THOMAS HARDY'S DORSET

Works by the same Author

RUDYARD KIPLING: A CHARACTER STUDY
GEORGE BORROW: LORD OF THE OPEN ROAD
WAR AND THE WEIRD
THE AMBER GIRL
KIPLING'S SUSSEX
FRIENDLY SUSSEX. (In the Press)

THOMAS HARDY'S
DORSET
BY R. THURSTON HOPKINS

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY E. HARRIES
AND FROM PHOTOGRAPHS

NEW YORK
D APPLETON AND COMPANY
1922

FIRST
EDITION
1922
COPY-
RIGHT

Printed in Great Britain by the Riverside Press Limited
Edinburgh

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

THOMAS HARDY'S
DORSET

CHAPTER I DORSET FOLK AND DORSET WAYS

So to the land our hearts we give

Till the sure magic strike,

And Memory, Use, and Love make live

Us and our fields alike—

That deeper than our speech and thought

Beyond our reason's sway,

Clay of the pit whence we were wrought

Yearns to its fellow-clay.

Rudyard Kipling.

To the traveller who takes an interest in the place he visits, Dorset will prove one of the most highly attractive counties in the kingdom. To the book-lover it is a land of grand adventure, for here is the centre of the Hardy Country, the home of the Wessex Novels. It is in Dorset that ancient superstitions and curious old customs yet linger, and strange beliefs from ages long ago still survive. It is good to find that the kindly hospitality, the shrewd wisdom and dry wit, for which the peasantry in Thomas Hardy's novels are famous, have not been weakened by foolish folk who seek to be "up to date." Old drinks and dishes that represent those of our forefathers, and the mellow sound of the speech that was so dear to Raleigh and Drake, are things that are now giving way to the new order of life, alas! but they are dying hard, as behoves things which are immemorial and sacramental. The rustics are perhaps not quite so witty as they are in Hardy's The Return of the Native and other novels, but they possess the robust forms and simple manners of a fine old agricultural people, while they show their spirit by the proverb, "I will not want when I have, nor, by Gor, when I ha'n't, too!"

Heavy of gait, stolid of mien, and of indomitable courage, the true Wessex man is a staunch friend and a very mild enemy. He is a genial fellow and, like Danton, seems to find no use for hate. He knows that all things done in hate have to be done over again. Imperturbable to the last ditch, he is rarely shaken into any exclamation of surprise or wrath. When he is, "Dang-my-ole-wig!" "Dallee!" with a strong accent on the "ee," or "Aw! dallybuttons!" are the kind of mild swear-words one hears. But when he gets into the towns he forgets these strange phrases and his dialect becomes less broad.

Heavy and stolid the Dorset rustic may be, though there is no reason to suppose that he is slower than any other rustic, but one is inclined to think that the "stupidity" of the countryman covers a deep, if only half-realised, philosophy. Nevertheless we must admit that Hodge often wins through in his slow way. There is a good deal of humour in the Dorset rustic, but perhaps most of his wit is unconscious. That reminds me of the story of a Dorset crier who kept the officials of the Town Hall waiting for two hours on a certain morning. They were about to open the proceedings without him when a boy rushed in and handed the Mayor a message. He read the message and seemed deeply affected. Then he announced:

"I have just received a message from our crier, saying, 'Wife's mother passed away last night. Will not be able to cry to-day.'"

That story may be a very ancient "chestnut," but here is a true instance of Hodge's unconscious humour. The wife of a blacksmith at an isolated forge in Dorset had died rather suddenly, and it happened that during one of my rambles I applied to the forge for food and lodging for the night. The old fellow opened the door to me, and I guessed that he was in trouble by the fresh crape band round his soft felt hat, which is weekday mourning of the rustic. However, the old fellow was quite pleased to have me for company, and I stayed at his forge for some days.

"Her was a clever woman; her kept my things straight," he said to me one night at supper, as he looked wistfully at his old jacket full of simple rents from hedgerow briars. "But it's no manner of use grumbling—I never was a bull-sowerlugs

The old blacksmith drank his beer and dealt with his ham and bread for ten minutes in silence. Then he looked into the amber depths of his ale and said: "Say, mister—wasn't it a good job I didn't take that bottle of physic myself?"

Dorset is only one of the several cider-making counties in Wessex. The good round cider is a warming and invigorating drink that is in every way equal to a good ale, and sometimes—especially if it has been doctored with a little spirit and kept in a spirit cask—is considerably stronger, and is by no means to be consumed regardless of quantity. And one must be cautious in mixing drinks when taking cider. But the cider which is consumed by the Dorset rustic is, to use a local word, rather "ramy" or "ropy" to the palate of a person unaccustomed to it. That is to say that it is sour and often rather thick. Of course the rustic knows nothing, and would care nothing, for the so-called cider sold in London which resembles champagne in the way it sparkles. Such stuff is only manufactured for folk out of Wessex.

A Dorset rustic, on being reproved by a magistrate for being drunk and disorderly, explained that his sad plight was the result of taking his liquor the wrong way up; for, said he,

"Cyder upon beer is very good cheer,

Beer 'pon cyder is a dalled bad rider!"

The worthy magistrate, not to be vanquished by the poetic tippler, told him to remember—

"When the cyder's in the can

The sense is in the man!

When the cyder's in the man

The sense is in the can."

"I wish," said an old shepherd to me, with regret in his voice, "that you might taste such beer as my mother brewed when I was a boy. Bread, cheese and ingyens [onions] with a drop of beer was parfuse [ample] for a meal in those days, 'ess fay! But this beer they sell now is drefful wishee-washee stuff. I'll be dalled if I'll drink it; 'tez water bewitched and malt begridged [begrudged]." In Hodge's uncouth speech are found many words and usages of the Anglo-Saxon tongue, though it is not now relished by fastidious palates. William Barnes, the Dorset poet, enumerates the chief peculiarities of the Dorset dialect in his books on speech lore. He loved the odd phrases of children, and it is easy to see why. For a child, not knowing the correct method of describing a thing and seeking to express its meaning, will often go back to the strong old Anglo-Saxon definitions. The child can often coin very apt phrases. As, for instance, the Dorset child who spoke of honey as "bee-jam." Barnes was delighted, too, with the boy "who scrope out the 'p' in 'psalm' 'cose it didn't spell nothen."

Many of the humours of Arcady have been moulded into enigmatical sayings and metaphors which may still be heard on the lips of the Dorset rustic:

Tea with a dash of rum is called "milk from the brown cow"; the dead are "put to bed with a shovel"; a noisy old man is a "blaze wig"; a fat and pompous fellow is a "blow-poke"; the thoughts of the flighty girl go a-"bell-wavering"; the gallows is the "black horse foaled by an acorn." The Dorset rustic has devised many names for the dullard: "billy-buttons," "billy-whiffler," "lablolly," "ninnyhammer," and "bluffle-head" are some of them. The very sound of such names suggests folly.

"Leer" is a curious word still heard in Dorset and Devon. It is used to express the sense of craving produced by weakness and long fasting. Perhaps Shakespeare used Lear in a metaphorical sense. I remember once hearing a Sussex labourer speak of taking his "coager" (cold cheer?), a meal of cold victuals taken at noon, but I am told the mouthful of bread and cheese taken at starting in the morning by the Dorset rustic rejoices in the still more delightful name of "dew-bit."

"Crowder" (a fiddler) is a genuine British word, used up to a few years ago, but I was unable to trace anyone using it in Dorset this year. In Cornwall the proverb, "If I can't crowdy, they won't dance" (meaning, "They will pass me by when I have no money to feast and entertain my friends"), was commonly quoted fifty years ago.

Another tale regarding unconscious humour is told of by a Dorset rector who was holding a Confirmation class. He was one of the old-fashioned parsons and made it his solemn duty to call at the village inn and drink a pint of ale with his flock every evening. One of the candidates for Confirmation was the buxom daughter of the innkeeper, and when he came to ask her the usual fixed question, "What is your name?" the girl, holding her head on one side, glanced at him roguishly, and said:

"Now dawntee tell me you don't know. As if you diddent come into our place every night and say, 'Now, Rubina, my dear, give me a half-pint of your best ale in a pint pewter!'"

The story of village sports and the way in which the rustic was wont to enjoy himself is always interesting. One of the most singular forms of contest once in common practice in the west of England was whiplegs. The procedure of this pastime consisted of the men standing a yard or so apart and lashing each other's legs with long cart whips till one cried "Holt!" The one who begged for quarter of course paid for the ale. The rude leather gaiters worn by tranters or carters fifty years ago would, of course, take much of the sting out of the whip cuts.

Thatch survives in nearly every village, and one of the favoured building materials is stone from the Dorset quarries. At Corfe the houses are built of stone from foundation to roof, and stone slabs of immense size are made to take the place of tiles and slates. We find "cob" cottages here and there, and this perhaps is the most ancient of all materials, being a mixture of clay or mud and chopped straw. It is piled into walls of immense thickness and strength, and then plastered and white-washed. The natives in Egypt and Palestine construct their village homes with the same materials, and the result is not only wonderfully picturesque, but satisfactory in the more important respect of utility. But now the Dorset people seldom build their walls of "cob" as of yore, and yet such work is very enduring. As an old Devonshire proverb has it: "Good cob, a good hat, and a good heart last for ever."

* * * * * *

The beautiful tract of coast-line between Seaton on the west and West Bay on the east is a region of great charm; for here will be found all the most pleasing features of the sister counties, Dorset and Devon. The gracious greenery and combes of Devon trespass over the border at Lyme Regis and so bestow on this nook the wooded charm of the true West Country, which is lacking on the chalky grass hills of other parts of Dorset. If the coast is followed from Lyme Regis we soon thread our way into the wild tangles of Devon. Things have changed somewhat in these days, but still the true son of Devon carries his country with him wherever he goes; he does not forget that every little boy and girl born in the West is breathed over by the "piskies." But modern education has just about killed the "piskies," and there are no more ghosts in the old churchyards. There is a reason for the non-appearance of spirits at the present day. They have ceased to come out of their graves, said an old rustic, "ever since there was some alteration made in the burial service." A firm belief in "the very old 'un" is still, however, a most distinctive article of the rustic creed. "There was never a good hand at cards if the four of clubs was in it," said a rooted son of the soil to me. "Why?" I asked. "Because it's an unlucky card; it's the devil's own card." "In what way?" I urged. "It's the old 'un's four-post bedstead," was the reply.

Another rustic remarked in all seriousness that he did think wizards "ought to be encouraged, for they could tell a man many things he didn't know as would be useful to 'un." The belief in witchcraft is almost dead, but it is not so many years ago that it was firmly held. Thomas Hardy's tale, The Withered Arm, it will be recalled, is a story of witchcraft. Farmer Lodge brought home a young wife, Gertrude. A woman who worked on Lodge's farm, Rhoda Brook by name, had a son of which the farmer was the father. Rhoda naturally resented the marriage, and had a remarkable dream in which Gertrude, wrinkled and old, had sat on her chest and mocked her. She seized the apparition by the left arm and hurled it away from her. So life-like was the phantom of her brain that it was difficult for her to believe that she had not actually struggled with Gertrude Lodge in the flesh. Some time afterwards the farmer's wife complained that her left arm pained her, and the doctors were unable to give her any relief. In the end someone suggested that she had been "overlooked," and that it was the result of a witch's evil influence. She was told to ask the advice of a wise man named Conjurer Trendle who lived on Egdon Heath. In the days of our forefathers the conjurer was an important character in the village. He was resorted to by despairing lovers; he helped those who were under the evil eye to throw off the curse, and disclosed the whereabouts of stolen goods. His answers, too, were given with a somewhat mystic ambiguity. "Own horn eat own corn" would be the kind of reply a person would receive on consulting him about the disappearance of, say, a few little household articles. Well, to continue the story, Rhoda Brook accompanied Gertrude to the hut of Conjurer Trendle, who informed the farmer's wife that Rhoda had "overlooked" her. Trendle told her that the evil spell might be dissolved and a cure effected by laying the diseased arm on the neck of a newly hanged man. During the absence of her husband she arranged with the Casterbridge hangman to try this remedy. On the appointed day she arrived at the gaol, and the hangman placed her hand upon the neck of the body after the execution, and she drew away half fainting with the shock. As she turned she saw her husband and Rhoda Brook. The dead man was their son, who had been hanged for stealing sheep, and they harshly accused her of coming to gloat over their misfortune. At this the farmer's wife entirely collapsed, and only lived for a week or so after.

Thomas Q. Couch, writing in Notes and Queries, 26th May 1855, gives a pleasant and light-hearted article on the prevailing belief in the existence of the piskies in the West Country:

"Our piskies are little beings standing midway between the purely spiritual, and the material, suffering a few at least of the ills incident to humanity. They have the power of making themselves seen, heard, and felt. They interest themselves in man's affairs, now doing him a good turn, and anon taking offence at a trifle, and leading him into all manner of mischief. The rude gratitude of the husbandman is construed into an insult, and the capricious sprites mislead him on the first opportunity, and laugh heartily at his misadventures. They are great enemies of sluttery, and great encouragers of good husbandry. When not singing and dancing, their chief nightly amusement is in riding the colts, and plaiting their manes, or tangling them with the seed-vessels of the burdock. Of a particular field in this neighbourhood it is reported that the farmer never puts his horses in it but he finds them in the morning in a state of great terror, panting, and covered with foam. Their form of government is monarchical, as frequent mention is made of the 'king of the piskies.' We have a few stories of pisky changelings, the only proof of whose parentage was that 'they didn't goody' [thrive]. It would seem that fairy children of some growth are occasionally entrusted to human care for a time, and recalled; and that mortals are now and then kidnapped, and carried off to fairyland; such, according to the nursery rhyme, was the end of Margery Daw:

"'See-saw, Margery Daw

Sold her bed, and lay upon straw;

She sold her straw, and lay upon hay,

Piskies came and carri'd her away.'

"A disposition to laughter is a striking trait in their character. I have been able to gather little about the personalities of these creatures. My old friend before mentioned used to describe them as about the height of a span, clad in green, and having straw hats or little red caps on their heads. Two only are known by name, and I have heard them addressed in the following rhyme:—

"'Jack o' the lantern! Joan the wad!

Who tickled the maid and made her mad,

Light me home, the weather's bad.'

"But times have greatly changed. The old-world stories in which our forefathers implicitly believed will not stand the light of modern education. The pixies have been banished from the West, and since their departure the wayward farmer can no longer plead being 'pisky-led' on market nights.

"'Pisky-led!' exclaimed an old Devon lady to her bibulous husband, who had returned home very late, pleading he had been led astray by the piskies. 'Now, dawntee say nort more about it'—and with a solemn voice and a shake of her bony finger she added: 'Pisky-led is whisky-led. That's how it is with you!'"

* * * * * *

May with its wealth of resurrecting life, its birds' songs, its flowers uplifting glad heads, is a beautiful month in Dorset; but cider-making time, when the trees put on a blaze of yellow and red and the spirit of serenity and peace broods over everything, is the period that the true son of Dorset loves best. Cider-makin' time—what a phrase! What memories! Why, then, time does indeed blot and blur the golden days of youth! I had almost forgotten the sweet smell of pomace and the cider mill—things which loomed large in the days when I was a boy down Devon way. It is middle age, which Stevenson likened to the "bear's hug of custom squeezing the life out of a man's soul," that has robbed me of the power to conjure up those happy days from the depths of my consciousness. Certainly some virtue within me has departed—what? Well, I do not know, but I cannot recapture the delirious joy of the apple harvest in the West. It is only a memory. Perhaps it is one of those things which will return unexpectedly, and by which I shall remember the world at the last.

Well, then, when I was a boy, cider brewing in Hovey's barn was one of the joys of life. A steam-engine on four wheels arrived from Exeter, and pulleys and beltings were fixed up to work the old-fashioned press. Within the barn a rumbling machine crushed the apples (which had been growing mellow in the loft for a fortnight), and the press noisily descended on the racks of pulp and sent the liquid into the tubs with a swish like the fall of tropical rain. Outside the still October air was broken only by the chug—chug—chug of the stationary engine and the mellow voices and laughter of the farmers who delivered their apples and received in exchange barrels of cider. The marc from the cider-press was sometimes fed to cattle combined with bran, hay and chaff. But I suppose that was an old-fashioned idea, and farmers to-day would ridicule such a thing. But Farmer Hovey was a keen-eyed man of business—a man who could farm his acres successfully in the face of any disaster. How I wish that, now grown up, I could re-open those records, the book of his memory! But it has long been closed, laid away in the tree-shaded churchyard in Fore Street, near a flat stone commemorating John Starre:

JOHN STARRE.

Starre on Hie
Where should a Starre be
But on Hie?
Tho underneath
He now doth lie
Sleeping in Dust
Yet shall he rise
More glorious than
The Starres in skies.
1633.

Making "marc bricks" at Farmer Hovey's was the highest pinnacle of my desire. It was one of those peculiarly "plashy" jobs in which any child would delight. One could get thoroughly coated from head to foot with the apple pulp in about half-an-hour. The "marc" was made into bricks (about a pound in weight) to preserve it. It was first pressed as dry as possible, made into cubes with wooden moulds, and stacked in an airy place to dry. Hovey liked these bricks for fuel in the winter months, and I remember they made a wonderfully clear fire. It was while making up the apple pulp into bricks that my brothers and their friends caught the idea of the game of "hunting." The apple pulp was first made up into a score of heavy, wet balls. Having drawn lots as to who should be the hunter, the winner would take charge of the ammunition and retire to the barn, which was known as the "hunters' shack," while the other boys would shin up the orchard trees, or conceal themselves behind walls, ricks and bushes. A short start was allowed, and then the hunter sallied forth with unrestricted powers to bombard with shot and shell anyone within sight. The first one who made his way home to the "shack" became the next hunter. Many a satisfying flap on the back of the neck have I "got home" with those balls of apple pulp. It was a very primitive game, sometimes a very painful one, and not infrequently it ended in a general hand-to-hand fight. The game was certainly an excellent exercise in the art of encountering the hard knocks of life with a sunny fortitude. In 1916 it was my fortune to suffer rather a sharp period of shell-fire in Palestine with one of the players of this game. My old playmate turned to me and yelled: "Hi, there, Bob! Look out! These coming over are not made of apple pulp!"

Then the smell of the cider-press came full and strong on the night air of the desert, and England and the West Country came back to me in the foolishness of dreams, as the Garden of Hesperides or any other Valley of Bliss my erring feet had trodden in heedless mood.

There is a story of a Dorset vicar who was explaining to his flock the meaning of miracles. He saw that his hearers were dull and inattentive, and did not seem to grasp what he was saying, so he pointed to an old rascal of a villager who always lived riotously yet never toiled, and said in a loud voice: "I will tell you what a miracle is. Look at old Jan Domeny, he hasn't an apple-tree in his garden, and yet he made a barrelful of cider this October. There's a miracle for you."

While cycling out of Swanage to Corfe—a backbreaking and tortuous succession of hills—I had the misfortune to meet a wasp at full speed and receive a nasty sting. I asked a little girl if her mother lived near, as I wished to get some ammonia for it, and was delighted to hear the child call to her mother through an open window: "Lukee, mother, a wapsy 'ath a stinged this maister 'pon 'is feace." Which reminded me of a story in Akerman's Wiltshire Glossary of a woman who wished to show off her lubberly boy to some old dames, and accordingly called him to say his alphabet. She pointed to the letter "A" and asked Tommy to name it. "Dang-my-ole-hat, I dwon't know 'un," said the child, scratching his head. His mother passed this letter by and moved the point of her scissors to the next letter. "What be thuck one, Tommy?" "I knows 'un by zite, but I can't call 'un by's neame," replied the boy. "What is that thing as goes buzzing about the gearden, Tommy?" The boy put his head on one side and considered a moment, then replied, with a sly grin: "Wapsy!"

William Barnes told a good tale of a West Country parson who preached in the rudest vernacular. A rich and selfish dairyman of his flock died, and in place of the customary eulogy at the graveside, he said: "Here lies old ——. He never did no good to nobody, and nobody spake no good o' he; put him to bed and let's prache to the living."

And here is a good story related to me by a West Country vicar. A lively old lady in his parish was very ill, and likely, as it seemed, to die. The vicar called on her and talked with professional eloquence of the splendours and joys of heaven. But the bright old creature had no fears for the future, and indeed was not so ill as they supposed. "Yes, sir," she said, "what you say may be very true, and heaven may be a bobby-dazzling place; but I never was one to go a-bell-wavering—old Dorset's good enough for me!"

Inside the old Dorset farm-houses there is much that belongs to other days than these. Many old homes have deep porches, with stone seats on each side, which lead to the large kitchen. It is large because it was built in the days when the farmer had labourers to help in the fields, and the mistress of the house had women servants to help with the spinning and the poultry, and all who lived under the same roof had their meals together in this room.

Many of the doors are as large and solid as church doors, and one that I saw was studded with nails and secured by a great rough wooden bar drawn right across it into an iron loop on the opposite side at night, and in the day-time thrust back into a hole in the thickness of the wall. But the majority are more homely than this and have only a latch inside raised from outside by a leather thong, or by "tirling at the pin," as in the old ballad.

CHAPTER II BARFORD ST MARTIN TO TISBURY AND SHAFTESBURY

And she is very small and very green

And full of little lanes all dense with flowers

That wind along and lose themselves between

Mossed farms, and parks, and fields of quiet sheep.

And in the hamlets, where her stalwarts sleep,

Low bells chime out from old elm-hidden towers.

Geoffrey Howard.

Starting from Salisbury, the pilgrim of the Hardy country, when he has passed through Barford St Martin and Burcome, might think it worth while to take the road to Tisbury when he arrives at Swallowcliff. The large village of Tisbury is situated on the north side of the River Nadder, on rising ground, and is about twelve miles west of Salisbury. There is much of interest to be seen, and the spacious church, in the flat land at the bottom of the hill and close to the river, is well worth a visit. It contains several monuments to the Arundels, and on an iron bracket near the easternmost window is a good sixteenth-century helmet, which has been gilded in places and is ornamented with a small band of scroll-work round the edges; there is an added spike for a crest. It is a real helmet, not a funeral one; the rivets for the lining remain inside. Tradition says it belonged to the first Lord Arundel of Wardour, who died in 1639. All the seats are of oak and modern, but against the walls is some good linen-fold panelling of the seventeenth century or very late sixteenth century. In the sacrarium is a fine brass to Lawrence Hyde of West Hatch. He was the great-grandfather of Queen Mary, 1689, and Queen Anne, 1702. He is represented standing in a church in front of his six sons, facing his wife and four daughters. The inscription is:

"Here lyeth Lawrence Hyde of West Hatch Esqr. who had issue by Anne his wife six sons and four daughters and died in the year of the incarnation of Our Lord God 1590. Beati qui moriuntur in domino."

The churchyard is a very large one, and the old causeway which was used in times of flood is most picturesque. Two massive black grave slabs at once arrest the eye. In plain, square lead lettering one reads:

JOHN LOCKWOOD KIPLING
C.I.E.
1837-1911.

ALICE MACDONALD
WIFE OF
JOHN LOCKWOOD KIPLING
1910

The village of Tisbury existed in the seventh century, the earliest extant spelling of the name being "Tissebiri" or "Dysseburg," and there was a monastery over which an abbot named Wintra ruled about 647. Mr Paley Baildon, F.S.A., who has devoted considerable time to the investigation of the origin of place names, thinks that without doubt Tisbury is derived from Tissa's-burgh, Tissa or Tyssa being a personal name and owner of the estate; hence it came to be known as Tissa's-burgh.

It was at Tisbury that Rudyard Kipling wrote some of his stories after leaving India, and there can be little doubt that after some years of absence in the East the return to things desperately dear and familiar and intimate exercised a strong effect upon his thoughts and writing, and prepared a way for his delicately fashioned pictures of the Old Country in Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies.

At Barford St Martin I had the misfortune to burst the back tube and tyre of my motor cycle, and that is the real reason I arrived at Tisbury. I wheeled my machine to the Green Dragon, hoping for a lift to a place where I could get fixed up with a new tyre. A large wagon was standing outside the inn, and as it bore the name, Stephen Weekes, Tisbury, upon it, I penetrated to the bar-parlour, thinking that I might induce the driver to take me with the machine into that village.

The owner of the wagon was sitting inside with two large bottles of stout before him. He was a burly fellow in shirt-sleeves and a broad straw hat. I saw he was fifty or thereabouts—not a mere wagoner, but a small farmer who would have answered to the description of Farmer Oak by Thomas Hardy in his opening to Far from the Madding Crowd. He was of a more jovial type than most Dorset men I have met, and after submitting to his fire of questions I asked him gently, in jest, if he would require any assistance with his two bottles.

"Aye," he answered, quizzing at me with his merry eyes. "I shall require another bottle to assist me, I think."

He looked at me a moment with seriousness and then he laughed to the point of holding his sides. He slapped his knees, shouted, roared and almost rolled with merriment. I looked at the farmer, not without a feeling of admiration. It was perhaps a very poor jest, you will say. But how well a simple jest became the fellow; how gloriously he laughed. Down in my heart I knew that no man could laugh as he did and at the same time possess a mean mind. He was as broad as the earth, and his laughter was just as limitless. Talk of good things: there may be something finer than a hearty laugh—there may be—perhaps....

At this moment he called for two glasses, and explained to the landlord that now he would drink out of a glass, seeing that he was in company.

"Then tell me," I said, "why do you drink out of the bottle when you are alone?"

"Why, you don't get no virtue out of the beer 'thout you drink it out of the bottle. No, fay! Half of the strength is gone like winky when you pour it into a glass."

"I believe you are right," I said, "and I especially commend you for drinking beer. Ale is a great and generous creature; it contains all health, induces sleep o' nights, titillates the digestion and imparts freshness to the palate."

"'Tis the only drink that will go with bread and cheese and pickling cabbage," dashed in the farmer.

"'Tis a pity," I said, "that so many workers in London take bread and cheese with tea and coffee, for there is no staying power in such a mixture."

"It can't be good," he shouted. "It can't be healthy."

The farmer's name was Mr Weekes—the same as it was painted on the wagon outside—and he said that he would be very glad to take me with my machine into Tisbury, where there was a motor garage. He made an extraordinarily shrill noise with his mouth and a fine greyhound that had been sleeping beneath the table bounded up.

"This long-dog," said Mr Weekes, "is a wonderfully good dog—the best dog of his kind in the world."

Mr Weekes is never half-hearted about things. His enthusiasm is prodigious. He is like a human hurricane when he launches upon any of his pet subjects. At once he fell to explaining the points and final perfection of a perfect greyhound. I remember a quaint rhyme he quoted, which is perhaps worth repetition here:

"The shape of a good greyhound is:—

A head like a snake, a neck like a drake;

A back like a beam, a belly like a bream;

A foot like a cat, a tail like a rat."

The farmer, then, I say, was not the kind of man to qualify any of his remarks, and he reasserted his claim that, in the concrete, in the existent state of things, his dog was the best that breathed.

This he said for the sixth time, drank up his stout, and after helping me to lift my machine into the wagon, climbed up on to his seat, I by his side. He then flicked his horses gently with his whip and they began to amble along with the wagon. On the way to Tisbury the farmer talked with the greatest friendliness, and when we arrived at his farm he insisted on bringing me in to supper. He showed me his orchard, barns and a very fine apple-tree of which he was enormously proud, and pulled me an armful of the finest apples he could find.

"Take these apples home," he said, watching me with his merry eyes; "they make the best apple pies in the world."

An armful of apples of prodigious size is not exactly the kind of thing one welcomes with a broken-down motor cycle two hundred miles from home, but I dared not refuse them, and so I stuffed them into all my pockets. Finally my good friend insisted on keeping me under his roof for the night.

After my machine had been repaired next morning I went on my way, thinking what a fine, merry, hospitable fellow the Dorset yeoman is—if you only approach him with a little caution.

* * * * * *

I left my friend the yeoman farmer with regret, regained the main road and soon came into Shaftesbury, or Shaston, as it is commonly called. This town is very curiously placed, on the narrow ridge of a chalk hill which projects into the lower country, and rises from it with abruptness. Hence an extensive landscape is seen through the openings between the houses, and from commanding points the eye ranges over the greater part of Dorset and Somerset. To add to the beauty of the position, the scarped slope of the hill is curved on its southern side. Shaftesbury is one of the oldest towns in the kingdom. Its traditions go back to the time of King Lud, who, according to Holinshed, founded it about 1000 B.C. A more moderate writer refers its origin to Cassivellaunus. However, it is certain that Alfred, in the year 880, founded here a nunnery, which in aftertimes became the richest in England, and, as the shrine of St Edward the Martyr—whose body was removed to this town from Wareham—the favourite resort of pilgrims. Asser, who wrote the Life of Alfred, has described Shaftesbury as consisting of one street in his time. In that of Edward the Confessor it possessed three mints, sure evidence of its importance; and shortly after the Conquest it had no less than twelve churches, besides chapels and chantries, and a Hospital of St John.

The view from the Castle Hill at the west end of the ridge is very extensive, and from all parts of the town you come unexpectedly upon narrow ravines which go tumbling down to the plain below in the most headlong fashion. The chief trouble in the olden days was the water supply. On this elevated chalk ridge the town was obviously far removed from the sources of spring water, and the supply of this necessary article had been from time out of mind brought on horses' backs from the parish of Gillingham. Hence arose a curious custom which was annually observed here for a great number of years. On the Monday before Holy Thursday the mayor proceeded to Enmore Green, near Motcombe, with a large, fanciful broom, or byzant, as it was called, which he presented as an acknowledgment for the water to the steward of the manor, together with a calf's head, a pair of gloves, a gallon of ale and two penny loaves of wheaten bread. This ceremony being concluded, the byzant—which was usually hung with jewels and other costly ornaments—was returned to the mayor and carried back to the town in procession.

About 1816 the Mayor of Shaftesbury refused to carry out the custom, and the people of Enmore were so put out by his omission in this respect that they filled up the wells. The Shastonians paid twopence for a horse-load of water and a halfpenny for a pail "if fetched upon the head." I heard a rather amusing story of the water-carrying days. A rustic who had been working on the land all day in the rain came "slewching" up Gold Hill, feeling very unhappy and out of temper. At the summit of the hill he passed by the crumbling church of St Peter's, but did not pass the Sun and Moon Inn. Here he cheered his drooping spirits with a measure of old-fashioned Shaftesbury XXX stingo, and, thus strengthened, he went on his way home, expecting to be welcomed with a warm, savoury supper. But the news of his call at the inn had reached his wife before he arrived home, and being rather an ill-natured person, she decided to punish him for loitering on his way. "Oh," she said to him, "as you are so wet already, just you take this steyan [earthenware pot] and fill it with water at Toute Hill spring, and don't go loafing at the Sun and Moon again." The rustic took up the pitcher without a word, filled it and returned to his sour housewife; but instead of putting the pitcher down, he hurled the contents over her, saying: "Now you are wet too, so you can go to the spring and fetch the water."

Bimport is a wide and comfortable street which skirts the north crest of Castle Hill. It is a street of honest stone houses, and readers of Jude the Obscure will look here for Phillotson's school and the "little low drab house in which the wayward Sue wrought the wrecking of her life." Their house, "old Grove's Place"—now called "Ox House"—is not difficult to find. As you come up from the Town Hall and Market House to the fork of the roads which run to Motcombe and East Stower, Bimport turns off to the left, and a hundred or so yards down is Grove's Place, with a projecting porch and mullioned windows. It was here that Sue in a momentary panic jumped out of the window to avoid Phillotson. The name of the house derives from that of a former inhabitant mentioned in an old plan of Shaftesbury. Poor, highly strung Sue Bridehead, with her neurotic temperament, could not throw off the oppressiveness of the old house. "We don't live in the school, you know," said she, "but in that ancient dwelling across the way, called old Grove's Place. It is so antique and dismal that it depresses me dreadfully. Such houses are very well to visit, but not to live in. I feel crushed into the earth by the weight of so many previous lives there spent. In a new place like these schools there is only your own life to support."

The village of Marnhull is situated in the Vale of Blackmoor, six miles from Shaftesbury. It is the "Marlott" of Hardy's novel Tess, the village home of the Durbeyfield family. It contains little of interest. The Pure Drop Inn, where "there's a very pretty brew in tap," may be the "Crown." Here John Durbeyfield kept up Tess's wedding day "as well as he could, and stood treat to everybody in the parish, and John's wife sung songs till past eleven o'clock." There is a Pure Drop Inn at Wooten Glanville and another at Wareham; one of these most probably suggested the name. The fine church is of the eighteenth-century Gothic (1718), and it has often been regarded by strangers as being three hundred years earlier. The font bowl, late Norman, was unearthed in 1898, also the rood staircase and squint and the piscina. Some ancient alabaster effigies, ascribed to the middle of the fifteenth century and representing a man in armour and two female figures, are placed on a cenotaph in the north aisle. Some authorities claim that they represent Thomas Howard, Lord Bindon, and his wives, and are of a later date. Nash Court, a little to the north, is a fine Elizabethan mansion, formerly the seat of the Husseys.

CHAPTER III THE VALE OF BLACKMOOR

My motor cycle had carried me without a hitch from London to Melbury Abbas—then Fortune scowled on me. With ridiculous ease I had rolled along the roads all day, and I had been tempted to ride through the warm autumnal darkness till I came to the Half Moon Inn at Shaftesbury, where the roads fork away to Melbury Hill, Blandford and Salisbury. But a few hundred yards out of Melbury Abbas, and then Fortune's derisive frown. From a deceptive twist in the road I dashed into a gully, and my machine bumped and rattled and groaned like a demon caught in a trap. It performed other antics with which this chronicle has no concern, and then refused to move an inch farther.

But the song of a nightingale in a grove of elms near the road made full amends for my ill luck! It is beautiful to hear his sobbing, lulling notes when one is alone on a dark night, and Shelley was not far wrong in styling it voluptuous.

"I heard the raptured nightingale

Tell from yon elmy grove his tale

Of jealousy and love,

In thronging notes that seem'd to fall

As faultless and as musical

As angels' strains above.

So sweet, they cast on all things round

A spell of melody profound:

They charm'd the river in his flowing,

They stay'd the night-wind in its blowing."

I lit a pipe and made myself comfortable on the green bank of the roadside. It was simply a matter of waiting for a carter to give me a lift. Soon I heard footsteps approaching me. "Good-evening," said a friendly, quavering voice, and a little, round-faced gentleman in a grey overcoat and straw hat emerged from the shadows. I questioned him as to the distance of the nearest inn or cottage where I could get a shelter for the night, and explained how my machine had failed me.

"The nearest inn is two miles away. I'm afraid they do not accommodate travellers," he replied.

"Is this your home?" I asked.

"Oh yes! Woolpit House is just beyond those elms. I live there. I am not a native of these parts. I have only lived there for the last six months. I am sorry I came here, for the place does not suit me. Do you care to leave your motor cycle? You are most welcome to a bed in my house," he added with cheerful simplicity.

"I should be greatly indebted to you. But shan't I be a bother to your family at this time of the night?"

"I have none."

I wheeled my machine through a gate and left it the other side of the hedge, where I hoped it would be safe till morning. We came to the house across a footpath—a small stone-gabled sixteenth-century building. A whisp of mist from a bubbling stream circled the place and gave it an air of isolation. We entered a lit room, which was of solemn aspect, and my friend gave me a deep-seated chair.

"Are you serious in saying that you do not like Dorset?" I questioned.

The little man smiled quietly, sadly.

"It is not Dorset exactly. But since I came to live here I have become a bundle of nerves. It is nothing—I think it's nothing."

"What do you mean?"

"I only think—I only wonder——"

"Yes?"

"This is such an old house. All sorts of things must have happened here. And from the first moment I came into the place I had a sudden sensation of there being something unseen and unheard near me. There is an essence in this house—an influence which stifles all laughter and joy. I wonder if you will feel it as I do!"

"Bit creepy," I said, and at the same time I came to the conclusion that the old fellow was a little eccentric, and this idea of the house being on the left side of the sun was merely a foolish weakness.

"Yes, yes," he said, musing; "queer, isn't it? But you don't know the queerest."

He pondered a moment, then suddenly he wagged his crooked fore-finger at me and said: "It is something more than an essence—it is stronger. The other evening when it was getting dusk I got up from my chair to light the candles, and I saw, as I thought, someone about six yards from that window—outside on the flagstones. It was more than a shadowy shape. So without waiting I ran out into the hall and opened the front door, feeling sure I should see a tramp or someone there. But the drive was quite empty—I only looked out into the dusk. But as I looked out something that I could not see slipped through and passed into the house. The same kind of thing has happened a dozen times."

The little old man passed his hand over his brow.

"Here," I said rather brusquely, "you're not well; you're just a bundle of nerves. Look here, sir, you want a holiday."

"Yes," he said, wiping his brow. "I try to tell myself that it is all rot ... all my fancy. But what would you do?"

"See a doctor," I replied.

"Doctors?... Bah! I'll tell you," he whispered. "I want a ghost-doctor to rid me of this invisible, pushing thing. It gets stronger every time! At first it just slipped through; just a bit more than a gust of wind. But now it's getting compact. To-night it drove me out of the house: that was how I came to be wandering out on the highroad like a lost soul."

"But ... goodness, sir, such a thing outrages reason."

"You can say what you will, but it is there, and it is growing tangible. Last night I could distinguish his features as he came up close to the window. He smiled at me, but the smile was one of inscrutable evil. He resents me being in this house. I shall have to abandon it."

"This little man is either off his head, or worse," I said to myself.

In spite of the warmth of the room, I felt myself shiver.

At that moment I heard the sound of a stealthy footstep outside the door.

The little old man jumped up.

"I say," he said in an odd voice, "did you hear?"

I pretended I had not heard.

"Ah, you didn't ... and, of course, you didn't feel anything. It must have been my imagination."

A wave of shame ran over me. I knew that I had not the courage to listen to the old fellow's story any longer. I finished my whisky-and-soda and stood up.

"It is very kind of you, sir, to offer me a lodging for the night. I am feeling rather weary and would like to go to bed now, if it is convenient to you."

"Come then, sir," he said, with his old-fashioned politeness, and he walked towards the door.

Then I saw the thing. There wasn't a shadow of doubt about it. I saw the little old man open the door. The next moment he started back. Then he thrust forward with his body, and I could see him bearing against something. He swayed, physically, as a man sways when he is wrestling. A second after he was free.

"Well, you've seen it—what do you think of it?" he said presently, as I followed him into the hall. His face had turned cloudy whitish grey.

I laughed, but the full horror of it had soaked into me.

I followed my host up a series of stairs. He carried a candlestick, with his arm extended, so as to give me a guiding light. The old house was dim and chilly in its barrenness. He stopped at a door in a long, narrow corridor and set the candlestick down.

"This is your room."

With a gentle bow and a kindly smile he opened the door for me.

"Good-night, sir. Can you see your way down?" I asked.

"I have a candle in my pocket."

He lit it at mine. Another quiet, friendly smile, and I watched him out of sight along the corridor.

I stood perfectly still for a moment just inside. Then a curious feeling of something dreadful being close at hand was present in my mind. Of course it was all humbug, and my nerves were deceiving me. But I could not shake myself free from the notion that I was not alone.

There is an essence in all these old dwellings that comes out to meet one on a first visit. I recognise the truth of that—for how often have I noticed how, under one roof, one breathes a friendly air, and under another queerness runs across the spine like the feet of hurrying mice. In this house there was something sinister and unwholesome. I cursed my luck for driving me into such a place. A night spent under a hedge would have been more desirable. However, I turned into bed and passed rather a broken night, with stretches of dream-haunted sleep interspersed with startled awakenings. The old house seemed to be full of muffled movements, and once (timid fool that I was) I could have sworn that the handle of my door turned. It was with a considerable qualm, I must confess, I lit my candle and opened the door. But the gallery was quite empty. I went back to bed and slept again, and when next I woke the sun was streaming into my room, and the sense of trouble that had been with me ever since entering the house last evening had gone.

When I arrived at the breakfast-table the little old man was seated behind the coffee-pot, and his face was quite glowing and wreathed in smiles. Morning had brought a flood of hard common sense to him, as clear as the crisp sunshine that filled the room. He had already begun and was consuming a plateful of eggs and bacon with the most prosaic and healthy appetite.

"Slept well?" he asked.

"Moderately," I said, feeling ashamed of my timidity in the morning light.

"I am afraid I talked rather wildly last night," remarked the little man, in a voice pregnant with reason.

"Yes—an amazing quantity of nonsense," I consented. "Where did you learn hypnotism?"

My host's brow clouded slightly.

"You see," I continued, "you must have thrown a spell over me, for I really believed in your ghost story, and now I have come to the conclusion that you were joking."

"Never mind. It doesn't matter."

But the little man didn't look up from his plate. He only shook his head.

Well (to get on), we finished breakfast. After smoking a pipe on the verandah with my host (who might have been a wizard for aught I knew, at least this was my fantastic thought) I went out and looked at my machine, and was fortunate enough after an hour's tinkering to get her going again. The little man insisted that I should take a small glass of some liqueur brandy of which he was very proud. So I took some of the wonderful stuff—strong, sufficient, soul-filling, part of the good rich earth—and went out into the sunlight, and taking a foot-bridge over running water put myself out of the little wizard's power.

* * * * * *

About six months later I was hunting in an old bookseller's shop in Salisbury when by something more than a mere coincidence I came across a small booklet called Twenty-five Years of Village Life, dealing with the district around Shaftesbury, and I read:

"It is somewhat remarkable that, during the last ten years, two vicars of the parish have died under somewhat mysterious circumstances at Woolpit House. It is not necessary to go into details here, but many wild stories about this picturesque old house are told around the countryside. The country people have an odd way of accounting for the ill fortune that has always attended Woolpit House. They say that it was built by the order of a dissolute old nobleman who had sold his soul to the devil, and in order to pass bad luck to all his successors who might occupy the mansion he caused grave-stones from —— churchyard to be rooted up and built into the walls."

* * * * * *

The Vale of Blackmoor or Blackmore, watered by the upper part of the Stour, was formerly known as the White Hart Forest, but is now a strip of pasturage celebrated among farmers as one of the richest of grazing lands. Its marshy surface is speckled by herds of lazy cattle, and by busier droves of pigs, of which this vale supplies to London a larger number than either of the counties of Somerset and Devon. Blackmoor is also known for the vigorous growth of its oaks, which thrive on the tenacious soil. Loudon says it was originally called White Hart Forest from Henry III. having here hunted a beautiful white hart and spared its life; and Fuller gives the sequel to the tale. He says that Thomas de la Lynd, a gentleman of fair estate, killed the white hart which Henry by express will had reserved for his own chase, and that in consequence the county—as accessory for not opposing him—was mulched for ever in a fine called "White-hart Silver." "Myself," continues Fuller sorrowfully, "hath paid a share for the sauce who never tasted the meat." Loudon also informs us that the vale contained Losel's Wood, in which stood the Raven's Oak mentioned by White in his Natural History of Selborne.

The Vale of Blackmore stretches westward from the Melburys north of Cattistock (Melbury Bub, Osmund and Sampford) to Melbury Abbas south of Shaftesbury.

Down beyond Pulham, seven miles south-west of Sturminster Newton, on a flat and dismal road, stands at the King's Stag Bridge across the River Lidden an inn called "King's Stag," with a signboard representing a stag with a ring round its neck, and the following lines below:—

"When Julius Cæsar reigned here,

I was then but a little deer;

When Julius Cæsar reigned king,

Upon my neck he placed this ring,

That whoso me might overtake

Should spare my life for Cæsar's sake."

The belief in the longevity of the stag prevails in most countries. Linnæus (Regnum Animale) says of the Cervus Elaphus: "Ætas Bovis tantum; fabula est longævitatis cervi."

From a formula, as old as the hills, relating to the length of life of animals and trees we learn that—

"Three old dogs make one horse; three old horses make one old man; three old men, one old red deer; three old red deer, one old oak; three old oaks, one brent-fir [fir or pine dug out of bogs]."

If a dog be supposed to be old at eight years, this will give: horse, 24; man, 72; deer, 216; oak, 648; bog fir, or brent fir, 1944 years.

The proverbs which follow are not folk-sayings, but they are given a place here as being quaint and curious, and not devoid of a certain interest, as they were collected by the author while tramping in the Vale of Blackmore during the summer of 1921:—

"When the gorse is out of blossom, kissing is out of fashion" (i.e. kissing is never out of fashion).

"Trouble ran off him like water off a duck's back."

"If you sing before breakfast, you'll cry before night."

"Turn your money when you hear the cuckoo, and you'll have money in your purse till the cuckoo comes again."

"Plenty of lady-birds, plenty of hops." (The coccinella feeds upon the aphis that proves so destructive to the hop-plant.)

"March, search; April, try;

May will prove if you live or die."

"When your salt is damp, you will soon have rain."

"It will be a wet month when there are two full moons in it."

Certainly the maidens of Blackmore have a benediction upon them, granted them for their homeliness and kindness. Their eyes are quiet and yet fearless, and all the maids have something wifely about them. William Barnes, the poet of the Dorset valley, praising the Blackmoor maidens, says:

"Why, if a man would wive

An' thrive 'ithout a dow'r,

Then let en look en out a wife

In Blackmore by the Stour."

William Barnes was not a wild wooer, and he found joy and adventure in a smile and a blush from a Blackmore milkmaid after having carried her pail, and he was satisfied to know that she would have bowed when she took it back had it not been too heavy. Perhaps—O dizzy fancy!—sweet Nan of the Vale would not have refused a little kiss! At all events Barnes knew womanhood in its perfection when he met with it—the maid who was "good and true and fair" was his preference.

CHAPTER IV BLANDFORD TO DORCHESTER

If we return, will England be

Just England still to you and me?

The place where we must earn our bread?—

We who have walked among the dead,

And watched the smile of agony,

And seen the price of Liberty,

Which we have taken carelessly

From other hands. Nay, we shall dread,

If we return,

Dread lest we hold blood-guiltily

The thing that men have died to free.

Oh, English fields shall blossom red

In all the blood that has been shed,

By men whose guardians are we,

If we return.

F. W. Harvey.

Blandford, or, to give the town its full title, Blandford Forum, gets its name from the ancient ford of the Stour, on a bend of which river it is pleasingly placed in the midst of a bountiful district. It is called "Shottsford Forum" in Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd, and in The Woodlanders we are told that "Shottsford is Shottsford still: you can't victual your carcass there unless you've got money, and you can't buy a cup of genuine there whether or no." The long chief street of the town has a bright, modern aspect, due to the great fire of 1731 which destroyed all but forty houses in the place. There is nothing to detain the pilgrim here, but it makes a good centre for any who are exploring the country around it.

Five miles of rather hilly road brings us to Winterborne Whitchurch, which has a very interesting church containing a curious old font dated 1450 and a fine old pulpit removed from Milton. The grandfather of John and Charles Wesley was vicar here from 1658 to 1662. Of the poet George Turberville, born here about 1530, very little is known. He was one of the "wild" Turbervilles, and one would like to learn more about him. Anyway, here is a specimen of his verse:

"Death is not so much to be feared as Daylie Diseases are.

What? Ist not follie to dread and stand of Death in feare

That mother is of quiet rest, and grief away does weare?

Was never none that twist have felt of cruel Death the Knife;

But other griefes and pining paines doe linger on thro life,

And oftentimes one selfsame corse with furious fits molest

When Death by one dispatch of life doth bring the soul to rest."

When we arrive at Milborne St Andrews we are within eight miles of Dorchester. The Manor House, up a by-road and past the church of St Andrew, is the original of "Welland House" in Hardy's Two on a Tower. This was once the residence of the Mansell-Pleydell family, but since 1758 it has been used as a farm-house. The village was formerly an important posting-place between Blandford and Dorchester, and we are reminded of the coaching days by the effigy of a white hart on the cornice of the post office, in time past a busy inn.

Puddletown is our next halt on the road. It is a considerable village whose church has a chapel full of ancient monuments to the Martins of Athelhampton. Canon Carter held the living here in 1838, and when he first arrived the news that he neither shot, hunted nor fished disturbed the rustic flock, and they openly expressed their contempt for him. Then he replaced the village church band with a harmonium, and the story gained so much bulk and robustity in travelling, as such stories do in the country, that I have no doubt he seemed a sort of devastating monster.

After this he did a most appalling thing: he tampered with a very ancient rectorial gift of a mince-pie, a loaf of bread and a quart of old ale to every individual in the parish, not even excluding the babies in arms, and ventured to assert that the funds would be better employed in forming a clothing club for the poor. Carter was a very worthy man, but somehow I cannot forgive him for this. He should have placed himself a little nearer to the full current of natural things. In the essence the ancient gift was "clothing"—solid and straightforward. It was surely in this spirit that Bishop John Still penned his famous drinking song:

"No frost nor snow, no wind, I trow,

Can hurt me if I would,

I am so wrapt and throughly lapt

Of jolly good ale and old."

So at the next tithe-day supper at the Rectory a farmer who had in him the Dorset heart and blood, a very demi-god amongst the poor of Puddletown, arose in his place and asked the good Canon Carter if he still held to his purpose of converting the Christmas ale into nether garments for little boys, and the Canon replied to the effect that it was his intention to carry out that reform.

Then the farmer, full of the West, who had not come to talk balderdash, shouted: "I ban't agwaine tu see the poor folk put upon. I'll be blamed ef I du." His voice was very strong and echoed in the rafters in an alarming way, for he was of the breed that said "good-morning" to a friend three fields away without much effort. At this point certain stuffy people folded their hands, and called out "Fie!" and "Shame!" for it was their purpose to curry favour with the vicar, they having many small children in need of nether garments.

But the farmer cried out over them all (and all the other farmers cheered him on): "I tellee what tez. I don't care a brass button for you, with all your penny-loaf ways. That to ye all!" And with that he snapped his fingers in the face of all the company, walked out, mounted his powerful horse and turned back to his great, spacious farm-house. Here he counted out a great bundle of Stuckey's Bank notes, and calling his bailiff sent them post-haste to the landlord of the King's Arms with word to the effect that they were lodged against a quart of Christmas ale for every soul who should care to claim it on Christmas Eve. That is the story of Farmer Dribblecombe, and may we all come out of a trying position as well as he.

But to return to the church. There are the old oak pews of bygone days, a choir gallery with the date 1635, an ancient pulpit and a curious Norman font shaped like a drinking-bowl. The most interesting corner of the church is the Athelhampton aisle, which is entered through a quaint archway guarded by a tomb on which lies an armed knight carved in alabaster. Buried here are the Martins of many generations. They once owned the old manor-house, with the great barns behind it and the fertile acres spreading far on every hand. They once went forth swiftly and strongly, on hefty and determined horses, and worked hotly, and came in wearied with long rides and adventures. Now they rest together, "mediævally recumbent," and when their ghosts walk they do not inquire who owns the land where they tread. They let the hot world go by, and wait with patience the day when all the old squires of Athelhampton shall be mustered once again. A great company indeed! The offspring of one noble family, who, following each other for nearly four hundred years, ruled as lords of their little holding in Dorset. The first of the family came to Athelhampton in 1250, and the last in 1595. Everywhere is to be found carved on their tombs the dark and menacing motto, beneath their monkey crest, "He who looks at Martins' Ape, Martins' Ape shall look at him!" The crest is, of course, a play on the word Martin, which is an obsolete word for ape. But the menace of the motto has lost its power these three hundred years, and nothing of the might and affluence of the Martins remains but their mutilated effigies. I have been wondering to-day how they must look out upon us all with our cinematographs, jazzy-dances, lip-sticks, backless gowns, cigarettes, whisky and pick-me-ups, and our immense concern over the immeasurably trivial. I don't know that I said it aloud—such things need not be said aloud—but as I read a touching epitaph which urged a little prayer for two of the family, I turned almost numbly away, while my whole being seemed to cry out: "God rest your souls, God rest your souls."

Here, since we are on the subject, is the touching prayer from the lips of one of the ancient house of the Martins:

"Here lyeth the body of Xpofer Martyn Esquyer,

Sone and heyre unto Syr Wm: Martyn, knight,