From John O'Groats to Land's End Part 48

The Blewin Stun, in days gone by, Wur King Alfred's bugle harn, And the tharn tree you med plainly zee.

As is called King Alfred's tharn!

The thorn tree marked the spot where the rival armies met--the pagans posted on the hill, and the Christians meeting them from below--it was through the great victory won on that occasion that England became a Christian nation.

We were now in "King Alfred's country," for he was born at Wantage in 849, but his palace, if ever he had one, and the thorn tree were things of the past, and what traces there were of him in the town were very scant. There were King Arthur's Well and King Arthur's Bath; the most substantial building bearing his name was the "King Alfred's Head Inn,"

where we called for light refreshments, and where in former years the stage-coaches plying between Oxford and London stopped to change horses.

Wantage must have been a place of some importance in ancient times, as a Witenagemote was held there in the year 990 in the time of Ethelred, at which the tolls were fixed for boats sailing along the Thames for Billingsgate Market in London.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WANTAGE MARKET-PLACE.]

There were several old inns in the town, and many of the streets were paved with cobble-stones. Tanning at one time had been the staple industry, a curious relic of which was left in the shape of a small pavement composed of knuckle-bones. Early in the century the town had an evil reputation as the abode of coiners, and when a man was "wanted" by the police in London, the Bow Street runners always came to search for him at Wantage.

We had now to climb to the top of the downs, and after about two miles, nearly all uphill, reached the fine old Roman camp of Segsbury, where we crossed the Icknield Way, known locally as the Rudge or the Ridge-way--possibly because it followed the ridge or summit of the downs. It had every appearance of having been a military road from one camp to another, for it continued straight from Segsbury Camp to the Roman camp on the White Horse Hill, about six miles distant. The "Rudge"

was now covered with turf, and would have been a pleasant road to walk along; but our way lay in another direction along a very lonely road, where we saw very few people and still fewer houses.

It was quite dark when we crossed the small River Lambourn at the village of West Shefford, and after a further walk of about six miles we arrived at the town of Hungerford, where we stayed the night. What a strange effect these lonely walks had upon us when they extended from one centre of population to another! We could remember the persons and places at either end, but the intervening s.p.a.ce seemed like a dream or as if we had been out of the world for the time being, and only recovered consciousness when we arrived at our destination and again heard the sounds of human voices other than our own.

The origin of the name Hungerford appeared to have been lost in obscurity. According to one gentleman, whose interesting record we afterwards saw, it "has been an etymological puzzle to the topographer and local antiquarian, who have left the matter in the same uncertainty in which they found it"; but if he had accompanied us in our walk that day across those desolate downs, and felt the pangs of hunger as we did, mile after mile in the dark, he would have sought for no other derivation of the name Hungerford, and could have found ample corroboration by following us into the coffee-room of the "Bear Hotel"

that night. We were very hungry.

(_Distance walked thirty miles_.)

_Tuesday, November 7th._

The "Bear Inn" at Hungerford, standing as it did on the great coach road from London to the West, had been a.s.sociated with stirring scenes. It was there that a gentleman who had fallen ill while travelling by the stage-coach had died, and was buried in the churchyard at Hungerford, with the following inscription on his gravestone:

Here are deposited the remains of William Greatrake, Esqr., native of Ireland, who on his way from Bristol to London, died in this town in the 52nd year of his age, on the 2nd August 1781 _Stat nominis umbra_

In the year 1769, some remarkably able and vigorous political letters signed "Junius" appeared in the London _Public Advertiser_. They were so cleverly written that all who read them wanted to know the author, but failed to find out who he was. Afterwards they were published in book form, ent.i.tled _The Letters of Junius_: in our early days the author of these letters was still unknown, and even at the time of our walk the matter was one of the mysteries of the literary world. The authorship of _The Letters of Junius_ was one of the romances of literature. Whoever he was, he must have been in communication with the leading political people of his day, and further, he must have been aware of the search that was being made for him, for he wrote in one of his letters, "If I am a vain man, my gratification lies within a narrow circle. I am the sole depository of my own secret; and it shall perish with me."

Controversy was still going on about the _Letters of Junius_, for early in the year of our walk, 1871, a book was published ent.i.tled _The Handwriting of Junius Professionally Investigated by Mr. Charles Chabot, Expert_, the object being to prove that Sir Phillip Francis was the author of the famous Letters. The publication of this book, however, caused an article to be written in the _Times_ of May 22nd, 1871, to show that the case was "not proven" by Mr. Chabot, for William Pitt, the great Prime Minister, told Lord Aberdeen that he knew who wrote the Junius Letters, and that it was not Francis; and Lady Grenville sent a letter to the editor of _Diaries of a Lady of Quality_ to the same effect.

While Mr. Greatrake was lying ill at the "Bear Inn" he was visited by many political contemporaries, including the notorious John Wilkes, who, born in 1729, had been expelled three times from the House of Commons when Member for Middles.e.x; but so popular was he with the common people, whose cause he had espoused, that they re-elected him each time. So "the powers that be" had to give way, and he was elected Alderman, then Sheriff, and then Lord Mayor of London, and when he died, in 1797, was Chamberlain of London. Mr. Greatrake was born in County Cork, Ireland, about the year 1725, and was a great friend of Lord Sherburn, who afterwards became Prime Minister, in which capacity he had to acknowledge the independence of the United States, and was eventually created Marquis of Lansdowne. Mr. Greatrake was known to have been an inmate of his lordship's house when the letters were being published, and the motto on them was _Stat nominis umbra_--the words which appeared on the tomb of Mr. Greatrake; and his autograph bore a stronger resemblance than any other to that of Junius; so what was a secret in his lifetime was probably revealed in that indirect way after his death.

The old church of Hungerford had fallen down, and a new one was built, and opened in the year 1816, the ancient monument of the founder, Sir Robert de Hungerford, being transferred to the new church--though, as usual, in a damaged condition. It dated from 1325, and had been somewhat mutilated in the time of the Civil War. The inscription over it in Norman-French almost amounted to an absolution or remission of sins, for it promised, on the word of fourteen bishops, that whoever should pray for the soul of Sir Robert de Hungerford should have during his life, and for his soul after his death, 550 days of pardon.

The list of the vicars of Hungerford showed that most of them for some reason or other--my brother suggested hunger--had served for very short periods, but there was one notable exception--the Rev. William Cookson, son of William Cookson of Tomsett, Norfolk, doctor, who held the living for the long term of forty-eight years (1818-1866).

The constables of Hungerford were elected annually, and the extracts from their accounts were very interesting, as references were made to instruments of torture: "Cucking stoole, Pilliry, Stocks, and a Whippinge Post," the last-named having been most extensively used, for the constables had to whip all wandering tramps and vagrants "by stripping them naked from the middle upwards, and causing them to be lashed until their bodies be b.l.o.o.d.y, in the presence of the Minister of the Parish, or some other inhabitant, and then to send them away to place of birth!" Women were stripped as well as men, and in 1692 the town Serjeant had even to whip a poor blind woman. The whipping of females was stopped by statute in 1791. As Hungerford was on one of the main roads, many people pa.s.sed through there, and in 1678 the whippings were so numerous that John Savidge, the town Serjeant, was given a special honorarium of five shillings "for his extraordinary paines this year and whippinge of severall persons."

Prince William with his Dutch troops halted at Hungerford on December 8th, 1688, on his way from Torbay to London, where, three days afterwards, he was proclaimed King William III. He was armed on his back and breast, and wore a white plume, and rode on a white charger, surrounded by n.o.bles bearing his banner, on which were the words:

THE PROTESTANT RELIGION AND THE LIBERTY OF ENGLAND.

We were now practically at the end of Berkshire, and perhaps the River Kennett, over which we pa.s.sed, and on which John o' Gaunt of Lancaster had given free fishery rights to Hungerford town, might have formed the boundary between that county and Wiltshire. We could not hear of any direct road to Stonehenge, so we left Hungerford by the Marlborough road with the intention of pa.s.sing through Savernake Forest---said to be the finest forest in England, and to contain an avenue of fine beech trees, in the shape of a Gothic archway, five miles long. The forest was about sixteen miles in circ.u.mference, and in the centre was a point from which eight roads diverged. We had walked about a mile on our way when we came to some men working on the roads, who knew the country well, and strongly advised us not to cross the forest, but to walk over the downs instead. We decided to follow their advice, for the difficulty that first occurred to us was that when we got to the eight roads there might be no one there to direct us on our further way; and we quite saw the force of the remark of one of the men when he said it was far better to get lost on the down, where we could see for miles, than amongst the bushes and trees in the forest. They could only give us general information about the best way to get to Stonehenge, for it was a long way off, but when we got to the downs we must keep the big hill well to the left, and we should find plenty of roads leading across them. We travelled as directed, and found that the "big hill" was the Inkpen Beacon, over a thousand feet above sea-level, and the highest chalk down cliff in England; while the "plenty of roads" were more in the nature of unfenced tracks; still, we were fortunate in finding one leading in the right direction for Stonehenge and almost straight.

The Marlborough Downs which adjoined Salisbury Plain are very extensive, occupying together three-fifths of the county of Wilts, being accurately described as "ranges of undulating chalk cliffs almost devoid of trees, and devoted almost exclusively to the pasturage of sheep from remote ages." These animals, our only companions for miles, can live almost without water, which is naturally very scarce on chalk formations, since the rain when it falls is absorbed almost immediately. Very few shepherds were visible, but there must have been some about, for every now and then their dogs paid us rather more attention than we cared for, especially my brother, who when a small boy had been bitten by one, since which time not much love had been lost between him and dogs. As there were no fences to the roads, we walked on the gra.s.s, which was only about an inch deep. Sheep had been pastured on it from time immemorial, and the constant biting of the surface had encouraged the side, or undergrowth, which made our walking easy and pleasant; for it was like walking on a heavy Turkey carpet though much more springy. The absence of trees and bushes enabled us to distinguish the presence of ancient earth-works, but whether they were prehistoric, Roman, Dane, or Saxon we did not know. Occasionally we came to sections of the downs that were being brought under cultivation, the farms appearing very large. In one place we saw four ploughs at work each with three horses, while the farmer was riding about on horseback. We inquired about the wages from one of the farm hands, who told us the men got about 9s. per week, and the women who worked in the fields were paid eightpence per day. Possibly they got some perquisites in addition, as it seemed a very small amount, scarcely sufficient to make both ends meet.

We had been walking quickly for more than four hours without encountering a single village, and were becoming famished for want of food; but the farmer's man told us we should come to one where there was a public-house when we reached the River Avon by following the directions he gave us. At Milston, therefore, we called for the refreshments which we so badly needed, and quite astonished our caterers, accustomed even as they were to country appet.i.tes, by our gastronomical performances on that occasion.

We were very much surprised when we learned that the small but pretty village of Milston, where we were now being entertained, was the birthplace of Joseph Addison, the distinguished essayist and politician, who, with his friend Steele, founded the _Spectator_, and contributed largely to the _Tatler_, and whose tragedy _Cato_ aroused such enthusiasm that it held the boards of Drury Lane for thirty-five nights--a great achievement in his time. As an essayist Addison had no equal in English literature, and to his writings may be attributed all that is sound and healthy in modern English thought. In our long walk we met with him first at Lichfield, where at the Grammar School he received part of his early education, and where, on one occasion, he had barred out the schoolmaster. In the cathedral we saw his father's monument--he was Dean of Lichfield Cathedral--and at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he completed his education, we again encountered remembrances of him--we saw a delightful retreat called after him, "Addison's Walk." On our journey farther south, when we pa.s.sed through Lostwithiel, we were reminded that he was also a politician, for he represented that place in parliament. His father was Rector of Milston when Joseph was born, in 1672. He was chiefly remembered in our minds, however, for his _Divine Poems_, published in 1728, for we had sung some of these in our early childhood, until we knew them off by heart, and could still recall his beautiful hymn on grat.i.tude beginning:

When all Thy mercies, oh my G.o.d, My rising soul surveys, Transported with the view, I'm lost In wonder, love, and praise.

Some of his hymns, which were of more than ordinary merit, were said to have been inspired by his youthful surroundings. Salisbury Plain, with its shepherds and their sheep, must have constantly appeared before him then, as they were immediately before us now, and would no doubt be in his mind when he wrote:

The Lord my pasture shall prepare, And feed me with a shepherd's care; His presence shall my wants supply, And guard me with a watchful eye; My noonday walks He shall attend, And all my midnight hours defend.

And then there was his magnificent paraphrase of the nineteenth Psalm:

The s.p.a.cious firmament on high, With all the blue ethereal sky, And spangled heavens--a shining frame-- Their great Original proclaim.

Th' unwearied sun from day to day.

Doth his Creator's power display.

And publishes to every land The work of an Almighty hand.

Soon as the evening shades prevail.

The Moon takes up the wondrous tale, And nightly to the listening Earth Repeats the story of her birth; Whilst all the stars that round her burn, And all the planets in their turn, Confirm the tidings as they roll.

And spread the truth from pole to pole.

What though in solemn silence all Move round the dark terrestrial ball; What though no real voice nor sound Amidst their radiant orbs be found?

In Reason's ear they all rejoice, And utter forth a glorious voice; For ever singing as they shine, "The Hand that made us is divine."

After resting a short time and carefully writing down the instructions given us as to how to reach Stonehenge, and the way thence to Amesbury, we resumed our journey; and near the place where we crossed the River Avon we had the first indication of our proximity to Stonehenge by the sight of an enormous stone lying in the bed of the stream, which we were told was like those we should find at Stonehenge. It was said to be one that the Druids could not get across the stream owing to its great size and weight, and so they had to leave it in the river. The country became still more lonely as we walked across Salisbury Plain, and on a dark wet night it might quite come up to the description given of it by Barham in the _Ingoldsby Legends_ in "The Dead Drummer, a Legend of Salisbury Plain," the first verse of which runs:

Oh, Salisbury Plain is bleak and bare, At least so I've heard many people declare, For I fairly confess I never was there;-- Not a shrub nor a tree, not a bush can you see; No hedges, no ditches, no gates, no stiles, Much less a house, or a cottage for miles;-- It's a very sad thing to be caught in the rain When night's coming on upon Salisbury Plain.

Cruikshank's ill.u.s.tration of the legend represents a finger-post on the Plain without a bush or a tree or a house being visible, one finger of the post being marked "Lavington" and the other "Devizes." The Dead Drummer is leaning against the post, with two men nervously approaching him in the dark, while a flash of lightning betrays the bare plain and the whole scene to the terrified men.

Hannah More, who was born in 1745, wrote a large number of stories chiefly of a religious character, and was said to have earned 30,000 by her writings, amongst them a religious tract bearing the t.i.tle of "The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain." We found he was not a mythical being, for David Saunders, the shepherd referred to, was a real character, noted for his homely wisdom and practical piety, and, as Mrs. More described him, was quite a Christian Hero. He resided at Great Cherwell, near Lavington, where his house was still pointed out to visitors. A typical shepherd of Salisbury Plain was afterwards pictured by another lady, and described as "wearing a long black cloak falling from neck to heels, a round felt hat, like a Hermes cap without the wings to it, and sometimes a blue milk-wort or a yellow hawk-weed in the brim, and walking with his plume-tailed dog in front leading his sheep, as was customary in the East and as described in the Scriptures--"the sheep follow him, for they know his voice."

We did not see one answering to that description as we crossed the Plain, but no doubt there were such shepherds to be found.

The sky had been overcast that day, and it was gloomy and cloudy when we reached Stonehenge. Without a house or human being in sight, the utter loneliness of the situation seemed to add to our feelings of wonder and awe, as we gazed upon these gigantic stones, the remains of prehistoric ages in England. We had pa.s.sed through the circles of stones known as the "Standing Stones of Stenness" when we were crossing the mainland of the Orkney Islands on our way to John o' Groat's, but the stones we now saw before us were much larger. There had been two circles of stones at Stonehenge, one inside the other, and there was a stone that was supposed to have been the sacrificial stone, with a narrow channel in it to carry off the blood of the human victims slain by the Druids. In that desolate solitude we could almost imagine we could see the priests as they had been described, robed in white, with oak crowns on their heads, and the egg of a mythical serpent round their necks; we could hear the cries and groans of the victims as they were offered up in sacrifice to the serpent, and to Bel (the sun). Tacitus said they held it right to stain their altars with the blood of prisoners taken in war, and to seek to know the mind of the G.o.ds from the fibres of human victims. One very large stone outside the circles was called the "Friar's Heel," the legend stating that when the devil was busy erecting Stonehenge he made the observation to himself that no one would ever know how it had been done. This remark was overheard by a friar who was hiding amongst the stones, and he replied in the Wiltshire dialect, "That's more than thee can tell," at which the devil took up a big stone to throw at him, but he ran away as fast as he could, so that the stone only just grazed his heel, at the place where it now stands.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DRUIDICAL REMAINS, STONEHENGE.]

We walked about these great stones wondering how they could have been raised upright in those remote times, and how the large stones could have been got into position, laid flat on the tops of the others. Many of the stones had fallen down, and others were leaning over, but when complete they must have looked like a circle of open doorways. The larger stones, we afterwards learned, were Sa.r.s.en Stones or Grey Wethers, of a siliceous sandstone, and were natural to the district, but the smaller ones, which were named the blue stones, were quite of a different character, and must have been brought from a considerable distance. If the ancient Welsh story could be believed, the blue stones were brought over in ships from Ireland after an invasion of that country under the direction of Merlin the Wizard, and were supposed to be mystical stones with a medicinal value. As to the time of the erection of these stones, we both agreed to relegate the matter to the mists of antiquity. Some thought that because Vespasian's Camp was on Amesbury Hill, Stonehenge might have been built by the Romans in the time of Agricola, but others, judging perhaps from the ancient tombs in the neighbourhood, thought it might date backwards as far as 2,000 years B.C. Nearly all agreed that it was a temple of the worshippers of the sun and might even have been erected by the Phoenicians, who must have known how the Egyptians raised much heavier stones than these. By some Stonehenge was regarded as the Round Temple to Apollo in the land of the Hyperboreans, mentioned by Hecatoens in the sixth century B.C., and after the Phoenicians it was supposed to have been used by the Greeks, who followed them as traders with the British tin mines. According to this theory, the Inner Ellipse or Horseshoe of Blue Stone was made by them, the Druids adopting it as their temple at a much later date.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STONEHENGE.]

"Amongst the ruling races of prehistoric times the father sun-G.o.d was the G.o.d on the grey white horse, the clouds, and it was this white horse--the sun-G.o.d of the limestone, flint, and chalk country---which was the G.o.d of Stonehenge, the ruins of which describe the complete ritual of this primeval worship. The worshippers of the sun-G.o.d who built this Temple must, it was thought, have belonged to the Bronze Age, which theory was supposed to have been confirmed by the number of round barrow tombs in the neighbourhood. It was also noted that the white sun-horse was still worshipped and fed daily at Kobe, in j.a.pan."

Stonehenge had been visited by Pepys, who described the stones in his _Diary_ as being "as prodigious as any tales as I had ever heard of them, and worth going this journey to see"; and King Charles II had counted them over several times, but could not bring them twice to the same number, which circ.u.mstance probably gave rise to the legend that no two people ever counted the number alike, so of course we did not attempt to count them. But the king's head must have been uneasy at the time he counted them, as it was after the Battle of Worcester, when he was a fugitive, retreating across the country in disguise and hidden by his friends until he could reach the sea-coast of Suss.e.x, and escape by ship from England. One of his hiding-places was Heale House, about four miles from Stonehenge, where the lady of the house had hidden him in what was known as the "Priest's Hole," arrangements having been made for some friends to meet him at Stonehenge, and accompany him a stage farther towards the south. His friends, however, had been delayed a little on their way, so they did not reach Stonehenge at the appointed hour; and Charles whiled away the time by counting and recounting the stones.

Cheshire was formerly noted for the great number of landowners of the same name as the parishes in which they resided, such as Leigh of Leigh, Dutton of Dutton, Antrobus of Antrobus. The last-named squire had left Antrobus and gone to reside at Amesbury in Wiltshire, letting his mansion in Cheshire and the land attached to it, as a farm, to a tenant named Wright. This Mr. Wright was an uncle of ours, whom we had often visited at Antrobus. The elder of his two sons, who followed him as tenant of the farm, told us a story connected with the old Hall there.

He and his brother when they were boys slept in the same bed, and one morning they were having a pushing match, each trying, back to back, to push the other out of bed. He was getting the worst of the encounter when he resolved to make one more great effort, and placed his feet against the wall which was near his side of the bed; but instead of pushing his brother out, he and his brother together pushed part of the wall out, and immediately he found himself sitting on a beam with his legs hanging outside over the moat or garden, having narrowly escaped following the panel. The stability of these old timber-built halls, which were so common in Cheshire, depended upon the strong beams with which they were built, the panels being only filled in with light material such as osiers plastered over with mud; and it was one of these that had been pushed out. The old mansion was shortly afterwards taken down and replaced by an ordinary red-brick building. We had often wondered what sort of a place Amesbury was, where the Squire of Antrobus had gone to reside, and had decided to go there, although it was rather out of our way for Salisbury, our next stage. We found that Stonehenge was included in his estate as well as Amesbury Abbey, where he lived, and Vespasian's Hill. When we came in sight of the abbey, we were quite surprised to find it so large and fine a mansion, without any visible trace of the ancient abbey which once existed there, and we considered that the lines of Sir Edmund Antrobus, Bart., had fallen in pleasant places when he removed here from the damper atmosphere of Cheshire, and that he had adopted the wisest course as far as health was concerned. We had thought of calling at the abbey, but as it was forty-nine years since he had left our neighbourhood and he had died in the year 1830, we could not muster up sufficient courage to do so. We might too have seen a fine portrait of the old gentleman, which we heard was hanging up in one of the rooms in the abbey, painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence, a friend of George IV, and President of the Royal Academy, who had also painted the portraits of most of the sovereigns of Europe reigning in his time, and who died in the same year as Sir Edmund.

Amesbury Abbey formerly belonged to the Duke of Queensberry, who made great additions to it from the plans of the celebrated architect Inigo Jones, who designed the famous Banqueting Hall at Whitehall in London and the fine gateway of St. Mary's, Oxford. He was known as "the English Palladio" because he adopted the style of Andrea Palladio, a celebrated Italian architect of the sixteenth century. He was responsible for the two Palladian pillars attached to the quaint and pretty entrance gates to the Abbey Park, and for the lovely Palladian bridge that spanned the River Avon, which flowed through the grounds, forming a favourite resort for wild ducks, kingfishers, herons, and other birds. Inigo Jones was a staunch Royalist, who suffered severely during the Civil War, and died in 1652. The park was not a very large one, but was very pretty, and contained the famous Amesbury Hill, which was covered with fine trees on the slope towards the river; some of which had been arranged in the form of a diamond, partly concealing a cave now known as the Diamond Cave, but formerly belonging to the Druids, as all the sunrises would be visible before the intervening trees were planted. This cave was the favourite resort of John Gay, the poet, who loved to write there. He was a great friend of the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Queensberry, who then owned the Amesbury estate, was the author of the _Beggar's Opera_, published in 1727, and lies buried in Westminster Abbey.