Cromwell’s birthplace--Records of the past--Early photographs--A
breezy day--Home-brewed ale--Americans on English
scenery--Alconbury Hill--The plains of Cambridgeshire--The silence
of Nature--Stilton--A decayed coaching town--A medieval hostelry--A
big sign-board--Old-world traditions--Miles from anywhere.
Returning to our comfortable hostelry after our pleasant wanderings, we
felt just sufficiently tired to enjoy the luxury of taking our ease
therein, but “hungry as hunters” from our long tramp, therefore we
rejoiced in the fact that the worthy landlady had not forgotten her
guests, for we found quite a sumptuous repast awaiting us, worthy of the
ancient traditions of the house, though we on our part, it must be
confessed, were not equally worthy of the traditions of our ancestors in
the wine side of the feast; indeed, our healthy out-of-door life gave us
a positive distaste for wine of any kind. We always infinitely preferred
a homely draught of good old English ale, than which, for thirsty
mortals, a better drink has yet to be invented!
It may be remembered--though we only gleaned the fact whilst in
Huntingdon--that Oliver Cromwell was born in that town, and was educated
at the grammar school there. The house in which the Protector “first
saw the light of day” has, alas! been pulled down, but an ancient
drawing thereof represents it as being a comfortable and substantial
two-storied building, apparently of stone, having Tudor mullioned
windows and three projecting dormers in the roof. At the commencement of
the century the house was standing, and was shown as one of the sights
of the place. If only photography had been invented earlier, what
interesting and faithful records might have been preserved for us of
such old historic places which are now no more! As it is, we have to be
content with ancient drawings or prints of bygone England, and these not
always skilfully done, nor probably always correct in detail.
Furthermore, artists, then as now, perhaps more then than now, romanced
a little at times, and therefore were not so faithful to facts as they
might have been; as witness many of Turner’s poems in paint, which,
however beautiful as pictures, are by no means invariably true
representations of the places and scenes they profess to portray.
Indeed, there is a story told of Turner, who, when sketching from Nature
upon one occasion, deliberately drew a distant town on the opposite side
of the river to which it really stood, because, as he explained, “It
came better so”!
An unknown and very kind friend some time ago most courteously sent me a
number of prints from paper negatives taken in the early days of
photography by the Fox-Talbot process, and amongst these chanced to be
an excellent view of the ancient hostelry of the “George” at Norton St.
Philips in Somerset (a wonderful old inn, by the way, which I
[Sidenote: _PHOTOGRAPHIC RECORDS_]
have already very fully described in a former work[1]). When I received
the prints, I had only recently both carefully drawn and photographed
the quaint old-time hostelry, and I found that, even in the
comparatively short period that had elapsed since the Fox-Talbot
negatives were made, certain marked changes had taken place in the
building; so there can be no doubt as to the value and interest of such
recording photographs, for the lens has no bias, but faithfully
reproduces what is before it, neither adding to nor taking away
therefrom for the sake of effect. Now that, fortunately, both the
amateur and professional photographer are in evidence everywhere, future
generations will happily possess true, if not always artistic,
representations of places and historic spots as they really were at the
time of being taken; and in the case of matters of antiquarian or
archæological interest, we can well pardon the probable loss of
picturesqueness for the sake of accuracy. Fancy, if we could only have
to-day photographs preserved for us showing, for example, Fountains
Abbey in the full glory of its Gothic prime, or of other notable
buildings of the medieval age, how we should prize them! If we only had
a few faithful photographs of Elizabethan England to compare with
Victorian England, what a precious possession they would be! What would
not one give for a “snap-shot” of the Invincible(?) Armada arrogantly
sailing up the English Channel in stately procession, or of the
innumerable pageants of bygone times with all their wealth of
picturesque paraphernalia!
[1] _Through Ten English Counties._
We were up early in the morning, and before breakfast had made a sketch
of the quaint and ancient courtyard of the “George,” an engraving of
which is given in the last chapter. By a little after nine the dog-cart,
packed for travelling, was at the side door of our inn, and bidding
good-bye to the landlady--who in the good old-fashioned manner had come
to see us off and wish us a pleasant journey--we took our departure, and
were soon once more in the open country. Overnight we had, as our wont,
consulted our map as to our next day’s stage, and determined that we
would drive to Stamford, just twenty-five and three-quarter miles from
Huntingdon, according to our faithful _Paterson_.
Again we had delightful weather: a fresh, invigorating breeze was
blowing from the west; overhead was a deep blue sky, from which the sun
shone warmly, but not too warmly, down. The air was clear and sweet, and
the country all around full of brightness, colour, and movement, for the
wind swayed the trees in its path, and made golden waves as it swept
over the unreaped corn-fields, and green ones as it passed over the long
grasses in the meadows; it rippled the waters on ponds and rivers, and
whirled the sails of the windmills round at a merry pace; the brisk
breeze gave animation to the landscape, and seemed to imbue it with
actual life. Huntingdonshire, fortunately for the traveller therein,
possesses no large manufacturing towns, Huntingdon, St. Neots, and St.
Ives being of the compact, clean, homely order--more agricultural
centres than commercial ones. Therefore the atmosphere of the county is
not smoke-laden or oppressed with grayness, but pure, bright, and
buoyant, with the scent of the real country about it--an atmosphere that
makes one suddenly realise that there is a pleasure in merely breathing!
[Sidenote: _HOME-BREWED ALE_]
About two miles out we came to a little roadside inn having the sign of
the “Three Horse-shoes” displayed in front. Why three horse-shoes? Four,
one would imagine, would be the proper number. Here we observed a notice
that the thirsty wayfarer could indulge in “Home-brewed Ale,” rather a
rare article in these days of tied houses, when large brewing firms buy
up all the “publics” they can, so as to ensure the sale of their beer
thereto, and no other. Now, it may be pure fancy on my part, for fancy
counts for much, but in my opinion there is a special flavour and
pleasing character about _good_ home-brewed ale never to be found in
that coming from the big commercial breweries.
A little farther on our road brought us to Little Stukeley, a rather
picturesque village. Here, to the left of the way, stood a primitive old
inn, with its sign let into the top of a projecting chimney-stack, an
uncommon and curious place for a sign. In fact there were two signs, one
above the other; the top one was of square stone carved in low relief to
represent a swan with a chain round its body. The carving was all
painted white (except the chain, which was black), and bore the initials
in one corner of C. D. E., with the date 1676. Just below this, on a
separate and oblong tablet, painted a leaden colour, was the carved
representation of a fish--intended, we learnt, for a salmon, as the inn
was called the “Swan and Salmon.” We felt duly grateful for the lettered
information, otherwise we might in our ignorance have imagined the sign
to be the “Swan and Big Pike”!
Now we passed through a pretty but apparently sparsely-populated
country; indeed, it is strange how little the presence of man is
revealed in some portions of rural England, though the signs of his
labour are everywhere in evidence. Upon one occasion, when driving a
prominent American citizen, a guest of mine, across country (in order
that he might behold it from another point of view than that afforded by
a railway carriage, the general mode of seeing strange countries
nowadays), I took the opportunity of asking him what he was most struck
with in the English landscape. “Its uninhabited look,” was the prompt
reply; “and that is the very last thing I expected. I see great parks
here and there, and now and then I get a peep of a lordly palace
standing in stately solitude therein, as though it needs must keep as
far removed from the plebeian outer world as possible; but the homes of
the people (I mean those who are neither very rich nor very poor), where
do they hide themselves? From all I have seen to-day, had I not known
the facts, I should have imagined it was Old England that was the new
and thinly-populated land, and not my American State. With you, I guess,
it is a civilised feudalism that still prevails: the palace surrounded
by its park takes the place of the ancient castle surrounded by its
moat--the outer forms have changed, the spirit still remains. The
English country strikes me as a land of magnificent mansions and humble
cottages.”
[Sidenote: _AS OTHERS SEE US!_]
I was so struck by this statement of views, that on my return home I
looked up the works of some American authors who have written about
England, to gather what they might say on the subject, and I found that
John Burroughs, in an appreciative essay on English scenery in his
_Winter Sunshine_, writes his impressions of it thus:--“To American eyes
the country seems quite uninhabited, there are so few dwellings and so
few people. Such a landscape at home would be dotted all over with
thrifty farmhouses, each with its group of painted outbuildings, and
along every road and highway would be seen the well-to-do turnouts of
the independent freeholders. But in England the dwellings of the poor
people, the farmers, are so humble and inconspicuous, and are really so
far apart, and the halls and the country-seats of the aristocracy are so
hidden in the midst of vast estates, that the landscape seems almost
deserted, and it is not till you see the towns and great cities that you
can understand where so vast a population keeps itself.” It is
interesting sometimes “to see ourselves as others see us,” and never was
I more entertained than by hearing the outspoken opinions upon England
and the English of a notable Japanese official whom I met in California,
and who confided to me his ideas and views of things British, imagining
I was an American citizen all the time, and I did not undeceive him.
On our map we saw Alconbury Hill marked right on our road of to-day,
also we found it noted in our _Paterson_, therefore we expected to have
some stiff collar-work, for we reasoned to ourselves, when an Ordnance
map makes prominent mention of a hill it means climbing for us; so we
were surprised to find the hill only a gentle, though rather long, rise,
with a descent on the other side to correspond--trotting-ground every
inch of the way. From the top of the modest elevation, however, we had
an extensive prospect opening out before us over the flat, far-reaching
plains of Cambridgeshire--a little world of green meadows and tilled
fields, varied by many-tinted woods, enlivened by the gleam of still
water and the silvery thread of winding stream--a vast panorama
stretching away farther than our eyes could reach, for the far-off
horizon was lost in a faint blue haze that seemed to wed the sky to the
land. There is a certain fascination in looking over such a breadth of
earth and sky to be felt rather than described; it affords one an idea
of the majesty of space!
The country, as we drove on, became very lovely but very lonely; we had
the road all to ourselves for miles, not even the ubiquitous cyclist did
we see, and the fields on either hand appeared strangely deserted; a
profound peace brooded over all, so that even the tramping of our
horses’ feet and the crunching of our wheels on the hard road seemed
preternaturally loud--and we realised what a noise-producing creature
man is! I knew a Londoner, who lived within sound of the perpetual roar
of street traffic, after spending a night in a remote
[Sidenote: _TRANQUILLITY OR DULNESS_]
country house, actually complain of the painful stillness there,
averring that he could not sleep for it! So silent is Nature when at
rest, and so unaccustomed is the average town-dweller to its quietude.
To Charles Lamb the tranquillity of the country was “intolerable
dulness”; to others it is infinite rest. Lamb wrote: “Let not the lying
poets be believed, who entice men from the cheerful streets.... Let no
native Londoner imagine that health and rest, innocent occupation,
interchange of converse sweet, and recreative study, can make the
country anything better than altogether odious and detestable. A garden
was the primitive prison, till man, with Promethean felicity and
boldness, luckily sinned himself out of it”!
Driving on, we observed a large old house to our right close to the
roadway; this we imagined from appearances had formerly been a fine old
coaching hostelry, but now it is divided down the centre, one half doing
duty as a farmstead, the other half still being a house of
entertainment, that proclaims itself with the sign of the “Crown and
Woolpack.” I find that an inn so named is marked at this very spot on a
last-century travelling map I possess, so that it was presumably then of
some importance. To-day it struck us that the farmhouse looked more
prosperous than the inn.
As we proceeded, the country all around had a mellow, home-like look,
smiling and humanised with long abiding and the tireless toil of
generations of hardy workers: it was a delightful compound of green
fields, leafy trees, tangled hedgerows, murmuring streams, with winding
roads and inviting footpaths leading everywhere. Here and there, too, we
caught pleasant peeps of the gray gable-ends of ancient homes amidst the
woods, the rest being drowned in foliage. The scenery was thoroughly,
intensely English. Had you by some magic been suddenly transplanted
there from some distant region of the world, you would have had no
hesitation in saying that you were in England, for no other scenery in
the world is quite the same as what we looked upon. Here again let an
American give his opinion. I find Mark Twain, in his _More Tramps
Abroad_, thus writes: “After all, in the matter of certain physical
patent rights, there is only one England. Now that I have sampled the
globe, I am not in doubt. There is the beauty of Switzerland, and it is
repeated in the glaciers and snowy ranges of many parts of the earth;
there is the beauty of the fiord, and it is repeated in New Zealand and
Alaska; there is the beauty of Hawaii, and it is repeated in ten
thousand islands of the Southern Seas; there is the beauty of the
prairie and the plain, and it is repeated here and there in the earth.
Each of these is worshipful, each is perfect in its way, yet holds no
monopoly of its beauty; but that beauty which is England is alone--it
has no duplicate. It is made up of very simple details--just grass, and
trees, and shrubs, and roads, and hedges, and gardens, and houses, and
churches, and castles, and here and there a ruin, and over it all a
mellow dreamland of history. But its beauty is incomparable, and all its
own.”
It is not always the grandest scenery that affords
[Sidenote: _ENGLISH SCENERY_]
the most lasting pleasure, rather is it the quiet beauty that lies in
our rural everyday landscape that holds the sweetest remembrance.
Grandeur may excite our admiration, call forth our most expressive
adjectives, but it is the lovable that dwells nearest the heart, whose
memory is the closest treasured in after years; and it is this very
quality of lovableness that the English scenery flows over with that so
charms and binds one’s affections. English scenery does not challenge
attention by any _tour de force_; it simply allures you by its sweet
smile and home-like look. As Thackeray says, “The charming, friendly
English landscape! Is there any in the world like it?... It looks so
kind, it seems to shake hands with you as you pass through it.”
About twelve miles from Huntingdon stands the little decayed town of
Stilton--a famous place in the old coaching days, when the traffic here
on the Great North Road is said never to have ceased for five minutes,
day or night, the whole year round. But now Stilton has shrunk to little
more than a large village. Thanks to the railway, its prosperity is a
thing of the past, depending as it did almost wholly upon its inns,
which in turn depended upon the road traffic. As we drove into the
drowsy old town (I use the term in courtesy), that seems to have gone to
sleep never to waken more, our eyes were delighted by the vision of a
genuine, little-altered, medieval hostelry--of which very few remain in
the land. It was a picture rather than a place--a dream of old-world
architecture; and this is what we saw before us: a long, low, gabled
building, with bent, uneven roof and shapely stacks of chimneys, with
the usual low archway in, or about, the centre, giving access to the
stable-yard, and a grand old sign-board, supported by great brackets of
scrolled iron-work, and further upheld by a post in the roadway (there
is a curious old inn, the “Chequers,” at Tunbridge, with its sign
supported in a similar manner). The fine sign-board of the inn at
Stilton bears the representation of a huge bell, and forms quite a
feature in the building; the front of the latter has a delightful
mellow, gray tone--a sort of bloom that only age can give, the priceless
dower of centuries.
So charmed were we with this quaint and picturesque specimen of a
past-time hostelry of the pre-coaching era, that we involuntarily pulled
up to gaze upon it at our leisure, half afraid lest it should prove an
illusion, and like a dream vanish into nothingness; but no, it was a
happy reality, and not the delusion of a moment--it was “a something
more than fiction.” Not often in these prosaic days does the driving
tourist come upon a romance in stone like this, for romance was written
large over all its time-toned walls--walls that since the hostelry was
first raised, over three storied centuries ago, must have looked upon
many strange sights and eventful doings. Then the highway to the North
was in parts but little better than a track. The “gentlemen of the road”
made travelling a doubtful delight, full of excitement, and more
dangerous than tiger-hunting now is. Little wonder, therefore, that our
medieval ancestors commended their souls to God before starting out on
a journey; even the early coaching bills took the precaution of stating
that “the journey would be performed, God permitting.” The modern
railway time-table compilers are not so particular!
[Sidenote: _“THE BELL” AT STILTON_]
Driving under the ancient archway, we entered the stable-yard of the
“Bell,” and found that, in spite of the changed times and forsaken look
of the place, we could put our horses up there, as well as obtain a meal
for ourselves. Whereupon we ordered the best that the house could
provide “for man and beast.” Having settled this necessary detail, we at
once went outside and began work on a sketch of the ancient hostelry (an
engraving which will be found with this chapter). So engrossed did we
become with our pleasant task, that we forgot all about our meal, so the
landlord had to come out to remind us about it. We excused ourselves by
remarking that we could eat and drink any day, but not always had we the
opportunity of sketching such a picturesque bit of building. The
landlord simply smiled, and gazed at us inquiringly. What was passing in
his mind I cannot say, but he remarked that our chops were getting cold.
Possibly he wondered at any one preferring to stand outside in the
roadway drawing an old inn, instead of sitting within it feasting.
Moreover, he reminded us that he had some excellent ale. This was a
sudden descent from the poetic to the practical, but the practical
prevailed, for we had to confess to ourselves that we were hungry, and
thirsty too; and as my wife pertinently remarked, “The chops won’t
wait, and the inn will; it has waited several hundreds of years where it
is, and you can finish your sketch after lunch.” The argument was
unanswerable, so we stepped within, and did ample justice to the repast
that mine host had provided. I am inclined to think that the sketch did
not suffer for the interruption, for a hungry man is apt to draw
hastily, be he ever so enthusiastic about his work. Our repast finished
and our drawing done, we sought out the landlord--a stout,
jovial-looking personage; may his shadow never grow less!--for a chat,
in the hope of gleaning thereby some information or traditions about the
old place, and were not wholly disappointed.
It appeared that mine host had been there thirty-two years, and even in
his recollection much of the stabling and a portion of the building in
the rear also had gone to decay, and consequently was pulled down. He
seemed proud of his ancient inn, but especially proud of the original
sign-board, which, being of copper, for lightness, had not decayed,
neither had it warped. “Now, I’ll wager you cannot guess the height of
it within a foot,” he exclaimed, looking up at the swinging board. We
thought we could, it seemed an easy matter; so we guessed and failed! We
conjectured five feet. “Ah!” exclaimed the landlord, “I knew you would
guess wrong--everybody does. Why, it’s six feet and two and
three-quarter inches high! I’ve been up on a ladder and measured it
myself. It does look big when you’re up close to it. There used to be
lots of bets about it, I’ve heard, in the old coaching days, much to the
profit of the drivers; for you see they knew the height and
[Illustration: A MEDIEVAL HOSTELRY: THE BELL INN, STILTON.]
[Sidenote: _A FINE INN SIGN_]
their passengers didn’t. It was said to be the finest sign on the road.
More than once, to settle a wager, the coach waited whilst the board was
measured. It’s a sad pity, but the scrolled iron-work is corroding away,
besides getting bent out of place here and there from the heat of the
sun, but I expect it will last my time for all that. The owner would
like to restore the old inn, only there is so little road custom now, it
would not pay to do so.” “But how about the cyclists,” we queried; “do
you not obtain a good deal of custom from them?” “Well, not very much,
sir. Somehow, they seem mostly to pass along without stopping. Now and
then one or two may stop just for a glass of ale, but the majority of
them simply slow down a bit as they pass by, and exclaim, ‘What a funny
old place!’ or a similar remark; but a few odd glasses of ale and a lot
of remarks don’t go far towards paying rent. You see, there’s nothing to
come here for, this isn’t a tourist country. Now, were we only near to a
watering-place, we should get a lot of folks a-driving over to see the
old house, refreshing themselves, and baiting their horses. Then there
would be money in it.” For myself, I am selfishly glad that the “Bell”
at Stilton is not near any fashionable resort, otherwise there would be
a great chance of its picturesqeness being improved away. As it is, it
may still, with a little repairing now and then, last for centuries, to
delight the eye of antiquaries and artists yet unborn--a bit of history
in stone of the never-returning past.
Then the landlord asked us to go into his garden at the back, and there
presented us with one of his roses. “It’s a rare kind,” he said; “they
call it a new rose. A gentleman living near here gave a big price for a
stock one like it; but when he showed me his purchase I told him that I
had just the same kind in my garden, and it had been there for seven
years; and he would not believe me till he came and saw for himself.
There’s what you call a spa spring in the garden. In olden times it used
to be considered a cure for some complaints, but it seems forgotten now.
It is the only spring in the place; all the other water has to be got
from wells.”
The name of Stilton is, of course, a familiar household word, as the
little town gave its name to the now famous cheese. I find my copy of
_Paterson_ has the following note about the place:--“Stilton has long
been celebrated for the excellence of its cheese, which not unfrequently
has been called the English Parmesan. It is asserted that this article
was first made by a Mrs. Paulet of Wymondham, near Melton Mowbray, in
Leicestershire, who supplied the celebrated Cooper Thornhill, who kept
the Bell Inn in this village, with this new manufacture, which he often
sold for 2s. 6d. per lb., and hence it is said to have received its name
from the place of sale. This Thornhill was a famous rider, and is
recorded to have won the cup at Kimbolton with a mare that he
accidentally took on the course after a journey of twelve miles.”
Another performance of this sporting worthy was to ride to London and
back for a wager within twelve hours. I find by my road-book the
distance for the double journey to be 150 miles, so that he must have
ridden over twelve miles an hour; and a good day’s work in truth!
[Sidenote: _INN-LORE_]
Most of the landlords of the old coaching hostelries were sporting men,
and wonderful stories are told of their doings, stories that probably,
like most wines, have improved with age. Indeed, a vast amount of
inn-lore (we have folk-lore, why not inn-lore?) may be picked up by the
road traveller of to-day, from talkative landlords and communicative
ostlers, if he be a good listener. I should think that I have gathered
this journey sufficient anecdotes of the road, good, bad, and
indifferent, to fill two chapters at least. But the stories lose much
when retold in prosaic print; it is the persons who tell them, and the
manner of telling, together with suitable surroundings, that give them a
special charm. To do them justice you must hear them in a remote country
hostelry from the lips of some jovial old host--for a few such may still
be found on the way--whose interest lies in that direction; and if told
in his low-ceilinged parlour, hung round with prints of coaching and
sporting subjects, produced in the pre-chromo-lithographic age, so much
the better; if over a pipe, better still. Then perchance mine host may
settle down and warm up to his subject, when one story will inevitably
suggest another, and that still another, and so on apparently _ad
infinitum_, till your note-book is filled with all sorts of curious
histories. Or failing the landlord, the “wrinkled ostler, grim and
thin,” may well supply his place; and the rambling old inn-yard where
some of the wonderful feats related took place, or are presumed to have
taken place, forms a very appropriate and telling background to the
tale. We have had the _Tales of my Landlord_. Who will give us the
_Tales of an Ostler_? These, judging from my own selection, might, with
a little necessary weeding, prove interesting and, in certain cases,
even sensational reading.
I well remember, some few years back, when touring in Yorkshire, the
aged ostler of a solitary inn on the moors, where we were weather-bound
for a time, related to me, by way of pleasantly passing the time, a
blood-curdling story about the house in the “good old times.” I must say
that the story suited well the building, for it was a bleak,
inhospitable-looking house, with long untenanted, unfurnished chambers,
its stables going to decay, and mostly given over to cobwebs and
half-starved mice--the whole place looking doubly dreary in the dripping
rain: a gray drooping sky and a soughing wind serving only too
successfully to accentuate its dismalness. “Ah,” exclaimed the ostler as
we stood together sheltering from the steady downpour in a corner of the
stables, “there were queer doings in the old place. I’ve heard tell, in
past times, many a belated traveller who put up here for the night never
got no further if he were supposed to have much money upon him; that is,
for the landlord then, they do say, combined inn-keeping with robbery.
There were one bedroom in the house where they used to put likely
travellers to sleep, and this had a secret door to it. It’s yon room
with the low window overlooking the yard, and, well, next morning the
traveller had disappeared no one knew
[Sidenote: _A GRUESOME STORY_]
where; but a lot of skeletons have been found when digging in the moor
round about. However, one night the landlord caught a Tartar. There was
a scuffle in the room, and some pistol shots were heard, and the
landlord was found dead on the floor: the traveller turned out to be a
famous highwayman, who so cowed the rest of the house that he rode off
in the morning with a good share of the landlord’s plunder to which he
quietly helped himself.” But then the story may not be true, or only
true in part, for tradition is a sad scandal-monger; and tradition,
unlike a rolling stone, gathers substance as it goes on. I should
perhaps state, in fairness to the worthy ostler’s tale-telling talent,
that I have only given his grim story in brief, and have purposely
omitted some very gruesome and thrilling details that he positively
gloated over. These my readers can supply for themselves if they be so
minded, providing a trap-door in the floor of the chamber, with a deep
well immediately below, and flavouring to taste.
But to return to the “Bell” at Stilton, from which I have wandered far
afield. This gray and ancient hostelry, with its weather-tinted walls,
produced an impression upon us difficult to analyse; it verily seemed as
though there must be some old legend or mystery connected with the
building and only waiting to be discovered. The glamour of romance
seemed to brood over it: a romance in which the “knights of the road”
figured prominently, and we began to weave a little story “all our own,”
after the most approved manner of Harrison Ainsworth. Dick Turpin must
have known this hostelry very well, it being on his favourite and most
paying line of road; and the chances are that he stopped at it more than
once, for it was in a remote position and a convenient halting-place for
his calling. Outwardly the old inn may be a trifle more time-toned and
not so trim or well kept as then, but otherwise I do not imagine that
either it or the town has altered much since his day. On the whole it
doubtless looks much the same to us now as it did to him. Stilton is a
place that in an age of change has remained unchanged; since the last
coach departed thence it appears to have fallen into a deep sleep with
small prospect of ever awakening again. The railway has left it quite
out in the cold. Of Stilton it may truly be written, “It was!”
Dick Turpin must have passed by the “Bell” on his famous ride to
York--if ever that ride took place, for sundry hard-headed and
hard-hearted antiquaries, who ought to know better, declare the episode
to be as apocryphal as the “Battle of Dorking.” Legends should not be
judged by the same standard as matter-of-fact history! I wish learned
authorities would devote their time to some more profitable task than
that of upsetting innocent and perfectly harmless romances: already they
have demolished nearly all the fabled stories of my childhood, besides a
host of my favourite traditions which I liked to feel might be true,
such as the picturesque elopement of Dorothy Vernon. “In reality nine
out of every ten traditions are deliberate inventions.” Possibly;
nevertheless I find no special pleasure in being assured that “Cæsar
never cried that cry to Brutus; Cromwell never said ‘Take away that
bauble’; Wellington denied that he uttered, ‘Up, Guards, and at them!’
and the story of Cambronne declaring that ‘The Old Guard dies, but never
surrenders,’ is now known to have been invented by Rougemont two days
after the battle.... As for the Abbé Edgeworth’s farewell to Louis XVI.
on the guillotine, the cry of the crew of the sinking _Vengeur_, and the
pretty story of young Barra in the war of La Vendée--these are all
myths”--and more’s the pity!
It was with great reluctance that we bade goodbye to the quaint and
ancient “Bell” at Stilton, and in spite of the unreliability of
traditions generally, we could not help wondering whether there were any
truth in the oft-repeated story that Dick Turpin had half the landlords
between London and York “under articles” to him, and if the then
landlord of this special inn were one of them.
[Sidenote: _MILES FROM ANYWHERE_]
On the front of a lonely little hostel at Upware, in the wide Fenland of
Cambridgeshire, is inscribed “Five Miles from Anywhere. No Hurry,” and
it struck us that these words might equally well be painted on the
front, or beneath the sign, of the “Bell” at Stilton. There is a sense
of remoteness about the decayed, medieval hostelry that suits well the
legend: for Stilton is miles from anywhere, and it seems generations
removed from the present prosaic age of progress, rush, and bustle. It
is a spot in which the past appears the reality, and the present a
dream!