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diff --git a/old/60205.txt b/old/60205.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ed970c0..0000000 --- a/old/60205.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8127 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cambridge Ely and King's Lynn Road, by -Charles G. Harper - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: The Cambridge Ely and King's Lynn Road - The Great Fenland Highway - -Author: Charles G. Harper - -Release Date: September 1, 2019 [EBook #60205] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT FENLAND HIGHWAY *** - - - - -Produced by Chris Curnow, Alan and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - THE CAMBRIDGE, ELY, AND - KING'S LYNN ROAD - - - - -WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. - - - =The Brighton Road=: Old Times and New on a Classic Highway. - - =The Portsmouth Road=, and its Tributaries: To-day and in Days of Old. - - =The Dover Road=: Annals of an Ancient Turnpike. - - =The Bath Road=: History, Fashion, and Frivolity on an Old Highway. - - =The Exeter Road=: The Story of the West of England Highway. - - =The Great North Road=: The Old Mail Road to Scotland. Two Vols. - - =The Norwich Road=: An East Anglian Highway. - - =The Holyhead Road=: The Mail-Coach Road to Dublin. Two Vols. - - =Cycle Rides Round London.= - - =The Oxford, Gloucester, and Milford Haven Road.= [_In the Press._ - - - - -[Illustration: THE "CAMBRIDGE TELEGRAPH" STARTING FROM THE WHITE HORSE, -FETTER LANE. - -[_From a Print after J. Pollard._]] - - - - - =THE CAMBRIDGE - ELY AND KING'S - LYNN ROAD= THE - GREAT FENLAND HIGHWAY - BY CHARLES G. HARPER - - AUTHOR OF "THE BRIGHTON ROAD" "THE PORTSMOUTH - ROAD" "THE DOVER ROAD" "THE BATH ROAD" - "THE EXETER ROAD" "THE GREAT NORTH ROAD" - "THE NORWICH ROAD" "THE HOLYHEAD ROAD" AND - "CYCLE RIDES ROUND LONDON" - - [Illustration] - - _ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR, AND FROM OLD-TIME PRINTS - AND PICTURES_ - - LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL LTD. 1902. - - (_All Rights Reserved_) - - - - -[Illustration: Preface] - - -_IN the course of an eloquent passage in an eulogy of the old posting -and coaching days, as opposed to railway times, Ruskin regretfully -looks back upon "the happiness of the evening hours when, from the top -of the last hill he had surmounted, the traveller beheld the quiet -village where he was to rest, scattered among the meadows, beside -its valley stream." It is a pretty, backward picture, viewed through -the diminishing-glass of time, and possesses a certain specious -attractiveness that cloaks much of the very real discomfort attending -the old road-faring era. For not always did the traveller behold the -quiet village under conditions so ideal. There were such things as -tempests, keen frosts, and bitter winds to make his faring highly -uncomfortable; to say little of the snowstorms that half smothered -him and prevented his reaching his destination until his very vitals -were almost frozen. Then there were_ MESSIEURS _the highwaymen, always -to be reckoned with, and it cannot too strongly be insisted upon that -until the nineteenth century had well dawned they were always to be -confidently expected at the next lonely bend of the road. But, assuming -good weather and a complete absence of those old pests of society, -there can be no doubt that a journey down one of the old coaching -highways must have been altogether delightful._ - -_In the old days of the road, the traveller saw his destination afar -off, and--town or city or village--it disclosed itself by degrees to -his appreciative or critical eyes. He saw it, seated sheltered in its -vale, or, perched on its hilltop, the sport of the elements; and so -came, with a continuous panorama of country in his mind's eye, to his -inn. By rail the present-day traveller has many comforts denied to his -grandfather, but there is no blinking the fact that he is conveyed very -much in the manner of a parcel or a bale of goods, and is delivered -at his journeys end oppressed with a sense of detachment never felt -by one who travelled the road in days of old, or even by the cyclist -in the present age. The railway traveller is set down out of the void -in a strange place, many leagues from his base; the country between -a blank and the place to which he has come an unknown quantity. In so -travelling he has missed much._ - -_The old roads and their romance are the heritage of the modern -tourist, by whatever method he likes to explore them. Countless -generations of men have built up the highways, the cities, towns, -villages and hamlets along their course, and have lived and loved, -have laboured, fought and died through the centuries. Will you not -halt awhile and listen to their story--fierce, pitiful, lovable, -hateful, tender or terrible, just as you may hap upon it; flashing -forth as changefully out of the past as do the rays from the facets of -a diamond? A battle was fought here, an historic murder wrought there. -This way came such an one to seek his fortune and find it; that way -went another, to lose life and fortune both. In yon house was born -the Man of his Age, for whom that age was ripe; on yonder hillock an -olden malefactor, whom modern times would call a reformer, expiated the -crime of being born too early--there is no cynic more consistent in his -cynicism than Time._ - -_All these have lived and wrought and thought to this one -unpremeditated end--that the tourist travels smoothly and safely along -roads once rough and dangerous beyond belief, and that as he goes -every place has a story to tell, for him to hear if he will. If he -have no ears for such, so much the worse for him, and by so much the -poorer his faring._ - - CHARLES G. HARPER. - - PETERSHAM, SURREY, - _October 1902_. - - - - -[Illustration: LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS] - - -SEPARATE PLATES - - PAGE - THE "CAMBRIDGE TELEGRAPH" STARTING FROM THE WHITE - HORSE, FETTER LANE _Frontispiece_ - _From a Print after J. Pollard._ - - THE "STAR OF CAMBRIDGE" STARTING FROM THE BELLE - SAUVAGE YARD, LUDGATE HILL, 1816 17 - _From a Print after T. Young._ - - "KNEE-DEEP": THE "LYNN AND WELLS MAIL" IN A SNOWSTORM 23 - _From a Print after C. Cooper Henderson._ - - A LONDON SUBURB IN 1816: TOTTENHAM 39 - _From a Drawing by Rowlandson._ - - WALTHAM CROSS 61 - - THE "HULL MAIL" AT WALTHAM CROSS 65 - _From a Print after J. Pollard._ - - CHESHUNT GREAT HOUSE 77 - - HODDESDON 83 - - WARE 89 - - BARLEY 105 - - FOWLMERE: A TYPICAL CAMBRIDGESHIRE VILLAGE 113 - - MELBOURN 129 - - TRUMPINGTON MILL 137 - - TRUMPINGTON STREET, CAMBRIDGE 145 - - HOBSON, THE CAMBRIDGE CARRIER 159 - - A WET DAY IN THE FENS 203 - - ALDRETH CAUSEWAY 219 - - A FENLAND ROAD: THE AKEMAN STREET NEAR STRETHAM - BRIDGE 245 - - STRETHAM BRIDGE 249 - - ELY CATHEDRAL 271 - _After J. M. W. Turner, R.A._ - - ELY, FROM THE OUSE 277 - - JOSEPH BEETON IN THE CONDEMNED CELL 311 - - THE TOWN AND HARBOUR OF LYNN, FROM WEST LYNN 317 - - "CLIFTON'S HOUSE" 320 - - THE CUSTOM-HOUSE, LYNN 323 - - THE FERRY INN, LYNN 327 - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT - - - PAGE - VIGNETTE: EEL-SPEARING _Title-page_ - - PREFACE vii - - LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS: TAKING TOLL xi - - THE CAMBRIDGE, ELY, AND KING'S LYNN ROAD 1 - - THE GREEN DRAGON, BISHOPSGATE STREET, 1856 8 - _From a Drawing by T. Hosmer Shepherd._ - - THE FOUR SWANS, BISHOPSGATE STREET, 1855 9 - _From a Drawing by T. Hosmer Shepherd._ - - TOTTENHAM CROSS 38 - - BALTHAZAR SANCHEZ' ALMSHOUSES, TOTTENHAM 41 - - WALTHAM CROSS A HUNDRED YEARS AGO 59 - - THE ROMAN URN, CHESHUNT 76 - - CHARLES THE FIRST'S ROCKING-HORSE 79 - - CLARKSON'S MONUMENT 99 - - A MONUMENTAL MILESTONE 111 - - THE CHEQUERS, FOWLMERE 115 - - WEST MILL 118 - - A QUAINT CORNER IN ROYSTON 125 - - CAXTON GIBBET 127 - - THE FIRST MILESTONE FROM CAMBRIDGE 139 - - HOBSON'S CONDUIT 141 - - HOBSON 162 - _From a Painting in Cambridge Guildhall._ - - MARKET HILL, CAMBRIDGE 167 - - THE FALCON, CAMBRIDGE 168 - - INTERIOR OF ST. SEPULCHRE'S CHURCH 169 - - CAMBRIDGE CASTLE A HUNDRED YEARS AGO 171 - - LANDBEACH 181 - - THE FENS 191 - _After Dugdale._ - - THE ISLE OF ELY AND DISTRICT 215 - - ALDRETH CAUSEWAY AND THE ISLE OF ELY 218 - - UPWARE INN 237 - - WICKEN FEN 241 - - HODDEN SPADE AND BECKET 248 - - STRETHAM 254 - - THE WEST FRONT, ELY CATHEDRAL 265 - - ELY CATHEDRAL, FROM THE LITTLEPORT ROAD 289 - - LITTLEPORT 291 - - THE RIVER ROAD, LITTLEPORT 293 - - THE OUSE 295 - - SOUTHERY FERRY 296 - - KETT'S OAK 300 - - DENVER HALL 301 - - THE CROWN, DOWNHAM MARKET 302 - - THE CASTLE, DOWNHAM MARKET 303 - - HOGGE'S BRIDGE, STOW BARDOLPH 305 - - THE LYNN ARMS, SETCHEY 306 - - THE SOUTH GATES, LYNN 308 - - THE GUILDHALL, LYNN 314 - - THE DUKE'S HEAD, LYNN 321 - - ISLINGTON 329 - - - - -THE ROAD TO CAMBRIDGE, ELY, AND KING'S LYNN - - - London (Shoreditch Church) to-- MILES - Kingsland 11/2 - Stoke Newington 21/2 - Stamford Hill 31/4 - Tottenham High Cross 41/4 - Tottenham 51/4 - Upper Edmonton 6 - Lower Edmonton 63/4 - Ponder's End 81/2 - Enfield Highway 91/4 - Enfield Wash 10 - Waltham Cross 111/2 - Crossbrook Street 12 - Turner's Hill 13 - Cheshunt 131/4 - Cheshunt Wash 133/4 - Turnford 14 - Wormley (cross New River) 143/4 - Broxbourne 153/4 - Hoddesdon 17 - Great Amwell (cross New River and the Lea) 191/4 - Ware 21 - Wade's Mill (cross River Rib) 23 - High Cross 231/2 - Collier's End 25 - Puckeridge (cross River Rib) 263/4 - Braughing 273/4 - Quinbury 283/4 - Hare Street 303/4 - Barkway 35 - Barley 363/4 - Fowlmere 42 - Newton 441/4 - Hauxton (cross River Granta) 473/4 - Trumpington 481/2 - Cambridge (Market Hill) 503/4 - - To Cambridge, through Royston-- - Puckeridge (cross River Rib) 263/4 - West Mill 293/4 - Buntingford 31 - Chipping 321/2 - Buckland 333/4 - Royston 373/4 - Melbourn 411/4 - Shepreth 431/4 - Foxton Station and Level Crossing 44 - Harston 451/2 - Hauxton (cross River Granta) 461/2 - Trumpington 483/4 - Cambridge (Market Hill) 51 - - Milton 54 - Landbeach 543/4 - Denny Abbey 58 - Chittering 583/4 - Stretham Bridge (cross Great Ouse River) 613/4 - Stretham 631/4 - Thetford Level Crossing 641/2 - Ely 671/2 - Chettisham Station and Level Crossing 691/2 - Littleport 721/2 - Littleport Bridge (cross Great Ouse River) 731/2 - Brandon Creek (cross Little Ouse River) 763/4 - Southery 783/4 - Modney Bridge (cross Sams Cut Drain) 801/4 - Hilgay (cross Wissey River) 813/4 - Fordham 823/4 - Denver 84 - Downham Market 851/4 - Wimbotsham 861/2 - Stow Bardolph 871/4 - South Runcton (cross River Nar) 891/4 - Setchey 921/4 - West Winch 933/4 - Hardwick Bridge 951/4 - King's Lynn 971/4 - - - - -[Illustration: - - THE - CAMBRIDGE - ELY - AND - KING'S LYNN ROAD] - - -I - - -"SISTER ANNE, Sister Anne, do you see anyone coming?" asks Fatima in -the story of Bluebeard. Clio, the Muse of History, shall be my Sister -Anne. I hereby set her down in the beginnings of the Cambridge Road, -bid her be retrospective, and ask her what she sees. - -"I see," she says dreamily, like some medium or clairvoyant,--"I see -a forest track leading from the marshy valley of the Thames to the -still more marshy valley of the Lea. The tribes who inhabit the land -are at once fierce and warlike, and greedy for trading with merchants -from over the narrow channel that separates Britain from Gaul. They -are fair-haired and blue-eyed, they are dressed in the skins of wild -animals, and their chieftains wear many ornaments of red gold." Then -she is silent, for Clio, like her eight sisters, is a very ancient -personage, and like the aged, although she knows much, cannot recall -sights and scenes without a deal of mental fumbling. - -"And what else do you see?" - -"There comes along the forest track a great concourse of soldiers. -Never before were such seen in the land. They form the advance-guard of -an invading army, and the tribes presently fly from them, for these are -the conquering Romans, whose fame has come before them. There are none -who can withstand those soldiers." - -"Many a tall Roman warrior, doubtless, sleeps where he fell, slain by -wounds or disease in that advance?" - -Clio is indignant and corrective. "The Romans," she says, "were not -a race of tall men. They were undersized, but well built and of a -generous chest-development. They are, as I see them, imposing as they -march, for they advance in solid phalanx, and their bright armour, -their shields and swords, flash like silver in the sun. - -"I see next," she says, "these foreign soldiers as conquerors, settled -in the land. They have an armed camp in a clearing of the forest, where -a company of them keep watch and ward, while many more toil at the work -of making the forest track a broad and firm military way. Among them, -chained together like beasts, and kept to their work by the whips and -blows of taskmasters, are gangs of natives, who perform the roughest -and the most unskilled of the labour. - -"And after that I see four hundred years of Roman power and -civilisation fade like a dream, and then a dim space of anarchy, lit up -by the fitful glare of fire, and stained and running red with blood. -Many strange and heathen peoples come and go in this period along the -road, once so broad and flat and straight, but now grown neglected. -The strange peoples call themselves by many names,--Saxons, Vikings, -Picts, and Scots and Danes,--but their aim is alike: to plunder and -to slay. Six hundred years pass before they bring back something of -that civilisation the Romans planted, and the land obtains a settled -Christianity and an approach to rest. And then, when things have come -to this pass, there comes a stronger race to make the land its own. It -is the coming of the Normans. - -"I see the Conqueror, lord of all this land but the Isle of Ely, -coming to vanquish the English remnant. I see him, his knights and -men-at-arms, his standard-bearers and his bowmen, marching where the -Romans marched a thousand years before, and in three years I see the -shrunken remains of his army return, victorious, but decimated by those -conquered English and their allies, the agues and fevers, the mires and -mists of the Fens." - -"And then--what of the Roman Road, the Saxon 'Ermine Street'? tell me, -why does it lie deserted and forgot?" - -But Clio is silent. She does not know; it is a question rather for -archaeology, for which there is no Muse at all. Nor can she tell much -of the history of the road, apart from the larger national concerns in -which it has a part. She is like a wholesale trader, and deals only in -bulk. Let us in these pages seek to recover something from the past to -illustrate the description of these many miles. - - -II - - -THE coach-road to Cambridge, Ely, and King's Lynn--the modern -highway--follows in general direction, and is in places identical -with, two distinct Roman roads. From Shoreditch Church, whence it is -measured, to Royston, it is on the line of the Ermine Street, the great -direct Roman road to Lincoln and the north of England, which, under -the names of the "North Road" and the "Old North Road," goes straight -ahead, past Caxton, to Alconbury Hill, sixty-eight miles from London, -where it becomes identical with our own Great North Road, as far as -Stamford and Casterton. - -From Royston to Cambridge there would seem never to have been any -direct route, and the Romans apparently reached Cambridge either by -pursuing the Ermine Street five miles farther, and thence turning to -the right at Arrington Bridge; or else by Colchester, Sudbury, and -Linton. Those, at anyrate, are the ways obvious enough on modern maps, -or in the Antonine Itinerary, that Roman road-book made about A.D. -200-250. We have, however, only to exercise our own observation to -find that the Antonine Itinerary is a very inaccurate piece of work, -and that the Romans almost certainly journeyed to _Camboricum_, their -Cambridge, by way of Epping, Bishop's Stortford, and Great Chesterford, -a route taken by several coaches sixty years ago. - -From Cambridge to Ely and King's Lynn the coach-road follows with more -or less exactness the Akeman Street, a Roman way in the nature of an -elevated causeway above the fens. - -The Ermine Street between London and Lincoln is not noted by the -Antonine Itinerary, which takes the traveller to that city by two very -indirect routes: the one along the Watling Street as far as High Cross, -in Warwickshire, and thence to the right, along the Fosse Way past -Leicester; the other by Colchester. The Ermine Street, leading direct -to Lincoln, is therefore generally supposed to be a Roman road of much -later date. - -We are not to suppose that the Romans knew these roads by the names -they now bear; names really given by the Saxons. Ermine Street -enshrines the name of Eorman, some forgotten hero or divinity of that -people; and the Akeman Street, running from the Norfolk coast, in a -south-westerly direction through England, to Cirencester and Bath, -is generally said to have obtained its name from invalids making -pilgrimage to the Bath waters, there to ease them of their aches and -pains. But a more reasonable theory is that which finds the origin of -that name in a corruption of _Aquae Solis_, the name of Bath. - -No reasonable explanation has ever been advanced of the abandonment of -the Ermine Street between Lower Edmonton and Ware, and the choosing -of the present route, running roughly parallel with it at distances -ranging from half a mile to a mile, and by a low-lying course much more -likely to be flooded than the old Roman highway. The change must have -been made at an early period, far beyond the time when history dawns on -the road, for it is always by the existing route that travellers are -found coming and going. - -Few know that the Roman road and the coaching road are distinct; and -yet, with the aid of a large-scale Ordnance map, the course of the -Ermine Street can be distinctly traced. Not only so, but a day's -exploration of it, as far as its present condition, obstructed and -diverted in places, will allow, is of absorbing interest. - -It makes eleven miles of, in places, rough walking, and often gives -only the satisfaction of being close to the actual site, and not -actually on it. A straight line drawn from where the modern road -swerves slightly to the right at Northumberland Park, Edmonton, to -Ware, gives the direction the ancient road pursued. - -The exact spot where the modern road leaves the Roman way is found -at Lower Edmonton, where a Congregational Church stands in an open -space, and the houses on the left hand are seen curving back to -face a lane that branches off at this point. This, bearing the -significantly ancient name of "Langhedge Lane," goes exactly on the -line of the Ermine Street; but it cannot be followed for more than -about a hundred yards, for it is cut through by railways and modern -buildings, and quite obliterated for some distance. Where lanes are -found near Edmonton Rectory on the site of the ancient way, names that -are eloquent of an antiquity closely allied with Roman times begin -to appear. "Bury Hall," and, half a mile beyond it, "Bury Farm," -neighboured by an ancient moat, are examples. "Bury" is a corruption of -a Saxon word meaning anything, from a fortified camp to a settlement, -or a hillock; and when found beside a Roman road generally signifies -(like that constantly recurring name "Coldharbour") that the Saxons -found deserted Roman villas by the wayside. Beyond Bury Farm the -cutting of the New River in the seventeenth century obscured some -length of the Ermine Street. A long straight lane from Forty Hill Park, -past Bull's Cross, to Theobalds, represents it pretty accurately, as -does the next length, by Bury Green and Cheshunt Great House. Cold -Hall and Cold Hall Green mark its passing by, even though, just here, -it is utterly diverted or stopped up. "Elbow Lane" is the name of it -from the neighbourhood of Hoddesdon to Little Amwell. Beyond that point -it plunges into narrower lanes, and thence into pastures and woods, -descending steeply therefrom into the valley of the Lea by Ware. In -those hillside pastures, and in an occasional wheatfield, a dry summer -will disclose, in a long line of dried-up grass or corn, the route of -that ancient paved way below the surface. A sepulchral barrow in one -of these fields, called by the rustics "Penny loaf Hill," is probably -the last resting-place of some prehistoric traveller along this way. -A quarter of a mile from Ware the Ermine Street crossed the Lea to -"Bury Field," now a brickfield, where many Roman coins have been found. -Thenceforward it is one with the present highway to Royston. - - -III - - -[Illustration: THE GREEN DRAGON, BISHOPSGATE STREET, 1856. - -[_From a Drawing by T. Hosmer Shepherd_]] - -ALTHOUGH Shoreditch Church marks the beginning of the Cambridge Road, -of the old road to the North, and of the highways into Lincolnshire, it -was always to and from a point somewhat nearer the City of London that -the traffic along these various ways came and went. Bishopsgate Street -was of old the great centre for coaches and vans, and until quite -modern times--until, in fact, after railways had come--those ancient -inns, the Four Swans, the Vine, the Bull, the Green Dragon, and many -another, still faced upon the street, as for many centuries they had -done. Coaches were promptly withdrawn on the opening of the railways, -but the lumbering old road-waggons, with their vast tilts, broad -wheels, swinging horn-lanterns, and long teams of horses, survived for -some years later. Now everything is changed; inns, coaches, waggons -are all gone. You will look in vain for them; and of the most famous -inn of all--the Bull, in Bishopsgate Street Within--the slightest -memory survives. On its site rises that towering block of commercial -offices called "Palmerston House," crawling abundantly, like some -maggoty cheese, with companies and secretaries, clerks and office-boys, -who seem, like mites, to writhe out of the interstices of the stone -and plaster. Overhead, on the dizzy roof, are the clustered strands -of the telegraph-wires, resembling the meshes of some spider's web, -exquisitely typical of much that goes forward in those little cribs and -hutches of offices within. It is a sorry change from the old Bull--the -Black Bull, as it was originally named--with its cobble-stoned -courtyard and surrounding galleries, whence audiences looked down -upon the plays of Shakespeare and others of the Elizabethans, and -so continued until the Puritans came and stage-plays were put under -interdict. When plays were not being enacted in that old courtyard, -it was crowded with the carriers' vans out of Cambridgeshire and the -Eastern Counties generally. "The Black Bull," we read in a publication -dated 1633, "is still looking towards Shoreditch, to see if he can spy -the carriers coming from Cambridge." Would that it still looked towards -Shoreditch! - -[Illustration: THE FOUR SWANS, BISHOPSGATE STREET, 1855. - -[_From a Drawing by T. Hosmer Shepherd._]] - -It was to the Bull that old Hobson, the Cambridge carrier of such -great renown, drove on his regular journeys, between 1570 and 1631. -Hobson was the precursor, the grand original, of all the Pickfords and -Carter Patersons of this crowded age, and lives immortal, though his -body be long resolved to dust, as the originator of a proverb. That is -immortality indeed! No deed of chivalry, no great achievement in the -arts of peace and war, shall so surely render your name imperishable -as the linking of it with some proverb or popular saying. Who has not -heard of "Hobson's Choice"? Have you never been confronted with that -"take it or leave it" offer yourself? For, in truth, Hobson's Choice -is no choice at all; and is, and ever was, "that or none." The saying -arose from the livery-stable business carried on by Thomas Hobson at -Cambridge, in addition to his carrying trade. He is, indeed, rightly -or wrongly, said to have been the first who made a business of letting -out saddle-horses. His practice, invariably followed, was to refuse -to allow any horse in his stables to be taken out of its proper turn. -"That or none" was his unfailing formula, when the Cambridge students, -eager to pick and choose, would have selected their own fancy in -horseflesh. Every customer was thus served alike, without favour. -Hobson's fame, instead of flickering out, has endured. Many versified -about him at his death, but one of the best rhymed descriptions of his -stable practice was written in 1734, a hundred and three years later, -by Charles Waterton, as a translation from the Latin of Vincent Bourne-- - - "In his long stable, Cambridge, you are told, - Hobson kept studs for hire in days of old, - On this condition only--that the horse - Nearest the door should start the first on course, - Then next to him, or none: so that each beast - Might have its turn of labour and of rest; - This granted, no one yet, in college dress, - Was ever known this compact to transgress. - Next to the door--next to the work; say, why - Should such a law, so just, be doomed to die? - Remember then this compact to restore, - And let it govern as it did before. - This done, O happy Cambridge! you will see, - Your Hobson's stud just as it ought to be." - - -IV - - -WHO was that man, or who those associated adventurers, to first -establish a coach between London and Cambridge, and when was the custom -first introduced of travelling by coach, instead of on horseback, along -this road? No one can say. We can see now that he who first set up a -Cambridge coach must of necessity have been great and forceful: as -great a man as Hobson, in whose time people were well content to hire -horses and ride them; but although University wits have sung the fame -of Hobson, the greater innovator and the date of his innovation alike -remain unknown. It is vaguely said that the first Cambridge coach was -started in the reign of Charles the Second, but Pepys, who might have -been trusted to mention so striking a novelty, does not refer to such -a thing, and, as on many other roads, we hear nothing definite until -1750, when a Cambridge coach went up and down twice a week, taking two -whole days each way, staying the night at Barkway going, and at Epping -returning. The same team of horses dragged the coach the whole way. -There was in this year a coach through to Lynn, once a week, setting -out on Fridays in summer and Thursdays in winter. - -In 1753 a newer era dawned. There were then two conveyances for -Cambridge, from the Bull and the Green Dragon in Bishopsgate: one -leaving Tuesdays and Fridays, the other Wednesdays and Saturdays, -reaching the Blue Boar and the Red Lion, Cambridge, the same night and -returning the following day, when that day did not happen to be Sunday. - -Each of these stage-coaches carried six passengers, all inside, and the -fares were about twopence-halfpenny a mile in summer and threepence in -winter. The cost of a coach journey between London and Cambridge was -then, therefore, about twelve shillings. - -Hobson's successors in the carrying business had by this time increased -to three carriers, owning two waggons each. There were thus six waggons -continually going back and forth in the mid-eighteenth century. They -took two and a half days to perform the fifty-one miles, and "inned" at -such places as Hoddesdon, Ware, Royston, and Barkway, where they would -be drawn up in the coachyards of the inns at night, and those poor -folk who travelled by them at the rate of three-halfpence a mile would -obtain an inexpensive supper, with a shakedown in loft or barn. - -The coaches at this period did by much effort succeed in performing -the journey in one day, but it was a long day. They started early and -came late to their journey's end; setting out at four o'clock in the -morning, and coming to their destination at seven in the evening; a -pace of little more than three miles an hour. - -In 1763, owing partly to the improvements that had taken place along -the road, and more perhaps to the growing system of providing more -changes of horses and shorter stages, the "London and Cambridge -Diligence" is found making the journey daily, in eight hours, by way -of Royston, "performed by J. Roberts of the White Horse, Fetter Lane; -Thomas Watson's, the Red Lyon, Royston; and Jacob Brittain, the Sun, -Cambridge." The "Diligence" ran light, carrying three passengers only, -at a fare of thirteen shillings and sixpence. There were in this same -year two other coaches; the "Fly," daily, from the Queen's Head, Gray's -Inn Lane, by way of Epping and Chesterford, to the Rose on the Market -Hill, Cambridge, at a fare of twelve shillings; and the "Stage," daily, -to the Red Lion, Petty Cury, carrying four passengers at ten shillings -each. - -We hear little at this period of coaches or waggons on to Ely and -King's Lynn. Cambridgeshire and Norfolk roads were only just being made -good, after many centuries of neglect, and Cambridge town was still, -as it always had been (strange though it may now seem), something of -a port. The best and safest way was to take boat or barge by Cam and -Ouse, rather than face the terrors of roads almost constantly flooded. -Gillam's, Burleigh's, and Salmon's waggons, which at this time were -advertised to ply between London and Cambridge, transferred their -loads on to barges at the quays by Great Bridge. Indeed it was not -until railways came that Cambridge ceased to depend largely upon the -rivers, and the coals burnt, the wine drank, and the timber used were -water-borne to the very last. Hence we find the town always in the -old days peculiarly distressed in severe winters when the waterways -were frozen; and hence, too, the remonstrance made by the Mayor and -Corporation when Denver Sluice was rebuilt in 1745, "to the hindering -of the navigation to King's Lynn." - -In 1796, the roads now moderately safe, a stage-coach is found -plying from Cambridge to Ely and back in one day, replacing the old -"passage-boats"; but Lynn, as far as extant publications tell us, was -still chiefly approachable by water. In this year Cambridge enjoyed -a service of six coaches between the town and London, four of them -daily; the remaining two running three times a week. The Mail, on the -road ten years past, started at eight o'clock every night from the -Bull and Mouth, London, and, going by Royston, arrived at the Sun, -Cambridge, at 3.30 the following morning. The old "Diligence," which -thirty-three years before had performed the journey in eight hours, -now is found to take nine, and to have raised its fares from thirteen -shillings and sixpence to one guinea, going to the Hoop instead of -the Sun. The "Fly," still by Epping and Great Chesterford, has raised -its fares from twelve shillings to eighteen shillings, and now takes -"outsides" at nine shillings. It does not, however, fly very swiftly, -consuming ten hours on the way. "Prior's Stage" is one of the new -concerns, leaving the Bull, Bishopsgate Street, at eight in the morning -on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and, going by Barkway, arriving -at some unnamed hour at the Red Lion, Petty Cury. It conveys six -passengers at fifteen shillings inside and eight shillings out, like -its competitor, "Hobson's Stage," setting out on Mondays, Wednesdays, -and Saturdays from the Green Dragon, Bishopsgate Street, for the Blue -Boar, Cambridge. "Hobson's" is another new-comer, merely trading on the -glamour of the old name. The "Night Post Coach" of this year, starting -from the Golden Cross, Charing Cross, every afternoon at 5.30, went by -Epping and Great Chesterford. It carried only four passengers inside, -at fifteen shillings each, and a like number outside at nine shillings. -Travelling all night, and through the dangerous glades of Epping -Forest, the old advertisement especially mentions it to be "guarded." -Passing through many nocturnal terrors, the "Night Post Coach" finally -drew up in the courtyard of the still-existing Eagle and Child (now -called the Eagle) at Cambridge, at three o'clock in the morning. - -The next change seems to have been in 1804, when the "Telegraph" was -advertised to cover the fifty-one miles in seven hours,--and made -the promise good. People said it was all very well, but shook their -heads and were of opinion that it would not last. In 1821, however, -we find the "Telegraph" still running, and actually in six hours, -starting every morning at nine o'clock from the White Horse in Fetter -Lane, going by Barkway, and arriving at the Sun at Cambridge at 3 p.m. -This is the coach shown in Pollard's picture in the act of leaving -the White Horse. In the meanwhile, however, in 1816 another and even -faster coach, the "Star of Cambridge," was established, and, if we -may go so far as to believe the statement made on the rare old print -showing it leaving the Belle Sauvage Yard on Ludgate Hill in that -year, it performed the journey in four hours and a half! Allowing for -necessary stops for changing on the way, this would give a pace of over -eleven miles an hour; and we may perhaps, in view of what both the -roads and coaching enterprise were like at that time, be excused from -believing that, apart from the special effort of any one particular -day, it ever did anything of the kind; even in 1821, five years later, -as already shown, the "Telegraph," the crack coach of the period on -this road, took six hours! - -[Illustration: THE "STAR OF CAMBRIDGE" STARTING FROM THE BELLE SAUVAGE -YARD, LUDGATE HILL, 1816. - -[_From a Print after T. Young._]] - -Let us see what others there were in 1821. To Cambridge went the -"Safety," every day, from the Boar and Castle, Oxford Street, and the -Bull, Aldgate, leaving the Bull at 3 p.m. and arriving at Cambridge, by -way of Royston, in six hours; the "Tally Ho," from the Bull, Holborn, -every afternoon at two o'clock, by the same route in the same time; the -"Royal Regulator," daily, from the New Inn, Old Bailey, in the like -time, by Epping and Great Chesterford; the old "Fly," daily, from the -George and Blue Boar, Holborn and the Green Dragon, Bishopsgate, at 9 -a.m., by the same route, in seven hours; the "Cambridge Union," daily, -from the White Horse, Fetter Lane and the Cross Keys, Wood Street, at -8 a.m., by Royston, in eight hours, to the Blue Boar, Cambridge; the -"Cambridge New Royal Patent Mail," still by Royston, arriving at the -Bull, Cambridge, in seven and a half hours; the "Cambridge and Ely" -coach, every evening at 6 p.m., from the Golden Cross and the White -Horse, arriving at the Eagle and Child, Cambridge, in ten hours; and -the "Cambridge Auxiliary Mail," and two other coaches, which do not -appear to have borne any distinctive names, the duration of whose -pilgrimage is not specified. - -Cambridge was therefore provided in 1821 with no fewer than twelve -coaches a day, starting from London at all hours, from a quarter to -eight in the morning until half-past six in the afternoon. There -were also the "Lynn and Wells Mail," every evening, reaching Lynn in -twelve hours thirty-three minutes; and the "Lynn Post Coach," through -Cambridge, starting every morning from the Golden Cross, Charing Cross, -and reaching Lynn in thirteen hours. The "Lynn Union" ran three days a -week, in thirteen and a half hours, through Barkway. Other Lynn stages -were the "Lord Nelson," "Lynn and Fakenham Post Coach," and two not -dignified by specific names. - -By 1828 the average speed was greatly improved, for although no coach -reached Cambridge in less than six hours, there was, on the other hand, -only one that took so long a time as seven hours and a half. The Mail -had been accelerated by one hour, throughout to Lynn, and was, before -driven off the road, further quickened, the post-office schedule of -time for the London, Cambridge, King's Lynn, and Wells Mail in 1845 -standing as under:-- - - London (G.P.O.) 8.0 p.m. - Wade's Mill 10.32 " - Buckland 11.43 " - Melbourn 12.32 a.m. - Cambridge 1.36 " - Ely 3.31 " - Brandon Creek 4.27 " - Downham Market 5.21 " - Lynn 6.33 " - Wells 10.43 " - -In the 'forties, up to 1846 and 1847, the last years of coaching -on this road, the number of coaches does not seem to have greatly -increased. The "Star" was still, meteor-like, making its swift daily -journey to the Hoop at Cambridge, and the "Telegraph," "Regulator," -"Times," and "Fly," and the "Mail," of course, were old-established -favourites; but new names are not many. The "Regulator," indeed,--the -daily "Royal Regulator" of years before,--is found going only three -times weekly. The "Red Rover," however, was a new-comer, between London -and Lynn daily; with the "Norfolk Hero" (which was probably another -name for Nelson) three days a week between London, Cambridge, Ely, -Lynn, and Wells. Recently added Cambridge coaches were the Tuesday, -Thursday, and Saturday "Bee Hive," and the daily "Rocket"; while one -daily and two triweekly coaches through Cambridge to Wisbeach--the -daily "Rapid"; the Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday "Day"; and the -Monday, Wednesday, and Friday "Defiance," make their appearance. - -How do those numbers compare with the number of trains run daily to -Cambridge in our own time? It is not altogether a fair comparison, -because the capacities of a coach and of a railway train are so -radically different. Twenty-nine trains run by all routes from London -to Cambridge, day by day, and they probably, on an average, set down -five hundred passengers between them at the joint station. Taking -the average way-bill of a coach to contain ten passengers, the daily -arrivals at Cambridge were a hundred and sixty, or, adding twenty -post-chaises daily with two passengers each, a hundred and eighty. -These are only speculative figures, but, unsupported by exact data -though they must be, they give an approximation to an idea of the -growth of traffic between those times and these. The imagination -refuses to picture this daily host being conveyed by road. It would -have meant some thirty-five coaches, fully laden, and as for goods and -general merchandise, the roads could not possibly have sufficed for the -carrying of them. - - -V - - -COACHING on the road from London to Lynn has found some literary -expression in the _Autobiography of a Stage Coachman_, the work of -Thomas Cross, published in 1861. Cross was a remarkable man. Born in -1791, he may fairly be said to have been born to the box-seat, his -father, John Cross, having been a mail-contractor and stage-coach -proprietor established at the Golden Cross, Charing Cross. The Cross -family, towards the end of the eighteenth century, claimed to rank -with the county families of Hampshire, and John Cross was himself a -man of wealth. He had inherited some, and had made more by fetching -and carrying for the Government along the old Portsmouth Road in -the romantic days of our long wars with France. He not only had his -establishment in London and a town house in Portsmouth, but also -the three separate and distinct country seats of Freeland House and -Stodham, near Petersfield, and the house and grounds of Qualletes, -at Horndean, purchased in after years by Admiral Sir Charles Napier, -and renamed by him "Merchistoun." John Cross was always headstrong and -reckless, and made much money--and lost much. The story of how he would -fill his pockets with gold at his bank at Portsmouth and then ride the -lonely twenty miles thence to Horndean explains his making and his -losing. No cautious traveller in those times went alone by that road, -and the highwaymen tried often to bag this particularly well-known man, -who carried such wealth on him. "Many a shot I've had at old John Cross -of Stodham," said one of these gentry when lying, cast for execution, -in Portsmouth Gaol; adding regretfully, "but I couldn't hit him: he -rode like the devil." - -[Illustration: "KNEE-DEEP": THE "LYNN AND WELLS MAIL" IN A SNOWSTORM. - -[_From a Print after C. Cooper Henderson._]] - -This fine reckless character lived to dissipate everything in -ill-judged speculations, and misfortunes of all kinds visited the -family. We are told but little of them in the pages of his son's book, -but it was entirely owing to one of these visitations that Thomas Cross -found his whole career changed. Destined by his father for the Navy, -he was entered as a midshipman, but he had been subject from his birth -to fits, and coming home on one occasion and going into the cellars of -a wine business his father had in the meanwhile taken, he was seized -by one of these attacks, and falling on a number of wine-bottles, -was so seriously injured that the profession of the Navy had to be -abandoned. We afterwards find him as a farmer in Hampshire, and then, -involved in the financial disasters that overtook the family, reduced -to seeking an engagement as coachman in the very yard his father had -once owned. It is curious that, either intentionally or by accident, -he does not mention the name of the coach he drove between London and -Lynn, but calls it always "the Lynn coach." There were changes on the -road between 1821, when he first drove along it, and 1847, when he was -driven off, but he is chiefly to be remembered as the driver of the -"Lynn Union." He tells how he came to the box-seat, how miserably he -was shuttlecocked from one to the other when in search of employment, -and how, when the whip who drove the "Lynn coach" on its stage between -Cambridge and London had taken an inn and was about to relinquish his -seat, he could obtain no certain information that the post would be -vacant. The bookkeeper of the coach-office said it would; the coachman -himself told a lie and said he was not going to give up the job. In -this condition of affairs Cross did not know what to do, until a kindly -acquaintance gave him the date upon which the lying Jehu must take -possession of his inn and of necessity give up coaching, and advised -him to journey down to Cambridge, meet the up coach there as it drove -into the Bull yard, and present himself as the coachman come to take it -up to London. Cross scrupulously carried out this suggestion, and when -he made his appearance, with whip and in approved coaching costume, -at the Bull, and was asked who he was and what he wanted, replied as -his friend had indicated. No one offered any objection, and no other -coachman had appeared by the time he drove away, punctual to the -very second we may be quite sure. An old resident of Lynn, who has -written his recollections of bygone times in that town, tells us that -Thomas Cross "was not much of a whip," a criticism that seems to be -doubly underscored in Cross's own description of this first journey to -London, when he drove straight into the double turnpike gates that then -stretched across the Kingsland Road, giving everyone a good shaking, -and cause, in many bruises, to remember his maiden effort. - -Cross had a long and varied experience, extending to twenty-eight -years, of this road. At different times he drove between London and -Cambridge, on the middle ground between Cambridge and Ely, and for -a while took the whole distance between Ely and Lynn. He drove in -his time all sorts and conditions of men, and instances some of his -experiences. Perhaps the most amusing was that occasion when he drove -into Cambridge with a choleric retired Admiral on the box-seat. The old -sea-dog was come to Cambridge to inquire into the trouble into which -a scapegrace son had managed to place himself. He confided the whole -story to the coachman. By this it seemed that the Admiral had two sons. -One he had designed to make a sailor; the other was being educated -for the Church. It was the embryo parson who had got into trouble: -very serious trouble, too, for he had knocked down a Proctor, and was -rusticated for that offence. The Admiral, in fact, had made a very -grave error of judgment. His sons had very opposite characters: the -one was wild and high-spirited, and the other was meek and mild to the -last degree of inoffensiveness. Unfortunately it was this good young -man whom he had sent to sea, while his devil's cub he had put in the -way of reading for Holy Orders. - -"I have committed a great mistake, sir," he said. "I ought to have made -a sailor of him and a parson of the other, who is a meek, unassuming -youth aboard ship, with nothing to say for himself; while this, sir, -would knock the devil down, let alone a Proctor, if he offended him." - -The Admiral was a study in the mingled moods of offended dignity and -of parental pride in this chip of the old block; breathing implacable -vengeance one moment and admiration of a "d----d high-spirited fellow" -the next. When Thomas Cross set out on his return journey to London, he -saw the Admiral and his peccant son together, the best of friends. - -Cross was in his prime when railways came and spoiled his career. In -1840, when the Northern and Eastern line was opened to Broxbourne, -and thence, shortly after, to Bishop Stortford, he had to give up the -London and Cambridge stage and retire before the invading locomotive -to the Cambridge and Lynn journey. In 1847, when the Ely to Lynn line -was opened, his occupation was wholly gone, and all attempts to find -employment on the railway failed. They would not have him, even to -ring the bell when the trains were about to start. Then, like many -another poor fellow at that time, he presented an engrossed petition to -Parliament, setting forth how hardly circumstances had dealt with him, -and hoping that "your honourable House" would do something or another. -The House, however, was largely composed of members highly interested -in railways, and ordered his petition, with many another, to lie on the -table: an evasive but well-recognised way of utterly ignoring him and -it and all such troublesome and inconvenient things and persons. Alas! -poor Thomas! He had better have saved the money he expended on that -engrossing. - -What became of him? I will tell you. For some years he benefited by -the doles of his old patrons on the "Union," sorry both for him and -for the old days of the road, gone for ever. He then wrote a history -of coaching, a work that disappeared--type, manuscript, proofs -and all--in the bankruptcy proceedings in which his printers were -presently involved. Then he wrote his _Autobiography_. He was, you must -understand, a gentleman by birth and education, and if he had little -literary talent, had at least some culture. Therefore the story of his -career, as told by himself, although discursive, is interesting. He had -some Greek and more Latin, and thought himself a poet. I have, however, -read his epic, _The Pauliad_, and find that in this respect he was -mistaken. That exercise in blank verse was published in 1863, and was -his last work. Two years later he found a place in Huggens' College, a -charitable foundation at Northfleet, near Gravesend; and died in 1877, -in his eighty-sixth year, after twelve years' residence in that secure -retreat. He lies in Northfleet churchyard, far away from that place -where he would be,--the little churchyard of Catherington beside the -Portsmouth Road, where his father and many of his people rest. - - -VI - - -FEW and fragmentary are the recollections of the old coachmen of -the Cambridge Road. A coloured etching exists, the work of Dighton, -purporting to show the driver of the "Telegraph" in 1809; but whether -this represents that Richard Vaughan of the same coach, praised in -the book on coaching by Lord William Pitt-Lennox as "scientific -in horseflesh, unequalled in driving," is doubtful, for the hero -of Dighton's picture seems to belong to an earlier generation. -Among drivers of the "Telegraph" were "Old Quaker Will" and George -Elliott, just mentioned by Thomas Cross; himself not much given to -enlarging upon other coachmen and their professional skill. Poor Tommy -necessarily moved in their circle; but although with them, he was not -of them, and nursed a pride both of his family and of his own superior -education that grew more arrogant as his misfortunes increased. As for -Tommy himself, we have already heard much of him and his _Autobiography -of a Stage Coachman_. The "Lynn Union," however, the coach he drove -down part of the road one day and up the next, was by no means one of -the crack "double" coaches, but started from either end only three -times a week, and although upset every now and again, was a jogtrot -affair that averaged but seven miles an hour, including stops. That -the "Lynn Union" commonly carried a consignment of shrimps one way -and the returned empty baskets another was long one of Cross's minor -martyrdoms. He drove along the road, his head full of poetry and noble -thoughts, and yearning for cultured talk, while the shrimp-baskets -diffused a penetrating odour around, highly offensive to those cultured -folk for whose society his soul longed. People with a nice sense of -smell avoided the "Lynn Union" while the shrimp-carrying continued. - -Contemporary with Cross was Jo Walton, of the "Safety," and later of -the "Star." He was perhaps one of the finest coachmen who ever drove on -the Cambridge Road, and it was possibly the knowledge of this skill, -and the daring to which it led, that brought so many mishaps to the -"Star" while he wielded the reins. He has been described as "a man -who swore like a trooper and went regularly to church," with a temper -like an emperor and a grip like steel. This fine picturesque character -was the very antithesis of the peaceful and dreamy Cross, and thought -nothing of double-thonging a nodding waggoner who blocked the road with -his sleepy team. Twice at least he upset the "Star" between Royston -and Buntingford when attempting to pass another coach. He, at last, -was cut short by the railway, and his final journeys were between -Broxbourne and Cambridge. "Here," he would say bitterly, as the train -came steaming into Broxbourne Station, "here comes old Hell-in-Harness!" - -Of James Reynolds, of Pryor, who drove the "Rocket," of many another, -their attributes are lost and only their names survive. That William -Clark, who drove the "Bee Hive," should have been widely known as "the -civil coachman" is at once a testimonial to him and a reproach to the -others; and that memories of Briggs at Lynn should be restricted to -the facts that he was discontented and quarrelsome is a post-mortem -certificate of character that gains in significance when even the name -of the coach he drove cannot be recovered. - - -VII - - -BISHOPSGATE STREET WITHIN and Without, and Norton Folgate of to-day, -would astonish old Hobson, not only with their press of ordinary -traffic, but with the vast number of railway lorries rattling and -thundering along, to and from the great Bishopsgate Goods Station of -the Great Eastern Railway; the railway that has supplanted the coaches -and the carriers' waggons along the whole length of this road. That -station, once the passenger terminus of Shoreditch, before the present -huge one at Liverpool Street was built, remains as a connecting-link -between the prosperous and popular "Great Eastern" of to-day and the -reviled and bankrupt "Eastern Counties" of fifty years ago. The history -of the Great Eastern Railway is a complicated story of amalgamations -of many lines with the original Eastern Counties Railway. The line -to Cambridge, with which we are principally concerned, was in the -first instance the project of an independent company calling itself -the Northern and Eastern Railway, opened after many difficulties as -far as Broxbourne in 1840, and thence, shortly afterwards, to Bishop -Stortford. Having reached that point and the end of its resources -simultaneously, it was taken over by the Eastern Counties and completed -in 1847, the line going, as the Cambridge expresses do nowadays, _via_ -Audley End and Great Chesterford. - -Having thus purchased and completed the scheme of that unfortunate -line, the Eastern Counties' own difficulties became acute. Locomotives -and rolling stock were seized for debt, and it fell into bankruptcy and -the Receiver's hands. How it emerged at last, a sound and prosperous -concern, this is not the place to tell, but many years passed before -any passenger whose business took him anywhere along the Eastern -Counties' "system" could rely upon being carried to his destination -without vexatious delays, not of minutes, but of hours. Often the -trains never completed their journeys at all, and came back whence -they had started. Little wonder that this was then described as "that -scapegoat of companies, that pariah of railways." - -"On Wednesday last," said _Punch_ at this time, "a respectably-dressed -young man was seen to go to the Shoreditch terminus of the Eastern -Counties Railway and deliberately take a ticket for Cambridge. He has -not since been heard of. No motive has been assigned for the rash act." - -The best among the Great Eastern Cambridge expresses of to-day does -the journey of 553/4 miles in 1 hour 13 minutes. Onward to Lynn, 97 -miles, the best time made is 2 hours 25 minutes. - - -VIII - - -IT is a far cry from Shoreditch Church to the open country. Cobbett, in -1822, journeying from London to Royston, found the suburbs far-reaching -even then. "On this road," he says, "the enormous Wen" (a term of -contempt by which he indicated the Metropolis) "has swelled out to the -distance of above six or seven miles." But from the earliest times -London exhibited a tendency to expand more quickly in this direction -than in others, and Edmonton, Waltham Cross, and Ware lay within the -marches of Cockaigne long before places within a like radius at other -points of the compass began to lose their rural look. The reason is not -far to seek, and may be found in the fact that this, the great road to -the North, was much travelled always. - -But where shall we set the limits of the Great Wen in recent times? -Even as these lines are written they are being pushed outwards. It is -not enough to put a finger on the map at Stamford Hill and to say, -"here, at the boundary of the London County Council's territory," or -"here at Edmonton, the limit of the 'N' division of the London Postal -Districts," or, again, "here, where the Metropolitan Police Area meets -the territories of the Hertfordshire and the Essex Constabulary at -Cheshunt"; for those are but arbitrary bounds, and, beyond their own -individual significances, tell us nothing. Have you ever, as a child, -looking, large-eyed and a little frightened it may be, out upon the -bigness of London, wondered where the houses ended and Gods own country -began, or asked where the last house of the last street looked out upon -the meadows, and the final flag-stone led on to the footpath of the -King's Highway? - -I have asked, and there was none to tell, and if you in turn ask me -where the last house of the ultimate street stands on this way out of -London--I do not know! There are so many last houses, and they always -begin again; so that little romantic mental picture does not exist in -plain fact. The ending of London is a gradual and almost insensible -process. You may note it when, leaving Stoke Newington's continuous -streets behind, you rise Stamford Hill and perceive its detached and -semi-detached residences; and, pressing on, see the streets begin again -at Tottenham High Cross, continuing to Lower Edmonton. Here at last, in -the waste lands that stretch along the road, you think the object of -your search is found. As well seek that fabled pot of gold at the foot -of the rainbow. The pot and the gold may be there, but you will never, -never reach the rainbow. - -The houses begin again, absurdly enough, at Ponder's End. You will come -to an end of them at last, but only gradually, and when, at fifteen and -three-quarter miles from Shoreditch Church, Broxbourne and the first -glimpse of "real country" are reached, the original quest is forgotten. - -Very different was the aspect of these first miles out of London in the -days of Izaak Walton, Cowper, and Lamb. Cowper's Johnny Gilpin rode -to Edmonton and Ware, and Walton and Lamb--the inspired Fleet Street -draper and the thrall of the Leadenhall Street office--are literary -co-parceners in the valley of the Lea. - -"You are well overtaken, gentlemen," says Piscator, in the _Compleat -Angler_, journeying from London; "a good morning to you both. I have -stretched my legs up Tottenham Hill to overtake you, hoping your -business may occasion you towards Ware, whither I am going this fine, -fresh May morning." He meant that suburban eminence known as Stamford -Hill, where, in the beginning of May 1603, the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs -of London, having ridden out in State for the purpose, met James the -First travelling to London to assume the Crown of England. - -Stamford Hill still shadows forth a well-established prosperity. It -was the favoured suburban resort of City merchants in the first half -of the nineteenth century, and is still intensely respectable and -well-to-do, even though the merchants have risen with the swelling -of their bankers' pass-books to higher ambitions, and though many of -their solid, stolid, and prim mansions know them no more, and are -converted not infrequently into what we may bluntly call "boys' and -girls' schools," termed, however, by their respective Dr. Blimber's -and Miss Pinkerton's "scholastic establishments for young ladies and -young gentlemen." The old-time City merchant who resided at Stamford -Hill when the nineteenth century was young (a period when people began -to "reside" in "desirable residences" instead of merely living in -houses), used generally, if he were an active man, to go up to his -business in the City on horseback, and return in the same way. If not -so active, he came and went by the "short stage," a conveyance between -London and the adjacent towns, to all intents and purposes an ordinary -stage-coach, except that it was a two-horsed, instead of a four-horsed, -affair. The last City man who rode to London on horseback has probably -long since been gathered to his fathers, for the practice naturally was -discontinued when railways came and revolutionised manners and customs. - -As you top Stamford Hill, you glimpse the valley of the Lea and its -factory-studded marshes, and come presently to Tottenham High Cross. No -need to linger nowadays over the scenery of this populous road, lined -with shops and villas and crowded with tramways and omnibuses; no need, -that is to say, except for association's sake, and to remark that it -was here Piscator called a halt to Venator and Auceps, on their way to -the Thatched House at Hoddesdon, now going on for two hundred and fifty -years ago. "Let us now" (he said) "rest ourselves in this sweet, shady -arbour, which Nature herself has woven with her own fine fingers; it is -such a contexture of woodbines, sweet briars, jessamine, and myrtle, -and so interwoven as will secure us both from the sun's violent heat -and from the approaching shower." And so they sat and discussed a -bottle of sack, with oranges and milk. - -[Illustration: TOTTENHAM CROSS.] - -So gracious a "contexture" is far to seek from Tottenham nowadays. -If you need shelter from the approaching shower you can, it is true, -obtain it more securely in the doorway of a shop than under a hedgerow -in May, when Nature has not nearly finished her weaving; but there is -something lacking in the exchange. - -Tottenham High Cross that stands here by, over against the Green, is -a very dubious affair indeed; an impostor that would delude you if -possible into the idea that it is one of the Eleanor Crosses; with a -will-o'-wisp kind of history, from the time in 1466, when it is found -mentioned only as existing, to after ages, when it was new-built of -brick and thereafter horribly stuccoed, to the present, when it is -become a jibe and a jeer in its would-be Gothic. - -[Illustration: A LONDON SUBURB IN 1816: TOTTENHAM. - -[From a Drawing by Rowlandson.]] - -Much of old Tottenham is gone. Gone are the "Seven Sisters," the seven -elms that stood here in a circle, with a walnut-tree in their midst, -marking, as tradition would have you believe, the resting-place of a -martyr; but in their stead is the beginning of the Seven Sisters' Road: -not a thoroughfare whose romance leaps to the eye. What these then -remote suburbs were like in 1816 may be seen in this charming sketch of -Rowlandson's, where he is found in his more sober mood. The milestone -in the sketch marks four and three-quarter miles from Shoreditch: this -is therefore a scene at Tottenham, where the tramway runs nowadays, -costermongers' barrows line the gutters, and crowds press, night and -day. Little enough traffic in Rowlandson's time, evidently, for the -fowls and the pigs are taking their ease in the very middle of the -footpath. - -Yet there are still a few vestiges of the old and the picturesque here. -Bruce Grove, hard by, may be but a name, reminiscent of Robert Bruce -and other Scottish monarchs who once owned a manor and a castle where -suburban villas now cluster plentifully, and where the modern so-called -"Bruce Castle" is a school; but there are dignified old red-brick -mansions here still, lying back from the road behind strong walls and -grand gates of wrought iron. The builder has his eye on them, an Evil -Eye that has already blasted not a few, and with bulging money-bags he -tempts the owners of the others: even as I write they go down before -the pick and shovel. - -[Illustration: BALTHAZAR SANCHEZ' ALMSHOUSES, TOTTENHAM.] - -Old almshouses there are, too, with dedicatory tablet, complete. The -builder and his money-bags cannot prevail here, you think. Can he not? -My _good_ sirs, have you never heard of the Charity Commissioners, -whose business it is to sit in their snug quarters in Whitehall and -to propound "schemes" whereby such old buildings as these are torn -down, their sites sold for a mess of pottage, and the old pensioners -hustled off to some new settlement? "But look at the value of the -land," you say: "to sell it would admit of the scope of the charity -being doubled." No doubt; but what of the original testator's wishes? -I think, if it were proposed to remove these old almshouses, the shade -of Balthazar Sanchez, the founder, somewhere in the Beyond, would be -grieved. - -One Bedwell, parson of Tottenham High Cross _circa_ 1631, and a most -diligent Smelfungus, tells us Balthazar was "a Spanyard born, the first -confectioner or comfit-maker, and the grand master of all that professe -that trade in this kingdome"; and the tablet before-mentioned, on the -front of the old almshouses themselves, tells us something on its own -account, as thus-- - - "1600 - Balthazar Sanchez, Borne in Spayne - in the Cittie of Sherez in Estremadura, - is the Fownder of these Eyght - Almeshowses for the Releefe of - Eyght poor men and women of the - Towne of Tattenham High Crasse." - -Long may the queer old houses, with their monumental chimney-stalks and -forecourt gardens remain: it were not well to vex the ghost of the good -comfit-maker. - -"Scotland Green" is the name of an odd and haphazard collection of -cottages next these almshouses, looking down into Tottenham Marshes. -Its name derives from the far-off days when those Scottish monarchs had -their manor-house near by, and though the weather-boarded architecture -of the cottages by no means dates back to those times, it is a queer -survival of days before Tottenham had become a suburb; each humble -dwelling law to itself, facing in a direction different from those of -its neighbours, and generally approached by crazy wooden footbridges -over what was probably at one time a tributary of the Lea, now an -evil-smelling ditch where the children of the neighbourhood enjoy -themselves hugely in making mud-pies, and by dint of early and constant -familiarity become immune from the typhoid fever that would certainly -be the lot of a stranger. - - -IX - - -EDMONTON, to whose long street we now come, has many titles to fame. -John Gilpin may not afford the oldest of these, and he may be no more -than the purely imaginary figure of a humorous ballad, but beside the -celebrity of that worthy citizen and execrable horseman everything else -at Edmonton sinks into obscurity. - - "John Gilpin was a citizen - Of credit and renown, - A train-band captain eke was he - Of famous London town." - -Izaak Walton himself, of indubitable flesh and blood, forsaking his -yard-measure and Fleet Street counter and tramping through Edmonton -to the fishful Lea, has not made so great a mark as his fictitious -fellow-tradesman, the draper of Cheapside. - -Who has not read of John Gilpin's ride to Edmonton, in Cowper's -deathless verse? Cowper, most melancholy of poets, made the whole -English-speaking world laugh with the story of Gilpin's adventures. How -he came to write the ballad it may not be amiss to tell. The idea was -suggested to him at Olney, in 1782, by Lady Austen, who, to rouse him -from one of his blackest moods, related a merry tale she had heard of -a London citizen's adventures, identical with the verses into which he -afterwards cast the story. He lay awake all that night, and the next -morning, with the idea of amusing himself and his friends, wrote the -famous lines. He had no intention of publishing them, but his friend, -Mrs. Unwin, sent a copy to the _Public Advertiser_. Strange to say, it -did not attract much attention in those columns, and it was not until -three years later, when an actor, Henderson by name, recited the ballad -at Freemasons' Hall that (as modern slang would put it) it "caught -on." It then became instantly popular. Every ballad-printer printed, -and every artist illustrated it; but the author remained unknown until -Cowper included it in a collection of his works. - -There are almost as many originals of John Gilpin as there are of -Sam Weller. There used to be numbers of respectable and ordinarily -dependable people who were convinced they knew the original of Sam -Weller, in dozens of different persons and in widely-sundered towns, -and the literary world is even now debating as to who sat as the model -for Squeers. So far back as the reign of Henry the Eighth the ludicrous -idea of a London citizen trying to ride horseback to Edmonton made -people laugh, and on it Sir Thomas More based his metrical "Merry Jest -of the Serjeant and the Frere." It would be no surprise to discover -that Aristophanes or another waggish ancient Greek had used the same -idea to poke fun at some clumsy Athenian, and that, even so, it was -stolen from the Egyptians. Indeed, I have no doubt that the germ of the -story is to be found in the awkwardness of one of Noah's sons in trying -to ride an unaccustomed animal into the Ark. - -The immediate supposititious originals of John Gilpin were many. Some -identified him with a Mr. Beger, a Cheapside draper, who died in 1791, -aged one hundred. Others found him in Commodore Trunnion, in _Peregrine -Pickle_, and a John Gilpin lies in Westminster Abbey. The _Gentleman's -Magazine_ in 1790, five years after Cowper's poem became the rage, -records the death at Bath of a Mr. Jonathan Gilpin, "the gentleman who -was so severely ridiculed for bad horsemanship under the title of 'John -Gilpin.'" All accidental resemblances and odd coincidences, without -doubt. - -But if John had no corporeal existence, the Bell at Edmonton--at Upper -Edmonton, to be precise--was a very real place, and, in an altered -form, still is. Who could doubt of the man who ever saw the house? -Is not the present Bell real enough, and, for that matter, ugly -enough? and is not the picture of John, wigless and breathless, and -his coat-tails flying, sufficiently prominent on the sign? The present -building is the third since Cowper's time, and is just an ordinary -vulgar London "public," standing at the corner of a shabby street -(where there are _no_ trees), called, with horrible alliteration, -"Gilpin Grove." - -Proceed we onwards, having said sufficient of Gilpin. Off to the right -hand turned old Izaak, to Cook's Ferry and the Bleak Hall Inn by the -Lea, that "honest ale-house, where might be found a cleanly room, -lavender in the windows, and twenty ballads stuck about the wall." -Ill questing it would be that should seek nowadays for the old inn. -Instead, down by Angel Road Station and the Lea marshes, you find only -factories and odours of the Pit, horrent and obscene. We have yet to -come to the kernel, the nucleus of this Edmonton. Here it is, at Lower -Edmonton, at the end of many houses, in a left-hand turning--Edmonton -Green; the green a little shorn, perhaps, of its old proportions, and -certainly by no means rural. On it they burnt the unhappy Elizabeth -Sawyer, the Witch of Edmonton, in 1621, with the full approval of -king and council: Ahriman perhaps founding one of his claims to Jamie -for that wicked deed. It was well for Peter Fabell, who at Edmonton -deceived the devil himself, that he practised his conjuring arts before -Jamie came to rule over us, else he had gone the way of that unhappy -Elizabeth; for James was of a logical turn of mind, and would have -argued the worst of one who could beat the Father of Lies at his own -game. Peter flourished, happily for him, in the less pragmatical days -of Henry the Seventh. We should call him in these matter-of-fact days a -master of legerdemain, and he would dare pretend to no more; but he was -honoured and feared in his own time, and lies somewhere in the parish -church, his monument clean gone. On his exploits Elizabethan dramatists -founded the play of the _Merry Devil of Edmonton_. - -The railway and the tramway have between them played the very mischief -with Edmonton Green and the Wash-- - - "... the Wash - Of Edmonton so gay"-- - -that here used to flow athwart the road, and does actually still so -flow, or trickle, or stagnate; if not always visible to the eye, at -least making its presence obvious at all seasons to the nose. In the -first instance, the railway planted a station and a level crossing on -the highway, practically in the Wash; and then the Tramway Company, in -order to carry its line along the road to Ponders End, constructed a -very steeply rising road over the railway. Add to these objectionable -details, that of another railway crossing over the by-road where Lamb's -Cottage and the church are to be found, and enough will have been -said to prove that the Edmonton of old is sorely overlaid with sordid -modernity. - -Charles Lamb would scarce recognise his Edmonton if it were possible -he could revisit the spot, and it seems--the present suburban aspect -of the road before us--a curious ideal of happiness he set himself: -retirement at Edmonton or Ponder's End, "toddling about it, between -it and Cheshunt, anon stretching on some fine Izaak Walton morning to -Hoddesdon or Amwell, careless as a beggar, but walking, walking ever, -till I fairly walked myself off my legs, dying walking." - -Everyone to his taste, of course, but it does not seem a particularly -desirable end. It is curious, however, to note that this aspiration -was, in a sense, realised, for it was in his sixtieth year that, taking -his customary walk along the London road one day in December 1834, he -stumbled against a stone and fell, cutting his face. It seemed at the -time a slight injury, but erysipelas set in a few days later, and on -the twenty-seventh of the same month he died. It was but a fortnight -before, that he had pointed out to his sister the spot in Edmonton -churchyard where he wished to be buried. - -Lamb's last retreat--"Bay Cottage" as it was named, and "Lamb's -Cottage" as it has since been re-christened, "the prettiest, compactest -house I ever saw," says he--stands in the lane leading to the church; -squeezed in between old mansions, and lying back from the road at -the end of a long narrow strip of garden. It is a stuccoed little -house, curiously like Lamb himself, when you come to consider it: -rather mean-looking, undersized, and unkempt, and overshadowed by -its big neighbours, just as Lamb's little talents were thrown into -insignificance by his really great contemporaries. The big neighbours -of the little cottage are even now on the verge of being demolished, -and the lane itself, the last retreat of old-world Edmonton, is being -modernised; so that those who cultivate their Lamb will not long be -able to trace these, his last landmarks. Already, as we have seen, the -Bell has gone, where Lamb, "seeing off" his visitors on their way back -to London, took a parting glass with them, stutteringly bidding them -hurry when the c-cu-coach c-came in. - -One of the most curious of literary phenomena is this Lamb worship. -Dingy, twittering little London sparrow that he was, diligent digger-up -of Elizabethan archaisms with which to tune his chirpings, he seems -often to have inspired the warmest of personal admiration. As the -"gentle Elia" one finds him always referred to, and a halo of romance -has been thrown about him and his doings to which neither he nor -they can in reality lay much claim. Romance flies abashed before the -picture of Lamb and his sister diluting down the poet of all time in -the _Tales from Shakespeare_: Charles sipping gin between whiles, and -Mary vigorously snuffing. Nor was his wit of the kindly sort readily -associated with the epithet "gentle." It flowed the more readily after -copious libations of gin-and-water, and resolved itself at such times -into the offensive, if humorous, personalities that were the stock -in trade of early nineteenth-century witlings. His famous witticism -at a card-party on one who had hands not of the cleanest ("If dirt -were trumps, what a hand you'd have") must have been bred of the -juniper berry. Stuttering and blue-lipped the next morning, he was -an object of pity or derision, just according to the charity of those -who beheld him. Carlyle, who knew Lamb in his latter days, draws him -as he was, in one of those unmerciful pen-portraits he could create -so well:--"Charles Lamb and his sister came daily once or oftener; a -very sorry pair of phenomena. Insuperable proclivity to gin in poor -old Lamb. His talk contemptibly small, indicating wondrous ignorance -and shallowness, even when it was serious and good-mannered, which it -seldom was, usually ill-mannered (to a degree), screwed into frosty -artificialities, ghastly make-believe of wit, in fact more like -'diluted insanity' (as I defined it) than anything of real jocosity, -humour, or geniality. A most slender fibre of actual worth in that poor -Charles, abundantly recognisable to me as to others, in his better -times and moods; but he was Cockney to the marrow; and Cockneydom, -shouting 'glorious, marvellous, unparalleled in nature!' all his days -had quite bewildered his poor head, and churned nearly all the sense -out of the poor man. He was the leanest of mankind, tiny black breeches -buttoned to the knee-cap, and no further, surmounting spindle-legs -also in black, face and head fineish, black, bony, lean, and of a -Jew type rather; in the eyes a kind of smoky brightness or confused -sharpness; spoke with a stutter; in walking tottered and shuffled; -emblem of imbecility bodily and spiritual (something of real insanity I -have understood), and yet something too of human, ingenuous, pathetic, -sportfully much enduring. Poor Lamb! he was infinitely astonished at -my wife and her quiet encounter of his too ghastly London wit by a -cheerful native ditto. Adieu, poor Lamb!" - -Edmonton Church has lain too near London in all these years to have -escaped many interferences, and the body of it was until recently -piteous with the doings of 1772, when red brick walls and windows of -the factory type replaced its ancient architecture. These have now in -their turn been swept away, and good modern Gothic put in their stead, -already densely covered with ivy. The ancient tower still rises grandly -from the west end, looking down upon a great crowded churchyard; a very -forest of tombstones. Near by is the grave of Charles and Mary Lamb, -with a long set of verses inscribed upon their headstone. - -There was once in this churchyard of Edmonton a curious epitaph on one -William Newberry, ostler to the Rose and Crown Inn, who died in 1695 -from the effects of unsuitable medicine given him by a fellow-servant -acting as an amateur doctor. The stone was removed by some clerical -prude-- - - "Hic jacet Newberry, Will - Vitam finivet cum Cochiae Pill - Quis administravit? Bellamy, Sue - Quantum quantitat nescio, scisne tu? - Ne sutor ultra crepidam." - -The feelings of Sue Bellamy will not be envied, but Sue, equally with -William, has long reached beyond all such considerations, and the Rose -and Crown of that day is no more. There is still, however, a Rose -and Crown, and a very fine building it is, with eleven windows in -line and wearing a noble and dignified air. It is genuine Queen Anne -architecture; the older house being rebuilt only ten years after the -ostler was cut off untimely, as may be seen by the tablet on its front, -dated not only 1705, but descending to the small particular of actual -month and day of completion. - - -X - - -THE tramway line, progressing through Edmonton in single track, goes on -in hesitating fashion some little distance beyond Edmonton Green, and -terminates in a last feeble, expiring effort on the open road, midway -between Edmonton and Ponder's End; like the railhead of some African -desert line halting on the edge of a perilous country. Where it ends -there stands, solitary, a refreshment house, so like the last outpost -of civilisation that the wayfarer whimsically wonders whether he had -not better provision himself liberally before adventuring into the -flats that lie so stark and forbidding before him. - -It is indeed an uninviting waste. On it the gipsy caravans halt; here -the sanguine speculative builder projects a street of cheap houses and -generally leaves derelict "carcases" of buildings behind him; here -the brick-maker and the market-gardener contend with one another, and -the shooters of rubbish bring their convoys of dust, dirt, and old -tins from afar. On the skyline ahead are factory chimneys, and to the -east--the only gracious note in the whole scene--the wooded hills of -Essex, across the malodorous Lea. - -This desolate tract is bounded by the settlement of Ponder's End, an -old roadside hamlet. "Ponder's End," says Lamb, "emblematic name, how -beautiful!" Sarcasm that, doubtless, for of what it is emblematic, and -where lies the beauty of either place or name, who shall discover? The -name has a heavily ruminative or contemplative sound, a little out of -key with its modern note. For even Ponder's End has been rudely stirred -up by the pitchfork of progress and bidden go forward, and new terraces -of houses and shops--no, not _shops_, nothing so vulgar; "business -premises" if you please--have sprung up, and the oldest inhabitant is -distraught with the changes that have befallen. Where he plodded in -the mud there are pavements; the ditch into whose unsavoury depths he -has fallen many a time when returning late from the old Two Brewers -is filled up, and the Two Brewers itself has changed from a roadside -tavern to something resplendent in plate-glass and brilliant fittings. -Our typical ancient and his friends, the market-gardening folk and -the loutish waggoners, are afraid to enter. Nay, even the name of the -village or hamlet, or urban district, or whatever the exact slang -term of the Local Government Board for its modern status may be, is -not unlikely to see a change, for to the newer inhabitants it sounds -derogatory to be a Ponder's Ender. - -To this succeeds another strip of sparsely-settled land, and you think -that here, at last, the country is gained. Vain thought! Enfield -Highway, a populous mile-length, dispels all such ideas, and even -Enfield Wash, where the travellers of old were content to be drenched -in the frequent floods, so long as they actually escaped with their -lives, is suburban and commonplace. The stretch of road between the -Wash and Waltham Cross still goes by the shivery name of Freezywater. - -Enfield Highway, like Ponder's End, was until quite recently stodged -in sloughs, and resolutely old-world; almost as old world indeed -as when, in 1755, Mr. Spencer, the Lord Spencer of a few years -later, came up from the shires in great state with his bride. Their -procession consisted of three chariots, each drawn by six horses and -escorted by two hundred horsemen. At sight of this cavalcade the whole -neighbourhood was up in arms. The timid fled, the Jacobites rejoiced -and ran off to ring the church bells in a merry peal, while loyal folks -and brave armed themselves with pitchforks, pokers, and spades; for all -thought the Pretender had come again and was marching on London. - -At Waltham Cross, formerly entered through a toll-gate, Middlesex -is left behind and Hertfordshire gained. The name of Waltham Cross -probably does not at this period inspire anyone with dread, but that -was the feeling with which travellers approached it at any time between -1698 and 1780; for this was in all those years a neighbourhood where -highwaymen robbed and slew with impunity. Here was the favourite lurk -of those desperate disbanded soldiers who on the Peace of Ryswick, -finding pay and occupation gone, banded together, and, building huts -in the coverts of Epping Forest, came forth even in broad daylight, -and, to the number of thirty, armed with swords and pistols, held -up the traffic on this and the surrounding roads. Even when that -formidable gang was disposed of by calling out the Dragoon Guards -in a regular campaign against them, there were others, for in 1722 -a London morning paper stated that the turnpike-men from Shoreditch -to Cheshunt had been furnished with speaking-trumpets, "as well to -give notice to Passengers as to each other in case any Highwaymen or -footpads are out," and the satisfactory report is added, "we don't find -that any robbery has been committed in that quarter since they have -been furnished with them, which has been these two months." Was it not -hereabouts, too, that Turpin first met Tom King, and, taking him for an -ordinary citizen, proposed to rob him? Ay, and in that self-same Epping -Forest, whose woodlands may even yet be seen, away to the right-hand, -Turpin had his cave. Even so late as 1775 the Norwich stage was -attacked one December morning by seven highwaymen, three of whom the -guard shot dead. He would perhaps have finished the whole of them had -his ammunition not failed and he in turn been shot, when the coach was -robbed at leisure by the surviving desperadoes. - - -XI - - -IF the traveller does not know what to expect on approaching Waltham -Cross, then the cross, standing in the centre of the road, must needs -be a pleasant surprise to him, even though he presently discovers -that they have done a great deal in recent times to spoil it; "they" -meaning the usual pastors and masters, the furbishers and titivators -of things ancient and worshipful, applying to such things their own -little nostrums and programmes. But, woefully re-restored though it -be, its crockets and pinnacles and panellings patched with a stone -whose colour does not match with that of the old work, one can still -find it possible to look upon it with reverence, for among the ancient -wayside memorials of our storied land the beautiful Eleanor Crosses -stand foremost, both for their artistic and their historic interest. -More than any others, they hold the sentiment and the imagination of -the wayfarer, and their architecture is more complex. The story that -belongs to them is one long since taken to the warm hearts of the -people, and cherished as among the most touching in all the history of -the realm--a realm rich in stories of a peculiarly heart-compelling -kind. - -It is that of Eleanor of Castile, Queen of Edward the First, who -accompanied him to Palestine in 1270, on his Crusade against the -Infidel. History tells how, on the evening of June 17, 1272, the King -was seated alone and unarmed in a tent of the camp before Acre. It was -his birthday, but birthdays find scant celebration in the tented field, -and Edward on that day was engaged in the sterner business of receiving -proposals of surrender from the besieged. He had given audience to a -messenger from the Emir of Jaffa, who, having delivered the letter he -had brought, stood waiting. Bending low, in answering a question the -King had put to him, he suddenly put his hand to his belt, as though to -produce other letters; but, instead, drew a poisoned dagger and struck -at the King with it. Edward endeavoured to shield himself, but received -a deep wound in the arm; then, as the man endeavoured to strike again, -giving him a kick that felled him to the ground, he wrenched away the -would-be assassin's dagger and plunged it into his body. When the -King's attendants came rushing in, the man was dead. Fortunate for -him it was that he died so simply, for the imaginations of those who -dispensed the rough justice of the time were sufficiently fertile to -have devised many novel and exquisitely painful variations of torture -for such an one. - -The King's wound was serious, and although all the drugs and balsams -in the limited pharmacopoeia of those times were administered, it grew -worse. Then it was, according to the pretty story universally received, -that the Queen, finding the efforts of physicians vain, sucked the -poison from the wounded arm of her lord to such good purpose that he -recovered, and sat his charger again within fifteen days. - -Medical criticism on this recorded action of the poison could scarce -fail of being destructive, and indeed it is not to be expected that -the story of Eleanor of Castile would be left unassailed in these -days, when history is treated scientifically, and when all the old and -gracious stories are being explained away or resolved into something -repellent and utterly commonplace. Modern historians have told us that -William Tell is a myth, and that, consequently, the famous incident -of the apple could never have occurred. Robin Hood, they say, was -equally imaginary, or if any real person existed on whom that figure of -endearing romance was built up, he had more the attributes of a footpad -than those of the chivalrous outlaw those legends have made him. They -would even take from us Dick Whittington and his cat. In fact, all -these romantic people are classed with King Arthur, Jack the Giant -Killer, and Little Red Riding Hood. It is not a little cruel thus to -demolish these glamorous figures, but historians since Macaulay have -been merciless. It is, therefore, not surprising to read that Eleanor, -instead of being heroic was a very woman, and was led "weeping and -wailing" from the scene when the surgeons declared that the King's hurt -was incurable, unless the whole of the poisoned flesh were cut away. -The cure, says an old chronicler, was effected by the surgeons, and the -romantic story has in recent times been declared "utterly unworthy of -credit." - -Alas! too, for the gentle and tender character that has ever been -ascribed to Eleanor of Castile; for we read that "though pious and -virtuous, she was rather grasping," causing scandal by taking part -with Jewish usurers in cozening Christians out of their estates. -Ancient records, done on rolls of sheepskin in mediaeval dog-Latin, -and preserved in the Record Office for all men to see--and read if -they can--tell how hard a landlord she was, and how Archbishop Peckham -interfered on behalf of her unfortunate tenants, telling her that -reparation for wrongs done must precede absolution. - -[Illustration: WALTHAM CROSS A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.] - -And yet, although we allow this to be truth, to some she must have -been winsome and gracious. Not to the lower herd, almost certainly, -for people below the rank of knights or dames were never, in those -times, thought worthy the least consideration. To those who more nearly -approached her own rank she may have been the generous personality -she has ever been pictured, although for a true Castilian to be other -than insufferably haughty and arrogant would seem, if traditions do -not lie, to be against nature. To the King she was evidently all in -all, or how explain the existence of so long and elaborate a series -of crosses raised to the memory of his _chere reine_? Eighteen years -after the famous incident of the poisoned wound the Queen died, on -November 28, 1290. She breathed her last on the evening of that day at -the village of Harby, in Nottinghamshire, whither she had accompanied -the King on a royal progress he had been making through the Eastern -Counties during the three preceding months. Parliament in those times -was a perambulating body of lawgivers, following of necessity the -footsteps of the monarch. The King, therefore, having arranged to stay -at his Royal Palace of Clipstone, in Sherwood Forest, at the end of -October, Parliament was summoned to meet there on the twenty-seventh -of that month. Meanwhile, however, the Queen fell ill of a lingering -fever, and for sake of the quiet that could not be obtained in -the neighbourhood of the Court she was housed at Harby, twenty miles -distant. But not all the care that was hers, nor the syrups and other -medicines detailed in the old accounts, procured in haste from the city -of Lincoln, five miles away, availed to avert the fatal conclusion of -that wasting sickness. - -[Illustration: WALTHAM CROSS.] - -The Queen's body was at once removed to Lincoln Cathedral, and the -funeral procession seems to have set out from Lincoln city for -Westminster on the fourth day of December. London was not reached until -eleven days later, and the entombment at Westminster did not take place -until the seventeenth of the month. Travelling was a slow and tedious -process then, but not necessarily so slow as this. The reasons for the -length of time consumed between Lincoln and Westminster were two, and -are found both in the pompous circumstances of the journey and in the -circuitous route taken. The ordinary route was by Stamford, Huntingdon, -Royston, Puckeridge, and Cheshunt; but it was determined that the -august procession should pass through a more frequented part of the -country, and through districts where the Queen had been better known. -Another object was to take some of the great religious houses on the -way, and thus have suitable places at which to rest. The route chosen, -therefore, included Grantham, Stamford, Geddington, Northampton, Stony -Stratford, Woburn, Dunstable, St. Albans, Waltham Abbey, West Cheap, -and Charing. At each of these places the Queen's body rested, and -at each one was subsequently erected a memorial cross. This is no -place for recounting the almsgiving, the endowments of charities and -monasteries, and the payments for tapers and masses for the repose -of her soul. Let it be understood that all these things were done on -a scale of the greatest magnificence, and that the erection of these -twelve great crosses was but one feature among many in the means -employed to keep her memory alive and her soul in bliss unending. -This last, indeed, was the principal reason of their building. In -these days one regards the three crosses, that the rage of rabid men -and the slower but scarce less sure fury of the elements between them -have alone left us of the twelve, as merely beautiful specimens of the -wedded arts of Sculpture and Architecture; or as affecting memorials of -conjugal love. Those, however, would be erroneous regards. The crosses -were to attract by their beauty, no doubt; but their higher purpose was -to inspire the devotional sentiment; their presence by the wayside was -to implore the passers-by to remember the "Queen of Good Memory," as -documents of the time call her, that they might pray for her. Although -they bore no inscription, they silently bade the traveller "_Orate -pro anima_," and were, accordingly, consecrated with full religious -ceremonies. - -The crosses were not of a uniform pattern, although many of them seem -to have borne strong likenesses to each other. Nine have so utterly -disappeared that not a single stone of them is discoverable at this -day, but old prints serve to show, in conjunction with the still -existing building accounts, their relative size and importance. The -three remaining are those of Geddington, Hardingstone near Northampton, -and this of Waltham. Waltham Cross stands seventy feet in height. It -cost L95, equal to L1000 of our present money, and was originally built -of stone from the quarries of Caen, in Normandy, as the lower stage -of the work still shows. The two upper stages and the spirelet were -restored and reconstructed in 1832 at a cost of L1200, and again, as -recently as 1885-92, at an almost equal expense. - -[Illustration: THE "HULL MAIL" AT WALTHAM CROSS. - -[_From a Print after J. Pollard._]] - -The beautiful old engraving of 1806, reproduced here, proves into -what a dilapidated condition the Cross had at that time fallen. It -would appear to have been even worse in 1720, when Dr. Stukeley was -commissioned by the Society of Antiquaries to see that posts were -placed round for its protection; and in 1757 it was in danger of -falling, for Lord Monson, the then Lord of the Manor of Cheshunt, was -petitioned to build some brickwork round the base and to set up some -other posts. A later Lord of the Manor, a certain Sir George Prescott, -in 1795, with colossal impudence endeavoured to remove it to his park -at Theobalds, and would have done so had not his workmen found the -stone too decayed to be displaced. - -In the old print already referred to, and in the coaching print of -some thirty years later, it will be noticed that a portion of that -old coaching hostelry, the Falcon, actually abutted upon the Cross. -The inn, indeed, occupied the site of a chantry chapel adjoining, -where prayers for the soul of the Queen had been said for some two -hundred and fifty years after her death. It may be suspected that those -prayers, endowments notwithstanding, had grown somewhat perfunctory -after that lapse of time, and the Queen herself little more than -a legend; and so, when all Chantries were dissolved under Edward -the Sixth, their revenues seized and the mumbling priests ejected, -the world was well rid of a hoary piece of humbug. The Falcon was -demolished when the latest restoration was brought to a conclusion, and -a portion of its site thrown into the roadway, so that the Cross stands -once more free from surrounding buildings. - -In choosing a stone for those parts to be restored, the gross mistake -was made of selecting a brownish-red stone from the Ketton quarries, in -Northants. The reason for making this selection was that Caen stone is -perishable and that of Ketton particularly durable; but in the result -the restored Cross wears to-day a sadly parti-coloured appearance. - - -XII - - -THE already named Falcon was not the only hostelry at Waltham Cross. -The Four Swans, whose great gallows sign still straddles across the -highway, with the four swans themselves represented in effigy against -the sky, was the other house. There is always Another in everything, -even in Novelettes and on the Stage, where he or she, as the case may -happen, is generally accorded a capital letter. That there should -always be a rival, that is to say, Another, shows, I suppose, that -competition is a heaven-sent condition of affairs, and incidentally -that "Trusts" and "Combines" are immoral and a direct challenge to -Providence. That, however, is another matter. But, in this case, which -is "the other" it would be difficult, if not impossible, to determine. -Whether the Falcon or the Four Swans was established first cannot be -told with certainty, although if it be true that the Four Swans is -built on the site of the ancient manor-house of Cheshunt, it seems -likely that to this queer rambling old coaching-inn must be given the -honour. - -A story used to be told of an adventure here that might have had -unpleasant consequences, had it not been for the ready wit of the -guard attached to the "York Mail." When the Mail reached the village -and drew up in front of the inn, shortly after nine o'clock, a quiet, -gentlemanly-looking man took a vacant seat inside, and remained silent -and inoffensive until the coach started on its way to Ware, when he -suddenly became very talkative. Addressing a lady present with some -absurd remarks, the other gentlemen turned upon him and said, if he -did not cease they would put him in the road. This was no sooner said -than he began to adopt a threatening tone; but no notice was taken of -him, as Ware was being neared, when he could be better dealt with than -by stopping the coach. When it came to a halt, the guard was beckoned -to and told quietly what an odd customer was seated within. The guard -looked inside, and at once recognised the strange person as a gentleman -of that neighbourhood who had been consigned to a lunatic asylum, and -must have escaped. "Ah! Mr. F----," he said, "how are you? Are you -going far down the road?" "I'm going," said Mr. F----, "to Stamford to -catch that rascal C----, who has stolen my estates." "Why," rejoined -the guard, with the well-known promptitude of his class, "you needn't -go any farther, I've just seen him in the back parlour, behind the -bar." "Have you?" shouted the madman. "By Jove! let me find him," and -he leapt out of the coach. "Right away, Bill," sang out the guard, and -the Mail was off. How the people at Ware dealt with the poor wretch is -not recorded. - -As this, so far as Royston, was a part of the original great post-road -to Scotland, many royal and noble processions, besides that attendant -on the obsequies of Queen Eleanor, passed of necessity through Waltham -Cross, and the coaching and posting traffic was of huge dimensions, up -to the last days of the road. - -Royal processions and progresses have a way, as you read them, of being -insufferably dull; hedged about with formula and rule and precedent -surrounding the gilded and be-crowned fetish for the time being, who, -generally wrapped up warm in selfishness and greed, and dealing out -lies and condescension, passes by and affords no interest or amusement -to later generations, who merely yawn when they read of the dusty old -properties, the tinsel and the gold lace. It is otherwise when the -faults and foibles of the fetish are known and can be displayed to -show that a monarch is, after all, human; and sometimes even a very -poor specimen of humanity. James the First (of England and Sixth of -Scotland, as the tender susceptibilities of Scots put it) came up -this way to his Kingdom of England, on Elizabeth's death in 1603. He -had set out from Edinburgh on the 5th of April, and only arrived in -London on the 7th of May. Abundant and overbrimming loyalty had kept -him long on the road. The noblemen and gentry of the shires lavished -attentions on James and his following, and festive gatherings enlivened -every manor-house on the way. Many a squire loaded his estates with -encumbrances, in his anxiety to royally entertain the new sovereign and -his numerous suite, and the story told of one of their halting-places -very eloquently illustrates the sacrifices made. After staying some -days with his host, the King remarked upon the disappearance of a -particularly fine herd of cattle he had noticed in the park on his -arrival, and asked what had become of them? As a matter of fact, they -had been all slaughtered for the use of James's hungry Scots, and his -host unwillingly told him so. "Then," said the King ungraciously, "it -is time we were going"; and so, when the food was exhausted, they went. - -So prodigal was the display made for him that James might almost -have thought the country tired of Elizabeth's long rule, and glad to -welcome a new monarch. He conferred titles with a lavish hand as he -went, and knights-bachelors sprouted up in every town and village like -mustard-and-cress after a dewy evening. He came across the Border mild -enough, but by degrees rid himself of the humility proper to a King -of Scots, and as King of England assumed an imperious air not even -inferior to that of Henry the Eighth himself. Such an air sat ill upon -James, at once constitutionally weak in body and simultaneously timid -and braggart in disposition. The "British Solomon" his toadies called -him, and indeed he was in many ways the Superior Person. Educated -in all the 'ologies, and accounting himself in especial a master of -theology and demonology, he was learned and superstitious at once. -Witchcraft he firmly believed possible, and made it a capital offence, -and was thus the prime cause of many an ill-favoured old woman or -eccentric person being cruelly put to death as warlocks and wizards. -The Duke of Sully, better informed than James's satellites, or more -candid, pronounced him "the wisest fool in Europe." - -At no place was the new monarch so lavishly entertained as at -Theobalds, the princely residence of Lord Burleigh, whose estates -bordered the road between Waltham Cross and Cheshunt. Who was the -original owner of Theobalds, history does not tell us. Doubtless some -Saxon notable, Theobald by name, thus immortalised in unilluminative -fashion. In the late Elizabeth's time it had been acquired by the great -Cecil, dead some six years before the coming of this northern light. -Cecil's son, only less great than his father, now ruled, and received -James right nobly in those magnificent halls his sire had added, where -Elizabeth herself had been royally entertained. Four days he stayed, -hunting and feasting, and left with so profound an admiration of the -place that he never rested until he had exchanged the Royal Palace of -Hatfield for it. Cecil made no bad bargain in the transfer, and in -addition secured much favour and many added dignities, ending as Earl -of Salisbury. - -James's passion for the chase explains his eagerness to secure -Theobalds, surrounded in those times by far-reaching and ancient -woodlands. Epping Forest and the woods of Waltham lay for miles to the -east, and the green alleys of Enfield Chase and Northaw (really "north -holt," _i.e._ north wood) to the south and the north-west. - -The figure of James is thus prominent on this part of the road. By no -means an imposing figure, this King, as he reels in his saddle, or -shambles rather than walks, his weak knees threatening a collapse, his -thin yellow beard scarce disguising a chin striking the mean between -obstinacy and weak irresolution; his wide-staring, watery, light-blue -eyes rimmed with red eyelids; and lips running with the thin slobber -of the drunkard, or rather of the inveterate tippler, not honestly -drunken but grown maudlin, babbling and bubbling like a spring. This -poor creature, who pretends to Right Divine, has the tense nerves of a -hare; a hunted, hare-like glance too, when not primed and blusterous -with Greek wine. He has a ludicrously acute sense of personal danger, -and yet chases the deer a-horseback, seated on a padded saddle and -plentifully equipped with drink. I see him very plainly, though much -of the great domain of Theobalds be disparked, and landmarks grown -dim and confused, hunting and halloing in the greenwood, and cursing -and raving like a madman when the quarry escapes him--forgetful, in -the excitement of the moment, of the Solomonic character he has to -sustain--and falling out of his saddle and biting the grass in frenzy. - -But James's domestic character bears more scrutiny than that of many of -his predecessors. He would have pleased Mr. Squeers, for his "morrils" -(in the common and restricted sense) were distinctly good--much better -than those of the Hebrew Solomon. - -It is quite evident that James delighted in his nickname and failed -to discover any hidden vein of sarcasm in it, for in one of the -extravagant masques he gave in honour of his father-in-law, Christian -the Fourth of Denmark, at Theobalds, he took the part of that -incarnation of Wisdom. Conceive the gorgeousness and the scandal of the -occasion. Royal James as Solomon, and no less royal Christian, _his_ -part not stated, seated on a throne awaiting the Queen of Sheba, coming -to offer precious gifts: attendant upon her, Faith, Hope, and Charity. -The Queen of Sheba, sad to say, had taken too much to drink, and, -there being no one to advise her to "Mind the step!" she tripped over -the throne and shot all the gifts, some very treacly and sticky, into -the lap of his Danish majesty, who rose and essayed a dance with her, -but fell down and had to be taken off to bed, like many a jolly toper -before and since. Then the Three Virtues, hiccoughing and staggering, -tried their parts, but nature forbade, and they retired very sick. -The spectacle of the drunken endeavouring to carry off the drunk must -have been vastly entertaining to His Majesty, himself too well seasoned -to be quite helpless. It seems probable that, picking an unsteady -way among the courtiers who strewed the floor, he saw himself to bed -without the aid of chamberlains and grooms-in-waiting and their kind. - -James the First and Sixth died at Theobalds in 1625, in the fifty-ninth -year of his age, cut off in part by the agency of Greek wine. The halls -where he revelled, and where between whiles he piously translated the -Psalms, are gone, dismantled under the rule of the Commonwealth, a -period especially fatal to Royal Palaces. The site of the Palace is -commemorated by "Theobalds Square." The modern mansion of Theobalds is -a mile distant. - - -XIII - - -AN inn bearing the odd name of the Roman Urn stands by the wayside on -entering the hamlet of Cheshunt called Crossbrook Street. An urn in a -niche of the wall over the front door bears the inscription "Via Una," -and is witness to the finds of Roman remains close by. It gives point -to the old belief that Cheshunt itself was a station on that Roman -road, the Ermine Street. - -[Illustration: THE ROMAN URN, CHESHUNT.] - -Turners Hill, Cheshunt, and Cheshunt Wash are all one loosely-joined -stretch of houses: recent houses, houses not so recent, dignified -old mansions, and undignified second- and third-rate shops. It is an -effect of shabbiness, of a halting two ways, between remaining as it -was and developing into a modern suburb. The road itself shares this -uncertainty, for it is neither a good country highway nor a decent town -street, being bumpy macadam and gravel alternating, and full of holes. -Cheshunt's modern fame is for roses, and the nurseries where they are -cultivated spread far and wide. Its ancient fame was not so pleasing, -for the Wash, when the Lea was in flood, made Cheshunt a place to be -dreaded, as we learn from the diary of Ralph Thoresby, who travelled -prayerfully this way between 1680 and 1720. Coming up from Yorkshire -to London on one occasion, he found the washes upon the road near Ware -swollen to such a height that travellers had to swim for their lives, -one poor higgler being drowned. Thoresby prudently waited until some -country-people came and conducted him over the meadows, to avoid the -deepest part of Cheshunt Wash. Even so, he tells how "we rode to the -saddle-skirts for a considerable way, but got safe to Waltham Cross." - -[Illustration: CHESHUNT GREAT HOUSE.] - -Cheshunt possesses a local curiosity in the shape of "Cheshunt Great -House," a lonely mansion of red brick, standing in a meadow within what -was once a moated enclosure. It is a gloomy old place belonging to the -time of Henry the Seventh, but altered and patched to such a degree -that even the genuine parts of it look only doubtfully authentic. A -large central hall with hammer-beam carved roof is the feature of -the interior, hung with tapestry, suits of armour, and portraits of -historic personages, in which are mixed together real antiquities and -forgeries of such age that _they_ even are antique. Among them is a -rude and battered rocking-horse, said to have been used by Charles the -First when an infant. - -[Illustration: CHARLES THE FIRST'S ROCKING-HORSE.] - -Obviously Cheshunt Great House should be haunted, and is! Cardinal -Wolsey's is the unquiet shade that disturbs the midnight hours beneath -this roof, lamenting the more or less authentic murders he is said -to have perpetrated here. There is not, of course, the slightest -foundation for these wild stories, and the great Cardinal, so far -as Cheshunt is concerned, leaves the court without a stain on his -character. - -But we must hasten onward to Ware, halted, however, in half a mile, at -Turnford, a place forgotten by most map-makers. Writers of guide-books, -too, pass it coldly by. And indeed, if you be of the hurrying sort, you -may well pass and never know the individual existence of the hamlet; -so close are Cheshunt on the one hand and Wormley on the other. As the -poet remarks-- - - "Full many a flower is born to blush unseen - And waste its sweetness on the desert air"; - -and Turnford is a modest place, consisting, all told, of an old -residence or so, a farmstead, and the Bull Inn: the sign showing a -bull's head with a remarkably coy expression. One no longer splashes -through the ford that gave the place its name; a bridge has long since -replaced it. - -Why, it may be asked, linger over Turnford? Because here, in some -lowly cot not now to be identified, somewhere about the year 1700, -was born, of the usual poor but honest parents, one who might have -been truly great in his profession had not the accursed shears of -Fate cut him off before he had time to develop himself. I speak of -"Dr." William Shelton, apothecary and highwayman. William was at an -early age apprenticed to an apothecary at Enfield, and presently -distinguished himself in an endeavour to elope with the apothecary's -sister, an elderly charmer by no means averse from being run away -with. The attempt miscarried, and our poor friend was soundly cudgelled -for his pains. His second enterprise, the carrying off of a widow's -daughter, was more fortunate. The runaways were married at the Fleet, -and afterwards settled at Enfield, where, with the aid of his wife's -fortune, Shelton eked out a living while trying to develop a practice. -Tiring, after a while, of this, he obtained an appointment as surgeon -in Antigua, but although generally liked in that island, he was obliged -to return home on account of some wild escapades. He then settled in -succession at Buntingford and Braughing, but doctors were at a discount -at those places, and so, like many another wild spirit, he took to the -road. A good horse and a reliable pair of pistols did more for him -than his dispensary, and he prospered for a little while. There is no -knowing to what eminence he might have risen--for he robbed with grace -and courtesy--had not the authorities seized him one evil day. He made -a dignified exit at Tyburn in 1732. - -At Wormley, a roadside village of nondescript character, the New River -is crossed, bringing us into Broxbourne, lying in a dip of the road, -with that famous Cockney resort, Broxbourne Gardens, off to the right, -by the river Lea. The Gardens themselves are as popular as ever, -but the medicinal spring--the "rotten-egg water" is the eloquently -descriptive name of it--has fallen into neglect. - -The traveller along the highroad has left Broxbourne behind before -he has quite discovered he has reached it, and comes into Hoddesdon -unawares. Broxbourne, where the "brocks," or badgers, were once -plentiful enough to give a name to the little stream running into the -Lea, is indeed a much more shy and retiring place than those who on -Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays visit the tea-gardens aforesaid have -any idea of. This is by way of a testimonial. Hoddesdon, too, which -to be sure is not a tiny village like Broxbourne, but quite a little -town, is altogether delightful. It has not been modernised, and its -inhabitants still obtain their water in pailsful from the public pump -in the middle of the broad street, which remains much as it was when -the Cambridge "Telegraph" came through, and when the Newmarket and -Bishop Stortford traffic branched off to the right in the midst. To -this day most of its old inns remain, clustering round the fork of the -roads: the Bull, its gabled porch and projecting sign quickening the -traveller's pace as he sees it afar; the Salisbury Arms, the Maiden's -Head, the Swan. - -The Bull is a famous house, finding, as it does, a mention in Prior's -"Down Hall." It was in 1715 that Matthew Prior, one of the most notable -poets of his day, and sometime Ambassador at the Court of Versailles, -travelled this road to Down Hall, near Hatfield Broadoak. His "chariot" -halted at the Bull, as he tells us-- - - "Into an old inn did this equipage roll, - At a town they call Hodsdon, the sign of the Bull, - Near a nymph with an urn that divides the highway, - And into a puddle throws mother of tea." - -Nymph and urn and puddle are gone long since, and where they were placed -there stands at this day the ugly modern building that Hoddesdon -folk call the "Clock House": really a fire-engine house with a -clock-tower; the tower surmounted by a weather-vane oddly conjoining -the characteristics of a fiddler, a sagittarius, and a dolphin. Inquiry -fails to discover what it symbolises. Before ever the nymph or the -present building occupied this site, there stood here the wayside -chapel of St. Catherine, whose ancient bell hangs in the clock-tower. - -[Illustration: HODDESDON.] - -Prior writes as though the Bull had long been familiar to him, but his -intimate touches of the life and character of an inn came, doubtless, -from his own youthful observation; for his uncle had been landlord of -the Rummer at Charing Cross, where as a boy he had been a waiter and -general help. Doubtless he had heard many an old frequenter of the -Rummer put questions similar to these he asks:-- - - "'Come here, my sweet landlady! how do you do? - Where's Cic'ly so cleanly, and Prudence, and Sue? - And where is the widow that lived here below? - And the other that sang, about eight years ago? - And where is your sister, so mild and so dear, - Whose voice to her maids like a trumpet was clear?' - - 'By my troth,' she replies, 'you grow younger, I think. - And pray, sir, what wine does the gentleman drink? - But now, let me die, sir, or live upon trust, - If I know to which question to answer you first, - For things since I saw you most strangely have varied-- - The ostler is hanged, and the widow is married; - - And Prue left a child for the parish to nurse; - And Cic'ly went off with a gentleman's purse; - And as to my sister, so mild and so dear, - She has lain in the churchyard full many a year.'" - -What a sorry catalogue of changes and disasters! - -A mile or more distant, along the Bishop Stortford road, is the -gatehouse of the famous Rye House, its clustered red-brick chimneys and -thick walls still left to remind the historically-minded of that Rye -House Plot of 1681 which was to have ended Charles the Second, and his -brother, the Duke of York, on their way past from Newmarket to London. -Although the Bishop Stortford road does not concern us, the house is -alluded to in these pages because it now contains that notorious piece -of furniture, the Great Bed of Ware. - -Hoddesdon gives place to Amwell, steeply downhill. The village is -properly "Great Amwell," but no one who knows his Lamb would think -of calling it so, although there is a "Little Amwell" close at hand. -To the Lambs it was just "Amwell," and that is sufficient for us. -Moreover, like so many places named "Great," it is now really very -small. It is, however, exceedingly beautiful, with that peculiarly -park-like beauty characteristic of Hertfordshire. The old church, -also of the characteristically Hertfordshire type, stands, charmingly -embowered amid trees, on a bank overlooking the smoothly-gliding stream -of the New River, new-born from its source in the Chadwell Spring, and -hurrying along on its beneficent mission toward the smoke and fog -of London. Two islands divide the stream; one of them containing a -monument to Sir Hugh Myddelton, and a stone with lines from Scott, the -"Quaker poet of Amwell," commencing-- - - "Amwell, perpetual be thy stream, - Nor e'er thy spring be less." - -An aspiration which, let us hope, will be fulfilled. - - -XIV - - -ALTHOUGH to hurry past spots so interesting and so beautiful looks -much like the act of a Vandal, our business is with the road, and -linger we must not; and so, downhill again, by the woods of Charley--or -"Charl-eye" as the country folk insist on calling them--we come to a -vantage-point overlooking Ware; an old town of many maltings, of the -famous Bed aforesaid, and of Johnny Gilpin's ride. Fortunate are those -who come thus in view of Ware upon some still golden afternoon of -summer, when the chimes from the old church-tower are spelling out the -notes of that sentimental old song, "Believe me, if all those endearing -young charms." Time and tune conspire to render Ware romantic. - -The town takes its name from the weir or dam built across the Lea by -invading Danes in the year 896. Coming up the Lea in a great flotilla -of what historians call ships, more correctly perhaps to be named -sailing-barges, they halted here, and, designing a fort beside the -dam they built, imagined themselves secure. Around them in the Lea -valley between Ware and Hertford stretched the great lake their dam had -created, and all King Alfred's men could not by force dislodge them. - -Can you not find it possible to imagine that great King--that King -truly great in counsels both of war and peace, that contriver and man -of his hands--on these Amwell heights and looking down upon that Danish -fortress and its ceinture of still water, with twice a hundred prows -lying there, proudly secure? Truly, despite the dark incertitude of -history on these doings, we may clearly see that monarch. He knits his -brows and looks upon the country spread out beneath him: just as you -may look down to-day upon the valley where the Lea and the railway run, -side by side. He--we have said it with meaning--is a contriver; has -brains of some quality beneath that brow; will not waste his men in -making glorious but wasteful attacks upon the foe: they shall work--so -he wills it--not merely fight; or, working, fight the better for King -and Country. Accordingly, his army is set to digging a great channel -down this selfsame valley; a channel whose purport those Danes, lying -there, do by no means comprehend; nor, I think, many even in this host -of the great Alfred himself; for the spy has ever watched upon the -doings of armies, and he who keeps his own counsel is always justified -of his reticence. - -[Illustration: WARE.] - -This great ditch, then, excavated over against the camp and harbour -of the sea-rovers, is therefore inexplicable, and doubtless the subject -of much jest among the enemy: jesting that dies away presently, when, -the excavation completed, it is found to touch the river above and -below the weir, and indeed to be designed to drain away the Lea from -its old channel and so steal away those cherished water-defences. - -With what rejoicings Alfred turned the stream into this artificial -course we know not, nor anything of the Saxon advance when the old -channel ran dry and the Danish war-fleet presently lay stranded; the -black hulls canted in all manner of ridiculous and ineffective angles; -the sails with the cognisance of the raven on them flapping a farewell -to the element they were to know no more. Only this we know, that the -Danish host were forced to fly across the country to Cambridge and the -fens; those unfailing resorts of fugitives in the long ago. - -Alfred probably burnt the deserted fleet; but there may yet lie, -somewhere in this pleasant valley between Hertford and Ware, deep down -in immemorial ooze and silt, the remains of those hapless craft. - -Ware, seen from a distance, is a place of singular picturesqueness; -its Dutch-like mass of mellow red roofs endowed with a skyline whose -fantastic appearance is due to the clustered cowls of the fourscore -malthouses that give the old town a highly individual character. Here, -as elsewhere, the sunset hour touches the scene to an unearthly beauty: -only here those slanting cowls assume the last note of melodramatic -significance, to which, ordinarily, in the broad eye of day, they are -by no means entitled; being just so many ventilators to buildings in -whose dark recesses is carried on the merely commercial work of drying -the malt of which it is fondly assumed our beer is made. - -The town, when you come to it, resolves itself into zigzag streets, -coal-dust, and bargees. It is a very back-door kind of entrance you -find, coming downhill, past a railway goods-yard and a smelly waterside -with wharves and litter, where solemn horses stolidly drag barges and -railway-trucks, and modern Izaak Waltons, sublime in faith, diligently -"fysshe with an angle," with ill results. What they seek, these hapless -sportsmen, is known only to themselves. Is it the festive tiddler, -dear to infantile fisherfolk, or do they whip the water for the lordly -trout, the ferocious pike, the grey mullet, or the carp? I know not; -but what they find is the Old Boot, the discarded hat, the derelict -gamp; in short, the miscellaneous floatable refuse of Hertford. To see -one of these brothers of the angle carefully playing what ultimately -discloses itself as a ragged umbrella affords one of the choicest five -minutes that life has to offer. - -Crossing an iron bridge over this fishful stream, you are in Ware. -To the left stands the old Saracen's Head, now a little out of date -and dreamy, for it is the veritable house where the principal coaches -changed horses, and it has remained outwardly the same ever since. Here -it was that the Great Bed of Ware stood for many years, conferring -fame upon the town until 1869, when it was spirited away to the Rye -House, there to be made a show of. - -He who would correctly rede the riddle of the Great Bed would be a -clever man, for its history is so confounded with legend that to say -where the one begins and the other ends is now impossible. The Bed is -a huge four-poster of black oak, elaborately carved with Renaissance -designs, and is now twelve feet square, having been shorn of three feet -of its length by a former landlord of the Saracen's Head. The date, -1463, painted on the head is an ancient and impudent forgery intended -to give verisimilitude to the legend of this monumental structure's -origin. This story tells how it was the work of one Jonas Fosbrooke, a -journeyman carpenter, who presented it to Edward the Fourth "for the -use of the royal family or the accommodation of princes, or nobles, or -for any great occasion." The King, we are told, was highly pleased with -this co-operative bedstead, and pensioned the ingenious Fosbrooke for -life; but history, curiously, fails to tell us of royal or any other -families herding together in this way. The legend then goes on to tell -how, not having been used for many years by any noble persons, it was -put to use when the town was very full of strangers. These unfortunate -plebeian persons found it anything but a bed of roses, for they were -tormented throughout the night by the snobbish and indignant ghost of -Jonas, who objected to anyone beneath the rank of a knight-bachelor -sleeping in his bed, and savagely pinched all who could not claim -gentility. This weird ghost-story was probably invented by the -landlords of the several inns in which the Bed has been housed to -account for a vigorous and hungry race of fleas that inhabited the old -four-poster, and must have been originated at a very early date, for -on it hangs the story of Harrison Saxby, Master of Horse to Henry the -Eighth. Saxby fell violently in love with the daughter of a miller near -Ware, and swore he would do anything to win her from her many other -suitors. The King, passing through the town, heard of this and promised -to give her (those were autocratic times!) to him who should sleep -in the Great Bed, and, daring all that the ferocious apparition of -Fosbrooke could do, should be found there in the morning. All save the -valorous Saxby held back, but he determined that no disembodied spirit -should come between him and his love, and, duly tucked in, was left to -sleep--no, not to sleep, for the powers of darkness were exalted to -considerable purpose in the night, and when day dawned the rash Saxby -was discovered on the floor, covered with bruises. If we seek rather -the practical joker than the supernatural visitant to poor Saxby, we -shall probably be on the right quest. - -The Great Bed was not always housed at the Saracen's Head. Coming -originally from Ware Priory, it was next at the Crown, where it -remained until that old house was pulled down, in 1765, being in turn -transferred to the Bull. - -Ware was always a place of great traffic in the long ago. Railways have -altered all that, and it is now a gracious old town, extraordinarily -rich in the antique entries of ancient hostelries disappeared so long -since that their very signs are forgot. As you go along its High Street -there are between twenty and thirty of these arched entries countable, -most of them relics of that crowded era of road-faring when Ware was a -thoroughfare town at the end of a day's journey from London on the main -road to the North. It was, in the words of an Elizabethan poet, "the -guested town of Ware," and so remained for centuries, even when day's -journeys grew longer and longer, and until the road became an obsolete -institution. Some of these entries, on the other hand, always were, -and others early became, features in the warehouse premises of the old -maltsters, for Ware has ever been a place dedicated to the service of -John Barleycorn. - -Long centuries ago, ere railways were dreamt of, this was the great -warehousing place of the malt from five neighbouring counties. It came -in vast quantities by road and by river from up country, and was stored -here, over against the demands of the London brewers; being sent to -town chiefly by the river Lea. The Lea and its ready passage to London -built up this distinctive trade of Ware: the railway destroyed it, and -the maltsters' trade exists here nowadays only because it always has -been here and because to utterly kill its local habitation would be -perhaps impossible. But it is carried on with a difference, and malt is -not so much brought and warehoused here as made on the spot. Many of -the old houses in which the old-established maltsters reside, adjoining -their own warehouses, in the good old style absolutely obsolete in -other places, are of early eighteenth century date, and rich in -exquisite moulded plaster ceilings and carved oak panelling. One at -least dates back to 1625, and is nothing less in appearance than the -home of an old prince of commerce. - -To have an opportunity of inspecting this is a privilege not lightly -to be valued. On one side of the entry, and over the archway, is the -residence, and on the other the old-world counting-house, with a -narrow roadway between for the waggons to and from the maltings at the -farther end. The maltings themselves are rebuilt and fitted with modern -appliances, but they strike the only note out of key with the general -harmony of the place, and, even so, they are not altogether unpleasing, -for they are earnest of trade still brisk and healthy, in direct -descent from days of old. Beyond the maltings are old walled gardens -where peaches ripen, and velvet lawns and queer pavilions overhanging -the river Lea: the whole, from the entry in the High Street, down the -long perspective to the river, embowered in flowers. - -For the rest, Ware commands much interest, not greatly to be enlarged -upon here. The church-tower, rising nobly above the roof-tops of -the town, amid a thickly clustered group of oast-house cowls, the -interior of the building, noble beyond the common run; the so-called -"John Gilpin's House"; the river scenery up the delightful valley to -Hertford: all these things are to be seen and not adequately written -about in this place. - - -XV - - -UPHILL goes the road out of Ware, passing the Royston Crow Inn and -some old cottages on the outskirts. The two miles between this and -Wade's Mill form the dividing-line between the valleys of the Lea -and the Rib, and consequently the way, after climbing upwards, has -to go steeply down again. The Sow and Pigs is the unusual name of an -inn standing on the crest of the hill before descending into Wade's -Mill. Who was Wade of the mill that stands to this day in the hollow -where the little stream called the Rib runs beneath the highway? -History, imperial, national, or parochial, has nothing to tell us on -this head. Perhaps--nay, probably--there never was a Wade, a person -so-named; the original mill, and now the hamlet that clusters in the -bottom, taking its name from the ford--the ford, or water-splash, or -"wade"--that was here before ever a bridge was built. The parish of St. -Nicholas-at-Wade, beside the channel that formerly divided the Isle of -Thanet from Kent, obtained its name from the ford at that point, and -in like manner derives the name of Iwade, overlooking the King's Ferry -entrance to Sheppey. - -The hamlet of Wade's Mill is a product of the coaching age. Before -folks travelled in any large numbers there stood only the mill in -the hollow; but, as road-faring progressed, there at length rose the -Feathers Inn beside the way, and by degrees a dozen or so cottages -to keep it company. Here they are still; standing, all of them, in -the parish of Thundridge, whose old church, a mile distant, is now in -ruins. The new church is built on the height overlooking Wade's Mill, -and may be noticed in the illustration on the following page. - -Steeply rising goes the road out of this sleepy hollow; passing, -when half-way up the hill, a mean little stone obelisk perched on -a grassy bank. This is a memorial to Thomas Clarkson, a native of -Wisbeach, and marks the spot where in his youth he knelt down and -vowed to dedicate his life to the abolition of the slave trade. It -was placed here in 1879 by Arthur Giles Puller, of Youngsbury, in the -neighbourhood. Clarkson was born in 1760, the son of the Rev. John -Clarkson, Headmaster of Wisbeach Free Grammar School. He graduated at -Cambridge in 1783, and two years later gained the first prize in the -Latin Essay competition on the subject of "Slavery and Commerce of the -Human Species, particularly the African." This success finally fixed -his choice of a career, and he forthwith set afoot an agitation against -the slave trade. In an introduction to the wealthy William Wilberforce, -he succeeded in enlisting the support of that philanthropist, to whom -the credit of abolishing the nefarious traffic is generally given. -A Committee was formed to obtain the passing of an Abolition Bill -through Parliament; an object secured after twenty years' continued -agitation and strenuous work on the platform. Clarkson's health and -substance were alike expended in the effort, but he was not eventually -without reward for his labours, a recompense in subscriptions to which -he seems to have looked forward in quite a business-like way; more -soothing than Wordsworth's pedestrian sonnet beginning-- - - "Clarkson, it was an obstinate hill to climb; - How toilsome, nay, how dire it was." - -Doubtless he argued the labourer was worthy of his hire. - -[Illustration: CLARKSON'S MONUMENT.] - -Abolition in the West Indian Islands followed, and then the -Emancipation Act of 1833, liberating 800,000 slaves and placing the -sum of twenty millions sterling, as compensation, into the pockets of -Liverpool, Bristol, and Glasgow slave-owners. That sturdy beast of -burden, the British taxpayer, of course paid for this expensive burst -of sentiment. Clarkson, already an old man, and weary with his long -labours, received the Freedom of the City of London in 1839, and died -in his eighty-seventh year, in 1846. - -Midway between the hamlets of High Cross and Collier's End, at the -second of the two left-hand turnings sign-posted for "Rowney Abbey and -the Mundens," is the other hamlet of Standon Green End--if the two -cottages and one farmhouse in a by-lane may so be dignified. Some three -hundred yards along this lane, in the centre of a meadow, stands the -singular monument known in all the country round about as the "Balloon -Stone," a rough block of sandstone, surrounded by an iron railing, -placed here to record the alighting on this spot of the first balloon -that ever ascended in England. Tradition still tells of the terror that -seized the rustics when they saw "a summat" dropping out of the sky, -and how they fled for their lives. - -On lifting a hinged plate, the astonishing facts of this antique -aeronautical adventure may be found duly set out in an amusingly -grandiloquent inscription, engraved on a bronze tablet let into the -upper part of the stone-- - - "Let Posterity Know - And Knowing be Astonished - That - On the 15 Day of September 1784 - Vincent Lunardi of Lucca in Tuscany - The first Aerial Traveller in Britain - Mounting from the Artillery Ground - in London - And - Traversing the Regions of the Air - For Two Hours and Fifteen Minutes, - In this Spot - Revisited the Earth. - On this Rude Monument - For Ages be Recorded - That Wondrous Enterprise - Successfully atchieved - By the Powers of Chemistry - And the Fortitude of Man - That Improvement in Science - Which - The Great Author of all Knowledge - Patronising by His Providence - The Invention of Mankind - Hath graciously permitted - To their Benefit - And - His own Eternal glory." - - * * * * * - - "This Plate - A facsimile of the Original - One was placed here - in the month of November - 1875 by Arthur Giles - Puller of Youngsbury." - -Collier's End is a wayside hamlet of a few timber-framed and plaster -cottages, leading to Puckeridge, where the ways to Cambridge divide: -one going by Buntingford, Royston, and Melbourn; the other by -Braughing, Barkway, Barley, and Fowlmere, meeting again at Harston in -another nineteen miles. Away to the left, between Collier's End and -Puckeridge, is St Edmund's College, a Roman Catholic seminary. - -Puckeridge itself, standing where the roads branch, grew in the old -road-faring days from a tiny hamlet to be considerably larger than its -mother-parish of Standon, a village nearly two miles distant, to the -right-hand. That it developed early is quite evident in its two old -inns, the fifteenth century Falcon, and the Old George, scarcely a -hundred years younger. - - -XVI - - -WE will first take the right-hand road to Cambridge, by Barkway, for -that would appear in early days to have been the favourite route. -Braughing, the first village on this route, is soon reached, lying down -below the highway beside the river Rib, with the usual roadside fringe -of houses. The local pronunciation of the place-name is "Braffing." - -The road now begins to climb upwards to the crest of the Chilterns at -Barley, passing the small hamlets of Quinbury and Hare Street, and -through a bold country of rolling downs to Barkway, whose name, coming -from Saxon words meaning "a way over the hill," is descriptive of its -situation. Few signs of habitation are seen on the way, and those at -great distances; Great and Little Hormead and Ansty peering down upon -the road from distant hillsides. - -Since the coaches left the road, Barkway has gone to sleep, and dreams -still of a bygone century. At the beginning of its broad street there -stands the old toll-house, with the clock even yet in its gable that -marked the flight of time when the Cambridge "Telegraph" passed by -every day, at two o'clock in the afternoon; and old houses that -once were inns still turn curiously gabled frontages to the street. -The Wheatsheaf, once the principal coaching house, still survives; -outside it a milestone of truly monumental proportions, marking the -thirty-fifth mile from London. It stands close upon six feet in height, -and besides bearing on its face a bold inscription, setting forth -that it is thirty-five miles from London and sixteen from Cambridge, -shows two shields of arms, one of them bearing a crescent, the other -so battered that it is not easily to be deciphered. This is one of a -series of milestones stretching between this point and Cambridge; a -series that has a history. It seems that Dr. William Mouse, Master of -Trinity Hall, and a Mr. Robert Hare, left between them in 1586 and 1599 -the sum of L1600 in trust to Trinity Hall, the interest to be applied -to mending the highway along these sixteen miles; as the Latin of the -original document puts it, "_in et circa villam nostram Cantabrigiae -praecipue versus Barkway_." Whatever Trinity Hall may have done for the -repair of the road in the hundred and twenty-six years following the -bequest, there were certainly no milestones along its course until -1725, when Dr. William Warren, the then Master, set up on October 20th -the first five, starting from the church of Great St. Mary in Cambridge -Market Square. On the 25th June, in the following year, another five -stones were placed in continuation, and the next year another five. The -sixteenth was not placed until 29th May 1728. Of this series the fifth, -tenth, and fifteenth were about six feet in height, with the Trinity -Hall arms carved on them; in heraldic jargon described as "sable, a -crescent in fess ermine, with a bordure engrailed of the second." The -others were originally small, with merely the number of miles engraved -on them, but were replaced between 1728 and 1732 by larger stones, each -bearing the black crescent; as may be seen to this day. - -These stones, very notable in themselves, and more so from the open -and exposed character of the road, have not only the interest of the -circumstances already narrated, but gain an additional notability in -the fact that, excluding those set up by the Romans, they are the -earliest milestones in England. Between Roman times and the date of -these examples the roads knew no measurement, and miles were a matter -of repute. It was not until the Turnpike Act of 1698 that, as part of -their statutory obligations, Turnpike Trusts were always bound not only -to maintain the roads on which they collected tolls, but to measure -them as well, and to set up a stone at every mile. - -[Illustration: BARLEY.] - -The road between Barkway and Barley is a constant succession of -hills; steep descents, and correspondingly sharp rises, with the folds -of the Chilterns, bare in places and in others heavily wooded, rising -and falling for great distances on either hand. It was while ascending -Barkway Hill on the up journey that the "Lynn Union," driven by Thomas -Cross, was involved in a somewhat serious affair. Three convicts were -being taken to London in charge of two warders, and the whole party -of five had seats on the roof. As the coach slowed to a walking pace -up the ascent, one of the gaol-birds quietly slipped off at the back, -and was being followed by the other two when attention was drawn to -their proceedings. The principal warder, who was on the box-seat, was -a man of decision. He drew a pistol from his pocket, and, cocking it, -said, "If you do not immediately get up I'll shoot you!" The one who -had already got down, thereupon, with a touching faith in the warder's -marksmanship, returned to his place, and the others remained quiet. -They finished the remainder of the journey handcuffed. It is, indeed, -surprising that they were not properly secured before. - -The road on to Barley is of a switchback kind, finally rising to the -ridge where Barley is perched, overlooking a wild treeless country of -downs. Barley is a little village as thoroughly agricultural as its -name hints, and consists of but a few houses, mostly thatched, with a -not very interesting church on a by-way, and a very striking inn, the -Fox and Hounds, on the main road. It is the sign of the inn, rather -than the house itself, that is so notable, for it is one of those -gallows signs, stretching across the road, that are now becoming so -few. The illustration sufficiently describes its quaint procession of -fox, hounds, and huntsmen, said to have been placed here in allusion to -a fox that took refuge in a dog-kennel of the inn. - -If the name of Barley hints strongly of agricultural pursuits, it does -not by any means derive it from that kind of grain. Its earliest Saxon -name is "Berle," coming from the words "beorh" and "lea," and meaning a -cleared space in a forest. Barley, in fact, stands on the final ridge -where the Chiltern Hills end and the East Anglian heights and the -forest of Essex begin, overlooking a valley between the two where the -trees fell back and permitted a way through the primeval woods. - -The restored and largely rebuilt church contains little of interest, -but in the churchyard lies one whose career claims some notice. There -the passing stranger may see a simple stone cross, bearing the words, -"Heinrich, Count Arnim. Born May 10th, 1814. Died October 8th, 1883." -Beside him lies his wife, who died in 1875. The story of Count Arnim is -one of political enthusiasms and political and personal hatreds. One of -the greatest nobles in conservative Germany, he early developed Radical -ideas, and joined Kossuth in his struggle for Hungarian liberty, -refusing to desert that ill-fated cause, and disregarding the call -of his own country to arms. The neglect of this feudal duty rendered -his vast estates liable to forfeiture, and placed him in danger of -perpetual confinement in a military prison; a danger aggravated by the -personal and bitter animosity of the all-powerful Bismarck, and the -hatred of the relatives of two antagonists whom he had slain in duels. -To escape this threatened lifelong imprisonment he fled to England, -and, after much privation, established a school of fencing and physical -exercise, under the assumed name of Major Loeffler. In the meanwhile -he had married a German governess. His association with Barley arose -from the then Rector resorting to his school for a course of exercise, -and becoming in time a fast friend, to whom the Count disclosed his -identity. The Rector interested himself in Arnim's fortunes, and went -so far as to write to the German Emperor on behalf of his son, then -growing to manhood. As a result of these efforts young Arnim was -permitted to enter the German Army and to enjoy his father's estates. -Unfortunately his mother accompanied him, and as, according to the -savage notions of German society, she was not of noble birth and not -ennobled by marriage, she was restricted to the servants' hall at every -place her son visited, while he was received in the highest circles. -Count Arnim had, in his long residence in England, adopted the sensible -views prevailing here, and indignantly recalled his son. "I would -rather," he said in a noble passage, "I would rather have my son grow -up a poor man in England, in the service of his adopted country, than -as a rich man in the service of his Fatherland, where he would have to -be ashamed of his mother." - -It was his friendship with the Rector that made the Count choose this -as the resting-place of his wife and himself. His body was brought by -train to Buntingford, and thence by road, being buried by the light of -torches at midnight, after the old German custom. - - -XVII - - -A MILE beyond Barley the road leaves Hertfordshire and enters Essex, -but passes out of that county again and enters Cambridgeshire in -another two miles. Midway, amid the solemn emptiness of the bare -downs, the Icknield Way runs as a rugged chalk-and-grass track -athwart the road, neighboured by prehistoric tumuli. Amidst all these -reminders of the dead-and-gone Iceni, at the cross-roads to Royston -and Whittlesford, and just inside the Cambridgeshire border, stands -a lonely inn once known as the Flint House. Beside it is one of the -Trinity Hall milestones, with the crescent badge of the college, and -hands with fingers like sausages pointing down the weirdly straight and -empty roads. - -The two miles of road through Essex long bore the name of the -"Recorder's Road." It seems that when in 1725 an Act of Parliament -was obtained for mending the then notoriously bad way from Cambridge -to Fowlmere and Barley "in the counties of Cambridgeshire and -Hertfordshire," the fact that two miles lay in Essex was overlooked. In -consequence of this omission nothing was done to the Essex portion, -which became almost impassable for carriages until the then Recorder of -Cambridge, Samuel Pont, obtained the help of several of the colleges, -and at last mended it. - -[Illustration: A MONUMENTAL MILESTONE.] - -It is a good enough road now, though passing through very exposed and -open country, with tumuli, the solemn relics of a prehistoric race, -forming striking objects on the bare hillsides and the skyline. In -cosy and sheltered contrast with these comes the village of Fowlmere, -snugly nestled amid the elms and poplars aptly named "Crows' Parlour." - -Fowlmere is a very Proteus in the spelling of its name. In Domesday -Book it is set down as "Fugelesmare," and has at any time since then -been written in half a dozen different ways, in which "Foulmere" and -"Fowlmere" are the most prominent. Old-time travellers, who found the -road inexpressibly bad, adopted the first of these two styles, and -thought the place well suited with a name: others--and among them local -patriots--adopted the variant less expressive of mud and mire. In so -doing they were correct, for the village takes its name from a marshy -lake or mere, thickly overgrown with reeds in ancient times, in whose -recesses myriads of wild-fowl found a safe harbourage. Even when the -nineteenth century had dawned the mere was still in existence, and -wild-fowl frequented it in some numbers. To-day it is but a spot where -watercress grows and the grass springs a thought more luxuriant than -elsewhere. - -[Illustration: FOWLMERE: A TYPICAL CAMBRIDGESHIRE VILLAGE.] - -Here we are on the track of Samuel Pepys, who makes in his Diary but -a fleeting appearance on this road,--a strange circumstance when we -consider that he was a Cantab. It is, however, an appearance of some -interest. In February 1660, then, behold him rising early, taking -horse from London, and setting out for Cambridge, in company with a -Mr. Pierce, at seven o'clock in the morning, intending to make that -town by night. They rode twenty-seven miles before they drew rein, -baiting at Puckeridge,--doubtless at that old house the Falcon,--the -way "exceeding bad" from Ware. "Then up again and as far as Fowlmere, -within six miles of Cambridge, my mare almost tired." - -[Illustration: THE CHEQUERS, FOWLMERE.] - -Almost! Good Heavens! he had ridden the poor beast forty-six miles. -At anyrate, if the mare was not quite tired, Samuel at least was, and -at Fowlmere he and Mr. Pierce stayed the night, at the Chequers. An -indubitable Chequers still stands in the village street, but it is not -the house under whose roof the old diarist lay, as the inscription, -"W.T., Ano Dom. 1675," on the yellow-plastered front sufficiently -informs us. The next morning Samuel was up betimes, and at Cambridge by -eight o'clock. - -Thriplow Heath once stretched away between Fowlmere and Newton, our -next village, but it is all enclosed now, and cultivated fields -obscure that historic portion of the Heath where, in June 1647, -Cromwell's troops, victorious over the last struggles of the Royalists, -assembled and sent demands to the Parliament in London for their long -overdue pay. A striking position, this. The Parliament had levied war -upon the King and had brought him low, and now the hammer that had -shattered his power was being threatened against itself. Cromwell and a -military dictatorship loomed ominous before my lords and gentlemen of -Westminster, and they hastily sent down two months' pay, with promises -of more, to avert Cromwell's threat that he would seize the captive -King, and, placing him at the head of the army, march upon London. That -payment and those promises did not suffice, and how Cornet Joyce was -sent across country from this point, with a troop of horse, to seize -Charles from the custody of the Parliamentary Commissioners at Holmby -House is a matter of history, together with the military usurpation -that did actually follow. - -Newton village itself has little interest, but a small hillside obelisk -on the right calls for passing notice. It marks the spot where two -friends were in the habit of meeting in the long ago. The one lived at -Newton and the other at Little Shelford. Every day for many years they -met at this spot, and when one died the survivor erected this memorial. -The left-hand hillside also has its interest, for the commonplace -brick building on the hilltop is all that remains of one of a line of -semaphore telegraph stations in use between London and Cambridge over -a hundred years ago. A descending road brings us from this point to a -junction with the Royston route to Cambridge, at Harston. - - -XVIII - - -THE Royston route to Cambridge now demands attention. Harking back to -Puckeridge, we have by this road certainly the most difficult way, for -eight of the eleven miles between Puckeridge and Royston lead, with few -and unimportant intervals, steadily uphill, from the deep valley of the -Rib up to the tremendous and awe-inspiring climax of Royston Downs; -from whose highest point, on Reed Hill, the road drops consistently for -three miles in a staggering descent into Royston town. - -At West Mill, where the valley opens out on the left, the road -continues on the shoulder of the hill, with the village and the railway -lying down below; a sweetly pretty scene. West Mill is a name whose -sound is distinctly modern, but the place is of a venerable age, -vouched for by its ancient church, whose architecture dates back to the -early years of the thirteenth century. It is the fashion to spell the -place-name in one word--Westmill--an ugly and altogether objectionable -form. - -[Illustration: WEST MILL.] - -Buntingford succeeds to West Mill. A brick bridge crossing a little -river, an old red-brick chapel bulking large on the left hand, a -long, long street of rustic cottages and shops and buildings of more -urban pretensions, and over all a sleepy half-holiday air: that is -Buntingford. It is difficult to take Buntingford seriously, even though -its street be half a mile in length, for its name recalls that hero -of nursery rhyme, that Baby Bunting whose father went a-hunting, and -went to buy a rabbit-skin to put the Baby Bunting in. Buntingford, -for all the length of its long street and the very considerable age -of it, is but a hamlet of Layston, close upon a mile distant. That is -why Buntingford has no old parish church, and explains the building of -the red-brick chapel aforesaid in 1615, to the end that the ungodly -might have no excuse for not attending public worship and the pious -might exercise their piety without making unduly long pilgrimage. -"Domus Orationis" is inscribed on the gable-wall of the chapel, lest -perhaps it might be mistaken for some merely secular building; an easy -enough matter. Behind it, stands the little group of eight almshouses -built in 1684 by Dr. Seth Ward, "born in yis town," as the tablet -over the principal door declares; that Bishop of Salisbury who lent -his carriage-horses to King James's troops to drag the ordnance sent -against the Monmouth rebels on Sedgemoor. - -Layston Church stands in a meadow, neglected, and with daylight peering -curiously through its roof; and the village itself has long disappeared. - -The fifteen miles between Wade's Mill and Royston, forming the "Wade's -Mill Turnpike Trust," continued subject to toll long after the railway -was opened. With the succeeding trusts on through Royston to Kirby's -Hut and Caxton, on the Old North Road, and so on to Stilton, it was one -of the earliest undertakings under the general Turnpike Act of 1698, -and, like them, claimed direct descent from the first turnpike gates -erected in England in 1663, under the provisions of the special Act of -that year, which, describing this "ancient highway and post-road" to -the North as almost impassable, proceeded to give powers for toll-gates -to be erected at Stilton and other places. - -To this particular Trust fell the heavy task of lowering the road over -the London Road hill, the highest crest of the Downs; a work completed -in 1839, at a cost of L1723, plus L50 compensation paid to a nervous -passenger on one of the coaches who jumped off the roof while it was -crossing a temporary roadway and broke his leg. The tolls at this time -were let for L4350 per annum. - -Reed Hill, to which we now come, passing on the way the hamlets of -Buckland and Chipping, commands the whole of Royston Downs, a tract -of country whose bold, rolling outlines are still impressive, even -though the land be enclosed and brought under cultivation in these -later years. This chalky range is a continuation of the Chiltern Hills, -and gives Royston, lying down below in the deep hollow, a curiously -isolated and remote appearance. Indeed, whether it be the engineering -difficulties in tunnelling these heights, or whether the deterrent -cause lies in rival railway politics, or in its not being worth while -to continue, the branch of the Great Eastern Railway to Buntingford -goes no farther, but comes ingloriously to a terminus in that little -town; while the Great Northern Railway reaches Royston circuitously, by -way of Hitchin and Baldock, and artfully avoids the heights. - -A wayside inn--the Red Lion--crowns the summit of Reed Hill, -and looks out upon vast distances. The Red Lion himself, a very -fiercely-whiskered vermilion fellow projecting over the front door -of the house, and looking with an agonised expression of countenance -over his shoulder--_passant regardant_, as the heralds say--hails from -Royston itself, where he occupied a similar position in front of the -old coaching-inn of the same name. Alas! when old coaching days ended -and those of railways dawned, the Red Lion at Royston, ever in the -forefront of coaching affairs in the town, was doomed. The High Street -knows it no more, and the Bull reigns in its stead as the principal -house. - -These windy downs, now robbed of much of their wildness of detail, but -losing nothing of their bold outline, long harboured two forms of wild -life not commonly found elsewhere. The Royston Crow, indeed, still -frequents this range of hills; and on some undisturbed slopes of turf -the wandering botanist is even yet rewarded in his Eastertide search -for the _Anemone Pulsatilla_, the Pasque Flower. The Royston Crow, the -_Corvus cornix_ of ornithologists, is a winter visitor from Sweden -and Norway, and is known in other parts of the country as the "hooded -crow." He is distinguished from his cousin corvi by his grey head and -back, giving him an ancient and venerable appearance. He is not a -sociable bird, and refuses to mix with the blackbirds, the thrushes, -and his kindred crows, who, for their part, are content to leave him -alone, and doubtless rejoice when in April he wings his way to northern -latitudes. - -The Pasque Flower, so named from the paschal season of its blossoming, -affects the windiest and most unlikely situations in chalk and -limestone pastures, and thrives where it might be supposed only the -coarsest grasses would grow. In these exposed places its purple blooms -flourish. They nestle close to the ground, and are only to be easily -discovered by the expert. Do not attempt to transplant this wild beauty -of the downs. You may dig roots with the greatest care, and cherish -them as tenderly as possible; but, torn from its stern surroundings and -lapped in botanical luxury, the Pasque Flower droops and dies. - - -XIX - - -ROYSTON stands where the Ermine Street and the Icknield Way intersect -one another. To old Cobbett, travelling with a censorious eye upon men -and things and places in the early years of the nineteenth century, it -appeared to be "a common market-town. Not mean, but having nothing of -beauty about it." This is not a very shrewd or illuminating opinion, -because, while it is true that Royston is not beautiful on the one -hand, nor exactly mean on the other, this description is not quite -descriptive, and fails to explain where the town stops short of beauty -or of meanness. Royston, in fact, is a little grim, and belies the -preconceived notion of the expectant traveller, who, doubtless with -some wild idea of a connection between Royston and roystering, is -astonished at the grave, almost solemn, look of its narrow streets. The -grim shadow of the Downs is thrown over the little town, and the houses -huddle together as though for company and warmth. - -There are those to whom the place-name suggests a Norman-French -derivation--Roy's ton, or the King's Town,--but although the name -arose in Norman times, it had a very different origin from anything -suggested by royal patronage. Eight hundred years ago, when this part -of the country remained little but the desolate tract the fury of the -Conqueror had made it, the Lady Rohesia, wife of the Norman lord of the -manor, set up a wayside cross where the roads met. The object of this -cross does not clearly appear, but it probably filled the combined -purpose of a signpost and wayside oratory, where those who fared the -roads might pray for a happy issue from the rigours of their journey. -At anyrate, the piety of the Lady Rohesia (or Roesia, for they were -very uncertain about their h's in those times) has kept her name from -being quite forgot, preserved as it is in Royston's designation; but -it is not to be supposed that the pilgrims, the franklins, and the -miscellaneous wayfarers along these roads tortured their tongues much -with this awkward word, and so Rohesia's Cross speedily became known -as "Roise's," just as to the London 'bus-conductors High Holborn -has become "'iobun." A town gathered in course of time round the -monastery--"Monasterium de Cruce Roesiae"--founded here a century -after this pious lady had gone her way. Monastery and cross are alike -gone, but the parish church is the old priory church, purchased by -the inhabitants for public worship when the monastic establishment -was dissolved, and Royston Fair, held on 7th July in every year, is a -reminiscence of that old religious house, for that day is the day of -St. Thomas a Becket, in whose honour it was dedicated. As "Becket's -Fair" this annual celebration is still known. - -For centuries afterwards Royston was a town and yet not a parish, -being situated in portions of the five adjoining parishes of Melbourn, -Bassingbourn, Therfield, Barley, and Reed; and for centuries more, -after it had attained parochial dignity, its chief cross street, -Melbourn Street, divided the place into two Roystons--Royston, -Hertfordshire, and Royston, Cambridgeshire. The doings of one with the -other afford amusing reading: how a separate workhouse was established -and separate assessments made for each parish, and how at length, in -1781, an Act was passed for consolidating the two for local government -purposes; all these inconvenient and absurdly conflicting jurisdictions -of parishes and counties being eventually swept away in 1895, when the -Cambridgeshire portion of Royston was transferred to Hertfordshire, the -whole of the town now being in that county. - -They still cherish the memory of King James the First at Royston, -though the open Heath where he hunted the hare is a thing of the -past, and the races and all the ancient jollifications of that time -are now merely matters for the antiquary. Where the four roads from -the four quarters of the compass still meet in the middle of the town -stood the old Palace. Its remains, of no very palatial appearance, are -there even yet, and form private residences. Close by is that prime -curiosity, Royston Cave. James and his courtiers and all their gay -world at this corner never knew of the Cave, which was only discovered -in 1742. It is a bottle-shaped excavation in the chalk, situated -immediately under the roadway. Its age and original purpose are still -matters in dispute. Whether it was excavated to serve the purpose -of dust-bin to a Roman villa, or was a flint quarry, we shall never -know, but that it certainly was in use by some religious recluse in -the twelfth century is assured by the curious rough carvings in the -chalk, representing St. Catherine, the Crucifixion, mitred abbots, -and a variety of subjects of a devotional character. The hermit whose -singular piety led him to take up his abode in this dismal hole must -have had great difficulty in entering or leaving, for it was then only -to be approached by plunging as it were into the neck of the bottle. -The staircase by which visitors enter was only made in modern times. - -[Illustration: A QUAINT CORNER IN ROYSTON.] - -The old Red Lion at Royston has already been mentioned as having -ceased to be. It was kept for many years in the eighteenth century by -Mrs. Gatward, a widow, assisted in the posting and coaching business -attached to the house by her two sons. One of them came to a terribly -tragic end. What induced him to turn highwayman we shall never know; -but he took to the road, as many a roving blade in those times did. -Perhaps his life lacked excitement. If that were so, he took the -readiest means of adding variety to existence, for he waylaid the -postboy carrying His Majesty's Mails on the North Road, between Royston -and Huntingdon, and robbed the bags. There was in those times no -method of courting death with such success as robbing the mails, and -accordingly young Gatward presently found himself convicted and cast -for execution. They hanged him in due course and gibbeted his body, -pursuant to the grim old custom, near the scene of his crime. The story -of this unhappy amateur highwayman is told--and, a tale of horror it -is--by one Cole, a diligent antiquary on Cambridgeshire affairs, whose -manuscript collections are in the British Museum. Hear him: "About -1753-54, the son of Mrs. Gatward, who kept the Red Lion at Royston, -being convicted of robbing the mail, was hanged in chains on the Great -Road. I saw him hanging, in a scarlet coat, and after he had hung about -two or three months it is supposed that the screw was filed which -supported him, and that he fell in the first high wind after. Mr. Lord, -of Trinity, passed by as he lay on the ground, and, trying to open his -breast, to see what state his body was in, not being offensive, but -quite dry, a button of brass came off, which he preserves to this day, -as he told me at the Vice-Chancellor's, Thursday, June 30th, 1779. I -sold this Mr. Gatward, just as I left college in 1752, a pair of coach -horses, which was the only time I saw him. It was a great grief to his -mother, who bore a good character, and kept the inn for many years -after." - -This account of how a malefactor's body might lie by the roadside, the -sport of any wayfarers idle curiosity, gives no very flattering glimpse -of this England of ours a hundred and fifty years ago. Yet these were -the "good old times." - -[Illustration: CAXTON GIBBET.] - -The story goes that the agonised mother of the gibbeted man secretly -conveyed his body to the inn and gave it decent, if unconsecrated, -burial in the cellar. His brother, James Gatward, was for many years -afterwards part proprietor of the London, Royston, and St. Ives coach, -running past the gibbet. - -Caxton Gibbet, where Gatward's body hung in chains, is still marked -by a tall post standing on a mound by the wayside, on the North -Road, thirteen miles from Royston. It is a singularly lonely spot, -even though a public-house with the gruesome name of the Gibbet Inn -stands close by. A mile distant is the village of Caxton, with its old -coaching-inns converted into farmhouses; the only other places on the -twelve miles being the old Hardwicke Arms Posting House and the gates -of Wimpole Park at Arrington Bridge, and the solitary "Old North Road" -railway station. - -Royston's old inns have lost much of their old-time air. Among them, -the George possessed one of those old "gallows" signs crossing the road -in a fashion similar to that of the Fox and Hounds at Barley, but, -somewhere towards the close of the eighteenth century, it fell at the -moment when a London-bound waggoner was passing beneath, and killed -him. Since then such signs have not been in favour in the town. - - -XX - - -ROYSTON has of late years spread out largely to the north, over those -grassy heaths where James hunted. Looking back when midway between the -town and Melbourn, this modern growth is readily noted, for the houses -of it are all of Cambridgeshire white brick. At this distance they give -a singularly close imitation of a tented military camp. - -[Illustration: MELBOURN.] - -Melbourn--why not spelled with a final 'e,' like other Melbournes, is -a mystery no inquiry can satisfy--is a large village of much thatch. -Especially is the grey-green velvety moss on the thatch of a row of -yellow plaster cottages beyond the church a thing of beauty, however -rotten the thatch itself may be. Melbourn has a beautiful church and -church-tower, seen in the accompanying picture, but its other glory, -the Great Elm that for many centuries spread a shade over the road by -the church, is now only a memory,--a memory kept green by the sign of -the inn opposite. Everyone in Melbourn lives on fruit. In other words, -this is a great fruit-growing district. This village and its neighbour, -Meldreth, specialise in greengages, and from the railway station that -serves the two, many hundreds of tons of that fruit are despatched -to London in the season. These terms are perhaps vague, but they are -reduced to a more definite idea of the importance of the greengage -harvest when some returns are noted. From Melbourn station, then, -thirty tons a day is an average consignment. Little wonder, then, that -when one has come down from the bleak downs and heaths of Royston to -these sheltered levels, the swelling contours of the windy pastures and -breezy cornfields give place to long lines of orchards. - -Cambridgeshire very soon develops its flat and fenny character along -this route, and Melbourn left behind, the road on to Cambridge is a -dead level. The low church-tower just visible to a keen eye, away to -the left, among some clustered trees, is that of Shepreth. Shepreth -hides its modest self from the road: let us take the winding by-way -that leads to it and see what a purely agricultural Cambridgeshire -village, set down in this level plain, and utterly out of touch with -the road, may be like. It needs no great exercise of the deductive -faculty to discover, on the way to Shepreth, that it is not a place -of great or polite resort, for the lane is a narrow and winding way, -half muddy ruts and half loose stones. Beside it crawls imperceptibly -in its deep, ditch-like bed, overhung by pollard willows, a stream that -takes its rise in the bogs of Fowlmere. By what lazy, snakish windings -it ultimately finds its way into the Cam does not concern us. Here and -there old mud-walled cottages, brilliantly white-washed and heavily -thatched, dot the way; the sum total of the village, saving indeed the -church, standing adjoining a farmyard churned into a sea of mud. - -The appearance of Shepreth Church is not altogether prepossessing. -The south aisle has been rebuilt in white brick, in a style rivalling -the worst efforts of the old-time chapel-builder; and the old tower, -whose upper stages have long fallen in ruin, shows in the contorted -courses of its stonework how the building has sunk and settled in the -waterlogged soil. - -Beyond this soddened village, coming to the highroad again, the -station and level-crossing of Foxton are reached; the situation of -Foxton itself clearly fixed by the church-tower, rising from the flat -fields on the right, half a mile away. There is something of a story -belonging to this line of railway from Royston to Shepreth, Foxton, -Shelford, and Cambridge. As far as Shepreth it is a branch of the Great -Northern, anxious in the long ago to find a way into Cambridge and so -cut up the Great Eastern's trade. The Great Eastern could not defeat -the scheme altogether, but stopped it at Shepreth, to which point -that line was opened in 1848. This was awkward for the Great Northern, -brought to a halt seven miles from Cambridge, at a point which may, -without disrespect to Shepreth, well be called "nowhere in particular." -But the Great Northern people found a way out of the difficulty. -Parliament, in the interests of the Great Eastern, would not permit -them to build a railway into Cambridge, but no one could forbid them -conveying passengers by coach along these last few miles. And so, for -close upon four years, Great Northern passengers left the trains at -Shepreth and were conveyed by a forty minutes' coach journey the rest -of the way. Thus, along these few miles at anyrate, coaching survived -on the Cambridge road until 1851, when the Great Eastern built a short -line from Shelford to Foxton and Shepreth, to join the Great Northern -branch, allowing running-powers to that Company into Cambridge station. - -Harston village succeeds to Foxton. Its present name is a corruption of -"Harleston," which itself was a contraction of "Hardeliston." It stands -at a bend of the road, with a very small village green and a very large -church to the left, and the long village street of small cottages and -large gardens following the high road, and bringing the traveller -presently to an inn--the Old English Gentleman--where the Barkway route -to Cambridge meets this; both thenceforward joining forces for the -remaining four miles and a half. Hauxton Church starts up on the right, -by the Granta, which comes down from Audley End and is crossed here, -over a little bridge, the only striking object in what has now become a -very desolate road, so lonely and empty that an occasional thorn-tree, -rising from the dwarf hedges of the immense flat fields, becomes quite -companionable, and a distant clump of leafy elms a landmark. Those -distant trees mark where Trumpington village church lies hid, and, if -the horizon ahead be closely scanned, the long line of King's College -Chapel will presently be seen. We are coming at last into Cambridge. - - -XXI - - -THE entrance to Cambridge town through Trumpington is singularly noble -and dignified. This is an age when almost every ancient town or city -is approached through a ring of modern suburbs, but Cambridge is one -of the few and happy exceptions. You cannot enter Oxford by the old -coach road from London without passing through the modern suburb of -St. Clements, whose mean street pitifully discounts the approach to -the city over Magdalen Bridge; but at first, when nearing Cambridge, -nothing breaks the flat landscape save the distant view of King's -College Chapel, that gigantic pile of stone whose long flat skyline and -four angle-turrets so wrought upon Ruskin's feelings that he compared -it with a billiard-table turned upside down. It is not because of the -great Chapel that the entrance to Cambridge is noble: it will add -nothing to the beauty of the scene until that day--perhaps never to -come--when the building shall be completed with a stately belltower -after the design contemplated by its founder, Henry the Sixth. No; it -is rather by reason, firstly, of the broad quiet rural village street -of Trumpington, set humbly, as it were, in the gates of learning, and -secondly of the still broad and quiet, but more urban, Trumpington Road -that follows it, that Cambridge is so charmingly entered. A line of -old gabled cottages with old-fashioned gardens occupies either side of -the road; while an ancient mansion or two, together with the village -church, are hid, or perhaps glimpsed for a moment, off to the left, -where a by-road goes off, past the old toll-house, to Grantchester. -This is Trumpington. In that churchyard lies a remarkable man: none -other, indeed, than Henry Fawcett--we will not call him by his title of -"Professor," for that seems always so blatant a dignity--who died at -Cambridge in 1884, thus ending a life that had risen triumphant above, -surely, the keenest affliction Fate can inflict. Completely blinded in -youth by an accident of the most deplorable kind, he yet lived to fill -a career in life and politics apparently denied by loss of sight. The -text on his gravestone--a garbled passage from Exodus, chap. xiv. ver. -15--is singularly appropriate: "Speak unto the people, that they go -forward." - -It is down this leafy by-way, past the church, that one finds -Grantchester Mill, a building generally thought to occupy the site of -that "Trumpington Mill" made famous in one of Chaucer's _Canterbury -Tales_. - -For Trumpington has a certain literary fame, in association with -Chaucer's "Reeve's Tale":-- - - "At Trompington, not fer fro Cantebrigge, - Ther goth a brook, and over that a brigge, - Upon the whiche brook ther stont a melle." - -The "Reeve's Tale" is not precisely a part of Chaucer to be discussed -in every drawing-room, and is indeed a story well calculated to make a -satyr laugh and the judicious grieve. Therefore, it is perhaps no great -pity that the mill stands no longer, so that you cannot actually seek -it out and say, "Here the proud Simon, the 'insolent Simkin,' ground -the people's corn, taking dishonest toll of it, and hereabouts those -roystering blades of University scholars, Allen and John, played their -pranks." Grantchester Mill is a building wholly modern. - -It is a grave and dignified road, tree-shaded and echoing to the -drowsy cawing of rooks (like tired professors weary of lecturing -to inattentive classes), that conducts along the high road through -Trumpington village to the beginnings of the town. Here, by the bridge -crossing the little stream called the "Vicar's Brook," one mile from -Great St. Mary's Church, the very centre of Cambridge, stands the -eight-foot high milestone, the first in the series set up between -Cambridge and Barkway in the early years of the eighteenth century, and -paid for out of "Dr. Mouse's and Mr. Hare's Causey Money." This initial -stone cost L5, 8s. The arms of Dr. Mouse may still be traced, impaling -those of Trinity Hall. - -[Illustration: TRUMPINGTON MILL.] - -Beyond this hoary but little-noticed relic begin the Botanic -Gardens, and beside them runs or creeps that old Cambridge -water-supply, the "little new river," brought in 1610 from the Nine -Wells under yonder gentle hills that break the flatness of the -landscape away on the right. - -[Illustration: THE FIRST MILESTONE FROM CAMBRIDGE.] - -The idea of bringing pure water into Cambridge originated, in 1574, -with a certain Dr. Perne, Master of Peterhouse; its object both to -cleanse the King's Ditch, "which," says Fuller, "once made to defend -Cambridge by its strength, did in his time offend it with its stench," -and to provide drinking water for the University and town. This -clear-running stream has an interest beyond its local use, for the -cutting of its course was designed by Edward Wright, of Gonville and -Caius College, who also drew the plans for Sir Hugh Myddleton's "New -River," whose course so closely neighbours this old road between Ware -and London. - -The Conduit--"Hobson's Conduit," as it is called--that once stood on -Market Hill, was removed in 1854, and now stands at the very beginning -of Cambridge, where Trumpington "Road" becomes "Street," at the head of -this open stream. - -The Nine Wells are not easy to find. They are situated near the village -of Great Shelford, under a shoulder of the Gog Magog Hills, and are -approached across two rugged pastures, almost impracticable in wet -weather. The term "wells" is misleading. They are springs, found -trickling feebly through the white clay in the bed of a deep trench -with two branches, cut in the hillside. Above them stands a granite -obelisk erected by public subscription in 1861, and setting forth -all the circumstances at great length. The term "Nine Wells" is not -especially applied to this spot, but is used throughout Cambridgeshire -for springs, whatever their number. A similar custom obtained in -classic Greece, but the evidence by which our Cambridgeshire practice -might possibly be derived from such a respectable source, and so be -linked with the Pierian spring and the Muses Nine, is entirely lacking. - -[Illustration: HOBSON'S CONDUIT.] - -The Gog Magogs--"the Gogs," as the country-folk irreverently -abbreviate their mysterious name--are the Cambridgeshire mountains. -They are not particularly Alpine in character, being, indeed, just a -series of gently rising grassy downs, culminating in a height of three -hundred feet above sea-level. No one will ever be able to explain how -these very mild hills obtained their terrific title; and Gog and Magog -themselves, mentioned vaguely in Revelations, where the devil is let -loose again after his thousand years' imprisonment in the bottomless -pit, are equally inexplicable. - -The crowning height of the Gog Magogs was in Roman times the summer -camp of a cohort of Vandals, quartered in this district to overawe -the conquered British. It was then the policy of Rome, as it is of -ourselves in India and elsewhere at the present day, to enrol into -her service the strange tribes and alien nations she had conquered, -and to bring them from afar to impress her newest subjects with the -far-reaching might and glory of the Empire. This Vandalian cohort -was formed from the barbarian prisoners defeated on the Danube by -Aurelian, and enlisted by the Emperor Probus. The earthworks of their -camp are still traceable within the grounds of the mansion and estate -of Vandlebury, on the hilltop, once belonging to the Duke of Leeds. -From this point of view Cambridge is seen mapped out below, while in -other directions the great rolling fields spread downwards in fold upon -fold. Immense fields they are, enclosed in the early years of last -century, when Cambridgeshire began to change its immemorial aspect -of open treeless downs, where the sheep grazed on the short grass -and the bustard still lingered, for its present highly cultivated -condition. Fields of this comparatively recent origin may generally be -recognised by their great size, in striking contrast with the ancient -enclosures whose area was determined by the work of hand-ploughing. -These often measure over half a mile square, and mark the advent of the -steam-plough. - - -XXII - - -THE old Cambridge water-supply, meandering down from the hills, has -induced a similar discursiveness in these last pages. Onward from -Trumpington Road it runs in a direct line to the Conduit, and our -course shall, in sympathy, be as straight. - -The Fitzwilliam Museum is the first public building to attract notice -on entering the town: a huge institution in the classic style, notable -for the imposing Corinthian columns that decorate its front; its -effect marred by the stone screen that interrupts the view up the -noble flights of steps. "The Fitzbilly," as all Cambridge men know it, -derives from the noble collections of art objects and antiquities, -together with great sums of money, left to the University in 1816 by a -Lord Fitzwilliam for the establishment of a museum and art gallery. It -was completed some forty years ago, and has since then been the great -architectural feature in the first glimpse of Cambridge. The coloured -marble decorations and the painting and gilding of the interior are -grandiose rather than grand; and although the collections, added to by -many later bequests, contain many priceless and beautiful objects, the -effect of the whole is a kind of mental and optical indigestion caused -by the "fine confused feeding" afforded by the very mixed arrangement -of these treasures,--a bad arrangement, like that of an overgrown -private collection, and utterly unsuited for public and educational -needs. You turn from a manuscript to a picture, from a picture to a -case of china, from that to missals, and so all through the varied -incarnations of art throughout the centuries. - -Just beyond the Fitzwilliam Museum comes Peterhouse College, the oldest -of all the colleges in the University. To understand something of the -meaning of the colleges and their relation to the supreme teaching and -governing body, it will be necessary to recount, as briefly as may -be, the circumstances in which both University and Colleges had their -origin. - -The origin of Cambridge University, as of that of Oxford, is of -unknown date, and the manner of its inception problematical. Who was -the great teacher that first drew scholars to him at this place? We -cannot tell. That he was a Churchman goes without saying, for the -Church, in the dark ages when learning began to be, held letters and -culture in fee-simple. Nor can we tell why Cambridge was thus honoured, -for it was not the home, like Ely, Crowland, or Thorney, of a great -monastic establishment, whence learning of sorts radiated. One of -the untrustworthy early chroniclers of these things gives, indeed, -a specific date to the beginnings of the University, and says that -Joffrid, Abbot of Crowland, in 1110 sent monkish lecturers to the -town; but the earliest record, beyond which we must not go into the -regions of mere surmise, belongs to a hundred and twenty-one years -later, when royal regulations respecting the students were issued. -Already a Chancellor and a complete governing body appear to have been -in existence. It is arguable that a century and more must have -been necessary for these to have been evolved from the earliest days -of a teaching body; but these affairs are for pundits. Such special -pleaders as John Caius and Thomas Key, who fought with great bitterness -and amazing pertinacity in the sixteenth century on the question as -to whether Oxford or Cambridge were the older of the two, had the -hardihood to trace them back to astonishing lengths. According to -Caius, arguing for Cambridge, it was one Cantaber, a Spanish prince, -who founded the University here in the very remote days when Gurguntius -was King of Britain. To this prince he traces the name of the town -itself, and I think that fact alone serves to discredit anything else -he has to say. - -[Illustration: TRUMPINGTON STREET, CAMBRIDGE.] - -But no matter when and how the University originated. To those early -teachers came so many to listen in the one room or hall, that probably -constituted the original University, that the town did not suffice, to -accommodate them, and, both for the sake of convenience and discipline, -the first college was founded, as primarily a lodgment or hostel for -the scholars. As their numbers continually grew, and as benefactors -began to look with increasing kindliness upon learning, so were more -and more colleges added. - -The first of all the colleges was, as already stated, this of -Peterhouse, founded so far back as 1280 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop -of Ely. It was at first established in the Hospital of St. John the -Evangelist, near by, but was removed, only six years later, to the -present site, for convenient access to the Church of St. Peter. It is -to the fact that the chancel of this church was used as its chapel -that the college owes its official but rarely heard title of "St. -Peter's." In 1352 St. Peter's Church was given a new consecration, and -has ever since been known as St. Mary the Less. Meanwhile, in 1632, the -college built a chapel of its own. - -Peterhouse has points of interest other than being the first of the -colleges. It has nurtured men not only of distinction, but of fame. Men -so opposite in character as the worldly Cardinal Beaufort--the great -Cardinal who figures in Shakespeare--and the pious Archbishop Whitgift -were educated here; and in later times that great man of science, Lord -Kelvin; but perhaps the most famous of all is Gray, the poet, whose -"Elegy Wrote in a Country Churchyard" has done more to endear him to -his country than the acts of any statesman or divine. - -Peterhouse does not present a cheerful front to the street. It is heavy -and gloomy, and its buildings, as a whole, do not help out the story of -its age. The chapel, whose weather-vane bears the emblem of a key, an -allusion to St. Peter, stands recessed behind the railings that give -upon the street, and blocks the view into the first of the three quads. -It is flanked on one side by the venerable brick building seen on the -extreme left of the illustration representing Trumpington Street, and -on the other by a great ugly three-storeyed block of stone, interesting -only because the rooms overlooking the street on the topmost floor were -those occupied by Gray. They are to be identified by iron railings -across one of the windows. A story belongs to these rooms. Gray, it -seems, lived long in them as a Fellow of his College, and might have -eked out his morbid life here, dining according to habit in Hall, and -then, unsociable and morose, retiring to his elevated eyrie, reading -the classics over a bottle of port. Gray had a very pretty taste in -port, but it did not suffice to make him more clubbable. His solitary -habits, perhaps, were responsible for a morbid fear of fire that grew -upon him, and increased to such a degree that he caused the transverse -bars, that still remain, to be placed outside his window overlooking -the churchyard of Little St. Mary's, and kept in constant readiness -a coil of rope to tie to them and so let himself down in case of an -alarm. His precautions were matters of common knowledge, and at last -his fears were taken advantage of by a band of skylarking students, -who placed a bath full of water beneath his rooms one winter night and -then, placing themselves in a favourable position for seeing the fun, -raised cries of "Fire!" - -Their best expectations were realised. The window was hurriedly flung -up, and the frenzied poet, nightcapped and lightly clad, swiftly -descended into the bath, amid yells of delight. These intimate facts -seem to hint that Gray had not endeared himself to the scholars of -Peterhouse. This practical joke severed his connection with the -college, for he immediately removed across the street, to Pembroke. - -Pembroke is prominent in this view down the long, quiet, grave street; -and the quaint turret of its chapel, built by Sir Christopher Wren, is -very noticeable. Gravity is, we have said, the note here, and so solid -a quality is quite in order, for Trumpington Street and the road beyond -have ever been the favourite walks of dons and professors, walking -oblivious to their surroundings in what we are bound to consider -academic meditation rather than that mere mental vacuity known as -absent-mindedness. There is a story told of the late Professor Seeley -exquisitely illustrating this mental detachment. It is a story that -probably has been told of many earlier professors, to be re-incarnated -to suit every succeeding age: a common enough thing with legends. It -seems, however, that the late Professor of History was walking past -the Conduit one fine day, speculating on who shall say what abstruse -matters, when a mischievous boy switched a copious shower of water over -him from the little stream in the gutter. The Professor's physical -organism felt the descending drops, some lazy, unspeculative brain-cell -gave him the idea of a shower of rain, and he immediately unfurled his -umbrella, and so walked home. - -Next the new buildings of Pembroke, over against Peterhouse, the Master -of that college has his residence, behind the high brick walls of a -seventeenth century garden. On the left hand are Little St. Mary's, a -Congregational Church, and the church-like pinnacled square tower of -the Pitt Press, all in succession. Beyond, but hid from this view-point -by a gentle curve of the street, are "Cats," otherwise St. Catherine's, -and Corpus; and then we come to that continuation of Trumpington Street -called "King's Parade," opposite King's College. Here we are at the -centre of Cambridge, with Market Hill opening out on the right and the -gigantic bulk of King's College Chapel on the left, neighboured by that -fount of honour, or scene of disgraceful failure, the beautiful classic -Senate House, where you take your degree or are ignominiously "plucked." - -In midst of Market Hill stands the church of Great St. Mary's, the -University Church. Town and University are at this point inextricably -mixed. Shops and churches, colleges, divinity schools and Town Hall all -jostle one another around this wide open space, void on most days, but -on Saturday so crowded with the canopied stalls of the market that it -presents one vast area of canvas. Few markets are so well supplied with -flowers as this, for in summertime growing plants are greatly in demand -by the undergrads to decorate the windows of their lodgings. This -living outside the colleges is, and has always been, a marked feature -of Cambridge, where college accommodation has never kept pace with -requirements. It is a system that makes the town cheerful and lively -in term, but at vacation times, when the "men" have all "gone down," -its emptiness is correspondingly noticeable. To "go down" and to "come -up" are, by the way, terms that require some little explanation beyond -their obvious meaning of leaving or of arriving at the University. They -had their origin in the old-standing dignity of Alma Mater, requiring -that all other places should be considered below her--even the mighty -Gog Magogs themselves. From Cambridge to London or elsewhere is -therefore a [Greek: katabasis]--a going downward. - -The Cambridge system of lodging out does not make for discipline, -and creates a lamentable laxity in a man keeping his proper quota -of chapels. To attend chapel at an early hour of the morning seems -much more of an infliction when living in the freedom of lodgings -than when in the cloistered shades of a college quad, and has led to -many absences, summonses before the Dean, and mild lectures from that -generally estimable and other-worldly personage. You, in the innocence -of your heart and your first term, advance the excuse that late study -makes it difficult to always keep chapels. Observe that it is _always_ -midnight study, never card-parties and the like, and never that very -natural disinclination to turn out of bed in the morning that is -answerable for these backslidings. All very specious and unoriginal, -and that Dean has heard it all before, so many times, and years and -years ago, from men now gone into the world and become middle-aged. -Why, in his own youth _he_ gave and attended parties, and missed -chapels, and made these ancient blue-mouldy prevarications to the Dean -of _his_ college,--and so back and back to the infinities. Is he angry: -does he personally care a little bit? Not at all. It is routine. "Don't -you think, young man," he says, in his best pulpit-cum-grandfather -style, "don't you think that if you were to _try_ to study in the -morning it would be much better for your health, much better in every -way than reading at night? When I was _your_ age _I_ studied at night. -It gave me headaches. Now try and keep chapel. It is _so_ much better -to become used to habits of discipline. They are of such value to us in -after life"--and so forth. - - -XXIII - - -CAMBRIDGE is often criticised because it is not Oxford. As well might -one find fault with a lily because it is not a rose. Criticism of this -kind starts with the belief that it is a worse Oxford, an inferior copy -of the sister University. How false that is, and how entirely Cambridge -is itself in outward appearance and in intellectual aims need not be -insisted upon. It is true that Trumpington Street does not rival "the -High" at Oxford, but it was not built with the object of imitating that -famous academic street; and if indeed the Isis be a more noble stream -than the Cam, Oxford at least has nothing to compare with the Cambridge -"Backs." - -"The Backs" are the peculiar glory of Cambridge, and he who has not -seen them has missed much. They are the back parts of those of the -colleges--Queens', King's, Clare, Trinity, and John's--whose courts -and beautiful lawns extend from the main street back to the Cam, that -much-abused and much idealised stream. - -"The Cam," says a distinguished member of the University, with a horrid -lack of enthusiasm for the surroundings of Alma Mater, "is scarcely a -river at all; above the town it is a brook; below the town it is little -better than a sewer." Can this, you wonder, be the same as that "Camus, -reverend sire," of the poets; the stream that "went footing slow, His -mantle hairy and his bonnet sedge." - -That, undoubtedly, is too severe. Above the town it is a brook that -will at any rate float such craft as Cambridge possesses, and has -shady nooks like "Paradise" and Byron's Pool, where the canoe can be -navigated and bathing of the best may be found; and now that Cambridge -colleges no longer drain into the river, the stream below town does not -deserve that reproach. Everything, it seems, depends upon your outlook. -If you are writing academic odes, for example, like Gray's, you praise -the Cam; if, like Gray again, writing on an unofficial occasion, you -enlarge upon its sluggish pace and its mud. Gray, it will be observed, -could be a dissembling poet. His "Installation Ode," as official in -its way as the courtly lines of a Poet Laureate, pictures Cambridge -delightfully, in the lines he places in the mouth of Milton-- - - "Ye brown, o'er-arching groves, - That contemplation loves, - Where willowy Camus lingers with delight! - Oft at the blush of dawn - I trod your level lawn-- - Oft wooed the gleam of Cynthia, silver bright, - In cloisters dim, far from the haunts of Folly, - With Freedom by my side, and soft-eyed Melancholy." - -Few lines in the whole range of our poetry are so beautiful as these. - -But Gray's own private and unofficial idea of the Cam was very -different. When he took the gag off his Muse and allowed her to be -frank, we hear of the "rushy Camus," whose - - "... Slowly-winding flood - Perpetual draws his humid train of mud." - -Yet "the Backs" give a picture of mingled architecture, stately trees, -emerald lawns, and placid stream not to be matched anywhere else: an -ideal picture of what a poet's University should be. If, on entering -the town from Trumpington Street, you turn to the left past the Leys -School, down the lane called Coe Fen, you come first upon the Cam -where it is divided into many little streams running and subdividing -and joining together again in the oozy pasture of Sheep's Green, -and then to a water-mill. Beyond that mill begin "the Backs," with -Queens' College, whose ancient walls of red brick, like some building -of romance, rise sheer from the water. From them springs a curious -"mathematical" wooden bridge, spanning the river and leading from the -college to the shady walks on the opposite side. - -With so dreamy and beautiful a setting, it is not surprising that -Cambridge, although the education she gave was long confined largely to -the unimaginative science or art of mathematics, has been especially -productive of poets. Dryden was an alumnus of Trinity; Milton sucked -wisdom at Christ's; Wordsworth, of John's, wrote acres of verse as -flat as the Cambridgeshire meads, and much more arid; Byron drank -deep and roystered at King's; and Tennyson was a graduate of Trinity. -Other poets owning allegiance to Cambridge are that sweet Elizabethan -songster, Robert Herrick, Marlowe, Waller, Cowley, Prior, Coleridge, -and Praed. Poetry, in short, is in the moist relaxing air of Cambridge, -and in those - - "... brown o'er-arching groves - That contemplation loves." - -Cambridge would stand condemned were poets its only product. -Fortunately, as some proof of the practical value of an University -education, it can point to men like Cromwell, Pitt, and Macaulay, -whose strenuous lives have in their several ways left a mark on the -nation's history. Though one be not a champion of Cromwell's career, -yet his savagery, his duplicity, his canting hypocrisy fade into the -background and lose their significance beside the firmness of purpose, -the iron determination and the wise policy that made England respected -and feared abroad under the rule of the Protector. The beheading of a -King weighs little in the scale against the upholding of the dignity -of the State; and though a sour Puritanism ruled the land under the -great Oliver, at least the guns of a foreign foe were never heard in -our estuaries under the Commonwealth, as they were heard after the -Restoration. Cambridge gives no sign that she is proud of Oliver, -neither does Sidney Sussex, his old college. But if Cambridge be -not outwardly proud of Old Noll, she abundantly glories in William -Pitt. And rightly, too. None may calculate how the equation stands: -how greatly his natural parts or to what extent his seven years of -University education contributed to his brilliant career; but for -one of her sons to have attained the dignity of Chancellor of the -Exchequer at twenty-three years of age, to have been Prime Minister at -twenty-five, the political dictator of Europe and the saviour of his -country, is a triumph beyond anything they can show on the Isis. The -Pitt Press, the Pitt Scholarship, the Pitt Club, all echo the fame of -his astonishing genius. - - -XXIV - - -THE impossibility of giving even a glimpse of the principal colleges -of Cambridge in these pages of a book devoted to the road will be -obvious. Thus, the great quads of Trinity, the many courts of John's, -Milton's mulberry tree at Christ's, the Pepysian Library of Magdalen, -and a hundred other things must be sought elsewhere. Turn we, then, to -further talk of Thomas Hobson, the carrier and livery-stable keeper of -"Hobson's Choice," who lies in an unmarked resting-place in the chancel -of St. Benedict's Church, hard by the Market Hill. Born in 1544, he was -not a native of Cambridge, but seems to have first seen the light at -Buntingford, his father's native place. Already, in that father's time, -the business had grown so profitable and important that we find Hobson -senior a treasurer of the Cambridge Corporation; and when he died, in -1568, in a position to leave considerable landed and other property -among his family. To Thomas, his more famous son, he bequeathed land at -Grantchester and the waggon and horses that industrious son had been -for some years past driving between Cambridge and London for him, with -the surety and regularity of the solar system. "I bequeath," he wrote, -"to my son Thomas the team-ware that he now goeth with, that is to -say, the cart and eight horses, and all the harness and other things -thereunto belonging, with the nag, to be delivered to him at such time -and when as he shall attain and come to the age of twenty-five years; -or L30 in money, for and in discharge thereof." - -And thus he continued to go once a week, back and forth, for close upon -sixty-three years, riding the nag and its successors beside the waggon -that ploughed its ponderous way along the heavy roads. An ancient -portrait of him, a large painting in oil, is now in the Cambridge -Guildhall, and inscribed, "Mr. Hobson, 1620." This contemporary -portrait has the curious information written on the back, "This picture -was hung up at Ye Black Bull inn, Bishopsgate, London, upwards of one -hundred years before it was given to J. Burleigh 1787." - -Hobson scarce fitted the picture of the "jolly waggoner" drawn in the -old song. Have you ever heard the song of the "Jolly Waggoner"? It is -a song of lightly come and lightly go; of drinking with good fellows -while the waggon and horses are standing long hours outside the wayside -inn, and consignees are waiting with what patience they may for their -goods. A song that bids dull care begone, and draws for you a lively -sketch of the typical waggoner, who lived for the moment, whistled as -he went in attempted rivalry with the hedgerow thrushes and blackbirds, -spent his money as he earned it, and had a greeting, a ribbon, and a -kiss for every lass along the familiar highway. - -[Illustration: HOBSON, THE CAMBRIDGE CARRIER. - "Laugh not to see so plain a man in print; - The Shadow's homely, yet ther's something in't. - Witness the Bagg he wears, (though seeming poore) - The fertile Mother of a hundred more; - He was a thriving man, through lawfull Gain, - And wealthy grew by warrantable paine, - Then laugh at them that spend, not them that gather, - Like thriveing Sonnes of such a thrifty Father."] - -It is a song that goes to a reckless and flamboyant tune, an almost -Handelian melody that is sung with a devil-may-care toss of the head -and much emphasis; a rare, sweet, homely old country ditty-- - - "When first I went a-waggoning, a-waggoning did go, - I filled my parents' hearts with sorrow, trouble, grief, and woe; - And many are the hardships, too, that since I have gone through. - Sing wo! my lads, sing wo! - Drive on, my lads, heigh-ho! - For who can live the life that we jolly waggoners do? - - It is a cold and stormy night: I'm wetted to the skin, - But I'll bear it with contentment till I get me to my inn, - And then I'll sit a-drinking with the landlord and his kin. - Sing wo! my lads, etc. - - Now summer is a-coming on--what pleasure we shall see! - The mavis and the blackbird singing sweet on every tree. - The finches and the starlings, too, will whistle merrily. - Sing wo! my lads, etc. - - Now Michaelmas is coming fast--what pleasure we shall find! - 'Twill make the gold to fly, my lads, like chaff before the wind. - And every lad shall kiss his lass, so loving and so kind. - Sing wo!" etc. - -And so forth. - -Hobson was not this kind of man. He had his horse-letting business in -Cambridge, where, indeed, he had forty saddle-nags always ready, "fit -for travelling, with boots, bridle, and whip, to furnish the gentlemen -at once, without going from college to college to borrow"; but he -continued throughout his long life to go personally with his waggon, -and died January 1st, 1631, in his eighty-sixth year, of the irksome -and unaccustomed inaction imposed upon him by the authorities, who -forbade him to ply to London while one of the periodical outbreaks of -plague was raging in the capital. Dependable in business as Hobson was, -he prospered exceedingly, and amassed a very considerable fortune, "a -much greater fortune," says one, "than a thousand men of genius and -learning, educated at the University, ever acquired, or were capable of -acquiring." This is not a little hard on the learned and the gifted, by -whose favour and goodwill he prospered so amazingly. For, be it known, -he was not merely and solely _a_ carrier; but _the_ carrier, especially -licensed by the University, and thus a monopolist. Those were the days -before a Government monopoly of the post was established, and one of -Hobson's particular functions was the conveying of the mails. He was -thus a very serious and responsible person. - -You cannot conceive Hobson "carrying on" like the typical "jolly -waggoner." Look at the portrait of him, taken from a fresco painted -on a wall of his old house of call, the Bull, in Bishopsgate Street. -A very grave and staid old man it shows us; looking out upon the -world with cold and calculating eyes, deep-set beneath knitted brows, -and with a long and money-loving, yet cautious, nose. His hand is -unwillingly extracting a guinea from a well-filled money-bag, and you -may clearly see from his expression of countenance how much rather he -would be putting one in. - -Yet in his last years he appeared in the guise of a benefactor to -the town of Cambridge, for in 1628 he gave to town and University -the land on which was built the so-called "Spinning House," or, more -correctly, "Hobson's Workhouse," where poor people who had no trade -might be taught some honest one, and all stubborn rogues and beggars -be compelled to earn their livelihood. A bequest providing for the -maintenance of the water-conduit in the Market Place kept his memory -green for many a long year afterwards. It remained a prominent object -in the centre of the town until 1856, when it was removed; but the -little watercourses that of old used to run along the kennels of -Cambridge streets still serve to keep the place clean and sweet. - -[Illustration: HOBSON. - -[_From a Painting in Cambridge Guildhall._]] - -It cannot be too strongly insisted upon that Hobson, although he -fared the road personally, and attended to every petty detail of his -carrying business, was both a very wealthy and a very important -personage. The second condition is not necessarily a corollary of the -first. But Hobson bulked large in the Cambridge of his time. Indeed, -as much may be gathered from the mass of literature written around -his name. In his lifetime even, some compiler of a Commercial Letter -Writer, for instructing youths ignorant of affairs, could find no more -apt and taking title than that of _Hobson's Horse Load of Letters, or -Precedents for Epistles of Business_; and poets and verse-writers, from -Milton downwards, wrote many epitaphs and eulogies on him. Milton, who -had gone up to Christ's College in 1624, was twenty-three years of age -when Hobson died, and wrote two humorous epitaphs on him, more akin to -the manner of Tom Hood than the majestic periods usually associated -in the mind with the style commonly called "Miltonic.". "Quibbling -epitaphs" an eighteenth century critic has called them. But you shall -judge-- - - "On the University Carrier, who sickened in the time of the Vacancy, - being forbid to go to London by reason of the Plague. - - Here lies old Hobson: Death hath broke his girt, - And here, alas! hath laid him in the dirt; - Or else, the ways being foul, twenty to one - He's here stuck in a slough and overthrown. - 'Twas such a shifter that, if truth were known, - Death was half glad when he had got him down; - For he had any time this ten years full - Dodged with him betwixt Cambridge and the Bull; - And, surely, Death could never have prevailed, - Had not his weekly course of carriage failed; - But, lately, finding him so long at home, - And thinking now his journey's end was come, - And that he had taken up his latest inn, - In the kind office of a Chamberlain - Showed him his room where he must lodge that night, - Pulled off his boots, and took away the light: - If any ask for him, it shall be said, - 'Hobson hath supped, and's newly gone to bed.'" - -The subject seems to have been an engrossing one to the youthful poet, -for he harked back to it in the following variant:-- - - "Here lieth one who did most truly prove - That he could never die while he could move; - So hung his destiny, never to rot - While he might still jog on and keep his trot, - Made of sphere-metal, never to decay - Until his revolution was at stay! - Time numbers motion, yet (without a crime - 'Gainst old truth) motion numbered out his time; - And, like an engine moved with wheel and weight, - His principles being ceased, he ended straight. - Rest, that gives all men life, gave him his death, - And too much breathing put him out of breath; - Nor were it contradiction to affirm - Too long _vacation_ hastened on his _term_; - Merely to drive the time away he sickened, - Fainted and died, nor would with ale be quickened. - 'Nay,' quoth he, on his swooning bed outstretched, - 'If I may not carry, sure I'll ne'er be fetched; - But vow' (though the cross Doctors all stood hearers) - 'For one _carrier_ put down, to make six _bearers_.' - Ease was his chief disease, and, to judge right, - He died for heaviness that his cart went light; - His leisure told him that his time was come, - And lack of load made his life burdensome; - That even to his last breath, (there be that say't,) - As he were pressed to death, he cried 'More weight!' - But, had his doings lasted as they were, - He had been an immortal Carrier. - Obedient to the moon, he spent his date - In course reciprocal, and had his fate - Linked to the mutual flowing of the seas; - Yet, strange to think, his wain was his increase; - His letters are delivered all and gone; - Only remains this superscription." - -The next example--an anonymous one--makes no bad third-- - - "Here Hobson lies among his many betters, - A man unlearned, yet a man of letters; - His carriage was well known, oft hath he gone - In Embassy 'twixt father and the son: - There's few in Cambridge, to his praise be't spoken, - But may remember him by some good Token. - From whence he rid to London day by day, - Till Death benighting him, he lost his way: - His Team was of the best, nor would he have - Been mired in any way but in the grave. - And there he stycks, indeed, styll like to stand, - Untill some Angell lend hys helpyng hand. - Nor is't a wonder that he thus is gone, - Since all men know, he long was drawing on. - Thus rest in peace thou everlasting Swain, - And Supream Waggoner, next Charles his wain." - -The couplet printed below touches a pretty note of imagination, and is -wholly free from that suspicion of affected scholarly superiority to -a common carrier, with which all the others, especially Milton's, are -super-saturated-- - - "Hobson's not dead, but Charles the Northerne swaine, - Hath sent for him, to draw his lightsome waine." - -Charles's Wain, referred to in these two last examples, is, of course, -that well-known constellation in the northern heavens usually known as -the Great Bear, anciently "Charlemagne's Waggon," and more anciently -still, the Greek Hamaxa, "the Waggon." - -Coming, as might be expected, a considerable distance after Milton and -the others in point of excellence, are the epitaphs printed in a little -book of 1640, called the _Witt's Recreations, Selected from the Finest -Fancies of the Modern Muses_. Some of them are a little gruesome, and -affect the reader as unfavourably as though he saw the authors of these -lines dancing a saraband on poor old Hobson's grave-- - - "Hobson (what's out of sight is out of mind) - Is gone, and left his letters here behind. - He that with so much paper us'd to meet; - Is now, alas! content to take one sheet. - - He that such carriage store was wont to have, - Is carried now himselfe unto his grave: - O strange! he that in life ne're made but one, - Six Carriers makes, now he is dead and gone." - - -XXV - - -THE Market Hill is, as already hinted, the centre of Cambridge. The -University church is there. There, too, the stalls of the Wednesday -and Saturday markets still gather thickly, and on them the inquisitive -stranger may yet discover butter being sold, as from time immemorial, -by the yard. Here a yard of butter is the equivalent of a pound, and -the standard gauge of such a yard--the obsolete symbol of a time when -the University exercised jurisdiction over the markets as well as over -the students--is to this day handed over to the Senior Proctor of the -year on his taking office. It is a clumsy cylinder of sheet iron, a -yard in length and an inch in diameter. A pound of butter rolled out -to this measurement looks remarkably like a very yellow candle of -inordinate length. - -[Illustration: MARKET HILL, CAMBRIDGE.] - -Hobson's Conduit, as already noted, once stood in the centre of this -market-place. When his silent, hook-nosed Majesty, William the Third, -visited Cambridge in 1689, the Conduit was made by the enthusiastic -citizens to run wine. Not much wine, though, nor very good, we may -surely suppose, for the tell-tale account-books record that it cost -only thirty shillings! - -[Illustration: THE FALCON, CAMBRIDGE.] - -[Illustration: INTERIOR OF ST. SEPULCHRE'S CHURCH.] - -Few of the old coach-offices or inns stood in this square, but -were--and are now--to be found chiefly in the streets leading out -of it. The Bull, anciently the Black Bull, still faces Trumpington -Street; the Lion flourishes in Petty Cury; the old Three Tuns, Peas -Hill, is now the Central Temperance Hotel; and the Blue Boar, in whose -archway an unfortunate clergyman, the Reverend Gavin Braithwaite, was -killed in 1814 when seated on the roof of the Ipswich coach, still -faces Trinity Street. The Sun, however, in Trinity Street, where Byron -and his cronies dined and caroused, is no more; and of late years the -Woolpack and the Wrestlers, both very ancient buildings, have been -demolished. Foster's Bank stands on the site of one and the new Post -Office on that of the other. For a while the remains of the galleried, -tumbledown Falcon, stand in a court off Petty Cury; the inn in whose -yard Cambridge students entertained and shocked Queen Elizabeth with a -blasphemous stage travesty of the Mass. In Bridge Street stands the -Hoop, notable in its day, and celebrated by Wordsworth-- - - "Onward we drove beneath the Castle; caught, - While crossing Magdalen Bridge, a glimpse of Cam; - And at the Hoop alighted, famous inn." - -Beyond the Hoop, the quaintly-named Pickerel Inn stands by Magdalen, -or Great Bridge, just as it did in days when the carriers dumped down -their loads here, to be transferred to the passage-boats for Ely and -Kings Lynn. In Benet Street the Eagle, once the Eagle and Child, still -discloses a courtyard curiously galleried, and hard by is the old Bath -Hotel. This list practically exhausts the old coaching inns, but of -queer hostelries of other kinds there are many, with nodding gables -and latticed windows, in every other lane and by-way. Churches, too, -abound. Oldest among these is St. Sepulchre's, one of the four round -churches in England; a dark Norman building that in the blackness of -its interior accurately figures the grimness of the Norman mind. - - -XXVI - - -CAMBRIDGE, now a town abounding in and surrounded by noble trees, was -originally a British settlement, placed on that bold spur of high -ground, rising from the surrounding treeless mires, on which in after -years the Romans established their military post of Camboricum, and -where in later ages William the Conqueror built his castle. The great -artificial mound, which, like some ancient sepulchral tumulus, is all -that remains to tell of William's fortress and to mark where Roman and -Briton had originally seized upon this strategic point, crowns this -natural bluff, overlooking the river Cam. Standing on it, with the -whole of Cambridge town and a wide panorama of low-lying surrounding -country disclosed, it is evident that this must have been the place -of places for many miles on either hand where, in those remote days, -the river could be crossed. Everywhere else the wide-spreading swamps -forbade a passage; and, consequently, those who held this position, and -could keep it, could deny the whole country to the passage of a hostile -force from either side. Whether one enemy sought to penetrate from -London to Ely and Norfolk, or whether another would come out of Norfolk -into South Cambridgeshire or Herts, he must first of necessity dispose -of those who held the key of this situation. The Romans, before they -could subdue the masters of this position, experienced, we may well -believe, no little difficulty; and it is probable that the perplexity -of antiquaries, confronted by the existence of a Roman camp or station -here, and of another three miles higher up the Cam at Grantchester, may -be smoothed out by the very reasonable explanation that Grantchester -was the first Roman camp over against the British stronghold at -Cambridge, and that, when the Romans had made themselves masters of -Cambridge, that place remained their military post, while Grantchester -became a civil and trading community and a place of residence. - -[Illustration: CAMBRIDGE CASTLE A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.] - -Both place-names derive from this one river, masquerading now as -the Granta and again as the Cam, but by what name the Romans knew -Grantchester we do not know and never shall. - -At Roman Camboricum those ancient roads, the Akeman Street and the Via -Devana, crossed at right angles, meeting here on this very Castle hill: -the Via Devana on its way from Colchester to the town of _Deva_, now -Chester; the Akeman Street going from _Branodunum_, now Brancaster, on -the coast of Norfolk, to _Aquae Solis_, the Bath of our own day. - -Cambridge Castle, built in 1068 by William the Conqueror to hold -Hereward the Saxon and his East Anglian fellow-patriots in check, -has entirely disappeared. It never accumulated any legends of sieges -or surprises, and of military history it had none whatever. It was, -therefore, a castle of the greatest possible success; for, consider, -although the first impulse may be to think little of a fortress that -can tell no warlike story, the very lack of anything of the kind is -the best proof of its strength and fitness. It is not the purpose of -a castle to invite attacks, but by its very menace to overawe and -terrify. Torquilstone Castle and the story of its siege and downfall, -in the pages of _Ivanhoe_, make romantic and exciting reading; but, -inasmuch as it fell, it was a failure. That Cambridge Castle not only -never fell, but was not even menaced, is the best proof of its power. - -These great fortresses, with their stone keeps and spreading wards -and baileys, dotted here and there over the land, rang the knell of -English liberties. "New and strong and cruel in their strength--how -the Englishman must have loathed the damp smell of the fresh mortar, -and the sight of the heaps of rubble, and the chippings of the stone, -and the blurring of the lime upon the greensward; and how hopeless he -must have felt when the great gates opened and the wains were drawn -in, heavily laden with the salted beeves and the sacks of corn and -meal furnished by the royal demesnes, the manors which had belonged to -Edward the Confessor, now the spoil of the stranger; and when he looked -into the castle court, thronged by the soldiers in bright mail, and -heard the carpenters working upon the ordnance--every blow and stroke, -even of the hammer or mallet, speaking the language of defiance." - -William himself occupied his castle of Cambridge on its completion in -1069, and from it he directed the long and weary military operations -against Hereward across the fens toward the Isle of Ely, only twelve -miles away. From his keep-tower he could see with his own eyes that -Isle, rising from the flat, on the skyline, like some Promised Land, -but two years were to pass before he and his soldiers were to enter -there; admitted even then by treachery. - -From the Castle Mound the Cam may be seen, winding away through the -flats into the distant haze. Immediately below are Parker's Piece, -and Midsummer and Stourbridge Commons; this last from time beyond -knowledge the annual scene of Stourbridge Fair. "Sturbitch" Fair, -as the country-folk call it, existed, like the University itself, -before history came to take note of it. When King John reigned it was -already an important mark, and so continued until, at the Dissolution -of the Monasteries, its rights and privileges were transferred to the -Corporation of Cambridge. - -Whether the story of its origin be well founded, or merely a -picturesque invention, it cannot be said. It is a story telling how -a Kendal clothier, at date unknown, journeying from Westmoreland to -London, his pack-horses laden with bales of cloth, found the bridge -over the Cam at this point broken down, and, trying to ford the river, -fell in, goods and all. Struggling at last to the opposite bank, and -fishing out his property, he spread his cloth to dry on Stourbridge -Common, where so many of the townsfolk came to see it and to bid that -in the end he sold nearly all his stock, and did much better than if he -had gone on to London. The next year, therefore, he took care--not to -fall into the Cam again--but to make Cambridge his mart. Other trades -then became attracted to the place where he found business so brisk, -and hence (according to the legend) the growth of a fair in its prime -comparable only with that greatest of all fairs--the famous one of -Nijni-Novgorod. - -To criticise a legend of this kind would be to take it too seriously, -else, among many things that might be inquired into would be the -appearance at Cambridge of a traveller from Westmoreland bound for -London. He must have missed his way very widely indeed! - -The Fair still lasts three weeks, from 18th September to 10th October, -but it is the merest shadow of its former self. The Horse Fair, on the -25th September, is practically all that remains of serious business. -In old times its annual opening was attended with much ceremony. In -those days, before the computation of time was altered, and Old Style -became changed for New, the dates of opening and closing were 7th and -29th September. On Saint Bartholomew's Day the Mayor and Corporation -rode out from the town to set out the ground, then cultivated. By that -day all crops had to be cleared, or the stall-holders, ready to set -up their stalls and booths, were at liberty to trample them down. On -the other hand, they were under obligation to remove everything by St. -Michael's Day, or the ploughmen, ready by this time to break ground for -ploughing, had the right to carry off any remaining goods. Stourbridge -Fair was then a town of booths. In the centre was the Duddery, the -street where the mercers, drapers and clothiers sold their wares; and -running in different directions were Ironmongers' Row, Cooks' Row, -Garlick Row, Booksellers' Row, and many another busy street. In those -times the three weeks' turnover of the various trades was calculated -at not less than a quarter of a million sterling. The railways that -destroyed the position of Lynn, Ely, and Cambridge as distributing -places along the Cam and Ouse, have wrought havoc with this old-time -Fair. - - -XXVII - - -THROUGH Chesterton, overlooked by the Castle and deriving its name from -it, the road leaves Cambridge for Ely, passing through the village -of Milton, where the Fenland begins, or what is more by usage than -true description so-called now the Fens are drained and the land once -sodden with water and covered with beds of dense reeds and rushes made -to bear corn and to afford rich pasture for cattle. This is the true -district of the "Cambridgeshire Camels," as the folk of the shire are -proverbially called. The term, a very old one, doubtless took its -origin in the methods of traversing the Fens formerly adopted by the -rustic folk. They used stilts, or "stetches," as they preferred to call -them, and no doubt afforded an amusing spectacle to strangers, as they -straddled high above the reeds and stalked from one grassy tussock to -another in the quaking bogs. - -There is a choice of routes at Milton, the road running in a loop for -two miles. The left-hand branch, through Landbeach, selected by the -Post Office as the route of its telegraph-poles, might on that account -be considered the main road, but the right-hand route has decidedly the -better surface. Midway of this course, where the Slap Up Inn stands, is -the lane leading to Waterbeach, a scattered village near the Cam, much -troubled by the floods from that stream in days gone by. - -Something of what Waterbeach was like in the eighteenth century may -be gathered from the correspondence of the Rev. William Cole, curate -there from 1767 to 1770. Twenty guineas a year was the modest sum he -received, but that, fortunately for him, was not the full measure of -his resources, for he possessed an estate in the neighbourhood. The -value of his land could not have been great, and may be guessed from -his letters. Writing in 1769, he says: "A great part of my estate has -been drowned these two years: all this part of the country is now -covered with water and the poor people of this parish utterly ruined." -And again in 1770: "This is the third time within six years that my -estate has been drowned, and now worse than ever." Shortly after -writing that letter he removed. "Not being a water-rat," he says, "I -left Waterbeach," and went to the higher and drier village of Milton, -two miles away. - -Waterbeach long retained its old-world manners and customs. May Day was -its greatest holiday, and was ushered in with elaborate preparations. -The young women collected materials for a garland, consisting of -ribbons, flowers, and silver spoons, with a silver tankard to suspend -in the centre; while the young men, early in the morning, or late at -night, went forth into the fields to collect emblems of their esteem -or disapproval of the young women aforesaid. "Then," says the old -historian of these things, "woe betide the girl of loose habits, the -slattern and the scold; for while the young woman who had been foremost -in the dance, or whose amiable manners entitled her to esteem, had a -large branch or tree of whitethorn planted by her cottage door, the -girl of loose manners had a blackthorn at hers." The slattern's emblem -was an elder tree, and the scold's a bunch of nettles tied to the latch -of the door. - -After having thus (under cover of darkness, be it said) left their -testimonials to the qualities or defects of the village beauties, the -young men, just before the rising of the sun, went for the garland -and suspended it in the centre of the street by a rope tied to -opposite chimneys. This done, sunrise was ushered in by ringing the -village bells. Domestic affairs were attended to until after midday, -and then the village gave itself up to merrymaking. Dancing on the -village green, sports of every kind, and kiss-in-the-ring were for -the virtuous and the industrious; while the recipients of the elders, -the blackthorns, and the nettles sat in the cold shade of neglect, -wished they had never been born, and made up their minds to be more -objectionable than ever. Such was Waterbeach about 1820. - -Some thirty years later the village acquired an enduring title to fame -as the first charge given to that bright genius among homely preachers, -Charles Haddon Spurgeon. It was in 1851, while yet only in his -seventeenth year, that Spurgeon was made pastor of the Baptist Chapel -here. Already his native eloquence had made him famed in Colchester, -where, two years before, he had first spoken in public. The old -thatched chapel where the youthful preacher ministered, on a stipend -of twenty pounds a year, almost identical with that enjoyed by the -Reverend William Cole, curate in the parish church eighty years before, -has long since disappeared, destroyed by fire in 1861; and on its site -stands a large and very ugly "Spurgeon Memorial Chapel" in yellow -brick with red facings. Scarce two years and a half passed before the -fame of Spurgeon's eloquence spread to London, and he was offered, and -accepted, the pastorate of New Park Street Chapel, Southwark, there to -fill that conventicle to overflowing, and presently draw all London to -Exeter Hall. Even at this early stage of his wonderful career there -were those who dilated upon the marvel of "this heretical Calvinist -and Baptist" drawing a congregation of ten thousand souls while St. -Paul's and Westminster Abbey resounded with the echoing footsteps of -infrequent worshippers; but Spurgeon preached shortly afterwards to a -congregation numbering twenty-four thousand, and maintained his hold -until the day of his death, nearly forty years after. Where shall that -curate, vicar, rector, dean, bishop, or archbishop of the Church of -England be found who can command such numbers? - -That his memory is held in great reverence at Waterbeach need scarce -be said. There are still those who tell how the "boy-preacher," when -announced to hold a night service in some remote village, not only -braved the worst that storms and floods could do, but how, finding the -chapel empty and the expected congregation snugly housed at home, out -of the howling wind and drenching rain, he explored the place with a -borrowed stable-lantern in his hand, and secured a congregation by dint -of house-to-house visits! - - -XXVIII - - -THE left-hand loop, through Landbeach, if an inferior road, has more -wayside interest. Landbeach is in Domesday Book called "Utbech," that -is to say Outbeach, or Beach out (of the water). "Beach" in this and -other Fenland instances means "bank"; Waterbeach being thus "water -bank." Wisbeach, away up in the extreme north of the county, is a -more obscure name, but on inquiry is found to mean Ousebank, that -town standing on the Ouse in days before the course of that river -was changed. Landbeach Church stands by the wayside, and has its -interest for the ecclesiologist, as conceivably also for those curious -people interested in the stale and futile controversy as to who wrote -Shakespeare's plays; for within the building lies the Reverend William -Rawley, sometime chaplain to Bacon, and not only so, but the author -of a life of him and the publisher of his varied acknowledged works. -He, if anyone, would have known it if Bacon had been that self-effacing -playwright, so we must needs think it a pity there is so little in -spiritualism save idiotic manifestations of horseplay and showers of -rappings in the dark; otherwise the obvious thing would be to summon -Rawley's shade and discreetly pump it. - -[Illustration: LANDBEACH.] - -Beyond Landbeach, close by the fifty-sixth milestone from London, -the modern road falls into the Roman Akeman Street, running from -Brancaster (the Roman "Branodunum") on the Norfolk coast, through Ely, -to Cambridge, to Dunstable, and eventually, after many leagues, to -Bath. Those who will may attempt the tracing of it back between this -point and Cambridge, a difficult enough matter, for it has mostly -sunk into the spongy ground, but here, where it exists for a length -of five miles, plain to see, it is still a causeway raised in places -considerably above the levels, and occasionally showing stretches -of imposing appearance. It remains thus a striking monument to the -surveying and engineering skill of that great people, confronted -here in far-off times with a wilderness of reeking bogs. The object -in view--to reach the coast in as straight a line as possible--meant -wrestling with the difficulties of road-making in the mixed and -unstable elements of mud and water, but they faced the problem and -worked it out with such completeness that a solid way arose that only -fell into decay when the civilisation they had planted here, on the rim -and uttermost verge of the known world, was blotted out. Onwards as far -as Lynn a succession of fens stretched for sixty-five miles, but so -judiciously did the Romans choose their route that only some ten miles -of roadway were actually constructed in the ooze. It picked a careful -itinerary, advancing from isle to isle amid the swamps, and, for all -its picking and choosing of a way, went fairly direct. It was here that -it took the first plunge into the sloughs and made direct, as a raised -bank, through them for the Ouse, where Stretham Bridge now marks the -entrance to the Isle of Ely. How that river, then one of great size -and volume, was crossed we do not know. Beyond it, after some three -miles of floundering through the slime, the causeway came to firm -ground again where the village of Stretham (its very name suggestive -of solid roadway) stands on a rise that was once an island. Arrived -at that point, the road took its way for ten miles through the solid -foothold of the Isle of Ely, leaving it at Littleport and coming, after -struggling through six miles of fen, to the Isle of Southery. Crossing -that islet in little more than a mile, it dipped into fens again at -the point now known as Modney Bridge, whence it made for the eyot of -Hilgay. Only one difficulty then remained: to cross the channel of the -Wissey River into Fordham. Thenceforward the way was plain. - -We have already made many passing references to the Fens, and now the -district covered in old times by them is reached, it is necessary, in -order to make this odd country thoroughly understood, to explain them. -What are the Fens like? The Fens, expectant reader, are gone, like the -age of miracles, like the dodo, the pterodactyl, the iguanodon, and the -fancy zoological creatures of remote antiquity. Ages uncountable have -been endeavouring to abolish the Fens. When the Romans came, they found -the native tribes engaged upon the task, and carried it on themselves, -in succession. Since then every age has been at it, and at length, some -seventy or eighty years ago, when steam-pumps were brought to aid the -old draining machinery, the thing was done. There is only one little -specimen of natural fen now left, and that is preserved as a curiosity. -But although the actual morasses are gone, the flat drained fields -of Fenland are here, and we shall presently see in these pages that -although the sloughs are in existence no longer, it is no light thing -in these districts to venture far from the main roads. - -No one has more eloquently or more truly described the present -appearance of the Fen country than Cobbett. "The whole country," he -says, "is as level as the table on which I am now writing. The horizon -like the sea in a dead calm: you see the morning sun come up, just -as at sea; and see it go down over the rim, in just the same way as -at sea in a calm. The land covered with beautiful grass, with sheep -lying about upon it, as fat as hogs stretched out sleeping in a stye. -Everything grows well here: earth without a stone so big as a pin's -head; grass as thick as it can grow on the ground." - -The Fenland has, in fact, the wild beauty that comes of boundless -expanse. Only the range of human vision limits the view. Above is the -summer sky, blue and vast and empty to the sight, but filled to the ear -with the song of the soaring skylark, trilling as he mounts higher and -higher; the sound of his song diminishing as he rises, until it becomes -like the "still small voice of Conscience," and at last fades out of -hearing, like the whisper of that conscience overwrought and stricken -dumb. - -These levels have a peculiar beauty at sunset, and Cambridgeshire -sunsets are as famous in their way as Cambridge sausages. They (the -sunsets, not the sausages) have an unearthly glory that only a Turner -in his most inspired moments could so much as hint at. The vastness of -the Fenland sky and the humid Fenland atmosphere conspire to give these -effects. - -The Fenland is a land of romance for those who know its history and -have the wit to assimilate its story from the days of fantastic legend -to these of clear-cut matter-of-fact. If you have no reading, or even -if you have that reading and do not bring to it the aid of imagination, -the Fens are apt to spell dulness. If so, the dulness is in yourself. -Leave these interminable levels, and in the name of God go elsewhere, -for the flatness of the Great Level added to the flatness of your own -mind will in combination produce a horrible monotony. On the other -hand, if some good fairy at your cradle gave you the gift of seeing -with a vision not merely physical, why, then, the Fenland is fairyland; -for though to the optic nerve there is but a level stretching to the -uttermost horizon, criss-crossed with dykes and lodes and leams of a -severe straightness, there is visible to the mind's eye, Horatio, an -ancient order of things infinitely strange and uncanny. Antiquaries -have written much of the Fens, but they do not commonly present a very -convincing picture of them. They tell of Iceni, of Romans, fierce -Norsemen marauders, Saxons, Danes, and the conquering Normans, but -they cannot, or do not, breathe the breath of life into those ancient -peoples, and make them live and love and hate, fight and vanquish or -be vanquished. The geologists, too, can speculate learnedly upon the -origin of the Fens, and can prove, to their own satisfaction at least, -that this low-lying, once flooded country was produced by some natural -convulsion that suddenly lowered it to the level of the sea; but no -one has with any approach to intimacy with the subject taken us back -to the uncountable aeons when the protoplasm first began to move in the -steaming slime, and so conducted us by easy stages through the crucial -and hazardous period when the jelly-fish was acquiring the rudiments -of a backbone (if that was the order of the progress) to the exciting -era when the crocodile played the very devil with aboriginal man, and -the rhinoceros and the hippopotamus wallowed in the mud. The Iceni are -very modern, compared with these very ancient inhabitants, and have -done what those inarticulate protoplasms, neolithic men and others, -could not do; that is, they gave their names to many places in these -East Anglian shires, and a title that still survives to a great road. -Look on any map of East Anglia and the surrounding counties and you -shall see many place-names beginning with "Ick": Ickborough, Ickworth, -Ickleton, Icklington, Ickleford, and Ickwell. - -These are the surviving names of Icenian settlements. There is a -"Hickling" on the Broads, in Norfolk, which ought by rights to be -"Ickling"; but the world has ever been at odds on the subject of -aspirate or no aspirate, certainly since the classic days of the -Greeks and the Romans. Does not Catullus speak of a certain Arrius who -horrified the Romans by talking of the "Hionian Sea"? and is not Tom -Hood's "Ben Battle" familiar? "Don't let 'em put 'Hicks jacet' there," -he said, "for that is not my name." - -When the Romans came and found the Iceni here, the last stone-age -man and the ultimate crocodile (the former inside the latter) had -for ages past been buried in the peat of the Fens, resolving into a -fossil state. The Iceni probably, the purposeful Romans certainly, -endeavoured to drain the Fens, or at least to prevent their being -worse flooded by the sea; and the Roman embankment between Wisbeach -and King's Lynn, built to keep out the furious wind-driven rollers of -the Wash, gave a name to the villages of Walsoken, Walton, and Walpole -(once Wall-pool). When the Romano-British civilisation decayed, the -defences against the sea decayed with it, and the level lay worse -flooded than before. Far and wide, from Lynn, on the seacoast in the -north, to Fen Ditton, in the south, almost at the gates of Cambridge; -from Mildenhall in the east, to St. Ives and Peterborough in the west, -a vast expanse of still and shallow water covered an area of, roughly, -seventy miles in length and thirty in breadth: about 2100 square miles. -Out of this dismal swamp rose many islands, formed of knobs of the -stiff clay or gault that had not been washed away with the surrounding -soil. It was on these isles that prehistoric man lived, and where his -wretched wattle-huts were built beside the water. He had his dug-out -canoe and his little landing-stage, and sometimes, when his islet was -very diminutive and subject to floods, he built his dwelling on stakes -driven into the mud. In peaceful and plenteous times he sat on his -staging overhanging the water, and tore and gnawed at the birds and -animals that had fallen to his arrow or his spear. Primitive man was -essentially selfish. He first satisfied his own hunger and then tossed -the remainder to his squaw and the brats, and when they had picked the -bones clean, and saved those that might be useful for fashioning into -arrow-heads, they threw the remains into the water, whence they sent up -in the fulness of time an evil smell which did not trouble him and his -in the least, primitive as they were in every objectionable sense of -the word. - -Relics of him and his domestic odds and ends are often found, ten feet -or so beneath the present surface of the land. His canoe is struck by -the spade of the gaulter, his primitive weapons unearthed, his dustbin -and refuse-heap turned over and examined by curious antiquaries and -naturalists, who can tell you exactly what his _menu_ was. Sometimes -they find primitive man himself, lying among the ruins of his dwelling, -overwhelmed in the long ago by some cataclysm of nature, or perhaps -killed by a neighbouring primitive. - -To these isles in after centuries, when the Romans had gone and the -Saxons had settled down and become Christians, came hermits and monks -like Guthlac, who reared upon them abbeys and churches, and began in -their several ways to cultivate the land and to dig dykes and start -draining operations. For the early clergy earned their living, and were -not merely the parasites they have since become. These islands, now -that the Fens are drained, are just hillocks in the great plain. They -are still the only villages in the district, and on those occasions -when an embankment breaks and the Fens are flooded, they become the -islands they were a thousand years ago. The very names of these -hillocks and villages are fen-eloquent, ending as they do with "ey" and -"ea," corruptions of the Anglo-Saxon words "ig," an island, and "ea," -a river. Ely, the largest of them, is said by Bede to have obtained -its name from the abundance of eels, and thus to be the "Eel Island." -There are others who derive it from "helig," a willow, and certainly -both eels and willows were abundant here; but the name, in an ancient -elision of that awkward letter "h," is more likely to come from another -"helig," meaning holy, and Ely to really be the "holy island." - -Other islands, most of them now with villages of the same name, were -Coveney, Hilgay, Southery, Horningsea, Swavesey, Welney, Stuntney, and -Thorney. There was, too, an Anglesey, the Isle of the Angles, a Saxon -settlement, near Horningsea. A farm built over the site of Anglesey -Abbey now stands there. - -But many Fenland place-names are even more eloquent. There are Frog's -Abbey, Alderford, Littleport, Dry Drayton and Fenny Drayton, Landbeach -and Waterbeach. Littleport, really at one time a port to which the -ships of other ages came, is a port no longer; Fenny Drayton is now as -dry as its fellow-village; and Landbeach and Waterbeach are, as we have -already seen, not so greatly the opposites of one another as they were. - - -XXIX - - -A GREAT part of the Fens seems to have been drained and cultivated -at so early a time as the reigns of Stephen and Henry the Second, -for William of Malmesbury describes this as then "the paradise of -England," with luxuriant crops and flourishing gardens; but this -picture of prosperity was suddenly blotted out by the great gale that -arose on the morrow of St. Martin 1236, and continued for eight days -and nights. The sea surged over the embankments and flowed inwards -past Wisbeach, and the rivers, instead of flowing away, were forced -back and so drowned the levels. Some attempts to reclaim the land were -made, but a similar disaster happened seventeen years later, and the -fen-folk seem to have given up all efforts at keeping out the waters, -for in 1505 we find the district described as "one of the most brute -and beastly of the whole realm; a land of marshy ague and unwholesome -swamps." But already the idea of reclamation was in the air, for Bishop -Morton, in the time of Henry the Seventh,--a most worshipful Bishop -of Ely, Lord Chancellor too, churchman, statesman, and engineer,--had -a notion for making the stagnant Nene to flow forth into the sea, -instead of doubling upon itself and seething in unimaginable bogs as -it had done for hundreds of years past. He cut the drain that runs -from Stanground, away up in the north near Peterborough, to Wisbeach, -still known as Morton's Leam, and thus began a new era. But though -he benefited the land to the north-west of Ely, the way between his -Cathedral city and Cambridge was not affected, and remained in his -time as bad as it had been for centuries; and he, like many a Bishop -before him and others to come after, commonly journeyed between Ely and -Cambridge by boat. Our road, indeed, did not witness the full activity -of the good Bishop and his successors. Their doings only attained to -great proportions in the so-called Great Level of the Fens, the Bedford -Level, as it is alternatively called, that stretches over a district -beginning eight miles away and continuing for sixteen or twenty miles, -by Thorney, Crowland, and Peterborough. This map, from Dugdale's work, -showing the Fens as they lay drowned, and the islands in them, will -give the best notion of this curious district. You will perceive how -like an inland sea was this waste of mud and water, not full fathom -five, it is true, but less readily navigable than the sea itself. -Here you see the road from Cambridge to Ely and on to Downham Market -pictured, with no great accuracy, you may be sworn, and doubtless with -as much margin of error as it is customary to allow in the somewhat -speculative charts of Arctic continents and regions of similarly -difficult access. In this map, then, it will be perceived how remote -the Bedford Level lies from our route. Why "Bedford Level," which, in -point of fact, is in Cambridgeshire and not in Bedfordshire at all? For -this reason: that these are lands belonging to the Earls (now Dukes) -of Bedford. To the Russells were given the lands belonging to Thorney -Abbey, but their appetite for what should have been public property was -only whetted by this gift, and when in the reign of Charles the First -proposals were made to drain and reclaim 310,000 acres of surrounding -country, they, in the person of Francis, the then Earl, obtained of -this vast tract no less than 95,000 acres. It is true that this grant -was made conditional upon the Earl taking part in the drainage of the -land, and that it was a costly affair in which the smaller adventurers -were ruined and the Earl's own resources strained; but in the result a -princely heritage fell to the Bedfords. - -[Illustration: THE FENS. - -[_After Dugdale._]] - -The great engineering figure at this period of reclamation was the -Dutchman, Cornelius Vermuyden, who began his dyking and draining under -royal sanction and with Bedfordian aid in 1629. Vermuyden's is a great -figure historically considered, but his works are looked upon coldly -in these times, and it is even said that one of the principal labours -of modern engineers has been to rectify his errors. That view probably -originated with Rennie, who in 1810 was employed to drain and reclaim -the extensive marshland between Wisbeach and Lynn, and was bound, in -the usual professional manner, to speak evil things of one of the same -craft. There was little need, though, to be jealous of Vermuyden, who -had died obscurely, in poverty and in the cold shade of neglect, some -hundred and fifty years before. Vermuyden, as a matter of course, -employed Flamands and Hollanders in his works, for they were not merely -his own countrymen, but naturally skilled in labour of this technical -kind. These strangers aroused the enmity of the Fenmen, not for their -strangeness alone, but for the sake of the work they were engaged upon, -for the drainage of the Fens was then a highly unpopular proceeding. -The Fenmen loved their watery wastes, and little wonder that they did -so, for they knew none other, and they were a highly specialised race -of amphibious creatures, skilled in all the arts of the wild-fowler -and the fisherman, by which they lived. Farming was not within their -ken. They trapped and subsisted upon the innumerable fish and birds -that shared the wastes with them; birds of the duck tribe, the teal, -widgeon, and mallard; and greater fowl, like the wild goose and his -kind. For fish they speared and snared the eel, the pike, and the -lamprey--pre-eminently fish of the fens; for houses they contrived -huts of mud and stakes, thatched with the reeds that grew densely, to -a height of ten or twelve feet, everywhere; and as for firing, peat -was dug and stacked and burnt. Consider. The Fenman was a product of -the centuries. His father, his grandfather, his uttermost ancestors, -had squatted and fished and hunted where they would, and none could -say them nay. They paid no rent or tithe to anyone, for the Fens were -common, or waste. And now the only life the Fenman knew was like to be -taken from him. What could such an one do on dry land? A farmer put -aboard ship and set to navigate it could not be more helpless than the -dweller in those old marshes, dependent only upon his marsh lore, when -the water was drained off and the fishes gone, reed-beds cut down, the -land cultivated, and the wild-fowl dispersed. The fears of this people -were quaintly expressed in the popular verses then current, entitled -"The Powte's Complaint." "Powte," it should be said, was the Fen name -for the lamprey-- - - "Come, brethren of the water, and let us all assemble - To treat upon this matter, which makes us quake and tremble; - For we shall rue, if it be true the fens be undertaken, - And where we feed in fen and reed they'll feed both beef an bacon. - - They'll sow both beans and oats where never man yet thought it; - Where men did row in boats ere undertakers bought it; - But, Ceres, thou behold us now, let wild oats be their venture, - And let the frogs and miry bogs destroy where they do enter. - - Behold the great design, which they do now determine, - Will make our bodies pine, a prey to crows and vermine; - For they do mean all fens to drain and waters overmaster, - All will be dry, and we must die, 'cause Essex Calves want pasture. - - Away with boats and rudders, farewell both boots and skatches, - No need of one nor t'other; men now make better matches; - Stilt-makers all and tanners shall complain of this disaster, - For they will make each muddy lake for Essex Calves a pasture. - - The feather'd fowls have wings, to fly to other nations, - But we have no such things to help our transportations; - We must give place, O grievous case! to horned beasts and cattle, - Except that we can all agree to drive them out by battle." - -Other verses follow, where winds, waves, and moon are invoked in aid, -but enough has been quoted to show exactly how affairs stood at this -juncture. But the Fenmen were not without their defender. He was found -in a certain young Huntingdonshire squire and brewer, one Oliver -Cromwell, Member of Parliament for Huntingdon, reclaimed from his -early evil courses, and now, a Puritan and a brand plucked timeously -from the burning, posing as champion of the people. Seven years past -this draining business had been going forward, and now that trouble -was brewing between King and people, and King wanted money, and people -would withhold it, the popular idea arose that the Fens were being -drained to provide funds for royal needs. Cromwell was at this time -resident in Ely, and seized upon the local grievances and exploited -them to his own end, with the result that the works were stopped and -himself raised to the extreme height of local popularity. But when -the monarchy was upset and Cromwell had become Lord Protector, he not -only authorised the drainage being resumed, but gave extreme aid and -countenance to William, Earl of Bedford, sending him a thousand Scots -prisoners from Dunbar, as pressed men, practically slaves, to work -in his trenches. Appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober is a famous -remedy, but appeal to Oliver, besotted with power, must have seemed -helpless to our poor Fen-slodgers, for they do not seem to have made -resistance, and the work progressed to its end. - - -XXX - - -IF most of those who have described Fenland have lacked imagination, -certainly the charge cannot be brought against that eighth-century -saint, Saint Guthlac, who fled into this great dismal swamp and founded -Crowland Abbey on its north-easterly extremity. Crowland has nothing to -do with the Ely and King's Lynn Road, but in describing what he calls -the "develen and luther gostes" that made his life a misery, Guthlac -refers to the evil inhabitants of the Fens in general. Precisely what a -"luther" ghost may be, does not appear. A Protestant spook, perhaps, it -might be surmised, except that Lutheran schisms did not arise for many -centuries later. - -Saints were made of strange materials in ancient times, and Guthlac was -of the strangest. Truth was not his strong point, and he could and did -tell tales that would bring a blush to the hardy cheek of a Sir John -Mandeville, or arouse the bitter envy of a Munchausen. But Guthlac's -character shall not be taken away without good cause shown. He begins -reasonably enough, with an excellent descriptive passage, picturing the -"hideous fen of huge bigness which extends in a very long track even -to the sea, ofttimes clouded with mist and dark vapours, having within -it divers islands and woods, as also crooked and winding rivers"; but -after this mild prelude goes on to make very large demands upon our -credulity. - -He had a wattle hut on an island, and to this poor habitation, he tells -us, the "develen and luther gostes" came continually, dragged him -out of bed and "tugged and led him out of his cot, and to the swart -fen, and threw and sunk him in the muddy waters." Then they beat him -with iron whips. He describes these devils in a very uncomplimentary -fashion. They had "horrible countenances, great heads, long necks, lean -visages, filthy and squalid beards, rough ears, fierce eyes, and foul -mouths; teeth like horses' tusks, throats filled with flame, grating -voices, crooked shanks, and knees big and great behind." It would have -been scarce possible to mistake one of these for a respectable peasant. - -After fifteen years of this treatment, Guthlac died, and it is to -be hoped these hardy inventions of his are not remembered against -him. No one else found the Fens peopled so extravagantly. Only the -will-o'-wisps that danced fitfully and pallid at night over the -treacherous bogs, and the poisonous miasma exhaled from the noxious -beds of rotting sedge; only the myriad wild-fowl made the wilderness -strange and eerie. - -Guthlac was the prime romancist of the Fens, but others nearly -contemporary with him did not altogether lack imagination and inventive -powers; as where one of the old monkish chroniclers gravely states -that the Fen-folk were born with yellow bellies, like frogs, and were -provided with webbed feet to fit them for their watery surroundings. - -Asthma and ague were long the peculiar maladies of these districts. -Why they should have been is sufficiently evident, but Dugdale, who -has performed the difficult task of writing a dry book upon the Fens, -uses language that puts the case very convincingly. He says, "There -is no element good, the air being for the most part cloudy, gross, -and full of rotten harrs; the water putrid and muddy, yea, full of -loathsome vermin; the earth spungy and boggy." No wonder, then, that -the terrible disease of ague seized upon the unfortunate inhabitants of -this watery waste. Few called this miasmatic affection by that name: -they knew it as the "Bailiff of Marshland," and to be arrested by the -dread bailiff was a frequent experience of those who worked early or -late in the marshes, when the poisonous vapours still lingered. To -alleviate the miseries of ague the Fen-folk resorted to opium, and -often became slaves to that drug. Another very much dreaded "Bailiff" -was the "Bailiff of Bedford," as the Ouse, coming out of Bedfordshire, -was called. He of the marshland took away your health, but the flooded -Ouse, rising suddenly after rain or thaw, swept your very home away. - -Still, in early morn, in Wicken Fen, precautions are taken by the -autumn sedge-cutter against the dew and the exhalations from the -earth, heavy with possibilities of marsh fever. He ties a handkerchief -over his mouth for that purpose, while to protect himself against the -sharp edges of the sedge he wears old stockings tied round his arms, -leather gaiters on his legs, and a calfskin waistcoat. - -The modern Fen-folk are less troubled with ague than their immediate -ancestors, but the opium habit has not wholly left them. Whether -they purchase the drug, or whether it is extracted from the white -poppies that are a feature of almost every Fenland garden, they still -have recourse to it, and "poppy tea" is commonly administered to the -children to keep them quiet while their parents are at work afield. -The Fenlanders are, by consequence, a solemn and grim race, shaking -sometimes with ague, and at others "as nervous as a kitten," as they -are apt to express it, as a result of drugging themselves. Another, -and an entirely innocent, protection against ague is celery, and the -celery-bed is a cherished part of a kitchen-garden in the Fens. - -One of the disadvantages of these oozy flats is the lack of good -drinking-water. The rivers, filled as they are with the drainings of -the dykes and ditches, can only offer water unpleasant both to smell -and taste, if not actually poisonous from the decaying matter and the -myriad living organisms in it; and springs in the Fens are practically -unknown. Under these circumstances the public-houses do a good trade in -beer and spirits. - - -XXXI - - -CAMBRIDGESHIRE is a singularly stoneless country, and in the Fens there -is not so much as a pebble to be found. Thus it has become a common -jest of the Cambridgeshire farmers to offer to swallow all the stones -you can pick up in their fields. Farm horses for this reason are never -shod, and it sounds not a little strange and uncanny to see one of the -great waggon-horses plodding along a Fenland "drove," as the roads -are named, and to hear nothing but the sound of his bells and the -indistinct thudding of his shoeless feet in the dust or the mud, into -whichever condition the weather has thrown the track. - -A Fenland road is one thing among others peculiar to the Fens. It is a -very good illustration of eternity, and goes on, flat and unbending, -with a semi-stagnant ditch on either side, as far as eye can reach -in the vast solitary expanse, empty save for an occasional ash-tree -or group of Lombardy poplars, with perhaps a hillock rising in the -distance crowned by a church and a village. No "metal" or ballast has -ever been placed on the Fenland drove. In summer it is from six to -eight inches deep in a black dust, that rises in choking clouds to the -passage of a vehicle or on the uprising of a breeze; in winter it is -a sea of mud, congealed on the approach of frost into ruts and ridges -of the most appalling ruggedness. The Fen-folk have a home-made way -with their execrable "droves." When they become uneven they just harrow -them, as the farmer in other counties harrows his fields, and, when -they are become especially hard, they plough them first and harrow -them afterwards; a procedure that would have made Macadam faint with -horror. The average-constituted small boy, who throws stones by nature, -discovers something lacking in the scheme of creation as applied -to these districts. Everywhere the soil is composed of the ancient -alluvial silt brought down to these levels by those lazy streams, -the Nene, the Lark, the Cam, and the Ouse, and of the dried peat of -these sometime stagnant and festering morasses. Now that drainage has -so thoroughly done its work, that in ardent summers the soil of this -former inland sea gapes and cracks with dryness, it is no uncommon -sight to see water pumped on to the baking fields from the leams and -droves. The earth is of a light, dry black nature, consisting of -fibrous vegetable matter, and possesses the well-known preservative -properties of bog soil. Thus the trees of the primeval forest that -formerly existed here, and were drowned in an early stage of the -world's history, are often dug up whole. Their timber is black too, -as black as coal, as may be seen by the wooden bridges that cross the -drains and cuts, often made from these prehistoric trees. - -Here is a typical dyke. Its surface is richly carpeted with -water-weeds, and the water-lily spreads its flat leaves prodigally -about it; the bright yellow blossoms reclining amid them like graceful -naiads on fairy couches. But the Fenland children have a more prosaic -fancy. They call them "Brandy-balls." The flowering rush, flushing a -delicate carmine, and the aquatic sort of forget-me-not, sporting the -Cambridge colours, are common inhabitants of the dykes; and in the more -stagnant may be found the "water-soldier," a queer plant without any -roots, living in the still slime at the bottom until the time comes for -it to put forth its white blossoms, when it comes to "attention" in the -light of day, displays its fleeting glory, and then sinks again, "at -ease," to its fetid bed. There is a current in the dykes, but the water -flows so imperceptibly that it does not deflect the upstanding spikes -of the daintiest aquatic plant by so much as a hair's-breadth. Indeed, -it would not flow at all, and would merely stagnate, were it not for -the windmill-worked pumps that suck it along and, somewhere in the void -distance, impel it up an inclined plane, and so discharge it into the -longer and higher drain, whence it indolently flows into one of the -canalised rivers, and so, through a sluice, eventually finds its way -into the sea at ebbtide. - -The means by which the Fens are kept drained are not without their -interest. A glance at a map of Cambridgeshire and its neighbouring -counties will show the Great Level to be divided up into many -patches of land by hard straight lines running in every direction. -Some are thicker, longer, and straighter than others, but they all -inter-communicate, and eventually reach one or other of the rivers. -The longest, straightest, and broadest of these represents that great -drain already mentioned, the Old Bedford River, seventy feet wide and -twenty-one miles long; cut in the seventeenth century to shorten the -course of the Ouse and to carry off the floods. Others are the New -Bedford River, one hundred feet in width, cut only a few years later -and running parallel with the first; Vermuyden's Eau, or the Forty Foot -Drain, of the same period, feeding the Old Bedford River from the Nene, -near Ramsey, with their tributaries and counter-drains. The North Level -cuts belong principally to the early part of the nineteenth century, -when Rennie drained the Wisbeach and Lynn districts. - -[Illustration: A WET DAY IN THE FENS.] - -The main drains are at a considerably higher level than the surrounding -lands, the water in them only prevented from drowning the low-lying -fields again by their great and solid banks, fourteen to sixteen feet -high, and about ten feet in breadth at the top. These banks, indeed, -form in many districts the principal roads. Perilous roads at night, -even for those who know them well, and one thinks with a shudder of -the dangers encountered of old by local medical men, called out in the -darkness to attend some urgent case. Their custom was--perhaps it is in -some places still observed--to mount their steady nags and to jog along -with a lighted stable-lantern swinging from each stirrup, to throw a -warning gleam on broken bank or frequent sunken fence. - -At an interval of two miles along these banks is generally to be found -a steam pumping-engine, busily and constantly occupied in raising water -from the lodes and dykes in the lower levels and pouring it into the -main channel. The same process is repeated in the case of raising the -water from the field-drains into the smaller dykes by a windmill or -"skeleton-pump," as it is often called. It is a work that is never -done, but goes forward, year by year, and is paid for by assessments -on the value of the lands affected by these operations. Commissioners, -themselves local landowners and tenants, and elected by the same -classes, look after the conduct and the efficiency of the work, and -see that the main drains are scoured by the "scourers"; the banks duly -repaired by the "bankers" and the "gaulters"; the moles, that might -bring disaster by burrowing through them, caught by the "molers"; and -the sluices kept in working order. The rate imposed for paying the -cost of these works is often a heavy one, but the land is wonderfully -rich and productive. Nor need the Fenland farmer go to extraordinary -expense for artificial manure, or for marling his fields when at length -he has cropped all the goodness out of the surface soil. The very best -of restoratives lies from some five to twelve feet under his own land, -in the black greasy clay formed from the decaying vegetable matter of -the old forests that underlie the Fens. A series of pits is sunk on the -land, the clay obtained from them is spread over it, and the fields -again yield a bounteous harvest. - -Harvest-work and farm-work in general in the Fens is in some ways -peculiar to this part of the country, for farm-holdings are large and -farmsteads far between. The practice, under these conditions, arose of -the work being done by gangs; the hands assembling at break of day in -the farmyard and being despatched in parties to their distant day's -work in hoeing, weeding, or picking in the flat and almost boundless -fields; returning only when the day's labour is ended. Men, women, -and children gathered thus in the raw morning make a picture--and -in some ways a pitiful picture--of farming and rustic life, worthy -of a Millet. But our Millet has not yet come; and the gangs grow -fewer. If he does not hasten, they will be quite gone, and something -characteristic in Fenland-life quite lost. A Fenland farm-lass may -wear petticoats, or she may not. Sometimes she acts as carter, and -it is precisely in such cases that she sheds her feminine skirts and -dons the odd costume that astonishes the inquisitive stranger new to -these parts, who sees, with doubt as to whether he sees aright, a -creature with the boots and trousers of a man, a nondescript garment, -half bodice and half coat with skirts, considerably above the knees, -and a sun-bonnet on her head, working in the rick-yards, or squashing -heavily through the farmyard muck. Skirts are out of place in -farmyards and in cattle-byres, and the milkmaid, too, of these parts -is dressed in like guise. If you were to show a milkmaid in the Fens -a picture illustrating "Where are you going to, my pretty maid?" in -the conventional fashion, she would criticise very severely, as quite -incorrect, the skirted figure of a poet's dream usually presented. She -saves her skirts and her flower-trimmed hat for Sundays. - - -XXXII - - -AND now we must come from the general to the especial; from Fens and -Fen-folk in the mass to a bright particular star. - -The greatest historical figure along the whole course of this road is -that of Hereward the Wake, the "last of the English," as he has been -called. "Hereward," it has been said, means "the guard of the army," -while "the Wake" is almost self-explanatory, signifying literally the -Wide Awake, or the Watchful. He is thought to have been the eldest son -of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and of the famous Godiva, and to have been -banished by his father and outlawed. Like objects dimly glimpsed in a -fog, the figure of Hereward looms gigantic and uncertain through the -mists of history, and how much of him is real and how much legendary -no one can say. When Hereward was born, in the mild reign of Edward -the Confessor, the Anglo-Saxons who six hundred and fifty years before -had conquered Britain, and, driving a poor remnant of the enervated -race of Romanised Britons to the uttermost verge of the island, changed -the very name of the country from Britain to England, had themselves -degenerated. The Saxons were originally among the fiercest of savages, -and derived their name from the "saexe," or short sword, with which they -came to close and murderous combat; but the growth of civilisation -and the security in which they had long dwelt in the conquered island -undermined their original combativeness, and for long before the -invasion of England by William the Conqueror they had been hard put -to it to hold their own against the even more savage Danes. Yet at -the last, at Hastings under Harold, they made a gallant stand against -the Normans, and if courage alone could have won the day, why then no -Norman dynasty had ever occupied the English throne. The Battle of -Hastings was only won by superior military dispositions on the part of -William. His archers gained him the victory, and by their disconcerting -arrow-flights broke the advance of the Saxons armed with sword and -battle-axe. - -That most decisive and momentous battle in the world's history was -lost and won on the 14th day of October 1066. It was followed by a -thorough-going policy of plunder and confiscation. Everywhere the -Saxon landowners were dispossessed of their property, and Normans -replaced them. Even the Saxon bishops were roughly deprived of their -sees, and alien prelates from over sea took their place. The Saxon -race was utterly degraded and crushed, and to be an Englishman became -a reproach; so that the Godrics, Godbalds, and Godgifus, the Ediths, -the Alfreds, and other characteristic Saxon names, began to be replaced -by trembling parents with Roberts, and Williams, and Henrys, and other -names of common Norman use. - -Now, in dramatic fashion, Hereward comes upon the scene. Two years -of this crushing tyranny had passed when, one calm summer's evening -in 1068, a stranger, accompanied by only one attendant, entered the -village of Brunne, in Lincolnshire, the place now identified with -Bourne; Bourne and its Teutonic original form of Brunne meaning a -stream. It was one of his father's manors. Seeking, unrecognised, -shelter for the night, he was met by lamentations, and was told that -Leofric, the great Earl, was dead; that his heir, the Lord Hereward, -was away in foreign parts; and that his younger brother, now become -heir, had only the day before been foully murdered by the Normans, who -had in derision fixed his head over the doorway. Moreover, the Normans -had seized the house and the manor. "Alas!" wailed the unhappy Saxon -dependants, "we have no power to revenge these things. Would that -Hereward were here! Before to-morrow's sunrise they would all taste of -the bitter cup they have forced on us." - -The stranger was sheltered and hospitably entertained by these unhappy -folk. After the evening meal they retired to rest, but their guest -lay sleepless. Suddenly the distant sounds of singing and applause -burst on his ears. Springing from his couch, he roused a serving-man -and inquired the meaning of this nocturnal merrymaking, when he was -informed that the Norman intruders were celebrating the entry of their -lord into the patrimony of the youth they had murdered. The stranger -girded on his weapons, threw about him a long black cloak, and with his -companion repaired to the scene of this boisterous revelry. There the -first object that met his eyes was the head of the murdered boy. He -took it down, kissed it, and wrapped it in a cloth. Then the two placed -themselves in the dark shadow of a doorway whence they could command a -view into the hall. The Normans were scattered about a blazing fire, -most of them overcome with drunkenness and reclining on the bosoms of -their women. In their midst was a jongleur, or minstrel, chanting songs -of reproach against the Saxons and ridiculing their unpolished manners -in coarse dances and ludicrous gestures. He was proceeding to utter -indecent jests against the family of the youth they had slain, when -he was interrupted by one of the women, a native of Flanders. "Forget -not," she said, "that the boy has a brother, named Hereward, famed for -his bravery throughout the country whence I come, ay, and even in Spain -and Algiers. Were he here, things would wear a different aspect on the -morrow." - -The new lord of the house, indignant at this, raised his head and -exclaimed, "I know the man well, and his wicked deeds that would have -brought him ere this to the gallows, had he not sought safety in -flight; nor dare he now make his appearance anywhere this side the -Alps." - -The minstrel, seizing on this theme, began to improvise a scurrilous -song, when he was literally cut short in an unexpected manner--his head -clove in two by the swift stroke of a Saxon sword. It was Hereward who -had done this. Then he turned on the defenceless Normans, who fell, -one after the other, beneath his furious blows; those who attempted to -escape being intercepted by his companion at the door. His arm was not -stayed until the last was slain, and the heads of the Norman lord and -fourteen of his knights were raised over the doorway. - -The historian of these things goes on to say that the Normans in the -neighbourhood, hearing of Hereward's return and of this midnight -exploit, fled. This proves their wisdom, at the expense of their -courage. The Saxons rose on every side, but Hereward at first checked -their zeal, selecting only a strong body of relations and adherents, -and with them attacking and slaying those of the Normans who dared -remain on his estates. Then he repaired to his friend Brand, the -Saxon Abbot of Peterborough, from whom, in the Anglo-Saxon manner, -he received the honour of knighthood. After suddenly attacking and -killing a Norman baron sent against him, he dispersed his followers, -and, promising to rejoin them in a year, sailed for Flanders. We next -hear of Hereward in the spring of 1070, when he appears in company with -the Danes whom William the Conqueror had allowed to winter on the east -coast. Together they raised a revolt, first in the Humber and along -the Yorkshire Ouse; and then they are found sacking and destroying -Peterborough Abbey, by that time under the control of the Norman Abbot -Turold. A hundred and sixty armed men were gathered by the Abbot to -force them back to their lair at Ely, but they had already left. With -the advent of spring Hereward's Danish allies sailed away, rich in -plunder, and he and his outlaws were left to do as best they could. -For a year he remained quiet in his island fastness, secured by the -trackless bogs and fens from attack, while the discontented elements -were being attracted to him. With him was that attendant who kept the -door at Bourne: Martin of the Light Foot was his name. Others were -Leofric "Prat," or the Cunning, skilful in spying out the dispositions -of the enemy; Leofric the Mower, who obtained his distinctive name -by mowing off the legs of a party of Normans with a scythe, the only -weapon he could lay hands on in a hurry; Ulric the Heron, and Ulric -the Black--all useful lieutenants in an exhausting irregular warfare. -Greater companions were the Saxon Archbishop Stigand, Bishop Egelwin of -Lincoln, and the Earls Morcar, Edwin, and Tosti. All these notables, -with a large following, flocked into the Isle of Ely, as a Camp of -Refuge, and quartered themselves on the monks of the Abbey of Ely. -There they lay, and constituted a continual menace to the Norman power. -Sometimes they made incursions into other districts, and burnt and -slew; at others, when hard pressed, they had simply to retire into -these fens to be unapproachable. None among the Norman conquerors of -other parts of the land could cope with Hereward, and at last William, -in the summer of 1071, found it necessary to take the field in person -against this own brother to Will-o'-the-Wisp. His plan of campaign was -to attempt the invasion of the Isle of Ely simultaneously from two -different points; from Brandon on the north-east, and from Cottenham on -the south-west. The Brandon attempt was by boat, and soon failed: the -advance from Cottenham was a longer business. Why he did not advance by -that old Roman road, the Akeman Street, cannot now be explained. That -splendid example of a causeway built across the morasses must still -have afforded the better way, even though the Romans who made it had -been gone six hundred years. But the Conqueror chose to advance from -Cambridge by way of Impington, Histon, and Cottenham. It is, of course, -possible that the defenders of the Isle had destroyed a portion of the -old road, or in some way rendered it impracticable. His line of march -can be traced even to this day. Leaving the old coaching road here at -Cottenham Corner, we make for that village, famed in these days for -its cream cheeses and grown to the proportions of a small town.[1] -It was here, at Cottenham and at Rampton, that William collected his -invading force and amassed the great stores of materials necessary for -overcoming the great difficulty of entering the Isle of Ely, then an -isle in the most baulking and inconvenient sense to an invader. Before -the Isle could be entered by an army, it was necessary to build a -causeway across the two miles' breadth of marshes that spread out from -the Ouse at Aldreth, and this work had to be carried out in the face of -a vigorous opposition from Hereward and his allies. It was two years -before this causeway could be completed. Who shall say what strenuous -labour went to the making of this road across the reedy bogs; what -vast accumulations of reeds and brushwood, felled trees and earth? -The place has an absorbing interest, but to explore it thoroughly -requires no little determination, for the road that William made has -every appearance of being left just as it was when he had done with it, -more than eight hundred years ago, and the way from Rampton, in its -deep mud, unfathomable ruts and grassy hollows, soddened for lack of -draining, is a terrible damper of curiosity. The explorer's troubles -begin immediately he has left the village of Rampton. Turning to the -right, he is instantly plunged into the fearful mud of a mile-long -drove described on the large-scale Ordnance maps as "Cow Lane," a -dismal _malebolge_ of black greasy mud that only cattle can walk -without difficulty. The unfortunate cyclist who adventures this way and -pushes on, thinking these conditions will improve as he goes, is to be -pitied, for, instead of improving, they go from bad to worse. The mud -of this horrible lane is largely composed of the Cambridgeshire clay -called "gault," and is of a peculiarly adhesive quality. When he is at -last obliged to dismount and pick the pounds upon pounds of mud out -of the intimate places of his machine, his feelings are outraged and, -cursing all the road authorities of Cambridgeshire in one comprehensive -curse, he determines never again to leave the highways in search of -the historic. A few yards farther progress leaves him in as bad case -as before, and he is at last reduced to carrying the machine on his -shoulder, fearful with every stride that his shoes will part company -with his feet, withdrawn at each step from the mud with a resounding -"pop," similar to the sound made by the drawing of a cork from a -bottle. But it is only when at last, coming to the end of Cow Lane -and turning to the left into Iram Drove, he rests and clears away the -mud and simultaneously finds seven punctures in one tyre and two in -the other, that his stern indignation melts into tears. The wherefore -of this havoc wrought upon the inoffensive wheelman is found in the -cynical fact that although Cow Lane never receives the attentions of -the road-repairer, its thorn-hedges are duly clipped and the clippings -thrown into what, for the sake of convenience, may be called the road. - -[1] Famous, too, in that Cambridgeshire byword, "a Cottenham jury," -which arose (as the inhabitants of every other village will have you -believe) from the verdict of a jury of Cottenham men, in the case of -a man tried for the murder of his wife. The foreman, returning into -Court, said, "They were unanimously of opinion that it sarved her -right, for she were such a tarnation bad 'un as no man could live with." - -[Illustration: THE ISLE OF ELY AND DISTRICT.] - -The geographical conditions here resemble those of Muckslush Heath in -Colman's play, and although Iram Drove is paradise compared with what -we have already come through, taken on its own merits it is not an -ideal thoroughfare. One mile of it, past Long Swath Barn, brings us -to the beginning of Aldreth Causeway, here a green lane, very bumpy -and full of rises and hollows. Maps and guide-books vaguely mention -Belsar's Hill near this point, and imaginative guides who have not -explored these wilds talk in airy fashion of it "overlooking" the -Causeway. As a matter of fact, the Causeway is driven squarely through -it, and it is so little of a hill, and so incapable of overlooking -anything, that you pass it and are none the wiser. The fact of the -Causeway being thus driven through the hill and the ancient earthworks -that ring around six acres of it, proves sufficiently that this -fortress is much more ancient than William the Conqueror's time. It is, -indeed, prehistoric. Who was Belsar? History does not tell us; but lack -of certain knowledge has not forbidden guesswork, more or less wild, -and there have been those who have found the name to be a corruption -of Belisarius. We are not told, however, what that general--that -unfortunate warrior whom tradition represents as begging in his old age -an obolus in the streets of Constantinople--was doing here. But the -real "Belsar" may perhaps have been that "Belasius, Praeses Militum -versus Elye," mentioned in the "Tabula Eliensis," one of William's -captains in this long business, from whom descended the Belasyse family. - -[Illustration: ALDRETH CAUSEWAY AND THE ISLE OF ELY.] - -Two miles of green lane, solitary as though foot of man had not -passed by for years, lead down to the Ouse. Fens spread out on either -hand--Mow Fen, Willingham Fen, Smythy Fen, Great North Fen--fens -everywhere. It is true they are now chiefly cultivated fields, -remarkable for their fertility, but they are saved from being drowned -only by the dykes and lodes cut and dug everywhere and drained by the -steam pumping-station whose chimney-shaft, with its trail of smoke, -is seen far off across the levels. In front rises the high ground of -the Isle of Ely, a mile or more away across the river: high ground -for Cambridgeshire, but likely, in any other part of England, to be -called a low ridge. Here it is noticeable enough of itself, and made -still more so by a windmill and a row of tall slender trees on the -skyline. A new bridge now building across the Ouse at this point -is likely to bring Aldreth Causeway into use and repair again. On -the other shore, at High Bridge Farm, the Causeway loses its grassy -character, becoming a rutted and muddy road, inconceivably rugged, -and so continuing until it ends at the foot of the rising ground of -Aldreth. Drains and their protecting banks lie to the left of it; the -banks used by the infrequent pedestrians in preference to the Causeway, -low-lying and often flooded. - -[Illustration: ALDRETH CAUSEWAY.] - - -XXXIII - - -THIS, then, was the way into that Isle of Refuge to which the Normans -directed their best efforts. At the crossing of the Ouse, the -fascines and hurdles, bags of earth and bundles of reeds, that had -thus far afforded a foundation, were no longer of use, and a wooden -bridge had of necessity to be constructed in the face of the enemy. -Disaster attended it, for the unlucky timbering gave way while the -advance was actually in progress, and hundreds were drowned. A second -bridge was begun, and William, calling in supernatural aid, brought a -"pythonissa"--a sorceress--to curse Hereward and his merry men and to -weave spells while the work was going forward. William himself probably -believed little in her unholy arts, but his soldiers and the vast army -of helpers and camp-followers gathered together in this unhealthy -hollow, dying of ague and marsh-sickness, and disheartened by failure -and delay, fancied forces of more than earthly power arrayed against -them. So the pythonissa was provided with a wooden tower whence she -could overlook the work and exercise her spells while the second bridge -was building. Fishermen from all the countryside were impressed to aid -in the work. Among them, in disguise, came Hereward, so the legends -tell, and when all was nearly done, he fired the maze of woodwork, -so that the sorceress in her tower was sent, shrieking, in flames to -Ahrimanes, and this, the second bridge, was utterly consumed. Kingsley, -in his very much overrated romance of _Hereward the Wake_, makes him -fire the reeds, but the Fenland reed does not burn and refuses to be -fired outside the pages of fiction. - -It was at last by fraud rather than by force that the Isle of Ely was -entered. A rebel earl, a timorous noble, might surrender himself from -time to time, and most of his allies thus fell away, but it was the -false monks who at last led the invader in where he could not force -his way. Those holy men, with the Saxon Abbot, Thurston, at their -head, who prayed and meditated while the defenders of this natural -fortress did the fighting, came as a result of their meditations to -the belief that William, so dogged in his efforts, must in the end be -successful. He had threatened--pious man though he was--to confiscate -the property of the monastery when he should come to Ely, and so, -putting this and that together, they conceived it to be the better plan -to bring him in before he broke in; for in this way their revenues -might yet be saved. It is Ingulphus, himself a monk, who chronicles -this treachery. Certain of them, he says, sending privily to William, -undertook to guide his troops by a secret path through the fens into -the Isle. It was a chance too good to be thrown away, and was seized. -The imagination can picture the mail-clad Normans winding single file -along a secret path among the rushes, at the tail of some guide whose -life was to be forfeit on the instant if he led them into ambush; and -one may almost see and hear the swift onset and fierce cries when they -set foot on firm land and fell suddenly upon the Saxon camp, killing -and capturing many of the defenders. - -But history shows the monks of Ely in an ill light, for it really -seems that William's two years' siege of the Isle might have been -indefinitely prolonged, and then been unsuccessful, had it not been -for this treachery. Does anyone ever stop to consider how great a -part treachery plays in history? It was the monks who betrayed the -Isle, otherwise impregnable, and endless in its resources, as Hereward -himself proved to a Norman knight whom he had captured. He conducted -his prisoner over his water-and-morass-girdled domain, showed him most -things within it, and then sent him back to the besieging camp to -report what he had seen. This is the tale he told, as recorded in the -_Liber Eliensis_:-- - -"In the Isle, men are not troubling themselves about the siege; the -ploughman has not taken his hand from the plough, nor has the hunter -cast aside his arrow, nor does the fowler desist from beguiling birds. -If you care to hear what I have heard and seen with my own eyes, I -will reveal all to you. The Isle is within itself plenteously endowed, -it is supplied with various kinds of herbage, and in richness of soil -surpasses the rest of England. Most delightful for charming fields -and pastures, it is also remarkable for beasts of chase, and is, in -no ordinary way, fertile in flocks and herds. Its woods and vineyards -are not worthy of equal praise, but it is begirt by great meres and -fens, as though by a strong wall. In this Isle there is an abundance of -domestic cattle, and a multitude of wild animals; stags, roes, goats, -and hares are found in its groves and by those fens. Moreover, there is -a fair sufficiency of otters, weasels, and polecats; which in a hard -winter are caught by traps, snares, or any other device. But what am -I to say of the kinds of fishes and of fowls, both those that fly and -those that swim? In the eddies at the sluices of these meres are netted -innumerable eels, large water-wolves, with pickerels, perches, roaches, -burbots, and lampreys, which we call water-snakes. It is, indeed, said -by many that sometimes salmon are taken there, together with the royal -fish, the sturgeon. As for the birds that abide there and thereabouts, -if you are not tired of listening to me, I will tell you about them, as -I have told you about the rest. There you will find geese, teal, coots, -didappers, water-crows, herons, and ducks, more than man can number, -especially in winter, or at moulting-time. I have seen a hundred--nay, -even three hundred--taken at once; sometimes by bird-lime, sometimes -in nets and snares." The most eloquent auctioneer could not do better -than this, and if this knight excelled in fighting as he did in -description, he must have been a terrible fellow. - -It is pleasant to think how the monks of Ely met with harder measures -than they had expected. William was not so pleased with their belated -submission as he was angered by their ever daring to question his right -and power. Still, things might have gone better with them had they not -by ill-luck been at meals in the refectory when the King unexpectedly -appeared. None knew of his coming until he was seen to enter the -church. Gilbert de Clare, himself a Norman knight, but well disposed -towards the monks, burst in upon them: "Miserable fools that you are," -he said, "can you do nothing better than eat and drink while the King -is here?" - -Forthwith they rushed pellmell into the church; fat brothers and lean, -as quickly as they could, but the King, flinging a gold mark upon the -altar, had already gone. He had done much in a short time. Evidently -he was what Americans nowadays call a "hustler," for he had marked -out the site for a castle within the monastic precincts, and had -already given orders for its building by men pressed from the three -shires of Cambridge, Hertford, and Bedford. Torn with anxiety, the -whole establishment of the monastery hasted after him on his return to -Aldreth, and overtook him at Witchford, where, by the intercession of -Gilbert de Clare, they were admitted to an audience, and after some -difficulty allowed to purchase the King's Peace by a fine of seven -hundred marks of silver. - -Unhappily, their troubles were not, even then, at an end, for when on -the appointed day the money, raised by the sacrifice of many of the -cherished ornaments of the church, was brought to the King's officers -at Cambridge, the coins were found, through some fraud of the moneyers, -to be of light weight. William was studiously and politically angry -at what he affected to believe an attempt on the part of the monks to -cheat him, and his forbearance was only purchased by a further fine of -three hundred marks, raised by melting down the remainder of the holy -ornaments. The quality of William's piety is easily to be tested by a -comparison of the value of his single gold mark, worth in our money one -hundred pounds, with that of the one thousand silver marks, the sum -total of the fines he exacted. A sum equal to thirty thousand pounds -was extracted from the monastery and church of Ely, and forty Norman -knights were quartered upon the brethren; one knight to each monk, as -the old "Tabula Eliensis" specifies in detail. - - -XXXIV - - -WHAT in the meanwhile had become of Hereward? What was he doing when -these shaven-pated traitors were betraying his stronghold? One would -like to find that hero wreaking a terrible vengeance upon them, but -we hear of nothing so pleasing and appropriate. The only vengeance -was that taken by William upon the rank and file of the rebels, and -that was merely cowardly and unworthy. It was not politic to anger -the leaders of this last despairing stand of the Saxons, and so they -obtained the King's Peace; but the churls and serfs felt the force of -retribution in gouged eyes, hands struck off, ears lopped, and other -ferocious pleasantries typical of the Norman mind. Hereward who, I am -afraid, was not always so watchful as his name signifies, seems to have -found pardon readily enough, and one set of legends tells how at last -he died peacefully and of old age in his bed. - -Others among the old monkish chroniclers give him an epic and more -fitting end, in which, like Samson, he dies with his persecutors. They -marry him to a rich Englishwoman, one Elfthryth, who had made her peace -with the King, and afterwards obtained pardon for her lover. But the -Normans still hated him, and one night, when his chaplain Ethelward, -whose duty was to keep watch and ward within and without his house -and to place guards, slumbered at his post, a band of assassins crept -in and attacked Hereward as he lay. He armed himself in haste, and -withstood their onslaught. His spear was broken, his sword too, and -he was driven to use his shield as a weapon. Fifteen Frenchmen lay -dead beneath his single arm when four of the party crept behind him -and smote him with their swords in the back. This stroke brought him -to his knees. A Breton knight, one Ralph of Dol, then rushed on him, -but Hereward, in a last effort, once more wielded his buckler, and the -Englishman and the Breton fell dead together. - -However, whenever, or wherever he came to his end, certainly the great -Hereward was laid to rest in the nave of Crowland Abbey, but no man -knows his grave. Just as the bones and the last resting-place of Harold -at Waltham Abbey have disappeared, so the relics of "the Watchful," -that "most strenuous man," that hardy fighter in a lost cause, are -scattered to the winds. - -There are alleged descendants of Hereward to this day, and a "Sir -Herewald Wake" is at the head of them; but we know nothing of how -they prove their descent. "Watch and pray" is their motto, and a very -appropriate one, too; although it is possible that Hereward's praying -was spelt with an "e," and himself not so prayerful as predatory. - -Hereward, the old monkish chroniclers tell us, was "a man short in -stature but of enormous strength." By that little fragment of personal -description they do something to wreck an ideal. Convention demands -that all heroes be far above the height of other men, just as all -knights of old were conventionally gentle and chivalric and all ladies -fair; though, if history do not lie and limners painted what they -saw, the chivalry and gentleness of knighthood were as sadly to seek -as the loving-kindness of the hyaeena, and the fair ladies of old were -most furiously ill-favoured. Hereward's figure, without that personal -paragraph, is majestic. The feet of him squelch, it is true, through -Fenland mud and slime, but his head is lost in the clouds until this -very early piece of journalism disperses the mists and makes the hero -something less of the demi-god than he had otherwise been. - -The name of Hereward's stronghold offers a fine blue-mouldy bone of -contention for rival antiquaries to gnaw at. In face of the clamour -of disputants on this subject, it behoves us to take no side, but -just to report the theories advanced. The most favoured view, -then, is that "Aldreth" enshrines a corruption of St. Etheldreda's -name,--that Etheldreda who was variously known as St. Ethelthryth and -St. Audrey,--and that it was originally none other than St. Audrey's -Hythe, or Landing, on this very stream of Ouse, now much shrunken and -running in a narrow channel, instead of spreading over the country in -foul swamps and unimaginable putrid bogs. "Aldreche"--the old reach -of this Ouse--is another variant put forward; but it does not seem to -occur to any of these disputants that, at anyrate, the termination of -the place-name is identical with that in the names of Meldreth and -Shepreth, where little streams, the mere shadows and wraiths of their -former selves, still exist to hint that it was once necessary to ford -them, and that, whatever the first syllable of Meldreth may mean, -"reth" is perhaps the Celtic "rhyd," a ford, and Shepreth just the -"sheep ford." - -But whatever may have been the original form of Aldreth's name, the -village nowadays has nothing to show of any connection with St. -Etheldreda, save the site only of a well dedicated to her, situated -half-way up the steeply rising street. It is a curious street, this -of Aldreth, plunging down from the uplands of the Isle into the peat -and ooze that William so laboriously crossed. Where it descends you -may still see the stones with which he, or others at some later time, -paved the way. For the rest, Aldreth is one long street of rustic -cottages very scattered and much separated by gardens: over all a look -of listlessness, as though this were the end of the known world, and -nothing mattered very much. When a paling from a garden fence falls -into the road, it lies there; when the plaster falls from a cottage -wall, no one repairs the damage; when a window is broken, the hole is -papered or stuffed with rags: economy of effort is studied at Aldreth. - -The curious may still trace William's route through the Isle, to Ely -city. It is not a straight course. Geographical conditions forbade it -to be so, and I doubt not, that if the road were to make again, they -would still forbid; for to rule a straight line across the map from -Aldreth to Ely is to plunge into hollows where water still lies, though -actual fens be of the past. His way lay along two sides of a square; -due north for three miles and almost due east for a like distance, -along the track pursued nowadays by the excellent road uphill to where -the mile-long and populous village of Haddenham stands on a crest, and -down again and turning to the right for Witchford, whence, along a -gentle spur, you come presently into Ely. - - -XXXV - - -RETURNING to the high road at Cottenham Corner, and passing the -junction of the road from Waterbeach, we come presently, at a point -six and a half miles from Cambridge, to a place marked "Dismal Hall" -on large-scale Ordnance maps. Whatever this may have been in old -days, it is now a small white-brick farmhouse, called by the occupier -"The Brambles," and by the landlord "Brookside." The name perhaps -derived originally from some ruined Roman villa whose walls rose, -roofless and desolate, beside the ancient Akeman Street. It is a name -belonging, in all probability, to the same order as the "Caldecotes" -and "Coldharbours," met frequently beside, or in the neighbourhood -of, Roman ways; places generally conceded to have been ruined houses -belonging to that period. The modern representative of "Dismal Hall" -stands beside a curiously small and oddly-shaped field, itself called -"Dismal"; triangular in form and comprising only two acres. - -Half a mile beyond this point, a pretty group of cottages marks where -the way to Denny Abbey lies to the right across a cow-pasture. A -field-gate whose posts are the battered fragments of some Perpendicular -Gothic pillars from that ruined monastery, crowned incongruously with -a pair of eighteenth-century stone urns, clearly identifies the spot. -There has been a religious house of sorts on this spot since eight -hundred years ago, and most of the remains are of the Norman period, -when a settlement of Black Monks from Ely settled here. In succession -to them came the Knights Templars, who made it a preceptory, and when -their Order was suppressed and ceased out of the land, in consequence -of its corruption and viciousness, the nuns of St. Clare were given -a home in these deserted halls. Close upon four hundred years have -gone since they, too, were thrust forth, and it has for centuries past -been a farmhouse. Indeed, if you regard Denny Abbey, as also many -another, in anything else save a conventional light, you will see -that it was really always a farm. What else than a farm was the great -Abbey of Tintern, and what other than farmers those Cistercian monks -who built it and cultivated those lands, the godless, growing fearful -and in expiatory mood, had given them? So also with the Benedictines, -the Templars, and the Clares who succeeded one another here. You may -note the fact in their great barns, and in the fields they reclaimed. -To-day, groups of buildings of uncertain age, as regards their outer -walls, enclose littered rick-yards, but the dwelling-house, for all -the uninteresting look of one side, shows, built into its inner face, -the sturdy piers and arches of one of the aisles; and the otherwise -commonplace hall and staircase of the interior are informed with a -majestic dignity by two columns and a noble arch of the Norman church. -A large and striking barn, approached and entered across a pig-haunted -yard rich in straw and mud, proves, on entering, to be a beautiful -building of the Decorated period, once the refectory. - -Leaving Denny Abbey behind, we come to Chittering, a place unknown to -guide-books and chartographers. We need blame neither the one nor the -other for this omission, for Chittering is remarkable for nothing but -its insignificance and lack of anything that makes for interest. It -consists, when you have counted everything in its constituent parts, -of two lonely public-houses, the Traveller's Rest and the Plough and -Horses, a grotesquely unbeautiful Baptist Chapel and a school, five -or six scattered cottages, and one new house, entrenched as it were -in a defensive manner behind a sedgy and duckweedy drain. It is here, -at a right-hand turning, that the exploratory cyclist turns off for -Wicken Fen, the last remaining vestige of the natural Fenland that -once overspread the greater part of the county. In Wicken Fen, a -square mile of peaty bog and quaking morass, where the reeds still -grow tall, and strange aquatic plants flourish, the rarer Fenland -lepidoptera find their last refuge. Dragon-flies, in glittering panoply -of green-and-gold armour and rainbow-hued wings, flash like miniature -lightnings over the decaying vegetation, and the sulphur-coloured, -white-and-scarlet butterflies find a very paradise in the moist and -steamy air. Wicken Fen is jealously preserved in its natural state, -and is a place of pilgrimage, not only for the naturalist, with his -butterfly-net and his collecting-box, but for all who would obtain some -idea of what this country was like in former ages. At the same time -it is a place difficult to find, and the route to it a toilsome one. -The Fens express flatness to the last degree, it is true, but, even -though they be drained, they are not easy to explore. Mountain-ranges -are, indeed, not more weariful than these flats, where you can never -make a straight course when once off the main roads, but are compelled -by dykes and drains to make for any given point by questing hither -and thither as though following the outlines of the squares on a -chessboard. The distance to Wicken Fen, measured from Chittering in -a direct line on the map, is not more than four miles. Actually, the -route is nearly eight. - -We have already seen what a Fenland drove is like. To such a complexion -does this treacherous by-way descend in less than a quarter of a mile, -bringing the adventurer into an apparently boundless field of corn. -If the weather has recently been wet, he is brought to a despairing -pause at this point, for the rugged drove here becomes a sea of a -curious kind of black buttery mud, highly tenacious. The pedestrian -is to be pitied in this pass, but the cyclist is in worse case, for -his wheels refuse to revolve, and he finds, with horror, his brake -and his forks clogged with the horrible mess, and his mud-guards -become mud-accumulators instead. To shoulder his machine and carry it -is the only course. If, on the other hand, the weather be dry, with -a furious wind blowing, the mud becomes dust and fills the air with -a very respectable imitation of a Soudan sandstorm. In those happy -climatic conditions when it is neither wet nor too dry, and when the -stormy winds have sunk to sleep, the way to Wicken Fen, though long -and circuitous, loses these terrors. At such times the ditchers may be -seen almost up to their knees in what looks like dry sand, hard at -work clearing out the dykes and drains choked up by this flying dust, -and it becomes of interest to examine the nature of this curious soil. -A handful, gathered at haphazard, shows a kind of black sand, freely -mixed with a fine snuff-coloured mixture of powder and minute fibrous -shreds; pulverised peat from the vanished bogs and morasses that once -stewed and festered where these fields now yield abundant harvests. -This peaty soil it is that gives these fields their fertility, for, as -Sir Humphry Davy once said, "A soil covered with peat is a soil covered -with manure." - -It is a curious commentary on the fame of Wicken Fen as an -entomologist's paradise, and on its remoteness, that all the ditchers -and farming-folk assume the stranger who inquires his way to it to be a -butterfly-hunter. - -At last, after crossing the railway to Ely, making hazardous passage -over rickety plank-bridges across muddy dykes, and wending an uncertain -way through farmyards inhabited by dogs keenly desirous of tearing -the infrequent stranger limb from limb, the broad river Cam is -approached, at Upware. Upware is just a riverside hamlet, remote from -the world, and only in touch with its doings on those occasions when -boating-parties from Ely or Cambridge come by on summer days. - -On the opposite shore, across the reedy Cam, stands a queer building, -partly ferry-house, partly inn, with the whimsical legend, "Five Miles -from Anywhere. No Hurry," painted on its gable. The real sign of -Upware Inn, as it is generally called, is the "Lord Nelson," but this -knowledge is only acquired on particular inquiry, for signboard it has -none. - -The roystering old days at Upware are done. They came to an end when -the railway between Cambridge, Ely, and Kings Lynn was opened, and -coals and heavy goods no longer went by barge along the Ouse and -Cam. In that unregenerate epoch, before modern culture had reached -Cambridge, and undergrads had not begun to decorate their rooms with -blue china and to attempt to live up to it, the chief delight of -Cambridge men was to walk or scull down to Upware and have it out with -the bargees. Homeric battles were fought here by the riverside in -those days of beef and beer, and it was not always the University man -who got the worst of it in these sets-to with or without the gloves. -In the last days of this Philistine era the railway navvy came as a -foeman equally well worth the attention of young Cambridge; and thus, -in a final orgie of bloody noses and black eyes, the fame of Upware -culminated. When the navvy had completed his work and departed, the -bargee went also, and peace has reigned ever since along the sluggish -reaches of the Cam. There are, it is true, a few of the barging craft -and mystery still left along this waterway, but, beyond a singular -proficiency in swearing, they have nothing in common with their -forebears, and drink tea and discuss social science. - -[Illustration: UPWARE INN.] - -In those old robustious days--famous once, but now forgot--flourished -the Republic of Upware, a somewhat blackguardly society composed -chiefly of muscular undergrads. Admission to the ranks of this -precious association was denied to none who could hit hard and drink -deep. In the riverside field that still keeps its name of "Upware -Bustle," the Republic held many of its drunken, uproarious carouses, -presided over by the singular character who called himself, not -President, but "King of Upware." Richard Ramsay Fielder, this pot-house -monarch, "flourished," as histories would say, circa 1860. He was an -M.A. of Cambridge, a man of good family and of high abilities, but -cursed with a gipsy nature, an incurable laziness, and an unquenchable -thirst: the kind of man who is generally, for his sake and their own, -packed off by his family to the Colonies. Fielder perhaps could not -be induced to cross the seas; at anyrate, he enjoyed an allowance -from his family, on the degrading condition that he kept himself at -a distance. He earned the allowance loyally, and found the society -that pleased him most at Upware and in the inns of the surrounding -Fenland villages; so that on leaving the University he continued to -cling to the neighbourhood for many years, becoming a hero to all the -dissolute youngsters at Cambridge. He it was who originally painted -the apt inscription, "Five Miles from Anywhere," on the gable-wall of -this waterside inn, his favourite haunt, where he lounged and smoked -and tippled with the bargees; himself apeing that class in his dress: -coatless, with corduroy breeches and red waistcoat. A contemporary -sketch of him tells of his thin flowing hair of inordinate length, of -his long dirty finger-nails, and of the far from aromatic odour he gave -forth; and describes his boating expeditions. "He used to take about -with him in his boat an enormous brown-ware jug, capable of holding -six gallons or more, which he would at times have filled with punch, -ladling it out profusely for his aquatic friends. This vast pitcher -or 'gotch,' which was called 'His Majesty's pint' ('His Majesty' in -allusion to his self-assumed title), had been made to his own order, -and decorated before kilning with incised ornaments by his own hand. -Amongst these figured prominently his initials 'R. R. F.' and his -crest, actual or assumed, a pheon, or arrow-head." Alluding to his -initials, he would often playfully describe himself as "more R. than -F.," which means (is it necessary to explain?) "more rogue than fool." -Eccentric in every way, he would change his quarters without notice -and without reason, and would remain in bed, smoking and drinking, for -weeks together. - -This odd character lingered here for some years after the bargees -had gone, and into the time when even the most rowdy of Cambridge -undergraduates began to find it "bad form" to booze and be hail-fellow -with the village rapscallions of Fenland. Then Fielder himself -"forswore sack and lived cleanly"; or at anyrate deserted his old -haunts. Report tells how he died at last at Folkestone, in comfortable -circumstances and in a quite respectable and conventional manner. - - -XXXVI - - -UPWARE INN has lost a great deal of its old-time look. With something -akin to melancholy the sentimental pilgrim sees a corrugated iron roof -replacing the old thatch of reeds, characteristic of Fenland. The great -poplar, too, has had its curious spreading limb amputated: that noble -branch whereon the King of that Republic sat on summer evenings and -held his disreputable Court. But not everything is modernised. The -Cam is not yet bridged. You still are ferried across in an uncouth -flat-bottomed craft, and they even yet burn peat in the domestic grates -at Upware, so that links yet bind the present with the past. Peat is -the traditional fuel of the Fens, largely supplanted nowadays by coal, -but should coal become permanently dear, these Cambridgeshire villages -would, for sake of its cheapness, go back to peat and endure its acrid -smell and dull smouldering humour in place of the brightness of a coal -fire. At Wicken Fen the peat is still forming: perhaps the only place -in England where the process is going on. It is still three miles from -Upware to this relic of the untamed wilderness, past Spinney Abbey, now -a farmhouse with few or no relics of the old foundation to be seen. It -was in this farmstead that Henry Cromwell, one of the Protectors sons, -lived in retirement. He was visited here one September day in 1671 by -Charles the Second, come over from Newmarket for the purpose. What -Charles said to him and what Henry Cromwell replied we do not know, -and imagination has therefore the freer rein. But we spy drama in it, -a "situation" of the most thrilling kind. What would _you_ say to the -man who had murdered--judicially murdered, if you like it--your father? -Charles, however, was a cynic of an easy-going type, and probably -failed to act up to the theatrical requirements of the occasion. At -anyrate, Henry Cromwell was not consigned to the nearest, or any, -dungeon. Nothing at all was done to him, and he died, two years later, -at peace with all men. He lies buried in the little church of Wicken, -and was allowed to rest there. - -Wicken Fen is just beyond this abbey farmstead. You turn to the right, -along a green lane and across a field, and there you are, with the -reeds and the sedge growing thick in the stagnant water, water-lilies -opening their buds on the surface, and a lazy hum of insects droning in -the still and sweltering air. The painted lady, the swallow-tail, the -peacock, the scarlet tiger, and many other gaily-hued butterflies float -on silent wings; things crawl and creep in the viscous slime, and on -warm summer days, after rain, the steam rises from the beds of peat and -wild growths as from some natural cookshop. Old windmill pumps here and -there dot the banks of the fen, and in the distance are low hills that -form, as it were, the rim of the basin in which this relic is set. - -[Illustration: WICKEN FEN.] - -Away in one direction rises the tall majestic tower of Soham Church, -deceiving the stranger into the belief that he is looking at Ely -Cathedral, and overlooking what are now the pastures of Soham Fen; in -the days of King Canute that inland sea--that _mare de Soham_--which -stretched ten miles wide between Mildenhall and Ely. It was across -Soham Mere that Canute came voyaging by Ely, rowed by knights in his -galley, when he heard, while yet a long way off, the sound of melody. -Bidding his knights draw nearer to the Isle, he found the music to -be the monks in the church singing vespers. The story is more than a -legend, and is alluded to in the only surviving stanza of an ancient -song-- - - "Merie sungen the Muneches binnen Ely - Tha Cnut Ching rew therby. - Roweth cnites noer the lant, - And here we thes Muneches saeng." - -It is a story that well pictures the reality---the actual isolation--of -the Isle, just as does that other, telling how that same Canute, coming -again to Ely for Christmas, found the waters that encompassed it -frost-bound, but so slightly that crossing the ice was perilous in the -extreme. He was thus of necessity halted on the shores of the frozen -mere, and until they found one Brithmer, a Saxon cheorl of the Fen, -skilled in Fen-lore and able to guide the King and his train across the -shallow places where the ice lay thick and strong, it seemed as though -he and his retinue would be unable to keep the Feast of the Nativity in -Ely. Brithmer was a man of prodigious bulk, nicknamed "Budde," or "the -Fat," and where he led the way in safety men of ordinary weight could -follow without fear. So Canute followed in his sledge, with his Court, -and kept Christmas on the Isle. As for Brithmer, who had performed this -service, he was enlarged from serfdom to be a free man, and loaded with -honours. Indeed, he was probably only known as "the Fat" before this -time, and was doubtless called Brithmer, which means "bright mere," -after this exploit. - - -XXXVII - - -RETURNING to the old coach road from this expedition, and coming to it -again with a thankful heart, we presently come to Stretham Bridge, a -narrow old hunch-backed brick structure spanning the Great Ouse, or Old -West River, and giving entrance to this Isle of Ely, of which already -we have heard so much, and will now hear more. The sketch-map that has -already shown the Conqueror's line of march indicates also the size -and shape of the Isle: the physical Isle. For there are really two, -the physical and the political. The last-named comprises the whole of -the northern part of Cambridgeshire, from this point along the Ouse -to Upware, and thence, following the Cambridgeshire border, round to -Littleport and Tydd St. Giles in the north, by the neighbourhood of -Crowland and Peterborough, and so down to the Ouse again at Earith, -Aldreth, and Stretham Bridge. It is still a political division, and has -its own government, under the style of the County Council of the Isle -of Ely. The real geographical Isle--the one sketched in the map--is -much smaller; only one-third the size of the other; measuring in its -greatest length and breadth but some twelve and eight miles, and -bounded by the Great Ouse from Earith to Upware, by Cam and Little -Ouse to Littleport, and thence by the Old Croft River to the New -Bedford River, returning along that cut to Earith. - -As you approach Stretham Bridge along this old causeway the Isle is -plain to see in front, its gentle hills glimpsed between the fringe of -willows and poplars that now begin to line the way. No one has bettered -the description Carlyle wrote of the Fen-country seen from this -causeway that was once the Akeman Street; and no one _can_ better it. -"It has a clammy look," he says, clayey and boggy; the produce of it, -whether bushes and trees or grass and crops, gives you the notion of -something lazy, dropsical, gross. From the "circumfluent mud," willows, -"Nature's signals of distress," spring up by every still slime-covered -drain: willows generally polled and, with that process long continued, -now presenting a very odd and weird appearance. The polled crown of an -ancient willow bears a singularly close resemblance to a knuckly fist, -and these, like so many gnarled giant arms of bogged and smothered -Goliaths thrust upwards in despair, with clenched and imprecatory -hands, give this road the likeness of a highway into fairyland whose -ogres, under the spell of some Prince Charming, have been done to death -in their own sloughs. Pollards, anathema to Cobbett, are in plenty in -these lowlands, but it must not be thought that because of them, or -even because Carlyle's description of the country is so apt, it is -anything but beautiful. Only, to see its beauties and appreciate them, -it is necessary here, more than elsewhere, to have fine weather. - -[Illustration: A FENLAND ROAD: THE AKEMAN STREET NEAR STRETHAM -BRIDGE.] - -Stretham Bridge, that makes so great a business of crossing the Ouse, -seems an instance of much ado about nothing, for that river, "Great -Ouse" though it be named, is very much to seek in summer, trickling -away as it does between tussocks of rough grass. The Great Ouse is not -of the bigness it once boasted, in days before the Old and New Bedford -Rivers were cut, two hundred and sixty years ago, to carry its sluggish -waters away by a direct route to the sea, and the fair-weather pilgrim -marvels at the bridge and at the great banks he sees stretching away -along its course to protect the surrounding lands from being flooded. -That they are needed is evident enough from the care taken to repair -them, and from a sight of the men digging hard by in the greasy gault -to obtain the repairing materials. These are the "gaulters" and the -"bankers" of Fenland life. It was one of these who, as a witness in -some cause at the Cambridge Assizes, appearing in his working clothes, -was asked his occupation. "I am a banker, my Lord," he replied. "We -cannot have any absurdity," said Baron Alderson testily; to which -the man answered as before, "I am a banker"; and things were at -cross-purposes until the meaning of the term was explained to the Court. - -[Illustration: HODDEN SPADE AND BECKET.] - -The local occupations all have curious names, and the inhabitants of -the Fens in general were long known as "Fen-slodgers," a title that, -if indeed unlovely, is at least as expressive of mudlarking as it is -possible for a word to be. You picture a slodger as a half-amphibious -creature, something between a water-sprite and a sewer-man, muddy -from head to foot and pulling his feet out of the ooze as he goes -with resounding "plops," like the noise made in drawing the cork -of a bottle. But if the Fenman did not quite fill all the details -thus conjured up, he was, and is still, a watery kind of creature; -half-farmer, half-fisherman and wild-fowler. He is sometimes a -"gozard," that is to say, a goose-ward or goose-keeper. This occupation -does not seem to have given an abiding surname, as many others have -done, and you may search in many directories for it without avail, -although the Haywards, the Cartwrights, and the Cowards are prominent -enough. The Fenman digs his land with a becket or a hodden spade. The -design of the first-named goes back to Roman times, and is seen figured -on columns and triumphal arches in the Imperial City, just as it is -fashioned to-day. It is this form of spade that is alluded to in such -wayside tavern-signs as the Plough and Becket, apt to be puzzling to -the uninitiated. When the Fenland rustic, weary of the daily routine, -wants a little sport or seeks to grace his table with fish, he goes -"dagging for eels" along the rivers and the drains, "leams," "lodes," -or "eaus" (which he calls "ees") with a "gleve," which, translated -into ordinary English, means an eel-spear, shaped very like Neptune's -trident. - -[Illustration: STRETHAM BRIDGE.] - - -XXXVIII - - -CROSSING Stretham Bridge, with Stretham Common on the right and -Stretham village two miles ahead, the Akeman Street appears to be -soon lost, for the way is crooked, and much more like a mediaeval than -a classic road. Indeed, the entrance to Stretham is by two striking -right-angle turns and a curve past a low-lying tract called Beggars' -Bush Field. - -"Beggars' Bush" is so frequent a name in rural England[2] that it -arouses curiosity. Sometimes these spots bear the unbeautiful name -of "Lousy Bush," as an apt alternative. They were probably the -lurking-places of mediaeval tramps. The tramp we have always had with -us. He, his uncleanliness and his dislike of work are by no means new -features. Only, with the increase of population, there is naturally -a proportional increase in the born-tired and the professional -unemployed. That is all. So long ago as Queen Elizabeth's time -legislation was found necessary to suppress the tramp. The Elizabethan -statute did not call him by that name: they were not clever enough in -those times to invent so descriptive a term, and merely called him a -"sturdy rogue and vagrant." Of course he was not suppressed by the -hardness, the whips and scorpions, of the Elizabethans, but endured -them and the branded "R" and "V," and sporting them as his trade-marks, -went tramping to the end of his earthly pilgrimage. These are the -"strangers" whom you will find mentioned in the burial registers of -many a wayside parish church; the "strangers" found dead on the road, -or under the "Beggars' Bushes," and buried by the parish. - -[2] There was once a Beggars' Bush on the Old North Road, fifty-five -miles from London and two and a half from Huntingdon. King James the -First seems to have heard of it, when on his progress to London from -Scotland, for he said, on the road, in a metaphorical sense to Bacon, -who had entertained him with a lavish and ruinous hospitality, "Sir -Francis, you will soon come to Beggars' Bush, and I may e'en go along -with you too, if we be both so bountiful." - -It was the indiscriminate almsgiving of the religious houses--the -Abbeys and the Priories of old--that fostered this race of vagrom men -and women, the ancestors of the tramps of to-day. Like the Salvation -Army in our times,--either better or worse, whichever way you regard -it,--they fed, and sometimes sheltered, the outcast and the hungry. -Only the hungry are not fed for nothing, nor without payment sheltered -by the Salvationists. They purchase food and lodging off the Army for a -trifle in coin or by a job of work: the monks exacted nothing in return -for the dole or the straw pallet that any hungry wretch was welcome to. -Thus, throughout the land a great army of the lazy, the unfortunate, -and the afflicted were in mediaeval times continually tramping from one -Abbey to another. Sometimes they stole, oftener they begged, and they -found the many pilgrims who were always making pilgrimage from one -shrine to another handy to prey upon. Ill fared the straggler from the -pilgrim train that wound its length along the ancient ways; for there -were those among the vagrom gang who would not scruple to rob or murder -him, and that is one among many reasons why pilgrimage was made in -company. - -Stretham village, it is scarce necessary in these parts to say, is set -on a hill, or what in the Fens is by courtesy so-called. No village -here has any other site than some prehistoric knob of clay that by -strange chance raised itself above the ooze. The site of Stretham, -being in the Isle of Ely, was an isle within an isle. Still one goes up -to and down from it. Still you see ancient houses there with flights of -steps up to the front doors, so hard put to it were the old inhabitants -to keep out of the way of the water; and even yet, when you are come -to the levels again, the houses cease and no more are seen until the -next rise is reached, insignificant enough to the eye, but to the mind -stored with the old lore of the Fens significant of much. Stretham is a -large village. It does not run to length, as do places in other parts -of the country situated, like it, on a great road. _They_ commonly -consist of one long street: Stretham, built on the crown of a hill, has -odd turns and twists, and streets unexpectedly opening on either hand -as the explorer advances, and is, so to speak, built round and round -itself. In its midst, where the road broadens into as wide a space as a -village squeezed on to the crown of an island hilltop could anciently -afford, stands a market cross. - -You may seek far and wide for information about this cross, but you -will not find. All we know is that, by its look, it belongs to the -fifteenth century, and we may shrewdly suspect that the nondescript -plinth it stands upon replaces a broad approach of steps. When the -steps were taken away is a matter as unknown as the history of the -cross itself; but if we do not know the when, we at least, in the -light of Stretham's circumstances, know the why. The street was -inconveniently narrowed by them. - -[Illustration: STRETHAM.] - -The fine church stands to the left of the road by the cross, and -is adjoined by an ancient vicarage. At the top of the main street, -where the village ends, the traveller obtains his first glimpse of -Ely Cathedral, four miles away. It must have been here, or close -by, that Jack Goodwin, guard on the Lynn "Rover," about 1831, met -Calcraft the hangman, for he tells how the executioner got up as an -outside passenger "about four miles on the London side of Ely," to -which city he had been paying a professional visit, to turn off an -unhappy agricultural labourer sentenced to death for incendiarism, then -a capital offence. Calcraft had been at considerable pains to avoid -recognition, and had appeared in the procession to the scaffold on Ely -Common as one of the Sheriff's javelin-men. Probably he feared to be -the object of popular execration. - -When he mounted the coach, he was dressed like a Cambridgeshire farmer, -and thought himself quite unknown. Goodwin took charge of his baggage, -comprising a blue bag, half a dozen red cabbages, _and a piece of -rope_--the identical rope that had put an end to the unhappy wretch of -the day before. He then offered him a cigar (guards were fine fellows -in their way) and addressed Calcraft by name. - -The hangman replied that he was mistaken. "No, no," said Goodwin, "I am -not; I saw you perform on three criminals at the Old Bailey a few weeks -ago." - -That, of course, was conclusive, and they chatted more or less -pleasantly; although, to be sure, the conversation chiefly turned on -Mr. Calcraft's professional experiences. He told Goodwin, when he left, -that "if ever he had the pleasure of doing the job for him, he would -soap the rope to make it as comfortable as possible." - - -XXXIX - - -THERE is little or nothing to say of the way into Ely, and only -the little village of Thetford, and that to one side of the road, -intervenes. Nothing distracts the attention from the giant bulk of the -Cathedral. - -How shall we come into Ely? As archaeologists, as pilgrims spiritually -inclined and chanting a _sursum corda_ as we go, or shall we be -gross and earthly, scenting lamb and green peas, spring duckling and -asparagus from afar, for all the world like our hearty grandfathers -of the coaching age, to whom the great white-faced Lamb Inn, that is -still the principal hostelry of this city, appealed with much more -force than that great grey religious pile? We will to the Lamb, which -is not a difficult house to find, and in fact presents itself squarely -and boldly as you enter. "Come," it seems to say, "you are expected. -The cloth is laid, you shall dine royally on Ely delicacies. This is -in no traditional way the capital of the Fens. Our ducklings are the -tenderest, our asparagus the most succulent, there never were such -eels as those of Ouse; and you shall conclude with the cream-cheese of -Cottenham." Is an invitation so alluring to be despised? - -It is strange to read how Thomas Cross in his _Autobiography of a -Stage Coachman_ devotes pages to an elaborate depreciation of the Lamb -in coaching times. From a "slip of a bar," with a netful of mouldy -lemons hanging from the ceiling, to the catering and the appointments -of the hostelry, he finds nothing good. But who shall say he was not -justified? Lounging one day in this apology for a bar, there entered -one who was a stranger to him, who asked the landlady what he could -have for dinner. "Spitchcocked eels and mutton chops," replied the -hostess, naming what were then, and are still, the staple commodities. -The stranger was indignant. Turning to Cross, he said, "I have used -this house for five-and-twenty years and never had any other answer." - -Presently they both sat down to this canonical dinner in a -sparsely-furnished room. The stranger cleaned his knife and fork -(brought into the room in a dirty condition) by thrusting them through -the soiled and ragged tablecloth. The sherry was fiery, if the port was -good; and for gooseberry tart they had a something in a shallow dish, -with twenty bottled gooseberries under the crust. The good cheer of the -Lamb was then, it seems quite evident, a matter of conventional belief -rather than of actual existence. - -It has been already said that nothing distracts the attention of -the traveller on approaching the city. Ely, indeed, is nearly all -Cathedral, and very little of that which is not can claim any interest. -It is true that six thousand five hundred people live in Ely, but the -figures are surprising. Where do these thousands hide themselves? The -streets are not so many, and even at that are all emptiness, slumber, -and yawns. The shopkeepers (who surely keep shop for fun) come to -their doors and yawn, and regard the stray customer with severity; -the Divinity students yawn, and the Dean and the Cathedral staff yawn -horribly at the service they have gone through so many times and know -by heart. The only place where they don't yawn is the railway station, -down below by the Ouse, by whose banks you get quite the finest near -view of the Cathedral. Ely, in short, lives chiefly by and on the -Cathedral. If there had never been a cathedral here, it would have been -a village the size of Stretham. Perhaps to that size it will even yet -decline. - -"Ely," wrote Cobbett eighty years ago, "is what one may call a -miserable little town; very prettily situated, but poor and mean. -Everything seems to be on the decline, as, indeed, is the case -everywhere where the clergy are masters." True enough, enterprise -and industry are deadened in all such places; but this bull-headed -old prevaricator, in proceeding to account for the decay, furiously -assaults the Protestant religion, and pretends to find it responsible. -It is true that the cleric is everywhere a brake on the wheels of -progress, but what religion plunges its adherents in so abject a -condition of superstitious dependence as the Roman Catholic creed? -Cobbett on Ely is, in short, a monument of blundering clap-trap. - -"Arrived at Ely," he says, "I first walked round the beautiful -cathedral, that honour to our Catholic forefathers and that standing -disgrace to our Protestant selves. It is impossible to look at that -magnificent pile without feeling that we are a fallen race of men. You -have only to open your eyes to be convinced that England must have been -a far greater and more wealthy country in those days than it is in -these days. The hundreds of thousands of loads of stone of which this -cathedral and the monasteries in the neighbourhood were built must all -have been brought by sea from distant parts of the kingdom.[3] These -foundations were laid more than a thousand years ago; and yet there -are vagabonds who have the impudence to say that it is the Protestant -religion that has made England a great country." - -[3] The stone really came from Barnack, in Northamptonshire, -thirty-five miles distant. - -Here we have Cobbett, who ought to have known better, and _did_ -actually know, repeating the shambling fallacy that the architectural -art of the Middle Ages was so artistic because it was inspired -by religion, and that its artistry decayed by consequence of the -Reformation. Such an argument loses sight of the circumstance that -edifices dedicated to religious use were not the only large or -beautiful buildings erected in those ages, and that those who wrought -upon secular castle or manor-house wrought as well and as truly as -those who reared the soaring minster or noble abbey. And whence came -the means wherewith to build cathedrals like this of Ely? Did they not -derive from the lands settled upon monasteries by those anxious only -to save their own souls, and by others who sought thus to compound for -their deeds of blood or infamy? And is it possible to think without -aversion of a Church that, accepting such gifts, absolved the givers in -consideration of them? - -Life is endeavour; not all cloistered prayer. He prays best whose -prayers are an interlude of toil; and so, when we read Cobbett's long -account of the wretched condition of Ely Cathedral, of its "disgraceful -irrepair and disfigurement," and of the two old men who on a week-day -afternoon formed the whole of the congregation, coupled with his -regretful surmise that in Catholic times five thousand people would -have been assembled here, we are apt to think that sparse congregation -a very healthy sign, and that even those two old men would have been -better employed out in the workaday world. He would be a Goth who -should fail to perceive the beauty of Ely Cathedral and of its like, -but those noble aisles, those soaring towers tell a tale of an enslaved -land, of fettered souls, of a priestcraft that sought to rule the -State, as well as to hold the keys of Heaven and of Hell. No man, -whether he be Pope, Archbishop, or merely the Boanerges of some hideous -Bethel, has the right to enslave another's soul. Let even the lovely -cathedrals of our land be levelled in one common ruin if the sight of -them harks us back to Popery, for in that harking back England would be -utterly undone. - -But since the saving common-sense of the Englishman can never again -permit him to deliver up his soul into another's keeping, and since -it follows naturally from this that the Romanising tendencies of our -clergy must of necessity lead nowhere and bear no fruit, it becomes -possible to look with a dispassionate eye upon these architectural -relics of discredited beliefs. - -Why was the Cathedral built here? That is a long story. It originated -in the monastery founded on this spot in A.D. 673 by Etheldreda, -daughter of Auna, King of the East Angles. Etheldreda has long since -been canonised, and it behoves us to deal as gently as may be with a -saint; but she was, if the chroniclers tell truth, an eccentric and -original creature, twice wed by her own consent, and yet vowed to a -life-long chastity. Her first husband was one Tondbert, a kinglet of -the Gyrvians or Fen-folk, a monarch of the mudlarks, ruling over many -miles of reed and sedge, in whose wastes Ely was centred. He gave his -Queen this Isle, and died. For five years she remained a widow and -then married again; this time a sturdier and less manageable man, King -Egfrid of Northumbria. He respected her vows for twelve years, but when -at last she took the veil in the north of England and fled from her -Northumbrian home he took the only way open in the seventh century of -asserting conjugal rights, and pursued her with an armed force. When, -however, he arrived at the monastery of Coldingham she was gone, and I -do not think Egfrid ever saw her again, or wanted to, for that matter. -We will not follow Etheldreda in her long and adventurous journey to -Ely, whither she had fled, nor recount the many miracles that helped -her on the way. Miracles were cheap at that period, and for at least -four hundred years to come were freely invented and elaborated by -monkish chroniclers, who were the earliest novelists and writers of -fairy tales, in the scriptorium of many a monastery. - - -XL - - -IN the year 673, then, behold the ecstatic Etheldreda come out of -many perils to Ely. Here, where she thought the Isle lifted its crest -highest above the waters, she founded a mixed monastery for monks and -nuns. At this point the ground is one hundred and nine feet above -sea-level: at Haddenham, the crowning crest is but thirteen feet -higher. Here she ruled as Abbess for six years, when she died, and -was succeeded by her sister, the sainted Sexburga. It was Sexburga -who, sixteen years from this time, determined to honour Etheldreda to -the best of her ability, bethought her of translating the body from -the humble graveyard of the monastery to the church itself. She sent -forth a number of the brethren on a roving commission to find a block -of stone for a coffin, and as stone of any kind is the least likely -thing to find for many miles around Ely, theirs looked to be a long -and difficult quest. They had, indeed, wandered as far as the ruins of -Roman Cambridge before they discovered anything, but there they found -a magnificent sarcophagus of white marble, which they joyfully brought -back, and in it the remains of Etheldreda, entire and incorrupt, were -laid. - -In 870, the time of the fourth Abbess, St. Withburga, a great -disaster befell the monastery of Ely. For years past the terror of -the heathen Vikings, the ruthless Danes and Jutes from over sea, -had been growing. Wild-eyed fugitives, survivors of some pitiless -massacre of the coastwise settlements by these pirates, had flung -themselves, exhausted, upon the Isle, and now the peril was drawing -near to this sanctuary. A special intercession, "Deliver us, O Lord, -from the Northmen," distinguished morning and evening office, but the -prayer was unanswered. Presently along the creeks came the beaked -prows of the ruthless sea-rovers, and the monastery was sacked and -burnt and all upon the Isle slain. That is history. To it the old -chronicler must needs put a clinching touch of miraculous vengeance, -and tells how a bloodstained pirate, thinking the marble shrine of St. -Etheldreda to be a treasure-chest, burst it open. "When he had done -this there was no delay of Divine vengeance, for immediately his eyes -started miraculously from his head, and he ended there and then his -sacrilegious life." - -Before many years had passed, a new monastery was founded upon the -blackened and bloodstained ruins of the old. This was a College of -Secular Clergy, patronised by King Alfred. It was succeeded by a new -foundation, instituted by Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, who made it -a Benedictine House; but even of that we have no trace left, and the -church under whose roof Canute worshipped and Edward the Confessor was -educated was swept away in the great scheme of rebuilding, entered upon -by Simeon, the first Norman Abbot, in 1080. Twenty-six years later the -relics of St. Etheldreda were translated to the choir just completed. -The translation took place on October 17th, a day ever afterwards, -while the Roman Catholic religion prevailed, celebrated by a religious -festival and a secular fair. Pilgrims flocked throughout the year to -St. Audrey's shrine, but many thousands assembled on her feast-day, -and, that no doubt should rest upon their pilgrimage, purchased such -favours and tokens as "St. Audrey's chains," and images of her. The -chains were lengths of coloured silks and laces, and were, like most -articles sold at the stalls, cheap and common. From them, their vulgar -showiness, and their association with the Saint, comes the word -"tawdry." - -Two years after this translation of St. Audrey, the Abbey Church was -made the Cathedral of the new diocese of Ely, carved out of the vast -See of Lincoln. Of the work wrought by Abbot Simeon and his successor, -Richard, the great north and south transepts alone remain. The choir -they built was replaced in the thirteenth century by that lovely Early -English work we now see; the nave they had not reached. This is a work -of some sixty years later than their time, and is one of the finest -examples of late Norman architecture in the country. The Norman style -went out with a blaze of architectural splendour at Ely, where the -great west front shows it blending almost imperceptibly into Early -English. It is a singular architectural composition, this western -entrance and forefront of Ely Cathedral; the piling up to a dizzy -height of a great tower, intended to be flanked on either side by two -western transepts each ending in a smaller tower. The north-western -transept fell in ruins at some unknown period and has never been -rebuilt, so that a view of this front presents a curiously unbalanced -look, very distressing to all those good folk whose sensibilities -would be harrowed if in their domestic establishment they lacked a -_pendant_ to everything. To the housewife to whom a fender where the -poker is not duly and canonically neighboured by the tongs looks a -debauched and sinful object; to the citizen who would grieve if the -bronze or cut-glass lustre on one side of his mantel-shelf were not -matched on the other, this is a sight of the most dolorous sort. It -must have been to soothe the feelings of all such that a sum of L25,000 -was appealed for when Sir Gilbert Scott was restoring the Cathedral, -many years ago, and its rebuilding was proposed. The money was not -forthcoming, the work was not done, and so Scott did not obtain the -L2500 commission. Scott's loss is our gain, for we are spared one more -example of his way with old cathedrals. - -[Illustration: THE WEST FRONT, ELY CATHEDRAL.] - -The ruins of the missing transept are plain to see, and a huge and ugly -buttress props up the tower from this side; but, were that building -restored, we should only have again, in its completeness, a curiously -childish design. For that is the note of this west front and of this -great tower, rising in stage upon stage of masonry until the great -blocks of stone, dwarfed by distance, look like so many courses of grey -brick. So does a child build up towers and castles of wooden blocks. - -We must, however, not accuse the original designers of the tower of -this mere striving after enormous height. The uppermost stage, where -the square building takes an octagonal form, is an addition of nearly -two hundred years later, when the nice perceptions and exquisite taste -of an earlier period were lost, and size was the goal of effort, rather -than beauty. Those who built at that later time would have gone higher -had they dared, but if they lacked something as artists, they must at -least be credited with engineering knowledge. They knew that the mere -crushing weight of stone upon stone would, if further added to, grind -the lower stages into powder and so wreck the whole fabric. So, at a -height of two hundred and fifteen feet, they stayed their hands; but, -in earnest of what they would have done, had not prudence forbade, they -crowned the topmost battlements with a tall light wooden spire, removed -a century ago in one of the restorations. It was from the roof of this -tower, in 1845, that Basevi, an architect interested in a restoration -then in progress, fell and was killed. - -The octagonal upper stage of this great western tower was added in -the Decorated period, about 1350, when the great central octagon, the -most outstanding and peculiar feature of the Cathedral, was built. -Any distant view of this vast building that commands its full length -shows, in addition to the western tower, a light and fairylike lantern, -like some graceful coronet, midway of the long roof-ridge, where choir -and nave meet. This was built to replace the tall central tower that -suddenly fell in ruins in 1332 and destroyed much of the choir. To an -architect inspired far above his fellows fell the task of rebuilding. -There are two works among the whole range of ancient Gothic art in -these islands that stand out above and beyond the rest and proclaim -the hand and brain of genius. They are the west front of Peterborough -Cathedral and the octagonal lantern of Ely. We do not know who designed -Peterborough's daring arcaded front, but the name of that resourceful -man who built _the_ great feature of Ely has been preserved. He was -Alan of Walsingham, the sacrist and sub-prior of the monastery. He -did not build it in that conventional and deceitful sense we are -accustomed to when we read that this or that mediaeval Abbot or Bishop -built one thing or another, the real meaning of the phrase being that -they provided the money and were anything and everything but the -architects. No: he imagined it; the idea sprang from his brain, his -hands drew the plans, he made it grow and watched it to its completion. - -No man dared rebuild the tower that had fallen; not even Alan, or -perhaps he did not want to, being possessed, as we may well believe, by -this Idea. What it was you shall hear, although, to be sure, no words -have any power to picture to those who have not seen it what this great -and original work is like. The fallen tower had been reared, as is -the manner of such central towers, upon four great pillars where nave -and choir and transepts met. Alan cleared the ruins of them away, and -built in their stead a circle of eight stone columns that not only took -in the width of nave and the central alleys and transepts and choir -that had been enclosed by the fallen pillars, but spread out beyond -it to the whole width of nave aisles and the side aisles of choir and -transepts. This group of columns carries arches and a masonry wall -rising in octagonal form above the roofs, and crowned by the timber -structure of the lantern itself. The interior view of this lantern -shows a number of vaulting ribs of timber spreading inwards from these -columns, and supporting a whole maze of open timber-work pierced with -great traceried windows and fretted and carved to wonderment. The -effect is as that of a dome, "the only Gothic dome in the world" as -it has been said. How truly it is a "lantern" may be seen when the -sun shines through the windows and lights up the central space in the -great church below. Puritan fury did much to injure this beautiful -work, and its niches and tabernacles, once filled with Gothic statuary, -are now supplied with modern sculptures, good in intention but a poor -substitute. The modern stained-glass, too, is atrocious. - -To fully describe Ely Cathedral in any but an architectural work would -be alike impossible and unprofitable, and it shall not be attempted -here: this giant among English minsters is not easily disposed of. For -it _is_ a giant. Winchester, the longest, measuring from west front to -east wall of its Lady Chapel five hundred and fifty-five feet, is but -eighteen feet longer. Even in that particular, Ely would have excelled -but for the Lady Chapel here being built to one side, instead of at the -end, owing to the necessity that existed for keeping a road open at the -east end of the building. - -Like the greater number of English minsters, Ely stands in a grassy -space. A triangular green spreads out in front, with the inevitable -captured Russian gun in the foreground, and the Bishop's Palace on the -right. By turning to the south and passing through an ancient gateway, -once the entrance to the monastery, the so-called "Park" is entered, -the hilly and magnificently wooded southern side of what would in other -cathedral cities be named the "Close," here technically "the College," -and preserving in that title the memory of the ancient College of -Secular Clergy which ruled sometime in that hundred years between A.D. -870 and 970. - -It was from this point of view, near the ancient mound of "Cherry -Hill," the site of William the Conquerors Castle, that Turner painted -his picture. Many remains of the monastic establishment are to be seen, -built into charming and comfortable old houses, residences of the -Cathedral dignitaries. Here are the time-worn Norman pillars and arches -of the Infirmary, and close by is the Deanery, fashioned out of the -ancient thirteenth-century Guesten Hall. Quiet dignity and repose mark -the place; every house has its old garden, and everyone is very well -satisfied with himself. It is a pleasant world for sleepy shepherds, if -a sorry one for the sheep. - - -XLI - - -LET them sleep, for their activity, on any lines that may be predicated -from past conduct, bodes no one good. Times have been when these -shepherds themselves masqueraded as wolves, acting the part with every -convincing circumstance of ferocity. The last of these occasions was in -1816. I will set forth in detail the doings of that time, because they -are intimately bound up with the story of this road between Ely and -Downham Market. - -[Illustration: ELY CATHEDRAL. - -[_After J. M. W. Turner, R.A._]] - -It was not until after Waterloo had been fought and Bonaparte at -last imprisoned, like some bottle-imp, at St. Helena, that the -full strain of the past years of war began to be felt in its full -severity. It is true that for years past the distress had been great, -and that to relieve it, and to pay for Imperial needs, the rates and -taxes levied on property had in many places risen to forty and even -forty-eight shillings in the pound, but when military glory had faded -and peace reigned, internal affairs grew more threatening. Trade was -bad, harvests were bad, wheat rose to the unexampled figure of one -hundred and three shillings a quarter, and any save paper money was -scarce. A golden guinea was handled by many with that curiosity with -which one regards some rare and strange object. Everywhere was the -one-pound note, issued for the purposes of restricting cash payments -and restoring credit; but so many banks issuing one-pound notes failed -to meet their obligations that this medium of exchange was regarded -with a very just suspicion, still echoed in the old song that says-- - - "I'd rather have a guinea than a one-pound note." - -Everyone at this period of national exhaustion was "hard up," but worse -off than any were the unfortunate rural folk--the farm-labourers and -their like. - -The agricultural labourer is now an object of solicitude, especially -at election times. There are, in these happy days, always elections; -elections to Parliament, elections to parish and other councils, -always someone to be elected to something, and as our friend Hodge has -oftentimes a vote to give his best friend, his welfare is greatly -desired. But at this unhappy time of which we have been speaking, Hodge -had no vote and, by consequence, no friends. His wages, when he could -get any work, ranged from seven to nine shillings a week, and the -quartern loaf cost one shilling and sixpence. Tea was eight shillings -a pound, sugar one shilling, and other necessaries at famine prices. -How, then, did Hodge live? It is a difficult question to answer. In -many cases the parish made him an allowance in augmentation of wages, -but it need scarce be added that this extraordinary system did not -help him much. Indeed, the odd idea of financially relieving a man -in work tended directly to injure him, for it induced the farmers to -screw him down by a corresponding number of shillings. This difficulty -of answering the question of how Hodge managed to exist was felt by -himself, in the words of a doleful ballad then current-- - - "Eighteen pence for a quartern loaf, - And a poor man works for a shilling: - 'Tis not enough to find him bread, - How can they call it living?" - -Observe: Hodge did not ask for anything more than to be allowed to -live. It is not a great thing to ask. His demand was for his pay to be -raised to the equivalent of a stone of flour a day; eleven shillings -a week. He desired nothing to put by; only enough to fill the hungry -belly. No one paid the least heed to his modest wants. Rather did -events grind him and his kind deeper into the dust. Many rustics in -those days, when half the land was common fields, kept geese. Some, -a little better off, had a cow. Fine pasturage was found on these -commons. But towards the end of the eighteenth century, and well on -into the nineteenth, there began, and grew to enormous proportions, a -movement for enclosing the commons. Most of them are gone now. Very -early in this movement Hodge began to feel the pinch, and, when his -free grazing was ended, was provided with a grievance the more bitter -because entirely new and unusual. - -All over the country there were ugly disturbances, and at last the -stolid rustics of the Fens began to seethe and ferment. Still no one -cared. If Hodge threatened, why, a troop or so of Yeomanry could -overawe him, and were generally glad of the opportunity, for those -yeomen were drawn from the squirearchy and the farming classes, who -regarded him as their natural slave and chattel. To no one occurred the -idea of relieving or removing these grievances. - -At last the starving peasantry of these districts broke into revolt. -The village of Southery seems to have been the origin of the particular -disturbance with which we are concerned. One May day the farm-labourers -assembled there to the number of some eight hundred, and marched to -Downham Market, nearly seven miles distant, calling at the farms on the -way and bringing out the men engaged on them. Arrived at Downham, they -numbered fifteen hundred; a very turbulent and unruly mob, ready for -any mischief. The first to feel their resentment were the millers and -the bakers, who had put up the price of flour and bread. Their mills -and shops were sacked and the contents flung into the roadway, so that -the streets of the little town were ankle-deep in flour, and loaves -were kicked about like footballs. The butchers suffered next, and by -degrees the whole shopkeeping fraternity. It is not to be supposed -that the inns were let alone. Determined men stormed them and brought -out the beer in pails. At one inn--the Crown--the local magistrates -were holding their weekly sitting, and with some difficulty escaped -from an attack made upon them. Their escape enraged the rioters, who -redoubled their energies in wrecking the shops, and were still engaged -upon this pastime when the magistrates returned, either at the head, or -perhaps (counsels of prudence prevailing) in the rear, of a troop of -Yeomanry. The Riot Act was read while the air was thick with stones and -brickbats, and then the Yeomanry fell upon the crowds and belaboured -them with the flat of their swords. The net results of the day were -streets of pillaged shops, and ten men and four women arrested by the -special constables who had hastily been sworn in. A renewal of the riot -was threatened the next morning, and only stopped by the release of -these prisoners and an agreement among employers to advance the rate of -wages. - -[Illustration: ELY, FROM THE OUSE.] - -This first outbreak was no sooner suppressed than another and much -more serious one took place at Littleport. Gathering at the Globe Inn -one morning to the number of a hundred and fifty, armed with cleavers, -pitchforks, and clubs, the desperate labourers set out to plunder -the village. At their head marched a man bearing a pole with a printed -statement of their grievances flying from it. The first object to feel -their rage was a shop kept by one Martin, shopkeeper and farmer. Martin -attempted to buy them off with the offer of a five-pound note, but they -took that and burst into the shop as well, smashing everything and -carrying off tea and sugar. An amusing side to these incidents is seen -in an account telling how one plunderer staggered away with a whole -sugarloaf, and how a dozen of Martin's shirts, "worth a guinea apiece," -as he dolefully said afterwards, disappeared in the twinkling of an eye. - -Then they visited a retired farmer and demolished his furniture. He had -a snug hoard of a hundred guineas tucked away in an old bureau. Alas! -when these men of wrath had gone, the guineas were found to have gone -with them. And so forth, throughout the long day. - - -XLII - - -NIGHT at last shuts down on Littleport. The village is in deshabille: -furniture lying broken in the streets, the household gods defiled, -the beer-barrels of all the public-houses run dry. Every oppressor of -the poor has been handsomely served out, and, incidentally, a good -many unoffending people too: for a mob maddened with the sense of -wrongs long endured is not discriminating. One there is, however, -not yet punished. This is the vicar, conspicuous earlier in the -day, alternately threatening and cajoling, but, many hours since, -prudently retired to his vicarage. With a savage growl, they invest -the house and batter at the door, demanding money. The vicar offers -two one-pound notes; scornfully rejected, and ten pounds at the very -least is demanded. He refuses, and to his refusal he adds the folly -of presenting a pistol at the heads of these furious men; a pistol -instantly snatched from his hands and like to be used against him. -From this very patent danger and the sudden dread of murder he runs; -runs upstairs to his wife and daughters, and presently they are out -somewhere at the back door, all flying together,--the women, as I -gather, in their nightgowns,--making for Ely, where they arrive at -midnight. - -Meanwhile, all this night, Littleport is trembling: the shopkeepers, -the farmers, anyone who has anything to lose, with fear: those who -have nothing to lose, something even to gain, with certain wild hopes -and exaltations. Not without fear, they, either; for it is a brutal -Government with which, in the end, they must reckon. So far, these -wild despairing folk have had no leader, but now they turn to one -well-known to sympathise with them: one John Dennis, an innkeeper and -small farmer, and by consequence of the hated class of oppressors. -By conviction, however, he sides with them: a very Saul among the -prophets. To him, late at night, they come. He is abed and asleep, but -they rouse him. Will he lead them to Ely on the morrow, to urge their -needs and their desperate case upon the authorities? - -He will not: it is useless, he says. Nay, but you must, you shall, say -they, else we will shoot you, as one forsworn. - -So poor Dennis, whose fate is sealed from this hour, leaves his bed and -dresses himself, while the excited peasantry loot all Littleport of its -gunpowder, bullets, and small shot, used in wild-fowling. Some sixty -muskets and fowling-pieces they have found, and eight of those curious -engines of destruction called "punt-guns" or "duck-guns." A gun of this -kind is still used in duck-shooting. It has a barrel eight feet long, -with two inches bore, and is loaded with three-quarters of a pound -of shot and about an ounce of gunpowder. It is mounted on a swivel, -generally at the end of a punt. - -Guns of this calibre they have mounted in a farm-waggon, drawn by two -horses, and at the back of the waggon they have placed a number of -women and children: with some idea of moving hearts, if not by fear of -their quaint artillery, at least in pity for their starving families. -It is daybreak when at last they set out on the five miles to Ely, -a band of two hundred, armed with muskets, fowling-pieces, scythes, -pitchforks, clubs, and reaping-hooks. Ely has heard something of this -projected advance, and sends forth three clerical magistrates and -the chief constable to parley and ask the meaning of this unlawful -assembly. The meaning, it seems, is to demand wages to be fixed at not -less than two shillings a day, and that flour shall be sold at not -more than two shillings and sixpence a stone. Meanwhile, the duck-guns -look these envoys in the eyes perhaps a little more sternly than we -are disposed nowadays to credit. At anyrate, the magistrates temporise -and promise to inquire into these things. They retire to the Cathedral -precincts to consult, and--ah! yes, will these demonstrators please go -home? - -No; they will not do anything of the kind. Instead, they advance -into the Market Square, where their battery is wheeled, pointing up -the High Street, much to the consternation of the citizens, firmly -persuaded that this is the end of all things and now busily engaged in -secreting their little hoards, their silver spoons and precious things, -in unlikely places. The rioters, conscious of having easily overawed -the place, now determine to put it under contribution, beginning with -those who have ground the faces of the poor--the millers and their -kind. Dennis, armed with a gun, and at the head of a threatening crowd, -appears before the house of one Rickwood, miller. "They must have fifty -pounds," he says, "or down come house and mill." Little doubt that they -mean it: in earnest thereof, observe, windows are already smashed. -Bring out those fifty sovereigns, miserable ones, before we pull the -house about your ears! - -They send off to the bank accordingly; Mrs. Rickwood going in haste. -On the way she meets the Bank Manager, a person who combines that -post with the civil overlordship of Ely. He is, in point of fact, the -chief constable. Something grotesquely appropriate, if you think of -it, in these two posts being in the hands of one man. "They shall not -have a penny," he stoutly declares, assisting Mrs. Rickwood from the -crowds that beset her; but certain blows upon head and body determine -him to be more diplomatic, and after some parley he agrees to pay -the fifty pounds in cash to those who constitute themselves leaders -of three divisions of rioters. These three men alone, representing -Ely, Littleport, and Downham, shall be admitted to the bank, and each -shall--and does actually--receive one-third of that sum, signing -for it. Resourceful manager! They are paid the coin, and sign: they -might as well have signed their death-warrants, for those signatures -are evidence of the very best against them when proceedings shall -subsequently be taken. - -Other houses are visited and people terrified, and then they are at -a loss for what next. You cannot make a revolution out of your head -as you go on: what is needed is a programme, some definite scheme, -and of such a thing these poor wretches have no idea. So, gradually, -as afternoon comes on, they disperse and fall back upon discontented -Littleport, just before the arrival of a troop of the 18th Dragoons and -a detachment of the Royston Volunteer Cavalry, sent for to Bury St. -Edmunds and Royston by the magistrates who had in the early morning -parleyed with the rioters. Ely is saved! - -We--we the authorities--have now the upper hand, and mean to be -revenged. On the morrow, then, behold the military, with the -Prebendary of Ely, Sir Bate Dudley, and many gentlemen and persons of -consideration, invading Littleport and wilfully stirring up again the -excitement that had spent itself. Rumours of this advance have been -spread, and on entering the village they find the men of the place -hidden behind doors and windows, whence they fire with some effect, -wounding a few. The soldiers return the fire, and one man is killed -and another pitifully mangled. The rest flee, soldiers and magistracy -after them, hunting for some days in fen and dyke, and taking at last -seventy-three; all marched into Ely and clapped in gaol, there to await -the coming of the Judge presiding over the Special Assize appointed to -try them. - -The proceedings lasted six days, opened in state by a service in the -Cathedral: an exultant service of thanksgiving to God for this sorry -triumph. To it the Judge and his javelin-men went in procession, behind -the Bishop, and escorted by fifty of the principal inhabitants carrying -white wands. The Bishop himself, the last to wield the old dual -palatine authority of Church and State, was preceded by his butler, -bearing the Sword of State that symbolised the temporal power; and as -he entered the Cathedral the organ burst forth in the joyful strains of -Handel's anthem: "Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain -thing?" with its triumphant chorus, "Let us break their bands asunder!" - -Nothing else so well portrays the unchristian savagery of the time -as the doings of this prelate--let us record his name, Bishop -Bowyer Edward Sparke, that it may he execrated--a veritable -Hew-Agag-in-pieces-before-the-Lord, who preached earthly vengeance and -spiritual damnation to the three-score and thirteen in prison close by. -Truly, a wolf sent to shepherd the flock. - -Those were times when to steal to the value of forty shillings, and -to steal to the value of a shilling, accompanied by violence, were -capital offences. Five of the prisoners, convicted on these counts, -were sentenced to be hanged, and five were transported for life. To the -others were dealt out various terms of imprisonment. Chief among the -ill-fated five was John Dennis, the leader, somewhat against his own -judgment, of the outbreak. His, we must allow, is a figure tragical -above the rest, touched with something like the dignity of martyrdom. -They hanged him and the four others, in due course, on Ely Common, on -a day of high holiday, when three hundred wand-bearers and bodies of -troops assembled to protect the authorities and to see execution done. -It may be read, in old records, how the whole of the city was searched -for a cart to take the condemned men to the scaffold, and how at last -five pounds was paid for the use of one; so there was evidently a -public opinion opposed to this policy of bloodshed. Let us not seek -to discover who was that man who took those five pounds, and with the -taking of them sold his immortal soul. - -The victims of the combined fear and rage of the authorities were -buried in one common grave in the churchyard of St. Mary's, hard by the -great Cathedral's western front, and on the wall of that church-tower -was placed the tablet that may still be seen, recording that-- - - "Here lye in one grave the bodies of William Beamiss, George Crow, - John Dennis, Isaac Harley, and Thomas South, who were all executed at - Ely on the 28th day of June 1816, having been convicted at the Special - Assizes holden there of divers robberies during the riots at Ely and - Littleport in the month of May in that year. May their awful fate be a - warning to others!" - -There is no place more sacred to me in the whole of Ely than this -humble and neglected spot, where these men, victims of this pitiful -tragedy in corduroy and hobnailed boots, martyrs to affrighted and -revengeful authority, lie. It is a spot made additionally sad because -the sacrifice was sterile. Nothing resulted from it, so far as our -human vision can reach. Bishop Sparke and Prebendary Sir Bate Dudley -and the host of Cathedral dignitaries continued to feast royally, to -clothe themselves in fine raiment, and to drink that old port always -so specially comforting to the denizens of cathedral precincts; and -every night the watchman went his rounds, as even now, in our time, he -continues to do, calling the hours with their attendant weather, and -ending his cry with the conventional "All's Well!" - -To the soldiers employed in the unwelcome task of suppressing these -disturbances and of shooting down their fellow-countrymen, no blame -belongs: they did but obey orders. Yet they felt it a disgrace. The -18th Dragoons had fought at Waterloo the year before, and one of the -troopers who had come through that day unscathed received in this -affair a wound that cost him his arm. He thought it hard that fate -should serve him so scurvy a trick. But among the soldiery employed was -a Hanoverian regiment, whose record is stained deeply and foully with -the doings of one German officer. Patrolling Ely in those tempestuous -days, his company were passing by the old Sextry Barn, near the -Cathedral, when he heard a thatcher employed on the roof call to his -assistant in the technical language of thatchers "Bunch! bunch!" He was -merely asking for another bundle of reeds, but the foreign officer, -not properly understanding English, interpreted this as an insult to -himself, and ordered his men to fire. They did so, and the unfortunate -thatcher fell upon the open doors of the barn, his body pierced by -a dozen bullets. There it hung, dropping blood, for three days, the -officer swearing he would serve in the same way anyone who dared remove -it. - - -XLIII - - -THOSE days are far behind. When Bishop Sparke died in 1836, the -temporal power was taken away from the See, and his Sword of State was -buried with him: a fitting piece of symbolism. These memories alone are -left, found only after much diligent and patient search; but with their -aid the grey stones and the soaring towers of Ely, the quiet streets, -and the road on to Littleport, take on a more living interest to the -thoughtful man, to whom archaeology, keenly interesting though it be, -does not furnish forth the full banquet of life. - -Save for these memories, and for the backward glance at the Cathedral, -looming dark on the skyline, much of the way to Littleport might -almost be called dull. A modern suburb called "Little London" has -thrown out some few houses in this direction during the last century, -but why or how this has been possible with a dwindling population let -others explain, if they can do so. At anyrate, when the Reverend James -Bentham, the historian, was Canon here, from 1737 to 1794, no dwellings -lined the way, for he planted a mile-long avenue of oaks where these -uninteresting houses now stand. A few only of his trees remain, near -the first milestone; a clump of spindly oaks, more resembling elms -in their growth, and in midst of them a stone obelisk with a Latin -inscription stating how Canon James Bentham, Canon of the Cathedral -Church of Ely, planted them in 1787, his seventieth year, not that he -himself might see them, but for the benefit of future ages. The Latin -so thoroughly succeeds in obscuring this advertisement of himself from -the understanding of the country-folk that the obelisk is generally -said to mark the grave of a favourite racehorse! - -The descent from the high ground of the Isle begins in another half -mile from this point. Past Chettisham Station and its level crossing, -standing solitary on the road, we come down Pyper's Hill, at whose -foot is the field called, on the large Ordnance maps, "Gilgal." Why -so-called, who shall say? Did some old landowner, struck perhaps by -its situation near the verge of this ancient Fen-island, name this -water-logged meadow after that biblical Gilgal where the Israelites -made their first encampment across the Jordan, and where they kept -their first Passover in the Land of Canaan? It may be, for we have -already seen how that Norman knight, shown the riches of the Isle -of Ely by Hereward, described it even as another Canaan, a land -figuratively flowing with milk and honey. - -[Illustration: ELY CATHEDRAL, FROM THE LITTLEPORT ROAD.] - -An old toll-house still stands here by the wayside and heralds the -approach to Littleport, whose name, preparing the stranger for some -sleepy, old-world decayed creek-side village, with rotting wharves and -a general air of picturesque decrepidness, ill fits the busy, ugly -place it is. Littleport is more populous than Ely. It stands at the -confluence of the Great Ouse and the Old Croft rivers, and at the lower -end of its long, long gritty streets, lined with whitey-grey brick -houses, the road is bordered by yet another stream--the "Holmes River." -Indeed, speaking of its situation in the Fens and by these waters, -Carter, the eighteenth-century historian of Cambridgeshire, tells us -that in his time it was "as rare to see a coach there as a ship at -Newmarket." Much of its recent prosperity derives from the factories of -the prominent London firm of hosiers and clothiers, "Hope Brothers," -established here. The church and the adjoining vicarage, where the -rioters of 1816 so terrified the clergyman and his family, stand on an -elevated site behind the main street. There was, until recent years, -when it was built up, a passage through the tower, said to have been -a short cut to the Fenland. If this was its real purpose, it vividly -shows how little solid ground there was here in old days. The tower -top, too, has its story, for it burnt a nightly beacon in those times; -a light in beneficent competition with the marshland Jacks-o'-Lantern, -to guide the wanderer to the haven where he would be. - -It must not be forgotten that Littleport is a place famed in the annals -of a certain sport. It is not a sport often to be practised, for a -succession of open winters will render the enjoyment of it impossible, -and its devotees stale and out of form. It is the healthful and -invigorating sport and pastime of skating. Nowhere else in all England -is there such a neighbourhood as this for skating and sliding, for -when the flooded fields of winter are covered with a thin coating of -ice you may skate pretty well all the way to Lynn on the one hand and -to Peterborough on the other. The country is then a vast frozen lake. -Indeed, years before skating was a sport it had been a necessity; the -only way by which a Fenman could travel from place to place in a hard -winter. That is why Fenland skaters became such marvellous proficients, -rivalling even the Dutchmen. Who that knows anything of skating and -skating-matches has not heard of those champions of the Fens, "Turkey" -Smart and "Fish" Smart? And Littleport even yet takes the keenest of -interest in skating carnivals, as the traveller along the roads in -midsummer may see, in the belated bills and placards relating to them -that still hang, tattered and discoloured, on the walls of roadside -barn and outhouse. Reading them, he feels a gentle coolness steal over -him, even on a torrid afternoon of the dog-days. - -[Illustration: LITTLEPORT.] - -One leaves Littleport by a bridge, a single-span iron bridge of great -width, that crosses the Great Ouse. As you cross it, the way to -Mildenhall lies straight and flat, as far as eye can see, ahead. When -that picturesque tourist, William Gilpin, visited Mildenhall a century -ago, he found little to say in its praise, and of the scenery all he -can find to record is that the roads were lined with willows whose -branches were hung with slime. - -Our way is not along the Mildenhall road, but by the left-hand track -following the loops and windings of the Ouse; flat, like that other -way, but by no means straight. It is a road of the most peculiar -kind, somewhat below the level of that river and protected from it by -great grassy banks, in some places from twelve to fourteen feet high. -Windmills are perched picturesquely on the opposite shore, patient -horses drag heavy barges along the stream, and the sodden fields -stretch away on the right to infinity. Houses and cottages are few -and far between; built below the river banks, with their chimney-pots -rarely looking over them. - -The reclaimed Fens being themselves things of recent history, there -are few houses in the Fenland, except on the islands, and these few -are comparatively modern. A cottage or a farmstead in these levels may -be a weather-boarded affair, or it may be of brick, but it is always -built on timber piles, for there is no other way of obtaining a sure -foundation; and a frequent evidence of this is the sight of one of the -older of these buildings, perched up at an absurd height through the -gradual shrinkage of the land in consequence of the draining away of -the water and the wasting of the peat. This subsidence averages six -feet over the whole extent of the Fens, and in some places is as much -as eight or nine feet. As a result of this, a man's front door, once -on a level with the ground, is often approached by a quite imposing -flight of steps, and instances are not unknown where a room has been -added underneath the original ground floor, and a two-floored cottage -promoted by force of circumstances to the dignity of a three-storeyed -residence. - -[Illustration: THE RIVER ROAD, LITTLEPORT.] - -A brick building in these districts is apt to be exceedingly ugly. For -one thing, it has been built within the severely utilitarian period, -and is just a square box with a lid for roof and holes for doors and -windows. For another, the brick, made of the local gault, is of the -kind called by courtesy "white," but really of a dirty dough-like hue: -distressing to an artist's eye. - - -XLIV - - -BRANDON CREEK bridge, where the Great Ouse and the Little Ouse and -Crooked Dyke pour their waters into one common fund, and send it -crawling lazily down to Lynn, marks the boundaries of Cambridgeshire -and Norfolk. On the hither side you are in the territory of the -Cambridgeshire Camels, and on the thither are come into the land of the -Norfolk Dumplings. - -It is here, at this meeting of the waters, that "Rebeck, or Priests' -Houses," is marked on the maps of Speed and Dugdale, and attributed to -the thirteenth century, but what this place was, no man knoweth. It has -clean vanished from sight or knowledge, and the houses of Brandon Creek -hamlet afford no clue, being wholly secular and commonplace, from the -inn that stands at the meeting of the rivers to the humble cottages of -the bankers and the gaulters. - -Southery Ferry is but a little distance ahead, to be recognised by the -inn that stands on the river bank. It is a lonely ferry, and little -wonder that it should be, considering the emptiness of the country -on the other side,--all fens at the Back of Beyond, to whose wastes -cometh the stranger never, where the bull-frogs croak, the slodger -slodges among the dykes, and the mists linger longest. - -[Illustration: THE OUSE.] - -Away ahead sits Southery village, enthroned upon its hillock, once an -island in the surrounding fen, and still, in its prominence against -the skyline, telling its story plain for all to learn. Even if it -were not thus evident from Southery Ferry how the village of old sat -with its feet in the mud and its head on the dry land, at least the -pilgrim's wheels presently advise him in unmistakable fashion that he -is on an ascent. There is little in the village itself to interest -the stranger. The spire so picturesquely crowning the hill in the -distant view is found on close acquaintance to be that of a modern -church, filled with the Papistical abominations commonly found in -these days of the forsworn clergy of the Church of England. The old -church of St. Mary, disused forty years ago, and now in ruins, stands -at a little distance, in a bend of the road, overlooking many miles -of what was once fen. There it stands in its heaped-up graveyard, a -shattered and roofless shell of red-brick and rubble walls, thickly -overgrown with ivy, and neighboured by an old windmill as battered and -neglected as itself. From a field-gate overlooking the levels you see, -in the distance, the high ground about Thetford, and, near at hand, -an outlying part of Southery called Little London. An old inhabitant -shares the field-gate and the outlook with the present writer, and -surveys the many miles with a jaundiced eye. He remembers those lands -below, when he was a boy, all swimming with water. Now they are -drained, and worth ever so much an acre, "'cause they'll, as you might -say, grow anything. But a man can't earn mor'n fourteen shillun a week -here. No chance for nobody." - -[Illustration: SOUTHERY FERRY.] - -No local patriot he. He was born here, married in the old church forty -years ago, and went away to live in Sheffield. "Ah! that _is_ a place," -says he. That is a phrase capable of more than one interpretation, and -we feelingly remark, having been there, that indeed a place it _is_. -His regretful admiration of Sheffield is so mournful that we wonder why -he ever left. - -The road between Southery and Hilgay dips but slightly and only for -a short distance, proving the accuracy, at this point at least, of -Dugdale's map showing the Fen-islands of Hilgay and Southery conjoined. -They are divided by the long, straight, and narrow cut called "Sam's -Cut Drain," crossed here at Modney Bridge. Here the true Fenland begins -only to be skirted, and hedgerows once more line the way, a sign that -of itself most certainly proclaims fields enclosed and cultivated -in the long ago. The ditches, too, are dry, and not the brimming -water-courses they have been these last twenty-five miles. Moreover, -here is hedgerow timber: ancient elms and oaks taking the place of the -willows and poplars that have been our only companions throughout a -whole county. They have not consciously been missed, but now they are -come again, how fresh and dear and welcome they are, and how notable -the change they produce! - -Between Hilgay and that old farmhouse called "Snore Hall," from an -absurd tradition that King Charles once slept there, we cross the river -Wissey and the Catchwater Drain. The road between is still known as -"the Causeway," and, with the succeeding village of Fordham, teaches in -its name a lesson in old-time local geography. - -In 1809, when that old tourist, William Gilpin, passed this way, -Hilgay Fen extended to one thousand acres. According to the picturesque -story told him, the district was periodically visited, every six or -seven years, by an innumerable host of field-mice, which began to -destroy all vegetation and would have laid everything bare but for -a great flight of white horned-owls that, as if by instinct, always -arrived at such times from Norway and, immediately attacking the mice, -destroyed them all, when they disappeared as suddenly as they had come. - - -XLV - - -RYSTON STATION, between Ryston Park and Fordham, marks the -neighbourhood of a very interesting spot, for Ryston, though a place of -the smallest size and really but a woodland hamlet, is of some historic -note, with "Kett's Oak," or the Oak of Reformation, standing in the -Park, as a visible point of contact with stirring deeds and ancient -times. It is a gigantic tree with hollow trunk and limbs carefully -chained and bound together, and marks one of the encampments of the -Norfolk peasantry in Kett's Rebellion of 1549. This was a popular -outbreak caused by the lawless action of the Norfolk gentry of that -time in enclosing wastes and common lands. "The peasant whose pigs and -cow and poultry had been sold, or had died because the commons where -they had once fed were gone; the yeoman dispossessed of his farm; the -farm-servant out of employ because where once ten ploughs had turned -the soil, one shepherd watched the grazing of the flocks; the artisan -smarting under the famine prices the change of culture had brought--all -these were united in suffering, while the gentlemen were doubling, -trebling, quadrupling their incomes, and adorning their persons and -their houses with splendour hitherto unknown." - -The outbreak began at Attleborough in June 1549, and a fortnight -later there was fighting at Wymondham, where the country-folk, led by -Robert Kett, a tanner, of that place, destroyed many illegal fences. -Thence, headed by Kett and his brother William, an army of sixteen -thousand peasants marched to Mousehold Heath, overlooking Norwich, -where their greatest camp was pitched. Under some venerable tree in -these camps Robert Kett was wont to sit and administer justice, and -Conyers, chaplain to the rebel host, preached beneath their shade while -the rising of that memorable summer lasted. Never were the demands of -rebellion more reasonable than those put forward on this occasion. They -were, that all bondsmen should be made free, "for God made all free -with His precious bloodshedding"; that all rivers should be made free -and common to all men for fishing and passage; that the clergy should -be resident, instead of benefices being held by absentees; and, in the -interest of tenants' crops, that no one under a certain degree should -keep rabbits unless they were paled in, and that no new dove-houses -should be allowed. That last stipulation sounds mysterious, but it -referred to a very cruel grievance of olden times, when only the Lord -of the Manor might keep pigeons and doves, and did so at the expense of -his tenants. The manorial pigeon-houses often seen adjoining ancient -Hall or old-world Grange are, in fact, relics of that time when the -feudal landowner's pigeons fattened on the peasants' crops. - -[Illustration: KETT'S OAK.] - -The story of how the people's petition was disregarded, and how the -city of Norwich was taken and retaken with much bloodshed, does not -belong here. The rebellion was suppressed, and Robert and William Kett -hanged, but the memory of these things still lingers in the rural -districts, and everyone in the neighbourhood of Ryston knows "Ked's -Oak," as they name it. There were Pratts of Ryston Hall then, as -now, and old legends still tell how Robert Kett seized some of the -Squire's sheep to feed his followers, leaving this rhymed note in -acknowledgment-- - - "Mr. Prat, your shepe are verry fat, - And wee thank you for that. - Wee have left you the skinnes - To buy your ladye pinnes - And you may thank us for that." - -Some of the insurgents were hanged from this very tree, as the rhyme -tells us-- - - "Surely the tree that nine men did twist on - Must be the old oak now at Ryston." - -The present Squire has recorded these things on a stone placed against -the trunk of this venerable relic. - -[Illustration: DENVER HALL.] - -Denver, which presently succeeds Fordham and Ryston, is remarkable for -many things. Firstly, for that beautiful old Tudor mansion, Denver -Hall, by the wayside, on entering the village; secondly, for the -semicircular sweep of the high road around the church; and, thirdly, -for the great "Denver Sluice" on the river Ouse, a mile away. This is -the massive lock that at high tide shuts out the tidal waters from -flooding the reclaimed Fens, and at the ebb is opened to let out the -accumulated waters of the Ouse and the innumerable drains of the Great -Level. The failure of Denver Sluice would spell disaster and ruin to -many, and it has for that reason been specially protected by troops -on several occasions when Irish political agitators have entered upon -"physical force" campaigns, and have been credited with a desire to -blow up this main protection of two thousand square miles of land -slowly and painfully won back from bog and waste. - -[Illustration: THE CROWN, DOWNHAM MARKET.] - -[Illustration: THE CASTLE, DOWNHAM MARKET.] - -Denver gives its name to a town in America--Denver, Colorado--and has -had several distinguished natives; but, despite all these many and -varied attributes of greatness, it is a very small and very modest -place, quite overshadowed by the little town of Downham Market, a mile -onward. Downham, as Camden informs us, obtains its name from "Dun" and -"ham," signifying the home on the hill; and the ancient parish church, -which may be taken as standing on the site of the original settlement, -does indeed rise from a knoll that, although of no intrinsic height, -commands a vast and impressive view over illimitable miles of -marshland. It is not a church of great interest, nor does the little -town offer many attractions, although by no means unpleasing. - -They still point out the house where Nelson once went to school; and -two old inns remain, very much as they were in coaching days. In the -Crown yard you may still look up at the windows of the room where the -magistrates were sitting on that day in 1816 when the rioters made them -fly. - -Villages on these last twelve miles between Downham and Lynn are -plentiful. No sooner is the little town left behind than the church of -Wimbotsham comes in sight, with that of Stow Bardolph plainly visible -ahead. Both are interesting old buildings, with something of almost -every period of architecture to show the curious. Beyond its church, -and a farmstead or two, Wimbotsham has nothing along the road, but Stow -Bardolph is a village complete in every story-book particular. Here is -the church, and here, beneath a spreading chestnut (or other) tree the -village smithy stands; while opposite are the gates of the Park and the -shady avenue leading up to the Hall where, not Bardolphs nowadays, but -Hares, reside in dignified ease; as may be guessed from the village -inn, the Hare Arms, with its armorial sign and motto, _Non videre, sed -esse_--"not to seem, but to be," the proud boast or noble aspiration of -the family. Almshouses, cottages with pretty gardens, and a very wealth -of noble trees complete the picture of "Stow," as the country-folk -solely know it, turning a bewildered and stupid gaze upon the stranger -who uses the longer title. - -The pilgrim through many miles of fen revels in this wooded mile from -Stow Bardolph village to Hogge's Bridge, where the road makes a sharp -bend to the left amid densely overarching trees, commanding a distant -view of Stow Bardolph Hall at the farther end of a long green drive. -South Runcton Church, standing lonely by the road beyond this pretty -scene, is an example of how not to restore a pure Norman building. It -still keeps a very beautiful Norman chancel arch, but the exterior, -plastered to resemble stone, is distressing. - -[Illustration: HOGGE'S BRIDGE, STOW BARDOLPH.] - -At Setchey, originally situated on a navigable creek of the river -Nar and then named Sedge-hithe, or Seech-hithe--meaning a sedge -and weed-choked harbour--we are come well within the old Dutch -circle of influence over local building design. There are still some -characteristic old Dutch houses at Downham; and Lynn, of course, being -of old a port in closest touch with Holland, is full of queer gables -and quaint architectural details brought over from the Low Countries. -Here at Setchey, too, stands a very Dutch-like old inn--the Lynn Arms. - -[Illustration: THE LYNN ARMS, SETCHEY.] - -Commons--"Whin Commons" in the local phrase--and the scattered houses -of West Winch, lead on to Hardwick Bridge, where, crossing over the -railway, the broad road bends to the right. There, facing you, is an -ancient Gothic battlemented gatehouse, and beyond it the long broad -street of a populous town: the town of King's Lynn. - - -XLVI - - -THERE is a tintinnabulary, jingling sound in the name of Lynn that -predisposes one to like the place, whether it be actually likeable or -not. Has anyone ever stopped to consider how nearly like the name of -this old seaport is to that of London? Possibly the conjunction of -London and Lynn has not occurred to any who have visited the town, -but to those who have arrived at it by the pages of this book, the -similarity will be interesting. The names of both London and Lynn, -then, derive from the geographical peculiarities of their sites, in -many respects singularly alike. Both stand beside the lower reaches -of a river, presently to empty itself into the sea, and the ground -on which they stand has always been marshy. At one period, indeed, -those were not merely marshes where Lynn and London now stand, but -wide-spreading lakes--fed by the lazy overflowings of Ouse and Thames. -The Celtic British, who originally settled by these lakes, called them -_llyns_, and this ancient seaport has preserved that prehistoric title -in its original purity, only dropping the superfluous "l"; but London's -present name somewhat disguises its first style of _Llyn dun_, or the -"hill by the lake"; some inconsiderable, but fortified, hillock rising -above the shallow waters. - -When the Saxons came, Lynn was here, and when the Norman conquerors -reached the Norfolk coast they found it a busy port. To that early -Norman prelate, Herbert de Losinga, a tireless builder of churches -throughout East Anglia, the manor fell, and the town consequently -became known for four hundred and thirty years as Lynn Episcopi. It was -only when the general confiscation of religious property took place -under Henry the Eighth that it became the "Kings Lynn" it has ever -since remained. - -[Illustration: THE SOUTH GATES, LYNN.] - -To the "average man," Lynn is well known. Although he has never -journeyed to it, he knows this ancient seaport well; not as a port or -as a town at all, but only as a name. The name of Lynn, in short, is -rooted in his memory ever since he read Hood's poem, the "Dream of -Eugene Aram." - -Aram was no mere creation of a poet's brain, but a very real person. -His story is a tragic one, and appealed not only to Hood, but to Bulwer -Lytton, who weaved much romance out of his career. Aram was born in -1704, in Yorkshire, and adopted the profession of a schoolmaster. It -was at Knaresborough, in 1745, that the events happened that made him a -wanderer, and finally brought him to the scaffold. - -How a scholar, a cultured man of Aram's remarkable attainments (for -he was a philologist and student of the Celtic and Aryan languages) -could have stooped to commit a vulgar murder is not easily to be -explained, and it has not been definitely ascertained how far the -motive of revenge, or in what degree that of robbery, prompted him -to join with his accomplice, Houseman, in slaying Daniel Clarke. The -unfortunate Clarke had been too intimate a friend of Aram's wife, and -this may explain his share in the murder, although it does not account -for Houseman's part in it. Clarke was not certainly known to have been -murdered when he suddenly disappeared in 1745, and when Aram himself -left Knaresborough, although there may have been suspicions, he was not -followed up. It was only when some human bones were found in 1758 at -Knaresborough that Houseman himself was suspected. His peculiar manner -when they were found, and his assertions that they "could not be Dan -Clarke's" because Dan Clarke's were somewhere else, of course led to -his arrest. And, as a matter of fact, they were _not_ Clarke's, as -Houseman's confession under arrest sufficiently proved. - -Whose they were does not appear. He told how he and Aram had killed -that long-missing man and had buried his body in St. Robert's Cave; -and, on the floor of that place being dug up, a skeleton was in due -course discovered. - -Aram was traced to King's Lynn and arrested. Tried at York, he defended -himself with extraordinary ability, but in vain, and was sentenced to -death. Before his execution at York he confessed his part, and so to -this sombre story we are at least spared the addition of a mystery and -doubt of the justice of his sentence. - -Hood's poem makes Aram, conscience-struck, declare his crime to one of -his Lynn pupils, in the form of a horrible dream. How does it begin, -that ghastly poem? Pleasantly enough-- - - "'Twas in the prime of summer time, - An evening calm and cool; - And four-and-twenty happy boys - Came bounding out of school." - -The Grammar School of those young bounders was pulled down and rebuilt -many years ago, and so much of association lost. - - "Pleasantly shone the setting sun - Over the town of Lynn," - -but Eugene Aram, the Usher, on this particular evening, - - "Sat remote from all, - A melancholy man." - -Presently, Hood tells us, he espied, apart from the romping boys, one -who sat and "pored upon a book." This morbid youngster was reading the -"Death of Abel," and Aram improved the occasion, and "talked with -him of Cain." With such facilities for entering intimately into Cain's -feelings of blood-guiltiness, he conjured up so many terrors that, if -we read the trend of Hood's verses correctly, the boy thought there was -more in this than the recital of some particularly vivid nightmare, and -informed the authorities, with the well-known result-- - - "Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn, - Through the cold and heavy mist, - And Eugene Aram walked between, - With gyves upon his wrist." - -[Illustration: JOSEPH BEETON IN THE CONDEMNED CELL.] - -Twenty-five years later, Lynn turned off a local criminal on its own -account, Joseph Beeton being executed, February 22, 1783, on the spot -where a few weeks previously he had robbed the North Mail, on what -is called the "Saddlebow Road." This spot, now commonplace enough, -was long marked by a clump of trees known as "Beeton's Bush." An old -engraving shows poor Joseph in the condemned hold, and represents -him of an elegant slimness, heavily shackled and wearing what, under -the circumstances, must be described as an extraordinarily cheerful -expression of countenance. A contemporary account of his execution -makes interesting, if gruesome, reading-- - -"The culprit was conveyed from Lynn Gaol in a mourning coach to the -place of execution near the South Gates, and within a few yards of the -spot where the robbery took place, attended by two clergymen:--the -Rev. Mr. Horsfall and the Rev. Mr. Merrist. After praying some time -with great fervency, and a hymn being sung by the singers from St. -Margaret's Church, the rope was fixed about his neck, which was no -sooner done than he instantly threw himself off and died amidst the -pitying tears of upwards of 5000 spectators. His behaviour was devout -and excellent. This unfortunate youth had just attained his 20th -year, and is said to have been a martyr to the villainy of a man whom -he looked upon as his sincere friend. Indeed, so sensible were the -gentlemen of Lynn that he was betrayed into the commission of the -atrocious crime for which he suffered by the villainy of this supposed -friend, that a subscription was entered into and money collected to -employ counsel to plead for him at his trial." - -[Illustration: THE GUILDHALL, LYNN.] - -The barbarous method of execution in those days placed the condemned -in the dreadful alternative of slow strangulation, or what was -practically suicide. To save themselves from the lingering agonies of -strangulation, those who were possessed of the slightest spirit flung -themselves from the ladder and so ended, swiftly and mercifully. - -The old account of Beeton's execution ends curiously like a depraved -kind of humour: "The spirit of the prisoner, the constancy of his -friends, and the church-parade made bright episodes in a dreadful -scene." - - -XLVII - - -IT is a long, long way from the entrance through the South Gates, -on the London road, into the midst of the town, where, by the Ouse -side, along the wharves of the harbour, and in the maze of narrow -streets between the Tuesday and the Saturday market-places, old Lynn -chiefly lies. In the Tuesday market-place, Losinga's great church of -St. Margaret stands; that church whose twin towers are prominent in -all views of the town. Many of the old merchants and tradesmen lie -there, but many more in the vast church of St. Nicholas, less well -known to the casual visitor. On the floor of that noble nave, looked -down upon by the beautiful aisle and clerestory windows, and by the -winged angels that support the open timber roof, you may read the -epitaphs of many an oversea trader and merchant prince, as well as -those of humbler standing. Crusos are there, and among others a certain -Simon Duport "Marchand, Ne en l'Isle de Re en France," whose epitaph -is presented bi-lingually, in French and English, for the benefit of -those not learned in both. That of "Mr. Thomas Hollingworth, an Eminent -Bookseller," is worth quoting. He, it appears, was "a Man of the -Strictest Integrity In His Dealings and much esteemed by Gentlemen of -Taste For the neatness and Elegance of his Binding." - -The merchants of Lynn are an extinct race, and most of their old -mansions are gone. Yet in the old days, when Lynn supplied seven -counties with coals, timber, and wine from the North of England, from -the Baltic, and from many a port in Holland, France, Italy, and Spain, -to be a Lynn merchant was no mean or inconsiderable thing. They lived, -these princely traders, in mansions of the most noble architectural -character, furnished with the best that money could buy and hung with -tapestry and stamped leather from the most artistic looms and workshops -of France and Spain. It never occurred to them that trade was a thing -despicable and to be disowned. Instead of disconnecting themselves -from their business, they lived with it; their residences and their -warehouses in one range of buildings. - -[Illustration: THE TOWN AND HARBOUR OF LYNN, FROM WEST LYNN.] - -A typical mansion of this old period is Clifton's House. The Cliftons -and their old business are alike gone, and many of the beautiful -fittings of their mansion have been torn out and sold, but the -house itself stands, a grand memorial of their importance and of the -patronage they and their kind extended to art. It faces Queen Street, -at the corner of King's Staith Lane, and its courts and warehouses -extend back to those quays where Clifton's ships, richly laden, once -came to port from many a foreign clime. How anxiously those vessels -were awaited may perhaps be judged from the tall red-brick tower rising -in many storeys from the first courtyard, and commanding panoramic -views down the river, out to the Wash, and away to the open sea at Lynn -Deeps; so that from the roof-top the coming of Clifton's argosies might -early be made known. - -This house owes its fine Renaissance design to a Lynn architect whose -name deserves to be remembered. Henry Bell, who built it in 1707, -and whose works still enrich the town in many directions, flourished -between 1655 and 1717. To him is due the beautiful Custom House -overlooking the river and harbour, a work of art that in its Dutch-like -character seems to have been brought bodily from some old Netherlands -town and set down here by the quay. It was built as an Exchange, in the -time of Charles the Second, whose statue still occupies an alcove; but -very shortly afterwards was taken over by the Customs. - -[Illustration: "CLIFTON'S HOUSE."] - -The great Tuesday market-place was once graced by a Renaissance -market-cross from Bell's designs, but it was swept away in 1831. The -Duke's Head Hotel, so originally named in honour of James, Duke of -York, is another of Bell's works, not improved of late by the plaster -that has been spread entirely over the old red-brick front. - -[Illustration: THE DUKE'S HEAD, LYNN.] - -The Duke's Head was in coaching days one of those highly superior -houses that refused to entertain anyone who did not arrive in a -carriage, or, at the very least of it, in a post-chaise. The principal -inns for those plebeian persons who travelled by coach were the Globe -and the Crown. It was to the Crown that old Thomas Cross and his "Lynn -Union" came. It is still standing, in Church Street, over against the -east end of St. Margaret's Church, but in a pitifully neglected and -out-at-elbows condition, as a Temperance House, its white plastered -front, contemporary with the coaching age, even now proclaiming it to -be a "Commercial and Family Hotel." - -The coaching age ended, so far as Lynn was concerned, in 1847, when -the East Anglian Railway, from Ely to Lynn, with branches to Dereham, -Wisbeach, and Huntingdon, was opened. It was an unfortunate line, an -amalgamation of three separate undertakings: the Lynn and Dereham, the -Ely and Huntingdon, and the Lynn and Ely Railways. By its junction -with the Eastern Counties, now the Great Eastern, at Ely, a through -journey to London was first rendered possible. Three trains each way, -instead of the twenty now running, were then considered sufficient -for all needs. They were not, at that early date, either swift or -dignified journeys, for engine-power was often insufficient, and it was -a common thing for a train to be stopped for hours while engine-driver -and stoker effected necessary repairs. It was then, and on those -not infrequent occasions when trains ran by favour of the sheriff, -accompanied by a "man in possession" and plastered with ignominious -labels announcing the fact, that passengers lamented the coaches. The -East Anglian Railway, indeed, like the Great Eastern, which swallowed -it, had a very troubled early career. - -Lynn in those early years of innovation still retained many of its -old-world ways. It was a sleepy time, as Mr. Thew, who has written -his reminiscences of it, testifies. For police the town possessed one -old watchman, who bore the old East Anglian name of Blanchflower, and -patrolled the streets "with one arm and a lantern." The posting of -letters was then a serious business, calling for much patience, for -you did not in those days drop them into a letter-box, but handed them -through a window at which you knocked. When the clerk in charge, one -John Cooper, had satisfied his official dignity and kept you waiting -long enough, he was graciously pleased to open the window and receive -the letters. The successor to this upholder of official traditions, was -one Charles Rix, addicted to declaiming Shakespeare from his window. - -[Illustration: THE CUSTOM-HOUSE, LYNN.] - -The postmaster of Lynn at this easy-going time was Mr. Robinson Cruso, -who also filled the miscellaneous occupations of auctioneer and estate -agent, and wine and spirit merchant, and was a member of the Town -Council. He was a descendant of an old Lynn family, many of whose -representatives lie in the church of St. Nicholas. This Cruso (they -spelled their name without the "e") was an upholsterer, and born ten -years after Defoe's famous book was published; hence the "Robinson." -There are still a number of the name in Norfolk and Suffolk. - - -XLVIII - - -WE must now make an end. Of Lynn's long municipal history, of the -treasures stored in its ancient Guildhall, of King John's disastrous -journey from the town across the Wash; of many another stirring scene -or historic pile this is not the place to speak. The Story of the Road -is told, and, that being done, the task is completed; but it is not -without regret that a place like Lynn, so rich in picturesque incident, -is thus left. Many a narrow, cobbled lane, lined with quaint houses, -calls aloud to be sketched; there, too, are the ancient Red Mount -Chapel, in the lovely park-like "walks" that extend into the very heart -of the town, and the ancient Greyfriars Tower to be noted; but Lynn -has been, and will be again, the subject of a book entirely devoted to -itself. - -One pilgrimage, however, must be made ere these pages close: to -Islington, four miles away on the Wisbeach road, for it is to that -secluded place the sweet old ballad of the "Bailiff's Daughter of -Islington" refers, and not to the better known "merry Islington" now -swallowed up in London. - -The ballad of the "Bailiff's Daughter" is of unknown origin. It is -certainly three hundred years old, and probably much older; and has -survived through all those centuries because of that sentiment of -true love, triumphant over long years and distance and hard-hearted -guardians, which has ever appealed to the popular imagination. Who was -that Marshland bailiff and who the squire's son we do not know. It is -sufficient to be told, in the lines of the sweet old song, that - - "There was a youth, and a well beloved youth, - And he was a Squire's son; - He loved the Bailiff's daughter dear - That lived at Islington." - -She was coy and reluctant and rejected his advances; so that, in common -with many another, before and since, love-sickness claimed him for its -own. Then, for seven long years, he was sent away, bound apprentice in -London. Others in those circumstances would have forgotten the fair -maid of Islington, but our noble youth was constancy itself, and, when -his seven years had passed, came riding down the road, eager to see her -face again. With what qualities of face and head and heart that maid -must have been endowed! - -[Illustration: THE FERRY INN, LYNN.] - -[Illustration: ISLINGTON.] - -Meanwhile, if we read the ballad aright, no one else came a-courting. -Seven years mean much in such circumstances, and our maid grew -desperate-- - - "She pulled off her gown of green, - And put on ragged attire, - And to fair London she would go, - Her true love to enquire. - - And as she went along the high road - The weather being hot and dry, - She sat her down upon a green bank, - And her true love came riding by. - - She started up, with a colour so red, - Caught hold of his bridle rein; - 'One penny, one penny, kind sir,' she said, - 'Will ease me of much pain.' - - 'Before I give you a penny, sweetheart, - Pray tell me where you were born.' - 'At Islington, kind sir,' said she, - 'Where I have had many a scorn.' - - 'Prythee, sweetheart, then tell to me, - Oh, tell me whether you know - The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington?' - 'She is dead, sir, long ago.' - - 'If she be dead, then take my horse, - My saddle and bridle also; - For I will into some far countrye - Where no man shall me know.' - - 'Oh, stay, oh stay, thou goodly youth, - She is standing by thy side; - She is here alive, she is not dead, - But ready to be thy bride.'" - -I cannot read those old lines, crabbed and uncouth though they be, -without something suspiciously like a mist before the eyes and a -certain difficulty in the throat. "God forbid I should grieve any young -hearts," says Miss Matty, in _Cranford_. Sentiment will have its way, -deny it though you will. - -Islington itself is, for these reasons, a place for pious pilgrimage. -And a place difficult enough to find, for it is but an ancient church, -a Park and Hall, and two cottages, approached through a farmyard. That -is all of Islington, the sweet savour of whose ancient story of true -love has gone forth to all the world, and to my mind hallows these -miles more than footsteps of saints and pilgrims. - - -THE END - - - - -INDEX - - - Akeman Street, 5, 172, 181-183, 213, 231, 244 251. - - Aldreth, 214, 225, 229, 243. - - ---- Causeway, 217-221. - - Alfred the Great, 88-91, 263. - - Amwell, Great, 86. - - Aram, Eugene, 308-313. - - Arnim, Count, 108-110. - - Arrington Bridge, 4. - - - Balloon Stone, 100. - - Barkway, 102-104. - - Barley, 102, 107-110, 123. - - Beggars' Bush, 251. - - Bishopsgate Street, 8-10, 32. - - Brandon Creek, 294. - - Braughing, 81, 102. - - Bread Riots, 273-287. - - Broxbourne, 35, 81. - - Bruce Grove, 40. - - Buckland, 120. - - Buntingford, 81, 110, 117-119, 157. - - - Cam, The, 153-155, 171, 172, 174, 177, 201, 235, 236, 239, 243. - - Cambridge, 4, 14, 134-176, 226, 262. - - ---- Castle, 170-174. - - Caxton, 4. - - ---- Gibbet, 127. - - Chaucer, Geoffrey, 135. - - Cheshunt, 35, 67, 69, 72, 75-80. - - ---- Great House, 7, 77-80. - - ---- Wash, 75-79. - - Chesterton, 176. - - Chettisham, 288. - - Chipping, 120. - - Chittering, 233. - - Clarkson, Thos., 98-100. - - Coaches-- - Bee Hive, 21, 32. - Cambridge Auxiliary Mail, 19. - ---- Lynn, and Wells Mail, 20. - ---- Mail, 15, 19, 21. - ---- Stage, 14. - ---- and Ely Stage, 19. - ---- Telegraph, 16, 19, 21, 82, 103. - ---- Union, 19. - Day (Cambridge and Wisbeach), 21. - Defiance (Cambridge and Wisbeach), 21. - Diligence (Cambridge), 13, 15. - Fly (Cambridge), 14, 15, 19. - Hobson's Stage (Cambridge), 15. - Lord Nelson (Lynn), 20. - Lynn and Fakenham Post Coach, 20. - ---- Post Coach, 20. - ---- Union, 20, 26, 29, 31, 107, 321. - Night Post Coach (Cambridge), 16. - Norfolk Hero (Lynn and Wells), 21. - Prior's Stage (Cambridge), 15. - Rapid (Cambridge and Wisbeach), 21. - Red Rover (Lynn), 21, 254. - Rocket (Cambridge), 21, 32. - Royal Regulator (Cambridge), 19, 21. - Safety (Cambridge, Lynn, and Wells), 19, 31. - Star of Cambridge (Cambridge), 16-19, 21, 31. - Tally Ho (Cambridge), 19. - Telegraph (Cambridge), 16, 19, 21, 82, 103. - Times (Cambridge), 21. - York Mail, 69. - - Coaching, 12-32, 69, 133. - Notabilities-- - Briggs, --, 32. - Clark, William, 32. - Cross, John, 22-25. - Cross, Thomas, 22-31, 107, 256, 321. - Elliott, George, 30. - Goodwin, Jack, 254. - Pryor, --, 31. - "Quaker Will," 30. - Reynolds, James, 31. - Vaughan, Richard, 30. - Walton, Jo, 31. - - - Denny Abbey, 231. - - Denver, 301-303. - - ---- Sluice, 14, 302. - - Dismal Hall, 231. - - Downham Market, 192, 270, 275, 283, 303, 306. - - - Edmonton, Lower, 5, 34, 35, 36, 46-52. - - ----, Upper, 6, 34, 36, 43-46. - - Eleanor, Queen, 56-68. - - Ely, 4, 190, 195, 225, 230, 241, 258, 270, 281-288, 321, 322. - - ---- Cathedral, 254, 256-270. - - ----, Isle of, 3, 182, 189, 212-226, 230, 243, 289. - - Enfield Highway, 54. - - ---- Wash, 54. - - Ermine Street, 3, 4-7, 75, 122. - - Etheldreda, Saint, 229, 260-264. - - - Fens, The, 176, 182-208, 214-223, 233-235, 239-248, 253, 275, 291-298. - - Fielder, Richard Ramsay, 237-239. - - Fordham, 183, 298, 301. - - Fowlmere, 110, 112-115. - - Foxton, 132. - - Freezywater, 54. - - - Gog Magog Hills, 140-142, 151. - - Granta, The, 133, 172. - - Grantchester, 135, 172. - - Gray, Thomas, 148, 154. - - Great Amwell, 86. - - ---- Eastern Railway, 31-34, 120, 132, 236, 322. - - ---- Northern Railway, 120, 132. - - ---- Shelford, 133, 140. - - Guthlac, Saint, 196-198. - - - Haddenham, 230, 262. - - Hardwick Bridge, 306. - - Hare Street, 102. - - Harston, 117, 133. - - Hauxton, 133. - - Hereward the Wake, 172, 208-214, 221-223, 226-229. - - High Cross, 100. - - Highwaymen (in general), 54. - - Highwaymen-- - Beeton, Joseph, 313-315. - Gatward, --, 125-127. - King, Tom, 55. - Shelton, Dr. Wm., 80. - Turpin, Dick, 55. - - Hilgay, 297. - - Hobson, Thomas, 10-12, 32, 140, 157-166. - - Hobson's Conduit, 140, 167. - - Hoddesdon, 7, 37, 82-86. - - Hogge's Bridge, 305. - - - Iceni, The, 185. - - Inns (mentioned at length)-- - Bath Hotel, Cambridge, 6, 170. - Bell, Edmonton, 45, 49. - Blue Boar, Cambridge, 15, 19, 168. - Bull, Bishopsgate Street Within, 8-10, 12, 15, 158, 161. - Bull, Cambridge, 19, 167. - Bull, Hoddesdon, 82. - Castle, Downham Market, 303. - Chequers, Fowlmere, 115. - Crown, Downham Market, 276, 302, 304. - ----, King's Lynn, 321. - Duke's Head, King's Lynn, 319-321. - Eagle, Cambridge, 16, 19, 170. - Falcon, Cambridge, 169. - ----, Waltham Cross, 67-69. - Four Swans, Bishopsgate Street Within, 8. - ----, Waltham Cross, 68. - Fox and Hounds, Barley, 107. - Green Dragon, Bishopsgate Street Within, 8, 12, 15, 19. - Hoop, Cambridge, 170. - Lamb, Ely, 256. - Lion, Cambridge, 14, 168. - Lord Nelson, Upware, 235-239. - Lynn Arms, Setchey, 306. - Pickerel, Cambridge, 170. - Red Lion, Reed Hill, 120. - ----, Royston, 14, 120, 125-127. - Roman Urn, Crossbrook Street, 75. - Rose and Crown, Upper Edmonton, 51. - Saracen's Head, Ware, 92, 94. - Sun, Cambridge, 14, 15, 16. - Three Tuns, Cambridge, 168. - Two Brewers, Ponder's End, 53. - Upware Inn, 235-239. - White Horse, Fetter Lane, 13, 16. - Woolpack, Cambridge, 168. - Wrestlers, Cambridge, 168. - - Islington, 326-331. - - - Kett's Oak, 298-300. - - Kingsland Road, 27. - - King's Lynn, 4, 34, 306-326. - - - Lamb, Charles, 36, 47-51, 53, 86. - - Landbeach, 177, 180, 189. - - Layston, 119. - - Littleport, 182, 189, 243, 244, 276-281, 283, 284, 289-292. - - - Melbourn, 123, 128-131. - - Milestones, Early examples of, 103, 110, 136. - - Milton, 176, 177. - - ----, John, 155, 163. - - Modney Bridge, 183, 297. - - - Newton, 115. - - Nine Wells, The, 140. - - - Old-time travellers-- - Cobbett, Richard, 34, 122, 184, 244, 258. - Gilpin, John, 36, 38, 43-46, 87, 96. - James the First, 36, 46, 71-75. - Pepys, Samuel, 12, 112-115. - Prior, Matthew, 82-85. - Thoresby, Ralph, 76-79. - Walton, Izaak, 36-38, 43. - - Ouse, The, 180, 182, 198, 201, 205, 218-221, 229, 236, 243, 257, 289, - 292, 294, 302, 315. - - - Pasque Flower, The, 121. - - Ponder's End, 35, 47, 48, 52-54. - - Puckeridge, 102, 117. - - - Quinbury, 102. - - - Railways, 22, 28, 32-34, 95, 120, 132, 236, 321. - - Rampton, 214. - - Roman roads, 34-37, 75, 122, 172, 181-183, 213, 231, 244, 251. - - Royston, 4, 7, 117, 119, 120, 122-128. - - ---- Cave, 124. - - ---- Crow, 121. - - ---- Downs, 117, 119-122. - - Ryston, 298, 300. - - - Scotland Green, 42. - - Setchey, 305. - - Seven Sisters Road, 40. - - Shelford, Great, 133, 140. - - Shepreth, 131-133, 229. - - Shoreditch Church, 10, 34, 35, 48. - - Southery, 183, 189, 275, 295-297. - - South Runcton, 305. - - Spurgeon, Charles Haddon, 179. - - Stamford Hill, 34, 35, 36. - - Standon Green End, 100. - - Stoke Newington, 35. - - Stow Bardolph, 304. - - Stretham, 182, 253. - - ---- Bridge, 182, 243, 247-251. - - - Theobalds, 7, 67, 72-75. - - Thetford, 255. - - Thriplow Heath, 115. - - Tottenham, 36, 38-43. - - ---- High Cross, 35, 37, 38-43. - - Trumpington, 134-136. - - Turner's Hill, 75. - - Turnford, 80. - - Turnpike Acts, 119. - - ---- Trusts, 119. - - - Upware, 235-240, 243. - - - Wade's Mill, 97, 119. - - Walsingham, Alan of, 267. - - Waltham Cross, 34, 54-70, 79. - - Ware, 5, 6, 7, 34, 36, 87-97. - - ----, Great Bed of, 86, 87, 93. - - Waterbeach, 177-180, 189. - - West Mill, 117. - - West Winch, 306. - - Wicken Fen, 198, 233-235, 240. - - William the Conqueror, 3, 170-173, 209, 212-215, 217, 221-227, 230, - 270. - - Wimbotsham, 304. - - Witchford, 225, 230. - - Wormley, 81. - - -PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED, EDINBURGH - - - - - Transcriber's Notes: - - Inconsistent hyphenation is retained. - - Italics are shown thus: _sloping_. - - Bold is shown thus: =strong=. - - Small capitals have been capitalised. - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cambridge Ely and King's Lynn Road, by -Charles G. 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