mm€$ siieot ui (LIMITED.) 509, sio fc'SijL-mEir ©otto srnm AND 20 & 21, MUSEUM STREET, LONDON SINGLE SUBSCRIPTION, ne Guinea Per Annum . LIBRARY OF CONGRESS,? * : f J <%4,a/l. TSSlp-5 j UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THE OPEN AIE SKETCHES OUT OF TOWS JOSEPH VEREY AUTHOR OF "LOST FOOTSTEPS," ETC. ETC. '^^ LONDON TINSLEY BEOTHEES, 18, CATHEEXNE STEEET, STEANB MDCCCLXIX 7ft r?° 3 PRINTED BY CHARLES JONES, "WEST HARDING STREET. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. page Quiet Hours in the City .......... 1 CHAPTER II. My First Excursion 15 CHAPTER III. An Autumn Morning ............ 29 CHAPTER IV. Sunday in the Country 44 CHAPTER V. By the Sea 57 CHAPTER VI. A Voyage on the Iceberg 71 CHAPTER VII. Social and Political , 91 CHAPTER VIII. The Mountains , 105 CHAPTER IX. Contrasts 120 CHAPTER X, Surrey Landscapes 131 CHAPTER XI. Night in the Country ........... 146 11 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XII. ^GE Twenty Years Ago ............. 158 CHAPTER XIII. With Tennyson in the Fens .........171 CHAPTER XIV. Winter out of Town ............ 183 CHAPTER XV. River Scenery .............. 195 CHAPTER XVI. Pleasure Gardens ............. 205 CHAPTER XVII. A Balloon Voyage ............. 218 CHAPTER XVIII. Agricultural Labourers ........... 240 CHAPTER XIX. A Village Church ............. 257 CHAPTER XX. Country Houses .............. 265 CHAPTER XXI. On Tramp ................ 276 THE OPEN AIE; OR, SKETCHES OUT OF TOWN. CHAPTER I. QUIET HOUKS IN THE CITY. It was lately suggested in a high-class journal that it would be convenient for the critic if the author, in publishing a book, invariably stated his aim. Adopting this advice, let me say, then, to begin with, that my aim is — to paraphrase a familiar couplet — To tempt some to love Nature who never loved her before, And those who always loved her to love her yet the more. That is, in fact, the sum and substance of the following pages. After a youth spent in a pleasant district, 2 THE OPEN AIE. considerably removed from any great manu- facturing centre, I was compelled to turn out into the world and seek such fortune as fate might have in store for me; and at length, when sick at heart, friendless, and almost despairing, I obtained employ- ment which promised a sufficient income for my daily wants and a fair amount of leisure. I cannot say that I took kindly at first to my new occupation, for it was in the heart of the city of London, and from a boy I had the greatest dislike of towns. For the first year I was miserable. The loss of the broad open sky, the trees, hills, and meadows, and, most of all, the pleasant Thames, which flowed almost within sight of my country home, seemed for a time to rob me of half my faculties. Added to this was the terrible loneliness of the city. Noise is not society, and I had no pleasant places to visit in the vicinity of town ; of QUIET HOUES IN THE CITY. 3 my friends many were scattered, some to distant lands, some by death, and the nearest were fifty miles away. When the hour came round for closing the ware- house, and I saw the spruce cheerful city men hurrying by the train and omni- bus to well-kept villas a few miles away, where they could at least cultivate a few flowers and get a peep at the sky, I was wretched, but in time I became more re- conciled to my lot, and made the best of it. I saw, as I learned more of city life, what a terrible struggle worthy, earnest, clever men sometimes had to earn mere daily bread — how their whole time, taste, feeling, and talent became absorbed into their occupations till — Men grew so like machinery — Machinery like men, That now to trace the two apart Would puzzle tongue and pen. I was at least not entirely engrossed b 2 4 THE OPEN AIR. by my occupation, and as time passed I wrapped myself in my solitude, and became indifferent to the world around me. I was not wanting in sympathy for the busy crowds that thronged those narrow thoroughfares daily. God forbid ! I can say with solemn truth that I never despised a single human being. I look upon each human soul as a grand Possibility — a something that cannot be mapped out or measured by the most acute of critics or the most cynical of philosophers. Try to imagine, for instance, the inner life of any striving mortal, whose weary footsteps echo upon these worn flagstones, and you repent in a moment your hasty scorn or fallible judgment. Possibly a thousand feet have hurried past in a few seconds, and, amidst all the wealth, poverty, pas- sion, vice, ignorance, or knowledge distri- tributed through that mass of humanity, QUIET HOUES IN THE CITY. there may not be found one soul that has made more than a superficial impress upon the world around it; yet there may be lying dormant in many — even in most — some of the noblest impulses of human nature. Pardon this expression of feeling. I would not be thought selfish because I am reserved. Indeed, it is not so easy after all to lose faith in humanity. Look at the poor ; how they suffer, how they strive ; how patient, how generous they are to each other ; how much there is to admire, and even to imitate ! It is not, then, be- cause I am misanthropic that I am lonely : I believe it is chiefly my own diffidence that shuts me from society, for I cannot en- dure formal introductions. In my country home any familiar remark about the wea- ther, the change of the seasons, or any peculiarity in nature, served to throw down the barrier between myself and any un- b THE OPEN AIR. known face, and all restraint was at an end at once. My occupation did not bring me either much in contact with my fellow men. I was the London agent of a foreign house, and the business was done mainly by cor- respondence. One of the partners came twice in the year to balance the books with me, and I brushed up my German and showed Herr Lowenthal the sights of London for a few days, with perhaps the rare dissipation of a visit to the Opera. Then for months again I relapsed into my dreamy mechanical life, and sometimes scarcely spoke a word from the time my office opened till dusk. I had about fifty customers to attend to, and they were men who bought largely, and with a very few words. A nod, or a raised eyebrow, settled a heavy purchase. Until my residence in the heart of the city I had never known how much I loved QUIET HOUES IN THE CITY. 7 the country. Many a quiet hour of the twilight, when the human tide had ebbed for the day, I wandered about the lanes eastward of the Royal Exchange brooding on my past happiness, seldom disturbed by a passing footstep, for the few who were left in the city after business hours were not of a rambling disposition. The contrast between the bustle of midday and the evening calm was really striking. When tired of wandering about, or when wet weather kept me indoors, I fell back upon my books or took up my violin. I could make as much noise as I pleased: there was no one to complain. The old housekeeper who had charge of the cham- bers was a deaf as a post. The poor old creature, after having all sprightliness buf- fetted out of her upon the stormy ocean of life, had drifted into this office as into a very harbour of refuge, and was, to speak nautically, "laid up high and dry," with 8 THE OPEN AIR. no desire for another voyage. Sometimes a runaway peal at the bell would startle me after the office was closed, but my housekeeper was utterly oblivious to the annoyance, and never went to the door. There were times, of course, when I could find no interest in the most agree- able book, when my violin seemed to have lost all its tone, and when Memory, seizing me in her vigorous grasp, would not part from me till she had left for my companion her shadowy sister — Regret. Then came visions of a pleasant window looking out upon an almost perfect garden, and the echoes of kindly voices waking me as of old from a delicious dream, in which by some mysterious process the odours of the garden and field were mingled with soft winds and murmurs of the stream. When aroused from my reverie there were only the narrow windows and smoke-stained walls of the opposite houses, enlivened on QUIET HOUES IN THE CITY. 9 sunny days by a birdcage, whose me- lancholy tenant had forgotten his native woodland strains, and chirped a feeble accompaniment to the noise of the street. Ah, well ! I had chosen my occupation, and must make the best of it. I had found a shelter in these gloomy streets, and a means of earning a living when my poor father's little property was lost. I could live without excessive labour or anxiety — that was something, and my personal tastes must be consulted at some indefinite period in the future, when, having made a fortune, I could once more retire to that simple country life which I so much regretted. As may be expected from a man of my temperament, the fortune never came, but as time progressed I was enabled to arrange business matters so as to take frequent journeys into the country, and sometimes abroad ; and this consoled me. 10 THE OPEN AIR. Perhaps it is owing to my solitude in the city that I find my enthusiasm for nature yearly becoming stronger. It may be also that I have a vein of poetry in my com- position which yields more abundantly the more it is worked, for each year that I go to the mountains, the woods, or the sea, I learn more from them than I can discover in any book lore, and see more than is ever delineated by Academy painters. It is the record of these happy moments which I now attempt to place before the reader. Some hints of foreign travel there are, but mainly the sketches are to be found at home. English landscape is worthy of our utmost admiration and affection. Beau- tiful in itself, it is linked with human asso- ciations full of noble and romantic interest. It was not without reason that Nathaniel Hawthorne craved for American literature those memories which make many a little rustic churchyard — many a mouldering QUIET HOUES IN THE CITY. 11 tower, mossy wall, or pointed gable — many a green hillside or shadowy avenue — land- marks in English history from generation to generation. It was not without reason that he envied the ivy-covered battle- ments of many a noble pile, where, from father to son through past centuries, noble names and noble deeds have kept their honourable companionship to the present day. It is pleasant also to wander, as one may, far from manufacturing towns and dense seaports, to lonely shores where the lapping waves echo no music but their own, and where only the light footsteps of their breaking foam imprint the solitary leagues of sand. Pleasant to wander, as one may in Sussex, mile after mile, over breezy downs and lofty headlands, almost at- taining to the dignity of mountains, and covered with delicious short grass and odorous wild thyme, with the ocean raging 12 THE OPEN AIK. and storming beneath them, and many a mile of woody landscape dotted with man- sion and spire stretching far away inland, yet so remote, so barren in themselves, that I have dreamt away a long summer's clay upon them, and come back to the road- side inn in the quiet village at night, with- out meeting a single person. Tourists who run down to a bustling watering-place, or visit a friend at some thriving farm, scarcely imagine what real solemn grandeur is sometimes very near to them. They follow the beaten track, and are not aware what they lose, for guide- books deal mainly with the towns, railway- stations, hotels, and so forth. In my yearly wanderings I have sought out these unfrequented spots in order that the contrast with my city life might be the greater, and I have been well rewarded. If sometimes my fare has been rough, and my bedroom little better than a hayloft, I QUIET HOURS IN THE CITY. 13 have been compensated by the absence of conventionality, by meeting with quaint and new types of character, and by a certain originality which is completely rounded off by town life. I glorify Nature, because I believe that when we keep Nature in sight we have an antidote to much of the world's folly and deception. Thus quietly glided away several years of my life. Sometimes in the summer I passed my leisure evenings at Kew, Eich- mond, or Hampstead, but had not spent a night out of the City, when a letter from Herr Lowenthal apprised me that an ad- dition would be made to the agency which would necessitate my keeping an assistant. It was a welcome change for me, as it pro- mised an improvement of my income and greater liberty. The old love of Nature which I had found so difficult to repress returned to me stronger than ever, and I made fifty plans for country rambles before 14 QUIET HOURS IN THE CITY. the day was over on which I received Herr Lowenthal's letter. I was fortunate, too, in my assistant. He was a young German of good family who wished to acquaint himself with Eng- lish life and improve himself in the lan- guage. He was soon capable of managing without assistance the ordinary business of the agency, and, availing myself of my unwonted liberty, I frequently left London. THE OPEN AIR. 15 CHAPTER II. MY FIEST EXCURSION. It is a fancy of mine that the really beautiful scenery within easy reach of Lon- don is not enough appreciated. Foreigners, for instance, are enraptured with Kent, while Londoners travel hundreds of miles to view inferior scenery. Kent has one peculiarity in which it is not be surpassed by any county in England, perhaps not equalled. This is in the ex- quisite colouring of its landscapes. Partly from the soil, partly from the variety of its cultivation, and the fine undulating for- mation of the land, the eye is gladdened by a richness and glow of colour, especially in ID THE OPEN AIE. the height of summer, which is hardly to be equalled. Tennyson, who spent some years of his early life upon the hills near Maidstone, notices this quality of the Kentish landscape, and it may readily be detected in his poems, as, for instance, where he speaks of A land of hops and poppy-mingled corn, and many other equally apparent though less direct allusions. We may wander from field to field enjoying the perfumes of the red clover and the bean-field — pass through the undulating grass ready for the scythe, and skirt the military -looking ranks of the hop-ground — dip down into some sheltered lane where the banks seem per- fectly alive with wild flowers of every shape and hue, for the Kentish wild flowers are famous all over the world. Then, upon some rising ground, we look out upon the windings of the Medway, with here and MY FIEST EXCURSION. 17 there a brown sail in boldest relief against the rich foliage upon the banks, or the dis- tant range of chalky hills, where the white patch of a quarry makes an effective con- trast with the dark underwood. Add to this the hoary spire of some ancient church, the comfortable gables of farmhouses in a very nest of trees, and you have the outline of many a pleasant Kentish landscape. But of course the hop-ground is the most distinctive feature, and the sharp clear outline of a forest of hop-poles, covered with a profusion of the dark beautifully- shaped leaves, and, as the season advances, enriched with the brilliant golden hue of the hops themselves, makes a most effective object upon the side of a steep hill, or as a foreground to a dark wood. These situ- ations are frequently chosen, not for their picturesqueness, but because of the shelter which a hill or a wood affords against the wild winds of the spring. The vivid c 18 THE OPEN AIR. colour already alluded to is greatly height- ened by the rich tone of the earth in the neighbourhood of the hop-ground ; for in hop cultivation it is essential above all things to exterminate those fanciful cling- ing plants and flowers which add such beauty to the wild hedgerows. The hop brooks no rival near its throne. The hop-ground has frequently been compared with the foreign vineyard, gene- rally with somewhat of an apologetic tone ; but this, I fancy, arises from the tendency of humau nature to suppose that distance lends enchantment to the view. For my own part I consider the vineyards I have seen to be anything but jjicturesque. Mile after mile in the south of France the country is covered with dwarf vines, scarcely more graceful than an ordinary gooseberry bush, while the hop, from its height and contrast with other objects in Nature, makes an imposing figure, and, when festooned from MY FIRST EXCUESION. 19 pole to pole, the golden clusters hang in the greatest profusion, ready for the picker, it is hard to imagine a more beautiful system of cultivation. A visitor from some of the barren northern moors going into Kent during the autumn must imagine himself in an earthly paradise. The mellow glow of the declining woods, the bright hues of the ripening hops, the violec tints upon the distant hills, especially towards sunset, the starry brilliancy of a million wild flowers upon every bank, make a perpetual feast for the lover of Nature. The visitor to Kent, however, during the hop-picking season, must be cautioned not to be over fastidious, for he will most likely meet with some of the queerest spe- cimens of humanity he has ever encoun- tered. Attracted by the free vagrant Bohemian kind of life, and the prospect of fair wages, Kent is invaded during the month of September by an army which is c 2 20 THE OPEN AIE. at once a study for the painter and philo- sopher. Where and how such a miscel- laneous assortment of ragamuffins have been quartered during the remaining eleven months of the year is a marvel and a mys- tery; but, punctual as the season itself, they appear. Large numbers of them are Irish, and come prepared to spend a few weeks in the open air. Pots and kettles, fryingpans and gridirons, bundles of rags to serve for bedding, with here and there, among the more provident, an old blanket or railway rug, not to mention a few un- considered trifles picked up from the hedges,, lawns, and gardens of pretty villas on the line of march — nowhere else can be witnessed such a picturesque variety in rags, sometimes patched with pieces of twenty different shades of colour, some- times unheeded and frankly revealing spaces of tawny skin. Swallow-tailed coats picked up in Houndsditch, which once per- MY FIEST EXCUESION. 21 haps covered the elegant forms of young nobles in Belgravia, trail at the wearers' heels. Hats and bonnets of every known manufacture, and in every stage of decay, decorate the heads of the dusty wayfarers, while in some cases the travellers defend their uncombed heads from the blazing sun with a flaming red or yellow handker- chief. So they tramp along, begging with- out any false shame from the passengers they meet, sometimes enlivened by the performance of a popular air upon a cracked flute or accordion, with such of its keys as remain unbroken ; at other times, when instrumental harmony is wanting, dropping down under a shady hedge, and waking the echoes of the distant hills with some roystering chorus picked up in St. Giles's, Bermondsey, or Whitechapel. It must be said in favour of this motley crew that there is seldom anything to fear from them. They are generally a thought- 22 THE OPEN AIE. less heedless set, not without some kindly feeling in the midst of their rags and wretchedness, which they show in fre- quently bringing down with them poor relatives and friends who are consumptive, or suffering from chronic diseases, for the benefit of the air and the tonic effects of the hop-grounds. When they arrive upon the scene of action, as soon as they have obtained em- ployment, their next care is respecting cooking and sleeping. It is complete gypsy life, very few of them attempting to get lodgings, which, indeed, they would not readily obtain, for amongst the rural population the "hopper" is looked upon as an outcast almost beyond the pale of ordinary humanity. Consequently, when the labour of the day is over, the pickers huddle together into any shelter they can find — shed, stable, temporary tent, mud hut, or the warm side of a haystack — where, MY FIEST EXCURSION. 23 with a little loose straw for his pillow, the tired vagrant sleeps till wakened by the blithe carol of a bird in a neighbouring tree. It is a savage life and seems unfavour- able to morality, yet I hope and believe in a time when the poor man who has to toil for his daily bread will so understand and value the simple, pure, and inex- haustible pleasures which have long been waiting for his enjoyment, that he will gain some self-respect, and endeavour to take higher ground even in an occupation so humble as that of hop-picking. We cannot hope entirely to change the habits of a lifetime, but we may make all mankind happier in the future by applying our remedies to the young. I have been surprised and sorry to see that in the beau- tiful districts I have visited no effort is made to implant a love of Nature in the minds and hearts of the young. The in- 24 THE OPEN AIE. fluence of the railway, however beneficial in a material sense, has its drawbacks, and town fashions, town pleasures, town habits and manners are carried into the remotest villages. The vices and follies which pass almost unnoticed in the glare and hurry of huge towns become offensively apparent when imported into the quiet homestead. What a noble task for those who have the leisure and opportunity, to attract the minds and feelings of the young towards those in- fluences which will counteract whatever is flashy and unreal ! There is a vast amount of ignorance and vice yet to be eradicated from many of those picturesque hamlets. Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and the world is more and more encroaching upon our tastes and habits of thought. But we have one remedy against whatever is base and sordid — the love of Nature. MY FIEST EXCUKSION. 25 In the love of Nature and the study of her marvels we have one of the chief per- manent sources of enjoyment. Other plea- sures weary us; there is a sameness in them, a want of variety, which no art can supply. There is also an effort which fatigues us easily, and in many sports and amuse- ments there is an appeal to the senses and the passions which often creates a degree of feverish excitement and leaves a cor- responding reaction after. But there is nothing in Nature to rouse an angry passion or debased feeling. There is nought in the tranquil flow of the stream, the light and shade upon the distant hill, the gor- geous hues of the sky, the rush of the waterfall, or the cloud-capped mountain, to awaken envy, hatred, malice, or any un- charitableness. There is nothing likely to call up feelings and desires, which, if they do not lead to actual crime, lower us in our own eyes and make us regret our want 26 THE OPEN AIR. of self-control. Neither is there anything to cause us even a momentary sorrow. The more closely we examine God's wonderful works, and the better we understand them, the more shall we be convinced that in their beauty He intended as valuable a service to humanity as in their usefulness. And in the study of Nature we also learn how wonderfully all the lower forms of life are linked to ourselves by almost imper- ceptible bonds. It is often remarked how insensible the inhabitants of rural districts are to the beauties which surround them, but it will be generally found that this apathy is just in proportion to the igno- rance of the locality. Once give them un- derstanding, and life becomes larger from that moment. If the imagination has never been appealed to, how is it possible to comprehend the inner spirit of all creation ? It requires cultivation before a man can feel that there is use in beauty, and beauty MY FIRST EXCURSION. 27 in use — that a thousand simple common- place objects have in them the germ of all that is grandest in Nature ? Until this knowledge is gained man views the glory that surrounds him as Wordsworth's pedlar looked at the Primrose — A primrose by a river's brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more. "But what should it be more?" asked a jovial farmer in Kent to whom I quoted the lines. I endeavoured in a humble way to make my good-humoured country friend enter into the depth of the poet's meaning. It required no little skill and patience to make him understand that state of feeling in which the meanest flower that blows may bring Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. This is one point of education which 28 MY FIRST EXCURSION. has never been insisted upon. Our public speakers and writers, when deploring the vast ignorance of the land, are apt to en- large mainly upon the material benefits of education. They point out how much more rapidly men may advance in wealth and position by increased knowledge. They should remember also the inestimable gain to morality when the mind becomes awakened to influences so pure and ele- vating, so opposed to vice and folly, as those of Nature. THE OPEN AIE. 29 CHAPTER III. AN AUTUMN MORNING. A sense of something missing ; a feel- ing in our secret hearts that to-day is not as yesterday — that we are, we scarcely know why, less eager, less enthusiastic ; a vague unconscious craving for something which seems suddenly to have been taken from us ere we were fully alive to the joy of its possession ; all this, blended with other in- definite influences too indistinct for words, yet taking a strong hold upon the feelings, and perhaps only to be interpreted by very fine and original music, oppresses me with a feeling of sadness as I look out upon the landscape from the window 30 THE OPEN AIR. of the pretty roadside inn where I am staying. Asking myself why this should be — endeavouring to analyze my feelings, to discover why I should be sad on such a day as this, when leagues of gorgeously-tinted cloud make more ethereal than ever the soft blue spaces between, there arises a myste- rious whisper, which seems an answer to my very thoughts, in the boughs beneath my window, and a shower of russet leaves fall upon the grass. That is the secret — summer has passed : all its glow, warmth, and glory, all its brightness and splendour, fade into the remembrance of summer past. It is the first day of autumn, which has come to us early, and, like grey hairs upon the head and wrinkles on the brow, has stolen upon us almost unperceived : a visitor scarcely expected yet, and not wholly wel- come. We rejoiced in the warm sun and the AUTUMN MORNING. 31 brilliant sky of the season just departed, and, now that we look around more closely, we see that many of the trees are looking bare, and their leaves turning red, yellow, and brown. Involuntarily we reckon up the weeks of dripping rain, the roaring tempestuous nights, the chill blasts, the murky skies, and muddy pathways, the biting frost, and heaped-up snow of the approaching season, which must come and go ere the pleasant time which is departing can be ours again. That a gentle sadness should touch the heart with the first days of autumn is natural enough. The time has much in it to recall other feelings than those merely external. Perhaps we are reminded by it that our youth also has departed — that we shall never more feel that simple gladness in our every-day lives and habits which is especially a privilege of the young. Never more shall we glow with that enthu- 32 THE OPEN AIR. siasm which made us wonder then why moralist and philosopher could find it in their hearts to say such bitter things of the world and its ways. It is well for us, as we look back with regret upon many a pleasant self-deception, if we can still retain a little of our youthful freshness to carry us on- ward toward the winter of life and sweeten the pangs of inevitable decay. So, when the first regret with which we watch the falling leaf, the shortening day, the mist upon the stream, the cloud-shadow upon the hill, or listen to the deepening note of the waterfall in the valley, has passed away, it is well also to mark the charm and beauty of the immediate season, and to notice how gradually, how kindly in Nature, as in human life, we are prepared for great changes — how often the great change of all comes to us more like a dream, and we glide as to a gentle slum- ber from the toil, the care, the sorrow, and AUTUMN MOENING. 33 the sin, into the unfathomable mysteries of the world beyond the tomb. Each season has its special sights and sounds, its special loveliness. One of the first marked indications of the season is the dry rustling of the boughs, so different in tone, so distinctive as compared with the sealike roar of the full-foliaged trees in the height of summer. The sky when fair is softer in tone. We lose that keen bril- liancy which, when reflected upon a still lake or gently-flowing stream, almost startled us with its minute portraiture of the skies above; we lose the fierce glare of the sun which drove us to the depth of the forest for shelter and shade. But we gain other enjoyments. There can be no more agreeable time to spend in the open air than the early autumn. The mellow light of a September sun warms without dazzling, and cheers without exciting us. If we ramble in the woods we have the 34 THE OPEN AIE. freshness of the fallen leaves as we trample them underfoot, and the varied colours of the waning leaves upon the branches. If we mount the breezy hill, we look down with calm unwinking- eyes upon the mel- low landscape, where the contrasts of colour are more effective than at any other time of the year, and the distant views are free from the glimmering haze which too frequently deadens the beauty of a fine prospect upon intensely hot days. The winding stream, swollen by gentle rains, rises to kiss the drooping foliage and hide the ugliness of the muddy bank. Its tiny voice as it trickled all summer over the weir has now grown to a full-throated roar as the mimic cascade sparkles in the light between the heavy foliage. It is so clear, so calm, so quiet all around us, that the whistling of the idle lad in a neighbouring field or the sharp yelping of a sheep-dog seems marvellously near. There is a sense AUTUMN MOKNING. 35 of plenty, too, in the autunm which has a cheering effect. The rosy beauty of the orchard, where the branches droop beneath their golden burden, and the luscious glow of ripening fruit upon the sunny garden wall, blended with the clustering bunches drooping from the vine, have each their own charm. The harvest is over. In the last magni- ficent burst of sunshine, horse, waggon, and man triumphantly grappled with the billowy golden acres. They have housed it to the last sheaf, like conquerors as they are, worthy of their spoil. Now, after the rain, the wild flowers are peeping again between the military lines of the stubble ; the hedges are dusky with millions of blackberries ; and we see heads and arms scrambling in picturesque confusion, nut- ting in the neighbouring wood. There is an air of repose about the farmyard, as though a little leisure and enjoyment d 2 36 THE OPEN AIE. must be taken before hard work is begun again. The mellow tint of the autumn is upon all we see. We wander from one spot to another, careless whether we roam in shadow or sunshine, for the sun is not unkindly nor the shadow gloomy. No better time than this for a long tramp through Devonshire, or among the beau- tiful lakes; no better time for kindly friends, out for a long tramp, joyous and full of hope, loving books and men, and with a genuine enthusiasm for Nature, to pour forth in genial confidences by the wayside their dreams and ambitions. What if a fourth of it comes to nought ? What if the golden aspirations leave but a pleasant memory in age ? Even that is something. For well may he be pitied who, looking back upon the memory-pictures of his earlier days, finds only gloom and disap- pointment there. He has not held true AUTUMN MOENING. 37 communion with Nature, or she would not thus have deserted him in the autumn of his days. The delicate influences of the atmos- phere, which mark so decisively the boun- daries of each season, are very apt to escape the notice of the townsman; yet even in the suburbs of large towns they are quite worthy of observation. True, it is difficult sometimes to detect the golden haze of an autumn fog beneath a canopy of smoke, and glowing autumn sunsets look dim and dull in the neighbourhood of a factory chimney ; but they are worth watching under any disadvantages. At no time do we find greater beauty in the garden, especially in those where some- what of a classic taste has been displayed. The soft mellow tints of the autumn blend so harmoniously with the white gleam of a statue or elegant vase ; and there is some- thing, too, in such ornamentation which 38 THE OPEN AIR. recalls human associations in the most pleasing way. Sometimes arrangements of this kind charm us like the combina- tions of fine harmony in music, with a deep sombre background of heavy leaves and far-spreading branches as the funda- mental chords of the composition, while gradual changes of colour and form blend till we get the melody, as it were, in the graceful outlines of the glowing flowers at our feet, with here and there some bolder object — a tall isolated tree, a sweep of open grass, a fountain, or fanciful bank to break the monotony of regular lines. Gar- dens such as these are seen to perfection in the autumn. And never can we enjoy a book so well as in the autumn. Generally the winds of spring are too keen, the skies too fickle, to trust ourselves to a sunny bank, or a lounge beneath a tree. In the full blaze of summer one is more apt to dream and AUTUMN MOKNING. 39 build castles in the air — more apt to let the quaint witch Memory weave her spells about us, than to think, feel, or reason upon any present topic ; but there is just sufficient glow yet — just sufficient fresh- ness, too, in the atmosphere to stimulate the fancy, and the vague sadness already alluded to, blending our human associa- tions with natural objects, encourages re- flection. Much of Tennyson's poetry has been conceived in the autumn, as any careful reader may discover. The wind- blown tree, the falling leaf, the mist, the cloud, the ruddy sunset gilding the hills and purpling the horizon ; these and other graceful and pathetic images speak to us of the waning year, its lessons, its charms, its associations and regrets. In- deed, it would be hard to imagine a poet who had not felt the influences of the autumn. Let any lover of poetry dip into Keats, and read slowly and thoughtfully -40 THE OPEN AIE. his wonderful " Ode to Autumn." There is hardly such another cabinet picture in the same space. We have the whole feel- ing, sense, and portraiture of the season in a few musical and suggestive lines. It is real poetry indeed ! How often we feel that autumn has much the same relation to other seasons that the meditative man has to the man of action. What restless striving eagerness in the youth of genius, who comes like spring, brilliant and full of promise, with alternate smiles and sighs quickly following each other as his hopes are raised or depressed by every sunny gleam of success or cloud of failure ! What bold energetic measures, what daring resolutions, what power, cou- rage, and ambition fill the summer blaze of manhood ! For a time the world seems too small for the kindling desires, the frenzy of achievement, the scope, resources, and possibilities of his intellect and will ; AUTUMN MORNING. 41 but soon the heat of pursuit brings fatigue and weariness. Ambition may with a bold leap place itself at once upon the daring eminence, but many are called and few are chosen. The chances are often against him, and before he recovers himself for a second spring he has glided almost un- consciously into a calmer, even if deeper current. He is intoxicated with the soft splendours of Thought and Reflection. He has lost the world's hall-mark that might have carried his name to futurity. The spring and the summer have gone, and already the gentle shadows of Life's Au- tumn fall upon his onward path. If he looks forward now, it is to the Winter of Age. Yet this period of his life is not without its consolations. He learns now, perhaps for the first time, the luxury of repose — the silent power of calm thought — the still delight of meditation. Much that was ob- scure in the hurry and strife of his earlier 42 THE OPEN AIE. years now becomes clear — what was moon- light and mystery has become sunshine and strength. In the world he is less, in himself he is more. He has advanced to a larger mode of thought, a deeper tone of feeling. To those who surround him he may seem colder, more self-contained, than in the days when every fancy flashed to his lips with eager haste for words to give it expression ; but it may be there are two or three familiar friends who give him * their entire sympathies, and to these he opens the treasures of feeling, thought, and experience, and regrets no more that he is in the autumn of his days. Few poets express the sweet melancholy of the autumn with so much grace as Shelley:— The day becomes more solemn and serene When noon is past : there is a harmony In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, Which through the summer is not heard nor seen, As if it could not be, as if it had not been ! AUTUMN M0ENING. 43 But there is a charm in autumn which lies beyond the power of language, how- ever sweet or graceful. It gladdens me sometimes to think that these emotions, so sweet yet so transient, so tender yet so profound, are glimpses of a world far from ours, where these passing gleams radiate from a light that shineth for ever. 44 THE OPEN AIK. CHAPTER IV. SUNDAY IN THE COUNTEY. How delightful it is, after weeks spent in the stifling atmosphere of the vast city, to escape once more into the quiet beautiful country — to see once more the calm clear sky, and, instead of the clattering waggons and hurried, tread of thousands of weary passengers over the hot pave- ment, to listen to the musical carols of the birds, fancying that they are almost chirp- ing a welcome to us as we pass beneath their leafy abodes ! But doubly welcome after the bustle of a week in town come the hush and quietness of the rural Sabbath. I speak, of course, only of those secluded spots still beyond SUNDAY IN THE COUNTEY. 45 the reach of cheap excursion trains, for, while admitting the great benefits of rail- way excursions, it must be also allowed that the sweet calm which so disposes the mind to meditation and worship — which transforms every grove into a cathedral aisle, where the worship of the heart be- comes spontaneous — which seems to bring heaven nearer, and banishes for a time so many worldly thoughts and feelings — which seems to bring its own choral music in every whisper of the gentle wind, and where the holiest associations beam upon us with the softened light of the sun struggling through the dense boughs — this peace and repose, so dear to cultivated and thoughtful minds in all ages, so rarely to be obtained amidst the bustle and worry of trade and manufacture — is especially to be valued upon those rare occasions when we can find a quaint old church in some out-of-the-way rural district, where we can 46 THE OPEN AIE. spend the Sabbath in happy forgetfulness of the money market or the factory. Such a spot I found lately upon the banks of the Thames — a spot which has been celebrated for centuries for the beauty of its sylvan scenery— a spot near which Shel- ley, lingering in his boat upon the placid waters, overshadowed by the branches of many trees, composed his " Revolt of Is- lam." It was such a place as a poet might have created from his own imagination, a spot to lie down in upon a hot summer's day, and dream over again those visions of our boyhood, so sweet, and so impossible, yet which haunt us sometimes to the last day of our existence. The beautiful intermingling of oak, beech, pine, larch, elm, ash, and sycamore in this lovely spot, taught an unconscious lesson to humanity, forming a beautiful type of the true liberty that should exist amongst our human kind. Why should SUNDAY IN THE COUNTEY. 47 not we, poor mortals, like those flourishing trees, while ever struggling upward toward a freer clearer atmosphere, yet leave scope and opportunity to our fellow-travellers in life's pilgrimage to do likewise ? Here, then, after a week of hard work in the city I found myself one Sunday morn- ing, sometimes ruminating, sometimes lost in a day-dream, listening to the rustle of the trees or the scarcely audible ripple of the river, glancing occasionally at the quiet old church, through the windows of which the sun streamed gloriously, chequering the floor of the chancel with golden lights and transparent shadows, as the trees waved to and fro, alternately admitting or obscuring the sunlight. I could not help envying the minister who officiated in this delightful place, and wondering if, for the sake of additional loaves and fishes, he was sighing for a rich living in some black manufacturing" town. 48 THE OPEN AIE. While thus musing the bells chime mer- rily. I have not heard for years such an appropriate accompaniment to the joyous summer morning. It blends with the music of the birds, the babbling stream, the sigh- ing wind, and the mysterious longing in my own heart which such a scene and such a day will often conjure up. It was a sight not to be witnessed un- moved, when little groups, young and old, rich and poor, could be seen calmly wend- ing their way to the ancient church. God be thanked there is one day when the poor rheumatic old labourer who has slaved year after year till his faculties have grown al- most as dull as the soil he cultivates — God be thanked there is one day when even he may hold up his head and remember there is One sees him who is no respecter of per- sons — that for once the squire may remem- ber that, for all his broad acres, a very few feet of earth will one day suffice him. SUNDAY IN THE COUNTEY. 49 The service begins. It seems wonder- fully in harmony with the cheerful morn- ing. Religion is, or should be, a cheering thing, and never comes home to my heart so effectually as when the red sunlight streams through upon the sacred page, or when the lights and shadows of the old trees in the churchyard glimmer and gloom upon the marble tablet or whitewashed column, or the twittering birds can be heard under the eaves of the porch during the sermon. It seems as if Nature herself smiled glad approval of our religious rites, and were ready to go hand in hand with our holiest feelings. After the storms and sorrows of our daily life, how sweet and soothing is such an hour as this ! It un- binds the chains that fifty cares and trials have wound about us. Whether we offer up praise and thanksgiving — whether we take solemn warnings from the transitory present or look hopefully forward to the 50 THE OPEN AIE. future — we cannot but be strengthened in purpose and revived in heart by the expe- rience of such a peaceful Sabbath morning. Once more in the open air, friends and neighbours cordially greet each other. Perhaps in one case there is an echo of sadness in the tone, and two or three steal away from the other groups to a distant corner of the churchyard, to speak of one who is absent evermore from their weekly assembling-place — one who in the busy street would perhaps have been unknown to the next-door dweller, but who was here both a neighbour and a friend. Some will stand in the shadow of the porch and listen to the echoing notes of the organ playing the concluding voluntary, and pre- sently the clergyman comes out, bowing and shaking hands, evidently upon the best terms with his congregation. What the text was I really cannot say, for to me the whole place — the people — SUNDAY IN THE COUNTRY. 51 each sight, sound, and feeling — was a ser- mon more impressive than any words of the preacher, though they were passable enough, and suited to the comprehension of his unlettered hearers. After the ser- vice I wandered down to the river, which seemed lovelier than I had ever seen it. Its soft and gentle flow accorded with the tranquil spirit of the day ; every tree and hill, every cloud and shadow was mirrored upon its silvery surface, and gave the scene an ideal beauty. The hues of hea- ven lighted up its breast as thoughts of heaven lighted up the deepest recesses of my heart. Never did earth and sky preach a more effective sermon. Here at least, I thought, if anywhere, one might suppose that party spirit and petty rivalry should be put aside and left at the doors of the church, as the Maho- metan leaves his slippers at the gateway of the mosque, but I found soon that there e 2 52 THE OPEN AIR. was the bitterest feud existing in the vil- lage between rival religious sects. They would not permit each other to go to heaven in their own way. Some sought amusement in their religious services, and were all for incense, music, and ritual: others preferred the barest of walls and the driest of discourses, shunning flowers of speech as much as they abhorred gilded altar-pieces, tolerating no music save what came from the unmelodious voices of the charity children, with the occasional nasal growl of a deacon or vestryman as bass accompaniment. There was a strong disposition to {jetty tyranny, also, in the matter of religion, as I learned from the remarks of a labouring man. " T'other day the squire says to me, ' Why don't you come to church, John, instead of going to the chapel over the way ?' ' Well, sir,' I says to him, ' I hear SUNDAY IN THE COUNTEY. 53 tilings at the meeting-house that suit my opinions and understanding better.' Well, of course that didn't please, for a good many thinks that a poor man shouldn't have an opinion of his own at all. Then, if a body drinks a glass of ale, somebody tells the parson or the Sunday-school teacher or the Scripture-reader, and before the next day is over the chances are a chap with a pigeon-tailed coat and a werry high shirt- co liar, rattles at the cottage door while I'm slaving away in the fields, and gives one of my little ones a tract, and says, l Mind you give your father this when he comes home, my dear.' " Well, home I come at last, tired enough, and the merry litttle innocent puts into my hand a printed paper with big letters at the top about ' The Drunkard's Doom.' Now, as I've never been drunk in my life, you may be sure I don't read the tract, and that I don't think any better of the reli- 54 THE OPEN AIE. gious feelings of the parties that give such things away." There is no doubt that this plain homely working man spoke openly what was gene- rally felt. Under the names of charity and philanthropy there was an inquisitorial system adopted, which only tended to widen the breach already existing between church and chapel. The well-meaning people who made this blunder were consequently looked upon by their poor neighbours with distrust and suspicion. We see by this little sketch of real life how difficult it is for those whose faculties are untrained to separate themselves from the little narrow details of every -day affairs. All the glories of nature upon this glorious Sabbath day; all the lessons which may be learned from the flower and the tree, from the streamlet and the sky, go for nothing with Brown, the grocer, if on the previous Saturday his rival Jones reduced his sugar SUNDAY IN THE COUNTRY. 55 a halfpenny per pouud. Poor Thompson, the butcher, dolefully questioning himself as to whether a certain " carcass " will keep till Monday, turns a deaf ear to the appeal for charity with which the sermon con- cluded. Whittlebury, the farmer, passing through a certain field of wheat, ignores the brilliant sun and the gorgeously- tinted clouds, and in his secret heart wishes the Sunday had been a pouring wet day, so that, if his own ears had lacked the warning lessons of the sermon, the ears of corn might have been fuller for the haryest. It is often to be regretted that the farmer watches so closely day by day the crops and the sea- sons. He is privileged beyond other men, in that seed-time and harvest will come in due season; that corn will redden and fruit will ripen at the appointed times, neither sooner nor later; and that all his fuming and fretting will go for nothing. But as the farmer so are we all — in sen- 56 SUNDAY IN THE COUNTEY. sible to the good that lies nearest to us. We do not see till youth has passed all the happiness and freedom which belong to that glorious season. How often do we crave in after years that we might once more, if even but for ever so short a time, travel that enchanted road, guided by the light of later experience ! How often do we recognise only when our poor friend is under the turf the treasures of sympathy and affection we have received from him, and how often do we need the severe pro- bation of a life spent in the smoky city and noisy street to make us fully alive to the glories of God's creation, and the holy calm and divine peace of a Sabbath day in the country ! THE OPEN AIR. Qt CHAPTER V. BY THE SEA. Perhaps no word of three letters has such a kindling effect upon the imagination as that simple but suggestive word, the sea. Its vastness — its mystery — its power ; its serenity in the calm and its awful sublimity in the tempest ; its sudden and wonderful changes, being alternately the kindliest friend and the most furious foe — make us regard the sea with wonder and awe. We await with some certainty the advent of the green leaf upon the tree ; we anticipate almost to an hour when the glad beauty of the rose will seem to reflect the flush of the opening dawn ; we know when 58 THE OPEN AIE. the grass will be bending beneath the scythe, and when the golden grain will fall under the reaper's hand; but beyond the ebb and flow of the recurrent tides we cannot forecast the fickle temper of the ocean. It has secrets that slumber eter- nally in its own bosom, mysterious as the tomb and vast as the world which it en- compasses. Thus, with all our delightful associations there is mingled a sense that we stand in the presence of an unknown power; that linked with the most enchanting aspects are suggestions of havoc and horror; and while we welcome it as a friend we must take the necessary precautions as against an enemy; we may have to watch, to struggle, to despair even ; yet, when the contest is ended, the treacherous victor lies smiling and basking in the light of the sun, invin- cible as it has been from the creation of the world till now. BY THE SEA. 59 But its fascination is endless. When we stand upon the quiet sands and watch the white fringe of the breakers in the subdued twilight, who can help wishing to explore some of the wonderful lands that have been washed by that eternal wave ? What fairy islands shine like gems in the glory of per- petual summer ! What fantastic rocks and unfathomable caves ! What toppling ice- bergs, glittering with the brilliancy of mil- lions of diamonds ! What towering heights crowned with exotic foliage ! What fairy sands ! What strange monsters floating in these mystical deeps! And then the light, the shadows, the wonderful colours of the transparent waters — the gorgeous harmonies of setting suns. These are visions that have tempted, and will tempt, enthusiastic adventurers till the end of time. Besides the charm of its own grandeur and beauty there are a thousand romantic 60 THE OPEN AIE. legends associated with the sea. Reading lately an old chronicle of the Danish sea- kings, I came upon an incident that would make a fine study for an imaginative painter. It described the strange burial of a Viking who had been mortally wounded in a sea-fight, Feeling that his end was near, he desired his brother warriors to lay him upon the deck and spread the sails, so that he might eventually repose wherever the wind and tide drifted him. His wish was complied with. They raised the mast and spread the sail to the breeze, while the dusky billows surged round the keel. Then, at a given signal, the vessel was launched and floated away from the shore with the dying chieftain on board. It was an incident that appealed vividly to the imagination. One can fancy the lonely vessel sweeping afar into the shadowy sea, while the marble features of the silent chief look spectral in the moonlight, and the BY THE SEA. 61 dauntless breast which now heaves only with the heaving wave throbs never more with the ardour of battle. It was a fitting burial for a Viking, thus to find an un- known sepulchre upon the element he had loved so long. There is a special sadness in a burial at sea. When death comes to us ashore there is a certain consolation in the fact that we can visit the resting-place of the beloved one in after years — perhaps in some quiet spot where, surrounded by graceful trees and pleasant flowers, the dead do not seem so utterly banished from the living. But in the great deep we lose all trace of him who has departed. Far above his head the mighty billows leap in heedless scorn of his last sleep. No mourning procession followed him to the grave. No spreading tree overshadows the spot where he lies, and his resting- place, unmarked by pillar or stone, is 62 THE OPEN AIR. invisible evermore, save to Him who watches everything He hath made, both upon the sea and the shore. One must have a narrow and prosaic nature who can watch the sea in all its varying aspects without solemn and en- nobling thoughts. Seafaring men, how- ever heedless they may be respecting re- ligious observances, have almost invariably a strong sentiment of religion in their hearts. And its practical result may be seen in the noble heroism with which poor untutored men risk their lives in cases of storm and shipwreck. It is well said by Novalis that our religion should surround us perpetually, as the sea is canopied by the sky. To those who are open to the best influences of nature, the visible leads to the invisible. The sounds and harmo- nies of the life around us suggest ideas of the deeper life above and beyond. Seldom, I think, do we feel this so readily as when BY THE SEA. 63 we wander by the seaside in the early sum- mer. The joyous elasticity of the atmo- sphere, the prophecy of golden days to come, assured to us by delicious memories of the past, consecrates our feelings of hope and gladness perhaps more than at any other period. One of the most picturesque of maritime customs is the benediction of the sea, which takes place annually upon the coast of Brittany. At the commencement of the sardine fishery the boats of each little port and bay are collected together. The masts and rigging are taken out of four or five of them, and they are covered with stout planking. An altar is then erected upon this temporary floor, and the other boats are moored as closely as possible to the floating altar decked out with flags and streamers of every hue, the forepart of each vessel being also decorated with a pro- fusion of flowers and foliage, while the 64 THE OPEN AIR. nets and tackle are carefully stowed away at the stern of each boat. The fishermen with their wives and children then kneel in the different vessels, and there is a silence broken only by the plashing of the waves and the breakers upon the beach. Soon the priest arrives, rowed by four fishermen clothed en- tirely in white. Mass is chanted while he officiates at the altar. The priest with uplifted hands then blesses the sea, the vessels, and the fishermen themselves, im- ploring for them a favourable season. Im- mediately the mass is over the crews put to sea, and in place of the previous silence and solemnity there is nought but eager- ness and activity, and soon the little fleet is receding from the shore. It would be the labour of years to do jus- tice to the life within the ocean. Take the sea anemone alone, which is often a source of wonder to the seaside visitor, especially BY THE SEA. 65 in its sensitiveness to atmospheric influ- ences. It seems to know by instinct when there is a clear calm sky, and only then will it unfold all its beauty. Let a dusky cloud hide the brilliancy of the sun, and the flower crown of the sea anemone is contracted into a formless ungraceful mass immediately. The sea has its special charm for the painter also. Even in gloom, when the surface is furrowed with white breakers, and the broad wings of the sea-gull gleam with an almost spectral light against the bosom of a black cloud ; in sunshine, too, when the outward-bound ship spreads all her flowing canvas to the light breeze, and drops down as if at the wand of a magi- cian to the under- world ; or at night, when the tall cliffs loom duskily above the hoarse surge far beneath ; or at midday, with the gorgeous cloud mirrored upon the shining surface ; — at every hour and under every F 66 THE OPEN AIE. aspect it has some beauty peculiar to itself. Civilization has wonderfully changed the feeling with which men regard the sea. In olden days it was the boundary of empires, and when the savage looked clown from the heights upon the vast ex- panse it was to him the limit of the world — he scarcely dreamt of aught beyond, while now it unites the uttermost parts of the earth. It is a highway for every nation. It is to be regretted that so few visitors to the sea take the pains to learn some- thing of its infinite wonders. How com- mon it is to see an intelligent child, when finding a curious shell or strangely-shaped fish drifted upon the sands by a larger wave than usual, asking the fond papa or mamma what is its name, and why it is so curious in its shape or movement, all of which questions are generally shuffled BY THE SEA. 67 off, and the child's attention diverted to some more common-place subject which will not reveal the ignorance of its pa- rents. This is a pity, because, in all probability, a shilling or two and a little careful read- ing would have given sufficient knowledge to direct the child's mind into the right path, and knowledge gained in such an easy and simple way would not readily be forgotten. Those who have the time and opportunity might surely spare themselves a little from frivolous amusements, which are as readily attainable in London, to learn a little more of the sea. They would be the better for their increased know- ledge, and would be spared some follies. For a walk upon the sea-shore is to the instructed a peep into a natural museum. Looking up into the fissures of the cliffs, we discover a vegetation totally different from that we have seen a mile inland, and in f 2 68 THE OPEN AIR. places where the wild billows have broken away fragments of the cliff we are let into many secrets of the earth's formation. Layer upon layer, heaped up in long- forgotten centuries, when the primeval forest covered our populous Britain, and, in place of hardy pioneers of civilization to every part of the known globe, our glens and valleys were peopled by fantastic and gigantic forms, which seem almost as fabu- lous to read of now as the whimsical crea- tions of a goblin or fairy tale. Throughout the year the sea has an infinite variety of tenants ; but as the sea- son advances and the waters are warmed by the increasing power of the sun, there is practically no limit to the strange and wonderful life of the ocean. Every little pool left by the receding waves is full of movement; the rocks are covered with zoophytes shaped like flowers, radiating like stars, branching like twigs, or the BY THE SEA. 69 fantastic shapes upon a frosted pane of glass in winter. There is an endless va- riety of form and structure, peculiarities of life and modes of reproduction. And with the genial atmosphere come flocks of birds, which are only seen at this season — bright-winged wanderers who fly to softer climes with the first blast of winter. On yonder distant sands, which look so trea- cherous now the tide is low, we shall find them picking up the millions of infini- tesimal creatures stranded there. A grand object for contemplation is the sea. In how many ways besides idly tossing pebbles into the surf we may be- come interested and elevated ! The sea has suggested some of the loftiest ideas of the poet and philosopher. So wild, so free, so terrible, so beautiful ! So fearful in its wrath, and yet so kindly. Leading us forth to distant lands of luxury and pros- perity; new fields of action, new homes 70 BY THE SEA. for the famished tenants of our oyer- populated streets. Happy is it for Eng- land that she is a maritime nation, and is — ■ Encompassed by the inyiolate sea. THE OPEN AIE. 71 CHAPTER VI. A VOYAGE ON AN ICEBEKG. While staying at the seaside I met an elderly Russian naval officer, who spoke English fluently. He had been one of the officers in Baron Wrangell's celebrated expedition to the Polar Seas, and he amused me as we sat together on the sands by narrating his former adventures. We were watching a magnificent cloud that floated across the horizon, and seemed almost to touch the surface of the ocean, when my companion called out suddenly — " Mon Dieu ! that big cloud reminds me of an iceberg upon which I once had a singular voyage." 72 THE OPEN AIR. " A voyage on an iceberg ?" I exclaimed, thinking my companion intended to amuse himself at my expense in relating some Munchausen-like story. " How did that happen ?" " It was a terribly hard life we lived in those days, you may be sure," said the Russian. " Our vessel had been wedged between tremendous blocks of ice for weeks, and there was nothing to be done but to wait for a change of temperature. There were many indications that this change was approaching, as we occasionally saw great numbers of wild birds and animals hovering about the desolate waste of snow and ice. The men, wearied with their long inactivity, proposed a shooting expe- dition. Leave being granted, a native guide, named Wetka from some peculiar word he was constantly using, and who had been taught a few phrases of the Russian language, was pressed into the A VOYAGE ON AN ICEBERG. 73 service, and arrangements were made for the start. " Our first care was to construct a sledge to be drawn by dogs. We had brought a dozen or more well-trained sagacious ani- mals from St. Petersburg, and as soon as all was ready we harnessed our dogs to the sledge, and away we went. Our steeds flew over the ice with great swiftness and steadiness, and we amused ourselves on the way by shooting a bear, a wild fox, and some very strange birds, but as we proceeded the cold became intense, the mercury formed in crystals, the oil in our chronometers became congealed, so that we lost all reckoning of time. u We, however, kept on till we came to a lofty range of ice-cliffs, some of them being nearly one hundred feet in height. We were thus effectually stopped in this direction. There was nothing to do but to turn back and endeavour to find some 74 THE OPEN AIE. other outlet. The spot we had reached was influenced by a very strong current, and fissures were constantly opening and closing about us, making lanes of water, if I may so call them, which changed their shape and direction every moment. We were groping about to find a way back, when suddenly our whole team of dogs went through a narrow opening as swiftly as the ghost descends through a trap-door at a theatre. We should most assuredly have followed them but for a huge block of ice, that filled up the opening again as soon as made and kept back the sledge. As for the poor dogs, we saw no more of them. Too intent upon saving our own lives, we jumped instantly out of the sledge and got such foothold as was practicable. We heard two or three smothered howls and whines from the poor engulphed ani- mals, and we tried to release them by shifting many heavy blocks of ice, but A VOYAGE ON AN ICEBERG. 75 the great clanger to ourselves induced us speedily to desist, and the poor dogs were sacrificed. The sudden shock had broken the tackle of the sledge, which no doubt saved our own lives. " This was a sad blow to our expedition, for we had trusted mainly to the instinct of the dogs, and now we had to rely en- tirely upon Wetka, the native guide, who became so discouraged that he gave us little hope of reaching the ship any more. To add to our perplexity, a blinding fall of snow came on. It was evident, unless something was done, we should be speedily frozen to death. We therefore set to work immediately, and built a hut with blocks of snow pounded into squares, using pieces of ice for windows. We could not afford much time for these operations, for the snow fell so fast that before we had completed our labours we were almost buried. 76 THE OPEN AIE. " When our snow palace was built we found that we had hardly allowed our- selves room enough, and were packed like herrings in a barrel. We managed fortu- nately to make a chimney, and kept a huge fire in the centre of the hut at some distance from the surrounding walls ; but even then we were not able to lay aside our fur clothing, and when I attempted to make an entry in my diary I was obliged to hold the inkstand for a quarter of an hour over the fire before I could make a mark. " We attempted to sleep after our heavy labours, and as we did so our guide Wetka, who professed to be deeply read in the signs of the weather, prophesied that a general break-up of the ice would take place shortly. We were all too tired to take much notice of this, and, even if the change did take place, we felt it must be two or three weeks before the ship would A VOYAGE ON AN ICEBEEG. 77 move from the spot where it was frozen in, and we trusted to reach it in the course of the next day. Accordingly we went to sleep at last, thoroughly tired out and hoping for the best. " A crashing, crackling, splitting sound against the walls of our snow domicile, which almost shook it to pieces, awoke us in the morning. We looked through our ice windows in utter consternation, but they were so blocked up with drifted snow that nothing could be seen. " After some delay and much alarm the wrappings which had been stuffed into the opening that served us as a doorway were removed, and our horror and astonishment may be conceived when we found that the boundless plains of ice and snow which we had traversed on the previous afternoon had all disappeared, and we were sur- rounded on all sides by water. In fact, the huge mass of ice upon which we had 78 THE OPEN AIR. erected our temporary dwelling had been separated during the night, and had drifted away into the open water. Wetha was right in his prognostication, and we ought to have trusted him. We were literally floating upon an iceberg out to sea, with only provisions and fuel for three days; and our first prospect, if we were not dashed to pieces, was starvation. The sea of ice had suddenly broken its fetters. Enormous ice-plains raised by the waves into an almost vertical position drove against each other from time to time with tremendous crashes, each successive mass rising higher and higher, while the space of water around us increased every moment till our iceberg became an island in the midst of a bay probably three to four miles across, while in the distance the rushing waters spread out indefinitely. " Our only hope was in a change of wind, or that some of the immense masses of A VOYAGE ON AN ICEBERG. 79 floating ice would gradually surround our island and freeze together. One of the sailors actually proposed to steer the ice- berg. It was a novel expedient, but worthy of a trial. The enormous mass scarcely moved, but he thought it might be possible to get some sail upon the unwieldly craft. Going to work with alacrity for some hours, we tied the poles which had sup- ported our hut together, and, with some bags and matting and the skins of two bears we had killed, constructed a rude sail, which, to our intense satisfaction, actually sustained the pressure of the wind, and soon made us sensible of a more rapid movement. " We moved along under our grotesque sail perhaps for three miles, when our course was impeded by immense quanti- ties of floating ice, and, getting into a narrower channel, we were for a time com- pletely jammed in. While we were con- 80 THE OPEN AIE. sidering our chances of escape over these treacherous fragments, the day declined (such day, at least, as it was), and a heavy fog obscured everything at two yards' dis- tance. We decided, therefore, to remain as we were, and not to venture upon un- known dangers. We could perceive a vast plain of ice at some distance, but there was no chance of reaching it, being sepa- rated from it by a wide space of water. We seemed cut off from escape on every side, and with considerable alarm awaited the night. Fortunately, the sky and ocean were calm, and we were still hopeful. In the course of the night a breeze sprang up, and gradually our iceberg began to move onward, while to our great joy the current was setting in the direction of the ice-plain I have mentioned. " In the hope of forming a causeway to the main land, we pulled toward the ice- berg all the floating pieces of ice, and by A VOYAGE ON AN ICEBERG. 81 the morning they had frozen together sufficiently to allow us to make a sortie, but we had not proceeded far when we found ourselves surrounded by innumerable crevices with a strong current flowing between. There was also every indication of a severe storm coming on, and we de- cided to remain yet a little longer on the iceberg. The breeze which had stirred us into motion now increased to a stiff gale. Cliffs of ice were dashed together every moment, and shivered into a million frag- ments, while our novel ship was tossed up and down like a Dutch lugger, and at one time threatened to topple over through the superincumbent weight. We could do nothing to help ourselves but to wait, expecting to be swallowed up. " For several hours we remained in this dangerous condition, and still our iceberg held together, when suddenly it was caught by a terrific gust, blown across the open Or 82 THE OPEN AIR. space of water, and dashed against the mighty bank of ice. The crash was so fearful, so terrible, that the iceberg upon which we had travelled was shivered like glass. " It was an awful moment, and the in- stinct of self-preservation alone saved us from immediate death. Leaping like cats over the masses of ice, which frequently slipped beneath our feet and caused us to clutch desperately the arms or legs of our companions, we clung, climbed, crawled, jumped, and scrambled till we reached a firmer portion of the ice, and all danger was for the moment over. " We had still our work, to do, having to climb ice-cliffs seventy or eighty feet in height, and frequently wading up to our waists in drifted snow, but the excitement and novelty of our position stimulated us, and the wonderful aspects of nature which met us at every step filled us with awe and A VOYAGE ON AN ICEBERG. 83 astonishment. Never more so than when at dusk the aurora borealis flamed like a triumphal arch over the northern sky — a sight of itself sufficient to reward us for much of our danger and toil. " Never shall I forget the effect of that mystic spectacle upon the mind of our guide Wetka. He was intensely super- stitious. In fact his religion, if he had any, was only a tissue of the wildest fan- cies. Every cloud in the sky, every shape of the fantastic icebergs, suggested some supernatural idea to him. His memory seemed haunted by phantom shapes, and when he saw the aurora borealis his blood- shot eyes gleamed, his lips quivered with broken sounds, and he trembled from head to foot, as though some unearthly vision had swept past him. " But he was extremely useful to us, for, where we could only perceive the same eternal waste of snow, the same tremen- g 2 84 THE OPEN AXE. dous ridges of ice, he had a kind of instinct which guided him like the scent of a wild beast in search of its prey. He evidently had some notion of his own with which he intended to guide us once more to the ship,, and, reaching a wide open space, he looked far into the distance and pointed to some object which he could see apparently, but which was quite invisible to us. Then, by incoherent words and strange grotesque attitudes, he sought to convey to us the idea that he could perceive some gigantic figure in the distance. " We still followed him, and at length came to an immense mass of ice, upon the ridge of which, frozen into its present shape, stood a figure roughly resembling a man with outstretched arms, at least fifty feet high. The moment Wetka saw the strange apparition he fell upon his face with a sudden cry, and when we at- tempted to lift him kicked and resisted, A VOYAGE ON AN ICEBEEG. 35 muttering all the while strange inarticu- late sounds. We concluded this to be an act of worship, after performing which he became quite cheerful, but still in evident awe of the ice-fiend. " When we came nearer, one of our men stated it to be a figure which the sailors had made to amuse themselves when frozen in at this spot during some former voyage. The solid state in which it remained was a convincing proof of the severity of these gloomy regions. The image had been built up with rude blocks of ice hastily thrown together without much attempt at outline, and the crevices filled with snow. The pallid sunshine of the brief summer had just melted the snow sufficiently to solidify the entire mass and improve the propor- tions of the monster, whose aspect, blending naturally with the solemn vastness of the surrounding deserts of snow and mountains of ice, was really almost sublime. 50 THE OPEN AIR. " Our sailors, however, did not see the poetry of it, but as soon as they came near proposed a race to see who would reach it first. One, more adventurous than the rest, climbed the monster and stood upon his head. " In the mean time we were anxious to get back to the ship. Wetka was ex- tremely skilful in piloting us, but our route shifted so perpetually that it was becoming excessively tedious. " However, just as we were getting very down-hearted and almost despairing of reaching the vessel, we suddenly came within sight of it at no great distance. A hearty shout from those left on board announced that they had seen us, and swiftly a boat was put off. The signs of a change of temperature were frequent. Taught by instinct, the birds and wild animals began to assemble in great num- bers. Amused with watching them while A VOYAGE ON AN ICEBERG. 87 we waited for the boat to approach us from the nearest point, we nearly allowed our- selves to be taken by surprise, for suddenly about thirty white bears of enormous size came leaping over a ledge of ice into the open space before us. " This was rather dangerous companion- ship, but, as the boat was rapidly ap- proaching, we trusted to reach the ship without the honour of Bruin's embraces, and, creeping under the shadow of a huge block of ice, congratulated ourselves upon not being discovered. Probably they had been feeding plentifully upon fish, and were disposed now for a little after-dinner recreation, for hardly had they come in sight when two or three amiable couples, hopping about on their hind paws, began patting each other in the most gro- tesque manner imaginable. This engaging conduct was speedily imitated by the whole of the party, and there was so much OO THE OPEN AIR. dancing and frisking about that the whole boat's crew were convulsed with merriment, and were quite incapable of hastening to our rescue. The consequence was that the rowers had allowed the boat to drift into a strong current, which carried it a considerable distance beyond the point where we waited for them. This accident nearly proved fatal to the whole party, for the bears suddenly suspended their festive gambols, and proved the uncertainty of the bearish nature by setting up a tremendous chorus of yells and howls quite out of har- mony with their former gay demeanour. The boat's crew now pulled for very life, but they had at least twenty minutes' work before them, by which time it seemed not unlikely that we should furnish a second repast for our white-haired antagonists, who now scrambled toward us with a rapid pace, evidently intending mischief. " We had only two guns, and but a small A VOYAGE ON AN ICEBERG. 89 supply of powder. Wetka had a long knife, which he could use with great dex- terity, and seemed rather amused by the prospect of a sharp tussle. His skill was soon put to the test, for one of the biggest brutes lea23ed at him with a terrific howl, unmusical as the shriek of a rusty hinge. Wetka was cool, and one determined blow with his long knife sealed the creature's doom, while at the same moment I suc- ceeded in shooting another through the head. Other shots were fired, but with no result. All our powder was gone, and twenty-eight of our foes yet remained eager for the fray. */ The boat was nearing us still, and was making for a long narrow ledge of ice. This was an unfortunate choice, as we imagined, on the part of the crew, for this mimic quay would hardly admit of two persons passing abreast along it. Wetka shouted to us with all his might to make 90 THE OPEN AIE. for the point, and we did so, reaching its extreme end just at the same moment as the boat. " Looking back, we saw Wetka was left behind. He was standing at the other end of this narrow icy causeway, and the bears were close upon him. There was no room for the bears to pass him, but, while they crowded and jostled each other in their attempts to reach him, scarce one of them escaped without a hearty plunge from his long knife, which was followed by a victorious cry of ' Ya! ha!' when he saw three of his foes tumble into the water mortally wounded. All this time he had been retreating step by step, while the boat was brought near very cautiously lest the bears should attempt to jump into it and swamp us. Wetka understood our motives, but, watching his opportunity, took a flying leap, and reached the boat safely. In a few minutes we were once A VOYAGE ON AN ICEBERG. 91 more on board the ship, which many of us never expected to see again. It was my first, and I hope it may be my last, voyage on an iceberg." 92 THE OPEN AIR. CHAPTER VII. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. It must be confessed that country life has not as yet entered so keenly as town life into the spirit of the changes likely to corne over our native land. The rustic population is slower to mark the impor- tance of the change, and has not shown much sympathy with the lofty confidence and gallant efforts of those whose political vision reveals to them the prospect of a vast and noble revolution for the people at large. Possibly the time of year may have some- thing to do with this apparent apathy. It is in the fulness of the summer that Country SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 93 Life claims its reward for the labour and forethought of the whole year ; when each gleam of sunshine and every passing cloud are watched keenly, and when the changes of a few hours may materially influence the farmer's prospects. During the remainder of the season it is natural enough that he is unwilling to have his thoughts diverted to other objects, however interesting. His world for the time is bounded by the hedges of his outlying fields. His political creed for the moment is apt to be conservative ; he is a sun-worshipper, and, though a staunch churchman, listens with greater interest to the voice of the wind than to that of the preacher. For the labourer, too, there are extra beer and extra pay, and a smile lights up the sunburnt face at the prospect of Saturday's wages. But when the harvest is stored, and friends and neighbours drop in as the evenings grow longer to take a social pipe, 94 THE OPEN AIR. and compare notes with past harvests, and speculate upon the state of the markets, there will probably mingle with their talk some notions of the political future. Mem- bers of Parliament, too, will be looking them up, and keen-eyed agents sounding them as to the coming election on their way to market and fair. Bills printed in rainbow colours will mysteriously blossom upon barndoor, gate, and stile, full of alarming warnings, and, perhaps, even more alarming promises, for it is hard to say what a man will not promise under the influence of political excitement. Then Jack Noakes and Thomas Styles, from hearing the penny paper read (would they could read it themselves !) at the road- side inn, fired with the idea that they also will have something to say as to the future member, will put puzzling questions to their employers, and, making sudden plunges into the political current, will find SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 95 the stream altogether too deep for them, and be sadly muddled thereat. Still, in spite of many blunders and much confu- sion, the good work is actually in hand, and the tide cannot rise to this height without floating the good ship Reform into many a choked-up creek and inlet, impene- trably closed before, and we shall feel the heart of the nation throbbing with its fuller development of the national will. A large portion of our English life has brought little fruit during the two past centuries. The last great outpour of popular feeling was when our dear country was reddened with the blood of her patriots in the Civil War. Another vast stride must inevitably be taken during the bloodless war of opinion which is approaching. We hope and believe in the humanising influences of the closer personal relations which will be pos- sible when the larger destinies of our land force even upon the most apathetic some 98 THE OPEN AIE. sense of their glorious privileges. It will be useless any longer to shut the eyes or the lips upon the great questions of right and wrong, and the way those questions affect the great mass of the people. Much there will be, no doubt, to disgust the over-refined. There will also be many too blind to see the full significance of the coming time, who will be loth to take leave of the ancient ways, and grope through new and difficult paths in partial darkness ; but the moment comes, and that soon, when it will, not be possible to blink any just claim of humanity because of its ignorance, its passions, its follies, or the humbleness of its position. This very question of humbleness of position brings us at once to the great claims of poorer Country Life. There is something tragically interesting in the sight of great numbers of our fellow-crea- tures shut out by the veil of ignorance SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 97 from the fairer prospects of life — strug- gling from the cradle to the grave, guided only by blind instinct or false lights, lying down at the end of their pilgrimage with the blighting chill of scepticism in their hearts, believing in nothing, hoping in little, save the cold shade of forgetfulness closing around them. Happiest are they whose ignorance induces only a blind credulity. They at least have lived the simple trusting lives of children. Yet there are some who consider this state of things natural and inevitable, who, satisfied with that outward calm which the peace and quietness of the country induces, believe that no change is necessary. Hodge and Griles are the human machines, who during past centuries have tilled the soil, and when they are sleeping under the shadowy yews of yonder little church- yard their sons and grandsons will do like- wise. VtS THE OPEN AIR. I look upon these homely, uncultivated, but not the less human lives, with deep pity. If, like the brute, they escape some of the keen pangs that assail those of higher sensibility, consider also, you who are blest with the full glow of modern civi- lisation; whose daily sympathies, quick- ened by the telegraph and the press, embrace the far corners of the earth ; whose vision is enlarged, whose instincts are re- fined, whose passions are kept — at least outwardly — under control ; think how narrow life must be enlivened only by the glow of an occasional evening spent at the alehouse, with perhaps the dreary humour of an obscene ballad accompanying it ; with once or twice in the year the brutish revels of a country fair. Happily, even to these Nature is beneficent ; she gives even when we are not ready to receive ; she has splendour even if we are blind, music even if we are deaf. Little as the rustic can under- SOCIAL AKD POLITICAL. 99 stand of her sublimity or mystery, he is not entirely uninfluenced by it. But a wider horizon will soon be visible, and its need in agricultural districts is even more urgent than elsewhere. We cannot blame the Church, for there are many thou- sands of our rural population who associate with the Church all that is purest and most sacred in this life, and most hopeful of the life to come. Yet we do not regard the Church as faultless, or believe that it fulfils more than partially the high destiny of a truly Catholic Church. There may come a time, and we do not say so with any dis- respect, when the gold mingled with the dross of Romanism and the gold mingled with the dross of Protestantism will unite for the everlasting and universal welfare of mankind. Meanwhile let us rejoice that we are not standing still waiting for the good time, but that the order is given for the march. h 2 100 THE OPEN AIE. We will not abuse the past. It has done its work : as the soil which last year grew the plant, the fruit, and the flower, that were yesterday consumed, is the same soil in which wo place the seed of the future harvest, so is the good solid ground of our English life capable of a new and vigorous growth, suited to the necessities of the future. If, like other cultivators, we now see clearly how many weeds choked the soil, and what parasites clung round the finest growths in past times, so much the better. We shall smile when we see the golden ears of the next crop waving in the place of the poppies and bindweed of the last. We have been so long accustomed to boast of our intellectual powers as a nation, our bravery, our freedom, our enterprise, our influence in the uttermost parts of the earth, that we have become almost blind to the many dark shadows now obscuring the SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 101 brightness of a glorious past. The great movement which will soon stir English life to the centre will teach us to look at home before we pass indiscriminate judgments upon other empires. How much must be done ere we can justify ourselves in the eyes of foreign nations for the high enco- miums we pass upon ourselves ! What a vigorous effort must be made to blot out the scandals of the National Church, and make it fairly represent the religious life of the nation ! How many idols must be thrown down which, under various names, usurp the sacred places ! How many dark, undiscovered, strange, and fiendish crimes must be brought to light ! How much has to be done in education of the poor ? Not- withstanding our boasted wealth, how many thousands of our working population are destitute, and herding together like wild beasts rather than Christian men and women, because confidence is so shaken 102 THE OPEN AIE. that the wealthy know not in what scheme to embark with safety. Then the monopo- list grinds down the price of labour, and the house-owner exacts the uttermost far- thing for the miserable hovel in which the workman and his family spend their days. We have been over-confident, too. We believed that our machinery and our wealth would at all times keep us in the foremost rank — that we should still continue to be the workshop of the world — but that fond delusion is rapidly passing away. The cul- tivation and progress of other nations teach only too clearly the deficiency of England at the present time. Work of the highest quality comes into our markets at lower rates than were conceived possible. It was high time that our eyes should be opened, and an attempt made to infuse new life, new ideas, new rules of conduct into our national life. We cannot but hope that the self-respect SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 103 engendered by this great political advance will be a death-blow to the great curse of England — Ignorance. It is useless to point out the cheapness of books to the man who cannot read. Only this morning, in the fashionable watering-place of Hastings, a decent-looking young woman asked me to read to her a handbill in a shop window. She was seeking a situation as a domestic servant, having walked into the town from one of the inland villages — the name of which I have forgotten — and did not know one letter of the alphabet from another. How is it possible for her to rise in the social scale? What prospect has she but to drudge while her strength lasts, and finally to end her days in the workhouse ? It is humiliating to reflect upon the con- dition of some agricultural districts. Sur- rounded by the elevating influences of Nature — with so much that conduces to human happiness on every side of them — 104 SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. there is yet to be found much misery and crime. Country Life has its duties as well as its pleasures, and, while the statesman and the noble, escaping from the smoke and strife of the city, are only too glad of repose and enjoyment, it is not too much to ask of them, at an important time like the present, to rouse the rustic population about them. In the town political insight is more common. The competition, the sharp struggle of man with man in trade, in meehanical resources, art and science, will make even the humblest artisan alive to his own interest and importance ; but, apart from the busy highways of life, there are thousands who need, if they do not claim, our anxious consideration. THE OPEN AIE. 105 CHAPTER VIII. THE MOUNTAINS. The English seem to have a greater love for mountain scenery than any other na- tion. In this no doubt they have been greatly stimulated by the poets. Byron, Shelley, Coleridge, and Wordsworth, all have written eloquently upon mountain scenery. Nor must we forget the exqui- site language in which Ruskin has painted the glories of the avalanche and snow-clad precipice — language which, with nearly the fire and much of the colouring of fine poetry, has also the advantage of technical knowledge of art, so that while we enjoy the picturesqueness of his description, we 106 THE OPEN AIE. feel that we are also acquiring valuable in- formation. Rarely, indeed, does a Frenchman enjoy or understand the vastness and sublimity of mountain scenery. It is true M. Miche- let, in a work recently published, has writ- ten some wonderful rhapsodies respecting a mountain, but after reading his inflated sentences we do not feel that we know much more of the mountain itself. We cannot, by the aid of his extravagant ideas, shut our eyes and recall any mountain scenery through which we have travelled, while it would be easy to quote passages from the works of the authors we have named which bring before the mind's eye the most vivid and faithful reminiscences of the snow-crowned height and everlast- ing glacier. The Frenchman generally carries Paris with him, whether he journeys to the mountain or the ocean. It is quite amus- THE MOUNTAINS. 107 ing to read in Mr. Blackburn's tour in the Pyrenees how, at a certain hour, the whole French population of a little town in the heart of the mountains turned out dressed in the very latest fashion of the Boulevard des Italiens, and solemnly pro- menaded the little street, making a Paris in miniature in front of solitudes never trodden by foot of man. Accompanying the roar of the awful torrent with frivolous echoes of the fashionable world ; watching the crown of a sky-piercing pinnacle through the smoke of a very bad cigar, with one ear catching the crash of the dis- tant avalanche, or the howling of the blast in the pine forest, and the other atten- tive to the light coquetries of Madame leaning on his arm. An extensive view is generally one of the chief attractions to the country house of an Englishman of means, but at Pau, one of the chief towns in the Pyrenees — 108 THE OPEN AIE. standing too in a position to command the entire mountain range — many of the prin- cipal houses have not a single window opening upon that wonderful propect, and the chief hotel absolutely turns its back upon the mountain glories* I am proud to know that some thou- sands of my countrymen are, while I write this j watching with delighted eyes many of these truly sublime scenes — wandering through the toy-like villages nestled at the bases of those stupendous heights — gazing up to the forests of dark the craggy bat- tlements far above them — dwelling with delighted eyes upon the little patches of greensward in the clefts of the pre- cipices — looking higher and higher to the vast forms lost in the clouds — or tracing lower down the tiny specks which villagers will tell them are moun- tain homes — or standing upon some rude wooden bridge looking at the torrent which THE MOUNTAINS. 109 leaps madly oyer the rocks, and raves ceaselessly in obscure and seemingly un- fathomable depths below. At first to some minds there is a sense of oppression amid this vastness and gran- deur, but soon the eye wanders in search of human associations, and learns to con- nect the life of the simple hunter and shep- herd, in the specks of wooden chalets dotted about, with the wonders and sub- limity of Nature. One remembers that human hands have reared this rustic bridge, and battered out with infinite labour the tiny thread of a path that wan- ders round some distant height; and in losing the feeling of isolation Nature gains upon us rather than otherwise, by the very contrast of her tremendous power and solemnity with the puny efforts around us. And the simple habits of these primitive people acquire greater significance from their surroundings. We hear the sound 110 THE OPEN AIR. of a shepherd's pipe echoing in the passes, or sometimes the voices of unseen speakers are borne to us from the fir-clad height, or even from the bosom of a cloud. We hear the merry laughter of children ascending from some valley beneath us, or the tin- kling bell in a pointed spire ; and when the roseate flush of the departing sun lingers upon the snowy peaks, and a purple haze spreads over the neighbouring valley, we wind once more down the rocky path, and welcome gladly the tiny twinkling lights in the cottage windows. It appears strange that mountainous dis- tricts produce so few poets and painters. The most exquisite descriptions in prose and poetry of mountain glories have been from dwellers in the plains. So, too, in painting. But it must be remembered that the mountain life to those who have it perpetually is a hard one. The towns- man seeks the mountain world when it is THE MOUNTAINS. Ill full of glorious beauty, but in the short summer there is much for the farmer and herdsman to do. His little crop of hay must be got up in some brief interval of unclouded weather, and even when it is ready to be stacked a sudden flood may leap from a dusky crag and carry off his crop, and he sees in a moment the produce of the year washed into some fearful ra- vine. The visitor comes when Nature is in her happiest mood, and it is only by accident he discovers what a battle with Nature and the elements there must be for the dwellers in those fairylike cottages. The inhabitant of the open country has an earlier spring and a later autumn than the mountaineer, and often in the depth of winter there are sunny days which bring back reminiscences of the departed sum- mer. Long ere the mellow autumn tints have faded from the southern landscape the 112 THE OPEN AIR. mountaineer looks wistfully at the whiten- ing tops of the savage peaks, and knows that for months he will not see his neigh- bour or relative in the next village, though it may be scarcely half a dozen miles away. He does not muse upon the beauty of his mountain life, but upon its dangers and privations. As he watches the peaceful home where his whole life has been spent, he thoughtfully considers how that roof may best be protected from the angry wind or the cruel avalanche. He has to store up his humble stock of provisions against the time when he may have literally to dig his way through the snow- drift to reach his next neighbour's door. And, if illness or death should approach him in that gloomy season, it comes with a solemnity unknown to more genial climes. In the south Nature smiles upon our grief, and it is soon forgotten. Even upon death itself we cannot dwell mourn- THE MOUNTAINS. 113 fully for any length of time when there is such exuberant life around us. But in these awful solitudes the shrieking tem- pest, the roaring torrent, the solid frown- ing wall of granite capped with everlasting snow, awaken strange thoughts and ghostly visions. They tend rather to superstitious awe than to the calm and critical moods which lead to creative art. But, coming from the town or the plain, what a revelation then is mountain scenery! What weird uncertain lights and shadows ; what eagerness of expectation ; what glad surprise, when, after watching many weary hours, we see the wondrous misty veil slowly upraised from the awful face of some storm-blasted peak ! Upheaving like a shadowy sea, the flood of vapour slowly rolls aside, and seemingly midway between earth and heaven stands forth the bare and rugged front of the mountain in all its silent majesty and power. Then it may that the 114 THE OPEN AIR. sun, long obscured, breaks forth as if re- joicing and welcoming the stony monarch, salutes him with a beaming smile, and with one instantaneous magical touch transforms his misty garment into the most ethereal robes that were ever gathered round a majestic form. What exquisite delight, after months spent in the crowded streets, to gaze upon the rainbow hues that stretch above the sweep of the rushing water- fall ; to hear the echoing din of the mad cataract as it plunges down and scatters its foam upon the surrounding rocks; to stand and dream, as in a sublime trance, of the secret caves, where never shone the light of the sun, from which this boiling torrent has escaped; to feel that the whirling torrent has almost a sympathy with us, and rushes wixh increased speed and fury from the icy prison where it has been confined into the joyous light of the sun! THE MOUNTAINS. 115 If we have not the grandeur of the Alps and the Pyrenees near at hand, we have within a few hours' journey mountain sce- nery which has an especial charm of its own, and which may be explored without danger or violent fatigue. I have had many walking excursions in North Wales, where there are glorious scenes lying near to each other. The Vale of Nant-Francon, between Bangor snd Capel Currig, is full of beauties : the road winds between the mountains mile after mile, the valley some- times contracting till there is hardly room for the roadway, and the lofty crags as- sume the most picturesque shapes. Then, as we approach nearer the Snowdon dis- trict, the mountains become more rugged and wild, and the eye is gladdened with the sight of many a furious little cascade rushing between the massive rocks, and in the endless play of light and shadow made by the fleeting clouds upon the grim sides i 2 116 THE OPEN AIK. of the mountains there is a perpetual study for the poet and artist. All who visit mountain districts should be able to sketch a little. It adds immensely to the enjoyment of the tourist. It is true most of Nature's grander scenes are de- picted by the landscape-painter and the pho- tographer ; but there are a thousand little nooks and corners, not mentioned in guide- books, which, sketched ever so rudely, be- come pleasant memories years after. I have the outline of the first mountains I ever saw, drawn with a common pencil upon a piece of note-paper two inches square. An artist would make nothing of it, but to me it recalls in a moment some of the happiest feelings I have ever known. I had been walking with a friend through the Pass of Llanberis ; the day had been very sultry, and was fast declining ; there was an utter stillness in the air and not the slightest breath of wind ; the sky was obscure but THE MOUNTAINS. 117 calm, and the only sound that reached the ear was the trickling of a tiny rivulet near at hand. Nothing could be more solemn and peaceful than the time and the scene, when suddenly a crash that seemed to make the very rocks tremble was heard in the mountains, and echoed again and again through the pass. In a moment the sky was like night, and the arrowed lightning shot downwards into the dusky glens, or quivered round the blasted crags, till the whole mountain range seemed on fire. And such rain! We clambered up the side of a crag to escape a drenching, and there for an hour we watched and listened with wonder and awe. The storm passed almost as suddenly as it came, and the grand crest of Snowdon, tinged with the hues of sunset, was looking as calm as though no storm had ever assailed its lofty brow. Then the mountain streams ! Who that 118 THE OPEN AIE. has seen the Llugwy can ever forget that glorious little river, so various in its moods ; at one moment so fierce, at another so calm ; prattling in one place like the inno- cent chatter of a lively child; rippling onward in a wealth of fairy-like tones amongst the pearly pebbles that shine in its transparent bed, or beneath the drooping boughs expanding to a deep pool, where in the cool twilight the silver fish leap like schoolboys at play. Then disappearing altogether, playing at hide and seek be- tween overhanging rocks and dense foliage far beneath the narrow road, and we seem to have lost it entirely. Soon its voice is louder, and with a rush and a roar it plunges into a dusky gulf, and the con- tinually-ascending spray makes all the foliage covering the rocks a heavenly green. The furious little stream is hidden again, but lo ! a little further down the Llugwy is once more a placid current, THE MOUNTAINS. 119 where the moonbeams linger lovingly, and its voice babbles as softly as old age re- counting the dangers and perils of its stormy youth. 120 THE OPEN AIE. CHAPTER IX. CONTRASTS. I found in conversation with some re- fined and cultivated townsmen lately a general impression that Country Life tended to coarseness and vulgarity — that it was impossible to preserve that delicacy of manner and polite ease which are so much valued at the West End a dozen miles beyond the charmed Belgravian circle, unless, indeed, they visited some of the special districts consecrated by fashion. Then, in the midst of a smaller, though exactly similar circle to that they had left, they carried with them town manners, dresses, and habits; dined at the same CONTEASTS. 121 hours, visited, shopped, told the same scandal, and played the same pieces on the piano, with croquet, flirtation, and so forth, exactly as in town the week previously. If by chance they encoun- tered a plain honest family — say that of a wealthy farmer, perhaps — they were shocked at the absence of conventional re- finement, and set down their simple and unaffected manners to ignorance or vul- garity, forgetting that there is a vulgarity much worse than plainness of sjDeech or awkwardness of motion — the vulgarity of mere finery. It would do some of our fashionable ladies much good to go occasionally into such neighbourhoods as Bethnal Green or Spitalfields. There are also some highly- flavoured localities in the direction of Poplar and the Isle of Dogs which may be recommended to their notice, and some remarkable specimens of the mother tongue 122 THE OPEN AIE. catch, the ear about Bermondsey and Lea- ther Lane, which would astonish them not a little. But our aristocratic friends will not judge the matter fairly. They see a few dirty tramps lounging at the door of a village inn, or sprawling under a hedge by the dusty wayside. They see a fat red-faced labourer under the influence of a " sunstroke," as it is humorously called in hot weather, but which could be better explained at the " Coach and Horses," or " Old Red Lion," taking a greater breadth of the pathway through the meadow than rightfully comes to his share, or filling up the towing-path by the river in a per- plexing way, which makes one hope that the water is not deep, or that our friend in his cups can swim. Or we may be dis- turbed sometimes, just when we wished to hear the nightingale, by that too noisy chorus from the Sons of Harmony at the CONTEASTS. 123 " Cross Roads " beershop. But all this is completely on the surface — we can mea- sure its length and breadth quite easily: the drawback is that it is so readily ob- served by the stranger. But does one man or woman of ten thousand in the higher circles know, un- derstand, or believe the terrible life which is so near to them ? There are few country cottages so filthy as to be absolutely re- pellent to a cultivated person, and there are few of their homely inhabitants who do not make some attempt at polishing up place and person if they receive any en- couragement or sympathy from the class above them ; but for real downright aban- doned brutality — for life that shames the very beasts that perish — life that seems heedless of a past and unconscious of a future — life defiant of law and order, kept only within the line of humanity by sternly repressive measures, we must seek the 124 THE OPEN AIR. slums and dens of London. In this vast city, rich with the spoils of centuries, send- ing its beacon-lights of science and dis- covery to the uttermost parts of the earth — great in its freedom, sublime in its j)ower, unrivalled in its extent — it is in this laby- rinth we must look if we would also dis- cover human nature the most fallen, human instincts the most depraved, human pas- sions the most fiendish, of any spot upon the habitable globe. It may be safely said that human nature left to itself — neglected, ignorant, coarse though it be — does not, as a rule, sink so low as this in the country. And this is a fact which our lawgivers should remem- ber. The isolation of the country gives greater prominence to the individual vil- lain, but that the association of criminals breeds crime there is only too positive evi- dence in the state of our streets. Notwith- standing the number of police patrolling CONTEASTS. 125 our thoroughfares by clay and night, not- withstanding the strict watch and ward we keep upon our individual homes, how con- stant and horrible are the crimes of large cities ! Can there be a more telling satire upon our boasted civilisation than the fact that we dare not trust our wives or sisters in even the most frequented streets with- out protection ? Yet, wilfully ignorant of all this, the Sybarite with his glass in his eye, and his scented handkerchief to his nostrils, shudders at a heap of manure by the wayside as he passes it in his carriage, and when he gets back to his beloved square or terrace tells, in lisping tones and with bated breath, the horrors of the country. To such as these I leave the glories of the town, the fashionable promenade, the mill- horse round of pleasure, " and that unrest which men miscall delight." My sympa- thies are rather with those who seek the most secret and exquisite haunts of Nature, 126 THE OPEN AIE. and who love them ; who dwell with a dear delight upon the flood of sunshine sweeping over a golden field of corn, or a meadow blazing with buttercups in the early spring; who love the mysterious sha- dow of the forest and the music of the wind in the branches ; the sudden shower pattering down between the roll of the dis- tant thunder; who watch with subdued but heartfelt pleasure the sacred stillness of the falling snow ; who, if they traverse wilder climes, are fully alive to the won- ders of the pine-clad precipice, the creep- ing glacier, the fierce torrent ; who discern amid the beauty something deeper and of wider import than the mere scenic effect of the theatre upon a vaster scale ; who be- lieve that in every age and clime, from the savage to the sage, God has left some ser- mon in the stone — some book in the run- ning brook, full of meaning to those who will listen to their voices. CONTKASTS. 127 It appears to me most conclusive that the proportion of crime and worldliness must be greater where large masses of peo- ple are congregated together. Losing the wholesome and soothing effect which com- munion with Nature has upon the senses, we are thrown backward upon personal in- fluences — we are filled with those petty irritations and caprices which grow so freely when humanity is cooped up in a narrow compass. Not only are we less tolerant of those who surround us when living a feverish and anxious life, but we suffer grievously in ourselves for want of that balance of the mind, that repose and firmness which a little thoughtfulness and contemplation will give. A closer alliance with Nature would re- duce the number of our fancied wants, would keep us out of the reach of many seductive follies and grave temptations. Memory, instead of being, as it often is, 128 THE OPEN AIE. a weariness, would become one of life's choicest gifts. It is because we have not enough pleasant memories that we so eagerly peer forward into the future, so eagerly clutch the present. Our remem- brances are of something artificial, some- thing not spontaneous or soothing. We lose in the street all sense of the exquisite charm of growth; a sense of constant change and variety, coming and going without our aid, almost without our knowledge; a glory and a mystery equally beyond our rivalry or control. These magnificent images, these delightful impressions, these sacred associations, are not of the town, but God has bestowed them for the joy and well- being of those who can understand them. The great poet is but the mouthpiece of these memories and experiences, and though it may be but the fortune of one in a million to make his keenness of observa- tion universal, it is within the power of CONTRASTS. 129 most to share to some extent his plea- surable feelings. Especially with the great events of life we notice the dulling and hardening effect of the Town. The hearse and the railway van jostle each other in the march of mo- dern civilisation ; the ledger goes hand in hand with the Bible, and the sweet voices of childhood echo with the frantic curse of the sot and the despairing wail of the suicide. Humanity has no extremes that do not meet in the hurry and rush of this Babylonian strife. Children suffer greatly from the loss of associations in nature which stamp themselves ineffaceably upon the heart and affections, and make life seem sweeter and purer ever afterwards. If, as many suppose, large towns swal- lowing up smaller centres, and ultimately sweeping away village life altogether, be the ultimate change for England, there is all the greater reason for some counter- K 130 CONTRASTS. acting influence. We must go ofteDer than ever to Nature, not for amusement merely, but for her teaching — for that constant re- ference to first principles, without which there is little real happiness. It is only thus we can feel our mortality less, our immortality more. Thousands of humble capacity drink in the inner spirit of Nature, though unable, like the poet, to give any active sign of the influence which makes their lives and everyday actions purer and more elevated. To such as these life has mysteries, depths, and sublimities unknown to the mere votary of Fashion. THE OPEN AIK. 131 CHAPTER X. SURREY LANDSCAPES. Rambling lately in the lane leading from Dorking to Leith Hill, I chanced upon a little nook that glowed with every charm that a combination of trees could present. The narrow lane wound round a hill between lofty banks where five or six huge pines with sunny stems reared their heads. Between them were two or three poplars, some dwarf beeches and stunted oaks, with a foreground of lofty bank covered with brushwood and wild flowers. Through an opening in the trees could be seen little patches of grass, green as eme- rald, and, to make an effective contrast k 2 132 THE OPEN AIR. with its freshness, a number of huge blocks of hoary stone peeped out like hermits from their cells. It was enchanting. Alas ! in time, perhaps, some speculative builder will discover the spot, and there may be a row of u desirable mansions " upon the brow of that lovely eminence with their ghastly, gaunt, and ominous stucco fronts staring out of countenance the modest purple-tinted face of Leith Hill. Nothing charms the lover of trees more than their wonderful variety. How dif- ferent the tapering poplar, shooting up into the sky like a graceful tower, from the sombre yew, spreading so far its shadowy wings, and seeming always to be found in the quiet company of the dead, year by year, as its branches extend, deepening their gloom above the quiet sleepers, as time too often makes us oblivious to those who were once our daily companions and familiar friends ! How much more cheerful SURREY LANDSCAPES. 133 is the graceful and homely elm, so often seen raising its stalwart trunk in the neigh- bourhood of a busy farmyard, and with its light feathery topmost boughs almost hiding a stack of twisted chimneys, or some quaint old gable end ! There is an air of homeliness about the elm wherever you may see it. We rarely associate it with solitude and desolation. Children play beneath its branches, and when the stormy winds of a late autumn sweep through the boughs the elm has a music of its own, more like the airy buoyancy of Mendelssohn than the piercing Beethoven wail that sobs in the gnarled branches of the Druid-like oak. But is not the oak a noble tree likewise? Characteristic of England and the English ; slow in growth, angular in shape if you will; but long- enduring, ponderous, defiant as a rock, it has a rugged aspect that seems to invite a struggle with the elements. One can 134 THE OPEN AIE. fancy it sometimes on a spring day, with its pale leaf, half-golden, half-green, seem- ing almost to smile at its easy victory over the wintry blast for the hundredth time. The glorious luxuriance of woodland constitutes the chief beauty of the views from Leith Hill. In general outline the scenery has often been compared with that of the Campagna seen from the vicinity of Rome, but the grace, richness, and variety of colour in the various groups of trees give a vast superiority to the English land- scape. The oaks of Surrey have been famous for centuries. The " King's Oak" at Telford is mentioned as far back as 1150 in the charter granted to the monks of Waverley by Henry de Blois, and there is the oak at Addlestone, which was once the boundary of Windsor Forest, and under which Queen Elizabeth dined and Wycliife preached. There are also cedars of truly SUEREY LANDSCAPES. 135 wonderful growth. One in the lovely grounds of Peper Harrow is nearly sixteen feet in circumference, and the branches spread in one direction nearly a hundred feet. It was a glorious walk to these beautiful grounds through lanes where the over- arching trees meeting aloft made a dim religious light like the solemn aisles of a cathedral, while the glimpses of sunlight peeping here and there between the leaves helped not a little to carry out the idea. There are plenty of such scenes in this locality, and, if one would dream away a sultry afternoon over a sweet romance or musical old poet, let him choose some wide- spreading tree in one of the many noble parks in Surrey ; there let him muse till from the shadows of the surrounding glades he may fancy nymph and fawn weaving some enchanted mesh to keep him prisoner in their fairy dominions for ever. There 136 THE OPEN AIE. let him muse, the world forgetting and by the world forgotten — away from even the echoes of worldly tasks and toils, till the rabbits, oblivious of his presence, leap over his feet into the masses of feathery fern. Nor let him leave the spot till the moon is high in heaven, and he will be aston- ished at the strange weird effect of the moonlight streaming between the ghostly arms of a giant tree centuries old. What wondrous phantoms we can fancy peopling the dusky recesses of those sylvan avenues, what fantastic lights and shadows dance before us as we emerge from the myste- rious gloom. At no other time do trees appear so romantic, save sometimes in the sunset, and then one may watch the black- ening train of a colony of rooks winding home in the softened light toward the dense branches of some magnificent avenue of elms, their hoarse cawing startling us for a moment as they wheel above our heads, SUEEEY LANDSCAPES. 137 and impressing us still more by their sud- den noise with the peacefulness of the twi- light calm. Sometimes on the skirts of a woodland there are fine effects when we see the sun, going down behind a group of trees, absorb them in one intense and de- vouring winding-sheet of flame. It is said Mendelssohn was extremely fond of a moonlight ramble in the woods, especially when he was composing the music to the " Midsummer Night's Dream." I was several days walking through the most interesting portions of Surrey. It was the haymaking season, and I shall never forget the pleasant hour or two I spent with a cheerful haymaking party near Chertsey, helping them to drain a little barrel of ale and dispose of some coarse bread and cheese, after which I took a peep at the house where Cowley spent his last days. I then strolled to St. Anne's Hill, which, however, was tame after the bold 138 THE OPEN AIR. sweep of Leith Hill and the majestic downs above Guildford. There is nothing finer in England than some of the views from the Merrow downs. The river Wey flow- ing through the valley beneath makes a rich and cultivated foreground, while the bold outline of the Surrey moors in the dis- tance, wild and rugged as though London were a thousand miles away, and covered in every direction with furze, heath, and fern form an effective contrast which cannot be equalled nearer than in the Highlands of Scotland. The lovely lanes in the vicinity of Wooton and Grodalming cannot, I should think, be surpassed in the world, but one cannot help regretting the gradual disap- pearance of those patches of green sward — those nooks and corners which we so commonly met with a few years ago in these country lanes. Sometimes after walk- ing for a mile or two, half-hidden by over- SURREY LANDSCAPES. 139 hanging trees and lofty hedges, we came to an opening which was a perfect picture, and such glimpses have often enough ex- ercised the skill of our greatest living painters. Creswick has painted scores of such "bits" as artists love to call them. Linnell, Cole, and others, have often worked upon the same theme, but it is to be feared the utilitarian spirit is too deeply rooted long to overlook any such reclaimable spaces. One will soon have to travel many miles from London to see a natural pic- turesque lane. Prosaic folks remind us that we cannot feed upon the beautiful, and if we sacrifice this great charm of an English landscape we shall be repaid by improved crops. Some will go so far as to say that there is more poetry in the clatter of steam machinery, and the thousand marvels of science, than in all Nature. This we can- not agree to, and it behoves all lovers of 140 THE OPEN AIK. country life to make a stand against any unnecessary destruction of beautiful objects. For Nature has a special power of adapta- bility which has scarcely been sufficiently appreciated. If any one would understand this thoroughly, let him imagine some rude, square, hoary tower of an ancient Gothic church standing in the midst of a densely- populated town, surrounded by mean houses and smoky factories. Seen in such com- pany, how little interest the old tower will awaken ! But change the scene to a remote country village, and what a transformation takes place! A mass of clustering iyy creeps lovingly about the ancient belfry. There is a tenderness even in the assaults of time upon the crumbling walls, and decay itself comes with a beauty of its own. It may be a massive yew throws its dense shadows across the lowly porch, or the ridge of a woody hill peeps above the tower, and makes the white- SUEREY LANDSCAPES. 141 ness of the hoary walls a landmark for miles. Compare a river with an artificial canal. The utility of each may be on a par, but has it ever been possible to throw any enchant- ment over the formal waterway ? But the river has chosen its own course ages ago. It trickled out of some rugged mountain, chattering down the precipice, proud of its escape : finding no outlet between the lofty hills, it lashed itself into a foaming torrent, leaping madly into the vale, and wandered between broadening banks, till it expanded into a placid lake. Meeting some stub- born rock or lofty mound, it gratefully embraced it, and formed an island. Wel- coming many tender little rivulets babbling down from distant hills, uncertain and heedless of their course, it carried them gaily on its ever -widening bosom, bright, glowing, and beautiful, to the sea. But in thrusting Nature out of sight 142 THE OPEN AIE. we make a greater sacrifice than the mere loss of beauty. There are thou- sands who, amid the terrible rush and strife of the city, have never learned, have never understood, the deep suggestiveness of Nature. Thus the best poetry of Words- worth is obscure to so many. One thinks sometimes with a feeling of sadness that the time may come when this great poet and deep thinker will cease to influence the minds of a coming generation. The rapidly-increasing populations of our great towns necessitating increased mechanical means of supporting them, together with the rapid spread of buildings far into the country, will make the passionate love of simple natural objects seem far-fetched to many of our grandchildren. But will it ever be the province of mechanical efforts to suggest those sweet and truthful lessons of this life, and those dim aspirations after a purer and better, which are so plentifully SUEEEY LANDSCAPES. 143 gleaned from rural objects? The tamest preacher and least original poet have not been blind to the inner gleams which are awakened in us by changes of the season, by glorious skies, by darkness and dawn, by the coming blossoms of spring, and the withered leaves of autumn. Nor can we imagine that the great Creator of these exquisite scenes did not implant in us a capacity for understanding and benefiting by their calm and gentle influences. Agricultural innovators have made a dead set against our lovely English lanes. Farmers solemnly tell us that they keep the sunshine off the fields and impoverish the soil; so the beautiful hedgerows are ruthlessly cut down till they resemble a wirework fence, and the banks beneath, which glowed with wild flowers, are dug away till not a particle of grace or beauty remains. Fortunately many of the Surrey villages 144 THE OPEN AIR. have escaped the spoiler's hand hitherto, and in these we find thoroughly character- istic English beauties. Fine old churches, open commons, beautiful lanes, and bits of woodland scenery, the delight of artist and poet. Indeed, artist and poet have always affected Surrey. Shelley's earliest poems were written in the skirts of Windsor Forest. I believe Mr. Disraeli also wrote his " Coningsby" amid the lovely sylvan glades of the Deepdene near Dorking. Tennyson is a landed proprietor in Surrey, having purchased a delightful estate near Haslemere in the neighbourhood of some very fine moors and downs. Thomson lived close to Richmond and Kew Gardens. Sir Joshua Reynolds lived at Richmond Hill, in the first house after leaving the Terrace and going towards the Park. Streatham will remind many readers of Dr. Johnson, and Purley of Home Tooke. SUEEEY LANDSCAPES. 145 Wooton is associated with the name of Evelyn, Moor Park with Swift and Sir William Temple. A long array of famous names might easily be added, but I am dealing rather with places than people. 146 THE OPEN AIE. CHAPTER XI. NIGHT IN THE COUNTRY. A glorious privilege of country life is the opportunity it gives of studying the wonders of the heavens. We must be clear of large towns in order to obtain a view of sufficient extent of the blue ocean above us to comprehend its vastness and sublimity. The study also necessitates a calmness and quietude altogether incom- patible with life in the street. Only in the solitude and peace of the country do the stars speak to us their lessons from the past, their wonderful suggestions of the future. In the early stages of human history in NIGHT IN THE COUNTRY. 147 the East we see by many ancient records how strongly the thinly-populated plains were influenced by the lore of the stars. It is strange to consider the feelings of those primitive dwellers upon the earth, to whom the mighty orb of the sun, the millions of glittering stars, and the silver face of the moon were objects of the deepest mystery. We read with little surprise that these sublime natural objects, which are often by us regarded with only too much indifference (as though, indeed, a glorious sunset, or the rise of the moon, could be more than faintly indicated by any number of Royal Academy painters), were often in those days objects of awe and worship. This sentiment remained for generations after. The Greeks and Eomans idealized the sun, moon, and stars in thousands of picturesque poems and fanciful imageries. Even the more sombre Druids are sup- l 2 148 THE OPEN AIK. posed to have ascribed to thern a magical influence, while in many uncivilised por- tions of the globe, where are witnessed at night effects of which we have no conception in these colder climes, the savage falls awe-struck before the splen- dour of the Nature he so dimly compre- hends, and hides his face from the unutter- able grandeur of forms which he knows not whether to regard as friendly or inimical to him. Accustomed as we are to watch the beau- tiful changes of dawn, twilight, sunset, and utter darkness, we can hardly realise what the effect must be, as it is yearly, in one region of the earth, where for many weeks there is no night, but the sun shines on continually. Very wearisome, notwith- standing its strangeness, must be such an absence of the usual effects of night and day. I know nothing more exquisite, espe- cially in the height of the summer, than NIGHT IN THE COUNTRY. 149 the mysterious darkness that envelopes the face of the country daily. I watch some- times with untiring gaze the first purple yeil of the night drawn over the dusky hill and misty valley, or creeping with strange mystery over the surface of the great deep. Afterwards, when the calm is greatest, the solitude most impressive, when the faintest whisper of the wander- ing wind seems almost to become a living voice to the heart, imparting to the height- ened imagination things unutterable by worldly speech, what a keen thrill passes through the breast as the eye catches the narrow rim of silver which proclaims the advent of the moon, as gradually she ascends the brightening sky, and the 11 immeasurable heavens break open to their highest!" Then for a space I can only wonder and admire, until the very faintest blush of dawn is visible in the east, growing brighter and brighter as the 150 THE OPEN AIR. stars fade, and ere the sense is lost of the enchantment of the night a new day is upon me, and the soft cool freshness of the dewy night is gone. It is not to be wondered at that a time so grand and suggestive in itself as the night, so prolific in " thoughts beyond the reach of our souls," should have stimulated in remote ages the thoughtful or curious student. It was evident to the rapt Chal- dean that there must be that to learn of those bright orbs and silent deserts of the night which must exercise incalculable influences upon mankind. Naturally, if there could be strange uses and inestimable advantages in the things of earth and sea, if on every side he discovered new use and beauty especially adapted to the wants and desires of mankind, it was reasonable to imagine also that the vast regions of the skies were not divinely shaped and planned without some reference to humanity. NIGHT IN THE COUNTRY. 151 Century after century has glided past, and during these ages there have always been some to note the changes and signs of the heavens, who have mounted, by the slow steps of human powers and comprehension, a little nearer to the Infinite. Movements full of mystery, which seemed erratic and uncertain at first as the fantastic travels which we take in dreams, have gradually, under the light of patient inquiry, become clear and defined ; and where enlightened minds have taken up the task in a spirit of hope and reverence, not merely for the gratification of unbelieving curiosity, they have been rewarded by revelations which have seemed as if the Almighty had un- veiled His majesty for a moment to their wondering gaze; so vast, so sublime, so unsearchable, have been the worlds into which they have been permitted to glance, if but for the briefest space of time. 152 THE OPEN AIE. We feel the sublimity of this when we recall Goethe's fine similitude as to the aim and destinies of man, "unhasting, unrest- ing, like the course of a star;" and the gain, once achieved, is a stand-point from which the man of thought in a future age looks as from a more elevated situation at the vast field yet before him. Gazing upon memorials of the springtime of the world, the crumbling towers of Babylon, the sand-blown pyramids of Memphis and Thebes, even should imagination people the deserted and mysterious halls with the races that once occupied them, we glean after all but echoes and suggestions, merely such as in some future age are all the wan- derer will have to tell, all he will be able to discover of ourselves ; but on the thrill- ing secrets of these silent orbs the student gazes till a meaning flashes upon him like inspiration. Here is a lore the like of which can nowhere else be unfolded; a NIGHT IN THE COUNTRY. 153 university whose meanest teacher has shone through the entire antiquity of the uni- verse ; a pyramid whose apex is lost in the light of the Eternal, whose foundations spread to the uttermost corners of the earth. What is architecture compared to the com- bination of millions of spheres ? What is music to the solemn harmony of uncounted ages ? Stand in the midst of an open land- scape in the night ; cast aside all dreams of petty ambition, all wordly schemes of ad- vantage; forget for the time the narrow street in which our still narrower ideas have been bound down to the cash-book and ledger ; sink for a brief space that per- sonal individuality which daily and hourly frets our souls, and raises a host of tiny un- assailable enemies around us. Let the busy brain repose, let it dwell upon the Maker of these far-off and sublime creations. Watch, then, if but for an hour, in the solemn stillness, and amidst this eternity 154 THE OPEN AIE. of light and motion, and hard must be the heart, and dull the brain that is not stirred to a divine enthusiasm, and dead- ened to the worship of a callous every- day world. I cannot in this brief space dwell upon the achievements of science and discovery, nor mention a tithe of the great names which have been linked with this noble and elevating study, for few great men are there who have not been infected more or less with a desire to penetrate these glo- rious mysteries — from Linnseus, who fell upon his knees thanking God for the golden splendour of a field of furze, to Galileo, the persecuted watcher of the skies, en- shrined for all time in the majestic verse of Milton (liimself, blind bard though he was, full of the loftiest enthusiasm for the works of nature) ; from Dante to Shakes- peare, whose picture of a summer night in the "Merchant of Venice" is unsurpassed NIGHT IN THE COUNTRY. 155 in poetry ; from Homer to Tennyson ; from Newton, whose calm analysis has done so much to increase our wisdom of the skies, yet who, as he felt himself, was but a child playing upon the sands of the Infinite, to a host of brilliant names of our own day, whose labours will be, as they deserve to be, imperishable. The order of Nature is so complete, even when most complex, that, if a single link in the chain be once held fast by the deter- mined discoverer, no matter what obscurity hides the remainder of the connection, he is certain that at some time all will be clear. Though it be but a spark, yet it is evidence of the electric chain that girdles the entire universe; though his life be given to un- veiling the attributes of a single star, yet he has struck the keynote of endless har- monies. Thus the great astronomer works with a full sense of the mighty objects he contemplates. For months and years be- 156 THE OPEN AIE. forehand he can forecast the changes, the direction, the influences of those mysterious bodies, and thus in the midst of his weak- ness and frailty, notwithstanding his pas- sions and his follies, man feels a sense of his immortality even upon earth, when he contemplates the firmament in the night season. We know by studies whose accuracy has been infallibly proved, that the operations of these sublime spheres date backward through millions of changes, so vast that the mere existence of man is but a faint shadow upon the dial of Time, in com- parison with them. Yet, insignificant as man appears in the presence of objects so vast and wonderful, one cannot but be hopeful when reflecting upon what man has already achieved. Difficulties which have mystified the sages of many a for- gotten century may one day flash upon the startled world from a single stroke of NIGHT IN THE COUNTRY. 157 the pen, for we have not now, like the Chaldean of several thousand years ago, to grope in the darkness and obscurity of first principles — we can start with the se- rene light of past wisdom and discovery beaming upon us. A never-ending ma- jestic motion pervades the whole creation. In some glorious future it will be man's highest development and purest happiness to comprehend perfectly that world for which he was created, and which was also created for him. What we know already is as a whisper in the darkness from the Friend who will one day tell us all. 158 THE OPEN AIE. CHAPTER XII. TWENTY YEAES AGO. We are apt, in our first impression of any beautiful scene in Nature, to be occa- sionally disappointed. " Most of us," says a late writer, " putting cases of exceptional luck aside, have thought or will think the same. The mountain is lofty, yet not quite so stupendous; the river is romantic, yet winds not quite so picturesquely ; the face is fair, yet not quite so lovely — as had been set forth by fancy or word-painting. In the aftertime we may come to dwell in the shadow of that same mountain, and wax so jealous of its honour that we shall scarce allow there is its peer amongst the TWENTY YEARS AGO. 159 everlasting hills; we may float on that same river till we know and love every rippling eddy and quiet pool, and swear that there flows seaward no pleasanter stream; we may look on that same face till we are ready to maintain against all comers its sovereignty in beauty. But — if we go back honestly to our first impres- sion of any wonder of Nature or Art that we have approached with expectation on the strain — we shall remember a faint reaction like the slackening of a damped cord." How much more is this feeling likely to be experienced when we go back to any spot familiar to us in youth, and which we have not visited for many years. The sense of disappointment upon these occa- sions is almost universal, yet allied with a certain sad sweetness which has made the subject over and over again the theme of the poet and philsopher. For it must be 160 THE OPEN AIR. observed, though vast and sublime changes take place in the operations of Nature — though wonders of invention and mecha- nism alter the outward aspects of places familiar to us in days gone by, yet the feelings and thoughts of men, the hopes and dreams, the passions and regrets of humanity vary little, whether among the Bedouins of the desert, or the Londoner at his desk or counter under the shadow of St. Paul's. How keenly this was felt by Byron when, oppressed with deep sorrows and regrets, he wandered amid the sublime scenery of the Alps! He tells us in his journal, "lama lover of Nature, and an admirer of beauty. I can bear fatigue, and welcome privation, and have seen some of the noblest views in the world. But in all this the recollection of bitterness, and more especially of recent and more home deso- lation which must accompany me through TWENTY YEARS AGO. 161 life, has preyed upon me here ; and neither the music of the shepherd, the crashing of the avalanche, nor the torrent, the moun- tain, the glacier, the forest, nor the cloud have for one moment lightened the weight upon my heart, or enabled me to lose my own wretched identity in the majesty and the power and the glory around, above, and beneath me." This bitter but eloquent expression of human sadness, written when his home was broken up, his household gods scat- tered by remorseless creditors, his love turned to gall, show us how totally out of harmony we are with Nature when we bring to her calm retreats griefs that are not of her making. It also shows how greatly we are influenced by association of ideas. At first Nature, in her novelty and grandeur, seemed cold and unsympathetic, even to the heart and fancy of a great poet, but ultimately she asserts her ancient M 162 THE OPEN AIR. powers. Gradually the stormy passionate nature of the man yields to her allurements; imagination is kindled with the wild grandeur of the mountain storm ; envy, hatred, and malice bend to the sweet voices of the evening calm o'er lake and valley ; and anon in the musical stanzas of "Childe Harold," and the exquisite monologues of " Manfred," we read the reproduction of the surrounding loveliness, and feel how much Nature has done after all for her world- worn and distracted son. I had recalled these impressions of a poet once world-famous, now scarcely so much appreciated as his magnificent genius deserves, while riding back by the Great Western Railway to a little village in Oxfordshire, where I had spent my early days. It was twenty years or more since I had seen the village, and it was not with- out some curiosity that I awaited my new impressions of the place. To me TWENTY YEAKS AGO. 163 twenty years ago it seemed that the little brook which ran through the village was the perfection of a stream. My first poetical ideas (followed since with much pleasure, but small profit) were gathered at the little old mill at the extreme end of the village. How often as a youth had I gazed at that old wheel turning continually and dashing aside the bewildered water, and thought what an emblem of life it was ! The world was my image for the mill wheel tossing and buffeting the stream of life, harassed by adverse fortune or innu- merable cares. But I was consoled to see how soon the waters regained their former placidity, and glided away in a noiseless current toward the unfathomable ocean. And with what majestic proportions had my youthful fancy invested the rude stone bridge with a single arch which spanned the aforesaid murmuring stream. How many hours had I spent leaning over that m 2 164 THE OPEN AIE. rustic parapet watching the clouds reflected upon the clear serface of the brook, or the tiny eddies made by a huge stone. What an adventure it was when a fierce wind tore a stately elm up by the roots, and threw it bodily across my favourite stream, a ready-made rustic bridge over which I scampered the best part of a summer day ! Would the barn be standing now, I wonder, which was boarded with planks cut from that wonderful tree ? It was late at night when I reached the cosy farmhouse, and there was nothing for it but to wait till next day to compare former impressions with the present. I asked but few questions of old friends and old places, dreading the inevitable changes of twenty years. Many a dream of my boyhood came back to me in sleep beneath the familiar roof, and, when I awoke and looked out of the window that soft sunny morning, there TWENTY TEARS AGO. 165 was the long blue outline of the distant hills, with the same form and colour as of old. The scattered farms looked very familiar. There was the little river, too, gleaming through the meadows, and oppo- site me was the very orchard, where, with sundry other urchins, I forgot the law of meum and tuum under the tempting influ- ence of golden pippins. Breakfast was not ready, and I took a stroll down the strag- gling irregular street — if street it could be called. What was it that was so greatly changed? " That never," thought I, "could be our old cricket-field and play- ground — the spot where we quarrelled over marbles or flew our kites. Surely that is a paltry little paddock for the enjoyment of half a hundred boys." But so it was. The place was the same, but, alas! the looker-on was changed. Changed even more in ideas and habits than in appearance, for an old man, leaning 166 THE OPEN AIR. against a stile, shading his eyes with his hands, and looking apparently a long way off, as countrymen are prone to do, though I was standing quite near to him, nodded, and bade me welcome to my native place. Poor old fellow ! it seemed not a day since I had stuck an arrow through his white furry beaver, not twenty yards from this spot, and such is the force of association that I involuntarily looked for the hole in his hat still. He was an old man when I left the village, yet here he is twenty years after, little changed in outward appear- ance. What astonished me was that in the por- tion of the village through which we had strolled there was a sense of dulness quite opposed to the liveliness and prosperity of the place as I remembered it. My host explained how and why this was. " All this part of the village," said he, "has gone down since the rail opened two miles out TWENTY YEAKS AGO. 167 yonder," pointing in the distance to a spot where I could just see a very new-looking spire, and the roofs of some tall houses. That was the secret why the grass was growing in front of a large inn where the London coach used to change horses. My host was by no means enthusiastic about the changes that had taken place. "It was only robbing Peter to pay Paul," said he. "When you were a boy in this place people were not so restless and im- patient as they are now. If a man lived well and paid his way he was satisfied and happy. He took an interest in what his neighbours were doing, and people lent a hand to each other when harvest was late and the weather catching. They went to church on Sunday, and didn't want any new-fangled doctrines. If they didn't al- ways understand the parson they took it for granted that he was saying the right thing. As for the young folks, Lord ! if I 168 THE OPEN AIK. had curled my tongue with such fine words to my betters as they do now my father's ash stick would have crossed my back in no time. And the girls ! Why, they got up with the dawn and plied their fingers in the dairy, instead of jingling bits of ivory. As to a song, we could be merry enough in old times at harvest-home or by the Christmas fire, and were contented with the good old mother tongue, not prattling outlandish jargon. What would my poor old father have said to see a farmer's son smoking a meerschaum at nine in the morning, or going to a dance at night in patent leather boots and kid gloves ?" Thus the old man rambled on, com- paring these degenerate days with the days of his youth, when George the Third was king. I tried in vain to make him see with my own eyes ; and, possibly, with all our pride in modern achievements, there may be something to be said on the far- TWENTY YEARS AGO. 169 mer's side of the question. There was a good deal of happiness and contentment in those days, and what do we find now? Our villages are fuller of paupers than ever. If smart new towns spring up be- side railway stations, in many cases they are merely exhausting old and prosperous villages a few miles distant. Let us wel- come the gas works, the drainage, the enclosure of land, threshing by steam, and scientific manure, but thrice welcome be that change which shall raise and improve the individual man. Twenty years leave their shadows upon the tablets of my memory since I lived in this place, and still I see the same forlorn creatures living the same colourless lives, with no loftier hopes, no brighter ideas, no better man- ners, no cleaner persons. Dull as the clods upon which their weary labour is spent. Even as a child this terrible ignorance shocked me, and in visiting my native 170 TWENTY YEAKS AGO. place I passed a spot where I tried, in my childish way, and with some success, to enlighten the children of a poor labourer. Never shall I forget the blank expression of astonishment that came over the chil- dren's faces while they listened to me. Many charitable people in patronising Ragged Schools fancy they have discovered the lowest depths of ignorance, but they should really seek in the country lanes also. The street boy is sure to have learned something. Oh, the dark significance of that word ! Whether that something shall be a curse or a blessing, let a future Govern- ment do its best to prove. The task is a heavy one, but the reward will be eternal. THE OPEN AIR. 171 CHAPTER XIII. WITH TENNYSON IN THE FENS. Judging by the works of our own poets and painters we might imagine that appre- ciation of natural scenery was a thing of recent growth, but, reading to-day the charming " Idylls of Theocritus," I was reminded that the Greeks of two thousand years ago were by no means unlike our- selves at the present moment ; and indeed one may find in the pages of the above charming pastoral poet many turns of ex- pression, many phases of thought, which awaken comparisons with Tennyson. The likeness would be still closer but for the 172 THE OPEN AIR. extreme difference of scenery that met the eyes of the respective poets. In Tenny- son's "Ode to Memory" we see how his Imaginative childhood has been influenced by the level landscaj>es of the Fen districts. We see — " Stretched wide and wild the waste enormous marsh, Where from the frequent bridge, Like emblems of infinity, The trenched waters run from sky to sky ; Or a garden bowered close With plaited alleys of the trailing rose ; Long alleys falling down the twilight grots, Or opening upon level plots Of crowned lilies standing near Purple-spiked lavender." Here we have the poet of the plain, the poet of a kind of landscape which at first sight appears destitute of interest from its apparent monotony, but which in reality is very full of interest to a closer observer. We never feel any want of enjoyment in such scenery when sketched by Tennyson, and there are in reality many effects which take a strong hold of the imagination, and which WITH TENNYSON IN THE FENS. 173 are not obtainable in other regions. There is especially a greater intensity in the life of the people who inhabit such landscapes than in more hilly countries. In hilly districts there is something perpetually appealing to the curiosity. Few of us can look at the purpled outline of a range of distant hills without speculating what lies beyond them. It is with a hill as with the ocean: the thoughts and sympathies are enticed to the far distance. Judging by Mr. Hep worth Dixon's bril- liant description of the Prairie, I imagine he will agree with me that there is a sense of freedom in a vast plain which is not felt amid hill and valley scenery. Look- ing out for miles upon what Tennyson so beautifully describes as the "level waste, the rounding grey," the eye loses that sense of definite objects which so strongly influences us when we look at the decided formation of a mountain, the glittering 174 THE OPEN AIE. flood of the cascade, or the bold height crowned with innumerable trees. The in- terest is thrown back upon what is near ; there is a sense of repose in the surround- ings, and the imagination dwells with unwonted pleasure upon objects which in more varied landscapes would almost es- cape our notice. This accounts for the vivid reality of Tennyson's description. How clearly we seem to see the sluggish river and the creeping barge, the water lilies swaying to the slight movement of the stream, the waving cornfield sweeping away to the distant horizon, the heavy luxurious pasture of the green meadows, homesteads peeping through the massive elms, the sweet-smelling flowers, the hives musical with the hum of a thousand bees, the echoing bell of the minster clock ! It is delightful, though so homely. The heart can feel no sadness in the midst of such golden plenty, such peace and calm- WITH TENNYSON IN THE FENS. 175 ness. In " The Lady of Shalott " he gives us a picture in three lines, which, strange to say, his critics condemned when the poem was first produced ; but their condemnation was the result of ignorance, for nothing can better realise the scenery of the Fens than this — " On either side the river lie Long fields of barley and of rye, That clothe the wold and meet the sky." Tennyson would not alter the poem to please his critics, because he knew by heart the scenery he had described and loved it well also. Nowhere in England can we so well understand the wonders of an English sky as in the Fens. The cele- brated painter Stanfield, referring to the beauty of the Italian skies, remarked, " there are really no skies in the world to compare with those of England. The dull monotony of the southern skies, where all the day there is not a cloud, ceases to charm 176 THE OPEN AIR. after a few days, but the glorious varia- tions in our northern skies constantly bring the painter brilliant and unexpected ef- fects." Going from a town life to a residence in the Fens is one of the greatest possible changes. The vastness of the horizon is something astonishing, and the effect of a sunset or the oncoming of a sudden thun- der-storm is sometimes unsurpassed in its grandeur. A thousand leagues of shadowy cloud will be transformed in a moment by a beaming ray, and the calm sluggish stream, still as a mirror, will glow like a lake of gold. It seems strange that we must go back a couple of thousand years for poetry to compare with that of the present day. Upon the shore of the Mediterranean lies the scenery which has such a large share in the beauties of Theocritus, but the charm is of a different kind from that of our WITH TENNYSON IN THE FENS. 177 northern poet. There is none of the sweet mystery of our colder clime, none of the leafy glades, the secluded homesteads, the soft round forms of our heavy-foliaged trees ; none of the undulating lines of dis- tant hills, over which lie masses of cloud. The scenery which enchanted the poets of those days was full of glow and colour. Nature seemed to have put on her most festive robes ; the intense blue of the ocean blended with the still more brilliant hues of the sky, and far as the eye could reach there was neither mist nor cloud. Sum- mer rarely quits this genial latitude ; the labour required in cultivating the soil in colder climes, and which always gives a certain sternness to the most peaceful land- scape, is unknown there. It was seen by careful examination how much of the charm of Tennyson's poems arises from associa- tions of the inner life with the outward aspects of nature, but in the South life is 178 THE OPEN AIR. free and spontaneous, and has always a tendency to outward development. The people of the South seem hardly changed ; there are constantly scenes and incidents occurring which remind one of the old poets, but great changes have taken place in our colder clime. It is only re- cently that we have had authors taking so much interest in the beauty of nature. How rarely Pope, with his fine and polished genius, seems to get beyond externals. Tennyson has examined closely all that is glowing, real, and suggestive in this life of ours, and has so faithfully recorded it that we often see our daily life by a light which has not gleamed upon it before. In the last century allusions to nature were generally of the most artificial kind. Those striking contrasts of life and death, nature and daily life, which we find in Tennyson, had no place in our literature. WITH TENNYSON IN THE FENS. 179 We shall find no parallel to such a stanza as the following : — " Ah ! sad and strange as in dark summer dawns The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds To dying ears, when unto dying eyes The casement slowly grows a glimmering square." It is wonderful how the sense of ap- proaching death is contrasted by the happy life of nature just greeting the newly open- ing day. We feel strange sympathy with the ebbing life and its last fond yearning for the dear and familiar charms of the world it is fast leaving. We do not find such suggestiveness in the Greek poet. In all Tennyson's poems we detect the influence of his early impressions ; the ex- quisite description in the " Gardener's Daughter " may be taken as a proof — " Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love. News from the humming city comes to it, In sound of funeral or of marriage bells. And, sitting muffled in dark leaves, you hear The windy changing of the minster clock ; Although between it and the garden lies A league of grass washed by a slow broad stream, N 2 180 THE OPEN AIR. That, stirred -with languid pulses of the oar, "Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on Barge-laden to three arches of a bridge Crowned with the minster towers." How vividly they come back to him again and again we see in scores of instances. In the " May Queen" where he says : — ■ " When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow cool On the oat-grass, and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool." Tennyson is our only poet who has seen the beauty and suggestiveness of lowland scenery, and that is, perhaps, one reason of his striking individuality. It required an eye as keen, and a mind as penetrating, to make us comprehend that there was so much interest in the scenery. It is with a feeling of surprise that we recognise the poetry of such a stanza as that in " Mariana" — " Hard by a poplar shook alway, All silver-green, with gnarled bark ; For leagues no other tree did mark The level waste, the rounding grey." It is hardly possible in two simple lines to WITH TENNYSON IN THE FENS. 181 make us feel more keenly that we are far away from the street and the factory than in these — " Each morn my sleep was broken thro' By some wild skylark's matin song." What a delicious feeling that is! We have arrived, perhaps, at a lonely farm or wood-embowered parsonage late at night after a weary journey by rail from some smoky town, where for many months we have heard no music but the clank of the hammer and the endless din of a thousand rattling wheels, and have jostled with a crowd of toil worn, ragged, and dusty way- farers. It is too late for friendly inter- course, too dark for a ramble in the neigh- bouring wood or upon the distant hill, and we hurry off to bed. Then when the rosy streak of dawn beams through the latticed window, and a soft wind rustles in the " windy tall elm-tree," we gently awake with the echo of such music in our 182 WITH TENNYSON IN THE FENS. ears as we have not heard for many a day, and feel more grateful than ever to the poet who, in so few words, can idealise our present feelings, and by the magic of poetry banish all that is harsh, worldly, and sordid from our minds. THE OPEN AIR. 183 CHAPTER XIV. WINTER OUT OF TOWN. It is impossible to help a feeling of regret when the short dull days and the long cold nights come back to us again. It seems at first as though the poetry of nature had entirely disappeared, and that we could only shut ourselves up for the winter, and look forward through the fog and the rain, the mud and snow, for the happy days, when we may once more wander in the woods and fields, and under the pleasant sunshine. After a time, however, we discover that even winter has some beauty, some in- terest, if nature is near at hand. Even 184 THE OPEN AIR. the November fog has a certain picturesque beauty, a wild fantastic poetry, which gives to commonplace and familiar objects an air of mystery and suggestiveness in a thousand fantastic shapes and outlines. Thomson, the poet, beautifully describes the vastness sometimes given to an object when seen through the phantom illusions of a foggy atmosphere. Even in the murky streets we are sometimes reminded of the effects of mountain scenery, when the dense mass of vapour rolls aside from some steeple, bridge, or cathedral. In the country these picturesque changes are infinitely more various. Trees, hills, and rocks assume weird and ghostly as- pects, which fill the imaginative tempera- ment with singular fancies. The painters, too, have depicted many scenes under this peculiar atmosphere with splendid effect. The great artist Turner was so partial to the illusions produced in land- WINTER OUT OF TOWN. 185 scape scenery by the aid of mist and cloud as to assert upon one occasion that you could never see any landscape which was not more or less foggy. Perhaps the chief interest that reconciles us to winter is the infinite variety of changes. How sudden and wonderful sometimes are the contrasts when a brisk wind arises and chases away the rolling vapours, and the air becomes sharp and the sky clear, and the trees, hills, and buildings stand out against the sky with sculpturesque clearness of outline ; or when, after a morning of brilliant sun- shine, the sky suddenly grows dark, and myriad snow-flakes fall silently around us and make the pathway quiet as a dream ! Gladly we draw nearer the fire and strive to forget the nipping atmosphere in a book or pleasant intercourse ; and what a trans- formation the next morning, when we look out of window and see every object sharply 186 THE OPEN AIR. defined with its brilliant embroidery of silver; when it seems as though nature, defying us to say that she is ever un- graceful, has drawn round her in the night this ethereal mantle, and we hardly know whether we like her best in her robe of green leaves, or her glittering fall of snow ! Then we are tempted out of doors again. The boys are pelting each other with snow- balls, and even solemn Paterfamilias, for- getful of the dignity he finds it too hard to keep up, sacrifices it altogether by trying the effect of a slide upon the nearest pond ; while the young ladies and gentle- men of marriageable age find skating a wonderful pastime for the encouragement of tender questions and mysterious answers. We will venture to say courtship progresses quite as rapidly upon a piece of smooth ice as under leafy bowers in June. Per- haps Clara or Laura have never tried the skates before, or Charles has to show them WINTER OUT OF TOWN. 187 some eccentric figure he has cut out, or a pretty shriek announces that Pa has had a tumble, and the strong arms of a certain cavalier are in requisition to set him on his legs again. At night, too, some senti- mental fellow proposes a dance by torch- light. Happy thought ! Won't that young gentleman find favour with the girls, and won't he carry his resolution notwithstand- ing all the frowns of mamma, or the warn- ings of maiden aunts of uncertain age who cannot face the air of a January midnight so well as they did a few (never mind how many) years ago. It is harder work to keep the game alive when there is a thaw, and the muggy murky atmosphere promises a wet thaw. Down it comes a perfect deluge at last. Umbrellas are nowhere. It is blown against the windows as though it bore a personal grudge against every inmate, and were bent upon swamping every fire, and 188 THE OPEN AIR. soaking every carpet upon the premises. Then, if it cannot find its way into the house by the roof or any little crevice, down it splashes upon the ground, and the millions of drops dance together in every puddle in a perfect frenzy of delight that at last they have pent us indoors. There is our dear neighbour looking out of her window only two or three fields away ; she waves her handkerchief — all in vain ; that pleasant duett we had calculated upon must be left for to-night, and the book- seller who promised to get us the last new novel will of course not bring it. He will make some paltry excuse and send it to- morrow in the middle of the day, when we are just rejoicing in the sky clearing up, and are all going for a ride with Uncle John, who won't let a novel be put into the carriage upon any pretence whatever. How we long for the summer as the deluge keeps pouring down. Don't we conjure WINTER OUT OF TOWN. 189 up a thousand pleasant days of sunshine and happy rambles in forest, vale, and meadow. Now there is a nice little pond upon the lawn, and the trim gravel paths are converted into tiny canals lined with box edging. Mary Ann runs in breath- less to say the " water is a droppin' on her bed, and what's she to do, please ?" Any- thing for a diversion. Even this is better than the terrible monotony of the last hour, and the children laugh merrily over the dropping well in the nursery bedroom. What is sport to them is — a plasterer's bill and the " man on the roof" to us. Happy for us if our domicile is a good old-fashioned thatched house. We defy the rain then, and if there is a substantial farm-yard attached we are sure to find something to interest us. Some neighbour passes in his light trap home from market or fair, so muffled up that only the tip of his nose is visible, perhaps reddened a 190 THE OPEN AIK. little by the glow of a cigar. At other times we should get a nod and a wave of the whip, but his sole anxiety now is to get home and throw off that sopping over- coat, and drain the water out of his high boots. "We hear the shriek of the railway whistle at the distant station, and wonder if the passengers will have to remain all night with the station-master. Perhaps to- morrrow is Sunday, and dear Mr. Straight- way is to preach on behalf of the Sunday Schools; and if it continues like this the meadows will be a perfect swamp. We think of friends in town, and say how nice it must be to have pavements and gas and cheap conveyance when the weather is like this, forgetting how disgusted we were last Cattle Show with the noise, the smoke, the mud, and general confusion of a London winter, and how heartily glad we were to get back again. How coolly the animals take it in the WINTER OUT OF TOWN. 191 strawyard! The old cart-horse seems as though he must be made of stone to stand there as he does, while fierce little currents are spouting from him in all directions. As to that pig, he has got some delicious morsel by his satisfied grunting, and wouldn't stir if it rained pitch-forks. With regard to the ducks and geese, of course it is second nature to them, and they only shake their wings a little and keep a sharp look out for the worms. Floss, the shaggy old dog, runs out for a moment, but doesn't like it. He has been pampered so much, and led such an indoor life, that he turns tail and in another moment is snoozing by the kitchen fire, waking up with a snort from time to time as he hears a rat scuf- fling behind the wainscot. The workmen in the big barn, though they are dry enough, do not think it incumbent upon them to work while the rain pours in this way, and they leisurely light a pipe each, 192 THE OPEN AIR. and lounge at the barn door gossiping. One would be glad enough to have a chat with them, but your agriculturist is uncom- monly shy, or if not shy he suspects you have a motive in wishing to speak to him, so that the most you would get from Hodge or Giles would be a simple "yes" or "no." There is, unfortunately, too much an- tagonism between the labourer and his employer. The simple fellow thinks you will remind him of the day when he had a drop too much, or had that fight with the Squire's gamekeeper, or will inquire why he did not go to church last Sunday. He lives his own life in his own way, cannot understand your life, and will not believe that you can or have any real desire to enter into his. Altogether, the effect of mid- winter in the country, where the weather is con- tinually wet, is certainly depressing WINTER OUT OF TOWN. 193 enough ; but at the worst it is not of very long continuance, and the delights of the first indications of spring amply compen- sate for all the previous dreariness. To watch day by day, and almost hour by hour, the gradual opening of the bud ; to see (almost like a heavenly smile coming unexpectedly into a plain homely face) the first flush of green break out upon the brown skeleton of the tree, or the long dusky scrubby hedgerow; to note the emerald hue of the meadows, and the faint fair blossoms of the first spring flowers, struggling in some instances with the last patches of the winter snow; to hear the cheerful notes of the birds chirping and twittering as though they understood the glory and splendour that was coming; — these and a thousand other sights and sensations of the time are well worth a few weeks' gloom and self-denial. In most cases, too, country people dis- o 194 WINTER OUT OF TOWN. play a very sociable feeling. They enter more than is possible in the town into the feelings and pursuits of their neighbours. If there is much gossip and tittle-tattle there is also a genial spontaneous sym- pathy, and much genuine benevolence. Let it rain or snow, let the fog hide the landscape or frost harden the soil, there are always warm hearts and pleasant faces to be found at the country fire-side, no matter how dreary it is for a time out of doors. THE OPEN AIE. 195 CHAPTER XV. RIVER SCENERY. Scarcely twice in a year do I experience such a pleasurable sensation as that I had a day or two ago from a glimpse of some charming river scenery, painted by an artist friend of mine, just returned from his annual sketching tour. The river scenery of England, as everybody knows, is not on a large scale, but of its kind there cannot be anything more exquisite. This question of size seems to have great influence over a certain class. The friend alluded to was painting a pretty little waterfall upon the river Wharfe, near Bolton Abbey, and a tall American came o 2 196 THE OPEN AIR. up to him, saying, " Guess, stranger, you'd have no objection to be looked at?" " Certainly not," answered the artist. The American took his cigar from his lips, blew a long cloud, and after looking hard for some time at the sketch — " Well now, I estimate it's eternally like the St. Law- rence is this river Wharfe, only the St. Lawrence is ten times bigger." My Mend is a bit of a humourist. The fall he was painting could not have been more than twenty feet high at the most, and he was rather painting it for some peculiar combination of rock and brush- wood than for the cascade itself. Turn- ing quietly round to the Yankee, he said, with a face unmoved as the Sphinx, " As the river scenery about here reminds you of the St. Lawrence, no doubt this waterfall reminds you also of Niagara." The American did not answer a word, and went on his wav ; but two artists who EIVEE SCENERY. 197 were sketching on the same spot could not restrain themselves, and laughed uproari- ously at the quiet manner in which his boasting had been thrown back upon him. The most celebrated, and as a whole the most charming of our rivers, is certainly the Thames; throughout its whole course it is full of interest, and in some parts has exquisitely beautiful scenery. It will be difficult to find any lovelier walk than that by the river-side from Maidenhead to Great Marlow, and the graceful bends of the stream about Goring and Pangbourne often remind one of the loveliest glimpses in the Lake district. Granted, the river is not very wide, yet size, I maintain, does not always bring beauty with it. In some of the great American rivers the banks are so far off, owing to the width of the stream, that the traveller loses their beauty, and the wide waste of water, league after league, becomes tiresome and monotonous. 198 THE OPEN AIE. In our English river there is an almost unlimited variety to charm the wanderer, and some of our friends in their fishing excursions must have been delighted with many a picturesque scene. I have some- times paddled gently down the stream at daybreak on a fresh spring morning, at points between Henley and Oxford, and then the river is seen at its best. The many plantations on the banks encourage a great variety of birds, and ere the light has quite escaped from the cloudy bars of the night their sweet harmony begins. Soon the faint grey clouds are streaked with the first rays of the sunlight, and the village spire becomes a mass of molten gold ; each opening in the river glimmers as though the waves were on fire, and the waving grass in the meadows bordering the stream changes from its depth of hue to an almost golden green ; then the great heavy elms that stand like sentinels on the EIVEE SCENERY. 199 river's brink shiver suddenly with a light breeze, and seem to be filled with flame ; and the sweet reflection of all this beauty- lies calm upon the softly-flowing river, and the music of the tiny lapping waves harmonises especially well with the early carols of the birds. The river, since the introduction of rail- ways, loses something of the importance it had years ago ; still, everywhere in Eng- land we see how the population has been drawn toward the rivers. This gives a thousand associations of the highest inte- rest to all our favourite streams. When we think of the Thames, for instance, we instantly recall a variety of sweet images — the view from Richmond Hill, the noble pile of Windsor, the towers of Eton Col- lege, immortalised by Gray ; the site where Magna Charta was signed; the fine old house at Twickenham, late the residence of a banished king ; Pope's villa not far 200 THE OPEN AIE. away ; Marlow, famous as the residence of Shelley ; Chertsey, the spot where Cowley, after sighing all his days for the peaceful calm of country life, retired to die; the memories of Wolsey at Hampton ; and higher up the stream many a fine old his- torical seat, ruined abbey, or quaint ivy- covered church ; many a picturesque ferry and river-side inn, beloved by anglers from the town ; many a bright little weir, where the water dashes over and flashes like a glimpse of moonlight between the dark shadows of the trees; and the graceful openings and picturesque little reaches made by the windings of the stream have tempted poet, painter, and lover of nature to decorate the banks with gardens and trees, so that we have often the most agree- able contrasts. In the mid-stream there is the heavy barge lying deep in the water, with its load perhaps brought from some muddy creek in the outskirts of the smoky RIVER SCENERY. 201 city, standing out in bold relief against the refinements of the closely-shaven lawn and rich flower bed upon the shore, or mingling in the reflections upon the stream its dusky sail and duskier hull with the bright front of some gay villa or grey old church tower. I have never heard the sweet musical ripple of a mountain stream without think- ing of the death-bed of Sir Walter Scott, with his affecting advice to Lockhart. Those who have read Lockhart's life of Sir Walter cannot have forgotten the exquisite pathos of the closing scene. " It was a beautiful day — so warm that every window was wide open — and so per- fectly still that the sound of all others most delicious to his ear, the gentle ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles was distinctly audible as we knelt around the bed, and his eldest son kissed him and closed his eyes." 202 THE OPEN AIR. If it had no other great solemn memo- ries, if it had no beauty of its own, would not these words make the Tweed sacred for evermore ? Beside every English river what asso- ciations there are! The Wye with its memories of Tintern, heightened by the verse of Wordsworth, reflecting the hoary walls of Chepstow and Monmouth, and calling to mind the sweet idyll of the Man of Ross. The Severn with its rapid flood, its deep tides embalmed in the glorious verse of Shakespeare. The Medway, not- withstanding some humiliating reminis- cences of the Dutch, in days when no ironclad ships nor rifled cannon guarded the Chatham lines ; a muddy stream, but full of historical interest, flowing as it does by Rochester, by Allington Castle, Maid- stone, and Tunbridge, through thousands of acres of hop-ground, and past beautiful hills. EIVEE SCENERY. 203 In no other country is so much interest taken in boating and fishing as in Eng- land. In no other country would such a book as Izaak Walton's Angler have been published. All our best poets and writers, all our painters have been influenced by the quiet charm of English river scenery. Perhaps not many of my readers have read Matthew Arnold's " Scholar Gipsy/' a poem which gives the most perfect pic- ture imaginable of the river scenery in the neighbourhood of Oxford. Hawthorne, when in this county, in his work entitled " Our Old Home, gives many sketches of great interest about the same scenery. All our English rivers have remembrances of celebrated men and celebrated places interwoven with their own claims to in- terest ; thus their peculiar charm has been the growth of centuries, and their place in the affections of the people has plainly not lessened, for never was there shown 204 RIVEK SCENEKY. such a desire to free our favourite streams from pollution — never was there a greater interest shown in all places for beauti- fying and restoring the banks, and keep- ing up a clear full flood. There is more boating and angling than ever, and soon from London to Windsor there will hardly be a picturesque spot on the Thames that will not be crowned with a villa. It is curious to see how the Anglo-Saxon love of rivers produces the same effect in our colonies as here. Wherever there is a river there is the Anglo-Saxon also. 71. m? I CHAPTER XVI. ?:zj,=tiz }ii::v It is now the time of year when many new pleasure gardens will be laid out and many old ones air ere I. It may not be amiss to offer a few suggestions foi the consideration of those who avail them- seLves of the landscape gardener's art S me npon such occasions consult elabo- i t e authorities, and puzzle their brains ivei learned books fall of technical names, and find it very iifiicult to arrive at any definite plan. Others settle upon some formal line-and-rule arrangement, and __- it out at once, supremely indiuerent to soil, asj :;-. or natural advantages. 206 THE OPEN AIE. Now, a pleasure ground, if for anything, is for pleasure. We do not object to its being looked at as an ornament, but it should also be a thing to be enjoyed. How badly managed we sometimes see them ! Often the only seat where we can rest for a chat with a pleasant friend, or dream over fine poetry, or spend a thought- ful hour in the midst of some deep care or anxiety, is in a spot exposed to a keen wind, or within sight of a stable or out- house, or close to a high road where the ear is constantly assailed with the grinding of heavy waggons on the gravel, or the noisy talk of loiterers, hawkers, tramps, and gipsies. Others overload the ground with brick and plaster work. At every step we see vases full to profusion of flowers ; terraces, arbours, fish-ponds, pavements, statues, &c. ; while the wearied eye wanders in vain for a soft green spot upon which it PLEASURE GARDENS. 207 may rest and be thankful. The ground is so cut into pieces that there is only room for small patches of vegetation, and no large tree or shrub ever flourishes in such places. It is quite worth while to consider, before we lay out a pleasure ground or make any alteration, whether we cannot adopt a style that shall be in harmony with the house we live in, the character of the soil, the trees and shrubs actually standing upon the ground, and the distant landscape, if that should be visible from any point. In the Botanical Gardens, Ee- gent's Park, by cultivating a few flowers and shrubs in the vicinity of a mound, a charming retreat has been made, which has almost the appearance of a natural hill. From the top of this little mound we catch a view of Hampstead and the country beyond, and at once the mind of the spectator conceives the gardens to be much larger than they really are. 208 THE OPEN AIE. Whoever arranges the plan of your gar- den should study first the spirit and ex- pression, if I may so speak, of the place. Nature after a time brings to each spot a special character and expression, so that no two places are exactly alike, any more than two human faces are. Sometimes a tree forms a prominent object in an un- favourable situation, and the inconsiderate gardener, almost before we can make up our minds, cuts it down. It will take thirty or forty years to grow such another. Why not have planted on the spot some other quick growing trees or shrubs, which by another season would modify the un- graceful character of the original tree — perhaps by contrast make it look really beautiful ? In grounds of any extent it will fre- quently happen that a tiny trickling stream will flow through the midst of a glade, and consequently it is unapproachable for the PLEASURE GARDENS. 209 ladies on account of the damp. Our me- chanical gardener purposes to dig out the ground and put drain pipes down. This was actually suggested to a friend in Ox- fordshire, who, however, with a keen eye to the natural beauty of the spot, simply raised the bank from which the rivulet issued, and by a little arrangement of rough stonework allowed the jet to fall several yards into a rocky basin, and the effect of the splashing current sparkling through the shade of overhanging trees all the summer was soothing and delightful in the extreme. " You'll have an awful mess here, sir, in the winter,' said his gardener. But it was found after a careful survey of the ground that the very best outfall for the stream was into a pond, where a supply of water was often wanted. The current was easily diverted, a few shrubs and ferns planted over the irregular ground, and in a year p 210 THE OPEN AIE. the despised rivulet became the chief attraction of the grounds. How often we see strong stone walls or heavy fences erected at the point where the pleasure ground joins with the neigh- bouring meadow, field, or wood — forcing nature, as it were, to meet us in our exclu- siveness. Frequently we are great losers by the plan. There is, probably, a fine group of trees on the opposite hill ; there is the spire of an old church in the valley; there is the brown sail of a barge creeping up the almost hidden stream. Plenty of suggestive images which amuse and gra- tify the fancy, and by their contrast heighten the refinement of our close- shaven lawn, our brilliant beds of flowers, our level walks and classic vistas. There is nothing, in my opinion, less graceful than a lawn blotched over with infinitessimal flower beds. Rich glowing masses of colour in the vicinity of a lawn PLEASURE GARDENS. 211 are good, and are easily made to contrast with the lawn itself, without being- ac- tually cut out of it like the pattern of a fashionable skirt. The lawn is worthy of every care we can bestow upon it, but I think the extremely close shaving at pre- sent adopted is carried too far. The roots of the grass are torn, and, in hot weather, are exposed too much to the sun. What we gain in neatness, in the early spring, is lost in withered brownness and decay when the days are long, and the heat intense, and when a really green lawn would be a great attraction. In laying down a lawn, unless you look carefully into the matter yourself, the turf is frequently brought of a quality totally unsuitable for a confined space. Coarse blades and sedgy roots are by no means graceful, nor should we trust too much to the elegant surface given by clover seed. The mowing machine cuts off these grace- p 2 212 THE OPEN AIK. ful heads, and leaves the lawn looking dull and earthy. Then we must see that the turf is laid upon a sufficient depth of fine mould, not upon a substratum of bricks and mortar, or a slough of despond in the shape of a clay bottom, which scarcely allows the lawn to dry in the finest wea- ther, and brings a coarse, raw-looking colour to the turf, which is anything but soothing to the eye. Properly laid down at first, the lawn may be kept in splendid condition with very little trouble or ex- pense. The importance of equal drainage, of course, must not be overlooked, or the grass is rank at one spot while it is withered in another. Evergreens, rich full-leaved winter- defying evergreens, heightening the splen- dour of a flower bed in the summer by their dense foliage, and giving a cheerful- ness to the rawest day of December — too much can hardly be said in their favour. PLEASUEE GARDENS. 213 They have grace of form and depth of hue. They require so little attention. They hide in so short a time any barren or un- graceful spot, and lend themselves to any artistic combination. Sometimes in the spring we have lovely days, which seem almost sad through the bareness of the trees. If we leave the spot and go where there are well-arranged groups of ever- greens, summer seems to have met us half- way, and the same in the autumn. "When all the leaves have gone and the tapering branches stand ghost-like in the clear air, perhaps at the latter end of October, we have but to turn our eyes to the evergreens and we forget that the summer has past and gone. We must consider the changes of the seasons, and especially the winds in laying out our pleasure garden ; a fine bold tree fronting the east or north should on no account be cut down. Around the hop 214 THE OPEN AIE. gardens of Kent trees are planted in ex- posed situations for no other purpose than to break the rude winds. There are flowers and shrubs which, if they are only sheltered, will grow and flourish as well as in their native and milder climates. Frequently the bad effects of a sudden frost are entirely owing to the wind upon which it was blown to the delicate plant or flower. I do not like trees near the house — at least very near. They are attractive in the few very hot days on account of the shade, but no house is healthy without plenty of light. Darkened rooms are in- jurious to the skin, to the eyesight, and to the hair. The blood is enfeebled, the spirits depressed. Light and air are the future watchwords of humanity. Heavy trees near the house encourage damp also. Besides, in time the trees grow incon- veniently. Some sturdy branch comes PLEASURE GARDENS. 215 poking into a nursery window like the bowsprit of a ship, and this wilfully blocks out one of your prettiest views, or suggests inconvenient facilities for the housebreaker. You cut off the offending member, and your tree has lost its beauty for years. Large trees prevent your having flowers within sight of the win- dows : a great and never-tiring charm, especially to those who are not very ro- bust, and cannot face the rough weather. Summing up, then, our system of lay- ing out a pleasure ground, we should say, Aid nature as much as you possibly can. Arrange your plan so that the eye falls unconsciously upon graceful and attractive objects, and do not be too fond of copying the works of others. Walks should have some definite termination. Nothing is more absurd than a well-kept path, lead- ing up to a dead wall. The curved or straight path must depend upon the 216 THE OPEN AIR. ground. If that is absolutely flat, the formal style of gardening is not so absurd as it at first appears. Overarching avenues and walls of greenery often break the monotony of level ground most agree- ably. Do not over-plant. Some open spots are requisite or flowers fare badly; beside, we are glad enough at many seasons of the year not to shun the gay sunlight. There are few weeks in an English year when we crave absolute shade. Do not cut and prune at random. Try before the fatal blow is given to imagine what the effect will be when the bough or branch is gone. Generally the graceful abandon of nature is preferable to any fancies of our own. Variety, too, is most desirable : for want of a little judgment at first planting we sometimes see a garden or pleasure ground filled with one shade of green. This may PLEASUKE GAEDENS. 217 be very effective in a distant view when standing in contrast to a lofty cliff or broad down, but seen closer it soon tires. Avoid affected outlines. You do not see them in nature. The shrub cut in the shape of a humming-top or a grotesque caricature of a human head, or the hedge clipped into the letters of a name, as I have seen, are utter abominations to the artistic eye, and cannot give real pleasure. 218 THE OPEN AIR. CHAPTER XVII. A BALLOON VOYAGE. At the risk of being called a dreamer, I cannot help expressing some regret that the Anglo-Saxon of to-day, and especially the Anglo-Saxon of large towns, should allow his higher faculties to become so over-ridden by materialism. The porch is swejDt and garnished, but the inner cham- bers of the temple of the soul are too often neglected and unclean. To my fancy an eye for the beautiful in nature, an ear for its sweet sounds, and a mind capable of appreciating the lofty thoughts suggested by its varied aspects seem as necessary for A BALLOON VOYAGE. 219 the mental, as light, air, and sunshine are to the physical nature of man. I feel more and more the value that life has in itself independently of outward cir- cumstances; that, whether toiling under homely corduroy or ruling millions in im- perial purple, it is a glorious thing to be measured rather by what it is than by what it brings; for if happiness only came to those who are pecuniarily successful the measure of human misery would overflow speedily. I was led to think thus as I stood one afternoon last autumn upon one of the City bridges watching the incessant traffic upon the bridge itself, in the busy streets, upon the stream beneath, and the distant lines of railway, and saw, as crowds passed me, what a sameness of expression there was in nearly every face, when suddenly a hearty slap upon my shoulder and a ring- ing voice in my ear startled me. 220 THE OPEN AIE. Turning sharply round, I saw a lively young merchant, at whose house I am always welcome when in London. "We could not have met in a better place or at a better time," he said. I inquired why. " I want you to go up in a balloon with me," was the answer. " It will be a new phase of open-air life. You have seen na- ture under every other aspect, but you have not" yet looked down upon her, and that is what I should like you to do this afternoon." I looked incredulous. " I am quite serious, I assure you. Come along; it will be a novel sensation for you, and there could not be a finer time than we shall have for the next few hours." " But I cannot go at a moment's notice," I pleaded. " My friends are expecting me to dine with them." "Well, here comes an omnibus which A BALLOON VOYAGE. 221 will pass the door. It will be quicker than the telegraph; just pencil a line and let the conductor leave it. Make haste, there's a good fellow." " But I have scarcely any cash about me, for I only intended taking a short stroll before dinner." " Never mind about cash : you won't want any. The seat is already paid for, but the fellow who should have gone pre- tends to be ill at the last moment. I'll be bound he was frightened instead. But its very lucky I met you." To speak the truth, I sympathised not a little at the moment with the gentleman who had got out of the engagement in this easy way, but my friend threw such a con- temptuous emphasis into his words as he related the fact that I was ashamed to con- fess that I was a little timid myself, and would rather confine my enjoyment of nature to terra firma. But I could not 222 THE OPEN AIR. withstand my companion's banter, and the consequence was that I allowed him to drag me into a Hansom, and in less than half an hour I found myself seated in the car of the "Royal Brunswick Balloon," filled with gas and passengers, bound hea- ven knows whither, and just ready for the start. Besides the aeronaut, Mr. Boxwell, there were half a dozen occupants of the car, in addition to my friend and myself. One was a clever young artist whose landscapes last year at the Royal Academy Exhibition attracted considerable attention. ■ Another was a pianist, whose compositions played by himself are very popular at the Crystal Palace and elsewhere. Then there was a physician, with a blanch manner and very oily voice ; and a mild young curate in charge of two ladies who seemed to have as much courage as any of the party. A BALLOON VOYAGE. 223 The aeronaut lias completed all the pre- parations for the ascent, and given us many instructions and cautions to prevent any mishap. The huge machine sways to and fro above our heads like a gigantic pegtop. A number of men are standing around us holding on to the car, and a little bustle is occasioned as they hand out the heavy iron weights that steady it and replace them with bags of sand. Very little re- mains to be done ; the grapnel, with its various hooks, which is to serve as the anchor of our aerial ship, is hanging over the side of the car in company with the guide rope. As far as I can judge, every- thing is ready. After a slight experimental ascent, evi- dently made to satisfy Mr. Boxwell, we came down again to earth to rise again speedily, a cannon being fired as a signal. Almost immediately after the sudden impulse given to the balloon by the start 224 THE OPEN AIE. all sense of motion is suspended. If the comparison be not too far-fetched, one might say that we floated upon an ever-rising but invisible tide, but that the ocean upon which we floated had no shore, and the ship in which we sailed was not obedient to the helmsman. As the wind so would our course be. Silence fell upon the whole party for a considerable time as we rose into the upper air, and no wonder, for, common-place as it seems to speak of a balloon ascent, there are yet but a few who have experienced this strange sensation. It was a glorious afternoon, but by the time the start was actually effected the day began to decline, and the sun tinted with gorgeous hues the fleecy clouds that sailed first above us and then far beneath us through the realms of sj}ace. It being autumn, the light declined rapidly, and by the time we had reached a good altitude the moon was faintly A BALLOON VOYAGE. 225 shining, and here and there also some twink- ling stars. Though we were so far above the earth, how immeasurably farther they seemed from us, and how strange it was, when our ship came near little islands of cloud, to see it pass completely through them, instead of coasting round their phan- tom shores, or stranding upon their ghostly reefs ! Above us and around us only the toppling heights and fantastic headlands of cloud- land. Beneath us at an awful depth lay the dome of St. Paul's glittering tremulously in the reflection of the sunlight, and re- minding me of the awful red-hot cone of Dante's Inferno. The river, with its flaming waves narrowed by the distance, seemed but a golden stripe upon the dark embroi- dery of streets, squares, churches, factories, and palaces. It was a spectacle I looked upon with beating heart and throbbing brain, but with a sense of disappointment Q 226 THE OPEN AIE. that I could but so feebly embody it in words. There was nothing I could com- pare with it ; once only in my life had I seen aught that gave the faintest resem- blance. Then I was in a boat upon a highland loch, in so complete a calm that not a breath of air stirred leaf or wave, cloud or blade of grass. The clear trans- parent water, smooth as glass, reflected rocks, trees, cattle, fields, cottages, and clouds in one harmonious picture, appa- rently many a mile beneath the motionless boat in which I sat, and gave such a sense of vastness as I never experienced again till seated in the car of the balloon. The strangeness and grandeur of the scene as we looked over the edge of the car soon took away the sense of danger which, I believe, though nobody would confess it, filled our minds for the first few minutes after we started, and made us all wonderfully silent and abstracted. As we A BALLOON VOYAGE. 227 rose steadily and imperceptibly every object beneath became smaller and smaller. The vessels below bridge dwindled to the size of toys. The huge cathedral, which had formed an imposing object at first as we looked at it across the roofs of mighty warehouses, might now be only the chief ornament of the supper table at an evening party. In the shadow of the huge buildings the bustling streets appeared like ditches, and the busy crowds hurrying through them like so many insects — a fancy that was assisted by the street lamps, which were just being lighted, and looked like so many glowworms upon the banks. What a narrow spot it seemed, to have been the theatre of such important deeds as I could recall during its past history! Kings, warriors, priests — men of thought and men of pleasure — the millionaire and the vagrant strut and fret their little hour upon its merciless flagstones. It hardly Q 2 228 THE OPEN AIE. seems possible that I have been one among them, floating now so calmly upon this silent sea with the shadow of the twilight gradually melting everything be- neath into one undistinguishable mass, and the fading sunlight gilding the fantastic peaks of an immeasurable cloudland in the far distance. We had ascended at first almost perpen- dicularly, but now a slight current of air wafted us gently away from the city south- ward, and the dusky mass of churches and warehouses, palaces and factories, docks and bridges faded into a mass of indistinct outlines, and we were sailing rapidly out into the open country. The striking spec- tacle of the vast city with the intense as- sociations connected with it having passed, a reaction fell for a time upon our little party, and we were somewhat gloomy. The darkness also increased rapidly, and there were not wanting some who A BALLOON VOYAGE. 229 prophesied danger and difficulty in the descent- Mr. Boxwell, however, was calm, firm, and collected, and answered the questions put to him — some of them I have no doubt absurd enough — with quiet confidence, and sometimes with a smile. He assured us that with the pleasant and steady wind in our favour we should clear the range of the Surrey hills by dusk, and find a safe and easy landing-place upon some heath or common near to a village, where we could shelter for the night. Indeed, it was not long before the dusky ridges of the hills about Reigate came in sight, and we hailed with delight the twinkling lamps of the town shining out of the gulf beneath like very insignificant stars. The aeronaut threw out some bags of sand to lighten the balloon for a time so as to continue in the same current, and I shall not easily forget the blank looks upon two or three faces 230 THE OPEN AIE. when the machine, which had been gradu- ally coming a little nearer mother earth, shot gaily tip higher. "We soon perceived what purpose our guide^had in view^ for shortly after we had lost sight of the lamps of the town he allowed some of the gas to escape, and we began rapidly to descend, " Keep your seats, gentlemen; be per- fectly steady and obey my instructions, and you will have nothing to fear/' said the aeronaut. The moon was rising, too, which he said would be of great help to us in choosing a suitable spot for the descent. Notwithstanding these assurances we speedily found that the least agreeable part of the expedition was to come, for scarcely had the moon revealed to us a broad heath, which looked inviting for the descent, when a dense mass of clouds ob- scured her light, and, coming down to the ground in the darkness, we bumped, A BALLOON VOYAGE. 231 jolted, and scuffled over the wide heath like an express train gone mad. We were too breathless and excited by the strange movement to ask any questions, and the sole object of everybody appeared to be to hold on might and main to the ropes of the car. Our conductor's advice " to keep our seats " was so obviously im- possible that it caused a faint laugh, which was stifled in its birth by a plunge of the car into a mass of bushes and under- growth, which for a second brought our barque to a stand. Some of us were for jumping out instantly, but the warning voice of our conductor restrained us, and with good reason, for a puff of wind hoisted the balloon in. another moment forty or fifty yards above the ground, and, brushing against the boughs of a sturdy old tree, threw us all unceremoniously into the bottom of the car, making woful havoc of sundry wine bottles and the remains of 232 THE OPEN AIR. a repast we had indulged in shortly after the ascent. Fortunately nobody was hurt, and all were rejoiced to learn that the aeronaut had, by skilfully throwing out the grapnel at the moment of collision, succeeded in hooking the vast machine to the trunk of the tree. And now the question was how to get out of the car. It was too far and too dark to jump down, and the balloon swayed too and fro, occasionally beating against the boughs : so it was impossible to climb down that way. While we were wondering in what way the descent would be effected we heard sounds of rustic joviality near at hand. " For he's a jolly good fellow," &c, we could hear distinctly in an uproarious chorus, and Mr. Boxwell shouted with all his might to attract their attention when the first pause came in the harmony. A BALLOON VOYAGE. 233 Meanwhile the gas rapidly escaping made the movements of the balloon more eccentric than ever. At one moment yards of the silk would collapse, and a puff of wind blowing into this loose por- tion would almost capsize the machine. Then in the next instant we would find ourselves blown a few yards from the tree, which shook in every leaf and branch from the strain. It seemed likely enough that we should pass the whole night in this delightful position, for our friends who were enjoying themselves at the way- side inn bellowed out another roystering chorus, and were as oblivious to our diffi- culties as the man in the moon. But everything comes to an end, even village beer-drinking and chorussing, and at last, with boisterous leavetaking, the rustics came out of the alehouse, and, to our great joy, turned in our direction. Again Mr. Boxwell shouted and held up a 234 THE OPEN AIK. lantern to show the direction, but for a considerable time there was no response, though we were certain the party must be quite close to us. A dead silence had fallen upon the party lately so noisy and mirthful. Evi- dently they were mystified, and their brains too much muddled by their pota- tions to have any clear idea what the sound was that came from the upper air. At last one of the men a little clearer in the head than the rest called out the word " balloon !" lustily, and then the whole party seemed to comprehend the chances of more beer, and rushed to the spot with drunken eagerness. Stimulated by the promise of a reward, the rawboned yokels held on to the balloon like grim death, haw-hawing with noisy enjoyment of our position. Soon their united strength, coupled with the decreasing size of the balloon, A BALLOON VOYAGE. 235 enabled them to haul it down close to the ground, and we stepped once more upon the firm earth, not a little pleased that the adventure was ended. The people at the inn, not dreaming of new customers at that hour, were just put- ting out the lights when we arrived. It was a clean and commodious hostel, hav- ing been a house of some importance in coaching days, and with a little contri- vance they managed to find sleeping ac- commodation for all the party. We had lighted upon one of the heaths below the picturesque range called the Hog's Back, leading to Farnham. I should have slept better than I did had it not been for a singular dream. I dreamt that I was still in the balloon, but entirely alone, and in such a position that I had no control whatever of its move- ment. I had lost all power of the will, and was lying at the bottom of the car 236 THE OPEN AIR. unable to move hand or foot. Higher and higher ascended the balloon, and as I lay in the car I could see masses of golden- tinted cloud miles above, which, however, at the rate we proceeded, I felt we should pass in a few seconds. A thousand wild fancies passed through my brain as I lay there helpless. I re- membered to have read somewhere that above a certain height a balloon filled with ordinary gas would be sure to ex- plode and fly into atoms. While brood- ing upon this idea there actually was a crash — an explosion. My doom, then, had come, and the machine was in frag- ments ! If I needed any confirmation of the fact, there, plainly before my eyes, were pieces of the silk of which the bal- loon was composed, flapping about as the skeleton of the machine sank rapidly, each instant swifter and swifter. My conscious- ness still remained, and what surprised me A BALLOON VOYAGE. 237 most of all was that the car still retained its steady position. But there seemed no doubt of the rapidity of my descent, for the cloud in which I had lately been en- veloped was now far above me. I could not move. I dared not if I had had the power, but I calculated by the time I had been descending that I must now be within a short distance of the earth. Yes! my conjecture is right. Yonder lofty hill — those trees confirm it! Another second more and I shall be dashed to pieces. I had been silent hitherto from sheer horror, but now I uttered a piercing cry. "My good fellow! what is the matter with you?" said the friend who had in- induced me to make the ascent, and who now stood wondering at my bedside. I awoke. " Thank heaven ! then it was but a dream," I exclaimed, as I related my vision. 238 THE OPEN AIE. " What great events from little causes rise!" said my companion, laughing heartily. " Who would have though that a servant-girl breaking some sticks to light the fire, and a few large vine-leaves flapping against the casement, would have produced this ?" " But it was a terrible dream," I said, " for all that. I can fancy I see that im- mense cloud still." "Of course you can," he retorted. " There it is sailing away over the hills. And now forget your dream and come to breakfast." A merry breakfast we had, and a lovely walk afterwards. Few Londoners know what beautiful scenery lies within thirty miles of their smoky home. The views from many of the hills beyond Guild- ford are magnificent. Hundreds of feet below are broad fields of corn. Sweet perfumes come upon the fresh breeze from A BALLOON VOYAGE. 239 the wild thyme and other herbs that grow upon the steep sides of the downs. There is that peaceful calm upon the vast ex- panse, so soothing to the dweller in towns wearied with the clatter of traffic night and day. Here and there a thin column of smoke tells of the cottage or farmhouse. Here and there, too, the rustic spire peeps through the embowering trees, and glimpses of shady lanes leading to deli- cious sylvan solitudes, where the poet may linger and dream away the livelong sum- mer day without a wish or care beyond the sweet beauty that encompasses him on every side. But the members of our party were not poets or painters. Some had engagements in town, and made with all speed for the nearest railway station. For myself I lingered there the rest of the day, and wrote under the shadow of a tree this sketch of a Balloon Voyage. 240 THE OPEN AIE« CHAPTER XVIII. AGEICULTUEAL LABOUEEES. It is no easy matter for a writer upon rustic topics to make the townsman under- stand the inner life of the rural labourer. The main facts of life are of course very similar in country and in town. There are the same passions and vices, the same instincts and virtues upon the lonely moor and in the hay field as in the Belgravian Square and the smoky alley. But there are so many modifications of character and manner caused by peculiarities of rustic life that one sometimes comes across men and women in out-of-the-way places, within perhaps fifty or a hundred miles of AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS. 241 London, who seem at first as strange and peculiar to the Londoner as though they were South Sea Islanders, and appear to have nothing in common with him save the language they speak, and even that is so narrowed and abbreviated by their habits of life that frequently it is scarcely intel- ligible. Take, for instance, the shepherd as we find him upon the lonely Berkshire downs. Mile after mile of sheepwalk stretches away into the distance, and, coming suddenly from the busy streets of the city or the noisy clank of the factory, it is difficult to realise the fact that we are only forty miles or so from the vast capital of England. We look far and wide, and the only objects that meet the eye are flocks of sheep scat- tered over the waste, mere specks upon the short herbage of the downs, and here and there a bush or stunted tree. In some places where the soil is somewhat richer a R 242 THE OPEN AIE. clump of trees with the outline of a gable- end, or the homely cones of a rick or two, reveal a solitary farm where we may be sure the tenant, though his rent is nearly nominal, has a hard fight to make both ends meet, and a life with very little enjoyment in it, for summer comes late and winter early upon these solitary downs. The shepherd leads a more primitive life still. His isolation is complete ; out in all weathers, and separated from the rest of the world, it is no wonder that he becomes a little uncouth in his manners. His meals are all taken al fresco upon the trunk of an old tree or the bare down, while his only table is perhaps a smooth white stone, and his only companion the shaggy old dog, who seems to understand him better than some of the black-coated people who by a rare chance stroll through his domain. Indeed, some of these visitors do not AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS. 243 meet with, a very warm reception from our shepherd. They make suggestions regard- ing his flock which raise a smile because of their impracticable nature, or else ques- tion him closely as to his life and habits, and affect a pious horror when they learn that he has not been inside a church half a dozen times in his life. They do not always come off best in the argument, for the shep- herd, having a deal of time for meditation, often makes a shrewd retort or original remark which silences his examiners. " I don't have many visitors," said a shepherd one day to me, " and, to speak my mind, they are most of them better away. I keep myself quiet up here, and mind my own business. I don't want to cavil at smart folks that don't understand my way of life, but I think if they know nothing about sheep it's useless for them to find fault with a shepherd; and as to church-going they can't tell what a man's r 2 244 THE OPEN AIR. inward thoughts may be. I mumble to myself a bit of a prayer or a hymn my old mother taught me, or I cut out a text on the chalky down, and it does me good to sit and think about it all Sunday afternoon. It's true I hear no church bells at this dis- tance, and feel strange when I do get inside a church ; but as I see the sun set or rise, and watch some of the grand thunder- storms we get on these downs, and the wonderful clouds, I make a better sermon out of 'em than you'd think. And remem- ber it's not always summer. It's sharp work in the lambing time, when a shepherd would as soon think of leaving the sheep to themselves as he would of neglecting his own children. Very often a keen north- easter is blowing all the night as he watches behind a thatched hurdle in his old great- coat, and his legs tied up with hay-bands to keep a little life in them. Why, sir, I have had the bread freeze in the pocket of AGEICULTUEAL LABOUEERS. 24 5 my old coat when I have been watching on these downs in winter ; and in wet weather I may say I haven't been dry for days together. Talk of teatotallers — let 'em try a shepherd's life for three months, and if they didn't break the pledge by that time I'm a Dutchman. And folks say I lead a lazy life, too ; why, when I'm making a fold in winter time upon frosty ground with thirty or forty stakes to drive into the earth before I can fix the hurdles, and the soil as hard as stone, I can't be very idle, I think. I don't wish to boast, but I should say a shepherd wants as many good qualities as any other calling. He must know his flock by heart as a scholar knows his book, and study what is good or bad for 'em. He must know the kind of soil where they are likely to take the rot, and keep stock in his head of what they can be fed upon when seasons are dry and herbage scarce. Why, if the 246 THE OPEN AIK. shepherd was a careless fellow he'd lose his master a hundred pounds in a week if there was a large flock !" I listened to the old shepherd's defence of his calling with considerable interest, and came away from the solitary Berk- shire down feeling how easy it was to think lightly of another man's way of life through want of knowledge or con- sideration. I cannot but think after all that the shepherd's life is more enviable than that of the poor ploughboy, whose occupation, so often described in poetical language and with much romantic colouring, is in reality a most arduous one. Look at his thick laced-up boots, shod as they are with nails and heavy tips, which are a load in themselves to carry, and it is no wonder that the poor lad after the day's labour drags his legs like a convict heavily chained. The pluck and courage most ot AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS. 247 these boys display in their difficult task one cannot help admiring. See them when it is barely light in the morning bringing out the heavy horses and touch- ing them up with a stumpy whip, or urging them in a voice of command which many a smooth-faced young officer might envy ; or in the furrow after a heavy rain, when their feet are clogged with several pounds of mud in addition to their heavy boots, and the blundering, stumbling, sliding hoofs of the horses threaten them with a broken leg every moment ; or, when they come to the end of the furrow, and plough, horses, boy, and man are jumbled together like a train in collision, it is impossible not to sympathise with the boy's vigorous effort to put matters straight for the next furrow. But these boys infinitely prefer the plough with all its drudgery to the harrow. In ploughing he goes at a steady pace, and 248 THE OPEN AIR. his chief task is to watch the horses and the ploughman, but harrowing is com- monly done in hot dusty weather, and the horses, having a comparatively light load, step over the firm soil at a rapid pace, which obliges the boy very often to run to keep up with them. Then the har- row is constantly clogged up with the weeds collected, and which must be cleared away to make its services efficient. What with the labour, the thick cloud of dust, and the toil of running many miles a day, it is about the hardest labour a boy can have. Yet with this severe physical exer- tion, with exposure to the weather, and very hard living, these boys look better than their fellows in the town, pent up in close workshops and factories. They learn also to shift for themselves in a way that is very useful to them in after life. Many such boys have become men of mark. As for the ploughman, with a keen AGEICULTUEAL LABOURERS. 249 eye and strong arm his course is pretty clear, and, like some officers who get the credit for victories won by the hardihood of the men under them, the ploughman is often flattered for effects which the sturdy lad in front of him has mainly helped to produce. A useful man about a farm is the thatcher; the skill and even the elegance sometimes displayed in this work merit very high commendation. Generally the thatcher takes pride in his task, and so carefully is the straw manipulated that a thin layer will keep out the heaviest storm. It is amusing, too, to see the fanciful con- ceits which the thatcher indulges in when the rick is once protected from a portend- ing downfall. Sometimes his artistic taste inclines to royalty, and he "crowns the edifice " or he has a fancy to imitate some bird or animal of the farmyard, and his labour is concluded with a straw image of 250 THE OPEN AIE. a pig, a swan, or a peacock. I have seen a straw weathercock stuck upon a wooden spike and turning to every point of the compass, or a pre-Raphaelite edging of plaited straw has formed the ridge of an oblong wheatrick. When our friend has to thatch the roof of the farmhouse itself he adopts a graver style. Any whimsi- cality that would call up a joke among the farm labourers appears to him out of place as connected with the master's roof, which he proceeds to cover in a solemn business- like style, and finishes with some severity of taste, cutting the eaves with mathema- tical precision, and pinning down with the greatest care every edge or corner ex- posed to the wind. Old-fashioned country people still prefer the thatched roof, and say it is warmer in winter and cooler in sum- mer than a roof of tiles or slate. For many reasons it does not seem well adapted for towns, though as near London AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS. 251 as Shepherd's Bush there is a thatched house which appears to answer very well. The hedger and ditcher is altogether a sterner artist than the thatcher ; with his thick hard leather gloves and keen hatchet he wages sharp war with the exuberance of nature, turning the prickly thornbush and straggling branches into a strong and serviceable fence, which it must be con- fessed is often far from ornamental. Yet kindly Dame Nature is always doing her best to hide the utilitarian deformities of money-making farmers, and before many months have passed the grim skeleton- looking hedge is sprouting again, and, bating a little stiffness in the outlines, forms a graceful border to the fields. But it is a woful day for the wild flowers and the birds when the hedger and ditcher begins his task. How remorselessly the grim fellow tears up the wild honeysuckle, the 252 THE OPEN AIE. primrose, the bluebell, the clinging con- volvulus, and all the gay varieties of bloom that haunt the sunny banks of a deep dry ditch ! Many a time has the artist spent a happy day in imitating that wealth of graceful and delicate hues, but the de- stroyer is thinking only of making the water-course run freely, and, having lopped off the topmost boughs of the hedge, and twisted and pulled the branches into an intricate network which may defy the efforts of an adventurous pig to crawl through or a frisky cow to jump over, he ruthlessly clears out this exquisite bank, and ridges it up witn mud and clay from the bottom of the ditch. My good hedger and ditcher, you have, alas ! no feeling for the pictu- resque, and I have many a time heard the anathemas of the young painter after following in your wake. As a rule the countryman, and especially the uneducated countryman, is blind to the beauty of AGEICULTUEAL LABOURERS. 253 nature, and only becomes conscious of it when his taste has been awakened by the wandering tourist, or artist in search of new material for his studio : left to himself, the rustic has a constant hankering for the delights of town life. But it is impossible to think without pity of the condition of an old man who has laboured all his days upon the soil, and when past work sees before him only the workhouse as an asylum. Looking back upon his past life, how many peaceful victories he can remember which have brought him scant reward ! There, as he rests his poor rheumatic limbs upon a friendly stile, he sees the golden billows of a wheat-crop where in his youth was only a desolate sedgy moor, now redeemed and made profitable by his labour. Yonder, where a flock of sheep are feeding in a luxuriant meadow, he remembers a swamp flooded half the year by the rivulet which his 254 THE OPEN AIR. labour turned into another channel. That sandy waste, where the very weeds refused to take root, he dug up and manured year after year. Many a matted slope of stringy weeds he has torn up with his hands, and sown productive seeds in their place. And not only do the fields before his eyes speak of his handiwork in other days: there is hardly a square yard in the parish which he has not worked upon at some time during these long past years. His labour produced that plantation of noble trees, levelled and drained the roads ; in fact, the village that gives him the meagre shelter of the work- house in his solitary age is in great part his own creation. He is contemptuously spoken of for his ignorance and his clown- ishness, but why is he ignorant and clown- ish ? Because the best of his life has been given to increase and adorn the possessions of others. Poor fellow ! he bears the mark of suffer- AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS. 255 ing in every look and movement, and perhaps he is left alone in the world, his worn-out wife and sickly family having forgotten the hardships of their lot in the kindly grave. Considering the importance and value of the agricultural labourer, it is surprising to think how little is done to amend his condition. The circumstances of his life are seldom favourable to cultivation of the mental powers, or education of the taste. The hard necessities of daily life press upon him hour by hour. Often enough his cottage is a miserable damp unhealthy dwelling, surrounded by noisy, dirty, and dissipated neighbours ; the rooms are small and few, and his family is compelled to huddle together in a manner which sets decency at defiance. Amusement or recre- ation he has none. The cheap attractions that wean the town mechanic and labourer from the gin palace are rarely supplied for 256 AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS. him. Apart from his wretched home there is only the society of the tramp and va- grant, with the low beershop to drain him of his last remaining coin. THE OPEN AIE. 257 CHAPTER XIX. A VILLAGE CHURCH. Brought up in a country village, I recall many pleasurable associations connected with the church where I spent no incon- siderable portion of each Sunday, and I am disposed to think that the boys of that day were better pleased to go to church than they are now. Not that I set myself up as one of those youthful saints we some- times read of, who seem never to have laughed at the absurdities of a pantomime, never to have known the fearful delight of being caught far up an apple-tree by the irate proprietor thereof, or the joy of hav- ing tied a tin kettle to the tail of some old 258 THE OPEN AIE. dame's favourite grimalkin ; never stuck an arrow into the brawny flank of an over- fed pig, or smoked out a wasj)s' nest with sulphur, getting awfully stung in the pro- cess, but rejoicing as only boys can rejoice at a final victory over the buzzing insects. I think we boys liked going to church because it was more like going to a family party than the stiff formal ceremony we are most accustomed to in large towns, where the ladies will deck themselves in their gayest colours, and covet, if not their neighbour's house, at least her bonnet, if smarter than their own. In our village the ladies were so well acquainted with the wardrobes of their neighbours that it was not necessary to make a display on Sunday in order to show some feminine rival over the way that they were not behind the fashion. Our church was the prominent feature of the village ; it was beautifully situated, hidden amongst tall elm-trees of mighty A VILLAGE CHURCH. 259 growth, iii which the irreligious rooks cawed all the Sunday morning, as if in mockery of their black-coated neighbour the parson. These trees formed, too, a favourite play- ground for the boys ; and often when the poor old man who did duty as sexton, pew- opener, bell-ringer, and general official of our church took his accustomed nap shortly after the beginning of the sermon, it was no unusual thing for some of the more unruly spirits to creep quietly out of church and refresh themselves with a merry chase round the old trees, coming back in time to hear the wind-up of the clergyman's discourse. Sometimes a sudden shout or a warning from a wide-awake member of the congregation sent the old sexton after us, and happy was the youth who escaped his skilfully wielded cane. These old elms were a pleasant lounge for the poor people who were too old or too idle for work, and their broad shade s 2 260 THE OPEN AIE. fell upon the graves of the forefathers of the hamlet, the record of their names and ages serving as an easy spelling-lesson for their careless descendants. Round the hoary belfry the lavish ivy threw its shel- tering green wings, and almost hid the broad face of the clock, which, however, was not a serious matter, as it had stuck at half-past twelve since the boyhood of the oldest inhabitant, and we measured the hour by the shadow of its hands upon the rusty figures, and should, I dare say, have re- sented any attempt at making the clock go. The organ was a great fascination for the boys of the village, and the white-haired old gentleman who played it was regarded by us as a sort of antique magician, a fancy which was helped out by the surroundings of the organ-loft where he sat; for there were two or three curious old rags hanging from the ends of long poles, which some- body told us had once been flags carried in A VILLAGE CHUKCH. 261 the battle-field by some of those foreigners whom Great Britain is popularly supposed invariably to conquer. We also gazed with even greater admiration at a suit of ancient armour hanging in the chancel, which had been worn by some former lord of the manor, whose achievements were recorded on a tombstone beneath, on the top of which reposed the image of the defunct warrior carved in stone, minus a portion of his very prominent nose. On high days and holidays we were not contented with the organ merely. To the great horror of the white-haired magi- cian aforesaid, instruments of a more popu- lar character were introduced. There never was an English village so small as not to hold a performer on the bassoon, and the carpenter who discourses upon the German flute is also inevitable. At such times as the revel and fair the clergyman gave a special service, and then our bassoon-player 262 THE OPEN AIK. and flautist, together with a gentleman who brought out a few uncertain tones from a cracked clarionet, and a violinist from a distant parish, whose first string always broke in tuning his instrument, met four of our village musical celebrities, who sang respectively soprano, alto, tenor, and bass, and the result was an anthem. I need hardly say that this was a great event in our village, to be talked of for miles round, to be rehearsed in a dozen farm- houses, and finally to break down in the actual performance. As a scape-goat was necessary, this result was invariably attri- buted to the organist, and it was prophesied that some day, when the white-haired old gentleman had gone to his rest, and a more modern musician supplied his place, all would go well; but I remembered the anthem many years after this or- ganist had vanished, and always as a failure. A VILLAGE CHUECH. 263 And what delight for us boys to watch the painted windows, especially when a sudden ray from the declining sun upon an autumn afternoon lighted up the images of saints and martyrs with an almost un- earthly splendour! Sometimes upon hot afternoons we would lounge upon the tombstones while the organist was prac- tising inside, and very pleasant it was to hear the drowsy hum of the instrument blending with the murmur of the wind in the trees. We were rather shy of the place as night drew on, for the strange echoes from the owls in the belfry far above our heads had a very ghostly effect, and suggested visions of long-forgotten in- habitants of the village wandering in their shrouds amongst the shadows of the dusky elms ; and the white tombstones, tipped here and there with the silvery glitter of a ray of moonlight, had a startling effect upon the youthful fancy. Even the brook 264 A TILLAGE CHUECH. that babbled musically but a few yards from the churchyard had then a weird sepulchral tone, as though it whispered awful secrets of the dead in a language unintelligible to the living. It is many years ago ; but I seem to see yet that ancient tower, lonely and gray, rising above the sea of foliage that sur- rounds it, like some tall rock that serves as a beacon to the homeward-bound seaman. I seem to hear, as I pen these fond familiar records, the bell that trembles in yon hoary tower, and sweetly stirs the drowsy air of a summer Sunday afternoon. For cen- turies, at the self-same hour, it has called the peaceful dwellers of that remote village to prayer. It has its own lessons in tokens gathered to the spot in silence through the brooding years, in the crumbling stone, the half-effaced inscription, the many grassy mounds of other days, and the open grave of to-day. THE OPEN AIR. 265 CHAPTER XX. COUNTEY HOUSES. In selecting a country residence, it must be confessed some care is required, or we may involve ourselves in many unforeseen difficulties. The man who has spent his past life in a street where his only pros- pect was the front of his neighbour's house or factory, generally rushes to the opposite extreme, and buys or builds a house upon the top of a hill, commanding an extensive prospect. It is charming for a time, but somehow in a year or two he is often wishing it was a little lower down, for he finds the ascent daily very fatiguing ; and his friends, who formerly visited him two or three times 266 THE OPEN AIR. a week, make trifling excuses, and come once in three months. The landscape, too, with which he thought never to be tired, was more interesting when seen at the end of a pleasant ramble. The top of a hill is very trying, too, when the wind changes to every point of the compass in the course of a few hours. It is far better to reside with the hill behind instead of beneath you. The bold ridge of a down or a fine avenue of trees between your house and the east wind will make a difference of some degrees in the thermometer, and perhaps save a few chimney-pots and slates in the course of the winter. Delightful as a river may be for boat- ing, fishing, or artistic enjoyment, it may be too near for domestic comfort. If a tidal stream, it is not pleasant to find three feet of water in your wine-cellar on ac- count of the extraordinary spring tide. COUNTRY HOUSES. 267 and the novelty and amusement of leaving your drawing-room window by means of a boat is not compensated by a register of the high-water mark upon the handsome paper of the walls. There are water-rats, too, as well as land-rats, and very vora- cious animals they are. I once saw one as large as a good-sized lap-dog making off with the remains of a cold shoulder as big as himself. The glimmer of light upon the surface of a stream is very apt to be fatiguing; and although the most exquisite effects in nature are produced with the aid of water, and nobody can dare to disparage the loveliness of lake and river scenery, yet I maintain that they are rather for occasional enjoyment than for every-day indulgence. A glimpse of a lake or river from a portion of the grounds is most effective where one can either enjoy it or not, according to the mood; but there are many features of 268 THE OPEN AIE. natural scenery which are most enjoyable when not forced upon one. A river within a short ramble, or a mountain for a background to the landscape, we enjoy all the more because we can leave them at will. I have known one who dwelt all his life upon the sea-shore, who, whenever he took a walk, always went directly inland, and chose the walk that shut out the ocean immediately. One would not, of course, choose a house without any prospect whatever. Nothing can be more sombre than some country houses, enclosed on all sides by trees that rise absolutely above the roof. In the summer there is only one solemn hue of green foliage, and the subdued rustling of the leaves, so charming oc- casionally upon a broiling afternoon, when indulging in a pleasant day-dream, becomes unutterably sad when skies are dull and misty, and is certain to make one restless COUNTRY HOUSES. 269 and discontented. The view from the house should be of moderate extent, with as much variety in it as possible ; the need of some human interest will be felt by almost everybody. A picturesque bridge, occasionally crossed by quaintly-dressed countrymen, or by a lumbering waggon piled up high with field-produce ; a bold group of lofty trees, with a colony of rooks flapping about in the topmost branches, and the clamour of their noisy parlia- ment softened by the distance ; a hoary church spire, with a few pleasant meadows between to soften down the echoes of the peal of bells ; a glimpse of roadway over a down, where we detect our friend by his grey horse or light-coloured wrapper long before we can detect his features ; the gables of an old farmhouse or two, or the crumbling wall of a ruined fortress, — this diversity of objects melting in one pleasing whole satisfies us more than one impera- 270 THE OPEN AIR. tive feature which we are compelled to gaze upon night and day, winter and sum- mer, such as a huge mountain or a broad river. Tou cannot be climbing the moun- tain or crossing the ferry at every hour in the day, but there is nothing to prevent you strolling down to the haymakers in the meadows a quarter of a mile away, or going to meet your friend coming over the down, or lounging at the bridge with a fishing-rod, or watching the reapers over a five-barred gate, or sketching the ruins of the castle. These features are near at hand, and you can easily share the enjoy- ment with others. Besides, in such landscapes you are gene- rally not too far away from literature and music ; a five miles' journey to get a new periodical, or twenty miles by train to hear a Beethoven symphony, is a penalty too severe to pay for love of the picturesque ; and in such regions there is no society, for a COUNTRY HOUSES. 271 person accustomed to town will not enter into the inner life of a poor fellow who, earning his bread by the care of a few sheep upon a misty mountain-slope, is more accustomed to the companionship of a shaggy dog than to that of human beings, and whose notions of a dinner are limited to a slice of dark-coloured dry bread and a draught at some swift little mountain rivu- let. You will see his whitewashed hut perched under the shelter of a crag at no great distance, but he cannot be a companion for you ; neither can you, however well dis- posed, be of any service to him. Nor will you care much for the clergyman who offi- ciates at the primitive church two miles away ; long companionship with poor un- educated people has made him forget much of his college training, and when he meets you to spend an evening he feels your fresh contact with the busy world quite oppres- sive. Nor will you fare much better with 272 THE OPEN AIR. the jovial farmer who nods to you as he drives home from market ; if you are in- clined for a chat with him, his talk is of cows and corn, pigs and potatoes; he knows nothing of books or pictures; and his only approach to science is when he hires the steam threshing-machine, and unwillingly adopts some patent manure. If he happens to be a rich man, and leaves such matters to his steward, then his sole ambition is the hunting-field or the gun. These friendly hints to the town man who is desirous to be no longer in " popu- lous city pent " are not intended in any disparagement of rural habits, but merely as a caution not to wander too far at first from the trodden path. There are plenty of delightful localities where the lover of nature can have the fullest enjoyment without sacrificing any of those tastes which he has acquired in the town. There is no greater mistake than to suppose COUNTEY HOUSES. 273 that the habits of half a lifetime can be suddenly laid aside like a worn-out garment. And some of the greatest pleasures of country life can only be acquired by de- grees. The external features of a rural landscape will not be enough of themselves to satisfy us. When, by a residence of some duration, we have become more familiar with the nooks and corners hidden behind yonder long range of hills ; when we have attended service in that solemn old church, or taken a friendly glass of wine with the rector in that beautiful old house half covered with roses, or lingered along the footpath beside that pretty river, which flashes here and there between the trees ; when we have read-up the history of that once famous stronghold of some an- tique warrior, of which there are but a few fragments remaining, — we have acquired that human interest in the prospect which T 274 THE OPEN AIR. adds a greater charm than the lover of mere beauty is willing to admit. In fact, the man who would exchange town life for country life had need to be somewhat elastic in his taste, for he must take what he can get in many instances, whether in religious matters or butcher and baker. He cannot, for instance, if a Pu- seyite clergyman establishes himself at the parish-church, go into the next street, and enjoy the " warm without sugar" logic of the whitewashed chapel. Country-people are shy of attacking the church, and our new-comer from the town, who proposes a deputation to the Bishop, will most likely find himself scantily supported, — and out of the half-dozen he has drummed up, one or two at least will back out at the last moment ; so after a great deal of talk, and after many letters have been written, with perhaps a stirring appeal to the local jour- nal, the matter dies out, and there are COUNTRY HOUSES. 275 lighted candles, incense, genuflexions with- out number, and services at unearthly hours, till half the congregation stay at home or turn dissenters. But believe not, gentle reader, if you have a genuine love of the country, that these or worse stumbling-blocks will hinder your enjoyment. There is a glory in the sky, a splendour in the change of the seasons, a wonder and mystery in the opening of the bud and flower, a spirituality in the break of day, a calm and soothing influence in the radiant hues of the sunset, a joyous exhilaration in the flash of the oncoming wave, which all the folly and perversity, all the blindness and selfishness, of man can neither weaken, change, nor destroy. t 2 276 THE OPEN AIE. CHAPTER XXI. ON TEAMP. The passion for going immense distances in search of the picturesque has almost given a death-blow to pedestrianism. Being inspired by a most amusing article by Albert Smith, describing how, with a merry companion, he walked through Switzerland into Italy, spending only three or four pounds each, and enjoying them- selves immensely, I tried the experiment upon a smaller scale in North Wales ;, and though I met with no startling adventures, such as sliding down a glacier, and burying myself in a hundred feet of snow, or saving myself by a hair's breadth upon the very ON TEAMP. 277 edge of a precipice by holding on like grim death with my alpenstock, I found amuse- ment enough to give me many a pleasant memory since. There were mountains to climb which, if they were not covered with snow, gave one landscape-glimpses which are not possible in Alpine regions. There were waterfalls which, if not dissipated into mist by the depth of their descent, were ex- tremely picturesque ; and the brilliant foliage upon the banks of the streams, to- gether with their irregular course, at one moment almost hidden from sight by dense masses of wood, at another expanding into little flashing pools, where the shadow of some tall peak was mirrored all the tran- quil autumn afternoon, afforded a great variety of subjects for the poet and sk etcher. Not Wales only, but thousands of places little visited by the regulation tourist, serve admirably for those who have a fancy to 278 THE OPEN AIR. go on tramp. Glorious effects of colour and outline may be discovered upon the Yorkshire moors; and when one is tired of the wild scenery of heather-clad open country, there are fine old ruined castles in picturesque situations, full of beauty and historical interest; rivers not to be surpassed in their graceful windings, varied by rock, wood, and tiny islands; fine hills, too, where one can sit down to an al-fresco repast, looking out over thirty miles or so of really exquisite scenery. And a great deal of this unworn beauty, undefiled by the music-hall echoes of the gaping Cockney, and with no ugly brick- and-mortar imitation Gothic stuck upon the best points of view, is out of the way of fast-going tourists, and can only be seen to advantage by the humble lover of the picturesque who uses his own eyes and his own — legs. Let him carefully choose his ground, ON TEA.MP. 279 and begin by walking ten miles a day at a very steady pace, and, if blessed with good health, by the end of a week he will knock off twenty miles a day with as much ease as he formerly took a stroll in Ken- sington Gardens, Then, on tramp, one is not bound to con- ventionality of costume. Many a comfort- able wayside inn will open its doors to the tourist on tramp, and give him a heartier greeting than he would receive if he stopped in a grand carriage at the Universal Hotel Limited, and forty waiters were bowing him up the grand staircase. In the grand hotel they would be merely studying the length of the new-comer's purse. In the picturesque inn the rosy-faced landlady or her handsome daughter would most likely invite him to the parlour behind the bar, and he would feel at home in a moment, while the jovial host, over his pipe, would with a knowing wink tell him what bend 280 THE OPEN AIR. of the river would suit him if an angler, or give him a good word to somebody in charge of a fine old castle or picture-gal- lery, or, if he chooses to linger a day or two in the place, very likely give him a few hours' capital shooting. And if a tourist would discover a par- ticularly good sauce for his meat, let him take his dinner under a hedge for once. If a lover of character, he can hardly pass through a country village without finding some odd fellow to amuse him with a quaint remark or proverb a few centuries old; rosy girls will watch him shyly under overhanging eaves, and little boys stand transfixed with wonder at his knapsack and foreign-looking felt hat. Never should the pedestrian adopt the chimney-pot hat of city life. It will entail a perpetual headache, it will be knocked over his eyes by overhanging boughs, it will create a miniature oven upon the ON TRAMP. 281 crown of his head, it will not permit him to indulge in a siesta upon a summer after- noon while passing- through a wood, it will look seedy after a couple of showers, and to put it into his pocket is an impossibility. A light felt with a pretty good brim, a knapsack made of soft material, and an umbrella which will be both a walking- stick and a shelter from too fierce a sun, boots of pliable leather with thick soles, a good knife, and a natty pocket map, and if a young fellow cannot find any enjoy- ment in two or three weeks on tramp with a pleasant companion, I pity him. He can easily choose localities. Let him get out of the Brighton Railway at Hassock's Gate, and make for Ditchling Beacon, high up on the downs. Then for half a dozen miles he can walk upon turf soft as a carpet, scented with wild thyme and other plants of grateful odour. He can pass on to Lewes, and ramble over the fine cliffs 282 THE OPEN AIR. bordering the sea, and follow the coast for many a pleasant mile through quaint old fishing villages, and by glorious reaches of beach and cliff. Or he can run down fifty miles by the Eastern Railway, and take a turn in the novel scenery of the Fens, strik- ing out upon some spot upon the north coast. Or he can follow up the course of a river, dropping into some of the ancient churches, castles, or family seats which are certain to line its banks. If he covets more romantic scenery, a month on tramp in the Lake Districts or Wales will repay him thoroughly. If he wishes greater novelty, he may cross to the French coast, and be amused to his heart's content upon the Normandy coast, where quaint archi- tecture, quaint costumes, and quainter manners will procure him endless amuse- ment at a very cheap rate. The tourist on tramp should always have a little artistic taste. There are lovely nooks ON TKAMP. 283 and corners in the world, which no guide- book has ever noticed ; and the farther he gets from railways and high-roads, the more numerous they are. The pedestrian is not hurried; he can loiter to gaze at a sunset till the distant hill glows purple with the twilight. He can swing his legs over a stile while a rustic tells him some comical local history. He sleeps like a top, and has an appetite like a lion. Whoever is crossed in love, swindled by a limited liability company, abused by a surly critic, harassed by busi- ness worries, or fretful through bad di- gestion, let him try two or three weeks on tramp. THE END. CHARLES JONES, PRINTER, WEST HARDINQ STREET. <*ftWMmAW& • ■ . . .>' Ml ■ • !.-0 MSttiftittMittttlWX >KV V- - t* ",f -. •• • -r.t C.1I.-J- . . »v < ^™ -*- v./* ■ch-