Part 9
A charming road leads through Upton-on-Severn to Malvern Wells and Great Malvern, but we had no leisure to contemplate its beauties; a car was bent on passing us--to which we were much averse, for the road was very dusty. We had only a glimpse of the Malverns, with their endless array of hotels, lodging-houses and other resort-town characteristics. The two towns are practically continuous and lie beneath the Malvern Hills, whose slopes, diversified with stone-walled fields, groves and farm villages, stretch away to the blue haze that nearly always envelops the summits. Yet Malvern is not without a touch of antiquity--no doubt the Romans had a station here and the splendid priory church rivals some of the cathedrals in size and dignity. Only scanty ruins remain of the domestic portions of the abbey, which, with the great beautifully carved Gothic gateway, constitute all that is left of the old order besides the church. A delightful feature of the towns is the Common--when we saw it, fine stretches of greensward with many noble trees. The Common was at one time a royal domain, and Charles I. in his stresses for money undertook to sell the land to raise funds, but such rioting ensued in Malvern that a compromise was effected by surrendering two-thirds of the Chase, as the Common was then called, to the people. Though the forests have been greatly thinned by the ax, there still remains enough of sylvan beauty to give to Malvern Common an indescribable charm, and so intersected is it with sinuous roads that it was with difficulty we started aright for Worcester.
On our way to the cathedral city we passed the battlefield where the momentous encounter took place between the forces of Cromwell and the Royalists under Prince Charles--or, as his followers claimed, King Charles II. through his Scotch coronation--which resulted in such disaster to the royal arms. Cromwell called it his "crowning mercy," and indeed it ended all organized efforts against the Commonwealth while the Protector lived. Charles fled to Boscobel, as already related, and after many adventures reached France to remain until peacefully recalled after Oliver's death.
Worcester is one of the fine old towns that tempt one to linger, no matter how often he may come. Modern improvements have swept away many of the relics of extreme antiquity; yet the Romans were certainly here, and before them the early Britons had a fortified town on the site. The streets are now lined with attractive shops and here is extensive manufacturing--few indeed are the wayfarers who escape paying tribute to "Royal Worcester" before they leave. Not a little of the charm of the town is due to the Severn, lying broad, bright and still in its very heart. We pause for tea--again the mild dissipation of the Englishman attracts us--at the Star Hotel, and as we depart from the city look lingeringly at the majestic yet graceful outlines of the cathedral towers against the evening sky.
Coventry is but forty miles away. The King's Head comes to our minds, though ever so faintly, as something like home, and we may reach it by the grace of the long twilight. And what a flight it is--through the most delightful section of rural England, tinged with the golden glows and purple shades of a perfect summer evening. We sweep over the broad road to Droitwich, and as soon as we can solve the mystery of its tortuous streets, we enter the excellent though rather narrow and winding highway that leads through Alcester to Shakespeare's Stratford.
It had evidently been a gala day in the old town, for the streets were thronged with people, mostly from the surrounding country, though no doubt there was a goodly number of our fellow-countrymen in the crowd, since it was now the height of the Stratford season. Under the circumstances, the "eight-mile" limit notice posted on the roads entering the town was quite superfluous; we could scarcely have violated it--so it seemed, at least--had it been only a mile an hour. Once away on the surpassing road to Coventry, the fifteen miles occupied scarce half an hour, despite the checks at Warwick and Kenilworth. Coventry was thronged with the happy "Week-End" holiday crowd, through which we slowly made our way to the King's Head, where we were now well known and received as warm a welcome as one may find at an inn.
Sunday, by odds the best day for getting about London or the larger cities, is not so satisfactory for touring in the rural sections. The roads are thronged with pedestrians, including many women and children. Not a few of the women pushed perambulators and often showed a strange perversity in crossing to the farther side of the road in front of the car. Besides, a number of the places one may desire to visit are closed on Sundays, though the tendency is constantly towards more liberality in this particular. Yet there was nothing agreeable in lounging about a hotel, and Sunday--afternoons, at least--usually found us on the road. It was very quiet in Nuneaton, the rather ugly town which George Eliot made famous as "Milby." The farmhouse where the authoress was born and the old manor, her home for many years, were not accessible. The throngs of Sunday wayfarers made progress slow, but we reached Tamworth for late luncheon at the excellent Castle Hotel and learned that the castle--the tower of Scott's "Marmion," would be open during the afternoon.
Tamworth Castle is now the property of the town corporation and the grounds have been converted into a public park, which, judging from the crowds that filled it on the fine afternoon, must be well appreciated. The castle is situated on a high, apparently artificial mound. It has been put in tolerable repair and is used as a museum. So well preserved is it that one may gain a good idea of the domestic life of a feudal nobleman of the fourteenth century--a life comfortless and rude, judged by our present standards. There is much paneling and elaborate wood-carving on the walls and mantels of many of the rooms, and one may be quite lost in the devious passageways that lead to odd nooks and quaint, irregular apartments. The view from the keep tower, with its massive over-hanging battlements, was indeed a lovely one. The day was perfectly clear, permitting a far-reaching outlook over the valley of the Tame, a fertile country of meadow lands and yellowing harvest fields, while westward in the distance the spires of Lichfield pierced the silvery sky.
There is, perchance, something a little incongruous in a restored and well-cared-for old-time castle such as Tamworth. It can never appeal to the imagination as does the shattered, neglected ruin crumbling away beneath its mantle of ivy and flaunting its banners of purple and yellow wall-flowers. But after all, the Tamworth idea is the right one and insures the preservation of many historic buildings which otherwise might gradually fall into complete decay. And yet one almost shudders to think of Ludlow or Raglan under such conditions.
We hastened over the broad road to Lichfield, and passing through its irregular streets, with which we are now fairly familiar, followed the river to Colwich, where we paused to admire the splendid Decorated church which overshadows the quiet village. But few prettier and more truly rural byroads did we find anywhere than the one running northward from Colwich to Uttoxeter. On either side were flower-spangled hedge-rows, or in places long ranks of over-arching trees. Though the road was excellent, the trim neatness so characteristic of England was quite wanting. The tangle of wild flowers, vines and shrubbery was faintly suggestive of country roadsides in some of our Western states.
Midway we came into full view of a lonely ruined castle standing on the crest of a gently rising hill, and surrounded by a lawnlike meadow running down to the road. The ragged towers and crumbling walls stood gray and forbidding against a background of giant trees, and these were sharply outlined against the bluest of English skies. We learn later that it is Chartley Castle, which stands in a tract of ancient forest and heath land, upon which roams a herd of wild white cattle similar to those of Chillingham. Over Chartley broods the somber memory of its one-time owner, the Earl of Ferrars, who in a fit of anger murdered a steward and was hanged two centuries ago for the crime at Tyburn. It was his whim to be dressed in his wedding garments and hanged with a silken cord. He was stoic to the last and would say no more than he expressed in the misanthropic lines:
"In doubt I lived, in doubt I die, Yet stand prepared the vast abyss to try, And undismayed expect eternity."
A grim old tale that fits well with the lonely fortress, standing in unguarded ruin in the mysterious forest about it.
But the day was waning and we hastened on to Uttoxeter, a town to which Nathaniel Hawthorne made a pilgrimage nearly half a century ago, attracted by the fact that it is the birthplace of Dr. Samuel Johnson. He regretted that there was no memorial of the great author in his native town, but this has since been supplied. An ugly fountain has been erected on the traditional spot where Johnson did penance, as he described in a letter to Miss Seward on his return from Uttoxeter:
"Fifty years ago, madam, on the day, I committed a breach of filial piety which has ever since lain heavy on my mind, and has not till this day been expiated. My father ... had long been in the habit of attending Uttoxeter market and opening a stall of his books during that day. Confined to his bed by indisposition, he requested me, this time fifty years, to visit the market in his place. But, madam, my pride prevented me from doing my duty and I gave my father a refusal. To do away the sin of disobedience, this day I went in a post-chaise to Uttoxeter, and going into the market at the time of high business, uncovered my head and stood with it bare an hour before the stall which my father formerly used, exposed to the sneers of the standers-by and the inclemency of the weather."
The open road to Derby is broad, straight, smooth and level--what a combination of excellences for the motorist!--and the car skims joyously along. There are many fine estates on either hand with wide forest-dotted parks and imposing gateways. Derby is a large, rather unattractive town and we do not care to linger. Mansfield appeals more strongly to us, for Mansfield is the center of the Byron country. The road is not a pleasing one, passing through towns crowded with workingmen's cottages and climbing steep, stony hills. At dusk we come into Mansfield and find it a larger town than we had fancied--a rather modern city built around an ancient center, in the very heart of which stands the old many-gabled Swan Inn.
IX
THE BYRON COUNTRY
The exterior of the Swan Inn, its weather-beaten gables crowded between rather shabby-looking buildings on either side, is not wholly prepossessing. We hesitate to enter the courtyard, though it is quite late, until a policeman assures us there is nothing better in the town--or in the country about, for that matter. Had we needed further assurance, we might have glanced at our trusty Baedeker to find the Swan honored with special mention as "an excellent, long-established house with winding oak stairs three hundred years old." Once inside our misgivings vanish instantly amidst the air of cleanliness, solid comfort and pleasant antiquity that prevails. We have a large room, almost oppressive in its wealth of mahogany, and, dimly lighted by candles in ancient candlesticks, it seems pervaded with an air of ghostly mystery. There are tall-posted, canopied beds of marvelous state, mysterious oaken chests heavily carved, antique chairs, quaint old settees, and many curious things wrought in brass and copper.
Altogether, few other of the country inns had quite the charm of the Swan, and very agreeable did we find the ladies who managed it. We told them of our previous futile attempts to see Newstead Abbey and they were certain that the coveted privilege would be secured for us on the following day--it had never been refused to guests of the Swan at the request of the manageress. She would write at once and would doubtless have an answer in the morning. It need hardly be said that we were glad to stay another day at the Swan and in the meanwhile visit some of the curious and delightful spots in which Derbyshire abounds. No section of England is more famed than the "Peak District," with Haddon Hall, Chatsworth, Bakewell Church, Buxton and Dovedale; and though almost unknown to tourists, the great moorlands which stretch away to the north we found none the less interesting.
Chesterfield Church is famous for its distorted spire, strangely twisted and leaning several degrees from the vertical. Some say it was due to a whim of the designer, but local legend prefers to ascribe it to the malice of His Satanic Majesty, who chose such queer ways of venting his spite on the churches of olden time. If he indeed twisted Chesterfield's spire, it was at least a far more obvious evidence of his ill will toward churches than the scratch of his claw still shown on the bell of St. Mary's at Shrewsbury. But the troublesome antiquarians, who have such a way of discrediting the painstaking and very satisfactory work of the legend-makers, would have us believe that the oaken timbers of the spire warped while seasoning under their coverings of lead. Be that as it may, Chesterfield Church is worthy a few minutes' pause on account of its remarkable tombs and unusual screen mysteriously carved with emblems of the crucifixion. Less imposing is Trinity Church, though the white marble tablet on its walls with the simple inscription, "George Stephenson, died August 12, 1848, aged 68 years," will have a fascination for the wayfarer from the remotest part of the earth, wherever the steam railroad has penetrated. The great inventor spent his declining years in retirement on a farm about a mile from Chesterfield, and his house still stands, partly hidden from the road by ancient trees.
We had no desire to visit Chatsworth House a second time, though we followed the much frequented road through the park. No section of rural England, possibly excepting the Stratford-upon-Avon country is more favored by tourists; motors, carriages and chars-a-bancs were everywhere in evidence and stirred up clouds of limestone dust, which whitened the trees and hedges and filled the sky with a silvery haze. The number of English visitors is greater than at Stratford, and the more intelligent Englishman who has not visited Chatsworth is rather the exception. A thousand visitors a day is not uncommon; yet Chatsworth House is thrown open free to all every week day--surely an example of princely generosity on the part of the Duke of Devonshire.
Few who visit Chatsworth will omit Haddon Hall, and while a single visit to the modern palace may suffice, a hundred to Haddon, it seemed to us, would leave one still unsatisfied. Who could ever weary of the indescribable beauty of the ancient house or cease to delight in its atmosphere of romantic story? Nowhere in England is there another place that speaks so eloquently of the past or which brings so near to our prosaic present day the life, manners and environment of the English nobleman of three or four centuries ago. No sight in England is more enchanting than the straggling walls and widely scattered towers of Haddon, standing in gray outline against the green of its sheltering hill--the point of view chosen by the painter of our picture. Yet, with all its battlements and watch-towers, Haddon was never a fortified castle--a circumstance to which we owe its perfect preservation. The wars of the Roses and the Commonwealth left it scathless; it was an actual residence until 1730, since which time every care has been exercised to maintain it in repair. We will not rehearse the well-known legends of the place, nor will we give ear for an instant to the insinuation that the romance of the fair Dorothy was fabricated less than a hundred years ago. What tinge of romance will be left to this prosaic world if these busybody iconoclasts are given heed? They cannot deny that Dorothy married John Manners, Duke of Rutland, anyway, for it was through this union that Haddon Hall passed to its present owners.
After a long, loving look at her ancestral home, we turn away and follow the dusty road to Bakewell, where we stand before her tomb in the fine old church. Here in effigy she kneels facing her husband and below are the indescribably quaint figures of her four children. The caretaker, who is loudly lecturing a group of trippers, catches a glimpse of us as we enter and his practical eye differentiates instantly the American tourist. He hastens to us and begs us to wait a little--the party is large--he will soon give us his personal attention. The trippers are hurried along and dismissed with scant ceremony and we are shown about in detail that encroaches upon our time. Still, there are many things of genuine interest and antiquity in Bakewell Church and the dissertations of our guide concerning them is worth the half crown we bestow upon him.
Outside, we pause to contemplate the grand old structure. Its massive walls terminate in castellated battlements and its splendid spire, a miniature of Salisbury, in slender yet graceful proportions, rises to a height of two hundred feet. All around is the spacious churchyard, thickly set with monumental stones, and upon one of these we noted the quaintest of the many quaint old English epitaphs we read. Happy indeed the parish clerk immortalized in the following couplets:
"The vocal Powers let us mark Of Philip our late Parish Clerk In Church none ever heard a Layman With clearer Voice say Amen! Who now with Hallelujas Sound Like Him can make the Roofs rebound. The Choir lament his Choral tones The Town--so soon Here lie his bones Sleep undisturbed within thy peaceful shrine, Till Angels wake thee with such notes as thine."
From Bakewell we followed one of the many Wyes to Buxton--a road scarcely equalled for beauty in the Peak District. What a contrast its wayside trees and flowers and pleasant farm cottages presented to the stony moorland road we pursued northward from Buxton! We lingered at the latter place only enough to note the salient features of the popular watering-place of the Peak. It is situated in a verdant valley, but the moorland hills, bleak and barren, nearly surround it. Only three miles distant is Dovedale, famed as the loveliest and most picturesque of the many English "Dales."
I have no words cheerless enough to tell our impressions of the great Midland Moor, through whose very heart our way led to the northward. A stony road through a gray, stony country with a stone hovel here and there, tells something of the story. We pass bleak little towns, climb many steep, winding hills, speed swiftly along the uplands, leaving a long trail of white dust-clouds in our wake--until we are surprised by Glossop, a good-sized city in the midst of the moor. It has large papermills, substantially built of stone, an industry made possible by the pure waters of the moor. The streets are paved with rough cobble-stones and the town has altogether a cheerless, unattractive look, but interesting as quite a new phase of England. In all our journeyings throughout the Kingdom we found no section more utterly bleak and dreary than that through which we passed from Buxton to Glossop. We could but imagine what aspect a country that so impressed us on a fine day in June time must present in the dull, gray English winter. How the unimpeded winds must sweep the brown moorlands! How their icy blasts must search out every crevice in the lone cottages and penetrate the cheerless-looking hovels in the villages! A small native of whom we asked his recollection of winter shook his head sadly and said, "Awfully cold"; and a local proverb referring to the section has it that "Kinderscout is the cowdest place aout."
The Sheffield road follows the hills, which towered high above us at times or again dropped almost sheer away below to a black, tumbling stream. In one place, beneath an almost mountainous hill, we had an adventure which startled us more than any other occurrence of our tour. From the summit of a hill hundreds of feet above us, some miscreant loosened a huge boulder, which plunged down the declivity seemingly straight at us, but by good fortune missed our car by a few yards. The perpetrator of the atrocity immediately disappeared and there was no chance of tracing him. Happily, we had no similar outrage to record of all our twelve thousand miles in Britain, and we pass the act as that of a criminal or lunatic. This road was built about the beginning of the nineteenth century and a competent authority expresses doubt if there is a finer, better-engineered road in England than that between Glossop and Ashopton, a village about half way to Sheffield, and adds, "or one where houses are so rare--or the sight of an inn rouses such pleasureable anticipation," though one of these, "The Snake," must have other attractions than its name. It is indeed a fine road, though by no means unmatched by many others--the Manchester road to the northwest fully equals it, and following as it does the series of fine reservoirs lying in the valleys, is superior in scenery.
We took a short cut through Sheffield, the city of knives, razors and silver plate, caught a second glimpse of Chesterfield's reeling spire, and swept over the hills into Mansfield just as the long twilight was fading into night.
The next morning our hostess of The Swan placed in our hands the much-sought-for pass to Newstead Abbey, and to while the time until the hour set for admittance, we went by the way of Hucknall, to visit Byron's grave in the church whose square-topped tower dominates the town. Recent restoration gives an air of newness, for Hucknall Church, when Byron's remains were laid before its altar, was little better than a ruin. The old man working over the graves in the churchyard knew full well our mission and leaving his task accosted us in unmistakable Irish brogue. He led us directly to the poet's tomb, and it was with deep feeling not unmixed with awe that we advanced toward the high altar of Hucknall Church and stood silent and uncovered before the grave of Byron. On the wall over the tomb were graven two of those passages whose lofty sentiments glitter like gems--though betimes in inharmonious setting--throughout the poet's writings, which breathe the high hopes he felt in his better moments. Well may the tablet over his last resting-place bear the inspired lines:
"If that high world, which lies beyond Our own, surviving Love endears; If there the cherish'd heart be fond, The eye the same, except in tears-- How welcome those untrodden spheres! How sweet this very hour to die! To soar from earth and find all fears Lost in thy light--Eternity!"
"It must be so; 'tis not for self That we so tremble on the brink; And, striving to o'erleap the gulf, Yet cling to Being's severing link. Oh! in that future let us think To hold each heart the heart that shares; With them the immortal waters drink, And soul in soul grow deathless theirs!"