This is a most pleasing circumstance attending the down-countries; and there are no downs without a chalk bottom.
Along here, the country is rather too bare: here, until you come to Auborne, or Aldbourne, there are no meadows in the valleys, and no trees, even round the homesteads. This, therefore, is too naked to please me; but I love the downs so much, that, if I had to choose, I would live even here, and especially I would farm here, rather than on the banks of the Wye in Herefordshire, in the vale of Gloucester, of Worcester, or of Evesham, or, even in what the Kentish men call their “garden of Eden.” I have now seen (for I have, years back, seen the vales of Taunton, Glastonbury, Honiton, Dorchester and Sherburne) what are deemed the richest and most beautiful parts of England; and, if called upon to name the spot, which I deem the brightest and most beautiful and, of its extent, best of all, I should say, the villages of North Bovant and Bishopstrow, between Heytesbury and Warminster in Wiltshire; for there is, as appertaining to rural objects, everything that I delight in. Smooth and verdant downs in hills and valleys of endless variety as to height and depth and shape; rich corn-land, unencumbered by fences; meadows in due proportion, and those watered at pleasure; and, lastly, the homesteads, and villages, sheltered in winter and shaded in summer by lofty and beautiful trees; to which may be added, roads never dirty and a stream never dry.
When we came to Auborne, we got amongst trees again. This is a town, and was, manifestly, once a large town. Its church is as big as three of that of Kensington. It has a market now, I believe; but, I suppose, it is, like many others, become merely nominal, the produce being nearly all carried to Hungerford, in order to be forwarded to the Jew-devils and the tax-eaters and monopolizers in the Wen, and in small Wens on the way. It is a decaying place; and, I dare say, that it would be nearly depopulated, in twenty years’ time, if this hellish jobbing system were to last so long.
A little after we came through Auborne, we turned off to our right to go through Ramsbury to Shallburn, where Tull, the father of the drill-husbandry, began and practised that husbandry at a farm called “Prosperous.” Our object was to reach this place (Burghclere) to sleep, and to stay for a day or two; and, as I knew Mr. Blandy of Prosperous, I determined upon this route, which, besides, took us out of the turnpike-road. We stopped at Ramsbury, to bait our horses. It is a large, and, apparently, miserable village, or “town” as the people call it. It was in remote times a Bishop’s See. Its church is very large and very ancient. Parts of it were evidently built long and long before the Norman Conquest. Burdett owns a great many of the houses in the village (which contains nearly two thousand people), and will, if he live many years, own nearly the whole; for, as his eulogist, William Friend, the Actuary, told the public, in a pamphlet, in 1817, he has resolved, that his numerous life-holds shall run out, and that those who were life-holders under his Aunt, from whom he got the estate, shall become rack-renters to him, or quit the occupations. Besides this, he is continually purchasing lands and houses round about and in this place. He has now let his house to a Mr. Acres; and, as the Morning Herald says, is safe landed at Bordeaux, with his family, for the winter! When here, he did not occupy a square inch of his land! He let it all, park and all; and only reserved “a right of road” from the highway to his door. “He had and has a right to do all this.” A right? Who denies that? But is this giving us a specimen of that “liberality and generosity and hospitality” of those “English Country Gentlemen,” whose praises he so loudly sang last winter? His name is Francis Burdett Jones, which last name he was obliged to take by his Aunt’s will; and he actually used it for some time after the estate came to him! “Jones” was too common a name for him, I suppose! Sounded too much of the vulgar!
However, what I have principally to do with, is, his absence from the country at a time like this, and, if the newspapers be correct, his intended absence during the whole of next winter; and such a winter, too, as it is likely to be! He, for many years, complained, and justly, of the sinecure placemen; and, are we to suffer him to be, thus, a sinecure Member of Parliament! This is, in my opinion, a great deal worse than a sinecure placeman; for this is shutting an active Member out. It is a dog-in-manger offence; and, to the people of a place such as Westminster, it is not only an injury, but a most outrageous insult. If it be true, that he intends to stay away, during the coming session of Parliament, I trust, not only, that he never will be elected again; but, that the people of Westminster will call upon him to resign; and this, I am sure they will do too. The next session of Parliament must be a most important one, and that he knows well. Every member will be put to the test in the next session of Parliament. On the question of Corn-Bills every man must declare, for, or against, the people. He would declare against, if he dared; and, therefore, he gets out of the way! Or, this is what we shall have a clear right to presume, if he be absent from the next session of Parliament. He knows, that there must be something like a struggle between the land-owners and the fund-holders. His interest lies with the former; he wishes to support the law-church and the army and all sources of aristocratical profit; but, he knows, that the people of Westminster would be on the other side. It is better, therefore, to hear at Bordeaux, about this struggle, than to be engaged in it! He must know of the great embarrassment, distress, and of the great bodily suffering, now experienced by a large part of the people; and has he a right, after having got himself returned a member for such a place as Westminster, to go out of the country, at such a time and leave his seat vacant? He must know that, during the ensuing winter, there must be great distress in Westminster itself; for there will be a greater mass of the working people out of employ than there ever was in any winter before; and this calamity will, too, be owing to that infernal system, which he has been supporting, to those paper-money Rooks, with whom he is closely connected, and the existence of whose destructive rags he expressed his wish to prolong: he knows all this very well: he knows that, in every quarter the distress and danger are great; and is it not, then, his duty to be here? Is he, who, at his own request, has been intrusted with the representing of a great city to get out of the way at a time like this, and under circumstances like these? If this be so, then is this great, and once public-spirited city, become more contemptible, and infinitely more mischievous, than the “accursed hill” of Wiltshire: but this is not so; the people of Westminster are what they always were, full of good sense and public spirit: they have been cheated by a set of bribed intriguers; and how this has been done, I will explain to them, when I punish Sir Francis Burdett Jones for the sins, committed for him, by a hired Scotch writer. I shall dismiss him, for the present, with observing, that, if I had in me a millionth part of that malignity and vindictiveness, which he so basely showed towards me, I have learned anecdotes sufficient to enable me to take ample vengeance on him for the stabs which he, in 1817, knew, that he was sending to the hearts of the defenceless part of my family!
While our horses were baiting at Ramsbury, it began to rain, and by the time that they had done, it rained pretty hard, with every appearance of continuing to rain for the day; and it was now about eleven o’clock, we having 18 or 19 miles to go before we got to the intended end of our journey. Having, however, for several reasons, a very great desire to get to Burghclere that night, we set off in the rain; and, as we carry no great coats, we were wet to the skin pretty soon. Immediately upon quitting Ramsbury, we crossed the River Kennet, and, mounting a highish hill, we looked back over friend Sir Glory’s park, the sight of which brought into my mind the visit of Thimble and Cowhide, as described in the “intense comedy,” and, when I thought of the “baker’s being starved to death,” and of the “heavy fall of snow,” I could not help bursting out a laughing, though it poured of rain and though I already felt the water on my skin.—Mem. To ask, when I get to London, what is become of the intense “Counsellor Bric;” and whether he have yet had the justice to put the K to the end of his name. I saw a lovely female shoy-hoy, engaged in keeping the rooks from a newly-sown wheat field on the Cotswold Hills, that would be a very suitable match for him; and, as his manners appear to be mended; as he now praises to the skies those 40s. freeholders, whom, in my hearing, he asserted to be “beneath brute beasts;” as he does, in short, appear to be rather less offensive than he was, I should have no objection to promote the union; and, I am sure, the farmer would like it of all things; for, if Miss Stuffed o’ straw can, when single, keep the devourers at a distance, say, you who know him, whether the sight of the husband’s head would leave a rook in the country!
Turning from viewing the scene of Thimble and Cowhide’s cruel disappointment, we pushed through coppices and across fields, to a little village, called Froxfield, which we found to be on the great Bath-Road. Here, crossing the road and also a run of water, we, under the guidance of a man, who was good enough to go about a mile with us, and to whom we gave a shilling and the price of a pot of beer, mounted another hill, from which, after twisting about for awhile, I saw, and recognised the out-buildings of Prosperous farm, towards which we pushed on as fast as we could, in order to keep ourselves in motion so as to prevent our catching cold; for it rained, and incessantly, every step of the way. I had been at Prosperous before; so that I knew Mr. Blandy, the owner, and his family, who received us with great hospitality. They took care of our horses, gave us what we wanted in the eating and drinking way, and clothed us, shirts and all, while they dried all our clothes; for not only the things on our bodies were soaked, but those also which we carried in little thin leather rolls, fastened on upon the saddles before us. Notwithstanding all that could be done in the way of dispatch, it took more than three hours to get our clothes dry. At last, about three quarters of an hour before sunset, we got on our clothes again and set off: for, as an instance of real bad luck, it ceased to rain the moment we got to Mr. Blandy’s. Including the numerous angles and windings, we had nine or ten miles yet to go; but I was so anxious to get to Burghclere, that, contrary to my practice as well as my principle, I determined to encounter the darkness for once, though in cross-country roads, presenting us, at every mile, with ways crossing each other; or forming a Y; or kindly giving us the choice of three, forming the upper part of a Y and a half. Add to this, that we were in an enclosed country, the lanes very narrow, deep-worn, and banks and hedges high. There was no moon; but it was starlight, and, as I could see the Hampshire Hills all along to my right, and knew that I must not get above a mile or so from them, I had a guide that could not deceive me; for, as to asking the road, in a case like this, it is of little use, unless you meet some one at every half mile: for the answer is, keep right on; aye, but in ten minutes, perhaps, you come to a Y, or to a T, or to a +.
A fellow told me once, in my way from Chertsey to Guildford, “Keep right on, you can’t miss your way.” I was in the perpendicular part of the T, and the top part was only a few yards from me. “Right on,” said I, “what over that bank into the wheat?” “No, no,” said he, “I mean that road, to be sure,” pointing to the road that went off to the left. In down-countries, the direction of shepherds and pig and bird boys is always in precisely the same words; namely, “right over the down,” laying great stress upon the word right. “But,” said I, to a boy, at the edge of the down at King’s Worthy (near Winchester), who gave me this direction to Stoke Charity; “but, what do you mean by right over the down?” “Why,” said he, “right on to Stoke, to be sure, Zur.” “Aye,” said I, “but how am I, who was never here before, to know what is right, my boy?” That posed him. It set him to thinking: and after a bit he proceeded to tell me, that, when I got up the hill, I should see some trees; that I should go along by them; that I should then see a barn right before me; that I should go down to that barn; and that I should then see a wagon track that would lead me all down to Stoke. “Aye!” said I, “now indeed you are a real clever fellow.” And I gave him a shilling, being part of my savings of the morning. Whoever tries it will find, that the less they eat and drink, when travelling, the better they will be. I act accordingly. Many days I have no breakfast and no dinner. I went from Devizes to Highworth without breaking my fast, a distance, including my deviations, of more than thirty miles. I sometimes take, from a friend’s house, a little bit of meat between two bits of bread, which I eat as I ride along; but whatever I save from this fasting work, I think I have a clear right to give away; and, accordingly, I generally put the amount, in copper, into my waistcoat pocket, and dispose of it during the day. I know well, that I am the better for not stuffing and blowing myself out, and with the savings I make many and many a happy boy; and, now-and-then, I give a whole family a good meal with the cost of a breakfast, or a dinner, that would have done me mischief. I do not do this because I grudge inn-keepers what they charge; for my surprise is, how they can live without charging more than they do in general.
It was dark by the time that we got to a village, called East Woodhay. Sunday evening is the time for courting, in the country. It is not convenient to carry this on before faces, and, at farmhouses and cottages, there are no spare apartments; so that the pairs turn out, and pitch up, to carry on their negociations, by the side of stile or a gate. The evening was auspicious; it was pretty dark, the weather mild, and Old Michaelmas (when yearly services end) was fast approaching; and, accordingly, I do not recollect ever having before seen so many negociations going on, within so short a distance. At West Woodhay my horse cast a shoe, and, as the road was abominably flinty, we were compelled to go at a snail’s pace: and I should have gone crazy with impatience, had it not been for these ambassadors and ambassadresses of Cupid, to every pair of whom I said something or other. I began by asking the fellow my road; and, from the tone and manner of his answer, I could tell pretty nearly what prospect he had of success, and knew what to say to draw something from him. I had some famous sport with them, saying to them more than I should have said by daylight, and a great deal less than I should have said, if my horse had been in a condition to carry me away as swiftly as he did from Osmond Ricardo’s terrific cross! “There!” exclaims Mrs. Scrip, the stock-jobber’s young wife, to her old hobbling wittol of a spouse, “You see, my love, that this mischievous man could not let even these poor peasants alone.” “Peasants! you dirty-necked devil, and where got you that word? You, who, but a few years ago, came, perhaps, up from the country in a wagon; who made the bed you now sleep in; and who got the husband by helping him to get his wife out of the world, as some young party-coloured blade is to get you and the old rogue’s money by a similar process!”
We got to Burghclere about eight o’clock, after a very disagreeable day; but we found ample compensation in the house, and all within it, that we were now arrived at.