England -- Description and travel; Wales -- Description and travel
Loitering along we came at the foot of a long hill, passing first
through gloomy woods, to a spot low down where the indolent winding
Wey widened out into a quiet, clear-watered pool, and all around were
pine-clad hills; an old water-mill and one or two ancient cottages
completed the scene, just serving to humanise it and nothing more. It
was a lovely spot, and there we pulled up to enjoy its beauties at
our leisure. I know no other country in the wide world with spots so
peace-bestowing as, here and there, one finds in England, and to come
upon them unawares intensifies the charm of them; I cannot think of a
word that precisely defines their special character, but "benign" is
not far out.
Then I consulted the map and traced on it the river's course, and so
made out, roughly, where we were, and it chanced I noticed on the
map "Waverley Abbey" marked apparently near by. Now I had a dim
recollection, but nothing more, that there was such an abbey, ruined of
course, somewhere in England, but as to where it stood I had not given
a thought up till that moment; if I had to hazard a guess as to its
location, I am afraid I should have guessed Yorkshire, though the fact
came back to me that Waverley Abbey suggested to Scott the title of one
of his famous novels. Ivinghoe in Bucks is also credited with having
given him the slightly altered title of _Ivanhoe_. Rumour asserts that
his attention was called to the uncommon name by the local rhyme:
Tring, Wing, and Ivinghoe,
Hampden of Hampden did forego,
For striking ye Prynce a blow,
Glad that he might escape it so.
"Ye Prynce" was the Black Prince, and Hampden an ancestor of John
Hampden, so tradition says, and the blow was given over a dispute about
a game of racquets that Hampden lost. I love these old local rhymes
and sayings that the inquiring traveller so often comes upon, for they
frequently relate to past historical or traditional happenings that
have been wholly or half forgotten, and are only otherwise to be found
in odd musty volumes that no one cares to read.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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