And there is another stone with a threat as grim as that of the Bard of Avon, for the epitaph expresses the wish that

“Whoever Removes this Stone
Or causes it to be
Removed
May he die the last of
All his Friends.”

The stone lies flat, above the grave, and our guide declared,

“I had an unco hard time to get a photo of it for my book, for I did na fancy moving it, to be sure.”

“Your book? And have you written a book?” He was off in a moment and with almost boyish enthusiasm brought forth a neat volume, “Poetry and Prose of Walter Laidlaw, F. S. A.,” and we found on later perusal that it has not a little of true poetic fire, of which an example or two may not be amiss. It is not strange that one so full of patriotism and admiration for his native Scotland should deprecate the tendency of her people to emigrate to foreign lands, and he expostulates as follows:

But not all of his fellow-countrymen feel so about it, and numbers of them all over the world are “gathering gear” year after year with proverbial thriftiness, though they seldom lose their love for old Caledonia, or forget—to quote Mr. Laidlaw again:

Besides the poems, the book contains several addresses and essays which show the bent of Mr. Laidlaw’s mind, among them, “Robert Burns,” “Dr. John Leyden,” and “The Songs of Scotland.”

Besides his literary achievements, we learned that Mr. Laidlaw is a Fellow of the Scotch Antiquarian Society and a recognized authority on the antiquities of Jedburgh and vicinity. We left him with regret, and hope that some day our wanderings may enable us to renew his acquaintance.

We followed the Teviot road to Kelso, a few miles away, where the substantial and comfortable appearance of the Cross Keys induced us to stop for the night—after an investigation by which we assured ourselves that conditions within accorded with outward appearances, a practice to which we had become more and more partial.

Kelso is situated at the junction of the Teviot and the Tweed, and is surrounded by an exceedingly picturesque country. A fine view is afforded from the stone-arched bridge over the Tweed—westward the Eildon Hills, beloved of Scott, are visible in the blue distance, and, nearer at hand, the moorish facade of Floors Castle, against a mass of somber woods. The river is greatly broadened here and the meeting of its waters with the Teviot is celebrated in song and story. Of Kelso Abbey little remains save the shattered central tower and a few straggling walls. It was one of the smaller ecclesiastical establishments of Scotland founded by David I. in 1130 and was burned by the English during the invasion of 1545.

Closely following the beautiful Tweed road, which for the greater part of the distance to Coldstream keeps in full view of the river, we re-cross the border quite early on the following morning.

XIV
MORE YORKSHIRE WANDERINGS

Flodden Field lies adjacent to the road which we pursued southward from the Tweed, but there is little now to indicate the location of the historic battlefield. Song and story have done much to immortalize a conflict whose results were not especially important or far-reaching—the world knows of it chiefly through the vivid lines of “Marmion.” It is not worth while to follow our hasty flight to the south; we are again bound for the Yorkshire moors and the distance we must cover ere night will not admit of loitering.

At Chillingham Castle we see the herd of native wild cattle made famous by Landseer’s picture. The keeper led us into the park within a hundred yards of a group of animals, which have become so tame that they took no notice of our presence. The cattle are white, with long curving horns and black muzzles, and the purity of the stock is carefully maintained. The herd is believed to be a direct descendant of the wild ox of Europe, the progenitor of our domestic cattle, and its preservation is quite analogous to the few remaining buffaloes in America. The animals retain many peculiarities of their wild state; one of the most remarkable of these is the habit which the young calves have of dropping suddenly to the ground when surprised. The bulls are often dangerous and it is related that King Edward, when Prince of Wales, killed one of the animals, arresting with a well-aimed shot its savage charge toward him. Evidently the present prince did not care to repeat his father’s experience, for he had been at Chillingham a few days before and declined the opportunity offered him by the Earl of Tankerville of slaying the king of the herd.

“’E said ’e ’adn’t time,” explained the keeper with an air of disgust that showed he looked on the prince’s excuse as a mere subterfuge.

On a former occasion we had failed to gain admittance to Alnwick Castle, owing to a visit of the king the previous day. We were more successful this time and were conducted through the portions usually shown to visitors, chiefly the remaining parts of the old fortress—the “castle good” that in early days “threatened Scotland’s wastes.” The home of the warlike Percys for many generations, few castles in England have figured more in ballad and story and few have been the center of more stirring scenes. But the old castle is almost lost in the palace of today, upon which the late Duke of Northumberland is said to have expended the enormous sum of three hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling. The walls at present enclose an area of five acres and it would be hard to imagine more pleasing vistas of forest and meadowland than those which greet one from the battlements. The great park is worthy of the castle, and taken altogether there is perhaps no finer feudal estate in England.

From Alnwick to Newcastle and from Newcastle to Darlington the road is familiar; only an occasional town or village interferes with our flight to the southward. Newcastle, with its bad approaches and crowded, slippery streets, causes the greatest loss of time, but we make it up on the broad, level stretch of the Great North Road to Darlington. At Richmond we leave the lowlands and strike directly across the rough moorland road to Leyburn in Wensleydale.

Here in the remote Yorkshire hills is one of the most romantic bits of England and within a comparatively small space is much of historic interest. Shall we go to Bolton Castle, which we see off yonder, grim and almost forbidding in the falling twilight? Its jagged towers and broken battlements are outlined darkly against the distant hills; indeed, in the dim light it seems almost a part of the hills themselves. We follow the rough narrow road that dwindles almost to a footpath as it approaches the village. Our car splashes through a rapid, unbridged little river, climbs the steep bank, creeps through tangled thickets, until it emerges into the main street of Castle Bolton, if a wide grass-grown road with a few lichen-covered cottages on either side may be dignified with the name. At the end of the street, towering over the slate-roofed hovels about it, is the castle, its walls in fairly good repair and three of its four original towers still standing. The fourth crumbled and collapsed from the battering Cromwell gave it—for even this remote fortress in the moors did not escape the vengeance of the Protector.

The history of Bolton Castle is long and varied—too long to tell in detail. It was built in the twelfth century by Richard, the first Lord Scrope, founder of the family, which figured so largely in the fierce struggles of the northern border. From that time to the death of the last representative of the family in 1630, Bolton Castle was almost continually the center of stirring scenes. The Archbishop of York in 1405 was a Scrope, and he preached a fiery sermon denouncing the reigning King Henry as an usurper. The bold churchman lost his head for his temerity, but his execution sowed the seed of the long and terrible wars of the Roses. Nor will the reader of “Marmion” forget Scott’s reference to “Lord Scrope of Bolton, stern and stout,” who with “all Wensleydale did wend” to join the English at Flodden Field. The closing scene came like the closing scene of many an English castle, when Col. Scrope, the last owner, was compelled to surrender to the forces of Parliament and the castle was dismantled. Since then it has stood stern and lonely in the Yorkshire hills, and nearly three centuries of decay have added to the ruin wrought by the captors.

But there is a roselight of romance that enwraps the shattered towers of Bolton, for does not the moorland ruin call up a thousand memories of Mary Stuart, yet in the flower of her youth, ere long years of imprisonment had stolen the color from her face and touched it with the shade of melancholy that seldom left it? Here was her first prison; she came as an unwilling guest after her ill-advised visit to Carlisle in 1568, and remained a charge of Lord Scrope for nearly two years. The room she occupied is large and gloomy, with but one small window looking westward over the hills—the same window, legend declares, by which she escaped from the castle, only to be shortly recaptured by Lord Scrope’s retainers. Her captivity at Bolton, while less rigorous than in later years, was none the less a captivity, and while she was allowed to go hawking, she was always under close surveillance. Very likely she did try to escape, for in such an escapade the unhappy queen never lacked for accomplices, even among her gaolers. But fate was ever unkind to Mary Stuart, and though many times her fortune seemed evenly balanced, some lack of judgment on part of herself or her followers thwarted the plans for regaining her liberty. They tell that in leaving Bolton in this attempt, her friends followed the river road to Leyburn when a dash over the moors to the north might have insured success. It all seems very real to one who stands in the gloomy apartment at twilight and looks from the window down the steep narrow road leading to the valley—no doubt the one Mary followed in her effort to get out of her arch-enemy’s clutches, which ended in such heart-breaking failure.

But it is waxing late and we will descend the same hill and follow the same road to Leyburn. Leyburn is gray and bleak in the falling night, with a wide bare market place paved with rough cobblestones, shorn, alas, a few decades ago, of its fine old market cross and town hall—in a spirit of “improvement!” The prospect for good cheer is far from flattering, but we must stop in Leyburn perforce. The Bolton Arms seems to promise the best, but it is full and the Golden Lion offers the only alternative. It is a typical second-class village inn, not overly clean. It appears more of an alehouse than hotel, for a crowd of villagers and farmers is tippling at the bar.

Directly across the river from Leyburn is Middleham, the old-time capital of Wensleydale and one of the quaintest and least modernized towns it was our good fortune to see. The drab-colored buildings straggle up the hill upon whose crest sits Middleham Castle, grim, vast and wholly ruinous. And after wandering through the maze of shattered walls and tottering towers, it seemed to us that here was the very ideal of ruined castles. We had seen many of them, but none more awe-inspiring, none more suggestive of the power of the cataclysm which left such fortresses, seemingly impregnable as the hills themselves, in shapeless wreck and ruin. Here and there the ivy and wall flower mantled the nakedness of the mouldering stone, and a stout sapling of several years’ growth had fastened its roots in the deep mould high on one of the towers. Truly, Cromwell did his work well at Middleham. Such a stronghold could be dealt with only by gunpowder mines, which were responsible for the cracked and sundered walls and the shapeless masses of stone and mortar which have never been cleared away.

But it is no task of mine to tell the story of Richard III.—only to recall his associations with Middleham. And we noted on one of the two ancient town crosses the rudely carved figure of a boar, the emblem of this ruthless king. Altogether, Middleham is very unique—old-world describes it better than any other term, perhaps. There is scarcely a jarring note of any kind; the only thing approaching mediocrity and seemingly much out of place, is the Victoria Jubilee Fountain. And the customs of the town still have a savor of medievalism—bulls were baited within the memory of living men.

The thought that first occurs, when one learns that Jervaulx Priory is not far from Middleham, is of Prior Aylmer and “Ivanhoe”—showing how the creations of the Wizard of the North often take precedence in one’s mind over actual history—nay, rather have supplanted historical knowledge altogether, for we know nothing of the history of Jervaulx and will not take the pains to learn. It is enough to wander through its grounds, now kept with all possible care and neatness—every moss-grown stone replaced as nearly as possible in its original position and every detail of the abbey marked with exactness on the sward—and to know that the old story of monastic poverty, pomp and downfall has been repeated here. It is near the roadside and though private property, one may easily gain access by application at the keeper’s cottage. The ruins are scanty indeed—little more than mere outlines of the abbey church and monastery and a few isolated columns and fragments of wall is to be seen—but the landscape gardener has come to the rescue and out of the scattered fragments has wrought an harmonious and pleasing effect. The situation is one of surpassing loveliness, just at the foot of the hills on the river Ure, which rushes between almost precipitous banks, over which its tributaries fall in glittering cascades. The soft summer air is murmurous with their music and the song of birds. There is no one but ourselves on the ground; no guide is with us to drone over prosaic history and to point out nave and transept—and this and that. As we wander almost dreamily about, we come very near to the spirit of monastic days. It is easy to imagine the old-time state of the abbey under Prior Aylmer, “when the good fathers of Jervaulx drank sweet wines and lived on the fat of the land.” Even in that halcyon time it is doubtful if the surroundings were half so lovely as today.

But we have mused long enough at Jervaulx—“Jervo,” as the railway company officially declares it; “Jarvey,” as the natives perversely term it. The day is still young and an uninterrupted run over the winding moorland road brings us to Ripon before noon. The low square-topped towers of the cathedral break on our view as we descend the hill to the Ure, upon whose banks Ripon sits.

Ripon Cathedral is well-nigh forgotten by pilgrims who would see the great Yorkshire churches—so far is it surpassed by York Minster and Beverley. But after all, it is an imposing church and of great antiquity, for a monastery was established on the present site in the seventh century and St. Wilfred, the famous Archbishop of York, built the minster. Of this ancient building the crypt still remains, and to see it we followed the verger down a steep, narrow flight of stairs into a series of dungeonlike apartments beneath the forward end of the nave.

Perhaps the most curious relic is St. Wilfred’s Needle, a small window in the thick wall of the crypt, and various merits have been attributed to anyone who could pass through it. In old days this was proof of innocence against any charge of crime; but just now the young woman who can perform the somewhat acrobatic feat will be married within a year—rather a discrimination against the more buxom maidens.

About four hundred years after the founding of the Saxon monastery, the present church was built; but it was not until 1836 that it was elevated to the rank of a cathedral. Like York Minster, Ripon is singularly devoid of tombs of famous men, though there are many fine monuments and brasses to the noble families of the vicinity. The architecture is strangely mixed, owing to the many alterations that have been made from time to time. The exterior must have been far more imposing before the removal of the wooden spires which rose above the towers. Ripon is a quiet, old-world market town, progressive in its way, but having little resource other than the rich agricultural country around it. There are many quaint streets and odd corners that attract the lover of such things. A queer relic of the olden days that arouses the curiosity of the visitor is the blowing of a horn at nine in the evening before the town cross by the constable. The sojourner will not be at a loss for comfortable entertainment, since the Unicorn Hotel fulfills the best traditions of English inns.

To come within hailing distance of York means that we cannot remain away from that charming old city; and the early afternoon finds us passing Bootham Bar. The rest of the day we give to a detailed study of the minster—our fourth visit, nor are we weary of York Minster yet.

Pontefract—the Pomfret of olden time—lies about twenty miles southwest of York. Its very name takes us back to Roman times—Pontem Fractem, the place of the broken bridge. It is a town that figured much in early English history and its grim old castle may hold the mystery of the death of King Richard II. We came here under lowering skies, and passing the partly ruined church, climbed the steep hill where the castle—or rather the scanty remnant of it—still stands. Verily, “ruin greenly dwells” about the old fortress of Pontefract; the walls were laden heavily with ivy, the greensward covered the floor of the keep, and the courtyard has been converted into a public garden. There is so little left that it would require a vivid imagination to reconstruct the strong and lordly fortress, which endured no fewer than three sieges during the civil war. The first resulted disastrously to the Parliamentary forces and the second was successful only after a long period and very heavy losses, and even then the garrison was given the honors of the war; yet after all this strenuous work, the castle was again lost to the Royalists through a trifling bit of strategy.

The commander became so negligent through a false sense of security that a handful of adventurers gained admission to the castle, and driving out the few soldiers who happened to be inside—most of the garrison was quartered in the town—possessed themselves of the fortress. A third siege was thus made necessary and such was the strength of the castle that nearly a year elapsed before it finally fell—holding out for some time after Charles was beheaded. Even then, favorable terms were again granted to the defenders, though Col. Morris, who devised the successful capture, and five others, were specifically excepted from the amnesty. Much to the disgust of the captors, Morris escaped for the time, though a little later he was taken and hanged at York. Thus ended the active history of Pontefract Castle, but it was considered dangerous to the Commonwealth and was almost completely razed, the walls being mined with gunpowder.

But it would take a volume to record the vicissitudes that have befallen the mouldering ruin at our feet. The rain is falling more heavily; let us on to Wakefield, whose spire we might easily see were it not for the gray veil which hides the landscape. For Wakefield spire is the loftiest in Yorkshire—a slender, pointed shaft rising to a height of two hundred and forty-seven feet over a much altered church that was elevated to the rank of cathedral in 1888. As it now stands, the interior is chiefly Perpendicular, though there are many touches of the Decorated and Early English styles. It is characterized by grace and lightness, giving an altogether pleasing effect. The windows exhibit as fine modern glass as we saw in the Kingdom, and go far to prove that the disrepute into which modern glass has fallen is largely due to lack of artistic taste and a desire for cheapness. Such windows as those at Wakefield are far from a reproach on the art of the stained-glass maker. So much has the church been restored and added to that it gives as a whole an impression of newness that seems strange in an English cathedral—for there has been no cathedral built in England since St. Paul’s, more than two hundred years ago.

When we come to Barnsley, a few miles to the south, the rain, which has gradually increased, is falling in torrents, and we resolve to take respite from the cold and damp for our belated luncheon. We seek out the King’s Head, for an English friend has told us that twenty-five years ago this hotel was famous for the best mutton chop in England. Traditions never die in Britain, and we doubt not the King’s Head still retains its proud distinction. It does not, however, present an especially attractive appearance; it is rather dingy and time-worn, but any place might seem a little dreary on such a day. Yes, the King’s Head still serves the Barnsley chop, and we will have it, though we must wait a half hour for it. And the recollection of the luncheon comes like a gleam of sunshine into a dark, rainy day, and effaces all memory of the first unfavorable impression of the King’s Head.

A Barnsley chop defies all description; its mighty dimensions might be given, its juicy tenderness might be descanted upon; all the language at the epicure’s command might be called into action, and yet, after all, only he who has actually eaten a Barnsley chop would have an adequate idea of its savory excellence. O, yes! They imitate it at other hotels, both in and out of Barnsley, so said the manageress, but after all, the King’s Head alone can prepare the original and only Barnsley chop; it alone has devised the peculiar process whereby the truly wonderful result is obtained. Verily, after eating it we sallied forth into the driving rain feeling something of the spirit of the ancient Roman who declared, “Fate cannot harm me—I have dined today.”

Three or four miles out of Barnsley on a byway off the Doncaster road is the village of Darfield, whose church illustrates the interest one may so often find in out-of-the-way spots in England. Thither we drove through the heavy rain, and as we stopped in front of the church at the end of the village street, a few of the natives who happened to be abroad paused under dripping umbrellas to stare at us. I do not wonder at their astonishment, for from their point of view persons motoring in search of old churches on such a day might well have their sanity questioned.

The ceiling is painted blue, with stars and feathery clouds—clearly a representation of the heavens—and it seemed an age since we had seen them, too. There are many elaborate carvings; the massive Jacobean cover over the baptismal font, the fine black-oak bench-ends of the seventeenth century, and a splendid coffer in the vestry, are all treasures worthy of notice. A Bible with heavy wooden covers is chained to a solid oaken stand—suggestive of the days when a man’s piety might lead him to steal the rare copies of the Scripture. A beautifully wrought though scarred and dilapidated alabaster tomb has recumbent figures of a knight and his lady in costumes of the time of Richard II., and another tomb bears some very quaint devices, among them an owl with a crown upon its head.

It is our third visit to Doncaster, and the giant church tower has become a familiar object. Its very stateliness is exaggerated by the dead level of the town and today it rises dim and vast against the leaden, rain-swept sky, but though it is easily the most conspicuous object in the town, the fine old church does not constitute Doncaster’s chief claim to fame. Here is the horse-racing center of Yorkshire, and on its “Leger Day” it is probably the liveliest town in England. The car shops of the Great Northern Railway keep it quietly busy for the rest of the year. But as the racing center of a horse-loving shire, it would be strange if it had not acquired during the ages a reputation for conviviality. That it had such a reputation a century or more ago is evidenced by the example of its mayor, set forth by a ballad-maker of the period:

We pass on to the southward and pause in the main street of the quiet village of Scrooby, just on the Yorkshire border, where good authorities insist the idea of American colonization was first conceived. Here Elder Brewster, one of the chief founders of the Plymouth Colony, was born in 1567, and here he passed his boyhood days. The manor-house where he lived and where he met Rev. John Robinson and William Bradford is no longer standing; but it is not unreasonable to suppose that the plan of leaving England for the new world may have been consummated here by these earnest men, who held themselves persecuted for righteousness’ sake. After varied fortunes they sailed on the Mayflower in 1620.

We are now leaving old Yorkshire with its waste moorlands, its wide, fertile valleys, its narrow, picturesque dales, its quaint old towns and modern cities, its castles and abbeys, and, more than all, its associations of the past which reach out even to the shores of our native land, and we leave it with the keenest regret. It has fallen to us as it has to few to traverse the highways and byways of every section of the great county, and I can but be sensible as to how feebly my pages reflect the things that charmed us. If an American and a stranger is so impressed, how must the native Englishman feel when wandering among these memorials of the past? I cannot close my chapter more fitly than to quote the words of one who in poetic phrase has written much of Yorkshire and its history:

“But any man will spend a month in wandering round Yorkshire, with ears awake to all the great voices of the past, and eyes open to the beauty which is so peculiarly English, he will find the patriotic passion roused again, real and living; and thenceforth the rivers and the glaciers of other lands will be to him no more than the parks and palaces of other men compared with the white gateway and the low veranda which speaks to him of home.”

XV
ROUND ABOUT WILTSHIRE

Our run from Nottingham to Oxford was uneventful, for we roved rather at random for the day through the delightful Midland country. At Nottingham one will find the Victoria is quite up to the standard of station-hotel excellence in England and the rates refreshingly low. The city itself will not detain one long, for the great wave of modern progress that has inundated it has swept away most of its ancient landmarks. The old castle, once the key to the Northlands, has been superseded by a palatial structure which now serves as museum and art gallery. Unless one would see factories, machine shops and lace-making works, there will be little to keep him in Nottingham.

We follow the well-surfaced road to the southeast, and though steep in places, its hills afford splendid views of the landscape. The rain interferes much with the prospect, but in the lulls we catch glimpses of long reaches of meadowland dotted with solitary trees, rich with the emerald greenness that follows summer rain in England.

Melton Mowbray has a proud distinction, for does not the infallible Baedeker accord it the honor of being the “hunting capital of the Midlands?” And the assertion that it is famous for its pork pies very appropriately follows, a matter of cause and effect, perhaps, for the horde of hungry huntsmen who congregate in the town would hardly be satisfied with anything less substantial than an English pork pie. Melton Mowbray has a competitor in Market Harborough, some twenty miles farther, where we stopped for luncheon at a pleasant wayside inn. Each of these towns has a population of about seven thousand, chiefly dependent upon the hunting industry—if I may use such a term—and certain it is that fox hunting is about the only vocation toward which many of the Midland squires are at all industriously inclined. One is simply astounded at the hold the sport has in England and the amount of time and money devoted to it; a leading authority estimates that not less than nine million pounds is spent yearly by the hunters. In a summer tour one sees comparatively little of it, but in the autumn and winter these towns doubtless exhibit great activity, and their streets, crowded with red-coated huntsmen and packs of yelping dogs, must be decidedly picturesque.

From Market Harborough a straight, narrow road carried us swiftly southward toward Northampton and we passed through the Bringtons, of whose memories of the Washingtons I have written in an earlier chapter. The rain, which had been falling fitfully during the day, ceased and the sun came out with a brilliancy that completely transformed the landscape. All about us was the dense green of the trees and meadowlands, bejeweled with sparkling raindrops and dashed with the gold of the ripening grain, stretching away until lost in the purple mist of the distance. Even the roadside pools glowed crimson and gold, and altogether the scene was one of transcendent beauty and freshness. It was exhilarating indeed as our open car swept over the fine Oxford road, passing through the ancient towns of Towcester, Buckingham and Bicester. There is no more beautiful or fertile country in the Island than that around Oxford, and it was a welcome change to see it basking in the sunshine after our dull days on the Yorkshire moors.

One never wearies of Oxford, and the Randolph Hotel is worth a run of many miles to reach at nightfall. Aristocratic, spacious and quiet, with an indefinable atmosphere of the great universities about it, it appeals to both the bodily and aesthetic senses of the wayfarer—but Oxford, with all its interest and charm, has no place in this chronicle, and we leave it, however loath, in the early morning. We hasten over the Berkshire Hills through Abingdon into Wiltshire, where there is much to engage our attention.

Swindon, the first town we encounter after passing the border, is an up-to-date city of fifty thousand people and the newness everywhere apparent, the asphalt pavement and the numerous tram lines impress one with its similarity to live American towns. We learn that it is practically a creation of the Great Western Railway, whose shops give employment to a large proportion of the population. Clearly, there is nothing for us in Swindon and we hasten on to Chippenham, which has the traditions which Swindon so wofully lacks. It is a staid old town of six thousand and was important in Saxon times, having frequent mention in the chronicles of Alfred’s wars with the Danes. Strange indeed the mutations of time—strange it seems that the now decadent and negligible Denmark once sent her “fair-haired despots of the sea” into this remote section of the present mistress of the seas. The town is full of odd old houses and it is the center of one of the most interesting spots in England, as I hope to be able to show. But its hotel would hardly invite a long sojourn; we stop for luncheon at the Angel, and are placed at a large table with several rather red-faced gentlemen who discuss horses and hunting dogs as vigorously as a lively onslaught on the host’s vintage and good cheer permits.

Lacock is only four miles away and they tell us that we should see the abbey; but they do not tell us that the village itself is worth a day’s journey and that the abbey is only secondary. They do not tell us this, because no one about Lacock knows it. The utter unconsciousness and genuineness of the village is not its least charm. Lacock never dreams of being a show place or tourist resort; but despite its unconsciousness, anyone who has seen England as we have seen it will know that Lacock is not easily matched for its wealth of old stone and timber houses and its quaint, genuine antiquity. It is perhaps a trifle severe and its picturesqueness is of a melancholy and somber kind—thatched roofs are few, ivy-clad walls and flower gardens are wanting; there is little color save an occasional red roof to relieve the all-pervading gray monotone. Its timbered houses are not the imitations one sees so often, even in England, or the modernized old buildings shining in black and white paint, but the genuine article, with weathered oak timbers and lichen-covered brick. There are many projecting upper stories and sharp gables with casement windows of diamond panes set in rusty iron frames. The Lacock of today is truly a voice from the past. It must have been practically the same two or three hundred years ago. Its houses, its streets, its church and its very atmosphere carry one back to the England of Shakespeare.

Such a village seems a fitting introduction to the abbey at whose gates it sits; and the abbey itself, gray and ancient like the village, is one of the most perfect monastic buildings in England. Nowhere else did we see what seemed to us a more appropriate home for romance than this great rambling pile of towered and gabled buildings, with a hundred odd nooks and corners, each of which might well have a story of its own. It is opened freely to visitors by its owner, Mr. Talbot, himself an antiquarian of note, who is glad to share his unbounded delight in the old place with anyone who may care to come. We were shown in detail the parts of the abbey that have a special historic and architectural interest. It is guarded carefully and the atmosphere of antiquity jealously preserved. Even the stone steps of the main entrance are grass-grown and moss-covered—“and he wont let us clean them up,” said our guide.

Inside there are many fine apartments and notable relics. The arched cloisters, the chapter house, the refectory and other haunts of the nuns, are in quite the original state. The immense stone fishtank from a solid block sixteen feet long and the great bronze cauldron show that good cheer was quite as acceptable to the nuns as to their brethren. But the exterior of the abbey and the beautiful grounds surrounding it impressed us most. All about were splendid trees and plots of shrubbery, and the Bristol Avon flows through the park. We heard what we thought the rush of its waters, but our guide told us that it was the quaking aspens which fringe the river banks, keeping up their age-long sigh that their species had supplied the wood for the cross. No day is so still that you do not hear them in summer time. We passed around the building to note from different viewpoints its quaint outlines and its great rambling facades with crowded, queerly assorted gables, battlemented towers and turrets, and mysterious corners, all combining to make it the very ideal of the abbey of romance. How easy, when contemplating it in the dim twilight or by the light of a full moon, for the imagination to re-people it with its old-time habitants; and surely, if the ghosts of the gray nuns ever return to their earthly haunts, Lacock Abbey must have such visitants.

At the postcard shop, where we buy a few pictures and souvenirs of Lacock, the young woman tells us of other Wiltshire nooks that we should see. Do we know of Sloperton Cottage, of Bromham Church, of Corsham, of Yatton Keynell and Castle Combe? These are only a few, in fact, but they are the ones that strike our fancy most and we thank our informant, who follows us to point out the roads. And never had we more need of such assistance, for our search for Sloperton Cottage involves us in a maze of unmarked byways that wind between tall hedges and overarching trees.

And what of Sloperton Cottage? Are you, dear reader, so ignorant as we were, not to know that Tom Moore, the darling poet of Erin, lived in Sloperton Cottage with his beloved Bessie for a third of a century and that both are buried at Bromham Church near at hand? One had surely thought to find his grave in the “ould sod” rather than in the very heart of rural England; but so it is; and after much inquiry we enter the lonely lane that leads to Sloperton Cottage and pause before the long low building, heavily mantled with ivy and roses, though almost hidden from the road by the tall hedge in front. We had been told that it is the private home of two ladies, sisters of the owner, and we have no thought of intruding in such a case—but a neat maid appears at the gateway as we look, no doubt rather longingly, at the house.

“Miss ——,” said she, “would be pleased to have you come in and see the cottage.”

Here is unexpected good fortune, and coming voluntarily to us, we feel free to accept the invitation. We see the cottage and gardens, which are much the same as when occupied by the poet, though some of the furniture has been replaced. The garden to the rear, sweet with old-fashioned flowers, we are told was a favorite resort of the author of “Lalla Rookh” and that he composed much of his verse here, lying on his back and gazing at the sky through over-arching branches. The cottage is quite unpretentious and the whole place is so cozy and secluded as to be an ideal retreat for the muses, and as an English writer has observed:

“It would be an unfeeling person who could stand today before this leafy cottage, so snugly tucked away by a shady Wiltshire lane, without some stirring of the pulse, if only for the sake of the melodies. If they are not great, they are the most felicitous and feeling English verse, taken as a whole, ever set to music, and are certainly world-famous and probably immortal. No one would wish to submit “Dear Harp of My Country” or “Oft in the Stilly Night” to the cold light of poetic criticism. But when the conscientious expert has finished with “Lalla Rookh” and the “Loves of the Angels” and consigned them to oblivion, he goes into another chamber, so to speak, and relaxes into unrestrained praise of the melodies.”

Moore must have written much of the “melodies” at Sloperton Cottage, but before he came here his fame had been made by his oriental poems, whose music and glitter caused them to be greatly over-estimated at the time. As we take our leave and thank the ladies for the courtesy, we are told that the cottage is to let and that we may so inform any of our friends. We do so herewith and can add our unqualified personal indorsement of Sloperton Cottage.

Bromham Church, one of the most graceful of the country churches we have seen, is near at hand. It stands against a background of fine trees with a hedge-surmounted stone wall in front. It is mainly in the Perpendicular style and a slender spire rises from its square battlemented tower. The stained windows are very large, each with many tall upright stone mullions; one is a memorial to the poet and another to his wife, whose memory still lingers as one of the best-loved women of the countryside. She survived the poet, who died in 1852, by fourteen years. They lie buried just outside the north wall of the church. The grave is marked by a tall Celtic cross, only recently erected, and the occasion was observed by a gathering of distinguished Irishmen in honor of the memory of their poet. On the pedestal of the cross is graven a verse which truly gives Moore’s best claim to remembrance: