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AN INTERESTING STORY

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family were two brothers, John and Arthur Jones, the former a bachelor, the latter a widower without children. They had no near relations, but they had kept up an intermittent intercourse with some distant cousins of the Whitmore family-a family connected with their own by marriage a hundred years earlier -and they began to think that somewhere among the Whitmores an heir might be found. Miss Whitmore Jones shall continue the tale in her own words: "In the winter of 1812

Arthur Jones was attending a fair at Chipping Norton and was hailed from the window of a carriage, which was so blocked in the crowd that it could not proceed; its occupants were an elderly gentleman, a bluff hearty sailor, and his very handsome wife. 'I am sure you are Jones of Chastleton,' said the gentleman, 'I am William Whitmore of Dudmaston; we are posting home from Teignmouth, and have got entangled in this crowd.' Arthur Jones was delighted with the rencontre, and

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A SECURE HIDING-PLACE

CHAP.

insisted that they should turn their horses' heads and accompany him to Chastleton. This they did and stayed a day or two, mutually pleased with one another. They then proceeded on their journey, and a few days after they got home, Mr. Whitmore received a letter from Arthur Jones (written at his brother's request), inquiring whether his second son, John Henry, was provided for, and if not, offering to settle Chastleton upon him, provided he took the name and arms of Jones. Of course the offer was thankfully accepted, and from that time young John Whitmore, then a boy of 14, paid an annual visit to Chastleton as the acknowledged heir."

To return to the seventeenth century: in the Civil Wars the Joneses were staunch Royalists. Opening from one of the bedrooms, called the "Cavalier " room, is a secret chamber, the door of which was formerly concealed behind the arras with which the room was hung. On one occasion, at least, the security of this hiding-place was put to the test. Among the fugitives from Worcester field on Sept. 3rd, 1651, was Arthur Jones, the grandson of Walter, the founder of the family. Late that night after thirty miles of stiff cross-country work he reached his home, and, putting his tired-out horse into the stable, was admitted to the house by his wife. Scarcely had he had time to eat and drink when the sound of horses' feet was heard approaching, and their riders were soon clamouring at the door for admittance. Arthur Jones hurried to the secret chamber while Mrs. Jones went to the front door, which a voice outside commanded her to open in the name of the Parliament. There was nothing for it but to do as she was ordered, and a party of soldiers thereupon entered the house, and compelled her to conduct them over it; they were on the track, they said, of a fugitive malignant-no less a person, as it afterwards appeared they imagined, than the King himself. When they came to the "Cavalier" room they searched it thoroughly, but fortunately did not find the secret door. Whether their suspicions were aroused, or whether the room seemed to them the

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A WOMAN OF RESOURCE

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most comfortable one in the house, they signified to their hostess that they intended to pass the night there and directed her to send them up some supper. The selection of this room was most unfortunate; there was no other exit from the secret chamber, and we can imagine the dismay with which the anxious lady received this announcement. However, her resources were not yet exhausted. She duly sent up the supper, but at the same time took care to mix enough laudanum with the wine to give her visitors a good night's repose. When they had well eaten and well drunk, she stole up to the door and listened for the result. Ere long the heavy breathing of the sleepers assured her that all was safe; she then entered the room, opened the door of the hiding-place, and conducted her husband downstairs. He proceeded at once to the stable, and finding that his own horse had not recovered from its fatigue, he mounted that of the commander of the

party and rode off. When the pursuers awoke next morning

they discovered that their prey had eluded them, and that too with the aid of the best of their own animals. As to the identity of the malignant who had made so free with their property, they were, however, none the wiser. They still believed him to be the youth Charles Stuart, and after threatening Mrs. Jones with all manner of pains and penalties they galloped off.

H

THERE is nothing now but the green valley of the Evenlode to separate us from the Cotswold. Few natural districts have their frontier more clearly defined. The hill country of north Oxfordshire and south-west Northamptonshire is, it is true, geographically but a continuation of the same range, but from whatever side he enters it the traveller who penetrates into the Cotswold proper is conscious of having passed into a new region. The long stretches of upland, the winding valleys, the clear trout-streams, and the grey venerable hamlets dotted along their banks, the very vegetation, the weather-beaten ashes of the hills, the sheep-downs fragrant with wild thyme and burnet, and the deep rich water-meadows below, with here and there a thick covert of oak and hazel, are all marks of a strange land, marked off by its peculiar genius from the outside everyday world. If you come by the railway from Cheltenham up the valley by the great reservoirs, you issue from the tunnel at the top to find yourself with a touch of the enchanter's wand in the midst of such scenes as I have described. Further on, at Notgrove station, you have climbed to a height of more than seven hundred feet; then you descend to cross

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COTSWOLD PLAINS

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the Windrush at Bourton, and so wind through the curious pass of Maugersbury to join the Evenlode at Chipping Norton Junction. This is one of the two railways which in latter days have penetrated these silent wolds. The other leaves the Banbury line at Andoversford and runs southwards through the Chedworth plantations and across the Foss Way to Cirencester. The traveller may have a rapid glance at all the various features of the landscape: vast rolling sweeps of cultivated down, patches of ancient sheep-walk, dingle, water-meadow, and woodland are passed in quick succession: with one or two exceptions, the villages are unseen, for, like the high roads, the railways have managed to avoid them. As in other hilly countries, the large enclosures are divided by loose stone walls, but here they are so low that on a horse well used to them you might gallop as far as the eye can stretch without a stop. Saving the eastern frontier, which belongs to the Heythrop country, two packs, the North Cotswold and the Cotswold, divide this great tract between them. The late Arthur Gibbs knew it well. "How exhilarating," he writes in his charming Cotswold Village, "is a gallop in this fine Cotswold air in the cool autumnal morning! and what a splendid view you get of hounds! . . . What is the charm which belongs so exclusively to a fast and straight 'run' over this wild, uncultivated region? It does not lie in the successful negotiation of Leicestershire 'oxers,' Aylesbury 'doubles,' or Warwickshire 'stake-and-bound' fences, for there need be no obstacle greater than an occasional fourfoot stone wall. Perhaps it lies partly in the fact that in a run over a level stone-wall country, where the enclosures are large, and the turf sound, given a good fox and a 'burning scent,' hounds and horses travel at as great a pace as they attain in any country in England. Here, moreover, if anywhere, is to be found the 'greatest happiness for the greatest number,' the maximum of sport with the minimum of danger; the fine, free air of the high-lying Cotswold plains; the good fellowship engendered when all can ride abreast; the very muteness of