XII THE FOSS WAY 313 next crosses Akeman-street at a point where there is now a small plantation, but where formerly a single tall ash served as an easily recognised landmark or token to travellers across the open downs, and hence the place was called Ready Token, a name which it still retains. So on to Barnsley, where the church, which keeps the small window from Daglingworth made out of a Roman altar, has been modernised out of all recognition. An old house, now an inn, is said to have been built by Sir Edmund Tame, who used it as a half-way house on his journeys between Fairford and Rendcombe. Here we quit the Welsh Road, and follow a wild track which, skirting Barnsley Park and the rough tract of undisturbed down known as Barnsley Wold, lands us in the Foss Way a mile from our destination. CHAPTER XIII I AM about to say farewell to the Fossbridge inn, but I do not pretend to have exhausted its attractions. For the visitor who comes to make a stay of some weeks' duration there is the old garden behind the house, with the stone steps descending thereunto, and the praeterlabent Coln, where, when the fancy takes him, he may "Bait the barb'd steel, and from the fishy flood At the same time his desire of food must be of the fiercest if it is not appeased by the ample resources of the inn kitchen and the deft cookery of his hostess. Or if he be a follower of the chase, there is the long line of outbuildings where he may stable his hunters; or if he be a scorner of horses and horsemen and swear that petrol is your only going, his motor. But the globe-scouring motorist will, if he be wise, keep clear of the Cotswolds; the high roads are good, but the gradients are steep, and there is one on either side of the Fossbridge which will try his engines pretty severely. Besides, the Cotswolds after all are not so extensive as, let us say, the Great Sahara, and they are infinitely beneath the notice of the traveller whose only object in transporting himself from one point of the earth's surface to another is to do so in the shortest possible space of time. Moreover, one of the principal charms of this hill country lies in the difficulties of the way. and what real CH. XIII BIRDLIP 315 lover of highways and byways in a strange country would consent to forgo every chance of taking the wrong turning and losing his way? No, if space is to be annihilated, the joys of Cotswold wayfaring are gone for ever, and the only chance the motorist has of getting any profit out of it at all is to arrange for a good solid breakdown every six miles. Then there are other devious and pleasant paths which the sojourner at Fossbridge may explore at his leisure, but these he must explore for himself. The zigzag excursions with which I threatened the reader when we first penetrated into this corner of the Cotswold have now been completed, and we have only now before us a plain straightforward journey round the circumference of our territory till we once more cross the county boundary and find ourselves in Oxfordshire again, at the frontier town of Burford. We have half-a-dozen miles of cross-country roads through the Chedworth woods, from which the late September sun has scarcely yet dried away the morning mist, and Withington village up to the Gloucester road at the Garrick's Head-a local worthy, I am afraid, and no relation to little Davyand hence for three miles more we follow our old route as far as the Seven Springs. Here instead of turning down the Churn valley we ride straight on past Ullenwood to the cross roads at the foot of Crickley Hill: and then dismount and climb the hill to Birdlip, an altitude of nearly 1,000 feet. Now the learned deny that this melodious name, so suggestive of vernal airs and tuneful groves, has any connexion with matters ornithological. Destitute alike of sentiment or remorse they fetch it from a certain Scandinavian Viking with the dread name of Bythar Lipr: this, say they, in the process of phonetic decay became "Butter Lip" and finally "Birdlip." Documentary evidence is no doubt forthcoming, but I have not had time to follow it up, and for the present I am content to believe that the grand old Viking sailed up the Severn in his galley, landed at Gloucester, pushed along the 316 HILL, VALE, AND FOREST CHAP. Roman Road and up the hill to this place, raided the country round, and returned to his ships laden with spoils (et ferenda et agenda), and so departed by the way he had come, leaving the terror of his name behind him. Birdlip is a famous holiday resort for Gloucester people; there are inns and lodging-houses in plenty, and so bracing and invigorating is the air that a thriving hospital for consumptives has been established in the woods a mile away. We left Fossbridge early and cannot do better than turn in to the "Royal George" for lunch, and then enjoy a quiet pipe in the spacious, well-ordered garden on the edge of the hill. The view from this garden or from the fields further to the right is magnificent. In the middle of the vale lies Gloucester, dominated by the stately tower of St. Peter's: beneath you, straight as an arrow's flight for the six miles that stretch from the city to the hills, is the thin white line of Ermin Street. Right and left, like sentries set to guard it, are the outlying knolls of Churchdown and Robin's Wood, while in the distance rises the dark blue mass of the billowy Malverns, which has ever been the limit of our outlook from these hills. Hill, vale, and forest, such are the divisions of Gloucestershire as marked out by nature, and I suppose there is hardly another county in England which embraces three portions so essentially distinct. Anthropologists say that racial differences corresponding to these three divisions may still be traced, that in the hills the Teutonic type prevails, and that the further westward you go, the more marked the Celtic element becomes. Certain it is that the country west of the Severn contrasts strongly with the distinctively English features of that part of the county which lies to the east of the river. The accent, or rather the intonation, of the inhabitants, their houses scattered over the length and breadth of the parish instead of being concentrated in the village itself, quite apart from physical characteristics, point to their Silurian affinities. Indeed, had not history ordered otherwise, the forest XIII PAINSWICK 317 peninsula would probably to this day form a part, not of England, but of Wales, from which it is only separated by the deep and narrow gorge of the Wye. From Birdlip to Painswick there are two roads: one through the Cranham woods to Prinknash, formerly a country residence of the abbots of Gloucester, and then by the Cheltenham road which is cut along the eastern side of Painswick Hill. The other leaves the Stroud road three miles from Birdlip, descends to the very bottom of the deep Sheepscombe valley, and then climbs up a steep ascent into Painswick. Both have their points, but the former is the shadier, easier and shorter. Sheepscombe is one of those scattered hamlets which are so frequent in the numerous valleys of this corner of the Cotswold, and which are absent from the eastern parts. High on the opposite hillside as you descend the valley a severe gloomy looking mansion frowns upon you from the thick plantation that surrounds it. Had Ebworth House existed in those days, and it is like enough that its predecessor existed, it would have been a fit residence for Sir Anthony Kingston, that foe to all rebels, and stern instrument of the royal will. The son of Sir William Kingston, himself an accomplished courtier, and Constable of the Tower when Queen Anne Boleyn suffered, he was one of the most fortunate of Henry's favourites: in this county alone three manors, Miserden, Quenington and Flaxley —the two last, the spoils of the dissolution-had been heaped upon him, and he had besides inherited from his father the manor of Painswick. He had led a thousand men of Gloucestershire into the north to suppress the Pilgrimage of Grace, and had been knighted for his services, and when in the next reign the western peasants took up arms in defence of the priests and the old liturgy, he was dispatched into Cornwall as provost-marshal. Holinshed tells the following story of the way in which he executed his office: 66 It seems that the Mayor of Bodmin, one Boyer, had been a busie fellow among the rebels." His friends did their best |