Part 2

We are now near a portion of the "Tess" locality, for a short distance to the right stands Norris Mill, the "Talbothays" of the novel, while the Frome Valley, in which it is situated, is the "Vale of Great Dairies", the "valley in which milk and butter grew to rankness". Here, too, is the western extremity of the far-famed "Egdon Heath", that succession of wild unenclosed moorlands that stretch in unbroken continuity from near Dorchester to Poole Harbour; but a description of this vast heathland must be deferred for the moment, for a short walk leads to Higher Bockhampton, a most charming and secluded hamlet, at the farther end of which is the birthplace of the Wessex novelist, a small thatched house embowered in a world of rural opulence. Mr. Hardy's childhood's days were impregnated with rustic peace and solitude, and the formative influences of his early environment have left their mark on his great romances. From the birthplace a most pleasant ramble over Bockhampton Heath leads into the Yellowham Woods, the "Great Yalbury" wood, in the depths of which Fancy Day resided when living in her father's cottage. Here, too, as told in _Far from the Madding Crowd_, Joseph Poorgrass had the experience, the re-telling of which always put this most modest of men to the blush.

"Once he had been working late at Yalbury Bottom, and had had a drop of drink, and lost his way as he was coming home along through Yalbury Wood.... And as he was coming along in the middle of the night, much afeared, and not able to find his way out nohow, a' cried out, 'Man-a-lost! man-a-lost!' A owl in a tree happened to be crying 'whoo-whoo-whoo!' as owls do you know, Shepherd, and Joseph, all in a tremble, said, 'Joseph Poorgrass, of Weatherbury, sir!'" "No, no, now, that's too much," said the timid man.... "I didn't say _sir_ ... I never said _sir_ to the bird, knowing very well that no man of a gentleman's rank would be hollerin' there at that time o' night. 'Joseph Poorgrass, of Weatherbury,' that's every word I said, and I shouldn't ha' said that if't hadn't been for keeper Day's metheglin."

Out on to the main road again, the same one that we left at Stinsford crossroads, a short walk past the little hamlet of Troy Town, and we enter Puddletown (strictly Piddleton, from the A.S. _piddle_, a small stream), the old home of the de Pydels, and the "Weatherbury" of romance. Occupying a prominent position facing the village square where used to stand the maypole, stocks, and Hundred house, is a thatched house with a projecting window supported on columns, which architects consider to be one of the finest Georgian windows in the country. This was, in the eighteenth century, the private residence of the Boswells.

"Weatherbury" is a most interesting place, although somewhat altered since _Far from the Madding Crowd_ was penned. The old malthouse, wherein the villagers gave such a warm welcome to Gabriel Oak on his taking service with Bathsheba, has vanished completely, but the church, of which a proposed rebuilding of an Elizabethan chancel on the lines of a larger original chancel has caused a fierce and bitter controversy in the press, has met with little molestation. It contains the Athelhampton Chapel, with a panelled entrance arch, in which are some remarkable monuments and brasses, the former of which include a magnificent recumbent effigy in alabaster, with a "vizored salade", and a fluted shield, commemorating a member of the Martin family, who lived at the neighbouring Athelhampton Hall, a fine ancestral home, and the "Athel Hall" of the _Wessex Poems_. The Norman font in the church is worth inspection, as also are the fifteenth-century panelled roof of Spanish chestnut of the nave, and the Carolean gallery where Gabriel Oak sang in the choir.

Very simple were the old services in these village churches, with the farm hands attending service on Sunday afternoons as regularly as they went to work on Monday mornings. Now and then maybe a bucolic rustic would doze off to sleep, until his slumbers were disturbed by the beadle; and many of the old natives can remember when this ecclesiastical official would rap his long wand of office on the skull of a sleeping rustic, with a crack that echoed through the sacred edifice. In the north porch of the church Sergeant Troy passed the night after Fanny Robin's funeral.

A short distance away is Lower Waterson, "a hoary building of the Jacobean stage of classic renaissance", and the home of Bathsheba Everdene, where the great "Shearing Barn", so delightfully described by Mr. Hardy, may still be seen, although the novelist had in his mind's eye the far more spacious and magnificent tithe barn at Abbotsbury. While at Waterson it is worth while to mount Waterson Ridge, the scene of _Time's Laughingstocks_, a poem that appeared in the _Fortnightly_ of August, 1904.

From Puddletown through Tolpuddle (one of the numerous villages to which the Puddle or Piddle gives name), and we are quickly at Bere Regis, which Dr. Stukeley identified with the Roman _Ibernium_. This is the "Kingsbere" of the novels and the ancient seat of the Turbervilles, a family that flourishes still in Glamorgan, and of whom Tess was a fictitious descendant. Within the church, which has a remarkable carved roof, the gift of Cardinal Morton, who was born at Milborne Stileham, three or four miles away, are two canopied tombs of the Turbervilles. Half a mile to the north-east is Woodbury Hill, where was held the great sheep fair, the "Greenhill Fair" where Troy performed the part of "Dick Turpin" at the circus. At Bere the smuggler Owlett was hidden after his struggle with the excise officers, and it was selected as a hiding place for the women by Miller Loveday, should Napoleon's threatened invasion prove successful. Here, too, beneath the Cardinal's noble gift, Yeobright's father put such power into his playing of the bass viol as to cause the windows to rattle, and "old Pa'son Gibbons to lift his hands in his great holy surplice as natural as if he'd been in common clothes, and seem to say to himself, 'oh for such a man in our parish!'"

Apart from its historical and literary associations Bere Regis is as charming a spot as exists in rural England, and one where the modern cultivation which demolishes the hedgerows and stubbs up the copses has not yet shown its evil presence. The old manor house of the Turbervilles has vanished, with the exception of a portion that still remains in Court Farm; and times have changed since the old race of manorial lords and squires were laid to rest in their family vaults. Here, as in most Dorset villages, the ancient families have died out or, owing to agricultural depression, have been driven into bankruptcy or exile. The manor houses have fallen into decay, with the exception perhaps, as here, of a solitary wing which serves as a modern farmhouse. On the tombstones in the churchyard you may read names once honoured in the countryside, and far beyond it, names that are rapidly becoming extinct, except as what Grant Allen would have called "verbal fossils".

It is generally thought that the untitled landed gentry represent a longer connection with land than the nobility, whose estates have constantly been added to by purchase or inheritance. It is, however, quite otherwise; for of all the squirearchy there are very few families who can show an unbroken succession since the termination of an event so comparatively recent as the Wars of the Roses. True, there are a certain and a not inconsiderable number of Englishmen with large landed estates who are descended from ancestors who held land sometime before them; but it will generally be found that the ancestors were yeomen. It has been estimated by an eminent authority that an analysis of modern landowners in any English county will prove that not more than a dozen descend from forbears owning 3000 acres (the minimum qualification for a great landowner) in the time of Elizabeth; and that the peers, comparatively modern as the majority of them are, represent a much larger average of old families than the country squires.

If possible, the return journey from Bere Regis to Dorchester should be made by way of "Egdon Heath", of which we get so impressive a description in the opening chapters of _The Return of the Native_. If the weather be fine, what could be better than a long tramp over the moor? especially as our most lasting memories of a landscape are those we gain afoot. Blue skies and green fields are things we are all familiar with; but there is assuredly nothing in the wide world that appeals to us so much as our English moorlands, and "Egdon", aglow with yellow gorse, and afire with purple heather, is as fine a sight as can be offered by these southern lands that fringe the Channel seas. It is not pretended, of course, that these combined Dorset heathlands can rival in extent or grandeur the great Devonian moorland that gives birth to the romantic River Dart; but in their own peculiar way they have no rival.

In _Domesday_ this tract of country is called a "heathy, furzy, briary wilderness", and the antiquary Leland writes of it as being "overgrown with heth and moss". Mr. Hardy characterizes it finely in eight words as "singularly colossal and mysterious in its swarthy monotony." His description of it could have been penned only by one who was familiar with all its various moods, and whose mind had become absorbed with its mysterious and subtle influences.

"Ever since the beginning of vegetation its soil has worn the same antique brown dress, the natural and invariable garment of the peculiar formation.... It is unchanged and unchangeable, with a wild, weird beauty all its own.... It was a spot which returned upon the memory of those who loved it with an aspect of peculiar and kindly congruity.... Twilight combined with the scenery of Egdon Heath to evolve a thing majestic without severity, impressive without showiness, emphatic in its admonitions, grand in its simplicity."

It was among the solitudes of these moorlands, and amid the fragrant meadow-lands of Dorchester, that William Barnes made himself sweet imageries the livelong day; and here Thomas Hardy has thought out his great prose romances, and clothed them with beautiful description. Certainly both of these great writers have revived much of the forgotten wealth of our language, and wander where you will in their beloved Dorset homeland, by winding stream or breezy down, the shade of the dead poet and the presence of the living novelist accompany you on your way.

Eight miles to the south of Dorchester is Weymouth, backed, as seen from the landward side, by the great promontory of Portland, lying like some stranded whale upon the waters. The quickest and easiest way to reach this "Budmouth" of the novels is by train, but by far the more interesting way is to walk or cycle. True, the rail motor has many "halts", at which one can alight, but those who do the sights of a place between the trains miss a hundred natural beauties and a thousand healthy pleasures granted to the pedestrian and the cyclist.

Leaving the county town by the Weymouth Road, and passing the "Rings" where Henchard and his wife met to discuss future arrangements, the first definite turning towards the right leads to Maiden Castle, where rise the steep and grassy tiers of the most stupendous prehistoric earthwork we possess, and one that was in existence for centuries before it was strengthened, and, for a short period, occupied probably by the Romans. A whole day is scarce sufficient in which to explore this great camp, with an area of 160 acres, that occupies the summit of a natural hill, and where the entrenchments and fortifications are of a most elaborate character.

Emerging from this prehistoric fortress, camp, and cattle-station at its western extremity, a short but hilly walk leads to the charming village of Upwey, nestling at the foot of a well-wooded hill where rises a spring of water, the source of the little River Wey. Upwey Church is a very interesting one of Perpendicular date. Some portions of the picturesque old mill here are introduced into the _Trumpet-Major_, but their locality has been moved to Sutton (Overcombe), a few miles away. Beyond the mill a sharp turn to the left joins the main road we left to reach Maiden Castle. Here, on the old vicinal way of the Romans, stands the "Ship" inn, the hostel wherein Dick Dewy and Fancy Day became definitely engaged after their accidental meeting by the King's statue at Budmouth. Close at hand is the Ridgeway, the place where the Overcombe folk waited all night to see the King arrive; and where the opening scene of the first act of _The Dynasts_ is laid. Adjoining the Ridgeway is Bincombe Down, with its steep, grass-covered sides rising sheer from the straggling village below. Mr. Hardy writes: "The eye of any observer who cared for such things swept over the wave-washed town (Weymouth) and the bay beyond, and the Isle, with its pebble bank, lying on the sea to the left of these, like a great crouching animal tethered to the mainland".

On this hill the soldiers were encamped in readiness to repel Napoleon's threatened invasion, and here came the Mill party in the _Trumpet-Major_, to see the review, and to overhear the exclamations of the excited rustics: "There's King Jarge!" "That's Queen Sharlett!" "Princess Sophiar and Mellyer!" In the _Melancholy Hussar_ Blagdon is depicted as the spot whereon Tina and Christoph were shot as deserters.

From Upwey a fine walk along the Waddon Valley, the scene of _The Lacking Sense_; past Corton Church, with its pre-Reformation stone altar, and the Jacobean farmhouse of Waddon; and through the charming hamlet of Coryates, leads to Portisham, or Po'sham, one of the most interesting of the villages that lie at the back of the Chesil Beach. On the outskirts of the village a little stone-roofed house, almost covered with creepers, was the home of Thomas Masterman Hardy, the Flag-captain of the _Victory_, in whose arms Nelson died. The house is still occupied by the descendants of the gallant seaman, one of three Dorset captains at Trafalgar, and many relics of their famous ancestor are preserved within the dwelling. It was to this house that Bob Loveday came to visit Captain Hardy when he thought of joining the crew of the _Victory_.

High above the village, on Blackdown or Blagdon Hill, stands the Hardy Monument that forms a conspicuous land- and sea-mark for many miles around.

Portisham is one of the most charming of Dorset's villages; the church having many points of interest that include a leaden roof and a very good tower; while grouped around it are old-fashioned thatched cottages, and ancient Tudor houses with the heavy dripstones and massive mullions so characteristic of their era. Portisham was the birthplace of Sir Andrew Riccard, "President of the East India and Turkey Companies". He left an only daughter, who became successively the wife of Lord Kensington and Lord Berkeley of Stratton.

Just beyond Portisham is Abbotsbury, where are some considerable remains of a monastic building founded originally, _circa_ 1044, for secular canons, and converted, in later days, into a noble Benedictine Abbey, of which the tithe barn, a very beautiful example, still exists. The little chapel perched on the summit of St. Catherine's Hill is an architectural gem of the Perpendicular period, and one that should not be missed by anyone with antiquarian tastes. The village church is also a good piece of building, with a curious representation of the Trinity let into the wall of the tower, and a fine Jacobean pulpit. While here, a visit should be paid to Lord Ilchester's famous Swannery and Decoy.

As we are now a good deal out of the direct-road route from Dorchester to Weymouth, the visitor may be advised to take the rail motor from Abbotsbury to the maritime town, especially as, after passing through the Waddon Vale, the road leading thither is bare, treeless, and devoid of interest.

Weymouth has been described a thousand times, and it is not unworthy of it, lying as it does in a long curve with the whole town visible from the sea. It is artistically placed, and is a brilliant if somewhat old-fashioned jewel set amid a sea of amethyst and turquoise. Modern Weymouth is made up of two distinct boroughs, Weymouth and Melcombe Regis, which were united by Queen Elizabeth. It is a town whose beginnings are lost in obscurity, although its early history is not of a very engrossing kind. After passing through various phases of fortune and misfortune, with a preponderance of the latter, the place was nothing but a decayed seaport until George III and his Court, coming here to reside in the closing years of the eighteenth century, instilled new life into the town, which has retained, despite the modern builder, considerable architectural remains of this period of its greatest prosperity. The shops have unfortunately been modernized, but the greater number of the old Georgian rows of dwelling houses are intact. Gloucester Lodge, now the Gloucester Hotel, was the royal residence, before which "a picket of a thousand men mounted guard every day". Queen Charlotte's Second Keeper of the Robes was Fanny Burney, who, in her _Diary_, has left us a very interesting account of the Court life at Weymouth.

With the exception of Casterbridge, Budmouth figures more frequently in the Wessex novels than any other place, and is especially prominent in _The Trumpet-Major_. By the statue of King George, "wonderfully and fearfully made", Dick Dewy met Fancy Day; and the bridge over the harbour is mentioned in the _Well-Beloved_. Bob Loveday was familiar with its harbour, and his brother John knew its barracks; and here Anne Garland studied the latest fashions. It was on the esplanade that Festus Derriman cut "a fine figure of a soldier", and here Jocelyn Pierston was staying when he met with two incarnations of the Well-Beloved. In _The Dynasts_, the interview between King George and Pitt takes place at Gloucester Lodge, and in the Old Rooms Inn across the harbour the Battle of Trafalgar was discussed.

Some four miles to the south of Weymouth lies the "Isle of Slingers" (Portland), the pleasantest way to reach which is by one of the numerous steamers that make the trip. Entering an opening in the great breakwater that encloses the mighty roadstead of Portland, the visitor will notice the ruins of an old castle that stand on the edge of a sandy and rapidly disappearing cliff. This is all that is left of Sandsfoot Castle, built in the time of Henry VIII, and the "right goodlie Castel" of Leland's day. This was the place appointed by Pierston for his farewell to Avice. Our little craft threads her way quickly through the mighty battleships and cruisers that lie securely within this murally enclosed basin of sea, and we glide into the little harbour at the base of the mighty rock. The first aspect of the place, owing partly to the absence of trees, is stern and rather uninviting, but, for those who know it, the rocky mass of Portland has many attractions. From the high land a fine view is obtained of the Chesil Beach, that extraordinary bank of pebbles that connects the "island" with the mainland at Abbotsbury, ten miles away. Farther west is Bridport, the "Port Bredy" of the novels, and a pleasantly situated town, whose marine suburb of West Bay contains a useful little harbour wherein vessels of a small tonnage can enter at high tides. Six miles to the north of Bridport is Beaminster (Emminster), the home of Angel Clare, whither Tess made her way in the hope of obtaining news of her husband.

Interesting as is the rock of Portland as seen from the Bill or from the sandy little cove of Church Ope, the seaward faces of the promontory are best observed from the deck of a boat, when all the elements that go usually to form a picture on a level surface are here raised nearly to the perpendicular, and, by reflecting the sun's rays at a slight angle, produce effects as violent in their nature as they are startling in their novelty of colour. In _The Souls of the Slain_, the Bill or Beal of Portland is well described:

"The thick lids of night closed upon me Alone at the Bill Of the Isle by the Race-- Many-caverned, bald, wrinkled of face-- And with darkness and silence the spirit was on me To brood and be still."

From this wild spot Ann Garland watched the _Victory_ depart with Bob Loveday on board. Turning inland we see Pennsylvania Castle. This was the home of Pierston, and near it is the cottage wherein Avice dwelt; while, in the adjoining Ope Churchyard, Jocelyn wooed the granddaughter of the first Avice. The castle is comparatively modern, having been built by John Penn in 1800, from designs by Wyatt.

From numberless points on the tableland of Portland many exquisite views may be obtained, some looking seaward to where the distant St. Aldhelm's Head marks the eastern limit of Weymouth Bay. Inland, the prospect includes the town of Weymouth, with the heights of Dorset stretching into the heart of the county. Away to the west the waves of the Channel moan unceasingly, where Chesil lifts her pebbly ridge, and Golden Cap, with its summit of yellow sand, marks the site of Lyme Regis, with its memories of Charles II, Monmouth, Jane Austen, and Mary Mitford. Westward, too, over an expanse of southern sea, the sun sinks behind the belt of blue, and flushes the golden glow of sky with varying hues of rose and amethyst, until the overarching heaven seems etherealized into a transparent canopy that veils the mystic radiance of some hidden glory.

WEYMOUTH TO POOLE

The visitor to the Hardy country will quickly realize that, in spite of railways, motor cars, and cycles, more than half of South Dorset is a closed book to those who do not walk; while the beautiful coast scenery of this historic land is for the pedestrian alone. The iron road conveys the conventional tourist from an inland to a maritime town, motor cars and cycles thread the great highways, now stripped of their high and shade-giving hedges for the convenience of their mechanically propelled travellers. Contrast this with a tramp over a succession of grassy downs where the salt sea-mist fills the natural amphitheatres made by the hollows in the retreating hills, and across sandy bays eaten out of the soft chalk by the ceaseless action of the sea. There is an indefinable charm in a view combining sea and cliff, hill and dale, the near orchard and the distant down, within the field of vision.

It is impossible by mere words to convey any idea of the wealth of colour exhibited along the Dorset coast, where the brilliant tints of the sea-worn rocks are contrasted with hues of vivid green; for here verdure triumphs over decay, and drapes the wrecks of time with the richest vegetation. In a wide open country such as this, great clouds sweep over the hills, casting as they travel moving shadows over land and sea; so that before long we are perfectly intoxicated with the charms of the district, where idlers forget their ennui, and invalids gain strength in its invigorating air.

Leaving Weymouth by the Wareham Road, and past the low-lying but picturesque marshlands of Lodmoor, we arrive at Preston, where the much-disturbed tessellated floor of a good Roman villa may be seen for the payment of sixpence. Near the roadside is a small one-arched bridge that has been claimed by some antiquaries to be of Roman, and by others of Norman, date. Many think it to be a mediaeval pack-horse bridge.