A Leisurely Tour in England

by James John Hissey

CHAPTER VI

"Mine ease in mine inn"—King John's Castle—Greywell—Country odours—Hidden beauty-spots—The valley of the Kennett—A remote spot—Our picturesque villages—The charm of ancientness—Solitude and genius—Coate—Richard Jefferies' birthplace.

That evening in the coffee-room of the "George" there was only one other guest besides myself, and we sat apart at either end of a long table taking our meals in unfriendly silence. It was very stupid and very English. The other guest was an austere-looking, clean-shaven man neatly dressed in a tweed of grey; he might have been a lord (though it was hardly an inn that lords would patronise), or a commercial traveller of a superior type in his own opinion: I inclined to the latter view. However, what he was did not trouble me, but the silence did, so I ventured some ordinary remark about the weather, that being, as the chess handbooks have it, "a common, but a safe opening." The stranger agreed that it was a warm day, then relapsed into silence. Thought I, everybody golfs now; I will try him on that. His reply was brief and sarcastic: "I'm no golfer. I think, as a game, it's inferior to marbles." Then silence again. After that I mentioned motoring as a possible subject of interest, for so many people motor nowadays, either on their own, their friends', or on hired cars. "No, I don't motor," responded he; "only went on a motor once, and I don't want to go on one again." At this point I fancy most people would have given up the game, for when every card you play is promptly trumped it hardly seems worth going on, but I determined to try one last card. I played fishing. That was a failure too. "No, I'm no fisherman," said he; "never fished since I was a boy. I think it poor sport. A worm or a fly at one end of a line and a fool at the other, as the saying is." I never came upon so pronounced a specimen of a pessimist, and pessimism with the added acid of sarcasm is the devil's own special combination. Perhaps he did not like being disturbed at his meal; perhaps he was not well; perhaps his thoughts were occupied on some important matter. Even Carlyle, we are told, had his "bad days," when he would hardly speak to a soul, and only sharply and bluntly to one when he did. Now if a philosopher can act so, how is an ordinary mortal to be blamed for the same failing to be responsive? Writing of Carlyle reminds me of a story I was told the other day of a visitor who went to Ecclefechan to see the room in which the genial author of Sartor Resartus "first saw the light of day," as the newspaper reporters have it, when the woman who acted as guide as he was inspecting the room exclaimed, "And our Mary was born here too"!

The atmosphere of the coffee-room being too freezing for my pleasure, I sought the smoke-room in search of more genial society, or the restfulness of none at all. Better an empty room than to feast with a pessimist. The smoke-room proved to be no ordinary apartment, for it was panelled, or partially so; and there my eye rested on a finely carved old oak fireplace, distinguished enough for a nobleman's mansion, and by the side of it was a cupboard, with shapely old-fashioned outside hinges, for the tidy holding of wood. How came so modest an inn to possess such a beautiful specimen of ancient carving? I wondered, for it was truly a work of art worthy of a museum, but better where it was. I had not to wonder long, for presently a man entered the room and seated himself opposite to me, first lighting his pipe and calling for a drink, and his manner showed he was quite at home there. In marked contrast with my coffee-room companion he was smiling sociability itself. "Fine old fireplace that," exclaimed he, in a right jovial voice, pointing to it with his pipe. "I'm never tired of admiring it." "I was admiring it too," I said; "do you know anything about it and how it came there?" "Well, I heard it came from Basing House when the place was sacked; they say that nearly every one round about on that occasion helped themselves to something from it, and so I suppose the owner of this house, at the time, appropriated that fireplace. He did not do so badly. I've heard that the freeholder has been offered £1300 for it and refused the offer, but I'm always expecting that some day some one will surely come along and buy it. It will be a great pity if they do, for it's a great attraction to the house. You are a stranger here, I expect?" I confessed I was. "Be you on business or pleasure, I wonder?" I felt at first inclined to reply that was my own affair; then, thought I, the man does not intend to be rude, but is only seeking to keep up the conversation by the first remark that comes handy. He explained himself: "If you be pleasure-touring I thought I might tell you that there is an old castle about a mile from the garden at the back of the hotel; it's a bit ruinous, but it's worth seeing. They call it King John's Castle, but I don't know much of its history; they say there's an underground passage from it to the town." How familiar I am with that underground passage, I meet it somewhere on every journey; but I was glad to hear of the old castle, for I had no idea there was one in the locality. Then jumping from one subject to another he went on: "Talking about fireplaces"—which we were not at the moment—"there's a lot of curious chimney corners in the cottages around," and so he gaily chatted on about this thing and that, much to his own pleasure, and would, I believe, have gone on chatting for an hour or more, had not some persons entered the room, townsfolk I took them to be, for they all seemed well acquainted; then others dropped in, so that soon there was a goodly company assembled there—mostly, if not all, tradesmen of the place, I gathered from their talk. After that I became a silent spectator, but I got plenty of entertainment out of the company by studying their various characters, and from their conversation I ascertained how the town was served; I even learned from one or two of them how the kingdom could be better governed if they only had the governing of it. Somehow it amused me to hear all this, and the pride of it. I think one of the speakers had missed his vocation; he should surely have been in Parliament; he spoke quite as wisely and more to the point than many of its paid members do. "It's as good as a play," remarked Charles II. once when listening to a long debate, and I thought the same that night of what I saw and heard; then how unconscious the actors were, and how well they performed their parts all unprepared!

"It's a deep tankard that never requires refilling," and I noticed that the glasses were fairly frequently replenished (for beer in the cellar quenches no man's thirst) and pipes recharged, whilst the conversation never flagged, not for a moment, but I liked the hum of it. Towards the end of the evening there was much laughter and merriment; many a joke was cracked; some were good, some were poor, and one or two were fresh to me, and one or two even good enough for Punch, I thought. So the hours passed in an atmosphere of good-fellowship and tobacco smoke. A merrier company never have I met, and little did that company know, I ween, how their merriment served to enliven my evening. Then, talking still, the guests departed by ones, and twos, and threes—and I was left alone.

Next morning early I took leave of "mine hostess," who in the good old-fashioned manner of an earlier day, possibly a tradition of the house, came to the door to see me off, thanked me for my small custom, and wished me a pleasant journey—moreover, wished me it in a manner so hearty that showed she meant it. How pleasant these little civilities are; how they cheer the traveller on his way; how they oil the wheels of life so that they run smoothly, and yet they cost the bestower nothing! Alas, people nowadays do not seem to appreciate an article that can be had—for nothing! I like a smile of welcome when I arrive a stranger at a strange inn, though in truth I do not always get it—I expect I have to pay the penalty of many a grumpy traveller (how I despise him)—but this I will say, I seldom leave "mine inn" without the landlord or landlady, as the case may be, coming to see me off, and that with some gracious added remark or another; it is pleasant to part thus. I pay my reckonings, of course—I could not do otherwise—still, there was hardly an inn on the road, not one, in fact, but somehow I felt, on leaving it, I had received something more, and more valued, in the shape of thoughtful attentions and kind words, than what was set down on the bill. In truth, my bill mostly seemed to me more an accidental incident of my stay than a charge for accommodation and services rendered, and I fancy—it may be even more than fancy—that a gracious guest most times finds his reckoning on a modest scale. So, take it on the lowest, meanest standard, civility pays.

I well remember when at an old country coaching inn—where I stayed for over a week, so pleasant a resting-place I found it, so pleased was I with mine host, mine hostess, and my surroundings—one day a coaching party on a hired coach arrived there, who blustered and fumed and gave themselves so many airs, and ordered the landlord about in so would-be a lordly manner as to make me ashamed of them, so much so that on their departure I went up to the landlord, a good sort if ever there was one, and heartily sympathised with him. I thought to ease his mind. "Bless you, sir," said he, "they didn't trouble me one bit; I saw they weren't gentle-folks; I charged them in the bill for their incivility."

At first, for a mile or more, we followed a smooth highway, then we took to a little lonely lane to our left; a signpost at the corner of the roads told us it led to Greywell. Now Greywell had a pleasant sound; we soon came to it, and it proved to be a pleasant village in keeping with its name; some of the cottages there are old and of half timber, and no more picturesque or comfortable a cottage was ever built than in that style, with its projecting upper story that gives more room above than below, where room is mostly wanted, besides keeping the lower walls dry and causing an agreeable effect of light and shade. How I dislike the modern cottage built on the square and strictly economical pattern, a mere slate-roofed brick box with holes for windows in it. Sometimes you meet with rows of them as like one another as peas in a pod, only even perhaps more so. They ruin the prospect wherever they are.

A footpath led from the entrance of the village to its tiny church, which, though restored, has not had all its interest restored away, for it can show some pre-Norman work, a curious old carved screen, and, what is rarer, a rood-loft; externally a simple wooden bell-turret gives a touch of character to the building.