This legend begins with the story of a rather dull little boy who found his lessons very trying—and, perhaps, the glistening Thames, which he could see from his schoolroom window, very attractive—in the days when Tudor sovereigns reigned in England. His name was Hobby, and his home was Bisham Abbey, which still stands by the riverside just opposite Great Marlow. And because the child could not write in his copy-book without making blots, he was whipped so severely that, as the old tale goes, he died. But that is only the beginning of the story.
It was his mother, Lady Hobby, who chastised the child. When you see her portrait, as you still may at Bisham, you cannot believe she meant to be so cruel. She must have been sorry for her harshness; at any rate she has been punished for it, for she can find no rest in death. Though over three hundred years have passed since they placed her in her grave, her ghost still floats through the panelled chambers of Bisham, so they say.
It is a queer apparition this. It is that of a stately woman dressed in coif, weeds and wimple, with grave face and long thin hands, in front of which a basin, suspended by no visible means, always appears. The lady is forever trying to wash her hands in the basin, but it always moves from her before she can achieve her desire. Not until she can cleanse those delicate hands, can she find repose, they will tell you.
And a curious thing about the ghost is that it appears as a “negative,” to use a photographer’s term. What in life was white is in the spirit black; and what was black, now white. The wraith is seen with black face and hands, black coif and wimple; the basin is black. But the sable gown is white, the shoes white. White eyes look mournfully from the dark face.
You may not credit this strange story, for few people living have seen the wandering lady. Yet undeniable records will tell you that eighty odd years since, when they were doing some repairs to the old building, a window shutter was removed in the room in which tradition asserted the unhappy boy was taught. Pushed in between shutter and wall, were a number of children’s copy-books of the Elizabethan time. One of them, yellow and soiled with age, corresponded exactly with the copy-book of the story. There was not a single line which was not blotted.
Bisham Abbey is a wonderful old place; its history starts with the Knights Templars in the reign of King Stephen of turbulent memory. Later it became an Augustine priory, and later still, when it had passed from the monks, poor harassed Princess Elizabeth was there, a prisoner in charge of Sir Thomas Hobby, in those times when no one could guess that she was to become the great and glorious Queen Elizabeth.
The old building has seen the Thames flow by to the sea for eight centuries and more, and still it remains, one of the most attractive of all the famous houses that have arisen upon the banks of the great river. It is a short mile across the bridge from Great Marlow, that restful riverside town on one of the most pleasing reaches of the Thames. Here the river is at its best, bordered by peaceful shady lawns, where you may idle away a hot summer afternoon amid refreshing scenery that only England can show.
Down stream, seven miles past Cookham, you come to busy Maidenhead. Upstream eight miles and you are at Henley Bridge. Cookham lock they call the most beautifully situated of all on the river. Wild flowers grow in profusion on the banks of the tow-path side, and the famous woods of Cliveden look down upon the gently flowing river.
Yet, if you be wise, sometimes you will leave the fascination of the river and wander a mile or two inland and see the queer, quiet little villages that stand away from the river bank; or adventure, perhaps, from Bourne End up the Wye valley towards High Wycombe and find picturesque Penn—not the home of the family of the founder of Pennsylvania, but of one with which it was connected—and see in the church the memorials to some of the grandchildren of the famous William Penn.
To find Penn’s grave you must go a little further afield, through Beaconsfield to Jordans, where in the little Quaker burial ground that one of the greatest of the founders of the United States lies buried in a simple grave.
In all this fascinating country you are seldom more than thirty miles from London, and always within touch of a station from which you can reach Paddington in about an hour’s journey.
