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Updated: June 2, 2025
Her thoughts went flying back to the past to the stretches of Surrey common, to the Nuneham woods, and all she had ever seen or imagined of his feelings towards her. She had never, never suspected him of loving her. She had sent him her friendly messages from Venice in the simplest good faith; she had joined in his sister's praises of him without a moment's self-consciousness.
'The only art, my dear Isabel, said Mrs. Stuart, 'that you will be allowed to study to-day, will be the art of conversation. 'And a most fatiguing one, too! exclaimed Forbes; 'it beats sight-seeing hollow. But, my dear Miss Bretherton, Kendal and I will make it up to you. We'll give you an illustrated history of Oxford on the way to Nuneham.
There is the beautiful scenery of the "stripling Thames" to explore; the haunts of the immortal "Scholar Gipsy," and of Shelley, and of Clough's Piper, who "Went in his youth and the sunshine rejoicing, to Nuneham and Godstowe." Further afield men seldom go in summer, there is so much to delight and amuse in Oxford.
My own recollection of the Oxford summer, the Oxford river and hay-fields, the dawn on Oxford streets, as one came out from a Commemoration ball, or the evening under Nuneham woods where the swans on that still water, now, as always, "float double, swan and shadow" these things I hope will be with me to the end.
The two first gray brethren lost their way in the woods of Nuneham, on their road to the city, and afraid of the floods, which were out, and of the dark night, which made it difficult to avoid the water, took refuge in a grange, which belonged to the Abbey of Abingdon, where dwelt a small branch of the great Benedictine Brotherhood.
As I was walking along, I saw several ladies with their heads dressed, leaning out of their windows, or standing before the houses, and this made me conclude that this was too fine a place for me, and so I determined to walk on three-quarters of a mile farther to Nuneham, which place is only five miles from Oxford. When I reached Nuneham, I was not a little tired, and it was also quite dark.
Just before Christmas, 1914, they marched through Nuneham to Culham Station and on to Abingdon, and then back to Oxford through Bagley Wood, without a casualty. At the end of 1914 Second Line Divisions and Brigades were being formed, and the 2/4th Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry became a unit of the 184th Infantry Brigade under Colonel Ludlow, and of the 61st Division under Lord Salisbury.
It must not be supposed, nevertheless, that Nuneham Courtney is one of the great show-places of England. It is merely a fair specimen of the better class of country-seats, and has a hundred rivals, and many superiors, in the features of beauty, and expansive, manifold, redundant comfort, which most impressed me. A moderate man might be content with such a home, that is all.
Close by is Nuneham, one of the finest of Thames-side parks, and behind that the remains of wild Oxfordshire show in Thame Lane and Clifton Heath. How many centuries look down from the stronghold on Sinodun Hill, reckoning centuries by human occupation, no one knows or will know.
I was now confirmed in my suspicions, that, in England, any person undertaking so long a journey on foot, is sure to be looked upon and considered as either a beggar or a vagabond, or some necessitous wretch, which is a character not much more popular than that of a rogue; so that I could now easily account for my reception in Windsor and at Nuneham.
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