What Ere we was or am
it matters not
to whom related,
or by whom begot,
We was, but am not.
Ask no more of me
'Tis all we are
And all that you must be.
We now hurried on, but as every finger-post had been painted white to
receive the new letters, the old words beneath the paint were quite
illegible, and, the road being lonely, of course we got lost, so,
instead of arriving at Nuneaton, we found ourselves again at the Watling
Street, at a higher point than that where we had left it when leaving
Atherstone. Nearly opposite the lane end from which we now emerged there
was a public-house, set back from the road, where a sign, suspended from
a pole, swung alongside the Watling Street to attract the attention of
travellers to the inn, and here we called to inquire our way to
Nuneaton. The name of the house was the "Royal Red Gate Inn," the pole
we had seen on the Watling Street holding a wooden gate painted red. We
asked why the red gate was a royal one, and the landlady said it was
because Queen Adelaide once called there, but who Queen Adelaide was,
and when she called there, she did not know. When asked what she called
for, she replied, "I don't know, unless it was for a drink!" As we did
not know who Queen Adelaide was ourselves, we had to wait until we
reached Nuneaton, where we were informed that she was the wife of
William IV, and that in her retirement she lived at Sudbury Hall in
Derbyshire, so this would be on her coach road to and from London. The
lane at one end of the Red Gate went to Fenney Drayton, where George Fox
the Quaker was born, about whom we had heard farther north; but we had
to push on, and finally did reach Nuneaton for the night.
_(Distance walked twenty-seven miles_.)
_Thursday, November 2nd._
In our early days we used to be told there was only one man in
Manchester, which fact was true if we looked at the name; in the same
way we were told there was but one nun in Nuneaton, but the ruins of the
nunnery suggested that there must have been quite a number there in the
past ages. We had seen many monasteries in our travels, but only one
nunnery, and that was at York; so convent life did not seem to have been
very popular in the North country, the chorus of a young lady's song of
the period perhaps furnishing the reason why:
[Illustration: "GEORGE ELLIOT."]
Then I won't be a Nun,
And I shan't be a Nun;
I'm so fond of pleasure
That I _cannot_ be a Nun.
The nuns had of course disappeared and long since been forgotten, but
other women had risen to take their places in the minds and memories of
the people of Nuneaton, foremost amongst whom was Mary Ann Evans, who
was born about the year 1820 at the South Farm, Arbury, whither her
father, belonging to the Newdegate family, had removed from Derbyshire
to take charge of some property in Warwickshire. "George Eliot" has been
described as "the greatest woman writer in English literature," and as
many of her novels related mainly to persons and places between Nuneaton
and Coventry, that district had been named by the Nuneaton people "The
Country of George Eliot." _Scenes of Clerical Life_ was published in
1858, and _The Mill on the Floss_ in 1860, and although the characters
and places are more difficult to locate than those in _Adam Bede_, the
"Bull Hotel" at Nuneaton has been identified as the "Red Lion" in her
novel, where Mr. Dempster, over his third glass of brandy and water,
would overwhelm a disputant who had beaten him in argument, with some
such tirade as: "I don't care a straw, sir, either for you or your
encyclopædia; a farrago of false information picked up in a cargo of
waste paper. Will you tell me, sir, that I don't know the origin of
Presbyterianism? I, sir, a man known through the county; while you, sir,
are ignored by the very fleas that infest the miserable alley in which
you were bred!"
[Illustration: SOUTH FARM, ARBURY, THE BIRTHPLACE OF "GEORGE ELIOT"]
We left the "Newdegate Arms" at Nuneaton early in the morning, on our
way to Lutterworth, our next object of interest, and passed by the
village of Hartshill, where Michael Drayton was born in 1563. He was a
lyric poet of considerable fame and a friend of Shakespeare. His
greatest work, _Polyolbion_, a poetic description of different parts of
England, was published in 1613. He became Poet Laureate, and at his
death, in 1631, was buried in Westminster Abbey.
We again went astray owing to the finger-posts being without names, but
at length reached the Watling Street at cross-roads, where there was a
very old public-house called "The Three Pots," and here we turned to the
right along the Street. The road was very lonely, for there were very
few houses on the Street itself, the villages being a mile or two away
on either side, but we had not gone very far before we met a Church of
England clergyman, who told us he had just returned from India, and that
he would much have liked to form one of our company in the journey we
were taking. He was sorry he had not met us lower down the road so that
he could have detained us a short time to listen to some of our tales of
adventures, and he would have given us a glass of beer and some bread
and cheese; which he altered to milk and eggs when we told him we did
not drink beer. We explained to him that we should never be able to
complete our journey if we joined the company of the beer-drinkers at
the many taverns we passed, and lingered at, on our way. Our experience
was that we were expected to tell tales, and the farther we travelled
the more we should have had to tell. He quite saw the force of our
argument, and then he said: "I presume you are not married," and when we
told him we were not, he said, "I thought not, as you would never have
been allowed to engage in so long a journey," and added, "I am just
about to be married myself." We told him we were sorry he was about to
lose his liberty, and, wishing him much happiness, and again thanking
him for his proffered hospitality, we resumed our march.
[Illustration: HIGH CROSS, THE CENTRE OF ENGLAND.]
In passing through country villages we often met the local clergyman or
doctor, of whom we invariably inquired concerning any objects of
interest to be seen. It was marvellous how many of them expressed a wish
to imitate our example. This, however, was only on fine days, for we
seldom met those gentlemen when the weather was bad, and we wondered
whether, if we had, they would still have expressed a wish to form one
of our company! Fine weather prevailed that day, and we soon arrived at
the High Cross which marked the Roman centre of England. It was at this
point that their most celebrated roads, the Fosse Way and the Watling
Street, crossed each other, running, we supposed, from north-east to
south-west and from north-west to south-east, to the extreme ends of the
kingdom in each direction. The Cross in the time of the Romans was made
of wood, being replaced or renewed in successive generations, until in
the middle of the seventeenth century it was utilised as a finger-post,
consisting of a long pole with four arms, to direct the way from "London
to West Chester," and from "York to Bristol." In 1712 an ornamental
stone cross was erected on the same spot by a number of gentlemen headed
by Basil, the fourth Earl of Denbigh, who had large estates in that
neighbourhood. The tableland on which it stood was 440 feet above the
sea-level, rivers running from it in every direction, and such was the
extent of the country visible from the Cross that with the aid of a
telescope fifty-six churches could be seen. This elevated position might
account for the Cross being struck by lightning in 1791 and partially
destroyed, but the inscriptions on the base, which had been left
standing, were still visible, although partially obscured by the
numerous names and initials of vandals, who have succeeded in closing
many interesting places to more civilised and sensible people. We could
perhaps go further and describe them as fools, for what will it matter
to posterity what their initials or names are; they only rouse the ire
of those who follow them and a feeling of disappointment that they had
not caught the offenders in their act of wanton mischief and been able
to administer some corporal punishment or other.
Years ago the benevolent owner of a fine estate situated near a town
decided to open his beautiful grounds to his poorer neighbours, but
before doing so he erected at the entrance gate two large wooden
tablets resembling the two tablets of the Ten Commandments formerly
fixed in churches but now rapidly disappearing, and on these he caused
his conditions and desires to be painted in poetry, four verses on each
tablet. They represent what most landowners desire but few obtain:
I
No chief to enter at this gate
To wander through this fine estate;
The owner of this ancient Hall
A kindly welcome bids to all:
Yet hopes that no one will neglect
The following wishes to respect.