Hamp

“ We had not progressed twenty yards, however—luckily for us, as it turned out—when there issued through the roof of the pen a great dark body, dimly seen by the light of the torch.
“There he is!” cried my father, as the bear dropped out of sight behind the corral fence. “Look out, now! We’ll get a shot at him as he runs up the hill!”
But Big Reuben had no intention whatever of running up the hill; he feared neither man nor beast, and the next moment he appeared round the corner of the corral, charging full upon us, open-mouthed. ”

“ The Hampdens were dark and stout, hot-blooded, fierce, and impetuous. They were apparently vigorous; but many of them died young. The Draytons, on the other hand, were slender and fair, and usually lived to a round old age ”

“ I blurted out, unable any longer to keep down the momentous question we all of us had in our minds.
“Stay here all winter?” cried Jack—and he actually managed to scare up a laugh. “Not we! Why, Percy, where’s your American enterprise? Where’s your English bull-doggedness, Tom? Do you think we’ll give in at one failure? Not we, indeed! If we should be unable to get over this rock, why, then, we’ll just go up our ladder and walk home over the mountains. ”

“ There are no more refreshing places in Hampshire, one might almost say in England, than the green level valleys of the Test and Itchen that wind, alternately widening and narrowing, through the downland country to Southampton Water. ”

“ Hampshire is such a good creature, and his estates are close to theirs. It is certainly very provoking for them that this Italian must take it into his head to spend a season in London, and lead the cotillon so beautifully that all the young women talked of nothing else but his charms. ”

“ Little Hambledon pitted against All England was a proud thought for the Hampshire men. Defeat was glory in such a struggle—Victory, indeed, made us only 'a little lower than angels'. How those fine brawn-faced fellows of farmers would drink to our success! ”

“ But the rippling waves washed the shores of Hampshire with a persuasive charm that they had not elsewhere, and the broad expanse of it, lacking the illimitable majesty of the open sea, could be loved like a familiar thing. Yet there was in it, too, something of the salt freshness of the ocean, and, as the eye followed its course, the heart could exult with a sense of freedom. Sometimes, in the dusk of a winter afternoon, she remembered the Solent as desolate as the Kentish sea before her ”

“ Nature, we know, is everlastingly harking back, but here in Hampshire I cannot but think that this type, in spite of its very marked characters, is a very much muddied and degenerate form. One is led to this conclusion by occasionally meeting with an individual whose whole appearance is a revelation, and strikes the mind with a kind of astonishment, and one can only exclaim—there is nothing else to say—Here Nature has at length succeeded in reproducing the pure unadulterated form! Such a {229} type I came upon one summer day on the high downs east of the Itchen. ”

“ But beneath the outer grace of Hampden's demeanour lay a soul of steel. Buried as he seemed in the affections of his home, the great patriot waited patiently for the hour of freedom that he knew must come. Around him gathered the men that were to stand by his side in the future struggle. He had been the bosom friend of Eliot till the victim of the king's resentment lay dead in the Tower. He was now the bosom-friend of Pym. ”

“ What phantoms his misgivings raised, every man may conjecture for himself. Follow, then, another step in imagination, and having given a somewhat free and ghastly fancy rein, push the chamber door cautiously and inch by inch, or fling it boldly open as you will; then pause upon the threshold, as Hampden did, in sharp surprise. ”

“ The life [106] of the famous hermit, Richard of Hampole, which has lately been published for the first time by the Early English Text Society, will enable us to realise in some detail the character and life of a mediæval hermit of the highest type. ”

“ Knowing nothing, and for the time suspecting nothing, of any such underground passage, Jack lay still, waiting for our reappearance, or at least for a sight of the smoke of our camp-fire, until dark, when he went back to the dry gully where he had left the horse and dog, and riding part way down the mountain again he made camp for the night. In a secluded hollow well concealed by the trees he lighted a little fire, and wrapping himself in the saddle-blanket, he passed a rather comfortless night; for at that altitude and at that time of year the night-frosts were decidedly sharp. ”

“ Don’t you belong to his party?”
“No sir,” replied Jack. “We don’t belong to any party. We are just travelling by ourselves.”
“Indeed!” said the gentleman, eying us as though he thought we were rather young to be doing anything of the sort. “I supposed you belonged to Doctor Hayden’s branch of the Geological Survey, which is coming up from Bozeman; we are expecting them any day. Which way are you travelling?”
“Why, we are not very particular, sir,” replied Jack, “but we want to get down to Bozeman pretty soon, that’s all. Can you tell us which is the best way?” ”

“ For they were splashing along up-stream close under the opposite bank.
“There’s a ford here somewhere,” replied Jack, “and it must come out at this point; there’s no other place. They know what they are about, you may be sure. That man is an old trapper, I expect.”
The party kept on up-stream until they were nearly opposite the mouth of our little creek, and then the leader, turning short to his right, headed his horse across the river, the rest following. The horses understood their business, evidently; they came slowly across, walking sideways or nearly so, with their heads up-stream ”

“ We set off at once, and soon after midday of the second day we were back again on the hog-back.
As we went down the dry watercourse, the [234] bearded man, looking upward at the rock which overhung the edge of the chasm, remarked:
“That there rock up there, if it was to fall down, would block this passage pretty neat. A man ’ud need stand from under if he didn’t want to be squeezed out as flat as the king of trumps.”
“That’s what,” replied the deputy. “Looks as if a man might shove it down with his foot, too, don’t it? Hallo! ”

“ Sober old Joe turned into it at once and pegged along with his usual businesslike air; but Calliope, feeling that the occasion demanded a more emphatic expression of her satisfaction, lifted her head and sent forth so piercing a war-cry that the ducks and the pelicans fled squawking from the vicinity, the slumbering deer sprang startled to their feet, and even my Lord, the Grizzly, roused from his lair among the distant rocks, indignantly wondered what strange wild beast it might be that thus dared to molest his ancient, solitary reign. ”

“ Anyhow you will find that people living in Hampstead tend more and more to regard themselves as dwellers in the mountains, and take defiantly to wearing plaid shawls and big hobnail brogues, and carry alpenstocks in the Underground with them. ”

“ Up that way, eh?”—as Jack, who was leading, turned to the right and began to go up the waterway.
We ascended the slope, waded through the tunnel, which greatly excited the astonishment of the two men, and went on part way down the second dry watercourse, but as we turned the corner which brought us in sight of the bars Jack pulled up, and addressing the men, said:
“There’s a set of bars here, and a little stone fort just beyond. If the men have come back, and if they have any arms, that is where they’ll be.” ”

“ Squeaky next took an elk-hide, and, extracting the nails from several old horseshoes which lay about, he pegged the hide over the doorway, thus shutting us in completely.
“Now, boys,” said he, from the other side of the hide, “you can go to bed whenever you like. Don’t try to get out. One of us will be on guard all the time and if we hear you trying to scratch out we shall just fire through the doorway or through the chinks, and you’ll have to take your chance of being hit. So take my advice, and go to bed like good boys. ”

“ Beneath a tree, stretched on a mat of fallen pine-needles, just on the very outer edge of the slide, lay our old friend, the hermit, who, when he saw us approaching, raised himself on his elbow, and waving his other hand to us, called out cheerily:
“How are you, boys? Glad to see you! You’re welcome—more than welcome!”
“Hurt, Peter?”cried Joe, running forward and throwing himself upon his knees beside the injured man.
“A trifle. No bones broken, I believe, but pretty badly bruised and strained, especially the right leg above the knee. I find I can’t walk—at least not just yet.” ”

“ In the county of Hampshire is a little place called Weatherbroom—quite a little place, just a hamlet and a post-office. Just out of the hamlet is a mill with a few acres of farm land attached. It's awfully picturesque—a regular artists' place. By the way, are you an artist?"
"Oh, no. I sketch a little, but——"
"That'll do. You are not an artist, but you sketch. Then you won't be quite stranded. It's very quiet, you know. There's no society. ”

“ We were walking near together, carefully picking our way, when suddenly a big raven, coming from we knew not where, flew between us, so close that we felt the flap of his wings and heard their soft fluff-fluff in the moisture-laden air, and disappeared again into the fog before us with a single croak.
It was rather startling, but beyond that we thought nothing of it, and on we went again, until Joe stopped short, exclaiming:
“Phil, I smell smoke!”
I stopped, too, and gave a sniff. “So do I,” I said; “and there’s something queer about it. It isn’t plain wood-smoke. What is it?” ”

“ You may stand up if you can’t.”
“I see it,” said Jack. “Well?”
“You’ll bring the money with you, you’ll go to that flat-topped rock, and you’ll build a big fire of green boughs on it so as to make a big smoke. We shall see your smoke, ’cause we shall be looking out for it, and my pardner here will come down to the rock, and you’ll follow him to the place where me and these two boys’ll be. Then you’ll turn over the money to me, and you and the boys can go where you like.”
We had little inclination to laugh now, and still less as Squeaky went on. ”

“ I think I know how it may be done. Come with me. Ulysses shall stay with you, Tom.”
As I took my station in the fort, the other two [239] walked off down the gulley, and soon afterwards I heard above my head the sound of an axe; they were chopping wood up there for some reason or other. Presently Jack appeared upon the edge of the ravine, called out, “Look out, below!” and then, crash! came a small dead pine-tree to the bottom of the gully on the upper side of the bars. ”

“ As it would be useless to attempt to find the horses in the dark, we set about the difficult task of getting breakfast first; nor was it until we had finished that meal that there was daylight enough to enable us to see clearly how hard it was snowing. Jack was alarmed.
“Percy,” he exclaimed, “run at once to the fort, bring down the blankets, and then put the packs together. Tom, take a turn up the valley and look for the horses. I will go down-stream. If you find them, fire your rifle. ”

“ With which Miss Crampton gently touched her steeds with the lash of her whip, and they went prancing down the [Pg 43] drive as if they intended to bolt, whilst her mother and aunt held their breath with anxiety, lest the wilful driver should come to any harm.
Jenny drove at a smart pace through the principal ways of Hampstead, whilst the pedestrians whom she passed said to each other ‘There goes the beautiful Miss Crampton,’ and she overheard some of their remarks and flushed with pleasure at the notice she excited. ”

“ Squeaky looked hard at Jack for a minute, and then, thinking perhaps that it would be as well to propitiate his captor, he replied:
“They’re in a little cabin on the other side of the valley down here. They’re all right; at least they were half an hour ago.”
“Very well,” said Jack. “Then I’ll go down and call upon them. You will have to stay here till I come back. I’ll leave you the dog for company; and let me recommend you to sit still—he bites sometimes. Here, Ulysses; mind him.” ”

“ Presumably Yetmore had abandoned them somewhere on the road and they had walked leisurely back.
“Well, boys,” said Connor, “we may as well all start together now; but as your ponies have had a good morning’s work already, we can’t expect to make the whole distance this evening. We’ll stop over night at Thornburg’s, twenty [Pg 61] miles down, and go on again first thing in the morning.”
This we did, and by ten o’clock we reached home, where the first person we encountered was my father.
“Well, Tom,” he cried, as the miner slipped down from his horse. “So you made a strike, did you?” ”

“ Our cavalcade came to a halt, and we watched the advancing rider in silence until, much to our surprise, his near approach disclosed the features of George Catlin, our late host.
“Well, boys,” said he, as he pulled up his smoking horse beside us, “you didn’t expect to see me again quite so soon, did you? Phew! It’s hot. We’re in for a thunder-storm directly. And a good thing, too: it will cover up your tracks. Boys, I think there’s someone on your trail,—someone you don’t want to meet.”
“What makes you think that, George?” asked Jack. ”

“ In the southern half of Hampshire the dark-eyed, black-haired people are almost as common as the blonde, and in some localities they are actually in a majority. Visitors to the New Forest district often express astonishment at the darkness and "foreign" appearance of the people, and they sometimes form the mistaken idea that it is due to a strong element of gipsy blood. The darkest Hampshire peasant is always in shape of head and face the farthest removed from the gipsy type. ”