Now the fox-covert is a very sacred institution in these parts; for it is a place of only four acres, standing isolated in the midst of a fine, open country--so that no human being is allowed to enter therein save to "stop the earth" the night before hunting. We rushed up in great haste, fully prepared for mortal combat with this gang of ruffians, until, when within a hundred yards, the thought crossed us that we had given leave to the Cotswold Naturalist Society to make a tour of inspection, and that one of the barrows was in our fox-covert.
Labouring friends of mine often bring me relics of the stone age which they have picked up whilst at work in the fields. Quite recently a shepherd brought me a knife blade and two flint arrow-heads. He also tells me they have lately found a "himmige" up in old Mr. Peregrine's "barn-ground." Tom Peregrine possesses a bag of old coins of all dates and sizes, which he tells you with great pride have been an heirloom in his family for generations.
When we once more resume our pilgrimage along the track which leads to Chedworth we find ourselves in a country which is never explored by the tourist. Far removed from railways and the "busy haunts of men," it is not even mentioned in the guide-books. Our way lies along the edge of the hill for the next few miles, and we look down upon the picturesque valley of the Coln. Four villages, all very like those we have described, are passed in rapid succession. Winson, Coln Rogers, Coln-St.-Dennis, and Fossbridge all lie below us as we wend our way westwards. But although the architecture is of the same massive yet graceful style, and the old Norman churches still tower their grand old heads and cast their shadows over the cottages and farm buildings, there are no manor houses of note in any of these four villages, and no well-timbered demesnes; so that they are not so interesting as some of those we have passed through. In all, however, there dwell the good old honest labouring folk, toiling hard day by day at "the trivial round, the common task," just earning enough to scrape up a livelihood, but enjoying few of the amenities of life. The village parsons--good, pious men--share in the quiet, uneventful life of their flock. And who shall contemn their lot? As Horace tells us:
"Vivitur parvo bene, cui paternum
Splendet in mensa tenui salinum
Nec leves somnos timor aut cupido
Sordidus aufert."
These four villages were all built two centuries or more ago, when the Cotswolds were the centre of much life and activity and the days of agricultural depression were not known. When we look down on their old, grey houses nestling among the great trees which thrive by the banks of the fertilising stream, we cannot but speculate on their future fate. Gradually the population diminishes, as work gets scarcer and scarcer. Unless there is an unexpected revival in prices through some measure of "protection" being granted by law, or the medium of a great European war, or some such far-reaching dispensation of Providence, terrible to think of for those who live to see it, but with all its possibilities of "good arising out of evil" for future generations, these old villages will contain scarcely a single inhabitant in a hundred year's time. This part of the Cotswold country will once more become a huge open plain, retaining only long rows of tumbled-down stone walls as evidences of its former enclosed state; no longer on Sundays will the notes of the beautiful bells call the toilers to prayer and thanksgiving, and all will be desolation. If only the capitalist or wealthy man of business would take up his abode in these places, all might be well. But, alas! the peace and quiet of such out-of-the-way spots, with all their fascinating contrast to the smoke and din of a manufacturing town, have little attraction for those who are unused to them. And yet there is much happiness and content in these rural villages. The lot of those who are able to get work is a thousand times more supportable than that of the toiling millions in our great cities. There is less drinking and less vice among these villagers than there is in any part of this world that we are acquainted with; consequently you find them cheerful, good-humoured, and, if they only knew it, happy. Grumble they must, or they would not be mortal. Ah! if they could but realise the blessings of the elixir of life--pure air, and fresh, clear, spring water, and sunshine--three inestimable privileges that they enjoy all the year round, and which are denied to so many of the inhabitants of this globe--there would be little grumbling in the Cotswolds.
"From toil he wins his spirits light,
From busy day the peaceful night;
Rich from the very want of wealth
In heaven's best treasures, peace and health."
GRAY.
"But these villages are so dull, and life is so monotonous there," is the constant complaint. But what part of this earth is there, may I ask, that is not dull to those who live there, unless we drive out dull care and ennui by that glorious antidote to gloom and despondency, a fully occupied mind? There are two chapters in Carlyle's "Past and Present" that ought to be printed in letters of gold, set in an ivory frame, and hung up in the sleeping apartment of every man, woman, and child on the face of this earth. They are called "Labour" and "Reward." In those few short pages is embodied the whole secret of content and happiness for the dwellers in quiet country villages and smoky towns alike. They contain the philosopher's stone, which makes men cheerful under all circumstances, but especially those who are poor and down-trodden. The secret is a very simple one; but if the educated classes are continually losing sight of it, how much easier is it for those who have only the bare necessaries of life and few of the comforts to become deadened to its influence! It lies first of all in the realisation of the fact that the object of life is not to get, still less to enjoy, riches and pleasure. It teaches for the thousandth time that the humblest and the highest of us alike are immortal souls imprisoned for threescore years and ten in a tenement of clay, preparing for a better and higher existence. It reverses the position of things on earth--placing the crown of kings on the head of the toiling labourer, and making "the last first and the first last." Its very essence lies in the dictum of the old monks, "Laborare est orare" ("Work is worship").
It was one of the chief characteristics of the Roman people in the time of their greatness that their most successful generals were content to return to the plough after their wars were over. Thus Pliny in his "Natural History" remarks as follows: "Then were the fields cultivated by the hands of the generals themselves, and the earth rejoiced, tilled as it was by a ploughshare crowned with laurels, he who guided the wheel being himself fresh from glorious victories." And no sooner did honest hand labour become despised than effeminacy crept in, and this once haughty nation was practically blotted out from the face of the earth.
Let the Cotswold labourer realise that to work on the land, ploughing and reaping, summer and winter, seedtime and harvest, come weal, come woe, is no mean destiny for an honest man; there is scope for the display of a noble and generous spirit in the beautiful green fields as well as in the smoky atmosphere of the east end of London, in a Birmingham factory, or a Warrington forge.