LITMIR.BIZ

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middle ages, I wonder?

      Here is no hotel, no railway, no telegraph, no peep at a daily paper, and hardly stabling for a horse.

      “I can only get stabling for one horse,” I said to a dry, hard-faced woman who was staring at me.

      I thought she might suggest something.

      “Humph!” she replied; “and I ain’t got stabling e’en for one horse. And wot’s more, I ain’t got a ’orse to stable!”

      I felt small, and thought myself well off.

      The people here talk strangely. Their patois is different from Berkshire, even as the style of their houses is, and the colour of the fields. Wishing yesterday to get a photograph of the old church at Adderbury, I entered an inn.

      The round-faced landlord was very polite, but when I asked for a photographer, —

      “A wot, sir?” he said.

      “A photographer,” I replied, humbly.

      “I can’t tell wot ye means, sir. Can you tell wot the gemman means, ’Arry?”

      “’Arry” was very fat and round, wore a cow-gown, and confronted a quart pot of ale.

      I repeated the word to him thrice, but ’Arry shook his head. “I can’t catch it,” he said, “no ’ow.”

      When I explained that I meant a man who took pictures with a black box, —

      “Oh, now I knows,” said the landlord; “you means a pott-o-graffer.”

      But the children here that came down from their fastnesses in the village above are angels compared to the Deddington roughs. I was so struck with the difference that I asked four or five to come right away into the pantry and look at the saloon.

      It rained hard all the afternoon and night, the dark clouds lying low on the hills – real hills – that surrounded us, and quite obscuring our view.

      ’Twixt bath and breakfast this morning, I strolled down a tree-shaded lane; every field here is surrounded by hedges – not trimmed and disfigured – and trees, the latter growing also in the fields, and under them cows take shelter from sun or shower. How quiet and still it was, only the breeze in the elms, the cuckoo’s notes, and the murmur of the unseen cushat!

      We are near the scene of the battle of Edgehill. For aught I know I may be sitting near a hero’s grave, or on it. The village can hardly, have altered since that grim fight; the houses look hundreds of years old. Yonder quaint stone manor, they tell me, has seen eight centuries go by.

      I don’t wonder at the people here looking quiet and sleepy; I did not wonder at the polite postmistress turning to her daughter, who was selling a boy “a happorth of peppercorns,” and saying, “Whatever is the day of the month, Amelia? I’ve forgot.”

      Warmington may some day become a health resort. At present there is no accommodation; but one artist, one author, or one honeymooning pair might enjoy a month here well enough.

      Started at nine for Warwick – fourteen miles. For some miles the highway is a broad – very broad – belt of greensward, with tall hedges at every side. Through this belt the actual road meanders; the sward on each side is now bathed in wild flowers, conspicuous among which are patches of the yellow bird’s-foot trefoil.

      Hills on the right, with wooded horizons; now and then a windmill or rustic church, or farm or manor. A grey haze over all.

      We come to a place where the sward is adorned with spotted lilac orchids.

      Conspicuous among other wild flowers are now tall pink silenes, very pretty, while the hedges themselves are ablaze with wild roses.

      Midday halt at cross roads, on a large patch of clovery grass. Here the Fosse, or old Roman road, bisects our path. It goes straight as crow could fly across England.

      There is a pretty farm here, and the landlady from her gate kindly invited Hurricane Bob and me in, and regaled us on the creamiest of milk.

      We shall sleep at Warwick to-night.

      Chapter Eight.

      Leamington and Warwick – A Lovely Drive – A Bit of Black Country – Ashby-de-la-Zouch

      ”… Evening yields

      The world to-night…

      … A faint erroneous ray,

      Glanced from th’ imperfect surfaces of things,

      Flings half an image on the straining eye;

      While wavering woods, and villages and streams,

      And rocks and mountain-tops, that long retained

      Th’ ascending gleam, are all one swimming scene,

      Uncertain if beheld.”

      Strange that for twelve long miles, ’twixt Warmington and the second milestone from Warwick, we never met a soul, unless rooks and rabbits have souls. We were in the woods in the wilds, among ferns and flowers.

      When houses hove in sight at last, signs of civilisation began to appear. We met a man, then a swarm of boarding-school girls botanising, and we knew a city would soon be in sight. At Leamington, the livery stables to which we had been recommended proved too small as to yard accommodation, so we drove back and put up at the Regent Hotel. But there is too much civilisation for us here. Great towns were never meant for great caravans and gipsy-folk. We feel like a ship in harbour.

      Rain, rain, rain! We all got wet to the skin, but are none the worse.

      The old ostler at the Regent is a bit of a character, had been on the road driving four-in-hands for many a year. He was kindly-loquacious, yes, and kindly-musical as well, for he treated me to several performances on the coach-horn, which certainly did him great credit. He was full of information and anecdotes of the good old times, “when four-in-hands were four-in-hands, sir, and gentlemen were gentlemen.” He told us also about the road through Kenilworth to Coventry. It was the prettiest drive, he said, in all England.

      Beautiful and all though Leamington be, we were not sorry to leave it and make once more for the cool green country.

      The horses were fresh this morning, even as the morning itself was fresh and clear. We passed through bush-clad banks, where furze and yellow-tasselled broom were growing, and trees in abundance. Before we knew where we were we had trotted into Kenilworth. We stabled here and dined, and waited long enough to have a peep at the castle. This grand old pile is historical; no need, therefore, for me to say a word about it.

      After rounding the corner in our exit from Kenilworth, and standing straight away for Coventry, the view from the glen at the bridge, with the castle on the left, a village and church on the rising ground, and villas and splendid trees on the right, made a good beginning to the “finest drive in all England.”

      There is many a pretty peep ’twixt Kenilworth and Coventry.

      The road is broad and good, and so tree-lined as often to merit the name of avenue. Especially is this the case at the third milestone, from near which the straight road can be seen for folly a mile and a half, shaded by the grandest of trees. This is a view not easily forgotten.

      With all the beauty of this drive, however, it is too civilised to be romantic. The hedges are trimmed, and we actually noticed a man paring the grass on the edge of the footpath.

      June 26th. – We are up very early this morning, for in Coventry the road-fiend rides rampant and in all his glory. They have steam-trams, which not only go puffing through the town, but for five miles out through the coal district itself. We must avoid them, get the start of them. So we are up and away long before seven.

      We arrived here last night, and through the kindness of the editor of the Tricyclist got permission to draw in for the night into the large cricket and sports ground. The gates were closed at nine, and we had the keys. I was lord, therefore, of all I surveyed.

      On the cinder-path last night a weary-looking but strong old man of over sixty was walking. He is doing or trying

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