Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [569]
It was a common enough sight. He wondered how many days that spring Daniel Godfrey would stand alone in a field all day, waving his arms at circling birds.
Thoughtfully he made his way back, passing the deserted hill fort of Old Sarum before strolling down into the valley. It was below Old Sarum near the old tree where the three remaining electors met to vote their members to Parliament that he saw the second lonely figure.
But this time he knew exactly who he had to deal with: and he went boldly towards him.
There were many things that Ralph Shockley came to like about Bishop Fisher during Fisher’s eighteen-year reign at Sarum. One was the care he took of his diocese. It was Fisher who revived the old office of the rural deans to supervise and help the outlying parish clergymen, who could otherwise be sadly cut off. It was also a mark of Fisher’s wisdom, Ralph thought, that he had never offered Porteus any further office. Yet another point in the bishop’s favour was that he was one of a kindly and distinguished family. It was his own nephew John Fisher, who was archdeacon of Berkshire and who occupied the fine old Leadenhall in the close while his uncle lived at the bishop’s palace.
And it was Archdeacon Fisher’s close friend who stood before him now, a sketch pad in his hand, his eyes intent upon the deserted hill fort above them.
John Constable made many visits to Sarum; he stayed at Leadenhall many times; he corresponded with Fisher for nearly twenty years. He painted scenes of the cathedral with its stately spire from Old Sarum and from Harnham which were to become world famous. But it was on this single day that he met his most outspoken private critic.
For, with the thought of poor Daniel Godfrey fresh in his mind, Ralph Shockley now went straight over to where the great man was standing and, presuming on their slight acquaintance, interrupted his work.
The scene that Constable had just lightly sketched was a view of the old fort, surrounded by sweeping slopes of grazing sheep.
Glancing at it, Ralph came straight to the point.
“It won’t do, Mr Constable. I complain of your scenes, because they are too pastoral – you make our Sarum too beautiful, our countryside too kind.”
And then he told him of the poor human scarecrow he had just seen, and reminded him about the pitiful condition of the agricultural labourers around Sarum.
“Why do your pictures not show these, too?” he demanded. Constable said nothing.
But Ralph, suddenly flushed as he used to be when he was young, had not done yet: pointing up to Old Sarum he cried:
“There, you know, lies the most rotten borough in all England – a deserted ruin that returns two members. Do you paint that iniquity, too, as a cheerful scene?” And he reminded him of the need for reform.
It was only after he had gone on in this vein for some time that Constable turned his kindly eyes upon him and Ralph noticed for the first time that the painter’s face was tired and strained.
“These things concern me too, Mr Shockley,” he answered patiently, “though I am only a painter.”
“But notice,” Ralph would declare proudly in later years, “how over Constable’s late works depicting Sarum, there is a dark and brooding air. I think perhaps that I put that there,” he would tell his children.
He had had no more encounters that day, but returned to the quiet of the close.
“The peace of the place!” he would say, in recalling that day. He had wandered into the cathedral. “And there I saw another wonder.” For the great west window had recently been restored, using ancient stained glass salvaged from many places: it gleamed softly in the afternoon light, and remembering how indefatigable Canon Porteus had been in promoting the cause of this lovely addition to the cathedral he chuckled:
“There’s something, at least, that he and I can agree about.”
“And there, I thought, I saw the whole of Sarum, as it had been in my lifetime,” he explained, “the good and the bad: the beauty of our cathedral, and the misery of our countryside. That’s why I have always remembered