CHAPTER XII

AN ELIZABETHAN CLOCK

helmet, that once hung over the recumbent effigy of its former knightly owner in the quiet village church, has been basely filched away to add to the collector’s store, where they may only be seen by the favoured few, and why should this be? The queer old clock was being wound up, not by a key, but by a sort of miniature windlass. The works were of wrought iron, all hammered and cut by hand, for machinery manifestly had no part in their construction; perhaps that is why they have lasted so long! From our knowledge of such things, we concluded that this clock could not have been of later date than Elizabeth’s time; how much earlier, if any, it would be hard to say. Unless, however, we are greatly mistaken, it has outlived three centuries, and has probably marked the hours all those long years, more or less correctly, whilst the cunning hands that designed and constructed it are forgotten dust. Here the inevitable moral should follow, but I refrain. This reminds me that I once gave my thirteen-year-old daughter an improving, well-intentioned book, and in due course I asked her how she liked it: “Well, dada,” she replied, quite innocently, “when you’ve skipped all the goody bits there’s nothing left!” A brass plate attached to the clock informed us that

W. FosterRepaired this ClockAnno Domini1816.

We understood that, so far as the sexton knew, it had not been repaired since that date. Then we calledthe sexton’s attention to the fact that the face of the clock had but one hand, and that was loose and moved to and fro in the wind as helplessly as a weather-vane: “Yes,” he replied with a grin, “I had to pull the other hand off; it caught in the wind so as to slow the clock, and when it blew hard sometimes it stopped her going altogether. I left the other hand on, as being loose it could do no harm”! This sounded a delightfully primitive way out of a mechanical difficulty; quite a stroke of rural genius! At the same time it appeared to us strangely inconsistent and illogical to have a clock going that did not show the time. “Lor’ bless you, sir,” responded he, “the old clock strikes the hours right enough, and that’s all the folk want to know. Why, if the hands were going they’d never look up at ’em. Not they.” What a lotus-eating land this, we thought, where people only care to know the hours, and take no thought of the intervals! Just then the sexton began to toll a loud bell vigorously. In reply to our query for the reason of this, he explained that it was the custom there to ring the bell every morning at eight o’clock, and again at one o’clock, “and it’s one o’clock now, and so I’m ringing of it. I don’t rightly know how old the custom be, but the bell be very useful, as it lets the people at work in the fields around know the time. We calls this the dinner bell. You see it carries farther than the sound of the clock striking.”

We then ventured to admire the old tower, a fine specimen of Perpendicular masonry, possessing some much-weathered, curious but rather coarse gargoylesoutside. The sexton also admired it: “It certainly be a fine tower; there’s a wonderfully good view of the country round from the top. I allus goes up there when the hounds be out to see the run. I know no other tower in the district from which you can see so far. Now, if them old builders had only,” etc., etc. I am afraid the sexton and ourselves regarded the old tower from two very dissimilar standpoints.

OUT OF THE BEATEN TRACK

Descending into the body of the church, we noticed a doorway in the south wall, and caught a peep of some stone steps beyond, leading, we were informed, to a chamber over the porch formerly used as a schoolroom, “now we only keep rubbish in it, odd tiles, broken bits of carvings, and the like. You can go up if you care to, but it be rare and dusty.” We did care to go up. Indeed, in the fondness of our heart for such things we even dared to hope that perchance we might, to use an expressive term much favoured by antiquaries, come upon “a find” there. Here, we reasoned, is a fine and ancient church, well out of the beaten track of travel. The present interior suggested that it had once been richly adorned; presumably it had suffered, more or less, the fate of other ornate churches during the Commonwealth. Who can tell but that some quaint relic of its former beauty may not be stowed away up there amongst the rubbish? The very mention of “odd tiles” sounded encouraging, only supposing that there happened to be some quaint medieval ones amongst the number! So, full of pleasant anticipation, we eagerly ascended the steep stone steps, wornboth very concave and slippery with the tread of generations departed. We reached a large parvise, or priest’s chamber, provided with a fireplace; the uneven floor was strewn with bits of broken tiles, worm-eaten wood, plaster, bricks, etc. The chamber was exceedingly dusty and cobwebby, but we at once enthusiastically began to search amongst the litter for anything of interest, but, alas! discovered nothing noteworthy; the tiles were modern. The sexton was right after all—it was full of rubbish! So, disappointed and almost as white as a miller, we descended the slippery steps. Then as the sexton—there was no clerk, he informed us—seemed in a chatty mood, we asked him if he knew of any curious inscription in the churchyard. “Well, I think I can show you one that will interest you,” he replied, whereupon he led the way outside and we followed. Coming to an old tombstone he remarked, “Now, I call this a funny one; it is to a man and his wife who both died in the same year, and were both exactly the same age to a day when they died.” Then he rubbed the ancient stone over with his hand, that we might better read what was written thereon, which I copied as follows:—

ToThe Memory ofJohn BlandWho Died March 25th, 1797,Aged 75 Years, 6 Weeks, and 4 Days.———Also ofJane, his WidowWho Died May 11th, 1797,Aged 75 Years, 6 Weeks, and 4 Days.

A FORTUNATE COMBINATION

Provided the inscription records facts, it certainly is a curious coincidence; still quite a possible one.

Returning to our inn, we ordered the horses to be “put to,” and whilst this was being done, we had a chat with the landlord, from whom we learnt that he both brewed his own ale and grew his own barley to brew it with. It is the pleasant fate of some of these remote old coaching hostelries in their old age to become half hotel and half farmhouse, and a more fortunate combination for the present-day traveller there could not be. By this arrangement the old buildings are preserved and cared for in a manner that diminished custom would hardly permit were they to remain purely as inns; nor does the providing suffer from the blending of uses, the produce of the farm being at command, which means, or should mean, fresh vegetables, milk, butter, and eggs. In the present case it further meant the rare luxury of home-brewed ale from home-grown grain, and a quart of such, does not Shakespeare say, “is a dish for a king”?

We drove on now through a pretty and well-wooded country, our road winding in and out thereof in the most enticing manner: every now and then we caught refreshing peeps of a far-away distance, faintly blue, out from which came to us a fragrant breeze, cool, sweet, and soothing. In driving across country it is not only the prospect that changes but the air also, and, as the eye delights in the change of scene, so the lungs rejoice in the change of climate. The landscape all around had a delightfully fresh and smiling look; it was intensely pastoral and peaceful, and over all there brooded a sense of deepcontentment and repose. Old time-mellowed farmsteads and quiet cottage homes were dotted about, from which uprose circling films of blue-gray smoke, agreeably suggestive of human occupancy. “How English it all looked,” we exclaimed, and these five words fitly describe the scenery. In that sentence pages of word-painting are condensed!

As we proceeded above the woods to the left and the right of us rose two tall tapering spires, belonging respectively—at least so we made out from our map—to the hamlets of Walcot and Treckingham. These spires reminded us what splendid churches some of the small Lincolnshire villages possess; there they stand in remote country districts often hastening to decay, with no one to admire them. The ancient architects who

Built the soaring spiresThat sing their soul in stone,

seem to have built these songs in vain: for what avails a poem that no one prizes? The Lincolnshire rustic is made of stern stuff, he is honest, hardy, civil, manly, independent (at least that is the opinion I have formed of him), but he is not a bit poetical, and a good deal of a Puritan: I fancy, if I have read him aright, he would as soon worship in a barn as in a church; indeed, I think he would prefer to do so if he had his own way, as being more homelike. A clergyman I met on the journey and who confided in me said, “To get on in Lincolnshire, before all things it is necessary to believe in game, and not to trouble too much about

STRANGE REVELATIONS

the Catholic faith.” He said this in a joking manner truly, but I could see that he jested in earnest: he further assured me as a positive fact that both devil-worship and a belief in witchcraft existed in the county. He said, “I could tell you many strange things of my rural experiences,” and he did—how the devil is supposed to haunt the churchyards in the shape of a toad, and how witchcraft is practised, etc. “You may well look astonished,” he exclaimed, “at what I tell you, but these things are so; they have come under my notice, and I speak advisedly from personal knowledge.”

Presently we reached the village of Osbournby; here the church looked interesting, so we stopped in order to take a glance inside, and were well rewarded for our trouble by discovering a number of very fine and quaintly-carved medieval bench-ends in an excellent state of preservation. Medieval carvings have generally a story to tell, though being without words some people are forgetful of the fact, deeming them merely ornamental features, and so miss the carver’s chief aim because they do not look for it; sometimes, by way of relief, they have a joke to make, now and then they are keenly sarcastic: but the stories—not the jokes—mostly need time to elucidate, for they often mean more than meets the eye at a hurried glance; moreover they have to be read in the spirit of the age that produced them. One of the bench-end carvings at Osbournby that is particularly noticeable represents a cunning-looking fox standing up in a pulpitpreaching to a silly-looking congregation of geese, a favourite subject by the way with the monkish sculptors, and a telling contemporary satire on the priesthood by those who ought to know it best. It is remarkable that this peculiar subject should have been so popular, for I have met with it frequently; there is a good example of the same on one of the miserere seats in St. David’s Cathedral. What does it signify?

Still more curious does this strange satire seem when we remember that in the dark ages such carvings were the poor man’s only literature, for then even reading was a polite art confined to the learned few, and spelling was in its infancy. One finds it difficult to conjecture why the Church allowed such ridicule of its religious preaching to be thus boldly proclaimed, so that even the unlettered many could hardly fail to comprehend its meaning, for in this case the story meets the eye at once and was manifestly intended to do so.

If we may judge them solely by their carvings the monks of old, at a certain period, appear to have been craftsmen clever beyond cavil, full of quaint conceits, not over refined, often sarcastic, sometimes severely so, but curiously broad in their selection of subjects for illustration. Of course they carved religious subjects as in duty bound, and with painstaking care, but these all look stiff and mechanical, forced and not spontaneous, possibly because they had to work more or less in a traditional groove, and consequently there was no scope for originality; but in their less serious

A MEDIEVAL LEECH

moments, and these seemed many, when the mood inclined them they wrought carvings that were imbued with life; and laughed, or grinned, or joked in stone or wood to their heart’s content; then the whole soul of the craftsman entered into his work—and the inanimate matter lived, breathed, and struggled. His comicalities are simply delightful; he was the medieval Leech and Keene! Truly not all the old monks took religion seriously! but whatever their virtues or failings they were artists of no mean merit.

A civil tramp—Country hospitality—Sleaford—A Lincolnshire saying—A sixteenth-century vicarage—Struck by lightning—“The Queen of Villages”—A sculptured anachronism—Swineshead—A strange legend—Local proverbs—Chat with a “commercial”—A mission of destruction—The curfew—Lost our way—Out of the beaten track—A grotesque figure and mysterious legend—Puzzling inscriptions—The end of a long day.

Journeyingleisurely on we presently arrived at the curiously entitled village of Silk Willoughby; here again on asking the name of the place, which we did before consulting our map, a native shortened it to Silkby. It is a marked tendency of the age to contract the spelling and the pronunciation of names to an irreducible minimum,—a tendency that I have already remarked upon. Well, perhaps for everyday speech, Silk Willoughby is rather overlong, and the more concise Silkby serves all needful purposes. Still this pronouncing of names differently from what they are spelt on the map is sometimes inconvenient to the stranger, as the natives have become so accustomed to the abbreviated expression that the full title of a place, given precisely as on the map, is occasionally unfamiliar to them, and they will declare hopelessly that they “never heard of no such

PLACE NAMES

place.” On the other hand, once when driving in Worcestershire we were sadly puzzled when a tramp asked us if he were on the right road to “Kiddy”; it eventually turned out that he wanted to get to Kidderminster. I verily believe, tramp though he was, that he looked upon us as ignoramuses in not recognising that curt appellation for the town in question! He was a civil tramp though, for there are such beings in the world, and we always make it a point to return civility with civility, whether it be a ploughboy or a lord who is addressing us. “Well now,” he exclaimed in genuine surprise as we parted, “to thinks that you should not know that Kidderminster is called Kiddy. Why, I thought as how everybody knew that.” In Sussex, too, once when driving near Crowborough a man in a trap shouted to us to know if he were “right for the Wells,” for the moment it did not occur to us that he meant Tunbridge Wells, but that we discovered was what he did mean.

In Silk Willoughby, by the roadside, we noticed some steps with the stump of the shaft of the village cross on the top; on four sides of the base of this were the carved symbols of the Evangelists, much worn but still traceable. We found that these steps, as is frequently the case, formed a rendezvous and a playing-place for the village children, a fact that can hardly tend to the preservation of the carvings!

As we had got down to make a sketch of the ruined cross we thought we might as well walkacross the road and have a look at the ancient church. On reaching this the first thing that attracted our attention was the following, “Iohn Oak, Churchwarden, 1690,” cut boldly straight across the old oak door, though why John Oak’s name should be inscribed in such a prominent position, and handed down to posterity thus I cannot say. Possibly he presented the door to the church—though it looks older than the date mentioned—and modestly inscribed his name thereon to record his gift.

Within we found the building in a state of picturesque but pathetic decay. Right in the centre of the nave was a big wooden post reaching straight up from the stone slab floor to support the open timber roof above; all the windows, except one to the right of the chancel which from its position was hidden from the general view, had lost their stained glass; and a huge horizontal beam that stretched across the chancel also blocked the top of the east window,—the unhappy result of a previous restoration we were informed. On the floor we noticed an incised slab inscribed to the memory of one of the Armyn family; this bore the date of MCCCLXVIIII, and was decorated with a finely engraved cross, and a shield charged—I believe that is the correct heraldic term—with a coat-of-arms. Another old tombstone laid on the floor, having an inscription the lettering of which was deeply cut, we should have liked to decipher, for it looked of interest, but as the greater part was covered by a pew this was impossible.

PLEASANT CIVILITIES

Whilst we were endeavouring, with but small success, to puzzle out some Latin (or dog-Latin) verse on an ancient brass, the rector made his appearance, and, learning that we were driving across country and strangers in the land, forthwith invited us to the rectory for afternoon tea. Such kindly attentions had become quite customary features of our wanderings, so much so that we had ceased to wonder at them, and we greatly regretted in this instance to be obliged to decline such thoughtfully proffered hospitality, as we had no means of lengthening out the day to embrace all our pleasures! Truly the lot of the driving tourist is an enviable one, a very enviable one when it takes him into the pleasant land of Lincolnshire: a delightful thing it is to experience this old-time friendliness—a friendliness that makes the wheels of life run so smoothly, and reveals the gracious and sunny side of human nature.

A mural tablet in the chancel rather amused us by the invitation contained in the first two lines of a long inscription,

Kind stranger stay a moment ere you go,Attend and view this monumental show.

Thus were we bidden to read through a tedious and wordy eulogy upon a youth whose only distinction appeared to be that he died young,—there is such a thing as consistency in epitaphs, the tomb of many a hero takes up less space than this one! The famous Speaker Lenthall of the Long Parliament directed that “no monument whatever should beplaced over him, save only a plain stone slab with the two words

Vermis Sum.”

But he was a great man and lives in history. Frank Osborne, the author and moralist, and contemporary of Speaker Lenthall, also dictated the epitaph on his simple tombstone at Netherworton in Oxfordshire, in which he pertinently remarks:

I envy not those graves which take up roomMerely with Jetts and Porphyry: since a tombAdds no desert.

After all, simplicity and brevity of epitaph appeal more to the heart of man than fulsome eulogy or “monumental show.”

In the chancel wall, immediately to the left of the east window, is a tall narrow niche. The rector said he did not know the original purpose of this, unless it were for ornament. The niche was too tall for a statue, and we imagined from its form that probably it was intended, of old, to receive the processional cross—the pre-Reformation churches being, I believe, provided with a recess or a locker for this purpose. A specimen of the latter, with the ancient ornamented oak door still in position, may be found in the church at Barnby in Suffolk.

Then, bidding good-bye to the courteous and hospitable rector, we once more resumed our pleasant pilgrimage, and, passing through an eye-refreshing and peace-bestowing country of green meadows, waving woods, and silvery streams, we reached the

WEATHER SIGNS

ancient town of Sleaford just as the sun was setting red in the west, a fact, according to the well-known proverb—which however we have not found to be perfectly reliable—that should ensure fine weather for the morrow—“Red at night is a shepherd’s delight; red in the morning is a shepherd’s warning.” Well, I am not a shepherd, but speaking from my experience as a road traveller, who naturally studies the weather, I have frequently noted that a red morning has been followed by a gloriously fine and sunny day. When, however, the sky is a wan yellow at sunrise, and especially if the wind be south-westerly, then you may expect rain before evening with some degree of certainty; but of all things to dogmatise about, the English weather is the most dangerous.

As we entered Sleaford we noticed a monument to a local celebrity, the designer of which we imagined had been inspired by the excellent example of a Queen Eleanor’s Cross. The structure certainly adds interest to the street in which it stands, and this is a great deal more than can be said of most memorials of notables in the shape of statues, which, perched high on pedestals, are generally prominent eyesores that a long-suffering community has to put up with. Close to this monument was a pump, below which a basin was inscribed, “Every good gift is from above.” The quotation did not strike us as the most appropriate that might be chosen, as the pump was erected for the purpose of obtaining water from below.

Sleaford, on the day we arrived, offered a greatcontrast to the slumberous quiet of Falkingham, for it was the evening of the annual sheep fair, and groups of agriculturists were scattered about engaged in eager conversation, and flocks of sheep were being driven out of the town, with much shouting, dog-barking, and commotion, and farmers in gigs or on horseback starting back home added to the general restlessness. Indeed, after the deep tranquillity of the lonely country roads we had traversed that day, Sleaford seemed a place of noise and bustle. Next morning, however, we found the streets quiet enough, as we remarked to a stranger in the stable-yard. “Yes,” he said, “Sleaford is quiet enough. It sleeps more or less all the year, but wakes up once for the annual fair. You mayn’t have heard the saying, ‘Sleaford for sleep, Boston for business, Horncastle for horses, Louth for learning.’”“Perhaps,” responded we, mindful of yesterday, “as it is Horncastle for horses, it should be Sleaford for sheep, not ‘sleep.’”The two words sound very much alike. But our suggestion was scorned.

Rambling about the town we noted the date of 1568 on a gable of the half-timbered and creeperclad vicarage, that stood divided by a footpath from the church. A noble structure the latter, with a most effectively picturesque front owing to the fact that the aisles are lengthened so as to be in level line with the tower; the pierced parapet extending across this long front is adorned with bell-turrets, pinnacles, and minarets, forming a varied outline against the sky. Whilst we were taking a pencil

A CATASTROPHE

outline of this charming specimen of ancient architecture, a man in dark tweeds approached us, who said he was an amateur photographer, and would give us a photograph of the building if we liked. We thanked him very much for his kindness, but he did not go home to fetch the said photograph, as we expected, but stood watching us finish our sketch. Then we made some random remark to the effect that it was a very fine church,—we had nearly said “a very fine day,” from sheer custom, but checked ourselves half-way. In conversation we always endeavour to keep the weather back as a last resource; but old crusted habits are difficult to conquer. “Yes,” he agreed, “it’s a fine church, but it was finer before the tower was knocked down.” For a moment we imagined that we were talking with an escaped lunatic; we had never heard of a church tower being “knocked down” before! “What,” queried we, “did a traction engine run into it, or how did it get knocked down?” The answer was reassuring; we were not talking to a lunatic! “It was knocked down by lightning when I was fifteen years younger than I am now. It happened one Sunday morning during service. The storm came on very suddenly, and I was sheltering in a doorway over yonder. Suddenly there was a blinding flash and a great crack of thunder, and I saw the tower come crashing down with a tremendous roar, followed by a cloud of dust or steam, I’m not sure which. Then the people rushed out of church pell-mell—men without their hats, all in the soaking rain, for it did pourdown, and women screaming. One woman shouted out that the end of the world had come; it was the sound ‘of the last trump,’ and it was some time before she became calm. I never saw anything like it.” Then he stopped for a moment, and in a more thoughtful tone of voice proceeded, “Do you know that catastrophe set me thinking a good deal. It struck me as very strange that we should build churches for the worship of God, and that God should so often destroy them by lightning. That morning the public-houses escaped hurt, but the church was wrecked by fire from heaven. It does seem strange to me.” And he became so engrossed in his talk that he forgot all about the promised photograph, and we did not like to remind him. “Why do you think the church was struck?” he asked us as we parted. “Probably,” we replied, “because it was not protected with a conductor, or if it were provided with one it was defective.” “But that does not explain why Providence allowed it,” he retorted; but we declined to be drawn into an argument. So we hastened back to our hotel, and, as we had planned a long day’s journey, ordered the horses to be “put to” at once.

Our road out of Sleaford led us through a level pastoral land, pleasant enough to look upon, though there was nothing on the way of particular interest to engage our attention till we reached Heckington, a large village known locally, we were told, by the proud title of “the Queen of Villages.” It certainly is a pretty place, and it possesses a truly magnificent church that seems, like so many others in Lincolnshire,

AN ANACHRONISM

strangely out of proportion to the requirements of the parish. This church has the architectural quality, so rare in English churches, of being all of one period. Like Salisbury Cathedral it has the merit of unity of design. We noticed some fine gargoyles on the tower, and a few statues still remain in the niches thereof. Within, the building hardly comes up to the expectations raised by its splendid exterior. It looks spacious and well proportioned, but cold and bare, possibly chiefly due to the want of stained glass. We noticed the mutilated effigy of an ecclesiastic in an arched recess of the north wall, and above, enclosed within a glass case, was an ancient broken silver chalice, doubtless exhumed from his tomb. But perhaps the greatest thing of archæological interest here is the superb and elaborately carved Easter Sepulchre, the finest we have seen in England. At the base of this are sculptured stone figures representing the Roman guards watching the tomb; and these are shown clad in medieval armour!—a curious instance of inconsistency, but then there were no art critics in those days, and the medieval carver and painter were a law unto themselves! Yet in spite of their oftentimes glaring anachronisms, the works of the medieval artists, be they sculptors or painters, were always effective and suggestive of life, and never failed to be decorative. Modern art, as a rule, simply reverses these conditions. It is above all things correct—more precise than poetical; magnificent in technique, but wanting in spirit.

After Heckington the country became morewooded, but still uneventful. Crossing a wide dyke that stretched away monotonously straight for miles on either hand, the roof-trees of the little town of Swineshead came into sight peeping above a wealth of foliage. In spite of its unattractive name Swineshead looked a charming place, and as we had already driven eleven miles from Sleaford, we determined that we would make our mid-day halt there, and drive on to Boston in the afternoon.

At Swineshead we found a little inn with stabling attached, the landlord whereof chanced to be standing at his door as we drove up, and after the preliminary greetings he informed us that a hot dinner of roast fowl, etc., would be ready in a few minutes. We were considerably, though pleasantly, surprised at learning this, for Swineshead is a small, primitive town, hardly indeed more than a large village, and our inn had a simple, countrified look in keeping with the place, and a cold repast, therefore, was all we had looked for, but the wanderer by road never knows what surprises are in store for him. The few minutes, however, turned out to be nearly twenty, and whilst waiting in a small parlour for our meal to be served, we amused ourselves by glancing over some odd numbers of old provincial papers that we found there. One may often glean something of interest by studying the pages of local magazines and papers, and we did so on this occasion. In a copy of theHorncastle News, dated 9th June 1894, that had somehow been preserved from destruction, our eyes fell upon this paragraph that we deemed worthy of being copied into our notebook. “Astrange legend is current in Swineshead that, ‘If a corpse lies in a house on Sunday there will be three within the week.’ This saying has been verified twice this year.” Which statement, if true as it presumably is, I suppose, serves as an example to show that superstitious sayings may come true at times. When things are possible they may occur; if they never did occur it would be still more wonderful. All the same it is a remarkable coincidence, though of course nothing more, that this “strange legend” should have “been verified twice” in one year. We were amused also by another article in one of the papers that dogmatically settled the everlasting Irish question by stating all that is required is “more pigs and fewer priests.” In the same paper we came upon several proverbs, or folk-lore, said to be much employed in Lincolnshire. Apropos of striving after the impossible, we were told: “One might as well try and wash a negro white,” or “Try to fill a cask with ale by pouring it in at the bung-hole whilst it ran out at the tap”; we were further informed it was “Like searching for gold at the end of a rainbow.” Then followed a saying that house-hunters might consider with advantage, “Where the sun does not come, the doctor does.” I have quoted these items chiefly as a sample of the sort of entertainment that is to be found in country papers, a study of which may sometimes while away, profitably or otherwise, those odd five minutes one so often has to spend in country inn parlours.

COUNTRY SAYINGS

At last the dinner was served, and an excellentlittle dinner it proved to be. At this moment a stranger entered and joined us at our meal. A very talkative individual he proved to be, and we soon discovered that he was a commercial traveller who drove about the country. “Ah!” he remarked, “you’ve to thank me for this dinner; they knew I was coming, it’s my day, and they always have a nice little dinner ready for me. If you had come another day I fancy you would not have fared so well.” Then we took the opportunity of discovering how the world looked as seen through the eyes of a commercial traveller. “Yes, I like the life, it’s pleasant enough in the summer time driving from place to place. The work is not too hard, and one lives well. But it’s the winter time I don’t care for. It’s not too pleasant then driving in the country when a bitter east wind is blowing, and hail or sleet are dashed against you. The country is very well, and pretty enough in the summer, but I prefer towns in the winter. You get wet driving in the open too at times; now I don’t mind being wet and warm, but to be wet and cold is cruel; and mind you, you have always to come up smiling to your customers. Yes, you may well wonder at my coming to such an uncommercial-looking place as Swineshead, but it’s in these little country towns nowadays that we do our best trade in spite of appearances; you see they supply the rural folk all around, for these people do not get their goods from the London stores like most of those do who live in the towns. The parcel post makes it hard for the provincial shopkeeper to get a living, it acts as ahuge country delivery for the stores and big shops in London: people write up to town one day and get their goods sent down to their houses the next.” Then our commercial suddenly remembered he had business to attend to and took his leave, and we went out for a stroll.

A RESTORATION BACKWARDS

Wandering about we observed the steps and base of the shaft of an ancient market cross by the roadside, for Swineshead was once a market town, also another relic of a past civilisation in the shape of the decayed stocks. Then we took a glance at the interior of the church and found a party of ladies therein busily employed in decorating it for the harvest festival; as we were leaving the vicar made his appearance and kindly volunteered to show us over the building. When he first came there, he informed us, he found the village school was held in a portion of the nave partitioned off for that purpose, and that the children used the graveyard as a playground when the weather was fine, and the interior of the church when it was wet, romping and shouting about, and indulging in the game of hide-and-seek amongst the pews! The pulpit then was of the old “three-decker” type, and the rest of the church furnishings in keeping therewith. This is all changed now, and the church has been restored backwards to something more resembling its primitive condition. Under the communion table we had pointed out to us the original altar-slab with the five crosses thereon, which had been used to pave the church, a fact the vicar discovered in 1870, in this wise. Colonel Holingshead hadbeen sent there in 1567 “to destroy all superstitious articles,” and of his mission thus the Colonel reported: “We came to Swineshead, here we found two altars, one was broken in taking down, one we took entire and laid in on the pavement.” After reading this the vicar made search for the latter and found it in the flooring as described. So what one generation removes another restores; one blackens, the other whitens; one has a predilection for ceremony, another for simplicity: it is the everlasting swing of the pendulum first to one side then to the other, there is even a fashion in religion as in all things else, though we may not call or know it by that name. The Puritan claimed that he destroyed beautiful things not because he hated them, but of painful necessity because in churches he found that they were associated with shameful imposture and debasing superstition. To-day the modern Puritan does not appear to object to ornate fanes of worship, he even expresses his admiration of decorative art, it is the ritual and vestments he despises; for thus a famous American puritan writes of Ely Cathedral: “The beauty of Ely is originality combined with magnificence. The cathedral is not only glorious; it is also strange.... Its elements of splendour unite to dazzle the vision and overwhelm the soul.... When you are permitted to sit there, in the stillness, with no sound of a human voice and no purl of ecclesiastical prattle to call you back to earth, you must indeed be hard to impress if your thoughts are not centred upon heaven. It is the little preacher in his ridiculous vestments, itis man with his vanity and folly, that humiliates the reverent pilgrim in such holy places as this, by his insistent contrast of his own conventional littleness with all that is celestial in the grandest architectural results of the inspiration of genius.” The pointed remark, “no ecclesiastical prattle to call you back to earth,” is noteworthy.

A QUAINT LOCAL CUSTOM

At Swineshead we learnt that the curfew is still tolled at eight o’clock every evening for five minutes, and after a short interval this is followed by another bell which tells the date of the month. A quaint local custom, and may it long continue! As we were leaving the church our attention was called to the date 1593, deeply cut on one of the beams of the timber roof, presumably marking the date of its construction, or more probably its restoration.

On leaving Swineshead for Boston we were told to “take the first to the left and then drive straight on, you cannot possibly miss your way. You’ll see the stump right before you,”—“the stump” being the local and undignified term by which the lofty tower of Boston’s famous church is known. A tower that rises 272 feet boldly up into the air, and is crowned at the top with an open octagonal lantern of stone—a landmark and a sea-mark over leagues of flat Fenland and tumbling waters. This tall tower rising thus stately out of the wide plain has a fine effect, seen from far away it seems to be of a wonderful height, and, as an ancient writer says, “it meets the travellers thereunto twenty miles off, so that their eyes are there many hours before theirfeet.” This was, of course, before the days of the railway, but it is still true of the leisurely road wanderer.

Though we were told to drive straight on, and that we could not possibly miss our way, we managed very successfully to do the latter, and the former we found difficult of accomplishment, as in due course we came to the junction of two roads, one branching to the left, and the other to the right, and how to drive “straight on” under those circumstances would have puzzled the wisest man. At the point there was no sign-post, nor was there a soul in sight; we consulted our map, but this did not help us, for it mixed up the roads with the dykes in such a puzzling way that we could not make out which was intended for which. We waited some time in the hopes that some one might appear on the scene, but no one did, so at last we selected the right-hand road as tending, if anything, slightly more in the direction of Boston “stump” than the other, nevertheless it proved to be the wrong one, and we presently found ourselves in a maze of byroads complicated with dykes. We were by no means driving “straight on,” according to instructions, though we kept the famous “stump” in view and ahead of us, now slightly to the right and now to the left; but in time we found that we were gradually getting nearer to it, which was satisfactory,—and, after all, we reasoned to ourselves, it does not matter greatly how we progress, so long as we do progress and we reach our destination and an inn before nightfall. Our horses are going fresh,the country is interesting and full of character, and would even probably be pronounced beautiful by a Dutchman!

A MYSTERIOUS INSCRIPTION

So by “indirect, crooked ways” we reached Frampton, an out-of-the-world village, a spot where one might go in search of peace when

weary of men’s voices and their tread,Of clamouring bells and whirl of wheels that pass.

It seemed a place so very remote from “the busy haunts of men.” It impressed us with its restful calm. Here by the side of the road stood its ancient and picturesque church,—we had seen enough churches that day to last for a whole tour, but somehow this rural fane so charmed us that we felt we could not pass it by without a glance; and it was well we did not, for here we made one of the most interesting discoveries of our journey. Strolling round the graveyard in search of any curious epitaph we noticed the quaint carving of a grotesque head on a buttress of the north wall of the building. Upon closer inspection we further discovered a puzzling inscription beneath this, which we made out to be as follows:—

✠ Wot ye whi i stondHere for i forswor mi fat ...Ego Ricardus inAngulo.

We made out the inscription without difficulty, all but the last word of the second line, which appears to begin “fat,” but the next letter or letters are undecipherable. We hazarded a guess that themissing letter might be “f” and that the word was intended for “faith,” but it might equally well have ended with the letters “her” and so have read “father.” At the time, however, we were inclined to the first rendering, and concluded that the head above was meant to represent a monk who had turned apostate, and, therefore, was placed there in the cold outside the church, and made, like a naughty boy, to stand in the corner.

This grotesque figure with the enigmatical inscription below greatly interested us, so much indeed that we resolved, if by any means it were possible, to obtain the correct interpretation thereof. But we found, somewhat to our surprise, that the few likely people of whom we inquired were not even aware of the existence of such a thing in their neighbourhood. However, after much searching, we heard of a certain learned Lincolnshire antiquary who had long and carefully studied the strange figure and legend; so on our return home we ventured to write and ask him if he could throw any light upon the subject. To our request we received a most courteous reply, an extract from which I hereby give, as it is of much interest, even if it does not actually determine the meaning of the curious bit of sculpturing: “It evidently records somelocalmatter or scandal. Looking at the date of the building, and the history of the parish simultaneously, I find aRichardWelby, eldest son of Sir Richard Welby, lived then, and that for some unknown cause he was disinherited by his father and the estate went to his next brother. If he ‘forswor’ either ‘faith’ or ‘father,’ the disinheritancemaybe accounted for, and also its chronicle below this figure in a civilian cap (it may be either civilian or monkish, but I incline to the former). Of course this is only supposition founded upon dates and local history, and may be utterly wrong.”

A TOMBSTONE ENIGMA

The curious carvings and inscriptions that one comes upon ever and again when exploring rural England are a source of great interest to the traveller of antiquarian tastes, and there are many such scattered over the land of a most puzzling nature. Take the following tombstone enigma, for instance, to be found in Christchurch graveyard in Hampshire. Who will unravel the hidden import of this most mysterious legend? I have tried long and hard to arrive at some probable solution thereof but all in vain.

We were not slayne bvt rays’d,Rays’d not to life,But to be bvried twiceBy men of strife.What rest covld the living haveWhen the dead had none.Agree amongst yov,Here we ten are one.H. Roger. died April 17. 1641.I. R.

We were not slayne bvt rays’d,Rays’d not to life,But to be bvried twiceBy men of strife.What rest covld the living haveWhen the dead had none.Agree amongst yov,Here we ten are one.

H. Roger. died April 17. 1641.

I. R.

Then again in the church of Great Gidding—a village we passed a little to the left of our road before we reached Stilton—is another carved enigma consisting of the following five Latin words arranged in the form of a square thus:—

S A T O RA R E P OT E N E TO P E R AR O T A S

The meaning of this is not at all clear, to me at any rate. This puzzle bears the date 1614. The following curious inscription, too, was pointed out to me upon a flat, “broken and battered” tombstone that lies in the churchyard of Upton near Slough: “Here lies the body of Sarah Bramstone of Eton, spinster, who dared to be just in the reign of George the Second. Obijt. Janry. 30, 1765, aetat 77.” One naturally asks who was this Sarah Bramstone? These records in stone are hard to interpret. Even old drinking vessels, that the wanderer in rural England occasionally unearths, often possess significant inscriptions, as the following example taken from a goblet of the Cromwellian period, I think, sufficiently proves. This certainly suggests a Jacobean origin of our national anthem:—

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