CHAPTER VII BERE REGIS AND THE ANCIENT FAMILY OF TURBERVILLE
We who have passed into the Upper Air
Thence behold Earth, and know how she is fair.
More than her sister Stars sweet Earth doth love us:
She holds our hearts: the Stars are high above us.
O Mother Earth! Stars are too far and rare!
Bere Regis, that "blinking little place" with a history extending back to Saxon times (identified by Doctor Stukeley with the Roman Ibernium), is a typical little Dorset town about seven miles to the north-west of Wareham. It makes a capital walk or ride from Dorchester, and it was this way I travelled. I left Dorchester by High Street East, ascending Yellowham Hill, the "Yalbury Hill" of Troy's affecting meeting with Fanny Robin, leaving Troy Town to pass through Puddletown and Tolpuddle. Evening had fallen when I arrived at Bere Regis, and the rising wind and flying wrack of clouds above seemed to presage a wild night. I was just wondering whether, although it looked so threatening, I dared ride on to Wareham, when my eyes rested on the Royal Oak Inn, with its Elizabethan barns, mossed and mouldering red tiles and axe-hewn timbers.
"It is at such houses," I thought, "that men may stretch out weary legs and taste home-cured bacon (I heard the squeak of a pig in the outhouse), and such places are the homes of adventure. I will go in and call for ale and a bed."