IN CYCLING IN THE HEART OF ENGLAND. ERNEST R. HOLMES. a month of cycling in Ireland I had grown accustomed to low, thatched cottages, surrounded by bare ground with rarely a flower or vine to beautify. Even ragged hedges cease to look untidy if one sees no trimmed ones. But once on an English country road, bordered by rows of stately trees and roadsides neat as any lawn, with vine-hung, thatched cottages, set back in gardens crowded with gay, old-fashioned posies, the poverty of Ireland comes over one as it never does in the face of that poverty itself. The beauty of Ireland is nature unadorned; the beauty of the English midland counties is nature trimmed, trained, and shaped by man. Weedless fields, trim walks and hedges, splendid herds, and clusters of well-built granaries, barns, and sheds, everywhere bespeak careful husbandry. Even the grass in the fields grows evenly, lawn-like, and the trees left to afford grateful shade are graceful, symmetrical, and, like their owner's houses, carefully fenced about. There is a sense of comfort, of satisfaction with life, in all that greets the eye. The contrast is as strong between the villages of the two countries. Irish villages are bare and squalid. There is seldom an enclosed "lot" about the humbler homes. An Englishman's first care is to secure privacy of the home. This idea, carried to an extreme, gives the English village an air of exclusiveness. High walls, with jagged, broken glass set in the coping, separate neighbors from each other. Wall and gate and intervening garden space guard against the intrusion of the passing stranger. In Ireland the cyclist feels free to ask at the open door of any cottage for water or milk. Usually there is some one in sight smilingly to grant the request and chat a while as well. At the English farm cottage, still more at the larger farmhouse, the gate is closed and the door is locked; and though the welcome may be genial, there is a knocker, and perhaps a servant must be called from within if modest refreshments be asked. The exclusiveness expressed in architecture and domiciliary arrangements is also apparent in the people. English country folk are not so interested in strangers. It therefore requires more assurance and more effort to get on friendly terms with the average Englishman, casually met, than with the Irishman similarly accosted. But the cycle tourist, fresh from the bare, rugged austerity of the north coast of Ireland, where man and his petty creations seem intrusive insignificance, is too much absorbed in admiration of the rich rural beauty, dominated, refined, and formalized by man, to care if the said man and his female juvenile relatives are not so spontaneously friendly. If the people sometimes look askance, the frequent roadside inns are altogether cosily inviting. After a little experience with them one feels the truth of Shenstone's lines: "Whoe'er has traveled life's dull round, The warmest welcome at an inn." The storied fame of the typical old English hostelries has something to do with the feelings they inspire. The vine-clad walls, the cunning gables and dormer-windows, the dainty white curtains, the suggestive way that the road sweeps up to the door, the inviting horse-block, the waiting hostlers, - all deepen the impression of solid comfort and genial welcome. But the quaint names on the swinging signs are enough to interest and attract. These inn names have possibly already been the subject of learned antiquarian research (little that is ancient escapes nowadays), but if so, I haven't run across the treatises. However, from cursory or cyclical the cycles used in Europe are made at Coventry and Birmingham, there are usually a few in sight in Warwickshire. Unlike the prophet, they are honored in their own country. They are all sizes, shapes, and descriptions, and the riders vary from the roughest dressed workman to the daintily costumed bicyclienne who drives her machine up hill like a veteran. There are some curious adaptions of the cycle to practical purposes. In the cities the tricycles with a large box behind for the delivery of bread, meat, newspapers, and small parcels of every kind, are in common use. I saw one with a four-foot milk can slung on the hind axle, and it looked like a caricature of a fire-engine. Sometimes a tricycle will have a large wicker chair in front of the seat, and there m' lady rides at ease, while some perspiring man, either for love or money, does the pedaling for both. Rural postmen naturally take to the cycle, and there are even government cycle posts in some regions where railroads are infrequent. Tele grams are everywhere delivered by cycle, and in London the press associations distribute the despatches by the aid of the same speedy and convenient vehicle. Every regiment of English militia has cyclists, specially armed and equipped. Of course, with this almost universal use of cycles, the cyclist has acquired a recognized right to existence, and in the towns and along country roads the signs "Cyclists' Rest," and "Accommodations for Cyclists,' are grateful evidences that cycle tourists are appreciated in England. ANN HATHAWAY'S COTTAGE. observation, I may say that here is a chance for some literary grubber with plenty of time. Perhaps half of the names could be classified under "zoological," which would include the "Lions" of many hues; "Horses" of all known and several unknown colors; the "Blue Boars," "White Harts, "Dun Cows," "Green Dragons," "Black Bulls," and perhaps even the "Craven Heifer." The "White Swan" and the "Black Swan" "Falcon," "Stork," "Peacock," and "Cocks of all Rues and combinations, would fit under "ornithological." A small subdivision could be called the "fractional zoological," for the "Nag's Head," "Boar's Head," and perhaps even the Saracen's Head." Under "ecclesiastical" could be ranged the "Miter," the Abbey," the "Grey Friars," and possibly the "Angel." 66 66 But our objective point is "Bicycle Land," and not heraldry, and as a large percentage of With all the other uses of the pedaled wheels, the family use is, of course, not neglected. As I passed through Henley (not Henley-on-Thames), I saw a family excursion both pretty and amusing. The head of the family was at the head of the procession; in fact, he was towing the rest of it. He rode a bicycle to which was tied a long rope. The other end of the rope was attached to the front of a quadricycle containing the rest of the family. A sturdy lad worked the front pair of pedals and his mother, in straw hat, light waist, and plain skirt, pedaled behind. In the middle, strapped to a little seat, was a chubby two-year-old in sunbonnet, and a lunch basket. They were "out for a cruise," they said, and they certainly appeared to be gaining health and pleasure. The above observations apply in a general way and with the usual exceptions to a considerable part of England. They apply particularly to the roads from Birmingham to Stratford-on-Avon and from Stratford to Warwick, about which a worthy yeoman of Warwick told me a good story: "Once upon a time," said he, "a dozen men, dining at an inn, got to disputing, as you know men will, over what was (in England) the most beautiful road for a walk or a drive. Well, sir, all of them but one agreed that the most beautiful road was from Stratford to Warwick." "And where did the other one say?" "From Warwick to Stratford,' answered the yeoman of Stratford, with a chuckle. The He had just been describing the road that we two Yankees wished to follow to Warwick, the one on foot and the other by cycle. That superlatively beautiful road is the one north of the Avon, and the most direct. My pedestrian acquaintance chose it. longer way is south of the river for some distance, following it more closely. It goes through old-fashioned Tiddington and past Charlecote Park, where the spirit of Nimrod came near caus ing the strangulation of the literary career of the great dramatist. Time and repetition have authenticated the theater and the more distant church that Irving says seems but the poet's mausoleum; or sits on the river bank in the churchyard, and watches the boats and the cricketers and the Medusa-headed willows; or lies awake, and for a quarter of an hour listens to the successive striking of the clocks, the one on the G. W. Child's fountain waiting until after all the rest, as befits a modern interloper; whether one does these things or any of the others that all Stratford visitors do, there is a satisfying of poetic associations, a realization of what was vaguely apocryphal, that repays one's visit to the quaint town dedicated to one man's memory. I took the lower road by the erstwhile seat of Justice Shallow. The prodigality with which historic places are scattered over England is startling to a Yankee, accustomed at home to traveling a few hundred miles between places of interest. To spend half a day story of the Stratford man who remarked: "I'm sure we ought to be very much obliged to Mr. Shakespeare for being born here, for I don't know what we should have done without him." Of the fourteen thousand annual visitors to Stratford, the majority are Americans. The past season having been an "off one" for American tourists, Stratford has suffered even more than other resorts. Odd though it seems, this town of eight thousand inhabitants is almost entirely supported by visitors attracted by the Shakespearian associations. One must admire the ingenuity displayed in converting almost every article of merchandise into a Stratford or Shakespearian relic. In spite of all this, Stratford is one of the most satisfying show-places in England. Whether one stands within the quaint, half-timbered birth-house; or walks across the fields to Shottery to be shown over Ann Hathaway's cottage by a relative of the bard's sweetheart; or stands on the "great and sumptuous" Clopton Bridge, and gazes over the biscuit-like islands to the memorial in classic Stratford, see stately Charlecote, go through palatial Warwick castle and its splendid grounds, visit ancient Leicester Hospital, the tombs and crypt of St. Mary's, go on to fashionable Leamington Spa and the Jephson gardens, ramble over romantic Kenilworth and get into "toll-free" Coventry for supper, seems rather rushing sightseeing. As a matter of fact, all these famous places, the beautiful rural region between, and half a score of delightful villages, mean very little time on the road, and rather leisurely sight-seeing, as leisurely, usually, as the care-takers allow. This list by no means exhausts the attractions of the region traversed. The direct road from Warwick to Kenilworth allows a visit to Guy's Cliff, the ancient mansion where the more or less legendary Guy of Warwick lived as warrior, and later as anchorite, unknown to his own wife, his almoner. The shorter road from Leamington to Coventry passes Stoneleigh Abbey, seat of Lord Leigh, with abbey remains. There are many minor points of interest if one stops to hunt them up. Along that grove-bordered road from Stratford there is ever a slender church spire in view, piercing through the branches that hide the little churches, and giving sign of another center of rural life before one is done looking at the luxuriant gardens and quaint houses of the last village. A few dwellings cluster closer, the hedgerows for a few yards give place to shop fronts, and then to lower hedges with flowers behind, and to houses so overgrown with vines and roses that the walls seem of graceful, growing things, and not of insensate masonry. On each side, and close up to the rear of the well-hedged plots full of fruittrees, hollyhocks, zinnias, cabbages, poppies, and beets, are the green fields and beautiful clumps of trees. As one passes the splendidly timbered park surrounding Charlecote, the present and ancestral home of the Lucy family, a large herd of deer is browsing there, as they were when a hankering after venison got roystering Will Shakespeare into trouble. The nearer view of the rambling, red brick mansion, gained after turning, just before reaching Wellsbourne, is masked by a high brick wall, with old-fashioned arched gateway, some distance back of the wall enclosing the park. When the family is absent, one may visit the house. More low, rounded hills, thick set with great trees; more green meadows, sloping down to the willow-bordered river; more church spires; and then rusticity at last gives place to a larger pile of brick and stone and mortar, heaped up by many generations of men for their shelter; for Warwick was a town before Roman legions conquered the Britons. It is a "town" still, though its twelve thousand inhabitants would give it claim to be called a city if out on our western prairies. Antiquity meets one on the very threshold of Warwick. Just past the pretty places that are neither rural nor urban, one is confronted by a tiny chapel that has perched above the old town WARWICK CASTLE, FROM THE MOUND. gate for three hundred years and more. The modern road now sweeps by one side, but the footway goes under the curious structure, through what seems a short, rock-hewn tunnel, for the foundations have been worn out of all semblance of masonry by the clambering feet of children. The ancient, half-timbered building above, called the Leicester Hospital, has sheltered successive sets of "twelve poor brothers," recipients of Lord Dudley's bounty, since 1571. KENILWORTH CASTLE. The ivy-hung walls about its fine quadrangle; the curious garden ornaments, reminiscent of more courtly days; the massive kitchen furniture, eloquent of the bountiful table at which even royalty feasted according to an emblazoned wall tablet; the embroidery wrought by the fair fingers of the ill-fated Amy Robsart, heroine of "Kenilworth;" and all things else about the place, are full of quaint suggestiveness. But these and the sculptured tombs of the Beauchamps and Dudleys in St. Mary's cannot compete in interest with the magnificent, world-famous Warwick Castle. Sir Walter Scott called it "The fairest monument of ancient and chivalric splendor which yet remains uninjured by the ruthless hand of time," and Sir Walter knew something about castles. There was a Celtic fort on the round knoll, close by the present splendid structure, eight hundred years before Windsor is known to have existed. The Romans took this rude fort while yet the personal memory of Christ was fresh in the minds of men, 50 A. D. In the days when Warwickshire was part of the kingdom of Mercia, another castle was built there by Warremund and called after himself, Warrewyke. Since that day there have been many Warwick castles, for so often was the fortress razed that an old historian in recounting its capture merely says the besiegers "went through the usual formula." But ever grander did the castle rise from its ruins till civil war was known only in history. Then, as late as 1871, an accident proved as destructive as war, and fire ravaged much of the old mansion. But again it was restored. However, not all of the fortress was battered down at any siege. Could Cæsar's tower speak, it could recount vivid tales of the most stirring events of eight hundred years that have taken place beneath its shadow, tales of warfare, murder, siege, and conflagration; tales which would be full of the names of the Beauchamps, the Nevilles, the Plantagenets, the Dudleys, the Riches, and the Grevilles that have dwelt in the castle; of Queen Elizabeth, James I, Charles I, and Cromwell, who have been guests within its walls. The companion, Guy's tower, could corroborate the tales for the past five hundred years. When two hours and more had been spent in gazing on the treasures of art and the evidences of wealth, and on the beautiful grounds and the charming views of the winding river, including that last famous glimpse of the battlements from the bridge, I sped on to Leamington with another cyclist, and for a time looked about that center of wealthy idleness and fashionable invalidism. As the light grew wan; and the chill of evening succeeded the heat of the day, I was amidst the mournful ruins of Kenilworth. Hard indeed is it for the imagination to people the decayed vestiges of architectural magnificence with the gorgeous pageantry that welcomed England's virgin queen to the home of her favorite, Leicester. Scarce anything but the Norman keep and the modern stables remains in the form of buildings. Single walls, fragments of towers, bases of pillars, speak with painful bluntness of the iconoclastic destruction wrought by Cromwell's men. The contrast between des olate Kenilworth and restored and habitable Warwick, is striking, but perhaps, after all, these crumbling walls are more in keeping with the decay of the system of which both are monuments. After traversing the stately boulevard that leads from Kenilworth to Coventry, I found in the shadow of the third of the three tall spires," and close by the pilloried statue of "Peeping Tom," a cosy inn and a delightful tea. Coventry is interesting, not from what men have done in the way of fighting or killing or dying or being born, but from what they have not done in tearing down the curious buildings of former days, which mingle everywhere with new shops and factories, where thousands work at watches, cycles, metal work, and ribbon weaving. Perhaps the best specimens of the past are the Bablake and the Ford or Greyfriars hospitals. A grim-looking house with a black cross on its front, is a relic of the great plague, a dead house. The next street was, in that dread time, sealed at both ends, and the unfortunate inhabitants were left face to face with the pestilence. Thus it is all over the older portions of the town. Here, it is an odd gable that catches the eye; there, a queer pattern formed by the stained timbers. Ancient rookeries lean over the street almost ready to fall. Then the old guild hall is one of the finest specimens of its class of architecture - great carved oaken beams and panels, massive staircases, and ovens that would roast an ox whole.- Outing. IF the beauty of England were only superficial, it would produce only a superficial effect. It would cause a passing pleasure, and would be forgotten. It certainly would not, as now, in fact, it does, inspire a deep, joyous, serene, and grateful contentment, and linger in the mind, a gracious and beneficent remembrance. The conquering and lasting potency of it resides not alone in loveliness of expression but in loveliness of character. Having first greatly blessed the British Islands with the natural advantages of position, climate, soil, and products, nature has wrought their development and adornment as a necessary consequence of the spirit of their inhabitants. The picturesque variety and pastoral repose of the English landscape, spring, in a considerable measure, from the imaginative taste and the affectionate gentleness of the English people. The state of the country, like its social constitution, flows from principles within, which are constantly suggested, and it steadily comforts and nourishes the mind with a sense of kindly feeling, moral rectitude, solidity, and permanence. Thus in the peculiar beauty of England the ideal is |