A decayed fane--Birds in church--An old manorial hall--Curious
creations of the carver’s brain--The grotesque _in excelsis_--The
old formal garden--Sketching from memory--The beauty of the
Wolds--Lovely Lincolnshire!--Advice heeded!--A great character--A
headless horseman--Extremes meet--“All’s well that ends well.”
From Somersby we drove to Bag Enderby. What is the meaning of the
curious and distinguishing prefix “bag” it is difficult to divine; it
cannot be from “bog,” for the hamlet is in the hills and there are no
bogs about, nor are there likely to have been any even in the
prehistoric times. It might perhaps, but doubtfully, be derived from the
Anglo-Saxon “boc,” a beech, but this is merely unprofitable guessing.
The old church here is very picturesque, externally at any rate, but
somewhat dilapidated when we were there, and in want of repair. Like
that of Somersby its tower is scarred and weather-worn and picturesque
with the picturesqueness of strong decay; by this I mean that though the
face of the soft sandstone of which it is built has crumbled away in
places so as to give it a pathetic look of untold age, still the decay
is merely on the surface, and the softer portions of the stone-work
having suffered, the strongest and most enduring remain. The weathering
is such as to cause a look rather than a reality of weakness, the walls
are massive enough to stand for ages yet, the old builders were
fortunately lavish of material; they built for time, if not eternity!
Within, the church shows such unmistakable signs of a regular
restoration during the Churchwarden era and of having been untouched
since, that it is very interesting as an object lesson of that period of
ecclesiastical art,--so few churches being now left to us in this state.
Here we noticed the long out-of-date high-backed pews, with a large
square family one in the midst, presumably the squire’s. The woodwork of
some of these pews was worm-eaten, and the cushions thereof mostly
moth-holed. The pulpit is a two-decker affair of plain panelled deal,
such as in a few more years one may expect to find only in a museum--if
there.
We noticed on looking up that where the roof joined the tower, or rather
failed to join it, we could clearly see the sky, and so on wet days the
rain must have free entry to the nave; fortunately there are no pews
immediately below! Still in spite of all, or shall I say because of all
this, the poor old church appealed to us. It was so charmingly innocent
of any attempt at “art” decoration, it happily boasted no pavement of
garish tiles suggestive of the modern villa, no Birmingham bright
brass-work, no crudely coloured stained-glass windows to offend the eye.
Take the pews and pulpit away and it would at once have been
delightfully picturesque, and even pews and pulpit sinned artistically
and architecturally solely in form, for Time had carefully toned them
down to a
[Sidenote: _THE CHURCHWARDEN ERA_]
perfectly harmless if not an actually pleasing tint. At any rate there
was no irritating pretence at misunderstood art; no imitation--a long
way off--of medievalism; no false note. The churchwarden was no artist;
but then he did not pretend to be one, so far I respect him; and he has
wrought infinitely less harm in our churches than the professional
restorer, so far I positively bless him! for he did not, of set purpose,
destroy old work to show how much better he could do it another way!
Truly he was over-fond of whitewashing walls, but this did not destroy
them, nor the ancient chiselling thereon. He was not enthusiastic about
stained glass, perhaps because it was expensive, and so he preferred
plain leaded lights through which one can see the blue sky, green trees,
and sunlit country; and certainly, though for other reasons, I prefer,
infinitely prefer, plain leaded lights to stained glass--unless the
stained glass be very good indeed, much better than ever was obtainable
in the churchwarden period. In fine, I consider that the old
art-ignorant, much-abused churchwarden has done, comparatively, but
small lasting harm to our old churches; his whitewash, that has often
preserved interesting frescoes, can be easily removed without hurt, his
pews and pulpits can almost as readily be removed. But the havoc a
“clever” and proudly opinionated restorer is oftentimes allowed to do
with impunity is beyond recall. However it may be I would much rather
have the interior of Bag Enderby church, primitive as it is, with its
ancient stone pavement in which the ancient brasses were set, than that
of Somersby church with its prim and proper seats, and modern tiled
floor, both of which remind me painfully of a recently erected suburban
church raised by contract and at the lowest tender “To the glory of
God!”
We found a lady in the church; who she was, or why she was there, I
cannot tell. We judged that possibly she was the rector’s wife or his
daughter; but this was pure conjecture, for we did not even know if the
rector were married. Moreover, who she was, or why there, concerned us
not. I am glad we met her, for she was most courteous in giving us all
the information it was in her power to impart. Truly, we had become
quite accustomed to such courtesies from utter strangers, but custom did
not diminish their pleasantness. By way of introduction she remarked
that “the church sadly needed some repairing.” We agreed, whether
uttered purposely or by accident, we were delighted to hear the
expression “repairing” employed instead of “restoring.” “We’re afraid,”
continued she, “that some day the roof may fall down upon us during
service.” We ventured to hope that it would fall down some other time.
We tried to be sympathetic, and endeavoured to look properly concerned
when we learnt that there were “bats in the belfry,” and that “birds
make themselves quite at home in the nave, Sundays as well as
week-days.” We were shocked to hear such bad behaviour of the
Lincolnshire birds; but, as we remarked, “birds will be birds all the
world over.”
Observing an ancient brass let into the pavement in the centre of the
church, with an inscription
[Sidenote: _AN ANCIENT BRASS_]
thereon that looked interesting, we began to examine it; but the
lettering was somewhat indistinct from wear, besides being in those
puzzling straight up-and-down lines so much favoured in the fifteenth
century, and we found considerable difficulty in deciphering it in its
entirety, a difficulty enhanced by the dim light at the moment. The
strange lady was unable to help us here, but promised, if we would give
her our name and address, that she would send us a rubbing of the brass.
The kindness of strangers never seemed to fail us, for on our return
home we duly found a letter awaiting us with a careful rubbing of the
brass enclosed therein. Provided with this, all at our leisure, we read
the inscription thus:--_Orate p’ aīa Albini d’Enderby qui fecit fieri
istam ecclesiam cum campanile qui obiit in Vigilia s[=c]i Mathie [=ap]o
Āº D[=n]i MCCCCVII._, which we roughly did into English: “Pray for the
soul of Albinus of Enderby, who caused to be made this church, with
bell-tower, who died in the vigil of St. Mathius the apostle, 1407.”
The ancient font here is decorated with some curious devices carved in
shields; the chief of these we made out--rightly or wrongly, for I
should not like to be considered authoritative on the point--to be the
Virgin holding the dead Christ; a man, possibly David, playing on a
harp; a hart with a tree (query “the tree of life”) growing out of his
back, which tree the hart is licking with his tongue; a cross surrounded
by a crown of thorns, and others. This font was raised above the
pavement by a stone slab, a slab that, I regret to add, as is all too
plainly manifest, once formed a notable tombstone, for it is finely
incised with a figure and inscription, in great part now covered over by
the font! This fine slab, originally oblong in shape, has at some time
been deliberately broken in half in order to make it into a square, and
further than this, the four corners of the square thus constructed have
their ends chiselled away so as to form an octagonal base, more for the
saving of space and convenience than ornament, we imagined. This
plundering the dead in such a barefaced fashion, even when done for
religious purposes, is not a pleasant thing to contemplate.
In one of the windows of the church is preserved a fragment of ancient
stained glass that possibly possesses a history, as it represents the
armorial bearings of Crowland Abbey, namely, three knives and three
scourges, and may have come from there. Amongst the tombs we noticed a
mural monument in the chancel to Andrew Gendney, Esquire, who is
represented in armour, with his wife and children. This monument,
bearing date of 1591, still shows traces of its original colouring
though over three centuries old.
Near the church stands a fine elm tree with a long low projecting branch
close to the ground. This branch, we were told, was long enough to seat
all the inhabitants of the parish, which shows how extraordinarily long
the branch is, or how few the inhabitants of this remote hamlet are--we
understood the latter was the case.
We next drove to “the old manorial hall” of Harrington, our road being
bordered by fine old branching oaks and leafy elms, the shade of which
was very grateful; for though September, the sun shone down in a manner
worthy of the dog-days. Reaching our destination, and armed with our
introduction, we at once made our way to the rectory. Here we readily
obtained the keys both of the church and the Hall, and were provided,
moreover, with a servant to act as guide.
Externally Harrington Hall is a bright, sunny-looking, red-brick
building, mostly of the Jacobean period, but much modernised, even to
the extent of sash-windows. Over the entrance is a stone slab let into
the brick-work, and carved with a coat-of-arms. By the side of this is a
sun-dial, with the date 1681 engraved thereon. On either side of the
doorway are mounting-blocks with steps, very convenient for
horse-riders, so much so that I often wonder why they have so generally
disappeared.
[Sidenote: _A DESERTED HALL_]
The old house was tenantless and empty, and wore a sadly forsaken look.
In one respect it was the very reverse of Somersby Grange, for while as
cheerful in outward appearance as the latter was sombre, within the
deserted hall was gloomy and ghost-like, with dismal, if large,
bed-chambers leading one into the other in an uncomfortable sort of way,
and huge cupboards like little windowless rooms, and rambling
passages--a house that had manifestly been altered from time to time
with much confusion to its geography. “A sense of mystery” hung over
all, and suggested to us that the place must be haunted. But here again,
though the very house for a ghost to disport himself in, or to be the
home of a weird legend, it was unblest with either as far as we could
make out. A promise of romance there was to the eye, but no fulfilment!
One old chamber, called “the oak room,” interested us greatly on account
of its exceedingly curious carvings. This chamber was panelled from
floor to ceiling. For about three-quarters of the height upwards the
panelling was adorned with “linen-pattern” work; above this, round the
top of the room, forming a sort of frieze, ran a series of most
grotesque carvings, the continuity of the frieze being only broken just
above the fireplace, which space was given over to the heraldic pride of
various coats-of-arms. Each panel that went to form the frieze had some
separate, quaint, or grotesque subject carved thereon; some of the
designs, indeed, were so outrageous as to suggest the work of a
craftsman fresh from Bedlam! There is a quaintness that overruns its
bounds and becomes mere eccentricity.
The grotesque creations of the old monks, though highly improbable and
undesirable beings, still looked as though they might have actually
lived, and struggled, and breathed. The grotesque creations of the
carver of the panels in this room failed in this respect. One could
hardly, in the most romantically poetic mood, have given the latter
credit for ever existing in this or any other planet where things might
be ordered differently; they are all, or nearly all, distinctly
impossible. On one of these panels is shown a creature with the head and
neck of a swan, the body of a fish (from which body proceed scaled wings
of the prehistoric reptile kind),
[Sidenote: _ECCENTRICITIES IN CARVING_]
and a spreading feathered tail, somewhat like a peacock’s; the creature
had one human foot and one claw!--a very nightmare in carving, and a bad
nightmare to boot! Another nondescript animal, leaning to a dragon, was
provided with two heads, one in the usual place, and one in the tail
with a big eye, each head regarding the other wonderingly. Another
creature looked for all the world like a gigantic mouse with a long
curling tail, but his head was that of a man. Space will not allow me to
enumerate all these strange carvings in detail. It was the very room,
after a late and heavy supper such as they had in the olden times, to
make a fêted guest dream bad dreams.
The gardens at Harrington Hall, though modest in extent, make delightful
wandering, with their ample walks and old-fashioned flower-beds, formal
and colourful, the colours being enhanced by a background of ivy-covered
wall and deep-green yew hedge. But what charmed us most here was a
raised terrace with a very wide walk on the top. From this we could look
down on the gardens on one hand and over the park-like meadows on the
other, the terrace doing duty as a boundary wall as well as a raised
promenade--an excellent idea. Why, I wonder, do we not plan such
terraces nowadays? they form such delightful promenades and are so
picturesque besides, with a picturesqueness that recalls many an
old-world love story and historical episode. What would the gardens of
Haddon Hall be without the famous terrace, so beloved by artists, and so
often painted and photographed? With the coming of the landscape
gardener, alas! the restful past-time garden of our ancestors went out
of fashion, and with it the old garden architecture also. Formerly the
artificialness of the garden was acknowledged. The garden is still an
artificial production--Nature more or less tamed--but instead of
glorying in the fact we try to disguise it. The architect’s work now
stops at the house, so we find no longer in our gardens the quaint
sun-dial, the stone terrace, the built summer-house--a real house,
though tiny, and structurally decorative--the recessed and roomy
seat-ways that Marcus Stone so delights to paint, the fountains, and the
like; yet what pleasant and picturesque features they all are! Now we
have the uncomfortable rustic seat and ugly rustic summer-house of wood,
generally deal, and varnished, because they look more rural! Still there
are some people who think the old way best!
The small church at Harrington is apparently a modern building,
containing, however, in strange contrast to its new-looking walls, a
series of ancient and very interesting tombs. I say the church is
apparently modern, for I have seen ancient churches so thoroughly
restored as to seem only just finished. But the restorer, or rebuilder,
here deserves a word of praise for the careful manner in which the
monuments of armoured warriors and others, ages ago dust and ashes, have
been cared for. These monuments are to the Harrington and Coppledike
families, and range from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries,
supplying a good example of almost every style of sepulchral memorial to
the dead, beginning with the stone effigy, in full armour, of Sir Iohn
de Harrington, who is represented with his legs crossed; then passing
through incised slabs and brasses to the more elaborate altar-tomb; and
from this to the mural monument, where the figures are shown as
kneeling, not recumbent; and lastly, to the period when the sculptured
figures disappear altogether, and the portraits of the underlying dead
give place to mere lettering setting forth the many virtues of the
departed worthies.
[Sidenote: _A VAIN SEARCH_]
Harrington Hall is another of the places that people, in a vain search
after the original of Locksley Hall, have imagined might have stood for
the poet’s picture, presumably because of its proximity to Somersby,
for, as far as the building goes, it affords no clue that “one can catch
hold of.” It is an old hall, and there the likeness appears to begin and
end! In spite of Tennyson’s disclaimer, I cannot but feel that, though
no particular spot suggested Locksley Hall to him, it is quite possible,
if not probable, that he may, consciously or unconsciously, have taken a
bit from one place, and a bit from another, and have pieced them
together so as to form a whole--a vague whole truly, but still a
tangible whole.
To show how unknowingly such a thing may be done, I may mention that I
once remember painting a mountain-and-river-scape that I fondly imagined
I had evolved from my own brain. As I was at work on this an artist
friend (with whom I had often painted in North Wales, our favourite
sketching ground) chanced to look in for a smoke and a chat. “Hullo!”
exclaimed he, “what have you got there? Why, it’s Moel Siabod and the
Llugwy, though I don’t know the exact point of view.” For the moment I
deemed he was joking, as was his wont; but on looking again at the
canvas with fresh eyes I saw that, quite unwittingly, I had repeated the
general outline of that mountain, with even some details of the
landscape of the valley below--not by any means an accurate
representation of the scene, but sufficiently like to show how much I
was unconsciously indebted to the original for my composition. I have
still the painting by me, and on showing it to a friend well acquainted
with the district, and after so far enlightening him as to say it was a
Welsh view, he declared he knew the very spot I had painted it from! So
powerful oftentimes are impressions; for it was solely a forgotten
impression I had painted!
Now, it happened that later on our journey we mentioned to a stranger
(with whom we gossiped, as we always do with interesting strangers we
come across, if they will) the fact that so struck us about Harrington
Church, its looking so new, whilst the tombs inside were so old. He
exclaimed in reply, “Well, you see the old church was pulled down and
entirely rebuilt. It was a pity, but it had to be. Its foundations had
given way so that the building was slowly sinking into the ground.” This
remark brought to our mind one of the few possible clues of subject
detail, as showing some distinct local colouring, for in “Locksley Hall
Sixty Years After,” we read:--
[Sidenote: _COINCIDENCES_]
Yonder in that chapel, slowly sinking now into the ground,
Lies the warrior, my forefather, with his feet upon the hound.
Cross’d! for once he sail’d the sea to crush the Moslem in his pride;
Dead the warrior, dead his glory, dead the cause in which he died.
There truly in Harrington Church is the warrior with his legs crossed,
and Harrington is within an easy ramble of Somersby, so doubtless the
old church, then possibly “sinking into the ground,” with its tombs and
ancient hall, were well known to Tennyson in his youth, and doubtless
were lastingly impressed upon his romantic mind. It is just the spot
that would impress any one of a poetic temperament even now, but more so
then than now, when the church was in pathetic decay, broken down with
the burden of centuries! It will not escape notice that Tennyson clings
to the old tradition that a cross-legged effigy necessarily represents a
crusader. Perhaps it is too much to expect a poet to do otherwise, in
spite of the dictum of Dr. Cox (before mentioned) and that of other
learned authorities who can find it in their hard hearts to destroy a
pleasant bit of picturesque and purely harmless fiction.
From Harrington we returned to Horncastle by a roundabout route, passing
through South Ormsby and Tetford, a route that led us through the heart
of the wild Wolds, and gave us a good insight into its varied and
characteristic scenery. A very enjoyable drive it proved, down dale and
over hill, past many-tinted woods, gorgeous in their autumn colouring,
through sleepy hamlets, and across one little ford, with a foot-bridge
at the side for pedestrians, with the rounded hills bounding our
prospect on every hand. Now the hills would be a wonderful purple-gray
in cloud shadow, anon a brilliant golden green as the great gleams of
sunshine raked their sloping sides, lighting them up with a warm glory
that hardly seemed of this world, so ethereal did they make the solid
landscape look.
There is a charm of form, and there is also a charm of colour, less
seldom looked for or understood; but when one can have the two at their
best combined, as in this instance, then the beauty of a scene is a
thing to be remembered, to make a mental painting of, to be recalled
with a sense of refreshment on a dreary winter’s day when the dark fog
hangs thick and heavy like a pall over smoky London. P. G. Hamerton,
who, if a poor painter, was an excellent critic, and a clever writer
upon art (for, like Ruskin, he had a message to give), remarks, “In the
Highlands of Scotland we have mountains, but no architecture; in
Lincolnshire architecture, but no mountains.” Well, I feel inclined to
retort, Lincolnshire _has_ the architecture--and the Wolds. Truly, the
Wolds are not mountains, but picturesquely they will do as a background
to architecture even better than mountains. Mountains resent being
turned into a mere background to architecture; they are too big, too
important, far too assertive; the Wolds are dreamy and distant,--so the
very thing.
Many years ago, when they were less known, and little thought of or
admired, I spoke of the Norfolk Broads as a land of beauty, worthy of
the
[Sidenote: _PICTURESQUE LINCOLNSHIRE_]
attention of tourists and artists. I was smiled at for my pains. Now the
painter revels in the Broads, and the tourist has discovered them.
To-day I say that Lincolnshire is a land of lovely landscapes, and that
its scenery is most paintable and picturesque to those who have eyes to
see, and this I have endeavoured to show in some of my sketches. Still I
expect to be smiled at for the assertion. “Whoever heard of Lincolnshire
being picturesque?” I can fancy people saying. The very remark was made
to me when I proclaimed the beauty of the Broads. I bide my time, and
wonder when artists will discover Lincolnshire. To be honest, however, I
have heard of one artist who has discovered it, but he is very reticent
about his “find.” Wise man he! If a landscape painter feels he is
getting “groovy,” and I fear a good many are, let him come to
Lincolnshire! Some centres in the county truly are better for his
purpose than others, but I will not particularise. I dread even the
remote chance of bringing down the cheap tripper. Once I innocently
wrote, and in enthusiastic terms, of the charms of a certain beauty-spot
that I thought was strangely overlooked and neglected. Well, I have
cause to repent my rashness, and accept the well-intentioned hint thrown
out to me by the _Saturday Review_ some few years ago, thus: “Let Mr.
Hissey ponder, and in his topography particularise less in the future.
Our appeal, we know, places him in an awkward dilemma; but he can still
go on the road and write his impressions without luring the speculative
builder, etc. ... if he deals delicately with his favourite
beauty-spots, and forbears now and then to give local habitation and
name.” Most excellent advice! That I have followed it to some extent is,
I think, shown by the later remarks of the same critic, who writes of a
more recent work of mine: “We are relieved to note that Mr. Hissey does
not wax eloquent concerning one of the most beautiful and unspoilt towns
in Sussex. He passes through it with commendable reticence.” It is a
pleasant experience for a critic and an author to be of one mind; for an
author to profit by a critic’s criticisms!
Returning, in due course, to our comfortable quarters at Horncastle, on
dismounting from our dog-cart there we noticed an old man standing
expectantly in the yard. He was oddly dressed in that shabby-genteel
manner that reminded us very much of the out-at-elbows nobleman of the
melodrama stage, for in spite of his dress his bearing impressed us; it
was dignified. He at once came up to us and exclaimed, “I’ve got
something to show you, that I’m sure you would like to see.” I am afraid
that we were just a little heated and tired with our long drive and
day’s explorations; moreover, we were looking eagerly forward to a
refreshing cup of afternoon tea, so that we rather abruptly rejected the
advances made; but the stranger looked so disappointed that we at once
repented our brusqueness, and said we should be pleased to see what he
had to show us. Whereupon he beamed again, and pulling an envelope out
of his pocket he extracted therefrom a piece of paper, which he handed
to us for our inspection, with a smile. On this we read--
[Sidenote: _A MAN OF MANY ACCOMPLISHMENTS_]
Marie Corelli,
with best wishes.
September 12th, 1897.
Horncastle.
“There now,” he exclaimed, “Miss Corelli, the famous novelist, wrote
that for me the other day when she was in Horncastle. I thought you
would like to see her handwriting. I’ve lots of interesting things I
could show you at my house if you like. I’ve got letters from other
great people. I’ve got Robert Burns’s--Bobbie Burns I calls
him--snuffbox, for which I have been offered £200 and refused it. I’m a
poet, too, and have composed a lot of original poems. I can sing a song
with any man. I’m a ventriloquist also, and have given entertainments
lasting two hours. I’m the oldest cricketer in England; but I won’t
detain you longer now. I could go on for an hour or more all about
myself, but I daresay you are tired with driving. Here is my name and
address,” handing us at the same time a rather dirty card. “Now, if you
would allow me, I should be pleased to show you round our town at any
time, and point out all the interesting things therein, for it is a very
interesting old place.”
Manifestly we had come upon a character, curious above the general run
of characters; the man interested us, we felt glad to have met him, and
thereupon arranged that he should show us over the town in half an
hour’s time. So he departed with a smile promising to meet us in the
hotel yard in half an hour. Then we sought the ostler and asked him
about the stranger. We were informed that he was a Mr. Baker, who kept a
small sweetmeat-shop in the place, and was a great antiquary. “He always
goes after strangers who come here. I expect he saw you come in
yesterday; he’s been hanging about the yard all the afternoon expecting
you back. He’s a regular character.” So we had concluded; still,
antiquarianism and selling sweetmeats did seem an odd mixture!
It so happened that a day or two after this, chance threw us
unexpectedly in the company of the famous novelist, who was staying at
the same hotel in a Lincolnshire village that we stopped at, and during
the course of a conversation about many things, we told her the amusing
incident of our being shown her autograph at Horncastle. It appeared
that out of pure good-nature Miss Marie Corelli had given Mr. Baker her
signature, as he had boldly come to her and asked for it! Possibly had
he not been such a manifest character he would not have obtained it so
readily, for the autograph-hunter has become a nuisance in the land!
Somehow it has always been our fate when taking our driving expeditions
to become acquainted with at least one or more notable persons. This
tour proved no exception to the rule.
We found Mr. Baker duly awaiting us at the time and place mentioned.
First he took us to the church, wherein he pointed out to us thirteen
scytheheads hanging on the north wall, three of which were mounted at
the end of poles so as to make rough but effective spears; these, he
told us, were relics of
[Sidenote: _A WORTHY KNIGHT_]
the battle of Winceby Hill, and it was with these primitive but at the
period formidable weapons that the Lincolnshire rustics were armed who
helped materially to overthrow the King’s forces. The rusting relics of
the never-returning past interested us, and as we looked upon them the
centuries gone seemed somehow to narrow down to years; the mind is
beyond time and space! Then our guide pointed out to us the tomb of Sir
Ingram Hopton, who was slain at the fight, having previously unseated
Cromwell during the struggle. His epitaph, inscribed upon a mural
tablet, runs as follows:--
Here Lyeth ye worthy
And Honorable Kt. Sr Ingram
Hopton who paid his debt
To Nature and Duty to his King
And Country in the Attempt
Of seising ye Arch-Rebel
In the Bloody skirmish near
Winceby: Octr ye 6th. A.D.
1643.
“There is a tradition,” said Mr. Baker, “that Sir Hopton was killed by
having his head struck off at a blow, whereupon his horse rushed away
with his headless body, and did not stop till he came to the knight’s
front door at Horncastle. But I cannot answer for the truth of the
story, so you can form your own conclusions in the matter,” which we
did. Now our self-appointed guide led us to one of the side aisles, and
began to lift the matting up from the pavement, in search of a tombstone
he wished to show us, but for some inexplicable reason he could not
readily find it. “It can’t surely have run away?” we exclaimed, amused
at the perplexity of the searcher; “tombstones don’t often do that.” But
the light was rapidly fading; already it was too dim to read
inscriptions on the dusky flooring, darkened further by the shadows of
the pews, so we left the tomb unseen. If I remember aright it was to the
memory of Tennyson’s parents-in-law.
Mr. Baker then invited us to his house, an invitation we accepted; we
were taken there by what appeared to be a very roundabout way, in order,
we imagined, that our guide might point out to us one or two things of
interest. First we were shown the square red-brick house near the church
which was formerly the home of Mr. Sellwood, whose eldest daughter
Tennyson married. Except for this second-hand kind of fame the house is
not notable in any way; it is of a comfortable old-fashioned type,
without any architectural pretensions whatever--a type that possesses
the negative virtue of neither attracting nor offending the eye. As Mr.
Baker was a very old man (he told us he was born on 1st November 1814),
we ventured to ask him if by any chance he remembered seeing Tennyson as
a youth when living at Somersby. He told us that when he was a boy he
distinctly remembered Tennyson as a young man. “We did not think much of
him then; he used to go rambling miles away from home without his hat;
we used to think him a little strange. I have been told as how when he
was a boy he was a bit wild like, and would get on a mule and make him
go by rattling a tin box, with marbles in it, right over the animal’s
ears. He used to be very fond of going into the fields all alone, and
lying on his back on the grass smoking a pipe. He was very reserved, and
did not talk to people much; and that’s about all I know or have heard
about him. You see, sir, ‘a prophet hath no honour in his own country,’
that’s Scripture, so it must be true.” We nodded assent.
[Sidenote: _IN STRANGE QUARTERS_]
Then Mr. Baker showed us Sir Ingram Hopton’s old home in the main
street, and going down a narrow lane pointed out some bits of rough and
ruined masonry, now built into walls and cottages; these crumbling bits
of masonry, we were told, formed portions of the old castle. I must,
however, confess that when castles come to this state of decay, they
fail to arouse my sympathies, for their history in stone is over, and
all their picturesqueness gone. After this we came to Mr. Baker’s little
sweetmeat-shop, situated in a by-street; we were ushered through the
shop into a tiny and somewhat stuffy sitting-room. Here we were bidden
to take a chair, and imagine ourselves at home; we did the former, the
latter was beyond our power, the surroundings were so unfamiliar! Then
Mr. Baker produced a parcel of letters written direct to him from sundry
more or less notable people; three of these, we observed, to our
surprise, were stamped at the top with the well-known name of an English
royal palace. They were all addressed to “Dear Mr. Baker,” and bore the
signature below of a royal personage! As we looked round the tiny humble
parlour at the back of the sweetmeat-shop immediately after glancing at
the letters, a certain sense of the incongruity of things struck us
forcibly. Then we were handed another letter from the famous cricketer,
Mr. W. G. Grace, complimenting Mr. Baker on his old round-arm bowling!
“Maybe you would hardly think it,” remarked our host, “to look at me
now, a gray old man, but I was a great cricketer once. Why, I bowled out
at the very first ball the late Roger Iddison, when he was captain of
the All-England Eleven.” We felt inclined just then to say that we could
believe anything! So we accepted the statement as a matter of course
that the French (which one we were not told) Ambassador had been to see
Mr. Baker. After this we were allowed to gaze upon and even handle his
treasure of treasures, namely, the snuff-box of “Bobbie Burns, the great
Scotch poet,” in the shape of a small horn with a silver lid. This, we
were assured, had once belonged to Burns. It may have done; anyway, on
the lid is inscribed “R. B., 1768,” and it looks that age.
Mr. Baker informed us that though he kept only a very small and
unpretending sweet-shop, his mother’s ancestors were titled, “but really
the deed makes the nobleman and I make excellent sweets. I send them
everywhere,” he said; “you must try them,” whereupon he presented us
with a tin box full of his “Noted Bull’s-Eyes.” Let me here state that
the bull’s-eyes proved to be most excellent. I make this statement on
the best authority, having given them to my children, and children
should be the best judges of such luxuries, and they pronounced
[Sidenote: _PARDONABLE IGNORANCE_]
them “most delicious.” Then Mr. Baker insisted upon singing to us an old
English song; he would have added some ventriloquism, but we said that
we really could not trespass upon his valuable time and hospitality any
longer, so we took our departure, and sought the ease of our inn. We
have come upon a goodly number of characters during our many driving
tours, but I do not think that we have ever come upon a greater one than
Mr. Baker; long may he live yet! That I had never heard of him before I
arrived in Horncastle seemed genuinely to surprise him! Well, I had not,
“there are so many famous people in the world,” as I explained in
excuse, “nowadays you cannot really know of them all!” “That’s quite
true, sir,” replied he, and we parted the best of friends. I am sure I
was forgiven for my ignorance, for a little later that evening a parcel
came for me to my hotel, and I found it to contain a quantity of
gingerbread, “With Mr. Baker’s compliments!”