Rural Rides Part 6

The village of Uphusband, the legal name of which is Hurstbourn Tarrant, is, as the reader will recollect, a great favourite with me, not the less so certainly on account of the excellent free-quarter that it affords.

THROUGH HAMPs.h.i.+RE, BERKs.h.i.+RE, SURREY, AND SUSs.e.x, BETWEEN 7th OCTOBER AND 1ST DECEMBER, 1822, 327 MILES.

_7th to 10th Oct. 1822._

At Uphusband, a little village in a deep dale, about five miles to the North of Andover, and about three miles to the South of the Hills at _Highclere_. The wheat is sown here, and up, and, as usual, at this time of the year, looks very beautiful. The wages of the labourers brought down to _six s.h.i.+llings a week_! a horrible thing to think of; but, I hear, it is still worse in Wilts.h.i.+re.

_11th October._

Went to Weyhill fair, at which I was about 46 years ago, when I rode a little pony, and remember how proud I was on the occasion; but I also remember that my brothers, two out of three of whom were older than I, thought it unfair that my father selected me; and my own reflections upon the occasion have never been forgotten by me. The 11th of October is the Sheep-fair. About 300,000_l._ used, some few years ago, to be carried home by the sheep-sellers. To-day, less, perhaps, than 70,000_l._, and yet the _rents_ of these sheep-sellers are, perhaps, as high, on an average, as they were then. The countenances of the farmers were descriptive of their ruinous state. I never, in all my life, beheld a more mournful scene. There is a horse-fair upon another part of the down; and there I saw horses keeping pace in depression with the sheep.

A pretty numerous group of the tax-eaters, from Andover and the neighbourhood, were the only persons that had smiles on their faces. I was struck with a young farmer trotting a horse backward and forward to show him off to a couple of gentlemen, who were bargaining for the horse, and one of whom finally purchased him. These _gentlemen_ were two of our "_dead-weight_," and the horse was that on which the farmer had pranced in the _Yeomanry Troop_! Here is a turn of things! Distress; pressing distress; dread of the bailiffs alone could have made the farmer sell his horse. If he had the firmness to keep the tears out of his eyes, his heart must have paid the penalty. What, then, must have been his feelings, if he reflected, as I did, that the purchase-money for the horse had first gone from his pocket into that of the _dead-weight_! And, further, that the horse had pranced about for years for the purpose of subduing all opposition to those very measures, which had finally dismounted the owner!

From this dismal scene, a scene formerly so joyous, we set off back to Uphusband pretty early, were overtaken by the rain, and got a pretty good soaking. The land along here is very good. This whole country has a chalk bottom; but, in the valley on the right of the hill over which you go from Andover to Weyhill, the chalk lies far from the top, and the soil has few flints in it. It is very much like the land about Malden and Maidstone. Met with a farmer who said he must be ruined, unless another "good war" should come! This is no uncommon notion. They saw high prices _with_ war, and they thought that the war was the _cause_.

_12 to 16 of October._

The fair was too dismal for me to go to it again. My sons went two of the days, and their account of the hop-fair was enough to make one gloomy for a month, particularly as my townsmen of Farnham were, in this case, amongst the sufferers. On the 12th I went to dine with and to harangue the farmers at Andover. Great attention was paid to what I had to say. The crowding to get into the room was a proof of nothing, perhaps, but _curiosity_; but there must have been a _cause_ for the curiosity, and that cause would, under the present circ.u.mstances, be matter for reflection with a wise government.

_17 October._

Went to Newbury to dine with and to harangue the farmers. It was a fair-day. It rained so hard that I had to stop at Burghclere to dry my clothes, and to borrow a great coat to keep me dry for the rest of the way; so as not to have to sit in wet clothes. At Newbury the company was not less attentive or less numerous than at Andover. Some one of the tax-eating crew had, I understand, called me an "incendiary." The day is pa.s.sed for those tricks. They deceive no longer. Here, at Newbury, I took occasion to notice the base accusation of _Dundas_, the Member for the County. I stated it as something that I had heard of, and I was proceeding to charge him conditionally, when Mr. Tubb of s.h.i.+llingford rose from his seat, and said, "I myself, Sir, heard him say the words."

I had heard of his vile conduct long before; but I abstained from charging him with it till an opportunity should offer for doing it in his own country. After the dinner was over I went back to Burghclere.

_18 to 20 October._

At Burghclere, one half the time writing, and the other half hare-hunting.

_21 October._

Went back to Uphusband.

_22 October._

Went to dine with the farmers at Salisbury, and got back to Uphusband by ten o'clock at night, two hours later than I have been out of bed for a great many months.

In quitting Andover to go to Salisbury (17 miles from each other) you cross the beautiful valley that goes winding down amongst the hills to Stockbridge. You then rise into the open country that very soon becomes a part of that large tract of downs, called Salisbury Plain. You are not in Wilts.h.i.+re, however, till you are about half the way to Salisbury. You leave Tidworth away to your right. This is the seat of Asheton Smith; and the fine _coursing_ that I once saw there I should have called to recollection with pleasure, if I could have forgotten the hanging of the men at Winchester last Spring for resisting one of this Smith's game-keepers! This Smith's son and a Sir John Pollen are the members for Andover. They are chosen by the Corporation. One of the Corporation, an Attorney, named Etwall, is a Commissioner of the Lottery, or something in that way. It would be a curious thing to ascertain how large a portion of the "public services" is performed by the voters in Boroughs and their relations. These persons are singularly kind to the nation.

They not only choose a large part of the "representatives of the people;" but they come in person, or by deputy, and perform a very considerable part of the "_public services_." I should like to know how many of them are employed about the _Salt-Tax_, for instance. A list of these public-spirited persons might be produced to show the _benefit_ of the Boroughs.

Before you get to Salisbury, you cross the valley that brings down a little river from Amesbury. It is a very beautiful valley. There is a chain of farmhouses and little churches all the way up it. The farms consist of the land on the flats on each side of the river, running out to a greater or less extent, at different places, towards the hills and downs. Not far above Amesbury is a little village called Netherhaven, where I once saw an _acre of hares_. We were coursing at Everly, a few miles off; and one of the party happening to say, that he had seen "an acre of hares" at Mr. Hicks Beech's at Netherhaven, we, who wanted to see the same, or to detect our informant, sent a messenger to beg a day's coursing, which being granted, we went over the next day. Mr.

Beech received us very politely. He took us into a wheat stubble close by his paddock; his son took a gallop round, cracking his whip at the same time; the hares (which were very thickly in sight before) started all over the field, ran into a _flock_ like sheep; and we all agreed, that the flock did cover _an acre of ground_. Mr. Beech had an old greyhound, that I saw lying down in the shrubbery close by the house, while several hares were sitting and skipping about, with just as much confidence as cats sit by a dog in a kitchen or a parlour. Was this _instinct_ in either dog or hares? Then, mind, this same greyhound went amongst the rest to course with us out upon the distant hills and lands; and then he ran as eagerly as the rest, and killed the hares with as little remorse. Philosophers will talk a long while before they will make men believe, that this was _instinct alone_. I believe that this dog had much more reason than half of the Cossacks have; and I am sure he had a great deal more than many a Negro that I have seen.

In crossing this valley to go to Salisbury, I thought of Mr. Beech's hares; but I really have neither thought of nor seen any _game_ with pleasure, since the hanging of the two men at Winchester. If no other man will pet.i.tion for the repeal of the law, under which those poor fellows suffered, I will. But let us hope, that there will be no need of pet.i.tioning. Let us hope, that it will be repealed without any express application for it. It is curious enough that laws of this sort should _increase_, while _Sir James Mackintosh_ is so resolutely bent on "_softening the criminal code_!" The company at Salisbury was very numerous; not less than 500 farmers were present. They were very attentive to what I said, and, which rather surprised me, they received very docilely what I said against squeezing the labourers. A fire in a farmyard had lately taken place near Salisbury; so that the subject was a ticklish one. But it was my very first duty to treat of it, and I was resolved, be the consequence what it might, not to neglect that duty.

_23 to 26 October._

At Uphusband. At this village, which is a great thoroughfare for sheep and pigs, from Wilts.h.i.+re and Dorsets.h.i.+re to Berks.h.i.+re, Oxfords.h.i.+re, and away to the North and North East, we see many farmers from different parts of the country; and, if I had had any doubts before, as to the deplorableness of their state, those would now no longer exist. I did, indeed, years ago, prove, that if we returned to cash payments without a reduction of the Debt, and without a rectifying of contracts, the present race of farmers must be ruined. But still, when the thing actually comes, it astounds one. It is like the death of a friend or relation. We talk of its approach without much emotion. We foretell the _when_ without much seeming pain. We know it _must be_. But, when it comes, we forget our foretellings, and feel the calamity as acutely as if we had never expected it. The accounts we hear, daily, and almost hourly, of the families of farmers actually coming to the _parish-book_, are enough to make any body but a Boroughmonger feel. That species of monster is to be moved by nothing but his own pecuniary sufferings; and, thank G.o.d, the monster is now about to be _reached_. I hear, from all parts, that the parsons are in great alarm! Well they may, if their hearts be too much set upon the treasures of this world; for I can see no possible way of settling this matter justly, without resorting to their temporalities. They have long enough been calling upon all the industrious cla.s.ses for "sacrifices for the good of the country." The time seems to be come for them to do something in this way themselves.

In a short time there will be, because there can be, no rents. And, we shall see, whether the landlords will then suffer the parsons to continue to receive a tenth part of the produce of the land! In many places the farmers have had the sense and the spirit to _rate_ the t.i.thes to the _poor-rates_. This they _ought_ to do in all cases, whether the t.i.thes be taken up in kind or not. This, however, sweats the fire-shovel hat gentleman. It "bothers his wig." He does not know what to think of it. He does not know _who to blame_; and, where a parson finds things not to his mind, the first thing he always does is, to look about for somebody to accuse of sedition and blasphemy. Lawyers always begin, in such cases, to hunt the books, to see if there be no _punishment_ to apply. But the devil of it is, neither of them have now any body to lay on upon! I always told them, that there would arise an enemy, that would laugh at all their anathemas, informations, dungeons, halters and bayonets. One positive good has, however, arisen out of the present calamities, and that is, the _parsons_ are grown more _humble_ than they were. Cheap corn and a good thumping debt have greatly conduced to the producing of the Christian virtue, _humility_, necessary in us all, but doubly necessary in the priesthood. The parson is now one of the parties who is taking away the landlord's estate and the farmer's capital. When the farmer's capital is gone, there will be no rents; but, without a law upon the subject, the parson will still have his t.i.the, and a t.i.the upon the _taxes_ too, which the land has to bear! Will the landlords stand this? No matter. If there be no reform of the Parliament, they must stand it. The two sets may, for aught I care, worry each other as long as they please. When the present race of farmers are gone (and that will soon be) the landlord and the parson may settle the matter between them. They will be the only parties interested; and which of them shall devour the other appears to be of little consequence to the rest of the community. They agreed most cordially in creating the Debt. They went hand in hand in all the measures against the Reformers. They have made, actually made, the very thing that now frightens them, which now menaces them with _total extinction_. They cannot think it unjust, if their prayers be now treated as the prayers of the Reformers were.

_27 to 29 October._

At Burghclere. Very nasty weather. On the 28th the fox-hounds came to throw off at _Penwood_, in this parish. Having heard that _Dundas_ would be out with the hounds, I rode to the place of meeting, in order to look him in the face, and to give him an opportunity to notice, on his own peculiar dunghill, what I had said of him at Newbury. He came. I rode up to him and about him; but he said not a word. The company entered the wood, and I rode back towards my quarters. They found a fox, and quickly lost him. Then they came out of the wood and came back along the road, and met me, and pa.s.sed me, they as well as I going at a foot pace. I had plenty of time to survey them all well, and to mark their looks. I watched Dundas's eyes, but the devil a bit could I get them to turn _my way_. He is _paid_ for the present. We shall see, whether he will go, or send an amba.s.sador, or neither, when I shall be at Reading on the 9th of next month.

_30 October._

Set off for London. Went by Alderbridge, Crookham, Brimton, Mortimer, Strathfield Say, Heckfield Heath, Eversley, Blackwater, and slept at Oakingham. This is, with trifling exceptions, a miserably poor country.

Burghclere lies along at the foot of a part of that chain of hills, which, in this part, divide Hamps.h.i.+re from Berks.h.i.+re. The parish just named is, indeed, in Hamps.h.i.+re, but it forms merely the foot of the Highclere and Kingsclere Hills. These hills, from which you can see all across the country, even to the Isle of Wight, are of chalk, and with them, towards the North, ends the chalk. The soil over which I have come to-day, is generally a stony sand upon a bed of gravel. With the exception of the land just round Crookham and the other villages, nothing can well be poorer or more villanously ugly. It is all first cousin to Hounslow Heath, of which it is, in fact, a continuation to the Westward. There is a clay at the bottom of the gravel; so that you have here nasty stagnant pools without fertility of soil. The rushes grow amongst the gravel; sure sign that there is clay beneath to hold the water; for, unless there be water constantly at their roots, rushes will not grow. Such land is, however, good for _oaks_ wherever there is soil enough on the top of the gravel for the oak to get hold, and to send its tap-root down to the clay. The oak is the thing to plant here; and, _therefore_, this whole country contains not one single plantation of oaks! That is to say, as far as I observed. Plenty of _fir_-trees and other rubbish have been recently planted; but no oaks.

At _Strathfield Say_ is that everlasting monument of English Wisdom Collective, the _Heir Loom Estate_ of the "_greatest Captain of the Age_!" In his peerage it is said, that it was wholly out of the power of the nation to reward his services fully; but, that "she did what she could!" Well, poor devil! And what could any body ask for more? It was well, however, that she give what she did while she was drunk; for, if she had held her hand till now, I am half disposed to think, that her gifts would have been very small. I can never forget that we have to pay interest on 50,000_l._ of the money merely owing to the c.o.xcombery of the late Mr. Whitbread, who actually moved that _addition_ to one of the grants proposed by the Ministers! Now, a great part of the grants is in the way of annuity or pension. It is notorious, that, when the grants were made, the pensions would not purchase more than a third part of as much wheat as they will now. The grants, therefore, have been augmented threefold. What right, then, has any one to say, that the _labourers'

wages_ ought to fall, unless he say, that these pensions ought to be reduced! The Hamps.h.i.+re Magistrates, when they were putting forth their _manifesto_ about the allowances to labourers, should have noticed these pensions of the Lord Lieutenant of the County. However, real starvation cannot be inflicted to any very great extent. The present race of farmers must give way, and the attempts to squeeze rents out of the wages of labour must cease. And the matter will finally rest to be settled by the landlords, parsons, and tax-eaters. If the landlords choose to give the greatest captain three times as much as was granted to him, why, let him have it. According to all account, he is no _miser_ at any rate; and the estates that pa.s.s through his hands may, perhaps, be full as well disposed of as they are at present. Considering the miserable soil I have pa.s.sed over to-day, I am rather surprised to find Oakingham so decent a town. It has a very handsome market-place, and is by no means an ugly country-town.

_31 October._

Set off at daylight and got to Kensington about noon. On leaving Oakingham for London, you get upon what is called _Windsor Forest_; that is to say, upon as bleak, as barren, and as villanous a heath as ever man set his eyes on. However, here are new enclosures without end. And here are houses too, here and there, over the whole of this execrable tract of country. "What!" Mr. Canning will say, "will you not allow that the owners of these new enclosures and these houses know their own interests? And are not these _improvements_, and are they not a proof of an addition to the national capital?" To the first I answer, _May be so_; to the two last, _No_. These new enclosures and houses arise out of the beggaring of the parts of the country distant from the vortex of the funds. The farmhouses have long been growing fewer and fewer; the labourers' houses fewer and fewer; and it is manifest to every man who has eyes to see with, that the villages are regularly wasting away. This is the case all over the parts of the kingdom where the tax-eaters do not haunt. In all the really agricultural villages and parts of the kingdom, there is a _shocking decay_; a great dilapidation and constant pulling down or falling down of houses. The farmhouses are not so many as they were forty years ago by three-fourths. That is to say, the infernal system of Pitt and his followers has annihilated three parts out of four of the farm houses. The labourers' houses disappear also.

And all the _useful_ people become less numerous. While these spewy sands and gravel near London are enclosed and built on, good lands in other parts are neglected. These enclosures and buildings are a _waste_; they are means _misapplied_; they are a proof of national decline and not of prosperity. To cultivate and ornament these villanous spots the produce and the population are drawn away from the good lands. There all manner of schemes have been resorted to to get rid of the necessity of _hands_; and, I am quite convinced, that the population, upon the whole, has not increased, in England, one single soul since I was born; an opinion that I have often expressed, in support of which I have as often offered arguments, and those arguments have _never been answered_. As to this rascally heath, that which has ornamented it has brought misery on millions. The spot is not far distant from the Stock-Jobbing crew. The roads to it are level. They are smooth. The wretches can go to it from the 'Change without any danger to their worthless necks. And thus it is "_vastly improved, Ma'am_!" A set of men who can look upon this as "improvement," who can regard this as a proof of the "increased capital of the country," are pretty fit, it must be allowed, to get the country out of its present difficulties! At the end of this blackguard heath you come (on the road to Egham) to a little place called _Sunning Hill_, which is on the Western side of Windsor Park. It is a spot all made into "grounds" and gardens by tax-eaters. The inhabitants of it have beggared twenty agricultural villages and hamlets.

From this place you go across a corner of Windsor Park, and come out at Virginia Water. To Egham is then about two miles. A much more ugly country than that between Egham and Kensington would with great difficulty be found in England. Flat as a pancake, and, until you come to Hammersmith, the soil is a nasty stony dirt upon a bed of gravel.

Hounslow-heath, which is only a little worse than the general run, is a sample of all that is bad in soil and villanous in look. Yet this is now enclosed, and what they call "cultivated." Here is a fresh robbery of villages, hamlets, and farm and labourers' buildings and abodes! But here is one of those "_vast improvements, Ma'am_," called _Barracks_.

What an "improvement!" What an "addition to the national capital!" For, mind, Monsieur de Snip, the Surrey Norman, actually said, that the new buildings ought to be reckoned an addition to the national capital!

What, Snip! Do you pretend that the nation is _richer_, because the means of making this barrack have been drawn away from the people in taxes? Mind, Monsieur le Normand, the barrack did not drop down from the sky nor spring up out of the earth. It was not created by the unhanged knaves of paper-money. It came out of the people's labour; and, when you hear Mr. Ellman tell the Committee of 1821, that forty-five years ago every man in his parish brewed his own beer, and that now not one man in that same parish does it; when you hear this, Monsieur de Snip, you might, if you had brains in your skull, be able to estimate the effects of what has produced the barrack. Yet, barracks there must be, or _Gatton_ and _Old Sarum_ must fall; and the fall of these would break poor Mr. Canning's heart.

_8 November._

From London to Egham in the evening.

_9 November._

Started at day-break in a hazy frost, for Reading. The horses' manes and ears covered with the h.o.a.r before we got across Windsor Park, which appeared to be a blackguard soil, pretty much like Hounslow Heath, only not flat. A very large part of the Park is covered with heath or rushes, sure sign of execrable soil. But the roads are such as might have been made by Solomon. "A greater than Solomon is here!" some one may exclaim.

Of that I know nothing. I am but a traveller; and the roads in this park are beautiful indeed. My servant, whom I brought from amongst the hills and flints of Uphusband, must certainly have thought himself in Paradise as he was going through the Park. If I had told him that the buildings and the labourers' clothes and meals, at Uphusband, were the _worse_ for those pretty roads with edgings cut to the line, he would have wondered at me, I dare say. It would, nevertheless, have been perfectly true; and this is _feelosofee_ of a much more useful sort than that which is taught by the Edinburgh Reviewers.

When you get through the Park you come to Winkfield, and then (bound for Reading) you go through Binfield, which is ten miles from Egham and as many from Reading. At Binfield I stopped to breakfast, at a very nice country inn called the _Stag and Hounds_. Here you go along on the North border of that villanous tract of country that I pa.s.sed over in going from Oakingham to Egham. Much of the land even here is but newly enclosed; and it was really not worth a straw before it was loaded with the fruit of the labour of the people living in the parts of the country distant from the _Fund-Wen_. What injustice! What unnatural changes!

Such things cannot be, without producing convulsion in the end! A road as smooth as a die, a real stock-jobber's road, brought us to Reading by eleven o'clock. We dined at one; and very much pleased I was with the company. I have seldom seen a number of persons a.s.sembled together, whose approbation I valued more than that of the company of this day.

Last year the prime Minister said, that his speech (the grand speech) was rendered necessary by the "pains that had been taken, in different parts of the country," to persuade the farmers, that the distress had arisen out of the _measures of the government_, and _not from over-production_! To be sure I had taken some pains to remove that stupid notion about over-production, from the minds of the farmers; but did the stern-path-man _succeed_ in counteracting the effect of my efforts? Not he, indeed. And, after his speech was made, and sent forth cheek by jowl with that of the sane Castlereagh, of hole-digging memory, the truths inculcated by me were only the more manifest. This has been a fine meeting at Reading! I feel very proud of it. The morning was fine for me to ride in, and the rain began as soon as I was housed.