A Cotswold Village

CHAPTER III.. Village Characters

VILLAGE CHARACTERS

Quaint Hamlet Folk--The Village Impostor--Rural Economy--Stories of the People--A Curious Analogy--Tom Peregrine, the Keeper--A Standing Dish--A Great Character--Peregrine's Accomplishments and Proclivities--Farmers and Foxes--Concerning Churchwardens--The Village Quack--An Excellent Prescription--His Lecture--How the Old Fox was Found--A Good Sort--Heroes of the Hamlet--Political Meetings--Humours of the Poll--Gloucestershire Farmers.

CHAPTER IV.

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

Strange Travellers--Smoking Concerts--The Carter's Song--Village Choirs--The Chedworth Band--Sense of Humour of the Natives--Their Geography "a Bit Mixed"--A Large Family--Noblesse Oblige--Rustic Legends--Names of Fields--The Cotswold Dialect--How to Talk It--An Ancient Ballad--Tom Peregrine Recites--Roger Plowman's Excursion--An Expensive Luncheon--Oxtail Soup--"The Turmut Hower."

CHAPTER V.. On the Wolds

ON THE WOLDS

Varied Amusements--Nature on the Hills--The Mysteries of Scent--Partridge-Shooting--A Mixed Bag--Plover--Pigeon-Shooting with Decoys--Bird Life--Sunset on the Downs--A Wild, Deserted Country--An Old Dog Fox.

CHAPTER VI.. A Gallop Over the Walls

A GALLOP OVER THE WALLS

An October Meet--Cub-Hunting--The Old Fox Again! A Fast Gallop over the Walls--The Charm of Uncertainty--Fliers of the Hunt--A Narrow Escape--A Check--A Reliable Hound--Failure of Scent--An Excellent Tonic.

CHAPTER VII.. A Cotswold Trout Stream

A COTSWOLD TROUT STREAM

Loch Leven Trout--Curious Capture of an Eel--The Author Catches a Red-Herring--Macomber Falls--A Sad Episode--South Country Streams--Course of the Coln--Charles Kingsley on Fishing--A May-Fly Stream--Evening Fishing--Dry-Fly Dogmas--Flies for the Coln--Scarcity of Poachers--An Evening Walk by the River--Spring's Delights.

CHAPTER VIII.. When the May-Fly Is Up

WHEN THE MAY-FLY IS UP

Derby Day on the Coln--A Good Sportsman--The Right Fly--Pleasures of the Country--Peregrine's Quaint Expressions--Sport with the Olive Dun--A Fine Trout--Effects of Sheep-Washing--A Good Basket--Life by the Brook--A Summer's Night--In the Heart of England.

CHAPTER IX.. Burford, a Cotswold Town

BURFORD, A COTSWOLD TOWN

Curious Names--The Windrush--Burford Priory--An Empty Shell--The Kingmaker--Lord Falkland--Speaker Lenthall--Bibury Races--An Old Tradition--Valued Relics--Burford Church--Mr. Oman's Discovery--Burford during the Civil Wars.

CHAPTER X.. Stroll Through the Cotswolds

STROLL THROUGH THE COTSWOLDS

The Old Coaching Days--Fairford--Anglo-Saxon Relics--Hatherop--Coln-St.-Aldwyns--The "Knights Templar" of Quenington--A Haunt of Ancient Peace--Bibury Village--Ancient Barrows--The Prehistoric Age--Deserted Villages--The Philosopher's Stone--True Nobleness--On Battues--Roman Remains--Chedworth Woods--An Old Manor House.

CHAPTER XI.. Cotswold Pastimes

COTSWOLD PASTIMES

Whitsun Ale--Sports of Various Kinds--The Peregrine Family at Cricket--Prehistoric Cricket--A Bad Ground--A "Pretty" Ball--Charles Dickens on Cricket--Dumkins and Podder, Limited--How Dumkins Hit a "Sixer"--Downfall of "Podder"--Bourton-on-the-Water C.C.--A Plague of Wasps--The Treatment of Cricket Grounds--The Author's Recipe--Reflections on Modern Cricket.

CHAPTER XII.. The Cotswolds Three Hundred Years Ago.

THE COTSWOLDS THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

The Centre of Elizabethan Sport--A Digression on South Africa--The Halo of Association--A Day's Stag-Hunting in 1592--A Benighted Sportsman--"A Goodly Dwelling and a Rich"--An Old English Gentleman--Shakespeare on Hounds--He Describes the Run--The Death of the Stag--The Ancestral Peregrine--Bacon not Wanted--A "Black Ousel"--The Charm of Music--Shakespeare's Dream--A Hawking Expedition--Peregrine, the Parson, and the Poet--Methods and Language of Falconry--A Flight at a Heron--Peregrine Views a Fox.

CHAPTER XIII.. Cirencester

CIRENCESTER

Roman Remains--The Corinium Museum--The Church--Cirencester House--The Park--The Abbey--The "Mop" or Hiring Fair--A Great Hunting Centre--A Varied Country--The Badminton Hounds--Lord Bathurst's Hounds--The Cotswold Hounds--Charles Travess--A Born Genius--The Cricklade Hounds--The Right Sort of Horse--The Oaksey District--The Heythrop Hounds--A Defence of Hard Riding--A Day in the Vale--A Hunting Poem.

CHAPTER XIV.. Spring in the Cotswolds

SPRING IN THE COTSWOLDS

Habits of Moorhens--Mallard and Swan--Nuthatches--Woodpeckers--Humane Traps--Badgers--Fox-terriers--Scotch Deerhounds--Retrievers--Cray-fish--The Rookery--Jackdaws--Foxes--Artificial Earths--Fox among Sheep--Foxes and Fowls--Poultry Claims--Observations on Scent--The Hygrometer--How Trout are Netted--Scarcity of Otters--Water-Voles.

CHAPTER XV.. The Promise of May

THE PROMISE OF MAY

Wild Flowers--Cottage Gardens--The Paths of Literature--Description of a Horse--Beauty of Trees--Their Loss Irreparable as the Loss of Friends--A Fine Type of Englishman--Lines in Memory of W.D. Llewelyn.

CHAPTER XVI.. Summer Days on the Cotswolds

SUMMER DAYS ON THE COTSWOLDS

A Walk in the Fields--Hedgerow Flowers--The Brookside--By "the Pill"--Remarks on Gray--A Fine Piece of Miniature Scenery--The Cricket Ground--The Book of Nature--At the Ford--Habits of Observation--In the Conyger Wood--The Home of the Kingfisher--A Limestone Quarry--The Great Stone Floor of the Earth--Nature's Endless Cycle--Beauty of the Ash--Hedgehogs--Trout and Snake--Sunset on the Hills.

CHAPTER XVII.. Autumn

AUTUMN

Remarks on Country Life--Thrashing--The Flail--Gipsies--Harvest Feasts--Fifty Years Ago--The Wolds in Autumn--By the Stream--Wildfowl--Migration of Birds--Lapwings--Winter Visitants--Thunderstorms--Glow-Worms--A Brilliant Meteor--Night on the Hills--The "Blowing-Stone"--Christmas Day on the Cotswolds--A Solar Halo--Hamlet Festivities--Tom Peregrine Baffled--The Mummers Play--The Victorian Era--The True Days of "Merrie England"--Carpe Diem.

CHAPTER XVIII.. When the Sun Goes Down

WHEN THE SUN GOES DOWN

A Glorious Panorama--Peregrine as Secretary--The Light of Setting Suns--Conclusion.

APPENDIX.

GEORGE RIDLER'S OVEN

INDEX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY MESSRS. SHAWCROSS.

STOKE POGES CHURCH.

THE OLD MANOR HOUSE.

INSCRIPTION ON PORCH OF MANOR HOUSE.

INTERIOR OF MANOR HOUSE.

IN THE GARDEN.

A COTSWOLD MANOR HOUSE.

COTSWOLD COTTAGES.

A FARMHOUSE BY THE COLN.

AN OLD COTTAGE.

THE HAMLET.

ON THE WOLDS.

OXEN PLOUGHING.

THE OLD CUSTOMER.

THE OLD MILL, ABLINGTON.

THE COLN NEAR BIBURY.

A BRIDGE OVER THE COLN.

A DISH OF FISH.

BURFORD PRIORY.

BURFORD PRIORY.

THE MANOR HOUSE, COLN-ST.-ALDWYNS.

BIBURY STREET.

ARLINGTON ROW.

VILLAGE CRICKETERS.

HAWKING.

BIBURY COURT.

THE ABBEY GATEWAY, CIRENCESTER.

MARKET-PLACE, CIRENCESTER.

AN OLD BARN.

THE "PILL" BRIDGE.

IN BIBURY VILLAGE.

SIDE VIEW OF MANOR HOUSE.

BIBURY MILL.

BELOW THE "PILL".

ABLINGTON MANOR.

AN OLD-FASHIONED LABOURING COUPLE.

COLN-ST.-ALDWYNS.

A COTSWOLD VILLAGE.

CHAPTER I.. Flying Westwards.

FLYING WESTWARDS.

London is becoming miserably hot and dusty; everybody who can get away is rushing off, north, south, east, and west, some to the seaside, others to pleasant country houses. Who will fly with me westwards to the land of golden sunshine and silvery trout streams, the land of breezy uplands and valleys nestling under limestone hills, where the scream of the railway whistle is seldom heard and the smoke of the factory darkens not the long summer days? Away, in the smooth "Flying Dutchman"; past Windsor's glorious towers and Eton's playing-fields; past the little village and churchyard where a century and a half ago the famous "Elegy" was written, and where, hard by "those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade," yet rests the body of the mighty poet, Gray. How those lines run in one's head this bright summer evening, as from our railway carriage we note the great white dome of Stoke House peeping out amid the elms! whilst every field reminds us of him who wrote those lilting stanzas long, long ago.

"Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade! Ah, fields, beloved in vain! Where once my careless childhood strayed, A stranger yet to pain: I feel the gales that from ye blow A momentary bliss bestow; As waving fresh their gladsome wing My weary soul they seem to soothe, And redolent of joy and youth, To breathe a second spring."

But soon we are flashing past Reading, where Sutton's nursery gardens are bright with scarlet and gold, and blue and white; every flower that can be made to grow in our climate grows there, we may be sure. But there is no need of garden flowers now, when the fields and hedges, even the railway banks, are painted with the lovely blue of wild geraniums and harebells, the gold of birdsfoot trefoil and Saint John's wort, and the white and pink of convolvulus or bindweed. We are passing through some of the richest scenery in the Thames valley. There, on the right, is Mapledurham, a grand mediaeval building, surrounded by such a wealth of stately trees as you will see nowhere else. The Thames runs practically through the grounds. What a glorious carpet of gold is spread over these meadows when the buttercups are in full bloom! Now comes Pangbourne, with its lovely weir, where the big Thames trout love to lie. Pangbourne used to be one of the prettiest villages on the river; but its popularity has spoilt it.

As we pass onwards, many other country houses--Purley, Basildon, and Hardwick--with their parks and clustering cottages, add their charm to the view. There are the beautiful woods of Streatley: hanging copses clothe the sides of the hills, and pretty villages nestle amid the trees. But soon the scene changes: the glorious valley Father Thames has scooped out for himself is left behind; we are crossing the chalk uplands. On all sides are vast stretches of unfenced arable land, though here and there a tiny village with its square-towered Norman church peeps out from an oasis of green fields and stately elm trees. On the right the Chiltern Hills are seen in the background, and Wittenham Clump stands forth--a conspicuous object for miles. The country round Didcot reminds one very much of the north of France: between Calais and Paris one notices the same chalk soil, the same flat arable fields, and the same old-fashioned farmhouses and gabled cottages.

But now we have entered the grand old Berkshire vale. "Fields and hedges, hedges and fields; peace and plenty, plenty and peace. I should like to take a foreigner down the vale of Berkshire in the end of May, and ask him what he thought of old England." Thus wrote Charles Kingsley forty years ago, when times were better for Berkshire farmers. But the same old fields and the same old hedges still remain--only we do not appreciate them as much as did the author of "Westward Ho!"

Steventon, that lovely village with its gables and thatched roofs, its white cottage walls set with beams of blackest oak, its Norman church in the midst of spreading chestnuts and leafy elms, appears from the railway to be one of the most old-fashioned spots on earth. This vale is full of fine old trees; but in many places the farmers have spoilt their beauty by lopping off the lower branches because the grass will not grow under their wide-spreading foliage. It is only in the parks and woodlands that the real glory of the timber remains.

And now we may notice what a splendid hunting country is this Berkshire vale. The fields are large and entirely grass; the fences, though strong, are all "flying" ones--posts and rails, too, are frequent in the hedges. Many a fine scamper have the old Berkshire hounds enjoyed over these grassy pastures, where the Rosy Brook winds its sluggish course; and we trust they will continue to do so for many years to come. Long may that day be in coming when the sound of the horn is no longer heard in this delightful country!

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