A Cotswold Village by J. Arthur GibbsOr, Country Life and Pursuits in Gloucestershire (page 2)

As to the morals of the Gloucestershire peasants in general, and of our village in particular, it may be said that they are on the whole excellent; in one respect only they are rather casual, not to say prehistoric.

The following story gives one a very good idea of the casual nature of hamlet morals:–

A parson–I do not know of which village, but it was somewhere in this neighbourhood–paid a visit to a newly married man, to speak seriously about the exceptionally premature arrival of an heir. “This is a terrible affair,” said the parson on entering the cottage. “Yaas; ’twere a bad job to be sure,” replied the man. “And what will yer take to drink?”

Let it in justice be said that such episodes are the exception and not the rule.

Among the characters to be met with in our Cotswold hamlet is the village politician. Many a pleasant chat have we enjoyed in his snug cottage, whilst the honest proprietor was having his cup of tea and bread and butter after his work. Common sense he has to a remarkable degree, and a good deal more knowledge than most people give him credit for. He is a Radical of course; nine out of ten labourers are _at heart_. And a very good case he makes out for his way of thinking, if one can only put oneself in his place for a time. We have endeavoured to convert him to our way of thinking, but the strong, reflective mind,

“Illi robur, et aes triplex
Circa pectus erat,”

is not to be persuaded. He will be true to “the colour”; this is his final answer, even if your arguments overcome for the time being. And you cannot help liking the man for his straightforward, self-reliant nature; he is acting up to the standard he has set himself all through life.

“This above all, to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

And how many there are in the byways of England acting up to this motto, and leading the lives of heroes, though their reward is not to be found here!

There is no nobler sight on this earth than to behold men of all ages doing their duty to the best of their ability, in spite of manifold hardships and many a bitter disappointment; cheerfully and manfully confronting difficulties of all kinds, and training up children in the fear and knowledge of God. If this is not nobleness, there is no such thing on earth. And it is owing to the vast amount of real, genuine Christianity that exists among these honest folk that life is rendered on the whole so cheerful in these Cotswold villages. Many small faults the peasants doubtless possess; such are inseparable from human nature. The petty jealousies always to be found where men do congregate exist here, and as long as the earth revolves they will continue to exist; but underneath the rough, unpolished exterior there is a reef of gold, far richer than the mines of South Africa will ever produce, and as immortal as the souls in which it lies so deeply rooted and embedded.

For the best type of humanity we need not search in vain among the humble cottages of the hamlets of England. There shall we find the courageous, brave souls who “scorn delights and live laborious days,”–men who estimate their fellows at their worth, and not according to their social position. Blunt and difficult to lead, not out of hardness of heart or obstinate pigheadedness, but as Burns has put it:

“For the glorious priviledge
Of being independant.”

A few such are to be found in all our rural villages if one looks for them; and if they are the exceptions to the general rule, it must also be remembered that men with “character” are equally rare amongst the upper and middle classes.

Talking of village politics, I shall never forget a meeting held at Northleach a few years ago. It was at a time when the balance of parties was so even that our Unionist member was returned by the bare majority of three votes, only to be unseated a few weeks afterwards on a recount. Northleach is a very Radical town, about six miles from my home; and when I agreed to take the chair, I little knew what an unpleasant job I had taken in hand. Our member for some reason or other was unable to attend. I therefore found myself at 7.30 one evening facing two hundred “red-hot” Radicals, with only one other speaker besides myself to keep the ball a-rolling. My companion was one of those professional politicians of the baser sort, who call themselves Unionists because it pays better for the working-class politician–in just the same way as ambitious young men among the upper classes sometimes become Radicals on the strength of there being more opening for them on the “Liberal” side.

Well, this fellow bellowed away in the usual ranting style for about three-quarters of an hour; his eloquence was great, but truth was “more honoured in the breach than in the observance.” So that when he sat down, and my turn came, the audience, instead of being convinced, was fairly rabid. I was very young at that time, and fearfully nervous; added to which I was never much of a speaker, and, if interrupted at all, usually lost the thread of my argument.

After a bit they began shouting, “Speak up.” The more they shouted the more mixed I got. When once the spirit of insubordination is roused in these fellows, it spreads like wild-fire. The din became so great I could not hear myself speak. In about five minutes there would have been a row. Suddenly a bright idea occurred to me. “Listen to me,” I shouted; “as you won’t hear me speak, perhaps you will allow me to sing you a song.” I had a fairly strong voice, and could go up a good height; so I gave them “Tom Bowling.” Directly I started you could have heard a pin drop. They gave, me a fair hearing all through; and when, as a final climax, I finished up with a prolonged B flat–a very loud and long note, which sounded to me something between a “view holloa” and the whistle of a penny steamboat, but which came in nicely as a sort of _piece de resistance_, fairly astonishing “Hodge”–their enthusiasm knew no bounds. They cheered and cheered again. Hand shaking went on all round, whilst the biggest Radical of the lot stood up and shouted, “You be a little Liberal, I know, and the other blokes ‘ave ‘ired [hired] you.” Whether we won any votes that evening I am doubtful, but certain I am that this meeting, which started so inauspiciously, was more successful than many others in which I have taken part in a Radical place, in spite of the fact that we left it amid a shower of stones from the boys outside.

I do not think there is anything I dislike more than standing up to address a village audience on the politics of the day. Unless you happen to be a very taking speaker–which his greatest friends could not accuse the present writer of being–agricultural labourers are a most unsympathetic audience. They will sit solemnly through a long speech without even winking an eye, and your best “hits” are passed by in solemn silence. To the nervous speaker a little applause occasionally is doubtless encouraging; but if you want to get it, you must put somebody down among the audience, and pay them half a crown to make a noise.

I suppose no better fellow or more suitable candidate for a Cotswold constituency ever walked than Colonel Chester Master, of the Abbey; yet his efforts to win the seat under the new ballot act were always unavailing, saving the occasion on which he got in by three votes, and then was turned out again within a month. An unknown candidate from London–I will not say a carpet-bagger–was able to beat the local squire, entirely owing to the very fact that he was a stranger.

There is a good deal of chopping and changing about among the agricultural voters, in spite of a general determination to be true to the “yaller” colour or the “blue,” as the case may be. As I passed down the village street on the day on which our last election took place, I enthusiastically exclaimed to a passer-by in whom I thought I recognised one of our erstwhile firmest supporters, “We shall have our man in for a certainty this time.” “What–in the brook!” replied the turncoat, with a glance at the stream, and not without humour, his face purple with emotion. This was somewhat damping; but the hold of the paid social agitator is very great in these country places, and it is scarcely credible what extraordinary stories are circulated on the eve of an election to influence the voters. At such times even loyalty is at a discount At a Tory meeting a lecturer was showing a picture of Gibraltar, and expatiating on the English victory in 1704, when Sir George Rooke won this important stronghold from the Spaniards. “How would you like any one to come and take your land away?” exclaimed a Radical, with a great show of righteous indignation. And his sentiments received the applause of all his friends.

In these matters, and in the spirit of independence generally, country folk have much altered. No longer can it be said; as Addison quaintly puts it in the _Spectator_, that “they are so used to be dazzled with riches that they pay as much deference to the understanding of a man of estate as of a man of learning; and are very hardly brought to regard any truth, how important soever it may be, that is preached to them, when they know there are several men of five hundred a year who do not believe it.”

In such-like matters the labourers now show a vast deal of common sense, and the only wonder is that whilst paying but little deference either to men of estate or men of learning, they yet allow themselves to be “bamboozled” by the promises and claptrap of the paid agitator.

Narrow and ignorant as is the Toryism commonly displayed in country districts, it is yet preferable, from the point of view of those whose motto is _aequam memento_, etc., to the impossible Utopia which the advanced Radicals invariably promise us and never effect.

A word now about the farmers of Gloucestershire.

It is often asked, How do the Cotswold farmers live in these bad times? I suppose the only reply one can give is the old saw turned upside down: They live as the fishes do in the sea; the great ones eat up the little ones. The tendency, doubtless, in all kinds of trade is for the small capitalists to go to the wall.

Some of the farmers in this district are yeoman princes, not only possessing their own freeholds, but farming a thousand or fifteen hundred acres in addition. Mr. Garne, of Aldsworth, is a fine specimen of this class. He makes a speciality of the original pure-bred Cotswold sheep, and his rams being famous, he is able to do very well, in spite of the fact that there is little demand for the old breed of sheep, the mutton being of poor quality and the wool coarse and rough. Mr. Garne carries off all the prizes at “the Royal” and other shows with his magnificent sheep. A cross between the Hampshire downs and the Cotswold sheep has been found to give excellent mutton, as well as fine and silky wool. The cross breed is gradually superseding the native sheep. Mr. Hobbs, of Maiseyhampton, is famous for his Oxford downs. These sheep are likewise superior to the Cotswold breed.

Barley does uncommonly well on the light limestone soil of these hills. The brewers are glad to get Cotswold barley for malting purposes. Fine sainfoin crops are grown, and black oats likewise do well. The shallow, porous soil requires rain at least once a week throughout the spring and summer. The better class of farmer on these hills does not have at all a bad time even in these days. Very often they lead the lives of squires, more especially in those hamlets where there is no landowner resident. Hunting, shooting, coursing, and sometimes fishing are enjoyed by most of these squireens, and they are a fine, independent class of Englishman, who get more fun out of life than many richer men, They will tell you with regard to the labourers that the following adage is still to be depended upon:–

“Tis the same with common natures: Use ’em kindly they rebel;
But be rough as nutmeg-graters,
And the rogues obey you well.”

[Illustration: An Old Cottage. 087.png]

CHAPTER IV.

THE LANGUAGE OF THE COTSWOLDS, WITH SOME ANCIENT SONGS AND LEGENDS.

A very marked characteristic of the village peasant is his extraordinary honesty. Not one in ten would knock a pheasant on the head with his stick if he found one on his allotment among the cabbages. Rabbit poachers there are, but even these are rare; and as for housebreaking and robbery, it simply does not exist. The manor house has a tremendous nail-studded oak door, which is barred at night by ponderous clamps of iron and many other contrivances; but the old-fashioned windows could be opened by any moderately skilful burglar in half a minute. There is absolutely nothing to prevent access to the house at night, whilst in the daytime the doors are open from “morn till dewy eve.” Most of the windows are innocent of shutters. When in Ireland recently, I noticed that the gates in every field were immensely strong, generally of iron, with massive pillars of stone on either side; but in spite of these precautions there was usually a gap in the hedge close by, through which one might safely have driven a waggon. This reminded one of the Cotswold manor house and its strongly barricaded oak door, surrounded by windows, which any burglar could open “as easy as a glove,” as Tom Peregrine would say.

A strange-looking traveller, with slouching gait and mouldy wideawake hat, passes through the hamlet occasionally, leading a donkey in a cart. This is one of the old-fashioned hawkers. These men are usually poachers or receivers of poached goods. They are not averse to paying a small sum for a basket of trout or a few partridges, pheasants, hares or rabbits in the game season; whilst in spring they deal in a small way in the eggs of game birds. As often as not this class of man is accompanied by a couple of dogs, marvellously trained in the art of hunting the coverts and “retrieving” a pheasant or a rabbit which may be crouching in the underwood. Hares, too, are taken by dogs in the open fields. One never finds out much about these gentry from the natives. Even the keeper is reticent on the subject. “A sart of a harf-witted fellow” is Tom Peregrine’s description of this very suspicious-looking traveller.

The better sort of carrier, who calls daily at the great house with all kinds of goods and parcels from the big town seven miles off, is occasionally not averse to a little poaching in the roadside fields among the hares. The carriers are a great feature of these rural villages; they are generally good fellows, though some of them are a bit too fond of the bottle on Saturday nights.

The dogs employed by poachers are taught to keep out of sight and avoid keepers and such-like folk. They know as well as the poacher himself the nature of their trade, and that the utmost secrecy must be observed. To see them trotting demurely down the road you would never think them capable of doing anything wrong. A wave of the hand and they are into the covert in a second, ready to pounce like a cat on a sitting pheasant. One short whistle and they are at their master’s heels again. If in carrying game in their mouths they spied or winded a keeper, they would in all probability contrive to hide themselves or make tracks for the high road as quickly as possible, leaving their spoil in the thick underwood, “to be left till called for.”

But to return once more to the honest Cotswold labourer. Occasionally a notice is put up in the village as follows:–

“There will be a dinner in the manor grounds on July–. Please bring knives and forks.”

These are great occasions in a Cotswold village. Knives and forks mean meat; and a joint of mutton is not seen by the peasants more than “once in a month of Sundays.” Needless to say, there is not much opportunity of studying the language of the country as long as the feast is progressing. “Silence is golden” is the motto here whilst the viands are being discussed; but afterwards, when the Homeric desire of eating and drinking has been expelled, an adjournment to the club may lead to a smoking concert, and, once started, there are very few Cotswold men who cannot sing a song of at least eighteen verses. For three hours an uninterrupted stream of music flows forth, not only solos, but occasionally duets, harmoniously chanted in parts, and rendered with the utmost pathos. It cannot be said that Gloucestershire folk are endowed with a large amount of musical talent; neither their “ears” nor their vocal chords are ever anything great, but what they lack in quality they make up in quantity, and I have listened to as many as forty songs during one evening–some of them most entertaining, others extremely dull. The songs the labourer most delights in are those which are typical of the employment in which he happens to be engaged. Some of the old ballads, handed down from father to son by oral tradition, are very excellent. The following is a very good instance of this kind of song; when sung by the carter to a good rollicking tune, it goes with a rare ring, in spite of the fact that it lasts about a quarter of an hour. There would be about a dozen verses, and the chorus is always sung twice at the end of each verse, first by the carter and then by the whole company.

“Now then, gentlemen, don’t delay harmony,” Farmer Peregrine keeps repeating in his old-fashioned, convivial way, and thus the ball is kept a-rolling half the night.

JIM, THE CARTER LAD.

“My name is Jim, the carter lad–
A jolly cock am I;
I always am contented,
Be the weather wet or dry.
I snap my finger at the snow,
And whistle at the rain;
I’ve braved the storm for many a day, And can do so again.”

(_Chorus_.)

“Crack, crack, goes my whip,
I whistle and I sing,
I sits upon my waggon,
I’m as happy as a king.
My horse is always willing;
As for me, I’m never sad:
There’s none can lead a jollier life Than Jim, the carter lad.”

“My father was a carrier
Many years ere I was born,
And used to rise at daybreak
And go his rounds each morn.
He often took me with him,
Especially in the spring.
I loved to sit upon the cart
And hear my father sing.
Crack, crack, etc.”

“I never think of politics
Or anything so great;
I care not for their high-bred talk About the Church and State.
I act aright to man and man,
And that’s what makes me glad;
You’ll find there beats an honest heart In Jim, the carter lad.
Crack, crack, etc.”

“The girls, they all smile on me
As I go driving past.
My horse is such a beauty,
And he jogs along so fast.
We’ve travelled many a weary mile, And happy days have had;
For none can lead a jollier life Than Jim, the carter lad.
Crack, crack, etc.”

“So now I’ll wish you all good night It’s time I was away;
For I know my horse will weary
If I much longer stay.
To see your smiling faces,
It makes my heart quite glad.
I hope you’ll drink your kind applause To Jim, the carter lad.
Crack, crack, etc.”

The village choirs do very well as long as their organist or vicar is not too ambitious in his choice of music. There is a fatal tendency in many places to do away with the old hymns, which every one has known from a boy, and substitute the very inferior modern ones now to be found in our books. This is the greatest mistake, if I may say so. A man is far more likely to sing, and feel deeply when he is singing, those simple words and notes he learnt long ago in the nursery at home. And there is nothing finer in the world than some of our old English hymns.

I appeal to any readers who have known what it is to feel deeply; and few there are to whom this does not apply, if some of those moments of their lives, when the thoughts have soared into the higher regions of emotion, have not been those which followed the opening strain of the organ as it quietly ushered in the old evening hymn, “Abide with me, fast falls the eventide,” or any other hymn of the same kind. It is the same in the vast cathedral as in the little Norman village church. There are fifty hymns in our book which would be sufficient to provide the best possible music for our country churches. The best organists realise this. Joseph Barnby always chose the old hymns; and you will hear them at Westminster and St. Paul’s. The country organist, however, imagines that it is his duty to be always teaching his choir some new and difficult tune; the result in nine cases out of ten being “murder” and a rapid falling off in the congregation.

The Cotswold folk on the whole are fond of music, though they have not a large amount of talent for it. The Chedworth band still goes the round of the villages once or twice a year. These men are the descendants of the “old village musicians,” who, to quote from the _Strand Musical Magazine_ for September 1897, “led the Psalmody in the village church sixty years ago with stringed and wind instruments. Mr. Charles Smith, of Chedworth, remembers playing the clarionet in Handel’s _Zadok the Priest_, performed there in 1838 in honour of the Queen’s accession.” He talks of a band of twelve, made up of strings and _wood-wind_.

I am bound to say that the music produced by the Chedworth band at the present day, though decidedly creditable in such an old-world village, is rather like the Roman remains for which the district is so famous; it savours somewhat of the prehistoric. But when the band comes round and plays in the hall of our old house on Christmas Eve, I have many a pleasant chat with the Chedworth musicians; they are so delightfully enthusiastic, and so grateful for being allowed to play. When I gave them a cup of tea they kept repeating, “A thousand thanks for all your kindness, sir.”

It is inevitable that men engaged day by day and year by year in such monotonous employ as agricultural labour should be somewhat lacking in acuteness and sensibility; in no class is the hereditary influence so marked. Were it otherwise, matters would be in a sorry pass in country places, for discontent would reign supreme; and once let “ambition mock their useful toil,” once their sober wishes learn to stray, how would the necessary drudgery of agricultural work be accomplished at all? In spite, however, of this marked characteristic of inertness–hereditary in the first place, and fostered by the humdrum round of daily toil on the farm–there is sometimes to be found a sense of humour and a love of merriment that is quite astonishing. A good deal of what is called knowledge of the world, which one would have thought was only to be acquired in towns, nowadays penetrates into remote districts, so that country folk often have a good idea of “what’s what” I once overheard the following conversation:

“Who’s your new master, Dick? He’s a bart., ain’t he?”

“Oh no,” was the reply; “he’s only a _jumped-up jubilee knight_!”

Sense of humour of a kind the Cotswold labourer certainly has, even though he is quite unable to see a large number of apparently simple jokes. The diverting history of John Gilpin, for instance, read at a smoking concert, was received with scarce a smile.

Old Mr. Peregrine lately told me an instance of the extraordinary secretiveness of the labourer. Two of his men worked together in his barn day after day for several weeks. During that time they never spoke to each other, save that one of them would always say the last thing at night, “Be sure to shut the door.”

Oddly enough they thoroughly appreciate the humour of the wonderful things that went on fifty and a hundred years ago. The old farmer I have just mentioned told me that he remembers when he used to go to church fifty years ago, how, after they had all been waiting half an hour, the clerk would pin a notice in the porch, “No church to-day; Parson C—- got the gout.”

As with history so also with geography, the Cotswold labourer sometimes gets “a bit mixed.”

“‘Ow be they a-gettin’ on in Durbysher?” lately enquired a man at Coln-St-Aldwyns.

To him replied a righteously indignant native of the same village, “I’ve ‘eard as ‘ow the English army ‘ave killed ten thousand Durvishers (Dervishes).”

“Bedad!” answered his friend, “there won’t be many left in Durbysher if they goes on a-killin’ un much longer.”

Another story lately told me in the same village was as follows:–

An old lady went to the stores to buy candles, and was astonished to find that owing to the Spanish-American war “candles was riz.”

“Get along!” she indignantly exclaimed. “_Don’t tell me they fights by candlelight_”

One of the cheeriest fellows that ever worked for us was a carter called Trinder. He was the father of _twenty-one children_–by the same wife. He never seemed to be worried in the slightest degree by domestic affairs, and was always happy and healthy and gay. This man’s wages would be about twelve shillings a week: not a very large sum for a man with a score of children. Then it must be remembered that the boys would go off to work in the fields at a very early age, and by the time they were ten years old they would be keeping themselves. A large family like this would not have the crushing effect on the labouring man that it has on the poor curate or city clerk. Nevertheless, one cannot help looking upon the man as a kind of hero, when one considers the enormous number of grandchildren and descendants he will have. On being asked the other day how he had contrived to maintain such a quiverful, he answered, “I’ve always managed to get along all right so far; I never wanted for vittals, sir, anyhow.” This was all the information he would give.

Talking of “vittals,” the only meat the labouring man usually indulges in is bacon. His breakfast consists of bread and butter, and either tea or cocoa. For his dinner he relies on bread and bacon, occasionally only bread and cheese. In the winter he is home by five, and once more has tea, or cocoa, or beer. Coffee is very seldom seen in the cottages. During the short days there is nothing to do but go to bed in the evening, unless a walk of over a mile to the village inn is considered worth the trouble. But being tired and leg weary, a long walk does not usually appeal to the men after their evening meal; so to bed is the order of the day,–and, thank Heaven! “the sleep of a labouring man is sweet.” In the longer days of spring and summer there is plenty to do in the allotments; and on the whole the allotments acts have been a great blessing to the labourers.

It is during the three winter months that penny readings and smoking concerts are so much appreciated in the country. Too much cannot be done in this way to brighten the life of the village during the cold, dark days of December and January, for the labouring man hates reading above all things.

Perhaps the fact that these simple folk do not read the newspapers, or only read those parts in which they have a direct interest–such as paragraphs indulging in socialistic castles in the air–has its advantages, inasmuch as it allows their common sense full play in all other matters, unhampered as it is (except in this one weak point of socialism) by the prejudices of the day. So that if one wanted to get an unprejudiced opinion on some great question of right or wrong, in the consideration of which common sense alone was required–such a question, for instance, as is occasionally cropping up in these times in our foreign policy–one would have to go to the very best men in the country, namely, those amongst the educated classes who think for themselves, or to men of the so-called lowest strata of society, such as these honest Cotswold labourers; because there is scarcely one man in ten among the reading public who is not biassed and confused by the manifold contradictions and political claptrap of the daily papers, and led away by side issues from a clear understanding of the rights of every case. Our free press is doubtless a grand institution. As with individuals, however, so ought it to be with nations. Let us, in our criticisms of the policy of those who watch over the destinies of other countries, whilst firmly upholding our rights, strictly adhere to the principle of _noblesse oblige_. The press is every day becoming more and more powerful for good or evil; its influence on men’s minds has become so marked that it may with truth be said that the press rules public opinion rather than that public opinion rules the press. But the writers of the day will only fulfil their destiny aright by approaching every question in a broad and tolerant spirit, and by a firm reliance, in spite of the prejudices of the moment, on the ancient faith of _noblesse oblige_. However, the unanimity recently shown by the press in upholding our rights at Fashoda was absolutely splendid.

The origin of the names of the fields in this district is difficult to trace. Many a farm has its “barrow ground,” called after some old burial mound situated there; and many names like Ladbarrow, Cocklebarrow, etc., have the same derivation. “Buryclose,” too, is a name often to be found in the villages; and skeletons are sometimes dug up in meadows so called. A copse, called Deadman’s Acre, is supposed to have received its name from the fact that a man died there, having sworn that he would reap an acre of corn with a sickle in a day or perish in the attempt. It is more likely, however, to be connected with the barrows, which are plentiful thereabouts.

Oliver Cromwell’s memory is still very much respected among the labouring folk. Every possible work is attributed to his hand, and even the names of places are set down to his inventive genius. Thus they tell you that when he passed through Aldsworth he did not think very much of the village (it is certainly a very dull little place), so he snapped his fingers and exclaimed, “That’s all ‘e’s worth!” On arriving at Ready Token, where was an ancient inn, he found it full of guests; he therefore exclaimed, “It’s already taken!” Was ever such nonsense heard? Yet these good folk believe every tradition of this kind, and delight in telling you such stories. Ready Token is a bleak spot, standing very high, and having a clump of trees on it; it is therefore conspicuous for miles; so that when this country was an open moor, Ready Token was very useful as a landmark to travellers. Mr. Sawyer thinks the name is a corruption from the Celtic word “rhydd” and the Saxon “tacen,” meaning “the way to the ford,” the place being on the road to Fairford, where the Coln is crossed.

One of the chief traditions of this locality, and one that doubtless has more truth in it than most of the stories the natives tell you, relates that two hundred years ago people were frequently murdered at Ready Token inn when returning with their pockets full of money from the big fairs at Gloucester or Oxford. A labouring friend of mine was telling me the other day of the wonderful disappearance of a packman and a “jewelrer,” as he called him. For very many years nothing was heard of them, but about twenty years ago some “skellingtons” were dug up on the exact spot where the inn stood, so their disappearance was accounted for.

This same man told me the following story about the origin of Hangman’s Stone, near Northleach:–

“A man stole a ‘ship’ [sheep], and carried it tied to his neck and shoulders by a rope. Feeling rather tired, he put the ‘ship’ down on top of the ‘stwun’ [stone] to rest a bit; but suddenly it rolled off the other side, and hung him–broke his neck.”

Hangman’s Stone may be seen to this day. The real origin of the name may be found in Fozbrooke’s History of Gloucestershire. It was the place of execution in Roman times.

“As illuminations in cases of joy, dismissal from the house in quarrels, wishing joy on New Year’s Day, king and queen on twelfth day (from the Saturnalia), holding up the hand in sign of assent, shaking hands, etc., are Roman customs, so were executions just out of the town, where also the executioner resided. In Anglo-Saxon times this officer was a man of high dignity.”

A very common name in Gloucestershire for a field or wood is “conyger” or “conygre.” It means the abode of conies or rabbits.

Some farms have their “camp ground”; and there, sure enough, if one examines it carefully, will be found traces of some ancient British camp, with its old rampart running round it. But what can be the derivation of such names as Horsecollar Bush Furlong, Smoke Acre Furlong, West Chester Hull, Cracklands, Crane Furlong, Sunday’s Hill, Latheram, Stoopstone Furlong, Pig Bush Furlong, and Barelegged Bush?

Names like Pitchwells, where there is a spring; Breakfast Bush Ground, where no doubt Hodge has had his breakfast for centuries under shelter of a certain bush; Rickbushes, and Longlands are all more or less easy to trace. Furzey Leaze, Furzey Ground, Moor Hill, Ridged Lands, and the Pikes are all names connected with the nature of the fields or their locality.

Leaze is the provincial name for a pasture, and Furzey Leaze would be a rough “ground,” where gorse was sprinkled about. The Pikes would be a field abutting on an old turnpike gate. The word “turnpike” is never used in Gloucestershire; it is always “the pike.” A field is a “ground,” and a fence or stone wall is a “mound.” The Cotswold folk do not talk about houses; they stick to the old Saxon termination, and call their dwellings “housen”; they also use the Anglo-Saxon “hire” for hear. The word “bowssen,” too, is very frequently heard in these parts; it is a provincialism for a stall or shed where oxen are kept. “Boose” is the word from which it originally sprang. A very expressive phrase in common use is to “quad” or “quat”; it is equivalent to the word “squat.” Other words in this dialect are “sprack,” an adjective meaning quick or lively; and “frem” or “frum,” a word derived from the Anglo-Saxon “fram,” meaning fresh or flourishing. The latter word is also used in Leicestershire. Drayton, who knew the Cotswolds, and wrote poetry about the district, uses the expression “frim pastures.” “Plym” is the swelling of wood when it is immersed in water; and “thilk,” another Anglo-Saxon word, means thus or the same.

A mole in the Gloucestershire dialect is an “oont” or “woont.” A barrow or mound of any kind is a “tump.” Anything slippery is described as “slick”; and a slice is a “sliver.” “Breeds” denotes the brim of a hat, and a deaf man is said to be “dunch” or “dunny.” To “glowr” is to stare–possibly connected with the word “glare.”

Two red-coated sportsmen, while hunting close to our village the other day, got into a small but deep pond. They were said to have fallen into the “stank,” and got “zogged” through: for a small pond is a “stank,” and to be “zogged” is equivalent to being soaked.

“Hark at that dog ‘yoppeting’ in the covert! I’ll give him a nation good ‘larroping’ when I catch him!” This is the sort of sentence a Gloucestershire keeper makes use of. To “larrop” is to beat. Oatmeal or porridge is always called “grouts”; and the Cotswold native does not talk of hoisting a ladder, but “highsting” is the term he uses. The steps of the ladder are the “rongs.” Luncheon is “nuncheon.” Other words in the dialect are “caddie” = to humbug; “cham” = to chew; “barken” = a homestead; and “bittle” = a mallet.

Fozbrooke says that the term “hopping mad” is applied to people who are very angry; but we do not happen to have heard it in Gloucestershire. Two proverbs that are in constant use amongst all classes are, “As sure as God’s in Gloucestershire,” and, “‘Tis as long in coming as Cotswold ‘berle'” (barley). The former has reference to the number of churches and religious houses the county used to possess, the latter to the backward state of the crops on the exposed Cotswold Hills. To meet a man and say, “Good-morning, nice day,” is to “pass the time of day with him.” Anything queer or mysterious is described as “unkard” or “unket”; perhaps this word is a provincialism for “uncouth.” A narrow lane or path between two walls is a “tuer” in Gloucestershire vernacular. Another local word I have not heard elsewhere is “eckle,” meaning a green woodpecker or yaffel. The original spelling of the word was “hic-wall.” In these days of education the real old-fashioned dialect is seldom heard; among the older peasants a few are to be found who speak it, but in twenty years’ time it will be a thing of the past.

The incessant use of “do” and “did,” and the changing of _o_’s into _a_’s are two great characteristics of the Gloucestershire talk. Being anxious to be initiated into the mysteries of the dialect, I buttonholed a labouring friend of mine the other day, and asked him to try to teach it to me. He is a great exponent of the language of the country, and, like a good many others of his type, he is as well satisfied with his pronunciation as he is with his other accomplishments. The fact is that

“His favourite sin
Is pride that apes humility.”

It is _your_ grammar, not his, which is at fault. In the following verses will be found the gist of what he told me:–

“If thee true ‘Glarcestershire’ would know, I’ll tell thee how us always zays un; Put ‘I’ for ‘me,’ and ‘a’ for ‘o’.
On every possible occasion.

When in doubt squeeze in a ‘w’–
‘Stwuns,’ not ‘stones.’ And don’t forget, zur, That ‘thee’ must stand for ‘thou’ and ‘you’; ‘Her’ for ‘she,’ and _vice versa_.

Put ‘v’ for ‘f’; for ‘s’ put ‘z’;
‘Th’ and ‘t’ we change to ‘d,’– So dry an’ kip this in thine yead,
An’ thou wills’t talk as plain as we.”

The student in the language of the Cotswolds should study a very ancient song entitled “George Ridler’s Oven.” Strange to say, there is little or nothing in it about the oven, but a good deal of the old Gloucestershire talk may be gleaned from it. It begins like this:

GEORGE RIDLER’S OVEN.

A RIGHT FAMOUS OLD GLOUCESTERSHIRE BALLAD.

“The stwuns, the stwuns, the stwuns, the stwuns, The stwuns, the stwuns, the stwuns, _the stwuns_.”

This is sung like the prelude to a grand orchestral performance. Beginning somewhat softly, Hodge fires away with a gravity and emotion which do him infinite credit, each succeeding repetition of the word “stwuns” being rendered with ever-increasing pathos and emphasis, until, like the final burst of an orchestral prelude, with drums, trumpets, fiddles, etc, all going at the same time, are at length ushered in the opening lines of the ballad.

“The stwuns that built Gaarge Ridler’s oven, And thauy qeum from the Bleakeney’s Quaar; And Gaarge he wur a jolly ould mon,
And his yead it graw’d above his yare.

“One thing of Gaarge Ridler’s I must commend. And that wur vor a notable theng;
He mead his braags avoore he died, Wi’ any dree brothers his zons zshou’d zeng.

“There’s Dick the treble and John the mean (Let every mon zing in his auwn pleace); And Gaarge he wur the elder brother,
And therevoore he would zing the beass.

“Mine hostess’s moid (and her neaum ‘twur Nell) A pretty wench, and I lov’d her well; I lov’d her well–good reauzon why,
Because zshe lov’d my dog and I.

“My dog has gotten zitch a trick
To visit moids when thauy be zick; When thauy be zick and like to die,
Oh, thether gwoes my dog and I.

“My dog is good to catch a hen,–
A duck and goose is vood vor men; And where good company I spy,
Oh, thether gwoes my dog and I.

“Droo aal the world, owld Gaarge would bwoast, Commend me to merry owld England mwoast; While vools gwoes scramblin’ vur and nigh, We bides at whoam, my dog and I.

“Ov their furrin tongues let travellers brag, Wi’ their vifteen neames vor a puddin’ bag; Two tongues I knows ne’er towld a lie, And their wearers be my dog and I.

“My mwother told I when I wur young, If I did vollow the strong beer pwoot, That drenk would pruv my auverdrow,
And meauk me wear a thzreadbare cwoat.

“When I hev dree zixpences under my thumb, Oh, then I be welcome wherever I qeum; But when I hev none, oh, then I pass by,– ‘Tis poverty pearts good company.

“When I gwoes dead, as it may hap, My greauve shall be under the good yeal tap In vouled earms there wool us lie,
Cheek by jowl, my dog and I.”

GLOSSARY.

_stwuns_ = stones.
_quaar_ = quarry.
_yare_ = hair.
_avoor_ = before.
_auwn_ = own.
_furrin_ = foreign.
_greauve_ = grave.
_thauy_ = they.
_yead_ = head.
_mead_ = made.
_dree_ = three.
_pleace_ = place.
_pwoot_ = pewter.
_yeal_ = ale.
_qeum_ = come.
_graw’d_ = grew.
_braags_ = brag.
_zshou’d_ = should.
_beass_ = bass.
_auverdrow_ = overthrow.
_vouled earms_ = folded arms.
_zitch_ = such.

The song itself is as old as the hills, but I have taken the liberty of appending a glossary, in order that my readers may be spared the trouble of making out the meaning of some of the words. It was a long time before it dawned upon me that “vouled earms” meant “folded arms “; “auverdrow” likewise was very perplexing. Like many of the old ballads, it sounds like a rigmarole from beginning to end; but there is really a great deal more in it than meets the eye. George Ridler is no less a personage than King Charles I., and the oven represents the cavalier party. (See Appendix.)

Such songs as these are deeply interesting from the fact that they are handed down by oral tradition from father to son, and written copies are never seen in the villages. The same applies to the play the mummers act at Christmas-time; all has to be learnt from the preceding generation of country folk. But the great feature of our smoking concerts and village entertainments has always been the reading of Tom Peregrine. This noted sportsman, who writes one of the best hands I ever saw, has kindly copied out a recitation he lately gave us. It relates to the adventures of one Roger Plowman, a Cotswold man who went to London, and is taken from a book, compiled some years ago by some Ciceter men, entitled “Roger Plowman’s Excursion to London.” It was read at a harvest home given by old Mr. Peregrine in his huge barn, an entertainment which lasted from six o’clock till twelve. I trust none of my readers will be any the worse for reading it. Tom Peregrine declares that when he first gave it at a penny reading some years ago, one or two of the audience had to be carried out in hysterics–they laughed so much; and another man fell backwards off his chair, owing to the extreme comicality of it. The truth is, our versatile keeper is a wonderful reader, and speaking as he does the true Gloucestershire accent, in the same way as some of the squires spoke it a century or more ago, it is extremely amusing to hear him copying the still broader dialect of the labouring class. He has a tremendous sense of humour, and his epithet for anything amusing is “Foolish.” “‘Tis a splendid tale; ’tis so desperate foolish,” he would often say.

ROGER PLOWMAN’S JOURNEY TO LONDON.

Monday marnin’ I wur to start early. Aal the village know’d I wur a-gwain, an’ sum sed as how I shood be murthur’d avoor I cum back. On Sunday I called at the manur ‘ouse an’ asked cook if she hed any message vor Sairy Jane. She sed:

“Tell Sairy Jane to look well arter ‘e, Roger, vor you’ll get lost, tuck in, an’ done vor.”

“Rest easy in yer mind, cook,” I zed; “Roger is toughish, an’ he’ll see thet the honour o’ the old county is well show’d out and kep’ up.”

Cook wished me a pleasant holiday.

I started early on Monday marnin’, ‘tarmined to see as much as possible. I wur to walk into Cizzeter, an’ vram thur goo by train to Lunnon.

I wur delighted wi’ Cizzeter. The shops an’ buildin’s round the market-pleace wur vine; an’ the church wur grand; didn’t look as how he wur built by the same sort of peeple as put the shops up.

When the Roomans an’ anshunt Britons went to church arm-in-arm it wur always Whitsuntide, an’ arter church vetched their banners out wi’ brass eagles on, an’ hed a morris dance in the market-pleace. The anshunt Britons never hed any tailory done, but thay wur all artists wi’ the paint pot. The Consarvatives painted thurselves bloo, and the Radicals yaller, an’ thay as danced the longest, the Roomans sent to Parlyment to rool the roost.

I wur show’d the pleace wur the peeple started vor Lunnon. I walked in, an’ thur wur a hole in the purtition, an’ I seed the peeple a-payin’ thur money vor bits o’ pasteboord. I axed the mon if he could take I to Lunnon.

He sed, “Fust, second, or thurd?”

I sed, “Fust o’ course, not arter; vor Sairy Jane ull be waitin’.”

He sed ‘twer moor ner a pound to pay.

I sed the paason sed ‘twer about eight shillin’.

“That’s thurd class,” he sed; an’ that thay ud aal be in Lunnon at the same time.

So I paid thurd class, an’ he shuved out sum pasteboord, an’ I put it in my pocket, an’ walked out; an’ thur wur a row o’ carridges waitin’ vor Lunnon; an’ off we went as fast as a racehoss.

I heerd sum say thay wur off to Cheltenham, Gloucester, Tewkesbury, North Wales; an’ I sed to meself, “I be on the rong road. Dang the buttons o’ that little pasteboord seller! he warn’t a ‘safe mon’ to hev to do wi’.”

I enquired if the peeple hed much washin’ to do for the railway about here, an’ thay wanted to know what I required to know vor.

I sed because thur war such a long clothesline put up aal the way along. An’ thay aal bust out a-larfin,’ an’ sed ‘twur the tallergraph; an’ one sed as how if the Girt Western thought as how ‘twould pay better, thay ud soon shet up shop, an’ take in washin’.

Never in aal me life did I go at such a rate under and awver bridges an droo holes in the ‘ills. We wur soon at Swindon, wur a lot wur at work as black as tinkers. We aal hed to get out, an’ a chap in green clothes sed we shood hev to wait ten minits.

Thur wur a lot gwain into a room, an’ I seed they wur eatin’ and drinkin’; so I ses to meself, “I be rayther peckish, I’ll go in an’ see if I can get summut.” So in I goes; an’ ‘twer a vine pleace, wi’ sum nation good-looking gurls a-waitin’.

“I’ll hev a half-quartern loaf,” I sed.

“We doan’t kip a baker’s shop,” she sed. “Thur’s cakes, an’ biskits, an’ sponge cakes.”

“Hev ‘e got sum good bacon, raythur vattish?” I sed.

“No, sur; but thur’s sum good poork sausingers at sixpence.”

“Hand awver the pleat, young ‘ooman,” I sed, “an’ I’ll trubble you vor the mustard, an’ salt, an’ that pleat o’ bread an’ butter, an’ I’ll set down an’ hev a bit of a snack.”

The sausingers wur very good, an’ teasted moorish aal the time; but the bread an’ butter wur so nation thin that I had to clap dree or vour pieces together to get a mouthful. I didn’t seem to want a knife or vork, but the young ‘ooman put a white-handled knife an’ silver vork avoor me.

The pleat o’ bread an’ butter didn’t hold out vor the sausingers, so I hed another pleat o’ bread an’ butter, an’ wur getting on vine. I seem’d to want summut to wet me whistle, an’ wur gwain to order a quart o’ ale, when I heers a whistle an’ a grunt vram a steamer, an’ out I goos; an’, begum! he wur off.

I beckuned to the chap to stop the train, wi’ me vork as I hed jest stuck into the last sausinger. I hed clapt a good mouthful in, or I could hev hollur’d loud enough vor him to heer. The train didn’t stop, an’ the vellers in green laughed to see I wur left in the lurch, as I tell’d them that Sairy Jane would be sure to meet the Lunnon train. Thay sed I could go in an’ vinish the sausingers now, an’ that wur what I intended to do.

I asked the young ‘ooman for a bottle o’ ale, when she put a tallish bottle down wi’ a beg head; an’ as I wur dry I knocked the neck off, an’ the ale kum a-fizzing out like ginger pop,–an’ ‘twer no use to try to stop the fizzle. I had aal I could get in a glass, an’ it zeemed goodish. She soon run back wi’ another bottle in her hand, an’ I tell’d her ‘twer pop she hed put down.

“What hev you bin an’ dun, sur?” she sed; “that wur a bottle o’ Moses’s shampane, at seven shillin’s an’ sixpence a bottle.”

I tell’d her I know’d ‘twer nothin’ but pop, as it fizzled so. Thur wur two or dree gentlemen in, an’ thay larfed at the fizzle an’ I. It seemed to meak me veel merryish, an’ I zed, “What’s to pay, young ‘ooman?”

She sed, “Thirteen shillin’s, sur.”

“Thirteen scaramouches!” I sed. “What vor?”

“Seven sausingers, dree and sixpence; twenty-vour slices o’ bread an’ butter, two shillin’s; an’ a bottle of shampane, seven and sixpence;–kums to thirteen shillin’s,” she sed.

“Yer tell’d me as how the sausingers wur sixpence,” I sed; “an’ the slices o’ bread ud cut off a tuppeny loaf.”

She sed the sausingers wur sixpence each, an’ twenty-vour slices o’ bread an’ butter wur a penny each–two shillin’s.

I sed, “Do ‘e call that reysonable, young ‘ooman? ’cause I bain’t a-gwain to pay thirteen shillin’s vor’t, an’ lose me train, an’ disappoint Sairy Jane. Thirteen shillin’s vor two or dree sausingers, a few slices o’ bread an’ butter, an’ a bottle o’ pop–not vor Roger, if he knows it”

Up kums a chap an’ ses, “Be you gwain to pay vor wat you hev hed?”

“To be sure I be. Thur’s sixpence vor the sausingers, tuppence vor bread an’ butter, an’ dreppence the pop,–that meaks ‘levenpence”; an’ I drows down a shillin’, and ses, “Thur’s the odd penny vor the young ‘ooman as waited upon me.”

“You hed thirteen shillin’s worth o’ grub an’ shampane, an’ you’ll hev to pay twelve shillin’s moor or I shall take ‘e away an’ lock ‘e up vor the night,” he sed.

“Do ‘e thenk as how you could do aal that, young man?” I sed. “No disrespect to ‘e though, vor that don’t argify; but I could ketch hold on ‘e by the scroff o’ yer neck an’ the seat o’ yer breeches, an’ pitch ‘e slick into the roadway among the iron.”

“Look heer, Meyster Turmot, you’ll hev to pay twelve shillin’ moor avoor you gwoes out o’ heer, or Lunnon won’t hold ‘e to-night.”

I know’d Sairy Jane ud be a-waitin’, an’ as he sed the train were moast ready, I drows down a suverin’, an’ hed the change, an’ as I wur a-gwain out I hollurs out as how I shood remember Swindleum stashun. I heer’d the lot a-larfin, an’ hed moast a mind to go in an’ twirl me ground ash among um vor thur edification.

I wur soon on the road agen, a-gwain like a house a-vire, an’ thur wur more clotheslines aal the way along on pwosts.

W’en we got nearish to Lunnon I seed sum girt beg round barrels painted black.[3] I axed a chap what thay wur, an’ he sed that thay wur beg barrels o’ stingo, an’ thur wur pipes laid on to the peeple’s housen vor thay to draw vram.

[Footnote 3: Gasometers.]

I sed that wur very good accommodashun to hev XXX laid on vor use.

We soon druv into the beggest pleace I wur ever in since I wur born’d. Thay sed ‘twer Paddington, an’ that I wur to get out, vor they wurn’t a-gwain to drive no furder. I hed paid to go to Lunnon, an’ thay shood drive all the way when thay wur paid avoor’and.

I wur tell’d Paddington wur the Lunnon stashun by a porter, an’ I look’d round vor Sairy Jane, as she sed as how her ud be heer at one o’clock; and porter sed ‘twer then dree o’clock, an’ likely Sairy Jane had gone away. Drat thay sausingers as mead I too late vor the train!

I set down to wait for Sairy Jane, as I didn’t know her directions, an’ hed left the letter she sent at whoam. Arter waitin’ for a long while I started out, an’ ‘oped to see her in sum part o’ Lunnon.

* * * * *

Another story Tom Peregrine is fond of reading to us relates how a labouring man was recommended to get some oxtail soup to strengthen him. He goes into the town and sees “Oxikali Soap” written up on a shop window. He buys a cake of it, makes his wife boil it up in the pot, and then proceeds to drink it for his health. When he has taken a spoonful or two and found it very unpleasant, his wife makes him finish it up, saying it is sure to do him good; and she consoles him with the assurance that all medicine is nasty.

At the harvest home in the big barn, after the applause which followed Tom Peregrine’s recitation had died away, a sturdy carter stood up and sang a very old Gloucestershire song, which runs as follows:–

THE TURMUT HOWER.

“I be a turmut hower,
Vram Gloucestershire I came;
My parents be hard-working folk, Giles Wapshaw be my name.
The vly, the vly,
The vly be on the turmut,
An’ it be aal me eye, and no use to try To keep um off the turmut.

“Zum be vond o’ haymakin’,
An’ zum be vond o’ mowin’,
But of aal the trades thet I likes best Gie I the turmut howin’.
The vly, etc.

“‘Twas on a summer mornin’,
Aal at the brake o’ day,
When I tuck up my turmut hower,
An’ trudged it far away.
The vly, etc.

“The vust pleace I got work at,
It wus by the job,
But if I hed my chance agen,
I’d rayther go to quod.
The vly, etc.

“The next pleace I got work at,
‘Twer by the day,
Vor one old Varmer Vlower,
Who sed I wur a rippin’ turmut hower. The vly, etc.

“Sumtimes I be a-mowin’,
Sumtimes I be a-plowin’,
Gettin’ the vurrows aal bright an’ clear Aal ready vor turmut sowin’.
The vly, etc.

“An’ now my song be ended
I ‘ope you won’t call encore;
But if you’ll kum here another night, I’ll seng it ye once more.
The vly, etc.”

[Illustration: On the Wolds. 116.png]

CHAPTER V.

ON THE WOLDS.

Time passes quickly for the sportsman who has the good fortune to dwell in the merry Cotswolds. Spring gives place to summer and autumn to winter with a rapidity which astonishes us as the years roll on.

So diversified are the amusements that each season brings round that no time of year lacks its own characteristic sport. In the spring, ere red coats and “leathers” are laid aside by the fox-hunting squire, there is the best of trout-fishing to be enjoyed in the Coln and Windrush–streams dear to the heart of the accomplished expert with the “dry” fly. In spring, too, are the local hunt races at Oaksey and Sherston, at Moreton-in-the-Marsh and Andoversford. Pleasant little country gatherings are these race meetings, albeit the _bona-fide_ hunter has little chance of distinguishing himself between the flags in any part of England nowadays. The Lechlade Horse Show, too, is a great institution in the V.W.H. country at the close of the hunting season.

Annually at Whitsuntide for very many centuries “sports” have been held in all parts of the country. It is said that they are the _floralia_ of the Romans. Included in these sports are many of those amusements of the middle ages of which Ben Jonson sang:

“The Cotswold with the Olympic vies In manly games and goodly exercise.”

Horse-racing is a great feature in the programme of these Whitsuntide festivities.

The “may-fly” carnival among the trout, together with lots of cricket matches, make the time pass all too quickly for those who spend the glorious summer months in the Cotswolds. By the time the Cirencester Horse Show is over, the cubs are getting strong and mischievous. Directly the corn is cut the hounds are out again in the lovely September mornings. By this time partridges are plentiful, and must be shot ere they get too wild. So year by year the ball is kept rolling in the quiet Cotswold Hills; the days go by, yet content reigns amongst all classes.

“Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife Their sober wishes never learned to stray; Along the cool, sequestered vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.”

Then there is so much to do indirectly connected with sport of all kinds, if you live in a Cotswold village. Woods and fox coverts must be kept in good order, so that there may always be cover to shelter game and foxes. Cricket grounds afford unlimited scope for labour and experiment.

If you either own or rent a trout stream there is no end to the improvements that can be made with a little time and labour. Deep holes or even lakes may be dug, great stones and fir poles may be utilised, to form eddies and waterfalls and homes for the trout. By means of a little stocking with fresh blood a stream may often be turned from a worthless piece of water into a splendid fishery. There is no limit to the articles of food which can be imported. Gammari, or fresh-water shrimps, caddis and larvae, and various species of weeds which nourish insects and snails–notably the _chara flexilis_ from Loch Leven–may all be procured and transplanted to your water. The beautiful springs which feed the Coln at various intervals, where the watercress grows freely, would be of great service in forming lakes; there is so much poor marshy land even in the fertile valleys that might be utilised, with advantage and profit for the purpose of trout preserving.

Talking of watercress, this is a branch of farming which appears to be somewhat neglected on the banks of the Coln. The villagers tell you that watercress, like the oyster, is good in every month with an “r” in it: so that all through the year, save in May, June, July, and August, watercress may be picked and sent to market. But the proprietor of watercress beds attaches little importance to the fact that he possesses large beds of this wholesome and reproductive plant, and you will not see it on his table once in a month of Sundays. In London one eats watercress all the year round, more especially in the months without an “r,” but it does not come from the Cotswolds.

There is not much covert shooting on these hills. The country is so open and the coverts so small and deficient in underwood that pheasant preserving on a large scale is not practicable; for this reason the preservation of foxes is the first consideration. At Stowell, Sherborne, Rendcombe, Barnsley, and Cirencester, as well as on a few other large estates, a large head of game is reared; while foxes are plentiful too. But the owners and occupiers of most of the manors are content to rely on nature to supply them with game in due season.

However, for those gunners who, like the writer, are both unskilful and unambitious, the shooting obtained on the Cotswold Hills is very enjoyable. In September from ten to twenty brace of partridges are to be picked up, together with what hares a man cares to shoot, and a few rabbits. Then landrails or corncrakes, and last, but not least, an occasional quail, are usually included in the bag. Quails are rather partial to this district; during the first fortnight of September a few are generally shot on the manor we frequent. On August 17th this year we found a nest containing five young quails about half-grown.

But the real pleasure connected with this kind of sport lies in the sense of wildness. The air is almost as good a tonic as that of the Scotch moors, whilst there is the additional satisfaction of being at home in September instead of flying away to the North, and having to put up with all the discomfort of a long railway journey each way.

There is no time of year one would sooner spend at home on Cotswold than the month of September. Nature is then at her best: the cold, bleak hills are clothed with the warmth of golden stubble; the autumnal haze now softens the landscape with those lights and shades which add so much of loveliness and sense of mystery to a hill country; the rich aftermath is full of animal life; birds of all descriptions are less wild and more easily observed than is the case later on, when the pastures and downs have been thinned by frost and there is no shelter left. Now you may see the kestrels hovering in mid air, and the great sluggish heron wending his ethereal way to the upper waters of the trout stream. You watch him till he drops suddenly from the heavens, to alight in the little valley which lies a short mile away, invisible amid the far-stretching tablelands. Occasionally, too, a marsh-harrier may be met with, but this is a _rara avis_ even in these outlandish parts. Peregrine falcons are uncommon too, though one may yet see a pair of them now and then if one keeps a sharp look-out at all times and seasons. There are wimbrels and curlews that have been shot here during recent years stuffed and hung up in glass cases in old Mr. Peregrine’s house.

Of other birds which are becoming scarcer year by year in England, the kingfishers are not uncommon in these parts; you will often see the brilliant little fellow dart past you as you walk by the stream in summer. Water-ousels or dippers are scarce; we have seen but one specimen in the last three years.

In September, as you walk over the fields, the Cotswolds are seen at their best. Somehow or other a country never looks so well from the roads as it appears when you are in the fields. The man who prefers the high road had better not live in the Cotswolds; for these roads, mended as they are with limestone in the more remote parts of the district, become terribly sticky in winter, while the grass fields and stubbles are generally as dry as a bone. There is but a small percentage of clay in the soil, but a good deal of lime, and five inches down is the hard rock; therefore this light, stony soil never holds the rain, but allows it to percolate rapidly through, even as a sieve. When the sun is hot after a frost the ploughs “carry” certainly, but this is because they dry so quickly; they seldom remain thoroughly wet for any length of time. Consequently, in hunting, the feet of hounds, horses, and even of foxes pick up the sticky, arable soil, instead of splashing through it, and scent is spoiled thereby. Doubtless the lime in the soil adds to its stickiness. It is amusing to watch a fox “break” covert and make his way over a plough which “carries”: he travels very badly; we have seen him fail to jump a sheep hurdle at the first attempt. Fortunately for the fox, the hounds are also handicapped by these conditions, and scent is wretched. This might appear at first sight to show that the scent of foxes is chiefly given off from their feet. We can recall few occasions on which a plough that “carried” held a “burning scent.” But little though we know of the mysteries of “scent,” it is generally agreed that the “steaming trail” emanates chiefly from the body and breath of a fox, even though on certain days there is no evidence of any scent, save on the ground. It is probable, however, that on light ploughlands evaporation is so great when the sun is shining (unless the wind is sufficiently cold to counteract the heat of the sun and prevent rapid evaporation) that all scent from the body and breath of the fox, save that which happens to cling to the ground, is borne upwards and lost in the upper air. _The hounds therefore have to fall back on whatever scent may remain clinging to the soil_, those occasions of course excepted when the great density or gravity of the air prevents scent from rising and dispersing, and causes it to hang _breast high_.

After some years of careful experiment with the hygrometer and barometer, and after an intricate investigation of scent (that mysterious matter which is given off from the skin and breath of foxes), I have come to the conclusion that if we could get an Isaac Newton to “whip in” to a Tom Firr for about a twelvemonth, we might very likely come to know all about it. In standing on ground whereon “angels fear to tread,” I am fully aware that I speak as a fool. But let me state that it is on the barometer that I now place my somewhat limited reliance on a hunting morning, and not on the hygrometer, on the weight of the column of air on a given point of the surface of the earth, rather than on the state of the evaporations, the relative humidity, and the dew point. And I have noticed that the best scenting days have been those when the thermometer has given readings from 38 up to 46 Fahrenheit in the shade. A high and steady glass, an almost imperceptible east or north-east wind, with the ground soaked with moisture and no frost during the previous night, is the only combination of conditions under which scent on the grass is a moral certainty. On the other hand, a low and unsteady glass, a warm, gusty south or west wind, with a hot sun, following a frost, or a day with cold showers, with bright, sunny intervals, or during the afternoon (but not always the morning) before a storm of wind or rain,–such are the conditions which make so many of our attempts to hunt the fox by scent a miserable farce; yet even on these days hounds may run during some part of the day. When the barometer is thoroughly unsettled there may be light local currents, perfectly imperceptible to man, yet felt by cows and sheep–currents created like winds by a variation of temperature in different parts of any given field, and which will scatter the scent and spoil the sport. These currents, rapid evaporation combined with a lack of steady atmospheric pressure, and that sticky state of soil which on ploughed land invariably follows a frost, and in a lesser degree affects grass, causing a fox to take his pad scent on with him (all the particles that do not cling to the ground having been diffused and lost in the air),–these are the curses of modern hunting fields and the chief causes of bad scenting days.

After September is past the shooting man will not get very much sport on the Cotswolds, as far as the partridges are concerned, for they are not numerous enough to be worth driving; they soon become as wild as they can possibly be. On Hatherop and some other estates good partridge driving is enjoyed. The farmers are very fond of shooting them under a “kite,”–this, as it is hardly necessary to explain, is an artificial representation of the hawk. It is flown high up in the air at some distance ahead of the guns. The birds, seeing what they take to be a very large and savage-looking hawk hovering above them, ready to pounce down at a moment’s notice, become frightened, and lie crouching in the hedges and turnips, until they almost have to be kicked up by the sportsmen. But when once they do get up they fly straight away, nor do they come back for a long time. This mode of shooting is all very well once in a way, but if indulged in habitually it scares the birds, driving them on to other manors. Not having seen it successfully carried out, we are not fond of the method, but there are good sportsmen in these parts who advocate it. Some maintain that this cannot be called a really sportsmanlike way of shooting partridges, though there is doubtless room for two opinions on the question.

Later on in the autumn, when November frosts begin to attract snipes to the withybeds and water meadows by the Coln, the unambitious gunner may often enjoy the charm of a small and select mixed bag.

Two of us went out for an hour last winter before breakfast, having been informed that a woodcock was lying in an ash copse by the river. We got the woodcock–a somewhat _rara avis_ in small, isolated coverts on the hills; in addition, the bag contained one snipe, one wild duck, two pheasants, six rabbits, a pigeon, a heron, and some moorhens. Now this was very good sport, because it was totally unexpected. The majority of shooting people might not think much of so small a bag, but it must be remembered that the charm of this kind of shooting is its wildness. It seems rather hard to kill herons, but anybody who has tried to preserve trout will agree that herons are the greatest enemies with which the trout-fisher has to contend. One heron will clear a shallow stream in a very short time. When the floods are out, trout fall a ready prey to these rapacious birds. The kingfishers likewise have a very good time. The fish will gorge themselves with worms picked up on the inundated meadows, until they are so full that the worms actually begin falling out of their mouths. I picked several up last autumn which had been stabbed, I suppose, by a heron. They were unharmed, save for a small round hole, as if made by a bullet; there was no other mark on them. But when taken up, the worms came out of their mouths by the score! Kingfishers are carefully preserved, in spite of their destructiveness, but one must draw the line at herons.

Waiting for wild duck coming into the “spring” on a frosty night is cold work, but very good fun. They breed here in fair numbers, and fly away in August. But when the ground becomes “scrumpety,” as the natives say, with the first severe frost, back they come from the frozen meres to their old home; and if one can keep out of sight (and this is no easy matter in December) many a shot can be obtained in the withybeds by the river. Teal and widgeon may be shot occasionally in the same manner.

Sometimes, when you are upon the hills with Tom Peregrine, the keeper, trying to pick up a brace or two of partridges for the house, he will suddenly say, “_Quad down!_” then, throwing himself on to his hands and knees in breathless anxiety, he will begin whistling for “all he knows.” You imitate him to the best of your ability, and soon, if you are lucky, an enormous flock of golden plover flash over you. Four barrels are fired almost instantaneously, and the deadly “twelve-bore” of your companion is seldom fired in vain.

Green plover, or lapwings, are numerous enough on the Cotswolds. They are wonderfully difficult to circumvent, nevertheless. You crouch down under a wall, while your men go ever so far round to drive them to you; but it is the rarest thing in the world to bag one. Their eggs are very difficult to find in the breeding season. It is the male bird that, like a terrified and anxious mother, flies round and round you with piteous cries; the female bird, when disturbed, flies straight away.

Pigeon-shooting with decoys is a very favourite amusement among the Cotswold farmers. They manage to bag an enormous quantity in a hard winter, sometimes getting over a hundred in a day. Wood-pigeons come in thousands to the stubble fields when the beech nuts have come to an end. Large flocks of them annually migrate to England from Northern Europe. Crouching in a hedge or under a wall, you may enjoy as pretty a day’s sport as ever fell to the lot of mortal man. A few dead birds are placed on the stubble to attract the flocks, and a grand variety of flying shots may be obtained as the wood-pigeons fly over. The year 1897 was remarkable for this shooting. Between November 20th and 30th two of our farmers killed close on a thousand of these birds. Some of them doubtless were potted on the ground. Tom Peregrine remarked that “he never saw such a sight of dead pigeons. The cheese-room up at the farm was full of them.” The vast flocks that blacken the skies for a few short weeks in November disappear as suddenly as they come. After November they are no more seen.

There would be many more partridges were it not for the rooks and magpies. Hedges wherein the birds can hide their nests are few and far between in the wall country, so the keen-eyed rook spies out many a nest in the spring of the year. For this reason and because they eat the corn, the farmers hate them. We cannot share their feelings. We should be sorry to see the old rookery in the garden diminished in the slightest degree. Jays and magpies are terribly numerous; they are rare egg-stealers. We have seen as many as twelve of the latter lately flying all together. Magpies are difficult to get at; they will sit perched upon the topmost twigs of the trees, but will invariably fly away before you get within shot.

It is interesting to rear a few pheasants annually. There is no bird which gives more delight, even if fairly tame; their beautiful colouring and cheerful crowing are always pleasant in the garden and woods around your house. If you feed them every day, they will come regularly up to the very door; and with them come the swans, waddling up from the water, looking very much out of their element. Sometimes, too, a moorhen will join the party; whilst two little wild ducks, the sole survivors of a brood of sixteen, which were attacked and killed by a stoat, will take food right out of the mouths of the good-natured old swans. Peacocks I would not care to have round the house; but there is nothing more in touch with English country life than the glorious red, green, and brown colouring of a “fine” cock pheasant strutting proudly across the lawn on his way to his roosting-place in the firs, contrasting as he does with the majestic form and snowy plumage of the stately swans, which glide about the silent Coln at the bottom of the garden–the incarnation of grace and symmetry. Truly some of the most common of animals are also the most beautiful.

Besides the rooks, there is another bird which the farmers love to wage incessant war upon. The other day I received the following message printed on the back of a postcard:–

“A meeting will be held at the Swan Hotel, Bibury, on Friday, November 13th, at 6.30 p.m., to arrange about starting a _Sparrow Club_ for the district.”

* * * * *

“_What is a Sparrow Club?_” I anxiously enquired the other day of a labouring man, a particular friend of mine, whom I happened to fall in with on his way to chapel. He answered that it was a club for killing sparrows when they get too numerous–paying boys a farthing a head for every bird they catch, and giving prizes for the greatest number killed. Boys may often be seen out at night, with long poles and nets attached to them, catching sparrows in the trees. But my friend tells me that the way he likes to catch them is to go into a barn at night with a lantern. “You must hold the lantern under your coat so as to half screen the light, and the birds will fly at the light and settle on your shoulders.” He tells me you can pick them off your clothes by the dozen. I have never tried it, certainly, as, personally, I have no quarrel with the sparrows. I was disappointed that the “Sparrow Club,” for which a great public meeting had to be convened, was not of a more exciting nature. One was led to believe by the importance of the printed postcard that some good old English custom was about to be revived.

A farmer has just brought me in a peregrine falcon that he shot this morning. He is of course very proud of the achievement. It is useless to argue with him on the question of preserving birds that are becoming scarce in England. He considers that a _rara avis_ such as this, which is “here to-day and gone to-morrow,” is a prize which does not often fall to the lot of the gunner; it must be bagged at all hazards. Nor is it easy to answer the argument which he seldom fails to put forth, that if he doesn’t shoot it, somebody else will.

Talking of rare birds, I shall never forget seeing a wild swan come sailing up the Coln during a very hard frost two years ago. Two of us were out after wild duck, and it was a grand sight to watch this magnificent bird winging his way rapidly up stream at a height of about fifty yards. It is rare indeed to see them in these parts, though the vicar of Bibury tells me that seven wild swans were once seen on the Coln near that village; but this was some years ago. On the same authority I learn that a Solan goose, or gannet, has been known to visit this stream. Tom Peregrine shot one a few years back; also a puffin, a bird with a parrot-like beak and of the auk tribe. Wild geese frequently pass over us, following the course of the stream.

On a bright, warm day in October, such a day as we usually have a score or more of in the course of our much-abused English autumn, it is pleasant to take one’s gun and, leaving behind the quiet, peaceful valley and the old-world houses of the Cotswold hamlet, to ascend the hill and seek the great, rolling downs, a couple of miles away from any sign of human habitation. You may get a shot at a partridge or a wood-pigeon as you go. Hares you might shoot, if you cared to, in every field. But on the other hand you will be equally well pleased if your gun is not fired off, for it is peace and quiet that you are really in search of,–the noise of a shot and the jar of a gun do not suit your present mood.

After walking for half an hour you come to a bit of high ground, where you have often stood before, and, resting your gun against a wall, you gaze at the view beyond.

“Quocunque adspicias, nihil est nisi gramen et aer.”

Nothing particularly striking, perhaps, is visible to the eye, yet to my mind there is a charm about it which the pen is quite unable to describe. Below is a wide expanse of undulating downland, divided into fifty-acre fields by means of loose, uncemented walls of grey stone. The grass is green for the time of year, and scattered about are horses, cattle, and sheep, contentedly nibbling the short fine turf. In the midst of mile upon mile of rolling downs stands forth prominently one field of plough, of the richest brown hue; whilst six miles away a long belt of tall trees, half hidden by haze, marks the outline of Stowell Park. Save for one ivy-covered homestead, miles away on the right, nothing else is in sight.

It is past five o’clock, and the sun, which has been shining brightly all day, with that genial warmth which one only fully appreciates as the winter approaches, is beginning to descend. It is the lights and shades which play over this wide stretch of open country which makes the landscape look so beautiful. And when the wreaths of white, woolly clouds begin to glow round their furthermost edges like coals of fire on a frosty night, with all the promise of a brilliant sunset, this stretch of hill and plain wears an aspect which, once seen, you will never forget. It takes your thoughts away into the great unknown–the infinite,–that mysterious world which is ever around us, and which seems nearer when we are looking at a beautiful sunset or a beautiful view than at any other time in this life, save, for ought we know, during the last few moments of our earthly existence. And although no human habitation is anywhere to be seen, the air is full of the spirits of bygone generations and of bygone _races_ of men. There are traces of humanity in all directions, wherever your eye may gaze, but they are the traces of a forgotten people.

Yonder semicircular ridge was once the rampart of an ancient British town; though, save in the tangled copse hard by, where the plough has never been at work, it is fast disappearing. Many a stone lying about the camp bears unmistakable marks of fire.

A glance of the eye westwards, and your thoughts are carried back to the Roman invasion; for scarce five miles off lies the ancient Roman villa of Chedworth. Then, again, tradition has it that a mile away from this spot, and close to the old manor house, skirmishes were fought in later days, at the time the Civil Wars were raging, when many a chivalrous cavalier and many a stern, unbending Puritan lay dead on yonder field, or, maybe, was carried into the old house to linger and to die in the very room in which you slept last night. Everywhere in England are battlefields; but they are, in the words of De Quincey, “battlefields that nature has long ago reconciled to herself with the sweet oblivion of flowers.”

This very mound on which you are standing, is it not the burying-place of a race which dwelt on the Cotswolds full three thousand years ago? And were not human remains found here a few years back, when this, in common with many other barrows hard by, was opened, and an underground chamber discovered therein–the earthly resting-place of the bones of the unknown dead?

“The silence of deep eternities, of worlds from beyond the morning stars–does it not speak to thee? The unborn ages,–the old graves, with their long-mouldering dust,–the very tears that wetted it, now all dry,–do not these speak to thee what ear hath not heard?”

“Solemn before us
Veiled the dark Portal–
Goal of all mortal.
Stars silent rest o’er us,
Graves under us silent.”

Well has Carlyle translated the great German poet. And the old barrows that lie scattered over these wide-stretching downs are not dumb; they are continually speaking to us of those things “which ear hath not heard”; and at no time have they more to tell than at the close of a mild, peaceful day in October, when all else, save for the faint tinkling of the distant sheep-bells, is silent as death, and the sun, ere once more disappearing, is shedding a solemn glow over the deserted, mysterious uplands of the Cotswold Hills.

But the partridges are “calling” all around, and a covey actually passes over your head. Your sporting instincts begin to revive, and you take up your gun and proceed to stalk that covey, stealing round under a wall. Then you suddenly remember that the V.W.H. hounds meet in your village to-morrow, and you begin wondering whether they will once again find the great dog fox that several times last season led you over the wide, open country that now lies mapped out before you. _Your_ fox, too, one of a litter you came upon two springs ago, in a little spinney not half a mile from where you are standing now, stub-bred and of the greyhound stamp, fleet of foot and lithe of limb. Each time the hounds had come to draw he was at home in the covert on the brow of the hill which shelters the old manor house you inhabit from the cold blast of winter. Here he loved to dwell, and hunt moorhens and dabchicks and water-rats all night long by the banks of silvery Coln. But on three occasions within six weeks, no sooner did the hounds enter the wood than a shrill scream proclaimed him away on the far side. You were mounted on a good horse, and were away as soon as the pack. And then for thirty minutes the “old customer” cantered away over those broad pastures, hounds and horses tearing after him on a breast-high scent, but never gaining an inch of ground. Two leagues were quickly traversed ere yonder distant belt of trees was reached, where the dry leaves lay rotting on the ground, and there was not an atom of scent. So he saved his life, and the tired, mud-bespattered sportsmen vow that there never was such a run seen before, so thrilling is the ecstasy of “pace” and so enchanting the stride of a well-bred horse.

‘Tis a wild, deserted tract of country that stretches from Cirencester right away to the north of Warwickshire. For fifty miles you might gallop on across those undulating fields, and meet no human being on your way. We have ridden forty miles on end along the Fosseway, and, save in the curious half-forsaken old towns of Moreton-in-the-Marsh and Stow-on-the-Wold, we scarcely met a soul on the journey. What a marvellous work was that old Roman Fosseway! Raised high above the level of the adjoining fields, it runs literally “as straight as an arrow” through the heart of the grassy Midlands. And what a rare hunting country it passes through! We saw but one short piece of barbed wire in our journey of over forty miles. Now that farming is no longer remunerative, the whole country seems to be given up to hunting. Depend upon it, it is this sport alone that circulates money through this deserted land.

Time was when the uplands of Gloucestershire were almost entirely under the plough, when good scenting days seldom gladdened the heart of the hunting man, and when, in a ride over the Cotswold tableland, the excitement of a fast gallop on grass was an impossibility. Those were the days when land at thirty shillings an acre was eagerly sought after and the wheat crop amply repaid those who cultivated it. Now, alas! farms are to be had for the asking, rent free; but nobody will take them, and the country is rapidly going back to its original uncultivated state. The farmer, nevertheless, does not lose heart.

To lay down such light land into permanent pasture does not pay; it is therefore left to its own devices, with the result that in a short time weeds and moss and rough grasses spring up–less unprofitable than ploughed fields, and almost as favourable for hunting the fox as the fair pastures of the Vale of Aylesbury. However,

“Nihil est ab omni
Parte beatum.”

There are other things to be done in this life besides riding across country in the wake of the flying pack, glorious and exhilarating though the pastime be; and the sooner these great wastes of unprolific land are once more transformed into wheat-growing plough, the better will it be for all of us.

So you stroll dreamily homewards, musing on these things, and wondering whether you will have another glorious gallop to-morrow. You will just go round by that spinney to see if the earth you gave orders to be stopped up is properly closed. But stop! What is that lying curled up under the wall not ten yards off? See, he stirs! he rises lazily and looks round! ‘Tis the very fox! Long and lean and wiry is he, fine drawn and sleek as a trained racehorse, with a brush nearly two feet long! Brown as the ploughed field you were looking at just now, save for the tip of his brush, which is white as snow. He trots off along the wall, offering the easiest of broadside shots if you were villain enough to take advantage of it. He does not hurry; he stops and looks round after a bit, as much as to say, “I trust you.” But when you steal cautiously towards him he once more lollops along. You follow, to see where he goes to when he has jumped over the high wall into the next field. But he does not jump over, but _on to_ the wall, and there he sits looking at you until you are once more nearly up to him; then he disappears the other side, and you run up and peep over. He is nowhere to be seen! You look along the wall for a hole into which he could have popped, but in vain. You stoop down and try to track him by scent and the mark of his pad, but all to no purpose; and from that day to this you have never discovered what became of him.

[Illustration: “THE OLD CUSTOMER.” 138.png]

CHAPTER VI.

A GALLOP OVER THE WALLS.

“Waken, lords and ladies gay,
To the greenwood haste away;
We can show you where he lies,
Fleet of foot and tall of size.”

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

The next morning you are up betimes, for the hounds meet at the house at nine o’clock. You are not sorry on looking out of your window to see that a thick mist at present envelopes the country. With the ground in the dry state it is in, this mist, accompanied as it is by a heavy dew, is your only chance of a scent. How else could they hunt the jackal in India if it was not for this dew? Thus reflecting, you recall pleasant recollections of gallops over hard ground with the Bombay hounds, and comfort yourself with the thought that the ground here to-day cannot be as hard as that Indian soil. You are soon into your breeches and boots and down to breakfast. In the dining-room a large party is already assembled, for there are five men and two ladies turning out from the house, whilst one or two keen sportsmen have already put in an appearance from afar.

The hounds turn up punctual to the appointed time. How beautiful and majestic they look as they suddenly come into sight amid beech and ash and walnut, whilst the bright pageant advances leisurely and in order over the ancient ivy-covered bridge which spans the silent river, where the morning mist still hangs, and the grass shines white with silvery dew. In good condition they look, too–a credit to their huntsman, who evidently has not neglected giving them plenty of exercise on the roads during the summer. You greet the genial master; then in answer to his enquiry as to where you would like him to draw, you point to the hanging wood on the brow of the hill, and tell him that as you heard them barking there this very morning it is a certain find. No sooner are the words out of your mouth than a holloa breaks the silence of the early morn: the gardener has “viewed” a cub within a hundred yards of the house. Desperately bold are the cubs at this time of year, before they have been hunted. Their first experience of being “stopped out” for the night does not seem to have frightened them at all. They have been kicking up a rare shindy most of the night in the covert close to the house.

“Alas I regardless of their doom,
The little victims play.”

By to-night they will have become sadder and wiser beings. Several people will be glad of this, the keeper included: for the fowls have suffered lately; there have also been one or two well-planned and carefully thought out sallies on the young pheasants–without much damage, however. Not long ago a bold young cub spent some time in breaking open the lid of one of the coops, in which were some late pheasants. He actually forced the wire netting from the roof of the coop, although it was firmly nailed to the woodwork. But he could not quite get his head in, for when the keeper arrived on the scene at five o’clock a.m., there he was, clawing and scratching at the birds. His efforts met with no success, however, for not a single bird was badly injured, though some damage might have been done if Master Reynard had not been interrupted at this critical moment. Young cubs are like puppies, very mischievous. There are plenty of rabbits about, and they are the food foxes like best; poultry and pheasants are pursued and killed out of pure love of mischief.

We must return to the hounds. Our huntsman wisely determines not to go to the holloa, for he prefers to let the young entry draw for their game. Besides which, if this cub has gone away, he is one of the right sort, and does not require schooling. For as we all know, one of the objects of cub-hunting is to teach the young foxes that if they don’t leave the covert when the hounds are thrown in, they will get a rare dusting. So, the hounds having been taken to the “up-wind” end of the wood, the huntsman begins drawing steadily “down wind.” Let them have every chance now; it will be quite early enough to begin drawing up wind when the leaf is off and Reynard has got a bit shy. Blood is an excellent thing for young hounds, nay, for all hounds, early in the season; but we don’t want to chop any cubs before they know where they are or what it all means.

And soon the whole valley re-echoes with hound music, as the pack come crashing towards us through the thick underwood. We get a splendid view of the proceedings–for the covert is a long, narrow strip of about ten acres, running in the shape of a bow round the hill immediately above the place where we are stationed. There is another small wood of about the same size on the other side of the little valley. For this our fox makes, the hounds dashing close after him through the brook. Round and round they go, and it is evident that this cub (unlike several of his brethren who have taken their departure, viewed by the whole field, but _not_ holloaed at) does not intend to face the open country. Scent is good in covert, perhaps because there are at present few of those dry leaves on the ground that spoil scent after the “fall of the leaf”; the result is, we kill a cub. This will be a lesson to the rest of the family when they return to-night and discover the fearful end that befalls foxes that “hang in covert.” Another cub having gone to ground in a rabbit-hole, the keeper is given injunctions to have this hole, together with any other large ones he can find, stopped up, after allowing a day or two to pass, especially making sure, by the use of terriers and also by the tracks, that he does not stop any cubs in.

We now leave the home coverts and start away for a withybed about a mile up the river, where we are told there is a litter. Here, however, we do not find, though it is the likeliest place in the world for a fox. As the hounds dash into the withybed a whole string of wild ducks get up, circle round us, and then fly straight away up stream in the shape of the letter V–a sight unsurpassed if you happen to be a lover of nature.

Our next draw is an isolated artificial gorse of about six acres. If we find here, we must have a gallop, for there is no covert of any size within a four-mile radius; a fine open country lies all around; walls to jump and large fields of fifty acres apiece to gallop over. There is some light plough, but each year the plough gets scarcer, for the Cotswolds are rapidly being allowed to tumble back into grass or, rather, into _weeds_.

A great proportion of the stone-wall country hereabouts consists of downs divided into large enclosures; when the walls are low there is no reason why the pace should not be almost as good as it is in an unenclosed country. Happily to-day we seem to be in for a quick thing, for before the whip has had time to get to the end of the covert, hounds are away, without a sound, and we start off fully two hundred yards behind them.

The old fox, for a fiver! But there is no stopping them; so, knowing the country and the earth he is making for, you make tracks, as hard as your horse can pelt, in the direction in which the hounds are going, and very soon they turn to you, and you find yourself almost alongside of them. They are running “mute,” with their noses several inches off the ground; it almost looks as if they had “got a view” of him. But this is not the case. Scent is “breast high.” Two old hounds that you know well–Crusty and Governor–are leading, though you are glad that one or two you do not know (evidently some of this year’s entry) are not far behind.

The country, which has so far been rather hilly, now opens out into a flat tableland. You fly on, thankful that you are on a thoroughbred, and that he is in good condition. It pays well to keep a horse “up” all the summer in this country, for some of the quickest things of the season take place in October. Scent is often good at this time of the year, because the fields are full of keep: there is plenty of rough grass about. Later on they will be pared down by sheep, and the frost will make them as bare as a turnpike road. Then again that abomination, a “carrying” plough, is not so likely to be met with in October; the white frosts are not severe enough. Later on they are a constant source of annoyance to a huntsman, and invariably cause a check.

But your horse, well bred and fit though he be, is doing all he can to live with the hounds. Fortunately, you know that he is too good to chance a wall, even when blown. At the pace hounds are going you have not much time to trot slowly at the walls in the orthodox fashion; you must take them as they come, high and low alike, at a fair pace, taking a pull a few strides before your mount takes off. Oh, how exhilarating is a gallop in this fine Cotswold air in the cool autumnal morning! and what a splendid view you get of hounds! Here are no tall fences to hide them from your sight and to tempt a fox to run the hedgerows, no boggy woodlands where your horse flounders up to his girths in yellow clay, no ridge and furrow, and no deep ploughed fields.

What is the charm which belongs so exclusively to a fast and _straight_ “run” over this wild, uncultivated region? It does not lie in the successful negotiation of Leicestershire “oxers,” Aylesbury “doubles,” or Warwickshire “stake-and-bound” fences, for there need be no obstacle greater than an occasional four-foot stone wall. Perhaps it lies partly in the fact that in a run over a level stone-wall country, where the enclosures are large and the turf sound, given a good fox and a “burning scent,” hounds and horses travel at as great a pace as they attain in any country in England. Here, moreover, if anywhere, is to be found the “greatest happiness for the greatest number,” the maximum of sport with the minimum of danger; the fine, free air of the high-lying Cotswold plains; the good fellowship engendered when all can ride abreast; the very muteness of the flying pack; the onslaught of a light brigade, or of “a flying squadron under the Admiral of the Red” sailing away over a sea of grass towards a region almost untrodden by man; the long sweeping stride of a well-bred horse; the unceasing twang of the horn to encourage flagging hounds beaten off by the pace and those which got left behind at the start; lastly, the _glorious uncertainty_! Can it last? Where will it all end? Shall we run “bang into him” in the open, or will he beat us in yonder cold scenting woodland standing boldly forth on the skyline miles ahead? All these things add a peculiar fascination to a fast run over this wild country.

Sooner or later there is a sudden check, a couple of sharp turns, and the spell is gone. Hounds may run back ever so well, to the very covert whence an hour ago they forced him. The pleasure of watching them work out a scent, growing rapidly colder, may indeed be left to us; but the glorious possibilities, which lasted as long as a gallant though invisible “quarry” was leading us _straight away_ from home into unfamiliar regions, have passed away; the record run, which we thought had really commenced at last, far, far into the unknown land, into the country leading to nowhere, is not yet attained,–probably it never will be, for it existed in the human imagination alone during that thrilling thirty-minutes’ burst, and was beyond the compass of foxes, horses, and hounds.

As a set off to this it must be admitted that fast runs do not take place every day on these hills. Perhaps there will not be more than half a dozen “clinkers” in a season with a “two-day-a-week” pack. For this reason, as regards all-round sport, the wall country cannot compare with a vale: a stranger might hunt there for three weeks in March, and at the end of that time take himself off in disappointment and disgust, declaring these fast-flying runs he had heard so much about to be an invention and a myth, and the wall country only fit for fools and funkers. For good scenting days in this hill country are few and far between, and a bad day in the wall district is the poorest fun imaginable. For this the field have generally themselves to thank, since they will not give the hounds a chance.

But there is a burning scent this morning, as there generally is when the dew is just going off. For twenty-five minutes hounds do not check once. The earth our fox has been making for is fortunately closed. This causes a moment’s uncertainty among the hounds, but not a check, for they drive straight onwards, and it is evident that he is making for some earths five miles away in a neighbouring hunt’s territory, which instinct tells him will be open.

There they go, old T.K. and J.A., and several ladies, past masters in the craft of crossing a country with the maximum of elegance and skill and the minimum of risk to their horses, themselves, or their friends. Though the hounds are travelling at their greatest possible pace, they ride alongside them, looking as cool as cucumbers (too cool, I think, for their own enjoyment; for the more excitable though less experienced rider probably enjoys himself more). Note how each wall, varying in height from three to four and a half feet, is taken at a steady pace by those well-schooled horses; even a five-foot wall, coped with sharp, jagged stones pointing straight upwards, does not turn them one hair’s breadth from the line. And please note also that each has two hands on the reins, and no whip hand flung high in the air, or elbows thrust outwards, you gentlemen who are fond of painting pictures of hunting scenes for the press!

A good rider sitting at his ease on horseback,

“As if an angel dropped down from the clouds To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,
And witch the world with noble horsemanship,”

resembles a skilful musician seated at a piano or an organ. There is the same kind of communication between the man and the instrument, whereby the stricken chords respond to the lightest touch of the master, who guides as with a silken thread the keys that set the trembling strings in motion. For the rider’s keys are curb and snaffle, and his hands, by means of the bridle, control the sensitive bars of his horse’s mouth–the most harmonious, delicate organ yet discovered on earth, but too often, alas! thumped and banged on to such an awful extent by unsympathetic, heavy hands, as to become considerably out of tune, whereby discord occasionally reigns supreme instead of sweet melodious harmony.

Goodness gracious! what’s up? Our horse, which has never refused before, has stopped dead at a wall. We stand up in the stirrups and peep over, and there below us is a narrow but deep quarry, a veritable death trap for the unwary sportsman. This is indeed a merciful escape; and how can we be too thankful that a horse–wise, sagacious animal that he is–has been endowed with an extraordinary instinct whereby he can _smell_ danger, even though he cannot see it. Writing of this–one of the numerous escapes a merciful dispensation of Providence has granted us in the hunting field–we are reminded that no less than five good men and true have been killed suddenly with the V.W.H. hounds during the last eighteen years. The list commences with George Whyte Melville, prince of hunting men, who broke his neck in a ploughed field in 1878. And it is a very remarkable fact that Mr. Noel Smith was killed in 1896, on precisely the same day–viz., the first Thursday of December–as that on which Whyte Melville lost his life eighteen years before.

But soon after crossing a road, hounds suddenly check. After casting themselves beautifully forward right-and left-handed until they have completed a half circle, they throw up their heads and look round for the huntsman. By a sort of instinct, the result of previous observation, the foremost riders anticipated that check, and did not follow hounds over the road, though one or two later arrivals press forward rather too eagerly. The huntsman, who is not far off, seeing at a glance that there is no other cause for checking, as the hounds are in the middle of a large grass field, immediately decides that the fox has turned sharp down wind (he has been running up wind all the way), and casts his hounds left-handed and back towards the lane without much delay.

“And now,” to quote from Mr. Madden’s “Diary of Master William Silence,” “may be seen the advantage of a good character honestly won.” Crusty is busy “feathering” down the road, and as he is an absolutely reliable hound, the rest of the pack are not long in coming back to him, and soon, cheered by their huntsman, they are in full cry again.

Our fox has run the road for a quarter of a mile. This manoeuvre has probably saved his life, for it has given him time to get his breath back. In addition to this, the instant Reynard turned down wind the scent changed from a very good one to a most indifferent one. How often this happens in a run! And it is one of the fox-hunter’s chief consolations that there is scarcely a day throughout the season on which a run is impossible, if only a fox will set his head resolutely _up wind_, just as in a ringing run there is a certain amount of consolation in the thought that a fox _must travel up wind part of the way_.

It is evident that, being beaten, Reynard has given up all idea of going for the earths three miles away. He is beginning, like all tired foxes, to twist and turn. There is no scent on the road; the hounds are therefore laid on in a grass field, and feather across it in an uncertain sort of way. This gives an opportunity to a sportsman who has just arrived by the road to proclaim that “as usual they are hunting hares.” However, there is some pretty hunting done by the pack up a hedgerow and across a ploughed field; but with scent growing less and less, as is always the case with a tired, twisting fox, we do not get along very fast. Hares are jumping up in all directions, and a terrible nuisance they are on this sort of occasion! That hounds will stick to their fox, twist and turn though he may, in spite of hares, is a fact that is often proved in this country, when a lucky view has once more put them on good terms with the hunted fox, at a time when half the field have been crying “hare.” But when a fox’s scent has gradually diminished until it tends to vanishing point, it is useless to attempt to hunt him. This appears to be the case this morning, for the sun has scattered the mists, and has been shining the last ten minutes with tremendous vigour. We are glad when the master decides to give it up, for we hope to have some more runs with this old fox later on in the season. Hounds and horses have had enough for the time of year. So we turn our horses’ heads to the cool breeze that is ever present on the Cotswolds, making the climate there one of the most delightful in the world in summer and autumn. And as we ride slowly homeward over the hill, past golden stubble fields, there is much that is picturesque to be seen on all sides: for some late barley is not yet gathered in; horses, drawing great yellow waggons, and old-fashioned Cotswold labourers are busy amongst the sheaves; and there is an air of activity and animation in the fields that is absent a month or two later. Bleak and desolate does this country sometimes look in winter, though when the sun shines it is fair enough. And suddenly, as we ride along, a lovely valley is seen below: old-world farmhouses and gabled cottages come into view, nestling amid stately elms and beech trees already touched by autumn’s hand. As we gradually descend the hill, everything looks more beautiful than ever this morning; for we have had a gallop. For to-day at least we shall be in a thoroughly good temper. Whatever the morrow may bring forth, everything will appear to-day in the best possible light. Such an excellent tonic is a fast gallop over the walls for banishing dull care away.

[Illustration: The Old Mill, Ablington. 152.png]

CHAPTER VII.

A COTSWOLD TROUT STREAM.

“We may say of angling as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries: Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did; and so, if I might be judge, God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling.'”–_The Compleat Angler_.

Very few trout we have caught this season (’98) are pink-fleshed when cooked. Last year there were a good number. The reason probably is that they have not been feeding on the fresh-water shrimps or crustaceans, owing to the abundance of olive duns and other flies that have been on the water. Last winter, being so mild, was very favourable for the hatching out of fly in the spring. A hard winter doubtless commits sad havoc among the caddis and larvae at the bottom of the river; the trout, not being able to get much fly, are then compelled to fall back on the crustaceans. The food in these limestone rivers is so plentiful that the fish are able to pick and choose from a very varied bill of