HOME-BREWED ALE
About two miles out we came to a little roadside inn having the sign of the “Three Horse-shoes” displayed in front. Why three horse-shoes? Four, one would imagine, would be the proper number. Here we observed a notice that the thirsty wayfarer could indulge in “Home-brewed Ale,” rather a rare article in these days of tied houses, when large brewing firms buy up all the “publics” they can, so as to ensure the sale of their beer thereto, and no other. Now, it may be pure fancy on my part, for fancy counts for much, but in my opinion there is a special flavour and pleasing character aboutgoodhome-brewed ale never to be found in that coming from the big commercial breweries.
A little farther on our road brought us to Little Stukeley, a rather picturesque village. Here, to the left of the way, stood a primitive old inn, with its sign let into the top of a projecting chimney-stack, an uncommon and curious place for a sign. In fact there were two signs, one above the other; the top one was of square stone carved in low relief to represent a swan with a chain round its body. The carving was all painted white (except the chain, which was black), and bore the initials in one corner of C. D. E., with the date 1676. Just below this, on a separate and oblong tablet, painted a leaden colour, was the carved representation of a fish—intended, we learnt, for a salmon, as the inn was called the “Swan and Salmon.” We felt duly grateful for the lettered information, otherwise we might in our ignorance have imagined the sign to be the “Swan and Big Pike”!
Now we passed through a pretty but apparently sparsely-populated country; indeed, it is strange how little the presence of man is revealed in some portions of rural England, though the signs of his labour are everywhere in evidence. Upon one occasion, when driving a prominent American citizen, a guest of mine, across country (in order that he might behold it from another point of view than that afforded by a railway carriage, the general mode of seeing strange countries nowadays), I took the opportunity of asking him what he was most struck with in the English landscape. “Its uninhabited look,” was the prompt reply; “and that is the very last thing I expected. I see great parks here and there, and now and then I get a peep of a lordly palace standing in stately solitude therein, as though it needs must keep as far removed from the plebeian outer world as possible; but the homes of the people (I mean those who are neither very rich nor very poor), where do they hide themselves? From all I have seen to-day, had I not known the facts, I should have imagined it was Old England that was the new and thinly-populated land, and not my American State. With you, I guess, it is a civilised feudalism that still prevails: the palace surrounded by its park takes the place of the ancient castle surrounded by its moat—the outer formshave changed, the spirit still remains. The English country strikes me as a land of magnificent mansions and humble cottages.”
AS OTHERS SEE US!
I was so struck by this statement of views, that on my return home I looked up the works of some American authors who have written about England, to gather what they might say on the subject, and I found that John Burroughs, in an appreciative essay on English scenery in hisWinter Sunshine, writes his impressions of it thus:—“To American eyes the country seems quite uninhabited, there are so few dwellings and so few people. Such a landscape at home would be dotted all over with thrifty farmhouses, each with its group of painted outbuildings, and along every road and highway would be seen the well-to-do turnouts of the independent freeholders. But in England the dwellings of the poor people, the farmers, are so humble and inconspicuous, and are really so far apart, and the halls and the country-seats of the aristocracy are so hidden in the midst of vast estates, that the landscape seems almost deserted, and it is not till you see the towns and great cities that you can understand where so vast a population keeps itself.” It is interesting sometimes “to see ourselves as others see us,” and never was I more entertained than by hearing the outspoken opinions upon England and the English of a notable Japanese official whom I met in California, and who confided to me his ideas and views of things British, imagining I was an American citizen all the time, and I did not undeceive him.
On our map we saw Alconbury Hill markedright on our road of to-day, also we found it noted in ourPaterson, therefore we expected to have some stiff collar-work, for we reasoned to ourselves, when an Ordnance map makes prominent mention of a hill it means climbing for us; so we were surprised to find the hill only a gentle, though rather long, rise, with a descent on the other side to correspond—trotting-ground every inch of the way. From the top of the modest elevation, however, we had an extensive prospect opening out before us over the flat, far-reaching plains of Cambridgeshire—a little world of green meadows and tilled fields, varied by many-tinted woods, enlivened by the gleam of still water and the silvery thread of winding stream—a vast panorama stretching away farther than our eyes could reach, for the far-off horizon was lost in a faint blue haze that seemed to wed the sky to the land. There is a certain fascination in looking over such a breadth of earth and sky to be felt rather than described; it affords one an idea of the majesty of space!
The country, as we drove on, became very lovely but very lonely; we had the road all to ourselves for miles, not even the ubiquitous cyclist did we see, and the fields on either hand appeared strangely deserted; a profound peace brooded over all, so that even the tramping of our horses’ feet and the crunching of our wheels on the hard road seemed preternaturally loud—and we realised what a noise-producing creature man is! I knew a Londoner, who lived within sound of the perpetual roar of street traffic, after spending a night in a remote
TRANQUILLITY OR DULNESS
country house, actually complain of the painful stillness there, averring that he could not sleep for it! So silent is Nature when at rest, and so unaccustomed is the average town-dweller to its quietude. To Charles Lamb the tranquillity of the country was “intolerable dulness”; to others it is infinite rest. Lamb wrote: “Let not the lying poets be believed, who entice men from the cheerful streets.... Let no native Londoner imagine that health and rest, innocent occupation, interchange of converse sweet, and recreative study, can make the country anything better than altogether odious and detestable. A garden was the primitive prison, till man, with Promethean felicity and boldness, luckily sinned himself out of it”!
Driving on, we observed a large old house to our right close to the roadway; this we imagined from appearances had formerly been a fine old coaching hostelry, but now it is divided down the centre, one half doing duty as a farmstead, the other half still being a house of entertainment, that proclaims itself with the sign of the “Crown and Woolpack.” I find that an inn so named is marked at this very spot on a last-century travelling map I possess, so that it was presumably then of some importance. To-day it struck us that the farmhouse looked more prosperous than the inn.
As we proceeded, the country all around had a mellow, home-like look, smiling and humanised with long abiding and the tireless toil of generations of hardy workers: it was a delightful compound of green fields, leafy trees, tangled hedgerows,murmuring streams, with winding roads and inviting footpaths leading everywhere. Here and there, too, we caught pleasant peeps of the gray gable-ends of ancient homes amidst the woods, the rest being drowned in foliage. The scenery was thoroughly, intensely English. Had you by some magic been suddenly transplanted there from some distant region of the world, you would have had no hesitation in saying that you were in England, for no other scenery in the world is quite the same as what we looked upon. Here again let an American give his opinion. I find Mark Twain, in hisMore Tramps Abroad, thus writes: “After all, in the matter of certain physical patent rights, there is only one England. Now that I have sampled the globe, I am not in doubt. There is the beauty of Switzerland, and it is repeated in the glaciers and snowy ranges of many parts of the earth; there is the beauty of the fiord, and it is repeated in New Zealand and Alaska; there is the beauty of Hawaii, and it is repeated in ten thousand islands of the Southern Seas; there is the beauty of the prairie and the plain, and it is repeated here and there in the earth. Each of these is worshipful, each is perfect in its way, yet holds no monopoly of its beauty; but that beauty which is England is alone—it has no duplicate. It is made up of very simple details—just grass, and trees, and shrubs, and roads, and hedges, and gardens, and houses, and churches, and castles, and here and there a ruin, and over it all a mellow dreamland of history. But its beauty is incomparable, and all its own.”
It is not always the grandest scenery that affords
ENGLISH SCENERY
the most lasting pleasure, rather is it the quiet beauty that lies in our rural everyday landscape that holds the sweetest remembrance. Grandeur may excite our admiration, call forth our most expressive adjectives, but it is the lovable that dwells nearest the heart, whose memory is the closest treasured in after years; and it is this very quality of lovableness that the English scenery flows over with that so charms and binds one’s affections. English scenery does not challenge attention by anytour de force; it simply allures you by its sweet smile and home-like look. As Thackeray says, “The charming, friendly English landscape! Is there any in the world like it?... It looks so kind, it seems to shake hands with you as you pass through it.”
About twelve miles from Huntingdon stands the little decayed town of Stilton—a famous place in the old coaching days, when the traffic here on the Great North Road is said never to have ceased for five minutes, day or night, the whole year round. But now Stilton has shrunk to little more than a large village. Thanks to the railway, its prosperity is a thing of the past, depending as it did almost wholly upon its inns, which in turn depended upon the road traffic. As we drove into the drowsy old town (I use the term in courtesy), that seems to have gone to sleep never to waken more, our eyes were delighted by the vision of a genuine, little-altered, medieval hostelry—of which very few remain in the land. It was a picture rather than a place—a dream of old-world architecture; and this is what we saw before us: a long, low, gabled building, withbent, uneven roof and shapely stacks of chimneys, with the usual low archway in, or about, the centre, giving access to the stable-yard, and a grand old sign-board, supported by great brackets of scrolled iron-work, and further upheld by a post in the roadway (there is a curious old inn, the “Chequers,” at Tunbridge, with its sign supported in a similar manner). The fine sign-board of the inn at Stilton bears the representation of a huge bell, and forms quite a feature in the building; the front of the latter has a delightful mellow, gray tone—a sort of bloom that only age can give, the priceless dower of centuries.
So charmed were we with this quaint and picturesque specimen of a past-time hostelry of the pre-coaching era, that we involuntarily pulled up to gaze upon it at our leisure, half afraid lest it should prove an illusion, and like a dream vanish into nothingness; but no, it was a happy reality, and not the delusion of a moment—it was “a something more than fiction.” Not often in these prosaic days does the driving tourist come upon a romance in stone like this, for romance was written large over all its time-toned walls—walls that since the hostelry was first raised, over three storied centuries ago, must have looked upon many strange sights and eventful doings. Then the highway to the North was in parts but little better than a track. The “gentlemen of the road” made travelling a doubtful delight, full of excitement, and more dangerous than tiger-hunting now is. Little wonder, therefore, that our medieval ancestors commended their souls toGod before starting out on a journey; even the early coaching bills took the precaution of stating that “the journey would be performed, God permitting.” The modern railway time-table compilers are not so particular!
“THE BELL” AT STILTON
Driving under the ancient archway, we entered the stable-yard of the “Bell,” and found that, in spite of the changed times and forsaken look of the place, we could put our horses up there, as well as obtain a meal for ourselves. Whereupon we ordered the best that the house could provide “for man and beast.” Having settled this necessary detail, we at once went outside and began work on a sketch of the ancient hostelry (an engraving which will be found with this chapter). So engrossed did we become with our pleasant task, that we forgot all about our meal, so the landlord had to come out to remind us about it. We excused ourselves by remarking that we could eat and drink any day, but not always had we the opportunity of sketching such a picturesque bit of building. The landlord simply smiled, and gazed at us inquiringly. What was passing in his mind I cannot say, but he remarked that our chops were getting cold. Possibly he wondered at any one preferring to stand outside in the roadway drawing an old inn, instead of sitting within it feasting. Moreover, he reminded us that he had some excellent ale. This was a sudden descent from the poetic to the practical, but the practical prevailed, for we had to confess to ourselves that we were hungry, and thirsty too; and as my wife pertinently remarked, “The chops won’t wait, and the inn will; it has waited several hundreds of years where it is, and you can finish your sketch after lunch.” The argument was unanswerable, so we stepped within, and did ample justice to the repast that mine host had provided. I am inclined to think that the sketch did not suffer for the interruption, for a hungry man is apt to draw hastily, be he ever so enthusiastic about his work. Our repast finished and our drawing done, we sought out the landlord—a stout, jovial-looking personage; may his shadow never grow less!—for a chat, in the hope of gleaning thereby some information or traditions about the old place, and were not wholly disappointed.
It appeared that mine host had been there thirty-two years, and even in his recollection much of the stabling and a portion of the building in the rear also had gone to decay, and consequently was pulled down. He seemed proud of his ancient inn, but especially proud of the original sign-board, which, being of copper, for lightness, had not decayed, neither had it warped. “Now, I’ll wager you cannot guess the height of it within a foot,” he exclaimed, looking up at the swinging board. We thought we could, it seemed an easy matter; so we guessed and failed! We conjectured five feet. “Ah!” exclaimed the landlord, “I knew you would guess wrong—everybody does. Why, it’s six feet and two and three-quarter inches high! I’ve been up on a ladder and measured it myself. It does look big when you’re up close to it. There used to be lots of bets about it, I’ve heard, in the old coaching days, much to the profit of the drivers; for you see they knew the height and
A MEDIEVAL HOSTELRY: THE BELL INN, STILTON.
A MEDIEVAL HOSTELRY: THE BELL INN, STILTON.
A MEDIEVAL HOSTELRY: THE BELL INN, STILTON.
A FINE INN SIGN
their passengers didn’t. It was said to be the finest sign on the road. More than once, to settle a wager, the coach waited whilst the board was measured. It’s a sad pity, but the scrolled iron-work is corroding away, besides getting bent out of place here and there from the heat of the sun, but I expect it will last my time for all that. The owner would like to restore the old inn, only there is so little road custom now, it would not pay to do so.” “But how about the cyclists,” we queried; “do you not obtain a good deal of custom from them?” “Well, not very much, sir. Somehow, they seem mostly to pass along without stopping. Now and then one or two may stop just for a glass of ale, but the majority of them simply slow down a bit as they pass by, and exclaim, ‘What a funny old place!’ or a similar remark; but a few odd glasses of ale and a lot of remarks don’t go far towards paying rent. You see, there’s nothing to come here for, this isn’t a tourist country. Now, were we only near to a watering-place, we should get a lot of folks a-driving over to see the old house, refreshing themselves, and baiting their horses. Then there would be money in it.” For myself, I am selfishly glad that the “Bell” at Stilton is not near any fashionable resort, otherwise there would be a great chance of its picturesqeness being improved away. As it is, it may still, with a little repairing now and then, last for centuries, to delight the eye of antiquaries and artists yet unborn—a bit of history in stone of the never-returning past.
Then the landlord asked us to go into his gardenat the back, and there presented us with one of his roses. “It’s a rare kind,” he said; “they call it a new rose. A gentleman living near here gave a big price for a stock one like it; but when he showed me his purchase I told him that I had just the same kind in my garden, and it had been there for seven years; and he would not believe me till he came and saw for himself. There’s what you call a spa spring in the garden. In olden times it used to be considered a cure for some complaints, but it seems forgotten now. It is the only spring in the place; all the other water has to be got from wells.”
The name of Stilton is, of course, a familiar household word, as the little town gave its name to the now famous cheese. I find my copy ofPatersonhas the following note about the place:—“Stilton has long been celebrated for the excellence of its cheese, which not unfrequently has been called the English Parmesan. It is asserted that this article was first made by a Mrs. Paulet of Wymondham, near Melton Mowbray, in Leicestershire, who supplied the celebrated Cooper Thornhill, who kept the Bell Inn in this village, with this new manufacture, which he often sold for 2s. 6d. per lb., and hence it is said to have received its name from the place of sale. This Thornhill was a famous rider, and is recorded to have won the cup at Kimbolton with a mare that he accidentally took on the course after a journey of twelve miles.” Another performance of this sporting worthy was to ride to London and back for a wager within twelve hours. I find by my road-book the distance for the double journey to be 150 miles,so that he must have ridden over twelve miles an hour; and a good day’s work in truth!
INN-LORE
Most of the landlords of the old coaching hostelries were sporting men, and wonderful stories are told of their doings, stories that probably, like most wines, have improved with age. Indeed, a vast amount of inn-lore (we have folk-lore, why not inn-lore?) may be picked up by the road traveller of to-day, from talkative landlords and communicative ostlers, if he be a good listener. I should think that I have gathered this journey sufficient anecdotes of the road, good, bad, and indifferent, to fill two chapters at least. But the stories lose much when retold in prosaic print; it is the persons who tell them, and the manner of telling, together with suitable surroundings, that give them a special charm. To do them justice you must hear them in a remote country hostelry from the lips of some jovial old host—for a few such may still be found on the way—whose interest lies in that direction; and if told in his low-ceilinged parlour, hung round with prints of coaching and sporting subjects, produced in the pre-chromo-lithographic age, so much the better; if over a pipe, better still. Then perchance mine host may settle down and warm up to his subject, when one story will inevitably suggest another, and that still another, and so on apparentlyad infinitum, till your note-book is filled with all sorts of curious histories. Or failing the landlord, the “wrinkled ostler, grim and thin,” may well supply his place; and the rambling old inn-yard where some of the wonderful feats related took place, or are presumed to havetaken place, forms a very appropriate and telling background to the tale. We have had theTales of my Landlord. Who will give us theTales of an Ostler? These, judging from my own selection, might, with a little necessary weeding, prove interesting and, in certain cases, even sensational reading.
I well remember, some few years back, when touring in Yorkshire, the aged ostler of a solitary inn on the moors, where we were weather-bound for a time, related to me, by way of pleasantly passing the time, a blood-curdling story about the house in the “good old times.” I must say that the story suited well the building, for it was a bleak, inhospitable-looking house, with long untenanted, unfurnished chambers, its stables going to decay, and mostly given over to cobwebs and half-starved mice—the whole place looking doubly dreary in the dripping rain: a gray drooping sky and a soughing wind serving only too successfully to accentuate its dismalness. “Ah,” exclaimed the ostler as we stood together sheltering from the steady downpour in a corner of the stables, “there were queer doings in the old place. I’ve heard tell, in past times, many a belated traveller who put up here for the night never got no further if he were supposed to have much money upon him; that is, for the landlord then, they do say, combined inn-keeping with robbery. There were one bedroom in the house where they used to put likely travellers to sleep, and this had a secret door to it. It’s yon room with the low window overlooking the yard, and, well, next morning the traveller had disappeared no one knew
A GRUESOME STORY
where; but a lot of skeletons have been found when digging in the moor round about. However, one night the landlord caught a Tartar. There was a scuffle in the room, and some pistol shots were heard, and the landlord was found dead on the floor: the traveller turned out to be a famous highwayman, who so cowed the rest of the house that he rode off in the morning with a good share of the landlord’s plunder to which he quietly helped himself.” But then the story may not be true, or only true in part, for tradition is a sad scandal-monger; and tradition, unlike a rolling stone, gathers substance as it goes on. I should perhaps state, in fairness to the worthy ostler’s tale-telling talent, that I have only given his grim story in brief, and have purposely omitted some very gruesome and thrilling details that he positively gloated over. These my readers can supply for themselves if they be so minded, providing a trap-door in the floor of the chamber, with a deep well immediately below, and flavouring to taste.
But to return to the “Bell” at Stilton, from which I have wandered far afield. This gray and ancient hostelry, with its weather-tinted walls, produced an impression upon us difficult to analyse; it verily seemed as though there must be some old legend or mystery connected with the building and only waiting to be discovered. The glamour of romance seemed to brood over it: a romance in which the “knights of the road” figured prominently, and we began to weave a little story “all our own,” after the most approved manner of HarrisonAinsworth. Dick Turpin must have known this hostelry very well, it being on his favourite and most paying line of road; and the chances are that he stopped at it more than once, for it was in a remote position and a convenient halting-place for his calling. Outwardly the old inn may be a trifle more time-toned and not so trim or well kept as then, but otherwise I do not imagine that either it or the town has altered much since his day. On the whole it doubtless looks much the same to us now as it did to him. Stilton is a place that in an age of change has remained unchanged; since the last coach departed thence it appears to have fallen into a deep sleep with small prospect of ever awakening again. The railway has left it quite out in the cold. Of Stilton it may truly be written, “It was!”
Dick Turpin must have passed by the “Bell” on his famous ride to York—if ever that ride took place, for sundry hard-headed and hard-hearted antiquaries, who ought to know better, declare the episode to be as apocryphal as the “Battle of Dorking.” Legends should not be judged by the same standard as matter-of-fact history! I wish learned authorities would devote their time to some more profitable task than that of upsetting innocent and perfectly harmless romances: already they have demolished nearly all the fabled stories of my childhood, besides a host of my favourite traditions which I liked to feel might be true, such as the picturesque elopement of Dorothy Vernon. “In reality nine out of every ten traditions are deliberate inventions.” Possibly; nevertheless I find no specialpleasure in being assured that “Cæsar never cried that cry to Brutus; Cromwell never said ‘Take away that bauble’; Wellington denied that he uttered, ‘Up, Guards, and at them!’ and the story of Cambronne declaring that ‘The Old Guard dies, but never surrenders,’ is now known to have been invented by Rougemont two days after the battle.... As for the Abbé Edgeworth’s farewell to Louis XVI. on the guillotine, the cry of the crew of the sinkingVengeur, and the pretty story of young Barra in the war of La Vendée—these are all myths”—and more’s the pity!
It was with great reluctance that we bade goodbye to the quaint and ancient “Bell” at Stilton, and in spite of the unreliability of traditions generally, we could not help wondering whether there were any truth in the oft-repeated story that Dick Turpin had half the landlords between London and York “under articles” to him, and if the then landlord of this special inn were one of them.
MILES FROM ANYWHERE
On the front of a lonely little hostel at Upware, in the wide Fenland of Cambridgeshire, is inscribed “Five Miles from Anywhere. No Hurry,” and it struck us that these words might equally well be painted on the front, or beneath the sign, of the “Bell” at Stilton. There is a sense of remoteness about the decayed, medieval hostelry that suits well the legend: for Stilton is miles from anywhere, and it seems generations removed from the present prosaic age of progress, rush, and bustle. It is a spot in which the past appears the reality, and the present a dream!
Norman Cross—A Norman-French inscription—A re-headed statue—The friendliness of the road—The art of being delightful—The turnpike roads in their glory—Bits for the curious—A story of the stocks—“Wansford in England”—Romance and reality—The glamour of art—“The finest street between London and Edinburgh”—Ancient “Callises”—A historic inn—Windows that have tales to tell.
Norman Cross—A Norman-French inscription—A re-headed statue—The friendliness of the road—The art of being delightful—The turnpike roads in their glory—Bits for the curious—A story of the stocks—“Wansford in England”—Romance and reality—The glamour of art—“The finest street between London and Edinburgh”—Ancient “Callises”—A historic inn—Windows that have tales to tell.
LeavingStilton we had a pleasant stretch of rural country of the restful, home-like, friendly order, but none the less beautiful because of an unambitious type. It was a constant delight to us to search for, and to discover what was most beautiful in the everyday English country we passed through; the charm of such quiet scenery is that it never palls nor becomes wearisome with familiarity, as more pretentious landscapes often do. Far fresher and more enjoyable was it, to us, to wander leisurely about rural England out of the well-beaten tourist track than to traverse a district famous for its scenery, belauded by guide-books, and crowded by excursionists, where beforehand you know almost exactly what to expect and where therefore pleasant surprises, or discoveries, are rare; but, on the other hand, by anticipating too much, disappointment often awaits one.
A MATTER OF SENTIMENT
At Norman Cross, a tiny hamlet with a suggestive name, situated about a mile on our way out of Stilton, there are the slight remains of the colony of barracks that were erected in the last century, wherein some thousands of French prisoners were confined during the Napoleonic wars. From Norman Cross we drove merrily along until we came to the pretty village of Water Newton, pleasantly situated by the side of the river Nen, or Nene,—for I find it spelt both ways on my map. Here the time-mellowed church, placed rather in a hollow a meadow’s length away from the road, attracted our attention, though why it especially did so I hardly know, for there was apparently nothing particularly noteworthy about it, at least not more so than any one of the other country fanes we had passed unregarded by that day. Moreover, our tastes for the moment did not incline to things ecclesiastical. But it is a fact, that now and then, without any definable cause, a certain spot, or place, will excite one’s interest and arouse within one a strong desire to stop and explore it: such sentimental, but very real, feelings defy all reasoning; they exist but cannot be explained or reduced to an argument.
So half-involuntarily we pulled up here. “We must see that old church,” we exclaimed, though wherefore the compulsion we did not inquire of ourselves; but we went, in spite of the fact that it was getting late and that we had some miles more to accomplish before we reached Stamford, our night’s destination. In the churchyard we noticedan ancient stone coffin and lid, but we had seen many such stone coffins and lids before, so that these did not specially appeal to us. Then walking round the building, in search of any object of interest, we happened to glance at the tower, and on its west side we espied, about a third of the way up, a recess with a carved stone figure of a man standing therein, the hands of which were clasped as though in prayer. This at once excited our curiosity. On looking further we observed an inscription below the figure apparently in Norman-French, but the lettering was so much defaced that it was difficult to decipher, a difficulty increased by the distance we were away from it; nevertheless, nothing daunted, we boldly made the attempt, and whilst puzzling over the spelling without, be it confessed, making much progress, the rector fortunately discovered us and kindly came to our aid. Existence is doubtless somewhat uneventful in this quiet spot, and possibly he was not averse to the scarce luxury of a chat with a stranger. I must say it seems to me that the life many of our refined and educated clergy lead in remote, out-of-the-way rural districts, is not altogether an enviable one, for, as a rule, the society of such is sadly restricted, and the conversational powers of the farmers and agricultural labourers are apt to be somewhat limited, not to say monotonous. Arcadia has its delights, but they are not academical. The chief charms of ruralism to some people are to be found second-hand in “open-air” books! Therein lies the difference between the genuine and the pseudo Nature lover.
AN ANCIENT INSCRIPTION
The church had been restored recently, so the rector informed us, and by aid of a ladder the inscription had been deciphered as follows:—
VOVS : KE : PARISSI : PASSEZPVR : LE : ALMETOMAS : PVRDEN : PRIEZ
which I afterwards put into English thus, though I do not profess to be a Norman-French scholar, but in this case the translation seems manifest:—You that pass by here pray for the soul of Thomas Purden. This truly sounds rather like a command than begging a favour of a stranger, still I trust that this Thomas Purden had his demands amply gratified, and I further trust that his soul has benefited thereby—but what of the countless number of souls of other poor folk, equally dear to them, who had neither money nor influence to cause such an entreaty to be made public thus for their benefit? It was a hard faith that seemed to make it thus easier “for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” than for a poor man, and calls to mind the Puritans’ dictum that Purgatory was invented to enrich the priest!
Who this Thomas Purden was the rector could not say, possibly now no one can: he may have been the founder of the church, though in that case one would have expected to find this memorial of him in the chancel, according to the prevailing custom; it appears to me more probable, therefore, that he was the builder of the tower, or possibly abenefactor of the church; but this is pure conjecture on my part, and conjectures must be taken for what they are worth.
The head of the statue, we were informed, was not the original one, which had decayed away or had been broken off, so that at the time of the restoration of the church the figure was headless: “However,” we were informed, “the builder, curiously enough, had some old carved stone heads knocking about his yard, and he fitted on one of these in place of the missing one”! Thus is the lot of the future antiquary made hard: but this is not so blameworthy as an instance that came under my notice on a previous tour, when I discovered that a mason had inserted an ancient dated stone over the porch of an old house he had been called in to repair, solely because he had it on hand and thought it looked ornamental there! This was enough to deceive the very archæological elect! I have to confess that the new head supplied to Master Thomas Purden appeared to be, from our point of view below, a good “ready-made” fit; but therein lies the greater pitfall for the future antiquary aforementioned.
“Now,” exclaimed the rector, “you will doubtless wonder why the figure with such an appeal to the public was placed on the side of the tower facing the meadows, and not on the side facing the road.” As a matter of fact this detail had not occurred to us; one cannot think of everything—though we tried to look surprised at the fact—then the rector continued, apparently pleased byour perspicacity: “Well, formerly the road went past the west front of the tower, close under it indeed, and crossed the river by a ford; if you look along the fields you can see traces of it even now.” So we looked and imagined we could see the traces in question, but our eyes, naturally, were not so accustomed to make them out as those of our informant. Then the rector, seeing the manifest interest we took in his church, most courteously devoted himself to us, and good-naturedly acted the part of guide, for which attentive civility we felt duly grateful. But that was not all, for after we had finished our inspection of the building, he, with thoughtful kindness, invited us into his snug rectory, hospitably intent on making us partake of afternoon tea; and this was by no means a solitary occasion of such a kindness shown to us—pressed upon us would be the more exact expression; utter strangers travelling by road!
THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS
Indeed, during our tour, the difficulty that frequently presented itself to us when we did not wish to dally on the way was how we could gracefully decline the many proffered invitations of a similar nature without appearing to be rude. At one time we thought that probably the sight of the dog-cart, as showing that we were presumably respectable wayfarers, might have had something to do with the continued courtesies we received, for in almost every stranger we met we seemed to find a friend; but when touring alone on a walking tour, with only a knapsack strapped on my back, I have experienced the same kindly treatment, often too when in a dust-stained condition. On one well-remembered occasion during the shooting season, when trespassing afoot across some moors in search of a short cut, I came suddenly upon the owner of the land with his party lunching; the owner was inclined to be indignant with me at first, but an apology for my inexcusable trespass quietly expressed was followed by a few minutes’ conversation, which ended in my being invited to join the lunching party, no refusal being permitted. “We insist upon your joining us as a penalty for your trespassing,” was the jovial manner in which the invitation was enforced, and I accepted the inevitable without further demur!
After all the world is much as we make it; smile on it and it returns your smiles, frown and it frowns back again, greet it good-naturedly and it will return your greeting in kind. As Seneca says, “He that would make his travels delightful must first make himself delightful.” And to do this he should cultivate a pleasant manner; it costs so little and returns so much, obtaining favours for which money would not avail, and generally smoothing wonderfully the way of the wanderer. Thus Emerson sings—
What boots it thy virtue?What profit thy parts?The one thing thou lackest,The art of all arts.The only credential,Passport to success,Opens castles and parlours,—Address, man, address.
What boots it thy virtue?What profit thy parts?The one thing thou lackest,The art of all arts.The only credential,Passport to success,Opens castles and parlours,—Address, man, address.
What boots it thy virtue?What profit thy parts?The one thing thou lackest,The art of all arts.
The only credential,Passport to success,Opens castles and parlours,—Address, man, address.
And Emerson knew!
During our past wanderings on wheels we have made numerous friends, and have received many kind invitations to spend a time at their homes, and in the course of this journey we received three such invitations, all from perfect strangers; only one of which we were enabled to accept, and in that case a most hearty welcome was extended to us. Such generous hospitality shown, which included stabling our horses, such a manifest anxiety evinced to make our short stay as enjoyable as possible, that mere thanks seemed a wholly insufficient return.
But to return to Water Newton church, after this digression and short sermon on civility which my readers are fully licensed to skip, the rector called our attention to the painstaking manner in which the tower was constructed: “All of ashlar work and scarcely any mortar, or cement, being used. The top of the tower has one feature about it that tells its own story; as you will see, a quantity of old Norman tooth-moulding has been employed in the window arches, manifestly preserved from an earlier building, for the joints of the ornamentations do not come evenly together; thus plainly proving resetting. On the farther and fourth side of the tower that is less seen the windows have none of this moulding, but are simply finished off in unadorned stone-work, the builders having presumably used up all the old carving in the more prominent positions.”
A CURIOUS NAME
Then entering the church the rector pointed out to us the name of “Original Jackson” cut in a flattombstone on the floor. The Christian name of “Original” being curious and, as far as I know, unique. At one time we learnt that there had been a dove-cote in the tower, or rather a portion of it formed a dove-cote of considerable size, and was doubtless a source of profit to the pre-Reformation clergy. At the foot of the tower is the old vestry door, and a very narrow one it is, so narrow indeed that, the story goes, a former priest of goodly proportions was unable to pass through it; therefore, as the door could not be conveniently altered, a new vestry with an ampler means of approach had to be devised. In a window recess in the south aisle is a recumbent stone effigy, much mutilated and cracked; the feet of this rest upon a lion, apparently showing the figure, which is under lifesize, to be intended to represent a man, yet the features of the head with its long hair suggest a woman. We understood that this effigy was the cause of considerable dispute amongst antiquaries as to whether it were representative of a knight or a dame. We decided in favour of the lady. The church, we were informed, “is dedicated to St. Remigius, an almost unique dedication in England.”
Then adjourning to the rectory we were shown there some very interesting specimens of Roman pottery and other ancient relics that the rector himself had found in a gravel-pit near by, at a spot where an old Roman encampment once had been. To show how times have changed we were told that two old houses between the rectory and
SHOEING CATTLE!
the road were formerly small but flourishing inns; and that an old farmer, aged eighty-three, who lived in an ivy-clad farmhouse a little farther on our way, well remembers sixteen mail-coaches passing Water Newton in the day: this was besides the ordinary non-mail-coaches, of which there were a number. Another reminder of other days and other ways, in the shape of a bygone custom quite novel to us, we gleaned from an old gaffer we met on the way. From him we learnt that in the pre-railway days, when the cattle were driven along the Great North Road from Scotland to the London markets, the animals were actually shod like horses so that their hoofs might stand the long journey on the hard highway. Several blacksmiths on the road moreover, we were given to understand, made a special business of shoeing such cattle apart from shoeing horses. So one travels and picks up curious bits of information. One man we saw gathering nettles assured us that, boiled, they made a delicious green vegetable, besides purifying the blood and being a cure for boils and the rheumatics. “Ah!” he exclaimed, “I should not wonder some day, when their virtues are discovered, to find rich people growing them in their gardens instead of spinach and the like. Nettles be a luxury. Now, if ever you suffers from the rheumatics mind you tries nettles, they beat all the doctor’s medicine; they just do.” And we promised to think the matter over. The idea of any one ever growing crops of nettles in their kitchen-gardens amused us. Still the weed, vegetable I mean, may have hidden virtuesI wot not of; and possibly it is not altogether wise to dismiss as absolute nonsense every item of country folk-lore one comes upon. I always jot such sayings down in my note-book, and shall soon have quite a collection of them. I remember one simple remedy that a farmer’s wife told me of when a youngster, which, boy-like, I at once tried—and actually found it effectual! Some of the countryfolk’s cures, however, may be considered worse than the disease. Here, for instance, is one for baldness that I have not tested: “Rub well the bald parts with a fresh onion just cut, twice a day, for ten minutes at a time at least; and you must never miss a rubbing till the hair begins to grow again”!
Leaving Water Newton we drove on through a level country, passing in about a mile or so some ancient stocks and a whipping-post on a grassy corner by the roadside; these had been painted manifestly to preserve them as a curiosity. Some day, like ducking-stools and scolds’ gags, they will possibly only be found in a museum. According to a paragraph in a local paper that I extracted the gist of on the journey, the last time that a man was condemned to the stocks in England was at the village of Newbold-on-Avon in Warwickshire late in this century. The man in question was a confirmed drunkard, and the magistrates fined him 7s. 6d. with the option of being placed in the stocks: the drunkard chose the stocks which he well knew were decayed and unfit for use; so they were forthwith repaired at some expense, which being done the man suddenly found the money for the fine and so
LOCAL PAPERS
escaped the indignity of the stocks, and the doubtful honour of being the last person to be legally confined therein. When all else fails in the evenings at country inns, the local papers often afford much entertainment combined with information. The local antiquaries occasionally write to them upon matters of interest in the neighbourhood; and such communications are frequently well worth reading, for by perusing them the traveller out of the beaten track may obtain intelligence of old-time relics and quaint rural customs that he would otherwise probably never hear of, and such things are well worth knowing and preserving.
Wansford, the next village we came to, pleased us by its picturesqueness and its pleasant situation on the banks of the Nene, a wide and fishful-looking stream whose name we did not even know before we undertook this tour; so that driving across country teaches one a good deal about the geography of one’s own land, besides affording the road wanderer an intimate knowledge of it, never obtainable from the railway.
Wansford is built of stone and is a charming specimen of an old English village; its houses and cottages strike the eye as being substantial, comfortable, and enduring; for you cannot well build meanly with stone. One large house in the village street, large enough to deserve the often-misappropriated term of mansion, with its stone-slab, overhanging roof, and strong stacks of chimneys, especially pleased us; neither roof, wall, nor window seemed as though any one of them would need repairs for long years:possibly this building was originally a fine old coaching inn, for it stood close upon the roadway. Oh! the comfort of a well-built home like this, with a roof fit to weather the storms of centuries, and thick walls, so charmingly warm in winter and so delightfully cool in summer, wherein you may dwell in peace, and bills for repairs are almost an unknown thing.
The church here is a box-like structure, small, primitive, and ugly, and we merely went to view it because the rector at Water Newton had told us that the ancient font thereof was curious; it being carved round with men fighting—scarcely an appropriate ornamentation for a font in a Christian church though, one would imagine! Quite in keeping with the rude interior of this tiny fane is the wooden gallery at one end, with the most suitable inscription:—