The Cruise of the Land-Yacht "Wanderer" Part 7

The most of our English trees are spoiled in appearance by injudicious interference.

We reached Abingdon in the evening, having done twenty miles and spent a delightful day. But the horses were tired of their long drag. There is to be a great fair here to-morrow. It is only natural, therefore, that the people should take us for real gipsies.

We have stabled our steeds, and the Wanderer lies snug in the back yard of a wealthy corn merchant, and within the precincts of the old gaol.

The place was built at an expenditure of 36,000 pounds, but Abingdon being no longer the county town, it has been sold and turned into a granary. The town is all _en gala_, and the young folks, at all events, are enjoying the sights and sounds.

Visited to-night by a group of gipsies of the true type. They came, they said, to admire our "turnout." They had never seen so grand a caravan on the road, and so on and so forth.

Abingdon is a cosy little town, a neighbourly, kindly sort of a place that any one fond of country life must enjoy living in. Abingdon should be visited by tourists in summer far more than it is.

We started early, and had some difficulty in getting through the town, so narrow are the streets and so crowded were they to-day. On the road we met droves of horses and traps or conveyances of every sort and size taking country folks to the fair. The weather was wondrous cold for June, but endurable nevertheless, albeit clouds hid the sun and showers were not unfrequent.

We reached a hilltop about noon, and all at once a landscape burst upon our view which is hardly surpa.s.sed for quiet beauty in all England.

People who journey by rail miss this enchanting scene. Just beneath us, and in the centre of the plain, lay Oxford.

We dined by the roadside, gipsy-fas.h.i.+on, for there was no meadow we could draw our caravan into. Started about two pm, and rattled through Oxford, only stopping here and there to do our shopping. There is no better verb than "rattled" to convey the notion of our progress. Oxford is vilely paved for either carriage or cycle.

With the b.u.mping and shaking we received, the saloon of the Wanderer soon looked like that of a yacht in a rough sea-way.

Poor Polly, my c.o.c.katoo, the pet of the s.h.i.+p, is sadly put about when there is much motion. I gave her a morsel of meat to-day when pa.s.sing through Oxford. To stand on one leg and eat it as usual from her other claw was out of the question, but Polly was equal to the occasion. She put the choice morsel under her feet on the perch, and so quietly rent and devoured it.

We were all of us glad to get away from Oxford, where there is no rest for the soles of the feet of a caravanite. Hurricane Bob, though he dearly loves to travel, enjoys his morsel of meadow in the evening, his mode of enjoyment being to roll on the greensward, with all four legs waved aloft.

When he gets on to a bit of clovery sward by the wayside it really is a treat to see him.

"I wouldn't miss this, master," he says to me, "for all the world, and I only wonder you don't come and tumble as I do."

_June, 22nd_ (Monday).--A village of grey limestone houses, thatched and tiled, many with charmingly antique roofs, a village built on ground that is level, a village embowered in orchards and trees, and with so many lanes and roads through it that a stranger could not be expected to know when he was in it or when he was out of it I have said "a village built," but rather it seems like a village that has grown, house by house, each in its own garden or orchard, and each one different in appearance from the others. Altogether English, however, is Kidlington, and the work-a-day people are thoroughly English too, very rustic, good-natured, and simple. I do not believe they ever brawl and fight here at pothouses on Sat.u.r.day nights, or that the conversation ever advances much beyond "turmuts" and cattle.

I do not suppose that Kidlington ever looked much better than it does on this bright summer's morning. The breeze that blew all night, making the Wanderer rock like a s.h.i.+p at sea, has fallen; there is just sufficient left to sough through the ash-trees and whisper among the elms; cloudlets float lazily in the sky's blue and temper the suns.h.i.+ne.

I am writing on the _coupe_, in the meadow where we have lain since Sat.u.r.day afternoon. There is silence all round, except that c.o.c.ks are crowing and a turkey gobbling; there is a rustic perched on the stile-top yonder, wondering at my c.o.c.katoo, and at Bob, who wears a scarlet blanket to keep the early morning chill away; another rustic is driving a herd of lazy cows along the lane. That is the scene, and that is about all. But what a quiet and pleasant Sabbath we spent yesterday in this meadow and at the village church!

It is now eight o'clock, and time to get the horses in. I wonder what the world is doing--the outside world, I mean. I have not seen a newspaper for three days, nor had a letter since leaving home. Now hey!

for Deddington.

Somewhat pretty is the country for a mile or two out of Kidlington, rising ground all the way to St.u.r.dy's Castle, four miles and a half.

This is a solitary inn, of grey limestone, St.u.r.dy by name and st.u.r.dy by nature, and if it could tell its story it would doubtless be a strange one. But what a wide, wild country it overlooks! It is wide and wild now. What, most it have been one hundred years ago? Found a carpet-hawker encamped with her caravan behind the castle. She travels all alone with her two children throughout the length and breadth of England. Seems very intelligent, and gives a terrible account of the difficulties to be encountered on ahead of us in getting in at night.

We'll see.

We are at present in the Blenheim country, and the Dashwood estate lies east--away yonder. I make no _detour_ to visit the palace. Every one knows it by heart.

A kind-hearted carter man has told me a deal about the scenes around us, which I daresay the jolting over these rutty roads will soon drive out of my head.

On we go again.

Hopcroft's Holt is an old-fas.h.i.+oned quiet inn close by intersecting roads that to the right branch off to Bicester. Stayed here to cook and eat.

Densely wooded and well hedged country all round, quiet and retired. It must be healthy here in summer.

Blacksmith has neatly mended my tricycle, which had broken down, so that I am able to make little excursions down by-roads. The village of Upper Heyford, about two miles from here, is as quaint and ancient-looking as if some town in the Orkneys.

_June 23rd_.--It needed all the strength of Corn-flower and Pea-blossom to get us into Deddington, for the hills are long and steep. We are furnished with a roller that drags behind the near after wheel, in case of accident or sudden stopping on a hill, and now for the first time we needed it.

New experiences come on this tour of mine every day, though adventures are but few, or have been hitherto. At Oxford and places _en route_ from there we were reported to be the Earl of E--. At Deddington the wind changed, and we were taken for Salvationists on a pilgrimage.

Salvationists are not liked in Deddington, and our arrival in the market-place, an ugly piece of rocky ground in the centre of the town (population about three thousand), was the occasion of a considerable deal of excitement. We had the horses out nevertheless, and prepared to spend the night there. We pulled blinds down, and I was about to batten down, as sailors say--in other words, get on the shutters--for the boys had taken to stoning each other, when the arrival of kindly Dr T--and an invitation to come to his grounds gave us relief and surcease from riot.

As the mob chose to follow and hoot, my Highland blood got up, and I got out with Hurricane Bob, the Newfoundland. The street was narrow, and further advance of those unmannerly louts was deemed by them indiscreet.

The change from the lout-lined street to the pleasant grounds of Dr T--'s old house at Deddington was like getting into harbour from off a stormy sea, and I shall never forget the kind hospitality of the kindly doctor and his family.

To be taken for an earl in the morning and a captain of the Salvation Army in the evening is surely enough for one day.

This morning I visited the fine old church, and, as usual, got up into the steeple. If ever you go to Deddington, pray, reader, do the same.

The town stands on a hill, and the steeple-top is one hundred feet higher; you can see for many miles. The country round is fertile, rolling hill and dale and valley, and densely treed. There are villages to the right, villages to the left, and mansions peeping from the woods wherever you turn your eye.

The steeple-head is covered with lead, and it is the custom of visitors to place a foot on the lead and cut a mark round it. Inside this they write their initials and the date. Here are footmarks of every size.

You can even tell the age and guess the s.e.x. Among them are those of children, but looking at some of the dates those babes must have grown men and women long ago, grown old and died. There is food for thought in even this.

We pa.s.s the village of Adderbury on our way to Banbury. From an artistic as well as antiquarian point of view it is well worth a visit.

See it from the Oxford side, where the stream winds slowly through the valley. The village lies up yonder on the ridge among grand old trees, its church as beautiful as a dream. Looking in the opposite direction to-day a thoroughly English view meets my gaze. On one bank of the valley is a broad flat meadow, where cattle are wading more than ankle-deep in b.u.t.tercups and gra.s.s; on the other merry haymakers are busy; away beyond are sunny braelands with a horizon of elms.

Delayed for a time after leaving Adderbury by the collapse of a traction engine on the road. We are now cooking dinner outside Banbury, the horses grazing quietly by the roadside.

_June 24th_.--We went quickly through Banbury, pretty though the place be. We stayed not even to have a cake. Truth is, we were haunted by our greatest foe, the traction engine fiend, which twice yesterday nearly brought us to grief and my narrative to a close.

The country 'twixt Banbury and the little village of Warmington, which lies in a hollow--and that hollow is a forest of fine trees--is beautiful. The soil in many of the fields a rich rusty red. There is what may well be called a terrible hill to descend before you reach the road that leads to Warmington. Once here, we found ourselves on a s.p.a.cious green, with ample room for a hundred caravans. The village is primitive in the extreme--primitive and pretty. Are we back in the 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 Berks.h.i.+re, even as the style of their houses is, and the colour of the fields. Wis.h.i.+ng 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?"