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CHAPTER VIII.

Rural Pictures-The Beauty of Age in Buildings--Wickham Market -A Curious Bell-Provincialisms and Folk-lore-Country Characters-A Decayed Coaching Inn-A Windmill Land - Saxmundham-A Picturesque Village-Poetical Business Effusions-The Trials of a Farmer's Life-Bramfield-An Interesting Church and Curious Tower-A fine Sculptured Monument--An Old Fresco-A Quaint Epitaph--Ancient Armour.

LEAVING Woodbridge, we soon found ourselves once more driving along the pleasant country roads, with the fresh green meadows and the red tilled fields on either side of us. The inhabitants of small towns. have certainly the advantage that they can readily get away into the real country, and there are few things more enjoyable than a leisurely ramble on a summer evening down an English tree-bordered and bird-haunted lane, or a quiet stroll along a rural footpath that takes one in a familiar friendly way right into the heart of the land, close by cottage homes and picturesque farmsteads, leading through many fields to unexpected, out-of-the-way beauty spots.

The weather still favoured us. We had a bright, sunny, breezy day, in which to continue our journey; the sky overhead was a glorious deep blue, chequered only by the lightest of summer clouds. A wild warm wind was blowing from the west,

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balmy yet bracing, stirring and rustling the leaves and causing a rippling movement over the grassy fields and many-tinted woods. All nature seemed in a joyous mood; high above us the lark was singing, a speck of song in a world of light and brightness, and in the tangled hedgerows the birds were twittering companionably. The air was clear, fragrant too with the scent of blossoms of wild flowers and of new-mown hay, the sweet odour of the honeysuckle being especially noticeable and welcome; and the sun shone softly down on all the spreading landscape. He must have a sad heart indeed who could not be glad upon such a day.

An American writer has given it as his opinion that it takes a good many bad days in England to breed a fair one, but when that fair one does come, he owns that it is worth the price paid for it. I can only remark that we had a perfect day without any previous bad ones, since our start, to make compensation for, and I make bold to say that such days are by no means so rare as some writers would make us believe, and in this matter I think that I ought to write with some authority, having for years past now taken my summer holiday in some portion of my own country, driving here and there by road, and for the enjoyment of such a journey much of course depends upon the weather. Yet for all the American's often quoted opinion that I have given, I can honestly say, that though of necessity we have experienced a variety of weathers, yet on the whole our memories are of sunny days or days of gentle gloom. Seldom have we been detained

inn-bound for a whole day, though in the course of our travels we have tempted Providence by driving amongst the mountain lands of Wales and Cumberland and over the wild and windy moors of Devon and Cornwall, regions which bear an unenviable notoriety for moisture, and where it is supposed to be always raining-except when it is snowing.

Now and again, as we drove along, we caught a glimpse of the winding Deben, gleaming like a streak of silver through the green and wooded landscape. On our way we passed by one or two rural roadside inns, with moss-grown roofs and lichen-laden walls, nothing much to boast of architecturally, but pleasing to the eye notwithstanding because of their simple homeliness and time-toned surroundings. Many a picturesque cottage, too, we passed, with tiny gardens. One now comes up before me, an ancient thatched abode, with uneven roof and long low lattice windows. In the little garden the cotter's sunburnt children were romping about as happy as kings, or happier, and were they the children of a millionaire they could not be more; their miniature territory was to them a kingdom. How robust in health they seemed, and how gladsome sounded their merry silvery laughter and their childish prattling! I pity the man who cannot sympathise with such minor elements of human interest of the road. A cottage it was that might have walked out of some old picture, such a cottage as Patrick Nasmyth loved to paint, a bit of wayside poetry.

How age beautifies buildings in the country, tints their walls with many changeful hues, makes

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golden and ruddy their roofs with lichen, green and grey, as well as with mosses; how great the contrast of the charm of all this colouring with the smoke-stained dingy results of time upon our town edifices! No

or cunning of human hands has ever yet approached the work of unpaid Nature; no artist can paint like her. How lovingly she decorates an old ruin or wall, how tenderly and gracefully she hides the scars of man's destroying hand! First she sends the lowly lichens and meek mosses, then ivy clambers up the ancient walls, bits of green grass, tiny unassuming ferns, and many an idle growing thing finds a home in crevices everywhere; and plants and sweet wild flowers oftentimes make their appearance, if only Nature is left to herself to do as she will-till at last the desecrated fane or battered castle keep is even more lovely in its last estate than in the full glory of its Gothic prime or stately per

fectness.

Driving on through a pleasantly wooded country we reached Wickham Market, a picturesque though sleepy-looking little town, possessing a rather fine church, which has an interesting octagonal tower built of flint and surmounted by a tall steeple. From this steeple, as at Hadleigh, the ancient Ave Maria. bell still projects, supported by a bracket. Strangely enough, during all our wanderings in rural England these are the only two instances that have come under our notice of this quaint old-time manner of hanging a bell being retained until this day. From this tower we were told that forty or more churches could be seen on a fine day, and that the day was

favourable for the view if we cared to mount to the top. We did not care, so took the fact for granted; we are not of those travellers who feel it obligatory 'to do' everything there is to do on a journey. Duty is one thing and pleasure another; we happily managed to combine both by making pleasure a duty. A holiday is only half a holiday if we feel compelled to see things we actually care little or nothing about, just for the sake of saying we have seen them. In the niche above the entrance porch of the church we noticed an image of the Virgin Mary and Child, which would have been to Master Will Dowsing and his Puritan friends as a red rag to an enraged bull. Doubtless there was a similar image here in his time, which was carefully destroyed.

Over a house in the town we read the inscription, horse-gentler,' and inquiring the exact interpretation of this we were informed that it meant horse-breaker. In spite of school boards, railways, and telegraphs, there are many such oldfashioned provincialisms still retained in the eastern counties. At Woodbridge we observed in a shop window the notice, 'Stover sold here.' As we could not imagine what stover' could be, we made inquiry, and learnt that 'stover' was the local term for clover. Tempest' we also heard employed more than once to describe a storm, likewise drafting' for 'drawing.' 'What are you drafting?' was one day asked us by a farmer, who discovered us sketching his old homestead. Keeping-room' is a term, too, not infrequently used to describe a living-room.

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