A Cotswold Village | Page 3

Chapter II. originally appeared in the Pall Mall Magazine. Portions of Chapters VII. and VIII., and "The Thruster's Song," have also been published in Baily's Magazine. My thanks are due to the editors for permission to reproduce them. Chapter XII. owes its inspiration to Mr. Madden's excellent work on Shakespeare's connection with sport and the Cotswolds, the "Diary of Master William Silence." We have no local tradition of any kind about Shakespeare.
I am indebted to Miss E.F. Brickdale for the pen-and-ink sketches, and to Colonel Mordaunt for his beautiful photographs. Three of the photographs, however, are by H. Taunt, of Oxford, and a similar number are by Mr. Gardner, of Fairford.
September 1898.

CONTENTS
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
CHAPTER I.
FLYING WESTWARDS
The Thames Valley--The Old White Horse--Entering the Cotswolds.
CHAPTER II.
A COTSWOLD VILLAGE
Far from the Madding Crowd--An Old Farmhouse and Its Occupants--The Manor House--Inscription on Porch--Interior of the House--The Garden--A Fairy Spring--The Village Club--Labouring Folk--Village Politics--The Trout Stream--Flowing Seawards--Village Architecture--The Charm of Antiquity--The Spirit of Sacrifice--Wayside Crosses--Tithe Barns.
CHAPTER III.
VILLAGE CHARACTERS
Quaint Hamlet Folk--The Village Impostor--Rural Economy--Stories of the People--A Curious Analogy--Tom Peregrine, the Keeper--A Standing Dish--A Great Character--Peregrine's Accomplishments and Proclivities--Farmers and Foxes--Concerning Churchwardens--The Village Quack--An Excellent Prescription--His Lecture--How the Old Fox was Found--A Good Sort--Heroes of the Hamlet--Political Meetings--Humours of the Poll--Gloucestershire Farmers.
CHAPTER IV.
THE LANGUAGE OF THE COTSWOLDS, WITH SOME ANCIENT SONGS AND LEGENDS
Strange Travellers--Smoking Concerts--The Carter's Song--Village Choirs--The Chedworth Band--Sense of Humour of the Natives--Their Geography "a Bit Mixed"--A Large Family--Noblesse Oblige--Rustic Legends--Names of Fields--The Cotswold Dialect--How to Talk It--An Ancient Ballad--Tom Peregrine Recites--Roger Plowman's Excursion--An Expensive Luncheon--Oxtail Soup--"The Turmut Hower."
CHAPTER V.
ON THE WOLDS
Varied Amusements--Nature on the Hills--The Mysteries of Scent--Partridge-Shooting--A Mixed Bag--Plover--Pigeon-Shooting with Decoys--Bird Life--Sunset on the Downs--A Wild, Deserted Country--An Old Dog Fox.
CHAPTER VI.
A GALLOP OVER THE WALLS
An October Meet--Cub-Hunting--The Old Fox Again! A Fast Gallop over the Walls--The Charm of Uncertainty--Fliers of the Hunt--A Narrow Escape--A Check--A Reliable Hound--Failure of Scent--An Excellent Tonic.
CHAPTER VII.
A COTSWOLD TROUT STREAM
Loch Leven Trout--Curious Capture of an Eel--The Author Catches a Red-Herring--Macomber Falls--A Sad Episode--South Country Streams--Course of the Coln--Charles Kingsley on Fishing--A May-Fly Stream--Evening Fishing--Dry-Fly Dogmas--Flies for the Coln--Scarcity of Poachers--An Evening Walk by the River--Spring's Delights.
CHAPTER VIII.
WHEN THE MAY-FLY IS UP
Derby Day on the Coln--A Good Sportsman--The Right Fly--Pleasures of the Country--Peregrine's Quaint Expressions--Sport with the Olive Dun--A Fine Trout--Effects of Sheep-Washing--A Good Basket--Life by the Brook--A Summer's Night--In the Heart of England.
CHAPTER IX.
BURFORD, A COTSWOLD TOWN
Curious Names--The Windrush--Burford Priory--An Empty Shell--The Kingmaker--Lord Falkland--Speaker Lenthall--Bibury Races--An Old Tradition--Valued Relics--Burford Church--Mr. Oman's Discovery--Burford during the Civil Wars.
CHAPTER X.
STROLL THROUGH THE COTSWOLDS
The Old Coaching Days--Fairford--Anglo-Saxon Relics--Hatherop--Coln-St.-Aldwyns--The "Knights Templar" of Quenington--A Haunt of Ancient Peace--Bibury Village--Ancient Barrows--The Prehistoric Age--Deserted Villages--The Philosopher's Stone--True Nobleness--On Battues--Roman Remains--Chedworth Woods--An Old Manor House.
CHAPTER XI.
COTSWOLD PASTIMES
Whitsun Ale--Sports of Various Kinds--The Peregrine Family at Cricket--Prehistoric Cricket--A Bad Ground--A "Pretty" Ball--Charles Dickens on Cricket--Dumkins and Podder, Limited--How Dumkins Hit a "Sixer"--Downfall of "Podder"--Bourton-on-the-Water C.C.--A Plague of Wasps--The Treatment of Cricket Grounds--The Author's Recipe--Reflections on Modern Cricket.
CHAPTER XII.
THE COTSWOLDS THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
The Centre of Elizabethan Sport--A Digression on South Africa--The Halo of Association--A Day's Stag-Hunting in 1592--A Benighted Sportsman--"A Goodly Dwelling and a Rich"--An Old English Gentleman--Shakespeare on Hounds--He Describes the Run--The Death of the Stag--The Ancestral Peregrine--Bacon not Wanted--A "Black Ousel"--The Charm of Music--Shakespeare's Dream--A Hawking Expedition--Peregrine, the Parson, and the Poet--Methods and Language of Falconry--A Flight at a Heron--Peregrine Views a Fox.
CHAPTER XIII.
CIRENCESTER
Roman Remains--The Corinium Museum--The Church--Cirencester House--The Park--The Abbey--The "Mop" or Hiring Fair--A Great Hunting Centre--A Varied Country--The Badminton Hounds--Lord Bathurst's Hounds--The Cotswold Hounds--Charles Travess--A Born Genius--The Cricklade Hounds--The Right Sort of Horse--The Oaksey District--The Heythrop Hounds--A Defence of Hard Riding--A Day in the Vale--A Hunting Poem.
CHAPTER XIV.
SPRING IN THE COTSWOLDS
Habits of Moorhens--Mallard and Swan--Nuthatches--Woodpeckers--Humane Traps--Badgers--Fox-terriers--Scotch Deerhounds--Retrievers--Cray-fish--The Rookery--Jackdaws--Foxes--Artificial Earths--Fox among Sheep--Foxes and Fowls--Poultry Claims--Observations on Scent--The Hygrometer--How Trout are Netted--Scarcity of Otters--Water-Voles.
CHAPTER XV.
THE PROMISE OF MAY
Wild Flowers--Cottage Gardens--The Paths of Literature--Description of a Horse--Beauty of Trees--Their Loss Irreparable as the Loss of Friends--A Fine Type of Englishman--Lines in Memory of W.D. Llewelyn.
CHAPTER XVI.
SUMMER DAYS ON THE COTSWOLDS
A Walk in the Fields--Hedgerow Flowers--The Brookside--By "the Pill"--Remarks on Gray--A Fine Piece of Miniature Scenery--The Cricket Ground--The Book of Nature--At the Ford--Habits of Observation--In the Conyger Wood--The Home of the Kingfisher--A Limestone Quarry--The Great Stone Floor of the Earth--Nature's Endless Cycle--Beauty of the Ash--Hedgehogs--Trout and Snake--Sunset on the Hills.
CHAPTER XVII.
AUTUMN
Remarks on Country Life--Thrashing--The Flail--Gipsies--Harvest Feasts--Fifty Years Ago--The Wolds in Autumn--By the Stream--Wildfowl--Migration of Birds--Lapwings--Winter Visitants--Thunderstorms--Glow-Worms--A Brilliant Meteor--Night on the Hills--The "Blowing-Stone"--Christmas Day on the Cotswolds--A Solar Halo--Hamlet Festivities--Tom Peregrine Baffled--The Mummers Play--The Victorian Era--The True Days of "Merrie England"--Carpe Diem.
CHAPTER XVIII.
WHEN THE SUN GOES DOWN
A Glorious Panorama--Peregrine as Secretary--The Light of Setting Suns--Conclusion.
APPENDIX.
GEORGE RIDLER'S OVEN
INDEX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY MESSRS. SHAWCROSS.
STOKE POGES CHURCH.
THE OLD MANOR HOUSE.
INSCRIPTION ON PORCH OF MANOR HOUSE.
INTERIOR OF MANOR HOUSE.
IN THE GARDEN.
A COTSWOLD MANOR HOUSE.
COTSWOLD COTTAGES.
A FARMHOUSE BY THE COLN.
AN OLD