Tuesday. June 7th.
No letters again! It is quite clear that the “something bad” has been the result of Arabel’s letter to Annie. Arabel certainly used one of her own feathers in writing it—one way of calling her a goose!— There will be no letter tomorrow: and I shall dread the interview on Thursday, not only on account of Annie, but Mrs. Boyd. And as to Mr. Boyd, even he may blame me for letting Arabel again turn up the green sod which had been turned down; tho’ here was not a chance of its ever taking root. I let Arabel do it: because I could not let her from doing it. Arabel loves me; & would shew that she loves me. I wish she had not, in this instance.
Papa has gone to the Newent Bible meeting:[1] & Bro & Sam, Stormy Georgie & Henry, to the Bosbury fishing brook.[2] Bummy Henrietta Arabel & I dined at one; & then Bummy Arabel & I went in the wheelbarrow to the Whyche.[3] We walked thro’ the rocky passage, & sate down on the Worcestershire side of the hill. Such a sight! Such a sea of land: the sunshine throwing its light; & the clouds, their shadows, upon it! Sublime sight, I must still call it!— I looked along the Great Malvern road. Shall I ever travel along it again? Not with the same feelings! & I had some sad ones in thinking so: tho’ I would not have it otherwise. I ran along the walk to see if I could see Ruby Cottage.[4] No! it was too far off. We returned thro the Whyche: & I climbed the low hill, & Arabel the high one; & Bummy sate below each of us. I looked on each side of the elevated place where I sate. Herefordshire all hill & wood—undulating & broken ground!— Worcestershire throwing out a grand unbroken extent,—& more than Worcestershire, to the horizon! One, prospect attracting the eye, by picturesqueness: the other the mind,—by sublimity. My mind seemed spread north south east & west over the surface of those extended lands: and, to gather it up again into its usual compass, was an effort. If I had stayed there another half hour, I should have made verses—or shed tears: and if some circumstances had not happened, those tears wd. have had a different character—they wd. have been bitter tears. As it is, Malvern is associated still with happiness: & I do like to feel myself there.
I dreamt last night,—for night dreams are as well worth recording as day dreams,—that I was re-writing the Warren-blacking lines,—& inserted in some part of them the following—
Fame o’er him flashed her meteor wing—
And he—he was a King.
What king I was writing of, is out of my head. They caught no fish at Bosbury. Read as usual. Papa walked eleven miles.
1. Newent: a market-town about 10 miles south of Hope End that contained a Wesleyan-Methodist meeting-place.
2. The River Leadon at Bosbury, 2 miles N.W. of Hope End.
3. The Wyche was a pass, about 900 feet above sea-level, through the Malvern Hills south of the Worcestershire Beacon. Several forms of spelling occur, but the modern usage is Wyche. It was a frequent excursion of E.B.B. and her family, on account of the view, despite the steepness of the road, which caused the carriage to overturn while descending from the summit on the occasion of her first visit to H.S.B. in 1828. A comtemporary guidebook states: “The road from this place [Ledbury] to Great Malvern, over the Wytch, is not eligible for carriages in general, more especially such as are not accustomed to the country. But from the Wytch, which is a road cut through the rock, on the summit of the Malvern [Hills], the view is grand, extensive, and beautiful beyond description. On a clear day, with the naked eye, fifteen counties in England and Wales, four cities, and the shores of the Irish channel, besides innumerable towns and villages, and two beautiful rivers, are clearly distinguishable” (Paterson’s Roads; Being an Entirely Original and Accurate Description of all the Direct and Principal Cross Roads in England and Wales, ed. Edward Mogg, 18th edn. augmented and improved, London [1832?], p. 493).
4. The house leased by H.S.B. when E.B.B. first visited him in 1828, and re-occupied by him in May 1831. The nearby inn having been named after Admiral John Benbow (1653–1702), Ruby Cottage (now more correctly called The Ruby) was named after the only ship of his squadron to support him in action against the French in the West Indies in 1702, when the remaining five captains under his command mutinied. The house, very little altered since the time of the Diary, stands in a small amount of ground adjacent to the main road between Malvern Wells and Great Malvern, with a short carriage drive linking the house to the road at two points. The house stands on the eastern slope of the Malvern Hills, 500 feet above sea-level. Behind it, the land rises steeply for more than 500 feet to the summit. Some 300 feet up this slope is the footpath of which E.B.B. speaks, and which was frequently her mode of access to Ruby Cottage.
