What? Ist not follie to dread and stand of Death in feare
That mother is of quiet rest, and grief away does weare?
Was never none that twist have felt of cruel Death the Knife;
But other griefes and pining paines doe linger on thro life,
And oftentimes one selfsame corse with furious fits molest
When Death by one dispatch of life doth bring the soul to rest."
When we arrive at Milborne St Andrews we are within eight miles of Dorchester. The Manor House, up a by-road and past the church of St Andrew, is the original of "Welland House" in Hardy's Two on a Tower. This was once the residence of the Mansell-Pleydell family, but since 1758 it has been used as a farm-house. The village was formerly an important posting-place between Blandford and Dorchester, and we are reminded of the coaching days by the effigy of a white hart on the cornice of the post office, in time past a busy inn.
Puddletown is our next halt on the road. It is a considerable village whose church has a chapel full of ancient monuments to the Martins of Athelhampton. Canon Carter held the living here in 1838, and when he first arrived the news that he neither shot, hunted nor fished disturbed the rustic flock, and they openly expressed their contempt for him. Then he replaced the village church band with a harmonium, and the story gained so much bulk and robustity in travelling, as such stories do in the country, that I have no doubt he seemed a sort of devastating monster.
After this he did a most appalling thing: he tampered with a very ancient rectorial gift of a mince-pie, a loaf of bread and a quart of old ale to every individual in the parish, not even excluding the babies in arms, and ventured to assert that the funds would be better employed in forming a clothing club for the poor. Carter was a very worthy man, but somehow I cannot forgive him for this. He should have placed himself a little nearer to the full current of natural things. In the essence the ancient gift was "clothing"—solid and straightforward. It was surely in this spirit that Bishop John Still penned his famous drinking song:
"No frost nor snow, no wind, I trow,