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Bah! Pass the bottle, Jim." "You're right, Bill," assented Jim, passing the bottle, "an' it made poor young Ansty sick altogether. Leastwise, I saw his good-lookin' face turn a'most green as he got up in a hurry like an' left the place, for you know, big an' well made as he is, an' able to hold his own wi' the best, Dick Ansty has the heart of a woman for tenderness.
Ansty village, seven miles from Shaftesbury, is unremarkable in itself, but has close by it one of the most picturesque and historic ruins in Wiltshire. The demolition of Wardour Castle came about in this wise. At the outbreak of the Civil War the owner, Sir Thomas Arundell, was away from home with the army around the King.
He was accompanied by Pedro and his daughter, Quashy and Susan, Ignacio, the old hunter, and his boy, as well as Spotted Tiger. In addition to these there was a pretty large following some engaged in the service of Pedro, others taking advantage of the escort. Among them were Dick Ansty, the Cornish youth, Antonio, the ex-bandit, and the English sportsman with aw his friend.
It is the home of the fine young Cornish youth who worked his way across the sea as a sailor, and accompanied Pedro to the mountains. That trip effectually settled his business, and resulted in the conversion of Mariquita into Mrs Ansty. The change may not strike ordinary readers as being very romantic, but it was attended with much felicity.
But the "rising" was not popular; the Colonel got no assistance from the townspeople and the affair led to his death upon the scaffold. The most profitable way of approaching Salisbury is to continue northwards from Ansty by a lane that eventually descends to Tisbury on the headwaters of the Nadder.
It ain't in ready-made dollars, I dare say, but anyhow, they say this Conrad'll be as rich as a nabob; an' he's got a pretty darter too, as has bin lost the most of her life, and just turned up at the same time wi' the silver. I don't rightly know if they dug her up in the mine, but there she is, an' she's goin' up to the mountains too, so young Ansty will be in good company."
The consequence was, that these feather-bed soldiers suffered most wretchedly, as they were soaked to the skin before they had got two miles on the road to Bristol. Their being kept in this woeful plight all day caused the death of two or three of them; Robert Ansty, a butcher, and Wilton, who kept the Bear inn at Holloway, never recovered from the effects of their trip to Bristol.
Both villages are very charming. The main route continues amid surroundings of much beauty, with the well-named White Sheet Hill to the right and the wooded and hummocky outline of Ansty Hill to the left, until the turning for the latter makes a good excuse for leaving the high road once more.
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