Clopton Bridge.
From Clopton's bridge upward the river winds capriciously between banks that are sometimes fringed with willows and sometimes bordered with grassy meadows or patches of woodland or cultivated lawns, enclosing villas that seem the chosen homes of all this world can give of loveliness and peace. The course is now entirely clear for several miles. Not till you pass the foot of Alveston village does any obstacle present itself; but there, as well as a little further on, by Hatton Rock, the stream runs shallow and the current becomes very swift, dashing over sandy banks and great masses of tangled grass and weeds. These are "the rapids," and through these the mariner must make his way by adroit steering and a vigorous and expert use of oars and boat-hooks. The Avon now is bowered by tall trees, and upon the height that it skirts you see the house of Ryon Hill,—celebrated in the novel of Asphodel, by Miss Braddon. This part of the river, closed in from the world and presenting in each direction twinkling vistas of sun and shadow, is especially lovely. Here, in a quiet hour, the creatures that live along these shores will freely show themselves and their busy ways. The water-rat comes out of his hole and nibbles at the reeds or swims sturdily across the stream. The moor-hen flutters out of her nest, among the long, green rushes, and skims from bank to bank. The nimble little wagtail flashes through the foliage. The squirrel leaps among the boughs, and the rabbit scampers into the thicket. Sometimes a kingfisher, with his shining azure shield, pauses for a[176] moment among the gnarled roots upon the brink. Sometimes a heron, disturbed in her nest, rises suddenly upon her great wings and soars grandly away. Once, rowing down this river at nearly midnight, I surprised an otter and heard the splash of his precipitate retreat. The ghost of an old gypsy, who died by suicide upon this wooded shore, is said to haunt the neighbouring crag; but this, like all other ghosts that ever I came near, eluded equally my vision and my desire. But it is a weird spot at night.
Charlecote, from the Terrace.
Near Alveston mill you must drag your boat over a narrow strip of land and launch her again for Charlecote. Now once more this delicious water-way is broad and fine. As it sweeps past a stately, secluded home, once that of the ancient family of Peers, toward the Wellesbourne Road, a great bed of cultivated white water-lilies [hitherto they have all been yellow] adorns it, and soon there are glimpses of the deer that browse or prance or slumber beneath the magnificent oaks and elms and limes and chestnuts of Charlecote Park. No view of Charlecote can compare with the view of it that is obtained from the river; and if its proprietor values its reputation for beauty he ought to be glad that lovers of the beautiful sometimes have an opportunity to see it from this point. The older wing, with its oriel window and quaint belfry, is of a peculiar, mellow red, relieved against bright green ivy, to which only the brush of a painter could do justice. Nothing more delicious, in its way, is to be found; at least, the only piece of architecture in this region that excels it in beauty of colour is the ancient house of Compton-Wynyate; but that is a marvel of loveliness, the gem of Warwickshire, and, in romantic quaintness, it surpasses all its fellows. The towers of the main building of Charlecote are octagon, and a happy alternation of thin and slender with thick, truncated turrets much enhances the effect of quaintness in this grave and opulent edifice. A walled terrace, margined with urns and blazing with flowers of gold and crimson, extends from the river front to the waterside, and terminates in a broad flight of stone steps, at the foot of which are moored the barges of the house of Lucy. No spectacle could suggest more of aristocratic state and austere magnificence than this sequestered edifice does, standing there, silent, antique, venerable, gorgeous, surrounded by its vast, thick-wooded park, and musing, as it has done for hundreds of years, on the silver Avon that murmurs at its base. Close by there is a lovely waterfall, over which some little tributary of the river descends in a fivefold wave of shimmering crystal, wafting a music that is heard in every chamber of the house and in all the fields and woodlands round about. It needs the sun to bring out the rich colours of Charlecote, but once when I saw it from the river a storm was coming on, and vast masses of black and smoke-coloured cloud were driving over it, in shapeless blocks and jagged streamers, while countless frightened birds were whirling above it; and presently, when the fierce lightning flashed across the heavens and a deluge of rain descended and beat upon it, a more romantic sight was never seen.
The Abbey Mills, Tewkesbury.
Above Charlecote the Avon grows narrow for a space, and after you pass under Hampton Lucy bridge your boat is much entangled in river grass and much impeded by whirls and eddies of the shallowing stream. There is another mill at Hampton Lucy, and a little way beyond the village your further progress upward is stopped by a waterfall,—beyond which, however, and accessible by the usual expedient of dragging the boat over the land, a noble reach of the river is disclosed, stretching away toward Warwick, where the wonderful Castle, and sweet St. Mary's tower, and Leicester's hospital, and the cosy Warwick Arms await your coming,—with mouldering Kenilworth and majestic Stoneleigh Abbey reserved to lure you still further afield. But the scene around Hampton Lucy is not one to be quickly left. There the meadows are rich and green and fragrant. There the large trees give grateful shade and make sweet music in the summer wind. There, from the ruddy village, thin spires of blue smoke curl upward through the leaves and seem to tell of comfort and content beneath. At a little distance the gray tower of the noble church,—an edifice of peculiar and distinctive majesty, and one well worthy of the exceptional beauty enshrined within it,—rears itself among the elms. Close by the sleek and indolent cattle are couched upon the cool sod, looking at you with large, soft, lustrous, indifferent eyes. The waterfall sings on, with its low melancholy plaint, while sometimes the silver foam of it is caught up and whirled away by the breeze. The waves sparkle on the running stream, and the wildflowers, in gay myriads, glance and glimmer on the velvet shore. And so, as the sun is setting and the rooks begin to fly homeward, you breathe the fragrant air from Scarbank and look upon a veritable place that Shakespeare may have had in mind when he wrote his line of endless melody—
"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows."[41]