My father loved walking. Every day he walked about his parish; and in and out of the houses of his parishioners. He was so completely at home in these, that he often opened the doors and went in without knocking, though this once gave him rather an awkward experience. He walked one day into a kitchen, in which the lady of the house was having her Saturday afternoon’s bath. She heard his quick determined step as he approached, and jumping out of her tub, she crouched behind some linen which was airing on a horse before the fire. My father saw her at once, but with complete sang-froid, he quickly crossed the kitchen, and, looking up the stairs, he called the lady’s name. When he got no answer, he turned on his heel and went quickly away, muttering to himself his disappointment at finding her not at home.
At one time we went through a phase of writing each other’s epitaphs, and one of my brothers wrote this about my father:
Here lies the body of the Reverend Dacres,
The friend of grocers and butchers and bakers.
He walked so fast
That at the last
He walked right into the undertaker’s.
My father always walked in the country roads wearing a tall hat. His ‘ wide-awake’ was only worn in the garden. He thought it looked lazy, in spite of its name. When he was over seventy, he had a bad carriage accident, and was thrown out of the carriage on to his head. His tall hat saved his life, but curiously enough, he took a dislike to it afterwards, and thenceforth he only wore it in London.
I wonder what the people of to-day would say, if they found themselves on one of the country roads of my youth. Very muddy in winter, and very dusty in summer, all their users had a share in making them. In the autumn, cartloads of large flints were tipped into piles by the roadside, and upon these the stone-breakers set to work, wearing wire masks to protect their eyes as they hammered the stones into pieces, which were decreed to be ‘no bigger than would go into a man’s mouth’. This measure was a very elastic one, to judge by the size of the stones which were eventually spread upon the roads. They were then slowly driven in by the successive vehicles which passed over them in the course of many months. As we drove about the country in the winter, we saw with despair ahead of us long stretches of road covered with huge rough stones over which we had to pass. Those weary drags over the newly laid stones were our chief experiences in the course of our winter drives. The unhappy horses crept along, heads down, and feet painfully picking a way through the sharp, loose stones, while considerate drivers got out of their carriages and walked beside them. Everyone carried tools with which to pick out the stones which often lodged in the horseshoes, and too often lamed the horses.
Naturally everyone tried to follow in a track which had already begun to be levelled by someone in front, so one half of the road became more or less mended while the other half was practically untouched. Then the authorities devised the diabolical plan of laying down hurdles upon the levelled half, and so forcing the unhappy road users to begin their task once more upon the other side. Mr. Savage once leapt out of his carriage and triumphantly threw the hurdles over the hedge into the field. This was an offence against the road acts, and he was prosecuted and severely fined.
Then the first steam-rollers appeared, and these added a fresh terror to the roads, as very few horses would pass them at work. There were exciting scenes when horses shied, reared, leapt over hedges, turned sharp round, or bolted in the opposite direction while their drivers tried to coax them past these road monsters. Frightened ladies waved their whips at the red-flagged man who gave warning that a ‘ mechanically propelled vehicle’ was approaching; and at this signal, he was bound by law to stop his engine and to lead the frightened animal by. This of course delayed matters, so many roads were never steam-rolled at all, but were left to be levelled in the old way by the casual passerby.
Chapter Six
ENTERTAINMENTS
When I was a girl, country places were far more self-supporting in the way of entertainments than they are to-day. Nowadays, the smallest villages are generally within reach of a cinema; and for those who want to hear music of any kind, there is always the wireless. But in those days, when we wanted amusement, we had to produce it ourselves and our entertainments were often very good ones. At Wilton in my childhood we had a brass band which possessed some very loud and discordant instruments: its repertoire was small and its members never learnt quite perfectly any of the tunes they played, but it looked very important when it marched out on
