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Philip Gilbert Hamerton

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CHAPTER XXVIII.


1856.

My first encampment in Lancashire.--Value of encamping as a part of
educational discipline.--Happy days in camp.--The natural and the
artificial in landscape.--Sir James Kay Shuttleworth's Exhibition
project.--I decline to take an active part in it.--His energetic and
laborious disposition.--Charlotte Brontë.--General Scarlett.

The Loire expedition having been abandoned for the year 1856, and the
Nile voyage put off indefinitely, I remained working in the north of
England, discouraged, as to literature, by the failure of the book of
verse, and without much encouragement for painting either; so the summer
of 1856 was not very fruitful in work of any kind.

Towards autumn, however, I took courage again, and determined to paint
from nature on the moors. This led to the first attempt at encamping.

It is wonderful what an influence the things we do in early life may
have on our future occupations. In 1886, exactly thirty years later, I
made the Saône expedition, for which two _absolutely essential_
qualifications were an intimate knowledge of the French language and a
practical acquaintance with encamping. The Roman who said that fifteen
years made a long space in human life would have appreciated the
importance of thirty, yet across all that space of time what I did in
1856 told just as effectually as if it had been done the year before.
_Moral_ (for any young man who may read this book): it is impossible to
say how important the deeds of twenty-one may turn out to have been when
we look back upon them in complete maturity. All we know about them is
that they are likely to be recognized in the future as far more
important than they seemed when they were in the present.

Encamping is now quite familiar to young Englishmen in connection with
boating excursions, and it has even been adopted in American pine
forests for the sake of health; but in 1856 only military men and a few
travellers knew anything about encampments. I was led into this art, or
amusement (for it is both), by a very natural transition. Here are the
three stages of it.

1. You want to paint from nature in uncertain weather, and you build a
hut for shelter.

2. The hut is at some distance from a house, and you do not like to
leave it, so you sleep in it.

3. The accommodation is found to be narrow, and it is unpleasant to have
one little room for everything, so you add a tent or two outside and
keep a man. Hence a complete little encampment.

Everybody considered me extremely eccentric in 1856 because I was led
into encamping; but it was an excellent thing for me in various ways. A
young man given up to such pursuits as literature and art needs a closer
contact with common realities than aesthetic studies can give. The
physical work attendant upon encamping, and the constant attention that
_must_ be given to such pressing necessities as shelter and food, give
exactly that contact with reality that educates us in readiness of
resource, and they have the incalculable advantage of making one learn
the difference between the necessary and the superfluous. I look back
upon early camping experiments with satisfaction as an experience of the
greatest educational value. Even now, in my sixth decade, I can sleep
under canvas and arrange all the details of a camp with indescribable
enjoyment, and (what is perhaps better still) I can put up cheerfully
with the very humblest accommodation in country inns, provided only that
they are tolerably clean.

The arrangements of my hut on the moor near Burnley have been described
in detail in "The Painter's Camp," so it is unnecessary to give a
minute account of them in this place. I was entirely alone, except
the company of a dog, and had no defence but a revolver. That month
of solitude on the wild hills was a singularly happy time, so happy
that it is not easy, without some reflection, to account for such
a degree of felicity. I was young, and the brisk mountain air
exhilarated me. I walked out every day on the heather, which I
loved as if my father and mother had been a brace of grouse.
Then there was the steady occupation of painting a big foreground study
from nature, and the necessary camp work that would have kept morbid
ideas at a distance if any such had been likely to trouble me. As for
the solitude, and the silence broken only by wind and rain, their effect
was not depressing in the least. Towns are depressing to me--even Paris
has that effect--but how is it possible to feel otherwise than cheerful
when you have leagues of fragrant heather all around you, and blue
Yorkshire hills on the high and far horizon?

A noteworthy effect of this month on the moors was that on returning to
Hollins, which was situated amongst trim green pastures and plantations,
everything seemed so astonishingly artificial. It came with the force of
a discovery. From that day to this the natural and the artificial in
landscape have been, for me, as clearly distinguished as a wild boar
from a domestic pig. My strong preference was, and still is, for wild
nature. The unfortunate effects of this preference, as regards success
in landscape-painting, will claim our attention later.

The grand scheme for an Exhibition of Art Treasures at Manchester, in
1857, suggested to Sir James Kay Shuttleworth the idea of having an
Exhibition at Burnley in the same year to illustrate the history of
Lancashire. He thought that a certain proportion of the visitors to the
Manchester Art Treasures would probably be induced to visit our
little-known but prosperous and rising town. His scheme was of a very
comprehensive character, and included a pictorial illustration of
Lancashire. There would have been pictures of Lancashire scenery as well
as portraits of men who have distinguished themselves in the history of
the county, and whose fame has, in many instances, gone far beyond its
borders. All the mechanical inventions that have enriched Lancashire
would also have been represented.

Having thought this over in his own mind, Sir James wanted an active
lieutenant to aid him in carrying his idea into execution, and as he
knew me he asked me to be the practical manager of the Exhibition. I was
to travel all over the county, see all the people of importance, and
borrow, whenever possible, such of their pictures and other relics as
might be considered illustrative of Lancashire history. Sir James had
many influential friends, I myself had a few, and it seemed to him that
by devoting my time to the scheme heartily I might make it a success. My
reward was to be simply a very interesting experience, as I should see
almost all the interesting things and people in my native county.

Sir James did his best to entice me, and as he was a very able man with
much knowledge of the world, he might possibly have succeeded had I not
been more than usually wary. Luckily, I felt the whole weight of my
inexperience, and said to myself: "Whatever we do it is _certain_ that
mistakes will be committed, and very probable that some things will be
damaged. All mistakes will be laid to my door. Then the Exhibition
itself may be a failure, and it is disagreeable to be conspicuously
connected with a failure." I next consulted one or two experienced
friends, who said, "Sir James will have the credit of any success there
may be, and you, as a young useful person, comparatively unknown, will
get very little, whilst at the same time you will be burdened with heavy
anxieties and responsibilities." I therefore firmly declined, and as Sir
James could not find any other suitable assistant, his project was never
reaped.

It seems odd that the existence of this Lancashire Exhibition should
have depended on the "yes" or "no" of a lad of twenty-three; yet so it
did, for if I had consented the scheme would certainly have been carried
into execution, whether successfully or not it is impossible to say. The
enterprise would have greatly interested and occupied me, for I have a
natural turn for organizing things, being fond of order and details, and
I should have learned a great deal and seen many people and many houses;
still, the negative decision was the wiser.

Sir James Kay Shuttleworth was certainly one of the remarkable people I
have known. At that time he was unpopular in Burnley on account of his
separation from his wife, who had been the richest heiress in the
neighborhood, the owner of a fine estate and a grand old hall at
Gawthorpe. People thought she had been ill-used. Of this I really know
(of my own knowledge) absolutely nothing, and shall print no hearsays.

Sir James himself was an ambitious and very hard-working man, who passed
through life with no desire for repose. Public education, in the days
before Board Schools, was his especial subject, and he owed his
baronetcy to his efforts in that cause. The Tory aristocracy of the
neighborhood disliked him for his liberal principles in politics, and
for his brilliant marriage, which came about because the heiress of
Gawthorpe took an interest in his own subjects. Perhaps, too, they were
not quite pleased with his too active and restless intellect. He made
one or two attempts to win a position as a novelist, but in connection
with literature future generations will know him chiefly as the kind
host of Charlotte Brontë, who visited him at Gawthorpe.

I regret now that I never met Charlotte Brontë, as she was quite a near
neighbor of ours; in fact, I could have ridden or walked over to Haworth
at any time. That village is just on the northeast border of the great
Boulsworth moors, where my hut was pitched. At the time of my encampment
there Charlotte Brontë had been dead about eighteen months. She was
hardly a contemporary of mine, as she was born seventeen years before
me, and died so prematurely; still, when I think that "Jane Eyre" was
written within a very few miles of Hollins, [Footnote: I have not access
to an ordnance map, but believe that the distance was hardly more than
eight miles across the moors. Haworth is only twelve miles from Burnley
by road.] and that for several years, during which I rode or walked
every day, Charlotte Brontë was living just on the other side of the
moors visible from my home, I am vexed with myself for not having had
assurance enough to go to see her. Since those days a hundred ephemeral
reputations have risen only to be quenched forever in the great ocean of
the world's oblivion, but the fame of "Jane Eyre" is as brilliant as it
was when the book astonished all reading England forty years ago.
[Footnote: I am writing in 1888.]

Amongst the distinguished people belonging to the neighborhood of
Burnley was General Scarlett, who led the charge of the Heavy Cavalry at
Balaclava,--brilliant feat of arms much more satisfactory to military
men than the fruitless sacrifice of the Light Brigade, which, however,
is incomparably better known. I recollect General Scarlett chiefly
because he set me thinking about a very important question in political
economy. I happened to be sitting next him at dinner when the talk
turned upon wine, and the General said, "The Radicals find fault with
the economy of the Queen's household because they say that the wine
drunk there costs sixteen thousand a year. I don't know what it costs,
but that is of no consequence." I then timidly inquired if he did not
think it was a waste of money, on which, in a kind way, he explained to
me that "if the money were paid and put into circulation it did not
signify what it had been spent upon." I knew there was something
fallacious in this, but my own ideas were not clear upon the subject,
and it did not become me to set up an argument with a distinguished old
officer like the General. Of course the right answer is that there is
always a responsibility for spending money so as to be of use not only
to the tradesman who pockets it, _but to the consumers also_. If the
wine gave health and wisdom it would hardly be possible to spend too
much upon it.




CHAPTER XXIX.


I visit the homes of my forefathers at Hamerton, Wigglesworth, and
Hellifield Peel.--Attainder and execution of Sir Stephen Hamerton.--
Return of Hellifield Peel to the family.--Sir Richard.--The Hamertons
distinguished only for marrying heiresses.--Another visit to the Peel,
when I see my father's cousin.--Nearness of Hellifield Peel and Hollins.

In one of these years (the exact date is of no consequence) I visited
the old houses in Yorkshire which had belonged to our family in former
times. The place we take our name from, Hamerton, belonged to Richard de
Hamerton in 1170. I found the old hall still in existence, or a part of
it, and though the present building evidently does not date from the
twelfth century, it dates from the occupation of my forefathers. At the
time of my visit there was some very massive oak wainscot still
remaining.

The situation is, to my taste, one of the pleasantest in England. The
house is On a hill, from which it looks down on the valley of Slaidburn.
Steep green pastures slope to the flat meadows in the lower ground,
which are watered by a stream. There are many places of that character
in Yorkshire, and they have never lost their old charm for me. I cannot
do without a hill, and a stream, and a green field. [Footnote: Since
this was written I have been compelled to do without them by the
necessity for living close to an art-centre, a necessity against which I
rebelled as long as I could. Even to-day, however, I would joyously give
all Paris for such a place as Hollins or Hamerton (as I knew them), with
their streams and pastures, and near or distant hills.]

My forefathers lived at Hamerton, more or less, from a time of which
there is no record down to the reign of Henry VIII., but their principal
seat in the time of their greatest prosperity was Wigglesworth Hall. I
arrived there in time to see masons demolishing the building. One or two
Gothic arched door-ways still remained, but were probably destroyed the
next week. Just enough, of the house was preserved to shelter the
occupant of the farm.

For me this unnecessary destruction is always distressing, even in
foreign countries. It is excusable in towns, where land is dear; but in
the country the site of an old hall is of such trifling value that it
might surely be permitted to fall peaceably to ruin.

The family of De Arches, to which Wigglesworth originally belonged, bore
for arms _gules, three arches argent_. The coincidence struck me
forcibly when I saw the Gothic arches still standing amongst the ruins.

The place came into the possession of our family by the marriage of Adam
de Hamerton, in the fourteenth century, with Katharine, heiress of Elias
de Knoll of Knolsmere. His father, Reginald de Knoll, had married
Beatrix de Arches, heiress of the manor of Wigglesworth. These estates,
with others too numerous to mention, remained in our family till they
were lost by the attainder of Sir Stephen Hamerton, who joined the
insurrection known as "The Pilgrimage of Grace" in the reign of Henry
VIII.

During these excursions to old houses I visited Hellifield Peel, still
belonging to the chief of our little clan. The Peel is an old border
tower, embattled, and with walls of great thickness. It is large enough
to make a tolerably spacious, but not very convenient, modern house, and
my great uncle spoiled its external appearance by inserting London sash
windows in the gray old fortress wall. On this occasion I did not see
the interior, not desiring to claim a relationship that had fallen into
abeyance for half-a-century; yet I felt the most intense curiosity about
it, and for more than twenty years afterwards I dreamed from time to
time I got inside the Peel, and saw quite a museum of knightly armor
[Footnote: The first Sir Stephen Hamerton was made a knight banneret in
Scotland by Richard, Duke of Gloucester, in the reign of Edward IV. He
married Isabel, daughter of Sir William Plumpton, of Plumpton, and a
letter of his is still extant in the Plumpton correspondence.] and other
memorials which, I regret to say, have not been preserved in reality.

Hellifield Peel was built by Laurence Hamerton in 1440. When the second
Sir Stephen was executed for high treason and his possessions
confiscated, the manor of Hellifield was preserved by a settlement for
his mother during her life. After that it was granted by the king to one
George Browne, of whom we know nothing positively except that he lived
at Calais, and after changing hands several times it came back into the
Hamerton family by a fine levied in the time of Queen Elizabeth. The
owners then passed the manor to John Hamerton, a nephew of Sir Stephen.
The attainted knight left an only son, Henry, who is said to have been
interred in York Minster on the day when his father was beheaded in
London. Whitaker thought it "not improbable that he died of a broken
heart in consequence of the ruin of his family." Henry left no male
issue.

The career of Sir Stephen seems to have been doomed to misfortune, for
there were influences that might have saved him. He had been in the
train of the Earl of Cumberland, the same who afterwards held Skipton
Castle against the rebels. Whitaker says "he forsook his patron in the
hour of trial." This seems rather a harsh way of judging a Catholic, who
believed himself to be fighting for God and His spoliated Church against
a tyrannical king. I notice that in our own day the French Republican
Government cannot take the smallest measure against the religious
houses, cannot even require them to obey the ordinary law of the
country, but there is immediately an outcry in all the English
newspapers; yet the measures of the Third Republic have been to those of
Henry VIII. what that same Third Republic is to the First. All that can
be fairly urged against Sir Stephen Hamerton is that "after having
availed himself of the King's pardon, he revolted a second time."

There is nothing else, that I remember, in the history of our family
that is likely to have any interest for readers who do not belong to it.
Sir Richard Hamerton, of Hamerton, married in 1461 a sister of the
bloody Lord Clifford who was slain at Towton Field, and that is the
nearest connection that we have ever had with any well-known historical
character.

Through marriages we are descended, in female lines, from many
historical personages, [Footnote: Some in the extinct Peerage, and
others belonging to royal families of England and France which have
since lost their thrones by revolution.]--a matter of no interest to the
reader, though I acknowledge enough of the ancestral sentiment to have
my own interest in them quickened by my descent from them.

Another consequence of belonging to a well-connected old family was that
I sometimes, in my youth, met with people who were related to me, and
who were aware of it, although the relationship was very distant. I
recollect, for instance, that one of the officers in our militia
regiment remembered his descent from our family, and though I had never
seen him before it was a sort of _lien_ between us.

The Hamertons do not seem to have distinguished themselves in anything
except marrying heiresses, and in that they were remarkably successful.
At first a moderately wealthy family, they became immensely wealthy
by the accumulation of heiresses' estates, and after being ruined
by confiscation they began the same process over again; but being
at the same time either imprudent or careless, or too much burdened
with children (my great-grandfather had a dozen brothers and sisters),
they have not kept their lands. One of my uncles said to me that
the Hamertons won property in no other way than by marriage, and
that they were almost incapable of retaining it; he himself had the one
talent of his race, but was an exception to their incapacity. In justice
to our family I may add that we are said to make indulgent husbands and
fathers,--two characters incompatible with avarice, and sometimes even
with prudence when the circumstances are not easy.

On a later occasion I made a little tour in Craven with a friend who had
a tandem, and we stopped at Hellifield, where I sketched the Peel.
Whilst I sat at work the then representative of the family, my father's
first cousin, came out upon the lawn; but I did not speak to him, nor
did he take any notice of me. He was a fine, hale man of about eighty.

The _nearness_ of Hellifield to Hollins was brought home to me very
strongly on that occasion. It was late afternoon when I finished my
sketch, and yet, as we had very good horses, we reached home easily the
same evening. So near and yet so far! As I have said already in the
third chapter, my grandfather's wife and children never even saw his
brother's house, and during my own youth the place had seemed as distant
and unreal as one of the old towers that I had read about in northern
poetry and romance.




CHAPTER XXX.


1857.

Expedition to the Highlands in 1857.--Kindness of the Marquis of
Breadalbane and others.--Camp life, its strong and peculiar
attraction.--My servant.--Young Helliwell.--Scant supplies in the
camp.--Nature of the camp.--Necessity for wooden floors in a bad
climate.--Double-hulled boats.--Practice of landscape-painting.--Changes
of effect.--Influences that governed my way of study in those
days.--Attractive character of the Scottish Highlands.--Their scenery
not well adapted for beginners.--My intense love of it.

In the year 1857 I made the expedition to the Highlands which afterwards
became well known in consequence of my book about it.

The Marquis of Breadalbane (the first Marquis) granted me in the kindest
way permission to pitch my camp wherever I liked on his extensive
estate, and at the same time gave me an invitation to Taymouth Castle.
The Duke of Argyll gave me leave to encamp on an island in Loch Awe that
belonged to him, and Mr. Campbell of Monzie granted leave to encamp on
his property on the Cladich side of the lake. I ought to have gone to
Taymouth to thank Lord Breadalbane and accept the hospitality he had
offered, but it happened that he had not fixed a date, so I avoided
Taymouth. This was wrong, but young men are generally either forward or
backward. The Marquis afterwards expressed himself, to a third person,
as rather hurt that I had not been to see him.

My advice to any young man who reads this book is always to _show_ that
he appreciates kindness when it is offered. There is not very much of it
in the world, but there is some, and it is not enough merely to feel
grateful; we ought to accept kindness with visible satisfaction. One of
my regrets now is to have sometimes failed in this, usually out of mere
shyness, particularly where great people were concerned. Here is another
instance. When going to Inverary on the steamer, I made the acquaintance
of a very pleasant Scotchman, who turned out to be the Laird of Lamont,
on Loch Fyne side. He took an interest in my artistic projects, and very
kindly invited me to go and see him. Nothing would have been easier,--I
was as free as a fish, and might have sailed down Loch Fyne any day on
my own boat,--yet I never went.

The book called "A Painter's Camp" gave a sufficient account of my first
summer in the Highlands, which was not distinguished by much variety, as
I remained almost exclusively at Loch Awe; but the novelty of camp life
_by choice_ seems to have interested many readers, though they must have
been already perfectly familiar with camp life _by necessity_ in the
practice of armies and the experience of African travellers. The true
explanation of my proceedings is the intense and peculiar charm that
there is about encamping in a wild and picturesque country. I had tasted
this on the Lancashire moors, and I wanted to taste it again. Just now,
whilst writing, I have on my table a letter from an English official in
Africa, who tells me of his camp life. He says: "The wagon was generally
my sleeping quarter. I had two tents and a riding horse, and very seldom
slept in a house or put the horse in a stable. _Such a life was ever,
and is now, to me the acme of bliss. No man can be said to have really
lived who has not camped out in some such way, and I know well that you
especially will say Amen! to this sentiment._ Since 1848, I have lived
altogether for about six years in the open, and have never caught a
cold. Only, through imprudent uncovering of the head, once in 1855,
whilst drawing the topography of a mountain, I was struck down by
sunstroke."

The reasons for this intense attraction in camp life are probably
complex. One certainly is that it brings us nearer to nature, but a
still deeper reason may be that _it revives obscure associations that
belong to the memory of the race, and not to that of the individual_.
Camping is in the same category with yachting, fishing, and the
chase,--a thing practised by civilized man for his amusement, because it
permits him to resume the habits of less civilized generations. The
delight of encamping, for a young man in vigorous health, is the
enforced activity in the open air that is inseparably connected with it.

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