CORRESPONDENCE.
A SUMMER DRIVING-TOUR.--III.
[TO TRH EDITOR OF TEl "RPROTATOR.1
SIR,—The horse-books assert, in the midst of their very uncom- fortable information about Megrims,' that the class of horses called " star-gazers " are particularly liable to this disease. But I never detected any ambitious astronomical tendencies in poor Nancy, and so could not reproach myself for having bought her under any "notice" of her habit of indulging in those dizzy aspirations which end in fits of giddiness. Our first drop of consolation was given us: by the veterinary, who arrived after a delay of a day or two, and who drove himself over to our inn with a horse that must, I think, have been barely rescued by his skill from the tomb, so wretched was its appearance. Certainly I was disposed to feel some confi- dence in the man who could keep such a creature alive at all. He was a secret-looking man, with an expression of chronic surprise stamped indelibly on his face,—.surprise, perhaps, that any one should- ever consult him. Or perhaps it was rather that he looked as if he had had the private ear of numberless invalid animals who had con- fided to him their maladies, but not the language in which to interpret them to human beings. For the furtive astonishment of his expression had a dash of confidence in it too. He insisted on taking a hopeful view of 'megrims,' against all the traditions of the elders, and stole about Nancy as if he were in her secret as to the nature of her attack.. He bled her, and he gave her belladonna, and predicted that the attack would not return, though here everybody was against him, and the neighbouring farmers would inquire of me. cheerfully if that was the mare who had had the megrims,' and volunteer the cordial assurance that we could never be safe with her again. However, our sanguine veterinary confidentially whispered to me the history of one or two cases in which his treatment had at least been followed by intervals of years, and on his second visit, when I met him coming out from a very private interview with Nancy, looking more surprised and secret than ever, he in- dicated rather than expressed his astonishment to find the mare so much better, and assured me she might undertake her usual work on the following day. However, we did not venture to resume our Western tour. The further you are from home, the worse is.a collapse of plans. Dorsetshire and Devonshire are hilly counties, and the prospect of ' megrims ' supervening on a high Dorset- shire down, with a shattered trap and lamed horse, and a modest amount of baggage to be suddenly disposed of somehow, was so very discouraging, that we thought it better to write to a friend who was to have joined us at Lyme Regis to come instead to the New Forest, promising her an excursion or two to less dis- tant beauties by way of compensation. Besides the New Forest, picturesque Lymington and the scenery of the Solent, Salisbury, and Stonehenge were all well within easy reach, and as day by day the 'megrims' did not recur, we began to cherish new hopes of the efficacy of that bleeding and that belladonna, in spite of the dogmatism of the books. I confess I was anxious that nothing should go wrong while the ladywho now joined us remained with us. For she had been an invalid, and her nervous system might be injured by any catastrophe. Besides, she had known me as a boy, and has always had a keen humour of her own, not unmixed with a satiric vein ; and in the fits of impatience which fatal interrup- tion to my plans is too apt to cause in me, she takes the liberty to make fun of me, and does not do it badly; so that I was really anxious, not only on Cecilia's account, but on our new guest's and my own, that we might have no catastrophes.
Our first long excursion was to Lymington, whence we hoped to visit Hurst Castle, and crossing the Solent, to reach the downs above Freshwater. The Guide-books are severe on Hurst Castle. 'The historical associations connected with this ancient stronghold are few and of little interest.' But it has always had a fascination for me, for its desolate and almost insulated situation, — in great storms the sea dashes well over the long, sandy spit, by which alone it is connected with the Hampshire coast,—and again, from the fact that it was Charles L's prison for three weeks in the gloomy December which preceded his execution, and that lie himself fancied that it was selected as a spot well-fitted for his assassination. So we set out for Lymington through the Forest. And as I shall hardly have another opportunity of speaking of the New Forest, let me say here that its special charm is the mixture of wild heath scenery with forest scenery, and by no means the special grandeur of the trees it contains. Windsor Park and Forest contain an indefinitely larger number of old and mighty trees. There are no beeches in the New Forest like the grand beech- trees near Woodside, in Windsor. There are no oaks in the New Forest like the old oaks near Cranbourne Gate, in Windsor. But then there are no great heaths in Windsor Park, like the high heaths which stretch for miles and miles within the borders of the New Forest, and which slope down on both sides into glades of fern, and beech, and oak, and chestnut. Transport the high Chobham ridges into the centre of Windsor Park, multiplied indefinitely in extent, and you would have the scenery of the New Forest, with grander leafage and huger boles as well. As it is, however, you will hardly find anything like the New Forest elsewhere in England, though a few large sheets of water would add even to its beauty. The great charm of forest scenery consists in the wealth of contrast which it affords between light and shade, brightness and gloom, be- tween the massiveness of the trunks and the delicate tracery of the foliage, between the huge immobility of the stems and the light rustle of the wind among the leaves. Growths of such grandeur and mass the seasonal outcome of which is so delicate, fragile, and transparent, bring home the artistic life in Nature and the true naturalness in Art with marvellous vividness and force. But all these beauties would be increased greatly by a few sheets of water, which multiply the reflected lights, and give a new atmos- phere to the shadow, and which, by placing before us Nature's own softened image of herself, stimulate a rivalry between the magic power of the mirror beneath• to give a liquid loveliness to wood and cloud, and the magic power of the true artist's mind to group and interpret the impressions made on his own eye and heart. Certainly the beauties of the New Forest, great as they are, would be greater far with larger streams or lakes.
We set out for Lymington with somewhat anxious hearts. But Minstead, Lyndhurst, Brockenhurst, were all reached and passed, and Nancy showed no tendency to "level downwards," as the Conservatives used to paraphrase dizziness, a few years ago. We reached Lymington safely, and were delighted with its pic- turesque broad street, sloping down to the harbour, went through a sharp contest with the landlord of the inn, who professed to have made a general rule against dogs, which he commuted how- ever, on the present occasion, on my self-assessed payment of a trumpery mulct of a shilling a-piece on their admission,—a shabby compromise, as it seemed to me,—and settled to drive the next day to Keyhaven, whence it was a short half-hour's row across the landlocked bay to the gloomy old round-towered castle which commands the narrow strait between it and the Isle of Wight. The day was lovely, and the very solitary drive to Keyhaven, across fields almost destitute even of a cart-track, where troops of horses were galloping wildly about, and herds of cows with a dangerous-looking bull or two were feeding, was interesting enough, as it commanded the Solent and the opposite shore of the Isle of Wight, and steered straight for the desolate- looking white tower of Hurst Castle which we kept through- out full in view. At length we emerged from "the Marshes" by a gate which turned out to our surprise to be a turn- pike,—though as there had been no road at all for the last mile, it was difficult to say how the produce of the tolls had been ex- pended,—and found ourselves in the minute hamlet of Keyhaven, whence the communication with Hurst Castle is almost wholly by boat, as few people care to tramp along two miles of rough shingle, by which alone the castle can be reached by land. The row was a very pleasant one, the seagulls dipping all around us into the water, and screaming in clouds over the shingly promontory to our right, while boats with parties of artillerymen, by whom exclusively Hurst Castle is now garrisoned, passed us going to and fro in the bay. Nothing could have been less like the drear November day on which Charles I. was hurried over to this gloomy prison than the day on which we visited it. The sea and sky were deep blue, the reddish cliffs of the island opposite, and the green downs towering above them, showed large and bright. The next Hampshire headland, Christchurch Head, was dimly visible through the haze ; between the huge rocks of the Needles oppo- site us,—called "Needles," I suppose, like /ucus a non lucendo, because of their bastion-like massiveness,—the lines of blue sea shone cool and still ; a few ships with sails spread were passing westward down the mid-channel, and here and there a skiff, with full sheets, scudded past. The old guns of Hurst Castle were • dismounted, and the new and bigger ones which were to supply their places not yet in position. But it looked the fortress still, and a formidable one. And even under that summer sky it had a dreary aspect, with its little dungeons of rooms,—there was never a state-room, or anything like one, in Hurst,—and the long, naked strip of causeway by which it is connected with the land. The gentlemen of Hampshire who came there during the first three weeks of December, 1648, to pay their respects to Charles, can hardly, I think, have seen him to advantage there, even in the part he played best,—that of the stately martyr. The utter dreariness of the place,—little more than a lighthouse,—the com- plete preponderance of grey sea and murky sky over the human actors, in any drama that could go on there, the want of space and opportunity for anything like the artificial grace and majesty of a Court,—for it takes distance and background to give effect to the refined sadness of a persecuted King, especially in the still grander presence of imperious winds and waves,—must have greatly diminished the effect of even Charles's royal serenity in adversity. The King's fortitude, I suppose, never gave way, even when he heard of Colonel Harrison's arrival, and supposed that he was come to give him the coup de grace. But it must have been well for the sort of fame which Charles has gained that he was removed to Windsor, and finally to Whitehall, and allowed to surround himself with the associations of palaces, for the closing scenes. He had a sort of passive greatness, but it was of the kind which comes out better in the palace than against a cold background of desolate Nature, such as that in which Sir Walter Scott, in "Old Mortality," so finely places the last scene of the fanatic Burley's life. Yet this is no reason why the poets who have made Charles's destiny the subject of tragedy should not have chosen Hurst for one of the closing scenes. Art is not compelled to observe all the limits of nature, and it would have been easy so to paint the grim sea-prison and the dignified king as to make his royal fortitude shine out with fresh grandeur. If a poet could write of such a place as this,— " And this grim castle, standing here sublime, I love to see the look with which it braves,
Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time,
The lightnings, the fierce winds, and trampling waves,"
—surely poets, like Mr. Butler, for instance, the last and, I fancy, the best of the dramatists of Charles's fall, might have produced a fine effect by painting the contrast between this desolate dungeon encased in its "unfeeling armour of old time," and beaten by the dim seas, and the sensitive fortitude which steeled the soul of that vain and insincere, though refined and stately, and in his sort, even pious king.
We were soon back at Keyhaven, where we found Nancy in the best of spirits, stamping with impatience to be off. And this time avoiding "the Marshes," we drove round by the road to Lymington, congratulating ourselves on the success of the day. Alas, too soon ! A mile and a half outside Lymington there came another "thundering blow ;" and this time "a man" was really needful, for the trap was broken, and had fallen so much upon the poor mare, that till it was pulled back, she could not rise. Away fled our invalid friend, fleet as the wind,—I could not have conceived her capable of such velocity,—to a neighbouring farm, while I held down Nancy from her dangerous attempts to rise, and Cecilia made vain endeavours to pull back the trap. The first result of our swift invalid's mission was, however, not
"a man," but a lugubrious woman, who tendered distasteful com- miseration, and whose arrival I resented almost as a spy's. How- ever, a vigorous labourer appeared soon afterwards, and assisted us to disentangle Nancy from the wreck, and take her to the hospitable farmer's stables. Who shall tell the deep gloom that settled upon us here? We were pressed by the worthy man to take refreshment, and our invalid friend, who indulges in dietetic views of her own, accepted a glass of milk, as also did I, not to seem discourteous ; but the vision of that miserable "party in the parlour" at its milky symposium, I will not quite say "all silent and all damned," but hardly able to attend to the farmer's kindly statistics about his harvest and his pasture-land, or to render due thanks to his venerable mother's generous desire to wash out our sorrows with the flowing jug, haunts me yet. I was asking myself all the time the useless question,—Was it another fit of the 'megrims,' or was it a stumble ? I certainly saw none of the signs of 'megrims' which had marked the previous attack. But then Nancy came down on all four legs at once, which is not usual with a common fall, and there was no stone and no other apparent cause for the collapse. As Dr. Johnson said to Boswell, when asked if it was better to wear nightcaps or not, "I do not know, Sir ; perhaps no man shall ever know whether it is better to wear nightcaps or not," so I may say of this last fall of Nancy's.
I do not know, and it is quite certain that no man shall ever know, whether it was due to 'megrims' or not?' But whether it was or not, did not perhaps very greatly matter ; there was the carriage broken, the mare with her knee badly cut, and our will- ing and credulous confidence in my secretive veterinary's bleeding and belladonna, greatly shaken, if not absolutely gone. Then, too, the vapid consolations tendered to us increased my gloom. The hospitable farmer with whom we took refuge, encouraged by our apparent interest in milk, and anxious to give the coup de grace to our melancholy, bade us follow him into his cool and certainly exquisite Hampshire dairy, with a fountain playing in the middle, and large earthenware jars of delicious cream standing round it. But who can minister to a mind diseased? Not poppy nor mandragora, still less cream in gallons, could sooth my 'megrim '-haunted brain. The helpful labourer who had led in the wounded horse and drawn in the maimed carriage tried his band at a stronger sort of consolation. He reiterated to me many times that only a fortnight before he had picked up a horse and cart wrecked on the same spot, the driver of which was thrown out and killed, and he dwelt on the coincidence with great facial expression of mute inward satisfac- tion, of the nature of which I did not quite understand the springs. Whether he would have thought it more artisti- cally complete if I had also been thrown out and killed, or was gratified to find a progressive amelioration in the character of the accidents at which he was called on to assist, and discerned some hope of their being "better yet again, and better still in infinite progression," I was not at all sure. How- ever, I never can persuade myself to be thankful because some- body else has suffered something worse than I, and as I walked gloomily back to Lymington, leaving the wrecks—bandaged carriage and wounded mare—to follow in the evening, I turned over in my mind the chances of disposing of poor Nancy and getting a strong forest pony in her place.
This time we avoided all personal share in the " procession " of the occasion,—evaded it, that is, for a consideration. The man who was so peculiarly struck with the second call he had received within a fortnight to rescue a carriage which had come to grief on the same spot, was only too glad to associate himself further with the catastrophe, by steer- ing the wreck into harbour, and so gaining the opportunity of recounting his double appearance on the tragic stage in the same character to the ears of listening Lymington. But for me, I confess I was weary of the blows of fate, especially when administered in this very humiliating form. Dignity is possible when one is persecuted, even though one is beaten with stripes, or has one's feet set fast in the stocks. But dignity imploring the aid of "a man," dignity in a botched and bandaged carriage, dignity in driving a horse in knee-caps, and looking anxiously out for 'megrims,'—this is quite impossible. I was too gloomy to be even impatient. Indeed, we were all as dejected as King Charles in Hurst Castle. And while securing the services of a Lyming- ton carriage-maker for the morrow, I could not but reflect grimly that he could hardly mend the trap so fast as Nancy could break it down. That night, Sir, I went to bed quite out of sorts with your advice, indeed the very opposite of
A DOCILE READER,
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