Original Size
The Ouse, most meandering of English streams, waters a country almost perfectly level throughout, though here and there fringed by the undulations of the receding Chilterns;—with a picturesqueness derived from rich meadows, broad pastures with flowery hedgerows, and tall stately trees; while in many places the still river expands into a miniature lake, with water lilies floating upon its bosom. Among scenes like these the great dreamer passed his youth, in his village home at Elstow; often visiting the neighbouring town of Bedford, where we may picture him as leaning in many a musing fit over the old Ouse Bridge, on which the town prison then stood. How little, did John Bunyan then think what those prison walls would become to him and to the world! The bridge is gone, the town has become a thriving modern bustling place; only the river remains, and the country walk to Elstow is little changed. There is the cottage which tradition identifies with Bunyan: with the church and the belfry, so memorable in the record of his experiences, the village green on which in his thoughtless youth he used to play at “tip-cat:” there is nothing more to see, but it is impossible to pace through those homely ways without remembering how once the place was luminous to his awe-stricken spirit with “the light that never was on sea or shore,” and the landscape on which his inward eye was fixed was that which was closed in by the great white throne.
It is remarkable that there is in Bunyan’s writings so little of local colouring. His fields, hills and valleys are not of earth. The “wilderness of this world” through which he wandered was something quite apart from the Bedfordshire flats, although indeed “the den” on which he lighted is but too truthful a representation of the prison on the old Ouse Bridge. Even where familiar scenes may have supplied the groundwork of the picture, incidental touches show that his soul was beyond them. His hillsides are covered with “vineyards;” the meadows by the riverside are fair with “lilies;” the fruits in the orchard have mystic healing virtue. The scenery of Palestine rather than of Bedfordshire is present to his view, and his well-loved Bible has contributed as much to his descriptions as any reminiscences of his excursions around his native place.*
But it was after all in no earthly walks or haunts of men that he found the prototypes of his immortal pictures. They are idealised experiences, and from the Wicket gate to the Land of Beulah they all represent what he had seen and felt only in his soul.* No doubt the people are in many cases less abstract. A very remarkable edition of the Pilgrim’s Progress, published some years ago by an artist of rare promise, since deceased, portrayed the personages of the allegory in the very guise in which Bunyan must often have met their originals up and down in Bedfordshire. Such faces may be seen to-day. We ourselves thought we saw Mr. Honesty, in a brown coat, looking at some bullocks in the Bedford market-place. Ignorance tried to entice us into a theological discussion at the little country-side inn where we rested for the night: the next morning, as we passed along, Mercy was knitting at a farmhouse door, while young Mr. Brisk, driving by in his gig, made her an elaborate bow, of which we were glad to see she took the slightest possible notice.
Bedford is now at least rich in memorials of its illustrious citizen and prisoner for conscience’ sake. The Bunyan Statue, presented by the Duke of Bedford, was erected in 1874, and is one of the noblest and most characteristic out-of-door monuments in England. It has indeed been suggested that Bunyan might more appropriately have been represented in the attitude of writing than in that of preaching; but it should be remembered that the latter was the work he chose and loved, and that his greatest works were penned during the period of enforced silence. It is therefore with a fine appropriateness that he is represented as standing, as if in the presence of some vast congregation, the Bible in his hand, his eyes uplifted to heaven, while upon the pedestal are carved his own words, expressive of his own highest ideal.
“THROUGH BEDFORDSHIRE BY RAIL.
“Far behind we leave the clangour of the smoky northern town; Now’ we hurry through a country all brown-green and sweet grey-brown: Landscapes gently undulating where light shadows softly pass, Quiet rivers silent flowing through the rarely-trodden grass.
Here and there a few sheep grazing ’neath the hedgerow poplars tall. Here and there a brown-thatched homestead or a rustic cottage small; As we rush on road or iron through the fields on either hand, In the autumn twilight gravely smiles John Bunyan’s land.
More than all the fells and mountains we have passed upon our way, More than e’en that giant city we shall greet ere close of day, Touches us the tender beauty, soft, harmonious, simple, quaint, Of these fields and winding bye-lanes where yet linger, sweet and faint, Echoes of long-vanished ages, rustic homes one might have seen In the old days when John Bunyan played at cat on Elstow Green, Meadows still as when he wandered seeking God; while on each hand, Gravely smiling in the twilight, lay John Bunyan’s land.
Tender as the closing music of the Mighty Dreamer’s lay, Lies the country gently round us, all brown-green and soft brown-grey. Tender are our thoughts towards it, as we ponder o’er the book That has travelled through the wide world from this homely, rural nook.
Tenderly we name John Bunyan, martyr, poet, hero, saint, Faithful pastor, strong and loving, like his Bedford, simple, quaint. Ah! the happy tears half blind us as we gaze on either hand O’er the gravely smiling beauty of John Bunyan’s land.”—Lizzie Aldridge.
Notes
* It has recently been argued, with some plausibility, that Bunyan may have derived some of his pictures of scenery from his preaching excursions to the Surrey hills and the Sussex Weald (see pp. 33-35), where he would often cross the track of “the Canterbury pilgrims.” “It is said that he frequently selected the hilly districts of South Surrey as his hiding-place; two houses, one on Quarry Hill, Guildford, and the other known as Horn Hatch, on Shalford Common, being pointed out as among those he occupied.”.... “The struggles of the pedestrian through the Shalford swamp might have given Bunyan the original idea of the Slough of Despond; the Surrey Hills he loved so well might be called the Delectable Mountains; St. Martha’s Hill would answer perfectly his description of the Hill Difficulty; the Vale of Albury, amid the picturesque scenery of which he passed so many days of true humiliation, might be considered the Valley of Humiliation; and lastly, the name Doubting Castle actually exists to this day, near the Pilgrims’ Way, being approached, as its namesake was supposed lo be, by a path near Box Hill. It is right, however, to state that the antiquity of the last name quoted is not verified.”—Notes on the Pilgrims’ Way in West Surrey; by Captain E. Renouard James, R.E. Stanford, 1871.
* The impression made upon a passing traveller through
Bunyan’s Country is well expressed in some verses entitled