Sixteen and a quarter miles of very varied1 road brought the old coachmen with steaming horses clattering2 from Blandford into Dorchester, past the villages of Winterborne Whitchurch, Milborne St. Andrew, and the village of Piddletown, which is by no means a town, and never was.
It is a long, long rise out of Blandford, past tree-shaded Bryanstone and over the Town Bridge, to the crest4 of Charlton Downs, a mile out; where, looking back, the town is seen lying in a wooded hollow almost surrounded by park-like trees in dense5 clumps—the woods of Bryanstone. From this point of vantage it is clearly seen how Blandford is entered downhill from east or west.
Very hilly, very open, very white and hot and dusty in summer, and covered with loose stones and flints after any spell of dry weather, the road goes hence steeply down into Winterborne Whitchurch, where the ‘bourne,’ from which the place takes the first half of its name, goes across the road in a hollow, and the church stands, with its neighbouring parsonage and cottages, in a lane running at right angles to the high-road, for all the world like Tarrant Hinton and Little Wallop. John Wesley, the grandfather of the founder6 of the ‘Wesleyans’—or the ‘Methodys,’ as the country people call Methodists—was Vicar of Winterborne Whitchurch for a time during the Commonwealth7; but as he seems never to have been regularly ordained8, he was thrown out at the Restoration{266} by ‘malignants’ and began a kind of John the Baptist life amid the hills and valleys of Dorsetshire, an exemplar for the imitation of his grandsons in later days. Itineracy9 and a sturdy independence thus became a tradition and a duty with the Wesleys. Thus are sects10 increased and multiplied, and no more sure way exists of producing prophets than by the persecution11 and oppression of those who, left judiciously12 alone, would live and die unknown to and unhonoured by the world.
Milborne St. Andrew, close upon three miles onward13, is placed in another of these many deep hollows which, with streams running through them, are so recurrent a feature of the Exeter Road; only the hollow here is a broader one and better dignified14 with the title of valley. The stream of the ‘mill-bourne,’ from which the original mill has long since vanished (if, indeed, the name of the place is not, more correctly, ‘Melbourne,’ ‘mell’ in Dorsetshire meaning, like the prefix15 of ‘lew’ in Devon, a warm and sheltered spot), is a tributary16 of the river Piddle, which, a few miles down the road gives name to Piddletown, and along its course to Aff-Piddle, Piddletrenthide, Piddlehinton, Tolpiddle, and Turner’s Piddle.
MILBORNE ST. ANDREW
Milborne St. Andrew is a pretty place, and those who know Normandy may well think it, with its surrounding meads and feathery poplars, like a village in that old-world French province. Almost midway along the sixteen and a quarter miles between Blandford and Dorchester, it still keeps the look of an old coaching and posting village, although the last coach{267} and the days of road-travel are beyond the recollection of the oldest inhabitant. Here, in the midst of the village, the street widens out, where the old ‘White Hart,’ now the Post Office, with a great effigy17 of a White Hart, and a number of miniature cannons18 on the porch roof, waits for the coaches that come no more, and for the dashing carriages and post-chaises that were driven away with their drivers and their gouty red-faced occupants to Hades, long, long ago. Is the ‘White Hart,’ standing19 like so many of these old hostelries beside the highway, waiting successfully for the revival20 of the roads, and will it live over the brave old days again with the coming of the Motor Car?
Meanwhile, given fine weather, there are few pleasanter places to spend a reminiscent afternoon in than Milborne St. Andrew.
The old church is up along the hillside, reached with the aid of a bye-road. Its tower, like that of Winterborne Whitchurch, shows the curious and rather pleasing local fashion of building followed four hundred years or so back, consisting of four to six courses of nobbled flints alternating with a course of ashlar. A stone in the east wall of the chancel to the memory of William Rice, servant to two of the local squires21 here for more than sixty years, ending in 1826, has the curious particulars:—
He superintended the Harriers, and was the first Man who hunted a Pack of Roebuck Hounds.
At a point a mile and a half farther used to stand Dewlish turnpike gate, where the tolls22 were taken before coming down into Piddletown.{268}
This large village is the ‘Weatherbury’ of some of Mr. Thomas Hardy’s Wessex stories, and the Jacobean musicians’ gallery of the fine unrestored church is vividly23 reminiscent of many humorous passages between the village choir24 in Under the Greenwood Tree. An organ stands there now, but the ‘serpent,’ the ‘clar’net,’ and the fiddles25 of Mr. Hardy’s rustic26 choir would still seem more at home in that place.
Between this and Dorchester, past that end of Piddletown called ‘Troy Town,’ is Yellowham—one had almost written ‘Yalbury’—Hill, crowned with the lovely woodlands described so beautifully under the name of ‘Yalbury Woods’ in that story, and drawn27 again in the opening scene of Far from the Madding Crowd, where Gabriel Oak, invisible in his leafy eyrie above the road, perceives Bathsheba’s feminine vanities with the looking-glass.
Descending28 the western side of the hill and passing the broad park-lands of Kingston, we enter the town of Dorchester along the straight and level road running through the water-meadows of the river Frome. Until a few years ago this approach was shaded and rendered beautiful by an avenue of stately old elms that enclosed the distant picture of the town as in a frame; but they were cut down by the Duchy of Cornwall officials, in whose hands much of the surrounding property is placed, and only the pitiful stumps29 of them, shorn off close to the ground, remain to tell of their existence. As Dorchester is approached the road is seen in the distance becoming a street, and going, as straight as ever, and with a continuous rise,{269}
‘CASTERBRIDGE’
Image unavailable: THE ‘WHITE HART,’ DORCHESTER.
THE ‘WHITE HART,’ DORCHESTER.
{270}
{271}
through the town, with the square tower of St. Peter’s and the spiky30 clock-tower of the Town Hall cresting31 the view in High West Street, and in High East Street the modern Early English spire32 of All Saints nearer at hand. The particular one among the many bridges and culverts that carry the rivulets33 under the road here, mentioned by the novelist in his Mayor of Casterbridge as the spot where Henchard, the ruined mayor, lounged in his aimless idleness, amid the wastrels34 and ne’er-do-weels of Casterbridge, is the bridge that finally brings the road into the town, by the old ‘White Hart Inn.’ It is the inevitable35 lounging-stock for Dorchester’s failures, who mostly live near by at Fordington, the east end of the town, where the ‘Mixen Lane’ of the story, ‘the mildewed36 leaf in the sturdy and flourishing Casterbridge plant’ was situated37.
It is a transfigured Dorchester that is painted by the novelist in that story; or, perhaps more exactly, the Dorchester of fifty years ago. ‘It is huddled38 all together; and it is shut in by a square wall of trees, like a plot of garden-ground by a box-edging,’ is the not very apt comparison with the tall chestnuts39 and sycamores of the surviving avenues. ‘It stood, with regard to the wide fertile land adjoining, clean-cut and distinct, like a chess-board on a green tablecloth40. The farmer’s boy could sit under his barley-mow and pitch a stone into the window of the town-clerk; reapers41 at work among the sheaves nodded to acquaintances standing on the pavement corner; the red-robed judge, when he condemned43 a sheep-stealer, pronounced sentence to the tune44 of Baa, that floated{272} in at the window from the remainder of the flock browsing45 hard by.’
This peculiarity46 of Dorchester, a four-square clearly-defined appliqué of town upon a pastoral country, has been gradually disappearing during many years past, owing to an increase of population that has burst the ancient bounds imposed by the town being almost completely surrounded by the Duchy of Cornwall lands. This property, known by the name of Fordington Field (and not the existence at any time of a ford3 on the Frome), gives the eastern end of Dorchester its title. The land, let by the Duchy in olden times, in quarters or ‘fourthings’ of a carucate, gave the original name of ‘Fourthington.’ A great deal of this property has now been sold or leased for building purposes, and so the avenues that once clearly defined with their ramparts of greenery the bounds of Dorchester are now of a more urban character.
THE BLOODY47 ASSIZE
Dorchester shares with Blandford and with Marlborough a solid architectural character of a sober and responsible kind. As in those towns, imaginative Gothic gables and quaint42 medi?val fancies are somewhat to seek amid the overwhelming proportion of Renaissance48, or neo-classic, or merely Queen Anne and Georgian red-brick or stone houses. The cause of this may be sought in the recurrent disastrous49 fires that on four occasions practically swept the town out of existence, as in the case of Marlborough and Blandford. The earliest of these happened in 1613. Over three hundred houses were burnt on that occasion, and property amounting to nearly a quarter of a million sterling50 lost. This insistent51 scourge52 of the West of{273} England thatched houses visited the town again, nine years later, and also in 1725 and 1775. Little wonder, then, that medi?val Dorchester has to be sought for in nooks and corners. But if like those other unfortunate towns in these circumstances, it is very different in appearance, the streets being comparatively narrow and the houses of a more stolid53 and heavy character; so that only in sunny weather does Dorchester strike the stranger as being at all a cheerful place.
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1
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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clattering
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的现在分词形式） | |
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Ford
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| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
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crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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6
Founder
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| n.创始者，缔造者 | |
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commonwealth
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| n.共和国，联邦，共同体 | |
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ordained
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| v.任命（某人）为牧师( ordain的过去式和过去分词 )；授予（某人）圣职；（上帝、法律等）命令；判定 | |
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itineracy
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| n.巡回 | |
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sects
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| n.宗派，教派( sect的名词复数 ) | |
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persecution
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| n. 迫害,烦扰 | |
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12
judiciously
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| adv.明断地，明智而审慎地 | |
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13
onward
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| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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prefix
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| n.前缀；vt.加…作为前缀；置于前面 | |
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16
tributary
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| n.支流；纳贡国；adj.附庸的；辅助的；支流的 | |
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effigy
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| n.肖像 | |
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cannons
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| n.加农炮，大炮，火炮( cannon的名词复数 ) | |
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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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revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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squires
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| n.地主，乡绅( squire的名词复数 ) | |
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tolls
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| （缓慢而有规律的）钟声( toll的名词复数 )； 通行费； 损耗； （战争、灾难等造成的）毁坏 | |
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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fiddles
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| n.小提琴( fiddle的名词复数 )；欺诈；（需要运用手指功夫的）细巧活动；当第二把手v.伪造( fiddle的第三人称单数 )；篡改；骗取；修理或稍作改动 | |
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rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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27
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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stumps
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| （被砍下的树的）树桩( stump的名词复数 )； 残肢； （板球三柱门的）柱； 残余部分 | |
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spiky
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| adj.长而尖的，大钉似的 | |
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31
cresting
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| n.顶饰v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的现在分词 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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32
spire
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| n.(教堂)尖顶，尖塔，高点 | |
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33
rivulets
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| n.小河，小溪( rivulet的名词复数 ) | |
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wastrels
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| n.无用的人，废物( wastrel的名词复数 )；浪子 | |
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35
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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mildewed
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| adj.发了霉的，陈腐的，长了霉花的v.（使）发霉，（使）长霉( mildew的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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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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40
tablecloth
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| n.桌布，台布 | |
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41
reapers
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| n.收割者，收获者( reaper的名词复数 )；收割机 | |
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42
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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43
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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44
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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45
browsing
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| v.吃草( browse的现在分词 )；随意翻阅；（在商店里）随便看看；（在计算机上）浏览信息 | |
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46
peculiarity
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| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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47
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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48
renaissance
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| n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴 | |
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49
disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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50
sterling
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| adj.英币的(纯粹的，货真价实的)；n.英国货币(英镑) | |
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51
insistent
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| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
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52
scourge
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| n.灾难，祸害；v.蹂躏 | |
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stolid
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| adj.无动于衷的，感情麻木的 | |
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