For supper, bed, and picture gallery my host at Watlington charged me two shillings, and called me at five into the bargain, as I wished to breakfast at Wallingford. I took the turning to Ewelme out of the Oxford2 road, and was soon high up among large, low-hedged fields of undulating arable3, with here and there a mass or a troop of elms at a corner, above a farm, or down a hedge. Farther away on the left I had the Chilterns, wooded on their crests4 and in their hollows, not very high, but shapely. The sky was misted at the horizon, but overhead milky5 blue, with thin-spun, dim white cloud; the sun a burning disc; half-way up the sky hung heavier white clouds, which might develop later. The road was clover-edged, winding6, and undulating, and by no means an improbable connection of the Icknield Way. Britwell Salome Church lay on my right, across a willowy field, and having no tower or spire7, it was like one of the farm buildings surrounding it. Then my road mounted between nettly and elmy banks, and had a bit of waste on the right where chalk had been dug—a pretty tumbled piece,[200] all nettles9 and gix and white bryony under ash trees. There was not much hedge between the road and the corn before I got to the “Plough” at Britwell Salome, and next the “Sun.” The village was scattered10 among trees, not interrupting the smell of hay. The road skirted it, and was soon out again amongst the wheat, and passing Britwell[201] park, where the cattle were crossing in a straight line between groups of elms. In the hedge there was bracken along with the yellow bedstraw and white bryony. For a time there were gorse and bracken together on the green strip above the road. Then, instead of going straight on to Benson, I turned to the left for Firebrass Hill, Ewelme, and Wallingford. Beyond this turn all the country round was high, bare cornland undulating to the darker hills. The road had nettles for a hedge, or sometimes brier, scabious, knap-weed, and rest-harrow, and once some more purple meadow crane’s-bill; it had steep banks, but no green border. But this was not the Icknield Way, which would never have dipped down to the lower part of Ewelme and up again at once. The first houses of the village were decent, small ones, standing11 high and looking down at the farm-house thatch12, the cottages, gardens of fruit trees, and elms of the main village. The churchyard covered the slope down from the upper to the lower village, and in the midst stood the church, a venerable one with a particularly neat growth of ivy13 across the tower. I could not get into the church, but could hear the clock ticking in the emptiness. In the churchyard I noticed this devout14 fancy over the body of Alice Heath, who died in 1776:—
Kind angels, watch this sleeping dust
Till Jesus comes to raise the just;
Then may they wake with sweet surprise
And in their Saviour’s image rise.
Watlington Town Hall.
I should like to know what was in the verse-writer’s mind when he penned the first line. The word[202] “surprise” pleased me most, though due to a rhyme. It occurred to me that the writer’s mind, through grief, might have been in the same condition as the bedroom artist at Watlington who drew the lady and the cradle and the beautiful winged diver. I believe that this artist would have translated literally16 into pictorial17 form the words:—
Kind angels, watch this sleeping dust.
He would have shown a neat, grassy18 churchyard with an immemorial church tower in the background. Scattered over the turf close to the church would be an indistinct crowd of tombstones. Nearer and clearer he would present a new and costly19 stone, probably in the form of a cross, standing at the top of three or four steps. Many wreaths of rare and costly flowers would lie unfaded at the foot of the steps. On the lowest step two figures of exceptional beauty and dignity would be kneeling without sign of impatience21 or any other emotion. They would be in the customary costume of these pictures, and the onlooker22 would marvel23 what they were doing; and if he knew that they were watching the dust below, he would still conjecture24 as to what they were to watch against, and how they proposed to resist the attempts of any robbing man, beast, dragon, or other monster. But it is unlikely that any such picture was in the mind of the Ewelme epitaph-writer. He or she had perhaps no distinct image; choosing words that would fit the metre and not be in any way surprising to the religious, he thought of “angels”[203] and of “dust,” and the need of epithets25 pretty soon suggested “kind” and “sleeping.” Nevertheless, when I read it I came so near to forming an image, rather in the style of the bedroom artist, that it is possible the writer had an image or vision of some sort, and handed it on to me in that early July morning before anyone was on the roads or in the churchyard.
There was a much better stone and delicately writ15 inscription26 near the east window. The stone, a very thin, shouldered one, had slipped down into the earth, and was less than two feet in height and in breadth. The words were:—
Here lyeth the Body
of Margaret Machen
who departed this
life the 5th of April
being aged27 20 years
Anno Dom. 1675.
Here the smallness and prettiness of the thin stone, its being half swallowed up in earth and grass, the fineness of the written, not printed, lettering, the name a poem in itself and half Welsh, the youth of the girl, her death in April more than two hundred years ago, all together produced an effect like that of beauty, nay28! which was beauty. Not far off was a ponderous29 square chest with as much reading on it as a page of newspaper, dated 1869. The sparrows were chittering in the elms.
Ewelme Cow Common.
My road dipped down through the village, and to the left by the “Greyhound” and up between steep banks under larch30 trees. On the right a few yards up that road a footpath31 used to go for two[204] miles towards Wallingford, but it was covered by corn for the first part, and I kept to the road. I was soon going past the Ewelme cow common again, but along the opposite side; and there were cows among its thorns. For a few yards, after crossing the Benson and Dorchester road at Gypsies’ Corner, I was in the Upper Icknield Way again, but turned to the right, due west, leaving Clack’s Farm on the south instead of the west. I was then going down towards the green-striped cornland, the clustered trees of the Thames Valley, and the pale spire and tower of Wallingford rising out of it. The low, long curves of land meeting or intersecting a little above the river were like those of a brier with nothing to climb. In the[205] hedges there were wild roses and masses of traveller’s joy, with all its grey-green buds very large. Instead of following the road round its bend to the south-west, I turned just past the bend into a green lane to the right, which made straight for Wallingford spire; and into this lane presently came the footpath from Ewelme and a parallel old lane. However, I had to turn sharp to the left to reach Crowmarsh Gifford and Wallingford. Crowmarsh is a wide street of old cottages leading to Wallingford bridge. Wallingford climbs the right bank up from the bridge, and out of its crowded brick rise the[206] tower and the spire of two churches, and the ivied tower of a castle, of the kind that looks as if it had been ready-made ruinous and ivied, with a flagstaff on top. I crossed the bridge to the town, and went up the narrow, old street, past an inn called “The Shakespeare,” to the small square of small shops, where red and blue implements33 of farming stood by the pillared town hall and the sun poured on them. I went into the “private bar” of an inn, but hearing only a blue-bottle and seeing little but a polished table, and smelling nothing else, I went out and round the corner to the taproom of the same inn. Here there were men, politics, crops, beer, and shag tobacco.
Wallingford Bridge.
This contrast between the “private bar” and the taproom round the corner reminded me of another town which illustrates34 it perfectly35. At the edge of the town, its large front windows looking up the principal street, its small back windows over a windy common to noble hills, is a public house called “The Jolly Drover.” The tap of “The Jolly Drover” is the one blot36 upon the face of Coldiston. The town is clean and demure37 from the decent old houses of the market-place to the brand-new cottages, more like conservatories38 than dwellings39, on the outskirts40. The magistrates41 are busy week after week in sentencing men and women of all ages for begging, asking for hot water to make tea, sleeping under hedges or in barns, for being unseemly in act or speech; if possible, nothing offensive must happen in the streets. A market is held once a week and[207] is a byword in the county. Any animal can be offered for sale there; the drover creeps along behind a beast that attracts as much attention as a menagerie in the wayside villages; they know where it is going; they have seen a pig resembling a greyhound, except that it had not the strength to stand up, sold there for a shilling. Three or four times a year a builder and contractor42 of Coldiston is sold up, because he has been trying to get work by doing it for nothing, and these sales are the chief diversion of the neighbourhood. The town is a model of neatness and respectability, as if created by a shop-window decorator; and of all the public-houses—all named hotels—“The Jolly Drover” is the neatest and most respectable outside, and the most expensive inside. It is painted white at short intervals43. The chief barmaid is a Londoner, white-faced and coral-lipped, with a love-lock over her marble brow; and her way is brisk and knowing, and her speech more than equal to the demands made upon it of an evening by the tradesmen who will come until they are rich enough to quit the town for ever. Every form of invitation adorns44 the exterior45.
But round the corner, towards the common, “The Jolly Drover” is white no longer. It has no pavement outside, but a space of bare earth overshadowed by an enormous elm’s last two living branches and roughened by its wide-spreading roots. There is no invitation to enter here, but simply the words upon a low lamp, “The Jolly Drover Tap.” No invitation is needed, for the[208] windows are not curtained and the passer-by cannot fail to see the contented46 backs of drinkers and the long tiers of bottles. At night almost as much can be seen through the yellow blinds. The door stands open opposite the old tree, and through it the eye finds the bar, the plain country barmaid, the lamp, and the bright bottles. A mongrel dog or two and a gypsy’s broken-down cart and wild-eyed horse are usually outside, or a tramp’s woman waiting, or a group of men talking quietly before going in or after coming out. Here “The Jolly Drover” answers to its name. It is a hedge public house of old red brick and tiles, joined, nevertheless, to the white-fronted hotel and connected with it in the proprietor’s accounts. It is noisy. They sing there. No plain man is afraid to go in who has the price of half a pint47 in his pocket. In the summer benches are set outside, and men can sit and see the discreet48 going to and fro of the town life a few yards away.
Old Jack49 Runaway50 (who will borrow sixpence and then lose half a year’s custom in watercress for fear of showing his face again) has lost six heifers that he was taking to the fair over the hill, but he has a pint inside and a pint before him—the clock stands still—and as the people go by he comments to himself:—
“My young Lord Drapery, may he go to gaol52 for being a poor beggar before he’s forty. A brood mare53; what with living between a policeman and a postman, with a registrar54 in front and a minister behind, her children ought to be tin soldiers. Now[209] I wonder what’s he worth? But if I was coined into golden sovereigns I wouldn’t have married his missus when I was twenty, no, I wouldn’t. Pretty Miss Ladybird, Ladybird, Ladybird, fly away from home; you’re a tantalizer55 for a fine day, to be out with a young chap drinking a glass of six and nobody looking. What we do lose by being old, to be sure, more than by being poor! What a clean, white beard, now, that Mr. Welcome has got, like an angel. Eh, old Colonel High and Mighty56, there’s doctors for sciatica and gout, but there’s something we have both got by being sixty that they won’t cure, not if your purse is as long as your two legs. How much do you weigh, bombarrel? They don’t allow a carriage and pair in Kingdom Come. Now, that young fellow could break a good few stones on a summer’s day; kind, too, and don’t his heels kick the pavement proud; but mind the women don’t bend your back for you, or you might as well be dust to dust any day. That’s what I call a good piece, neat and not too stuck up, not so young as she was, keeps the house tidy, and knows where they sell the best things cheap; now, I’d like to walk into your parlour and have a cup of tea, missus, after wiping my feet on the mat and hanging up my hat; and then that little ladybird of a nursemaid brings in the baby, and we feed it on cake and weak tea; it must be weak, or it’s bad for the health ...; and wouldn’t I be proud to have you brushing my coat as I goes out of a morning, a black coat, and putting a rose in my button-hole, and kissing me before all the[210] street—ha, ha! dirty Jack Runaway. How they do dress up the youngsters these days, like little angels; hark at them talking, and when the mother whispers to them and they run over as if you dropped it and give you a penny, you might think it would turn into a flower in their hands, and they give you a kind of look as much as to say, ‘God is feeding His sparrows,’ and then they run away without a word, and you look at the price of half a pint, and either you bless them or else you curse them. You, Reverend Sir, would give me a cold in the head if you were to talk; then you’d give me sixpence; if you go to heaven, there’s a bit of luck left for those who don’t, you freezing point, you Monday’s loaf, you black-and-white undertaker’s friend. Oh, this town! it’s rotten without stinking58, gilt59 without gingerbread. Look at them staring at us as if we were wild beasts taking an airing outside the cage....”
The town in its turn does watch “The Jolly Drover Tap” and its life. Why should there be all that space wasted where the elm stands? people wonder; it is quite old-fashioned, and they smile pityingly, yet tenderly, when the old tree is crowding into leaf. But when there are half a dozen rough men and women talking aloud and gesticulating like foreigners over the price of a long, brown dog that shivers under a cart, they do not see why it should be so; only, it is “The Jolly Drover,” and rather difficult to attack. It is extraordinary, they think as they pass by the turning down to the Tap, how a lot of lazy fellows, with nothing to do[211] and with only rags on them, can get enough to spend half a day there. That ought certainly not to be allowed. These are not the honest poor. Either a man must work, or be looking out for work in a serious manner, or be so well dressed that he obviously need not work; or something is wrong. Nor do they invariably look starved and miserable60. They eat and drink and talk to one another. Where do they come from? Of course they do not live in Coldiston: then why come here to drink? They cannot, of course, be stuffed into prison or workhouse or asylum61; but is there no other cesspool possible in an age with a genius for sanitation62?
When the blinds are down and the lamp lit, what a jolly place it is! The light pours out through the door on to the old tree, and makes it look friendly as you go in, and romantic as you come out. It is best at haymaking or harvest time in fine weather. The irregular labourers come into the town, especially on a Saturday, and break their journey at “The Jolly Drover Tap.” The townsman glances in as he passes, and sees a tall, straight man in a restful attitude standing up at the bar, and he has just raised his pot to drink. It is only a glimpse of a second, but it remains63 in the mind. The passer-by could not say how the drinker was clad, except that he wore a loose, broad-brimmed hat on his head, pushed back so as to leave quite clear against the lamp the whole of a big-featured, long face, the brow, and the curled hair up to the crown. Was it coat and trousers, or just shirt and trousers? At any rate the whole man could be[212] seen underneath64. Not that the observer did not as a rule admire a man fully65 and fashionably dressed. Only, in this light, just this harvest evening of purple and of great silence, the tall man drinking with head thrown back at the end of the passage looked more like the statues of a bygone age, or the representations of magnificent men seen in pictures, or the soldiers he has read of in books about the wars of Roundhead and Cavalier or the invasions of Wales and Scotland—yes! the height and carriage of this man call up the words “rough borderer.” A lance or a long sword would look well in his hands. His hat is not unlike a foot-soldier’s helmet. And then the face—coarse, fearless, and careless—is an enigma66. He is some fellow without a house, or wife, or any goods or gods, yet this is how the admirer used to picture lords and generals when a little boy at school. He is not thinking about rent, accounts, education, clothes, the poor, church, chapel67, appendicitis68, or this time next year. He is not apparently69 in a hurry. He has no vote, and one party in power is as good as the other to him. No doubt a wasteful70 fellow—has fallen, perhaps, through drink—is good-natured possibly, but would not stop short at violence on occasion—idle with all his strength—and yet.... And yet? The figure and face against the light stick in the mind of the man out in the street. He is discontented. He grumbles71 at his wife when he goes in because she has not done something, and he does more, he grows enraged72, when he finds that she really has done it, but has not had time to tell him. He lies[213] still in bed on his back, thinking for a long time. His wife lies still, and he knows that she also is awake thinking. He says “Good night,” hoping she will say something to comfort him for his fruitless wakefulness. But she says “Good night,” and no more. They remain silent. He has the image of the drinker clear in the darkness before he falls asleep. Left entirely73 alone his wife sighs, and presently she also is asleep.
But I do not wish to say that Wallingford is as respectable as Coldiston. All I can say is that the ford1 below is very old, and it is highly probable that some travellers on the Icknield Way followed the road I had been on from Gypsies’ Corner to Wallingford and then into the Berkshire Ickleton Street at Blewbury, if not before. Others, avoiding Wallingford, might have crossed at Little Stoke, from which a westward74 road goes up, called the “Papist Way.”
From Wallingford I made for the “Papist Way,” following a series of paths and roads about a quarter of a mile east of the river. I went past the little towerless and spireless church of Newnham Murren, which had a number of crooked75, ivy-coloured tombstones, and was itself covered with ivy, which traveller’s joy was beginning to climb. Then over Grim’s Ditch, a mile and a half west of the Icknield Way crossing, I came to Mongewell park, and my path was along a line of huge elms and sweet limes. On my left, the main road and its telegraph wires ran bordered with charlock along the top of a low ridge32 above these meadows. From North[214] Stoke there was a good road. I turned aside to the church, but found what was better, a big range of tiled, thatched sheds and barns extending on either side of my path, with a cattle-yard in the midst full of dazzling straw and richly-stinking cow dung, and a big black sow lying on it like a recumbent statue on a huge pedestal. Swifts were shrieking76 above and chickens clucking in the corners. From the road the tiled church and the thatched barn fell into line, and seemed one, especially as the farm pigeons were perched on the ridges77 of both. On a corn-rick behind I saw the figure of a sheep on a weather-vane. This road went alongside hedgeless barley78 on the left, over which I could see the bare, low hills between me and the Icknield Way, and far beyond them the wooded hills about Nuffield and Nettlebed; on the right there was hay to the river; there was succory on the roadside, scabious, knapweed, rest-harrow, and long grass.
To reach the ferry at Little Stoke I turned off to the right under elm trees and was rowed across. The boy told me that the road up from the ferry was called Asylum Road, there being a big, red lunatic asylum on the right-hand side of it, just as it crossed the Reading and Wallingford road. Only beyond this crossing is it marked “Papist Way” on the map. I have not discovered why it was named so, for the name suggests too late a date to be connected with the monastery79 which lay near where the road reaches the Great Western railway station at Cholsey. It points to the Astons, Blewbury, and Upton, and may at one time have formed[215] part of a road running through them to Wantage; unless this road is rather a protraction of the road from South Stoke and Moulsford, which may, however, have joined the “Papist Way” at Lollingdon.
They were talking about roads at the “Morning Star” on the left side of the “Papist Way.” The fat drayman and the smart butcher’s boy agreed that motor-cars were ruining the good roads. The rubber wheels can travel on the smoothest possible surface, which is the modern ideal. Hoofs80, on the other hand, need something to bite into. The drayman, with his heavy waggon81, would do away with steam-rollers. Here the needy82 cyclist interrupted, and said that he had never known better times; the smooth roads were as good for him as for motor-cars. All cursed their dust, their stink57, their insolence83, and all looked with some admiration84 at the foreign-looking chauffeur85 who came in for a glass and out again in a minute. Outside, the flies were “terrifying” the horses for the first time in the summer, and the drivers inside yelled at them, but seldom moved from their beer. One driver was a man with big, red ears, and a serious, quizzical face, with a beard. He came in wearing a fine musk86 thistle, which he seemed to think was Scotch87, but immediately on being given a bunch of sweet peas he threw it away. If this had been his preference it would have been absurd enough—as if a musk thistle were not better than all the sweet peas ever contrived88 by man and God!—but he took the garden flowers because they were things having a price, and because they were a gift.
By Lollingdon Farm.
The “Papist Way” was a hard road winding between wheat and beans for half a mile. Then it crossed the Wallingford and Cholsey road, and was interrupted by the railway embankment. Its course on the farther side of this seemed to be marked by a division between barley and potatoes to the left of the present road. This line[217] was continued through Pancroft farm-yard, from which a path went south-westward along the hedges to Lollingdon. This was over black, rushy lands haunted by pewits. The road a little on the left, leading also to Lollingdon Farm, was on better ground, winding westward under the wooded swell89 of the round hill called Lollingdon Hill. The farm had a big home meadow with ash and poplar enclosing it, almost as if it had been a quadrangle with cloisters90 round. There were many thatched farm buildings in the corner, and a fine walnut91 tree and a beautiful abundance of poppies and dusty nettle8 and dusty mallow against the walls. The road had an elmy hedge on its right, but nothing on the left between it and the oats that reached up to the beeches92 of Lollingdon Hill-top. The long grass and knapweed and succory by the roadside were blossoming with white and meadow-brown butterflies, which flew away from their stalks as ducklings swim away from their unamphibious foster-mothers. The butterflies flew after one another, sometimes a white after a brown. The sun was perfect for them, there being fewer clouds than there were eight hours back—for as I walked I heard a pleasant, gong-like bell strike two at Aston.
Aston Tirrold and Aston Upthorpe make a square of roads with many lanes and paths crossing from one side to another. In the square are big houses and small, and their gardens and old, nettly orchards93, and many sycamores, elms, chestnuts94, and acacias in the gardens and along the paths; there are even some small fields within it.[218] Running water goes through it. Here you pass a mud wall, there a hedge, here a boarded, there a thatched, and again a tiled, cottage. At some of the corners and in the churchyard stand lime trees. If a happy child had all the ingredients of old villages to play with, it would, if it were ingenious, probably combine them thus. The farms are all outside the square but close to it. The churches are near the edge but within it. I hardly believed that anybody remained alive in the village until I failed to open the door of Aston Tirrold Church. Aston Upthorpe church was a small tiled building with a stupid little spire stuck on yesterday, to show that it was not part of the neighbouring tiled farm and outhouses. The village hid itself well on both sides under its elms. From the east it seemed all trees and orchards, from the west only the new thatch of a rick betrayed it.
My road led along the south side of the village and commanded a simple, perfect piece of downland—a bare, even wall of down with an almost straight ridge, which was also bare but for one clump95; along the foot of the wall ran the main road to Wantage; up from it, an old trackway, very deeply worn, rose slanting96 and showing one old steep green bank, up to the ridge and over; and at the point where the trackway crossed the main road the turf was carved by a chalk-pit.
Blewbury.
A broad track and several parallel paths went fairly straight without hedges, westward through the corn to Blewbury, passing close under the south side of a bare, sudden hill—Blewburton Hill—and[219] the ramparts of a supposed Danish camp. Blewbury was like Aston, with a streamlet, many trees and orchards, and a towered church standing in the midst of several paths and roads. The clock was beating slowly with such gigantic and ancient peace inside the church that I did not enter. It was as if some[220] hoary97 giant were sleeping inside away from the sun, if indeed he had not been there for some centuries. Outside the church lay a dilapidated and weed-grown pair of prostrate98 effigies99. If it were not disturbing the sleeper100 in Blewbury Church I should suggest that these effigies might be taken in. They are much to be preferred to the clean effigies which have never borne the weather of God or the pocket-knives of men; but if they are left outside much longer they will hardly pass as representations of two human beings lying on their backs.
The south side of Blewbury touched the main Reading and Wantage road, and had several inns: a “Barley Mow,” a “Catherine Wheel,” a “George and Dragon,” a “Sawyer’s Arms,” a “Load of Mischief101,” and at its west end a “New Inn.” I was glad to see that the “Load of Mischief” still upheld its sign and name. I feared that it might have been renamed “The Red Lion” or the “Crown,” and have been robbed of its sign. But there was the sign, and almost opposite a window, where I was equally glad and surprised to see an advertisement of “Votes for Women.” The “Load of Mischief” was a woman, of a type belonging to a day hardly later than Hogarth’s, mounted on the shoulders of a man. The man was a mere102 small beast of burden. The woman was magnificent—a huge, lusty, brown virago—and she was holding in her hand a glass clearly labelled “Gin.” This woman and her ill-chosen spouse103 were painted on both sides of the sign-board, so that all coming[221] from north and from south should see it. I forgot to inquire whether “The Load of Mischief” was a fully licensed104 house and sold gin. Probably it was. The sign was not a beerhouse’s defamation105 of gin. It did not deny that gin was a very good thing. It did not assert anything more than that a big, gin-drinking woman on a small man’s shoulders was a “load of mischief.” How impossible it is—even in this sporting country—to think of a sign depicting106 a big, gin-drinking man on a little woman’s shoulders. No woman ever painted a sign-board, I suppose, and no woman keeping an inn would put up such a one as “The Load of Mischief.” A woman who drank gin was a load of mischief. On the other hand, a man who made the gin for her, provided that he grew rich on it, became a justice of the peace or a member of Parliament; if his father made it he became a bishop107. It is the difference between mind and matter, between brain-work and manual labour. The member of Parliament or the bishop’s father had only to think about gin; he might never have tasted it. The woman had to swallow it and pay for it. Therefore she grew poor while he grew rich. A history of England was once written entirely to show this difference, to insist upon it, and to teach the consumer that he must never forget his duties and responsibilities to the manufacturer, and to remind the manufacturer of his privileges. It was called “A History of England for Shoe-Blacks and Sons of Gentlemen: or, A Guide to Tuft-hunting, Sycophancy108, Boot-licking, and other Services to the[222] Aristocracy and Plutocracy109, and to Keeping in Your Place.” It was published in 1911, and is used in schools.
When I went into one of the inns there was a woman seated in the taproom drinking beer, a shrill110 and lean, large-eyed woman of middle age, somewhat in liquor, and with ill-fitting boots, in which she had walked fifteen miles and had nine still to do. Whether or not because he had drunk more, her husband had gone on by train; she said she had “sent him.” She foresaw that it was not going to rain that day. She claimed no credit for the foresight111. Her corns alone had the power. In about a quarter of an hour she left. She was a woman that walked fast but stopped often. She carried her hands in the pockets of her black skirt. Not long after she had started the rain fell down upon her, as it did upon the roofs, mackintoshes, and umbrellas of the brewers, publicans, and brewery112 shareholders113.
From the west of Blewbury to Upton there was another mile of broad, green tracks through corn, without a tree between them and the round, smooth downs, with their tumuli clear against the sky on the left hand. At Upton this series of roads from Little Stoke entered the main road, or crossed it, and continued without touching114 any villages on the way to Lockinge and Wantage. But this further road was a continuation of the line of the main road before it turned north to Upton and west to Hagbourne, and might have been an alternative course to Wantage, or part of an earlier[223] way, perhaps the Icknield Way itself, which some have supposed to go nearer the Downs than the main road now does. As I meant at another time to travel this road and its parallels from Streatley to the Wiltshire border, I returned to Blewbury, and at one of the six inns read James Montgomery’s Pelican115 Island, a poem of A.D. 1827, in nine cantos. The poem seemed to have been started and carried on under the influence of an ecstasy117 given to the author by an explorer’s book. In his Voyage to Terra Australis, then not long published, Captain Matthew Flinders had described two little islands, the breeding-place and antique cemetery118 of pelicans119, “islets of a hidden lagoon121 of an uninhabited island, situate upon an unknown coast, near the antipodes of Europe.” This evidently impressed Montgomery with a strong feeling of solitariness122. He imagined himself alone when “sky, sun, and sea were all the universe,” himself a spirit, “all eye, ear, thought”—“what the soul can make itself at pleasure, that I was.” For “thrice a thousand years” he saw none but the people of the sea:—
Beings for whom the universe was made,
Yet none of kindred with myself. In vain
I strove to waken sympathy in breasts
Cold as the element in which they moved,
And inaccessible123 to fellowship
With me, as sun and stars, as winds and vapours.
Under the sea also he saw:—
Relics124 huge and strange
Of the old world that perish’d by the flood,
Kept under chains of darkness till the judgment125.
He watched the making of a coral islet, compared with which men’s work seemed nothing. A comparison which set him thinking of the grandeurs of earth, among them of Babylon, built for eternity126, though where it stood,
Ruin itself stands still for lack of work,
And Desolation keeps unbroken Sabbath....
He saw the islet grow and become hospitable127. The sea-wrack and many sea-changed things were swept up on to it,
While heaven’s dew
Fell on the sterile128 wilderness129 as sweetly
As though it were the garden of the Lord.
Grass grew. Insects swarmed130. He witnessed “the age of gold in that green isle120.” Trees and flowers rose up. Reptiles131 and amphibious monsters appeared. Then came “more admirable” beings:—
Flocking from every point of heaven, and filling
Eye, ear, and mind with objects, sounds, emotions
Akin51 to livelier sympathy and love
Than reptiles, fishes, insects could inspire;
—Birds, the free tenants132 of land, air, and ocean,
Their forms all symmetry, their motions grace;
In plumage, delicate and beautiful,
Thick without burthen, close as fishes’ scales,
Or loose as full-blown poppies to the breeze;
With wings that might have had a soul within them,
They bore their owners by such sweet enchantment133;
Birds, small and great, of endless shapes and colours,
Here flew and perched, there swam and dived at pleasure;
Watchful134 and agile135, uttering voices wild
And harsh, yet in accordance with the waves
Upon the beach, the winds in caverns136 moaning,
Or winds and waves abroad upon the water.
His was an eager, rapturous temperament137. Next to birds he seems to have loved the insect[225] legions—“children of light and air and fire” he calls them,
Their lives all ecstasy and quick cross motion.
But birds and insects did not confine his sympathy. They did not, e.g., turn it aside from the elephant, leading his quiet life “among his old contemporary trees.”
Whether it was through the impulse of the discoverer’s words, or, as is more likely, through his own nature, he was able to suggest with some power the world that does without men, the “sterile wilderness” not neglected by the dew, the Paradise without man and without death, where
Bliss138 had newly
Alighted, and shut close his rainbow wings,
To rest at ease, nor dread139 intruding140 ill.
I think he was enchanted141 by those tropical
Airy aisles142 and living colonnades143,
Where nations might have worshipp’d God in peace.
For, with an energy which a tree would call religious, he describes their flourishing, and how the Indian fig20 was multiplied:—
From year to year their fruits ungather’d fall;
Not lost, but quickening where they lay, they struck
Root downward, and brake forth144 on every hand,
Till the strong saplings, rank and file, stood up,
A mighty army, which o’erran the isle,
And changed the wilderness into a forest.
His love of things that are not men, that are happy and without conscience, is more instinctive145 than his desire for men in his solitude146. They, though “kindred spirits,” never moved him to a picture like the flamingoes flying,
Till, on some lonely coast alighting,
Again their gorgeous cohort took the field.
I was not surprised, then, at the seventh canto116, to find him saying, in Wordsworthian strain, that we only begin to live
From that fine point,
Which memory dwells on, with the morning star,
The earliest note we heard the cuckoo sing,
Or the first daisy that we ever pluck’d,
When thoughts themselves were stars, and birds, and flowers,
Pure brilliance147, simplest music, wild perfume.
My copy of the book was printed in 1827. It had the date 1856 under the old owner’s name; and I suppose that not many editions have been published since 1827, or any since 1856. Yet this individual character of the writer, original as much in degree as in kind, had kept the book alive. The energy of his ecstasy gave his blank verse a gushing148 flow that may cause sleep, but seldom impatience, and never contempt. The overflowing149 of so many lines into an extra unaccented syllable150 seemed a natural effect of his possession by his subject, and not a device or a mere habit. At its best it had the eloquence151 of an improvisation152.
As I shut this book it reminded me of a poem called To Deck a Woman, by Mr. Ralph Hodgson, where a similar rapt picture of a manless Eden is painted, but with a passion that is controlled to a quivering repose153 by an art finer than Montgomery’s. There the passion is double, for the poet’s love of the life and beauty of birds is turned to an anger too deep for hate against the woman Bloodwant, “shrill for Beauty’s veins,” and the[227] men who satisfy—and provoke—her desire for feathers. The same poet’s Stupidity Street is a curious instance of passion submitting itself to the quietest of smiling rhymes:—
I saw with open eyes
Singing birds sweet
Sold in the shops for
The people to eat,
Sold in the shops of
Stupidity Street.
I saw in vision
The worm in the wheat
And in the shops nothing
For people to eat,
Nothing for sale in
Stupidity Street.
I was glad that I had taken Pelican Island with me as my only book; for if I had not I might very likely never have read it. Yet it might have escaped me even though it was in my pocket. Unless a man always carries a book with him, when he does take one it is often a little too well chosen, or rather chosen too deliberately154, because it is a very good one, or is just the right one, or is one that ought to be read. But walking is apt to relieve him of the kind of conscience that obeys such choices. At best he opens the book and yawns and shuts it. He may look about him for any distraction155 rather than this book. He reads through a country newspaper, beginning and ending with the advertisements. He looks at every picture in an illustrated156 magazine. He looks out of the window for some temptation. He takes down The Lamplighter or Mrs. Humphry Ward’s East Lynne from[228] the landlord’s shelves. He looks through the magazine again. If he opens the choice book he finds in it an irresistible157 command to go to bed at nine o’clock. The same book may be taken out thus a score of times, and acquire a friendly and well-read appearance.
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1
Ford
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| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
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Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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arable
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| adj.可耕的，适合种植的 | |
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crests
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| v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的第三人称单数 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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milky
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| adj.牛奶的，多奶的；乳白色的 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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spire
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| n.(教堂)尖顶，尖塔，高点 | |
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nettle
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| n.荨麻；v.烦忧，激恼 | |
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nettles
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| n.荨麻( nettle的名词复数 ) | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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thatch
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| vt.用茅草覆盖…的顶部；n.茅草(屋) | |
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ivy
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| n.常青藤，常春藤 | |
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devout
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| adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness) | |
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writ
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| n.命令状，书面命令 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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pictorial
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| adj.绘画的；图片的；n．画报 | |
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18
grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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19
costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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20
fig
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| n.无花果(树) | |
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21
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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22
onlooker
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| n.旁观者，观众 | |
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23
marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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24
conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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25
epithets
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| n.（表示性质、特征等的）词语( epithet的名词复数 ) | |
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26
inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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27
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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28
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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29
ponderous
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| adj.沉重的，笨重的，(文章)冗长的 | |
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30
larch
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| n.落叶松 | |
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31
footpath
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| n.小路，人行道 | |
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32
ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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33
implements
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| n.工具( implement的名词复数 )；家具；手段；[法律]履行（契约等）v.实现( implement的第三人称单数 )；执行；贯彻；使生效 | |
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34
illustrates
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| 给…加插图( illustrate的第三人称单数 )； 说明； 表明； （用示例、图画等）说明 | |
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35
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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36
blot
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| vt.弄脏（用吸墨纸）吸干；n.污点，污渍 | |
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37
demure
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| adj.严肃的；端庄的 | |
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38
conservatories
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| n.（培植植物的）温室，暖房( conservatory的名词复数 ) | |
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39
dwellings
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| n.住处，处所( dwelling的名词复数 ) | |
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40
outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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41
magistrates
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| 地方法官，治安官( magistrate的名词复数 ) | |
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42
contractor
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| n.订约人，承包人，收缩肌 | |
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43
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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44
adorns
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| 装饰，佩带( adorn的第三人称单数 ) | |
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45
exterior
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| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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46
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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47
pint
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| n.品脱 | |
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48
discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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49
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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50
runaway
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| n.逃走的人，逃亡，亡命者；adj.逃亡的，逃走的 | |
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51
akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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52
gaol
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| n.(jail)监狱；(不加冠词)监禁；vt.使…坐牢 | |
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53
mare
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| n.母马，母驴 | |
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54
registrar
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| n.记录员，登记员；(大学的)注册主任 | |
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55
tantalizer
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56
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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57
stink
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| vi.发出恶臭；糟透，招人厌恶；n.恶臭 | |
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58
stinking
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| adj.臭的，烂醉的，讨厌的v.散发出恶臭( stink的现在分词 )；发臭味；名声臭；糟透 | |
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59
gilt
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| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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60
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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61
asylum
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| n.避难所，庇护所，避难 | |
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62
sanitation
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| n.公共卫生，环境卫生，卫生设备 | |
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63
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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64
underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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65
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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66
enigma
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| n.谜，谜一样的人或事 | |
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67
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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68
appendicitis
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| n.阑尾炎，盲肠炎 | |
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69
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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70
wasteful
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| adj.（造成）浪费的，挥霍的 | |
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71
grumbles
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| 抱怨( grumble的第三人称单数 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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72
enraged
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| 使暴怒( enrage的过去式和过去分词 )； 歜； 激愤 | |
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73
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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74
westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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75
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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76
shrieking
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| v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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77
ridges
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| n.脊( ridge的名词复数 )；山脊；脊状突起；大气层的)高压脊 | |
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78
barley
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| n.大麦，大麦粒 | |
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79
monastery
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| n.修道院，僧院，寺院 | |
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80
hoofs
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| n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
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81
waggon
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| n.运货马车，运货车；敞篷车箱 | |
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82
needy
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| adj.贫穷的，贫困的，生活艰苦的 | |
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83
insolence
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| n.傲慢；无礼；厚颜；傲慢的态度 | |
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84
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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85
chauffeur
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| n.(受雇于私人或公司的)司机；v.为…开车 | |
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86
musk
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| n.麝香, 能发出麝香的各种各样的植物，香猫 | |
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87
scotch
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| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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88
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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89
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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90
cloisters
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| n.（学院、修道院、教堂等建筑的）走廊( cloister的名词复数 )；回廊；修道院的生活；隐居v.隐退，使与世隔绝( cloister的第三人称单数 ) | |
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91
walnut
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| n.胡桃，胡桃木，胡桃色，茶色 | |
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92
beeches
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| n.山毛榉( beech的名词复数 )；山毛榉木材 | |
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93
orchards
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| （通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 ) | |
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94
chestnuts
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| n.栗子( chestnut的名词复数 )；栗色；栗树；栗色马 | |
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95
clump
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| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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96
slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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97
hoary
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| adj.古老的；鬓发斑白的 | |
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98
prostrate
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| v.拜倒，平卧，衰竭；adj.拜倒的，平卧的，衰竭的 | |
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99
effigies
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| n.（人的）雕像，模拟像，肖像( effigy的名词复数 ) | |
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100
sleeper
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| n.睡眠者，卧车，卧铺 | |
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101
mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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102
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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103
spouse
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| n.配偶(指夫或妻) | |
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104
licensed
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| adj.得到许可的v.许可，颁发执照(license的过去式和过去分词) | |
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105
defamation
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| n.诽谤；中伤 | |
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106
depicting
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| 描绘，描画( depict的现在分词 )； 描述 | |
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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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108
sycophancy
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| n.拍马屁，奉承，谄媚；吮痈舐痔 | |
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109
plutocracy
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| n.富豪统治 | |
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110
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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111
foresight
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| n.先见之明，深谋远虑 | |
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112
brewery
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| n.啤酒厂 | |
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113
shareholders
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| n.股东( shareholder的名词复数 ) | |
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114
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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115
pelican
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| n.鹈鹕，伽蓝鸟 | |
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116
canto
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| n.长篇诗的章 | |
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117
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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118
cemetery
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| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
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pelicans
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| n.鹈鹕( pelican的名词复数 ) | |
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isle
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| n.小岛，岛 | |
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lagoon
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| n.泻湖，咸水湖 | |
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122
solitariness
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| n.隐居；单独 | |
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inaccessible
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| adj.达不到的，难接近的 | |
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relics
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| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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hospitable
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| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
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sterile
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| adj.不毛的，不孕的，无菌的，枯燥的，贫瘠的 | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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swarmed
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| 密集( swarm的过去式和过去分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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reptiles
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| n.爬行动物，爬虫( reptile的名词复数 ) | |
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tenants
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| n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者 | |
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enchantment
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| n.迷惑，妖术，魅力 | |
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watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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agile
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| adj.敏捷的，灵活的 | |
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136
caverns
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| 大山洞，大洞穴( cavern的名词复数 ) | |
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137
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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138
bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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139
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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intruding
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| v.侵入，侵扰，打扰( intrude的现在分词)；把…强加于 | |
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enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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aisles
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| n. (席位间的)通道, 侧廊 | |
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colonnades
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| n.石柱廊( colonnade的名词复数 ) | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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146
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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brilliance
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| n.光辉，辉煌，壮丽，（卓越的）才华，才智 | |
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gushing
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| adj.迸出的；涌出的；喷出的；过分热情的v.喷，涌( gush的现在分词 )；滔滔不绝地说话 | |
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overflowing
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| n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的，充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
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150
syllable
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| n.音节；vt.分音节 | |
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151
eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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152
improvisation
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| n.即席演奏(或演唱)；即兴创作 | |
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153
repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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154
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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155
distraction
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| n.精神涣散，精神不集中，消遣，娱乐 | |
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illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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