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diff --git a/old/61087-0.txt b/old/61087-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 68cfc2f..0000000 --- a/old/61087-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7625 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Norwich 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 Norwich Road - An East Anglian Highway - -Author: Charles G. Harper - -Release Date: January 3, 2020 [EBook #61087] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NORWICH ROAD *** - - - - -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) - - - - - - - - - -[Illustration: SCOLE WHITE HART.] - - - - - =THE NORWICH - ROAD=: AN EAST - ANGLIAN HIGHWAY - - By CHARLES G. HARPER - - Author of "_The Brighton Road_," "_The Portsmouth - Road_," "_The Dover Road_," "_The Bath Road_," - "_The Exeter Road_," _and_ "_The Great North Road_." - - _Illustrated by the Author, and from - Old-Time Prints and Pictures._ - - [Illustration] - - LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL LTD. 1901 - - [_All Rights reserved._] - - - - -[Illustration] - - - - -PREFACE - - -_The author of a little book published in 1818, called_ A JOURNEY TO -LONDON, _which is nearly all "London" with very little "journey," -remarks that "it is as uncommon for a book to go into the world without -a preface, as a man without a hat. They are both convenient coverings." -Here, then, is the customary covering._ - -_Introducing this, the seventh in a series of books telling the story -of our great highways, it may perhaps be as well to re-state the -methods used, and objects aimed at. The chief intention is to provide a -readable book which shall avoid the style either of a Guide-Book or a -History. It is the better fortune to be in the reader's hands than in -the dusty seclusion of those formidable works, the County Histories; -or disregarded among the guide-books of forgotten holidays. To the -antiquary it will, of course, be obvious that this and other volumes -of the series "contain many omissions," as the Irish reviewer said; -but such things as find no place here have, as a general rule, been -disregarded because they not only do not help the Story of the Road -along, but rather hinder its progression._ - -_The_ NORWICH ROAD, _in its one hundred and twelve miles, passes by -many an historic site and through districts distinguished for their -quiet pastoral beauty. In being historic it is not singular, for, as -Oliver Wendell Holmes very truly said, "England is one vast museum," -and the old road would be remarkable indeed, that, like Canning's_ -"NEEDY KNIFE GRINDER," _had no story to tell. It is, however, in the -especial characteristics of East Anglian scenery, speech, customs, and -architecture that this road stands apart and is highly individualised. -"East Anglia" is no merely arbitrary and meaningless term, as those who -travel it, if only on the highway, will speedily find._ - -_But this shall be no trumpet-blast; nor indeed do the charms of -Eastern England require such a fanfare, for who has not yet heard -of that lovely valley of the Stour, so widely known as "Constable's -Country," by whose exquisite water-meadows and shady lanes the old -turnpike passes? Scenery such as this; windmills, cornfields, tall -elms, winding rivers, and commons populous with geese and turkeys, are -typical of the_ NORWICH ROAD, _which may, with this introduction, now -be left to recommend itself_. - - CHARLES G. HARPER. - - PETERSHAM, SURREY, - _October 1901_. - - - - -[Illustration: LIST - -OF - -ILLUSTRATIONS] - -SEPARATE PLATES - - - SCOLE WHITE HART _Frontispiece_ - - PAGE - - ALDGATE PUMP. (_From a drawing by T. Hosmer Shepherd_, - 1854) 9 - - ALDGATE, 1820 21 - - THE "OLD RED LION," WHITECHAPEL, WHERE TURPIN SHOT - MATTHEW KING. (_From a drawing by T. Hosmer - Shepherd_, 1854) 59 - - WHITECHAPEL ROAD IN THE COACHING AGE 65 - - MILE END TURNPIKE, 1813. (_After Rowlandson_) 71 - - ROMFORD 91 - - MOUNTNESSING WINDMILL 103 - - INGATESTONE IN COACHING DAYS. (_From an Old Print_) 107 - - NEW HALL LODGES 125 - - CHIPPING HILL 133 - - "THREE BLIND 'UNS AND A BOLTER." (_From a Print - after H. Alken_) 145 - - COLCHESTER 215 - - THE VALE OF DEDHAM. (_After Constable_) 219 - - SPRING: SUFFOLK PLOUGHLANDS. (_After Constable_) 229 - - THE CORNFIELD. (_After Constable_) 233 - - THE OLD SIGN OF SCOLE WHITE HART 265 - - STAIRCASE IN THE "WHITE HART" 269 - - DICKLEBURGH 279 - - A DISPUTED PASTURAGE 289 - - LONG STRATTON 293 - - NEWTON FLOTMAN 299 - - NORWICH, FROM MOUSEHOLD HEATH 311 - - NORWICH MARKET PLACE 315 - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT - - - Vignette _Title Page_ - - PAGE - - Preface vii - - List of Illustrations: London Stone ix - - The Runaway 'Prentice 1 - - Yard of the "Bull," Leadenhall Street. (_From a drawing - by T. Hosmer Shepherd_, 1854) 12 - - Front of the "Saracen's Head," Aldgate: Present Day 14 - - Yard of the "Saracen's Head" in Coaching Days. (_From - a drawing by T. Hosmer Shepherd_, 1854) 16 - - Yard of the "Saracen's Head": Present Day 18 - - The Yard of the "Bull," Whitechapel, in Coaching Days 27 - - The Norwich Coach at Christmastide. (_After Robert - Seymour_, 1835) 38 - - Whitechapel Old Church 63 - - Bow 76 - - Seven Kings 84 - - Whalebone House 87 - - Entrance to Romford 89 - - Old Toll-house, Puttels Bridge 93 - - The "Fleece," Brook Street 94 - - The Martyr's Tree, Brentwood 95 - - Yard of the "White Hart," Brentwood 98 - - Shenfield 100 - - Mountnessing Church 102 - - The Gatehouse, Ingatestone Hall 106 - - At Margaretting 111 - - The "Good Woman" Sign 113 - - The Bridge: Entrance to Chelmsford 115 - - The Conduit, Chelmsford 116 - - Tindal's Statue 117 - - The "Three Cups" Sign 122 - - Springfield Church 123 - - Boreham 128 - - The "Angel," Kelvedon 141 - - Birthplace of Spurgeon 151 - - Near Mark's Tey 176 - - Lexden 180 - - The Grand Staircase, Colchester Castle 199 - - Old Man Trap, Colchester Castle 205 - - Colchester Castle 207 - - Gun Hill 221 - - Old Toll-house, Stratford Bridge 222 - - Wolsey's Gateway 242 - - The "Lion and Lamb," Angel Lane 244 - - Sparrowe's House 246 - - The "Great White Horse" 248 - - Mockbeggar Hall 253 - - "Stonham Pie" 256 - - Near Brockford 257 - - "Thwaite Low House" 259 - - The "Cock," Thwaite 260 - - Long Stratton 295 - - Tasburgh 297 - - The Old Brick Pound 301 - - Caistor Camp 303 - - Norwich Snap 318 - - Norfolk Turkey, on his way to Leadenhall Market 320 - - - - -THE ROAD TO NORWICH - - - MILES - - London (Whitechapel Church) to Mile End 1 - Stratford-le-Bow (Bow Church) 2½ - (Cross River Lea). - Stratford (Broadway) 4 - Forest Gate 5 - Manor Park 6 - Ilford 6½ - (Cross River Roding). - Seven Kings 7½ - (Cross "Seven Kings' Watering," or Fillebrook). - Chadwell Heath 9 - Romford 12 - Hare Street 13 - Puttels Bridge 15½ - (Cross Weald Brook). - Brook Street 16½ - Brentwood 18 - Shenfield 19 - Mountnessing Street 21 - Ingatestone 23 - Margaretting Street 25 - Widford 27½ - (Cross River Wid or Ash). - Moulsham 28¼ - (Cross River Chelmer). - - Chelmsford 29 - Springfield 29½ - Boreham 32¾ - (Cross River Ter). - Hatfield Peverel 34¾ - (Cross River Witham). - Witham 37½ - Rivenhall End 39½ - Kelvedon 41 - (Cross River Blackwater). - Gore Pit 42 - Mark's Tey 45¾ - Copford 46¼ - Stanway 47 - Lexden Heath 48 - Lexden 49 - Colchester 51 - (Cross River Colne). - Dilbridge 52½ - Stratford Bridge 57¾ - (Cross River Stour). - Stratford St Mary 58½ - Capel Railway Crossing. Capel Station. Capel - St Mary. 63½ - Copdock 65½ - Washbrook 66 - (Cross Wash Brook). - Ipswich 69¼ - (Cross River Orwell) - Whitton Street 71¾ - Claydon 72¾ - Creeting All Saints 76¾ - Stonham Earls 79 - Little Stonham 79¾ - Brockford 83¾ - Thwaite 84½ - Stoke Ash 86¼ - Yaxley 88¼ - Brome 90¼ - (Cross River Waveney). - Scole 92 - Dickleburgh 94½ - Tivetshall Level Crossing 97¼ - Wacton 100 - Long Stratton 101½ - Tasburgh 102¾ - (Cross River Tase). - Newton Flotman 104½ - (Cross River Tase). - Hartford Bridge 109¼ - (Cross River Yare). - Norwich (Market Place) 111½ - - - - -[Illustration: The NORWICH ROAD] - - -I - - -IN the days before railways came, robbing the exits from London of -all dignity and purpose, the runaway 'prentice lads of the familiar -legends, who were always half starved and continually beaten, revolting -at length from their uncomfortable beds under the shop counters -and their daily stripes and scorpions, were wont, according to the -story-books, to steal at night out of their houses of bondage and make -for the roads. Such an one, making in those days for Norwich, and -standing at Aldgate in the grey of the morning, looking across the -threshold of London, would have seen, in the long broad road stretching -before him, the only means of escape. The shilling or so of which he -would be the owner would scarce serve him for two or three days' keep; -and so, although he might have longed for a place on the coach he -could see starting from the "Spread Eagle," in Gracechurch Street, at -4 a.m., there would have been for such as he no choice but to start -afoot, with as light a heart as possible, and chance the offer of a -lift on some waggon returning into Essex. Had he, in leaving Aldgate -behind, asked some passer-by the way to Norwich, he might have been -seized for what he was, a runaway; but, if he escaped suspicion, would -have been answered readily enough, for everyone in those times knew -the way to lie along the Whitechapel Road and by Mile End Turnpike. -Has anyone in these enlightened and highly-educated times courage -sufficient to ask his way to Norwich from Aldgate? and, assuming that -dauntless courage, is it conceivable that anyone in that crowded street -could tell him? - -There are no apprentices and no tyrannical masters of the old kind left -now, and the only runaways of these days are the bad boys of precocious -wits who would not think of tramping the highway while they could raise -a railway fare or "lift" a bicycle. But the way still lies open to the -explorer from Aldgate, and the old Norwich Road yet follows the line of -the Roman way into the country of the Iceni. - -Between the era of our imaginary truant and that of the Romans, who -originally constructed this road, there yawns a vast gulf of time; -certainly not less than eighteen hundred years. The history of the -road during that space has largely been forgotten; but, worst of all, -we know perhaps less of it and its life in the times of Charles the -First, onward to those of William and Mary, than we can recover from -Roman historians; and certainly its coaching history is in tatters and -fragments, for those who made it did not live in the bright glow of -publicity that surrounded the coachmen of roads north, south or west, -and died unexploited by the sporting writers of the Coaching Age. - - -II - - -NEARLY seventeen centuries have passed since, in the great _Antonine -Itinerary_ of the Roman Empire, the first guide-book to the roads was -compiled, and almost eighty years since Cary and Paterson--the rival -Bradshaws and A.B.C.'s of the Coaching Age--issued the last editions of -their _Travellers Companions_, which now, instead of being constantly -in the travellers' hands, are treasured on the shelves of collectors -interested in relics of days before railways. - -The _Antonine Itinerary_ was compiled, A.D. 200-300. Among other roads -of which it purports to give an account is the road to Venta Icenorum; -the Norwich Road, as we should say. Its statement is brief and to the -point, if requiring no little explanation after this lapse of time:-- - - Iter a Venta Icenorum Londinio _m.p._ cxxviii _sic._ - Sitomago xxxii - Combretonio xxii - Ad Ansam xv - Camuloduno vii - Canonio viiii - Cæsaromago xii - Durolito xvi - Londinio xv - -A hundred and twenty-eight miles, that is to say, between Venta and -London. The Romans, of course, calculated all their mileages in Britain -from that hoary relic, the still existing "London Stone," which, from -behind its modern iron grating in the wall of St Swithin's Church, -still turns a battered face towards the heedless, hurrying crowds in -Cannon Street, in the City of London. - -In coaching days the Norwich Road, in common with most East Anglian -routes, was measured from Whitechapel Church, and the distance from -that landmark to Norwich given as 111½ miles. The apparent wide -difference between those measurements of classic and modern times is -very nearly reconciled when we add a mile for the distance between -London Stone and Whitechapel Church to the 111½ miles, and when we -reduce the Roman miles to English. An English mile measures 5280 feet, -while a Roman mile runs only to 4842 feet, this fact accounting, along -the road to Norwich, for some 13 miles of the discrepancy, and bringing -the difference to the insignificant one of 3½ miles; or, assuming the -Roman ruins at Caistor, 3 miles short of Norwich, to mark the site of -Venta Icenorum, 6½ miles; no very wide margin of error. - -The compiler of that ancient itinerary is unknown. He, or they (for -a survey of the Roman Empire cannot have been made by one man), are -quite hidden and lost to sight under the title of "Antonine," which -was given in honour of the Emperors Septimius Severus and Caracalla, -father and son, who both owned the name Antoninus. By similarly -honorary titles we are accustomed to christen our public buildings. -Thus, in coming ages, when such earthworms as engineers and architects -are forgotten, the "Victoria" Embankment, "Victoria" Station, the -"Victoria and Albert" Museum, and the thousand and one other things -thus entitled will serve to hand a Sovereign down to futurity, while -the names of those who created them, good or ill, will have perished, -like the leaves of autumn. Customs change, and fashions cease to be, -but snobbery is more enduring than brass or marble, and outlasts the -mummies of the Pharaohs. - -The compiler who drew up the list of places on the road between -Londinium and Venta has chosen to reckon backwards. The "_m. p._" is -the abbreviation for _mille passus_, or paced Roman miles; the figures -after the first line giving the distance from the place last mentioned. -Setting out from London, we find "Durolitum" to be identified with the -Roman earthworks of Uphall, near Romford; "Cæsaromagus" to be identical -with Writtle, near Chelmsford; "Canonium" to stand for Kelvedon; -"Camulodunum" for Colchester; and "Ad Ansam" for Stratford St Mary; -while "Combretonium" and "Sitomagus" still puzzle antiquaries, who are -reduced to the extremity of suggesting the opposite alternatives of -Brettenham or Burgh for the one, and Dunwich or Thetford for the other; -names with a specious resemblance, and on circuitous routes east or -west of the direct road which would more than account for the Roman -surveyor's overplus of miles. The direct road, however, is unmistakably -Roman, and those who will may seek for the elusive "Sitomagus" and -"Combretonium" along it. Haply they may discover them at Scole, -Dickleburgh or Long Stratton. - -But along the whole length of the road, from London to Norwich, the -wayfarer receives impressions of its true Roman character, whether -in its appearance or in the place-names on the way. Old Ford and -Stratford-at-Bow, where the Roman paved fords crossed the River Lea; -that other "old ford" at Ilford, across the River Roding, which was -already ancient when the Saxons came and so named it, "Eald Ford," -leaving it for later times to corrupt the name into "Ilford" and -for uninstructed historians to explain the meaning to have been -that it was an "ill ford"; to which condition, indeed, many had -descended in mediæval times: these are examples. Others are found at -Ingatestone, the Saxon "Ing-atte-stone" = the "meadow at the stone," -a Roman milestone that stood by the wayside; in the names of Stanway, -Colchester, Stratford St Mary. Little Stonham, Tivetshall, and Long -Stratton, places to be more particularly mentioned later in these pages. - -It has been aptly pointed out by East Anglian antiquaries that the -circuitous route eastward or westward of the straight road between -Stratford St Mary and Norwich, on which Sitomagus and Combretonium -may have been situated, may probably have been an early Roman way, -constructed shortly after the conquest of the Iceni, along an old -native trackway, and superseded in later and more settled times by -the direct road, overlooked by the Antonine compilers who, working at -Rome, the very centre of the Empire, may not have been fully informed -of changes in countries like Britain, on the edge of the Unknown. -This view, when we consider the long period stretching between the -conquest of this part of the country and the final break up of the -Romano-British civilisation, about A.D. 450, has much to recommend it. -A period of some three hundred and eighty years of colonisation and -development, equalling, for example, the great gulf of time between -our own day and that of Henry the Eighth, the changes in its course -must have rivalled, if not have surpassed, those in our roads between -the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. During those eras, between the -first and the fifth centuries, many of the original winding tracks -must have been straightened, or left to the secondary position of -byways, while new and straight roads were engineered across country -formerly, for one reason or another, avoided. Meanwhile, the Antonine -Itinerary-makers must have relied for their surveys upon old and -out-of-date information, just as, in our own time, we find many recent -maps, printed from the Ordnance Survey of a hundred years ago, still -indicating winding roads that have been non-existent for generations, -and ignoring the direct highways made by Telford and others just before -the opening of the Railway Era. - - -III - - -LONDON made no remarkable growth between the Roman and mediæval -periods, but this road had in that time slightly altered its course -from its starting-point, and, instead of going from Cannon Street -to Shoreditch, Bethnal Green and Old Ford, left the City by way of -Leadenhall Street and Aldgate, continuing down the Mile End and Bow -Roads to Stratford. - -The traveller of Chaucer's day, coming to Ald Gate, in the City wall, -had reached the country. That gate spanned the road at a point marked -nowadays by the house, No 2 Aldgate High Street, standing at the -boundary of the parishes of St Katharine Cree and St Botolph. In 1374 -Chaucer took from the Corporation of London a lease for the remainder -of his life of the rooms in this gate, which was pulled down and -succeeded by another, built in 1606, which in its turn disappeared in -1761. - -From his windows commanding the road Chaucer must often have seen that -dainty gentlewoman, the Prioress of St Leonard's, Stratford, riding to -or from London, escorted by a numerous train, and from her must have -drawn that portrait of the prioress who spoke French with a Cockney -accent:-- - - "After the scole of Stratford-attè-Bowe, - For French of Parys was to hire unknowe." - -In Chaucer's day they probably taught French, of sorts, at the Priory -schools. - -[Illustration: ALDGATE PUMP. _From a Drawing by T. Hosmer Shepherd_, -1854.] - -At that time it was no little journey to Stratford, although by -measurement less than four miles, and the lady went strongly escorted, -as, indeed, did all of consequence, or those who had aught to lose. -For the more common wayfarers who went alone on this desperate eastern -trail there stood the Chapel and the Holy Well of St Michael the -Archangel within the City, where the otherwise unprotected might seek -the aid of the Saint's strong arm before leaving the walled City behind -on their perilous faring. This chapel stood where Leadenhall Street, -Fenchurch Street and Aldgate meet, on a site thrown into the roadway -in 1876, when the street was widened. Until that year the crypt of -this shrine had filled the prosaic functions of a cellar in the corner -house, itself demolished, together with the beautiful Early English -arches on which it stood. Adjoining was "Aldgate Pump," which had long -before unromantically taken the place of the sanctified spring. That -celebrated civic monument is seen in the accompanying illustration, -taken in 1854. Many City wits have exercised their satirical powers -upon it, and the expression long current of "a draft on Aldgate Pump," -a once popular mercantile phrase for a bad note, goes back so far as -the days of Fielding. Oddly enough, the water of the pump retained some -repute until 1876, when, on being analysed, it was found impure, and -the supply closed. The pump, however, is still in existence, rebuilt -of its original stones, a few feet away from the old site, and yields -water again; not, however, from the old saintly source, but from the -strictly secular filter-beds of the New River Water Company. - -[Illustration: YARD OF THE "BULL," LEADENHALL STREET. _From a Drawing -by T. Hosmer Shepherd_, 1854.] - -Having implored the protection of St Michael, travellers of old -went, heartened, upon their way down what is now Whitechapel High -Street, which Strype, writing in the time of James the First, calls -a "spacious fair street," with "sweet and wholesome air." Past -hedgerows of elm trees and rustic stiles and bridges, those old -wayfarers went, and onward down the Whitechapel Road, where the -country was a lovely solitude, with "nothing but the bounteous gifts -of Nature and saint-like tokens of innocency," which, according to Sir -Thomas More, in 1504, characterised the charming fields of Mile End, -Shadwell, Stepney and Limehouse. This, it will be allowed, is scarcely -descriptive of those places to-day, whatever they may become when the -People's Palace and the University Settlements have done their work. - -Thus far for sake of contrast. Let us return to Aldgate for a while, -and, without following its fortunes throughout the centuries, glance at -it in the Coaching Age, before the squalor of modern Whitechapel had -invaded it from the east, or the extension of City business had come to -destroy most of that picturesque assemblage of old inns and mediæval -gabled houses, to replace them with the giant warehouses and "imposing" -offices of modern London. - - -IV - - -ALTHOUGH, as we have seen, the East Anglian roads were, in coaching -days, measured from Whitechapel Church, the great actual starting-place -was Aldgate, where many of the old inns were situated, as, in like -manner, the ancient hostelries of the Borough clustered at the -beginning of the road to Canterbury and Dover. Aldgate occupies a -position midway between London Stone, the Roman starting-point in -Cannon Street, and Whitechapel Church, and to and from this spot came -and went the stage-coaches, post-chaises and waggons in the palmy days -of the road. The mail-coaches, of course, had a starting-point of their -own, and set out from the old General Post-Office in Lombard Street, -or, in the last years of coaching, from St Martin's-le-Grand. - -[Illustration: FRONT OF THE "SARACEN'S HEAD," ALDGATE: PRESENT DAY.] - -It is true that one might have taken coach from many other and more -central inns for Colchester, Ipswich and Norwich:--from the "Spread -Eagle," in Gracechurch Street, a fine old galleried inn demolished at -the close of 1865; from the "Cross Keys," in the same street; from the -"Swan with Two Necks," in Lad Lane, anciently Lady Lane (that is to -say, the Lane of Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin), now Gresham Street; -or from the "Bull," 151 Leadenhall Street, which must by no means be -confounded with its namesake in Aldgate High Street. Exactly what -that Leadenhall Street hostelry was like let the picture of its old -galleried courtyard show. - -There was also "another way" to Norwich; out of Bishopsgate, by way -of Newmarket, Bury and Thetford. Taking this route, which, although -2½ miles shorter, no true sportsman considered to be the real Norwich -Road, one started from the "Golden Cross," Charing Cross; from the -"White Horse," in Fetter Lane (improved away in 1898); from the -"Flower Pot," in Bishopsgate Street; from yet another "Bull," also in -Bishopsgate Street; or from the "Bull and Mouth," St Martin's-le-Grand. -But when all these places have been duly set forth, it is to Aldgate -that we must turn as the real starting-point. - -[Illustration: YARD OF THE "SARACEN'S HEAD" IN COACHING DAYS. _From a -Drawing by T. Hosmer Shepherd_, 1854.] - -Aldgate in the days before railways was quite unlike the Aldgate of -to-day. Certain of the old buildings remain, but the "note" of the -place is entirely altered. It is now a noisy, distracting ante-room to -the City, in which tinkling tram-cars and costermongers' barrows jostle -with elephantine railway goods vans; where the Jewish second-hand -clothes shop rubs a greasy shoulder with the "merchant tailor's" vulgar -show of electric light, plate glass and wax models; and where the East -End, in the person of the aproned, ringleted and ostrich-feathered -factory girl, meets the West, in the shape of some City clerk strayed -beyond his mercantile or financial frontiers, each regarding the other -as a curiosity in these social marches. It is as the meeting of salt -water and fresh, this mingling of the tides of City and East End, and -to the observant not a little curious. Nothing like it--nothing so -marked--is to be seen on any other of the borders of the City. There -is, too, a smack of the sea, a certain air of romance, in the street, -coming, perhaps, from the windows of the nautical instrument-makers, -where the binoculars, the quadrants, the sextants and the sea-faring -tackle in general hint of distant climes and the coral reefs of South -Pacific isles. - -These mariners' emporia were here and in the Minories before railways -came, and so also were many fine old inns. For Aldgate, difficult -though it may be to realise it to-day, was not only the place whence -many of the Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk coaches set out, but was also -the resting-place of travellers to London; and its inns were quite -as well-appointed as those of the more central ones in the City, -or those of Charing Cross, or the West End. As travellers by rail -to London in modern times resort to the railway hotels, so did our -great-grandfathers find rest at the coaching inns at whose thresholds -they were set down at their journey's end. - -[Illustration: YARD OF THE "SARACEN'S HEAD": PRESENT DAY.] - -The fragments merely of the last of Aldgate's old hostelries remain, in -the bold front of Nos. 6 and 7, forming two-thirds of the old frontage -of the "Saracen's Head." No. 5, the other third, has been destroyed, -and so also has the old appearance of the galleried courtyard, still -named "Saracen's Head Yard," but now surrounded by warehouses. The old -coach archway remains, and the gables at the back of the buildings -are quaint reminiscences of other times. Coaches plied between the -"Saracen's Head" and Norwich so far back as 1681, and Strype, the -antiquary, born in the neighbourhood, in a court whose name now flaunts -the horrid travesty of "Tripe Court," referring to the inn, speaks of -it as "very large and of a considerable trade." The existing fragment, -with its handsome architectural elevation of richly-moulded plaster in -the Renaissance style of the late seventeenth century, is part of the -building mentioned by him. Small shops now occupy the ground floor, -and the upper rooms are let as tenements. - -But the "Bull" was perhaps the most famous of these old inns. From it -Mr Pickwick set out for Ipswich, and from Sam Weller's remark on that -occasion, "Take care o' the archway, gen'l'men," as the coach started, -it is evident that the "Bull" possessed a courtyard. At that palmy time -of inns and coaches, the opening of the nineteenth century, the "Bull" -was, and long had been, in the Nelson family, a noted race of inn and -coach proprietors. At that particular time Mrs Ann Nelson, widow of the -late host, who died about 1812, was the presiding genius. Associated -with her was her son John. Another son, Robert, had a business of his -own, and was long proprietor of the "Belle Sauvage," on Ludgate Hill, -and partner with others in many coaches. A third son, George, drove the -Exeter "Defiance," horsed by his mother out of London. - -But to return to the "Bull" and Mrs Nelson, who had, as her husband -had, and his father before him, some sort of interest in many coaches -running into Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, on main or bye-roads. She -also at one time leased the "Spread Eagle," in Gracechurch Street, -and extended her energies so far as to horse the Exeter "Telegraph" -and the "Quicksilver" Devonport Mail out of London, together with -the Exeter "Defiance" night coach, the Manchester "Telegraph," the -Oxford "Defiance," Brighton "Red Rover," and the Leeds "Courier." In -their coaching speculations the Nelson family were associated with -a pastrycook whose little shop adjoined the gateway of the "Bull." -Occasionally a new hand on one of the coaches would send his leaders' -noses through the shop front, for that gateway was very narrow and Mrs -Nelson's coachmen anything but deliberate. On the other side of the -gateway was a whip-maker's shop, kept by one James Johnson, who throve -mightily on the custom of the coachmen and others who frequented the -"Bull." - -This most energetic of landladies and Napoleonic of coach proprietors -developed and managed her extensive coaching interests long before her -husband died. He, good, easy-going man, had been a fair whip in earlier -days, but had long left the box, and had no head for business, although -a very fine taste in wines and spirits: the lack of the first probably -a corollary of the second. She spared neither herself nor her servants. -Rising considerably before the lark, she saw the owls to bed, and was -a martinet to her coachmen. Left a widow while in the prime of life, -she still wore in old age the dress of her youth. The sketch of her in -the picture of the "Bull" yard in coaching days shows exactly what her -costume was like. A short skirt revealed high-heeled shoes with large -buckles, the heels painted red. Black velvet was her winter wear, and -fancy apron, lace neckerchief and frilled cap invariable items. Up to -her seventieth year she was the last up at night, scouring the house -to see that all was safe; and the first up in the morning, looking -after the stable people and seeing that the horses had their feeds and -were properly cared for. Inside and outside the house, and down the -eastern roads, her influence was despotic and would brook no defiance. -Her "Ipswich Blues" had long been famous when an opposition coach was -started. Opposition could not be allowed to live, and so the fares -were reduced from eight shillings inside and sixteen shillings out, by -regular stages until the point was reached when passengers were not -only carried for nothing, but were presented with an excellent dinner -at Witham. At that point the rivals discreetly retired, when fares rose -again to their old level. - -[Illustration: ALDGATE, 1820.] - -Mrs Nelson insisted on the most rigid punctuality. Did the coachman -of one of her crack coaches or one of her still more famous -"Oppositions" bring his team down her yard five minutes over time, -he was reprimanded; ten minutes, and he was fined half-a-crown; a -quarter of an hour, and he stood a good chance of being dismissed. She -ran a Southend "Opposition" every afternoon by Romford, Brentwood, -Billericay, Wickford, Raleigh and Rochford, along Essex roads of a -feather-bed softness of mud; but time must be kept. She provided good -horses and would not hear of excuses. One day, when the roads were -particularly heavy, the "Opposition" came in half an hour late from -Southend. The coachman, after the manner of his kind, on driving into -the yard and pulling up at the coffee-room door, threw his whip across -the wheelers' backs. Mrs Nelson had long been watching the clock, and, -coming out, took the whip and hung it up, with the quiet remark, "That -whip is no longer yours, Philpot--half an hour behind." - -"But the roads are so bad, ma'am," remonstrated poor Toby. "I'm sure, -ma'am, the gentlemen knew I did my best; but I felt bound to spare the -cattle." - -"_I_ find the cattle and employ you to drive them," replied the -inexorable landlady; "_you_ have nothing to do but to keep time. Draw -your wages and leave the yard." - -Under this iron rule it is no wonder that her coachmen were sometimes -"pulled up" for furious driving. On one of these occasions she appeared -in court in defence of her man. "I understand, Mrs Nelson," blandly -remarked the Chairman of the Bench, "that you give your coachmen -instructions to race the rival coach." - -"Not exactly," replied the lady; "my orders to them are simply that -they are to get the road and keep it." - -But if a very dragon of strictness, she treated coachmen and guards -very well. They had their especial room, and dined as well there, at -reduced prices, as any of her coffee-room customers. This especial -consideration reflected itself in those functionaries, who jealously -preserved the privacy of their room; the amateur coachman who secured -the invitation to join them (and to pay out of his own pocket for -their wine and spirits) feeling himself greatly honoured. - -In other respects, the "Bull" was a model to other houses. No damp -sheets in any one of its hundred and fifty beds, no drunken brawlers; -nothing a minute out of time, or an inch out of place. Mrs Nelson's -fine house was, indeed, nothing less than an institution. In later -years her son John took more of the management upon his shoulders, and -the business seemed likely to long outlast his time. - - -V - - -BUT a whisper of coming changes disturbed the air as early as 1830. -Coachmen and travellers talked in the stableyard and the cosy rooms of -the "Bull" of men with strange instruments encountered along the road; -"chaps with telescopes on three sticks, and other chaps with chains -and things, measuring the fields." It was thus that they described -the surveyors, with their theodolites and their staff of men, who -were setting out the proposed route of the projected Eastern Counties -Railway that was to run all the way from London to Colchester, Norwich -and Yarmouth. - -John Nelson was too confident in the existing order of things to -believe that a few pounds of coal and some boiling water would ever -be a match for his horses, or that a time would presently come when -those passengers of his who now derided the railways would desert the -coaches. The "Bull" had been in his family for more than a hundred and -twelve years, as an inn and a coaching house, and he could as soon have -imagined the end of the world as a day coming when the Essex, Suffolk -and Norfolk coaches should no longer enter or leave his yard. It was a -good joke for a while, when the coaches came in, to ask "How they were -getting on with that railway?" but when the surveys were completed and -the prospectus of the "Grand Eastern Counties Railway" was issued in -1834, it was seen that the railway men meant business. The original -proposal of the directors was to follow the road closely and to bring -the line into Aldgate. When it was seen that the railway was really to -be made, Nelson raised an opposition against the Aldgate terminus, and -was successful in driving the Company into an out-of-the-way site in -Shoreditch, where for many years that terminus remained. - -[Illustration: THE YARD OF THE "BULL," WHITECHAPEL, IN COACHING DAYS.] - -The Eastern Counties Railway was opened as far as Chelmsford in 1839, -to Colchester in 1842, and communication to Norwich was opened up in -1845. From the day of the first opening, the "Bull" declined. Old -customers still found their way from the slums of Shoreditch to its -hospitable door, but were not reinforced by the newer generation of -travellers, to whom the road and its end in Aldgate were alike unknown. -They went to the City inns, and later to the more central hotels, -leaving the "Bull" to slowly sink into neglect. John Nelson made a big -bid for success in another line, and ran the "Wellington" omnibuses -with success from 1855 until his death, at the age of seventy-four, in -June 1868. He had long resided in the West End, and was a man of ample -fortune, so that the end of the "Bull's" coaching career hurt him only -in sentiment. His mother, that most autocratic and business-like of -women, had died ten years before, active almost to the last, although -she had reached the age of eighty-five years. Towards the close of -1868 the old inn ended its long career. Its substantial, old-fashioned -silver-plate and massive furniture were sold by auction, with the stock -of rare old wines, laid in many years before, for that old generation -of travellers who delighted in port and sherry, and plenty of both. - -The very site of the "Bull" is now sought with pains and labour, and -only to be discovered with difficulty by the present generation. It -was numbered 25 Aldgate High Street, and stood where Aldgate Avenue, a -modern alley rich in offices of "commission agents," and curious things -of that kind, now cuts its way through where the old yard used to be. - -Close by the "Bull" was another old coaching inn, the "Blue Boar," -now quite vanished, kept for a time by John Thorogood. The Thorogoods -were in those days, and in these times of amateur coaching are still, -a family of coachmen. "Old John," who owned the "Norwich Times," and -actually drove it for two years without missing a journey the whole of -that time, clearly deserved his patronymic, in thus handling the reins -along a hundred and twelve miles of road for seven hundred and thirty -consecutive days. - -It was to the "Blue Boar" that little David Copperfield came, on his -miserable journey from Yarmouth:--"We approached London by degrees, and -got, in due time, to the inn, in the Whitechapel district, I forget -whether it was the 'Blue Bull' or the 'Blue Boar,' but I know it was -the Blue Something, and that its likeness was painted upon the back -of the coach." The sculptured effigy of a boar, with gilded tusks and -hoofs, built into the wall of a tobacco factory, marks the site of the -inn. - -Among other noted inns, the "Three Nuns" must be named. From it set -out the short stages to Ilford, Epping, Romford and Woodford, together -with coaches for several of the Essex by-roads. The house owes its -name to the Minoresses, or nuns, of St Clare, from whose religious -establishment the Minories obtains its title. The inn was rebuilt in -1877, and is now nothing more than a huge public-house. - -Many other inns of consequence in their day have left nothing but -their yards behind them to show where they stood:--George Yard, Spread -Eagle Yard, Black Horse Yard, Boar's Head Yard, White Swan Yard, Half -Moon Passage, and Kent and Essex Yard are such relics, bordering High -Street, Whitechapel, where one curious sign survives, that of an inn -called the "Horse and Leaping Bar." - - -VI - - -ONE decided advantage the Chelmsford, Colchester and Ipswich route -to Norwich possessed in old times over that by way of Newmarket and -Thetford. Neither could have been considered safe in the bad old -days, but while the traveller across the wild heaths of Newmarket and -Thetford was almost certain to be "held up" on his lonely course, the -other way, through Essex, passed by few such wildernesses, and had more -towns and villages along its course, to give a sense of security. -Briefly, robbery on one route was a probability, and on the other was -regarded as certain. Margaret Paston, writing from Norfolk to her -husband in London, so long ago as the fifteenth century, certainly -gives even the way through Essex a bad name, for she asks him to pay -a debt for one of their friends, because it was not safe, "on account -of the robbers," to send money up from the country; but at the very -same time the Thetford route had a much more sinister reputation, and -travellers versed in the gossip of the road avoided it if possible, -or went in company and well armed, for in that era a certain William -Cratfield, Rector of Wrotham, "a common and notorious thief and lurker -on the roads, and murderer and slayer," lurked and robbed and slew on -Newmarket Heath, in company with a certain "Thomas Tapyrtone, hosyer." -He was at last laid by the heels, in 1416, and charged with robbing -a Londoner of £12. This distinguished ornament of the Church died in -Newgate, but of the villainous hosier we hear no more. Perhaps he had -realised a fortune in the business and retired to enjoy the fruits of -his industry. With the disappearance of this worthy couple, travellers -breathed more freely, but for surety's sake continued to patronise the -Essex route, and so by way of Ipswich to come to the City of Orchards, -as Norwich was called of old. - -As time went on, a certain degree of security was found in the -coaches that began to make an appearance with the second half of the -seventeenth century. They travelled at first no more quickly than -a man could walk, but they provided company, which was, under the -circumstances, highly desirable. Soon, however, they found it possible -to do the journey in two days. Strype, we have already seen mentions -the "Saracen's Head" in Aldgate as the centre of a considerable trade, -and to it in 1681 a Norwich coach was running; an innovation which -aroused the indignation of innkeepers on the way to almost as great a -height as that of their descendants when, two hundred and forty years -later, railways were depopulating the roads. When travellers began to -go by coach instead of on horseback, and to reach London or Norwich in -two days instead of three or four, those antique tapsters thought they -saw their living going, and, strange to say, there were not wanting men -who raised their voices against the innovation of being carried on a -journey, instead of riding; although, for the most part, their outcry -was the result only of innate conservatism. - -"Travelling in these coaches," said an anonymous pamphleteer, "can -neither prove advantageous to men's health or business. For what -advantage is it to men's health to be called out of their beds into -these coaches an hour before day in the morning, to be hurried in -them from place to place, till one hour, two, or three within night; -insomuch that after sitting all day in the summer time stifled with -heat, and choked with the dust, or the winter time starving and -freezing with cold or choked with filthy fogs, they are often brought -into their inns by torchlight, when it is too late to sit up to get -supper; and next morning they are forced into the coach so early that -they can get no breakfast. What addition is this to men's health or -business? to ride all day with strangers, oftentimes sick, ancient, -diseased persons, or young children crying; to whose humours they are -obliged to be subject, forced to bear with, and many times are poisoned -with their nasty scents, and crippled by the crowd of the boxes and -bundles." - -Yet "these coaches" (one can almost hear the intonation of contempt in -that phrase) were from the first a success. The greater that success -the louder for a time was the outcry against them. Taylor, the Water -Poet, was one of those who wrote vehemently against the new methods -of travel. To him a coach was "a close hypocrite; for it hath a cover -for knavery and curtains to vaile and shadow any wickedness. Besides, -like a perpetual cheater, it wears two bootes, and no spurs, sometimes -having two pairs of legs to one boote, and oftentimes (against nature) -it makes faire ladies weare the boote; and if you note, they are -carried back to back, like people surprised by pyrats, to be tyed in -that miserable manner and thrown overboard into the sea. Moreover, it -makes people imitate sea-crabs, in being drawn sideways as they are -when they sit in the boot of the coach; and it is a dangerous kind of -carriage for the commonwealth, if it be considered." - -The boot of which he speaks so contemptuously, was a method of packing -the "outsides," of which we still find a survival in the Irish -jaunting-car. There are those who trace the origin of the term from the -French "_boîte_," a box. Even now the coachman's seat is "the box," and -the modern fore-boot is under it. - -Writers of that time seem almost unanimously to have taken sides -against coaching; with, however, no effect; for, somewhat later than -Taylor, that doughty Conservative, John Cresset, is found exclaiming -furiously against the multitude of them. He favoured the suppression -of all, or, at least--counsels of moderation prevailing--of most. They -were, he said, mischievous to the public, destructive to trade and -prejudicial to the land. Not only did they injure the breed of horses, -but also that of watermen; which last objection goes further than the -complaints of Taylor himself, who, writing at the same time, does not -speak of his breed being debased, but only of his trade being crippled. -Cresset thought the stage-coaches tempted the country gentry to London -too often, and he accordingly proposed that these conveyances should be -limited to one for every county town in England, to go backwards and -forwards once a week. - -Vain hope! Coaches of sorts must already have appeared on the road to -Norwich by the middle of the seventeenth century, for in a proclamation -of July 20th in the plague year, 1665, when all places were dreading -infected London, it is ordained, that "from this daie all ye passage -coaches shall be prohibited to goe from ye city to London and come -from thence hither, and also ye common carts and wagons." Already, -in 1696, the "Confatharrat" coach was a well-known conveyance between -London and Norwich, and the name of Suggate, the London and East -Anglian carrier, a household word. Unhappily, nothing can be gathered -as to when Suggate first began to jog along the road, or when the -"Confatharrat" started to ply between Norwich and the "Four Swans," -Bishopsgate Street. All particulars are lost. The odd name of that -coach was probably a seventeenth-century way of spelling the word -"confederate," and the selection of such a name proves both that it was -carried on by an alliance or co-partnership, and that "confederate" had -not then acquired its sinister modern connotation. Besides these aids -to travel, a stage-waggon began to ply from the "Popinjay," Tombland, -Norwich, at an early date; and another from the "Angel," in the Market -Place, to the "Blossoms" Inn, Laurence Lane, London, was advertised in -the _Norwich Mercury_, of March 29th, 1729, to "now go regularly every -Thursday night," setting out on the following Wednesday from London, -on the return journey. It will thus be seen that it was a five or six -days' journey for those primitive affairs, and that they apparently did -not run at regular intervals until that year. - -A London and Beccles coach was running in 1707, but the first regular -Norwich coach of which particulars remain was the "Norwich Machine," -which in 1762 set out for London three times a week from the "Maid's -Head," according to the advertisement still extant. There is nothing -in that old coaching bill to show that 1762 was the first season of -the "Norwich Machine." It may have been established some years before -that date. - - _Norwich, March 26, 1762._ - - SUSAN NASMITH and JAMES KEITH, - - Proprietors of the - - NORWICH MACHINE, - - Give Notice - - that their Machine will set out from the MAID'S HEAD Inn, in St - Simon's Parish, in Norwich, on Monday, the 5th day of April next, at - half-past eleven in the forenoon, and on the Wednesday and Friday in - the same week, at the same time; and to be continued in like Manner, - on those Days weekly, for the carrying four inside Passengers, at - Twenty-five Shillings each, and outside at Twelve Shillings and - Sixpence each. The inside Passengers to be allowed twenty pound - Weight, and all above to be paid for at three half-pence per pound; - and to be in London on the Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday Evenings - weekly. - - * * * * * - - _N.B._--A Machine will set out on the same days, at the same time, - from the GREEN DRAGON, in Bishopsgate Street, London, for Norwich. - -In the following year, the "Widow Nasmith" and James Keith advertised -that they had built large and commodious machines, to carry six -inside, and reduced the fares to twenty shillings and ten shillings -respectively; but they had apparently not succeeded in performing the -journey in less time than a day and a half, for no mention is made of -speed being accelerated. But a remarkable feature in that announcement -is the extraordinary cheapness of the fares, little over twopence and a -penny a mile for inside and outside passengers, at a time when prices -on other roads ruled from twenty-five to fifty per cent. higher. This -tells a tale of competition; but Time, the thief, has robbed us of all -knowledge of those competitors. - -A year later the London and Ipswich Post Coaches were advertised to -set out every week-day, and to perform the 69¼ miles in ten hours, an -average pace of almost 7 miles an hour; a marvellous turn of speed -for that age. As to whether those Post Coaches ever _did_ cover that -distance in ten hours, we may reasonably express a doubt; but there -was the promise, and 011 the strength of it the proprietors charged -threepence a mile. As will be seen by the advertisement, these coaches -carried no outside passengers:-- - - _Ipswich, August 17th, 1764._ - - THE LONDON AND IPSWICH POST COACHES - - Set out on Monday, the 27th of August, at seven o'clock in the morning - from the BLACK BULL, in Bishopsgate, London, and at the same time from - the GREAT WHITE HORSE, in Ipswich, and continue every day (Sunday - excepted), to be at the above places the same evening at five o'clock; - each passenger to pay threepence per mile, and to be allowed eighteen - pounds luggage; all above to pay one penny per pound, and so in - proportion. The coaches, hung upon steel springs, are very easy, large - and commodious, carry six inside but no outside passengers whatever; - but have great conveniences for parcels or game (to keep them from the - weather), which will be delivered at London and Ipswich the same night. - - As these coaches are sent out for the ease and expedition of - gentlemen and ladies travelling, the proprietors humbly hope for their - encouragement, and are determined to spare no pains to render it as - agreeable as they can. - - Performed (if God permits) by-- - - PET. SHELDON, at the Bull, Bishopsgate Street, London. - THOMAS ARCHER, at the White Hart, Brentwood. - CHARLES KERRY, at the Black Boy, Chelmsford. - GEO. REYNOLDS, at the Three Cups, Colchester; and - CHAS. HARRIS, at the Great White Horse, Ipswich. - - * * * * * - - _N.B._--The proprietors will not be answerable for any money, plate, - jewels, or writings, unless entered and paid for as such. - -The reader will perhaps have observed that this advertisement -especially mentions a convenience for carrying game, and, as a matter -of fact, game and oysters were prominent from an early period in -the history of Norwich Road conveyances, and, by the middle of the -eighteenth century, the Norfolk and Suffolk coaches had already earned -quite a distinctive character in two seasons of the year, Michaelmas -and Christmas. East Anglia has always abounded in game, and its -broad heaths and extensive commons have been the breeding-grounds -of innumerable geese and turkeys whose careers have ended on London -dinner-tables. In those two seasons it was often difficult to secure -a seat on or in any of the "up" coaches from Norwich or Ipswich, for -while every available inch of space on the mails was occupied by -festoons of dead birds consigned by country cousins to friends in town, -the whole of a stage-coach was frequently chartered for the purpose -of despatching heavy consignments of these noble poultry to the London -market. Christmas provided extraordinary sights along the Norfolk Road, -in the swaying coaches, with parcels and geese and turkeys mountains -high on the roof; with barrels of Colchester natives in the boot, and -hampers swinging heavily between the axle-trees on a shelf called "the -cellar"; while from every rail or projection to which they could be -either safely or hazardously tied depended other turkeys or braces of -fowls, booked at the last moment before starting. It was something -in those days to be a turkey or a goose, before whose importance the -claims of human passengers faded; but it was a fleeting elevation which -the philosophic did not envy, thinking that here indeed the poet was -justified in his sounding line-- - - "The paths of glory lead but to the grave." - -[Illustration: THE NORWICH COACH AT CHRISTMAS TIDE. _After Robert -Seymour, 1835._] - -That unfortunate genius, Robert Seymour, has left us a picture of the -Norwich coach nearing London at Christmas time, with its feathered -load. The drawing was made in 1835, at the very height of the Coaching -Age, and shows from his own observation with what ingenuity every rail -and projection was used to hang the birds from. - -Another highly specialised branch of traffic, which only left the road -on the opening of the railway, was the constant service of fish waggons -running between Harwich, Colchester and London, at the then express -speed of 8 miles an hour. - - -VII - - -BETWEEN the early days of coaching and the end of that period, many -changes took place on the Norwich Road. So late as 1798, the Mail, the -"Expedition," and the "Post Coach" were the only coaches to Norwich, -supplemented by three road waggons; two of them doing the journey -twice a week, the third setting out weekly. Later came the "Norwich -Times," "Gurney's Original Day Coach," the "Phænomenon," as it was -originally spelt; the "Magnet," the Ipswich "Shannon," and the Ipswich -"Blue." With the object of serving as many places as possible, and, -incidentally, securing heavier bookings, the "Times" and Gurney's -coaches took a somewhat circuitous route, leaving the direct road -at Chelmsford, and going through Braintree, Halstead, Sudbury, Long -Melford and Bury St Edmunds, rejoining the Norwich Road at Scole. - -But the lord of the road was the Mail Coach, beside which the stages -were very commonplace affairs. - -The first mail-coach that ever ran the road between London and Norwich -started in March 1785, and the service was from the beginning continued -daily. Before that time the mails had been carried by post-boys, who -began in 1741 to go six days a week instead of three, as they formerly -had done. - -Mail-coaches are entirely things of the past, for the modern coaching -revival has only brought back the smart stages and drags of the last -years of the Coaching Age. The mails were expensive and exclusive -affairs, constructed to carry only nine persons; four inside and five -out, including coachman and guard. For the higher fares passengers paid -they had not always the satisfaction of travelling faster than on the -stages; but perhaps there was some dignity attaching to a seat on the -mail which was lacking on ordinary coaches. And certainly they were -surrounded by pomp and circumstance. The guard wore a scarlet coat -and went armed with pistol, sword and blunderbuss; not, of course, -for the protection of the passengers, but for the safe-guarding of -His Majesty's mails. And everything gave place, as a matter of right -and not merely courtesy, to the mail. Surly pikemen swung open their -gates and asked no toll, for it was one of the privileges of the mail -to go toll-free, and the highwaymen, if they walked in the ways of -caution, left the gorgeous conveyance severely alone, reserving their -best attentions for the plebeian stages. It was a much more serious -thing to rob the mail than an ordinary coach, for a conviction was more -certain to end in death, judges having hints from the Government how -undesirable it was that mails should be ransacked and the robbers live. -The rewards usually offered by the Post-office, too, were tempting to -those who could inform if they would. £200 was the sum generally to be -had for this service, together with the £40 reward by Act of Parliament -for the apprehension of a highwayman; and if the mail was robbed -within five miles of London, another £100. Courage, recklessness, and -desperation--whichever we like to call it--often nerved the night-hawks -to brave even so heavy a handicap as this, as this very road bears -witness, in the daring robbery of the Ipswich Mail in 1822, when -notes to the value of no less than £31,198 were stolen. In addition -to the usual rewards, a sum of £1000 was offered by the losing firms -of bankers, as shown in the accompanying old handbill, but without -avail. This sum was afterwards increased to £5000, and a notification -given that, in order to prevent the notes being changed, the ink on all -new ones had been altered from black to red. But the robbers had the -impudence to ask £6000 for the return of the notes. They had already -passed £3000 worth, and naively said, in the negotiations they opened -up, that the trouble they had taken and the risks they had run did -not make it worth while to accept a smaller "reward." The bankers, -however, would not spring another thousand, for by that time everyone -was too shy of an "Ipswich black note," and it was extremely unlikely -that any more could be passed. Negotiations were broken off; but a -month later notes to the value of £28,000 were returned. The thieves -were never traced, and although the bulk of their booty was useless to -them, made the very substantial haul of over £3000 by their lawless -enterprise. - - =£1000 Reward.= - - =STOLEN= - - =FROM THE IPSWICH MAIL,= - - On its way from London, _on the Night - of the 11th Sept. Inst._ the following - - =COUNTRY BANK NOTES:= - - Ipswich Bank, 5, & 10_l._ Notes. - _ALEXANDERS & Co._ on _HOARE & Co._ - - Woodbridge Bank, 1, 5, & 10_l._ Notes. - _ALEXANDERS & Co._ on _FRYS & Co._ - - Manningtree Bank, 1, 5, & 10_l._ Notes. - _ALEXANDER & Co._ on _FRYS & Co._ - - Hadleigh Bank, 1, 5, & 10_l._ Notes. - _ALEXANDER & Co._ on _FRYS & Co._ - - Particulars of which will be furnished at the different Bankers. - - Whoever will give Information, either at ALEXANDERS and Co. - or at FRYS and Co., _St Mildred's Court, Poultry_, so that the - Parties may be apprehended, shall on his or their Conviction, - and the Recovery of the Property, receive the above REWARD. - -We have said that mail-coaches were gorgeous. They were painted -in black and red. Not a shy, unassuming red, but the familiar and -traditional Post-office hue. Also they bore the Royal coat-of-arms -emblazoned upon the door panels, and the insignia of the four principal -orders of knighthood on the quarters. There was no mistaking a -mail-coach. - -The Norwich Mail, which took fifteen and a half hours to do the journey -so late as 1821, was greatly improved in later years; and finally, in -the early forties, when the railway reached Norwich and superseded the -roads, performed the journey in eleven hours, thirty-eight minutes, at -the very respectable average speed of 9½ miles an hour. It was not the -only mail on the road, but shared the way so far as Ipswich with the -Ipswich and Yarmouth Mail. This coach was unfortunate on two occasions -between 1835 and 1839. On September 28th in the first year, when the -coachman was climbing on to his box in the yard of the "Swan with Two -Necks," the horses started away on their own accord, tumbling the -coachman off and knocking down the helper who had been holding their -heads. Dashing into Cheapside, they flung themselves against the back -of the Poole Mail with such force that the coachman of that mail was -also thrown off. He was taken unconscious to the hospital. Continuing -their furious rush, the horses of the Ipswich Mail at length ran the -pole of the coach between the iron railings of a house, and so were -stopped. - -The second happening, in 1839, was somewhat similar. The mail had -arrived at Colchester, and the coachman, throwing down the reins, got -off the box. No one was at the horses' heads, and they started away and -galloped down the High Street, until the near leader fell and broke -his neck, stopping the team. - -It was by the Ipswich and Yarmouth Mail that David Copperfield -journeyed down to Yarmouth on his second visit to Mr Peggotty. In the -ordinary course of things, he would have reached Ipswich at 3·12 a.m. -But on this occasion the weather was a potent factor in causing delay. -He occupied the box seat, and remarked upon the look of the sky to the -coachman while yet on the first stage out of London. - -"Don't you think that a very remarkable sky?" he asked; "I don't -remember to have seen one like it." - -"Nor I--not equal to it," said the coachman. "That's mist, sir. -There'll be mischief done at sea, I expect, before long." - -The description of this stormy sky is very fine, and seems to have been -drawn from observation; just as true and as effective in its way as Old -Crome's billowy cloudscapes, in his _Mousehold Heath_, or as any of -Constable's rain-surcharged Suffolk scenes. - -"It was a murky confusion--here and there blotted with a colour like -the colour of the smoke from damp fuel--of flying clouds tossed up into -most remarkable heaps, suggesting greater heights in the clouds than -there were depths below them to the bottom of the deepest hollows in -the earth, through which the wild moon seemed to plunge headlong, as -if, in a dread disturbance of the laws of nature, she had lost her way -and were frightened. There had been a wind all day; and it was rising -then, with an extraordinary great sound. In another hour it had much -increased, and the sky was more overcast, and it blew hard. - -"But as the night advanced, the clouds closing in and densely -overspreading the whole sky, then very dark, it came on to blow harder -and harder. It still increased, until our horses could scarcely face -the wind. Many times in the dark part of the night (it was then late in -September, when the nights were not short) the leaders turned about, -or came to a dead stop; and we were often in serious apprehension that -the coach would be blown over. Sweeping gusts of rain came up before -this storm, like showers of steel; and at those times, when there was -any shelter of trees or lee-walls to be got, we were fain to stop, -in a sheer impossibility of continuing the struggle.... We came to -Ipswich very late, having had to fight every inch of ground since we -were ten miles out of London; and found a cluster of people in the -market-place, who had risen from their beds in the night, fearful of -falling chimneys. Some of these, congregating about the inn-yard while -we changed horses, told us of great sheets of lead having been ripped -off a high church tower and flung into a bye-street, which they then -blocked up." - -At Ipswich the Yarmouth coaches left the Norwich Road, and so the -further adventures of David Copperfield do not in this place concern -us. - - -VIII - - -HERE, as on the other roads, the early advent of the Motor Car, in -1826, caused much commotion. The steam coaches of that period never -achieved any success on this route, but caricatures of what might be -expected were plentiful, and pictures of the Colchester "Dreadful -Vengeance," the Norwich "Buster," and other fanciful conveyances, in -the act of exploding and distributing their passengers in little pieces -over a wide stretch of country, were popular. The railway itself came -in for much abuse, and misguided and fanatical coach proprietors wasted -their substance in pitiful attempts to compete with it. Among these -was Israel Alexander, that Jewish hero of the Brighton Road in the -early forties, who, although a first-class whip, was perhaps chiefly -associated with the many upsettings of the Brighton "Quicksilver." He -fell out with his noble friends on that highway, and, coming to the -Norwich Road, ran a well-appointed coach to Colchester for a little -while, until even the Eastern Counties Railway, then the slowest on -earth, made the pace too quick for him. His turn-out was given the -extraordinary name of the "Duke of Beaufort's Retaliator," and might -have continued much longer to carry those who were prejudiced against -railways, had it not met with so many accidents. - -One who was contemporary with the coaching age has ingeniously divided -coaching accidents into three classes:--1. Accidents to the coach; 2. -Accidents to the horses; 3. Accidents to the harness. The most common -kind of mishap to the coach was, he says, the breaking of an axle. -This was not, as a rule, due to any faulty construction of that most -essential feature of a public conveyance, but to the overloading either -of passengers or goods, to which coaches were continually subject. The -sudden snapping of an axle at a high speed or on a down grade produced -a tremendous crash which generally shot coachman, guard and "outsides" -in all directions. Happy those who, in such a case, were received into -the thorny arms of a quickset hedge or the soft embraces of a mud-heap. - -Another kind of mishap, not always accidental, was that of a wheel -coming off; an incident often caused in early times, before the -introduction of patent axle-boxes, by the mischievous removal of the -lynch-pin by some unscrupulous rascal in the employ of the rival coach -proprietor. - -The sudden snapping of a skid-chain while descending a hill, resulting -in the coach running on to the horses and a general overthrow, in -which horses' legs and passengers heads came into unwonted contact, -was perhaps as uncomfortable a kind of disaster as could be imagined. -Overloading, too, sometimes had the effect of rendering a coach -top-heavy, when a slight lack of caution in running round curves would -upset it. - -Accidents to the horses were:--casting a shoe, involving lameness, and -perhaps a fall; tripping and stumbling on loose stones and rolling -over; slipping up in frosty weather; and kicking over the traces or the -splinter-bar. - -Accidents to the harness usually happened to the traces, which commonly -snapped under an uneven strain. To cobble them up with twine, and so -complete a stage, was a common practice. In such cases, the thoughts -of passengers during the remaining miles were, like those of the poet, -"too deep for words." Most nerve-shaking of all these varied and -untoward happenings, however, was the breaking of the reins. Rotted -by age, by the sun's heat and the winter's frosts, they would "come -away" in the coachman's hands at that worst of moments;--when he was -holding in his horses downhill. In that contingency, says our ancient, -who, in the modern slang phrase, has "been there," it was the approved -thing to say your prayers first and then take a flying leap (result, a -broken neck, or fractured leg: the bone protruding over the top of the -Blucher). - -"Then shrieked the timid and stood"--or, rather, sat--"still the -brave;" who had this consolation, that if they fared no better than -those who jumped, the odds were that they fared no worse. - -To be dragged at hurricane pace by four runaway horses (for in such -a case they generally _did_ so run) with the broken reins trailing -helplessly after them, was to acquire the knowledge of an inner meaning -in the word "terror." In escapades of this kind the "insides" were in -the most unenviable situation; for the "outsides," including coachman -and guard, took the better, if unheroic, part of crawling over the roof -and slipping down the back of the coach into the road. The wisdom of -their doing so would, in most cases, be proved a few seconds later by -the sound of a distant crash as the coach hurtled against some roadside -tree and dissolved into matchwork, while the "insides" were stuck as -full of splinters as a "fretful porcupine" of quills. - -The "human boy" was as much the terror of the old coachman as he is -of the modern cyclist. The sight of a boy with a hoop reduced him to -a state of purple indignation or of quivering anxiety, according to -temperament. Many an one of our great-grandfathers, attired in the odd -costume of boys in that period, and trundling a hoop along the road, -has felt the lash of the coachman's whip. The following little story -will show us why. - -"When a very little boy," says one of our forebears, "I once upset -a four-horse coach by losing control over my hoop, which, to my -consternation, bowled among the legs of the team. I shall never -forget the horror with which I for an instant saw the spirited -horses floundering about with that hateful hoop among them, or heard -the execrations of the coachman and the shouts of the passengers. -Abandoning the wretched plaything to its fate, I took to my heels down -a bye-lane, the portentous crash that followed only accelerating my -speed." - -Coach proprietors were favourite targets for Fate's worst shafts. -They were a hard-working, much-enduring class of men; up early and to -bed late, retiring in good circumstances and rising perhaps ruined -through some unforeseen accident. They were "common carriers" in law, -and bound under many Acts of Parliament to deliver goods uninjured at -their destination. As carriers of passengers, it is true, they were -only required to exercise all "due care and diligence" for the safety -of their customers, and were exempt from liability in case of mishaps -through the "act of God" or the unforeseen; but the observance of due -precautions and a daily inspection of the coach had to be proved in -case of injury to passengers, or in default they were held liable for -damages. - -Thus, the carelessness of any one of his many servants might mean -a very serious thing to a coach proprietor. In those days the old -Anglo-Saxon Law of Deodand was not only in existence, but in a very -nourishing and aggressive condition. Indeed, coaching had practically -rescued it from neglect. It was a law which, in cases of fatal -injuries, empowered the coroner's jury to levy a fine, which might vary -from sixpence to a thousand pounds, upon the object that caused the -mischief. - -The very multiplicity of tribunals before whom the personally -unoffending coach proprietor was liable to be haled was in itself -terrifying. There was the already-mentioned coroners jury; the jury on -the criminal side in trials at the Assizes for manslaughter, and the -other "twelve good men and true" who assessed damages in the Sheriff's -Court. - -How even the most well-meaning of men might thus suffer is evident -in the case of a proprietor who was cast in damages from excess of -caution. For additional security, and in order to protect it from road -grit, he had a part of an axle incased in wood. One day this axle broke -and a serious accident happened, resulting in an action against him for -damages. He lost the day; the judge ruling that, although no proof of a -defective axle was adduced, a flaw _might_ have existed which a proper -daily examination would have detected had the extra precaution for -safety not been adopted. - - -IX - - -WHAT Aldgate might now have been had the original intention of the -Eastern Counties directorate to place their terminus there been -successful, we need not stop to inquire. But, as a good deal has -already been said on the subject of coaches and coaching, it will be of -interest to learn what were the views of the projectors of the Eastern -Counties Railway. With their original prospectus was issued a map of -the proposed railway from London to Norwich and Yarmouth, by which it -appears that, instead of going to the left of the road from London, as -far as Seven Kings and Chadwell Heath, it was originally intended to -construct the line on the right of the road so far. Between Romford and -Chelmsford the line has been made practically as first proposed, but -onwards, from Chelmsford to Lexden, it is again on the other side of -the highway; and, north of Colchester, goes wide of the original plan -all the way to Norwich. - -In many ways this document is very much of a curiosity at this time, -as also are the hopes and aspirations of the directors at the first -General Meeting of the company. The chairman, for instance, confidently -anticipated dividends of 22 per cent., upon which one of the confiding -shareholders replied that the report was most satisfactory and the -prospects held out by no means overcharged. "If this understanding," -said he, "fails in producing the dividend of 22 per cent., calculated -upon in the report, then, I must say, human calculations and -expectation can no longer be depended upon." O! most excellent man. But -better is to come. - -"Should I live to see the completion of this and similar undertakings," -he resumed, "I do believe I shall live to see misery almost banished -from the earth. From the love I bear my species, I trust that I may -not be too sanguine, and that I may yet witness the happy end that I -have pictured to myself." His was, you think, the faith that might -have moved mountains; but it did not produce that promised 22 per -cent., nor, although we now have many thousands more miles of railway -than he ever dreamed of, has the millennium yet arrived. Even the most -far-seeing have not yet discovered any heralds of its approach. Let -us drop the tribute of a tear to the sorrows of this excellent person, -whose love of his species and touching anticipation of 22 per cent. -dividends were so beautifully blended, and so cruelly disappointed. - -For some years small (very small) dividends were paid. Hudson, the -"Railway King," paid them out of capital. "It made things pleasant," he -said, when charged with such financially immoral practices. Alas! poor -Hudson, you lived before your time, and went to another world before -such "dishonest" doings as yours were sanctified in principle by Acts -of Parliament which authorise payments of dividends out of capital in -the case of railways under construction. - -In 1848 the Eastern Counties Railway was in Chancery, and its very -locomotives and carriages were seized for debt; while for years -afterwards its name was a synonym for delay. The satirists of that -period were as busy with the Eastern Counties as those of our own time -are with the South-Eastern Railway. Every journey has an end; "even -the Eastern Counties' trains come in at last," said Thackeray, very -charitably. - -In 1862 it was amalgamated with several minor undertakings, and -re-named the "Great Eastern Railway"; "great in nothing but the name," -as the spiteful said. - -When matters were at their worst, the Lord Cranborne of that time was -invited to accept the position of chairman and to help extricate the -company from its difficulties. He accepted the post in January 1868 -and held it until December 1871. In April 1868 he had succeeded to the -title of Marquis of Salisbury. Thus the statesman and prime minister of -later years was once a great figure in the railway world. His financial -abilities helped to put the Great Eastern line on a firm basis, and -when he left it the railway was already greatly improved in every -respect. To-day, instead of being a "shocking example," it is a model -to be copied by other lines. - - -X - - -ALTHOUGH the last of the old coaches was long ago broken up, and the -Norwich Road is no longer lively with mail and stage travellers, it -has, in common with several other roads out of London, witnessed a -wholly unexpected revival, in the shape of the Parcel Mail service -between London and Ipswich. When the Parcel Post came into being on the -1st August 1883, it was speedily discovered by the General Post-office -authorities that in paying, according to contract, 55 per cent. of -the gross receipts to the railway companies for the mere carriage of -parcels, they were paying too much. Accordingly, a system of Parcel -Mail coaches was established on several of the old roads, commencing -with the London to Brighton Parcel Mail, in June 1887. A London and -Chelmsford four-horse mail was soon added, and this was shortly -afterwards extended to Colchester, and thence to Ipswich by cart. This -curious enterprise of the Post-office was immediately successful, -and it has ever since been found to effect a large saving over the -railway charges. Nor is time lost in delivery. The down mail leaves -London at a quarter to ten o'clock every night and the parcels arrive -at Colchester and Ipswich in time for the first delivery the next -morning; while the country parcels come up to London by an equally -early hour. The way in which the service is worked will be gathered -from the accompanying official way-sheet of the down mails. - - GENERAL POST OFFICE - - THE MOST NOBLE THE MARQUIS OF LONDONDERRY - Postmaster-General - - LONDON, CHELMSFORD, COLCHESTER, & IPSWICH ROAD - PARCEL SERVICE. - This - Guard's Remarks as Proper Actual Column - to Delays, &c. Times Times to be left - Date 190 . H. M. H. M. blank - - Coach Service Mount Pleasant P.M. - between Distance Parcel Office dep. 9 45 - London and M.F. - Colchester. 3 0 Eastern District {arr. 10 8 - Contractor-- P.O. {dep. 10 10 - C. Webster, - 279 Whitechapel - Road, E. 11 3 Romford {arr. 11 40 - {dep. 11 42 - Cart between A.M. - Colchester & 6 2 Brentwood {arr. 12 29 - Ipswich. {dep. 12 31 - - Contractor-- 5 0 Ingatestone {arr. 1 9 - F. W. Canham, {dep. 1 11 - Ipswich. - 6 0 Chelmsford {arr. 2 0 - {dep. 2 5 - - 8 6 Witham {arr. 3 13 - {dep. 3 15 - - 3 2 Kelvedon {arr. 3 41 - {dep. 3 43 - - 9 6 Colchester {arr. 5 0 - {dep. 5 5 - - Stratford St. {arr. 5 58 - Mary {dep. 6 0 - - 18 2 Ipswich arr. 7 20 - Signature - of Guard 71 5 - - T. E. SIFTON, Inspector-General of Mails. - - The Guard in charge of the Coach must report the cause of any Delay. - He must enter all Remarks and Times in the proper Columns. This Bill - to be sent, as addressed, by First Post. - - TIME-BILL OF THE CHELMSFORD, COLCHESTER AND IPSWICH - PARCEL MAIL. - -The up service, starting with the mail-cart from Ipswich at 7·9 p.m. -and continued from Colchester by four-horse van at 9·30 p.m., brings -the country parcels to Mount Pleasant at 4·30 a.m., throughout the -year. Up and down mails meet at Ingatestone at 1·9 a.m. On this -service, as on all others, the vans go through, but the drivers and -guards exchange places; the London men changing on to the van from -Colchester at Ingatestone, and returning to London; the Colchester men -taking over the down van and similarly returning whence they came. - -It is a curious and unexpected revival of old methods, but an entirely -successful one. No highwayman has ever attempted to "hold up" the -Parcel Mail, for the last of that trade has for generations mouldered -in his grave; but should any amateurs essay to complete this revival -of old coaching days by waylaying the mail, the guards would be found -well armed. Their virgin steel and untried pistols have for years been -carried without any excuse for using them; but there need be no doubt -that, were the occasion to arrive, they would defend their parcels--the -pounds of country butter, the eggs, and wild flowers, or the -miscellaneous consignment from London--with their hearts' blood. There -are more romantic things in the world to die for than postal parcels -of eggs, cheese and butter, but the ennobling word DUTY might glorify -such a sacrifice for the sake of a pound's weight of "best fresh," or a -dozen of "new laid." - -But although the possibility of attack is remote, a spice of danger and -romance savours the conduct of the parcel mails. - -The up Colchester Parcel Mail had a mishap on the night of October 11, -1890, when, owing to the prevailing fog, it was driven into a ditch -near Margaretting. Happily, both coachman and guard escaped injury, the -heavy vehicle resting against the hedge. The coachman, mounting one of -his team, and hurrying back to Chelmsford, succeeded in overtaking the -down coach, which, returning to the scene of the accident, unloaded and -transferred the parcels, and continued to London, leaving the down mail -to be forwarded with local help. It eventually arrived at Colchester -four hours late. - - -XI - - -COACHING days, old and new, having now been disposed of, we might -set off down the road at once, were it not that our steps are at -once arrested by the sight of the "Red Lion" Inn, at the corner of -Whitechapel Road and Leman Street, which, together with the "Old Red -Lion," adjoining, stands on a site made historic by Dick Turpin's lurid -career. - -It was in the yard of the old house that Turpin shot Matthew King -in 1737. He had stolen a fine horse belonging to a Mr Major, near -the "Green Man," Epping, and had been traced by means of the animal -to the inn, where he was found by the Bow Street runners in company -with Matthew and Robert King, birds of like feather with himself. The -landlord endeavoured to arrest King, who fired at him without effect, -calling to Turpin, "Dick! shoot him, or we are taken, by God!" - -Turpin had his usual extensive armoury on his person--three brace of -pistols and a carbine slung across his back. He fired, and shot Matthew -King, whether by accident or design is not known. King first exclaimed, -"Dick! you have shot me; make off," but is said afterwards to have -cursed him as he went, for a coward. King died a week later of his -wounds, Turpin fleeing to a deserted mansion in Essex, and thence to a -cave in Epping Forest. It is usually said that it was the more famous -Tom King who met so dramatic an end, but original authorities give -Matthew; and certainly we find _a_ Tom King, highwayman, decorously -executed at Tyburn eighteen years later. - -[Illustration: THE "OLD RED LION," WHITECHAPEL, WHERE TURPIN SHOT -MATTHEW KING. _From a Drawing by T. Hosmer Shepherd, 1854._] - -We have met Turpin before, notably at York, where he made an end, two -years after this exploit. This especial hero of the Penny Dreadful and -the romantic imagination of the average errand boy belongs especially -to this road, for he was an Essex man, born at Hempstead in 1705. -Apprenticed to a Whitechapel butcher in his youth, he commenced his -career of low villainy by stealing some cattle from a Plaistow -farmer, and then joined a band of smugglers and deer-stealers and -housebreakers in Epping Forest, where they set up a storehouse of -stolen goods in the cave just mentioned. This band became so notorious -that a sum of fifty guineas was soon offered for their arrest; but it -was not until the amount had been doubled that two of the ringleaders -were caught and hanged. The gang thus broken up, Turpin was reduced -to scouring the roads singly, and pursued a solitary career until one -dreary February night in 1735, while patrolling the Cambridge Road, -he saw a horseman approaching through the mist. At the time-honoured -demand, "Your money or your life!" the stranger simply laughed. - -"What!" said he, "should dog eat dog? We are of a like trade." - -Thus Turpin and Tom King met, and struck up a partnership. If only one -quarter of the deeds assigned to Turpin were true, his would be a very -gallant, as well as phenomenally busy, figure on the roads of England. -Although by no means a mythical person, the stories told of him nearly -all belong to the regions of romance, and his true history shows him to -have had few redeeming qualities. Many of the old knights of the road -were courageous, and hand in hand with their courage went a humour not -seldom kindly; but Turpin was a bloodthirsty ruffian whose courage is -not an established fact, and whose humour, like the "tender mercies of -the wicked," was cruel, not to say ferocious. It is quite hopeless to -attempt to finally destroy the great Turpin myth after this lapse of -time: Harrison Ainsworth's romance has enjoyed too great and too long a -popularity for that; but let the attempt here be made to paint him as -the cowardly ruffian he was. - -Whitechapel, quite apart from memories of Turpin, owns an unenviable -repute, and its very name is a synonym for villainy. Its bad savour, -however, goes back no greater distance in time than the first half -of the eighteenth century, for until that period it was not built -upon, and indeed "Whitechapel Common" was spoken of so late as 1761, -maps proving the old church to have been quite rural at that date. -Originally a chapel-of-ease to the great mother-parish of Stepney, -the district was erected into a separate parish so far back as the -fourteenth century and the original "white chapel"--doubtless so called -from its mediæval coats of whitewash--made a church. But old names -cling, and although it has been a church for over six hundred years, it -has not been able to confer its more dignified title upon the parish -itself. Thus the name of Whitechapel is doubly misleading nowadays, for -it is no longer a chapelry and its stately church is in red brick; so -that there is some force in the argument for re-christening the borough -and dignifying it by a revival of the old name of Eastminster, owned by -that not very fortunate Abbey of St Mary Grace, founded by Edward the -Third in 1348, which formerly stood on the site of the Royal Mint. - -[Illustration: WHITECHAPEL OLD CHURCH.] - -St Mary's, Whitechapel, is a beautiful church, built in 1877, burnt -August 20, 1880, and since restored. It replaced the ugly old building, -which was "taken down for the simple reason that it would not stand -up." The ancient wrangling over its full title of St Mary Matfelon is -not yet done, and rash would be he who voted for any particular one -among the rival derivatives of the name. Matfelon, holds one school, -was the name of a forgotten benefactor, whose particular benefactions -are not stated. Who, then, would found, since benefits are thus forgot? -"_Mariæ, matri et filio_," an ancient dedication, say others; while yet -different parties find its source in a Syriac word meaning "mother of a -son" = the Virgin Mary. Perhaps the most entertaining legend, however, -is that which tells how it originated in the killing of a murderer, -in 1429, by the women of Whitechapel. "Between Estren and Witsontyd, -a fals Breton mordred a wydewe in here bed, the which find hym for -almasse withought Algate, in the suburbes of London, and bar away alle -that sche hadde, and afterwards he toke socour of Holy Chirche in -Suthwark; but at the last he took the crosse and forswore the kynge's -land; and as he went hys waye, it happyd hym to come be the same place -where he had don that cursed dede, and women of the same parysh comen -out with stones and canell dong, and ther maden an ende of hym in the -hyghe strete." These things seem quite in keeping with Whitechapel's -evil fame. - -The old church, as it stood until well into the nineteenth century, is -shown opposite this page, with one of the old road-waggons crawling -past. In another view of the same date the High Street itself is -seen, its long perspective fully bearing out the old description of -spaciousness. At the same time, it is seen to be empty enough to -resemble the street of a provincial town. The houses are exceedingly -old, the road paved with knobbly stones, and the shop windows -artfully constructed with the apparent object of obstructing instead -of admitting the light. Very few of these old shop-fronts are now -left, but a good specimen is that of a bell-founding firm at No. 34 -Whitechapel Road. - -[Illustration: WHITECHAPEL ROAD IN THE COACHING AGE.] - -This old picture has long ceased to be representative of Whitechapel's -everyday aspect. The coach has long ago whirled away into limbo, -the elegantly-dressed groups have been gathered to Abraham's, or -another's, bosom, and Whitechapel knows their kind no more. Bustle, -and a dismal overcrowding of carts, waggons, costermongers' barrows, -tram-cars and omnibuses are more characteristic of to-day. Also, the -Jewish element is very pronounced; chiefly foreign Jews, inconceivably -dirty. Many of the shop-fronts bear the names of Cohen, Abraham, -Solomon and the like, and others ending in "baum," or "heim." But -on Tuesdays and Thursdays of every week the spacious street regains -something of its old rural character, in the open-air hay and straw -market held here, the largest in the kingdom. It fills the broad -thoroughfare and overflows into the side streets: the countrymen -who have come up on the great waggons by road from remote parts of -Essex lounging picturesquely against the sweet-smelling hay or straw, -attending to their horses, or refreshing in the old taverns. It is -Arcady come again. The eyes are gladdened by the long vista of the -hay-wains, and the nose gratefully inhales the rustic scent of their -heaped-up loads. It is true that Central Londoners also have their -so-called Haymarket, but hay is the least likely of articles to be -purchased there in these days. - -What do they think, those countrymen, of the Whitechapel folks, the -"chickaleary blokes," used, as a writer in the middle of the nineteenth -century remarked, to "all sorts of high and low villainy," from -robbery with violence to "prigging a wipe," and the selling of painted -sparrows for canaries? Nor was Whitechapel a desirable place when Mr -Pickwick travelled to Ipswich. "Not a wery nice neighbourhood," said -Sam, as they rumbled along the crowded and filthy street. "It's a wery -remarkable circumstance," he continued, "that poverty and oysters go -together.... The poorer a place is, the greater call there seems to -be for oysters.... An oyster-stall to every half-dozen houses. The -street's lined vith 'em. Blessed if I don't think that ven a man's -wery poor, he rushes out of his lodgings and eats oysters in regular -desperation." Sam was a keen observer; but there is now a deeper depth -than oysters. Periwinkles and poverty; whelks and villainy foregather -in Whitechapel at the dawn of the Twentieth Century. - -But the poverty and the villainy of Whitechapel must not be too greatly -insisted upon. They may easily be overdone. Loyal hearts and brave -lives--all the braver that they are not flaunted in the face of the -world--exist in the cheerless and unromantic grey streets that lead -off the main road. The domestic virtues flourish here as well as--if -not better than--in the West End. The heroes and heroines of everyday -life--the greater in their heroism that they do not know of it--live -in hundreds of thousands in the dingy and unrelieved dulness of the -streets to right and left of Whitechapel Road and of the Mile End Road, -that go with so majestic a breadth and purposeful directness to Bow. - - -XII - - -LET the Londoner who has never been "down East," and so is given to -speaking contemptuously of it, take a journey down the Whitechapel and -Mile End Roads, and see with what an astonishing width, both in respect -of roadway and foot-pavements, those noble thoroughfares are endowed. -The London he has already known owns no streets so wide, save only in -the isolated and unimportant instance of Langham Place; while, although -it cannot be said that, taken individually, the houses of the great -East-End thoroughfares are at all picturesque, yet there is a certain -interesting quality in the roads as a whole, lacking elsewhere. This, -doubtless, is partly explained by the strangeness of the East-ender's -garb, and partly by the many Jewish and other foreigners who throng the -pavements. - -A strangely-named public-house--the "Grave Maurice"--is one of the -landmarks of the Whitechapel Road. Many have set themselves the task of -finding the origin of that sign and its meaning; but their efforts have -been baulked by the very multiplicity of historic Maurices, grave or -otherwise. The sign may originally have been the "Graf Maurice," Prince -Maurice of Bohemia, brother of the better-known Prince Rupert, the -dashing cavalier, but a difficulty arises from the fact that there was -another "Graf Maurice" at the same time, in the person of the equally -well-known Prince Maurice of Nassau, who died of grief when the Spanish -overran Holland and besieged Breda. Nor does the uncertainty end here, -for Dekker uses the expression "grave maurice" in one of his plays, -written at least thirty years before the time of those princes, in a -passage which reads as though it were the usual nickname at that period -for an officer. - -Beyond the house owning this perplexing sign we come to the beginning -of the Mile End Road, one mile, as its name implies, from Aldgate, and -for long the site of a turnpike-gate, only removed with the close of -the Coaching Age. Rowlandson has left us an excellent view of Mile End -Turnpike as it was in his time; with isolated blocks of houses, groups -of rustic cottages and a background of trees, to show how rural were -the surroundings towards the close of the eighteenth century; while -maps of that period mark the road onwards, bordered by fields, with -"Ducking Pond Row" standing solitary and the ducking-pond itself close -behind, where the scolds and shrews of that age were soused. - -The Ducking-Pond as an institution is as obsolete as the rack, the -thumb-screw, and other ingenious devices of the "good old times"; but -most towns a hundred years ago still kept a cucking or ducking-stool; -while, if they had no official pond for the purpose, any dirty pool -would serve, and the dirtier it were the better it was esteemed. - -[Illustration: MILE END TURNPIKE, 1813. _After Rowlandson._] - -"The Way of punishing scolding Women is pleasant enough," says an old -traveller. "They fasten an Arm Chair to the End of two Beams, twelve or -fifteen Foot long, and parallel to each other: so that these two Pieces -of Wood, with their two Ends embrace the Chair, which hangs between -them on a sort of Axel; by which Means it plays freely, and always -remains in the natural horizontal Position in which a Chair should be, -that a Person may sit conveniently in it, whether you raise it or let -it down. They set up a Post upon the Bank of a Pond or River, and over -this Post they lay, almost in Equilibrio, the two Pieces of Wood, at -one End of which the Chair hangs just over the Water. They place the -Woman in the Chair, and so plunge her into the Water as often as the -Sentence directs, in order to cool her immoderate Heat." - -One has only to go and look at the average rural pond to imagine the -horrors of this punishment. The stagnant water, the slimy mud, the -clinging green duckwood, common to them, must have made a ducking the -event of a lifetime. - -The difference here, at Mile End, between those times and these is -emphasised by the close-packed streets on either side, and by the -crowded tram-cars that ply back and forth. - -Yet there are survivals. Here, for instance, in the little -old-fashioned weather-boarded "Vine" Inn that stands by itself, in -advance of the frontage of the houses, and takes up a goodly portion -of the broad pavement, we see a relic of the time when land was not -so valuable as now; when local authorities were easy-going, and when -anyone who had the impudence to squat down upon the public paths could -do so, and, remaining there undisturbed for a period of twenty-one -years, could thus derive a legal title to the freehold. Here, then, is -an explanation of the existence of the "Vine" in this position. - -Close by are the quaint Trinity Almshouses, built in 1695, for the -housing of old skippers and shellbacks. Wren designed the queer little -houses and the chapel that still faces the grassy quadrangle where the -old salts walk and gossip unconcernedly while the curious passers-by -linger to gaze at them from the pavement, as though they were some -strange kind of animal. Nothing so curious outside the pages of fiction -as this quiet haven in midst of the roaring streets, screened from them -by walls and gates of curious architecture surmounted by models of the -gallant old galleons that have long ceased to rove the raging main. -It is a spot alien from its surroundings, frowned down upon by the -towering breweries, which indeed would have bought the old place and -destroyed it a few years ago, but for the indignation aroused when the -proposal of the governing body of the almshouses to sell became known. - -There is nothing else to detain the explorer on his way into Essex. -The People's Palace, it is true, is a remarkable place, the result of -Sir Walter Besant's dream of a resort for those of the East who would -get culture and find recreation, but it is a dream realised as an -architectural nightmare, and is a very terrible example of what is done -to this unhappy quarter in the names of Art and Philanthropy. - - -XIII - - -AT last, by this broadest of broad roads, we come to Stratford-le-Bow -and its parish church. In these hurried times, and for some centuries -past, the old hyphenated place-name has been dropped, and as "Bow" -alone it is familiar to all East-enders. The place is nowadays chiefly -associated with Bryant & May and matches, but there yet remain many old -Queen Anne, and even earlier, mansions by the roadside, telling of days -long before "patent safeties" were thought of, and when flint and steel -and timber were the sole means of obtaining a light. - -"Bow," says the _Ambulator_ of 1774, "is a village a little to the -east of Mile End, inhabited by many whitsters and scarlet dyers. Here -has been set up a large manufactory of porcelain, little inferior to -that of Chelsea." That description is now somewhat out of date. The -manufactory of porcelain has long disappeared and Bow china is scarce, -and treasured accordingly. Whitsters--that is to say, bleachers of -linen--and scarlet dyers, also, are to seek. - -Bow Church confronts the eastward-bound traveller in bold and -rugged fashion; its time-worn tower standing midway of the road and -challenging, as it were, the crossing of the little River Lea, just -beyond, to Stratford and into Essex. Church and churchyard split the -road up into two channels and thus destroy its width, which it never -afterwards regains until the suburbs are passed and the open country -reached. A modern touch here is the bronze statue of Gladstone, in -advance of the church, facing westwards in declamatory attitude -from its granite pedestal, and erected in his lifetime; recalling -the fervent hero-worshipping days of the "People's William." The -outstretched hand is oddly crooked. Few be them that see statues raised -to themselves, unless indeed they be made of finer clay than most -mortals, kings and princes, and the like. Of recent years this bronze -Gladstone has, in our vulgar way, been made to preside, as it were, -over an underground public convenience, from whose too obtrusive midst -he rises, absurdly eloquent. - -[Illustration: BOW.] - -Just how Stratford-le-Bow received its name is an interesting piece -of history. Both here and at the neighbouring Old Ford the Lea was -anciently crossed by a paved stone ford of Roman construction, -continuing the highway into Essex; but when that river's many channels, -swollen by winter's rains, rolled in freshets toward the Thames, the -low-lying lands of what we now call Hackney and West Ham marshes were -for long distances converted into a sluggish lake. For months together -the approaches to the Lea were lost in floods, and the real channels of -the river became so deep that those who valued their lives and goods -dared not attempt the passage. To the aid of poor travellers thus -waterlogged came the good and pious Queen Matilda, consort of Henry the -First. "Having herself been well washed in the water," as old Leland -says, she fully appreciated the necessity for bridges, and accordingly -directed the raising of a causeway on either side of the Lea and the -building of two stone structures, of which one was the original "Bow" -Bridge; "a rare piece of work, for before that time the like had never -been seen in England." It seems to have been the stone arch that gave -its name of "Bow," and if an arched stone bridge was so remarkable in -those times that it should thus derive a name for its semi-circular, or -"bow" shape, it must have been either the first, or among the earliest, -of stone bridges built, in times when others were constructed of timber. - -The original name of the village that afterwards sprang up here, on the -hither or Middlesex shore, was thus singularly contradictory; meaning -"the street ford at the arched bridge." The Stratford on the Essex -side was in those days known as Stratford Langthorne. - -The good queen not only built the bridges and causeways, but endowed -them with land and a water-mill, conveying those properties to the -Abbess of Barking, burdened with a perpetual charge for the maintenance -of the works. Having done all this, she died. Some years afterwards a -Cistercian monastery was founded close by, where the Abbey Mills now -stand, and the then Abbess of Barking, of opinion that the Abbot of -that house, being near, would find it easier to look after the bridges -than herself, reconveyed the property, together with its obligations, -to him. The trust was kept for a time and then delegated to a certain -Godfrey Pratt, who had a house built for him on the causeway and -enjoyed an annual grant, in consideration of keeping the works in -repair. Pratt did so well with his annual stipend and the alms given -him by wayfarers that the Abbot at length discontinued the grant. -Accordingly, the wily Pratt set up a quite unauthorised toll-bar and -levied "pontage" on all except the rich, of whom he was afraid. This -went on for many years, until the scandal grew too great, and, in -consequence of an inquisition held, the Abbot dispossessed Godfrey -Pratt of his toll-bar and resumed the control himself. - -Meanwhile, no repairs had been effected, and the road had been so -greatly worn down that the feet of travellers and those of the horses -often went through the arches. Bow Bridge had, consequently, to undergo -an extensive cobbling process; a treatment, by the way, continued -through the centuries until 1835, when it was finally pulled down. - -In its last state it was a nondescript patchwork of all ages. The -property for its maintenance had, of course, been lost in the -confiscation of monastic estates under Henry the Eighth, and its repair -afterwards fell upon the local authorities, who always preferred to -patch and tinker it so long as such a course was possible. On February -14, 1839, the existing bridge was opened, crossing the Lea in one -seventy-foot span, in place of the old three arches. - - -XIV - - -"FAREWELL, Bowe, have over the bridge, where, I heard say, honest -Conscience was once drowned." - -Thus says Will Kemp, in his _Nine Days' Wonder_, the account of a -dance he jigged from London to Norwich in so many days, in 1600. It -is hopeless to recover the meaning hidden in that old joke about the -drowning of conscience here, and so we will also without delay "have -over" the modern bridge of Bow and into Essex, past dingy flour mills, -and crossing another branch of the Lea by Channelsea Bridge, come to -Stratford. - -Here, then, begins the county of calves, according to the popular -jest that to be a native of Essex is to be an "Essex Calf." It is not -generally regarded as a complimentary title, for of all young animals -the calf is probably the clumsiest and most awkward. To this day in -rural England the contemptuous exclamation "you great calf!" is used -of an awkward, overgrown boy tied to his mother's apron-strings. Yet, -if we may believe a seventeenth-century writer on this subject, the -nickname had a complimentary origin, "for," said he, "this county -produceth calves of the fattest, fairest and finest flesh in England." - -We have already seen that the French spoken at Stratford-le-Bow in -Chaucer's time was a scoff and a derision. To-day, neither on the -Middlesex nor the Essex shores of the Lea is the teaching of languages -either a matter for praise or contempt. Mills of every kind, the -making of matches that strike only on the box, the varied work of the -Stratford and West Ham factories, fully occupy the vast populations -close at hand; while the business of covering the potato-fields, the -celery-beds and the grounds of the old suburban mansions with endless -rows of suburban dwellings is engrossing attention down the road. -Stratford and Maryland Point are now strictly urban, and Ilford far -greater in these days than it ever was when its "great" prefix was -never pretermitted. London, indeed, stretches far out along this road, -and the country is reached only after many miles of that debatable -land which belongs neither to country nor town. Heralds of the great -metropolis appear to the London-bound traveller while he is yet far -away, and even so far distant as Chelmsford "the dim presentiment of -some vast capital," as De Quincey remarks, "reaches you obscurely like -a misgiving." - -Stratford has not improved since coaches left the road. It has grown -greatly, and grown dirty, squalid and extremely trying to noses that -have not been acclimatised to bone-boiling works, manure factories and -other odoriferous industries. But it is a place of great enterprises -and great and useful markets, and when its introductory mean streets -are passed, the Broadway, where the Leytonstone Road branches off to -the left, looks by contrast quite noble. This brings one to Upton -Park, Forest Gate, Woodgrange and Manor Park in succession, past a -building which, whether as an institution or an example of beautiful -architecture, would well grace the West. The West Ham Public Library -and Technical Institute is here referred to. "Irish Row," on the -way, marked on old maps, is a reference to old wayside cottages -inhabited until recent years by a turbulent colony of London-Irish -market-gardening labourers, subsidised by Mrs Nelson in times of -coaching competition to impede hated rivals as they came past the -"Rising Sun" at what is now the suburb of Manor Park; a house which, -like the "Coach and Horses" at Upton, has declined from a legitimate -coaching trade to something more in the gin-palace sort. This is not -to say that the staid and decorous Mrs Nelson entered into direct -negotiations with the Mikes and Patseys of Irish Row, but when the -rival Ipswich "Umpire" or the "New Colchester" coaches developed much -sporting competition and their coachmen evinced a dogged determination -to be first over Bow Bridge on the way up to London, and, by -consequence, the first to arrive at their destination, why, an obscure -hint or two on the part of one of her numerous staff, accompanied by -the wherewithal for a drink, produced wonders in the way of highway -obstruction. But such recollections are become unsubstantial as the -fabric of which dreams are made, and fade before the apparitions of -tramways and interminable rows of suburban shops that conduct to Ilford -Bridge. - -Great Ilford lies on the other side of the sullen Roding, that rolls -a muddy tide in aimless loops to lazily join the Thames at Barking -Reach. The townlet has from time immemorial been approached by a bridge -replacing the "eald," or old, ford, whence its name derives and not -from that crossing of the stream being an "ill" ford, as imaginative, -but uninstructed, historians would have us believe; although the slimy -black mud of the river-bed would nowadays make the exercise of fording -an ill enough enterprise. Ilford is now in the throes of development -and is fast losing all individuality and becoming a mere suburb. Let us -leave it for places less sophisticated. - -The morris-dancing Will Kemp of 1600, leaving Ilford by moonshine, set -forward "dauncing within a quarter of a mile of Romford, where two -strong Jades were beating and byting either of other." We take this -to mean two women fighting on the road, until the context is reached, -where he says that their hooves formed an arch over him and that he -narrowly escaped being kicked on the head. It then becomes evident that -he is talking of horses. - -Leaving the centre of Great Ilford behind, and in more decorous -fashion than that of Will Kemp, we come, past an inn oddly named -the "Cauliflower"--probably as a subtle compliment to the abounding -market-gardens of the neighbourhood--to the long, straight perspective -of the road across Chadwell Heath. Unnumbered acres of new suburban -"villa" streets now cover the waste on either side, so that the -beginnings of the plain are not so much heath as modern suburb, -created by the Great Eastern Railway's suburban stations and by the -far-reaching enterprises of land corporations, which here carry on the -usual speculations of the speculative builder on a gigantic scale. In -acre upon acre of closely-packed streets, each one with a horrible -similarity to its neighbour, thousands of the weekly wage-earning -clerks, mechanics and artisans of mighty London live and lose their -individuality, and pay rent to limited companies. Where the highwayman -of a century ago waited impatiently behind the ragged thickets and -storm-tossed thorn trees of Chadwell Heath for the traveller, there -now rises the modern township of Seven Kings, and midway between -Ilford station and that of Chadwell Heath, the recent enormous growth -of population on this sometime waste has led to the erection of the -new stations of "Seven Kings" and "Goodmayes," while widened lines -have been provided for the increased train services. "Seven Kings" -is a romantic name, but who those monarchs were, and what they were -ever doing on the Heath, which of old was a place more remarkable for -cracked skulls than for crowned heads, is impossible to say. Many wits -have been at work on the problem, but have been baffled. The natural -assumption is that at this spot, marked on old maps as "Seven Kings -Watering," the seven monarchs of the Heptarchy met. History, unhappily -records no such meeting, but there was no _Court Circular_ in those -times, and so many royal foregatherings must have gone unremarked, -except locally and in some fashion similar to this. So let us assume -the kings met here and watered their horses at the "watering," which -was a place where a little stream crossed the road in a watersplash. -The stream still crosses the highway, but civilisation has put it in a -pipe and tucked it away underground. - -[Illustration: SEVEN KINGS.] - -A lane running across the Great Eastern Railway at this point, known as -Stoup Lane ("stoup" meaning a boundary-post) marks the boundary of the -Ilford and Chadwell wards of Barking parish. Here it was, in 1794, on a -night of December, that a King's messenger, James Martin by name, was -shot by five footpads. The register of St Edmund's, Romford, records -the burial of this unfortunate man on the 14th of that month. - -Let us not, however, in view of the more or less grisly dangers that -still await belated wayfarers on this road, enlarge too greatly on -the lawlessness of old times; for the homeward-bound resident making -for his domestic hearth in these new-risen suburbs towards the stroke -of ten o'clock is not infrequently startled by the sinister figure -of a footpad springing from the ragged hedges of Chadwell Heath and -demanding--_not_ his money or his life, as in the old formula, but--a -halfpenny! This invariable demand of the nocturnal Chadwell Heath -footpads, which argues a pitiful lack of invention on their part, is -for half the price of a drink. - -"You haven't got a ha'p'ny about you, guv'nor?" asks the threatening -tramp. - -"No," says the peaceful citizen, anxiously scanning the long -perspective of the road for the policeman who ought to be within -sight--but is not; "w-what do you want a halfpenny for?" - -"I've walked all the way from Romford and only got half the price of a -glass o' beer," says the rascal. - -The citizen is astonished and incredulous, and his astonishment gets -the better of his fear. "Oh, come now," he rejoins, "no one walks three -miles from Romford for a glass of beer; besides, all the houses here -close at ten o'clock." - -"Oh, they do, do they?" replies the tramp, offensively. "'Ere, my -mate Bill'll talk to you," and, whistling, the ominous bulk of Bill -emerges aggressively from the darkling hedge, and together they proceed -to wipe the road with that respectable ratepayer, and, rifling his -pockets, leave him, bruised and bleeding, to reflect on the blessings -of civilisation and to be thankful that he was not born a hundred years -ago, when he might have been shot dead instead of being felled to the -ground by the half-brick in a handkerchief which he finds beside him -and takes home as a trophy. - -Chadwell Street, a wayside hamlet, conducts past Beacontree Heath, -on the right, to an open country of disconsolate-looking contorted -elms and battered windmills, telling even in the noontide heats and -still airs of summer of the winter winds that race across the watery -flats of Rippleside and Dagenham Marshes, out of the shivering east. -Lonely, until quite recent times, stood "Whalebone House," beside the -road, the two whalebones that even yet surmount its garden entrance -the wonderment for more than two hundred years of chance travellers. -Legends tell that they are relics of a whale stranded in the Thames in -the year of Oliver Cromwell's death, and set up here in memory of him. -However that may be, they certainly were here in 1698, when Ogilby's -_Britannia_ was published, for the house is marked on his map as "Ye -Whalebone." - -These "rude ribs," it may shrewdly be suspected, have little longer yet -to remain, for though apparently proof against decay, the house and -grounds are, like those of the surrounding properties, for sale to the -builders. - -[Illustration: WHALEBONE HOUSE.] - -The sole historic or other vestige remaining of the "Whalebone" -turnpike-gate, once standing here, is an account to be found in the -newspapers of the time of an attack made upon George Smith, the -toll-keeper, on a night in 1829. He was roused in the darkness by a -voice calling "Gate!" and, going to open it, was instantly knocked -down, in a manner somewhat similar to the treatment accorded the hero -of that touching nursery rhyme, who tells how:-- - - "Last night and the night before, - Three tom-cats came knocking at my door. - I went down to let them in, - And they knocked me down with a rolling-pin." - -The two men who felled the unfortunate George Smith, alarmed by his -cries of "Murder!" threatened to shoot him if he were not quiet, -and, going over his pockets, were rewarded by a find of twenty-five -shillings. While they were thus engaged in sorting him over, a third -confederate, ransacking the house, discovered three pounds. With this -booty and a parting kick, they left their victim, and disappeared as -silently as they came. - - -XV - - -ROMFORD, now approached, is but twelve miles from London, and has -frankly given up the impossible and ceased all pretence of being -provincial. At the same time, building-land having only just (in the -speculator's phrase) become "ripe for development," the townlet has not -yet lost all individuality in suburban extension. - -The place, say some antiquaries, derives its name from the "Roman -ford" on the Rom brook, but it is a great deal more likely that the -origin is identical with that of the first syllable in the names of -Ramsgate, Ramsey and Romney, and comes from the Anglo-Saxon "ruim" = -a marsh. Time was when the town was celebrated for its manufacture -of breeches; an industry which gave rise to a saying still current in -the less polished nooks and corners of Essex--"Go to Romford and get -your backsides new bottomed." Breeches have long ceased to be a noted -product of the town, which for many years past has bulked large in the -annals of Beer. Barricades, avenues, mountains and Alpine ranges of -barrels, hogsheads, firkins and kilderkins of Romford ale and stout -proclaim that the Englishman's preference for his "national drink" has -not abated, and that - - "Damn his eyes, whoever tries - To rob a poor man of his beer" - -is still a popular sentiment; as both the brewers of arsenical -compounds and the more rabid among teetotallers are some day likely to -discover. - -[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO ROMFORD.] - -A French traveller in England some two hundred years ago wrote that -"there are a hundred sorts of Beer made in England, and some are -not bad: Art has well supplied Nature in this particular. Be that as -it will, beer is Art and wine is Nature; I am for Nature against the -world." That old fellow did not know how artful beer could be, and if -he could re-visit his native France might discover that even wine is no -longer the simple child of nature it once was. - -But although John Barleycorn is the tutelary deity of Romford, it is -quite conceivable that the stranger bound for Norwich, and turning -neither to right nor to left, might pass through the town without so -much as a glimpse obtained of those Alpine ranges aforesaid. True, -on entering Romford, he could scarce fail to observe certain weird -structures ahead: odd towers like first cousins to lighthouses, -springing into the sky line, with ranges of perpendicular pipes, like -the disjointed fragments of some mammoth organ, beside them, the -characteristic signs and portents of a great brewery; but the barrels -are secluded, nor even are Romford's streets blocked, as might have -been suspected, with brewers' drays. Romford, indeed, spells to the -uninstructed stranger rather bullocks than beer; for the cattle-pens -are the chief feature of its market-place, and sheep and hay and straw -bulk more in the eye of the road-farer than the products of Ind, Coope -& Co., which are to be seen in all their vastness beside the railway -station and on the sidings constructed especially for the trade in ale -and stout. - -[Illustration: ROMFORD.] - -The town in its most characteristic aspect is seen in the accompanying -illustration taken from the doorway of that old inn, the "Windmill and -Bells," the broad road margined with granite setts and the pavements -fenced with posts and rails; the re-built parish church prominent -across the market-place. - -[Illustration: OLD TOLL-HOUSE, PUTTELS BRIDGE.] - -Beyond Romford the road grows rural, and, by the same token, hilly. -This, gentle reader, let it not be forgotten, is Essex, and we all -know with what persistence that county is spoken of, and written of, -as flat. If you would know what flatness is, try the Great North Road -and its long levels between Baldock, Biggleswade and Alconbury, or -search Bedfordshire, Lincolnshire or Hunts. _There_ is flatness, beside -which that of Essex is the merest superstition, started probably by -some tired traveller of inconstant purpose, who, essaying to explore -the county, gave up the enterprise when he had reached Wanstead Flats. -Surveying that not highly romantic expanse, he took it as an exemplar -of the rest of the shire, and so returned home to start this immortal -myth on its career. Certainly no cyclist who knows his Essex will -subscribe to its flatness as an article of faith, and as such an one -cycles from Romford, through the hamlet of Hare Street, over Puttels -Bridge, where stands an old toll-house, to the other hamlet of Brook -Street, the fact that he will actually have to _walk_ his machine up -the steep hill that conducts into the town of Brentwood will cause him -to think hard things of myth-makers. - -[Illustration: THE "FLEECE," BROOK STREET.] - -Brook Street Hill is the name of this eminence. Beside it stands a -cemetery, convenient for brakeless cyclists who recklessly descend, and -at its foot is a fine old inn, the "Fleece," a house of call for the -fish-waggons that were once so great a feature of this road so far as -Colchester and Harwich. - -[Illustration: THE MARTYR'S TREE, BRENTWOOD.] - -Brentwood, on the crest of this hill, occupies an elevated table-land, -with sharp descents from it on every side. The "burnt wood" town, -destroyed in some forgotten conflagration, is now a long-streeted, -old-fashioned place, apparently in no haste to bid good-bye to the -past. It keeps the old Assize House of Queen Elizabeth's time in -repair, and carefully sees to it that the Martyr's Tree, decayed though -the old elm stump be and hollow, is saved from perishing altogether. -It was in 1555 that William Hunter, in his twentieth year, suffered -in this place for denying the doctrine of transubstantiation. That -staunch upholder of the Protestant faith scarce needed the modern -memorial, close by, while this shattered trunk remained, its gaping -rents carefully bricked up by pious hands; but let the venerable relic -be doubly safe-guarded in these times, when that candle lit by Latimer -and Ridley, close upon three centuries and a half ago, burns dim, and -lawless and forsworn clergy within the Church of England are working -towards Rome and the return of the famous days of fire and stake; when -the blood of the martyrs has ceased to inspire a generation which -demands to be shown some tangible object before it can realise the -significance of that sacrifice. Here, then, is something that can be -seen and touched, to bring the least imaginative back in fancy to those -terrible days, when brave hearts of every class gave up their lives in -fire and smoke rather than abjure their faith. The Romanising clergy -of to-day are made of coarser fabric than the martyrs. _They_ are not -actuated by honesty, but take oaths they have no intention of observing -to a Church whose bread they eat and whose trust they betray. - -Would you know something of that martyrdom at Brentwood? Then scan the -inscription on the modern granite obelisk, and control, if you can, a -righteous indignation when you perceive a modern Roman Catholic chapel -standing, impudent in these days of an exaggerated tolerance, over -against the Martyr's Tree itself, typifying the Scarlet Woman in midst -of her blasphemies, exultant over the blood of the saints. "He being -dead yet speaketh," quotes that inscription; but what avails it to -speak in the ears of the deaf, or to talk of honour to the perjured? -"Learn from his example," continue those momentous words, "to value -the privilege of an open Bible, and be careful to maintain it"; but -the world goes by unheeding, and only when the danger again becomes -acute and liberty of conscience is passing away will indifference be -conquered and the folly of it revealed. - - -XVI - - -BRENTWOOD still keeps a notable relic of coaching days in the old -"White Hart" Inn, a curious specimen of the timbered and galleried -type of hostelry familiar to our great-grandfathers. It turns a long -plastered front to the street, but the great carved and panelled -doorway leading into the coach-yard confirms the proud legend, -"Established 1480." Full forty coaches passed through Brentwood in -every twenty-four hours at the close of the Coaching Age, but the -earlier days of coaching brought the "White Hart" more custom than -came to it at the close of that era, when, in consequence of the roads -being improved, travelling was quicker, and places once halted at were -left behind without stopping. Innkeepers were considerable losers by -this constant acceleration of coaches, and saw the smart, long-distance -stages go dashing by where, years before, the old slow coaches stayed -the night, or, at the very least, halted for meals. - -The "White Hart" remains typical of the earlier times, and still keeps -the old-world comfort regretted in other places by De Quincey, who -lived long enough to witness the beginnings of the great changes that -have come over the hotels of town and country since coaches gave place -to railways. - -[Illustration: YARD OF THE "WHITE HART," BRENTWOOD.] - - -XVII - - -BRENTWOOD is no sooner left behind than the road descends steeply -over what was once a part of Shenfield Common, an exceedingly wild -and hillocky spot in days gone by, and probably the place where, in -November 1692, those seven jovial Essex squires mentioned by Macaulay -were themselves, while hunting the hare, chased and at last run down -by nine hunters of a different sort, who turned their pockets out and -then bade them good-day and be damned. The original chronicler of -this significant incident, the diarist, Narcissus Luttrell, makes no -especial feature of the event. He merely records it as having happened -"near Ingerstone," and then proceeds to chronicle other happenings in -the same sort along the several approaches to London. Little wonder, -therefore, that Macaulay should have drawn the conclusion that at this -time a journey of fifty miles through the wealthiest and most populous -shires of England was as dangerous as a pilgrimage across the deserts -of Arabia. - -From the descending road or from Shenfield Church the country is seen -spread out, map-like, below, over the valley of the Thames, to where -the river empties itself into the broad estuary at the Nore. At least, -there is the vale, and the map vouchsafes the information that the -river flows thereby; but the compacted woodlands shut out the view of -that imperial waterway. "I cannot see the Spanish fleet, because it's -not in sight," says the disappointed searcher of the horizon in the -poem, and it is precisely for the same reason that the Thames is not -visible from Shenfield. But if one is denied a view of that imperial -river, at least Shenfield Church itself and its churchyard, a prodigal -riot of roses of every hue and habit, are worth seeing. The attenuated -shingled spire, one of the characteristic features of Essex churches, -beckons insistently from the road, and he who thereupon turns aside is -well repaid, in a sight of the elaborately-carved timber columns of -the interior, proving how in this county, where building stone is not -found, thirteenth and fourteenth-century builders made excellent shift -with heart of oak. This is, in fact, like so many other Essex churches, -largely wooden, and its timber is as sound now as it was six or seven -hundred years ago. - -[Illustration: SHENFIELD.] - -Mountnessing, known locally as "Money's End" lies two miles distant -from Shenfield. As in the case of so many other places near the -great roads, a comparatively recent settlement bearing the name of -the old village sprang up, to catch the custom of travellers; but an -additionally curious fact is the utter extinction of the original -village, which lay a mile distant from the highway, where the parish -church now stands lonely, save for a neighbouring farmstead. Explorers -in the countryside are often astonished at the great distances -between villages and their parish churches, and seek in vain in their -guide-books or in talk with the "oldest inhabitant" an explanation of -so curious a thing. Here, as in many cases, the root of the mystery is -found in the enclosure of the surrounding common lands. The enclosure -of commons has never been possible without the passing of special Acts, -which have divided what should have been the heritage of the people -for all time between the lord of the manor and the villagers, in their -proper proportions. Thus the lord of the manor and the tenants would -each obtain their share of the plunder, in the form of freehold land, -with the obvious result that the villagers, instead of paying rent for -their cottages clustering round the church in the original village, -built themselves new and rent-free cottages on their share of the spoil -of the commons. The old cottages being pulled down, or allowed to -decay, it was not long before the last trace of the original village -disappeared. - -[Illustration: MOUNTNESSING CHURCH.] - -Mountnessing was once the seat of the Mounteneys, who have long since -vanished from their old home. The old church, largely red brick without -and timber within, still preserves the fossil rib-bone of an elephant, -long regarded with reverence by the country folk as the rib of a giant, -and has for an additional curiosity the carving of a head on one of -the pillars, a head fitted, perhaps by way of warning to Early English -parishioners of shrewish tendencies, with a brank, or "scold's bridle." -The red-brick west front of the church, masking the wooden belfry-frame -from the weather, still bears the date, 1653, carved in the brick, -but such is the fresh appearance of the brickwork that without that -evidence of age it would be difficult to credit it with so long an -existence. The iron ties in the shape of the letter S give the view -a singular appearance. An apologetic epitaph in verse, beginning, -"Reader, excuse the underwritten," is a curiosity of Mountnessing -churchyard. - -[Illustration: MOUNTNESSING WINDMILL.] - -Returning to the road, Mountnessing Street, as the modern settlement is -named, is seen clustering on a hill-top, around four cross-roads and -a wayside pond. The place may aptly be summarised as consisting of a -dozen cottages, two public-houses, a general "stores" (our grandfathers -would have been content with the less pretentious word "shop"), a tin -tabernacle to serve those too infirm or too lazy to walk a mile to -church; a sweep's shop, a tailor's, and a windmill situated on a knoll; -a windmill that for picturesqueness might win the enthusiasm of a Crome -or a Constable. - -From this point it is, as a milestone proclaims, two miles to -"Ingatstone," the "Ingatestone" of customary spelling. The milestones -are undoubtedly strictly correct in their orthography, if erring on -the pedantic side, for that village derives its name from a settlement -of the Anglo-Saxons by the "ing" or meadow, at the Roman milestone -they found here, but has long since disappeared. "Ing-atte-stone" -they called their village, which lies in the little valley of the -River Wid, or Ash, trickling (for it is a stream of the smallest) -hither and thither to give a perennial verdure to the meads along its -course. "Ing" is, by consequence, a marked feature of the place-names -successively met with along the River Wid. Mounteney's Ing we have -already seen, and Fryerning, or Friars' Meadow, is not far away; while -Margaretting, the prettiest name of all, lies beyond Ingatestone. - -[Illustration: THE GATEHOUSE, INGATESTONE HALL.] - -Ingatestone's one street, fronting on to the highroad, is of the -narrowest, and remains in almost every detail exactly as it is pictured -in the old print reproduced here, with the red-brick tower of the -church still rising behind. It is a tower which by no means looks its -age of over four hundred years, so deceptive is the cheery ruddiness -of the brick. Within, by the chancel, is the monument of that Sir -William Petre who, emulating the accommodating qualities of the famous -Vicar of Bray, bowed before the religious storms of the reigns of Henry -the Eighth, Edward the Sixth, Mary and Elizabeth. "Made of the willow -and not of the oak," those tempests not only left him unscathed, but -brought him much plunder. Under Henry he was enriched with the manor -of Ingatestone, plundered from the Abbey of Barking, together with -much spoil elsewhere. How he managed to do it is a mystery, but during -the reign of Mary this ardent Catholic (for such the Petres always -have been) actually obtained a Papal Bull confirming him and his in -these grants. One marvels, when gazing upon his high-nosed effigy, -recumbent beside his wife, how one with that noble physiognomy could -be so accomplished a time-server and truckler. His home, plundered -from the nuns of Barking, and known for many years as Ingatestone -Hall, is yet to be seen at a short distance from the road, down a -beautifully-timbered country lane. The entrance is by a gatehouse -with the motto, "_Sans Dieu Rien_," situated at the end of an avenue -and framing in its archway a fine view of the romantic old red-brick -turreted buildings of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Lord -Petre of to-day does not reside here, but the place is still in the -family, and the Roman Catholic chapel is even now in use. Miss Braddon -is perhaps scarce to be numbered among those novelists whose literary -landmarks are followed with interest, but it is claimed for Ingatestone -Hall that it is the scene of her _Lady Audley's Secret_. The -fish-ponds of old monastic times, the well in which Lady Audley thrust -her husband, the lime-walk he haunted, together with such romantic -accessories as terraced walks and a priest's hiding-hole, form items -which would require the business enthusiasm of an eloquent auctioneer -to fully enlarge upon. They _do_ say--the "they" in question being the -gossips of Ingatestone--that the guard and driver of the Parcel Mail, -passing at 1·15 a.m. the head of the avenue leading from the high road, -once saw "a something" in white mysteriously sauntering beneath the -trees, but whether it was the shade of an Abbess of Barking or one -of the sisters thus bewailing the fate of their old home, or merely -a white cow, remains an unsolved mystery, the Postmaster-General's -regulations and time-sheets not allowing for time spent in psychical -research. - -[Illustration: INGATESTONE IN COACHING DAYS. _From an Old Print_] - -The shingled spire of Margaretting Church is visible on the right, soon -after leaving Ingatestone. Like the church of Mountnessing, it has its -timbered belfry-framing, and like it again, is remote from the village, -standing solitary, save for the vicarage and a farmhouse, beside a -railway crossing--if, indeed, any building adjoining the main-line of a -great railway may ever be called solitary. The Margaret thus honoured -in the place-name is the Saint to whom the church is dedicated. Some -traces of the "marguerite," or herbaceous daisy, painted on the old -windows, in decorative allusion, remained until they were swept away -for modern stained-glass in memory of a late vicar and his family; -glass in which Saint Margaret has no place; so that, save for an -inscription on one of the bells, she now remains unhonoured in her -own church, deposed in favour of Isaiah and Jeremiah and subjects -kept "in stock" by the modern ecclesiastical art furnisher. The only -remaining ancient glass is that of the east window, a magnificent -fifteenth-century "tree of Jesse." - -[Illustration: AT MARGARETTING.] - -Margaretting Street fringes the wayside at the twenty-fifth milestone, -where a post-office and some few scattered cottages straggle -picturesquely at the foot of an incline leading up to Widford. The -odious wall of pallid brick that helps so materially to spoil some -two miles of this road is the park wall of Hylands, a large estate -purchased about 1847 by one John Attwood, a successful ironmaster, who -stopped up roads, pulled down cottages, and raised this eyesore to -enclose his new-made park. Almost as soon as the last brick was put -in its place, the autocratic Attwood became utterly ruined by railway -speculations, and his walled-in Eden was sold. Nature in the meanwhile -has done her best, and a continuous fringe of trees now overhangs the -ugly wall, while at a break in it, where the River Wid crosses beneath -the road, water-lilies gem the stream and the wind sounds in the -luxuriant Lombardy poplars with the sound of a waterfall. - -If it were not for its church, which has been re-built and has a very -fine and tall spire, one might easily pass Widford and not know it, -for the very few houses do not suffice to make a village. Such as it -is, it stands on the crest of something not quite so much as a hill -and rather more than an incline, and beside its large church has an -equally fine and large and brand-new inn, the "White Horse." Time was, -and that until three years since, when Widford was celebrated for its -one other inn, the "Good Woman," or, as it was sometimes styled, the -"Silent Woman"; a bitter jest emphasised by the picture-sign of a -headless woman, with the inscription, _Fort Bone_, on one side, and a -portrait of Henry the Eighth on the other. "_Fort Bone_" was commonly -Englished by slangy cyclists as "good business." The sign, of course, -was a pictorial and satiric allusion to Anne Boleyn, but it remains an -open question whether or not in their present form this and the several -other "Quiet Woman" and "Good Woman" signs throughout the country are -perversions of the original legend, "_la bonne fame_" displayed on old -inns in the distant past; an inscription laudatory of the hostelry, -and matching the self-recommendation of "_la bonne rénommée_," found -in modern France, or the more familiar "noted house for--" and "good -pull up" inscriptions on inns in modern England. Virgil's description -of Fame, walking the earth, her head lost to sight in the clouds, -may have originated the pictorial sign of the headless woman in days -of ancient learning; and the classic allusion becoming lost and the -supposedly incorrect spelling of "_fame_" being altered to "_femme_," -we thus obtain a very reasonable derivation. We may take it that many -shrew-bitten folks, innkeepers and customers alike, readily agreed to -forget the original meaning in order to adopt one so exactly fitting -their opinion that the only quiet or good women were headless ones. - -[Illustration: THE "GOOD WOMAN" SIGN.] - -Unhappily, in that senseless itch for change that is robbing places of -all interest and distinction, the sign of the "Good Woman" no longer -swings from its accustomed place, and the bay-windowed inn opposite the -"White Horse" has retired into private life. The picture sign is now -housed inside the "White Horse." - - -XVIII - - -WIDFORD almost immediately introduces the explorer to Moulsham -(originally the "mole's home"), itself own brother--but a very -out-at-elbows brother--to Chelmsford. If we wished to put the wind -between our gentility and the somewhat fusty purlieu of Moulsham, we -should turn to the left at the fork of the roads, half a mile short of -the town, and so, proceeding along the "new London road," come into -Chelmsford, half way down the High Street. Being, however, intent -rather upon old roads than new, we will e'en endure the half-mile -length of shabby, untidy street, and thus come bumpily into Chelmsford, -the county town of Essex, the Metropolitan City of Calves, over the -hunchbacked and narrow stone bridge across the Chelmer, the successor, -at an interval of seven hundred years or so, of the original bridge -built by Maurice, Bishop of London. That is a huge slice of time, but -it was too late, even in Norman days, for the town to change its name -from Chelmers_ford_ to something more appropriate when the ford was -thus superseded. - -Straight ahead over this bridge goes the High Street of the town, -the view closed by the Shire Hall and the church; the Norwich Road, -however, turning abruptly to the right, by the Conduit, and refusing -to make acquaintance with the town. It is the Conduit that is seen in -this illustration of the High Street, its architecture scarce improved -by the placing of an electric lamp, alleged to be ornamental, over its -cupola. - -[Illustration: THE BRIDGE: ENTRANCE TO CHELMSFORD.] - -Chelmsford church and the Shire Hall, seen at the end of this view, -spoil one another, the Hall almost entirely hiding the church when -looking down the High Street, and the dignified Perpendicular exterior -of the church putting the clumsy architecture of the Hall to shame, -as a pagan upstart. The Shire Hall has its terrors for some, but -its architecture, alleged to be classic, alone concerns the passing -stranger, who feels so concerned by sight of it that he accordingly -passes the quicker. A captured Russian gun and the seated bronze effigy -of a native, a bygone Lord Chief Justice (who looks whimsically like -an old apple-woman crouching over her basket, and drops green coppery -stains over his nice stone pedestal) keep one another company in the -open space fronting this building. - -[Illustration: THE CONDUIT, CHELMSFORD.] - -The L.C.J. in question was Nicholas Tindal, whose career came to a -close in 1806. The monument was erected in 1850, "to preserve for all -time the image of a judge whose administration of English law, directed -by serene wisdom, assisted by purest love of justice, endeared by -unwearied kindness, and graced by the most lucid style, will be held by -his country in undying remembrance." His birthplace could hardly have -said more than that. - -[Illustration: TINDAL'S STATUE.] - -Chelmsford stands not upon the ancient ways, being indeed very severely -bitten with a taste for modernity. Is it not famous as the first town -in the kingdom to adopt electric lighting, and have not its streets -been resolutely swept clear of antiquity? The town, in short, is -scarce picturesque. It is busy in the agricultural way on Fridays, -but on other occasions every house provokes a yawn, with perhaps the -exception of the "Saracen's Head," an inn that, despite its modernised -and stuccoed frontage, keeps some memories of old times. There was a -"Saracen's Head" here certainly as far back as the fifteenth century, -and probably much earlier. Like all the signs of that name, it derived -from Crusading times, when the knights and men-at-arms, returning -from Palestine with wounds and spoils from the pagan; with monkeys, -leprosy, tall stories, and other relics out of the Holy Land, found -their fame come home before them, and the old inns they had known--the -"Salutation," the "Peter's Finger," the "Catherine Wheel," and the -like--often re-named in their honour. With little effort we can imagine -the scenes at the "Saracen's Head" of that period, when exploits at -Acre, Joppa and Jerusalem were told and re-told, and gained wonderfully -in the repetition over sack and malvoysie. What bloody fellows they -were, and with what zest they slew the Soldan's soldiers over and over -again as they sat over their cups. It is, at the least of it, six -hundred years ago, and the "Saracen's Head" has been rebuilt many times -since then; but human nature remains the same though timber rot and -brick perish, and again and again the same old talk has been heard in -the bar-parlour of the inn. Those who fought at Agincourt and Creçy; -men of a later age who warred under Marlborough at Blenheim, Ramillies -or Malplaquet; the lads of the Peninsula and Waterloo; survivors from -the horrors of the Crimean winter, and heroes from a hundred fights on -the burning South African veldt--all have had their circle of greedy -listeners here. - -The "Saracen's Head" of to-day turns a sleek and stuccoed face to -the street, and the house shows signs of extensive rebuilding and -remodelling, undertaken in the full flush of the great days of coaching -prosperity, when so many old inns were rebuilt, in the belief that -coaching, and the road as an institution, would last for ever. Fond -belief! Has anyone ever stopped to consider the fact that the great -coaching era of the 'twenties and the 'thirties had a great deal more -to do with the pulling down of the old-fashioned galleried and timbered -inns of country towns than ever railways have had? The average small -country town felt in fullest measure the great increase in business -incidental to the last years of the coaching age, and every innkeeper -hastened to rebuild his inn and to call it an "hotel." Those who had, -from one cause and another, deferred rebuilding until the dawn of -the Railway Age, on seeing that the road would decay and travellers -be carried to their journeys' ends without halting for rest and -refreshment, promptly gave up any such ideas and were thankful that -they had not begun the work of reconstruction and enlargement. Those -who had were ruined, and to this day the huge hotels they reared may -yet be often met with, a world too large, in country towns where once -the mails and the stage-coaches passed, like a procession, day by day. -It is quite by a happy chance that an old galleried house like the -"White Hart" at Brentwood remains, and it is not too much to say that, -had the Coaching Age lasted another ten years, it also would have been -rebuilt. - -An amusing story, with Anthony Trollope for its central figure, belongs -to the "Saracen's Head" at Chelmsford. For some years after he had -won fame as a novelist he still retained his position in the General -Post Office, of which he was a travelling inspector. On one of these -official journeys he happened to be staying here, at the time when -his _Barchester Towers_ was being issued, after the then prevailing -fashion, in parts. He was seated in the coffee-room when two clergymen -entered, one of them with the newly-issued part of the story. The -cleric, cutting the pages, was soon immersed in the trials of the -Bishop and the domineering ways of Mrs Proudie, who was rather a trial -to Trollope's readers, as well as to the Bishop. Suddenly the clergyman -put the book down. "Confound that Mrs Proudie!" he exclaimed, "I wish -she were dead!" - -Trollope looked up. Introducing himself, he thanked the reader for thus -accidentally telling him that the Bishop's wife had become wearisome, -and undertook to have done with her. "Gentlemen," said he, "she shall -die in the next number;" and die she accordingly did. But in defence -of Trollope's truthful character-drawing, let it be said that, in the -opinion of those likely to be best informed, Mrs Proudies may yet be -found in a goodly proportion of the episcopal palaces of England. - - -XIX - - -RETURNING now to the Conduit, and making for the open road once more, -Chelmsford is left by way of Springfield, past the successor of -Chelmsford's finest old inn, the "Black Boy," demolished in 1857. The -old inn of that name had stood on the spot for five centuries, and had -been the halting-place of many famous travellers, among them a long -line of Earls of Oxford, journeying between their castle at Hedingham -and London; but none of these associations sufficed to save the house. -Fragments of its carved beams are preserved in the local museum, but -recall it as little as does the skeleton of the mastodon bring back -in his majesty that denizen of the earth in the dim æons of the past. -Chelmsford would dearly like many of its old buildings--wantonly -demolished years ago--back again; but what is done cannot be undone, -and there's an end on't. The "Cross Keys" remains, in a restored -condition. - -[Illustration: THE "THREE CUPS" SIGN] - -The name of Springfield, the eastern suburb of Chelmsford, carries -varying significances. To the mere newcomer it sounds idyllic; to the -American from the New England States it recalls the Pilgrim Fathers and -their settlement of Springfield, Massachusetts; and to the gaol-bird -it means a "stretch" of longer or shorter duration. At Springfield, in -fact, is situated the County Gaol, a gloomy building enlarged in recent -years for the accommodation of the guests consigned to it at Assize -time from the Shire Hall down yonder in the High Street. But, once -past this depressing place, Springfield is pleasing and cheerful. Its -long miscellaneous street, where the quaint sign of the "Three Cups" -stands out, gives place to suburban villas situated in attractive -grounds and designed to sound the ultimate note of picturesqueness. -That this has been the aim of their architects is abundantly manifest -in examples where, under a single roof, one may experience the -mingled romantic feelings of inhabiting an Edwardian castle, a Tudor -manor-house, a Jacobean grange, and a "Queen Anne" mansion; all done in -red brick, gabled here and battlemented there, and, moreover, fitted -with electric light and hot and cold water supply. To this end has -castellated and domestic architecture unwound its long story during -some five hundred years. It will be seen thereby that William of -Wykeham, John Thorpe, and many another old-time architect did not live -in vain. - -But if Springfield be modern as a suburb, it is ancient as a village. -To see old Springfield, it is necessary to turn off the road to the -left, and to journey a quarter of a mile, towards the old church, a -noble building with mingled red brick and stone tower bearing the -inscription, "Prayse God for al the good benefactors 1586." Oliver -Goldsmith, it is quite erroneously said, took Springfield as the model -for his _Deserted Village_. He certainly visited at an old cottage -opposite the church, but the real Sweet Auburn is Lissoy, in Ireland. - -[Illustration: SPRINGFIELD CHURCH.] - -Beyond the village and facing the high road are the strangely -impressive lodges of the historic estate of New Hall; new at the end -of the fifteenth century, but declined into a respectable age by -now and cobwebbed with much history and many legends. The place, now -and for a considerable number of years past an alien convent, has -been owned during a period of four hundred years by an astonishing -number of historic personages, who have succeeded one another like -flitting phantoms. Here the solemn reminder, "shadows we are," peeps -out spectrally at every turn of Fate's wrist in the handling of the -historic kaleidoscope. Built by Thomas Butler, Earl of Ormond, whose -daughter and heiress became the wife of Sir Thomas Boleyn and mother -of the unfortunate Anne, New Hall thus eventually came into possession -of Henry the Eighth, who occasionally resided here and re-named it -"Beaulieu." Elizabeth gave Beaulieu to Thomas Radcliffe, third Earl of -Sussex. By this time it had resumed its name of New Hall. Later owners -were George Villiers, the magnificent Duke of Buckingham, and Oliver -Cromwell, who had it as a gift from Parliament and exchanged it so soon -as he decently could for the more magnificent, convenient and king-like -residence of Hampton Court Palace. To him succeeded another Duke of -Buckingham, and to him that soldier and king-maker, the crafty Monk, -Duke of Albemarle, who kept great state at the Hall and was visited -here, when he was suffering from gout and dropsy, by that scribbling -traveller, Cosmo, Grand Duke of Tuscany. With Monk the line of historic -owners may be said to end, but constant change has ever been the lot -of New Hall, and a succession of lesser lights followed him until the -nuns set up their secluded life here and bade farewell to a vain -world. That world passes by; the road on one side, the railway midway -in the grounds, and if it gives them a thought at all, scorns them as -morbid and idle malingerers from the work of the vineyard. - -[Illustration: NEW HALL LODGES] - -No glimpse of the Hall is gained from the road. All is emptiness, -and the lichened brick and the crumbling stone vases of neighbouring -boundary walls add to the melancholy air of failure and unfulfilled -aims characteristic of the place. - -There is an air of romance about Boreham House, as seen from the -tree-embowered road at a little distance from New Hall; an altogether -deceptive air, let it be said, for the house is modern; a classic -building of white brick. It is its situation at the head of a formal -lake, fringed with stately elms, that confers the illusory distinction, -but the explorer of old roads, who halts here and listens to the cawing -rooks on the swaying tree-tops, or watches the water-fowl squattering -on the lake, can weave his own romance to fit the scene. And if the -house, though stately, be modern, yet it holds something of interest in -the shape of the identical carriage used by the Duke of Wellington at -the Battle of Waterloo. Greatly daring, they dragged it out in recent -years to grace a Chelmsford holiday, when it was broken to pieces in an -accident. Restored now to its original condition, it will need to be a -great occasion indeed that brings it forth again. - -[Illustration: BOREHAM.] - -Boreham village lies hidden from the road, its old gabled cottages -clustering round the still older church, itself embowered in lime -trees whose delightful scent weights the July air with an Arcadian -languor. The explorer who adventures into Boreham has every likelihood -of having his nerves startled by the sudden glimpse at a bend of the -road of a great mausoleum in the churchyard, with the door open, -and, if it be midday, the sight, apparently, of one of the inmates -of the silent tomb making a hearty lunch of bread-and-cheese. High -noon being an hour when the supernatural is not so terrifying as -to daunt investigation, it becomes evident on drawing nearer that -the old tomb-house has been converted into a tool-house and general -lumber-room, and that the figure seated within is the sexton enjoying -his lunch, screened from the noonday heats. An inscription over the -door of the ornate building--a copy of the Temple of the Winds at -Athens--proclaims it the "Mausoleum Gentis Walthamianæ, Anno 1764"; -but the Walthams have disappeared, both from their mausoleum and the -district. The body of the last appears to have been arrested for debt -when on the road hither from Chelmsford. The sexton explains that the -parish took over the Walthams' last home in consideration of repairing -the ruinated roof. "We ha'n't the conwenience hee-ar, years ago," -says this typical Essex rustic, and goes on to tell how the oil and -coals and candles for church use were formerly stored in the Radcliffe -Chapel, where the Sunday School was also held. Three Radcliffes, Earls -of Sussex, 1542-1583, grandfather, father, and son, lie in effigy side -by side on an altar-tomb in that chapel, "as like as my fingers are to -my fingers." "Old wawriors," the sexton calls them, and explains that -their broken noses are due to the "ruff" having fallen in, years since. - -Returning to what, in Essex parlance, is called the "mine" road, -Hatfield Peverel is reached, past the great red-brick Georgian mansion -of Crix, standing in its meadows where the little River Ter comes -down from Terling, flows under the road, turns the wheels of Hatfield -Mill, and then hurries off, as though belated, for a rendezvous with -the Chelmer, two miles away. It is an old mill, fronting the road with -whitewashed brick walls, a chimney bearing warranty of its age in the -inscription, "A.A. 1715"; but if that evidence were lacking it could -be found in the position of the mill-house doorway, sunk into an area -with the raising of the road for the building of the bridge that long -ago replaced the watersplash at this crossing of the stream. - -Hatfield Peverel nowadays shows few signs of the heaths that once gave -the place its original forename of "Heathfield," and the Peverels, -identical with the Derbyshire Peverels of the Peak, are so utterly -vanished that they have left not the slightest vestige of themselves -in the church--that last resort of the antiquary in search of old -manorial lords. It is true that on modern tablets built into the west -front of the church the founding of a Benedictine Priory here in 1100 -by Ingelrica, mother of William Peverel, is alluded to, together with -the rather scandalous story of the Peverel origin, but these things are -decently wrapped in the combined obscurity of Latin and lichen-stains, -so that both their monastic beneficence and their maternal origin are -only dimly to be scanned by the vulgar or the hurried. - -It is the distance of half a mile from the high road to where Hatfield -church lies secluded, adjoining the grounds of a mansion partly -occupying the site of the Priory, and so named from that fact. It is -here, if anywhere, that the "heaths" of Hatfield's original baptism -must be sought, and accordingly some stretches of common-land may be -discovered close by. But wayside Hatfield chiefly concerns us, though -there be little enough to say of it, beyond the note that its closeness -to the railway station has caused a certain growth and a certain -amount of rebuilding, in alien and uncharacteristic style, of the old -plaster cottages that were once the invariable feature of its street, -and admirably figured forth the Essex manner of decoratively treating -plaster-work. There remain here but two such cottages, bearing the date -1703, and the initials M.R., with _fleur-de-lis_. - - -XX - - -A ROAD of almost unvarying flatness conducts in something under three -miles to Witham, entered nowadays over an imposing bridge erected by -the Essex County Council over a stream that luxuriates in no fewer than -three separate and distinct names. As the River Witham, it confers a -name upon the townlet; as the Brain, it performs the same sponsorial -office for Braintree; but as the Podsbrook it is endowed with a title -that smacks rather of the farcical sort. The traveller looking in -summer-time over the railings of the bridge, down upon the mere thread -of water oozing and stewing in the mud among the kitchen refuse of the -neighbourhood, comes to the conclusion that it is not ill-named as the -Podsbrook; but the Essex Council in bridging it so substantially think -of it rather as the River Witham, which they have every right and cause -to do, for the stream can avenge itself of those disfiguring potsherds -and that contemptuous title in the most sardonic way when winter comes -and the floods are out. - -The long street of Witham is remarkable for the number of large and -handsome mansions dating from the time of Queen Anne, through the -period of the four Georges. The greater number of the professional -men of Essex would, from the number of those houses, appear to have -settled in the little town and to have medically attended it and -legally represented it to such an effect that it is only now beginning -to recover from them and from the coming of the railway, which dealt a -death-blow to the thriving coaching interest of the early part of the -nineteenth century. - -For Witham was the half-way house, the dining-place of Mrs Nelson's -famous "Ipswich Blues," the crack coaches on the seventy miles of road, -which started at eight in the morning and by extraordinary exertions -made Ipswich in something under six hours. Such remarkable performances -as these were possible only by establishing six-mile stages in place -of the average ten miles on other roads, and by placing leaders in -readiness at the foot of hills like Brook Street Hill at Brentwood. The -"Blue Posts" is gone, but the "White Hart," where some of the principal -coaches drew up, is still in existence; its sign, a pierced effigy of -that animal projecting from the front of the house and looming weirdly -against the sky-line. There are many "White Harts" on the road to -Norwich, the sign being just as peculiarly a favourite one here as that -of the "Bay Horse" is on the Great North Road; but of all the many -examples to be met along these hundred and twelve miles this is the one -that is most quaintly out of proportion, with a head and neck less -than half the size demanded by body and legs, and a golden collar and -chain of prodigious strength. This heraldic device was the favourite -badge of Richard the Second, whose connection with East Anglia was -too slight for assuming this herd of White Harts to be especially -allusive to him, or indeed more than a curious preference on the part -of innkeepers along the Norwich Road. - -[Illustration: CHIPPING HILL.] - -Those who would seek the site of the original Witham must turn aside -from the high road the matter of half a mile, past the railway station, -to Chipping Hill, where, within the earthworks of a camp successively -occupied and wrought upon by the Britons, the Romans and the Saxons, -it will be found. Chipping Hill overlooks the pleasant valley of that -triply-named river already mentioned, in 1749 described by Walpole as -"the prettiest little winding stream you ever saw." The "sweet meadows -falling down a hill" of which he speaks are there to this day, and as -sweet, and the by-road that comes up from the gravelly hollow and cuts -through the earthy circumvallation of the ancient stronghold climbs up -romantically under the blossoming limes into as pretty a picture in -the rural sort as you shall easily find. It is a little piece of Old -England before railways came, or science and the ten thousand plagues -of modern life, and the cheap builder of hideous new cottages were -let loose upon the old order of things. Not a jarring note is in the -picture of yellow-plastered and red-roofed old dwellings, flint-built -church tower and red-brick rectory, set in, upon and around the -swelling grassy banks where Romans kept guard and Saxons had both their -fortress and their market, as evidenced by the still surviving name of -Chipping, or Market Hill. - -Old East Anglian cottages have their own special characteristics, -arising from local conditions, but one feature they share in common -with all old rustic dwellings; the great size and relative importance -of their genial chimneys, suggesting warmth and the lavish laying on of -logs. They tell the passer-by of old times when wood was the only fuel; -when it was to be gathered for the mere labour of gathering, and plenty -of it was piled upon the generous open hearth. Modern cottages, all -over the kingdom, tell a different tale, in the look of their meagre -chimney-pots--a tale of coal, dearly purchased, economised in tiny -grates. - -But the special features of East Anglian cottage architecture? They are -here, in the highways and byways, for all to see who will. It is a land -without stone, this East of England, where timber and flint and brick -play important constructional parts in church and hall and manor-house, -and where timber framing, lath and plaster, parge-work, and a few -bricks for the chimney stacks, are combined to build up the cottages. - -Out of their necessities our ancestors contrived dwellings that for -durability, comfort and artistry put modern houses, whether halls or -cottages, to shame. The stone cottages of Somersetshire, Rutland, -Leicestershire; the cob and thatch of Devon, the granite of Cornwall; -the timber and plaster, or timber and brick noggin of Cheshire and -Herefordshire are all evidence to this day of how skilfully our -forbears employed the materials to their hands; and here in Essex -you shall find a something in the art of cottage building hardly to -be discovered elsewhere. This is the frequent use of parge-work, or -pargetting, as it is sometimes called, on old cottage exteriors. -Parge-work is the ornamental filling or surfacing of walls with -plaster. The term is just as often applied to the elaborately-moulded -and panelled plaster ceilings of Elizabethan and Jacobean halls as -to the exterior decoration that forms so remarkable and pleasing a -feature of Essex rustic cottage architecture. Few Essex villages that -can claim to preserve many relics of old times are without examples of -this peculiarly local style; although, to be sure, an ignorant want of -appreciation has been the cause of much destruction of late years. The -commoner forms of this decoration are frequently seen, in the easily -incised patterns that even the unskilful can make in the plaster while -still wet, by the aid of anything from a trowel to the finger-tips; -just as a cook ornaments the dough of her uncooked pies. Many of -these patterns are traditional; as much a matter of tradition, for -instance, as are the needlework patterns wrought on the breast of an -old smock-frock. The commonest is one produced by a process of combing -the plaster in repetitions of a device resembling an elongated figure 8 -laid flat, or perhaps more narrowly resembling a hank of worsted. Other -patterns, of whorls or concentric circles, stars, triangles and the -like, are produced by wooden stamps. But the really beautiful examples -are not the products of to-day. These belong to the seventeenth and -eighteenth centuries, and are lavish in decoration of a Renaissance -character moulded in high relief. Architects with sufficient culture -and understanding to enable them to appreciate local style have, in -recent years, reintroduced decoration of this character when building -residences in the country, but many a humble cottager lives within -walls that display a profusion of artistic devices unapproached by the -houses of the wealthy. - -Discoveries close by the church on Chipping Hill have led to the belief -that the building stands on, or near, the site of a Temple of Diana, -and certainly Roman bricks are still visible in great numbers in the -walls of the tower. A memorial in the chancel to Sir Gilbert East, -who died in 1828, reminds the historian of some strange survivals -existing at that time. The Easts were owners of the tithes at Witham, -and although they lived so far distant as Berkshire, always insisted -on their right of being buried here. Sir Gilbert East's body was, by -his express direction, buried beside his wife, with a band of brass -encircling both, engraved with the words from the marriage service, -"Whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder." His funeral -was a three days' business, with knights bannerets accompanying, and -much pomp and circumstance. In the family vault they laid him, wrapped -in linen, returned to Berkshire for the reading of the will, when, to -the dismay of the family, it was found that the knight had expressly -wished to be buried in woollen. The family solicitor hurried back and, -disinterring his defunct client, saw to it that he was comfortably -tucked in as desired. - -Between Witham and Kelvedon, where the road runs level, there is but -one hamlet, an offshoot of Rivenhall known as Rivenhall End, where a -cottage close by the "Fox" inn, once a toll-house, bears its former -history, plain to read, in the evidence of its windows commanding -either approach, up or down the road. A mile and a half beyond begins -Kelvedon, set down in the flats beside the River Blackwater; "Kelvedon -Easterford, vulgo Keldon," as Ogilby calls it; "consisting," he -continues, "chiefly of inns"; a description which remains strikingly -true to this day. This pronunciation, "Keldon," throws some light upon -the following remarks of an old traveller who kept a diary of his -wayfaring, and, writing in 1744, says, "From Colchester in an hour or -two, I came to an old Village call'd Kildane, where they tell you the -famous Massacre of the Danes began; but the true Name of the Town is -Kelvedon." - -How Kelvedon can ever have escaped being called "Long" Kelvedon is -a mystery, for it straggles on and on and must be nearly a mile in -length; a street of handsome old residences, of cottages and humble -shops of all ages, and old broken-backed taverns where the Essex -labourer gathers night by night and discusses the prospect of the -carraway crop and the likelihood of the entire agricultural interest -presently, going _en masse_ to the "work'us." After which, with -the courage of despair, and to drown his troubles, he will call for -"another pot o' thrup'ny, missus," and, when closing time comes, -slouch home through the mud and mist until the following evening, when -the same programme is repeated. It is the agricultural labourer who -supports the little wayside "publics" whose existence in such numbers -puzzles the mid-day stranger, who, seeing them empty and apparently -lifeless, wonders how they can possibly live. Business practically only -begins when work in the fields is done, and the rent is not so high but -that a few pots of beer a night represent a sufficient profit. - -It must not be supposed that Kelvedon has not its exquisite -architectural relics of a bygone time, or that its inns are all of the -rural beer-house type. Not at all. Chief among the inns of Kelvedon -is the "Angel," which indeed is a house not only of considerable size -and outstanding character, but of historic interest, as having been -the favourite resting-place of William the Third on his journeys along -this road. Its projecting porch is the first thing the traveller sees -on entering the town from the direction of London, where the road -swerves violently to the left, and again as violently to the right, -forming a very awkward corner. "Angel Corner," said Alexander, of the -"Retaliator" coach, "is the very devil of a corner." This remark was -drawn from him on the occasion of his nearly driving into the porch, -when trying conclusions with a rival charioteer. - -Almost opposite the still-existing "Angel" stood the equally extensive -"Red Lion," long since retired from business and remodelled as a row -of cottages. The histories of both houses, and of many another fine -old inn, which might once have been written from the recollections of -those who knew the old days of the road, are now in great part lost, -and the world so much the poorer. Had scribblers then abounded, and the -"personal" note of the modern journalist been sounded in those days, -we should have known how King William came to and set out from his -inn; how he looked, what he ate and drank, how many long clay pipes -he smoked, and what comparisons he drew in conversation with Bentinck -between the flat lands on the way from Kelvedon to Harwich and the -still flatter lands of his native Holland. And besides such records of -the great, we should then have been better furnished with the early -history of coaching, which, if not indeed a sealed book, is at least a -very short and fragmentary one. - -[Illustration: THE "ANGEL," KELVEDON.] - - -XXI - - -EARLY coaching days are wrapped round with strange adventures and the -oddest tales; some, doubtless, of the _ben trovato_, rather than the -most truthful, nature. But those stories of coaching miseries and -adventure that have been proved truthful are themselves so surprising -and incredible to modern ears that even the most improbable of -uncertified tales cannot be dismissed as mere romancing. The tale of -the Sprightly Lady and the Anxious Gentleman should, for instance, -surely be picturesquely written up some day and included in some -English (and therefore strictly proper) kind of Thousand and One -Nights' Entertainments. - -The coach was nearing the outskirts of London. The rheumy air hung in -dank and foggy vapours on the countryside and transformed innocent -roadside trees and hedges into all sorts of menacing shapes. The guard -let off his blunderbuss at a pollard willow that loomed suspiciously -like a highwayman out of the reeking air, and the passengers all began -to automatically turn their pockets out. It proved a false alarm, and -purses and trinkets were returned. But the travellers were uneasy. One -gentleman, in especial, feared for ten guineas he carried, whereupon -a lady advised him to hide the money in his boot. He had hardly done -this when a hoarse voice was heard commanding the coachman to stop. -When the unhappy insides had picked themselves up from the straw at the -bottom of the coach, into which they had unceremoniously been thrown -by the driver's prompt obedience to that behest, they found themselves -covered with a pistol projected through the door, and were invited to -deliver up their money and jewellery. Those who had little gave it and -were thankful it was no more. The lady protested that she had nothing; -"but," said she, "if you look in this gentleman's boot you will find -ten guineas." There was nothing for it but to take off that boot and -hand over the coin; but when the highwayman had gone it was another -matter, and the plundered traveller accused her, in no measured terms, -of being the robber's accomplice. Bound to admit that appearances -were against her, she (how like the Arabian Nights fashion!) invited -the company to supper the following evening, when matters should be -explained. They accepted, not, it is to be feared, very graciously. -The time came, and, ushered into a splendidly-appointed room, with a -supper laid, they were re-introduced to their acquaintance of the night -before. When the repast was over she opened a pocket-book. "Here," she -said, addressing the loser of the ten guineas, "in this book, which I -had with me in the coach, are bank-notes to the amount of one thousand -pounds. I judged it better for you to lose ten guineas than for me to -be robbed of this valuable property. As you have been the means of my -saving it, I entreat your acceptance of this bank bill of one hundred -pounds." - -Much of the humour that went to lighten old road travelling was of an -evanescent kind, and has not survived, but a few examples, preserved -in contemporary literature, keep their flavour. Among them is the -narrative called "Three Blind 'Uns and a Bolter." "I recollect," said -the Jehu who told the tale, "having a sanctified chap for a passenger, -and nothing that was either said or done was at all to his mind. On -that day I happened to have a very awkward team--three blind ones and -a very shy off leader, and I confess that two or three times I lost my -patience as well as temper. My near leader pulled to such a degree that -I was obliged to get down and put up her bearing-rein up to the top of -the bit, and curb her enough to break her jaw. After starting again, I -could deal with her very well for about a mile, when her mouth got dead -again, and I was wicked enough to let drive a few hearty damns at her, -my pious companion all the while exhorting me to patience. 'Patience be -damned,' at last said I, fairly sick of the two; upon which he bolted -as if he had been galvanised. - -"'Pray, sir,' said he, 'did you ever hear of Job?' - -"'He can't keep out of the shop,' thought I, 'but I won't have it;' so -I answered, 'What coach does he drive?' - -"'Awful in the extreme,' said he, throwing up his hands, 'I fear you -don't read your Bible; but I will tell you--he was the most patient man -that ever existed.' - -"'But, sir,' said I, 'did he ever drive three blind 'uns and a bolter?' - -"'Certainly not,' replied he; 'he was not a coachman.' - -"'Then it's accounted for,' said I, 'for if ever he had had four such -horses to deal with as I have here, he would have had no more patience -than myself.'" - -[Illustration: "THREE BLIND UNS AND A BOLTER." _From a Print after H. -Alken._] - -Here, at Kelvedon, one of the old-time coachmen played a drunken trick -that would have been impossible in the last years of coaching, when -discipline was strict and drivers less eccentric than they had been. He -had just driven the London stage from Ipswich, and having more by good -luck than careful driving brought his passengers safely to dinner at -the "Angel," turned into the bar for a jorum of that favourite drink -of coachmen--rum. Emerging, he perceived one of the Harwich to London -fish-waggons, fully laden, standing at the door, and, mounting on to -the driver's seat, unobserved, he wheeled the waggon round and dashed -off at top speed on the way to Colchester, coming to grief at Lexden -Hill, where the huge conveyance was upset and two tons weight of fish -strewed the king's highway. The mad coachman survived to repent his -escapade, but he went on one leg for the remainder of his life. - -"Other times, other manners" is a saying that assumes an added -force when contrasting the Coaching Age with the Age of Steam. Our -fellow-travellers by railway, who glare at us, and we at them, like -strange cats on a roof-top, have little idea of the chivalry that ruled -on the road a hundred years ago. Glance, if you dare, at a lady who -may be the only other occupant of a railway carriage with you, and -she wonders whether she had not better call the guard; but it was, -in the days of our great-grandfathers, almost the bounden duty of -the gentlemen to see that the ladies in whose company the chances of -the road might place them lacked nothing that courtesy could supply; -whether it were merely the aid of an arm in walking up one of those -hills the coaches could only climb unladen, or the more material -attention involved in seeing that the dear creatures were duly supplied -with refreshments. It was, for instance, long the chivalric custom -of the gentlemen travelling by coach to pay for the breakfasts and -dinners of the unprotected ladies who might be travelling by the same -conveyance. "I vow," says one of these old travellers, "'tis a pleasure -in a cavalier to do so; but, the Lord save us, what a prodigious -appetite does not the swiftness of the travelling confer upon the fair, -whose lassitude and vapours at other times render them incapable of -more than drinking a dish of that noxious herb they call 'tay,' a thing -which it is only fitting that the heathenish and phanatick peoples of -the Indies should partake of. I protest that the ladies of the coach, -when we alighted at the 'Angel' at Kelvedon, finding they could not be -suited with tay, went to it with a right good will and left as good an -account of the claret and the beef as if they had been going empty for -a week. Spare me, I do beg, from your languishing creatures who would -die of a surfeit of two biscuits at home, but compare with the most -valiant of trenchermen abroad." - -This protesting gentleman might, had he thought of it, have exclaimed -with Othello on the pity "that we can call these delicate creatures -ours and not their appetites." - -He must have been particularly hard hit in the pocket by the robust -appetites of his fellow-travellers, but did not, however, let his -feelings appear, for he goes on to tell how he gave as a toast, "the -ladies, bless them, whose bright eyes," etc., etc.--a toast we have -many times heard of; and, indeed, rather flatters himself upon having -"made an impression." He, in fact, seems to have been like Constable, -in a way; for it was said of that painter that he was "a gentleman in a -stage-coach; nay, more, a gentleman at a stage-coach dinner." "Then," -said one, hearing that praise, "he must have been a gentleman indeed!" - -That is very significant. It was, then, only your very paragon among -gentlemen who could sustain the character at a stage-coach dinner. -His manners might survive the strain of the journey itself, and even -the sight and sound of lovely Phyllis, adorable when awake, snoring, -unlovely to eye and ear, with open mouth and suffocating gurgles; but -when after the tedious stage had been accomplished and the passengers -had descended, irritable, hungry and thirsty, to a dinner scarce to -be eaten, even at express speed, in the short time allowed, then, ay -_then_, my friends, came the test! No man so insensible to politeness -as a starving man, and few attentions were paid to the ladies by -strangers whose sole chance of obtaining the dinner for which they had -paid was the resolute determination to attend only to their own wants. - -The discomforts of travelling by coach certainly outweighed the -pleasures of that old-world method. A pleasant day and the open country -made a seat on the outside of stage or mail an eminence not willingly -to be exchanged for any other mode of conveyance then known; but, as -little David Copperfield found on his first coach journey, _night_ on -a coach was an experience once gained not willingly repeated. Being -put between two gentlemen, to prevent his falling off, David found -himself nearly smothered by their falling asleep, so that he could -not help crying out, "Oh! if you please!" which they didn't like at -all, because it woke them. With the rising of the sun David found his -fellow-passengers sleeping easier than they had done during the night, -when terrific gasps and snorts disturbed their midnight slumbers. As -the sun rose higher, so their sleep became lighter and they gradually -awoke, one by one, each one indignant when charged with having slept. -During the rest of his career, David invariably observed "that of all -human weaknesses, the one to which our common nature is the least -disposed to confess (I cannot imagine why) is the weakness of having -gone to sleep in a coach." - - -XXII - - -[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF SPURGEON.] - -COACHING times and coaching inns have long kept us at the very -threshold of Kelvedon, which has a modern claim to notice of which it -is not a little proud. Spurgeon was born here. Although the figure of -that great wielder of homely and untutored pulpit oratory is but one -among several preachers in the same family, there is only one possible -Spurgeon when that name is mentioned. Charles Haddon Spurgeon was born -in a house still pointed out, on June 19, 1834; the eldest son of the -Rev. John Spurgeon. The old cottage is now the "Wheatsheaf" beer-house -and has had a bay window and a brick frontage added since that time. -Close by is a now highly respectable and not a little dignified private -residence known still as the "Tommy shop," although almost seventy -years have passed since it was used as a kind of restaurant and canteen -for the navvies then working on the construction of the Great Eastern -Railway, which runs at the rear. - -The oldest house in Kelvedon is doubtless the "Sun," which dates from -the middle of the fifteenth century and has within recent years had its -carved woodwork, long covered with plaster, once more exposed to view. -It stands, almost the last house in the town, by the bridge over the -Blackwater, on the way to Gore Pit. - -Gore Pit is generally said to be the site of a battle. _What_ battle, -however, historians do not and cannot specify; and indeed this name, -bloody though it may sound to modern ears, has, despite the popular -legend of the derivation of Kelvedon from "Kildane," perhaps no such -sanguinary association, and is probably a contraction of the old word -"coneygore," or rabbit warren. - -It is, despite its name, a pretty and a peaceful hamlet, with a -blacksmith's shop and a roadside horse-pond, and surrounded by the -fruit-farms of a great jam-making company. The church of Feering can be -seen across the flat fields, on the other side of the railway. Messing -lies a mile away, in the other direction. - -Let the idle wayfarer, curious as to the name of Gore Pit, speak to the -blacksmith on the subject, and he will be told, with the seriousness -of implicit belief, of the fighting of a great battle here, and that -the blood ran down into "that there horse-pond." Moreover, that at -Kelvedon--"Killdane they used to call it--they killed the Danes; at -Feering they feared 'em, and at Messing they made a mess of it"; which -seems to very correctly reflect the views of the neighbourhood on local -history in ancient times, as reflected in place-names! - -Rural Essex, in the aspect of its fields and meadows, is revealed along -these miles in its most characteristic form. It is, in many respects, -unlike other counties. In some ways the unhappy industry of farming has -fared worse here than elsewhere, and many holdings have for years past -gone uncultivated, and the dock, the thistle and other lusty weeds have -resumed an evil possession of fields once kept clean and trim. But in -the smaller operations of husbandry Essex has always been, and in some -districts still is, remarkably successful; while, although the farmer -protests that it does not pay to grow any kind of grain, the yellowing -seas of autumnal cornfields are still a prominent feature of the -landscapes of Essex and of its neighbouring Suffolk. Essex and Suffolk -are old-world, far beyond the rest of England, and in growing wheat -in these times, when a cornfield is a rare sight in other parts of -the country and when "our daily bread" is chiefly compounded of grain -grown in North America, Russia, or the Argentine, they maintain their -singularity. It does the heart good to see the ripening wheatfields of -East Anglia, to see the gathered stooks in the reaped perspectives, -and to hear the hum of the threshing machine; for the sights and sound -seem to carry us back to that England of a bygone age, when Constable -painted such fields, and when they were numerous enough throughout the -land to feed the population. Here and there one may still find fields -of that famous grain, the "Essex Great Wheat," which grows at least -two feet higher than the ordinary varieties, and is greatly prized for -the length and stoutness of its straw; but it is a few miles to the -north-eastward, in the light lands around Harwich, that the Great Wheat -may be found. Seed and herb-growing are the most prominent industries -between the Blackwater and the Colne, and the roadside fields are -striped to wonderment in summer with the rainbow colours of the -seedsman's trial-grounds. The heavy perfume of stocks and mignonette, -the claret colour of that gorgeous flower, the "sops-in-wine," the -gay and varied displays of asters, marguerites, marigolds and a -hundred others make a midsummer fairyland of the levels that loom -so drear and misty in the long months of winter. Nor is it only for -the flower-garden that the Essex seedsman labours. With the sights -and scents of the flaunting beauties of the garden are mingled the -homelier ones of mint, grey-green sage and other dowdy kitchen herbs, -together with the subtle beauty and piercing odour of wide-spreading, -blue-grey lavender-fields. Even the unromantic mangold, running to seed -in bush-like shape, sends forth a sweet and pleasing aroma, while the -yellow mustard contributes its share. - -The byways of farming are now, as we have already said, the most--some -would say the only--profitable kind of husbandry in Essex. Some forms -of cultivation have largely migrated to other counties, but others -remain. The growing of the clothiers' teasel was discontinued with -the decay of the Colchester and Norwich baize industry, and is now -carried on in other parts of the country, close to districts where -textile fabrics are still manufactured; but there was a time when, -along this road between Chelmsford and Colchester, the fields of -teasels were quite as much a feature as those of mustard are even -yet. The clothiers' teasel, greatly prized in the East Anglian baize -manufacture, was nothing but a weed, found useful and cultivated -accordingly. An aristocratic relation of the less spiky burrs that have -not been rescued from the hedges and ditches and are still allowed to -grow wild, the clothiers' teasel was cultivated so far back as the -reign of Richard the First, but the "common" burr will have to be -contented with its lowly estate to the end of time, unless something -unexpected happens. - -To "stick like a burr" is proverbial, and the cultivated teasels have -an even more pronounced clinging property. Furnished as they are with -natural hooks, they were used in baize-making, and are still employed -in the cloth trade for raising the nap of the material. The dried heads -are fixed to cylinders, between which the fabric is passed, and their -sharp spines, re-curved like so many minute fish-hooks, draw up the -surface of the cloth. Thus the teasel was raised from its character -of a worthless weed, and for many years Essex farmers devoted large -portions of their holdings to its cultivation. It was hoed and kept -clear of other vagrom weedlings; its heads were cut by hand and -dried with every care, and eventually were eagerly competed for by -manufacturers at £12 a load. When the old cloth manufacturers left East -Anglia, a goodly portion of the Essex farmers' livelihood went with -them. - -Around Colchester, too, is cultivated that other weed, the colewort, -for cole or rape-seed, which has the quadruple properties of feeding -cage-birds, yielding rape-oil, making cake for cattle, and of manuring -the fields. Coriander and carraway seeds, too, help to prop the -husbandman's fortunes. Corianders and carraways are what "the faculty" -knows as "carminatives," curative of flatulency; like the once popular -"eringo root," a candied preparation of the root of the sea holly -that grows by the estuaries of Essex rivers. Eringo root was once a -favourite specific for lung troubles, but its popularity waned at last, -and the preparation of it gradually died out and became extinct about -1865, when the only manufacturer was an elderly spinster who supplied -a chemist in High Street, Colchester. Corianders are still used in the -making of kümmel and other liqueurs, and carraway seeds, which look -like commas, are those familiar denizens of "seed cake" that stick in -the teeth and refuse to be dislodged, and are the central feature of -"carraway comfits." - -Farmers who do not occupy themselves with seed-growing have passed -through evil times, but prosperity beams cheerfully from the seedsman's -well-tilled land, and fruit-farming has come to render cultivation -profitable. Still, to the shiftless farmer, who cannot adapt himself to -new conditions, agricultural depression in Essex is a very real thing. -Here, shambling along the road, comes such a one, a small cultivator, a -son of the soil. He does not hurry. Who, indeed, would hurry in rural -Essex, in these times, when the Bankruptcy Court and the Workhouse -are said to close every vista? Besides, he has been hard at work in -the fields, and much of that kind of labour takes all the lamb-like -friskiness out of the limbs. - -A conversation, leaning over a field-gate very badly in need of repair, -elicits the fact that he has just come away, worsted, from another -bout in the eternal conflict between Man and Nature. No conflict with -wild beasts, but a struggle, really just as fierce, for life or a -livelihood, with weeds--the sorry heritage of the present occupier -from the slovenly or bankrupt farmer before him. A bookmaker, gazing -upon the weedy scene, would back Nature pretty heavily against the -cultivator. - -"Farmin'?" says our rustic friend; "no great shakes, I tell 'ee. It -don't pay to grow nawthen now, an' it gets wusser'n wusser. All the -fields goin' under grass, for ship'n cattle. An' the land's fair -pisoned with weeds. Yow see them 'ere beece, in that there close down -along o' the chutch? There's a mort o' docks in that 'ere close. More -docks'n grass, an' I thinks warsley o' the chanst of cattle gettin' -a fair bite off'n it. Don't know what docks is? Wish I didden! I've -bin a-pullin' of 'em till my back's pretty nigh broke, and I'm fair -dunted with 'em. Last year there worn't ne'er a one: t'yen there's -a mort on 'em. Where do they come from? God A'mighty knows. _They_ -don't want no cultivation, bless 'ee. There ain't no land so chice but -what'll grow docks." Here he pulls out his "muckinger," that is to say, -his handkerchief--the Essex dialect is not the most elegant form of -speech--and, trumpeting on it like an elephant, with indignation, goes -his way. - -The "chutch" in question is that of Feering, on the other side of -the Great Eastern Railway, along whose embankment go the frequent -Prussian-blue-painted locomotives with long trains at their tail, past -Mark's Tey Junction, whose forest of signal-masts is visible ahead, -into Colchester. With the raising of that embankment went the life of -this highway, only now experiencing a revival. - - -XXIII - - -THE cyclists, the pedestrians, the motor-men, who adventure along the -road rejoice at its smooth surface, and find little incident to mark -their journey. A punctured tyre, a defective valve alone hinder those -mechanical travellers; while the pedestrian finds a limit set to his -progress only by his walking powers. Even so, he may obtain to Norwich -long before the others, for the railway hugs the road closely for -three parts of the distance, and stations are frequent. - -In any case, the curtain has long since been rung down upon the Romance -of the Road. If this were the place to do it, that romance might be -recounted at great length; sometimes rising to tragical height, again -sinking to comedy or farce. But we must take our romance as it comes, -and, reading as we run, be content to act a vicarious part in the long -story. And we may well be so content, for to have essayed the journey -in days of old often meant a "speaking with strangers in the gates" -that entailed fighting on unequal terms, with the possibility of a -roadside grave and the tolerable certainty of being robbed of anything -and everything worth the taking. - -Nowadays, the trim suburbs of the towns stretch out on either side -along the old highway and join hands with the villages; so that when -travellers of the speedier sort spurn the dust from their flying -wheels, they think the country is becoming one vast town, and are -depressed and regretful accordingly. But when the road was the sole -means of travelling and the towns were still girdled by their walls and -entered only by fortified gates, the wayfarer welcomed the sight of a -house in the lonely country between town and village. Even to the rich -these perils came home, and in the more lawless times they were beset -with troubles of their own. - -Royal progresses were not infrequent along the Norwich Road, and they -have elsewhere been duly chronicled, but they are things apart and -give no glimpse of old wayfaring life. If we are at all in the way of -conjuring up that old-time traffic, we must certainly not forget the -odd processions that trailed their slow length after my lord and my -lady, changing residence from one castle or manor-house to another. -My Lord Duke of Norfolk in Elizabeth's time had an exquisite palace, -of which Macaulay has told us, in Norwich, and the Earls of Oxford -no doubt kept great state in their castle at Hedingham, but, for all -their magnificence, they were obliged to take many of their household -goods with them when flitting from place to place; for the very -excellent reason that they did not, certainly up to less than three -hundred years ago, possess more than one fully-equipped establishment. -When the nobility of old left one of their manor-houses for another -they commonly took their bedding and a good deal of their furniture -with them. In even more remote days they removed the glass from their -windows as well, and stored it carefully away until their return. -_That_, of course, was a custom of very long ago, when even the most -luxurious were content with--or, at any-rate, had to endure--things -which nowadays would drive the inmates of a casual ward to rebellion; -but, even when the Stuarts reigned, the great ones of the land moved -from home to home with long baggage-trains and with their entire staff -of domestics. No board-wages, then! The whole establishment took the -road, down to the scullery-maids and the hangers-on of the kitchen who -took charge of the domestic pots and pans. My lord's pages and the -dignitaries of his household formed the advance-guard; the lowest in -the scale, who travelled with the culinary utensils and even took the -coals with them, were, appropriately enough, the "black guard." The -black guard were probably a very rough lot indeed, at odds with soap -and water, and on every count deserving of their name, which has in -the course of centuries obtained a different application, as a term of -reproach to individuals of moral rather than physical uncleanliness. - -Turning from general conditions of travelling to particular travellers, -there comes tripping along the road an antic fellow, one Will Kemp, who -danced from London to Norwich in the year 1600; a frolic he undertook -for a wager, afterwards writing and publishing a book about it, which -he called _Kemp's Nine Days' Wonder_. Will Kemp was accompanied by -a drummer whose play upon parchment helped to sustain his flagging -energies as he skipped it to Widford and thence by a route of his own -through Braintree to Norwich. - -Sprightly, irresponsible Kemp, cracking weak jokes and playing the -fool, is succeeded in the memories of the road, after an interval of -some eighty years, by a very grave and responsible figure indeed; -no less an one than that of King William the Third, on his frequent -journeys between his dear Holland and his little-loved Kingdom of -England. Burdened with the care of an alien realm, that saturnine -little figure with the hooked nose was a familiar sight at Kelvedon, -where, travelling to and from Harwich, he was wont to stay at the -"Angel" inn, which still confronts the wayfarer on entering the village -from London. When the "little gentleman in black" had done his work -and King William of blessed Protestant memory was no more, the Norwich -Road, so far as Colchester, was still graced with Royal travellers, -for, with the coming of the Hanoverians, Harwich became more than ever -a favourite port of entry and departure, and the choleric early Georges -knew this Essex landscape well. This way, too, came the Schwellenburgs, -the Keilmanseggs and the other vulgar and grotesque figures of that -grotesque and vulgar Court. - -Among these figures comes that of the Princess Charlotte of -Mecklenburg-Strelitz, arrived for the first time in England, in 1761, -to marry George the Third. One German princess is very like another -in the pages of history, and the likeness remains even when they -become queens, so that it is not a little difficult to disentangle a -Caroline from a Charlotte. Their virtues are of the same drab domestic -order, and their faces partake of the common fund of unilluminated -dulness distributed between the Mecklenburg-Strelitzes, the -Sonderburg-Augustenburgs, and the dozens of other twopenny-halfpenny -principalities made familiar by German princely marriages and -intermarryings. On their mere merits, these personages would find no -place here, though they travelled all their lives up and down the -road; but in the circumstances of this particular Princess Charlotte's -journey there are some incidents worth mentioning. She landed at -Harwich, and comes into our road at Colchester, September 7, 1761. At -Colchester she was presented with a box of eringo-root, the famous -local production highly valued for the cure of pulmonary diseases, -prepared from the root of the sea holly. Graciously receiving this in a -box "parfumed and guilt," her carriage swept on towards Witham, where -she stayed the night at a seat then owned by Lord Abercorn, supping -with open doors so that all who would might gaze upon their future -Queen. Next day the journey to London was resumed. The King's coach -was in readiness at Romford, and into it she changed. At Mile End a -squadron of Life Guards was in waiting as an escort, and from that -point the procession was viewed by thousands. But by this time the -September day was closing. The Duchess of Hamilton, who accompanied the -Princess, looked at her watch. "We shall hardly have time to dress for -the wedding," she said. - -"The wedding?" - -"Yes, madam; it is to be at twelve." - -On that the Princess fainted, as well she might. It really took place -at 9 p.m., instead of three hours later. The King, it is upon record, -was a little disappointed at the first sight of his bride; but that has -generally been the way with our Royal marriages. The eldest son of this -amiable pair, George the Fourth, similarly saw his bride for the first -time practically on the steps of the altar, and his disappointment -was keen. "No sooner," we read, "had he approached her than, as if to -subdue the qualms of irrepressible disgust, he desired the dignified -envoy to bring him a glass of brandy." The Princess, we are told, -"expressed surprise," which statement requires no credulity for belief. -Henry the Eighth's disappointment when he saw Anne of Cleves was -reflected in the words in which he likened her to a "Flanders mare." - -Two years later, in 1763, we find Dr Johnson and his inevitable Boswell -journeying down the road; Boswell on his way to Harwich for Utrecht, -and the Doctor good-naturedly accompanying him as far as that seaport. -They set out by coach on the 5th of August, early in the morning; -among their fellow-travellers a fat, elderly gentlewoman and a young -Dutchman, both inclined to conversation. Dining at an inn on the way, -the lady remarked that she had done her best to educate her children, -and particularly that she never suffered them to be a moment idle. - -"I wish, madam," said Johnson, "you would educate me too; for I have -been an idle fellow all my life." - -"I am sure, sir," said she, "you have not been idle;" which was a -mere empty compliment, for she had not the least idea whom she was -addressing. - -"Nay, madam," rejoined the Doctor, "it is very true; and that gentleman -there," pointing to Boswell, "has been idle. He was idle at Edinburgh. -His father sent him to Glasgow, where he continued to be idle. He then -came to London, where he has been very idle; and now he is going to -Utrecht, where he will be as idle as ever." - -At this, Boswell was very wroth, and asked Johnson, in an aside, how he -could expose him so. - -"Pooh, pooh," retorted the immortal Samuel, "they know nothing about -you, and will think of it no more." Nor, in all probability, did they. - -In this manner they travelled, the gentlewoman talking violently -against the Roman Catholics and the horrors of the Inquisition; -Johnson, to the astonishment of all the passengers, save Boswell, who -knew his ways, defending the Inquisition and its methods with "false -doctrines." This would appear to have annoyed the rest of the company, -for Boswell relates that Johnson presently appeared to be very intent -upon ancient geography. Not so intent, however, but that he noticed -Boswell giving a shilling to the coachman at the end of one of the -stages, when it was the custom to give only sixpence. The great man -took Boswell aside and scolded him for it, saying that what he had -done would make the coachman dissatisfied with all the rest of the -passengers, who had given him no more than his due. - -They stopped at Colchester a night, at an inn unfortunately not -specified, Johnson talking of the town with veneration for having stood -a siege for Charles the First. - -The last great occasion on the road, before railways took its traffic -away, was the funeral, in 1821, of George the Fourth's Queen. Caroline -of Brunswick had landed at Greenwich twenty-seven years before: her -body was embarked for Brunswick on August 16, 1821, after a hurried -three days' journey from Kensington. So many years have passed by -since the stormy times when the nation was divided between partisans of -the King on one side and the Queen on the other--both parties equally -violent--that the long and bitter quarrels between the "First Gentleman -in Europe" and the most vulgar and indiscreet princess of modern times -have become historic, and no longer divide families, or cause fathers -to cut their sons off with a shilling, as they did when the trial of -the Queen was a recent event. George, Prince Regent and King, was no -saint; Caroline, Princess and Queen, was at least odiously vulgar and -utterly wanting in dignity and the commonest dictates of prudence. They -were not worth quarrelling about, but their feuds were taken up by -parties and made political missiles of, so that even the occasion of -the Queen's funeral was made the excuse for a riot by her followers, -who were indignant at seeing her remains hurried out of the country, -as they thought, without proper respect. The Queen died on the 7th of -August, and it was decided to take her body to Brunswick. "Indecent -haste" was the expression used by the _Times_ of that day in describing -the funeral arrangements for the 14th, but that journal was a most -violent enemy of the then Government and had always supported the Queen -and vilified the King as far as it could safely be done. - -It was proposed to complete the journey of eighty miles between -Kensington and Harwich in two days, and the _Times_ furiously bellowed -in its reports that the procession was hurried through London at a -trot. However that may be, certainly the pace was decently slow when -on the open road. Ilford was reached, for instance, at 6·15 that -afternoon, but Romford, only five and a half miles further on, not -until 7·45; an extravagantly slow rate of progression, even for a -funeral. At Romford the cortège was met by sympathisers with blazing -torches, who stood on guard round the coffin, while the wearied escort -and the few mourners refreshed at a roadside inn. - -At eleven o'clock the journey was resumed by the light of a full moon -which shone in splendour from a cloudless summer sky. Throughout the -night they travelled, coming into Chelmsford at four o'clock in the -morning. Here the coffin was placed in the church until a start was -made again, seven hours later. At last Colchester was reached, at -five o'clock in the afternoon, the famished escort leaving the hearse -unguarded in the High Street, while they took their fill at the "Three -Cups." Thus, in its squalor and irreverence, the passing of this Queen -of England resembled the funeral of a pauper, without kith or kin. - -It had been proposed to complete the journey to Harwich that day, -but, after violent disputes in the street between opposing factions, -it was agreed to defer the departure until the next morning, and to -deposit the coffin meanwhile in St Peter's Church. Inside that sacred -building, disputes broke out afresh, one party wishing to affix a plate -on the coffin-lid, bearing the inscription, "Caroline of Brunswick, the -injured Queen of England," while the other vehemently objected. The -quarrel was finally settled by agreeing to postpone fixing the plate -until after the embarkation. - -With the start made the following morning at half-past five, this -melancholy procession leaves the Norwich Road, and history goes with -it. The tale is done, the colophon reached. - - -XXIV - - -IF we seek some touchstone by which to test the progress of a century -or so in civilisation, there is scarce a better than found in -comparison between the condition of the roads in old and modern times. -That Waller could, in all sincerity, speak of "vile Essexian roads" -is not remarkable: he was a poet, dealt in superlatives and lived in -the seventeenth century. But that Arthur Young, a hundred years later, -could with equal sincerity, and in more emphatic language, describe -Essex roads as "rocky lanes, with ruts of inconceivable depth," is -startling. It was in 1768 he penned that indictment, adding that they -were so overgrown with trees as to be impervious to the sun, and strewn -with stones "as big as a horse, and full of abominable holes." It were, -he concludes, a misuse of language to call them turnpikes, for they -were rich in ponds of liquid dirt; while loose flints and vile grips -cut across to drain off the water made the traveller's pilgrimage a -weariness. - -The modern reader, perusing all these manifold sins and wickednesses -of the roads, rather wonders how they could all have been crowded -on to such truly vile ways, and if a stone were as big as a horse, -how room could have been found beside it for holes, ponds and other -objectionable features. But Arthur Young was a truthful man in general. - -To-day the Essex high roads are as near perfection as any in the home -counties, even though the byways be steep and rough and more than -usually winding. - -It is in these byways that he who seeks rural Essex shall find. The -dramatic suddenness and completeness with which, a few hundred yards -from the high road, the sophisticated wayside towns and hamlets are -exchanged for the unspoiled rusticity of the original villages is -surprising. In these lanes the older rustics talk and think much as -their grandfathers did, but the rising generation unhappily do not, -and the Essex rustic in general, like his fellows elsewhere, has -almost wholly discarded the old dress of the peasantry. Only the very -old or the more remote yet wear the smock-frock--the "round frock," -or the "gaberdine," as they called it--that was once as honourable a -distinction of the ploughmen, herds, or carters as are the uniforms of -our soldiers and sailors. - -The time is long past since a clean smock-frock, corded breeches, -worsted stockings and well-greased lace-up boots formed the approved -rural costume for Sundays or holidays, just as the same articles of -apparel in a "second-best" condition made the workaday wear. The -Sunday costume of the agricultural labourer is now a cheap and clumsy -travesty of the clothes worn by townsfolk, and in hideous contrast -with his surroundings. Exactly what it is like may be seen on any -advertisement hoarding in the outskirts of Chelmsford, Colchester and -lesser towns, where pictorial posters bid Giles go to Shoddy's for -cheap outfits. Sunday mornings find him flaunting his finery in the -village street; his would-be stylish boots creaking, his every article -of wear writ large with vulgarity. Often he carries gloves in those -large hands of his, rough with honest week-day toil, and a pair may -thus last him for years--for he dare not attempt to put them on. Would -that he equally purchased his cheap cigars for show and refrained from -smoking them! - -But there the village dandy is. Often his pocket-handkerchief is -scented; generally his hair is glossy with grease; and he would not -consider himself fully equipped without watch and chain, scarf-pin, -ring and walking stick. To grease his boots he would be ashamed. _They_ -must be brightly polished, even though his manners are not, and his -language defiles the village street what time the bells are ringing -to church. Such is Young England in the villages at the dawn of the -Twentieth Century. These things may spell Progress, but they are rather -pitiful. - -It is a little difficult, in presenting a sketch of his ancestor of -a hundred years or more ago, to avoid drawing too favourable a view -of him; but the rustic in old times certainly seems to have matched -much better with his surroundings than is the case nowadays. He made -no attempts to dress up to town standards, and if he wanted to shine -above his fellows did so by virtue of superior neatness only. Perhaps -he had the finer instincts of the two, or more likely lacked the -opportunities for bad taste that surround his descendants. Certainly, -if we are to believe in the origin of the smock-frock, as put forward -by some antiquaries, we must sorrowfully admit that the rustic's remote -ancestor had as great a longing for unsuitable display in dress as -can possibly be charged to the present generation. The smock-frock -is, in fact, traced back by some to the ecclesiastical garments worn -at Mass by deacons and sub-deacons, at the time when the Reformation -swept vestments out of every village church in the land. Those who are -familiar with genuine old smock-frocks have noticed the elaborate and -often beautiful needlework on collar and breast. The devices appear to -have a traditional likeness, all over the country, and consist either -of Celtic-looking whorls, or of semi-decorative flower forms, or of -lozenge patterns. The comparative simplicity or elaboration of this -needlework depended solely upon the fancy, or the time at command, of -the wearer's women-folk whose work it was. Whence came this tradition? -It is thought from the tunicles of the minor clergy, which were -certainly decorated in the same position, if not in similar patterns. -When the minor belongings of the Church became the spoil of the -villages, Hodge and Giles found themselves the proud possessors of the -strange garments, for which they could find at first no better use than -for Sunday wear. A striking appearance they must have made in them, -down the village street, the envy of their less fortunate fellows. - -When the looted vestments grew shabby they must have been used for -everyday wear, and so have set the fashions in smock-frocks, both in -shape and decoration, for centuries to come. If it be thought that the -costume was rather extravagant, it can only be asked, is not that of -the modern Sunday morning yokel extravagant also? - -The rustic of long ago was a man of dense ignorance and dark -superstitions. No one county was then more guilty than another in that -respect, but East Anglians, and perhaps especially the Essex bucolics, -are still, despite their veneer of civilisation, sunk in uncanny -beliefs. Witches still "overlook" folks in Essex hamlets, and spells -are cast on cattle and horses, or unhappy fowls are blighted by the -Evil Eye. Consequently the learned professions of Witch-Doctor and -Wise Women are not yet extinct. Their existence is not likely to be -discovered by the stranger, but they thrive, in limited numbers, even -in these days of pills and patent medicines. - -Board Schools are supposed to be educating Young England into a dead -monotony of speech, but it will be long before they complete the horrid -work. In Essex, indeed, we may not unreasonably think it a task beyond -the power of teachers and inspectors, who if they have not succeeded, -after thirty years working of the Elementary Education Act, in inducing -the lower-class Londoners to say "yes" for "yuss," together with other -linguistic enormities, are not likely to be successful in abolishing -the very marked and stubborn Essex shibboleths. It may not generally -be known that much of the so-called "Cockney" talk derives from the -Essex dialect. From Essex especially comes that curious perversity -of the unruly member which in many cases insists upon pronouncing -the letter A as I. The lower-class Londoner and the Essex peasant -are unanimous in enunciating A as I in all words where that letter -retains its open sound and its individuality. Thus, in the words "baby" -"favourite," "made" and "native," for instance, the letter becomes I; -and the Fleet Street newsboy, shouting his "spusshul uxtry piper," can -legitimately call cousins, if he wishes it, with the Essex lad at the -plough-tail. - -Where A is sounded broadly, or in cases like the word "was," in which -it masquerades as O, or where the letter is absolutely silent, or not -fully pronounced, as in "beast" and "maternal," this peculiarity does -not appear. - -The effect is sometimes grotesque, as, for example, near Colchester, -where the villages of Layer Marney, Layer Breton, and Layer de la Hay -are always spoken of as Liyer, the last mentioned becoming Liyer de la -High. - -Nor is pronunciation the only singular feature of Essex talk, as -those who keep their ears alert in these parts will soon find. The -oddest phrases are matters of everyday use, and the Essex peasant can -no more help using the word "together," in season and out, than he -can help being hungry before meals or sleepy by bedtime. "Together," -as employed by the Essex peasant, is a word absolutely meaningless; -a kind of linguistic excrescence which, like a wart or a boil, is -neither useful nor beautiful. When a ploughman says he is going to -plough "that there field together," he does not mean to imply that he -is about to plough it together with some other land, or with a party -of other ploughmen. He simply adds the word from force of habit, and -from hearing his father and grandfather before him so use it, in almost -every sentence, as a sort of verbal makeweight. The present writer has -had the good fortune to hear a supremely ludicrous use of this Bœotian -habit of speech. It was market-day at Colchester, and Stanway village -had emptied itself in the direction of the town. A dog rolled dustily -in the sunny road, and the historian of these things luxuriously -quaffed his "large lemon" on the bench outside the village inn. As -Artemus Ward might have said, "orl was peas," when there entered upon -the scene a countryman, evidently known to the landlord. He walked into -the bar, and, surprised to find mine host in solitary state, exclaimed, -"What, all alone together, bor?" - -"Yes," replied the landlord, in no wise astonished at this -extraordinary expression, "the missus has gone to Colchester together." - -"Did my missus go with her?" asked the rustic. - -"No," rejoined the landlord, "she went by herself." - -In this countryman's talk we find a word belonging more especially -to Norfolk and Suffolk. This is the word, "bor," a diminutive for -neighbour. - - -XXV - - -STANWAY is approached along a flat stretch, past Mark's Tey, which, -without being itself quite on the road, has sent out modern and -extremely ugly brick tentacles to line the way. For an incredible -distance along the flat the timber tower of Mark's Tey church is -visible, amid an inchoate mass of railway signal masts and puffs of -smoke. Whistlings, screechings, crashings and rumblings proceed from -that direction, for this is a junction of the Great Eastern with the -Colne Valley Railway, and the station, by the way, where the lady in -Thackeray's _Lamentable Ballad of the Foundling of Shoreditch_ appeared -with the baby which she eventually left behind her. It is this busy -junction that has caused the hideous outcrop of mean houses along the -road to render the village of the old De Marcas something new and -strange. Mark's Tey is at a junction of roads as well as of rails, for -the road from Braintree and Bishop's Stortford falls in here. - -Copford's solitary houses by the way give scarce a hint of the village -nearly a mile off, whose little church formerly owned a terrifying -relic, in the shape of a human skin nailed on its door; a skin that -had been the personal property of some unfortunate straggler from the -hordes of marauding Danes that once infested the district, of whom we -have already heard legends at Kelvedon and Gore Pit. His Saxon captors -must have flayed him with a ferocious delight and nailed up his cuticle -with precisely the same satisfaction as that of the gamekeeper who -wages war upon stoats and weazels and other vermin, and hangs their -bodies on the barn door. But there must have been a bitter day of -reckoning for those Saxons when the sea-rovers came this way again and -saw in what fashion that doorway was decorated. - -[Illustration: Near Mark's Tey.] - -Copford and its outlying houses lie at the crest of a gentle descent -into the valley of a rivulet which finds its way into the Colne. -It stands, as its name implies, overlooking some ford which, once -important, has, in the gradual draining of the country and the -shrinkage of streams, now lost all significance. Stanway adjoins it, -and lies along the descent, in the hollow and up the corresponding -rise on the other side, where its church stands in a forbidding -loneliness. The name of Stanway is sufficient warranty of this being, -thus far, the Roman road. It is, however, not so certain that the -remaining four miles of the existing highway from this point into -Colchester follow the course taken by the Romans; and, indeed, the -later researches of archæologists go far to prove that the original -way into Roman Colchester avoided the intervening village of Lexden -altogether, and, curving eastwards, avoided what may then have been -a marsh, to take the higher ground over a portion of Lexden Heath; -bending westwards again and crossing the site of the present road -between where the grammar school and the hospital now stand. From this -point it seems to have crossed by where the Lordsland Nursery grounds -stood until recently built over, to the ancient Roman gateway and -bastion in the western wall of the town, long known as Colking's, or -King Coel's Castle, but originally the Decuman Gate of Roman times. -The course followed by this old Roman way is lined on either side with -sepulchral remains, and seems to have once been a great cemetery. -Wherever the ground is disturbed the relics of some soldier or citizen -of Colonia are found, some dating back to the foundation of the colony, -nearly nineteen centuries ago. The most remarkable among them are to be -seen in the museum at Colchester Castle. There--the most human relic -of them all--is the touching monument to M. Favonius, a Centurion of -the Twentieth Legion, discovered in 1871 between the hospital and -the grammar school, at a depth of 3 feet below the surface, and at a -distance of 10 feet from the old Roman road. It is a sculptured stone, -4 feet in height, with the figure of the Centurion himself carved on -it, in high relief. It is evidently a portrait of him. He stands in -full military costume, his cloak hanging from his shoulders, his sword -and dagger by his side. The inscription, almost as sharp as on the day -when it was cut, nearly nineteen hundred years ago, tells us that the -monument was erected by two of his servants, Verecundus and Novicius. -They call him "facilis," the "easy" or "good-natured." It is surely a -sweet and touching thing that when all other record of that soldier has -perished, we should yet know him to have been a kindly creature. - -But to return to Stanway, which keeps, as sole vestige of its heath, -a little space of the greenest turf, perhaps half an acre in extent, -beside the insignificant stream in the hollow, and opposite the "Swan" -Inn. The heath that formerly spread out across the elevated but flat -table-land between this village and the succeeding one of Lexden was, -in its different parts, variously named after them. On Stanway Heath, -in Ogilby's _Britannia_ of 1697, a picture map shows a beacon standing -between the forty-seventh and forty-eighth milestones from London, on -the right-hand side of the road. It appears to have been a post some -30 feet in height, crowned with a fire-bucket, and climbed by means of -slats nailed across. The beacon, thus easily lighted, was provided for -the benefit of travellers going to or coming from Colchester across -the desolate heath, whose dangers may be guessed from the existence of -a "Cut-throat Lane" even in the comparative security of Lexden village. -The heath by the highway is a thing of the past, for those portions -not brought under cultivation by the farmer have been grabbed by the -builder, and the so-called Lexden Heath of to-day is a quite recent row -of houses, with a post-office, and shops, and everything complete and -modern. At the forty-eighth milestone, amid all this modern upheaval, -stands a disused toll-house, and, close by, something much more -ancient; the deep, pre-historic hollow, smothered in dense woods and -shrubs, known as "King Cole's Kitchen," and now--figure to yourself the -shame of it!--overshadowed by a cottage, new built, and named from it -"King Cole's Cottage." - -Turning off to the right, the curious in things pre-historic may -lose themselves in the solitudes of the real Lexden Heath, where the -Devil, the Trinobantes, the Romans, or Fairfax, the Parliamentary -General--according to varying legends--threw up the entrenchments, -and delved the ditches, found there in plenty. The Devil, we say -advisedly, for "Gryme," or "Grim," whose name is attached to the dyke -across the heath, was none other, in the minds of the Saxons. "Lexden -Straight Road" follows for an unconscionable distance a line of Roman -entrenchments, and is straight and dull beyond belief. Followed long -enough, it leads to "Bottle End," which may originally have been -"Battle End," the scene of some traditional legend of Boadicea's -defeat at the hands of the Romans. Or, again, it perhaps marks some -forgotten connection with St Botolph, whose ruined Abbey stands outside -Colchester's walls, and whose honoured name is pronounced "Bottle" by -Colcestrians. Anything is possible in a district where Beacon End, the -site of the old beacon already mentioned, has become Bacon End. - -[Illustration: LEXDEN.] - -Lexden village now claims attention. It is a place in which one school -of antiquaries finds the original Roman station of Camulodunum, -established on the site of the royal city of Cunobelin, King of the -Trinobantes; a finding strenuously contested by another following. -Certainly, among the tall elms and rolling surface of Lexden Park there -are remains in plenty of huge defensive earthworks, telling in no -uncertain manner that this must have been a place of enormous strength, -by whomsoever held. The surroundings are weird and impressive to a -degree. - -The village skirting the road is one of the prettiest on the way. Going -towards Colchester, the road drops down the hill, where old cottages -stand high above the pathway, with steep little gardens in front, kept -from sliding down into the road itself by lichened retaining-walls -sprouting with house-leek and draped with climbing plants. Lower -still, hard by the church whose carpenter-Gothic atrocities are hung -about with ivy and creepers until they are transfigured into a dream -of beauty, the grouping of the 'Sun' Inn and neighbouring houses -is exquisite. Beyond this point begins the suburban approach to -Colchester, a town it behoves the stranger to approach with a proper -respect, for here was the first Roman colony in Britain. The history -of Colchester, indeed, begins so far back as A.D. 44, and there was -already a pre-historic native city in existence before then; the royal -city of that ancient British king, Cunobelin, the monarch famous in the -pages of Shakespeare as "Cymbeline." - - -XXVI - - -CUNOBELIN, Lord of the Trinobantes, ruler of that part of the -country now divided into Middlesex, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, -Hunts, Cambridgeshire and Essex, was the successor of his father -Cassivelaunus, who had warred, not ingloriously, with Julius Cæsar. He -transferred his capital from his native town on the site of St Albans -to where Colchester now stands. He appears to have been a powerful -ruler, and, if little is known of him, certainly he is no myth, for -the vague legends that held the name of the Buckinghamshire villages -of Great and Little Kimble to be a corrupted form of his own were -strikingly proved correct some years ago, when a hoard of gold coins -was ploughed up in their neighbourhood, bearing his title. - -We do not know by what name Colchester was then styled. After Cunobelin -had died, full of years and worn by grief at the revolts of his sons, -Caractacus, Adminius and Togodumnus, the end of the native State over -which he had ruled speedily came. Adminius, in a fury against his -brothers, fled from Britain to seek the aid of the Romans, and if no -immediate result came, certainly his invitation must have revived -the old Cæsarian dream of conquest. The real cause of the Roman -invasion that took place shortly after the death of Cunobelin was the -solicitation of a certain Bericus, a British Prince of whom nothing -appears to be known beyond this one fact. - -The invasion took place in A.D. 43, under that able general, Aulus -Plautius, who threw the Trinobantes back from Hertfordshire and -Middlesex, across the Lea and into the Essex marshes, where for a time -they could not be followed. This was the position at the close of the -year. Detached portions of the invading forces had overrun the south of -Britain as far as Gloucester and had defeated the tribes on the way; -leaving a garrison in the west. But the island was little known and -held many mysteries. None could tell the real strength of the natives, -who disappeared in the forests and marshes that covered the face of the -land, and by their irregular warfare disconcerted the Roman plans of -campaign. Plautius was at last driven to act on the defensive on the -Essex borders. His soldiers were dying in the ague-stricken morasses -between the Thames and the Lea, and had the enemy possessed powers of -combination and military skill, he might well have been cut off here, -at the end of the known world. A retirement with his sick and dying was -impossible. Nothing remained but to go into camp during the winter, and -meanwhile to send for reinforcements. He accordingly sent for forces -from Gaul. They came with commendable promptitude, commanded by the -Emperor Claudius in person. With these new legions came an elephant -corps, brought from Africa to carry the heavy baggage. But they acted -a better part than this, for their strange appearance terrified the -astonished Trinobantes a great deal more than any increase of the -Roman soldiery could have done. We may imagine this corps, crashing -irresistibly through the thickets, the forests and marshes on that -march into the Unknown, along this line of country now traversed by the -Norwich Road, and can readily understand little resistance being met -with on the way. The tribes were dispersed and their territory occupied -as far as the Stour, and a colony was founded in the opening of the new -year, A.D. 44, on the site of Cunobelin's city--Colonia Camulodunum, -the first Roman settlement in Britain. - -The Romans had so easily overcome the resistance of the natives that -they were soon lulled into a feeling of security. For an uninterrupted -space of sixteen years Colonia grew and prospered. It became a pleasant -town, inhabited by veteran soldiers grown grey in the service of the -Empire, and spending their later years in retirement. The Emperor -Claudius, flushed with his success, had assumed the dignity of a god -and had caused a Temple to be erected in the market-place to his -honour, with attendant priests and altars. The governors and consuls -were lesser gods, and treated with contempt and ill-judged severity -the natives who had been overcome with such ease. The soldiery were -uniformly brutal. Degeneracy and luxury flourished together with this -attitude of oppression, and the town wholly lacked defences. It is not -surprising that these colonists were bitterly hated by their vassals, -who in especial looked upon the priests as so many harpies living upon -their substance, and were so in fact, just as all priesthoods and -all clergy have been from the beginning, and will be to the end. In -this last respect these poor Trinobantes, these wretched barbarians, -exhibited a quite surprising discernment, not equalled by the -priest-ridden centuries of culture and enlightenment that have since -passed. - -These down-trodden natives were already ripe for revenge when a more -than usually unjust proceeding of the Roman officials precipitated -a rising. The Iceni, who inhabited Norfolk and Suffolk, and whose -frontiers marched with those of the conquered province, had been ruled -over by a certain King Prasutagus. Dying, he had hoped to propitiate -the goodwill of the Roman officials by dividing the vast wealth he -had accumulated, leaving one half to the Roman Emperor and the other -moiety to his two daughters. But he was no sooner dead than his -country was invaded. His widow, the famous Boadicea, resisted. She -was publicly scourged, her daughters suffering the worst indignities, -and her relatives sold into slavery. The whole nation rose in arms at -these outrages, and their cousins, the Trinobantes, on the hither side -of the Stour, joined them. The Romans saw their folly when too late. -No more eloquent account is possible than that given by Tacitus of -the premonitions of evil. The statue of Victory fell to the ground, -and turned its back where the face had been, as if it fled before an -enemy. Women were seen and heard singing mad, wild songs, prophesying -disaster. Strange and unaccountable noises were heard in the house -of assembly, and loud howlings in the theatre. In the estuary of -the river the buildings of the city appeared reflected upside down, -and ghastly remains of human bodies were seen in the ooze when the -tide ebbed. The sea assumed the colour of blood, and the strangest -whisperings stirred the air. Many of the wealthier colonists, alarmed -at these portents, discovered that their health needed a change of air, -and went for a holiday into Gaul, on the other side of the Channel, and -those who remained applied for military help. In answer to this appeal, -a meagre force of two hundred men was sent, and immediately employed to -fortify the Temple. But before these measures could be completed, the -town was surrounded and taken; the houses burnt and the inhabitants all -slain, the little garrison in the Temple meeting a like fate after a -defence of two days. - -Meanwhile, Petilius Cerealis, commanding the Ninth Legion, which had -been stationed on the Icenian frontier near where Mount Bures now -stands, advanced to the aid of the doomed city. He, however, had moved -too late, and met the victorious natives at Wormingford, where they -almost entirely annihilated his forces. The evidences of that great -disaster were discovered in 1836, when parallel rows of funeral urns, -placed in order like streets, were unearthed, containing the bones -of the lost legion gathered and burnt after the Roman sway had been -reasserted. - -These events happened in A.D. 61. Suetonius Paulinus, the then -Commander-in-Chief, was at that time vigorously prosecuting a war with -the Druids in the Isle of Anglesey, but on hearing of these disasters -he hurried back through Verulamium and Londinium, collecting an army -of ten thousand as he went. The whole of the south was aflame, and a -numerous enemy hung on his flanks. The Roman citizens of both those -towns piteously begged for protection, but were left to their fate, -which was not long in doubt, for no sooner had the flying column passed -than the tribes fell upon and utterly destroyed them. Seventy thousand -citizens perished in that general massacre. - -It is uncertain where the Roman army met the hordes commanded by that -heroic Amazon, Boadicea, whom we should perhaps more correctly style -"Boduoca." The British Queen is a deadly dull subject in the hands of -the uninspired, who fail to render her "convincing." No one has done -so well as Dion Cassius, who singularly resembles modern writers of -"personal paragraphs" in what recent slang would term his "actuality." -He says, "she was very tall, grim in appearance, keen-eyed, -harsh-voiced, with a wealth of exceedingly yellow hair falling below -her waist" (her golden hair was hanging down her back!), "wearing a -highly-embroidered tunic and a thick cloak fastened with a buckle over -it." - -Tacitus describes the scene of battle as flanked by two woods, on a -site resembling a stretch of country at Haynes Green, near Messing; but -the great fight must have raged on many miles of ground, and no doubt -included Lexden Heath. - -The Britons were so sure of victory, that they had brought their women -and children as spectators, and ranged them, seated in waggons, in a -great semi-circle commanding the battlefield. The Roman historian says -they were an "innumerable multitude." The British Queen, addressing -her warriors from her chariot, called upon them to conquer or to die, -resting her hopes on the strength of her forces and the justice of -her cause; while Suetonius, on his part, urged his troops not to be -dismayed either by the numbers of the enemy or their furious shouts. -The British attacked, the Romans at first remaining on the defensive. -When the fury of the first onslaught was exhausted, the foot soldiers -of the Empire advanced in a wedge-like formation, the cavalry closing -in on the flanks, driving the speedily disorganised enemy back upon the -semi-circle of waggons, which cut off their retreat. Penned up in this -way, the battle degenerated into a massacre, in which eighty thousand -Britons were slain, including the women and children who had come out -to witness the fortunes of the day. The unhappy queen, seeing all lost, -poisoned herself. - -Thus ended the British rule over Norfolk and Suffolk. From this time -date the existing walls of Colchester. The conquerors were determined -not to risk a repetition of the destruction of their first colony, -and, choosing a new site, one mile to the east of the former city, -they planted their walls on the ridge on which Colchester now stands, -overlooking the valley of the Colne. These walls, enclosing an area -of 1000 by 600 yards, still remain, after the passing of more than -eighteen hundred years, the most perfect Roman fortifications in -Britain. Even in that wide space of time the town of Colchester has not -extended very greatly beyond them. In some directions, indeed--notably -to the north and north-east and on the west--the ramparts still look -out upon the open country. The walls have a thickness of from seven to -eight feet, and are built of red Roman tiles, alternating with courses -of stones, brought with great labour from the coast near Harwich; -the neighbourhood of Colchester, and Essex in general, being quite -innocent of stone of any kind. Harwich and the seashore even to this -day supply the boulders of limestone from which the building-stones of -Colchester's walls were cut. - -Colchester was never again attacked during the period of more than -three hundred years, in which the Romans ruled. In the events of A.D. -61, they had learnt the double lesson of being armed and of treating -a foe, once conquered, with generosity. In the period between these -events and the year 410, when the Imperial forces were withdrawn from -Britain to help save the heart of the Empire from ruin, conquered and -conquerors had to live together, and made the best of the necessity. -Roman colonists intermarried with the gradually Romanised British, -and the race of Romano-Britons thus created, during three centuries, -gradually grew to look upon Britain as their home and themselves as -a nation. Thus, towards the end, usurpers of the Imperial authority -are found setting up as independent sovereigns, and civilised British -princes treating on equal terms with Roman statesmen. In this way -the British in some measure came into their own again, and to these -circumstances we owe the wild legends of that mysterious monarch, "old -King Cole," who is to Colchester what King Arthur is to Cornwall, -the great local hero. "Colking's Castle," on Colchester's walls, and -the earthworks near Lexden known as "King Cole's Kitchen"; nay, the -very name of Colchester itself--"Cole's Chester," or castle, derive, -according to legends, from this scarce more than mythical personage. -Those stories make him one Coel, or Collius, the last of a line of -semi-independent British kings who were allowed to retain a nominal -sovereignty after Cunobelin's death and the Roman conquest. The story -goes on to tell how, on the death of the usurper Carausius, in A.D. -293, Coel surrendered the country to the Emperor Constantius Chlorus, -on that successor of the Cæsar's marrying his daughter Helena, who -became the mother of Constantine the Great, and was also the discoverer -of the true Cross at Jerusalem. The arms of Colchester still bear a -ragged cross between four crowns, in allusion to this tale of the -Empress Helena; and in earnest that this is a distinction which -Colchester will not willingly lose, an effigy of her, holding a cross -very plain to see, is newly set up on the very topmost point of the -gorgeous new Town Hall, recently completed. - -To that most untruthful of chroniclers, Geoffrey of Monmouth, the -legend of Coel is chiefly traced. He may either have imagined it, or -have woven the story out of existing legends, which had in turn derived -from the Saxons, who, after the departure of the Romans, had wrested -the country from the Romanised British. They captured and burnt the -town of Colonia, and wondering at its massive walls, took them to have -been the work of some great king, after whom the place had been named. -Legends of Cole soon sprang up, and by the time the Saxons themselves -had been converted to Christianity he was fully provided with a history. - -"Old King Cole," as the founder of Cole's-ceaster, has been shabbily -treated in modern times and made to figure merely as a jolly toper. -That he was the most convivial of monarchs the song most emphatically -assures us. - - "He called for his pipe, he called for his glass, he called for his - fiddlers three." - -Nothing, if you please, more than the veriest pot-house potentate! The -author of that nursery rhyme has degraded Cole as much as Mark Twain -did the romantic wielder of Excalibur in that monument of vulgarity, _A -Yankee at the Court of King Arthur_. - - -XXVII - - -THE entrance into Colchester is singular. From the straight, broad road -leading past the trim modern villas and so into Crouch Street--the -street outside the walls that takes its name from the vanished -monastery of the Crutched, Crossed or Crouched Friars--the wayfarer -suddenly comes to the sharpest of angles, and, turning abruptly to the -left, enters Colchester by what has every appearance of being the back -door into the town. - -Historically considered, the entrance by crooked Head Street, as the -continuation of Crouch Street is called, really is a back way, and was -in Roman times the site of a gate leading to one of the southern and -less important roads. But ever since Saxon days this has been the only -way to or from London into the town. - -How it happened that the original road and the Decuman Gate in -Colchester's west wall fell into disuse, none can tell. It was so many -ages ago that not even a pathway leads along the ancient way, now -quite obliterated by houses. But if the road be gone, the Gate itself -remains, though in ruins. Let us, before entering Colchester, attempt -to find it. To do so, it will be necessary to retrace our steps a -little distance along Crouch Street, and, so doing, to take a turning -to the right-hand, down Balkerne Lane. The first sign of ancient Rome -is seen where the Church of St Mary-at-the-Wall stands towering above -a flight of steps leading up into the street beyond. There stands -revealed a portion of the wall. The breach in it, through which the -steps lead, was once a postern gate. Overhung with trees, the freshness -of whose spring foliage with every recurrent April forms a romantic -contrast with the almost immeasurably old of the riven wall, this is a -place for thought. From the summit of that old defence, where once the -legionaries lined the battlements in time of peril, or leaned gossiping -in peaceful days, one looks down over roof-tops into the valley where -the railway runs, and wishes for a momentary lifting of the veil and -a glimpse of what the spot will be like in another eighteen hundred -years. Close by, a hoary mass of brick and tile and weather-worn -courses of septaria are the remains of the Roman Gate. Three arches can -be traced; the middle arch of eleven feet span, the side ones, for foot -passengers, less than half that width. Candour, however, compels the -admission that of architectural character they have not the slightest -trace. Over against this relic stands an inn known as the "Hole in the -Wall," although that is not its actual sign; and through that hole the -most prominent object in all Colchester looms red and horrid. "Jumbo" -brutally dominates everything, and blasts the approach to Colchester -far away on every road but that from London, for which small mercy -thanks be given. Who, you ask, is Jumbo? He is not Roman, but he is -very big, very ugly, and very prominent; and, unluckily, cannot fail -to be seen. After him, even the Roman remains of Colchester pale their -ineffectual efforts at pre-eminence. It is conceivable, although not -very likely, that a stranger passing through Colchester might not -notice its Roman antiquities, but Jumbo will not be denied. There he -is, crowning the highest point in the town, shameless in brick of -the most striking red and in attempts at decoration which, however -well meant, only serve to render his hulking body more objectionable, -with an effect as though a navvy were to adorn his rugged face with -pearl-powder. - -Jumbo, let it be explained, is the modern water-tower of Colchester's -waterworks. It was built in 1881, and cost close upon £10,500, and -there are those who say it is the second largest of its kind in -England. Where the largest may be we know not, but if it injures its -surroundings as effectually as does Colchester's incubus, that unknown -place has our sympathies. Jumbo is shameless and rejoices in his name, -for, as the curious may see for themselves, his weather-vane bears the -effigy of an elephant. - -Returning to Crouch Street, and so by Head Gate and along Head Street, -the High Street is gained. It is one of the broadest and most spacious -streets in the kingdom, as it had every occasion to be, for it was not -only part of the great road leading into Suffolk, but in it was held -the principal fair of the town. Here, too, close by where Colchester's -new and gorgeous Town Hall stands, was the old Moot Hall, a building -of Saxon, Norman and later periods, barbarously destroyed in 1843. In -the Moot Hall the Mayor and justices dealt with offences of all kinds, -from the selling of bad meat to charges of witchcraft, sorcery and -heresy. Thus we may read in the borough records of things so diverse -as the fining of Robert Barefot, butcher, in the sum of twelve pence -for selling putrid meat, and may learn how William Chevelying, the -first of the Colchester martyrs, was imprisoned here in the reign of -Henry the Sixth until such time as it was convenient to burn him in -front of Colkyng's Castle. Here the local Court of Pie Powder was held -during the Corporation Fair Days, in October. Summary jurisdiction -was the special feature of that Court, and it was needed, for in those -times, when people of all sorts and conditions came from far and near, -offences were many and various. In the legal jargon of the Middle Ages -this tribunal is called the _Curia Regis Pedis Pulverizatis_, or, in -the Norman-French then common, the "Cour Royal des Pieds Poudrés," -that is to say, the King's Court of Dusty Feet. Courts of Pie Powder -obtained this eminently descriptive name from the original Fair -Courts, held in the dusty streets long before buildings were erected -for the purpose, and the name survived long after the necessity which -originated it had disappeared. Imagine, therefore, the highwaymen, the -cheats and thieves and those who came into disputation on the Fair Days -being brought before the Mayor by the bailiffs, their cases arising and -being heard, and judgments and sentences being delivered and executed, -within the space of one day, amid the bleating of the flocks, the -lowing of the herds, and all the noise and tumult of the Fair itself. -We must not, however, suppose the High Street to have been absolutely -clear of obstructions in days of old. In midst of it stood the Late -Saxon or Early Norman church of that Saxon saint, St Runwald, which -remained here until so recently as 1878, when it was pulled down and -its site sold to the Corporation, to be thrown into the roadway. - -That Colchester stands on a considerably elevated site is evident to -all who, having entered from the London road, turn out of Head Street -into the High Street, and in doing so glimpse the long descent of -North Hill at the corner. A further revelation is that of East Hill, -which, in continuation of High Street, the traveller must long and -steeply descend towards the Colne, on his way to Ipswich and Norwich. -It was in High Street that Colchester's principal coaching inns were -situated, and there yet remains--now the most picturesque feature of -that thoroughfare--the "Red Lion," with old timber brackets supporting -a projecting upper storey and a four-centred Tudor oak entrance -curiously carved; its original and restored portions so thickly smeared -with paint and varnish that all might be old, so far as the antiquary -can tell, or all might be in the nature of Wardour Street antiques. -The "Red Lion" figured as a rendezvous in the surrender of the town to -Fairfax, after the siege of 1648. In its yard the vanquished laid down -their swords. - -Another inn was the "White Hart," where Bank Passage leaves the High -Street. The building, a highly respectable plaster-faced one, smug -and Georgian, still stands, but it is an inn no longer. Another old -inn, the "Three Cups," has been rebuilt. Older than any, but coyly -hiding its antiquarian virtues of chamfered oaken beams and quaint -galleries from the crowd, is the "Angel," in West Stockwell Street, -whose origin as a pilgrim's inn is vouched for. Weary suppliants to, -or returning from, the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, far away -on the road through and past Norwich, housed here and misbehaved -themselves in their mediæval way. It would be the gravest of mistakes -to assume old pilgrims decorous. Modern Bank Holiday folks would, -compared with them, seem to be of a severe monkish austerity. The -shrine at Walsingham, second only in repute to that of the Blessed -Thomas at Canterbury, drew crowds of every class, from king to beggar. -The great Benedictine Abbey of St John at Colchester sheltered some -in its guest-houses, while the late-comers inned at such hostelries -as the "Angel," or, if the weather were propitious, lay in the woods. -Ill fared the unsuspecting citizen who met any of these sinners on -the way to be plenarily indulged and lightened of their load of sin. -They would murder him for twopence or cudgel him out of high spirits -and for the fun of the thing; arguing, doubtless, that as they were -presently to turn over a new leaf, it mattered little how black the old -one was. Drunkenness and crime, immorality, obscenity and license of -the grossest kind were in fact accompaniments of pilgrimage, and the -sin-worn wanderers who prayed devoutly at the niche, now empty of its -statue, in the east end of All Saints' Church in the High Street, on -their journey to and from Walsingham, would resume their foul jests and -their evil courses so soon as the last bead was told and the ultimate -word of dog-Latin glibly pattered off. - - -XXVIII - - -REMOVED from all the noise and bustle of the High Street, in a quiet -nook away from the modern life of the town, stands Colchester Castle, -on the site of the Temple of Claudius. The Keep, built by Eudo, -"Dapifer," or High Steward of Normandy, under William the Conqueror -and his two successors, alone remains, and has lost its upper storey, -destroyed by a speculator who bought the building in 1683, and half -ruined himself in his attempts to demolish it. It is perhaps not -generally known that this is by far the largest keep in England, -measuring 155 ft. by 113 ft. The Tower of London, built at the same -period, and the next largest, measures only 116 ft. by 96 ft. There -have been those who, looking at its massive walls, 12 ft. thick, with -courses of Roman tiles conspicuous in them, have believed this to be -the original Roman temple, and antiquaries who should have known better -have written long treatises to support their views. Those, however, -were the days before comparative archæology had come into being to -prove that the peculiarities in the planning, noticeable here, are -partaken of by the undoubted Norman keeps of the Tower of London and -of Rochester Castle, known to have been designed by Gundulf, Bishop of -Rochester. Freeman was very severe in his time on those who labelled -the interior of Colchester keep with such names as "podium" and -"adytum," in their belief of its Roman character. - -[Illustration: THE GRAND STAIRCASE, COLCHESTER CASTLE.] - -If its lack of height prevents Colchester Castle from being impressive -without, certainly its gloomy dungeons and mighty walls compel the -respect and wonder of all who enter. They look not so much as though -they had been built up, as though cells and passages had been carved -and burrowed out of a solid mass; so small are those passages and -staircases, so thick the walls. In the chapel and the corridors that -still remain roofed, the collections of the Essex Archæological Society -have a home, and from other and roofless walls that are broad enough -to afford the safest of pathways one may gaze down upon the surrounding -grassy enclosures and see that spot where those two Royalist -commanders, Lucas and Lisle, who held Colchester for seventy-six days -against the besieging army of the Parliament in 1648, were barbarously -shot by order of Fairfax, after having surrendered. - -That siege of Colchester is the most romantic incident that has -survived in the history of the town. It is the story of a last -desperate attempt of the Royalists to contend with the Parliamentary -forces that had everywhere overwhelmed the King's supporters after a -bitter warfare of over six years. It was a gallant attempt, and the -more so because Essex was not a county favourable to the King's cause. -Sir Charles Lucas, at the head of this enterprise, was a younger -member of the Lucas family, seated at Colchester. In the beginning of -June 1648, a Royalist rising under Colonel Goring had been checked at -Blackheath by the Parliamentary general, Fairfax. A portion of Goring's -force crossed the Thames into Essex, and lay at Brentwood. This was -an opportunity which Essex sympathisers could not let slip. Lucas and -his friends, gathering a body of adherents, galloped down the road -to Chelmsford, where the Committee of Parliament was in session, and -seized them, afterwards continuing their progress to Brentwood, where -they effected a junction with Goring's band. Their forces thus united, -a counter-march was made upon Chelmsford again, and continued to -Colchester; Lord Capel, Sir George Lisle, and many others joining on -the way. On June 12, Goring, in command of this body of four thousand -Royalists, approached Colchester, and found the Head Gate closed -against him by the unsympathetic citizens, but a slight skirmish soon -enabled him to force an entrance. He had not intended to remain at -Colchester, but the swift pursuit that Fairfax organised from London -gave the Royalists no time to continue their projected march into the -Midlands. The day after Goring had entered Colchester, Fairfax had -assembled his forces on Lexden Heath, and immediately sent a trumpeter -to demand surrender. The inevitable refusal was the signal for a battle -outside the town, on the London Road; a contest which resulted in the -retirement of the Royalists within the walls. The Head Gate still -existed, its bolts and bars in perfect order, but as the Royalists fell -back through it into the town, two hundred or more of the Parliamentary -troops dashed through in pursuit. Their ardour cost them their lives, -for Lord Capel at the head of a determined band pushed back the gate -upon the bulk of the enemy, thrusting his walking-stick through the -staples as the door closed. The eager advance-guard, thus cooped up -within the walls, were all slain. - -Preparations were now made on both sides for a siege. Fairfax had -already lost many men, and dared not attempt to carry the town by -storm. His plan was to surround Colchester and imprison the Royalists -there until such time as his heavy ordnance or starvation should -compel them to surrender. With his command of reinforcements from -London, and his ability thus to enclose the town with a cordon of -troops, the position of the Royalists was hopeless, and it is to their -honour and credit that, in order to contain Fairfax's large army and -so give opportunities to the organisers of Royalist movements in the -Midlands, they continued the defence in the face of starvation and -despite the easy terms of capitulation at first offered them. Their -domestic position (so to call it) in the town was unenviable, for the -inhabitants were wholly opposed to their cause. They had with them, -it is true, the members of the Parliamentary Committee whom they had -kidnapped from Chelmsford, but those gentlemen were a nuisance and -had to be civilly treated and fed while the Royalists themselves went -hungry. The unfortunate inhabitants, too, were starving, and many of -their houses and churches destroyed by the besiegers' cannon shot; -while suburbs were burnt down outside the walls. - -The end of this long agony came on August 27, when the town was -surrendered; the officers "surrendering to mercy," the lesser officers -and rank and file with an assurance that their lives and personal -belongings should be spared. Seventy-five superior officers accordingly -gave up their arms at the "King's Head" inn. Four of them were to be -tried by court-martial. One escaped, one was pardoned, and two--Sir -Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle--condemned to be shot without -delay, on a disproved charge of having once broken their parole when -formerly prisoners of war. In vain asking for time to make some final -disposition of their affairs, these two officers were executed the -same evening, on a grassy spot a few paces clear of the north wall of -the old castle. Sir Charles Lucas was the first to be shot, and met his -end as a brave, gallant gentleman should. "I have often faced death -on the field of battle," he said, "and you shall now see how I dare -to die." Then he knelt in prayer, and, rising, threw open his vest, -exclaiming, "See, I am ready for you. Now, rebels, do your worst!" The -firing-party then fired and shot him in four places, so that he fell -dead on the instant. - -Sir George Lisle was then brought to the same place, and viewing the -dead body of his friend as it lay on the ground, knelt down and kissed -him, praising his unspotted honour. After bidding farewell to some -friends, he turned to the spectators, saying, "Oh! how many of your -lives here have I saved in hot blood, and must now myself be most -barbarously murdered in cold blood? But what dare not they do that -would willingly cut the throat of my dear King, whom they have already -imprisoned, and for whose deliverance, and peace to this unfortunate -country, I dedicate my last prayer to Heaven?" Then, looking in the -faces of those who were to execute him, and thinking they stood at too -great a distance, he desired them to come nearer, to which one of them -said, "I'll warrant, sir, we hit you." "Friend," he answered, "I have -been nearer you when you have missed me!" And so, after a short prayer -upon his knees, he rose up and said, "Now, traitors, do your worst!" -Whereupon they shot him dead. - -The stone covering the graves of these unhappy soldiers may yet be seen -in St Giles's Church, with an inscription stating that they were "by -the command of Thomas Fairfax, the general of the Parliament Army, in -cold blood barbarously murdered." A legend may still be occasionally -met with in old books, which has it that the Duke of Buckingham, who -had married Fairfax's daughter, approached Charles the Second with the -object of having the passage erased that reflected so severely on his -father-in-law's memory. The King conferred on the subject with Lord -Lucas, who said that he would with pleasure obey the Royal command, if -only His Majesty would allow him to place in its stead the statement -that "Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle were barbarously murdered -for their loyalty to King Charles the First, and that his son, King -Charles the Second, had ordered this memorial of their loyalty to be -erased." The King then, we are told, commanded the already existing -epitaph to be cut still deeper, and it will be readily observed by -those who go to gaze upon it that the lettering is bolder and deeper -than commonly is the case. - -The undertaking of Fairfax with respect to the surrendered soldiery -was not respected. They were ruthlessly pillaged, and some sent to the -plantations over seas. Lord Capel was eventually executed in London. -For many years afterwards the spot where Lucas and Lisle fell was -shown by the awe-struck people of Colchester, who told the legend -that grass would not grow where that loyal blood had been spilled. In -later times the story became an article of faith with one political -party and a derision to the other. No grass grows there now; but for -the commonplace reason that a well-kept gravel path occupies the site, -which is duly marked by a small obelisk. - -[Illustration: OLD MAN-TRAP, COLCHESTER CASTLE.] - -Colchester was long in recovering itself after the rough treatment -received during the siege; and in fact, it is only in recent years that -the church of St Mary-at-the-Wall, battered down on that occasion, -has been rebuilt; while the Norman minster of St Botolph remains the -roofless ruin that cannonading and incendiarism left it. Evelyn in -1656 found Colchester "a ragged and factious town, now swarming with -sectaries," and if he had visited it nine years later would have -witnessed a worse state, for the plague almost depopulated the place. - -"Sectaries"--that is to say, those who preferred to think for -themselves on religious matters, and to worship in their own way--were -treated with an unconscionable severity. One Parnell, a Quaker, was -imprisoned in a cell within Colchester Castle, and died there, his -story affording a sad example of barbarity in the authorities of that -period. - -But the early nineteenth century was as savage in some ways as the late -seventeenth, which so delighted in despitefully using Nonconformists. -The antiquarian collections in the castle, for instance, include a -particularly ferocious instrument devised for the protection of the -squires' property and for the maiming of poachers. It is a man-trap; -one of those devilish contrivances which, actuated by powerful springs -and furnished with sharp steel teeth, would, when accidentally trodden -on by the poacher, snap down upon his leg with force sufficient to -injure the bone and probably mutilate him for life. It was thus the -landed interests protected their rabbits, hares and pheasants. The -existence of this man-trap, together with the spring guns also used at -the same time, is a reproach to the England of the first quarter of the -nineteenth century, just as its preservation here as a curiosity is a -certificate of the progress achieved in humanity since then. - -The present prosperity of Colchester is reflected in many ways, but in -none more strikingly than the condition of the castle, now a municipal -property, and encircled with lawns and flower-beds, oddly at variance -with its time-worn grandeur. The neatness of these surroundings and -of the ornamental railings that fence off the enclosure is admirable -from the everyday point of view, but the picturesque neglect and rural -squalor of other years pointed the moral of the place and annotated -its story, while present prettinesses blur the historic page. It -is so everywhere throughout the land. When, a hundred years ago, -Turner, Sandby, Prout and Girtin, our early water-colourists, roamed -the country, making their picturesque sketches, they did not find -themselves baulked by flower-beds, cursed by cast-iron fences, or -requested not to walk on the grass. They had to pick their hazardous -way through miry lanes, or adventure through the bottomless sloughs of -farmyards. All these things were offensive to the wayfarer, but they -generally meant picturesque compositions and exquisitely sketchable -foregrounds. Nowadays the conscientious illustrator, unwilling to -picturesquely exaggerate, and yet accursed with cast-iron railings new -from Birmingham last week, is in a quandary. - -[Illustration: COLCHESTER CASTLE.] - -The once forlorn condition of Colchester Castle doubtless originated -in 1726, when its then owner, Sir Isaac Rebow, left it by will to a -detested grandson, on whom he thus conferred a useless encumbrance, a -more exasperating bequest than even the proverbial cutting off with a -shilling. - -A relic of those old days of picturesque neglect is found in the book -of an auctioneer, who wrote an account of his "Professional Travels -in England in the first half of the Nineteenth Century," modestly -veiling his identity, and simply calling himself on his title-page, "An -Auctioneer." Part One of his work was issued in 1843, but Part Two is -yet to come, and as his first instalment shows little merit, the world -can well afford to forego the second. - -Coming to the castle, he muses over its ruins, and weeps that cabbages -and coriander employ the attention of the Colchester people, rather -than the care of ancient fortresses. To him, thus contemplating "the -sad remains of so many interesting scenes," enters from an adjoining -farm one whom he is pleased to term "an Aborigine." By this he -obviously names an Essex farm-labourer. It is an affectation, but -he might have done worse. He _might_ have called him, seeing that -Colchester is a place of oysters, a "native," in inverted commas, -evidences of jocular intent, which would have been dreadful. - -"Ah! sir," says the Aborigine, "it was cruel work when them great -Barons, as they call 'em, lived here." - -"True, my friend," replies the Auctioneer, "but it's a pity to see hogs -and donkeys depasturing in their courts and gardens, and grubbing and -kicking down their halls and chapels." - -"Lord! your honour," rejoins the son of the soil, "what's the use on -'em in these days? I'd sooner see an acre of these 'ere swedes any day, -than them there towers and dungeons. Them swedes afore you 'ool carry -a score o' fine wethers any month in the year, and plaze ye to look at -'em, but as for them flint walls, you may look at 'em for ever and a -day 'fore you find enough o' green for a garnish"; which was indeed a -practical rural way of looking at things. - -The summit of those old walls has nowadays a very charming green -garnish of grass, rendered parti-coloured by wind- and bird-sown -wallflowers and vigorous wildings; but more lusty than these are the -young sycamores, that have struck deep roots into the walls and bid -fair to grow into large trees. - -It is still possible to follow the greater part of Colchester's old -walls along the queer alleys that run above or below them. Eld Lane, -out of whose elevated course the steep descent of the old postern, -now known as Scheregate Steps, goes, is situated along the summit -of the south wall looking over towards St John's Green, where, -facing a wilderness of scrubby grass, broken bottles, and the sordid -house-sweepings of the modern town, the gatehouse stands, all that is -left of the proud mitred Abbey of St John. By that green is the frowzy -little church of St Giles, patched up in so atrocious a manner from the -wreck it was after the siege of 1648 that to call its "architecture" -merely "debased" is to deal kindly with it. A dilapidated boarded -tower is a feature of the exterior; the interior provided with a flat -plaster ceiling, like that of a dwelling-room, and filled with flimsy -pine-wood pews, painted and grained. Dust and stuffiness reign within; -dust and broken crockery without. And yet, although so unlovely, it is -not altogether with satisfaction that an elaborate design is seen for -rebuilding the church from its foundations, together with the notice, -"It is earnestly hoped that contributions will be given toward the -restoration fund." "Restoration" is not the word, for the design is -alien and quite unlike anything that formerly stood on the ground. -Rather let the place be repaired and cleansed and its unbeautiful -details preserved as a characteristic and shocking example of how -they looked upon ecclesiastical architecture in the dark days of -churchwarden- and carpenter-Gothic. It is here, under the north aisle, -that those two valiant captains, Lucas and Lisle, are laid. - -For the church-towers built of Roman bricks, and for other evidences -of that ancient Empire, let the explorer seek, and, presently finding, -think himself, if he will, an original investigator: it is a harmless -attitude, if at the same time unwarranted by fact. Let us to other -matters, and then, leaving the town, hie away for Ipswich. - -Colchester is, of course, famous for its oysters, and has been ever -since the Roman occupation. In the estuary of the Colne, and the -Crouch, and in the oozy creeks of the Essex shores, the Colchester -"natives" still grow up from infancy to maturity and feed upon the -semi-maritime slime, as they did close upon two thousand years ago, and -doubtless long before that. If we may judge from the stupendous heaps -of oyster-shells discovered on the sites of Roman towns and villas, -near and far, to say merely that the Romans were fond of oysters would -be far too mild a term. They must have almost lived on oysters, dreamt -oysters, and thought oysters. No wonder Colchester, whence the finest -and the largest supply came, was so prosperous a Roman colony. - -Although the fishery brings wealth to the town, it is more than a -mile away and makes no sign. Those who might think that, because of -it, Colchester should obtrude oysters at every turn and oyster-shells -should strew every street, would be vastly disillusioned. But -beside its oyster fishery, other Colchester trades are of secondary -importance. Agricultural machinery is made here, and brewing and -corn-milling carried on, but the once famed textile manufactures are -gone. Among those old trades was the industry of baize-making, which -left Colchester considerably over a century ago for other centres, -after having given additional prosperity to the town for a period of -a hundred and fifty years. It was shortly after 1570 that numbers -of Dutch Protestants, fleeing from the Spanish persecutions in -Holland, introduced the making of "bays and says," and, despite local -jealousies, flourished amazingly for generations here. - -But Colchester will never be dull while it continues to be what it is -now--a great military depôt. Those worthy representatives of the Roman -legionaries at a distance in time of nineteen centuries or so, the -Tommies and troopers of the British Army, are a prominent feature in -every street, and bugles blow all round the clock, from _réveillé_ to -the last post, when every good soldier goes home to his barracks down -the Butt Road; while the King's bad bargains stay behind and fortify -themselves against apprehensions of the morrow's "clink" with another -glass, or, adventuring too rashly into the street, find themselves -presently in charge of the military patrol that walks the town with -measured step and slow. - - -XXIX - - -"FROM Colchester to Ipswitch is ten mile," says that -seventeenth-century traveller, Celia Fiennes, in her diary. The -milestones, however, tell quite a different tale and contradict the -lady by making the distance between the two towns eighteen miles and a -quarter. - -Seven miles of these bring the traveller from Colchester across the -Stour and so into Suffolk. It is not an exciting seven miles. Passing -the eastern outskirts of Colchester, where mud in the Colne and puddles -beside the slattern streets offend the sense of propriety, as, having -reversed their natural positions, the Fair Field is left on the right. -"Left" is an expression used advisedly, for who would linger there? -But the Fair Field cannot be passed unawares. If not seen, it will be -heard, for on it camp the caravans, steam roundabouts and travelling -circuses that still draw rustic crowds with their fat women, giants and -dwarfs; or delight them with mechanical rides on wooden horses to the -bellowing of a steam organ, whose music-hall airs follow the traveller -in gusts of stentorian minstrelsy when the wind unkindly wills it so. -The sounds nerve the cyclist to quickly put the miles between himself -and those siren strains, and happily the road is a fast one, so that -he need not be long about the business. It goes, as an old turnpike -should, broad and straight and well-kept, for the matter of six miles, -with little to vary the monotony of trim hedgerow and equi-distant -telegraph poles. - -Let us therefore leave it awhile, and, journeying some three hundred -yards along the Harwich Road, come across a railway level-crossing to -the suburb of St Ann's, and the site of a spring and hermitage called -Holy Well. The spring is now sealed up, but an inscription in the wall -of a cottage still proclaims it to have been reopened in 1844. It seems -strange that the Hermitage should have been placed, not on the main -road where pilgrims were surely more plentiful, but on the seaward -route. The explanation may probably be sought in the existence already -of another establishment of the kind, long since forgotten. Here, then, -the Hermitage of St Ann's was placed, and a holy well and an oratory -made appeal to the piety or the superstition, as the case might be, of -all who passed by. To these the hermit presented his leathern wallet, -beseeching travellers, who would have gone without giving alms, to -spare a trifle for the upkeep of the road, even though they valued not -the Blessed Saints. - -For three hundred years the Hermitage lasted, and a long line of -hermits lived here. Some were pious and industrious, keeping the road -in repair; others had neither piety nor industry, spent their time -in taverns, were smiters, and got drunk and fought, so that the road -became scandalously neglected, and many Colchester worthies received -apostolical black eyes from eremitical fists. Such an one must have -been the hermit who lived here in the reign of Henry the Fifth, and -was indicted in 1419 for having an unclean ditch. Finally, in 1535, -when the dissolution of the monasteries took place, the Hermitage was -closed, and the then occupant turned out, with a warning that if he -solicited alms henceforward he would be regarded as a "sturdy beggar," -and dealt with accordingly. - -The road to Ipswich was the scene, in the second half of the -seventeenth century, shortly after the first coaches had started -running, of many highway robberies. The borough of Colchester was -deeply concerned at this lawlessness, and in 1679 three men were -rewarded with £6, 8s. between them "for apprehending those y^t robbed -the Ipswich coach." Again, in September 1698, three men were rewarded -"for pursuen hiewaymen," and for "going to Ardlegh" on that business; -but as they received only two shillings each and an extra shilling for -"drinck," it looks as though the pursuit was unsuccessful. - -[Illustration: COLCHESTER.] - -The high road, to which we have now returned, has already been -described as an excellent highway, but Dilbridge, a hamlet, and a -roadside inn on what was once Ardleigh Heath, alone break its solitude. -It has, however, the advantage of commanding the best general view of -Colchester, with the inevitable Jumbo prominent, and the new-risen Town -Hall tower in rivalry with it. - -Suddenly, when six miles from Colchester, the road changes its -character and drops sharply down by an almost precipitous descent, to -where a lazy river is seen flowing picturesquely in loops and bends -between the grey-green foliage of willows lining either bank. It flows -through a land of rich green meadows and yellow cornfields; a land, -too, of noble elms and oaks. In the far distance the waters of a salt -estuary sparkle in the sun, while in between, from this Pisgah height, -rises the tall tower of a church. The river is the Stour, dividing -Essex and Suffolk, and the pleasant vale, the Vale of Dedham. The -estuary is that of the Stour at Manningtree, and the church tower -that of Dedham. This, indeed, is the Constable Country, and that fact -explains the homelike and familiar look it wears, even to the stranger. -Constable, born close by at East Bergholt, painted these scenes -lovingly for over forty years, and remained constant to his native vale -all his life. By the magic power that comes of sympathy, he transferred -the spirit of these lanes and fields and trees to canvas as faithfully -as he did their form and colour; with the result that the veriest -stranger viewing them becomes reminiscent. - -Nor did Constable only _paint_ his native vale; he has described it in -almost as masterly a way. To him it was "the most cultivated part of -Suffolk, a spot which overlooks the fertile valley of the Stour, which -river separates that county on the south from Essex. The beauty of the -surrounding scenery, its gentle declivities, its luxuriant meadow flats -sprinkled with flocks and herds, its well-cultivated uplands, its woods -and rivers, with numerous scattered villages and churches, farms and -picturesque cottages, all impart to this particular spot an amenity -and excellence hardly anywhere else to be found. He tells an amusing -story of travelling home by coach down this very hill. He shared the -vehicle with two strangers. "In passing the Vale of Dedham, one of -them remarked, on my saying it was very beautiful, 'Yes, sir, this is -Constable's Country.' I then told him who I was lest he should spoil -it." - -From this hill-top to the left of the road, and in what are now the -woodlands of Langham Hall, Constable painted his best-known Vale -of Dedham. In one respect the scene has changed. The willows still -fringing the Stour, formerly "cobbed" or pollarded, are now allowed -to grow as they will, and the river is not so visible as it was once. -Otherwise the Constable Country is little altered. Even on this hill, -close by Langham church, Church Farm, the original of his "Glebe Farm," -remains as it was, thatched and gabled, close by the church tower. Only -the foliage has changed, and the little guttering stream been drained -away. - -[Illustration: THE VALE OF DEDHAM. _After Constable._] - -[Illustration: GUN HILL.] - -This steep road, shelving so abruptly to the Stour, is Dedham Hill, -more often locally known as Dedham Gun Hill, from the "Gun" inn at the -summit, now unhappily rebuilt, but until recently a most picturesque -old inn, with the painted sign of a cannon hanging over the road. The -sign has gone, and a pretentious house, which proclaims "Accommodation -for Lady Cyclists," arisen in its stead. At the foot of the hill the -road, turning abruptly to the left, begins a lengthy crossing of the -Stour and its marshes by a bridge over the channel and a long series of -flood-water arches across the oozy valley. The old toll-house, taking -tolls no longer, still stands, a quaint building on the Essex side, and -bears a cast-iron tablet with the inscription,-- - - THE DUMB ANIMALS' HUMBLE PETITION. - - Rest, drivers, rest, on this steep hill, - Dumb beasts pray use with all good will; - Goad not, scourge not, with thongèd whips, - Let not one curse escape your lips, - God sees and hears. - - T. T. H., POSUIT. - -[Illustration: OLD TOLL-HOUSE, STRATFORD BRIDGE.] - -This is one of a number of similar tablets erected throughout the -country in the early part of the nineteenth century, when the first -glimmerings of humane treatment of animals began to show themselves. -When drivers had perforce to halt here to pay toll, this was a notice -they could scarce help seeing, but it only by rare chance attracts -attention now. - -Across the bridge is the mill, long idle and empty. No picturesque -building this, but a great hulking structure of that intolerable -"white" Suffolk brick which is rather a grey-white than any other hue; -a brick which, the older it is looks more shabby and crude, and by no -chance ever helps the artist. The whole length of the Norwich Road is -more or less bedevilled with it. - -This mill is the one blot on the beauty of Stratford St Mary, a village -built along the flat road and continuing round the bend, and so up the -hill to where the fine old church stands overlooking the highway. It -is a remarkable church, built of black flint and stone, and covered on -the side facing the road with inscriptions. It owed its rise, on the -site of an older building, to the Mors family, wealthy clothworkers -of this place in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is perhaps -a little difficult to imagine Stratford St Mary, in common with other -East Anglian towns and villages, a busy seat of the weaving industry, -just as there is a difficulty in realising that Sussex was once a -grimy iron-mining country; but trades and places have their fates, and -changes and romances of their own. - -From 1499 to 1530 two generations of the Mors family were busy in -giving to their church and in directing its new features; and the -chief of the inscriptions in stone and flint that curiously decorate -its exterior in old English characters record the facts and beseech -the wayfarer to pray for their souls. Vain request! The work had not -been completed five years when the long and troubled story of the -Reformation began and the souls of the dead were no longer prayed for. - -The most prominent inscription is that enjoining prayers for Thomas -Mors and his wife Margaret, who built the north aisle:-- - - Orate pro animabus Thome Mors et Margarete uxoris ejus qui istam - alam ffieri fecerunt anno dni mcccc^m lxxxxviiii - -Edward Mors, son of Thomas and Margaret, is, together with his wife -Alice, content with an English inscription. They are also a little less -self-centred than their forbears, desiring prayers for "all Christian -souls" in addition to supplications for their own especial benefit:-- - - Praye for the soullys of Edward Mors and Alys hys wyfe and all - crysten sowlys, Anno Domini 1530. - -Many other inscriptions and devices are seen, among them the letters, -P B A E S, said to be the initials of an invocatory sentence, -"_Propitiemini beati ad eternam salutem_," addressed to Saints Thomas -and Margaret, the patron saints of Thomas and Margaret Mors. But, -stranger than any, is the appearance of the entire alphabet on these -walls. Many attempts have been made to explain the reason of this, -among them the view that the object was to educate the villagers in the -rudiments of spelling! - - -XXX - - -THE long rise out of Stratford on the way to Ipswich lies through a -beautiful Gainsborough-like woodland, with ancient trees gripping sandy -banks in a tenacious clutch of gnarled roots. It is a hollow road, and -one in which, when the coaches were toiling up, the guards' hands went -instinctively towards their blunderbusses and swordcases. One never -knew what or who might be lurking in that shade. - -But if it was a chancy spot then, how very suspicious a place it must -have been hundreds of years before. That it was so regarded may be -learnt from the _Paston Letters_, the instructive correspondence of the -Paston family in the fifteenth century. Therein we read how a rival of -John Paston in the wardship of one of the Fastolf family, coming out -of Suffolk to London, was escorted by a hundred retainers, all armed -with bows and arrows in their hands, with saletts on their heads, -well-padded jacks and rusty haubergeons on their bodies, and fear in -their hearts of an ambush laid on the part of the Pastons in the hollow -way where the trees meet overhead and a mid-day darkness broods under -the dense foliage. This rival expressed himself as not being afraid of -the Pastons or any of their friends; but if not, why did he go escorted -with this motley crew, tricked out with all the ancient weapons and -rusted armour they could find? Happily they were not attacked, but that -it was possible for petty warfare of this kind to be plotted is proof -that the Merry England of that period was no safe place for peaceful -travellers. - -Now we are well within Suffolk, the "crack county of England," as -Cobbett called it, the "sweet and civil county" of Bishop Hall; but a -county to which the alliterative term "silly" has long been applied. -It is probably by this time quite hopeless to scotch that nickname, -for it is of a considerable age and has a specious and easy glibness -that comes trippingly off the tongue. Suffolkers themselves--whom it -most concerns--are at pains to explain that the real, and entirely -flattering, solution of the phrase is found in "selig," the Anglo-Saxon -for "holy" or "blissful;" a reference to the numerous and wealthy -religious houses within the county, and to the East Anglian saints and -the many places of pilgrimage. Another party advancing the theory that -the epithet was originally "Sely Suffolk," observant of the seasons, -would thus have us believe that Suffolk must have been more observant -than other counties, which is not credible. True, Suffolkers still talk -of the hay-harvest as "haysel," a survival of "hay sele," but this is -not the only county that uses the phrase. It becomes evident that the -nickname must go unexplained. - -Suffolk has its claims to recognition on other than historic grounds. -"I'm told the dumplings is uncommon fine down there," said William, -the coachman, to little David Copperfield. Perhaps they are, and -certainly it was once the custom among the peasantry here, as indeed -throughout England, to serve pudding, or "dumpling," before meat in -order to take the edge off appetites with a kind of food cheaper than -butcher's meat; but the improved circumstances of the peasantry scarce -demand such a practice nowadays, and in any case, Norfolk is the county -of dumplings, so Dickens was in error in putting that speech in the -coachman's mouth. "Norfolk Dumplings," he should have known, are as -proverbial as "Silly Suffolkers." - -Suffolk is deservedly esteemed all over the world for the "Suffolk -Punch." This sounds convivial, but has no connection with punch-bowls; -the reference being, as a matter of fact, to a breed of horses. - -"And the Punches! There's cattle!" said William, the Canterbury -coachman, to David Copperfield. "A Suffolk Punch, when he's a good -'un, is worth his weight in gold," he added; which is not a very great -exaggeration. Keep an eye upon the fields or an observant glance -along the road, and the Suffolk Punch will readily be noted in his -native country, at plough, halted by the wayside inn, or dragging with -indomitable spirit the heaviest loads that the stupidity of the most -stupid of waggoners could put him to. If ever horse deserved the praise -contained in the familiar copy-book maxim, that he is "a Noble Animal, -the Friend of Man," it is to this breed that it most particularly -applies. The Suffolk Punch is a sturdy and a willing brute, and will -pull against a dead weight until exhausted. It has been said that the -Suffolk Punch existed as a type of horse in early British times, and -it has been supposed that his remote ancestors were the horses that -drew Boadicea's war-chariots. If it were not that he is invariably -a chestnut, it might be supposed that his fame in the county had -originated the sign of the "Great White Horse" in Ipswich; but from -chestnut the breed never varies. It may be of various shades, from the -darkest mahogany to the lightest golden-brown, but never any other hue. -It is, of course, not necessary to journey into East Anglia to see the -Suffolk Punch. Many of his kind are at work in London, drawing heavy -loads, and are to be seen expatriated to Russia, and on Canadian farms, -thousand of miles away from their native claylands. - -The Suffolk dialect is kin to those of Essex and Norfolk, but the -"Suffolk whine" is peculiar to the county; it is a rising inflection -of the voice towards the end of words and sentences. In Suffolk speech -"fowls" become "foals," and "foals," "fools"; and archaic words, heard -occasionally in Essex, grow more common as the traveller advances. -So also does an odd custom first noticed in the neighbourhood of -Colchester--the custom of affixing the place-name to the sign of -an inn in ordinary talk. The "Gun" inn at Dedham, for example, is -always spoken of as "Dedham Gun," and here, at Bentley, the custom -is emphasised by the sign of a roadside inn being inscribed "Bentley -Tankard," and not merely "The Tankard." - -[Illustration: SPRING: SUFFOLK PLOUGHLANDS. _After Constable._] - -But to understand Suffolk ways and to hear Suffolk talk it is necessary -to linger in the villages and to gossip with the sons of the soil. The -agricultural villages are only articulate at eventide, when they give -themselves up to play and gossip. Then, as the long summer day draws -to its close, the children find romance in the lengthening shadows, in -which their games of robbers and pirates seem much more convincing than -they could be made to appear in the glare of the midday sun; the farm -labourers slouch off to their evening, over quarts of "bellywengins," -at the pub, and the coy mawthers find the twilight a seasonable time -for nannicking with the hudderens. This, which may seem unmeaning -gibberish to those unacquainted with the peculiar dialect of East -Anglia, merely signifies the girls flirting with the "other ones"--the -young men, in short. - -But a mawther may be of any age. A baby girl is a mawther, and so -is a grandame. It is a curiosity of speech which is apt to startle -the stranger who first hears it applied to a girl who has hardly yet -learned to toddle, in the maternal threat, to be heard any day in any -Suffolk village, "Yow come 'ere, mawther, this instant moment, or I'll -spank yow, so I 'ool." "Yow," of course, is the Essex, Suffolk and -Norfolk shibboleth for "you," by which a native of these parts may be -immediately distinguished anywhere. - -When the labourers have trudged over to their "shants o' gatter," -or quarts and pots of beer--the "bellywengins," or belly vengeance, -aforesaid; when the children have been put to bed, and the mawthers -and the hudderens have gone nannicking off together in the gathering -dusk, then is the gossiping time, both of the housewives and of the -labourers. The women talk at the doors of the "housen": the men mostly -in the village inns. Hear, passing stranger, what the mawthers are -saying:-- - -"Good daa to 'ee, Mrs Potter, how are ye a-gettin' arn?" - -"I'm a-doin' good-tidily, thank'ee, better'n tew or tree weeks sin'. -The doctor say I fare to be on the mend; but it hev bin a bad time wi' -me sure." - -"Ay; owd bones 'on't be young agen, I'm thinkin'; but there, 'taint so -much yer aige, 'tis yer sperrut what keep ye up or let ye down." - -"Ay, that be trew," says one of the group, "what be life wi'out -sperrut? Nothin', in a manner o' speakin'." - -"Yar father, Mrs Cobbold, he had it, and he lived to be ninety." - -"What a man that wor! I mind him when he come to mine arter he'd walked -from Ipswich, an' that's a good ten mile. He come to paiy a shullun he -ew my ole man, and, barrin' a bit tirsty, he were as spry as a mavish -and fresher'n a paigle." - -A mile distant, to the right hand, lies East Bergholt, Constable's -birthplace, and between it and the road still stretch in summer those -golden cornfields he loved so well. "The Cornfield," that crowning -achievement of English landscape, how exquisite a thing it is, radiant -in colour on the walls of the National Gallery, and how ineffectually -the inadequate medium of black and white attempts to translate it. - -[Illustration: THE CORNFIELD. _After Constable._] - -The grumbling farmer, who has good cause for his growls, poor fellow, -is careful to explain his cornfields away. When asked why, if it -does not pay to grow wheat, he still continues to do so, he says he -grows it for the straw. At any rate, times are changed from those when -agricultural England was merry with high prices; those picturesque days -when the Ipswich and Norwich coaches were hailed, as every traveller -was hailed, at harvest-time by the reapers' cry of "Halloo, halloo, -largesse," the largesse going at harvest-home in a saturnalia at the -village inn. "Largesse" has gone with the going of the reaping-hook, -and with it and many other things has gone the Lord of the Harvest, -elected from among his fellow-reapers to preside over their labours and -their harvest-supper in the great fragrant barn or in the farm kitchen. -The line of red-cheeked peasants, working from early morning with their -sickles in the fierce sun upon the diminishing fields of standing -wheat, with halts for levenses and bever, and so home by the light of -the harvest moon, is no more to be seen: reaping-machines do the work -instead. It was astonishing, and, in the haymaking fields, still is, -what long and continual draughts of beer can be disposed of in the -intervals of such labour. Levenses, that is to say the eleven o'clock -forenoon meal, and bever, the four o'clock in the afternoon halt, whose -name came through the Norman-French "bevre" from the Latin "bibere," -to drink, reduced the contents of the barrels placed in the shady -hedgerows, but quarts imbibed under such conditions were harmless. -Almost solitary survivals of the old peasant life, the names of "bever" -and "levenses" remain yet in the common speech of Norfolk and Suffolk -as those of the hedgeside meals of ploughman and carter. - -Old country folk still talk, in their reminiscent moments, of coaching -and posting days here, when, near the tiny hamlet known as Cross Green, -and in a deep dip of the high road, where a byway goes, leading from -Manningtree to Hadleigh and beyond, "Laddenford Stables" stood at the -cross roads that went then by the name of the "Four Sisters." Four -sisters, if one likes to accept the rustic belief, agreed to part here -and went their several ways, but how they fared, or what was their -social status, the story does not tell. - -Passing Capel St Mary and the level-crossing by Capel station, and so -by Copdock, whose church tower has an odd weather-vane in the shape -of King David playing his harp, Washbrook is reached at the foot of -its steep hill. Copdock on the hill and Washbrook in the hollow, -together with the broad and still marshy valley of the little Wash -Brook, tell how that rivulet was once, in the far-off days when Saxons -and Danes contended on this coast, a navigable creek, an arm of the -Orwell. The road, in its sharp descent into and rise out of the valley, -together with its acute bend, is also eloquent of bygone geographical -conditions, leading as it does down to the place where a bridge now -spans the stream on the spot where the creek was, in days of old, first -fordable. Having thus crossed, the road went, and still goes, in a -right-angle turn uphill, towards Ipswich. - -It was by no means necessary for travellers journeying between London -and Norwich to touch Ipswich. The coaches did, for obvious commercial -reasons, but the "chariots" and the post-chaises commonly went from -Washbrook, through Sproughton and Bramford, and joined the coach -route again at Claydon, thus taking the base of a triangle, instead -of its two sides. There are those at Washbrook who can still tell of -the coaches that halted at "Copdock White Elm"; of the time when a -toll-gate (the house still existing) stretched across the way at the -foot of the hill, and of the "aristocracks" who posted the long stage -between "Stonham Pie" and "Washbrook Swan." They can point out the -"Swan," facing up the road and looking squarely up at the hill-top, but -now a private residence with its stables chiefly put to alien uses; and -can show the places, in what are now meadows, where many houses and -cottages stood in those wayfaring days, when the high-lying road to -Ipswich, across the uplands between the valleys of the Stour and the -Orwell, was not so unfrequented as now. - - -XXXI - - -THERE can be no doubt of Ipswich and its surroundings having thoroughly -captured the heart of grumbling old Cobbett. - -"From the town itself," he says, "you can see nothing; but you can, in -no direction, go from it a quarter of a mile without finding views -that a painter might crave." This is not a little remarkable, for we do -not generally attribute an artistic perception of scenic beauties to -this practical farmer. Yet he was of one mind with Constable, of whom -and his pictures he probably had never heard, although Constable had -already for years been painting these very scenes. - -The practical farming mind appears in Cobbett's next remarks: "And -then, the country round about is so well cultivated; the land in such -a beautiful state, the farmhouses all white and all so much alike; the -barns and everything about the homesteads so snug; the stock of turnips -so abundant everywhere; the sheep and cattle in such fine order; the -wheat all drilled; the ploughman so expert; the furrows, if a quarter -of a mile long, as straight as a line, and laid as truly as if with -a level; in short, here is everything to delight the eye and to make -the people proud of their country; and this is the case throughout -the whole of this county. I have always found Suffolk farmers great -boasters of their superiority over others, and I must say that it is -not without reason." - -Cobbett found the windmills on the hills round Ipswich so numerous -that, while standing in one place, he counted no fewer than seventeen, -all painted or washed white, with black sails. They are fewer to-day, -and could Gainsborough, old Crome and Constable revisit the scenes of -their artistic inspiration, they would sadly miss the picturesqueness -they gave these woody scenes and fertile hills and vales. It is from -the crest of one of these hills that Ipswich is first glimpsed. There -it sprawls, prosperous, beside the broad Orwell; "doubtlesse one of -the sweetest, most pleasant, well-built townes in England," as John -Evelyn thought in 1656; but then swarming with "a new phanatic sect of -dangerous principles." The reader will scarce guess aright who these -fanatics were. They were neither sun-worshippers nor Mahometans, but -merely Quakers. - -One obtains no glimpse of the broad estuary of the Orwell when -descending into the town by the London road, and the crowded mass -of the place rises confusedly up before the traveller as he steeply -descends, and forms no picture. You must take Ipswich in detail to -admire it, and the actual crossing of the river at the foot of the -hill where the town begins is at a narrow canalised stretch before it -widens out into the noble harbour that makes the fortune of the port. -A sign of that accomplished fortune is the unlovely sight of the great -railway sidings and goods yards spread out before the stranger's eye as -he comes downhill. One may say that the town begins at the door of the -"Ipswich Arms" inn, uninteresting in itself, but displaying the fine -"old coat" of this famous seaport; a shield with a rampant golden lion -on a red field on the sinister, and three golden demi-boats on blue on -the dexter side. - -"A fine, populous, and beautiful place," says Cobbett, still harping on -an unwonted string of praise. "The town is substantially built, well -paved, everything good and solid, and no wretched dwellings to be -seen on its outskirts." He knew no town to be compared with it, except -it were Nottingham, which, after all, is not properly comparable, -Nottingham standing high, while Ipswich is in a vale, and moreover, -is situated on an arm of the sea. It is amusing to read Cobbett's -remarks on the population of Ipswich, which stood in his time at twelve -thousand. "Do you not," he asks, "think Ipswich was far larger and far -more populous seven hundred years ago than it is at this hour?"--that -hour being some time in March 1830. He remarked upon "the twelve large, -lofty and magnificent churches," each of them seven hundred years old, -one capable of holding from four to seven thousand persons, and came to -the conclusion that, in fact, although he found Ipswich populous, it -must, even thus, have been a mere ghost of its former self. That shrewd -observer was right. Ipswich had grievously decayed even in Charles the -Second's reign, when the Duke of Buckingham described it as "a town -without inhabitants, a river without water, streets without names, and -where the asses wore boots." The Duke, in speaking of "a river without -water," was probably referring to the estuary of the Orwell at low -tide, when mud-banks stretch vast, and the stream runs by comparison -feeble and thread-like through them. In its then nameless streets, -Ipswich was not singular, for many small provincial towns were in like -case. The asses that wore boots were those employed in rolling the lawn -of a neighbouring park, the object probably being to prevent their -hoofs injuring the surface. - -"Yepysweche," as Margaret Paston, writing to her husband over -four hundred years ago, spells the name, derives its title from -the aboriginal Gippings, a tribe or clan who squatted down beside -the Orwell, and not only established their primitive village of -Gippingswick here, but contrived to foist their tribal name upon the -non-tidal part of the river above the town, which therefore still -generally bears this _alias_. The town probably saw its greatest -prosperity in the time of Cardinal Wolsey, a native, and, according -to legend, son of a butcher. This "butcher's dogge," as the envious -nicknamed the great Cardinal, determined that his birthplace should -be great in learning as well as in commerce, and to that end founded -a College which he intended to be in some sort preparatory for his -greater college of Christ Church at Oxford. That his foundation was -reared on the spoliation of a religious house and its revenues, -procured by him for the purpose, seemed but an ill omen for its -prosperity to those who saw his buildings rising to completion, and the -omen was speedily fulfilled, for the new-made abode of learning never -sent forth a scholar, but was suppressed by Henry the Eighth almost -before the mortar of its brick walls was dry; the buildings themselves -torn down and the endowments confiscated. All that remains of Wolsey's -College is one noble red-brick gateway in College Street. - -Daniel Defoe was a native of Ipswich and a curious contrast with -Wolsey, his brother townsman of two hundred years before. In his day -the old prosperity of the place had vanished, in the stress of Dutch -competition and the virulence of the plague; but modern times have made -amends for that temporary decay, and the town is now nearly four times -larger than when, shortly after the first quarter of the nineteenth -century had gone, Cobbett noted its many and empty churches and its -scanty population. It numbers now over 58,000 souls, and its trades are -numerous and prosperous. Whether it be in the making of agricultural -and milling machinery, its corn markets, artificial manure making, or -the manufacture of corsets, Ipswich is fortunate, with the good fortune -of those who give heed to the ancient proverb and do not put all their -eggs in one basket. - -[Illustration: WOLSEY'S GATEWAY.] - -Picturesqueness coyly hides itself from the traveller who merely -passes through the chief streets. Not in the open square of Cornhill, -where the cabs and flys stand on the site of the old Market Cross and -the trams fly to and fro, and where the Post-office and the Town Hall -rise, side by side, does it appear, nor in the long street beyond; -but rather in the Butter Market and the lanes that conduct to the -waterside. There be streets in that quarter with odd names, among them -Silent Street; and almshouses, and churches, and the queerest inns. -Among the almshouses are Smart's, on whose walls, unhappily rebuilt -in modern times, the charitable Smart and his no less charitable -coadjutor, Tooley, are commemorated:-- - - "Let gentle Smart sleep on in pious trust, - Behold his charity. Respect his dust." - - "In peaceful silence lett great Toolie rest, - Whose charitable deeds bespeak him blest." - -It is to be feared that these eulogies raise a smile at the expense of -great Tooley and gentle Smart. - -[Illustration: THE "LION AND LAMB," ANGEL LANE.] - -As to the inns, they include the odd conjunction of the "Lion and -Lamb," pictured here, and the "Neptune" and the "Sea Horse," with a -fine sound of the sea in their names. Some of these old hostelries yet -retain their corner-posts: for example, that of the "Half Moon" in -Foundation Street, where the post still keeps its mediæval carving of a -fox, with uplifted sanctimonious eyes, preaching to three geese and a -griffin; a satirical effort no doubt looked sourly upon by the clergy -of St Mary Key Church, opposite, in days of old. A great gilt key -serves as vane to that church and perpetuates the error in the name, -which was originally, and rightly, St Mary-at-Quay: the custom-house -quay and the harbour being close by, as the sight of certain -corn-elevators, the rattling of chains and windlasses, and the sounds -of throaty steam-sirens sufficiently proclaim. The custom-house stands -in midst of coal-grit, laden steam vessels lying alongside the quay -wall, bellowing steamily to be discharged, and railway-sidings, along -whose maze of points and turn-tables fussy little locomotive engines, -dragging jerky trucks, run, screaming intermittently, as though saying -to the bellowing steam-vessels, "_You_ just wait; can't you see I'm -coming as quick as I can?" It is a dignified custom-house, and seems, -surrounded with dutiable goods, to be aristocratically sneering at -the trade in whose midst it is necessarily placed, and with as great -a consciousness of its Ionic peristyle as any high-born beauty of her -Greek nose. - -Many of the old wool-staplers', clothiers' and merchants' fine mansions -stood by the quay and in the by-lanes. They are mostly gone now, but -traces of old doorways and stray fragments of stone and wood carvings -remain, and here and there a courtyard, or a house that sheltered -family circles in the amphibious half-mercantile, half-agricultural -Ipswich of the sixteenth century. - -[Illustration: SPARROWE'S HOUSE.] - -Certainly one of the finest things Ipswich has to show is the wonderful -old place in the old Butter Market, known still as "Sparrowe's House," -although the last of the Sparrowes who inhabited here has long since -gone to his home in the family vault within the Church of St Lawrence, -where, over their tomb-house, may yet be read the punning motto, -_Nidus Passerum_, "a nest of sparrows." These Sparrowes seem to have -been endowed with some of the attributes of the cuckoo, for _they_ -did not build the house that bears their name. It owes its origin to -a certain George Copping, who built it in 1567, but alterations and -additions made in the Jacobean period give its architectural history -a span of over a century. The woodwork of the bay windows and the -grandly-projecting eaves, together with that of the shop premises, was -added at the time. But the great glory of "Sparrowe's House" is its -decorative plaster-work in high relief, which profusely covers the -exterior with garlands of flowers and fruits and with quaint devices -emblematic of the four quarters of the globe. Here Europa, cornucopia -in one hand, book and sceptre in the other, sits with her bull, who -might be taken for an elephant with half his trunk shorn off; here, -on another bay, a podgy plaster relief typifies Asia, with palm-tree -and a building of Oriental character in the background; followed by -Africa, a nude nigger holding an umbrella over his head and sitting -on a shark, at which four tiny figures at a respectful distance -express astonishment, while nearer at hand a wicked-looking bird of -quite uncertain family roosts on a something that greatly resembles -a battered meat tin. America is typified by an Indian in a feather -head-dress which represents his entire wardrobe. He stands with bow -and arrows, attended by a dog with a damaged smile. A very beautiful -representation of the Royal Arms occupies one of the spaces between -the windows, and other devices show the pelican in her piety; Atlas -supporting the world; a classical scene in which a shepherd bows as -gracefully as the artist in plaster could make him to a rural nymph; St -George and the Dragon, and several smaller subjects. - - -XXXII - - -THE most famous thing in Ipswich is a thing neither ancient nor -beautiful, yet it is an object to which most visitors to the town turn -their first attention: it is the "Great White Horse." The "Great White -Horse" is an hotel, of a size, in the merry days of the road, justly -thought enormous. It has been left for the present age to build many -hotels in town and country capable of containing half-a-dozen or more -hostelries of the size of the "Great White Horse," but in its own -especial era that house fully justified the adjective in its sign. -Especially did its bulk strike the imagination of the reporter of the -London _Morning Chronicle_ who was dispatched to Ipswich in 1830 for -the purpose of reporting a Parliamentary election in the town. He was -a very young, a very impressionable and a very bright reporter, and -although we may be quite sure that the business on which he was come to -Ipswich was an arduous piece of work, calculated to fully occupy his -time and thoughts, he carried away with him so accurate an impression -of the big inn where he stayed, that when, some time afterwards, he -wrote about it the description was as exact as though it had been -penned within sight of the house. That reporter was Charles Dickens, -and it is his description in the _Pickwick Papers_ which has made the -place famous. - -[Illustration: THE "GREAT WHITE HORSE."] - -It was not a flattering description. Few more severe things have ever -been said of inns than those Dickens wrote of the "Great White Horse." -Indeed, if such things were nowadays printed of any inn or hotel, the -writer might confidently expect to be made the defendant in an action -for libel. Yet (such is the irony of time and circumstances) the house -that Dickens so roundly abused is now eager in all its advertisements -to quote the association; and the adventures of Mr Pickwick in the -double-bedded room with the elderly lady in yellow curl-papers have -brought many more visitors than the unfavourable notice of the -"uncarpeted passages" and the "mouldy, ill-lighted rooms" has turned -away. If, as has been thought, Dickens thus wrote of the house in order -to be revenged for some slights and discomforts he may have experienced -here, certainly fortune has played the cynic in converting his remarks -into the best of all imaginable recommendations. - -The exterior of the house is much the same as it was when Dickens first -saw it, "in the main street of Ipswich, on the left-hand side of the -way, a short distance after you have passed through the open space -fronting the Town Hall." - -It is the same plain, square building, constructed of a pallid kind of -brick suggesting underdone pastry, and is still, although the coaches -have disappeared and railways have supplanted them, "known far and -wide by the appellation of the 'Great White Horse.'" Still, over the -pillared entrance trots the effigy of the Great White Horse himself, -perhaps the aboriginal ancestor of that famous breed of equines, the -"Suffolk Punches," a very muscular race, more famous for their bulk -and strength than for elegance, like those sturdy Flanders mares to -which Henry the Eighth inelegantly likened his bride, Anne of Cleves. - -Dickens, using the usual licence of the novelist, describes this effigy -as "a stone statue of some rampacious animal, with flowing mane and -tail, distantly resembling an insane cart-horse, elevated above the -principal door." Quite apart from the fact that the word "rampacious" -is unknown to the English language, and is probably meant for -"rampageous," the horse is really represented in the act of beginning a -gentle trot, and looks as mild as the mildest milk that ever dewed the -whiskers of a new-born kitten. His off fore-leg, broken at some period, -has been restored of a size that does not match with the other three. -Never, in the whole of his existence, has the Great White Horse gone -on the rampage, and, like all the truly great, his manners have always -been distinguished by their unobtrusiveness. - -"The 'Great White Horse,'" writes Dickens, "is famous in the -neighbourhood, in the same degree as a prize ox, or county -paper-chronicled turnip, or unwieldy pig--for its enormous size. Never -were such labyrinths of uncarpeted passages, such clusters of mouldy, -ill-lighted rooms, such huge numbers of small dens for eating or -sleeping in, beneath any one roof, as are collected together between -the four walls of the 'Great White Horse' at Ipswich." Further, he -describes it as "an overgrown tavern," at whose door, when Mr Pickwick -descended from the coach, stood a waiter whose description quite -takes one's desire for dinner away. He was "a corpulent man with a -fortnight's napkin under his arm and coeval stockings on his legs." - -Although that must have been in the best and most prosperous days of -the highway, this waiter does not appear to have had anything more -pressing to do than "staring down the road," while the account of -the internal arrangements of the house does not indicate flourishing -business. The private room into which the guests were shown was a -"large, badly-furnished apartment, with a dirty grate, in which a -small fire was making a wretched attempt to be cheerful, but was fast -sinking under the dispiriting influence of the place." After this we -are not surprised to read that it was only "after the lapse of an hour" -that "a bit of fish and a steak," representing a dinner, appeared. -When this was disposed of, Mr Pickwick and Mr Peter Magnus huddled up -to the fire, and, "having ordered a bottle of the worst possible port -wine, at the highest possible price, for the good of the house, drank -brandy-and-water for their own." - -Certainly Dickens must have had some very bitter grudge against the -"Great White Horse." - -Then come allusions to "tortuous passages," and the difficulty of -a stranger's finding his way about the interminable corridors, or -distinguishing between one "mouldy room" and another; difficulties -which led to Mr Pickwick's comical predicament in the middle of -the night. The rooms, not so mouldy now, and the passages, just as -perplexing, remain, structurally unaltered to this day; but certain -alterations have been made downstairs in the courtyard, now roofed in -with glass and made very attractive, without spoiling the old-style -character of the house. If you be a literary pilgrim, or an American, -they will show you Mr Pickwick's bedroom; and can meet any of Dickens's -criticisms by telling how Nelson stayed here with--ahem!--Lady -Hamilton, and how Admiral Hyde-Parker and others of world-wide fame -have occupied the "mouldy rooms." - - -XXXIII - - -LEAVING Ipswich and passing through the dusty roadside fringe of -Whitton village, known as Whitton Street, Claydon, nondescript, and -neither very beautiful nor quite commonplace, is reached in two -and a half miles. Just before entering the village, an old mansion -is glimpsed from the road, embowered in trees, a mansion which, on -inquiry, the ingenuous youth of Claydon declare to be "Mockbeggar -Hall." Claydon Hall is its true title; but the popular name has been -handed down since many, many years ago, when the old house (not old -then) long remained tenantless. Like the many other places named -"Mockbeggar," it stands well within view of passing travellers, and -must have induced many a sturdy rogue and vagabond to trudge wearily -up the long approach in search of alms, only to find the windows dark, -the chimneys innocent of smoke, the place, in fact, deserted of all -but fluttering bats and screeching owls, whose shrill notes must have -sounded like jeers to the disappointed vagrants. Inhabited now, Claydon -Hall is a handsome old house bearing the date 1635 on its Dutch-like -gables. It will probably never lose its popular name. Behind the old -Hall winds the willow-fringed Orwell, coyly approaching within view -of the road, and then, as it were, timorously retreating again; its -brimming stream, although seen only in such fleeting glimpses, potent -in its effect upon at least three miles' length of the road, from -Claydon to Creeting All Saints, in the loveliest stretch of woodland, -where the fierce mid-day sun is baffled by over-arching foliage, -and twilight comes early in the afternoon through the dense masses -of leaves. These are the woodlands of Shrubland Park. The Hall lies -secluded to the right hand, somewhere away beyond the rather terrible -lodges that confront the traveller, who wonders where he has seen their -like before; until, like a flash, the memory of certain great London -cemeteries and their mortuary chapels comes upon him in desolating -fashion and blights the cheerful rustic surroundings of forest trees -and the scurryings of white-tailed rabbits and gorgeous blue and brown -pheasants that inhabit this domain of Lord de Saumarez. The lodges, -built like the Hall, from designs by Sir Charles Barry, are of white -brick and stone, in the Italian Renaissance style. - -[Illustration: MOCKBEGGAR HALL.] - -At no great distance from the entrance to this lordly domain, and -noticeable from the road, in an exquisitely damp situation by the -river, eminently calculated to foster rheumatism in old bones, is the -Barham Union-house--the "Work'us" of peasant speech. It is quite an -old-world building, and one of the earliest built under the new Poor -Law Act of the early nineteenth century, when outdoor relief gave place -to retirement within these prison-like buildings. Hodge well named them -"Bastilles." They say who should know of what they speak, that life -in Barham Union is nowadays quite desirable, but the design of the -building, a quadrangular structure enclosing a courtyard, with outer -walls blank or only provided with windows at a height from the ground, -closely follows the prison, or restraining, idea. - -The little roadside sign of the "Sorrel Horse," standing in midst -of these leafy bowers, is in pleasing contrast with the Campo Santo -pretentiousness of Shrubland lodges or the prison-like style of the -Union, now left behind on a rising road, where the scarped side of -the highway reveals a momentary change from the prevailing claylands -to chalk; a change so sudden and so strictly confined to this -hillside that it at once attracts the attention of even the least -geologically-inclined. Here the campions bloom that love the chalk -and refuse to grow on clay. Below this hilltop, in the deep hollow -scoured out ages ago, when the now insignificant stream that crosses -the road was a considerable force, is Creeting Bottom, and Creetings of -several sorts are set about the countryside, all hiding from the road -that goes now up hill and down dale with as lonely an air as though -the little town of Needham Market and the larger town of Stowmarket -were not almost within sight, over the shoulders of the hills, on the -highway parallel with this, that runs to Bury St Edmunds. To be on "on -the road to Needham" is an obvious Suffolk saying, applied to those who -are badly off for worldly gear, and it is a little curious that Needham -itself was for many years, and until quite recently, a place of fallen -fortunes, lamenting the decay of its textile trades in empty houses -and an "irreducible minimum" of rent for those that were so fortunate -as to find occupants at all. The name of "Hungry-gut Hall" that still -clings to a farmhouse marks that depressed period to all time; but in -the spicy odours of the tanneries and the chemical manure stores and -other thriving industries and businesses that cluster round the railway -station, the explorer finds evidences enough that Needham is reviving. - -[Illustration: "STONHAM PIE."] - -Not a sign of those towns or of the railway is seen on the road to -Norwich, where the cottage outposts of Stonham Earls and Stonham -Aspall alone tell of the villages in the hinterland. In their gardens, -spread on bushes or waving in the summer breeze, intimate articles of -underclothing are prominently displayed, in the society of old hats -and coats, not so much for the exhibition of the family wardrobe as in -desperate attempts--bringing up all the reserves--at scaring away the -hungry birds from currants, cherries and gooseberries. These contests, -the only warring incidents on the way, in which the birds are generally -the victors, bring one to a level road where Little Stonham stands, -its chief feature the "Magpie" Inn. "Stonham Pie" owns one of those -old gallows signs, stretching across the road, that were at one time a -common feature. The picture-sign, with a painting of that saucy bird, -has been hung below the cross-beam instead of in its old ironwork -frame above, now that the piled-up coaches that once passed beneath -are gone. Shortly before their going, and while turnpikes and tolls -appeared likely to last for ever, the toll-gate that stood at the -succeeding village of Brockford was removed two miles onward, to Stoke -Ash, where, at the beginning of the pretty avenue at Stoke Chapel, the -later toll-house remains, just as does the earlier one at Brockford. -Brockford, the "badger's ford" of a tiny affluent of the Waveney, is -preceded by Brockford Green, where the quiet road is made narrow by its -sides being encroached upon by grass. It is here that the accompanying -sketch of tall poplars and bushy willows was taken. - -[Illustration: NEAR BROCKFORD.] - -Off to the left hand, in strong contrast with this level stretch of -road, the country is tumbled into combes and rounded hills, where the -River Gipping takes its rise in the village of that name, springing -from the hill where the church tower stands solemn and grim, as though -it held inviolate the story of the place, away from those days when the -Gippings first settled here and gave it a title. - -But let not the hurried seek Gipping, along the winding by-roads. The -way, if not far, is not easy, and passengers are few. Scattered and -infrequent farmhouses there be, at whose back doors to inquire the way, -but rustic directions are apt to mislead. In any case, it is little -use approaching the front door of a farmhouse. No one will hear you -knocking, unless indeed it be a watchful and savage dog, trained to be -on the alert for tramps; and you are like to hear him snuffling and -gasping on the other side in a ferociously suggestive manner which will -render you thankful that the door is closed and bolted. And not only -bolted on this occasion, but always. The steps, and the space between -the door and the threshold, where stray straws and wind-blown rubbish -have collected, are evidence of the fact that the farmer and his family -do not use the front door, but make their exits and entrances by way -of the kitchen. It is an old East Anglian custom, and although many of -the farmers nowadays pretend to culture and set up to be as up-to-date -as the retired tradesfolk and small squires they are neighbourly with, -many others would no more think of using the principal entrance to -their homes than they would make use of the "parlour," where massive -and sombre furniture, covered with antimacassars, is disposed with -geometric accuracy around the room, in company with the family Bible -and the prizes taken at school by the farmer's children; the stale and -stuffy atmosphere proclaiming that this state apartment is only used -on rare and solemn occasions. In fact, the "best room" and the front -door only came into use in the old days on the occasion of a funeral. -Perhaps it is a custom originating in a laudable idea of paying the -greatest possible respect to the dead, but it is one which certainly -gives a gruesome mortuary significance to both the entrance and the -room. - -[Illustration: "THWAITE LOW HOUSE."] - -Thwaite or "Twaite," as East Anglians, incapable of pronouncing "th," -call it, less than a mile beyond Brockford, numbers few cottages. -Beyond it, where the hitherto flat road makes a descent, is in -local parlance, "Thwaite Low House," not so called on account of -any disreputable character it may once have earned, but from its -situation. The name obviously entails the existence of a "High House," -which was, like the other, a coaching and posting inn. The last named, -now a farmstead, was in those days the "Cock," the other the "Queen's -Head." While the "Low House" has fallen upon times so irredeemably evil -that it has been long untenanted and is now a veritable scarecrow of -a house, with gaping holes in its walls and windows battened up, the -"Cock," save that its sign is gone, still remains much as it was, to -show a later generation what manner of place the roadside inn was in -days of yore. - -[Illustration: THE "COCK," THWAITE.] - -Stoke Ash, or "Aish," as Suffolkers pronounce it, like many another -village, makes no sign from the road. Its church tower seen to the -right, dimly, amid a hilltop screen of trees, a square, box-like -red-brick chapel by the way, and that pretty inn, "Stoke White Horse," -are the only other evidences of its being. The remaining six miles to -the Norfolk border lead through Yaxley and Brome: Yaxley, where a -branch railway runs under the road, on its way to Eye, and narrowly -misses the old church: Brome, where the "Swan" stands for all the -village to those who look to neither side of the road; church and -houses skulking down a by-road on the way to Hoxne. There, down that -pretty road, where the thatched cottages nestle under tall trees -and the blue wood-smoke from rustic hearths curls upwards into the -boughs and makes the sparrows cough and sneeze--there is the Rectory, -approached in lordly fashion past a fine brick entrance and exquisite -avenue, and, at a little greater distance the old black flint, -round-towered church, restored and titivated out of all antiquity -of tone: the stone sand-papered, and the flints polished with a -handkerchief. The only thing missing--and, under the circumstances, -it is missed--is a glass case, so that no damp, nor lichen, nor any -effects of weather may come to spoil the housewifely neatness. - -It was along this road to Hoxne that those who sought the revered head -of St Edmund, King and Martyr, in the miraculous legend, were led to -it by the voice calling, "Here, here, here;" at length finding the -sainted relic in charge of a wolf, who allowed it to be taken from -between his paws. But the voice thus calling was probably a much less -supernatural manifestation, and was doubtless the hooting of owls in -the woods. They still mock the belated traveller, only, to ears untuned -to the miraculous, they simply seem to ask, "Who, who, who?" Ingenuity, -however, vainly seeks the basis in nature of the wolf incident. - - -XXXIV - - -NOW, crossing the River Waveney, winding with tree-fringed banks -through a flat country, the road enters Norfolk at Scole. Coming over -the little bridge, the village is seen huddled together on either side -of a narrow rising road; village and church alike wholly dominated by -a great building of mellow red brick whose panelled chimney-stacks and -long row of beautiful gables give the impression of an historic mansion -having by some strange chance been taken from its park and set down -beside the highway. This, however, was at no time a private residence, -but was built as an inn; and an inn it remains, after the passing of -nearly two centuries and a half. Scole, or "Schoale," as the name was -often spelled in old times (when, indeed, the village was not called -by its _alias_ of Osmundeston), was by reason of this inn quite a -celebrated place in the days of long ago. Every traveller in Eastern -England had then either seen or heard of "Scole White Hart" and its -famous sign that stretched completely across the road, and as a great -many coaches halted here for changing teams, passengers had plenty of -time for examining what Sir Thomas Browne thought to be "the noblest -sighne-post in England." Both house and sign were built in 1655, for -James Peck, described as a "Norwich merchant," whose initials, together -with the date, are yet to be seen on the centre gable. The elaborate -sign alone cost £1057. It was of gigantic size and loaded with -twenty-five carved figures of classic deities and others. Chaste Diana, -with bow and arrow and two hounds, had a place on the cross-beam, in -company with Time in the act of devouring an infant, Actæon and his -dogs, a huntsman, and a White Hart _couchant_. On a pediment above -the White Hart, supported by Justice and Temperance, was the effigy -of an astronomer "seated on a Circumferenter," who by "some Chymical -Preparation is so Affected that in fine Weather He faces the North and -against bad Weather He faces that Quarter from whence it is about to -come." On either side of the dizzy height occupied by the astronomer -were figures of Fortitude and Prudence, a position suitable enough for -the first-named of those two virtues, but certainly too perilous for -the last. - -Further suggestions of Olympus, with references to Hades and Biblical -history, adorned the other portions of this extraordinary work. -Cerberus clawed one side of the supporting post, while Charon dragged -a witch to Hell on the other; and Neptune bestriding a dolphin, and -Bacchic figures seated across casks alternated with the arms of -twelve East Anglian noble and landed families. Two angels supported -respectively the arms of Mr Peck and his lady and two lions those of -Norwich and Yarmouth. On the side nearest the inn appeared a huge -carving of Jonah coming out of the whale's mouth, while, suspended in -mid-air, and surrounded by a wreath, was another White Hart. - -Although, as we have seen, Sir Thomas Browne was impressed with this -work, an early nineteenth-century tourist (so early indeed as 1801) -curtly dismisses it as "a pompous sign, with ridiculous ornaments," and -shortly after that it seems to have been taken down, for the reason -that it cost the landlord more to keep it in repair than the trade of -the house permitted. Together with this, the once celebrated Great Bed -of the White Hart has also disappeared. It was a round bed capable of -holding twenty couples, and was therefore a good deal larger than the -famous Great Bed of Ware. Perhaps it was because guests did not relish -this co-operative method of seeking repose, or maybe because sheets, -blankets and coverlets of sufficient size were unobtainable, that the -Scole Great Bed was chopped up for firewood; but did anyone _ever_ -suppose beds of this wholesale capacity would be desirable? - -The accompanying old view of the gigantic sign shows one of the -peculiar basket coaches of the second half of the eighteenth century, -on its way to London. - -[Illustration: THE OLD SIGN OF SCOLE WHITE HART.] - -"Scole White Hart" must have been among the very finest of inns and -posting-houses. Its wide staircases, of a width sufficient for the -proverbial coach-and-four to drive up them, its large rooms and fine -panelled doors, its great stone-flagged kitchen, all proclaim how great -must have been its old prosperity; while the wide-spreading yard in -the rear of the house, together with the outbuildings, gives some hint -of how heavy the traffic was at this junction of the Lowestoft, Bungay, -Diss and Thetford road with that from London to Norwich. Shrunken trade -has caused portions of the inn to be let off; the stone and wooden -porches seen in the old print have disappeared; the coach entrance has -long since been blocked up and has become the bar-parlour, and the -mullions of the windows have given place to sashes; but the building -still retains a noble architectural character, and is perhaps more -interesting in these latter days, now that its story is told, than ever -it was when that story was in the making. Little or nothing is found in -contemporary records of "Scole White Hart"; only one vivid flash in its -later years, when indignant would-be coach passengers stood at the door -on a day in October 1822 and saw the drivers of the "Norwich Times" -and "Gurney's Original Day Coach," fired by rivalry, and reckless in -their long race from Whitechapel, come pounding furiously down the road -and over the bridge, pass the inn without stopping, and disappear in -clouds of dust in the direction of Norwich. Do you know what it is to -lose a train and to wait an hour for the next? You do? Then it will -not be difficult to form some idea of the blind, stuttering fury that -possessed those who had booked seats at Scole and saw the coaches dash -away, to leave them with half a day's wait. - -Thorogood was driving the "Times." Both started from London at 5.30 -a.m. The "Day" coach reached Norwich at 5.20 p.m., and the "Times" ten -minutes later, neither having stopped for changing horses during the -last twenty-five miles. This was a "record" for that period, the usual -time being fourteen hours. - -Probably the would-be passengers had to remain the night; a fate which -no one who has done the like of late would be apt to complain of. -The guest at the "White Hart," seated in solitary state in the lofty -sitting-room, lit dimly by candles in antique plated candlesticks, and -with two ox-eyed seventeenth-century beauties of the Lely type gazing -down upon him from their sombre frames, presently feels oddly as though -he were living in another era; a feeling that grows as he wanders -upstairs to bed, almost losing himself in the roomy corridors. When -he has closed the nail-studded bedroom door with a reverberant clang, -and, creeping into the generous embraces of a damask-hung four-poster -that may have been new a century and a half ago, gazes reflectively -about the panelled room and on the curiously coffered ceiling, he drops -off to sleep straightway into the times when the inn was new-built and -dreams of how the news of the Restoration may have come to Scole in -1661. Old times live again, faded flowers bloom once more, forgotten -footsteps echo along the passages, and lo, the Has Been is enacted -again, with all the convincing air of such visions. Post-chaises and -chariots clatter up to the door and their noise wakens the sleeper -to the consciousness that the sound is but that of a jolting rustic -tumbril going down the road in the early morning; that this is the -twentieth century, and the "White Hart" but a survival in a back -eddy of life. - -[Illustration: STAIRCASE IN THE "WHITE HART."] - -Besides the "White Hart," there is little else at Scole. The plain -flint tower of the church stands by the roadside, on the ascent that -leads from the village; and other two or three inns, a few rustic shops -and cottages, and a private residence or so make up the tale. Scole, -in fact, has not grown greatly since when it was a Roman station, and -when the Roman soldiers whose remains have been found near the river -occupied the military post on the long road to Venta Icenorum. - -The legionaries first stationed in these East Anglian wastes must -often have longed for their native Italy. When the sky sank almost to -the level of the land in the long winter's rains and fogs, and the -biting winds blew out of the east across the sandy scrub; when agues -or the lurking enemy accounted for many of their comrades, and when -some favoured few were recalled to the capital, they must have thought -wistfully of a more congenial clime than this, situated on the edge of -the Unknown. Rome, either as Empire or Republic, was a hard taskmaster, -and when no fighting was in prospect employed the troops ingloriously -as road-makers. The advanced garrisons in the wilderness cleared the -enemy out of the tangled brush and boggy marshes, and working parties -built roads under the protection of guards, or improved the rude -trackways they found already in existence. Some fell by the way, and -their skeletons have been found in these latter days, the teeth still -clenched on the obolus placed in the dead man's mouth to pay Charon -for ferrying him across the cold and darkling Styx; or, where the coin -has perished, still stained with the metal's long decay. They perished, -those pioneers, to found a civilisation, just as countless thousands of -our own blood have laid their bones on distant shores, under burning -skies or in the Arctic night, to make England what she is. Respect -their long sleep, antiquaries, nor, as you honour your own creeds, take -from the dead men their passage-money across that mystic river. - - -XXXV - - -THIS, as Dr Jessop charmingly names Norfolk, is Arcady. The scene -is pleasant, but the stage waits: where are the actors? Gone, where -and for what reasons beyond the substitution of rail for road shall -presently be considered. But if the merry days of old are done and -population dwindled, at least in East Anglia, and especially in -Norfolk, dialect flourishes among those who remain. The "Norfolk drant" -or drawl, is still heard, just as the "Suffolk whine"--that rising -inflection of the voice towards the end of sentences--is even yet a -mark of the sister county. They are, indeed, said to have originated -the Yankee combined drawl and twang, for Norfolk and Suffolk were -largely represented among the Pilgrim Fathers, the first colonists of -North America. With these survivals, some of the old rustic simplicity -is still met with, although the extraordinary ignorance of sixty years -ago has disappeared, and the Norfolk labourer no longer thinks it -possible to emigrate to America by driving over in a farm cart. The -story is an East Anglian classic, how a farm labourer "didn't fare -rightly to knaw" by what route they were going to the United States, -"but we'm gwine ter sleep t' Debenham the fust night, so's to kinder -break t' jarney." When railways came, and access to London grew easy, -these simplicities gradually faded away. The young men took to "gettin' -up the road," as the saying ran--otherwise, going to London--to "better -themselves," and old illusions were soon dispelled; but in Arcady the -mavis may still be seen knapping a dodman; the children of the rustic -hamlets may be observed by the passing stranger gleefully sporting at -the old game of tittymatorterin; the cowslips that in springtime turn -the meadows to living gold are yet "paigles"; a small field remains, -as ever, a "pightle," and when a countryman throws anything into a -ditch, he "hulls" (or hurls) "it in t' holl," just as his ancestors -did hundreds of years ago. Let some of the archaic words just noted be -explained before we proceed any further. "Mavis" is the idyllic name -of the thrush, and the "dodman," which he may be observed "knapping," -or breaking, is a snail; called in Essex, by the way, a "hodmadod." -"Tittymatorterin" is just the simple game of "see-sawing." Besides -these fleeting instances there are many other peculiarities. The -Norfolk peasant will never pronounce the letter E if it be possible -to avoid it. It becomes I in his mouth, and a head becomes a "hid," -while hens are "hins." Throughout the whole of the eastern counties, -too, the elision of the final in the present tense is a feature of -rustic talk. Examples of this peculiarity are found not only in -modern speech, but in old epitaphs and inscriptions, dating back some -hundreds of years. Thus, a bridge across the River Wensum, at Norwich, -bears the sculptured effigy of a dragon's head with the words, "When -dragon drink, Heigham sink." The meaning is that when the river rises -and touches, or "rise" and "touch," as a Norfolk man would say, the -dragon's mouth, the neighbouring Heigham becomes flooded. An older -example still is seen on an inscription at Kimberley, to John Jenkin, -in the words:-- - - "Under this stone rare Jenkin lie," - -while a comparatively modern one may be found in Stratford St Mary -church, in the concluding lines of an epitaph dated 1739:-- - - 'The Night is gone, ye Stars Remain, - So man that die shall Live again." - -Dickens has caught the East Anglian dialect readily enough in _David -Copperfield_, where he makes Mr Peggotty say, "Cheer up, old mawther" -to Mrs Grummidge, and speak of "a couple of mavishes," while Ham talks -to David as "Mas'r Davy, bor." The willing Barkis, too, who asks "do -she now?" and speaks of the "stage-cutch," is a true product of the -soil. - -For the benefit of those not to the manner born, let it be repeated -that a "mawther" is not necessarily a parent. It is the generic name -for a female. A "mawther" may therefore be a girl infant or a grown -woman. "Bor" is, of course, a corruption of "neighbour," but need -not, in fact, specifically mean a neighbour, and is practically the -masculine of "mawther," and applicable to any man; friend close at hand -or stranger from distant parts. - -The Norfolk dialect has attained the distinction of being made the -subject of study, and glossaries and collections of local words have -long been made by enthusiasts in these matters. Perhaps the most -interesting and amusing of the examples of Norfolk talk is found in the -East Anglian version of the _Song of Solomon_, published many years ago -by Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte. It was taken down from a reading by a -Norfolk peasant. A few verses will be instructive:-- - - * * * * * - -1. The song o' songs, as is Sorlomun's. - -2. Lerr 'im kiss me wi' the kisses of his mouth; for yar love is better -'an wine. - -3. Becaze o' the smell o' yar intements, yar name is as intements pored -out, therefoor du the mawthers love yĕ. - -4. Dror mĕ, we'll run arter yĕ: the king he ha' browt me into his -charmbers; we'll be glad and reījce in yĕ; we'll remahmber yar -love more 'an wine: the right-up love yĕ. - -5. I em black, but tidy, O ye darters o' J'rusal'm, as the taents o' -Kedar, as the cattins o' Sorlomun. - -6. Don't sin starrin' at me, cos I em black, 'ecos the sun t'have -barnt mĕ; my mother's children wor snāsty wi' me; they made me -keeper o' the winyerds, but m'own winyerd I han't kept. - -7. Tell onto me, yow hu my soul du love, where ye fade, where ye make -yar flock to rest at nune: fur why shud I be as one tarn aside by yar -cumrades' flock? - -8. If so bein' as yĕ don't know, O yow bootifullest o' women, go yer -ways furth by the futtin' o' the flock, and feed yer kids 'eside the -shepherds' taents. - -9. I ha' likened yow, O my love, to a taamer o' hosses in Pharer's -charrits. - -10. Yar cheeks are right fine wi' ringes of jewiltry, yer neck wi' -chanes o' gold. - - * * * * * - -The full flavour of this vernacular is only to be obtained by reading -the original verses side by side with the above. - -Among the sports that obtained on the borders of Norfolk and Suffolk -of old was "camping." "Camping" was an old East Anglian game that, -could it be revived, would please the footballing maniacs of our own -day. It was a wild kind of football, played on these commons, often -with a hundred players aside, and we are told that the roughest kind -of Rugby football was child's play compared with it. If stories of old -camping contests be true, it might almost seem that in ascribing the -thinly-populated condition of Norfolk and Suffolk to the long-standing -effects of the Black Death, and to mediæval insurrections and their -resulting butcheries, we do an injustice to pestilence and the sword, -and fail to make count of the casualties received in play. As the -wondering Frenchman said, in witnessing a camping-match, "If these -savages be at play, what would they be in war?" - -"These contests," says a Norfolk historian, "were not infrequently -fatal to many of the combatants. I have heard old persons speak of -a celebrated camping, Norfolk against Suffolk, on Diss Common, with -three hundred on each side. Before the ball was thrown up, the Norfolk -men inquired tauntingly of the Suffolk men if they had brought their -coffins. The Suffolk men, after fourteen hours, were the victors. Nine -deaths were the result of the conflict in a fortnight." Camping went -out of favour about 1810, and the coroners had an easier time. - - -XXXVI - - -DICKLEBURGH, the next village after Scole, is in its way as imposing a -place, only not an inn, but a church, is its chief feature. The great -church of Dickleborough (as the name should be pronounced) charmingly -screened from the street by a row of limes, but not so charmingly -enclosed by a very long and very tall iron railing, stands end on to -the road, its eastern wall looking down upon the pilgrims who once -passed on their way to Our Lady of Walsingham; two tabernacles, one on -either side of the east window, holding effigies of popular saints, -and halting many a sinner for supplication. The saints are gone, torn -down by Henry the Eighth's commissioners, or by the fanatical Dowsing. -They lie, perhaps, in the mud of some horse-pond, or, broken up, serve -the useful part of metalling the road. Adjoining the church stands the -"King's Head," the sign perhaps rather a general idea of kings than -intended as a portrait of any particular one. At any rate it resembles -none of the long line of English sovereigns, nor even that one-time -favourite, the King of Prussia, though old enough to have been painted -in the hey-day of his popularity. Dickleburgh Church is absurdly large -for the present size of the place and for the empty country side; but -there is a reason for the solitudes, and there was one for these huge -buildings, ten times too large for the present needs of the shrunken -villages. Norfolk and Suffolk, once among the most thickly-peopled -of English counties, were practically depopulated in 1348 by that -dreadful scourge, the Black Death. One-third of the total population -of England perished under that terrible plague. The working classes -were the worst sufferers, and the agriculturists, the weavers and -labourers died in such numbers that the crops rotted on the ground, -industries decayed, and no man would work. When the pestilence was -stayed, other parts of the country flourished in greater proportion, -than this. Manufacturing industries arose elsewhere and attracted -the large populations; while East Anglia, remaining consistently -agricultural throughout the centuries, has never shared the increase; -only the few and scattered towns showing industrial enterprise, in -the form of weaving in mediæval and later times, and in the manufacture -of agricultural machinery nowadays. In the last two decades, with the -decay of agriculture and the rush of the peasantry to London and the -great centres of population, the country, and the eastern counties in -especial, has become almost deserted. - -[Illustration: DICKLEBURGH.] - -The present state of agriculture in Eastern England is made manifest -in deserted farms, in broken gates left hanging precariously on one -hinge, in decaying barns and cart-sheds left to rot; rusted ploughs -and decrepit waggons standing derelict in the once fertile fields, now -overrun with foul weeds and rank with docks, charlock, and thistles; -and farms, long advertised "to let," remaining and likely to remain -tenantless. Not to everyone is it possible to grow seeds and flowers, -and market-gardening is profitable only in the lands more immediately -surrounding the great towns. With wheat at its present price of thirty -shillings a quarter, it does not pay to grow corn for the market, and -the land is going out of cultivation. Where the farmer still struggles -on, he lays down most of his holding in grass for sheep and cattle, -and grows, grudgingly, as little wheat as possible, for sake of the -straw. Things are not quite so bad as in 1894, when wheat was down to -twenty shillings a quarter, and farmers fed their pigs on the harvest -which cost them three pounds more per acre to grow than it would have -brought in the market; but at thirty shillings it yields no profit. -Agricultural England is, in short, ruined, and there seems no present -hope of things becoming better. While the boundless, bountiful -harvests of Argentina, of Canada, the United States, Russia and other -wheat-producing countries can be cultivated, reaped, and carried to -these shores at the prices that now rule, and while the stock-breeders -of those lands can raise sheep and cattle just as advantageously, the -English farmer must needs go without a living wage. As matters stand -at present, we import fully seventy-five per cent. of the wheat used -in the country; the acreage under corn having gone down from 4,058,731 -acres in 1852, to about half that at the present day. Meanwhile the -population has increased by thirteen millions; so that, with many -more mouths to fill, we grow only half the staple food these islands -produced then. There are, of course, those who reap the advantage of -cheap corn and cheap meat from over seas. The toiling millions of the -towns and cities thrive on those benefits; but what if, through war, or -from any other cause, those sea-borne supplies ceased? Of what avail -would have been this generation of cheapness if at last the nation must -starve? Extinguish agriculture and the farmer, and you cannot recall -them at need, nor with magic wand bring back to cultivation a land -which has long gone untilled. - -But the farmer cannot alone be ruined, any more than the walls of a -house can be demolished and the roof yet left standing. It was the -farmer who in prosperous times supported the country gentleman in one -direction, and the agricultural labourer in the other. With wheat, as -it was a generation ago, at seventy shillings a quarter, and other -products of the land proportionately profitable, the farmer could -afford to pay both high rent and good wages. Farms in those days were -difficult to obtain, and there was great competition among farmers -for holdings. To-day, even at a quarter of those rents, tenants are -difficult to obtain, and the income of the landed proprietors has -dwindled away. The results are painfully evident here, in the old -families reduced or beggared, and their seats either in the market or -let to stock-jobbers and successful business men, while the old owners -have disappeared or live humbly in small houses once occupied by the -steward or bailiff of the estate. - -While rents have thus, with the iron logic of circumstances, gone down -to vanishing-point, and while farms have actually been offered rent -free in order to prevent the disaster of the land being let go out -of cultivation, the wages and the circumstances of the agricultural -labourer have been, most illogically, improving. Instead of the -miserable six to nine shillings a week he existed upon, at the -beginning of the nineteenth century, he receives thirteen or fourteen -shillings, lives in a decent cottage, instead of a wretched hovel, -and finds the cost of food and clothing fifty per cent. cheaper than -his grandfather ever knew it to be. Yet agricultural labourers are as -difficult to get now as they were immediately after the Black Death had -swept away three quarters of the working class, five hundred and fifty -years ago. The crops went ungarnered then, as they have done of recent -years in East Anglia--for lack of hands to gather them in. It was in -1899 that standing crops at Tivitshall St Margaret's and adjacent -parishes were sold by auction for a farmer who could find no labourer -willing to be hired. - -What has been called the "rural exodus" is well named. London and -the great towns have proved so attractive to the children of the -middle-aged peasant that they despise the country. They can all read -and write now, and at a pinch do simple sums in arithmetic; so off they -go to the crowded streets. The ambitious aspire to a black coat and a -stool in an office, and others become workmen of many kinds; but all -are attracted by the higher wages to be earned in the towns, and by the -excitement of living in the great centres of population, and only the -aged and the aging will soon be left to till the fields. - -Farmers entertain the supremest contempt for the agricultural -labourer's attempts to better himself. To them they are almost impious; -but the farmer is himself tarred with the same brush of culture. He is -a vastly different fellow from his grandfather, who actually helped to -till the soil among his own men; whose wife and daughters were noted -hands at milking and buttermaking; who lived in the kitchen, among -the hams and the domestic utensils, and was not above eating the same -food as, and at the same table with, his ploughmen and carters. He -has, in fact, and so also have the landed proprietor and the labourer, -undergone a process of levelling up. It is a process which had started -certainly by 1825, when Cobbett noticed it. - -Hear him:-- - - "When the old farmhouses are down (and down they must come in time) - what a miserable thing the country will be! Those that are now erected - are mere painted shells, with a mistress within who is stuck up in a - place she calls the parlour, with, if she have children, the 'young - ladies and gentlemen' about her; some showy chairs and a sofa (a - _sofa_ by all means); half-a-dozen prints in gilt frames hanging up; - some swinging book-shelves with novels and tracts upon them; a dinner - brought in by a girl that is perhaps better 'educated' than she; - two or three nick-nacks to eat, instead of a piece of bacon and a - pudding; the house too neat for a dirty-shoed carter to be allowed to - come into; and everything proclaiming to every sensible beholder that - there is here a constant anxiety to make a _show_ not warranted by - the reality. The children (which is the worst part of it) are all too - clever to _work;_ they are all to be _gentlefolks_. Go to _plough_! - Good God! What! 'young gentlemen' go to plough! They become _clerks_, - or some skimming-dish thing or other. They flee from the dirty _work_ - as cunning horses do from the bridle. What misery is all this! What - a mass of materials for proclaiming that general and _dreadful - convulsion_ that must, first or last, come and blow this funding and - jobbing and enslaving and starving system to atoms." - -The "convulsion" anticipated by Cobbett has not come about. This is -not a country of earthquakes or of violent social upheavals. Free -Trade has beggared the agricultural interests, but, on his way to -the Bankruptcy Court, the farmer contrives to live in better style -than possible three quarters of a century ago, while his pretensions -to gentility certainly have not decreased. As for the "funding and -jobbing," Cobbett could never, in his wildest dreams, have foreseen -Limited Liability and the fungoid growth of Stock Exchange speculation, -or the modern "enslaving and starving system" of the gigantic Trusts -that, like vampires, feed on the blood of industry. We need look for -no convulsions; not even, unhappily, for the hanging, or, at least, -the taxing out of existence, of the millionaires. Our expectations of -the future are quite different. The people will inhabit the towns, and -the country will become a huge preserve of game for the sport of the -millionaires aforesaid; a preserve broken here and there by the model -farm or the training establishment of some colossus of wealth. - - -XXXVII - - -BEYOND Dickleburgh, past the solitary "Ram" inn, a fine, dignified -house still lamenting its decadence from a posting-inn to a beerhouse, -Tivetshall level-crossing marks where the railway runs to Bungay and -Lowestoft. Maps make Pulham St Mary the Virgin quite near, with Pulham -St Mary Magdalene close by; Tivetshalls of different dedications, and -other villages dotted about like plums in a Christmas pudding, but no -sign of them is evident. Only windmills, whirling furiously on distant -ridges, break the pastoral solitudes. In this conflict of charts, a -carter jogging along the road with his team is evidently the authority -to be consulted. - -"Coom hather," says the carter to his sleek and intelligent horses; and -they coom accordingly, with much jingling of harness, and stand in the -shade of roadside trees while their lord takes his modest levenses and -haffles and jaffles--gossips, that is to say--with the landlord of the -"Ram." - -"Tivetshall?" asks the carter, echoing a question; "niver heerd of un." -Then a light breaks in upon him. "Oh, ay! Tishell we allus call 'em; -Tishell St Marget an' Tishell St Merry," and with, a sweep of the arm -comprising the whole western horizon, "Theiy'm ower theer." - -"And Pulham St Mary the Virgin?" - -"Pulham St Merry the Wirgin? oh, yis! Pulham Maaket, yar mean, bor. -Et edd'n on'y a moile, ower _theer_"--a comprehensive wave to the -eastwards. - -And there, on a byroad, in an embrace of trees, it is found, a little -forgotten town, the greater proportion of whose inhabitants appear -to walk with two sticks. It is ranged round a green or market-place, -with a great Perpendicular church, gorgeously frescoed within, and -with a very good recent "Ascension" over the chancel arch, painted -and stencilled timber roof, and elaborate stained-glass windows. The -townlet and townsfolk sinking into decay, the church an object of such -care and expense, afford a curious contrast. - -An old toll-house and the prison-like buildings of Depwade Union -conspire to make desolate the road onwards. He who presses, hot-foot, -along it, turning neither to the right nor to the left, may readily be -excused a legitimate wonder as to what has become of the great feature -of East Anglia, its spreading commons; for, strange to say, despite -the fame they have long since attained, no vestige of them is glimpsed -from the road itself. One has usually to turn aside to some of the -villages lying near, but wholly hidden from the highway, to find the -yet unenclosed common lands, the pasturage of geese, ducks and turkeys; -but a striking exception to this now general rule is the huge common -of Wacton lying off to the left of the road at the hundredth mile from -London, where a cottage and a wayside inn, the "Duke's Head," alone -represent Wacton village, a mile distant. Wacton Common, reputed to be -the highest point in Norfolk, although of no less extent than three -hundred and fifty acres, might perhaps be passed without being seen, -for the reason that, although still wild and unenclosed, it is screened -from the high road by a hedge and entered through an ordinary field -gate. The inn and the cottage, obviously built on land fraudulently -taken from the common in the long ago, serve with their gardens to hide -that glorious expanse of grass and heather. Here roam those chartered -vagabonds, the plump geese, that pick up a living on the grassy commons -and wander, like free-booting bands of feathered moss-troopers upon the -heaths, closing their careers with royal feasting in the August and -September stubble, and a Michaelmas martyrdom. - -[Illustration: A DISPUTED PASTURAGE.] - -Norfolk and Suffolk are still famous for their geese, but those -martyred fowls do not make their final journey to the London markets, -between Michaelmas and Christmas, with the publicity they once -attained. They go up to Leadenhall nowadays in the seclusion of railway -vans. Seventy years ago they journeyed by coach, and in state, for the -Norfolk coaches in Christmas week often carried nothing save geese and -turkeys, beside the coachman and guard. Full inside and out with such -a freight, the proprietors of fast coaches made a great deal more by -carrying them than they would have taken by a load of passengers; so -the fowls had the preference, while travellers had to take their chance -of finding a seat in the slower conveyances. So long ago as 1793 the -turkeys conveyed from Norwich to London between a Saturday morning -and Sunday night in December numbered one thousand seven hundred, and -weighed 9 tons, 2 cwt. 2 lbs. Their value was £680. They were followed -on the two succeeding days by half as many more. - -A Norfolk common without its screaming and hissing flocks of geese -would seem strangely untenanted. They, the turkeys, the ducks, the -donkeys ("dickies" they call them in Norfolk) and the vagrom fowls are -among the only vestiges of the wild life that once made Norfolk famous -to the naturalist and not a little eerie to the traveller of old, who, -startled on the lonely way that stretched by heath and common and fen -between the habitations of men, shrank appalled at the lumbering -flight of the huge bustards, quivered with apprehension at the sudden -hideous whirring of the night-jar as the day closed in, dismayed, -heard the bittern booming among the reeds, or with misgivings of the -supernatural saw the fantastical ruff stalking on long legs, with -prodigious beak, red eyes and spreading circle of neck feathers, like -the creation of some disordered imagination. Wild Norfolk, the home -of these and of many another strange creature, is no more, and these -species, now chiefly extinct, are to be seen only in museums of natural -history. - -[Illustration: LONG STRATTON.] - -What Wacton lacks along the high road the village of Long Stratton -has in superabundance. They named it well who affixed the adjective, -for it measures a mile from end to end. Beginning with modern and (to -speak kindly) uninteresting cottages, it ends in a broad street where -almost every house is old and beautiful in lichened brick or soft-toned -plaster. Midway of this lengthy thoroughfare stands the church, one of -the Norfolk round-towered kind, in the usual black flint, and beyond -it the Manor House, red brick, with Adam scrolls and neo-classical -palm branches in plaster for trimmings, set back at some distance -behind a very newty, froggy and tadpoley moat. Beyond this again, the -village street broadens out. Looking back upon it, when one has finally -climbed uphill on the way to Norwich, Long Stratton is a place entirely -charming. Its name, of course, derives from its situation on the Roman -Road, and Tasburgh, that now comes in sight, keeps yet its Roman camp -strongly posted above the River Tase. Tasburgh--what little there is -of a village--occupies an acclivity on the further side of that river, -across whose wide and marshy valley the mists rise early, seeing the -sun to bed dull and tarnished, and attending the rising of the moon -with ghostly vapours. The old Roman camp is oddly and picturesquely -occupied by the parish church, another round-towered example. Excepting -it, the vicarage and the Dutch-like building of the "Bird in Hand" Inn, -there is little else. - -[Illustration: LONG STRATTON.] - -But what mean these sounds of anger and lamentation that drown the -soothing, distant rattle of reaping machines on the hillside: a voice -raised in reproach, and another--a treble one--in gusty shrieks of -combined pain, fear and peevishness? Coming round a corner, the cause -of the disturbance is revealed in a wet and muddy infant rubbing dirty -knuckles into streaming eyes, and being violently reproached by an -indignant woman. - -"You're a pretty article, I must say; a fine spettacle. I'll give -yow a good sowsin', my lord; coom arn;" and the malefactor is pulled -suddenly inside the cottage, the door slammed, and muffled yells heard, -alternating with thumps. The offender is receiving that sowsing, or -being "yerked," "clipped over the ear-hole," getting a "siseraring," -being "whanged" or "clouted," the striking Norfolk phrases for -varieties of assault and battery. - - -XXXVIII - - -THE Tase is met with again on surmounting the hilly road out of -Tasburgh and coming down hill into Newton Flotman. Here it is -broad enough to require a long and substantial bridge, grouping in -unaccustomed rightness of composition with the mingled thatched, tiled -and slated cottages and the church that stands on a commanding knoll -in the background. When Newton was really new it would be impossible -to say; perhaps its novelty may have been measured against the hoary -antiquity of, say, Caistor yonder, down the valley. For what says the -folk-rhyme:-- - - "Caistor was a city when Norwich was none, - And Norwich was built of Caistor stone," - -and if Norwich partook of Caistor's building materials, why not, in -degree, Newton Flotman? But a whisper. Caistor was never more than a -camp, and not at any time a place of houses, much less of stone ones. -Stone is not to be found in this neighbourhood, and flint only, of -which Norwich is principally built, is available for building materials. - -[Illustration: TASBURGH.] - -One object in Newton Flotman that puzzles the passing stranger is a -little effigy of Bacchus fixed on the wall of the "Maid's Head" Inn, -so thickly covered with successive coats of paint that it is difficult -to give it a period. Remains of Roman antiquities are so many in this -district that it is often mistaken for a work of that classic age, -when it can really claim no higher antiquity than that of the late -eighteenth century, a time when figures of the kind were a usual -decoration of inn signs. Such an one still swings from the wrought-iron -sign of the "Angel" at Woolhampton, on the Bath Road. - -In the woody valley of the Tase beyond Newton Flotman lies Dunston, -trees casting a protecting and secretive shade over it, and the "Dun -Cow" Inn its only roadside representative. That inn and the circular -brick pound for strayed sheep and cattle redeem the last few miles into -Norwich from absolute emptiness. When the pound last was used who shall -say? The tramps have played havoc with it, and its wooden gate has -gone. The ancient office of pound-keeper is here evidently fallen into -disuse. - -Swainsthorpe's octagonal church tower is seen on the level to the left, -but Caistor, in like manner with Dunston, is sunk deep in foliage, half -a mile or more away in the valley, its church tower rising like a grey -beacon from amid the trees, to tell the curious where its ancient camp -may be found. Caistor St Edmunds, to give its full name, is the site of -the great Roman camp established here to overawe the stronghold of the -Iceni, four miles away on the banks of the Wensum, and now the site of -Norwich. - -[Illustration: NEWTON FLOTMAN.] - -Caistor camp is a really satisfactory example of a Roman fortified -_castrum_. For one thing, it has the largest area of any known relic -of its kind in England, enclosing thirty-seven acres. If its fragments -of flint walls have neither the thickness nor the height of those at -Portus Rutupiæ, the old Roman port in Thanet, now known as Richborough, -its deep ditch and massive embankment assist the laggard imagination -of the layman in matters archæological, which refuses to be stirred -before mere undulations in the sward. Here is a ditch that can be -rolled into, an embankment that can be climbed and paced on three -sides of the camp, if necessary, to put to physical test both height, -depth and extent. The fourth side of this great enclosure, now a -turnip-field, was bounded by the River Tase and was sufficiently -defended by that stream, then a wide creek, so that no works are to be -found there. How long it was before the Romans subdued the Iceni, whose -great city is thought to have stood where Norwich does now, is not -known. Nothing of that early time here, indeed, is _known_, and guesses -are of the vaguest. Only it seems that the Roman advance into East -Anglia, which had for its objective the principal stronghold of the -tribes, here came to its military ending. To compare things so ancient -and romantic with others modern and thought prosaic, the several Roman -camps on the advance from London now to be sought at Uphall near -Romford; Chipping Hill, near Witham, Lexden, and Tasburgh, are, with -those that have disappeared, to be looked upon in the same light as the -wayside stations on the railway to Norwich, a railway which originally -came to a terminus at that city, and was only at a later date continued -northward. - -[Illustration: THE OLD BRICK POUND.] - -Where the Romans and the Romano-British citizens of Venta lived when -the tribes were reduced--where the Venta Icenorum of Roman rule really -was, in fact--is a mystery, for, unlike most of our great cities, -Norwich has furnished no relics of that age; while, beyond coins and -odds and ends, Caistor camp has produced nothing. No vestiges of -streets or houses have been found, here or elsewhere, and Venta might, -for all there is to show of it, have been a city of dreams. The fact -that the original capital of the Iceni was re-settled by the Danes -when they came in a conquering flood, seems to point to the site of -it having long been deserted; and that they called it after the North -"wic" or creek, presupposes a "South wic" somewhere else, near or far. -The position of that south creek is fixed by the ancient geography of -these last few miles. In those times the ground on which Yarmouth, at -the mouth of the Yare estuary, is now built, was under the waves of -the sea, which ran up in a long navigable creek--the "Gariensis" of -the Romans and the "North Wic" of the Danes--from a Roman fortified -port where Caistor-by-Yarmouth stands, to the site of Norwich, which -indeed, centuries later, was still a port. Where the River Tase is -now confluent with the Yare and the Wensum, there then branched out -a shorter and perhaps shallower creek, running almost due south; the -"South wic" of those northern pirates. At its head stood Caistor, where -the navigation ceased. - -[Illustration: CAISTOR CAMP.] - -It is far inland now, but the marshy valley of the Tase still bears -signs of those old conditions, and perhaps the villas of wealthy Roman -citizens, together with other relics of the vanished city, still lie -preserved deep down in the mud and silt that have filled up the old -channel. - -The lie of the land, in accord with these views, is plain to see when, -returning to the high road, the journey to Norwich is continued to -Hartford Bridge; bird's-eye views unfolding across the valley to the -right. At Hartford Bridge, where there are several bridges, none of -them sizeable, rivers, streams and runlets of sorts trickle, flow, and -gurgle in their different ways through flat meadows, below the long -rise where, two miles from Norwich, the road begins to grow suburban. -It is on the summit that the Newmarket and Thetford route from London -joins with this, and together they descend into the city. - - -XXXIX - - -THIS way came Queen Elizabeth into Norwich on her great "progress" of -1578, by St Stephen's Plain and through St Stephen's Gate. Gates and -walls are gone that once kept out the turbulent, or even condemned the -belated citizen to lodge the night without the precincts of the city, -in suburbs not in those times to be reckoned safe. - -Norwich long ago swept away her defences and modernised her outskirts, -for this is no Sleepy Hollow, this cathedral city in the valley of the -Wensum, but the capital of East Anglia, throbbing with industry and in -every way in the forefront of modern life. To the entrance from London -Norwich turns perhaps its most unattractive side. No general view of -the city, lying in its hollow beside the winding Wensum, opens out, and -the eye seeks the cathedral spire and finds it with some difficulty, -modestly peering over tangled modern roof-tops. It is from quite the -opposite direction, from the noble height of Mousehold Heath, that -Norwich unfolds itself in a majestic picture of cathedral, churches -and houses, with trees and gardens, such as no other city can show, -displayed within its bounds. Norwich does not jump instantly to the -antiquarian eye, and its electric tramways that are the first to greet -the traveller who enters from the old coach road are not a little -forbidding. The city grows gradually upon the stranger in all its -wealth of beauty and interest, and becomes more and more lovable the -better he becomes acquainted with it. - -Until these railway times, in the old days of slow, difficult, -dangerous and expensive travelling, the capital of East Anglia was in -a very high degree a capital, and sufficient to itself. Its shipping -trade and weaving industries, and the famous Norwich School of artists, -brought this exclusive attitude down from mediæval times to modern; -and Norfolk county families until the era of political reform had -almost dawned, still had their "town houses" in Norwich, just as, in -bygone centuries, that typical old family, the Pastons, owned their -town houses in Hungate and in what is now called King Street, formerly -Conisford Street. - -The coaches coming to Norwich threaded the mazy streets to inns widely -sundered. The original "Norwich Machine" of 1762 traversed the greater -part of the city, to draw up at the "Maid's Head," in Tombland. On -the other hand, the Mails, the "Telegraph" and the "Magnet," came to -and started from the "Rampant Horse" in the street of the same name, -standing not far from the beginnings of the city. The street is there -still, but the oddly-named inn has given place to shops, and where -the "Rampant Horse" ramped rampageously, in violent contrast with the -mild-mannered "Great White Horse" of Ipswich, drapers' establishments -now hold forth seductive announcements of "alarming sacrifices." - -Among other coaches, "Gurney's Original Day Coach" and the "Phenomenon" -favoured the "Angel," in the Market Place, while the "Times" house was -the "Norfolk Hotel," in St Giles's, and that of the "Expedition" the -"Swan" Inn. Other inns, many of them huddled together under the lee of -the castle mound, were then to be found in the Market Place and the -Haymarket and in the narrow alley in the rear that still goes by name -of "Back of the Inns." Others yet, many of mediæval age, are to be -sought in old nooks of the city. The Pilgrim's Hostel, now the Rosemary -Tavern, like the "Old Barge," belongs to the fourteenth century, the -last named still standing between King Street and the river, with -a picturesque but battered entrance. The steep and winding lane of -Elm Hill, where the slum population of Norwich stew and pig together -down ancient courts and dirty alleys, has more inns, ramshackle but -unrestored; and in the wide open space by the cathedral, dolefully -called Tombland, although it has not, nor ever had, anything to do -with tombs, is the "Maid's Head," the one establishment in Norwich -that stands pre-eminently for old times and good cheer. It is an -"hotel" now, and has the modern conveniences of sanitation and electric -light; but its restoration, effected through the enthusiasm of a -local antiquary, with both the opportunity of purchasing the property -and the means of doing so, has been carried through with taste and -discrimination. The "Maid's Head" can with certainty claim a history -of six hundred years, and is thought to have been built upon the site -of a former Bishop's Palace. Heavily-raftered ceilings and masonry of -evident antiquity may take parts of the present house back so far, or -even a greater length, but the especial pride of the "Maid's Head" is -its beautiful Jacobean woodwork. The old sign of the house was the -"Molde Fish," or "Murtel Fish," a name that antiquaries still boggle -at. It was long a cherished legend that this strange and unlovely name -was changed to the present sign in complimentary allusion to Queen -Elizabeth when she first visited the city, but later researches have -proved the change to have been made at least a century earlier, and so -goes another belief! - -The "Music House," facing the now disreputable King Street, has not -for so very long been an inn. Its name tells of a time when it was the -meeting-place of the "city music," old-time ancestors of modern town -bands, but its story goes back to the Norman period, when the crypt -that bears up the thirteenth-century building above was part of the -home of Moyses, a Jew, and afterwards of Isaac, his nephew. "Isaac's -Hall," as it was known, was seized by King John and given to one of -his creatures; the unhappy Israelites doubtless, if they were allowed -to live at all, finding cool quarters in the castle dungeons. A long -succession of owners, including the Pastons, followed; last among them -Coke, afterwards Lord Chief Justice, who resided here in 1633. - -It has already been hinted that the streets of Norwich are mazy. They -are indeed the most perplexing of any town in England. Many roads -run into the city, and from every direction. Glancing at a plan of -it, these roads resemble the main strands of a spider's web, and the -streets the cross webs. In midst of this maze is the great castle, like -the spider himself; that cruel keep in whose dungeons old wrong-doing, -religious and private spite, have immured many a wretched captive, like -that unfortunate unknown "Bartholomew," who has left his name scratched -on the walls, and the statement that he was here confined "saunz -resun," a reason of the best in those times. Did he ever see the light -of day again? Or did some midnight assassin murder him as many another -had been done to death? - -"Blanchflower," that Bigod, Earl of Norwich who built the castle called -his keep when it arose on its great mound, its stone new and white. -He built upon the site of a castle thought to have been Saxon, and -built so well that it became a fortress impregnable save to famine -and treachery. It has, therefore, unlike weaker places that have been -stormed again and again, little history, and even seven hundred years -ago was little more than a prison. And a prison of sorts--for State -captives first, and for common malefactors afterwards--it remained -until so recently as 1883, when it was restored and then opened as the -Museum and Art Gallery it now is. - -This is no place to speak at length of the cathedral that withdraws -itself with such ecclesiastical reserve from the busy quarters of the -city, and is approached decorously through ancient gateways in the -walls of its surrounding close; the Ethelbert Gate, with that other, -the Erpingham Gate, built in Harry the Fifth's time by Sir Thomas -Erpingham, whose little kneeling effigy yet remains in its niche in -the gable over the archway, and whose motto--variously held to be -"Yenk," or "Think,"--"Denk," or "Thank"--is repeated many times on the -stone work. Norman monastic gloom still broods over the close, for the -cathedral, save the Decorated cloisters and the light and graceful -spire in the same style, is almost wholly of that period, and the -grammar school that was once a mediæval mortuary chapel and has its -playground in the crypt, keeps a gravity of demeanour that, considering -its history, is eminently proper. - -Through the Close lies the way to Bishop's Bridge and the steep road -up to Mousehold Heath: the "Monk's Hold," or monastic property, of -times gone by when it was common land of the manor belonging to the -Benedictine priory. - - -XL - -[Illustration: NORWICH, FROM MOUSEHOLD HEATH.] - -HERE, on this famous Heath of Mousehold where the gorse and heather -and the less common broom yet flourish, despite the electric tramways -that bring up the crowds and the picnic parties, Nature, rugged and -unconquerable, looks down upon the city, revealed as a whole. Even -though the chimneys of great factories may intrude and smirch the sky -when winds permit the smoke-wreaths to trail across the view, it is a -view quite unspoilable. The cathedral, as is only proper, is the grand -dominating feature, with its central tower and graceful crocketed spire -rising to a height of 320 feet. Second to it, on its left hand, the -huge bulk of the castle keep rears up; a time-ball on its battlements -to give the time o' day to the busy citizens; those battlements where -from a gibbet they hanged Robert Kett in 1549, when his rebellion was -crushed and his army of 20,000 peasants who had encamped on Mousehold -defeated. In similar fashion his brother William was hanged from -Wymondham steeple. Between castle and cathedral the great tower of -St Peter Mancroft looms up, and on the other side of the cathedral -tower the twin spires of the Roman Catholic place of worship crown the -sky-line. To the extreme right of the accompanying illustration is -St Giles's, and on the extreme left, in company with the pinnacled -tower of a modern church, the dark tower of St John-at-Sepulchre, -Bracondale, which for shortness and simplicity the citizens call "Ber -Street Church." For the rest, it is a mingling of town and country, of -houses and gardens and churches in great number, that one sees down -there; old Norwich, in short, exclusive of the modern suburbs that are -flung everywhere around and cause the Norwich of to-day to outnumber -the Norwich of coaching times by 80,000 inhabitants. It must be -evident from those figures that the picturesque old Norwich numbering -a population of only 30,000 has been in great degree improved away and -borne under by that human deluge. It is delightful now, but what it -was at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Crome and De Wint -and others sketched and painted its quaint bits, the picture-galleries -of the Castle Museum can tell. Nay, even down to the mid-nineteenth -century it was still very different, as a collection of early -photographs in the castle proves. Then, before St Peter Mancroft was -restored, before the old Fish Market was cleared away, Norwich had many -more quaint nooks than now to show the stranger; even as, centuries -before, it was yet more quaint and even more remarkable for its many -churches than at the present time. - -"The nearer the church the further from God," says the old saw. How -irreligious then should Norwich be, that has even yet a cathedral and -thirty-four ancient churches, and modern places of worship fully as -numerous! Let the citizens, therefore, as old Fuller suggested, "make -good use of their churches and cross that pestilent proverb." These -churches bear a close resemblance to one another, having nearly all -been rebuilt in the Perpendicular period, some five hundred years ago, -and all built of the black flint that gives a character to East Anglian -architecture quite distinct from that of other districts. The time when -they were thus rebuilt was not only a great period of church-building -throughout England, but a time of especial prosperity in mercantile -and trading Norwich; a time when guilds grew powerful and merchants -wealthy in the flourishing industry of cloth-weaving introduced some -time earlier by Flamand and Hollander immigrants. English wool that -before had gone across the narrow seas for manufacture into stuffs -was now weaved in the land of its growth. "Many thousands," says -Blomefield, "that before could not get their bread could now by this -means live handsomely." In that age, to become rich and prosperous was -to become also a founder and benefactor of churches; hence the great -ecclesiastical buildings that, according to the picturesque metaphor of -an old writer, writing when there were no fewer than sixty-one churches -in the city, "surrounded the cathedral as the stars do the moon." -The old citizens sleep in the parish churches for which they did so -much; their monuments in brass or marble, stone or alabaster curiously -wrought, often with their "merchant's marks"--the distinctive signs -with which they labelled their wares--engraved on them in lieu of coats -of arms. It is as though a modern trader were to have the registered -trade-mark of his speciality engraved on his tombstone. A typical -memorial of an old Norwich trader is that of Thomas Sotherton, in the -church of St John Maddermarket. He-- - - "Under this cold marbell sleeps," - -and was no common fellow, mark you, but - - "Of gentell blood, more worthy merrit, - Whose brest enclosed an humble sperryt." - -[Illustration: NORWICH MARKET PLACE.] - -Although the calendar of saints is a long one and more than -sufficiently lengthy to have provided each one of the Norwich churches -with a patron, yet so popular were some saints, that several churches -to the same one are found in Norwich, as seen also in the city of -London. As in old London, it was in those cases necessary to confer -surnames, so to speak, upon those churches. - -They are surnames of the geographical sort and not a little curious. -The four St Peters are, for example, St Peter Mancroft, the largest -and most important in the city, so called from the Magna Croft, or -large field of the castle; St Peter per Mountergate, in King Street, -named from the road by the "montem," the hill or mount, that runs -ridge-like in its rear; St Peter Hungate, the "hundred gate," or -road, reminiscent of the time when Norwich was a hundred of itself, -even as it is now by itself a county; and St Peter Southgate. St -Michael-at-Thorn has still thorn trees growing in its churchyard; St -Michael Coslany, with St Mary's of identical surname, was built in -Coast Lane; and St Michael-at-Plea was named from its neighbourhood to -an ecclesiastical court. St John Maddermarket is thus distinguished -from other St Johns--St John Timberhill and St John-at-Sepulchre. -In the neighbourhood of the first-named, madder for the dyers' -use was marketed; while at Timberhill was the market in wood. St -Martin-at-Palace, by the old Bishop's Palace, and St-Martin-at-Oak take -up the tale, which might be continued at great length. - -[Illustration: NORWICH SNAP.] - -The business life of modern Norwich centres in the Market Place and the -streets that immediately lead out of it: the mouldering signs of old -commerce peer in peaked gables, clustered chimneys and old red-brick -and plastered walls in the lanes and along the wharves of the Wensum. - -There trade hustles and elbows to the front, in many-storeyed piles -of brick, stone and stucco, with great show of goods in plate-glass -windows and bold advertisement of gilt lettering. All those signs of -prosperity may be seen, and on a larger scale, in London, but not even -in London are the electric tram cars so great a menace to life and -limb as in these narrow and winding streets, where they dash along at -reckless speed. - -The Market Place is not yet wholly spoilt. The huge bulk of St -Peter Mancroft and a row of queer old houses beside it still avert -that disaster, and form a picture from one point of view; while the -flint-faced Guildhall stands at another corner of the great open place -and in its Council Chamber, in use five hundred years ago as a Court of -Justice, and still so used, proves the continuity of "our rough island -story." In a dark and dismal cell of the Guildhall once lay the heroic -martyr, Thomas Bilney, who "testified" at the stake in the Lollards' -Pit, where many another had already yielded up his life. He wondered, -as others before and after him had done and were to do, whether the -tortured body could pass steadfast through the fiery ordeal; and on the -eve of his martyrdom put that doubt to the test by holding his finger -in the flame of a candle. That test sufficed, and he suffered with -unshaken constancy when the morrow dawned. - -The Guildhall has less tragical memories than this, and was indeed the -scene of many old-time municipal revelries in times before Corporations -became reformed. But old revels and frolics have been discontinued, -and "Snap," the Norwich dragon, a fearsome beast of gilded wickerwork, -who was wont to be paraded from the Guildhall at the annual mayoral -election, and last frolicked with his attendant beadles and whifflers -in 1835, now reposes in the Castle Museum. - -The Market Place on Saturday, when the wide open square is close-packed -with stalls, is Norwich at its most characteristic time and in its most -characteristic spot. In it the story of the Norwich Road may fitly end. -The city itself, glanced at in the immediately foregoing pages, could -not yield its story in less space than that occupied by that of the -road itself. - -[Illustration] - - - - -INDEX - - - Aldgate, 1, 8, 11, 13, 51 - - ---- Pump, 11 - - - "Bacon End," 180 - - Boreham, 127-129 - - Bow, 6, 8, 75-80 - - ---- Bridge, 77-79 - - Brentwood, 23, 94-99, 132, 200 - - Brockford, 257 - - Brome, 261 - - Brook Street, 94 - - ---- Hill, 94, 132 - - - Caistor St Edmunds, 4, 298, 301-303 - - Capel St Mary, 236 - - Chadwell Heath, 51, 83, 85, 86 - - ---- Street, 86 - - Chelmsford, 5, 40, 51, 52, 54, 57, 80, 114-121, 127, 167, 200 - - Chipping Hill, 133-139, 302 - - Claydon, 252 - - ---- Hall, 252 - - Coaches:-- - "Confatharrat," 34 - "Duke of Beaufort's Retaliator," 46, 140 - "Expedition," 39, 306 - "Gurney's Original Day Coach," 39, 267, 306 - "Ipswich Blues," 23, 39, 132 - "---- and Yarmouth Mail," 41, 45 - "---- Post Coaches," 36 - "---- Shannon," 39 - "---- Umpire," 81 - "Magnet," 39, 306 - "New Colchester," 81 - "Norwich Machine," 34-36, 306 - "---- Mail," 39, 40, 43 - "---- Post Coach," 39 - "---- Times," 28, 39, 267 - "Parcel Mail," 54-57, 111 - "Phænomenon," 39, 306 - "Telegraph," 306 - - Coaching, 30-51, 54-57, 81, 82, 97, 132, 142-151, 267 - - Coaching Notabilities:-- - Alexander, Israel, 46, 140 - Nelson, Mrs Ann, 19-25, 27, 81, 132 - ----, George, 19 - ----, John, 19, 25-27 - ----, Robert, 19 - Suggate (Norwich carrier), 34 - Thorogood, John, 28, 267 - - Colchester, 5, 6, 43, 54, 56, 94, 156, 163, 165, 167, 177, 179-212, - 217 - - Constable, John, R.A., 149, 154, 217-219, 232, 238 - - Copdock, 236 - - Copford, 175, 176 - - _Copperfield, David_, 28, 44, 45, 150, 226, 274 - - Creeting, All Saints, 253 - - Creetings, The, 255 - - - Dedham, 217-221 - - Deodand, Law of, 50 - - Dickleburgh, 6, 277-279 - - Dilbridge, 217 - - Dunston, 298 - - - Feering, 152, 153, 158 - - Forest Gate, 81 - - - Goodmayes, 83 - - Gore Pit, 152, 176 - - Great Eastern Railway, 25, 46, 51-54, 83, 152, 158, 175 - - - Hare Street, 94 - - Hartford Bridge, 304 - - Hatfield Peverel, 129, 131 - - Highwaymen, 29, 30, 41, 58-62, 85, 86, 87, 88, 99, 142, 143, 214 - - Highwaymen:-- - Cratfield, Rev. Wm., 30 - King, Matthew, 58 - ----, Robert, 58 - ----, Tom, 58, 61 - Tapyrtone, Thomas, 30 - Turpin, Richard, 57-62 - - - Ilford, 6, 29, 80, 82, 83, 167 - - Ingatestone, 6, 56, 99, 105-110 - - Inns (mentioned at length):-- - "Angel," Colchester, 196, 197 - ----, Kelvedon, 140, 141, 147, 148, 162 - ----, Norwich, 34, 306 - "Belle Sauvage," Ludgate Hill, 19 - "Black Boy," Chelmsford, 121 - "Blossoms," Laurence Lane, 34 - "Blue Boar," Whitechapel, 28 - "---- Posts," Witham, 132 - "Bull," Bishopsgate Street, 15, 37 - ----, Leadenhall Street, 12, 15 - ----, Whitechapel, 15, 19-28 - "Bull and Mouth," St Martin's-le-Grand, 15 - "Cauliflower," Ilford, 83 - "Coach and Horses," Upton, 81 - "Cock," Thwaite, 260 - "Cross Keys," Gresham Street, 15 - "Duke's Head," Wacton, 288 - "Fleece," Brook Street, 94 - "Flower Pot," Bishopsgate Street, 15 - "Four Swans," 34 - "Golden Cross," Charing Cross, 15 - "Good Woman," Widford, 111-114 - "Grave Maurice," Whitechapel, 69 - "Great White Horse," Ipswich, 36, 37, 228, 247-252, 306 - "Gun," Dedham, 221, 228 - "Half Moon," Ipswich, 243 - "Horse and Leaping Bar," Whitechapel, 29 - "King's Head," Dickleburgh, 278 - "Lion and Lamb," Ipswich, 243, 244 - "Magpie," Little Stonham, 256 - "Maid's Head," Newton Flotman, 297 - ---- ----, Norwich, 34, 35, 306, 307 - "Music House," Norwich, 307 - "Norfolk Hotel," Norwich, 306 - "Old Red Lion," Whitechapel, 57 - "Popinjay," Norwich, 34 - "Queen's Head," Thwaite, 259, 260 - "Rampant Horse," Norwich, 306 - "Red Lion," Colchester, 196 - ---- ----, Kelvedon, 140 - ---- ----, Whitechapel, 57 - "Rising Sun," Manor Park, 81 - "Saracen's Head," Aldgate, 14, 16, 17, 18 - ---- ----, Chelmsford, 117-120 - "Spread Eagle," Gracechurch Street, 15-19 - "Sun," Kelvedon, 152 - "Swan," Washbrook, 237 - "Swan-with-Two-Necks," Gresham Street, 15, 43 - "Three Cups," Colchester, 37, 167, 196 - ---- ----, Springfield, 122 - "Three Nuns," Aldgate, 29 - "Vine," Mile End, 73 - "Wheatsheaf," Kelvedon, 152 - "White Elm," Copdock, 237 - "---- Hart," Brentwood, 37, 97, 98, 119 - ---- ----, Colchester, 196 - ---- ----, Scole, 262-271 - ---- ----, Witham, 132 - "White Horse," Fetter Lane, 15 - ---- Horse, Widford, 112, 114 - - Ipswich, 54, 56, 132, 212, 237-252 - - - Kelvedon, 5, 139-153, 162, 176 - - - Langham, 218 - - Lexden, 52, 147, 177-181, 302 - - ---- Heath, 177-179, 187, 190, 201 - - Little Stonham, 6, 256 - - "London Stone," 4, 13 - - Long Stratton, 6, 292-295 - - - Manor Park, 81 - - Margaretting, 57, 110, 111 - - Mark's Tey, 158, 175, 176 - - Martyr's Tree, 95, 96 - - Mile End, 70-74, 163 - - "Mockbeggar Hall," 252 - - Moulsham, 114 - - Mountnessing, 101-105 - - - Needham Market, 255 - - New Hall, 123-127 - - Newton Flotman, 296-299 - - Norwich, 51, 52, 161, 301, 302-320 - - - Old Ford, 6, 8, 76 - - Old-time travellers:-- - Caroline of Brunswick, Princess, Queen of George IV., 165-168 - Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Princess, Queen of George III., - 162, 163 - Kemp, Will, 79, 82, 161 - Johnson, Samuel, 164, 165 - Queen Elizabeth, 304, 307 - William III., 140, 141, 161 - - Old-time travelling, 142-150, 159-168, 178, 225-237 - - - Parcel Mail, 54-57, 111 - - Pulham St Mary Magdalene, 286, 287 - - ---- St Mary the Virgin, 286, 287 - - Puttels Bridge, 93, 94 - - - Rivenhall End, 139 - - Romford, 5, 23, 29, 51, 82, 85, 88-93, 167 - - - Scole, 6, 40, 262-272 - - Seven Kings, 51, 83-85 - - Shenfield, 99, 100 - - Shrubland Park, 253, 255 - - Springfield, 121-123 - - Spurgeon, Rev. C. H., 151 - - Stanway, 6, 174-178 - - Steam Coaches, 46 - - Stoke Ash, 257, 260 - - Stonham Aspall, 256 - - ---- Earls, 256 - - Stratford (Langthorne), 78, 80, 81 - - ----- -le-Bow, 6, 8, 75-80 - - ---- St Mary, 5, 6, 223-225, 274 - - Swainsthorpe, 298 - - - Tasburgh, 292, 295, 296, 297, 302 - - Thwaite, 259 - - Tivetshall St Margaret, 6, 284, 287 - - ---- St Mary, 6, 287 - - Toll-gates, 40, 70, 71, 78, 87, 93, 94, 139, 179, 222, 237, 257, 288 - - - Uphall, 5, 302 - - Upton Park, 81 - - - Wacton, 288, 292 - - ---- Common, 288 - - Washbrook, 236 - - West Ham, 77, 81 - - Whalebone House, 86, 87 - - Whitechapel, 2, 12, 62-69 - - Whitton Street, 252 - - Widford, 111-114, 161 - - Witham, 23, 131-139, 163 - - Woodgrange, 81 - - Writtle, 5 - - - Yaxley, 260 - - - - - EDINBURGH - COLSTON AND COY, LTD. - PRINTERS - - - - - Transcriber's Notes: - - Inconsistent hyphenation is retained. - - Inconsistent punctuation 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 Norwich Road, by Charles G. 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