Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, August, 1880

AN OLD ENGLISH HOME: BRAMSHILL HOUSE

A peculiar charm hangs about an Elizabethan country-house.

The castles belong to an utterly different state of things and people—to a rougher, coarser time. Their towers and walls, where the jackdaws build in the ivy; their moats, where the hoary carp bask and fatten; their drawbridges and heavy doors and loopholed windows,—these all tell of the unrest, the semi-war-like state of feudal days, when each great seigneur was a petty king in his own county, with his private as well as public feuds, and his little army of men-at-arms ready to do his bidding, to sally forth and fight for the king or to defend his own walls against some more powerful neighbor.

The great houses of the eighteenth century have a different character again, with their Italian façades and trim terraced gardens, where the wits and beauties of dull Queen Anne's time amused themselves after their somewhat rude fashion. They speak of a solid luxury in keeping with the heavy features and ponderous minds of the worthies of those days.

But the Elizabethan, or even early Jacobean, house tells us of England in her golden age. The walls of red brick, gray with lichens; the rows of wide stone-mullioned windows and hanging oriels; the delicate, fanciful chimneys rising in great clusters above the pointed gables; the broad stone steps leading up to the hospitable door; the smooth green terraces and bowling-lawns, walled in, it is true, but closed with gates of curiously-wrought ironwork meant more for ornament than for defence,—all these serve to recall the days when learning and wealth joined hands with the Maiden Queen to raise England from the depths into which she had sunk—the days of "the worthies whom Elizabeth, without distinction of rank or age, gathered round her in the ever-glorious wars of her great reign."

It was then that Burleigh and Walsingham talked statecraft; that Raleigh and Drake, Frobisher and Grenville, sailed the seas and beat the Spanish Armada; that the "sea-dogs" brought the treasures of the New World to the feet of the queen, and filled men's minds with dreams of El Dorados where gold and jewels were as common as the sand on the seashore. It was then that English literature, all but dead during the storm of the Reformation, began to revive. And then it was that a galaxy of poets arose such as the world had never seen before; that Sidney wrote his Arcadia, Spenser his Faerie Queene; that Christopher Marlowe, Beaumont and Fletcher and merrie Ben Jonson founded the English drama; and that Shakespeare, poet of poets, overshadowed them all with that stupendous genius which has filled succeeding generations with wonder and love.

Then it was that men began to think of their home as a casket in which to enshrine the gentler tastes and luxuries which peace at home and continental influences from without were fostering in England. The casket must be fitted for its treasure; and so it came to pass that throughout the length and breadth of the land those fair Elizabethan mansions sprang up.

I see one such now in my mind's eye—one that I love well, for since my earliest childhood it has filled me with awe and admiration and delight. It was built by James I. as a hunting-box for his son, Prince Henry, but ere the house was finished the young prince was dead, and all the promise of his short life gone with him. Had he lived, our English history for the next hundred years might have been a different story. Bramshill then passed into other hands—first to Lord Zouch, then to the Copes, who still own it—but in the finely-carved stone balustrade above the great western door the three plumes of the prince of Wales's feathers may still be seen, the sole memento of its royal origin. Only half the original house remains: the rest was destroyed by fire a couple of hundred years ago. Yet what still stands is verily a palace.

You enter through the heavily-nailed and barred doors, and find yourself in a vast hall panelled up to the ceiling with old oak. The immense fireplace with its brass dogs and andirons tells of the yule log that still at Christmas burns upon the hearth, and trophies of arms of all ages—from the Toledo blade that can be bent by the point into a semicircle, so perfect is the temper of its steel, to the Sikh sword that was brought home after the Indian mutiny—form fitting ornaments for the walls.

Then come many rooms, with deep-embrasured windows looking out on the terrace, each beautiful or curious in its own way—a noble dining-room hung with old grisaille tapestry, from which you may learn the life of Decius Mus if you have patience to disentangle the strange medley of impossible figures in gardens with impossible flowers, where impossible beasts roam in herds and impossible birds sing among the branches.

But the glory of the house is its first floor. The wide oak staircase leads you up first to the chapel-room, with its oriel windows overhanging the western door, its Italian cabinets, its rare china, its chairs and couches covered with crewel-work more than two hundred years old, yet with colors as fresh as on the day that Lady Zouch and her maidens set in the stitches. Then there is the great drawing-room, with its precious Italian marble chimney-piece, more brass dogs, more tapestry, more recessed windows. Then the library, full of priceless books, to which the present learned owner is constantly adding new volumes. The mere ceilings are a study in themselves, for they are covered with mouldings and traceries and hanging bosses of marvellous workmanship of the time of Inigo Jones—designed, some say, by him, for he used to stay at Eversley, hard by, with a friend and fellow-pupil of Sir Christopher Wren. Then comes the long gallery, running the whole width of the building, stored with curiosities, where we used to run races and play hide-and-seek with the children of the house in bygone days, and tremble when evening came on lest some bogie from his lurking-place should spring out upon us. The bedrooms are panelled with oak painted white, with splendid fireplaces and carved mantelpieces that reach the ceiling.

And besides all these there are enchanting little rooms reached by unexpected staircases, by secret doors in the wall, by dark passages where one hears the rustle of ghostly brocade dresses. Those are the most lovable rooms, for, once safely in them, one is at home and warm, while in the state rooms one feels, as the dear old squire who died here thirty years ago said, "like a pea in a drum."

Down from the house slopes the park, with its green glades, its heather-covered knolls, its huge oaks, its delicate silver birches—above all, its matchless Scotch firs, which James I. planted here, as he did in many places in England, to remind himself of the land of his birth. The hardy northern trees took kindly to their new home, and they have seeded themselves and spread far and wide over vast tracts of country. But nowhere south of Tweed are finer specimens to be found than in this old Hampshire park. Three great avenues of them run round a triangle half a mile across, and outside the shade of their black branches the purple heather and waving bracken form a carpet fit for elves and fairies.

From the western front of the house a double avenue of gigantic elms leads down to the river that gleams in silver lines beneath the bridge, and ends where the moors begin on the opposite hill a mile away. Up this avenue in olden days the deer were driven toward the house, to be killed at the feet of the ladies, who stepped down in hoops and furbelows and dainty shoes to the iron gates between two pepper-box towers where gorgeous peacocks now strut and sun themselves.

Those were the days when, sorely against his own wish, Archbishop Abbot, my worthy ancestor, went a-hunting in the park on Sunday at the command of the king his master, who with the archbishop was a guest of Lord Zouch. Well for him had it been if he had resisted the royal will, for, as it befell, the arrow from his crossbow, glancing from a tree, struck one of the keepers and killed him then and there. The poor archbishop, it is said, never smiled again, and his sad, tender face in Vandyke's noble picture looks down on me from the wall as I write and bears out the truth of the story. Often and often when we children were playing in the park did we wander about, trying to settle from which tree the arrow glanced, conjuring up before our eyes the whole scene—the king's anger and the archbishop's despair at the catastrophe—and feeling the while a proud personal interest in it all. Ah, what good days those were, roaming about knee-deep in heather, catching the rare moths, chasing the squirrels that whisked up the fir stems and mocked us from their high perch, searching the hollow trees for woodpeckers' nests, eating the beech-nuts or pricking our fingers as we tried to open the husks of the Spanish chestnuts that grew by the lake! From among the bulrushes the coots sailed out at our approach, and the tiny dabchick dived so deep that we thought, "This time she must be drowned," when, lo and behold! she would appear twenty yards off, a little black ball with a yellow bill, only to take breath and plunge again. Sometimes in a hard winter we would hear high in the sky the cry of a weird pack of hounds. Nearer and nearer drew that unearthly music, till we held our breath in a kind of delightful terror, and then above our heads appeared a flock of wild swans on the search for water; and down they dropped, like white cannon-balls, into the lake, sending a mass of spray into the air and shivering the smooth black surface of the water into a thousand ripples that circled away and lapped against the banks in mimic waves.

But I think my most exquisite moment of happiness was one spring day when I saw close by me a little fox-cub—a furry darling, about as big as a four-months'-old kitten, with black stripes across his fat back. He had ventured out of the fox-earths on the other side of the park palings, and did not know how to get back to his anxious mother. I tried to catch him, but that was not to be, and young Reineke soon found a way home. Nevertheless, the joy was mine, never to be forgotten, of having seen a real wild beast so near.

Even on dark and stormy days the park has its own strange charm as one walks up the gloomy avenue on the soft fir-needles glistening with rain. A murmur fills the air as of sea-waves beating on the shore: it is the wet south-west wind soughing overhead and lashing the writhing branches. One thinks of the German fairy-tales, and half expects to meet the old woman who led Hansel and Grethel captive, or to come suddenly upon her house with its ginger-bread roof and barley-sugar windows.

I remember once taking a well-known musician through those fir woods one dark afternoon as the wind was making soft music above us. He was silent, and I was disappointed, for I had fancied that the new country would delight him and excite his imagination. But when we reached home he sat down to the piano in the dark, and played on and on as if he were pouring out his whole soul in the flood of sweet melody; and when, after an hour of marvellous improvisation, he stopped and said to us, "I couldn't help it: I had to reel off all that I have been seeing and hearing this afternoon," then I was content, for I knew nothing had been thrown away on our friend, and that if he could not talk about it all he could do even better.

But if you would see Bramshill in all its pride come on some November morning to the first meet of the season.

Well do I recollect the excitement of those happy days. How long the night seemed before morning broke and I was sure it was not pouring with rain! How pleasant to run down to breakfast all neat and trim in one's habit! And then when flask and sandwiches were safely bestowed, white gloves buttoned and hat firmly secured, how eagerly I watched for half-past ten to walk out to the stables, where the horses were stamping and snorting impatiently, knowing full well by their marvellous instinct what enjoyment was before them! Then my little bay Sintram came dancing out, followed by Puff, the dear old brown mare. I was tossed into the saddle, and away we went at that peculiarly unpleasant and tiring pace, a "cover trot," which for some inscrutable reason is the right thing if you are going to a meet. Less than a trot, more than a walk, you can neither sit still nor rise in your stirrup, but must just jog along till you fairly ache. The horses pull and fight with their bits as we keep them in the soft sandy ditch up the lane to spare their precious feet. At the few cottages we pass women and children are all standing at their garden-gates to watch the "quality" go by. The ploughmen in the fields discover that the furrows nearest the road need a great deal of attention; the shepherds fold their sheep to-day close to the hedge, so as to secure front places for the show; and if we chance to run this way every man will leave his work and follow us as long as his breath lasts, and his master, who is riding, will not grumble, for if hounds are running every man, be he rich or poor, has a right to run too.

Up the sandy hill we go, and out on the wide moors, covered with soft brown heather, which stretch away with hardly a break twenty miles south and east to Aldershot Camp or Windsor Forest. On the brow of the hill grows a mighty bush of furze which always goes by the name of "Miss Bremer's furze-bush." When the dainty Swedish novelist once came to gladden Eversley Rectory with her presence she told how she longed to see the plant before which Linnæus had fallen on his knees; and she walked up this selfsame hill and with eyes full of tears gazed on the prickly shrub with its mist of golden-colored, apricot-scented flowers. The old Hampshire proverb says, "When furze is out of flower kissing is out of fashion;" and, sure enough, there is not a month in the year in which you may not find a blossom or two among the green spines.

Now we cross a green road, the Welsh Ride, which in the autumn is covered with thousands of cattle making their way in great herds from the Welsh mountains and Devonshire pastures to the winter fairs round London. The drovers used to boast that they could bring their beasts all the way from Wales without once going off turf or through a turnpike. Now, alas! crowded cattle-trucks on the railway are fast superseding the old-fashioned, wholesome way of travelling, and we seldom have the autumnal air filled with the lowing of the herds, the barking of the attendant dogs and the shouts of the drovers on their sturdy Welsh ponies. But to-day the Welsh Ride looks gay enough, for it is dotted with little knots of horsemen in black or red coats using it as a short cut from Aldershot and Sandhurst. We turn off the moor into the shadow of the fir avenue that leads half a mile up to the park-gates. The ground, covered with a soft carpet of pine-needles and burrowed everywhere by the roots of the trees, gives off a hollow echo to the horses' clattering hoofs. The sombre avenue is alive in unwonted fashion to-day. Now we pass a group of pedestrians from the village; now a young farmer comes by on a half-broken colt which is to make its first acquaintance with the hounds; then a break with a big party from a country-house in Miss Mitford's village passes us with a gay greeting as it rattles on. A tiny nutshell of a pony-carriage full of babies comes trotting along, and its driver, poor Sheldon Williams, will make notes of the scene and put them into one of his clever hunting-pictures, little dreaming of the day when his early death will leave those babies penniless. Now a group of the redcoats we saw on the Welsh Ride overtakes us, and Sintram plunges and dances as a wild little thorough-bred comes up to our side. His master, who has already gained his Victoria Cross twice—first as a little lad in the trenches at Sevastopol, and again for desperate deeds of valor in the Indian mutiny—is to win yet further glory in 1879 at the head of the "flying column" in Zululand—Evelyn Wood, the most gallant and humane of all that gallant band.

The white park-gate is held wide open by a poor ne'er-do-weel in a shabby old red coat—John Ellis by name. How he gets his living no one knows, but if there is a meet of fox-hounds anywhere within ten miles, there he is sure to be, holding people's horses or ready at a gate for stray pennies and sixpences. There is usually such a hanger-on to every pack of hounds in England—one who travels immense distances on foot to turn up in unexpected places and get a few hard-earned shillings as his reward. We jog along under the magnificent silver firs, only to be equalled by those in the duke of Wellington's park at Strathfieldsaye, hard by; then up the lime avenue which borders the cricket-ground, where thirty years ago the most famous matches in Hampshire were played; and as we reach the iron gates leading up to the house our little knot of riders has swelled into a veritable cavalcade.

Down the drive we trot, past the stables, where the watch-dogs strain angrily at their chains and a little green monkey jibbers with rage and excitement, and in another moment we turn under the shadow of the great house up to the western door. Here all is life and bustle. Twenty or thirty carriages are drawn up by the widespreading lawn: grooms are holding horses ready for their masters, who are refreshing the inner man with cherry brandy and cold breakfast indoors. A tinkle of bells is heard as the duchess of Wellington drives herself up with her three ponies abreast, Russian fashion. Then a perfectly-appointed brougham, with a pair of magnificent cobs, stops in a corner, and a soldier-like foreigner in a red coat helps out a quiet-looking English lady wrapped up in furs. She slips them off as her groom leads up a priceless horse for her to mount, and in a moment is in the saddle, and will ride as straight as any man in the field to-day. Her husband, Count Morella, better known as the famous Carlist general Cabrera, whose strange and terrible history many years ago fascinated the gentle English heiress, now satisfies his war-like spirit by fox-hunting on the best horses that money can buy, and has settled down into a quiet English country gentleman.

The hounds have arrived before us. There they are—the beauties!—on the green grass, and we ride in among them to have a word with Tom Swetman the huntsman and good George Austin the whip, the latter of whom has given me a lead over many a fence. Gallant Tom! the bravest and gentlest of men, how little we thought that in a year or two we should never see your honest face again on earth! But you will be long remembered, though you are with us no more, and the story will be told for years to come of a day when the hounds ran into their fox on the South-western Railway. It was in a cutting fifty feet deep, with a tremendous fence at the top. Tom arrived just in time to see his hounds on the rails, with poor Reynard dead in their midst and the express train from Southampton speeding up the hill at fifty miles an hour. He crammed his horse over the great post and rails, down the almost perpendicular side of the cutting, whipped the hounds off, and, as the train rushed screaming by, rode out from under the very wheels of the engine and up the farther bank with his rescued pack.

But now our master, Mr. Garth, comes down the steps—a signal that we must no longer waste time talking with our neighbors, and like a good old friend he gives us a private programme of the way we shall draw. Stirrups are lengthened or shortened, girths tightened, restive horses led away to unobserved corners where their owners can try to mount without being seen by the assembled multitude. Sintram executes a war-dance on his hind legs, to the delight of some schoolboys in a wagonette, the terror of their fair companions and the extreme disgust of his mistress at having to practice the haute école before so large an audience. Ah, my poor Sintram! He danced once too often, and one fine day came to a sad end by falling backward and breaking his neck.

Tom now comes up to the master: "Shall we go, sir?"

"Yes—now, I think."

A crack of the whips and away trots Tom, followed by his splendid pack and his two whippers-in. Then comes the master, and we all crowd after them pell-mell with horses plunging and kicking, and as soon as we are fairly out in the open a kind of stampede takes place among the unruly young ones, and we see many an involuntary steeple-chase over the smooth green cricket-ground. Through the dark avenues of fir trees we canter to the temple, a little summerhouse on a promontory in the sea of wood that lies below, and we stand admiring the far blue distant view away to the Hogsback and the South Downs beyond Basingstoke as the hounds begin their work. There they are: you can see their twinkling tails as they draw the heather-covered slopes beneath us and disappear among the golden-brown bracken, while one of the whips plunges down after them and shakes a shower of amber leaves from the silver birches as he brushes past them.

Something streaks away down a green drive. A young hound gives tongue, but his note of triumph quickly changes to a yelp as the vigilant whip catches him with the tip of his long lash and roars, "War'[1 - In hunting dialect the warning "'ware" or "beware" is shortened to "war'," as in the old advice, "War' horse, war' hound, war' heel!"] hare!" Poor little man! He has tried to run what is called a "short-tailed fox," and returns to the pack a sadder and a wiser dog. But now the tails twinkle faster than ever. A low whimper from some of the old hounds, then a burst of joyous music from the pack.

"Gone away!" yells Tom, standing up in his stirrups and tooting his horn.

Then that unmistakable screech which is supposed to mean "Tally-ho!" from a group of beaters and keepers in the distance, and there, against the park-palings, a beautiful red thing scudding along the soft ride, flat to the ground, his bushy tail flying straight behind him. Reynard himself! Now let all look out for themselves. Adieu, carriages! adieu, poor pedestrians! We are off, and shall not see you again till dinner-time. Through the park-gate we stream away, down the fir avenue, along the Welsh Ride. We have got a splendid start, and our horses fly on beside Countess Morella, who looks the perfection of a hunting lady in her plain neat habit just down to her feet.