University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.
ISLE OF WIGHT—RYDE.

“Instead of parboiling you with a soirée or a dinner,”
said a sensible and kind friend, who called on us
at Ryde, “I shall make a pic-nic to Netley.” And on
a bright, breezy morning of June, a merry party of
some twenty of the inhabitants of the green Isle of
Wight shot away from the long pier, in one of the
swift boats of those waters, with a fair wind for Southampton.

Ryde is the most American-looking town I have
seen abroad; a cluster of white houses and summery
villas on the side of a hill, leaning up from the
sea. Geneva, on the Seneca lake, resembles it. It
is a place of baths, boarding-houses, and people of
damaged constitutions, with very select society, and
quiet and rather primitive habits. The climate is deliciously
soft, and the sun seems always to shine
there.

As we got out into the open channel, I was assisting
the skipper to tighten his bowline, when a beautiful
ship, in the distance, putting about on a fresh track,
caught the sun full on her snowy sails, and seemed to
start like an apparition from the sea.

“She's a liner, sir!” said the bronzed boatman, suspending
his haul to give her a look of involuntary admiration.

“An American packet, you mean?”

“They're the prettiest ships afloat, sir,” he continued,
“and the smartest handled. They're out to New
York, and back again, before you can look round,
a'most. Ah, I see her flag now—stars and stripes.
Can you see it, sir?”

“Are the captains Englishmen, principally?” I
asked.

“No, sir! all `calkylators;' sharp as a needle!”

“Thank you,” said I; “I am a calculator too!”

The conversation ceased, and I thought from the
boatman's look, that he had more respect than love
for us. The cloud of snowy sail traversed the breadth
of the channel with the speed of a bird, wheeled again
upon her opposite tack, and soon disappeared from
view, talking with her the dove of my imagination to
return with an olive-branch from home. It must be
a cold American heart whose strings are not swept by
that bright flag in a foreign land, like a harp with the
impassioned prelude of the master.

Cowes was soon upon our lee, with her fairy fleet
of yachts lying at anchor—Lord Yarborough's frigate-looking
craft asleep amid its dependant brood, with all
its fine tracery of rigging drawn on a cloudless sky, the
picture of what it is, and what all vessels seem to me
a thing for pleasure only. Darting about like a swallow
on the wing, a small, gayly-painted sloop-yacht,
as graceful and slender as the first bow of the new
moon, played off the roadstead for the sole pleasure
of motion, careless whither; and meantime the low-fringed
shores of the Southampton side grew more
and more distinct, and before we had well settled upon
our cushions, the old tower of the abbey lay sharp
over the bow.

We enjoyed the first ramble through the ruins the
better, that to see them was a secondary object. The
first was to select a grassy spot for our table. Threading
the old unroofed vaults with this errand, the pause
of involuntary homage exacted by a sudden burst upon
an arch or a fretted window, was natural and true; and
for those who are disturbed by the formal and trite
enthusiasm of companions who admire by a prompter,
this stalking-horse of another pursuit was not an indifferent
advantage.

The great roof over the principal nave of the abbey
has fallen in, and lies in rugged and picturesque masses
within the Gothic shell—windows, arches, secret staircases,
and gray walls, all breaking up the blue sky
around, but leaving above, for a smooth and eternal
roof, an oblong and ivy-fringed segment of the blue
plane of heaven. It seems to rest on those crumbling
corners as you stand within.

We selected a rising bank under the shoulder of a
rock, grown over with moss and ivy, and following the
suggestion of a pretty lover of the picturesque, the
shawls and cloaks, with their bright colors, were
thrown over the nearest fragments of the roof, and everybody
unbonneted and assisted in the arrangements. An
old woman who sold apples outside the walls was employed
to build a fire for our teakettle in a niche
where, doubtless, in its holier days, had stood the
effigy of a saint; and at the pedestals of a cluster of
slender columns our attendants displayed upon a table
a show of pasties and bright wines, that, if there be
monkish spirits who walk at Netley, we have added a
poignant regret to their purgatories, that their airy
stomachs can be no more vino ciboque gravati.

We were doing justice to a pretty shoulder of lamb,
with mint sauce, when a slender youth who had been
wandering around with a portfolio, took up an artist's
position in the farther corner of the ruins, and began
to sketch the scene. I mentally felicitated him on the
accident that had brought him to Netley at that particular
moment, for a prettier picture than that before
him an artist could scarce have thrown together. The
inequalities of the floor of the abbey provided a mossy
table for every two or three of the gayly-dressed ladies,
and there they reclined in small and graceful groups,
their white dresses relieved on the luxuriant grass,
and between them, half buried in moss, the sparkling
glosses full of bright wines, and an air of ease and
grace over all, which could belong only to the two
extremes of Arcadian simplicity, or its high-bred imitation.
We amused ourselves with the idea of appearing,
some six months after, in the middle ground
of a landscape, in a picturesque annual; and I am
afraid that I detected, on the first suggestion of the
idea, a little unconscious attitudinizing in some of the
younger members of the party. It was proposed that
the artist should be invited to take wine with us; but
as a rosy-cheeked page donned his gold hat to carry
our compliments, the busy draughtsman was joined
by one or two ladies not quite so attractive-looking as
himself, but evidently of his own party, and our messenger
was recalled. Sequitur—they who would find
adventure should travel alone.

The monastic ruins of England derive a very peculiar
and touching beauty from the bright veil of ivy
which almost buries them from the sun. This constant
and affectionate mourner draws from the moisture
of the climate a vividness and luxuriance which is
found in no other land. Hence the remarkable loveliness
of Netley—a quality which impresses the visiters
to this spot, far more than the melancholy usually
inspired by decay.

Our gayety shocked some of the sentimental people
rambling about the ruins, for it is difficult for those
who have not dined to sympathize with the mirth of
those who have. How often we mistake for sadness
the depression of an empty stomach! How differently
authors and travellers would write, if they commenced
the day, instead of ending it, with meats and wine! I
was led to these reflections by coming suddenly upon
a young lady and her companion (possibly her lever),
in climbing a ruined staircase sheathed within the
wall of the abbey. They were standing at one of the
windows, quite unconscious of my neighborhood, and
looking down upon the gay party of ladies below, who
were still amid the débris of the feast arranging their
bonnets for a walk.

“What a want of soul,” said the lady, “to be eating
and drinking in such a place!”

“Some people have no souls,” responded the gentleman.

After this verdict, I thought the best thing I could
do was to take care of my body, and I very carefully
backed down the old staircase, which is probably more
hazardous now than in the days when it was used to
admit damsels and haunches of venison to the reverend
fathers.

I reached the bottom in safety, and informed my
friends that they had no souls, but they manifested
the usual unconcern on the subject, and strolled away
through the echoing arches, in search of new points
of view and fresh wild-flowers. “Commend me at
least,” I thought, as I followed on, “to those whose
pulses can be quickened even by a cold pie and a glass
of champagne. Sadness and envy are sown thickly
enough by any wayside.”

We were embarked once more by the middle of the
afternoon, and with a head wind, but smooth water and
cool temperature, beat back to Ryde. If the young
lady and her lover have forgiven or forgotten us, and
the ghosts of Netley, frocked or petticoated, have
taken no umbrage, I have not done amiss in marking
the day with a stone of the purest white. How much
more sensible is a party like this, in the open air, and
at healthy hours, than the untimely and ceremonious
civilities usually paid to strangers. If the world would
mend by moralising, however, we should have had a
Utopia long ago.