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24 chapters
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
Before the third edition of this work had been published the author passed away, from sudden failure of the heart, at the early age of thirty-one. Two or three biographical notices, written by those who highly appreciated him and who deeply mourn his loss, have already appeared in the newspapers; and I therefore wish to add only a few words about one whose kind smile of welcome will greet us no more in this life. Joseph Arthur Gibbs was one of those rare natures who combine a love of outdoor lif
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PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
To those of my readers who have ever lived beside a stream, or in an ancient house or time-honoured college, there will always be a peculiar charm in silvery waters sparkling beneath the summer sun. To you the Gothic building, with its carved pinnacles, its warped gables, its mullioned casements and dormer windows, the old oak within, the very inglenook by the great fireplace where the old folks used to sit at home, the ivy trailing round the grey walls, the jessamine, roses, and clematis that i
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CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER I.
London is becoming miserably hot and dusty; everybody who can get away is rushing off, north, south, east, and west, some to the seaside, others to pleasant country houses. Who will fly with me westwards to the land of golden sunshine and silvery trout streams, the land of breezy uplands and valleys nestling under limestone hills, where the scream of the railway whistle is seldom heard and the smoke of the factory darkens not the long summer days? Away, in the smooth "Flying Dutchman"; past Wind
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CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER II.
The village is not a hundred miles from London, yet "far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife." A green, well-wooded valley, in the midst of those far-stretching, cold-looking Cotswold Hills, it is like an oasis in the desert. Up above on the wolds all is bleak, dull, and uninteresting. The air up there is ever chill; walls of loose stone divide field from field, and few houses are to be seen. But down in the valley all is fertile and full of life. It is here that the old-fashioned villagers
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II.
II.
In the dead of winter these old grey houses of the Cotswolds are a little melancholy, save when the sun shines. But to every variety of scenery winter is the least becoming season of the year, though the hoar frost or a touch of snow will transform a whole village into fairyland at a moment's notice. Then the trout stream, which at other seasons of the year is a never failing attraction, running as it does for the most part through the woods, in mid winter seldom reflects the light of the sun, a
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CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER III.
Every village seems to possess its share of quaint, curious people; but I cannot help thinking that our little hamlet has a more varied assortment of oddities than is usually to be met with in so small a place. First of all there is the man whom nobody ever sees. Although he has lived in robust health for the past twenty years in the very centre of the hamlet, his face is unknown to half the inhabitants. Twice only has the writer set eyes on him. When a political contest is proceeding, he become
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CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER IV.
A very marked characteristic of the village peasant is his extraordinary honesty. Not one in ten would knock a pheasant on the head with his stick if he found one on his allotment among the cabbages. Rabbit poachers there are, but even these are rare; and as for housebreaking and robbery, it simply does not exist. The manor house has a tremendous nail-studded oak door, which is barred at night by ponderous clamps of iron and many other contrivances; but the old-fashioned windows could be opened
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ROGER PLOWMAN'S JOURNEY TO LONDON.
ROGER PLOWMAN'S JOURNEY TO LONDON.
Monday marnin' I wur to start early. Aal the village know'd I wur a-gwain, an' sum sed as how I shood be murthur'd avoor I cum back. On Sunday I called at the manur 'ouse an' asked cook if she hed any message vor Sairy Jane. She sed: "Tell Sairy Jane to look well arter 'e, Roger, vor you'll get lost, tuck in, an' done vor." "Rest easy in yer mind, cook," I zed; "Roger is toughish, an' he'll see thet the honour o' the old county is well show'd out and kep' up." Cook wished me a pleasant holiday.
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CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER V.
Time passes quickly for the sportsman who has the good fortune to dwell in the merry Cotswolds. Spring gives place to summer and autumn to winter with a rapidity which astonishes us as the years roll on. So diversified are the amusements that each season brings round that no time of year lacks its own characteristic sport. In the spring, ere red coats and "leathers" are laid aside by the fox-hunting squire, there is the best of trout-fishing to be enjoyed in the Coln and Windrush--streams dear t
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CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VI.
The next morning you are up betimes, for the hounds meet at the house at nine o'clock. You are not sorry on looking out of your window to see that a thick mist at present envelopes the country. With the ground in the dry state it is in, this mist, accompanied as it is by a heavy dew, is your only chance of a scent. How else could they hunt the jackal in India if it was not for this dew? Thus reflecting, you recall pleasant recollections of gallops over hard ground with the Bombay hounds, and com
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CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VII.
"We may say of angling as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries: Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did; and so, if I might be judge, God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling.'"-- The Compleat Angler . Very few trout we have caught this season ('98) are pink-fleshed when cooked. Last year there were a good number. The reason probably is that they have not been feeding on the fresh-water shrimps or crustaceans, owing to the abundance of
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CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER VIII.
When does the may-fly come, the gorgeous succulent may-fly, that we all love so well in the quiet valleys where the trout streams wend their silent ways? It comes "of a Sunday," answers the keeper, who would fain see the prejudice against fishing "on the Sabbath" scattered to the four winds of heaven. He thinks it very contrary of the fly that it should invariably come up "strong" on the one day in the week on which the trout are usually allowed a rest. "'Tis a most comical job, but it always co
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CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER IX.
Burford and Cirencester are two typical Cotswold towns; and perhaps the first-named is the most characteristic, as it is also the most remote and old-world of all places in this part of England. It was on a lovely day in June that we resolved to go and explore the ancient priory and glorious church of old Burford. A very slow train sets you down at Bampton, commonly called Bampton-in-the-Bush, though the forest which gave rise to the name has long since given place to open fields. There are many
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CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER X.
King Richard II . It cannot be said that there are many pleasant walks and drives in the Cotswold country, because, as a rule, the roads run over the bleak tableland for miles and miles, and the landscape generally consists of ploughed fields divided by grey stone walls; the downs I have referred to at different times are only to be met with in certain districts. Once upon a time the whole of Cotswold was one vast sheep walk from beginning to end. It was about a hundred and fifty years ago that
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CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XI.
It is not surprising that in those countries which abound in sunshine and fresh, health-giving air, the inhabitants will invariably be found to be not only keen sportsmen, but also accomplished experts in all the games and pastimes for which England has long been famous. Given good health and plenty of work mankind cannot help being cheerful and sociably inclined; for this reason we have christened the district of which we write the "Merrie Cotswolds." From time immemorial the country people hav
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CRICKET.
CRICKET.
In an agricultural district such as the Cotswolds it is inevitable that the game of cricket should be somewhat neglected. Men who work day after day in the open air, and to whom a half-holiday is a very rare experience, naturally seek their recreations in less energetic fashion than the noble game of cricket demands of its votaries. The class who derive most benefit from this game spring as a rule from towns and manufacturing centres and those whose work and interests confine them indoors the gr
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CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XII.
Nowadays, thanks in a great measure to Mr. Madden's book, the "Diary of Master William Silence," it is beginning to dawn on us that the Cotswolds are more or less connected with the great poet of Stratford-on-Avon. Mr. Blunt, in his "Cotswold Dialect," gives no less than fifty-eight passages from the works of Shakespeare, in which words and phrases peculiar to the district are made use of. Up to the reign of Queen Anne this vast open tract of downland formed a happy hunting ground for the inhabi
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CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIII.
The ancient town of Cirencester--the Caerceri of the early Britons, the Corinium of the Romans, and the Saxon Cyrencerne--has been a place of importance on the Cotswolds from time immemorial. The abbreviations Cisetre and Cysseter were in use as long ago as the fifteenth century, though some of the natives are now in the habit of calling it Ciren. The correct modern abbreviation is Ciceter. The place is so rich in Roman antiquities that we must perforce devote a few lines to their consideration.
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CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XIV.
Whilst walking by the river one day in May I noticed a brood of wild ducks about a week old. The old ones are wonderfully tame at this time of year. The mother evidently disliked my intrusion, for she started off up stream, followed by her offspring, making towards a withybed a hundred yards or so higher up, where a secluded spring gives capital shelter for duck and other shy birds. What was my surprise a couple of hours later to see the same lot emerge from some rushes three-quarters of a mile
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CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XV.
About the middle of May the lovely, sweet-scenting lilac comes into bloom. It brightens up the old, time-worn barns, and relieves the monotony of grey stone walls and mossy roofs in the Cotswold village. The prevailing colour of the Cotswold landscape may be said to be that of gold. The richest gold is that of the flaming marsh-marigolds in the water meadows during May; goldilocks and buttercups of all kinds are golden too, but of a slightly different and paler hue. Yellow charlock, beautiful to
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CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVI.
The finest days, when the trees are greenest, the sky bluest, and the clouds most snowy white are the days that come in the midst of bad weather. And just as there is no rest without toil, no peace without war, no true joy in life without grief, no enjoyment for the blasé , so there can be no lovely summer days without previous storms and rain, no sunshine till the tearful mists have passed away. There had been a week's incessant rain; every wild flower and every blade of green grass was soaked
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CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVII.
It is in the autumn that life in an old manor house on the Cotswolds has its greatest charm; for one of the chief characteristics of a house in the depths of the country surrounded by a broad manor is the game. The whole atmosphere of such a place savours of rabbits and hares and partridges. There may be no pheasant-rearing and comparatively little game of any kind, yet the place is, nevertheless, associated with sport with the gun. Ten to one there are guns, old and new, hanging up in the hall
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CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
It is the end of May; a bright, rainless, and at times bitterly cold month it has been. But now the chill east wind has almost died away. Summer has come at last. Once more I am making for the Downs. Very seldom am I there at this period of the year; but before going away for several months, I bethought me that I would go and inspect the improvements at the fox-covert, stopping on my way at the "Jubilee" gorse covert we lately planted, to see if there is a litter of cubs there this year. Across
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APPENDIX.
APPENDIX.
( Note from the papers of the Gloucestershire Society ) It is now generally understood that the words of this song have a hidden meaning which was only known to the members of the Gloucestershire Society, whose foundation dates from the year 1657. This was three years before the restoration of Charles II. and when the people were growing weary of the rule of Oliver Cromwell. The Society consisted of Loyalists, whose object in combining was to be prepared to aid in the restoration of the ancient
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