Rural Rides

by William Cobbett

A fine, soft, showery morning saw us out of Boston, carrying with us the most pleasing reflections as to our reception and treatment there by numerous persons, none of whom we had ever seen before. The face of the country, for about half the way, the soil, the grass, the endless sheep, the thickly-scattered and magnificent churches, continue as on the other side of Boston; but, after that, we got out of the low and level land. At Sibsey, a pretty village five miles from Boston, we saw, for the first time since we left Peterborough, land rising above the level of the horizon; and, not having seen such a thing for so long, it had struck my daughters, who overtook me on the road (I having walked on from Boston), that the sight had an effect like that produced by the first sight of land after a voyage across the Atlantic.

We now soon got into a country of hedges and dry land and gravel and clay and stones; the land not bad, however; pretty much like that of Sussex, lying between the forest part and the South Downs. A good proportion of woodland also; and just before we got to Horncastle, we passed the park of that Mr. Dymock who is called “the Champion of England,” and to whom, it is said hereabouts, that we pay out of the taxes eight thousand pounds a year! This never can be, to be sure; but if we pay him only a hundred a year, I will lay down my glove against that of the “Champion,” that we do not pay him even that for five years longer.

It is curious, that the moment you get out of the rich land, the churches become smaller, mean, and with scarcely anything in the way of tower or steeple. This town is seated in the middle of a large valley, not, however, remarkable for anything of peculiar value or beauty; a purely agricultural town; well built, and not mean in any part of it. It is a great rendezvous for horses and cattle, and sheep-dealers, and for those who sell these; and accordingly, it suffers severely from the loss of the small paper-money.

Horncastle, 13th April, Morning.

I made a speech last evening to from 130 to 150, almost all farmers, and most men of apparent wealth to a certain extent. I have seldom been better pleased with my audience. It is not the clapping and huzzaing that I value so much as the silent attention, the earnest look at me from all eyes at once, and then when the point is concluded, the look and nod at each other, as if the parties were saying, “Think of that!” And of these I had a great deal at Horncastle. They say that there are a hundred parish churches within six miles of this town. I dare say that there was one farmer from almost every one of those parishes. This is sowing the seeds of truth in a very sure manner: it is not scattering broadcast; it is really drilling the country.

There is one deficiency, and that, with me, a great one, throughout this country of corn and grass and oxen and sheep, that I have come over during the last three weeks; namely, the want of singing birds. We are now just in that season when they sing most. Here, in all this country, I have seen and heard only about four sky-larks, and not one other singing bird of any description, and, of the small birds that do not sing, I have seen only one yellow-hammer, and it was perched on the rail of a pound between Boston and Sibsey. Oh! the thousands of linnets all singing together on one tree, in the sand-hills of Surrey! Oh! the carolling in the coppices and the dingles of Hampshire and Sussex and Kent! At this moment (5 o’clock in the morning) the groves at Barn Elm are echoing with the warblings of thousands upon thousands of birds. The thrush begins a little before it is light; next the black-bird; next the larks begin to rise; all the rest begin the moment the sun gives the signal; and, from the hedges, the bushes, from the middle and the topmost twigs of the trees, comes the singing of endless variety; from the long dead grass comes the sound of the sweet and soft voice of the white-throat or nettle-tom, while the loud and merry song of the lark (the songster himself out of sight) seems to descend from the skies. Milton, in his description of paradise, has not omitted the “song of earliest birds.” However, everything taken together, here, in Lincolnshire, are more good things than man could have had the conscience to ask of God.

And now, if I had time and room to describe the state of men’s affairs in the country through which I have passed, I should show that the people at Westminster would have known, how to turn paradise itself into hell. I must, however, defer this until my next, when I shall have been at Hull and Lincoln, and have had a view of the whole of this rich and fine country. In the meanwhile, however, I cannot help congratulating that sensible fellow, Wilmot Horton, and his co-operator, Burdett, that Emigration is going on at a swimming rate. Thousands are going, and that, too, without mortgaging the poor-rates. But, sensible fellows! it is not the aged, the halt, the ailing; it is not the paupers that are going; but men with from 200l. to 2,000l. in their pocket! This very year, from two to five millions of pounds sterling will actually be carried from England to the United States. The Scotch, who have money to pay their passages, go to New York; those who have none get carried to Canada, that they may thence get into the United States. I will inquire, one of these days, what right Burdett has to live in England more than those whom he proposes to send away.

Spittal, near Lincoln, 19th April 1830.

Here we are, at the end of a pretty decent trip since we left Boston. The next place, on our way to Hull, was Horncastle, where I preached politics in the playhouse to a most respectable body of farmers, who had come in the wet to meet me. Mr. John Peniston, who had invited me to stop there, behaved in a very obliging manner, and made all things very pleasant.

The country from Boston continued, as I said before, flat for about half the way to Horncastle, and we then began to see the high land. From Horncastle I set off two hours before the carriage, and going through a very pretty village called Ashby, got to another at the foot of a hill, which, they say, forms part of the Wolds; that is, a ridge of hills. This second village is called Scamblesby. The vale in which it lies is very fine land. A hazel mould, rich and light too. I saw a man here ploughing for barley, after turnips, with one horse: the horse did not seem to work hard, and the man was singing: I need not say that he was young; and I dare say he had the good sense to keep his legs under another man’s table, and to stretch his body on another man’s bed.