From Paddington to Penzance. Charles G. Harper
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Название: From Paddington to Penzance

Автор: Charles G. Harper

Издательство: Bookwire

Жанр: Книги о Путешествиях

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isbn: 4064066230906

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СКАЧАТЬ every Winton-cestrian knows, ascends a long and regular incline of the exact length of a measured mile, leaving the houses gradually behind. … The prospect from this summit was almost unlimited. In the valley beneath lay the city, its more prominent buildings showing as in an isometric drawing—among them the broad Cathedral tower, with its Norman windows and immense length of aisle and nave, the spires of Saint Thomas’s, the pinnacled tower of the College, and, more to the right, the tower and gables of the ancient hospice, where to this day the pilgrim may receive his dole of bread and ale. Behind the city swept the rotund upland of St. Catherine’s Hill; further off, landscape beyond landscape, till the horizon was lost in the radiance of the sun hanging above it. Against these far stretches of country rose, in front of the other city edifices, a large red brick building, with level grey roofs, and rows of short, barred windows bespeaking captivity, the whole contrasting greatly by its formalism with the quaint irregularities of the Gothic erections. … From the middle of the building an ugly flat-topped octagonal tower ascended against the east horizon, and viewed from this spot, on its shady side and against the light, it seemed the one blot on the city’s beauty.”

      “AD PORTAS,” WINCHESTER COLLEGE.

       From here Angel Clare and ‘Liza-Lu beheld the black flag announce to the city that justice had been done upon Tess: “The two speechless gazers bent themselves to earth, as if in prayer, and remained thus a long time, absolutely motionless: the flag continued to wave silently. As soon as they had strength they arose, joined hands again, and went on.”

      And so, to my mind, the Stockbridge road shall be ever haunted with these two mourners who thus disappear into the void; and Roebuck Hill has acquired a literary interest that transfigures an eminence of no particular elevation, and of a certain air of suburban propriety, into a hill of sorrow. It commands Winchester Gaol, whose sordid dramas are, by the reading of that moving tale, touched with a saving tincture of romance.

      BRASS, WEEKE.

      Presently we came to the little village of Wyke, now more frequently called Weeke, a scattered collection of cottages, horse-pond, and tiny church at the foot of another gentle hill. Not a soul was there to be seen in Wyke. The churchyard gate was open, and also the door of the church, a building consisting of nave and chancel only, with shingled, extinguisher-like spirelet, and Norman south porch. But a mural brass, directly opposite the door, drew our attention. On examination it proved as interesting as that little effigy at Headbourne Worthy, although of entirely different character. It is monumental, in a sense, as its inscription commemorates a benefactor of the church and his wife, but the figure above is not, as usual, a portrait effigy, but, instead, a representation of Saint Christopher, shown in the act of carrying the infant Saviour across a river. The figure is only a few inches high, but carefully engraved, in 1498, a period shortly before the decadence of this ancient art began; it is, moreover, unique. Although the figure of Saint Christopher, that giant of the pretty mediæval legend, was generally to be found in fresco upon the walls of ancient churches, and was the subject of one of the earliest wood-blocks, no other brass than this is known where his striking figure is to be seen.

      It is an open road, exposed and unshaded by trees, that leads from Wyke, up Harestock Hill, along the Stockbridge road, and the half-mile of avenue that shades the bye-road to Sparsholt was welcome indeed.

      Sparsholt is a scattered village, on the road to nowhere in particular, and deep set in agricultural stodginess. It has a pleasing transitional-Norman church, with, attached to the living, the sinecure holding of Lainston, half-a-mile distant, whose church has been in ruins for generations. It was in those roofless walls that the notorious Duchess of Kingston was secretly wedded. There is nothing in the nature of a street to be found in Sparsholt village. Houses are few and far between in its winding lanes, and but two shops, the chiefest of them the post office, administer to the wants of this sleepy place. At the post office may be purchased anything from a postage-stamp to a Hampshire ham. The village water-supply is obtained from a well with a remarkable contrivance for raising the buckets. A large broad drum or wheel, some nine feet in diameter, is set above the well with the bucket-ropes wound round it. To raise the buckets, you step inside the drum and commence walking up its sides, resembling during the performance nothing so much as a caged squirrel.

      INTERIOR, SPARSHOLT CHURCH.

      

       Table of Contents

      Shining with midsummer brilliancy, the sun heated the still air until all movement was irksome, and energy became entirely out of the question; so there was nothing for it but to recline in limp fashion on a hay-rick beside the white and dusty road, lazily noting the passers-by. Few indeed were they who passed down the village street—a shepherd, with barking dog and unruly flock, making in their passage a smother of dust that loaded the hedges with yet another white layer; and, as afternoon wore on, a girl went with pitcher to the well. The sound of buckets being lowered, and the splashing of water as they were wound up, made one feel positively cool. Then came a dull booming that now and again startled the stillness: gun practice off Spithead, without doubt.

      Then the sound of Winchester chimes echoed across the four miles of intervening country, and we climbed down from our resting-place and walked up through the village. We were dreadfully thirsty, and, discovering a little inn, passed through the doorway into its stone passage, cool and grateful after the glare outside. The beer was, not to mince words, beastly; but we had a conversation with the rustics, who were sitting or standing in the sanded parlour with striped and coloured beer-mugs in their hands.

      “Quiet place, this, sirs,” said one, by way of opening a talk.

       “Yes,” said my companion, “it seems so; is it always like this?”

      “Well, yes, ’tis, in a manner o’ speakin’, an’ yet ’tisn’t, if so be ye can onderstand me. Leastways, ’tis always quiet like to toun-folk like yourselves; but we has our randys now an’ than, hain’t we, neighbours?”

      “Ay, that we has.”

      “D’ye mind Jubilee time?” A general laugh followed this inquiry, but to us strangers the allusion was cryptic, and provoked no smile.

      But there was one dissentient; he was not a native of these parts. “Randys,” quoth he, “ne’er a one of ’ee has seen such rollickings as we uns used to have up to Amport.” Here one of the company stage-whispered to us, hand to mouth, that “Will’m Benjafield was a old, understanding man, as comed from Andover way.”

      “Ay,” said our ancient, “I mind well enow the time when the gr’t house to Amport were open house, as ye may say. ’Twas in the old Markis o’ Winchester’s young days. They’m a old ancient fam’ly, the Paulets: ye can see their three golden daggerds on the carving o’ Winchester Guildhall clock to this day. But ’tis many a long day sence the feastin’s and drinkin’s to Amport House. ’Tis small beer now, ’stead o’ good yale, an’ that do make a man’s stummick to wamble tarrible, sure-ly. I’d ’low the zilliest gawk-hammer in them there days drunk better liquor nor the best o’ you uns in these here, an’ the raggedest jack-o’-lent had a crust an’ cheese for the asking o’ it, an’ suthin better nor a tankard o’ swipes to swill his gullet wi’. ’Twas a bit an’ drap anywhen ye were plazed to ax fort. What dosta say, stunpoll?”

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