But to return to the vestry of Tong church, said the clerk to me, "Have you heard of the Great Bell of Tong?" I had not till he mentioned it. I waited for him to tell its story that I knew was coming. I have forgotten how much he declared it weighed, but I believe it was considerably over two tons. "It takes three men to start it," he went on, "but when once started one man can keep it going. It was presented to the church in 1518 by Sir Henry Vernon. It is only rung on Christmas Day, Easter Day, Whit-Sunday, and St. Bartholomew's Day, on the birth of a child to the Sovereign and an heir to the Prince of Wales, or when the head of the Vernon family visits Tong."
Dickens confessed that it was to Tong church that he brought Little Nell with the schoolmaster in the Old Curiosity Shop, and this is how he describes it: "It was a very aged, ghostly place; the church had been built many hundred years ago, and once had a convent or a monastery attached," referring doubtless to the decayed College, "for arches in ruins, remains of oriel windows, and fragments of blackened walls, were yet standing; while other portions of the old buildings, which had crumbled away and fallen down, were mingled with the churchyard earth and overgrown with grass, as though they too claimed a burial-place, and sought to mix their ashes with the dust of men."
Leaving Tong I got amongst narrow winding lanes in my search after White Ladies, and a rare difficulty I had in discovering that remote spot. "It's not a good country for strangers to find their way about in," exclaimed one old body of whom I asked direction, and I quite agreed with her, it was not. I kept on asking for White Ladies of any one I saw, but the lanes were very deserted and I met few people on them, and their answers to my queries were none too clear. Indeed they reminded me in indirectness of a reply that a Shropshire gentleman assured me he once received from a villager. He was asking the villager how long her father had been dead, and she said quite calmly, "If he had lived till to-morrow he would have been dead a week." Country folk, for some inexplicable reason, never seem capable of giving a plain answer to the simplest question. They appear to love to go round it, perhaps because they like to talk. After all I really think I should have missed White Ladies, for it is hidden from the road and only reached by an ill-defined footpath through a wood and then over a field, had I not been bold enough to call at a farmhouse where I received clear instructions how to find the ruins. Fortunately they were not very far off, "only about a mile farther on," so I could not well go astray, for I had only to follow the lane till I came to "a little wicket at the corner of the wood." I was glad of it, for I felt weary of wandering without arriving anywhere.
What is left of White Ladies Nunnery consists almost wholly of its despoiled Norman church, if church be not too dignified a term for so small a building, roofed now only by the sky and paved with rough and tangled grasses, the foot of its walls being fringed with flourishing weeds. There are few architectural features of note about the building except its ornamented north doorway and its rounded Norman windows, the carving of this doorway being little the worse for the weathering of centuries. The ruins stand silent and solitary in a large meadow, and around the meadow stretch deep woods for far away, and beyond the woods are distant hills, that day faintly outlined in palest blue against the sky; these woods are the relics of the once famous forest of Brewood. It is a lonely spot to-day, and must always have been a lonely one; its only approach is by a lane, and then over the quiet fields. There solitude dwells. Close to the ruins once stood the old half-timber hall of the Giffards (an old print I have seen represents this as it was in 1660—a low, rambling, and most picturesque building surrounded by walls, and with a quaint gabled gate-house in front), of which now not a vestige remains. Thither came Charles II., fleeing in hot haste from the fatal battle of Worcester—fatal to the Royal cause at least, for Cromwell called it his "crowning mercy." It is always so, to the victor the battle is a triumph, the God of Hosts is with him. Is it not recorded that Cromwell once exclaimed to his troopers whilst crossing a river, "Trust in God," followed quickly by "but keep your powder dry"?
Within the ruined walls of the convent church are many ancient tombstones, for it was long a burial-place of Roman Catholic families. The oldest of these doubtless dates from pre-Reformation days, possibly being those of some important ecclesiastic, for it is adorned with foliated crosses beautifully carved, though without inscription as far as I could discover. But, to me, the most interesting tombstone of all bore no ornamentation but was briefly inscribed:
Here lieth the bodie of a
Friend the King did call
Dame Joane but now shee
Is deceased and gone.
Interred Anno Do. 1669.
There Dame Penderel lies.
Boscobel was not far away; I simply followed the lane trustingly, and soon I beheld the great chimney and roof-trees of that ancient and historic house peeping through the trees. I came upon it suddenly and unawares. I was prepared to be disappointed with Boscobel; I always am prepared to be disappointed with historic places, for one gets so worked up with enthusiastic descriptions of them that but too often the reality leaves one cold and disenchanted, for who can romance to order? Where historic events have happened, I demand, perhaps unreasonably, a fitting background. The romantic incident of the stay and concealment of Charles II. at Boscobel calls for a picturesque setting, and there I found it. Boscobel is still, as of old, remote amongst the woods, and suits the story to perfection. Though externally the house has lost somewhat of the patina of age by renovation, yet it impressed me. Had I come upon it unknowingly the very aspect of it with its old-fashioned garden and quaint summer-house would have caused me to stop, for it had that indefinable thing—a look of romance. Never yet have I come upon a house with that special look that has not earned it. A man writes his character on his face; so does an old house.
I did not know whether this storied home would be shown to strangers, but there I found a soft-spoken dame of dignified manner, who not only showed me over it, but told me its tale again so well and so freshly that in its old-world and pleasant panelled chambers the present seemed almost a dream and the past a reality. So strong was the influence of the place upon me that I almost expected to see the faithful Dame Joan appear approaching along one of the dusky passages, or even the hunted king himself. If ever a house were haunted by past presences, that house is Boscobel. I even thought it remotely possible that the grey-haired dame who showed me the place might be a descendant of the Penderels. I confess I had a longing to ask her if she were not of the good old stock, and should have done this but from fear of being disillusioned; but whether she were or no, for the sentiment of the thing, so I pleased to fancy her. Indeed I thought I traced a resemblance in her features to those of faithful Dame Joan Penderel, whose painted portrait I saw hanging on the wall of the ancient oratory, possibly because I looked for it, and you often see what you look for. There can be no mistake about this portrait, for on it the artist has inscribed, as was the custom of the time, both her name and a date, thus: "Dame Penderel—Anno Dom. 1662," though her age at the time he has not recorded as was usual. Full of quiet character and motherly kindness is the face, a pleasure to look upon. Great is the contrast of this portrait with those of Charles II. and Cromwell (apparently excellent likenesses) hanging in the dining-room, for the king's features reveal a weak and pleasure-loving nature, whilst those of Cromwell are determined and austere.
It was a happy time I spent at Boscobel, and I was fortunate to see it alone. I learnt from my guide that the house was built in 1540, so that it was over a century old when the king sought refuge there, and I further learnt that the name Boscobel originated from a suggestion made to John Giffard, its builder, by his friend Sir Basil Brooke, of Madeley Court, who had recently returned from Italy; and his suggestion was that the house, being seated in the heart of a forest, should be called Boscobel, from the Italian words bosco bello, meaning fair woods; so it was named. Passing through the hall I was shown first the fine oak-panelled dining-room, where is still preserved the very table that was used by the king. Much as it was then is the room to-day. On its walls hangs a copy of the Proclamation issued by the Parliament at the very time Charles II. was hiding there, offering a reward of £1000 for the discovery of the king, also declaring that it was death without mercy for concealing him. It speaks well for the Penderel brothers, all poor men "of honest parentage but of mean degree" to whom a thousand pounds would have been a fortune, that even when closely questioned by the troopers when searching the house and woods around, each one in turn pleaded ignorance of the king's whereabouts, rejecting the proffered reward and risking death rather than betray their sovereign.