Read Ebook: Mal Moulée: A Novel by Wilcox Ella Wheeler

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The Itchen as it narrows to serve the South Stoneham water-wheels loses much of its beauty, and is finally, after its course of twenty-five miles, abruptly stopped at the flour-mill. Through artificial outlets it tumbles into the tideway, and becomes at a bound subject to the ebb and flow of the Solent. Southampton, after a temporary depression due to the withdrawal of the Peninsular and Oriental Company to other headquarters, has launched out into renewed enterprise; great docks have been added, and the extension is likely to continue in the future. Queen Victoria opened the Empress Docks in 1890; the graving docks were the next scheme, and in 1893 the new American line of steamers began to run. In 1833 her Majesty, then the Princess Victoria, opened the Royal Pier, which was rebuilt in 1892 and re-opened by the Duke of Connaught; and from it and other vantage points commanding views are to be had of the estuary, and of the New Forest on the further side. To meet this vigorous revival of commercial development, the suburbs have pushed out in all directions, and the estuary of the Itchen, from the Salmon Pool at South Stoneham to the Docks, is now bordered by modern dwellings, and presents an appearance of life in marked contrast to the dreariness of a quarter of a century ago.

In its general characteristics the Test resembles the Itchen. It is ten miles longer, and has a tributary assistance which its sister stream lacks; but there are in its valley similar country mansions, ruddy farm-houses, picturesque cottages and gardens, water-meads and marshy corners, mills and mill-pools, rustic bridges, and superb stock of salmon in the lower, and of trout and grayling in the higher, reaches. It springs from the foot of the ridge on the Berkshire border, and is joined below Hurstbourne Park by a branch from the north-east. For the first few miles it is the ideal of a small winding stream, and is established as a chalk stream of the first class at Whitchurch. It skirts Harewood Forest, and takes in a tributary below Wherwell. The principal feeder is the Anton, which is of sufficient magnitude to be considered an independent river. For quite sixteen miles the Test runs a sinuous course, as if not certain which point of the compass to select, but eventually it goes straight south. Stockbridge is the only considerable town, and that owes its reputation to ample training downs, and to the periodical races which rank high in that description of sport. Between this and Romsey there are many bye-waters, and it requires one accustomed to the country to distinguish the main river.

Occasionally a salmon, taking advantage of a flood, will ascend as high as Stockbridge, but this does not happen every year. At Romsey, however, gentlemen anglers find their reward, though anything more unlike a salmon river could not be found, unless, indeed, it should be the Stour and the Avon, to which we shall come presently. The Test in its upper and middle reaches is seldom so deep that the bottom, and the trout and grayling for which it is justly celebrated, cannot be clearly seen. It gets less shallow below Houghton Mill, and at Romsey there is water enough for salmon of major dimensions. But the current is even and stately, salmon pools as they are understood in Scotland and Ireland do not exist, and there are forests of weeds to assist the fish to get rid of the angler's fly. The most noted landmark on the banks of the stream is Romsey Abbey, long restored to soundness of fabric, yet preserving all the appearance of perfect Norman architecture. Near it the first Berthon boats were built and launched on the Test by the vicar, whose name is borne by this handy collapsible craft. The Test enters Southampton Water at Redbridge, which is in a measure the port of lading for the New Forest.

There are tiny streams in the recesses of the New Forest little known to the outer world. The /Beaulieu/ river is worthy of mark on the maps, and when the tide is full it is a brimming water-way into the heart of the forest. The acreage of mud at low-water, however, detracts from its beauty, and the upper portion, from near Lyndhurst to the tidal limit, is small and overgrown. The ruins of Beaulieu Abbey, set in the surroundings of an exquisite New Forest village, far from the shriek of the locomotive whistle, or the smoke and bustle of a town, are truly a "fair place." Beaulieu is one of the most entrancing combinations of wood, water, ruins, and village in the county, and the Abbey is especially interesting from its establishment by King John, after remorse occasioned by a dream.

The /Lymington/ river, the mainland channel opposite Yarmouth, in the Isle of Wight, is tidal to the town, a tortuous creek in low-water, the course, however, duly marked by stakes and beacons. The great Poet Laureate, Tennyson, used to cross to his Freshwater home by this route, and in the late 'fifties the writer of these words often took passage by the Isle of Wight boats for the privilege of gazing from a reverent distance at the poet, whose cloak, soft broad-brimmed hat, and short clay pipe filled from a packet of bird's-eye, filled the youthful adorer with unspeakable admiration.

The Isle of Wight, garden of England though it has been called, is poverty-stricken in the matter of running water, and it is not rich in woods. Tho principal river is the Medina, which, flowing from the foot of St. Catherine's Down to the Solent at East Cowes, divides the island into two hundreds. The pretty village of Wootton is situated on Fishbourne creek, also called Wootton river. There are two Yars--the Yar which rises at Freshwater, and is tidal almost throughout to Yarmouth Harbour; and the eastern Yar, at the back of Niton.

The famous salmon of Christchurch, so much in request in the spring, when the end of the close time brings out the nets in the long open "run" between the town and the bay, come up from the English Channel on their annual quest of the spawning grounds of the Avon and the Stour. These rivers unite almost under the shadow of the splendidly situated church and the priory ruins. The church was restored by the architect who performed a similar office for Romsey; and it is under the tower at the west end of the nave that the singular Shelley memorial is erected. The Avon has the finest watershed in the South of England, and its feeders water much of Hampshire and a large portion of Wilts. Its tributaries are numerous; even one of the two branches of its headwaters is formed by the junction of minor streams at Pewsey. It has a winding way from Upavon, becomes a goodly stream at beautiful Amesbury, where it traverses the pleasure grounds of the Abbey, and crosses direct south by Salisbury Plain to Old Sarum. The Wiley and Nadder are the largest tributaries, the former entering the Avon near the seat of the Earl of Pembroke at Wilton. The valleys of main stream and tributaries alike are a succession of fine landscapes, made distinctive by the downs of varying height, rising on either side, clothed at intervals with grand woods, and protecting sequestered villages and hamlets nestling at their feet.

The environs of Salisbury are intersected in all directions by the abundant water of Avon or its feeders, and the clear murmuring runnels are heard in its streets. The lofty tapering spire of the glorious cathedral is the landmark of Avon-side for many a mile around, but the river equally forces itself upon the notice of the stranger. There is no cathedral in England better set for a landmark than this, and of none can it be more literally said that distance lends enchantment. It is on the watermead level, and probably owes its position to the river. Old Sarum, perched upon its conical hill, had its fortified castle and many an intrenchment for defence, had its Norman cathedral and the pomp and power of a proud ecclesiastical settlement; but it was exposed to the wind and weather, and the Sarumites looked with longing eye at the fat vale below and its conjunction of clear streams. Wherefore, under Richard Le Poer, its seventh bishop, there was migration thither; the present cathedral was commenced, the site, according to one legend, being determined by the fall of an arrow shot as a token from the Old Sarum ramparts; and the new town soon gathered around it. At first the cathedral had no spire; that crowning glory of the structure was added nearly a hundred years later, and about the time when the work of demolition at Old Sarum had been concluded. The stone used in the new cathedral was brought from the Hindon quarries a few miles distant, and Purbeck supplied the marble pillars. The best view of the cathedral, and of the straight-streeted and richly-befoliaged city, is from the north-eastern suburb; and so gracefully is the building proportioned that it is hard to realise that the point of the spire is 400 feet in air.

The /Stour/ rises at Six Wells, at Stourhead, in Wiltshire, and joins the Hampshire Avon, as previously stated, at Christchurch, but is essentially a Dorsetshire river. It touches Somersetshire, and receives the Cale from Wincanton, and other small tributaries, passing Gillingham, Sturminster, Blandford, and Wimborne, where it receives the Allen, which flows through More Critchell. Canford Hall, an Elizabethan mansion which received many of the Assyrian relics unearthed by Layard; Gaunt's House and Park; and St. Giles' Park, reminiscent of "Cabal" Cooper and the other Earls of Shaftesbury, are also features of the Stour country. The clean little town of Wimborne, where Matthew Prior was born, is made rich and notable by its ancient Minster, which as it stands retains but little of the original foundation, though the fine central tower dates from about 1100, and the western tower from the middle of the fifteenth century.

The next river in Dorsetshire is the /Frome/, formed, as seems to be the fashion in Wessex, of two branches, both uniting at Maiden Newton. Frampton Court, the seat of the Sheridans, is in this neighbourhood. The county town of Dorchester rises from the bank of the river, and has magnificent avenues as high-road approaches. The Black Downs that interpose between the country that is fairly represented by the Blackmore vale of the hunting men further north, and the sea at Weymouth, are bare enough; Dorchester is surrounded by chalk uplands, and it is, no doubt, because there were few forests to clear that the entire neighbourhood is remarkable for its Roman and British remains. The trees around the town have fortunately been sedulously planted and preserved, and the avenues of sycamores and chestnuts on the site of the old rampart have somewhat of a Continental character. The well-defined remains of ancient camps are numerous on the slopes overlooking the Frome, Maiden Castle and the Roman amphitheatre being wonderfully perfect in their typical character. Yet, old-world as Dorchester is in its associations, it has few appearances of age, standing rather as a delightful example of the clean, healthy, quiet, well-to-do country town of the Victorian era, pleasantly environed, and boasting several highways that were Roman roads.

Flowing through the sheep country so graphically described by Mr. Hardy in his novels, the Frome arrives, after an uneventful course, at Wareham, and is discharged into Poole Harbour, a place of creeks and islands, sand and mud banks, regularly swelling with the incoming tide into a noble expanse of water.

/William Senior./

RIVERS OF DEVON.

General Characteristics--Sources of the Devon Streams: Exmoor and Dartmoor. The /Otter/: Ottery Saint Mary and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Exmoor Streams:--The /Exe/: Its Source in The Chains--The Barle--The Batherm--Tiverton and Peter Blundell--Bickleigh Bridge and the "King of the Gipsies"--The Culm--Exeter--Countess Weir--Exmouth. The /Lyn/: Oareford--The Doone Country--Malmsmead--Watersmeet--Lyndale--Lynton and Lynmouth. Dartmoor Streams:--The /Teign/: Wallabrook--Chagford--Fingle Bridge--Chudleigh--The Bovey--Newton Abbot--Teignmouth. The /Dart/: Holne Chase--Buckfast Abbey--Dartington Hall--Totnes--The Lower Reaches--Dartmouth. The Tavy. The /Taw/: Oxenham and its Legend--Barnstaple--Lundy. The /Torridge/: The Okement--Great Torrington--Bideford--Hubbastone. The /Avon/, Erme, and Yealm. The /Plym/: Dewerstone--The Meavy and Plymouth Leat--Plympton St. Mary and Plympton Earl--The Three Towns.

Among the charms which make Devonshire, in Mr. Blackmore's words, "the fairest of English counties," one need not hesitate to give the first place to its streams. They who know only its coasts, though they know them well, may walk delicately, for of much that is most characteristic of its loveliness they are altogether ignorant. But anyone who has tracked a typical Devon river from its fount high up on the wild and lonely moorland to the estuary where it mingles its waters with the inflowing tide, following it as it brawls down the peaty hillsides, and winds its way through glen and gorge until it gains the rich lowlands where it rolls placidly towards its latter end, may boast that his is the knowledge of intimacy. Commercially, the Devonshire streams are of little account, for Nature has chosen to touch them to finer issues. Yet, for all their manifold fascinations, they have had but scant attention from the poets, who, instead of singing their graces in dignified verse, have left them, as Mr. J. A. Blaikie has said, to be "noisily advertised in guide-books." At first sight the omission seems curious enough, for the long roll of Devonshire "worthies" is only less illustrious for its poets than for its heroes. Perchance the explanation of what almost looks like a conspiracy of silence is that the streams, full of allurement as they may be, are not rich in associations of the poetic sort. Of legend they have their share, but for the most part it is legend uncouth and grotesque, such as may not easily be shaped into verse. Their appeal, in truth, is more to the painter than to the poet. For him they have provided innumerable "bits" of the most seductive description; and neither against him nor against the angler--the artist among sportsmen--for whom also bountiful provision has been made, can neglect of opportunity be charged.

It is in the royal "forests" of Exmoor and Dartmoor that nearly all the chief rivers of Devon take their rise. Of these moorland tracts, the one extending into the extreme north of the county from Somersetshire, the other forming, so to speak, its backbone, Dartmoor is considerably the larger; and in High Willhayse and in the better known Yes Tor, its highest points, it touches an altitude of just over 2,000 feet, overtopping Dunkery Beacon, the monarch of Exmoor, by some 370 feet. Between the two moors there is a general resemblance, less, however, of contour than of tone, for while Exmoor swells into great billowy tops, the Dartmoor plateau breaks up into rugged "tors"--crags of granite that have shaken off their scanty raiment and now rise bare and gaunt above the general level. Both, as many a huntsman knows to his cost, are beset with treacherous bogs, out of which trickle streams innumerable, some, like the Wear Water, the chief headstream of the East Lyn, soon to lose their identity, others to bear to the end of their course names which the English emigrant has delighted to reproduce in the distant lands that he has colonised. Not strange is it that with loneliness such as theirs, Exmoor and Dartmoor alike should be the haunt of the mischief-loving pixies, who carry off children and lead benighted wayfarers into quagmires; of the spectral wish-hounds, whose cry is fearsome as the wailing voice which John Ridd heard "at grey of night"; and of the rest of the uncanny brood who once had all the West Country for their domain. Exmoor, too, is almost the last sanctuary, south of the Tweed, of the wild red-deer; and hither in due season come true sportsmen from far and near to have their pulses stirred by such glorious runs as Kingsley has described.

Of the streams that have their springs elsewhere than in the moors, the Axe, which belongs more to Dorset and Somerset than to Devon, may, like the Sid, be passed over with bare mention. But the /Otter/ must not be dismissed so brusquely, for though it cannot vie with its moorland sisters in beauty of aspect, it has other claims to consideration. Rising in the hills that divide Devon from South Somerset, it presently passes Honiton, still famous for its lace, and a few miles further on flows by the knoll which is crowned by the massive towers of the fine church of Ottery St. Mary, the Clavering St. Mary of "Pendennis." It was here, in 1772, that Samuel Taylor Coleridge, most gifted scion of a gifted stock, was born. His father, vicar of the parish and headmaster of the Free Grammar School, and withal one of the most amiable and ingenuous of pedants, whose favourite method of edifying his rustic congregation was to quote from the Old Testament in the original Hebrew, as "the immediate language of the Holy Ghost," died when Samuel Taylor was in his ninth year; and the pensive child, who yet was not a child, was soon afterwards entered at Christ's Hospital. A frequent resort of his was a cave beside the Otter, known as "The Pixies' Parlour," where his initials may still be seen. Nor is this his only association with the stream. "I forget," he writes, "whether it was in my fifth or sixth year ... in consequence of some quarrel between me and my brother, in the first week in October I ran away from fear of being whipped, and passed the whole night, a night of rain and storm, on the bleak side of a hill on the Otter, and was there found at day-break, without the power of using my limbs, about six yards from the naked bank of the river." The experience may well have left its mark upon his sensitive nature, but it is clear that he carried with him from his native place a store of agreeable recollections of the stream, of whose "marge with willows grey" and "bedded sand" he afterwards wrote in affectionate strains.

Percy Durand was in the habit of regarding women, as students of the floral world regard flowers, and he botanized them in like manner. Many years ago, he had idealized the sex; but one woman's perfidy, together with the vanity and selfishness of many others, had served to disillusion him. Too finely fibered to ever become a bitter cynic, he was simply an amused skeptic on the subject of woman's superiority or moral worth. He had sought the world over for the ideal woman--that mythical personage of his early dreams. But he had found so much envy, jealousy, and selfishness marring the sex in general, he had discovered such unsightly blemishes on some of the most seemingly spotless natures, that he abandoned the search as hopeless.

"Not a marrying man," his friends said, when speaking of him. Handsome, eligible, and the junior member of a wealthy New York importing house, he was a desirable conquest for anxious damsels. But Percy Durand seemed either too heartless, or too selfish, to assume the r?le of Benedict.

"My cousin, Mrs. Phillips, will be anxious to know particulars concerning you, Mrs. Butler," he said, as they chatted together. "Are you chaperoning your usual bevy of young ladies this year?"

"And I also," said Percy, "with half the world. I hope you have engaged rooms. I fancy there will be a great rush, and much discomfort."

"Miss King had her usual apartments reserved for her. She left them all furnished when we went to Genoa. I hope if Nora--Mrs. Phillips I should say--comes abroad, she will come directly to us. We could make her very comfortable, could we not, Dolores?"

"Certainly," answered Dolores. "And I should be pleased to meet her. Mrs. Butler makes me almost jealous by her frequent references to your cousin, Mr. Durand."

Just at this juncture, Miss King, who had begun to be absorbed in a book, leaving the two friends to chat, lifted her eyes with a slight amused smile in their depths.

"Pardon me," she said, "but how long has your cousin been married?"

"Four years." Percy answered.

"Ah! I fancied so. You see, she has hardly yet passed beyond the experimental period," laughed Dolores. "You know the serpent did not enter Paradise until sometime after it was created. But he always comes in one shape or another, and the Eden is always destroyed. It never lasts."

"I shall never be converted from my settled convictions on this subject," Miss King replied, good naturedly. "There are people who are only fitted for a life of perfect freedom. I am one of them."

"And I, Miss King, am another!" added Percy. "A more confirmed bachelor never lived. Marriage seems to me a pitiful bondage, always for one, often for both. And a happy union is merely a fortunate accident. Whenever I hear the ringing of marriage bells, I think with Byron, that

'Each stroke peals for a hope the less--the funeral note Of love deep buried without resurrection In the grave of possession.'"

A smile that warmed her features like a burst of sunlight illumined Miss King's lovely face.

"I am sure we should agree famously on this subject, at least, Mr. Durand," she said. "It is seldom I meet a gentleman whose ideas accord so perfectly with my own."

"You are two foolish children," interposed Mrs. Butler, "and your ideas are quite too extreme. Marriage is not the wretched bondage you describe it. Some one has said very truthfully, 'If nothing is perfect in this world, marriage is perhaps the best thing amid much evil. If a fickle husband goes, he returns: but the lover--once gone he never returns.' I am sure, Mr. Durand, that you would make some woman an excellent husband."

Percy shook his head. "That is because you do not know me," he replied. "Whatever my nature was originally, my experiences in the world have left me incapable of unselfish devotion, or absorbing love."

"Oh, oh!" cried Mrs. Butler, "I will not hear you so malign yourself. Any man who was so kind as you were to your cousin, must have a heart."

"Perhaps I had, once upon a time. But there is such a thing as frittering away one's best emotions. Certainly, now, I cannot imagine a woman so good, so beautiful, or so endowed with graces, that I should wish to make her my wife. If I did, I know her goodness would be a reproach to me, her beauty would pall upon me, and her constancy would irritate me. And yet, the absence of any of these qualities would displease me. So you see I am better off single. I think my cousin considers me a good sort of relative! I am sure I am faithful in my friendships: but the requisites of a desirable husband, I do not possess. Besides, begging the pardon of both my lady listeners, I must say, while I have so little faith in myself, I have even less in womankind. I do not care to risk my future in the hands of an unreliable woman."

"A man of your experience and judgment would not be apt to make that error," Mrs. Butler replied. "And women are proverbially faithful by nature, you know--even clinging to the men who maltreat them."

"Judgment and experience are not of the slightest use in selecting a wife or husband," responded Percy. "First, because it is only in the daily intimacies of constant companionship that we can learn another's peculiarities; and secondly--in the case of the woman, at least--the maiden and wife are two distinct beings. I have seen the most amiable and charming girl develope into a veritable Xantippe of a wife. Then, as for the proverbial faithfulness of woman--it is the poet's idea of the sex, I know, but it is not verified in reality. Women are quite as faulty as men, and even more easily assailed by temptation. But they are more discreet, and make a greater show of good qualities than we do. Men boast of their infidelities, women conceal them."

"Rouen!" shouted the guard, flinging open the door of the compartment.

"Impossible!" cried Percy, springing up--"and I am obliged to stop here! This is altogether too bad. But I hope you will kindly send your address to me at the Grand Hotel, where I shall register next week. I shall be glad to be of any service to you I can, during my few weeks in Paris."

And with that inimitable grace of the polished New Yorker, Percy bowed himself from the presence of the ladies.

And the first chapter was written in a romance which was to end in a tragedy.

SWEET DANGER.

"My Dear," said Mrs. Butler, one morning at the breakfast table, ten days later, as she looked up from her letters to the vision of blonde loveliness opposite, "here is a note from Mr. Durand--the American gentleman we met, you remember. He is in Paris, and wishes to call."

"That is pleasant news," Dolores answered, smiling, "and I hope you will forward our united permission and compliments by return mail."

"Really, Dolores, you quite astonish me!" ejaculated Mrs. Butler. "When were you ever known to be so amiably disposed toward any gentleman before? What spell has Mr. Durand exercised over you, I wonder?"

"The spell of sincerity and good sense!" responded Dolores, as she sipped her coffee. "Two virtues so rare in mankind that it is no wonder if they left an indelible impression upon me. Mr. Durand is, almost without exception, the only gentleman I have met since my uncle died who did not feel it his duty to express, in words or manner, a disbelief in the sincerity of my views concerning marriage. You very well know, Mrs. Butler, how discouraging have been my attempts at friendship with the opposite sex, owing to this fact."

"Owing to your own charms, rather," Mrs. Butler corrected, "and to your hatred for the sex. Men are not easily satisfied with the cold indifference which you term friendship of a woman as fair as yourself."

"But I am not cold or indifferent to those who treat my opinions with respect," Dolores insisted. "And I am not a man-hater. I would like the companionship of men right well. I enjoy their society more than I enjoy the society of most women. They have broader views; they get outside of themselves far more than women do; they dwell less in their own emotions; and are, consequently, more interesting. But the selfishness, conceit and sensuality of men render them impossible friends for unprotected women."

"You must not include all men in that sweeping sarcasm, Dolores. There are exceptions."

"Possibly. I hope Mr. Durand is one. I speak of men as I have found them. You remember Clarence Walker, and how positive I was that I had found a loyal friend in him? And you know the result."

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