Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Life of itself shall dance and play,

Fresh blood through Time's shrunk veins be hurled,

And labor meet delight half way."[13]

In the new state of society which we are trying to found in America, it must be our effort to hasten the consummation. These great estates of old countries may keep it for their share of the matter to work out perfect models, while we will seize the ideas thus elaborated, and make them the property of the million.

As we were going out, we stopped a little while at the porter's lodge to look at some relics.

Now, I dare say that you have been thinking, all the while, that these stories about the wonderful Guy are a sheer fabrication, or, to use a convenient modern term, a myth. Know, then, that the identical armor belonging to him is still preserved here; to wit, the sword, about seven feet long, a shield, helmet, breastplate, and tilting pole, together with his porridge pot, which holds one hundred and twenty gallons, and a large fork, as they call it, about three feet long; I am inclined to think this must have been his toothpick! His sword weighs twenty pounds.

There is, moreover, a rib of the mastodon cow which he killed, hung up for the terror of all refractory beasts of that name in modern days.

Furthermore, know, then, that there are authentic documents in the Ashmolean Museum, at Oxford, showing that the family run back to within four years after the birth of Christ, so that there is abundance of time for them to have done a little of almost every thing. It appears that they have been always addicted to exploits, since we read of one of them, soon after the Christian era, encountering a giant, who ran upon him with a tree which he had snapped off for the purpose, for it seems giants were not nice in the choice of weapons; but the chronicler says, "The Lord had grace with him, and overcame the giant," and in commemoration of this event the family introduced into their arms the ragged staff.

It is recorded of another of the race, that he was one of seven children born at a birth, and that all the rest of his brothers and sisters were, by enchantment, turned into swans with gold collars. This remarkable case occurred in the time of the grandfather of Sir Guy, and of course, if we believe this, we shall find no difficulty in the case of the cow, or any thing else.

There is a very scarce book in the possession of a gentleman of Warwick, written by one Dr. John Kay, or caius, in which he gives an account of the rare and peculiar animals of England in 1552. In this he mentioned seeing the bones of the head and the vertebrae of the neck of an enormous animal at Warwick Castle. He states that the shoulder blade was hung up by chains from the north gate of Coventry, and that a rib of the same animal was hanging up in the chapel of Guy, Earl of Warwick, and that the people fancied it to be the rib of a cow which haunted a ditch near Coventry, and did injury to many persons; and he goes on to imagine that this may be the bone of a bonasus or a urus. He says, "It is probable many animals of this kind formerly lived in our England, being of old an island full of woods and forests, because even in our boyhood the horns of these animals were in common use at the table." The story of Sir Guy is furthermore quite romantic, and contains some circumstances very instructive to all ladies. For the chronicler asserts, "that Dame Felye, daughter and heire to Erle Rohand, for her beauty called Fely le Belle, or Felys the Fayre, by true enheritance, was Countesse of Warwyke, and lady and wyfe to the most victoriouse Knight, Sir Guy, to whom in his woing tyme she made greate straungeres, and caused him, for her sake, to put himself in meny greate distresses, dangers, and perills; but when they were wedded, and b'en but a little season together, he departed from her, to her greate hevynes, and never was conversant with her after, to her understandinge." That this may not appear to be the result of any revengeful spirit on the part of Sir Guy, the chronicler goes on further to state his motives—that, after his marriage, considering what he had done for a woman's sake, he thought to spend the other part of his life for God's sake, and so departed from his lady in pilgrim weeds, which raiment he kept to his life's end. After wandering about a good many years he settled in a hermitage, in a place not far from the castle, called Guy's Cliff, and when his lady distributed food to beggars at the castle gate, was in the habit of coming among them to receive alms, without making himself known to her. It states, moreover, that two days before his death an angel informed him of the time of his departure, and that his lady would die a fortnight after him, which happening accordingly, they were both buried in the grave together. A romantic cavern, at the place called Guy's Cliff, is shown as the dwelling of the recluse. The story is a curious relic of the religious ideas of the times.