Farnborough

“ Beyond this, one comes in a mile to the casual, disjointed, and scattered collection of houses called Farnborough, once a spruce and busy “thoroughfare” hamlet in the days of coaching: now a rather seedy place of resident market-gardeners and tramping hop-pickers. The old “George and Dragon” inn, that in the Queen Annean sort faces you on approach and, as it were, plants its considerable bulk half-way into the road, as though to dare your passing, has been furbished up in the public-house kind, and without difficulty stops the passage of most. ”

“ But, now!—a thousand Lord Farnboroughs could not fill up the sum of her preference to the society of Sir John Spottiswoode. Love was a deity unknown, unwished for. She only prayed to pass her existence with her father, and to see sometimes the friend she so greatly venerated.
Lord Farnborough remained some hours at Fairlee; and when Christobelle's confusion, which arose at Sir John Spottiswoode's scrutiny, had subsided, she could also join in the passing conversation. ”

“ R. Farnborough. He is twenty-six; reddish hair, high-coloured, sanguine, self-important.)
Farnborough. I'm afraid I'm scandalously early. It didn't take me nearly as long to motor over as Lord John said.
Lady John (shaking hands) . I'm afraid my husband is no authority on motoring—and he's not home yet from church.
Farn. It's the greatest luck finding you. I thought Miss Levering was the only person under this roof who was ever allowed to observe Sunday as a real Day of Rest.
Lady John. If you've come to see Miss Levering——
Farn. Is she here? ”

“ But to us there was a very great attraction close by, at Farnborough. There lived a woman who was and ever will be a very remarkable figure in history, the Empress Eugénie. She hadn’t forgotten my husband’s connection with her beloved son’s tragic story out in South Africa, nor her interview with him at Camden Place, and his management of the Prince’s funeral at Durban. We often took tea with her on Sundays during our Aldershot period, her “At Home” day for intimate friends and relatives, at the big house on the hill. ”

“ One daughter, love, becomes a countess on Thursday next, and [265] one daughter weds the finest property in Shropshire. I wonder you do not exult with me! I have been complimented with burning hearts, I am sure, by all my married friends, and, as Lady Farnborough said yesterday very truly, I have monopolized the first matches in the counties of Salop and Staffordshire. I am aware I have done so; I am aware I have taken great pains to promote my children's welfare. I may say, too, Julia's match was exclusively my own, in its invention and maturity. ”

“ They lay that night at Farnborough, whence they were to journey by way of Salisbury and Dorchester to Bridport, and there take boat for the Devon coast, crossing Lyme Bay to a little fishing village named Torquay, which was the point nearest to their destination on the moors. ”

“ It is a pretty [58] village, with an Early English church, a tree-shaded wayside pond with miniature waterfalls, and a general air of “something attempted, something done” to realise Ruskinian ideals. A mile and a half beyond Orpington we come down to the cross-roads leading, right to Farnborough, and left to Sevenoaks. In front, on its hillside, is a great red brick house. This is High Elms, Sir John Lubbock’s place. Turning to the left, we reach the hamlet of Green Street Green, and then, in another mile, Pratt’s Bottom. ”

“ I doubt myself if he has enough of the demagogue in him.'
'But that's just why. The English people are not like the Americans or the French. The English have a natural distrust of the demagogue. I tell you if Stonor once believed in anything with might and main, he'd be a leader of men.'
'Here he is now.'
Farnborough was the first to distinguish the sound of carriage wheels behind the shrubberies. The others looked up and listened. ”

“ Farnham Castle, for seven centuries a Bishop's palace, links Surrey to the See of Winchester. The Farnham oasthouses and hop-grounds bridge the crossing from the fertile Hampshire border to the Bagshot sands and the wild and sterile moors of Frensham and Hindhead. The town, set in its cultured plot of vines and flower-beds, with its historic castle, its tranquil church, and the Wey watering the pastures under its walls, stands like a garden between the military rigidity of Aldershot and the wind that blows over the Thursley heather. ”

“ Stranger to London, sir?"
"Yes," said Barnabas.
"Ha! Bad place, London, sink of iniquity! Full of rogues, rascals, damn scoundrels,—by heaven, sharks, sir! confounded cannibals, by George!—eat you alive. Stranger myself, sir; just up from my little place in Worcestershire—King's Heath,—know it, perhaps? No? Charming village! rural, quiet; mossy trees, sir; winding brooks, larks and cuckoos carolling all day long. Sir, there has been a Smivvle at the Hall since before the Conquest! Fine old place, the Hall; ancient, sir, hoary and historic—though devilish draughty, upon my soul and honor!" ”

“ No parish church is more difficult to drive up to than St. Andrew's at Farnham. If you know the way you can come to a corner of the churchyard by a side street, but Farnham goes to church chiefly by alleys and footpaths. The churchyard is more striking than the church, much of which is new. The thick turf, shaven and level, runs to the foot of mossy brick walls; an avenue of pollarded elms leads from the south door; all round stand little, old red houses. Six o'clock on a sunny autumn evening is the time to wait in Farnham churchyard. ”

“ Carson Wildred was to argue myself unknown.
"He seems to have plenty of money," explained Farnham, "and though he's a newcomer in London, has got in with a number of good people. He has two houses, one in Sloane Street and one up the Thames, a queer, lonely old place, near Purley Lock, if you know where that is. I'm staying out there with him now, as it happens, though I can't say I'm as fond of the river as he is at this season. But when a few papers and a good round sum of 8 money have changed hands, a couple of days or so from now, I shall bid Wildred and England au revoir. ”

“ Though there is evidence of an early settlement in the neighbourhood, the town of Farnham (Ferneham) seems to have grown up round the castle of the bishops of Winchester, who possessed the manor at the Domesday Survey. Its position at the junction of the Pilgrim’s Way and the road from Southampton to London was important. In 1205 Farnham had bailiffs, and in 1207 it was definitely a mesne borough under the bishops of Winchester. In 1247 the bishop granted the first charter, giving, among other privileges, a fair on All Saints’ Day. ”

“ Sir, you must come in and sup with us, my house is near by. Good English beef and ale, sir."
Barnabas hesitated, and glanced toward Cleone, but her face was hidden in the shadow of her hood, wherefore his look presently wandered to the finger-post, near by, upon whose battered sign he read the words:—
TO HAWKHURST. TO LONDON. "Sir," said he, "I would, most gratefully, but that I start for London at once." Yet while he spoke, he frowned blackly at the finger-post, as though it had been his worst enemy.
"London!" exclaimed the Captain, "so you are still bound for the fashionable world, are ye?" ”

“ The school throve, and Farnaby bought much land at Sevenoaks as well as estates at Otford, Kent, and Horsham, Sussex. His reputation as a classical scholar led to a commission from the king to prepare a new Latin grammar to replace the one already in use in the public schools. On 10 July 1641 Farnaby petitioned the House of Lords to secure his grammar, then just completed, the monopoly promised it by Charles I (Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. 866) . The civil wars ruined Farnaby. He was reported to have said that he preferred one king to five hundred. ”

“ One of the finest avenues of elms I know, is to be seen at the Palace of the Bishop of Winchester at Farnham in Surrey, but the land is quite exceptionally good, and in the palmy days of hop-growing, the adjoining fields commanded a rent of £20 an acre for what is known as the "Heart land of Farnham," where hops of the most superlative quality were grown. When the dappled deer are grouped under this noble avenue, in the light and shade beneath the elms, they form an old English picture of country life not to be surpassed. ”

“ Farnham's greatest man was not an ecclesiastic, but a politician. William Cobbett, soldier, farmer, Radical, editor of Peter Porcupine and the Weekly Political Register, and author of a diary unequalled of its kind in English writing, was born at Farnham on March 9, 1762. The house in which he was born, once a farmhouse and now the Jolly Farmer inn, stands on the outskirts of the town near the Wey, conspicuous with a white gable. As a boy, he must have been one of the busiest on any farm in the neighbourhood. ”

“ But when, in about a month after my arrival in London, I went to Farnham, the place of my birth, what was my surprise! Everything was become so pitifully small! I had to cross in my post-chaise the long and dreary heath of Bagshot; then, at the end of it, to mount a hill, called Hungry Hill; and from that hill I knew that I should look down into the beautiful and fertile vale of Farnham. My heart fluttered with impatience, mixed with a sort of fear, to see all the scenes of my childhood ”

“ Arthur Farnham awoke the next day with a flight of sweet hopes and fancies singing in his heart and brain. He felt cheerfully and kindly toward the whole human race. As he walked down into the city to transact some business he had there with his lawyer, he went out of his way to speak to little children. ”

“ No town in Surrey has two such old and orderly main streets as Farnham. Here and there modern taste for a noisy pattern has broken the quiet level; a bank has piled up a huge building of timber, handsome but out of keeping; the new Corn Exchange is out of keeping and hideous; and in 1866 municipal enterprise pulled down the old market house, which stood at the junction of the main streets and was a fascinating little building perched on pillars. But much that is ancient and simple in square red brick remains. ”

“ Farnham, at complacent peace with himself and with the world, looked after him with good-humored surprise. He was a tallish man of powerful build, with a full brown beard and hair slightly marked with gray, exceedingly well dressed, and having the unmistakable bearing of a man of the world. By a momentary glimpse of his face as he turned away, Farnham saw that he had regular features, a dark complexion, and a certain self-contained expression that was not altogether prepossessing. As he disappeared in the crowd Farnham turned again and resumed his watch of the scene below. ”

“ A Surrey Labourer.—The Witch's Caldron.—Frensham Ponds.—The Last of the Blackcock.—Herons and Waterlilies.—The Tilford Oak.—Cobbett's Mistake.—Silver Billy.—The heroic age of Cricketers.
Farnham has expanded to the south-east, and not prettily. But it is the key to the great stretch of pine wood, heather and bogland which lies to the south about Frensham, Tilford and Crooksbury Hill; and it is the best centre from which to visit Waverley Abbey and Moor Park, and to take long walks over some of the wildest country in the county. ”

“ He believed that the time had come for the new aristocracy to assert itself—the aristocracy of character and helpfulness—the nobility of the future, whose destiny it is to rule the world with righteousness. “This little island ought to be full of friends,” he said, echoing the thought of one of England’s greatest teachers. But when he reached the East-end the awful contrasts of the metropolis impressed and saddened him.
It was in this part of London that Arthur Knight’s home was. Mr. Knight, senior, had not followed the fashion, and sought out a suburban residence. ”

“ Looking towards Farnham from Thursley Common.
Farnham is mostly of one period, and searchers for very old architecture will be disappointed. One of the oldest buildings in the town is a tiny set of almshouses, whose lowly gables line the road under the castle hill. They were built by Andrew Windsor, of the parish of Bentley in Hampshire, in 1619, and were intended, as an inscription on the wall informs you, "For the Habitation and Relief of eight poor Honest Impotent Old Persons." Even with four epithets, the almoners seem to find life supportable. ”

“ For miles along the coast the railway runs almost upon the edge of the ocean, elevated on the cliffs high above the sea, while off the coast are Holy Isle and Lindisfarne. Here St. Cuthbert was the bishop, and its abbey is a splendid ruin, while on the rocky islet of Farne he lived a hermit, encompassing his cell with a mound so high that he could see nothing but the heavens. Two miles from Farne, on the mainland, was the royal city of Bebban Burgh, now Bamborough, the castle standing upon an almost perpendicular rock rising one hundred and fifty feet and overlooking the sea. ”

“ Ah, sir! I know this London, I know those who make up the fashionable world. Sir, it is a heartless world, cruel and shallow, where inexperience is made a mock of—generosity laughed to scorn; where he is most respected who can shoot the straightest; where men seldom stoop to quarrel, but where death is frequent, none the less—and, sir, I could not bear—I—I wouldn't have you cut off thus—!"
Peterby stopped suddenly, and his head sank lower; but as he stood Barnabas rose, and coming to him, took his hand into his own firm clasp. ”