CHAPTER XIII

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CHESTER WITHOUT.—A WALK ON THE WALLS.—ANTIQUITIES.—STRIKING CONTRASTS.

_Chester, June 2d._

[Sidenote: _A WALK ABOUT CHESTER._]

My journal is behindhand several days, what little time I have had to write being occupied in finishing my last letter. Meantime, I have seen so much, that if I had a week of leisure I should despair of giving you a good idea of this strange place. But that you may understand a little how greatly we are interested, I will mention some of the objects that we have seen, and are seeing. Use your imagination to the utmost to fill up the hints, rather than descriptions, of these that I shall give you. You need not fear that when you come here the reality will disappoint you, or fail to astonish you with its novelty, its quaintness, and the strange mingling of venerable associations with its modern art and civilization.

We were about to leave the printer’s for a walk on the wall. I will not detain myself with a detailed account of our proceedings, but imagine that you are with me, while I point out to you a few of the note-worthy objects.

* * * * *

We are on the top of the wall, a few feet from the side of the archway through which we entered the town. Look down now on the outside. The road, just before it enters the gate, crosses, by a bridge, a deep ravine. In it, some seventy feet below us, you see the dark water, perhaps of old the _fosse_, but now a modern commercial canal. A long, narrow boat, much narrower than our canal-boats, laden with coals, is coming from under the bridge; a woman is steering it, and on the cabin, in large, red letters, you see her name, “_Margaret Francis_,” and the name of the boat, the “_Telegraph_.” That arch was turned by a man now living, but that course of stones—the dark ones between the ivy and the abutment—was laid by a Roman mason, when Rome was mistress of the world.

Walk on. The wall is five feet wide on the top, with a parapet of stone on the outside, and an iron rail within. Don’t fear, though it is so far and deep to the canal, and the stone looks so time-worn and crumbling; it is firm with true Roman cement, the blood of brave men. Here it is strengthened by a heavy tower, now somewhat dilapidated. Look up, and you see upon it a rude carving of a phœnix; under it an old tablet, with these words:—

“ON THIS TOWER STOOD CHARLES THE FIRST, AND SAW HIS ARMY DEFEATED.”

Within the tower is the stall of a newsman. Buy the London Times, which has come some hundred miles since morning, with the information that yesterday the honourable president of a Peace Society was shot in a duel. (A fact.)

Pass on. On one side of us are tall chimneys, through which, from fierce forge fires, ascend black smoke and incense of bitumen to the glory of mammon. Close on the other side stands a venerable cathedral, built by pious labour of devout men to the laud and service of their God. We look into the burying-ground, and on the old gravestones observe many familiar names of New England neighbours.

[Sidenote: _STREET SCENES._]

Narrow brick houses are built close up to the wall again, and now on both sides; the wall, which you can stride across, being their only street or way of access. Here, again, it crosses another broad road, and we are over another entrance to the city—the “_new gate_;” it is not quite a century old. We look from it into the market-place. Narrow, steep-gabled houses, with their second story frowning threateningly over the side-walks, surround it. But the market-building is modern. See! the sparrow lighting on the iron roof burns her feet and flies hastily over to the heavy, old, brown thatch, where the little dormers stick out so clumsily cosy.

Odd-looking vehicles and oddly-dressed people are passing in the street below us: a woman with a jacket, driving two stout horses in one of those heavy farm-carts; an omnibus, very broad, and carrying passengers on the top as well as inside, with the sign of “The Green Dragon;” the driver, smartly-dressed, tips his whip with a knowing nod to a pretty Welsh girl who is carrying a tub upon her head. There are lots of such damsels here, neat as possible, with dark eyes and glossy hair, half covered by white caps, and fine, plump forms, in short striped petticoats and hob-nailed shoes. There goes one, straight as a gun-barrel, with a great jar of milk upon her head. And here is a little donkey, with cans of milk slung on each side of him, and behind them, so you cannot see why he does not slip off over his tail, is a great brute, with two legs in knee-breeches and blue stockings, bent up so as to be clear of the ground, striking him with a stout stick across his long, expressive ears. A sooty-faced boy, with a Kilmarnock bonnet on his head, carrying two pewter mugs, coming towards us, jumps suddenly one side, and, ha! out from under us, at a rattling pace, comes a beautiful sorrel mare, with a handsome, tall, slightly-made young man in undress military uniform; close behind, and not badly mounted either, follow two others—one also in uniform, with a scarlet cap and a bright bugle swinging at his side; the other a groom in livery, neat as a pin; odd again, to American eyes, those leather breeches and bright top-boots. Who was it? Colonel Lord Grosvenor, going to review the yeomanry. We shall see them the other side of the city. His grandfather built this gate and presented it to the corporation; you may see his arms on the key-stone. But now go on.

On the left, you see an old church tower, and under it the ragged outline and darker coloured stone of still older masonry. A swallow has just found a cranny big enough to build her nest in, that Father Time has been chiselling at now for eight hundred years. Eight hundred? Yes; it was _rebuilt_ then. You can see some of the _older_, original wall at the other end—no, not that round Saxon arch, but beyond the trees—a low wall with a heavy clothing of ivy. The steamboat is just coming out from behind it now. In the year 973, King Edgar landed at this church from a boat, in which he had been rowed by eight kings, whom he had conquered. An ugly, smoky old tub is that steamboat; it would hardly be thought fit for the conveyance of criminals to prison in America. But doubtless it is a faster and more commodious craft than King Edgar’s eight-king power packet.

We cross another gateway, and pass a big mill. The dam was built, I don’t know when. The Puritans, they say, tried to destroy it, for its bad name, perhaps, but could not, because, like a duck, it kept under a high flood of water until the Cavaliers, making a rush to save it, spiked their guns.

[Sidenote: _QUEENS AND BEGGARS._]

Our path turns suddenly, and runs along the face of a stone wall, supported by brackets high above the water of the river, but some distance below the parapets—parapets of a castle. Soon we pass a red-coated sentry, and now you see a tower that looks older than the rest. The battle-axes of William the Conqueror once clanged where that fellow is lounging with a cigar. Beyond, on the esplanade, were wont to assemble the formidable feudal armies of the Earls of Chester, whose title is now borne by the German Prince Albert’s eldest son. Quite a different appearance they must have made from this regiment of Irishmen in red-cloth coats and leather helmets.

Stop a moment to look at the old bridge—step back to the angle—there you see it—half a dozen arches of different forms and shades of colour, not particularly handsome, but worth noticing. The blackest of the arches was turned half a century before Jamestown was founded—that is, it was then _rebuilt_. The _old_ bridge, from which the stones for it were taken, was built by Queen Ethefleda. Who was she? I am sure I don’t know—some one who reigned here a thousand years ago, I believe, though I never heard any thing else of her. You’ll be shown her great-grandmother’s cradle somewhere about town very likely.

Just above is another bridge. What a fine arch! Yes; the longest in the world, it is said. That was not built by a queen, but a little girl was the first to cross it, who afterwards _developed up_ into “her most gracious Majesty, Victoria, whom God long preserve,” as the loyal guide-book has it.

* * * * *

“... Poor fellow! he is very lame, isn’t he!”

“Oh, he is begging; probably an impostor. Don’t encourage him.”

“He only asks a penny to keep him from starving; his son has not been able to get any work lately, or he would not let him beg.”

“Let him go to America; there’s enough work for him if he really wants it; it’s what they all say. Give him a ha’penny then, and be rid of him. Now, look over there, between the trees, and see the entrance to the Marquis of Westminster’s park.”—A great, fresh pile of bombastic towers and battlements to shelter a gate and protect the woman who opens it from—rain and frost. It is but recently finished, and costs, says the printer, £10,000.

What says the beggar? Free trade and the Irish have cut down wages, since he used to work on the farms, from five shillings to eighteen pence. I don’t believe it.

He reasserts it, though. He has stood himself at Chester Cross on the market day, and refused to work for four and sixpence, and all the beer he could drink. It may be true—the printer tells us; in the old Bonaparte years, in harvest time, it was not unlikely to have been so. With wheat at a guinea a bushel, the farmers did not have the worst of it even then. Those were good times for farmers. Soldiers can’t reap, but they must eat. The government _borrowed_ money to pay the farmers for supporting the war, and now the farmers are paying the debt.

“Give me something to buy a little bread, good sirs,” repeats the old man; “I can’t work, and my son.... These dirty Irish and this cussed free trade....”

* * * * *

Hark! horns and kettle-drums! Come on. It is the band of the yeomanry; we shall see them directly.... There! Five squadrons of mounted men trotting over a broad green meadow below us. Well mounted they seem to be, and well seated too. Ay; fox hunting will make good cavalry. Doubtless many of those fellows have been after the hounds.

Possibly. But never one of them charged a buffalo herd, I’ll be bound.

[Sidenote: _RUINS AND RAILROADS._]

This green plain—a sort of public lawn in front of the town—is about twice as large as Boston Common, and is called “The Roodee.” It is free from trees, nothing but a handsome meadow, and a race-course runs round it. On this course, by the way, the greatest number of horses ever engaged in a single match have been run. In 1848, the entries were one hundred and fifty-six, of which one hundred and six accepted.

Right below us, on the meadow, there is pitched a _marquée_. It belongs to a cricket club. I want you to notice the beautiful green sward of their playing ground. It is shaven so clean and close. You see men are sweeping it with hair-brooms.

Here again, in this garden on the other side of the wall, there used to be a nunnery. There is the entrance to a subterranean passage, by which, if you could keep a candle burning, you might pass under the city back to the cathedral.

* * * * *

... Are you tired of ruins? Here is one more that may rouse your Puritan blood: a heavy tower built into the wall, connected with a larger one at some distance outside. How old they look! No paintings and no descriptions had ever conveyed to me the effect of age upon the stone itself of these very old structures. How venerable! how stern! how silent—yet telling what long stories! We will not ask for the oldest of them, but—you see there, where the battlements are broken down in one place—that breach was made by a ball thrown from the hill yonder; and the cannon that sent it was aimed by OLIVER CROMWELL.

How beautiful, how indescribably beautiful, are those thick masses of dark, glossy, green ivy, falling over the blackened old ramparts, like the curls of a child asleep on its grandfather’s shoulder!—_Whew!_ don’t let the sparks get in your eye! They have pierced the wall right under us, and here goes an express train fifty miles an hour, from Ireland to London by way of Holyhead, with dispatches for her Majesty (by way of Lord Palmerston’s head). The Roman masonry that resisted the Roundhead batteries, has yielded to the engines of peace.

But, as we move on, even higher marks of civilization are pointed out to us. Here, close to the wall, and in the shadow of the old tower, is a public bath and wash-house. A little back is a hospital for the poor, and near it a house of correction. Across the valley is a gloomy-looking workhouse, and in another direction a much more cheering institution, beautifully placed on a hill, among fine, dark, evergreen trees, through which you can see the bright sunshine and smile of God falling upon it. It is the Training College—a normal school, for preparing teachers for the church schools of the diocese. And here, on the left, as we approach the north gate again, is an old charity school-house, the Blue-coat Hospital. The boys at play are all young George Washingtons, dressed in long-skirted blue coats, and breeches, and stockings.

* * * * *

... So here we are, back at the good-natured printer’s office, having been a circuit of three miles on the walls of the city. Its population is twenty-five thousand (mostly within). If you have observed that nearly all the houses are low, you will not suppose that much room is taken up by streets and unoccupied grounds, where that number is accommodated in such limited space, and you will be ready to explore the interior with great curiosity. If your taste for the quaint and picturesque is at all like mine, you will be in no danger of disappointment.

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