Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1892-07-30
wAKEMAN,S WANDERINGs.

/
Hamlets and Dreamful VALLEY
Towns-Idynic saunterings.
CIRKScxsTKR, England, July 1s.
| To the Editor OF the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
One does not know a hundredth part o
England even after years of travel among
her historic scenes and about her countless
| shrines.
feel this more and more when, aftel
firing of grand old beaten paths, 1 steT
aside, but step it sometimes seems, and
| find maze upon maze of sweet old hooks
| wonderfully winsome in collective or in
| dividual aspects; and these could never be
exhausted, If one set out to explore fol
such as these and know them never so lit
tie when found, during the natural course
| of lifetime.
1t seems to me that the west of Eng
land, say the western of the midland
counties, furnishes the most extraordinary
number of these half mountain eeries
You need not go 30 far south or west az
Devon and Somerset, nor even into Wales
where scenery has more the elements OF
wild and savage grandeur, and where the
good folk who can speak English as well
as you can pride themselves in making you
believe they cannot speak 1t at all, and
that Welsh was the language of Adam and
Eve.
Neither will you have to go 80 far as the
lake district, which Is all sublimity and
hotel and posting bills; nor to Northum
berland and Durham, verdureless and
suggestive of coal; nor again to Yorkshire,
where the shuddering fogs flap along the
grewsome moors.
But here in the very heart of England,
where anybody that has two days time,
though he should have two months instead
and two stout legs, can come from any
great English city almost as in holiday
stroll, are these myriad places of restful-
ness and beauty. hidden coy from the
globe trotters' lorgnettes in the glens and
hollows of these midland hills, with his
tories reaching farther back than the time
of the Sa1ons' frst coming, with the moss
of ages upon them, and yet all of them as
sweet and fresh as the dew trickling from
the loftiest grasses of Cleeve Clouds and
Broad way Beacon, which stand like grim
old towers above the Cotswold hills.
know the ''live" American tourist is
hardly worthy of himself if. having ar
rived in Liverpool on Tuesday or Friday
evening, he has not "done" Chester,
dashed through bennington, nodded in a
friendly way tc .se painted effisy, Of
Shakespeare, become tired of London,
glanced at Kenilworth and Warwick and
swept around through the lake district to
Glasgow, the Trossachs, Edinburgh, Alb
botsford and Melrose, in fact exhausted
Great Britain" as he naively and quite
correctly puts it, before the first week has
barely rolled around.
But if this sort of person could learn
that the best results of travel come from
idling rather than cycloDing through for
eign space, and could get shunted away
from railways and then meet with some
sort of OBTAINING accident that would hold
his lungs, eye and heart within a region
like this long enough to get them used to
its elstion and radiance. there would be
one lees ricochetting monstrosity among
men, and that much of blessed calm
would come along the mselstrom lines of
travel
A pleasant way to reach this lovely re-
gion is through Warwickshire. Stop q
day or more at Stratford If you like, and
loiter about the church beside the Avon.
Then get au old boatmen, mind you an old
and garrulous boatman, to row you down
the historic stream. He will tell you more
about Will Shakespeare and his times than
if the mighty bard had been his school
mate Do not let him row fast Give
him time to rest and descant upon the ori-
gin of Roman roads and barrows and
cromlechs. and above all give him time for
folklore tales and bugaboos and whispered
mysteries of the lordly halls high up
among the parks and demesnes.
Never care for the passing hours. The
thatches of cottages lean everywhere
along the Avon-almost TO it's brink. You
present companion you will be welcome
everywhere at night among the peasantry.
By and by you will come to the wales
among the Cotswolds. Then will You see
hamlets and villages dotting the valleys,
imbedded in orchards, clustering on the
hillsides, perched upon the heights, and
all in setting of lush orchards, waving
| fields within checkered lines of hawthorn
hedges or denser rows of lines, and these
| in turn backed by banks of forest prime.
val; all in such droning quiet, ample con-
tent and smiling opulence that, full of the
| winey exultation of it all, you again and
/
| dy at lastl"
By and by your boat comes under the
shadows of gray old abbey town. Near
it is Deerhurst, where kings older than
| Alfred worshiped. The Avon has sung it
self to sleep in the bosom of the silver
Severn. and there. by Olney, Cnut and Ed
mund Ironsids met and divided England
between Dane and Saxon. Nearer still to
the gray old abbey town is the Bloody
Meadow" where the War of the Roses was
| decided.
Back past this now peaceful scene. pas.
old thstched cottages, bright gardens and
sight q mighty silver gray old abbey. II
is the abbey of Tewkesbury. 1t is more
than eight hundred years old, and the
Norman pillars of its dim old nave are the
hugest and highest in England. Few OF
the English sbbeys, or, indeed, of the
great English osthedrals, contain the ma
terials Of history and etory which Tewkes
bury possesses.
Then what wonderful charm there Is ir
the old half timbered houses of Tewkes
bury. They lean over the shsdowy street,
as though they had come back from q mis-
ty past to crane their necks and heads int
time. Here you have Chester, Bristol
Exeter and Coventry almost in one in tn,
wealth of specimens of the old Tudo
style. In the gables, with their crownini
pinnacles, in the porohes, doors, mullionet
windows and huge chimneys, In the over
hanging of stories and projection of win
dows, they arc no more quaint and euri
ous than their interiors, with their spa
cious, low ceilinged rooms, paneled Will
oak Of ebon blaokness, elsborstely carvet
and ornamented, and with passages, nooks
inches, small rooms, cupbosrds and press
es bewildering In number.
All of those who have read "John Hal
ifax" will find in Tswkesbury q close
charm than In abbey and ancient houses
Tewkesbury green was Abel Fletcher
lawn. The clematis arbor, the yew hedg
and many delights so pleasantly pictures
in "John Halifax" are still carefully pre-
served. Dinah Mulock Craik loved oil,
Tewkesbury psssionstely. She summeret
at Malvern, but this mellow, restful plac
was her sffectionate haunt. Over in tn
huge abbey, among some of the riches
and ecclesisstic monuments of England
there has lately been placed fitting table
to the memory Of this good and talentee
woman.
| A two hours walk will bring you h
bright and glowing Hslyefn, sst high uI