CHAPTER XI.

LETTERS AND EXCURSIONS.

An English Skylark.--Letter from George Howe.--Tommy's Account of his Nottingham Adventure.--Glastonbury Abbey.--The Beginning of the English Church.--St. Joseph of Arimathæa and the Glastonbury Thorn.--Story of St. Dunstan and the Devil.

Master Lewis set apart a day at Oxford for leisure, writing, and rest.

In the morning, after breakfast, the Class took a walk to the suburbs, and rested on some wayside seats overlooking the Thames.

It was a beautiful morning, cool and still. The world of sunlight all seemed to be above the trees, an over-sea of gold, of which the long arcades of intermingling boughs afforded but glimpses.

Near the wayside resting-place was a field bordered with trees. A speck of a bird rose from it out of the grass uttering a few notes that attracted the boys' attention. Up, up it went like a rocket, and as it rose higher and higher its song became sweeter and sweeter,--a happy, trilling melody, which made every boy leap to his feet, and try to find a place where he could see it through the openings in the trees.

"The bird seems to have gone straight up to heaven," said Wyllys Wynn. "I can hardly see it; but I can hear its melody yet."

"That is an English skylark," said Master Lewis, "so famous in pastoral poetry. You now understand Tennyson's meaning when he says,--

"'The lark becomes a sightless song.'

I am glad you have seen it. I wish we might see more of common sights and scenes.

"I have here a letter from George Howe and Leander Towle, which greatly pleases me. My object is to take you to historic scenes. George and Leander have different tastes from yours, and expect to follow different occupations. They are making their journey a study of common life and its pursuits, as I would have them do."

"Will you not read their letter to us?" asked Ernest.

"That was just what I was about to do," said Master Lewis.

Caen, Normandy, July.

Dear Teacher:--

I begin my letter here in this city, which I suppose has an atmosphere of old history, but which is interesting to me because it is the centre of the "food-producing land" of France, as Lower Normandy is well called. All of this part of the country through which I have passed is a scene of thrift, productiveness, and plenty. The people are all busy and happy. Occupied minds are always happy, I believe.

How did we get here?

We rode a part of the way to London on what is called, I think, Parliamentary trains. This is not a train of grand coaches for the use of members of Parliament, but a sort of slow-coach train which Parliament has enacted shall carry cattle, produce, and commercial necessities for a fixed rate a mile. Or this is the way in which the running of these cheap trains was explained to me.

It would have been a hard ride, had not new scenes been continually coming into view, and the train have gone so slowly that we were enabled to enjoy them almost as well as though we had been riding on an English stage-coach. I was so interested in the new objects that presented themselves that I entirely forgot the manner of conveyance.

I shall never forget that ride: it was like viewing a long panorama.

It cost me only about £1 or $5.00, to travel from Scotland to London.

We took a lodging room in London which cost us a shilling a night apiece. While in London I visited the Tower, Westminster Abbey, Windsor, and the principal Parks. The half day spent in Westminster Abbey was worth all the discomforts of the journey across the sea.

We also made a journey to Sydenham Crystal Palace,--an immense museum of novelties, to which the admission is only one shilling. It is probably the first palace ever built for the people, and I like the idea of a people's palace better than a king's. It occupies with its grounds about three hundred acres, and cost nearly £2,000,000. Twenty-five acres of glass were used in its construction. The museum is full of the products of industry of all countries and times. Think of it--all for one shilling! It is a thing to make one always respect the English people.

I need say very little of the tombs of the twenty or thirty kings and queens in Westminster Abbey. I was first impressed with the value of fame when I read inscriptions to persons once famous of whom I never heard,--Thomas Shadwell, Poet Laureate in the Court of William III.; Mrs. Oldfield, whom we are told was buried "in a fine Brussels lace head-dress,"--and I thought, Well, all men can do is to perform their duty, and time will one day make forgotten Thomas Shadwells and Mrs. Oldfields of them all.

While in London I made also a pleasant excursion into Berkshire, and there I saw the famous White Horse Hill. It is said that the figure of the White Horse on the hill was first made by Alfred the Great a thousand years ago, to commemorate the defeat of the Danes,--the White Horse being the standard or national emblem of the Danish chief. Whatever may have been its origin, it is _now_ made by annually cutting about an acre of turf away from the chalk beneath it. This work is performed during a festival in its honor, and is called "Scouring the White Horse."

While in Berkshire I saw an odd picture, not of a castle, but of an old English gentleman's residence, which was truly castle-like in appearance, and which furnishes a happy suggestion to people who do not like to live long in any one place. It was a tun on wheels, and it had been used by an overtaxed and indignant democrat for the purpose of having no fixed locality, and so to avoid assessment.

In London I made a study of the cheapest way of getting to Paris, and of seeing the most on the journey. I found I could take a returning produce boat at Southampton for Lower Normandy at a trifling cost, and could go on a produce train from Caen to Paris as inexpensively.

We took a third-class ticket to Southampton. What a delightful ride it was! Out of the smoke of London into the blossoming country, among landscapes of cottages and gardens,--thatched cottages, cottages covered with old red tiles, cottages whose gardens seemed to climb up embankments to the roofs; past wheat fields so full of poppies that they seemed like poppy-fields in full bloom! I saw one field completely covered with red, purple, yellow, and white poppies. It was an exquisitely beautiful sight,--nothing but bright color.

The steamer we took was employed simply for the exportation of Normandy butter, potatoes, and other farm produce. It comes to England loaded, and goes back empty. I obtained passage for 10 francs, and what I saved by travel on the water I intended to make up by a longer trip by land.

We were much tossed about by the tides of the English Channel, but arrived safely at Cherbourg, and went by rail immediately to Bayeux, a dreamy, ecclesiastical city that the battles of the past seem to have left in strange silence. I spoke at the beginning of my letter of the activity and thrift of Lower Normandy, but Bayeux is the stillest city I ever saw.

Here, in the Public Library, we saw the famous Bayeux Tapestry, which is displayed under a glass case; is two hundred and fourteen feet long and contains over fifteen hundred figures. The canvas is embroidered in woollen thread of various colors, the work of Matilda and her maids. I make a copy from a sample picture of the exact size of the thread used.

One may read on this fabric the history of the Norman Conquest of England. It is the most novel work of history I ever saw.

The farming districts of Normandy seem indeed like Arcadia: farmers mean business here, and thrive by thrift. Their sons and daughters, I am told, do not run off to the city. I have never seen a people whose habits I like so well.

Give our regards to all.

George Howe.

P. S. We are on our way to Paris, riding through a country of old churches, castles, and flowers, on a produce train.

"I think," said Master Lewis, "that George and Leander are, after all, making a very delightful tour; they certainly are getting better views of common, practical life abroad than we are. I am glad that they had the independence to make the journey in this way."

"How much do you think their whole tour will cost them?" asked Ernest.

"It will cost each of them less than either you or I have paid for a single ocean passage," said Master Lewis.

The boys spent the afternoon in letter-writing.

Tommy Toby wrote a long letter to George Howe.

"I have taken George into my confidence," said he, after tea, as Master Lewis and the boys were sitting by the open windows of the hotel, "and have given him an account of my hunting adventure in Nottingham."

"Suppose you read the letter to us," said Master Lewis.

Tommy, whose nature would not allow him to keep a secret long, however disparaging to himself, seemed pleased to accept Master Lewis's suggestion.

Oxford, July.

Dear George:--

We are all pleased with the trip you are making.

We have been to lots of curious places,--dust heaps of old kings and queens and _we have heard a lark sing_.

At Nottingham I bought a bow and arrows, and went hunting. Like you, I wanted to see the country.

I saw it.

They are very inquisitive people around Nottingham. They seem to want to know your business before you are introduced.

A little way out of the city I came to a fine old tract of country. A gate opened into some large, hilly fields, and there was a path through the fields that seemed to lead to the wood.

I opened the gate and was going towards the wood, when I heard a voice from the road,--

"Boy!"

I looked around, and made no answer.

"Where are yer going, _yer honor_?"

"I am going hunting," said I; and I walked on very fast.

I came to a wooded hill, and the scenery all around was delightful, just like a picture. Below the hill was a long pasture, and through it ran a stream of water overhung with old trees. Under the trees were some cattle.

I was going down towards the pasture when I heard a very distressing noise,--

O-o-o-o-o!

"This is an English landscape," said I to myself. "How much more lovely it is than castles, abbeys, and tombs!" and I was trying to think of some poetry, such as Frank would have quoted, when I heard that alarming sound again,--

O-o-o-o-o!

I noticed that one of the fine animals had separated himself from the rest of the herd by the shady brook, and was coming out to meet me, looking very important. Presently he put down his head, gave the earth a scrape with his foot, and then came jumping towards me, bounding and plunging over the hillocks, like a ship on a heavy sea.

I turned right around, just as I did when I saw the bear, and I remembered that Master Lewis might not like to have me venture too far in my first hunting expedition.

I ran! didn't I run? I soon heard the same deep sound again, "nearer, clearer, deadlier than before," as the reading book says.

I had almost regained the top of the hill, when the animal bellowed almost right behind me. There was a tree close by, and I went _up_. It was just as easy for me to climb it as though it had been a ladder.

The animal bounded up the hill, and stood under the tree, pawing the earth and making the same hollow noise.

I drew my bow, and let fly an arrow at him.

"Boy, come down!"

There was a thick, fat man, with a great stomach, coming up the hill. He appeared greatly excited, and quite out of breath. He presently arrived at the foot of the tree.

"Boy, bring me that bow and arrow."

I came down the tree more scared at the man than I was at the animal. I handed him the bow, and what do you think he did with it?

He gave me a dreadful cut across my back, and said,--

"Where'd yer come from? Take _that_ and That, and THAT, and don't yer ever trespass on my grounds again."

I promised him I never would.

I walked just as fast as I could towards the gate, and when I came to the road I was so flustrated that I went the wrong way, and wandered about in the heat for hours before I could get rightly directed towards Nottingham.

I wish you were with us at Oxford; it seems to me the most beautiful place in all the world.

It was here we heard the skylark sing.

Tommy.

The next journey of the Club was indeed _en zigzag_.

"I have allowed you to visit," said Master Lewis to the boys, "the places to which your reading has led your curiosity, most of which places I have visited before. I now wish to take you to a ruin that I have never seen, and of which you may have never heard. It is the place where, according to tradition, Christianity was first established in Great Britain; where St. Patrick is said to have preached, and where he was buried. It is the place which poetry associates with the mission and miracles of Joseph of Arimathæa; here his staff, in the shape of the white thorn, is said to blossom every Christmas."

"Glastonbury Abbey," said Ernest Wynn. "Of course there can be no truth in the tradition of Joseph of Arimathæa and the White Thorn?"

"The story of Joseph's mission to England, his burial here, and his blooming staff," said Master Lewis, "is undoubtedly a fiction, like the legend which claims that the stone in the old Scottish Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey is the one on which Jacob rested when he saw the vision of angels. But Glastonbury Abbey was possibly the first Church in England. Here were the monuments of King Arthur, King Edmund, and King Edgar; and even old King Coel, St. David, and St. Dunstan are said to have been buried here."

"What! the St. Dunstan that the devil tried to tempt?" asked Tommy.

"The St. Dunstan that the devil did tempt, I fear," said Master Lewis.

"I would like to hear the story of his temptations," said Tommy, "as we are going to Glastonbury."

THE STORY OF ST. DUNSTAN'S TEMPTATION.

"St. Dunstan," said Master Lewis, "was Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, and was a very ambitious man.

"He caused a cell to be made in which he could neither stand erect nor lie down with comfort. He retired to this cell and there spent his time in working as a smith, and--so the report went--in devotion.

"Then the people said, 'How humble and penitent Dunstan is! He has the back-ache all day, and the legs-ache all night, and he suffers all for the cause of purity and truth.'

"Then Dunstan told the people that the devil came to tempt him, which, with his aches for the good cause, made his situation very trying.

"The devil, he said, wanted him to lead a life of selfish gratification, but he would not be tempted to do a thing like that; he never thought of himself. O no, good soul, not he!

"The people said that Dunstan must have become a very holy man, or the devil would not appear to him _bodily_.

"The devil came to him one day, he said, as he was at work at his forge, and, putting his nose through the window of his cell, tempted him to lead a life of pleasure. He quickly drew his pincers from the fire, and seized his tormentor by the nose, which put him in such pain that he bellowed so lustily as to shake the hills.

"The boy-king Edred, who filled the throne at this time, was in poor health, and suffered from a lingering illness for years. He felt the need of the counsel of a good man, and he said to himself,--

"'There is Dunstan, a man who has given up all selfish feelings and aspirations, a man whom even the devil cannot corrupt. I will bring him to court, and will make him my adviser.'

"Then pure-hearted Edred brought the foxy prelate to his court, and made him, of all things in the world, the royal treasurer; and he took such good care of the money entrusted to his keeping that he was speedily released from the responsibility. He seems to have been very easily tempted during his political career."

The next day the party was borne away from shady Oxford, where one would indeed like to tarry long in the midsummer days, to the old city of Bristol, famous in the Roman conquest of Britain. In the journey the gay poppy-fields and the picturesque cottage scenes, which give a charm to the English landscape, often flitted into and out of view, reminding the boys of George Howe's letter.

Glastonbury Abbey is indeed an interesting ruin. It stands apart from the popular lines of travel, and so it figures little in the narratives of those who make short tours abroad.

Think of the ruins of a church at least fourteen hundred years old! A church that Joseph of Arimathæa, who provided the tomb for Jesus, is reputed in the old monkish legends to have founded, and where St. Patrick and St. Augustine probably did preach, and where in the Middle Ages the remains of good King Arthur were disenterred!

Of the great church and its five chapels there yet remain parts of the broken wall, and the three large crypts where the early kings of England and founders of the English Church were buried. A little westward from the ruin stands the beautiful Chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathæa.

"I do not wonder," said Wyllys Wynn, "that the old English people liked to believe that their church sprang from the mission of so amiable a saint as St. Joseph."

"Christianity," said Master Lewis, "was really first established in Great Britain in 596 by St. Augustine and forty missionaries who came with St. Augustine from Rome to preach to the Anglo-Saxons. These missionaries were kindly received by King Ethelbert, whose wife was already a Christian. It is related that one of the Saxon priests, to see if indeed his gods would be angry, went forth on horse-back, and smote the images the people had been worshipping. To the astonishment of the Saxons no judgment followed. The king was baptized, and the missionaries baptized ten thousand converts in a single day in the river Swale. The Christian religion had been preached in Britain before, but not generally accepted."

"I like the association of St. Joseph's name with this old ruin so well," said Wyllys, "that I wish to see the staff that you say is believed to bloom at Christmas."

On the south side of Glastonbury is Weary-all Hill. It owes its name to a very poetic legend. It is said that St. Joseph and his companions, _all_ of them _weary_ in one of their missionary journeys, here sat down to rest, and the Saint planted his staff into the earth, and left it there. From it, we are told, springs the famous Glastonbury Thorn which blossoms every Christmas, and whose miraculous flowers were adored in the Middle Ages. Such a shrub still remains which blooms in midwinter, and perpetuates the memory of the pretty superstition.