Wrexham

“ Wrexham borrowed Payindah to help him at Miletis. “I’d like to have both of them with me for the next ten days if you can spare him,” he said as Firoz went out.
“Ask Aryenis. He’s her shadow nowadays. But if you speak kindly to her, she’ll let him go, I expect,” said I.
Just then the lady came in to show Wrexham the room she had had fixed up for him. It was rather wasted, because he sat on my bed till long after midnight, telling me of all the “picnics” and “shows” that he and Henga had had. I could picture the pair together: they are very much of a type. ”

“ While the others were making their way across the sand to the end of the hill, Aryenis turned to me and reminded me that I had not yet told how we had found our way to the hills across the desert. So I gave her an outline of the story of old John Wrexham’s journey, and the things he had written in his diary. Then I went on to tell her how Wrexham had come up in 1919 to prospect, and of the man he had found.
“But how wonderful to think that a single man could have made his way so far across the desert. ”

“ Its front was towards a large perllan or orchard, which sloped down gently to the banks of the Dee; its back was towards the road leading from Wrexham, behind which was a high bank, on the top of which was a canal called in Welsh the Camlas, whose commencement was up the valley about two miles west. A little way up the road, towards Wrexham, was the vicarage, and a little way down was a flannel factory, beyond which was a small inn, with pleasure grounds, kept by an individual who had once been a gentleman’s servant. ”

“ Mrs. Wren withdrew presently on the pretext that she had letters to write. A very pleasant hour quickly sped. Each of these four people was in the mood to enjoy. Life in spite of its hazards, was no bad thing at the moment. Wrexham, a thorough gentleman, was an immensely likeable young man. And while he basked in present happiness a certain resolution began to take shape in his mind.
As for Jack Dinneford at the other side of the room, his thoughts followed a humbler course. But he was an elemental, a very dangerous fellow if once he began to play with ideas. ”

“ If not exactly in the toils of an infatuation, the charms of Milly were growing day by day upon an impressionable mind. Fully content as yet to live in the moment, a wiser young man might have begun to pay the future some little attention.
As for the lively, headstrong, unconventional Jack Dinneford, at present at a loose end in London, to whom Wrexham himself had been appointed as a sort of unofficial bear-leader by the express desire of Bridport House, that warrior was on a voyage of discovery. ”

“ I could easily have procured the work through a bookseller at Llangollen, but I wished to explore the hill-road which led to Wrexham, what the farmer under the Eglwysig rocks had said of its wildness having excited my curiosity, which the procuring of the book afforded me a plausible excuse for gratifying. If one wants to take any particular walk it is always well to have some business, however trifling, to transact at the end of it ”

“ The tower of Wrexham, and the town itself, as occasion offers, is a nearer, and an additional charming object. In an alteration of the walks a few years since, were discovered below the surface of the ground, p. 144the shattered walls of an ancient castle; these fragments Mr. Yorke has left unimpaired, and they remain a momento of the vicissitudes of fortune. The entrenchments round the castle, and likewise the original scite of the keep, are still very apparent.
The house itself is very indifferent: Watt’s dyke runs through part of the grounds. ”

“ Forsyth reached the box across to Wrexham, who undid it, and took out a small shabby leather-covered notebook.
“I’m going to read you something,” he said, “that will tell you why I went north. As I said before, once is nothing, twice is a coincidence, three times is a moral cert. This is the ‘once’ ”

“ His cap was bitten across by a long sword-gash that had dinted the steel, his mail was hacked in half a dozen places, the over-collar of his under-leather jerkin had been ripped across by some sharp weapon, but his grey-blue eyes were steady as ever.
“A good fight, but comes a better,” he continued. “When Wrexham has blown in the citadel door as he broke down the fort gate, then I lead the storming party—’tis Kyrlos’s own promise—and then”—his mouth set hard again—“I shall speak with Atros.” ”

“ King Charles would have made them a city, but they chose rather to remain a corporation, as they are, for which they were called the “proud Salopians.” There is a great deal of good company in this town, for the convenience of cheapness; and there are assemblies and balls for the young ladies once a week. The Earl of Bradford and several others have handsome seats near it; from hence I came to Wrexham, in Wales, a beautiful market-town; the church is the beautifullest country church in England, and surpasses some cathedrals. ”

“ This extraordinary and inhuman man was the sixth son of John Jeffreys, Esq., of Acton, near Wrexham, co. Denbigh, by Margaret, daughter of Sir Thomas Ireland, Knight, of Bewsey, and was born at his father's house about the year 1648. ”

“ But ’tis time we changed, I think. Certain of our chiefs will eat with us to-night.”
When I went up to our rooms I found Forsyth listening enviously to Wrexham’s story. Also Firoz—still in his captured mail—outside the door chatting to Payindah, and the latter lamenting that he had not taken the trouble to collect a mail shirt in the gate. Both, however, were rejoicing at the opportunity of striking another blow at the Shamans, to whom they had taken the most violent dislike. ”

“ You know very well that Wroxham can just about wipe his boots with the likes of us.”
“I don’t in the least understand what you mean,” replied the Canon, frigidly. “We are his equals in the best sense; and if you wish to go into details, our rank in the peerage is—higher than his.”
“Rank in the peerage be hanged! There’s a deuce of a difference between the twenty-first Lord Wroxham with half a county to his back and the second Earl Spratte with a nasty pretentious stucco house and about ten acres of sooty land. Earls like us are as thick as flies.” ”

“ The duchess and her family having very pleasantly passed a week at the palace, now prepared for their regretted departure, and next sadly to bid an affectionate farewell. Mrs. Cartwright obtained a promise from [Pg 153] the duchess of writing to her as soon as her Grace should reach either Amiens or Lille. They proceeded to the town of Tarporly, and thence to Wrexam, where they stopped to change horses and to take some refreshment.
Wrexam is the largest town in North Wales, and its parish the most numerous; it is the principal town of Denbighshire. ”

“ It was, as I think I have said, a big house; a real old-fashioned place that once upon a time, in the days when Wreddlesham was a port of importance, had doubtless done a great trade. We turned and twisted a good deal in following our guide, and if I had preserved a ha’porth of common sense I should have gathered an idea of danger from more than one thing. ”

“ Wrexler said he would prefer to be close at hand, and together we followed de Lacy up the marble stairway into a new world.
Wrexler was at ease immediately in his doublet and hose. The rich, embroidered garments seemed to suit him as modern clothes never did. He looked handsomer than ever. He also told me that the costume of the Medici was becoming to me, and truly when I caught a glimpse of myself mirrored in the pond—for the château did not possess a large mirror—I was not ill pleased with the result. ”

“ Mr. Wraxall, while at Hamburg, had accidentally heard Mr. Mathias, the British minister, say that he might have occasion to write to her Majesty at Celle on the subject of a company of comedians, who were accustomed to repair thither annually in the autumn, to play for the amusement of the queen. Mr. Wraxall, therefore, determined to say that he was the bearer of such a letter from Mr. Mathias, of which he had taken charge on his way back to England, through Hanover and Holland. ”

“ Nothing can give one a greater sense of the difference between the exploited modernized coast-line and the real old Wessex than the journey from up-to-date Bournemouth to Poole, that olden nest of smugglers, and thence across to the untamed heaths and to Wareham. In this way, then, we will begin our exploration of Wessex.
Wareham is a little town which has been left to drowse peacefully in its old days. Nothing has happened in Wareham since its almost complete destruction by fire (1762) , an event which here as distinctly marks an era as does the Great Fire of London in the City. ”

“ WROXETER.— (Towards the Welsh border the c. or ch. of chester becomes an x, and the tendency to elision is very strong.) The equivalent is Uriconium, properly Viroconium. The original Celtic name survives in Wroxeter and Wrekin, it being derived from Celtic rhos—a moor. Wroxeter is situated on the Severn, 5 miles E. of Shrewsbury.
It was a large Romano-British town, originally the chief town of the Cornovii. At first (perhaps about 45-55 A.D.) it constituted a Roman legionary fortress, held by Legio XIV (Gemina) against the Welsh hill tribes. ”

“ Wraxall's return to the inn, Mantel, the queen's valet, came to him. Mr. Wraxall gave him, in consequence of the order he brought, the letter of the Danish nobility to George III., and also a letter from himself, addressed to the queen, containing the heads of the instructions with which he was charged. It was afterwards fixed, between Baron von Seckendorf and Mr. Wraxall, that, on Saturday morning, March 25, as soon as the hereditary princess had returned [230] to Brunswick, Mr. Wraxall should be brought to the castle, where the queen would be ready to receive him. ”

“ But, by Jove, Theodore, I can live up to the ancestral green-grocer.”
“I hope you will have the good sense to keep these observations from Wroxham,” returned the Canon, shrugging his shoulders. “Remember that he is about to enter into an alliance with our family, and he’s extremely sensitive in these matters.”
“You mean he’s a bit of a prig. Oh, well, he’s only just come down from Oxford. He’ll get over that.”
“I mean nothing of the sort. I look upon him as a very excellent young man, and with his opportunities I’m convinced that he’ll end up as Prime Minister.” ”

“ To the ordinary traveller—and certainly to the commercial traveller—without a bias for history and antiquities, it is the dullest town in Wessex. Not decayed, like Cerne Abbas, its streets are yet void and still, and how it, under this constant solitude and somnolence, manages to retain its prosperity and cheerfulness is an unsolved riddle.
Wareham, like Dorchester, was enclosed within earthworks ”

“ The Baron looked a little dubiously at the stream of people passing backwards and forwards.
"Are we not a little conspicuous?" he remarked.
"Does it really matter?" Wrayson asked. "It is only for this evening. I shall leave for London tomorrow, in any event. Besides, it is part of the bargain that we take coffee with these ladies. Here they are."
Wrayson introduced his friends with perfect gravity. Chairs were found, and coffee and liqueurs ordered. Wrayson contrived to sit on the outside, and next to his copper-haired friend. ”

“ Mr. Wraxall passed nearly the whole of the next day with Baron von Seckendorf, who returned him the articles from the queen, enclosed in a cover addressed by herself to Baron von Bülow, and sealed [223] with her own cypher. She also transmitted to him assurances calculated to confirm the zeal of her adherents. Mr. Wraxall proceeded toward Hamburg on the same night, though the country between it and Celle was almost everywhere under water. Crossing the Elbe, he arrived at Hamburg on the evening of February 21, 1775, after a hazardous and fatiguing journey. ”

“ Lord Worcester ordered Clapham (a squire to Lord Warwick) and nineteen others, gentlemen and yeomen, to be impaled, and from the horror the spectacle inspired, and the universal odium it attached to Worcester, it is to be feared that the unhappy men were still sensible to the agony of this infliction, though they appear first to have been drawn, and partially hanged,—outrage confined only to the dead bodies of rebels being too common at that day to have excited the indignation which attended the sentence Worcester passed on his victims. ”

“ At Whitehall on 25 Sept. 1813, upon the express nomination of the prince regent, Wraxall was created a baronet, as ‘of Wraxall, Somerset.’ Two years later were published his ‘Historical Memoirs,’ the first edition of which entertaining work was sold in the course of a month. Unfortunately for the author the sale was arrested by an action for libel, maintained in the court of king's bench before Lord Ellenborough by Count Woronzow, whom Wraxall had made responsible for the imputation that the Empress Catherine of Russia had caused the Princess of Würtemberg to be put to death. ”

“ There is an Elizabethan grammar school. Hexham and Newcastle form a Roman Catholic bishopric, with the cathedral at Newcastle. There are manufactures of leather gloves and other goods, and in the neighbourhood barytes and coal mines and extensive market gardens.
The church and monastery at Hexham (Hextoldesham) were founded about 673 by Wilfrid, archbishop of York, who is said to have received a grant of the whole of Hexhamshire from Æthelhryth, queen of Northumbria, and a grant of sanctuary in his church from the king. ”

“ Wraxall embarked from Helvoetsluys, and arrived at Harwich on the following day. To quote his own words: "This day shall ever be sacred in my calendar. I had now finished my tour through the northern kingdoms, and was once more in my native country, after being absent seven months and three days, from the 10th of April last. I returned thanks to the protecting gods who had carried me, unhurt, through so many barbarous nations and Polar regions." ”