With the bumping and shaking we received, the saloon of the Wanderer soon looked like that of a yacht in a rough sea-way.
Poor Polly, my cockatoo, the pet of the ship, is sadly put about when there is much motion. I gave her a morsel of meat to-day when passing through Oxford. To stand on one leg and eat it as usual from her other claw was out of the question, but Polly was equal to the occasion. She put the choice morsel under her feet on the perch, and so quietly rent and devoured it.
We were all of us glad to get away from Oxford, where there is no rest for the soles of the feet of a caravanite. Hurricane Bob, though he dearly loves to travel, enjoys his morsel of meadow in the evening, his mode of enjoyment being to roll on the greensward, with all four legs waved aloft.
When he gets on to a bit of clovery sward by the wayside it really is a treat to see him.
“I wouldn’t miss this, master,” he says to me, “for all the world, and I only wonder you don’t come and tumble as I do.”
June, 22nd (Monday). – A village of grey limestone houses, thatched and tiled, many with charmingly antique roofs, a village built on ground that is level, a village embowered in orchards and trees, and with so many lanes and roads through it that a stranger could not be expected to know when he was in it or when he was out of it I have said “a village built,” but rather it seems like a village that has grown, house by house, each in its own garden or orchard, and each one different in appearance from the others. Altogether English, however, is Kidlington, and the work-a-day people are thoroughly English too, very rustic, good-natured, and simple. I do not believe they ever brawl and fight here at pothouses on Saturday nights, or that the conversation ever advances much beyond “turmuts” and cattle.
I do not suppose that Kidlington ever looked much better than it does on this bright summer’s morning. The breeze that blew all night, making the Wanderer rock like a ship at sea, has fallen; there is just sufficient left to sough through the ash-trees and whisper among the elms; cloudlets float lazily in the sky’s blue and temper the sunshine. I am writing on the coupé, in the meadow where we have lain since Saturday afternoon. There is silence all round, except that cocks are crowing and a turkey gobbling; there is a rustic perched on the stile-top yonder, wondering at my cockatoo, and at Bob, who wears a scarlet blanket to keep the early morning chill away; another rustic is driving a herd of lazy cows along the lane. That is the scene, and that is about all. But what a quiet and pleasant Sabbath we spent yesterday in this meadow and at the village church!
It is now eight o’clock, and time to get the horses in. I wonder what the world is doing – the outside world, I mean. I have not seen a newspaper for three days, nor had a letter since leaving home. Now hey! for Deddington.
Somewhat pretty is the country for a mile or two out of Kidlington, rising ground all the way to Sturdy’s Castle, four miles and a half. This is a solitary inn, of grey limestone, Sturdy by name and sturdy by nature, and if it could tell its story it would doubtless be a strange one. But what a wide, wild country it overlooks! It is wide and wild now. What, most it have been one hundred years ago? Found a carpet-hawker encamped with her caravan behind the castle. She travels all alone with her two children throughout the length and breadth of England. Seems very intelligent, and gives a terrible account of the difficulties to be encountered on ahead of us in getting in at night. We’ll see.
We are at present in the Blenheim country, and the Dashwood estate lies east – away yonder. I make no détour to visit the palace. Every one knows it by heart.
A kind-hearted carter man has told me a deal about the scenes around us, which I daresay the jolting over these rutty roads will soon drive out of my head.
On we go again.
Hopcroft’s Holt is an old-fashioned quiet inn close by intersecting roads that to the right branch off to Bicester. Stayed here to cook and eat.
Densely wooded and well hedged country all round, quiet and retired. It must be healthy here in summer.
Blacksmith has neatly mended my tricycle, which had broken down, so that I am able to make little excursions down by-roads. The village of Upper Heyford, about two miles from here, is as quaint and ancient-looking as if some town in the Orkneys.
June 23rd. – It needed all the strength of Corn-flower and Pea-blossom to get us into Deddington, for the hills are long and steep. We are furnished with a roller that drags behind the near after wheel, in case of accident or sudden stopping on a hill, and now for the first time we needed it.
New experiences come on this tour of mine every day, though adventures are but few, or have been hitherto. At Oxford and places en route from there we were reported to be the Earl of E – . At Deddington the wind changed, and we were taken for Salvationists on a pilgrimage. Salvationists are not liked in Deddington, and our arrival in the market-place, an ugly piece of rocky ground in the centre of the town (population about three thousand), was the occasion of a considerable deal of excitement. We had the horses out nevertheless, and prepared to spend the night there. We pulled blinds down, and I was about to batten down, as sailors say – in other words, get on the shutters – for the boys had taken to stoning each other, when the arrival of kindly Dr T – and an invitation to come to his grounds gave us relief and surcease from riot.
As the mob chose to follow and hoot, my Highland blood got up, and I got out with Hurricane Bob, the Newfoundland. The street was narrow, and further advance of those unmannerly louts was deemed by them indiscreet.
The change from the lout-lined street to the pleasant grounds of Dr T – ’s old house at Deddington was like getting into harbour from off a stormy sea, and I shall never forget the kind hospitality of the kindly doctor and his family.
To be taken for an earl in the morning and a captain of the Salvation Army in the evening is surely enough for one day.
This morning I visited the fine old church, and, as usual, got up into the steeple. If ever you go to Deddington, pray, reader, do the same. The town stands on a hill, and the steeple-top is one hundred feet higher; you can see for many miles. The country round is fertile, rolling hill and dale and valley, and densely treed. There are villages to the right, villages to the left, and mansions peeping from the woods wherever you turn your eye.
The steeple-head is covered with lead, and it is the custom of visitors to place a foot on the lead and cut a mark round it. Inside this they write their initials and the date. Here are footmarks of every size. You can even tell the age and guess the sex. Among them are those of children, but looking at some of the dates those babes must have grown men and women long ago, grown old and died. There is food for thought in even this.
We pass the village of Adderbury on our way to Banbury. From an artistic as well as antiquarian point of view it is well worth a visit. See it from the Oxford side, where the stream winds slowly through the valley. The village lies up yonder on the ridge among grand old trees, its church as beautiful as a dream. Looking in the opposite direction to-day a thoroughly English view meets my gaze. On one bank of the valley is a broad flat meadow, where cattle are wading more than ankle-deep in buttercups and grass; on the other merry haymakers are busy; away beyond are sunny braelands with a horizon of elms.
Delayed for a time after leaving Adderbury by the collapse of a traction engine on the road. We are now cooking dinner outside Banbury, the horses grazing quietly by the roadside.
June 24th. – We went quickly through Banbury, pretty though the place be. We stayed not even to have a cake. Truth is, we were haunted by our greatest foe, the traction engine fiend, which twice yesterday nearly brought us to grief and my narrative to a close.
The country ’twixt Banbury and the little village of Warmington, which lies in a hollow – and that hollow is a forest of fine trees – is beautiful. The soil in many of the fields a rich rusty red. There is what may well be called a terrible hill to descend before you reach the road that leads to Warmington. Once here, we found ourselves on a