Part 4

The old saints were much loved by the people, for they were always using their influence with the chiefs and great men on the side of mercy and kindness towards the poor and helpless. Many stories were told of them, and are still remembered. One day St. Columba was walking along the road, when he saw a poor widow gathering stinging-nettles. He asked her why she did it, and she replied that she was too poor to buy other food, and that she gathered nettles for the pot.

"Then," said Columba, "while my people are so poor, I will eat no better food."

He went back to the monastery and said to the disciple who prepared his food: "From this day I will eat nothing but nettles."

But, after a time, the disciple saw that the good old man was getting very thin and weak, and it troubled him. So he took a hollow elder-stalk, filled it with butter, and stirred the butter into the nettle-broth.

"The nettles have a new taste," said St. Columba; "they are rich and sweet. I must see what you have put into them;" and he came to see them cooked.

"You see, master dear," said his disciple, "I do not put anything into the pot save this stick, with which I stir them."

In a rough and cruel age the saints taught people to be kind to children and to poor dumb beasts and birds. Here is a story of a saint and a child.

There was a saint whose name was St. Maccarthen, and the ruler of his countryside was King Eochaid. One day the king sent his little son with a message to the saint. The little boy's mother gave him a red, round apple to eat on the way. The boy played with his pretty apple as he went, tossing it up and catching it. As it happened, it rolled from him and was lost. The child hunted here and there until he was tired out, and as the sun was setting he laid himself down in the middle of the way and went to sleep. As he slept, St. Maccarthen came along the road. The saint at once wrapped his mantle round the sleeping child, and sat beside him all night to guard his slumber. Many people passed along the way, but the saint turned them aside, for he would neither break the child's slumber nor permit an accident to befall him.

Many a saint had not only a church named after him, but a well also. Cornwall is full of "holy wells." In former days these wells were held to possess miraculous powers, and people came from great distances to drink the sacred water and make vows to the saint in whose honour the well was named. One of the best-known of these wells is the Well of St. Keyne. It was believed that, in the case of a newly-married couple, the first to drink of the water of this well would hold the mastery of the household. Southey has a ballad on this subject, describing how a bridegroom hurried from the church to the well. But all in vain: his wife had taken a bottle of the water to church with her!

Cornwall is a land of bleak, rugged granite heights and desolate moors, with lovely dells nestling amid the wilderness, combes filled with trees, and fields whose grass is green the winter through. Its coast is for the most part very dangerous, with immense cliffs, broken but by few openings. It is a coast to which the sailor gives a wide berth, especially in stormy weather, and if he fails to do so, he will almost certainly pay the penalty with his life. Many terrible shipwrecks have taken place off the shores of Cornwall, especially upon the deadly Manacles, the great reef near the Lizard, and the churchyards in the neighbourhood are full of the graves of many and many a drowned man or woman tossed up on the beach near at hand.

If you should go for a stroll on the cliffs about the Lizard some fine morning in July, you would see fishermen there, smoking and staring out to sea in, as it would seem to you, an idle fashion. But, suddenly, one of them, who has been sitting on the turf, springs to his feet. He begins to leap and yell as if he had gone mad. He points out to sea, and begins to roar over the edge of the cliff to his friends below. His companions on the watch now show an equal excitement, and you wonder what it is all about. You look long at the place to which they are pointing, and at length you make out that there is a darkish patch of water over which a number of sea-birds are hovering. It is a vast shoal of pilchards coming in-shore, and the apparent idlers on the cliff were watching for it.

The men on the cliff are called "huers"--shouters (from the French _huer_, to shout)--and their cries and signals direct their friends in the boats which way to pull to surround the shoal. From the surface the shoal cannot be seen, but the "huers" aloft can make out every movement of the vast mass offish, and guide the fishermen below.

A pilchard is a fish which looks much like a herring, but it is smaller, though it has larger scales. The shoals appear at the end of June, but at that time they are in deep water, and the fishing-smacks sail out in search of them and put down drift-nets. These nets are hung in the water like walls of hemp set across the drift of the tide. The pilchards swim into the nets, thrust their heads through the meshes, and are caught by the gills. This kind of fishing can only be carried on by night, for the pilchards are too keen-sighted to swim into the meshes by day.

As the season advances, the pilchards come nearer in-shore, and now the great season of the pilchard-fishery arrives. A great shoal of pilchards is a marvellous sight. The sea appears to be literally packed solid with them. The surface boils with their movement, and numbers are seen leaping out of the water like trout in a stream. Now the fishermen get out their mighty seine-nets and prepare to wall up the multitude of pilchards.

Guided by the "huers," they shoot the great nets around the shoal till it is enclosed. Then smaller nets are shot into the great net, and in these the fish are drawn to the surface beside the waiting boats. It is a wonderful sight to see the net come up. It is filled with one quivering mass of silver, and into this mass the fishermen dip baskets and toss the fish into the boats by scores and hundreds. When a boat is filled, it heads at once for the shore, and a waiting boat takes its place; and so it goes on till the great seine-net is empty.

On shore the scene is every whit as busy as on sea. Every living soul in the fishing village swarms down to the beach to lend a hand. The boats are rapidly emptied, and sail or pull back to the shoal; the workers ashore carry the fish to the cellars, where the women take them in hand. Anything and everything that will carry fish is pressed into service. The pilchards are piled on donkey-carts, wheelbarrows, and hand-carts; two boys have a clothes-basket between them, and small children carry a dozen or two in little baskets. Into the cellars go the fish as swiftly as possible.

A fish-cellar for pilchards is usually cut out of the rock, and the floor is covered with a layer of salt. Upon this salt the women engaged in the task of curing the fish spread a complete layer of pilchards. Salt is spread again till the fish are covered, and then comes another layer of pilchards; and in this way, by alternate layers of salt and fish, the cellar is filled. On top of all are placed weighted boards to press out the water and oil from the mass below, and the cellar is left for some weeks for the fish to cure. Then it is opened, and the salted fish are packed in barrels and sent away to market.

IN SHAKESPEARE'S COUNTRY.

England's greatest poet was born in the heart of the land, in "leafy Warwickshire." His early home, Stratford-on-Avon, lies beside a pleasant stream, flowing gently through a pleasant country. Warwickshire has no scenes of wild and striking grandeur to offer to the traveller; it can boast of no craggy rocks or rushing torrents, but it is full of quiet loveliness. It is a county of rich meadow-land, watered by slow-flowing streams and brooks, broken and diversified by most picturesque woodland scenery, and its highways and byways wend by splendid parks, and past castles and mansions rich in tradition, quaint and beautiful in architecture.

Stratford-on-Avon stands to-day, as it stood of old, in "a sweet and pleasant place of good pasturage and watering." Beside it flows the clear Avon, and around it spread lovely meadows and fertile corn-lands, while many a leafy byway or field-path leads to the quaint old-world villages which lie in the neighbourhood, and with which Shakespeare was familiar.

In the town itself, the chief centre of interest is the house in which he was born. It stands in Henley Street--a quaint, half-timbered, two-storied building, with dormer windows and a wooden porch. The house has been much altered since Shakespeare's day, for it was used for more than 200 years as a dwelling-house, and finally came down to being a butcher's shop. At last, towards the middle of the nineteenth century, the house was purchased by the nation, and restored as nearly as possible to the appearance it must have presented when Shakespeare's home.

After the birthplace comes the burial-place, and this is in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church, whose tall spire rises so beautifully beside the placid Avon. The church stands on a terrace beside the river, almost embosomed in trees, and approached by a pleasant avenue of limes. Everyone visits it to see the monument and grave of Shakespeare. A bust of the great poet is placed on the north wall of the chancel, and his grave lies below, and within the altar-rails. Here we may read the well-known lines:

"GOOD FREND FOR JESUS SAKE FORBEARE TO DIGG THE DUST ENCLOASED HEARE BLESTE BE Y^E MAN Y^T SPARES THES STONES; AND CURST BE HE Y^E MOVES^S MY BONES.

Why did Shakespeare write these lines? Because in those days graves were very often disturbed, and he wished his remains to lie at peace in the grave which, very likely, he had chosen for himself.

A most interesting place is the Guild Hall, a fine old half-timbered building erected in 1296, and used for hundreds of years as a Town Hall. With this building Shakespeare was very familiar, and it is probable that here he became acquainted with plays and players, for performances were given in it during Shakespeare's boyhood by travelling companies.

Above the Guild Hall is the famous Grammar School, where Shakespeare learned the "small Latin and less Greek" of which Ben Jonson spoke. The desk which he is said to have used now stands in the Museum formed at the birthplace.

When Shakespeare returned from London to spend his last years in his native town, he bought a fine house called New Place, and in the garden he planted a mulberry-tree. Nearly 150 years after the death of Shakespeare the property came into the hands of a clergyman named Gastrell, a man of violent and selfish temper. First he became angry because visitors to the town often asked permission to view the famous mulberry-tree which the great poet had planted, and he cut the tree down. But much worse was to follow.

After a time a quarrel arose between Gastrell and the authorities of Stratford over the payment of rates for New Place. In his anger, the furious clergyman actually pulled down to the ground Shakespeare's own home and sold the materials. Now nothing remains but the site and a few traces of the foundations.

When the visitor has seen the memorials of Shakespeare, he will take a pleasant walk of about a mile from Stratford to Shottery, to see Anne Hathaway's cottage there. It is a picturesque, half-timbered, thatched cottage, in which it is supposed that Shakespeare's wife spent her maiden days, but the theory is by no means certain. It is known that in Shakespeare's time the cottage was tenanted by one Richard Hathaway, who had a daughter Anne or Agnes, and there is some evidence to connect this Anne with the Anne Hathaway whom the poet married, but of distinct proof there is none. Still, tradition is in favour of the belief, and the cottage has now been acquired by the trustees of Shakespeare's birthplace.

Many days may easily and pleasantly be spent in excursions around Stratford, visiting one after another of the pretty villages which the poet knew, and the places with which his name is connected. The best time of all is in spring or early summer, when

"Daisies pied, and violets blue, And lady-smocks all silver-white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue, Do paint the meadows with delight."

Then the way is shaded by the tender foliage of the noble elms, which flourish so mightily in this deep, strong soil that the elm is sometimes called the "Warwickshire weed."

About four miles from Stratford stands a fine old Elizabethan manor-house, Charlecote, in whose deer-park tradition says that Shakespeare went poaching. Many old accounts of the poet's life state that he left Stratford and went to London in fear of Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, whose deer he had stolen from the park. It is not at all certain that this happened, but that Shakespeare did not like Sir Thomas Lucy is very plain from his works. In "The Merry Wives of Windsor" there is a "Mr. Justice Shallow," of whom the poet makes great fun, and draws in a very ridiculous light. It is clear from many little touches that Shakespeare had Sir Thomas Lucy in his mind when he drew this portrait of a pompous country squire.

The mansion of Charlecote is of great interest in itself as a perfect specimen of an Elizabethan manor-house. Save for a couple of rooms added to the structure, it stands exactly as Sir Thomas Lucy built it in 1558. It was built originally with a front and two projecting wings, and it was visited by Queen Elizabeth in 1572. In honour of this visit Sir Thomas added a porch and adorned it with the Queen's arms and monogram. By this addition the plan of the house was made to exactly resemble a capital E, and thus commemorate the royal visit.

Charlecote is approached from the road through an ancient gatehouse, a most beautiful and picturesque building which opens upon a courtyard or walled flower-garden, and the whole place is in most perfect order and preservation. It is an Elizabethan home lasting unchanged until the twentieth century.

AN OLD ENGLISH HOUSE.

England is full of castles, abbeys, and manor-houses, which are still occupied by the descendants of those who built them or by those into whose hands they have passed in later days, and among these stately piles it is hard to pick one as a type of a fine old English house. But, putting aside the great castles, like Warwick, whose frowning walls and grim battlements tell of an age when defence was the first thought in the mind of a builder, let us take a mansion erected at a more peaceful time. Such a mansion is to be found in Compton Wynyates, a fine old Warwickshire house, built in 1509.

Compton Wynyates stands in a very secluded spot, some twelve miles from Stratford, hidden away in a thickly-wooded dell. You approach the house along a mere byway, and do not see it until you are close upon it. Then a picturesque medley of gables, turrets, battlements and chimneys, springs to view, and you stand to wonder at so splendid a house being built in so hidden and solitary a place.

Compton Wynyates was built at a time when the bare lofty walls of a castle-keep were being deserted for the brighter, more cheerful rooms of a mansion whose walls were pierced by many windows. But at the same time it was not wise to live entirely without protection, so a moat was dug round the house and entrance could only be gained by a drawbridge. In our quiet days a bridge of stone has replaced the wooden bridge which rose and fell, but the old oak doors which once barred the archway leading to the house are still in position, and we can see upon them the marks of musket-balls fired at the defenders of the place in troublous times.

Let us go into the great hall, the chief room of an old house--the room where once the whole family dined together at a long table, the master and his friends above the salt, the servants and humbler guests below. The hall rises the full height of the house, and has a fine timbered roof, and at one end is the minstrels' gallery, a picturesque half-timbered structure, the place where minstrels made merry music at some feast or on the visit of some great personage.

In the hall stands a huge slab of elm more than 23 feet long and some 30 inches wide. It was once used for playing "shovel-board," a favourite game with our ancestors, and when in use was set up on trestles.

In this hall Sir William Compton received Henry VIII., whom Sir William had accompanied to the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Sir William, too, had won much distinction at the Battle of Spurs, and was a great favourite with bluff King Hal, to whom the knight owed much of his great fortune.

Next to the hall is the great parlour, the private room of the family when they withdrew from the hall. It is finely panelled in oak, and has a plaster ceiling, bearing the arms of the owners of the place. Beyond the parlour is the chapel, decorated with very ancient carved wooden panels. These carvings are very much older than the house, and it is believed they were brought from an old castle which Sir William Compton pulled down in order to obtain materials for his house.

But it will be impossible for us to go from room to room of this wonderful old house, for there are more than eighty of them--drawing-rooms, dining-rooms, bedrooms, great kitchens with vast old fireplaces, and gained by seventeen separate staircases, which wind and twist their way through the building. It is said there are 275 windows in the house, though an old story goes that no one knows exactly how many there are, for he who tries to count is baffled by a mysterious secret window, which he sees and counts on the first occasion, and can never find again. Its chimneys, too, rise in a veritable forest of quaintly-shaped stacks, and form as puzzling a labyrinth as the windows.

There was a meaning in this tangle of windows and chimneys, for Compton Wynyates is full of secret hiding-places. Hundreds of years ago there was need of them. To-day no man needs to hide himself unless he has done wrong. Then, an innocent man might stand in great danger of a powerful enemy or of an unjust law. So the old houses were furnished with places where men could hide from their foes until an opportunity came for escape.

Again, Compton Wynyates was a Catholic house, and in those times Roman Catholics were punished if they were found attending a Roman Catholic service, and the priest who performed the service stood in danger of imprisonment or, possibly, of death. So places were carefully constructed to which the priest could fly to hide himself when officers of the law came to the house in search of him. Many such secret chambers are found in old mansions, and are known as "priests' holes."

It was a common thing to form a secret chamber in the thickness of a wall, and the first thing required was air, the second light. Air was often given to a secret chamber by a chimney. But such a chimney remained unblackened by smoke, and would soon be detected as not doing its proper work, so it was often built in the centre of a stack of real chimneys, and thus remained hidden. So, too, amid a great number of other windows, it was not easy to detect that which gave light to a hidden room. At Compton Wynyates such is the tangle of windows and chimneys that a person may have pointed out to him the chimney and the window belonging to a secret room, and yet fail to discover the place when he searches inside.

One of the secret rooms at Compton Wynyates was discovered by a child of the house, Lady Frances Compton, in 1770. She was playing in a turret room, and fell against some plaster-work, which rang hollow. Search was made, and a concealed door was found beneath the plaster. The hidden chamber was opened, and tradition says that the skeletons of a woman and two children were found within. No one knows how they came there, but it is believed that at some time of danger they had been concealed there and forgotten.

In the roof of this great building is the famous priests' room or chapel. Here the Roman Catholics of the neighbourhood used to meet to worship in secret. A safer and better hidden place could not be devised. To this day the proof that it was a Roman Catholic chapel remains to be seen. "On an elm shelf below the south-west window are, rudely carved, five consecration crosses, showing that it had been used for the purpose of an altar, and was consecrated according to the rites of the Romish Church. The slab of wood is unique, in that it forms the only known instance of a wooden altar in England."

There was another huge room in the roof, 130 feet long, which was known as the Barracks, a place where soldiers were quartered. Here may be seen blood-stains, caused by fighting during the Great Civil War. The house was held for the King, but the Roundhead soldiery broke in, and there was desperate fighting in the Barracks, and many were slain. Cromwell's men took the house, and held it for the rest of the war.

In one of the drawing-rooms may be seen, carved beautifully in the panelling, the arms of the Comptons and the arms of the Spencers, and this carving bears witness to a very romantic marriage. In the days of Queen Elizabeth there was a Lord Mayor of London whose name was Sir John Spencer. Sir John was a very rich man, and he had an only daughter named Elizabeth. Now, the Lord Compton of that day fell in love with Elizabeth Spencer, but the wealthy merchant did not look with any favour on Compton, and forbade him to come near the house. But the young lady herself did not share her father's feelings with regard to the young courtier, and soon a clever ruse was planned.

One day a young man, dressed as a baker, came to the house with a huge basket of loaves of bread. As he was going away again, with the great basket on his shoulders, he met Sir John himself. The wealthy merchant thought that here was a hard-working young fellow going heartily about his business. He praised him, gave him sixpence, and told him that he was on the high-road to make his fortune. So he was, but not quite as Sir John thought. The disguised baker was Lord Compton, and in the basket he was carrying off the young heiress, Elizabeth Spencer.

When Sir John learned of the trick that had been played on him he was furious, and vowed that he would never see his daughter again. But Queen Elizabeth took an interest in the affair, and finally brought about a reconciliation, and the arms of the two families were placed in the drawing-room to show that peace was restored between Sir John and the young people.

BY FEN AND BROAD.

From hills and slopes, dales and uplands, we will take our departure and look at the flattest land of England, the wide, level stretches of country around the Wash, the Fens. A fen is a marsh, and once these immense stretches of flat land were marshes pure and simple. There is plenty of water about them now, but it is penned up by dikes and embankments, and run off by drains as big as rivers.

It is often said that those who care for Dutch landscape have no need to leave our own country to enjoy it, for the Fenland is Holland in miniature. There may be seen the same long flat stretches of country, cut by long, straight canals bordered by willow and alder; the same kind of dikes making the same fight against the encroaching sea, the windmills pumping water into drains and out of some pool which is being reclaimed; the green fields deep in grass, and the dark peat-cuttings whence the peasantry obtain their fuel.