And the splendid old cross church at Uffington, the Uffingas
town. How the whole countryside teems with Saxon names and memories!
And the old moated grange at Compton, nestled close under the hillside,
where twenty Marianas may have lived, with its bright water-lilies
in the moat, and its yew walk, "the cloister walk," and its peerless
terraced gardens. There they all are, and twenty things beside, for
those who care about them, and have eyes. And these are the sort of
things you may find, I believe, every one of you, in any common English
country neighbourhood.
Will you look for them under your own noses, or will you not? Well,
well, I've done what I can to make you; and if you will go gadding over
half Europe now, every holidays, I can't help it. I was born and bred
a west-country man, thank God! a Wessex man, a citizen of the noblest
Saxon kingdom of Wessex, a regular "Angular Saxon," the very soul of me
adscriptus glebae. There's nothing like the old country-side for me,
and no music like the twang of the real old Saxon tongue, as one gets
it fresh from the veritable chaw in the White Horse Vale; and I say with
"Gaarge Ridler," the old west-country yeoman,--
"Throo aall the waarld owld Gaarge would bwoast,
Commend me to merry owld England mwoast;
While vools gwoes prating vur and nigh,
We stwops at whum, my dog and I.
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