Spring in a Shropshire Abbey

“What was the name of his horse?”

“OLD SOUL” TO RIDE

“‘Old Soul,’ right enough,” answered Timothy; “a great lean beaste, sixteen hands and more. Any amount of bone and not a square inch of flesh, with a docked tail and a wicked wall eye. He kicked and bit, did Old Soul, as if he war the great Satan himself; and I’ve heard ’em say at the kennels, that there war none but Tom and one other man about the place as dared go near him to dress him down, for he would savage any one when he had a mind. Heels up, and ears back, and his eye the colour of a yule log at Christmastide, those were his ways. Yet Tom at covert side thought mountains of him. ‘Old Soul and I must get to heaven together,’ he used to say, ‘for what the old chap wud do without me, or I without he, ’twould puzzle me to think. And ’tis the wickedest, cutest old devil that ever man sat across,’ Tom used to swear, ‘but if a man’s got a spice of the true hunter in him, he blesses God to be on such a horse when hounds be running, devil or no devil.’

“Once,” continued Timothy, “I heard as Tom war lost. They hunted for ’un everywhere down beyond Kenley, where they had been in the morning. In those days the country there war very marshy in the winter time, for there wasn’t a bit of draining. Well, I’ve heard it said as Tom went in, and it happened in this way. Tom war leading his horse, but the horse war wiser than Tom, for feelin’ the ground shaky, he jerked up his head sudden like, and snapped the bridle and got away. Tom, he tried to leap out of the bog, but he couldn’t, for sure he war sucked in and kept fast prisoner in the clay.

“When the squire and the pack got back to the kennels there war no Tom. ‘Hullo! where be Tom?’ cried the squire, and he got anxious, for never in the born days of man had Tom not turned up. They called and they sent out riders, and they shouted like scholards out on a holiday, but nothin’ of Tom could they hear. So out the squire and the faithful hunt they set, with a fresh pack, and fresh horses, and only a lick down of somethin’ to keep the soul in ’em. On they went, the squire leadin’ like a lord on his white-legged chestnut. Only this time it warn’t no fox-hunting, but a man as they war searchin’ after.

“On they rode across Blakeway, beyond Harley, then turning straight westwards they got to the wild country, and they rode round, I’ve heard say, almost to Church Stretton, up to the foot of the Caradoc; and sure enough, just as the squire war about to give up the job and creep home to get a bit of supper, and get dogs and men to their beds, they heard, as I’m a Christian man, somethin’ a-croaking and calling ‘Tally-ho! tally-ho!’ but so hoarse, and strange, and misty-like, that it seemed no real voice, but whispers from a ghost.

THE MIDNIGHT CHASE

“One of the whipper-ins, a small white-haired little chap as they used to call ‘Soap,’ because he looked so clean and peart, and was a pet-like with the lasses, began to shiver and call out ‘Lord ’a mercy, let’s hunt the fox, but leave alone devils and Herne the Hunter, and such like.’ But the squire, he never turned a hair, and he called out, ‘No bed, or rest for me till we’ve found Tom,’ and he rode on on his chestnut; and then Jack Pendrell, what was a groom, he called out too, ‘Where the squire goes, I go,’ and he set spurs into his grey; and then they followed on, hounds and men, like a covey of partridges. And all of a sudden, I have heard ’em say (for it war the talk of the country-side for many days), Old Dancer gave a whimper and then Regent followed suit, and then Butterfly and Skylark threw in their bell notes, and away the whole hunt burst like steam. They barely seemed to touch the ground, but ran like mad, as hounds do in a killing scent. The squire fairly split the chestnut, Tom Trig and Bob Buckson followed close behind, and they rode as if the devil was at their heels. And all the while the voice kept calling, hullooing like a spirit in a tomb, only fainter and fainter – a kind of unearthly screech like a raven dooming a Christian across a churchyard. At last two hounds ran in, and the squire leapt from his horse, which steamed like a chimney, and there they found Tom sucked up in the ground fit to die, and the wind pretty nearly out of his body. He looked like a ghost when they got him out. He must have perished long before, he told ’em, if it hadn’t been that he had found a stout handful of grass by which he had hung on, and called for his life.

“Well, the long and the short of it was, when they hauled him out – which they did by ropes and knotting their handkerchiefs together – they put him on an old dun pony. But Tom war that silly and faint, that they had to tie him on to keep him from falling, and so they got him home.

“When they got back to Willey, the squire had him taken straight to his own bed, and clapt inside. ‘Tom,’ he said, ‘don’t yer die; yer drink and yer bain’t worth much, but fox-hunting in Shropshire can’t live without yer.’ And,” continued old Timothy, “Tom declared then he felt fit to die of glory at the thought as he, Tom, and fox-hunting war one and the same thin’ in Shropshire. Well, Tom got round, for all his chill and lying in the ground six mortal hours, but he never war the same man again. The squire spared no expense on him, and made him take the same medicines as he took himself, and gave him foreign wines, though they do say as Tom would have liked old ale better.”

“When did old Tom die at last?” I asked.

“I cannot precisely remember, but I’ve heard it war in 1796 or thereabouts. He war no great age, but he had lived fast and went to bed mellow, as fellows used to do then. Well, ma’am, when the doctor gave up hope, it wasn’t long as Tom was ill, for once out of the saddle he hadn’t much to live for, as I’ve heard ’em say. The days seemed mortal long to Tom, lyin’, as he said, mute as a log and nothing to interest ’im but the goin’ out and the comin’ home of the hounds. When Tom had made up his mind that he warn’t long for this world, he begged the squire to step down.

“‘Squire,’ he said, ‘I’ve been a sinner, and God forgive me; not of much good to nobody save on a horse, but I’ve hunted to please you and to please myself.’ And they say that the old squire, when he heard Tom talk like that, spoke very gentle and pitiful, and he said, taking Tom’s hand, ‘Tom, my man, yer don’t owe me nothin’. You’ve been a right good servant, gone like the devil, and loved the hounds like yer brothers.’

A HUNTING FUNERAL

“‘Right, squire, right,’ answered Tom. And then he told him what war in his mind about his berrial.

“There’s some as like it one way and some another,” said old Timothy, “but Tom he’d set his mind on a hunting funeral. The hounds war to be in at the death, as he called it, and the good men who rode hard and straight war to be there too, and give a view holloa after parson had said the prayers. Would parson mind? Tom had asked. But the squire told ’im not to vex hisself, for the parson war of the right sort, and would understand that fox-hunting and the Church war both the glory of Englishmen. Then he asked, did Tom, that his favourite old horse, him as he had called Old Soul, was to follow behind ready saddled as for a day’s hunting. And then, when all was settled to Tom’s mind, he and the squire shook hands and said good-bye to each other. The squire,” continued my old guest, “war a right proper man, masterful but kind, knew his own mind, but war faithful to them as had been faithful to him, and what he promised Squire George allus did. He was iron as to promises – said little, but stuck to a promise as if it had been the last word of his mother, folks said. So in November, a matter of a few days after poor Tom had died, they buried him accordin’ to his instructions, and all the good fellows that had followed the hunt, and seen him show them rattling sport fine days and foul days alike, came from far and near to do him honour. And when they shouted, after lowering Tom’s coffin, there war no irreverence in the job whatever. People now,” continued Timothy, “don’t understand sport. They think ’tis only fit stuff for a daily paper, and mayn’t come nohow to church or touch Church goings on. Oh, but Lord love yer!” – and my old friend drew himself up straight in his chair – “they thought different then, and they gave Tom a view holloa, for all they were worth, did the hunt, and stood there reverent and pious over his grave bareheaded alongside, till the woods and hills fair rang with their voices. No harm,” said my old friend, “war meant, and no harm war done, for God Almighty wouldn’t make foxes if he didn’t hold to fox-chasing.” As he spoke, Master Theobalds got up. “Good-bye, marm, and thank you kindly,” he said. “It does me good to talk of the old days and of the old goin’s on. It kind of brings back a bit of sun to me.”

As he spoke the old man rapped his stick feebly along the old cement floor of the monks and crept out of the door. My big dog looked after him and growled, for the tapping of a stick is a thing that few dogs can stand.

What strong men for good or ill, I argued, they were, those men who saw the end of the eighteenth and the birth of the nineteenth century. How brave and undaunted! They fought England’s quarrels over Europe, and they died in Spain, and won on the plains of Waterloo. How narrow they were, how intolerant, and how brave! Surely fox-hunting taught them some of their endurance and courage, and the long days over woodland and moor gave them strong muscles and brave hearts, and prepared them for the hardships of war.

The morning, with its glory of sunshine had passed, and the afternoon had grown grey and still. The joy of the morning seemed hushed, a chill grey sky was overhead, and the lowering clouds promised, a wet night.

I wandered out and walked amongst the ruins. Outside the grounds I heard a dog faintly barking, and the faint murmur of children’s voices reached me, but as in a dream; all the laughter and the gaiety of May morning had fled. I noticed that the thorns were bursting into blossom, and that a white lilac was covered with snow-like flowers.

I passed into the Chapter House. Alas! in the nineteenth century one complete set of arches had fallen, but the beautiful interlaced arches were still there, although every saint had been knocked off his niche and destroyed by the hooligan of Henry VIII.’s or Elizabeth’s reign. On the northern side, says tradition, reposed the body of St. Milburgha.

THE HOLY ONE AND MIRACLES

I felt in the grey evening as if I was standing on holy ground. It was here, according to William of Malmesbury, the historian monk, “that there lived formerly a very ancient house of nuns. The place (Wenlock),” he tells us, “was wholly deserted on account of the Danes having destroyed the fabric of the nunnery. After the Norman conquest, Roger de Montgomery filled the monastery with Clugniac monks, where now,” wrote the pious monk, “the fair branches of virtue strain up to heaven. The virgin’s tomb was unknown to the new-comers, for all the ancient monuments had been destroyed by the violence of the foemen and time. But when the fabric of the new church was commenced, as a boy ran in hot haste over the floor, the grave of the virgin was broken through, and disclosed her body. At the same time a fragrant odour of balsam breathed through the church, and her body, raised high aloft, wrought so many miracles that floods of people poured in thither. Scarcely could the broad fields contain the crowds, whilst rich and poor together, fired by a common faith, hastened on their way. None came to return without the cure or the mitigation of his malady, and even king’s evil, hopeless in the hands of the leech, departed before the merits of the virgin.”

As I stood on the well-shorn turf, the holy scene seemed to come back to me; then, later, the crowd of devout pilgrims overflowing fields and common. I seemed almost to see the bands of eager devotees, to hear their outburst of faith and thanksgiving, and to feel them near. I imagined cripples cured, the blind returning with their sight, all relieved and all blessing the Giver of life and health in their strong belief of the eleventh century.

Miss Arnold Forster, in her admirable work on “Church Dedications,” declares that the little leaden geese sometimes dug up in London are the same images that were bought by pilgrims and taken back to their homes from Wenlock.

In 1501, by order of Henry VII., a splendid shrine was built for the bones and relics of St. Milburgha, but after the dissolution of the monasteries, the mob broke in and robbed the tomb of its jewels, and scattered the saint’s bones and ashes to the winds.

I thought of all the old stories connected with the place, of the many deeds of piety of the Saxon saint and of her tomb, then of the rough usage of her shrine, and of the demolition of the churches after the Reformation.

The last twenty years has brought great changes, and none are greater than the changes in many of our views respecting the Reformation. No longer a narrow Protestant spirit governs us, or makes us believe that all done at the Reformation was well done, and for the glory of God. We mourn over the ruined churches, the deserted altars, and the loss to the world of so much that was venerable and beautiful.

SAINTS WERE DRIVEN FORTH

Bishop Godwin lamented bitterly over the fall of the monasteries. “Godly men,” he wrote, “could not approve of the destruction of so many grand churches built,” as the bishop expressed it, “for the worship of God by our ancestors. It was deeply to be regretted,” he declared, “the diversion of such an amount of ecclesiastical revenues to private use, and the abolition of every place where men might lead a religious life in peace, and retirement from worldly business, devoting themselves wholly to literary toil and meditation.”

Till the reign of Henry VIII. England was studded over with beautiful church buildings and monuments. They were centres of learning and culture. Buildwas, the great Cistercian monastery only three miles away, on the banks of the Severn, was famous in the Middle Ages for its workshops, and for the many copies of the Scriptures which were penned there, whilst in many of the monasteries, as even Lord Herbert said, the brothers behaved so well “that not only were their lives exempt from notorious faults, but their spare time was bestowed in writing books, in painting, carving, graving, and the like exercises, so that even their visitors became intercessors for their continuance.” But Cromwell would not allow the monks any virtues, and declared brutally that their houses should be thrown down to the foundations, and continued to fill the king’s coffers and his private purse with their gold.

Camden wrote: “Up to the thirty-sixth year of Henry VIII.’s reign, there were six hundred and forty-five religious houses erected for the honour of God, the propagation of Christianity and learning, and the support of the poor.

“Then,” says the historian, “a storm burst upon the English Church, like a flood, breaking down its banks, which, to the astonishment of the world and the grief of the nation, bore down the greater part of the religious houses, and with them their fairest buildings.

“These buildings were almost all shortly after destroyed, their monastic revenues squandered, and the wealth which the Christian piety of the English nation had from their first conversion dedicated to God, was in a moment dispersed.”

After doing away with the smaller monasteries, Henry VIII. found himself and the State but little richer for the confiscations. The story runs that he complained bitterly to his minister, Cromwell, of the rapacity of his courtiers, and is said to have exclaimed angrily —

“By our Lady! the cormorants, when they have got the garbage, will devour the fish.”

“There is more to come, your grace,” answered the wily vicegerent.

“Tut, tut, man,” the king is supposed to have answered, “my whole realm would not stanch their maws.”

Great was the sorrow of the poor at the dissolution. For the monks, as a rule, had been kind masters. They had nursed the sick, and had given away many doles at Christmas and welcome charities. They had fed and had clothed the indigent, and had opened their houses often as places of rest to travellers and to those in distress.

“It was,” wrote Strype, “a pitiful thing to hear the lamentations that the people of the country made for the monasteries. For in them,” he asserts, “was great hospitality, and by the doing away of the religious houses, it was thought more than 10,000 persons, masters and servants, had lost their living.”

LATIMER’S PLEA

Even Latimer, strong, sturdy Protestant that he was, though he flamed with righteous wrath at the abuses that went on in many of the religious houses, prayed that some of the superior and blameless houses might be spared. It was not wise, he thought, to strike all with one sweeping blow, and he begged “that some of the monasteries might continue and be filled with inmates not bound by vows, and revised by stringent statutes, where men in every shire might meditate and give themselves up to holy prayer, and acquire the art of preaching.”

“That soul must be low indeed,” wrote Cobbett, in his “History of the Protestant Reformation,” “which is insensible to all feelings of pride in the noble edifices of its country.”

“Love of country, that variety of feelings which all together constitute what we properly call patriotism, consists in part, of the admiration and of veneration for ancient and magnificent proofs of skill, and of opulence.

“The monks built, as well as wrote, for posterity. The never-dying nature of their institutions set aside in all their undertakings every calculation as to time and age. Whether they built, or whether they planted, they set the generous example of providing for the pleasure, the honour, the wealth and greatness, of generations upon generations, yet unborn. They executed everything in the best possible manner. Their gardens, their fish-ponds, farms; in all, in the whole of their economy they set an example tending to make the country beautiful – to make it an object of pride with the people, and to make the nation truly, and permanently great.”

Full of these different thoughts, I walked beneath arch and column, and so away from the old world and its belongings, until I stood before my aviary of canaries. I entered the cage. As I watched my birds I heard a pitter-patter overhead, and, looking up, I saw, leaning against a rail, my little friend Thady Malone.

“Well, Thady,” I said, “what has brought you here? I missed you this morning during the May Dance.”

“’Deed,” said Thady, slowly, “it was sorry I was not to be wid you, for I hear the little leddy danced like a cat in the moonlight, and shone like a glow-worm at the point of day.”

“Oh, but Bess didn’t dance,” I answered laughing.

“But, ’deed, if she had,” replied Thady, enthusiastically, “there’s not a fairy in auld Oireland that would have kept pace with her, or looked half the darlint.”