At Lymington the motor was loaded into a tiny boat, nearly filling it from stem to stern, and towed by the little channel steamer across the Solent to Yarmouth. The captain, who commands a crew of four men, invited us into the pilot house and gave us his field glasses, entertaining us with a tale of hard luck, long hours, small pay and still smaller appreciation of his service on part of the railway company, which owns the steamers. He was a typical English salt, bluff and bronzed, with a dialect that was refreshing to hear. We did not forget him, either, and found him anxiously looking for us next day when we were ready to return to the mainland.
Here we are on the sunniest, calmest of summer days in the isle whose greatest charm for us is, perhaps, in the fact that Tennyson spent most of his active life here and did much of his best work in his island home. But this is far from the only attraction of the romantic island, so small that a circuit of sixty-five miles takes one over the coast roads. The eastern and half the northern coast is dotted with increasingly popular resort towns, of which Cowes, of yachting fame, is the best known, and thither we direct our course.
It is open day at Osborne House and the short excursion by steamer from Southampton appeals to English people as few other holiday trips. And it is not strange when one reflects that no other place was in such a strict sense the home of Queen Victoria as Osborne House, or has so many memories of her life. The rather ineffective Italian villa was designed and built by herself and the Prince Consort and here were passed the happy years of the early married life of the royal couple. It was the queen’s private property and descended to King Edward, who presented it to the nation. As it stands now, it may be said to be a memorial to the queen. Here are the family portraits and the marvelous presents given to Victoria on the occasions of her golden and diamond jubilees; some were from other rulers, but the most wonderful came from Indian potentates and the colonies. These defy all description. The queen died here in 1901, and altogether Osborne House is full of the deepest significance to the average British subject. The crowds that thronged the palace grounds on the day of our visit, we were told, were quite representative of the open days of the summer season.
Newport, the capital and metropolis of the island, is a modern-looking town, whose greatest interest is Carisbrooke Castle, the stronghold of the ancient governors. It stands on an eminence overlooking the town and charming indeed was the prospect that greeted us from the walls on that shimmering summer afternoon. The town, with its red-brick, slate-roofed buildings, lay just below us; about it were the tiny fields, with the green meadowlands, the ripening grain, great trees and snug cottages. One may walk on the battlements—in part modern replacements—entirely around the castle walls, and thus view the ruin from every angle.
Carisbrooke’s chief memory is of Charles I., who came here as a guest only to be detained as a prisoner. The room he occupied has disappeared, but the window in its outer wall, through which he twice essayed to escape, may yet be seen. It was during his captivity here that he first lost hope; his hair turned gray and his trim, jaunty cavalier air forsook him. Finally, on the last night of November, 1648, he was seized by two companies of Roundhead horse and carried to Yarmouth and from thence to Windsor Castle. This was the beginning of the end. After the King’s execution, the Princess Elizabeth and the young duke of Gloucester were sent here by order of Parliament. The princess soon died and is buried in Newport Church, where a marble effigy marks the tomb. Aside from the melancholy history of King Charles, the annals of Carisbrooke have few events of importance. Its decay and resulting ruin were due to ages of neglect.
Beginning at Ryde, four miles north of Newport, we followed the coast, passing a succession of resort towns. Ryde is situated on a hillside sloping toward the sea, and its water front with drives and gardens, is one of the most charming we know of. The road from Ryde to Ventnor is crooked, narrow, and highly dangerous in places. At times it runs through closely bordering forests; again along the edge of an almost precipitous incline; then it climbs a long, terribly steep hill, but is never more than a few hundred yards from the coast.
The Royal Hotel at Ventnor comes up to its pretensions but poorly. We were surprised to find the last three parties registered in the visitors’ book coming from France, Germany and Sweden respectively, while our own added a fourth foreign registry in succession. The number of foreign guests at this hotel seemed to indicate that Ventnor is more popular with continental people than the average English resort town, for as a rule we found very few European guests. Ventnor is situated on a precipitous hill-slope, quite sheltered from the north and east. The houses run up the hill in terraces and the ledge of rock along the beach is barely wide enough for the promenade. The climate is mild and few spots in England are more favored by invalids. It was this that brought poor John Keats in 1817, and he composed “Lamia” during his stay. Here was a favorite resort of Tennyson before he settled in Freshwater, and Longfellow’s visit in 1868 is commemorated by an inscription which he composed for the fountain near the hotel in Shanklin, the old town nearly contiguous to Ventnor. Shanklin contains many bits of the picturesque old-time island—touches of antiquity quite wanting in Ventnor.
The following day was one to be remembered; a day as near perfection as one may have in England—the sky pale blue, cloudless and serene, toning to lucent gray near the horizon, and the air fresh and invigorating. Our road closely followed the coast with an almost continual view of the sea. The ocean lay darkly under the rocks, rippled over stretches of silvery beach, or glittered under the long headlands, whose white chalk cliffs were almost dazzling in the sunlight. There were flower-embowered cottages along the road, but no villages for many miles. We gave two hours to the twenty miles to Freshwater and enjoyed the beauty to our hearts’ content—but no! to do that one must linger until darkness shuts out the view.
Freshwater became famous through its association with Tennyson, and the poet by coming here destroyed to a certain extent the very retirement and quiet that he sought, for the tourists followed him, much to his disgust. Yet he used to go about in a great slouching hat and military cloak that advertised his presence to everyone—an inconsistency that even his little grandchild is said to have noticed, and that she queried in her childish innocence, “If you don’t like people to look at you, Grandpa, why do you wear that queer hat and cloak?” But in any event, the trippers, though often snubbed for their pains, flocked to Freshwater. They still come to the old home of the poet, and the present Lord Tennyson is said to welcome them even less than did his father.
We stopped at a post card shop just opposite the rear entrance to Farringford—a rustic gate opening into a narrow roadway between tall trees—and they told us that the ban on visitors was absolute. But one might see the house from the road. The unprecedented snow of the preceding winter had almost destroyed the tree so beloved of the poet—the