church, dedicated, we be- 
 lieve, to the flayed St. Bartholomew, is of plain architecture. 
 The tower is, however, rather elaborate in its last story, and 
 has a door adorned with quatrefoil. The whole building, 
 however, derives beauty from its commanding position. Some 
 old yews flourish in the church-yard. A steep path, on one 
 side of which are houses, brings you to a deej) wooded glen, 
 through which the Boyd, a pretty rippling stream, hastens to 
 join its waters to the great Avon which flows above. The 
 rocks on either side fall back from the river, and form on the 
 one side a sort of mountainous coimtry for the space of a whole 
 field which is richly wooded.
 
 THE SUBURBS OF BBISTOL. 289 
 
 Diverging from here by some hilly field paths, you emerge 
 into the high road from ]\rarshfield, and striking up an imfre- 
 quented-looking lane, which is paved like an old Roman road, 
 you arrive at the Chestles field. The three monumental stones, 
 honey-combed and moss-covered witli age, rear their old heads 
 from a sepulchral mound. The whole erection bears traces of 
 the greatest antiquity, no inscription or chiselling being visible 
 on their surface. The farmer to whom the field belongs is a 
 great enemy to antiquarians, and has rendered the field, by a 
 malicious sort of ingenuity, almost inaccessible. The living of 
 Abston is said to have been given to the Abbey of Glaston- 
 bury by Edward the Confessor ; afterwards it went to Joce- 
 line. Bishop of "VVells. A brook near the village. Holy Brook, 
 was formerly dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and is supposed to 
 possess miraculous powers of healing. This was the scene, too, 
 of the great battle between Lord Hopton and Waller, the poet 
 general. Hopton, after the battle was gained by the courage 
 of the cavalier pikemen, was blown up and severely injured 
 by the accidental explosion of an ammunition waggon, and 
 was carried off to Bristol, of which place he afterwards became 
 governor. A division to the right of the road brings you to 
 the summit of some high crags that edge the river Avon, just 
 above its confluence with the Boyd. The rocks here rise eighty 
 feet above the river, and their broken surface is covered with a 
 profusion of beech and other trees. A little damsel, whom we 
 had hired as a guide at the first cottage we came to, seemed to 
 think all the interest of the scene lay in a particular point of 
 rock from which the much-respected donkey of a carrier had once 
 fallen. So much for diversity of opinions respecting the beau- 
 tiful. The rocks furnish lead ore, serpentine, belemmites, &c. 
 The latter part of our scene lies in the parish of Wick, a small 
 hamlet which lies above the great Bath road. 
 
 AVc retraverse the domains of " Old King Coal," and arrive 
 at length at Bristol. 
 
 u
 
 290 'cross COUNTllT. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 A WALK TO TAUNTON. 
 
 Taunton, or tlie station on tlie river Tone, called by the 
 Eomans who settled there Thonodonum, is as picturesque an 
 old English town as any in Somersetshire. It boasts of much 
 that can give interest to the antiquary or deliglit the lover of 
 the picturesque. 
 
 It has all the associations of a little city ; and its old alms- 
 houses, its castle, and, above all, its two beautiful churches, 
 furnish matei'ials from which the imagination, as from some 
 inexhaustible treasury, can weave the legend and the romance. 
 We might conjecture, even if we were not supported by tradi- 
 tion, that in the very earliest age some British tribes chose the 
 fertile vale of Taunton Deane as a station in which to rear 
 their huts. The keen eye of a savage would readily see the 
 advantages of a place so adapted by nature as a site for a settle- 
 ment. Protected on all sides by the vast marshy tracts around 
 the source of the Parret ; having a river flowing through the 
 vale, from which they would fish, and not very distant, the 
 great forest of the Mendip Hills, the haunt of the wolf, the 
 badger, and aU those other animals, whose skins, in that early 
 period of civilization, furnished clothing, while their flesh fur- 
 nished food to the fierce hunter. There, too, at a later period, 
 the rich alluvial soil, washed from the hills, and carried down 
 by the stream that watered the district, must have attracted the 
 Eoman settlers and the civilized Saxon. In this valley, as far 
 as the eye can reach from the fair tower of St. Mary's, did the 
 "White Horse and the Eed Dragon once struggle for conquest 
 and for life. Here, if tradition may be trusted, did tlae patriot 
 Arthur spread havoc amongst the followers of the traitor Horsa. 
 Here, too, how inspiring to reflect, on this very ground, thought 
 we, as we paced up the principal streets of the town, did the 
 great Alfred, perhaps, animated by the recollection of the glory 
 of a hero, although of a hostile nation, after his long conceal- 
 ment in the neatherd's hut, amidst the dreary marshes, dis- 
 comfit the Danes in a terrible battle, after they had abeady been 
 driven back with the loss of their great magic Eaven standard,
 
 A "WALK TO TAUA^TON. 291 
 
 whicli was woven by tlie hands of wierd Avomen. JS'ow, again, 
 the pageant changes, and Ave hear from St. Mary's the hymn 
 of praise, the beauteous buikliug echoes Avith tlie soimd, for 
 since the days of Alfred has sprung up a strong castle, Avhich 
 is a fortress held by some great barou, and instead of the Avar- 
 like Saxon citizen, ever ready to repulse the Danes, Avho land 
 on the adjoining coast, there are plump, Avell-fed burghers 
 here, men -who Avork the silk and the avooI, and they the first, 
 too, Avho have practised those arts in England. 
 
 Taunton, even at the Conquest, seems to have been rather an 
 important place, as it Avas then made a fief of some favourite 
 noble. It afterAvards became an appendage of the Eishopric of 
 "Winchester. It stood a siege from the forces of the impostor 
 Warbeck, in Henry VII. 's reign, Avho Avas taken before its 
 Avails, after a short skirmish AA'ith the royal troops. In Eliza- 
 beth's age Drayton says — 
 
 "\\Tiat eare so empty is that liath not beard 
 Of Taunton's fertile vale?" 
 
 As in most of the facts advanced in that Avonderful repertory, 
 the PoJyolhion, Drayton is correct.' In the civil AAars Taunton 
 endured a siege from the royalist forces, it being then a centre 
 of a very Puritan district. Colonel Goring, one of the braA-esfc 
 and most licentious of the royal party, commanded the belea- 
 guering troops. They Avere still lying before the toAVU, A\hich 
 held out stoutly, Avhen the fatal battle of Naseby Avas fought. 
 The Avant of that Colonel Goring's troop gave that victory to 
 CromAvell and Fairfax. A letter from Goring, an officer as fierce 
 and dashing as Rupert, saying that he expected to take the 
 place in three v^'eeks, and iutreating the king to delay giving 
 battle, Avas unfortimately intercepted by Eairfax. To this 
 siege, therefore, may fairly be attributed, if not the fate, at 
 least one great defeat of Charles. Eairfex, relymg on this let- 
 ter, raised the siege of Taunton Avith three thousand men, and 
 having defeated the Koyalists at Lamport, took Bridgwater by 
 storm. We believe it Avas at this siege by Goring tjiat the 
 citizens Avere encouraged in their resistance by the exhoj-tatious 
 of a brave Independent minister. 
 
 u 2
 
 292 'cross country. 
 
 But perhaps the most interesting and well-known event con- 
 nected with the history of this town is the active part it took 
 in the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion. Soon after he had landed 
 at Lyme, he visited Taunton, which had been reckoned on by 
 his partizans as one of the towns most zealons for the Pro- 
 testant cause, the defence of which furnished him with an 
 excuse for aiming at the throne. All here was for him, and 
 his star, so soon to set for ever on Sedgemoor, seemed now 
 at his zenith. The townsmen presented him with a stand of 
 colours, adorned with Protestant emblems ; twenty maidens 
 of the town, dressed in white, in a solemn procession, gave him 
 a Bible and a sword ; and great was the applause and deep the 
 admiration, when this wretched impostor, in a theatrical speech, 
 promised to defend the one by the other. In less than a month 
 his head had been held up by a bungling executioner amidst 
 the execrations of a London mob. 
 
 Then came the terrible retribution; for this hour of folly 
 about twenty townsmen were hung by JefFery, and the damsels 
 who had compromised their loyalty were only pardoned after 
 paying a very lieavy fine, which a man named Penn, acting as 
 agent of the queen's maids of honour, wrung from the terrified 
 burghers. In this town, too, the butcher Kirk exercised his 
 most horrible cruelties. Hanging some of the rebels, he em- 
 ployed fiddlers to play while the wretches were writhing in 
 their death agonies, and then he laughed aloud at the " rogues 
 dancing." 
 
 The town has had numerous charters from nearly all our 
 kings, and seems during the reign of Edward III. to haA'e been 
 considered by that great monarch as the centre of the cloth 
 trade, the citizens being aided by settlers from the great com- 
 mercial districts of Planders. 
 
 The town is intersected by several streets. At the end of one 
 stands St. Mary Magdalene, tlie great glory of the valley. By 
 the side of another, towards the river, is the castle, standing in 
 the midst of a court-yard, the entrance to which is by an old 
 gateway, on whose scathed front may still be ti-aced some in- 
 scriptions, carved there by the abbots of yore. Across one street 
 runs the Tone, and in another, which rambles away towards
 
 A WALK TO TAUNTON. 293 
 
 tlie country, are some old almshouses, still in excellent pre- 
 servation. 
 
 But the great glory of the town, after all, is tlie splendid 
 edifice of St. Mary Magdalene, one of the most elaborate spe- 
 cimens of the " pure perpendicular." The hard, bluish grey 
 stone, of which it is built, seems perfectly to resist the slightest 
 inroad of time — not the minutest tracery on the elaborately 
 carved porches has crumbled at the breath of the great de- 
 stroyer. There it is, rising up towards Heaven, in matchless 
 beauty ; destined, by all appearances, to remain for ages a 
 monument of ancient piety. "We often linger with delightful 
 musing over the defaced capitals and obliterated tracery of 
 some old abbey : they speak to us of eternity and a thousand 
 solemn things ; but far sublimer is a building like St. Mary's, 
 which seems to smile at the puny eftorts of successive cen- 
 turies, as they fleet round its walls, roam thi'ough its aisles, 
 and pass on. "We feel that permanence of beauty which strikes 
 the mind in seeing a Grecian statue, or the frieze of the Pan- 
 theon. IS'ot but that all things of beauty, in their effects, at 
 least, are indestructible. Xot but that the wonder of Adam in 
 Paradise is not still on the earth, embalmed, perhaps, in Homer, 
 or floating about to be embodied by some bard yet unborn ; 
 yet still an apparently imperishable beauty does strike us -with 
 delight, mingled, not unpleasingly, vnth. awe. The church 
 consists of a tower, a nave, two aisles, and several chapels, for- 
 merly dedicated to the Trinity, St. Andrew, and the Virgin 
 Mary. The chief entrance is at the westward, under the 
 tower ; but there is a very beautiful porch in the north side. 
 'Over the west door, which is richly moulded, are, on either 
 Tiand, curious carvings, emblematical, it is said, of our Saviour 
 on the lake of Genessaret ; but, perhaps, merely intended for 
 some monkish legend, or traditionary tale. Every arcli springs 
 from a corbel, of exceedingly various and grotesque design, 
 yet never ludicrous or irreverent. Some of the faces ex- 
 press the deepest awe, some terror, and others the most hea- 
 venly piety. There are no monuments of knights in the 
 
 church, but those of the rich citizens are exceedingly curious. 
 
 One, to the memory of Henry Mills, once Mayor of the town,
 
 294 'cross country. 
 
 boasts a statue of the worthy man, dressed in tlie decent attire 
 of a rieli burgess of the time of Elizabeth, and painted to repre- 
 sent life. The epitaph is long and curious ; it begins, " Taun- 
 ton bore him, London bred him, piety taught him, religion led 
 him, Taunton blessed him London blessed him, &c." Ano- 
 ther is to the memory of E-ichard Naish, who endowed alms- 
 houses in the town, still existing. Some of the seats in the 
 church under his monument are still devoted to the use of his 
 descendants. An elegant modern marble monument perpe- 
 tuates the memory of the soldiers who fell in the Afghan war. 
 Some of the windows contain beautiful stained glass, wrought 
 out in legends. 
 
 "Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes, 
 As are the tiger-moth's deep damask'd wings, 
 And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries. 
 And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings, 
 A shielded 'scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and tings." 
 
 The whole building has been lately beautifully restored. 
 The old timber roof looks well, chastening doATU, with its dark 
 sober hue, the splendour of the illumination. Over the north 
 porch there is a room with a window, from whence yon can see 
 into the church ; here, probably, a charity priest connected 
 with one of the shrines once lived. "What a solemn and awful 
 habitation must that have been. To look forth at night from 
 the one side on to the cold " Grod's acre," on to the graves of 
 his brother monks who had died before him, or into the church, 
 as the moon-beam fell through the storied window, and poured 
 with a pale crimson light on the floor of the aisle, or to look again, 
 on a summer's evening, and to see the last ray of the sun stealing 
 in, and irradiating the altar or some monument with its efful- 
 gence, as if an angel had accompanied the beam on its passage 
 from the world of fire. Then, at the appointed hours, at matins, 
 or vespers, or complines, would that holy man go down, and 
 breathing forth his wonted prayer, return again to his dim 
 chamber. What a life for man, shut out from all the joys 
 and sympathies of his kind, and yet that very isolation invested 
 with a strange, peculiar interest ! The old sexton, who showed 
 Its the chtxrch, told us he should like to live there. We heard
 
 A WALK TO TAUNTON. 295 
 
 after, on inquiring his history, that he was a man alone in tlie 
 world, a widower, and childless. "Worthy old fellow ! he seemed 
 to know every stone in the building, ay, and to love it, too. 
 The tower is beautifully decorated in its third story. The 
 gurgoyles, Avhich seem like fiends flying from the sacred har- 
 mony of the bells, are strange monsters, very elaborate in form. 
 The north porch is peculiai'ly rich in adornment. Angels sup- 
 port shields covered with various heraldic emblems. Amongst 
 them we recognised the gypcier, or purse of the middle 
 ages, and priests, with all the emblems of the passion, beauti- 
 fully carved. The crown of thorns, the nails, the hyssop, the 
 ladder, the lance, &c. St. James's, the other old church in 
 Taunton, is a very humble building, compared with its lovely 
 sister, yet the tower is good, and seeuis of greater antiquity 
 than St. Mary's. We ascended its cork-screw staircase, Avhich 
 was worn away by the tread of several centuries, worn by the 
 sandalled shoes of the monks, and the boots of the Puritan 
 soldier. The view is worth the ascent, for the whole valley lies 
 before you. Taunton boasts its mayor and corporation ; 
 and in the round tower of the old castle, the assizes are still held. 
 
 Alas ! for the corporation ! On the 5th of November, , 
 
 a grand edict forbade the burning of a " Pope" or " Guy 
 Pawkes" in this once Protestant town. If the Puritan 
 burghers could rise from their tombs, they would surely ex- 
 claim, with the nasal twang of a true devotee, " Ichabod, Ichabod, 
 the glory is departed from thy house!" * 
 
 * The following fact relating to the town, •nhicli would only interfere 
 with the general narrative, we throw uito a note. The tower of St. Mary's 
 is 153 feet high. The population of the town is about 10,000. It still 
 returns two members to Parliament, A king of the West Saxons fu-st 
 built tlie eastle in the year 700. The castle was destroyed by his queen, 
 Ethelarga, and a new one was raised by Bishop Langton, of 'Winchester. 
 The gateway of tliis building, built in 1406, stdl stands. There arc on it 
 the anns of Bisliop Horn, who repaired it. Taunton boasts of a free 
 grammar school, founded by Bishop Fox, in 1552. There are also the re- 
 mams of a convent, founded by Franciscan monks, in the thirteenth cen- 
 tury. The Cornhill is pointed out as the place of Jeffries's legal murders. 
 The suburbs of the town are, Bishop's Hill, Staplcgrove, and Wilton. The 
 latter cliiirch was originally a branch chapel of St. Mary's.
 
 296 'cross country. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 BETSTOL AND ITS SIEGES. — NO. I. 
 
 Urbs hsec, sublimis, spatiosa, fidelis. araoena, 
 Dvilcit et iiisignis, prisca, benigiia, nitens. 
 Jura, Deura, Regem, Regionem, Crimiua, Pacem, 
 Servat, adorat, amat, protegit, odit, habet. 
 
 Motto to Millerd's Map of Bristol, 1671. 
 
 Eristowe is very badly off for liistorians — tliere is no denying 
 it. Barrett is choked with Eowleian lies, and therefore use- 
 less ; — Sayer remains incomplete, and what is finished is a 
 mere skeleton of dry antitparian facts, so unvivified and left so 
 confused by the author, that they might almost as well have 
 remained in the old archives from whence they were drawn, 
 covered with the dust of oblivion. The natural consequence is, 
 that nine burghers out often know no more of the history of their 
 venerable city than the stranger who passes through it. Its 
 ancient importance, and the great historical events which have 
 taken place in its streets, are only known to a few old antiqua- 
 rians, who seem determined to shroud all they discover in as 
 oblivious a darkness as they first found it. (We need hardly 
 allude to " Travellers' Guides," and other ephemeral hand- 
 books.) A singular fatality for a city so long the second in 
 the realm, so long a mart for all nations, a city tracing back its 
 foundation to the hoarest antiquity ; — a city, moreover, full 
 of historical reminiscences, old churches, old houses, old 
 streets, and everything of which legend and tradition love to 
 tell ; — a city which has contributed a large quota to the illus- 
 trious of past centuries, the good and the great ; and finally, a 
 city the remoteness of whose foundation entitles it to the 
 reverent attention of the antiquarian. 
 
 In our present chapter, we do not profess to have raked up 
 any moth-nibbled, tiine-worn memorials ; our extracts are 
 taken chiefly from the diurnals and historians of the seven- 
 teenth century, and we garnish ovir " pieces de resistance'" with 
 sundry anecdotes and contemporaneous allusions. Let our
 
 BRISTOL AND ITS SIEGES. 297 
 
 reader recall to liis mind tlie features of tlie age we are going 
 to describe, its physical, at least, if not its moral aspect. Ke- 
 niember that oiu- great-great grandfather, even, might have 
 seen the very event we describe. Bristol still retains, of course, 
 the great features of those days. The Frome then, as now, 
 crept sluggishly on with its dark, silent stream, and at the foot 
 of the cathedi-al the Avon rolled its waters. The chiu-ches, 
 dedicated to St. Peter, St. John, St. Werbui-gh, St. James, 
 St. Thomas, lifted up their then venerable heads towards the 
 clouds. The former of these churches stood near the castle, 
 which, of IS'orman erection, and added to by various rulers, 
 towered above, in all its pride of place. Then, as now, near 
 College Green, formerly the burial-ground of the great Gaunt 
 family, stood the cathedral, shorn of its glory ;— its nave demo- 
 lished by the fierce Henry. The streets were few and narrow, 
 and the quaint projecting houses, with gable ends and wide 
 diamond-framed windows, which now stand in the Pithay, Mary- 
 port, Eedcliff, and Thomas Streets, and other old localities, 
 were then, perhaps, the new and fashionable mansions of the 
 day. Those rooms, now the habitation of want and poverty, were 
 then thronged by staiuich burghers, whose hearts throbbed for 
 the cause of loyalty, or longed for the ideal liberty of the 
 Puritan. Eound the gaping fire-places, surmounted by gi-o- 
 tesque carvings and heraldic fancies, sat proud families, where 
 now the shivering mendicant creeps to his nightly pallet of 
 straw, fireless, starving, friendless. Let our readers imagine 
 the narrow street, of the high cross, thronged with people; 
 the town gallant, with his silken doublet, short cloak, and 
 dangling rapier;— the foot soldiers, with their calivers or 
 musquets, others with the halberds, partisans, or pikes (the 
 bayonets of the period), the steel skull-caps ; the troopers with 
 their petronels, or horse-pistols, steel breast-plates, and wearing 
 scarfs gaily fastened at their sides ; the gallants, with their 
 locks flowing over their shoulders, or tied up in fantastic love- 
 knots, in very contempt of the Puritan's cropped head, their 
 white lace collars falling over dark steel cuirasses ;— the 'pren- 
 tices and burgliers in their more homely and less costly dress ; 
 — the Puritans, in sombre garments and steeple-crowned hats,
 
 298 'cross country. 
 
 contrasting witli the gny plumes of the " swash buelders " of 
 the day. Imagine yourself gazing, as a spectator of the seven- 
 teenth century, from a window of a house in Wine Street, on 
 the motley crowd. Tou distinguish at once, mixed as they 
 are together, the two great parties of the day, as different in 
 their dress as in their opinions. Hardly can they suppress the 
 hatred and contempt which they entertain for each other. 
 Tender, see, is a puritan ; — hoAv solemn he looks in his dark 
 cloak and high hat, with no hair showing beneath it. He is, 
 verily, chanting to himself a devout psalm, with somewhat of 
 a nasal twang. And see yonder spruce caA'aliers, how con- 
 temptuously they eye him ; and, marking his fair rotundity, 
 quote to tliemselves Ben Jonson's exclamation of zeal in the 
 Land Busy : — 
 
 " I shall eat exceedingly, and prophecy." 
 
 They have passed, and are lost in the distant crowd. K'ow 
 passes before us a trim abigail, who hurries along, glancing 
 furtively back in a most coquettish manner. JSTo wonder; 
 for close behind are riding two young cornets of the garrison, 
 restraining the wanton curvettings of their spirited chargers. 
 One is telling the other of the glories of the Globe theatre, 
 and lamenting his banishment in the dull west. Then, with 
 the volatility of his age, he directs his attention to the above- 
 named damsel, and, alluding to her attire, smiles as he quotes 
 those lines of a poet of the day — 
 
 " Hair loosely flowing, robe as free, 
 Such sweet neglect most taketh me." 
 
 '^o'- 
 
 Anon they fall to discourse on rare Ben and immortal AVill. 
 Tlien comes by — but we must leave our rhapsody, and fall to 
 facts. 
 
 A traveller who visited the city early in this century, de- 
 scribes the goodly city, with "its foyre cross, between both 
 bridges, as not much inferior to that in Coventry. To it come 
 four large and fayre streets from the four chief quarters of 
 the city, viz.. High Street, which is the fairest from the great 
 bridge in Somersetshire ; Broad Street, from the great bridge
 
 BRISTOL AND ITS SIEGES. 299 
 
 in Gloucestershire ; Wine Street, from the Castle ; and Corn 
 Street, from the Marsh (the locality of Queen Square)." 
 
 The Tvriter proceeds to descrihe the Marsli, Avhich, he says, 
 '• is a very pleasant and delightful place, with as much art 
 added thereto as could well be, for walks or bowling ground (a 
 great amusement of the day, even among the higher classes), 
 and other recreations for the rich merchant and genteel citi- 
 zen, adorned with many a fair tree, wherin constantly the city 
 captains driU, and muster, and exercise the city forces." The 
 writer dilates on the seventeen churches, and the "fyne and 
 strange fabricke of the cathedrall." " The merchants," he 
 says, " are rich and numerous, using traffic to every part of 
 Christendome ; the citizens pious, and vying with each other 
 in adorning their churches. The city," he adds, " is a sweet 
 city, and compassed in with a strong wall and gate. The 
 Castle is of great extent and bulk, and hath formerly been a 
 most fayre and strong hold ; but now it is almost quite demo- 
 lished." 
 
 In addition, the reader must imagine the walls roi;nd the 
 city, bearing, as now, their Norman names ; Mont-pelier, 
 Mout-aigu, and the British, named Brandon, almost bare, but 
 occasionally used for outworks. Clifton was at this time known 
 only for its hot springs. 
 
 The ancient walls extended to Park Eow, Stolte's Croft, LaAV- 
 ford's Gate, and Eedcliff Church, with a redoubt on Brandon 
 Hill, and one in Tyndal Park. The great breach mentioned 
 was made in the wall near Park Eow. At the commencement 
 of the great struggle, when an English king, for the first time 
 since the death of the crook-baclvcd tyrant, was compelled to 
 set himself in battle array against liis rebellious subjects, 
 Bristol was in the hands of men attached to the Parliament, 
 who openly threw off the royal authority, as soon as their party 
 unfurled the banner of rebellion. The Eoyalists were, how- 
 ever, a powerful body, and were aided by the Cavalier gentry 
 of tlie environs and adjacent parts of the country. The tra- 
 gical fate of two of our loyal citizens is briefly alluded to by 
 Lord Clarendon. The extract shows the importance of the 
 city at that time.
 
 300 'cross countuy. 
 
 He says — " There liad been some months before," — he dates 
 May — " a design of Prince E-upert upon the city of Bristol, by 
 correspondence with some of the chief inhabitants of the city, 
 who were weary of the tyranny of the Parliament : but it had 
 been so unskilfully or unhappily carried, that when the Prince 
 was near the town, with such a party of horse " — the Prince 
 was a dashing cavalry general — " and foot as he made choice 
 of, it was discovered, and many principal citizens apprehended 
 by Nathaniel Piennes, son to the Lord Say." 
 
 (This nobleman, a statesman unfitted for his post, wa,s one 
 of the few of that class who were suicidal enough to join the 
 Republican party, partly from ambition, and partly from con- 
 sidering themselves neglected at court ; he did not escape the 
 imputation of cowardice), " and the governor of that city for 
 the Parliament at this time, special directions and orders were 
 sent thither, that he should, with all severity and expedition, 
 proceed against these conspirators, as they called them ; and, 
 thereupon, by a sentence and judgment of a council of war," 
 — it was ever short shrive with the crop-heads — " Alderman 
 Teomaus, who had been high sheriif of the city, and of great 
 reputation in it, and George Bouchier, another citizen of prin- 
 cipal account, were — against all interposition his majesty could 
 make — both hanged, and all other imaginable acts done, to let 
 all the world see that there was no way to peace but by the 
 sword." 
 
 The account of this plot, given with all the minutiae of a 
 coroner's inquest in a daily paper, is nearly all Sayer says of 
 this memorable siege of the city in that civil war, when fair 
 England's soil was drenched with the blood of her best and 
 bravest sons. These ill-fated gentlemen were hung, we be- 
 lieve, in Narrow , AVine Street. Their place of sepultui'e is 
 disputed by local antiquaries. This public execution (the first 
 during the war) must have struck terror into the hearts of the 
 vanquished Eoyalist party : for, hitherto, the Puritans had 
 carefully kept up that sophism, i. e., that their intention was 
 only to remove evil councillors, " malignants," in the lan- 
 guage of the times, from the person of their sovereign. The 
 retribution, however, was at hand, and Eoyalty, before finally
 
 BRISTOL AND ITS SIEGES, 301 
 
 sinkiiitr on the scaffold, was destined to aclueve a signal tri- 
 unipli in the capture of our ancient city, the capital of the 
 west. 
 
 Lord Clarendon, tlie faithful historian, from whom we quote, 
 says : — 
 
 " The Cornish army, levied chiefly from the loyal counties of 
 Devon and Cornwall, reinforced by Prince Eupert" and Lord. 
 Wilmot, took Bath, which was soon qviitted by them, after 
 Waller's (the poet general) overthrow at Lansdown, (where the 
 brave Hopton, afterwards Governor of Bristol, was blown up by 
 the explosion of a powder tumbril ;) '' the garrison (of Bath) 
 being withdrawn to reinforce Bristol. At Bath they rested and 
 refreshed themselves till they might receive new orders from the 
 Kiug: who upon full advice, and consideration of the state he 
 was in, and the broken condition of the enemy, resolved to make 
 an attempt upon the city of Bristol, to which Prince Eupert 
 was much inclined, for his being disappointed in a former de- 
 sign, and where there were many well affected to the King's 
 sernce from the beginning, and more since the execution of 
 those two eminent citizens."* (The unfortunate Boucher and 
 the Teomans.) 
 
 We can imagine the fierce Eupert was burning to revenge 
 his friends, to atone for his carelessness in the arrangements 
 of the plot. The cruelty of the stern, and it is said cowardly 
 Fiennes, produced doubtless, as cruelty often does, a re-action 
 in the minds of the people. "And the disesteem generally 
 hadof the courage of Nathaniel Fiennes, the Governor, made 
 the design to be thought the more reasonable, so the IMarquis 
 of Hertford and Prince Maurice (Eupert's brother) returned 
 to Bath, and upon agreement to appear on such a day, with 
 their whole strength before Bristol, on the Somersetshire side, 
 
 * Prince Rupert's party were in ambush in a house at Redland, when 
 the plot was discovered, and the conspirators seized. They were all dis- 
 tinguished by a white badge on the arm, and were to be let mby St, John's 
 gateway — the beUs of that church were to be rung as a signal. The princo 
 instantly rode off witli his troop on finding that all was lost ; and during 
 his march over Durdhamdown, a shot from a redoubt in Tyndal's Park 
 struck down one of his men and two horses.
 
 302 'cross country. 
 
 when Prince Eupert, witli the Oxford forces, would appear be- 
 fore it on the Grloiicestershire side. On the four-and-twentietk 
 of July, (1643) both armies sat down before it, quartering their 
 horse in that manner that none could go out or into the city 
 without great hazard of being taken ; and the same day, with 
 the assistance of some seamen who were prepared before, they 
 seized all the ships that were in Kingroad, which were not only 
 laden with goods of great value, as plate, money, and the best 
 sort of all commodities, which those who suspected the worst 
 had sent abroad, but with many persons of quality, who, being 
 unwilling to run the hazard of a siege, thought that way to 
 have secured themselves, and to have escaped to London ; and 
 so all were taken prisoners. The next day Prince Eupert 
 came to his brother and the Marquis, and a general council 
 of all the principal officers of both armies being assembled, 
 it was debated "-in what manner they should proceed,— by 
 assault or approach." Tliere were in the town five-and-twenty 
 hundred foot, and a regiment of horse and dragoons ; the line 
 about the town was finished, yet in some places the graff was 
 wider and deeper than in others. The castle within the town 
 was very well prepared, and supplied with great store of pro- 
 visions to endure a siege. The opinions Avere several: the 
 officers of the Cornish army (very natural that the Cornish 
 troops, miners from their youth, preferred regular approaches) 
 were of opinion " that it was best to proceed by way of ap- 
 proach, because the ground being very good, it would in a A^ery 
 short time be done, and since there was no army of the enemy 
 in a possibility to relieve it, tlie securest way would be the best, 
 whereas the works were so very good they must expect to lose 
 very many men, and if they were beaten off, all their summer 
 hopes would be destroyed, it not being easy again to make up 
 the spirit of the army for a new action. Besides, they alleged 
 the well-affected party in the city, which was believed to be 
 very great, would, after they had been closely besieged tliree 
 or four days, have a greater influence upon the soldier, and bo 
 able to do more towards the surrender than they could upon a 
 storm, when they would be equally sensible of the disorder of 
 the soldier and their o^vn damage by plundei', as the other and
 
 BRISTOL AND ITS SIEGES. 303 
 
 tlie too late example of tlie executed citizens, would keep men 
 from offering at any insurrection in the city." (Sensible, and, 
 as it appeared alter, correct advice, for the storm was attended 
 witli great loss of life, and their friends in the city must liave 
 suffered by it.) On the other hand, Pi-ince Eupert and all the 
 officers of his army, very earnestl}^ desired to assault it, alleging 
 " the work to be easy and the soldiers fitter for any brisk at- 
 tempt than a dull, patient design, and that the army would be 
 more weakened by the latter than the former ; that the city not 
 having yet recovered the consternation of Sir "William Waller's 
 defeat, was so full of horror, that it would make a very weak 
 defence ; that there was no soldier of experience in the town, 
 and the Governor himself would not like to endure the terror 
 of a storm ; whereas, if they gave them time to consider, and 
 to look long upon them with a wall between, they would grow 
 confirmed and resolute, and courage would supply the place of 
 skill, and having plenty of all kinds of provisions within the 
 town, they would grow strong and peremptory, whilst the be- 
 siegers would grow less vigorous and disheartened." These 
 reasons and the Prince's importunity, with some insinuations 
 of knowing more than was fit to be spoken, as if somewhat 
 would be done within the town that must not be mentioned, 
 and a glorious contempt of danger, prevailed so far that it was 
 consented to on all parts to assault the town the next morning 
 at three places on the Somersetshire side and three places on 
 the Gloucestershire side at the break of day. (The High 
 Street side of the city was the Somersetshire side, and on the 
 Gloucestershire side, down Broad Street, stood then, as now, 
 the old gateway of St. John's, defended by its portcullis and 
 drawbridge, and flanked by redoubts and other external works. 
 There were several redoubts on the opposite hills.) The truth 
 is, both opinions, with regard to their diflerent circumstances, 
 were in themselves reasonable. For the Gloucestershire side, 
 were Prince Eupert was, miglit be stormed, the grafi' (ditch) 
 being shallow, and the wall in some places low and weak, which 
 could not be easily approached by reason the ground being 
 rocky and the redoubts very strong which overlooked tlio 
 ground. On the other side, the ground was very difficult to
 
 304 'cross country. 
 
 approach, and as inconvenient and dangerous to storm, by 
 reason of a plain level before tbe line, and a broad and deep 
 graff, and tbe line throughout better flanked than the other. 
 The next morning, with little other provisions fit for such a 
 work than the courage of the assailants, both armies fell on. 
 On the west side, where the Cornish were, they assaulted the 
 line in three places, one division led by Sir Nicholas Hanning, 
 assisted with Colonel John Trevanniou, 
 
 (By Pol, Tre, and Pen, 
 
 You may know the Cornish men, 
 
 runs an old distich), Lieut- Col. Slingsby and three more 
 field oiEcers, too great a number of such officers to conduct so 
 small a party as five hundred men, if there had not been an im- 
 moderate disdain of danger, and appetite of glory. Another 
 division on the right hand was led by Colonel Buck, assisted 
 by Colonel "Wagstaife, Colonel Bernard Ashley, who com- 
 manded the regiment of the Lord Marquis Hertford, with 
 other field ofiicers ; and the third division on the left hand led 
 by Sir Thomas Basset, who was Major-General of the Cornish. 
 These three divisions fell on together with that courage and 
 resolution as nothing but death could control ; and though the 
 middle di^^sion got into the graff", and so near filled it that 
 some mounted the wall, ,yet by the prodigious disadvantage of 
 the ground, and the full defence the besieged made within, 
 they were driven back with great slaughter ; the common sol- 
 diers, after their chief officers were killed or desperately 
 wounded, finding it a bootless attempt. * * 
 
 On Prince Eupert's side it was assaulted with equal courage, 
 and with almost equal loss, for though that division, led on by 
 the Lord Grrandison, a brave young cavalier, Col. -General of 
 the foot, was beaten off", the Lord Grandison himself being 
 hxirt ; the other, led by Colonel Bellasis, likewise had no 
 better fortune. Yet Colonel AVashington with a party, finding 
 a place in the curtain (the general term in fortification for an 
 extended wall) between the place assaulted by the other two, 
 weaker than the rest, entered, and quickly made room for the 
 horse to follow. The enemy, as soon as they saw the line en- 
 tered in one place, either out of fear or by command of their
 
 BBISTOL AND ITS SIEGES. 305 
 
 officers, quitted tbeir posts ; so that the Prince ( Eupert) 
 entered with his foot and horse into the suburbs. Seudins: for 
 one thousand of the Cornish foot, which were presently sent 
 to second him, he marched up to Froom gate, losing many 'men 
 and some very good officers, by shot from the Avails and win- 
 dows, inasmuch as all men were much cast down to see so 
 Little gotten \\dth so gi'eat a loss, for they still had a more 
 difficult entrance into tlie town than they had yet passed, and 
 where their horse could be of no use to them, when, to the 
 exceeding comfort of generals and soldiers, the city beat a 
 parley, which the Prince willingly embracing, and getting their 
 hostages into his hands, sent Colonel Grerrard and another 
 officer to treat. The treaty began about two of the clock in the 
 afternoon, and before ten at night these articles were agreed 
 on, and signed by all parties : — 
 
 1. '• That the Governor, Nathaniel Fiennes, together with all 
 the officers, both of horse and foot, now within and about the 
 city of Bristol, castle, and forts, may march out to-morrow 
 morning bv nine of the clock, Avith their full arms, bair and 
 baggage, provided it be their own goods ; and that the common 
 foot soldiers march out without arms, and the trooperg with 
 their horses and swords, leaving their other arms behind them, 
 with a safe convoy to Westminster, and after not to be molested 
 in their march by any of the King's forces for the space of 
 three days. 
 
 2. " That there may be carriages allowed and provided to 
 carry away their bag and baggage, and sick and hurt soldiers, 
 
 3. " That the King's forces march not into the town till the 
 Parliament forces are marched ,out, which is to be at nine of 
 the clock. 
 
 4. " That all prisoners in the city be delivered up ; and that 
 Captain Eyres and Captain Cockaigne, who were taken at the 
 Devizes (the old name for that town, as Bath was called the 
 Bath), be released. 
 
 5. "That Sir John Horner, Sir John Seymour, ]\Ir. Edward 
 Stevens, and all other knights, gentlemen, citizens, and other 
 persons that are now in the city, may, if they please, with their 
 
 X
 
 306 'cross country. 
 
 goods, wives and fomilies, bag and baggage, have free liberty- 
 to return to their own homes or elsewhere, there to rest 
 in safety, or ride and travel with the Governor and forces ; and 
 such of them and their families as shall be left behind by reason 
 of sickness or other causes, may have liberty, so soon as they 
 can conveniently, to depart this town in safety, provided that 
 all gentlemen and other persons shall have three days' liberty 
 to reside here or depart with their goods, which they please. 
 
 6. " That all the inhabitants of this city shall be secure in 
 their persons, families, and estates, free from plundering, and 
 all other violence or wrong whatsoever. 
 
 7. "That the charters and liberties of this city may be 
 preserved, and that the ancient goverument thereof and present 
 governors and officers, may remain and continue in their former 
 condition, according to his Majesty's charters and pleasiu'e. 
 
 8. " That for avoiding inconveniences and distractions, the 
 quartering of soldiers be referred to or left to the Mayor and 
 Governor of the same city for the time being. 
 
 9. " That all such as have carried any goods into the castle 
 may have free liberty to carry the same forth. 
 
 10. "That the forces that are to march out are to leave 
 behind them all cannon and ammunition, with their colours, 
 and such arms as is before expressed." 
 
 The next morning, if not before, for the truth is, from the 
 time that the treaty was first offered, they in the town kept no 
 guards, nor observed any order, but the soldiers ran away to 
 the Prince, and many of his soldiers went into the town, his 
 Highness was possessed of Bristol, the enemy then marching 
 away. Here the ill example of Reading in the breach of the 
 articles was remembered, and unhappily followed, for all that 
 garrison was now here ; so that they, with some colour of right 
 or retaliation, and the rest by their example, used great license 
 to the soldiers, who should have been safely conducted, which 
 reflected much upon the Prince (Eupert), though he used his 
 utmost power to suppress it, and charged Colonel Pieimes to 
 be accessory to his own wrong, by marching out of the town 
 an hour before his ap^jointment, and thereby his convoy was-
 
 BRISTOL AND ITS SIEGES. 307 
 
 not ready, and at another gate tlian "was appointed or agi*eed 
 on ; and as the articles were thus unhappily violated to those 
 who went away, so they were not enough observed to those 
 who stayed, and to the city itself; for many of Colonel Fiennes' 
 soldiers, taking conditions, and entering into the King's army, 
 instructed their new friends who were most disaffected, rl ust 
 like the zeal of new proselytes, and still more like the merce- 
 nary soldiers of that day, who sold their blood to the higb.cst 
 bidder. The soldier has in all ages been rather reckless of 
 fi-iend or foe. As Schiller says in his " "VVallenstein" — 
 
 " Tlieir life is 'tween a battle and a mai'cli. 
 Like the wind's blast, never resting, homeless, 
 They storm across the war-convulsed earth." 
 
 So that one whole street upon the bridge (there were formerly 
 houses on the bridge itself — this was common in Loudon and 
 other cities), the inhabitants whereof lay under some brand of 
 malignity, (this word was used by both parties iu the civd. war, 
 like " rogue" in a quarrel, you must believe it applied to both 
 sides equally, or neither,) though no doubt there were many 
 honest men among them, was totally plundered, which, because 
 there was little justice done upon the transgressors (Eupert 
 would not have visited such an offence with much severity), waa 
 believed to be done by the connivance of the officers, and more 
 discredited the King's troops and his cause than was then taken 
 notice of or discovered. The King's cause was marred by the 
 licentiousness and factious intrigues of the undisciplined offi- 
 cers. The high discipline and good moral conduct of Crom- 
 well's " Ironsides" first endeared them to the peasantry. The 
 reduction of Bristol was a full tide of prosperity to the King, 
 it made him master of the second city in the kingdom, and 
 gave him undisturbed possession of one of tlie richest counties, 
 and rendered "Wales more useful to him, being freed from the 
 fear of Bristol, and restored the trade mth Bristol, which was 
 
 the greatest support of those parts Tlie victory 
 
 was, however, dear]y bought. There were slain in the assaults 
 five hundred common men and abundance of excellent officers. 
 Of the Cornish regiment fell — Colonel Buck, Avho was knocked 
 
 X 2
 
 308 CROSS COUNTRY. 
 
 "by a blow of a h albert from the wall into the graif, and there 
 perished, Major Kendall, Colonel John Trevanniou, and Sir 
 Nicholas Hanning, Governor of Pendennis Castle (Cornwall), 
 both shot in the thigh with musket bullets. On the north side 
 of Prince Kupert's army, Colonel Harry Lunsford and Lieut.- 
 Col. Mayle, both shot out of a window after they had entered 
 the suburbs. There were wounded Lord Viscount Grandisou, 
 nephew to the Duke of Buckingham, who was Col. -General of 
 the King's foot ; he died from his wounds ; Colonel John Bel- 
 lasis. Colonel Bernard Ashley, Colonel Sir John Owen, and 
 many other officers of name. 
 
 (The old farce of this date describes some Eoyalist officers 
 obtaining refreshment from the Puritan peasantry by pretend- 
 ing to bargain for the bodies of their children. 
 
 Colonel Lunsford was much dreaded by the Puritans. He 
 was one of those who drew their swords in self defence in 
 "Westminster Hall, which afforded a subject of much invective 
 against the King's party. Absurd reports were spread that 
 he ate children ; and this charge, ridiculous as it may seem, 
 was believed by the ignorant peasantry to affect all Cavaliers. 
 A ballad of the day says — 
 
 " From Fielding and from Vavasovu*, 
 Both evil affected men ; 
 From Lmisford eke deliver us, 
 That eateth up childi'eu." 
 
 Cleveland jokes — 
 
 " The post that came from Banbury, 
 Eiduig in a blue rocket. 
 He swore he saw, when Lunsford fell, 
 A child's arm in liis pocket." 
 
 The vulgar depicted him in the act, for Cleveland also says — 
 
 " They fear the giblets of his train, they fear 
 Even his dog, that four -legged Cavalier; 
 lie that devours the scraps that Lmisford makes, 
 Whose pictm-e feeds upon a child in stakes." 
 
 Butler, in Hudibras, says— 
 
 " Make cliildren with yom' tones to run for it. 
 As bad as bloody bones or Limsford."
 
 BRISTOL AND ITS SIEGES. 309 
 
 Ecliard, in his Historj- of Eugland, says the maligned one was 
 '• a person of extraordinary sobriety, energy, and courage.") 
 
 As soon a3 the news of the taking of Bristol reached the 
 King at Oxford, a solemn thanksgiving for the succct>s was 
 immediately publicly performed. And the next day the King 
 issued a public declaration, exhorting his subjects to return to 
 their obedience. 
 
 (This shows how elated the Eoyalists were with their suc- 
 cess, and at what value Bristol was estimated. There is no 
 doubt that even at this time Charles would have gladly made 
 peace with his subjects.) 
 
 Jealousies (the ruin of the royal cause, the nobles of that 
 party thinking only of their private interest) began amongst 
 the principal officers concerning the government of Bristol. 
 
 Prince Rupert, indignant at serving under the Marquis of 
 Hertford, and the Marquis, disliking the interference of the 
 Prince in his coiincils, and that when Bristol was taken, where 
 the Marquis took himself to command in chief, being a town 
 particularly within his commission, and of which he was besides 
 I-ord Lieutenant. And he was angry that Prince Eupert 
 should have concluded the treaty without his knowledge, and 
 therefore with little ceremony he declared he would appoint 
 Sir Ealph Hopton governor. Eupert, thinking he had gained 
 the city (he certainly bore the heat and toil of the day, saving 
 his royal descent, should have obeyed his commander-in-chief), 
 considered himself entitled to the government, and writing se- 
 cretly to the King, obtained it. Shortly afterwards, the Mar- 
 quis wrote that Hopton was appointed, which determined the 
 King himself to visit Bristol to quell the disturbance. He 
 made a joyftd entrance into Bristol, which was performed with 
 all decent solemnity. He established Prince Eupert in the 
 government, and Hopton his lieutenant-governor, with the real 
 power. * # * * # 
 
 Lord Hopton, Avho had been blown up at tlie skirmish at 
 Lansdown, was left at Bristol to recruit his health and form 
 that new garrison, which was a magazine for men, arms, and 
 ammunition, and all tliat was wanted. 
 
 AVc have seen an engraving of Hopton as governor of Bris-
 
 310 'cross country. 
 
 tol, copied, we believe, from a unique print in Lord Spencer's 
 collection. Sir Ealpli is in tlae dress of peace, and has the 
 flowing locks and lace collar of a Eoyalist gentleman. He 
 wears an embroidered coat, with a scarf across his breast, 
 jack boots, and immense spurs. In the background are a regi- 
 ment of foot soldiers, Avith their pikes. 
 
 In proposing the reduction of Gloucester, it was argued that 
 the garrison of Worcester and Shrewsbury mJght be supplied 
 from Bristol, and the trade of the city thereby so advanced, 
 that the customs might bring a notable i-evenue to the king, 
 and the wealth of the city increasing, it might bear the greater 
 burden of the war. At Bristol the army lost many, as those 
 who had plundered would no longer serve. 
 
 After the taking of the city, the Cathedral was visited by 
 Charles I., accompanied by his sons, Charles and James, the 
 future kings, who attended divine service on Sunday. 
 
 This was in 1643, one year after the royal standard had first 
 been unfurled, and the capture of Bristol was one of the first, 
 and, perhaps, the only important success gained by the 
 Eoyalist party. In 1649, King Charles's head rolled on the 
 scafibld. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXVIII. 
 
 BRISTOL AND ITS SIEGES. — KO. II. 
 
 Then came the lusty Froom, the first of floods that met, 
 Fair Avon entering into fruitful Somerset, 
 To Bristol her to bear, the fairest seat of fame, 
 * * The prospect of which place, 
 
 To her fair buildings adds an admii-able grace ; 
 Well fashioned as the best, and with a double wall, 
 As brave as any town, but yet exceeding all. 
 For easement, that to health is requisite and meet, 
 Her pUed shores to keep her delicate and sweet ; 
 Hereto she hath her tides, that when she is opprest 
 With heat and drought, still pom- her flood upon her breast.'' 
 
 Drayton's Folyolbion, B. 3.
 
 BRISTOL AND ITS SIEGES. 311 
 
 " Let the biofli praises of God be in their iiiontb, and a two-edged sword 
 in their hands " — Psalm exlix. 6. The favourite text of the Piu-itau uiiii- 
 taiy saints, the true church militant. 
 
 Ix om- last chapter we attempted briefly to bring back to our 
 reader's mind the appearance of Bristol in the seventeenth 
 century. Sut a few years after the first siege the city was 
 still walled round, from the present Park Street to Stoke's 
 Croft on one side, and Lawford's Gate and Eedcliff district on 
 the other. Eedoubts commanded those important positions 
 for the safety of a city, girt in by a strong belt of hills, Tyn- 
 dall's Park, the hill of St. Brandou, &c. The Castle towered 
 above the present narrow Wine Street : the Avon " winding 
 at its own sweet A^ill," in a line of silver, and the Froom, the 
 lusty Froom, as Michael Drayton calls it, creeping through the 
 city like a dark lethe. But two years had elapsed, and the 
 central republic, or rather London, the focus of rebellion and 
 fanaticism, found Bristol, the IMonarch of the West, a serious 
 annoyance to the traffic of the provinces they had subdued. 
 In the autumn of 1645, three years after the royal standard 
 was unfurled, with ominous circumstances, the brave, but 
 phlegmatic Fairfax received orders to march on Bristol, the 
 faithless city of the malignants ; the Jericho which they little 
 expected to win so bloodlessly. The Prince lay there with a 
 strong garrison, supported by the train bands of the city, a 
 well-disciplined body even in Elizabeth's time, and accustomed 
 to handle the pike and the caliver. To prevent the enemy from 
 foraging, the stern Eupert burnt down Westbury and a few 
 adjacent hamlets. This made all the club men, or neutral body, 
 go over to Fairfax. Thus says our authority, a Parliamentary 
 paper, the Mercurius Britannicus: — 
 
 " On Thursday, Sept. 4, 1645, our general. Sir Thos. Fairfax, 
 sent a trumpeter with a summons to Prince Eupert for the 
 surrender of ]3ristol ; but the trumpeter was at first something 
 loath to go, because he had heard that Eupert should swear 
 that if any trumpeter came into him witli any message from Sir 
 Thomas Fairfax, that he would hang him ; but seeing our re- 
 solution that if he should off'er any such thing we should reta- 
 liate, Sir Bernard Ashley being Avith us, and others of note, he
 
 312 'cross country. 
 
 passed over these doubts, and went with his message into Bris- 
 tol ; and so soon as the Prince received the message paper, 
 he looking in it, swore, God damn him, it was a summons, and 
 called for a cup of sack, truly cavalier like, and sat dovra. and 
 read it, and detained the trumpeter in Bristol until Friday. 
 We wondering what he was stayed so long for, not knowing 
 but that Prince liupert miglit have done as he had vowed be- 
 fore ; but he did not, for our trumpeter returned with an 
 answer to our general, in which the Prince only desires so 
 much favour from him as to give him leave to acquaint his 
 uncle therewith, and then he would send a speedy and plenary 
 answer, Avhich did not at all give any satisfaction to our gene- 
 ral. On Saturday, Sept. the 6th, the general sent again an- 
 other trumpeter with his resolution to proceed ; and to certify 
 Prince Eupert that he would wait no longer, nor admit of delay, 
 and therefore to require his answer one way or other The mean- 
 while Sh' Thos. Fairfax marched from his quarters into the 
 field, and had his dinner brought him out of his quartei's, so 
 careful was he to follow the business closely ; he dined in the 
 fields, on the Somersetshire side, towards EedclifFe Church 
 (which was guarded by cannon) ; and after dinner, ha^ang 
 given orders to Colonel Ireton (afterwards Cromwell's son-in- 
 law, and one of the King's judges) to draw out two regiments 
 of horse, to be left to wait at the bottom of the hill, near the 
 Sally Port, to be ready in case the enemy should attempt to 
 sally out. Sir Thomas Fairfax went then in. 
 
 (This Ireton was originally a lawyer's clerk, and, like most of 
 the followers of Cromwell, of humble origin. Prom his skill as a 
 clerk, he was chosen as one of Cromwell's secretaries, and with 
 his master, and one or two more of the ultra-military fanatics, 
 was cognisant of Charles's death. He was a great preaching 
 colonel, and was " powerful iu the word," as the cant of the 
 day termed it. Pride, another fellow-colonel of Ireton's, was 
 a bi'ewer' s drayman, and a foundling. Ireton afterwards dis- 
 tinguished himself in Ireland, and as an ardent and visionary 
 republican, was much dreaded by Oliver when he assumed the 
 supreme power.)* 
 
 * The records of Bristol citizens during these stii'ring times consist iu a
 
 BRISTOL AND ITS SIEGES. 313 
 
 Sir Tliomas Faii'fax then went in about himself in person, 
 with Col. Birch, Col. Eainshorough, Col. Ireton, Adj. -Gen. 
 Eveling, Adj.-Gen. of the Horse, Major Bethell,' and other 
 gentlemen attending upon him, to view the enemy's works, and 
 sometimes the general viewed the works by himself, and some- 
 times with the gentlemen, but no soldier was to show obedience 
 to him as general, lest the enemy, seeing it from their works, 
 should take notice of it, and make shot against him to en- 
 danger his person. And when the general had viewed all, he 
 came to his own cannon and viewed them all, ,to see how they 
 were and how levelled, particularly the great twisted piece; 
 he viewed that, and observed all things, and what was not well 
 caused to be altered, taking such careful notice of all things 
 himself that he went so near to the enemies' works that in 
 viewing the Great Fort he was Avithin pistol-shot of their 
 breast-work near the Little Fort, which is by the Royal Fort, 
 and thus he did venture to take exact notice of their work 
 elsewhere also. And Ave do now keep the enemy so close in 
 that they have not been able to make a sally out since Col. 
 Okey was taken. On the said afternoou, viz., Saturday, the 
 
 few half-obliterated stones and battered monuments. In the Cathedral 
 there is an effigy, " in complete armour clad," of Sir John Newton, Bart, 
 who died 1665. In the Mayor's Chapel, monuments of Mrs. Bayntou, a 
 Wiltshire lady, about 1667 ; of Thomas iUdworth, and liis son John, 
 Newfoundland merchants— the former died 1615, the latter 1628. The 
 Throgmorton family, 1635. Sir Baynah Throgmorton, in 1611, bore the 
 Kuig's message to the Mayor of Bristol, commanding liim to hold tlie 
 city for hun. The Rev. Eichd. Standfast, chaplam-in-ordinary to Charles 
 II., was turned out of the hving of Christ Church, and a taylor inducted 
 thereto. In St. James's Church is a brass tablet to the memory of II. 
 Gibbes, mayor, who died in 1636. The Rev. W. Towgood, vicar of St. 
 Nicholas, was imprisoned by the parliamentary forces. He was after- 
 wards rewarded for his sufferings by being made dean. In 1668, Sir 
 Henry Creswick, who resided at the " Bristol Mirror Office," was buried 
 in St. Werburgh's Chiu-ch. The murdered Bowchcr is said by Barrett to 
 have been buried in this church. 'I'he long epitaph lie gives attributes tlic 
 capture of the city by tlie RoyaUsts to the power of a guilty conscience in 
 their enemies. He Uved in Clu-istmas Street. The illustrious Whitson was 
 spared from " the evil to come," for he died in 1629 ; and his monument, 
 is it not with his townsmen to this day? His name has a moniuiicut 
 in every Bristol heart.
 
 314 'cross country. 
 
 6tli September, Lieut.-Gen. Croimvell viewed tlie horse, and 
 gave order to their quarters. On the Lord's day, September 
 the 7th, there came divers fresh club-men into us with such 
 arms as they had, protesting to live and die with us, because 
 they say that the cavaliers plunder and are barbarous, therefore 
 they will stand on their guard against them ; but Sir Thomas 
 Fairfax carries himself so well (they say) to them, that they 
 will never leave him, but assist him to the utmost of their 
 abilities. Neither is it these club-men only that take notice 
 of our general's fair and orderly carriage, but the very enemies 
 themselves acknowledge it, and some colonels in Bristol sent 
 word by our trumpeter to the general that they remember 
 their service to him, and from them to give thanks for showing 
 him so brave and well-bred a gentleman, saying that he is a 
 true and well-disposed gentleman, and that it is a pity he is for 
 the Parliament ; the truth of it is, he is so worthy and abso- 
 lute a well-bred gentleman, that malice itself cannot tax him 
 of ill. Sir Thomas Fairfax sent the last summons into Bristol 
 to Prince Eupert on Sunday night, September the 7th, he 
 having all things in readiness to storm, and intending to fall 
 on the next morning ; received propositions from Rupert that 
 if he would permit him to march away with 20 pieces of ord- 
 nance colours flying, 20 carriages, arms and amm.unition, bag 
 and baggage, and all his soldiers and bishops {sti-anrje collo- 
 catio7i) and prebends and choristers, gentlemen and others, 
 with a safe conduct, that then he would deliver up Bristol with 
 all the forts, castles, &c. To this Sir Thomas Fairfax returned 
 answer that for the terms of honour he would do what Avas 
 fitting for his degree, that is to march away, with three pieces 
 of ordnance, colours, arms, &c. But for the other propositions, 
 viz., concerning the protection of the bishops, &c., he desired 
 to be excused. 
 
 Sir Thomas Fairfax was resolved, if Eupert would not agree, 
 on Monday, Sept. the 8th, that he would storm, being resolved 
 to admit of no delay. Tuesday was the day nominated for the 
 surrender of Bristol, and commissioners of both sides were 
 chosen.
 
 BRISTOL AND ITS SIEGES. 315 
 
 " Dated at the Leaguer, Stli September. 
 
 " But all this time what's become of Groring ? He, they say, 
 appears about Exeter, 7000 strong, if we allow him more 'tis 
 no great matter, for the gallant Massey (who was routed last 
 week in Ely House) jostles with him for quarters, being lustily 
 recruited by a grand body of club men out of the counties of 
 Devon and Somerset, some say no less than SOOO. If they go 
 on thus, I will call them Knaves of Clubs, no more. Especially 
 if they continue to do as well as they promised at Mendip Hill, 
 where the High Sheriff of Somersetshire appointed them a 
 general meeting also near Bristol (the very city of Bristol, 
 ye malignants !) is talcen, they Avill be better than their words. 
 Yov we have received absolute, excellent intelligence of the 
 storming of Bristol, and taking the town, castles, forts, ord- 
 nance, ammunition and arms, by his excellency Sir Thomas 
 Eairfax, on Thui'sday, the 11th of this instant, Sept."— iUerc. 
 Brit., Sept. 8 ^0 15. 
 
 " Sejit. 15. By a gentleman of note from Bristol, it is certi- 
 fied that Prince Eupert (according to the articles of agreement) 
 went out of the Castle of Bristol on Thursday last, towards 
 Worcester, with his lifeguard of about 300 horse and 700 foot, 
 most of the Welch refused to go along with him, being ivessed 
 men, and they, as well as those which were raised in the 
 counties adjacent, either desire to return into their own 
 counties, or join Sir Thomas Fairfax, so that they were most 
 Irish that went with the Prince, and we hear that Lieut.-Gen. 
 Cromwell is appointed to attend the King's motion with 400 
 horse, on the one side, and Col.-Gen. Poyntz on the other ; but 
 of his Excellency's design we hear nothing as yet ; the council 
 of war being not called, in which regard we shall not make any 
 conjectures thereof."— 5'«h«7'« Weehhj Intelligence)', Sept. 9 to 16. 
 
 A letter from Lieut.-Gen. Cromwell to the Parliament, 
 dated at Bristol, the 14th of September, was to this effect :— 
 
 ceomwell's dispatch to the paeliament. 
 
 " About one o'clock of the morning, Thursday, the 15th in- 
 stant, Sir Thomas Fairfax stormed the city. The general's 
 signal when to follow was the burning straw, upon which the
 
 316 'cross country. 
 
 men went ou with great resolution, and very presently re- 
 covered the line, making way for the horse to enter. Colonel 
 Montague and Colonel Pickering, who stormed at Lawford'is 
 Gate (very near the site of the present gaol) where was a 
 double worlv well filled with men and cannon, presently entex'ed, 
 and with great resolution beat the enemy from their works, 
 and possessed their cannon without any considerable loss, and 
 laid do-mi their bridges for their horse to enter. Major Des- 
 borough commanded the horse, who very gallantly seconded 
 the foot ; then our foot advanced to the city walls, where they 
 possessed the great gate against the Castle Street, wherein 
 were put 100 men, who made it good. Sir Hardress "Waller, 
 witli his and the General's regiment, with no less resolution, 
 entered on the other side of Lawford's Gate, towards Avon 
 Eiver, and put themselves into an immediate conjunction with 
 the rest of the brigade. During this Colonel Rainsborough 
 and Colonel Hamond attempted Prior's Hill Port (Stoke 
 Croft), and the line downwards towards Proome; Colonel 
 Birch and the Major- General's regiment being to storm towards 
 Proome Eiver, Colonel Hamond possessed the line immediately, 
 and beat the enemy from it, and made way for our horse to 
 enter. Colonel Rainsborough, who had the hardest task of all 
 at Prior's Port, attempted it, and fought very near three hours 
 for it, and indeed there was great despair of carrying the place, 
 it being exceeding high, a ladder of thirty rounds scarce reach- 
 ing to the top thereof; but his resolution was such that he 
 would not give it over. The enemy had four pieces of cannon 
 upon it, which they played Avith round and case shot upon our 
 men. Here Lieut.- Colonel Bowen and others were two hours at 
 push of pike, standing upon the pallisadoes, but nevertheless 
 they could not enter. Colonel Hamond having entered the line, 
 and Captain Ireton with a forlorn {en fains perdus, as the 
 Prench say) of Colonel Birch's regiment, interposing with his 
 horse between the enemy's horse and Colonel Hamond, re- 
 ceived a shot with two pistol bullets, which broke his arm, by 
 means the entrance of Colonel Hamond did storm the fort on 
 that part which was inward. By which means Colonel Eains- 
 borough's and Colonel Hamond's men entered the fort, and
 
 BRISTOL AND ITS SIEGES. 317 
 
 immediately put to the sword almost all in it. And as this 
 was the place of most difficulty, so of most loss to us on that 
 side, and of very great honour to the imdertaker. Being thus 
 far possessed of tlie enemy's works, the town was fired in three 
 places by the enemy, which we could not put out, which began 
 to be a great trouble to the general and all his officers, that so 
 famous a city should be wasted : but whilst they were vicAving 
 that sad spectacle, the Prince sent a trumpet to the General, 
 desiring a treaty for the surrender, and so tlie fire was quenched 
 and articles agreed on, as you have formerly heard. A list of 
 what loss and hurt was sustained on our side at the talcing of 
 Bristol, as it was certified under the hand of Lieut. -Greneral 
 Cromwell, (then in his 46th year) : — Colonel Fortescue's 
 lieutenant killed ; Colonel Hamond shot with a brace of 
 bullets in his arm ; Major Cromwell dangerously shot ; two of 
 Colonel Engleslie's brothers shot ; some other officers wounded ; 
 200 in all was the most lost ia the storm and from the besrin- 
 ning of the siege ; one dead of the plague ; many common 
 soldiers wounded. In the city was taken 140 pieces of cannon 
 mounted, and many unmounted ; 300 muskets, besides a good 
 quantity of shot, ammunition, and other arms ; 100 barrels of 
 powder, besides much not yet brought to the magazine ; 320 
 days' victuals in the Eoyal Fort for 150 men, 15 days' victuals 
 in the Castle. The Prince had in the garrison 1001 horse and 
 250 foot, and 1000 auxiliaries, besides the trained bands of the 
 city." . 
 
 The Merciirius Findicus, another London puritanical organ 
 and a staunch advocate of the Parliament, writes : 
 
 " On the Lord's Day, Sept. 21, according to order of Parlia- 
 ment, Lieut.-Gen. Cromwell's letter of the taking of Bristol 
 was read in several congregations about London, and tlianks 
 returned to Almighty God for the admirable and wonderful 
 reduction of that city. Tlie letter of that wortliy councillor is 
 well worth observation, and esijecially those 2iious and self-de- 
 nying ea:j>?'^s.sio«.$ therein, arc very rom:u'k:iblo, ^■iz.; ' Tt may bo 
 thought that some praises arc due to tlicsc gallant men, of 
 whose valour so much mention is made, their humble retjuest to 
 you, and all that have an interest in this blessing, is that they
 
 318 'cross country. 
 
 may be forgotten. Its their joy that they are instruments of 
 God's glory, and their coimtry's good ; it is their honour that 
 God vouchsafes to use them. Sir, they that have been em- 
 ployed m this service, liuow that faith and prayer obtained 
 this city for you ; I do not say ours only, but of the people of 
 God with you, and all England over, who have wrestled with 
 God for a blessing in this very thing. Our desires are, that 
 God may be glorified by the same spirit of faith, by which we 
 ask all our sufficiency, and having received it, its meet that he 
 have all the praise.' " — Sept. 16 to 23. 
 
 The Mercurius Britannicus of March 17 to 24, 1644-5, says : 
 
 " A most remarkable piece of service, it was performed by 
 Sir William Waller (tlie court poet) and Oliver Cromwell, 
 near Lavington, Somersetshire, where they killed 40, took SOO 
 prisoners and 400 horse, gallant horse, and their best horse, 
 being the same which conducted the Prince (of Wales) to 
 Bristol, besides their mock sherifi". Col. Long, who now may 
 return by Tom Long, the carrier. Since this action, we may 
 presume they were joined by Eolborne, for then they were 
 within two days' march of him." 
 
 The Perfect Diurnal of March 24 to 31, 1644-5, says : 
 
 " The forces of Sir William AYaller and Colonel Cromwell 
 dividing upon an eminent design about Shaftesbury, Sir Wil- 
 liam Avent towards Bristol." 
 
 Cromwell, in a letter, dated Basingstoke, 14th October, ad- 
 dressed to the Speaker of the House of Commons, LenthaU, 
 after alluding to the taking of Basing House, says : 
 
 " If you please to make a strong quarter at Newbury, Wilts, 
 inasmuch as Newbury lies on the river, it will make the trade 
 most secure between Bristol and London for all carriages." 
 
 The Moderate Intelliyencer, under date June 29 to July 6, 
 1648, the year before the execution of Charles I., and when he 
 probably Avas in Carisbrook Castle, Isle of Wight, says, allud- 
 ing to the intended attack on Pembroke : 
 
 " Our guns, for want of wind, are not yet come from Bristol ; 
 we expect them hourly : had they come, we had done ere this." 
 (How truly hiconic and soldier-like.) 
 
 In the year 1649, the Parliament decided that a magazine of
 
 BRISTOL AND ITS SIEGKS. 319 
 
 provisions sliould be settled at Bristol, as au entrepot for the 
 \Vest, which was accordingly done. 
 
 The surrender of Bristol by Eupert (Eoberto) will always 
 remain one of the unexplained mysteries of history. AVo would 
 wager our lives he Avas brave, we are sure he was honest. 
 Surmise alternately suggests some political jealousy, as the 
 cause of the ignoble surrender to the exulting Soundheads. 
 Eupert was the dashing Murat, le beau Sabreur, tlie brave, 
 hot-headed, swearing, truly loyal, faithful, vicious cavalier of 
 the day. He hated a siege, he loved the hot charge and the 
 clash of squadrons meeting ; he would rather, like Douglas of 
 old, hear the lark sing than the mouse squeak. Perhaps impa- 
 tience at the prospect of a long and tedious siege, while his 
 sovereign was imaided, or the fear of treason in the lea- 
 guered city, may have conduced to the unhappy residt. Certain 
 it is, from our extract, that only a few Life Guards left the 
 city with him. The cowardly body who hung the unhappy 
 men, Boucher and Teomens, may have been plotting but too 
 successfully. Charles never forgave Eupert this unhappy afiaii', 
 although he pleaded that the city wall was not defendable, 
 heing in some parts only three feet thick and five feet high. 
 Prince Eupert was ever the daring partisan general of his age, 
 indefatigable in cutting off convoys, beating up quarters, night 
 surprises, ever in the saddle, his foot as frequently ui the sad- 
 dle as his hand on the sword's hilt. The nephew of Charles, 
 and son of the unhappy Elector Palatine, he was accustomed 
 to the alai-ms of war from his infancy. Maldng his first 
 campaign, at the age of sixteen, under the Prince of Orange, he 
 had fought like a knight-errant for fame and pastime. No man 
 relished more keenly what Fletcher calls the " fierce delight 
 of war." To his ears, the drum's rattle was the sweetest 
 music. His despatches, published by Mr. AVarburtou, " bear 
 witness," says that gentleman, "to his fiery and impetuous 
 daring, his perfect indifference to danger, moral and physical, 
 his fertility of resources, his promptitude and zeal for tlie 
 cause." Some of these despatches aro stained dark red, with 
 the life-blood of tho bearers ; one has a bullet mark through 
 it. Many are inscribed " Haste, haste, post haste .'" and one is
 
 320 'cross country. 
 
 endorsed by the various officers tlirougli whose hands they 
 passed. Mr. AYarhurton attributes the surrender of our city 
 to him as rather an error of a statesman's judgment than the 
 defeat of a commander. May it be so. Peace to his manes. 
 He was as a fiery spirit as ever rode in saddle. 
 
 The royalist Mayor and Town Council were deposed on the 
 first entrance of the enemy, and soon after the Republic was 
 declared at the High Cross, as so many kings had been in 
 former ages. The churches sufiered the usual spoliations, the 
 tombs of the Cathedral were broken, and |^the brasses stolen. 
 The nave was turned into a stable ; the three altars were 
 plastered up, and the ' idolatrous' paintings of the prophets on 
 the organ screen were purposely hidden from sight. The 
 goodly pile, sufficient to strike a fanatic with awe, was defaced. 
 Some pinnacles were knocked down ; the organ was broken up ; 
 monuments were destroyed, to hurry the dead into a quicker ob- 
 livion. Local historians say that the fanatic mob burnt all the 
 furniture of the church, and marched through the streets 
 blowing the broken organ pipes in derision of their fallen 
 enemy, and carrying Avhite banners made of shreds of surplices. 
 In the chapel of the Gaunts, the altar was partially destroyed. 
 In All Saints the altar was removed to the centre of the build- 
 ing. St. Peter's Church had a few years before been declared 
 dangerous in its propinquity to the Castle, and it is said orders 
 had actually been given for its demolition. Soon after the oc- 
 cupation a cutler was made curate of St. Philip's.* 
 
 A few years after, and Charles II. passed through the city 
 disguised as a retainer, and seated behind Mrs. Lane. The 
 lady came from Staffordshire, availing herself of a parliamentary 
 pass, under pretence of a visit to Mrs. Norton, of Abbotsleigh. 
 The king tells the story himself in the Boscoble papers ; it was 
 
 * The speech of Major Shippon, one of those brave fighting preachers, 
 may amuse the reader : — " Come on, my boys, my brave hoys ; I will rmi 
 the same hazard with you. Remember, the cause is for God ; come, my 
 honest, brave boys ; let us pray heartily and fight heartily, and God will 
 bless us !" As laconic as the soldier's prayer before Edgelull. — " For what 
 we are going to receive, the Lord make us truly thankful. Amen." And 
 he rushed to the charge^
 
 A day's fisiiixg at killarney. S-21 
 
 one of his favourite stories, for the king was a great " button- 
 holder;" — how he ran much risk in his anxiety to make a de- 
 tour, and see the royal fort, where there had been of old so 
 much lighting. The king was to have embarked at Bristol, 
 but finally left for the Dorset coast. It is worth noticing that, 
 during his wanderings he was entertained at King's Newton, 
 Derbyshire, by Sir Eobert Hardinge, connected with the Fitz- 
 hardinges of Bristol history. The witty monarch wrote witli 
 his diamond ring on the window of the hall, " Cras, ero lux ;" 
 There'll be " light anon ;" an anagram for Carolus rex. Enough 
 for our present chapter. 
 
 " To-mon-ow to fresh fields ami pastiu'es new." 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIX. 
 
 A day's risni>'G at killaexet. 
 
 ScEXE, — A boat moored not far from O'Douohue's Library, Lake of 
 Ivillariiey. 
 
 Deamatis Pee30>*^. — fflMyAan, a tramping artist ; the Author; Darcy, 
 a medical student, just plucked ; and P/«7, the boatman. 
 
 Time. — A July evening : the blue sky bedappled with sleeping flocks of 
 white fleecy clouds ; the water of a deepening sapphire colour ; a wild 
 deer every now and then beUing from the green-wood caverns of high 
 Glena. 
 
 ArTHOR. Try the green drake, Darcy, the spotted darlings 
 don't bite here as they did in that little curling ripple off Paddy 
 Blake's rock. I suppose you would think it breaking the law 
 to trv the German plan of a cherry with the stone out, or 
 the old Gloucestershire poacher's receipt of a fleshy grass- 
 hopper ? 
 
 Darcy. (Ecproachfully, with an ex tu Brute look.) Is it 
 murther you mane, you pot fisher you, with your lazy licad on 
 a square altar of novels. They shall never say tliat Bob 
 Darcy didn't treat all tlie fi.sh he ever played with like a gen- 
 tleman. Lind me the fly-book there, it's on the well by the 
 
 T
 
 322 'cross country. 
 
 ■whisky -bottle, wliicli, like a solemn barometer, tells us by its 
 green lapse of the progress of time. What's o'clock ? 
 
 Phil. (With tremendous violence, and enthusiasm.) It's 
 turned four, your honour. I know it, because the four o'clock 
 fly, your honour, is just gone. 
 
 Author. Nonsense, Phil. Don't bamboozle me. There's no 
 fly that's quite so punctual as that. They don't read Brad- 
 shaw. 
 
 PhiL (Winking violently and putting on tlie innocence of 
 an unborn babe.) Why, I meant the four o'clock fly that goes 
 from Muckross to the station. By the same token, I just hear 
 the guard's bugle. Oh, it's as purty as Kitty's dancing, to 
 see his fingers run over the keys ; they're no sooner on than 
 they're ofi" again. Try a black and orange, Mr. Darcy, the 
 wind is going down, 
 
 Vaughan. (Waking up, and humming the angling song of 
 Gothe). How this cool, deep water, Mr. Critic, makes one 
 long to dive to some mermaid's cavern, and study fly-fishing 
 with lines made of the golden thread of her errant hair. 
 
 Darcy. What ! study fishing from the fish's point of view — 
 learning by the way the great salmon language, and the trout's 
 patois ? 
 
 Vavghaii. Exactly. Waking up drowned knights, and 
 suicide monks, and having small tea-parties of respectable 
 banshees, in their blue flannel bathing dresses and shrouds sine 
 crinoline. 
 
 Author. Now don't let your fancy become ghastly. 
 
 Vauffhan. I must say, Darcy, with all his bull-finch riding^ 
 tumbler smashing, and frolics at Flynn's, has a tender heart, 
 and a high sense of sporting honour. He refuses to catch 
 but on equitable and scientific principles. He is the Bayard 
 of the fist, and the Sir Philip Sidney of the rod. 
 
 Darcy. Ton be hanged. 
 
 Author. Don't. He's blushing. 
 
 Vauyhan. (Taking up Darcy's fly book.) Did it cost you 
 much money to make this collection of natural history ? 
 
 Darcy. Pots, sir ; pots, by Jove. 
 
 Faitghan, Why, old fellow, here's a leaf like a tulip bed, or
 
 A DAY S FISHING AT KILLARNEY. 323 
 
 Benjamiu's coat aud Disraeli's conscience. "UHiy. my palette, 
 nev: set ^vitll its carmine, cobalt, and chromes, is nothing to it. 
 I believe it's a tailors pattern book, or snips from a ribbon 
 shop. The devil fishes with ribbons sometimes, eh ? 
 
 Darcij. Och ! you sucking Raphael, you big ignoramus, (pull 
 a bit on, Phil,) what have you been wasting your time at ? 
 Wliy, those are the best salmon flics to be had at Limerick — 
 butchers, by Jove. Tliis is the golden pheasant, that the red ma. 
 caw ; beauties both, and devilish killing. 
 
 Author sneezes. 
 
 Phil. God between you and all harm. 
 
 Vaughan. Sings : — 
 
 " Oil, Gra jMachrec, 
 
 You don't love me, 
 Or else you would not linger 
 
 To slip this ring, 
 
 Which now I bring, 
 Upon your little finger — 
 
 Your purty little finger." 
 
 Author. (While Darcy and Phil are weighing that big silver 
 flapper.) Tell me, Yaughan, as you finish that sketch, if 
 you agree with my last severe remarks on modern historical 
 novels. As to historical novels, I do not think the best men 
 should confine themselves strictly to their own times. He who 
 knows the human nature of to-day surely knows the human 
 nature of yesterday, and if he choose to place his scene a century 
 or two back, he has the advantage of a large scope for his imag- 
 ination, picturesque dress, and stranger social contrasts. One 
 cannot always be describing clever tailors, like Alton Locke ; 
 wonderful governesses, like Jane Eyre ; ingenious reporters, like 
 Young Copperfield ; kind, simple-hearted officers, like Colonel 
 Newcombe ; or even inspired coal-pit proprietors, lilce Mr. 
 Kingsley in Miss Craik's clever book, Itivevstone. 
 
 Vamjhan. Iso, nor, bedad, Vespasians, like Dr. Croly ; Sir 
 Eichard Steeles, lilce Mr. Whitehead ; Osmonds, like Thacke- 
 ray ; Queen Elizabeths, like Scott; or Eielielieus like tliat 
 clever charlatan, the negro Frcnclnnan, Dumas. Tlie pre- 
 sent is a fashion now, as the past was some years ago, just as 
 
 r 2
 
 324 'cross country. 
 
 Leacli is, and Bunbury was — as Griotto is, and Gaido was ; it is 
 only a turn of the wheel. 
 
 Darcy. The reel ? I don't want to stop all night playing 
 him — you fellows, mind your talking. I could catch the sea 
 sarpint himself if I only knew the right sort of fly. 
 
 Vaiighan. "We wern't talking to you — so shut up. "We said 
 wheel, not reel. 
 
 ^ -JF 4p * tP 
 
 Author. Mind your fishing, Darcy. If your heart was only 
 as soft as your head 
 
 Darcy. Och, you omodhaun, — pass the bottle, — if I had ten 
 thousand a year, I would erect twin statues to Jameson and 
 Kinahan. 
 
 Author. Tou must feel a good many pulses before that, and 
 shake that death-rattle of a head of youi's, Mr. Doctor, some 
 thousand times, you legal homicider ; biit put the brake on, 
 Darcy, and let us rattle on with our palaver. As I was saying, 
 Vaughan, and I would enunciate it with the twitch and power 
 of Johnson, it is better for a book to be antiquarian, which is, 
 at least, instructive, than to be of no age, which is unmeaning. 
 The authoress should have looked at our old flint axes and dag- 
 ger brooches, the arrows and horns, the spears and pipes, the 
 crowns and maces. With her pleasant fancy and easy style, 
 she might soon study carefully the set of old robes and the 
 slouch of old hats, till she knew them as well as our o\\ti bea- 
 rers and bornouses. The balance and shot-silking of manners, 
 politics, and religion, she should have also mastered. 
 
 Vaughan. Why, you would not turn her into an encyclo- 
 pedist, or one of those small omnisciencies you meet with at 
 clubs. 
 
 Author. Six months' hard reading and note-taking would have 
 done this. 
 
 Vaughan. authors don't read ; they write : reading is not 
 thinking. 
 
 Author. Xo, no more is writing : but reading is a stimulus 
 to thought, and some people with small concentration can only 
 think over a book. This is a novelist we are talking of and 
 dissecting, Darcy.
 
 A day's fishing at killarney. 325 
 
 Darcy. I begin to long for a dissection again ; I gave my last 
 body to old Mouser : bedad bodies are deuced dear. Bad luck 
 to bis fatber's grandfatber, tbat's tbe second time be bas re- 
 fused to take me. 
 
 Author. "VTbat, still tbiuking of tbe man wbo would not 
 back tbe bill? 
 
 Barcy. Trasb ! The bill be banged. Xo backbiting now, it's 
 tbe salmon I'm talking of, — tenpoimds if beweigbed an ounce. 
 Tbere be goes off, sulkily, like a big wbale as be is, into deep 
 water ; — and I could fling tbe wbisky bottle at nim in mere 
 spite. 
 
 Vauyhan. Fling something less precious to you, my dear 
 Darcy. Try one of O'Dwyer's pills for a bait, gulls take them 
 fast enougb. But to return. The antiquarian novel, Mr. 
 Author, to say the best of it, is but a mere wax-work exhibi- 
 tion. Tbe novelist must learn that it is only after long 
 prayers and vigils to tbe gods that tbe artist's cold statue be- 
 gins to tbrob and heave witb life ; that it must be by tbe long 
 embraces of fiiitb that the cold stone warms, and tlie stony 
 beart lifts and beats. It is only after long wrestles with the 
 .angel of fiction, that we win bis blessing. It is our own life's 
 T^lood that we must pour into tbe veins of our Frankensteins. 
 It is only by tbe magic of great offerings, tbat tbe dead tera- 
 pbim we worship will deign to speak : we must lay face to faca, 
 and beart to lieart on the dead cliild, before it will arise and 
 thank the propliet for giving him life. 
 
 Author. True, Yaugban, true. It is only when the pangs 
 of tbe crucifixion day have fallen on tbe great writer, tbat tbe 
 graves open, and some, who have been dead, arise and appear 
 unto many. You know me too well to believe this metaphor 
 ii-reverent. Now, Darcy, the end of your song of " The JS'ate 
 Goold Eing," of which you gave us the first verse a while ago. 
 Now, no spitting. 
 
 Barcy. Sings : — 
 
 " Colleen astliorc, 
 My lieart is sore, 
 Too long I have been waiting ; 
 We've feed tlie priest, 
 And cooked the feast,
 
 326 'cross country. 
 
 It is no lies I'm staling — 
 It's truth, bedaclj I'm stating. 
 
 Mavourneen, then, 
 
 Be one in ten, 
 And do not look so tazing : 
 
 The pig is bought, 
 
 The fowls are caught, 
 The day and hour are plazing, 
 O, Kitty, a'nt they plazing ? 
 
 You smile at me, 
 
 O, Gra Macliree, 
 Sure, dear, you wUl not linger. 
 
 'No blarney, Tom, 
 
 ' I'm deaf and dumb.' 
 The ring is on her fmger — 
 Whoop, boys, it's on her finger." 
 
 Vanghan. A very pretty bit of rustic dalliance— uot classi- 
 cal, yet miglity rural and tender. * * * * Let ns rest a mo- 
 ment and cry pax, dear Mr. Author, before we summon our 
 next culprit to the bar ; just watch those broad white-sailed 
 Argosies of clouds, piled up with Indian amber, bearing doA'i'u 
 towards us, fanned by the west-sou'-west, from the bluff shoul- 
 der of Tore mountain, where the great trumpet-snorts of the 
 cascade's trumpet sound perpetually, and will soiind till they 
 be silenced by the judgment trump of God himself. Now shot 
 to pieces and pierced by the artillery of an unmasked battery 
 of sunbeams, they sink and lade away into the blue clouds of 
 the July ocean of wandering air. 
 
 Darcy. Take your hog-brush, man, and paint — you don't live 
 by words. 
 
 Author. Just watch Darcy, Yaughan, it's really quite a treat, 
 you should have seen him ten minutes ago. 
 
 Darcy. Is thy servant a dog that you should do this thing ? 
 
 Author. He draws out of various mysterious leathers, enve- 
 lopes, packing cases, and wooden repositories, three of the 
 most favoured pipes of his harem : first, an amatory French 
 pipe, with a Pompadour head upon it — no Lucretia, to jndge 
 by her kindling eyes, unless haply she might be Lucretia Bor- 
 gia ; secondly, an immense china well, holding a pail-full of
 
 A day's nSIIING AT KILLARNEY. 3.27 
 
 bird's-eye, brouglit from Heidelberg, and grown black in many 
 a student's beer-battle ; thirdly, a meerschaum skull, convi- 
 vially moral, and professionally sociable. He selects the last, 
 and tills it gravely, with head on oue side, like a magpie. 
 
 Barcij. Can't you lave a fellow alone with the comfort of liis 
 life ? Isn't old blood, like the Darcys, to do what it likes ? 
 
 Vmighan. Yes, even to get plucked — falling at a drain, when 
 it could clear a five-bar. A pity the fine old tap isn't cooler. 
 Now see him how he lashes the quiet lake "water lightly with 
 liis taper whip rod springing from the very Avheel, and twenty 
 yards of line out. The great tulip flower of a fly falls light as 
 thistledown. It's the Darcys know how to do the old beguil- 
 ing game : you would think he expected to hook a water-fair}', 
 or to fish up a crock of old king gold. Click, click, goes the 
 merry reel ; flip, flip, goes the Avater from the line in a thin, 
 silvery dry dust over our heads. Darcy is happy in the in- 
 dulgence of hope and tobacco unlimited. Darcy descended 
 from a great line of kings. 
 
 Barcij. You may say that, and a fishing-line too. 
 
 Vauyhan. The spasmodic novel is a remote descendant from 
 such verbal epilepsies as Smith's " Life Drama." It makes a 
 dew-drop and a world of equal consequence. It rains on us 
 stars, suns, fires, and Paradises. Pre-Eaphaelitism came from 
 "Wordsworthianism, just as the Lake school emerged from old 
 ballads and revived Elizabethanism, when the French Eevolu- 
 tion, and its consequent freedom of opinion, had led us rebelliously 
 and heretically back to nature. Bronteism was the twin of 
 Spasmodism and pre-llaphaelitism, and led us to the love of 
 common, and even at first almost repulsive things. The same 
 reason that made Mr. Millais paint scrubby, red-haired girls, 
 made Miss Craik select a plain governess for a heroine, and 
 Miss Mulock make a hero out of a tanner's boy, in " John 
 Halifax," though she does at last artfully redeem him by proving 
 his gentle descent. 
 
 Vavghan. AVell, thank God! the old Lcigli Hunt Cockney 
 entliusiasm and sickly aflectation of new words has gone by. 
 The new school is sounder, deeper, and truer.
 
 328 'cross country. 
 
 Author. Still, thoiigli tliey do not blow out a Ilaiiipstead 
 daisy till it becomes as large as St. Paul's, there is about tliem 
 a feverish and false tone of exaggeration which destroys the 
 balance of parts, by enlarging one part and leaving the other 
 a sketch. " The earnest," too, has grown into a cant all but 
 intolerable — "Tlie mission," "The human," are their great 
 phrases. It was foolish to make a hero an Adonis ; but why 
 run to the other extreme, and make him a humpy ^^sop ? 
 
 Darcy. If you fellows don't let me speak, I shall burst from 
 repletion, of imagination. We are just off the Man-of-war 
 Eock now, and I am going to stir up Paddy Blake with a rapid 
 succession of incoherent questions, which that great dull bluff 
 of roclf, that holds the mocking spirit, will answer pat off the 
 tongue. Paddy Blake never trips at his lesson. Listen, quick 
 as lightning — 
 
 How do you do, old Paddy Blake ? How do you do, old Paddy Blake 7 
 
 Where were you last Easter Monday ? Where were you last Easter Monday ? 
 
 Driving home the piggiug-rigging, Driving home the pigging -rigging^ 
 
 You, and Tim, and Mike, and Darby. You, and Tim, and Mike, and Darhy. 
 
 Coming down the long boreeu Coming down the long horeen — a 
 
 All feU over the dyke together ; All fell over the dyke together ; 
 
 Some broke legs and some broke noses. Some broke legs, and some broke 7wses. 
 
 Good night, Paddy Blake, you rascal. Good night, Paddy Blake, you rascal. 
 
 Parley vous Franchez, Mademoiselle ? Parley votts Franchez, Mademoiselle ? 
 
 Hiu'rah ! Paddy Blake, you rascal. Hurrah .' Paddy Blake, you rascal. 
 
 Ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! whoop — hurrah ! Ha ! ha I ha ! ha ! whoop — hurrah .' 
 
 And while we fell back, laughing at the demon-like haman- 
 ness of the voice in the rock cavern, the echo laughed and gib- 
 bered still about us. 
 
 Author. "Well, not all the fairies that fly in the summer dust, 
 or that trip round mushrooms, can match that. 
 
 Darcy. Can't they ? 
 
 He dropped his rod and seized his bugle. Enchantment of 
 sea and earth, were ever such sounds that, with fairies trooping 
 after them, broke forth from the great mountain side, till the 
 Keeks called to Derrycuuihy, and Tore shouted to Glena ! 
 Nearer, farther, deeper, sweeter, louder, prouder, nearer, 
 clearer ; ringing from mountain unto mountain — silver-spring-
 
 A day's fishing at killarney. 321) 
 
 ing, like a fountain — fainter, foiuter, frcsli aud fainter, from 
 some blue and distant gleu, far bej-ond the keenest ken ; then 
 a low ^-Eolian wail — dvinc; down some distant vale — far awav — 
 O, far away. 
 
 Varcy. Ton may look, but that's nothing : you should hear 
 a baud 2)lay here, as they do sometimes in Lord Kenmare's state 
 barge, with its glittering flag dragging in the water. You'd 
 think O'Donohue was passing to his castle on a ^lay morning. 
 
 Vauyhan. I've heard it. The mountain breaks into music, 
 like a great hive awakening. The great silent, lonely, woody 
 rocks, that have listened so long, break forth and sing — bright, 
 strong, and sweet as fairy harps from hidden cave and tree. 
 Then, all at once, a cannon is fired with a bursting shock and 
 thunder-split tliat seems to crack the very navel of firm-set 
 earth. It is sublime. 
 
 Barcy. As Tom JNIoore says, you would think that at one 
 time — 
 
 " Fairies, vritli a silver chime, 
 Shook the lieatlier bells, till tune 
 Broke from eveiy flower of June. 
 Then, to break the spell, the shock 
 Of the camion rent the rock." 
 
 "And what was Yaughan, the artist, doing, all this timer" 
 says a grisly, inquisitive reader. 
 
 I will tell you : Yaughan, who will wear a black velvet skull- 
 cap, like Inigo Jones, and a black velvet coat, like Eaphael, is 
 sitting with a canvas on his knees, sketching in colour the 
 shifting glories of the purple mountains above our heads. 
 Eows of bottle-golden fluids, ambery, rich, transparent, are on 
 the seat beside him. In his hand are a sheaf of brushes, one 
 or two tipped with sky azure— on his thumb is a round maho- 
 gany shield of a palette, tinged with colours from vermilion 
 and flake-white to orange cadmium and brown-black. He is 
 sketching, with a loving smile, as we would paint the smile of 
 one we love. I^ow he looks up with knitted brow, then down 
 again, and so on. Thin, gold, waving leaves, floating up in 
 heaps in the eddies and bays— rougli crimson sorbs of the
 
 330 CROSS COUNTRY. 
 
 dark-leaved viscid-flowered arbutus — misanthropic lierons, and 
 motlierly ducks — lie lias them all. Vaughau alone can paint 
 Killarney, for he loves it. 
 
 Author. Now, Darey, a song. 
 
 Darcy. What shall it be? Kebel, as, "The night before 
 Larry was stretched," " Croppies, lie down," such as Corporal 
 Moonbeam, of the Shanavasts, or the Hearts of Steel used to 
 sing, or a rouser for the lively end of a wake, like " Moll in 
 the Wad," "Eattle the Hasp," and " He's a neat Hand for a 
 Grinder ;" or merry and convivial, like " The Black Stripper," 
 or " Nell Flaherty's Drake ;" or shall it be pathetic, like " Sa- 
 vournah Deelish," or the old Jacobite air, " The Wild Geese ?" 
 
 Author. 0, botheration ! give us those two new versions of 
 old tunes you hammered out last night at the landlord's. 
 
 Barcy. Well then, without tlie usual cold in the head, here 
 goes. Call this 
 
 A CUSHIiA-lIACHEEE. 
 
 The blue's in the sty, and the flower's in the thorn, 
 But the brightness, and freshness, and sweetness of morn 
 May be blackness, and foulness, and silence for me, 
 When I meet at the chapel door Cushla-machree. 
 
 There is Kitty m scarlet, and Worah in blue, 
 And Kelly, her black hair all silvered with dew ; 
 But what are then- ribbons and trinkets to me, 
 When I look on my Aileen, my Cushla-machree ? 
 
 There's the girl at the brewer's, and Kitty at Tim's, 
 And that neat-footed coleen, who is cousin of Jim's ; — 
 Let them ogle and dance, it's all nothing to me, 
 AIL I want is the love of my Cuslila-machree. 
 
 Author. Now the other. 
 
 Barcy. Stop a bit, Vaughan has got a rise! Play him! 
 play him ! quick with the landing-net, or, by jingo ! he'll be off. 
 Keep the top joint down — drown him! hurrah! ten pound if 
 he weighs an ounce. Well done, Eaphael ! now paint him, and 
 then eat him. What shall I sing ? 
 
 Says he, Katty ? 
 Says she, Patty ?
 
 A day's nsniNG at killarnkt. 331 
 
 or " The Boiild Soger Boy." Seutimental ? Very well, here's 
 my half-new words to " Savom-nah Deelish." 
 
 The plover was calling, the snow it was falling, 
 
 Savournali deehsh, Sliigliau oli ! 
 Feathery white it's falling, falling, 
 
 Savournah deehsh, Shighan oh ! 
 Wan was her cheek, which lay on my shoulder ; 
 Damp was her hand, no marble was colder ; 
 I felt that I never again shoidd behold her, 
 
 Savournah deelish, Shigan oh ! 
 
 The snow it was drifting, the wind it was sifting, 
 
 Savournah deehsh, Shiglian oh ! 
 Silveiy snow-dust, sifting, siftuig, 
 Savournah deehsh, Shiglian oh ! 
 Under the long wave wreath they found lier. 
 Dead and cold, for the snow chain bound lier 
 But she lay smiling, the cold snow round her, 
 
 Savournah deelish, Sliigan oh ! 
 
 Author. Bravo ! but how did she get there ? Lost her way, 
 or smothered, or 
 
 Darcij. Don't ask questions; it is quite enough she was 
 found there. To be obscure is to be grand ! 
 
 Vmujhan. Just look at this rose-tint on this last cloud. Eose 
 madder, where are ye ? 
 
 AutJior. "What a pity j^ou could not brush off" some of the 
 rose bloom from tlie cheeks of an Irish gu'l ; some of that 
 transparent, shifting, pulsing, quickening carmine, that a kiss 
 turns to warm crimson, and a tale of pity softens to the pale 
 pink of a winter rose. 
 
 Burcy. Three cheers for the girleeus, with black eyes and 
 red cheeks, God bless them ! AV^as that a rise ? Yes. Try 
 him with a dun badger. AVhere's tlie whisky bottle ? I've 
 got another attack of that horrid wind in the heart. 
 
 Author. Is that a new complaint ? 
 
 Barcy. Faith, it's down in all the materia mcdicas ; but 
 some call it tympany, and others anemozaa. 
 
 Author. Thank you for the iufunuatiou. You'll do the exa- 
 miners yet, 
 
 Barcy. Of course I shall, as sure as a bonoveen has two
 
 332 'cross country. 
 
 flitches. But how deuced polite you are; you're getting like 
 old Baron Eoper, who I saw once bow and ajDologize to a 
 Eibbonman, at the Clomel assizes, for having forgotten to sen- 
 tence liim to death. " By ," says the fellow, who had 
 
 shot three landlords running, because they were too particular 
 about the rent, "don't mention it, your honour;" and the 
 whole court broke out into a thundering guffaw. 
 
 Author. AVhy, that's as good as the story of Charles II. 
 apologizing to the ribboned men round his bed "for being such 
 an unconscionable time dying ;" or that varnished old humbug, 
 Lord Chesterfield's, last words to his valet, "DessoUes, give the 
 gentleman a chair." 
 
 Vaughan. Look at 
 
 " That great mountain rent away 
 Prom some white Alps of yesterday." 
 
 It now changes into a fiery dragon, and presently into a moun- 
 tain of roses. 
 
 Darcy. Or strawberry ice, Yaughan. 
 
 Vaughan. Just squeeze me out a twisting worm of that 
 crimson lake, and I'll have a fling at it — ^just a glaze of madder. 
 Thank you. Now for it. 
 
 Author. This is our last evening, Yaughan, so do your work. 
 Blue lake — fiery sky — Tomies — Glena, too, with thy battalions 
 of pines defiling to the lake — and thou, eagle's nest, with thy 
 long lines of burning lances, farewell ! to-morrow the 9.20 
 from Kiliarney bears us on white, cloudy wings to Dublin, and 
 the blue mountains of "NYicklow. 
 
 Darcy. No I'm not (sings) : — 
 
 " Yes, Aghadoe, 
 
 I must say no 
 To thee, Killarney's daughter ; 
 
 To Tore so tall, 
 
 Grlena and all. 
 And Derrycimihy's water. 
 " The deer may bell 
 
 On rock and fell, 
 Where birch trees nod and feather ; 
 
 Yet we must go, 
 
 Farewell, Dunloe"
 
 A day's fishing at killatiney. 333 
 
 Bedad, I've got liim I Quiet: get the net. He's a fourteeu- 
 pouuder, as I'm a slayer of men, just plucked. Play him, aud 
 I'll keep the boat down. 
 
 Such a scene ! Apollo and the Python was child's play to it. 
 Hat blown away — that's nothing ; bottles upset — a trille. 
 Whiz runs the line, forty yards out ; still as a log, then oft" like 
 a rocket ; at last, worried, Avorn out, baffled, tired by Darcy's 
 iron wrist and cunning play, the monster, a lump of drip])ing 
 silver, is di'agged into the boat, to flap himself disconsolately 
 on the bloody planks till a blow of Vaughan's maul stick gives 
 him the quieting coiqi de grace. 
 
 Author. Bobbing for whale, or trolling for the great sea sar- 
 pint, Darcy, will soon be an easy matter to you. 
 
 Barcij. Now I'll finish the 0' Grady's forewell to Killarney : — 
 
 " O Coom a Dhiiv, 
 
 Ear, far above 
 Geneva's lake I prize thee. 
 
 Not Holland's sea, 
 
 Though strong it be, ' 
 In my esteem could rise tliee. 
 
 "The first of May, 
 "When sunbeams pl>y 
 Before the chieftain riding ; 
 When Eoss's tower 
 Becomes the bower 
 O'Donohue took pride in. 
 
 " Then golden bridge, 
 
 From ridge to ridge. 
 
 Joins towers of pearl and beryl ; 
 
 "With banner, sail, 
 
 And shining mail, 
 
 Tliey ford the waves of peril. 
 
 "Tore waterfall 
 Will roar a call 
 Unto his fellow yonder ; 
 
 Tlie wind, tlic wares, 
 Drives over the caves 
 As I would drive a gander.
 
 334 • 'cross country. 
 
 " The deer in a flock 
 Swim round the roct, 
 To see the king of Erin, 
 
 In his golden crown, 
 
 Just fresh from town, 
 
 And the fairies after him cheering." 
 
 (Laughter.) 
 
 Author. Tliat batlios is tliorouglily Irish, Darcy. It's 
 only people who are able to be earnest who can afford to be 
 funny. 
 
 Darcij. Why not afford it : it don't require £10,000 a-year 
 and a pinery ? Wlien they sent about the world offering a 
 prize for the happiest man, didn't they find him digging as a 
 Connaught boy, with no shirt on the back of him ? 
 
 Author. Veramente, which means true for you ; but it is 
 time to take the rod to pieces, screw up the tin tubes, and 
 ■v\dnd the fly book — we shall be late for dinner. Suppose, on our 
 pull home, we improvise a grand olor/awn, as a keening for Kil- 
 larney we are about to bid farewell to. 
 
 Darcy. Bravo ! Three cheers for Joe Smith and all suc- 
 cessful blackguards, crowned and crownless. I'll take the 
 comic side — the prosaic — the material ; to use the words of 
 that illustrious poet, proverbially dull Tupper's friend, Higgin- 
 bottom, to whom, I am disgusted to say, his ungrateful nation 
 has not yet erected even a sign-post — " the prosaically and un- 
 2')leasantly true,^' I may saj^, the shadow side of life. 
 
 Vauffhan. I, the neutral tint ; the poetical colour, the 
 artistic. 
 
 Author. And I, the light — the full sunshine of whatever 
 poetry my rush pipe can produce. 
 
 Darcy. Well, now then, fire away. We've got half an 
 hour, from the old buffer here — the Weir Bridge — what a run 
 we are going with. Keep steady, or we shall go a mucker, and 
 thirty is not a pleasant age to be drovv'ued in. Now it's quiet 
 water, the troubadour begins. It's vour first move. Where's 
 the whisky bottle ? 
 
 Author. I sound trumpets, then. EareweU, a long farewell
 
 A day's fishixg at killarxey. 335 
 
 to tliee, lake of the milk-wliite liorse and the kingly riJer, of 
 the wood, the Traterfoll, and the mountain, and the eagle, of ar- 
 butus and oak, of wild deei' and heron. Farewell, ye rocky 
 islands, where the blue wave frets and laps ; where the bee, 
 on the heather flower, sings sleepily all the June day to the 
 tide that gurgles in and out the little sand-cove and the narrow 
 bay; where the wild ducks float and gabble, and where the 
 moping heron poises like a timid bather in a brown study. No 
 more I tread the spongy green turf of Innisfallen, where the 
 great hollies throw aloft their thick clusters of blood-drops ; 
 and the blackbird, with the golden bill, flutes and pipes like the 
 soul of some old monk just liberated from purgatory. There 
 the ash feathers in tlie sky, and the oali twists its serpent arms. 
 Farewell, dear island, on whose grassy shores I can see the 
 hooded monks at simset time, watching night darken over the 
 lake. Farewell, Tore, with thy spilling silver, tossed from 
 ledge to ledge ; passing, yet never passed. Black valley, pur- 
 ple cliff, broad lake, high mountain, beneficent, all-covering, 
 and all-guarding sk}'', farewell ! 
 
 Darcy. Time's up ! Now I must put in my oar ; and you, 
 too, nimble-footed Tim, the waiter, who, in thy irrestrainable 
 philanthropy, watchest the ignorant Saxon, and suddenly dig- 
 ging thy fork into his unmanageable potato, olTerest to divest 
 it of its splitting jacket, much to his delight. Thou who, with 
 the innocence of the golden age, readest the newspaper and ex- 
 •changest jokes behind our chairs at dinner; avIio toilcst in 
 with unwieldy kishes of fresh turf: who runnest for ponies ; 
 who hurriest for the bag-squeezing, noise-compelling piper. 
 Farewell ! ye, too, bare-legged girls with the goat's milk and 
 mountain dew ; who ran, nympli-like before us up the boulder- 
 strewn paths of Mangerton ; who clung to our bridles like 
 delaying fairies ; who hung unto our perpendicular hor.-^e's tail 
 with pretty recalcitrance and reluctant feet ; who, witli flushed 
 faces, covered with wind-tossed liair, laughed and sang, and 
 teazed us for the slow-coming halfpence. Farewell, thou not- 
 to-be-forgotten wizen little Jim oftho. Eagle, who, as a babe, an 
 eagle bore to its gory nest, up near the Tomiea ; who, Avith thy
 
 336 'CUOSS COUNTRY. 
 
 squeaky bugle and cracked voice, nearly killed us by declaring 
 that tliou wert, as Mrs. Hall said, Jimmy, the enchanted knight 
 of ]\Iangerton. Thou who, for the not-to-be-mentioned sum 
 of fovirpence, offered to strip and swim on that chilly October 
 day round the cold tarn, called the Devil's Punch Bowl. 
 Farewell ! and thou, Jemmy O'Donohue, most sturdy and re- 
 solute of guides, who led the hot gallop and charge of the 
 redoubtable Kerry ponies through the astonished street of 
 Muckross. Farewell ! 
 
 Vau(jhan. Hold a while, Darcy, put a stopper on ; where is 
 my colour to come in, and we just at the jetty ? 0, farewell, 
 then, ye green-blue skies of Kerry, navigated by those piles of 
 silver fire that move slowly burning into the gold and torrid 
 orange of such a sunset as we see yonder — with long veins of 
 quivering purple, and bars of golden russet. Farewell, the lake 
 that burns at this early twilight into a great level sea of new- 
 spilled blood, far away towards the west Avhere the red light 
 glimmers through the trees, and the returning birds wing to tlie 
 darkening wood — the hotel windows shine like those of a light- 
 house, and acquaint us that dinner is ready. 
 
 Darcy. Hvirrah ! then, for Muckross ! there's the salmon 
 down here longing to be boiled. 
 
 Author. Give way, then. 
 
 Vaughan. Now, then, Author, with a vnll. 
 
 Darcy. Altogether. 
 
 Author. One and all. 
 
 Omnes. Hurrah ! put your backs to it. 
 
 And we did go. I thinking of life and its changes in my 
 own dreary way (I could suck melancholy from a sugar-cane), 
 thinking of how I should never again see that grand block of 
 cloudy amethyst, they call the Tomies mountain, as we lea])ed 
 and shot along, as if propelled by steam, the water gurgling 
 and smoking under us. Together the oars dipped, turned, 
 and feathered, in quick pulses. The boat went cleaving on 
 past darkening rocks, and trees, and wood, and island, past the 
 old Eoss Tower, past the great stone and rocks of fantastic and 
 enchanted shapes. Nearer, nearer — we drive on land, the 
 boat grinding into the Avet silt, and oozy, gritty sand.
 
 A day's riSIiING AT KILLAllNEY. 337 
 
 Instantly that bis foot touched the shore, Darcy put his two 
 hands, trumpet-wise, to his mouth, and roared out, witli the 
 voice of an agonized bull, " Is the dinner ready ?" 
 
 Tim, still more jovial, from the far-oft' Lake hotel door, 
 answers, "It's just being dished, Surr." 
 
 Says Darcy, ferociously grinding his teeth, " I could eat a 
 horse's leg off." 
 
 THE END. 
 
 niLUKO, FItlXTEQ AHD gTEaKOTVrSB, OllIU>rOBD,SUEKEV.
 
 A LIST OF BOOKS 
 
 PUBLISHING BY 
 
 SAMPSON LOW, SON, AND CO. 
 
 47, LUDGATE HILL, LONDON. 
 
 [September, 1861. 
 
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