SPRING. [IN NORWICH] AND TO ELY AND CAMBRIDGE
The entry into Norwich--The "Maid's Head"--Preserved
from modernity by Mr. Walter Rye--A car in the yard
quite incongruous--Queen Elizabeth's chamber--The Duke
of Norfolk--Macaulay's description of his predecessors
in the seventeenth century--Their pomp and
hospitality--The contrast--Norwich trade, past and
present--The Pastons and the "Maid's Head"--A cavalier
house--Surprised Freemasons--Meaning of "Maid's
Head"--The Cathedral at night--Blocked by
houses--Cathedral society--Trollope--A vision of the
east end of the cathedral--The cattle market--Local
breeds prevail--A wise practice--But Jerseys best for
private houses--Cleanliness of the general market--In
the cathedral--Start--Make sure of exits--The Earlham
Road--The Gurneys of Earlham--Norfolk dialect--The
breath of spring--Chaucer and Norfolk--Lynn's idle
claim--Kimberley Hall--The Wodehouse crest--Hingham
Church--Hingham, Massachusetts--Scoulton
Mere--Black-headed gulls--Gastronomic advice--A land of
heaths--Fast running--Another car overtaken--Dust
realized--Watton and Wayland Wood--not "the Babes'"
wood--Brandon--Gunflints and
rabbits--Mildenhall--Fordham--Soham--First view of
Ely--Glorious but delayed--Better from railway--Later
view less satisfying--Beauty of Bishop's
Palace--Distressing verger causes retreat from
cathedral--Home via Cambridge and Royston--A thorough
wetting.
We had crawled through the narrow and crooked streets of Norwich to its
central Market Place under the Castle Mound; swinging to the left on
entering it. Turning to the left again we were soon in Tombland, a wide and
open space opposite the west end of the cathedral, the meaning of the name
of which is uncertain. We had seen the cathedral spire rising against the
clear sky, had glanced through two great archways leading to the Cathedral
Church itself, had passed on our left the "Stranger's House" already
mentioned, though the quaint fact that the faces of the figures of Hercules
and Samson supporting the arch of its door are adorned with "Imperial"
beardlets was forgotten then. At the end of Tombland we were in Wensum
Street, and the "Maid's Head" was the first house on the right. We entered
it by an archway some way down the street, and forthwith, in the covered
courtyard, there was such a contrast between the old and the new as has
never been matched in my experience. The surroundings, thanks to Mr. Walter
Rye, who bought the ancient house and saved it from destruction, and
thereby won the gratitude of every traveller of taste, were as nearly
identical with those of the fifteenth century (when the Pastons used the
"Mayde's Hedde" and spoke well of its accommodation) as was possible
consistently with some modernisms which are indispensable. The bar parlour
on the left, from which an attentive hostess issued to take our
commands--one felt she ought to have a chatelaine and a wimple--seemed to
be, and was, of almost immemorial age. So did the surroundings generally.
Yet in the centre was the most modern thing in this world, the very
incarnation of novelty, a motor-car, and a six-cylinder motor-car at that,
and staring us in the face was a notice requesting motorists, in effect, to
make no unnecessary noise, but to deposit their passengers or pick them up,
as the case might be, rapidly as possible and then depart. In such
surroundings, surely, no motorist possessed of even decent feeling could
stand in need of this request; but, since it was there, it must be assumed
that it came into existence because misconduct had shown it to be needed.
For ourselves, we almost felt inclined to push the car, instead of
compelling it to propel itself, onwards through the covered court and into
the carriage yard and garage beyond. It was, and it is, a beautiful
car--for cars can be beautiful, and half the assertions that they are ugly
are due to the fact that the generation has not been sufficiently educated
in relation to cars, has not grown familiar enough with them, to know what
the lines of beauty in them are. Still, in the court of the "Maid's Head,"
the car was an anachronism, a jarring note, not in the picture, and the
sooner it was moved out of sight the better. So moved it was and the
original picture remained. The white cap of a _chef_, having a countenance
that might pass for French beneath it, did not spoil the picture in the
least. It was easy, and very likely correct, to imagine that the costume of
male cooks and scullions has changed little with the progress of time, and
the material reflections called up by that white cap were comforting. The
man or woman who will not confess to enjoying a good dinner is usually
either a hypocrite or one who, exiled from a real and innocent pleasure of
life by a contemptible digestion, assumes airs of superiority on the ground
of an abstinence due to fear and not to asceticism.
Meanwhile the daughters had gone up a very ancient and charming staircase,
of real oak, really black, with real age, not through the application of
quick lime and water, and had been shown into "Queen Elizabeth's Chamber";
but a message that I must visit them there met me in the Jacobean bar
parlour, and the visit was more than worth paying. It was a spacious room,
if its floor area alone was considered; but of course the ceiling was very
low, and the dark beams supporting it were still lower. It would have
suited Hannah More, who loved ceilings you could touch as you stood, but it
lacked the bishops she required as an accompaniment. At least it lacked
them then. One great bed was of carved oak, relieved with gilding; another
made no impression on my memory. But the long and low windows, the shining
planks of the ancient floor, which boasted its own hills and valleys,
slopes and hollows, and the cleanliness and brightness of everything made a
very vivid and pleasant impression. Queen Elizabeth may not have slept in
that chamber or in the "Maid's Head" at all when she visited Norwich in
1578 and weird pageants were displayed in her honour; I can find no
evidence that she did, which is not to say that there is none; but the
"Maid's Head" was an old inn even then, and it is reasonably certain that
the chamber called after Queen Elizabeth was there also. It is an ideal
room for those who hanker after the old world, but do not yearn for that
dirt which, the more we think of it, seems to have been an all-pervading
characteristic of the lives of our forefathers. The "Maid's Head" is
spotlessly clean.
I prepared to saunter forth into the city for half an hour before dinner;
but at the foot of the stairs was a person, almost, perhaps, quite a
personage, whose presence was a happy coincidence. It has been noted
earlier that on a first visit to the "Royal," the ancient "Whig House" of
Norwich, Lord Kimberley was found to be a guest; and, by all that was
wonderful, here, at the foot of the stairs of the "Maid's Head," was none
other than the Duke of Norfolk with the Duchess, and both were about to
become guests of the ancient hotel. Heavens! what a contrast was this to
the scene which would have been presented on a similar visit some two
centuries ago! In that wonderful chapter on the State of England in 1685,
Macaulay has a passage which must needs be quoted, although it has been
cited very often before, and although it has the incidental disadvantage,
which I feel rather acutely, of showing the grand style side by side with
mine:--
"Norwich was the capital of a large and fruitful province. It was the
residence of a Bishop and of a Chapter. It was the chief seat of the chief
manufacture of the realm" (clothing, of course). "Some men distinguished by
learning and science had recently dwelt there; and no place in the kingdom,
except the capital and the Universities, had more attractions for the
curious. The library, the museum, the aviary, and the botanical garden of
Sir Thomas Browne, were thought by Fellows of the Royal Society well worthy
of a long pilgrimage. Norwich had also a court in miniature. In the heart
of the city stood an old palace of the Dukes of Norfolk, said to be the
largest town house in the kingdom out of London. In this mansion, to which
were annexed a tennis court, a bowling-green and a wilderness, stretching
along the banks of the Wensum, the noble family of Howard frequently
resided, and kept a state resembling that of petty sovereigns. Drink was
served to guests in goblets of pure gold. The very tongs and shovels were
of silver. Pictures by Italian masters adorned the walls. The cabinets were
filled with a fine collection of gems purchased by that Earl of Arundel
whose marbles are now among the ornaments of Oxford. Here, in the year
1671, Charles and his court were sumptuously entertained. Here, too, all
comers were annually welcomed, from Christmas to Twelfth Night. Ale flowed
in oceans for the populace. Three coaches, one of which had been built at a
cost of five hundred pounds to contain fourteen persons, were sent every
afternoon to bring ladies to the festivities; and the dances were always
followed by a luxurious banquet. When the Duke of Norfolk came to Norwich
he was greeted like a king returning to his capital. The bells of the
Cathedral and of St. Peter Mancroft were rung; the guns of the Castle were
fired; and the Mayor and Aldermen waited on their illustrious fellow
citizen with complimentary addresses. In the year 1693 the population of
Norwich was found, by actual enumeration, to be between twenty-eight and
twenty-nine thousand souls."
What a contrast! On the 9th of March, 1906, the Duke of Norfolk entered a
city of between one hundred and twelve and one hundred and thirteen
thousand souls; the bells of the cathedral and St. Peter's Mancroft were
not rung. (The latter, by the way, is the crowning ecclesiastical glory of
Norwich apart from the cathedral, and not to be confounded with St. Peter's
Permountergate, often quoted because its records are curious.) No guns were
fired. No mayor and aldermen waited upon the Duke in his palace, because
there was no palace any more. All that happened was that a quiet, bearded
English gentleman walked, limping slightly (the reward of service to his
country in South Africa), with a lady into the courtyard of the Maid's Head
Hotel and, after a parley with the hostess, vanished up the stairs and was
no more seen. It was mere luck that I saw him, and that I happened to be
able to recognize, in this unostentatious figure, the Premier Duke and
Earl, the Hereditary Earl Marshal and Chief Butler of England. He was
received with precisely the same courtesy of attention that had been shown
to us, but without servility, received in fact as he desired, and in a
manner which really did credit to him, for it was what he wished, and to
the quiet dignity of the old hostelry; and the city of Norwich at large
knew not who was within its gates. No more was left of the pomp and dignity
of the seventeenth-century palace and reception than of the clothing trade.
The Duke of Norfolk had become, in the interval, an Englishman first and a
great power in Sussex next, and the clothing trade had vanished. The city
of 112,000 souls odd subsisted, as I had been told, on the proceeds of
boots and mustard, the latter industry founded by one of whom a
correspondent of the _Norfolk and Norwich Notes and Queries_ wrote: "The
original Colman [the name means "free man"] was a jolly old fellow who used
to give me sixpence and direct me to the house for refreshment"; it
subsisted also, as I learned for myself next morning, and I venture to say
it prospered also, as one of the largest agricultural and pastoral centres
it has ever been my good fortune to witness. Times were indeed changed; but
he would be a rash man who should say that they were changed for the worse
in all respects.
Dinner in the coffee-room at the "Maid's Head" was pleasant by virtue of
its surroundings, for the room has an air of antiquity, and its deep
fireplace charmed the eye, because the cookery was distinctly good, and the
attendance was quiet and prompt as that in a well-ordered private house.
The final bill next morning too, to introduce a most important
consideration at the earliest possible moment, was quite moderate--for
England. Dinner was the time also for gentle allusion to some of the famous
associations of the inn. The Pastons had used and commended it. That their
words of praise should be blazoned on the outer door seemed right and
proper; but it was a pity to have placed near them the raptures of modern
and not very prominent newspapers. Sitting in this same inn on the morning
of his last fight with Kett and his rebels, Warwick had breakfasted, and
had then led his men, who were camped on the market-place, to victory.
Here, in the time of the rebellion, the Royalists resorted, says Mr. Rye,
and it is certain that Dame Paston's horses were seized here; but it is to
be feared that mine host of the time had but a scantily-filled till, for
Royalists were scarce in the eastern counties. Freemasons held their
lodges in the "Maid's Head" so early as 1724, and it is stated that on one
occasion a Mrs. Beatson hid behind the wainscot of the lodge-room and heard
all the mysteries. Whether such there be, myself innocent of masonry but
closely attached to friends who would certainly have advised me to take
steps to enter the brotherhood if it were likely to be to my advantage, I
have often doubted and still doubt.
My pleasure was decidedly enhanced by the fact that I knew these things in
advance, and perhaps a little increased by being able to mention them. It
was a pride to be able to say that the house was built on the site of an
ancient palace of the bishops of Norwich; that it stood on Gothic arches;
that the assembly room had a minstrel's gallery; that a carving in the
smoking-room represented a fish, possibly a ray, and that, if so, it
probably accounted for the title of the house; for the house was once
undoubtedly called either the "Myrtle Fish" or the "Molde Fish"--readings
vary--and, if either of them be a ray, a difficulty vanishes, for the
sea-fishermen of Norfolk call, or called, the ray "old maid." Certainly the
house did not take its new title on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth's
visit, for it was the "Mayde's Hedde" in 1472, and it is mentioned in a
curious petition to Wolsey, unearthed by Mr. Rye. Bless him again for
having bought and saved the inn!
After dinner, and the necessary interval for rest and burnt sacrifice, two
facts became manifest. It was a glorious moonlight night, mild for the time
of year, and through all the long day we had hardly walked so many yards as
we had traversed miles. So we started forth, and soon came to the firm
conclusion that the "pale moonlight" is every whit as conducive to a
soul-satisfying view of Norwich Cathedral as of "fair Melrose." Our first
view of the west end, after passing under the great archway giving on
Tombland, pleased not a little; but we had read something of the glories of
the cathedral, of the apse and the apsidal chapels, of Jesus and St. Luke,
abutting on the apse at either side of the east end, and the desire to see
them was strong. It was not, however, very easily satisfied; for Norwich
Cathedral, like far too many of the stateliest and best-proportioned
edifices in our congested islands, is so hedged around with houses that it
is difficult to look upon it as a whole from a sufficient distance. They
are interesting houses in their way, venerable some of them, suggestive of
peaceful lives spent in scholarly research; but they exasperate by impeding
the view, and exasperations provoke memories of Trollope's studies of
cathedral society, studies suggesting that its tone is not invariably
peaceful nor high-minded; that petty jealousies and scandal can invade the
most outwardly tranquil precincts and closes. Nay, more, we all know--there
is no direct reference here to Norwich, and I cannot remember to have met
or to have heard any evil of any inhabitant, male or female, of its
ecclesiastical dwellings--that of some cathedral society Trollope's studies
are still essentially true. On this occasion it is the plain and
unvarnished truth that the houses blocked the view, and this not too kindly
thought came to mind. The chances are that it would not have thrust itself
forward if the houses had not done likewise; and that, in point of
narrowness of view or breadth of it, nothing distinguishes dwellers in
deaneries and canons' houses, huddled round the walls of a cathedral, from
those in others which, having been placed at a respectful distance, allow
the outline of the majestic structure to be seen in its pure beauty. At
Norwich, too, there is more excuse for the huddling than in many a
cathedral city, for space was valuable in Norwich from very early times.
Citizens who taxed themselves, as those of Norwich did, to protect their
city by walls, were not likely to encourage open spaces, "lungs," as it is
the fashion to call them now, within the walled space, and the crowding of
the precincts of the cathedral by buildings mean and insignificant compared
to it--the reference is to inhabited houses only--is explained by the same
cause as the narrow streets of the city itself, streets wherein the
tramcars render life full of peril.
By fetching a compass, however, to the south, and without asking directions
of any man, we contrived to penetrate to a narrow walk beyond the east end
of the cathedral and past the cloisters, where, after finding a point of
view giving the eye shelter from the glare of incandescent lamps, we looked
upon a spectacle of indescribable beauty. At the bottom were the swelling
curves of the apse and the chapels, above them, in orderly succession, the
sloping roof and the wondrously graceful and lofty spire, outlined--for the
moon was behind it--with strange clearness and yet softened in the most
mysterious fashion, for in the borrowed light of the moon is no suspicion
of glare to dazzle the eyes. How long we gazed, spellbound and silent,
cannot be said; time passed out of our thoughts; but as we looked, I
remember, a gossamer wreath of detached cloud, lying all alone and at quite
a low elevation, drifted slowly across the face of the heaven and behind
the steeple that pointed towards it. That was all. To describe the scene is
utterly beyond my power, and, probably, to convey a complete impression of
it is not within the compass of human words; for they must proceed step by
step, idea by idea; but the vision was seen long, yet the first upward
glance revealed the whole of it, and the last lingering look showed as
much, and no more. It reduced us to silence then, to that silence which is
always the unconscious tribute to unspeakable beauty. Even now no more can
be said than that the memory of the vision remains, clear and pure, as of
the most perfect combination of man's work and Nature's background it has
ever been my privilege to behold in any part of the world.
"What meaneth this bleating of the sheep in mine ears and the lowing of the
oxen which I hear?" Such was the familiar question that occurred to me
when, early the next morning, I woke to find the light streaming in at my
window in the "Maid's Head." Then I remembered that this was Saturday
morning, and probably market-day, and I went forth quickly, and, unlike
Samuel of old, gladly, for of all beasts which minister to men's needs the
patient kine are to me the most interesting (except dogs); and, besides
that, if one desires to know something of people, as well as of places,
there are few more profitable fields for easy-going study than a large
market. For there the inhabitants of the country-side are assembled from
far and near, with the products of their farms, and one may study both man
and beast at leisure. It was fully quarter to eight before I left the
"Maid's Head," and five minutes more had passed before I was in the heart
of the market. Already droves of cattle were being driven away--to the
station probably--but hundreds, yes literally hundreds and hundreds,
remained behind, and among them circulated drovers, dealers, and butchers,
feeling their backs and loins with intelligent hands, and less rough in
their usage of the beasts, it was a pleasure to see, than is usual in some
other counties. Sheep there were also, and pigs doubtless, perhaps in
another market. It seemed to me, not by any means innocent of cattle
markets, that by some unforeseen piece of luck I must have happened on the
occasion of a customary fair. Inquiry proved that this was not so; that, as
a matter of fact, this was but such a gathering of cattle as is customary
at the season of the year, and that I had not reached the scene until the
bulk of the business had been transacted. It was clear at once that boots
and mustard--in the former I gathered that cut-throat competition had
reduced profits to a _minimum_ and almost to a _minus_ quantity--were not
by any means the only industries by which Norwich stood. It was, and is, an
immense cattle market; and the stock, the general average of quality in
which was distinctly high, was worth a tremendous lot of money. Yet, as I
saw it first, it was a market which had more than begun to dwindle away, a
colossal and altogether gratifying sight notwithstanding.
It was pleasing to observe that, although here and there a black beast or a
mongrel might be seen, and a considerable number of Shorthorns, the Norfolk
farmers as a body cling to the old East Anglian breed of Red Polls. They
could not do better. The Red Polls mature early, make a lot of beef, and
are hardy; the cows of the breed are admirable milkers, and celebrated for
remaining long in profit; and the absence of horns is a distinct gain when
it comes to a matter of transport by train. Far be it from me to compare
the merits of breeds of cattle apart from environment, for that is often
rather a foolish thing to do. Environment matters a great deal and, nobly
as Shorthorns thrive in many parts of the country, and at Sandringham in
Norfolk particularly, there remains in me a strong conviction that the
local breeds, Red Polls in East Anglia, Herefords in the Marches and
Borderland of Wales, Devons in the county from which they take their name,
Castle Martins in South Wales, and Welsh black cattle in North Wales,
thrive best in their appointed districts under the conditions to which the
normal farmer is more or less bound to expose them. They fill in the
picture better, too, than do cattle of a "foreign" stamp. Your white-faced
Hereford seems out of place in Berkshire, a Kerry looks like a toy in
Hertfordshire; only for the gentle Jersey cattle--Mr. Cobbold has a herd of
them at Felixstowe, but that is a story to come later--would I make an
exception. They, however, are not farmers' cattle, for they are worth
little to kill, and their rich milk, sold at ordinary prices, as it must
be, is too small in quantity to be profitable. They are for private owners
and butter-makers only, and, as such, they cannot be surpassed.
Let this headstrong hobby be curbed; but let it be added that these burly,
fair-complexioned farmers of Norfolk, whose very faces, seen in
considerable numbers, convinced one more than much reading of the presence
of abundant Danish blood in the county, looked and acted as if they
understood their business thoroughly. If they go on breeding gentle Red
Polls--the Red Polls are really quiet of disposition, perhaps because
inherited instinct tells them it is poor sport to fight without horns--it
is because the process pays. Let me add, in opposition to a statement seen
elsewhere, that I saw nothing of that brutal treatment of the animals which
is far too usual an accompaniment of the cattle trade. So to the general
market near the Guildhall, a grateful sight because more flowers were for
sale on the stalls than is usual in provincial markets, and the wares,
particularly the butter and the fowls, the latter neatly trussed and
wrapped in coarse muslin of spotless cleanliness, were so nicely exposed
for sale. Leland observed that "Northfolk" were said to be "ful of wyles";
a barber, from Hants, told me that morning, when I said I found the people
very intelligent, that he thought they knew far too much. My own view is
that of the "wyles" which consist in cleanly neatness in exposing food for
sale it is not possible to find too much, and not often easy to find
enough, in this England of ours.
Of the Guildhall, really a very interesting example, dating from the
beginning of the fifteenth century, of ingenious work in flint, and its
contents, some mention has been made before, and of the interior of the
cathedral also. But we entered the cathedral once more, walking on tiptoes
in the grand and empty nave, and certainly not disturbing the worshippers
in the chancel, for service was going on. The organ, as on a former visit,
was remarkably impressive, and, as quite a minor detail, I noted part of an
almost illegible inscription to one Ingloit on the south pillar of the
chancel arch. "In descant most, in voluntary all, he past." What was, or
is, "descant"? None of us knew. The necessary if rather humiliating process
of reference to a dictionary, which it is more honest to confess than it
would be to profess to have understood the legend at first sight, showed
that descant was the first stage in the development of counterpoint. So,
mounting once more to the Norman tower on the Castle Mound, to look at the
entrance to the Museum, but not entering, for time pressed and our
enterprise lay in the open air, we repaired to the "Maid's Head,"
discharged the reckoning, and were off again to the westward, on a windless
and rainless day; but that wisp of cloud no bigger than a man's hand, which
we had seen behind the cathedral spire against the pure blue overnight, had
been the precursor of a grey veil of cloud which overspread the whole face
of the sky.
Always to make sure of your exits is one of the golden rules of successful
motoring. Entrances do not matter so much. If, having followed unknown
roads over strange country for many miles, you eventually strike the town
of your desires, that is enough for all practical purposes. You are sure to
be as near your actual destination as makes no difference to a motor-car
worthy of mention in almost any town or city in England except London. But
a wrong exit is fatal. Our instructions from John Ostler of the "Maid's
Head," who took to a motor kindly as if he had never seen curry-comb or
dandy-brush, were elaborate; but the leading feature of them was that, when
we reached the market-place near the Guildhall, we should ask for what, on
its spelling, we called "Earlham Road." "Ask for the 'Arlam' Road," said
John Ostler; and forthwith sprang into memory the fact that at Norwich we
were in the heart of that part of East Anglia in which the Gurneys and
their kin were never weary of well-doing and, as is the custom of Quakers,
throve amazingly in their business. Of them, of their good deeds, of their
family life, a full account may be found in one of the very best books of
what, for lack of a better description, may be called earnest family
gossip. Need it be added that the book is _The Gurneys of Earlham_, by
Augustus J. C. Hare (London: George Allen)? Well, perhaps it is necessary
to give the information, for the two volumes contain little or nothing
which is sensational, they saw the light of day in 1895, and all but the
very best of books, to say nothing of a good many of them also, pass out of
the mind of a hurrying generation in less than that time, and in much less.
Of the Gurneys, of their manifold relatives and connections, of their
abundant and honourable commerce, of their share in the making of Norwich,
of their sober and intimate family life, it would be a sheer delight to
write at length; but this is hardly the place in which to attempt again
that which has been done remarkably well already. Suffice it therefore to
commend the book, and to quote an unrivalled description of it by a
masterly hand. That it happens to be found in the first three pages of the
first volume is mere coincidence. Those who are so disposed may, if it
pleases them, imagine that they are quoted simply because they come first,
and refuse to believe that the volumes are among the familiar acquaintance
of one who finds a wholesome and hearty appreciation of the joys of the
open air to be entirely consistent with a rational pleasure in books.
"After leaving the hollow where the beautiful crochetted spire of Norwich
Cathedral and the square masses of its castle rise above the dingy red
roofs and blue smoke of the town, the road to Lynn ascends what, generally
called an incline, is in Norfolk a long hill. After passing its brow, at
about three miles from the city, the horizon is fringed by woods--grey in
winter, radiant with many tints in summer--which belong to Earlham. This
delightful old place has for centuries been the property of the Bacon
family, and they have never consented to sell it; but since 1786 it has
been rented by the Gurneys, a period of a hundred and nine years--perhaps
one of the oldest tenancies known for a mansion of the size, though very
frequent in the case of farmhouses. Thus, to the Gurney family, it has
become the beloved home of five generations; to them its old chambers are
filled with the very odour of holiness; its ancient gardens and green
glades and sparkling river bring thoughts of domestic peace and happiness,
which cannot be given in words; its very name is a refrain of family unity
and love.
"The little park of Earlham is scarcely more than a paddock, with its fine
groups of trees and remains of avenues, in one of which a Bacon of old time
is still supposed to wander, with the hatchet in his hand which he was
using on the day of his death. Where the trees thicken beyond the green
slopes, above an oval drive familiarly called 'The World,' stands the
house, white-washed towards the road by the colour-hating Quaker, second
wife of Joseph John Gurney, but infinitely beautiful towards the garden in
the pink hues of its brick with grey stone ornaments, and the masses of
vine and rose which festoon its two large projecting windows and white
central porch. Hence the wide lawn, to which the place owes its chief
dignity, spreads away on either side to belts of pine trees, fringed by
terraces, where masses of snowdrops and aconites gleam amongst the mossy
grass in early spring. The west side of the house is perhaps the oldest
part, and bears a date of James First's time on its two narrow gables.
Hence the river is seen gleaming and glancing in the hollows, where it is
crossed by the single arch of a bridge. From the low hall, with its
old-fashioned furniture and pictures, a very short staircase leads to an
ante-room opening on the drawing-room, where Richmond's striking
full-length portrait of Mrs. Fry, now occupies a prominent place among the
likenesses of her brothers and sisters. Another sitting-room leads to what
was the sitting-room of the seven Gurney sisters of the beginning of the
nineteenth century, with an old Bacon portrait let into the panelling over
the fireplace. The dining-room is downstairs, and was the latest addition
to the house, a handsome, long and lofty room, built by Mr. Edward Bacon,
long M.P. for Norwich, that he might entertain his constituents. Close by
is the humble little study occupied by the father of the numerous Gurney
family of three generations ago. But the pleasantest room at Earlham is
'Mrs. Catherine's Chamber,' always occupied by the eldest daughter, mother
and sister in one, and in which in her old age, with her beautiful
intonation and delicate sense of fitting emphasis, she would assemble the
young Norwich clergy to teach them how the Scriptures should be read in
church."
Surely Mr. Hare, who wrote many a vivid description, was often
entertaining, and sometimes a little spiteful, never penned a passage
better calculated than this to bring home the characters of a home and of
the dwellers in it. The single trace of the old Adam, or the old Augustus,
is the gently sarcastic antithesis of Richmond's "portrait" and the
"likenesses." Earlham's peace and goodwill bewitched Augustus Hare, and
those who had been entertained by his bitterness, no less than those who
have writhed under it, will recognize the strength of Earlham's tranquil
witchery. Somewhere I have read of late that the Gurneys are of Earlham no
more. That is sad indeed.
"Ask for the Arlham Road when you are near the Guildhall," was what John
Ostler said, and we, full of map and guide-book pride, translated it into
Earlham; but we were reduced to Arlham at last. Even in England it is wise
to adopt local pronunciations of place-names when you know them, unless you
have plenty of leisure; and it is easy to do so. (In Wales it is equally
wise, indeed wiser, for collocations of apparently English characters have
totally distinct values in Welsh words, but English lips have, I am given
to understand, some difficulty in expressing those values.) Apart from
place-names it seemed to me, talking often and freely with the natives,
that the spread of education has banished not a little of the Norfolk
dialect, and that the country folk of Norfolk pronounce in a more
clean-cut fashion, use more ordinary English words, and are easier to
understand, than their contemporaries in Berks, Sussex, Devon, Cornwall,
or, infinitely most difficult of all, Durham. Among sundry quaint books
lent to me by way of preparation for this are several containing terrific
examples of Norfolk dialect, which it would be a real pleasure to
transcribe, but it must be confessed frankly that, at the moment of
writing, I have no more excuse in experience for copying them out than for
introducing a sentence or two of Welsh, Gaelic, or Erse. Yet I am, in the
matter of tours to be described, many hundreds of miles ahead of the point
which my lagging pen has reached. Suffice it to say that the Norfolk
dialect may survive, that I have heard it from the lips of cultivated folk
of Norfolk, whose normal talk is the same as that of any educated English
folk, but that it has not come my way as an every day phenomenon. Is that
matter for regret? Sentimentally, perhaps, it is; but practically it is a
decided convenience and, combined with the exceptional intelligence of the
East Anglian people, it seems to argue that the schoolmaster has been
abroad among them to good purpose. Dialects may be picturesque; the words
in them may have philological interest, especially when they are good and
old words like "largesse" (much used in East Anglia, but by no means
peculiar to it), but persistence in sheer mispronunciation, which is the
main ingredient of most dialects, is really a sign of ignorance or of
affectation, and neither is to be encouraged. For example, I can talk, and
can approach fairly near to writing, English "as she is spoke" by the more
ignorant Welsh, without any difficulty; and that is as much a dialect,
really, as that of Devon or of Yorkshire; but it would be a very foolish
and inconvenient thing to do.
Nothing could have been more delightful, for the time of year, than the
travelling, for the air was not too cold, hedges had the unmistakable air
of verdure on the point of coming, tree-twigs seemed to have thickened as
the buds upon them swelled, spring was in the air, and the steaming horses
we passed now and again in adjacent fields, straining at plough or harrow,
added to the pleasing effect of a landscape undulating a little, but rich
in tall trees. Looking on them from time to time I remembered the lines in
the Freer's Tale--
The Carter smote and cried as he were wode
Heit Scot! Heit Brock.
This may sound like affectation, but it is nothing of the kind. Although
most travellers in spring are apt to quote, more or less correctly, the
first few lines of the _Canterbury Tales_, because they are familiar and
because, for simplicity, sweetness, and truth, they are not to be surpassed
in the English language, one does not, at least the ordinary man does not,
go about the country with all Chaucer on the tip of his tongue; and that,
on the whole, is a blessing. On this occasion, however, there was an
express reason for having these lines in mind--there were even two
reasons--and for looking for a farm horse as an excuse for letting them
fly. The first reason was that East Anglian antiquaries have long cherished
the tradition that Chaucer was born in Norfolk. There is even a jingling
rhyme--
Lynn had the honour to present the world
With Geoffrey Chaucer and the curled
Pate Alanus de Lenna.
The rhyme may be true of Alanus de Lenna; it does not matter much whether
it be true or false; but it is undoubtedly false about Chaucer, who was
the son of a London vintner and was born at Charing Cross, and at Charing
Cross, London, not Charing Cross in Norwich, as the learned have now
discovered for certain. Still it is a peculiar fact that it is, or is
reported to be, the custom of Norfolk farms to apply the name Scot to a
very large proportion of their farm horses, and it is true that Chaucer's
poetry shows a very intimate knowledge of rural life in Norfolk. The
explanation may be found on family tradition, for Dr. Skeat says "It is
probable that the Chaucer family came originally from Norfolk."
The second reason was soon to come on the left-hand side of the road in the
form of a park, boasting superb trees and ensconcing Kimberley Hall, the
seat of the Wodehouse family, who are of far more ancient standing in
Norfolk than is the present hall. It was built on Italian lines in the
reign of good Queen Anne, but the Wodehouses, of whom Lord Kimberley is the
head, had been in the land long before Philip Wodehouse, Member of
Parliament for Castle Rising, was created a baronet by James I. Not that
the honour attached the family to the Stuart cause, for Sir Thomas, the
second baronet, sat in the Long Parliament and, I think, fought for it
against Charles. Clearly they were a fighting family. "Agincourt" is
inscribed under their coat of arms; their crest is "a dexter arm couped
below the elbow, vested argent, and grasping a club or, and over it the
motto Frappe fort." The quotation comes appositely, or at any rate one
striking word in it does, because the "supporters" are "Two wild (wode)
men, wreathed about the loins, and holding in the exterior hand a club,
raised in the attitude of striking, sable." Yet with this explanation
always before them, staring them hard in the face whensoever a head of the
house of Kimberley has been summoned to sleep with his fathers, some good
folk of Norfolk have, as the _Notes and Queries_ show, been content to
puzzle their brains and to seek far for an explanation of the Wild Man as a
tavern sign. They have even gone so far as to drag in the historic Peter
the Wild Man, quite unnecessarily, for he is modern by comparison with the
"wode" men who support the Wodehouse crest now, as they supported it no
doubt in the spacious days of Queen Elizabeth, when she visited in 1571 a
Kimberley Hall which modern taste would probably prefer to the present
Italian edifice.
Almost immediately after passing Kimberley Hall we came into full view of
Hingham Church, which is exactly what a church should be, and stands
exactly as a church ought to stand, for the purposes of the motorist. That
is to say, it is a very commanding edifice, which has the appearance, at
any rate, of standing with its length at right angles to the road, and both
tower and clerestory--surely there are more clerestories as well as more
churches to be found in Norfolk than in any county--are visible, and very
imposing, from a great distance. It was built for the most part by Remigius
of Hethersett, who was rector for forty years from 1319, and is of most
remarkable height. Inside, most motorists will be content to believe, are
some interesting tombs and much stained glass of admirable quality,
presented by Lord Wodehouse in 1813. In fact, Hingham is emphatically one
of the places at which a halt ought to be made, for old stained glass of
high merit is, unhappily, very rare in this England of ours. This secluded
village of Hingham ought to be--perhaps is--one of the places in England to
which Americans make pilgrimages, for far away in Massachusetts is another
Hingham owing its origin to an emigration, early in the seventeenth
century, of one Robert Peck, vicar of Hingham, and many of his
parishioners. Apparently, parson and parishioners were Puritans of the
violent order, who pulled down the altar rails and lowered the altar,
insomuch that they incurred the wrath of the reigning bishop. Parson Peck
deemed it wise to flee from the wrath to come, and many of his parishioners
went with him. Settling down in Massachusetts, they gave the name of the
old village in Norfolk to the new home, and although the parson returned to
his cure when Puritanism got the upper hand, parishioners stayed in the new
world. At any rate, Hingham, Massachusetts, exists to this day, not,
indeed, as one of America's mammoth cities, but with a population (in 1900)
of 5059, of whom oddly enough more than 900 were foreigners. In fact, in
its minor way, it is as much more important than Hingham in Norfolk, as
Boston, Massachusetts, is greater than Boston, Lincolnshire. But it is not
likely to be more pleasing to the eye, and it is very safe to conjecture
that, in fact, it is not a tenth so pleasing as the Norfolk village.
Before long we reach Scoulton Mere, a silent sheet of gleaming grey, with
not a bird to be seen on or over it, a fine expanse of sedge-girt water.
"Here," says "Murray," "the black-headed gull breeds in enormous numbers,
and their eggs are collected, to be sold as plovers' eggs, by thousands for
the London market." This may readily be believed, for the eggs of _Larus
Ridibundus_, although they vary a good deal in marking, are often
practically indistinguishable from those of the green plover, or grey
plover, except that they are not so sharply pointed at the small end. The
imposture does not matter a straw so long as the two kinds of eggs remain,
as they are at present, identical in point of flavour. Indeed, the subject
prompts a digression, flagrantly irrelevant, but certainly pardonable for
its practical value. Ten or twelve years ago the owner of Hanmer Mere,
which is situate at about the point where Shropshire and Flintshire are so
inextricably mixed that an ordinary atlas will not tell you which is which,
desiring to reduce the number of the coots, spent an afternoon with a
friend in taking some two hundred eggs. It seemed a pity to destroy them
without trying them cold, and hardboiled, like plovers' eggs. They were
every whit as good to eat, and they were distinctly the _clou_ of luncheon
at Chester races next day. This is certainly worth knowing, for, if plovers
be more numerous than coots, there are enough coots and to spare, and their
nests are as easy to find as those of plovers are difficult.
But "Murray" proceeds: "There are only three breeding places of this gull
in Britain." This must be quite wrong. The late Mr. Henry Seebohm, whose
_Eggs of British Birds_ (Paunson & Brailsford, Sheffield) is both admirably
produced and of the highest authority, wrote, and Dr. Bowdler Sharpe left
the passage in editing the book after Mr. Seebohm's death: "The
Black-headed Gull is one of our commonest species. Its colonies are not so
large as those of the Kittiwake, but they are much more numerous. It is a
resident in the British Isles, frequenting the coasts during winter, but
retiring inland in summer to breed in colonies in swamps." Now Mr. Henry
Seebohm was a mighty ornithologist, and the most indefatigable birds-nester
at home and abroad who ever lived, and, having read often before, and now
again, all he has to say of the nesting places of all kinds of gulls
claimable by Great Britain, I am convinced that this claim set up by
"Murray," perhaps on the word of some local fowler, cannot be maintained
either in relation to the Black-headed Gull or any other kind of gull or
tern that breeds in England.
Leaving Scoulton Mere behind we were again in a land of flat heaths of
wide extent, and of sheltering hedges of dense Scotch fir. It was a country
of the most pleasing face but, apart from that, no use for any purposes
save those of the motorist and the rabbit-breeder. That it had been well
used by the latter evidence was soon apparent on the roadside in the form
of a gang of men, with nets, dogs, and ferrets, pursuing their operations
on such a scale, and so completely in the open, that they must surely have
been authorized rabbit-catchers and not poachers. Still the thought
occurred to me that, in bygone days and in far-distant North Wales, we
always found from the advertisements that ferrets, who are the poachers'
best friends, were to be obtained more easily from Norfolk than from any
other part of the country, and that they knew their work very well when
they arrived. In fact, there is a huge head of game in Norfolk, and where
that state of things exists, there poachers will be. Theirs is a lawless
pursuit of course, but Lord! as Mr. Pepys would have said, what good sport
it must be "on a shiny night in the season of the year," and what a vast
and intimate knowledge of animal and bird life these poachers must possess.
If it was a rabbit-catcher's paradise it was a motorist's paradise also.
There was no possible danger to human beings, for, after the
rabbit-catchers, there were none; after the fir hedges had been passed the
road became an unfenced ribbon of tawny grey running through the bare
heath, with no other roads debouching into it, and no cover of any sort for
a police trap. There was no reason in life against a good spin at top speed
except that superstitious regard for the letter of the law which not one
man in a thousand really has. The car simply flew forward; the speed
indicator marked 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, and even 50 miles an hour; the road
seemed to open wide to our advent, to stretch out its arms, so to speak, to
embrace us; the motion, smooth, swifter and swifter still, even as the
flight of the albatross that stirreth not his wings, and absolutely free
from vibration, was, in a single word, divine. Suddenly, a few miles in
front of us, a dusty cloud hove in sight over the road. "There," said my
friend, half in jest, but only half--for a motorist's paradise is at its
best when solitary--"is one of those beastly motor-cars. What a foul dust
it is raising!" So it turned out, on rising and looking back over the cape
hood, were we; not that it mattered, for no wayfarers had been passed or,
therefore, powdered, for many a short mile--I had written "a long mile"
from force of habit, but it would have been inappropriate. Was the other
car meeting us or going in the same direction? In the same direction
surely, for though the cloud of dust was coming nearer to us, it was not
approaching very fast. So we determined to pass as soon as might be, and
"giving her a little more gas," we were very soon "on terms," as a racing
man would say, with a two-seated car going along the middle of the road at
a fair pace. Once, twice, thrice our horn sounded, but the occupants of
that car never heard us. At last, keeping well to the off-side of the road,
and when our bonnet was level with their rear off-wheel, Mr. Johnson and I
gave a simultaneous and stentorian yell; and the two pairs of goggles that
were turned upon us, who were then, as nearly always, un-goggled, clearly
covered four eyes starting with surprise. It was a lesson to them and to us
of the very poor penetrative power of a motor-horn in relation to
motor-cars in front, and of the necessity of looking behind you now and
again, especially if you be in a noisy car. So that two-seated car was
passed as if it had been standing still, and the lot of the
dust-recipient, which one or other must needs endure for a while, was
transferred from us to them; but they were not called upon to endure it,
nor could they have kept it if they had so desired, for any length of time.
So hey for Watton, near which lies Weyland Wood, fondly famous in local
story as being the identical wood in which the ill-fated babes in the wood
were lost. That is a tradition as to the origin and true locality of which,
so far as I know, even the most ardent folk-lorists have not concerned
themselves very seriously, and certainly the likeness of sound between
"Weyland" and "Wailing" may have caused it to be localized here. As it
happens, however, there is a very much simpler explanation of the name of
the wood and of the Hundred in which it is situated. Weyland is simply the
modern representation of the "Wanelunt" of _Domesday_, and that again is
simply descriptive, like Blacklands in Berks, and the names of scores of
Hundreds besides. For "Wanelunt" is just "wan land," and a more wan land
than this, from the agricultural point of view, it would be hard to find.
Islington in Norfolk may be, in all probability was, the place in which the
Bailiff's daughter lived and was beloved by the squire's son, but Weyland
Wood cannot detain us. It has no more claim to this particular honour than
a hundred other woods in other parts of the kingdom have, except upon an
etymological basis, and that has the trifling disadvantage of being quite
wrong.
Nor did Watton detain us, any more than it need detain anybody else.
Brandon, the next place passed, was renowed in ancient times for its
rabbits and its quarries of gunflints, and the "Grime's graves" in the
vicinity are said to be interesting earthworks. The glory of the rabbits
remains, but the gunflint trade was, of course, vanished. "Murray," it is
true, says that flints "are still (1875) exported to Arab tribes round the
Mediterranean," but that was more than thirty years ago, and Mr. Rye is, no
doubt, correct in saying that the old industry has, naturally enough, died
out of late years. But those desert tribes on the African coast of the
Mediterranean still use some charmingly antique pieces, and it may be that
Brandon flints are still fitted to some of them. They were the same kind of
flints which the ancient Briton, or perhaps Neolithic man, used to dig out
at Brandon, for excavations some time since revealed a stag's antler, says
"Murray," in what was clearly a "working" of a prehistoric flint quarry.
Thus much the writer tells us and no more. It would really have been much
more interesting to know something of the nature of the antler; but on that
point he is silent.
If one were in a hurry, and a train happened to be convenient, it would,
for once, be simpler to reach Ely from Brandon by train than by car: for
the railway follows the course of the Brandon River across Mow Fen and then
cuts straight across Burnt Fen and Middle Fen to Ely. On the other hand the
road, dating very likely to a period long before the reclamation of the
fens, and keeping to the high ground, turns south-west by south to
Mildenhall and then, skirting Mildenhall Fen, nearly due west to Fordham
and Soham, and from Soham north-west to Ely: and this is a long way round.
Here there would be a first rate opportunity for saying something of the
romantic history of the Fens, for it is truly romantic, and of the real
glamour which they exercise upon a traveller through their midst. The
opportunity is deliberately reserved to a later point for three reasons.
First, there is much to be said on other matters; secondly, you really do
not see very much of the Fens by this line of route; thirdly, it was found
later that the drive from Lynn to Ely is _par excellence_ the occasion
upon which the peculiar character of the Fens, their limitless extent,
their rich and black soil, and the reflection that all this wealth has been
reclaimed from the wasting waters by the industry and the enterprise of
man, the very spirit of the Fens in fact, enter into the traveller's soul.
Fordham and even Soham, with its remarkable church and its legends of
Canute's passage over the long-vanished mere upon the ice, were passed
almost unnoticed, for our eyes were fixed upon the horizon in front in
longing for the vision, often seen from a train, of Ely Cathedral rising in
beautiful majesty from the centre of the plain-girt isle, once fen-girt, in
which the Saxon made almost his last heroic stand against the
all-conquering Norman. Truth to tell, for this once only, the train has the
advantage of the motor-car in providing a splendid and memorable spectacle.
Approaching Ely from Cambridge by rail one sees the cathedral, and the
cathedral is the only object that catches the eye, for miles, and miles,
and then miles. It is a divine sight, stirring up memories of Canute and of
Emma his Queen, of ravaging William the Conqueror (concerning whom the
Saxon chroniclers probably wrote without exaggerated regard for truth) and
of the heroic figure of Hereward the Wake. Memories of this vision, often
seen, never to be forgotten, had prepared us for something really great and
for prolonged enjoyment of it. As a fact, and it was one which intelligent
study of a contour map might have prepared us for, the vision did not break
upon our eyes until we were through Soham, and speeding along the causeway
built by Herve le Breton early in the twelfth century across the mere which
stood where the golden corn is reaped and tied and carried every autumn
now. When it came it was, be it stated with the more warmth now in that
what is to be written shortly is not entirely the conventional view,
supremely lovely. The air was of that pellucid transparency which is the
sure prelude of rain. At a distance of four miles or thereabouts the eye
could distinguish shades of colour, could follow all the delicate tracery
of the central octagon and of the huge western tower; and it was natural,
remembering that Ely is one of the largest cathedrals in Europe, to observe
that, so excellent are its proportions, it does not impress the spectator
from a distance by its length. This very excellent effect is due doubtless
to Alan of Walsingham's fourteenth-century design for a grandly broad basis
to the octagon tower under which he lies.
And here rhapsody must cease at the command of candour. I had visited Ely
before as quite a young man; I had read much of the history of the
cathedral, much concerning its architecture. Yet this time it failed to
please as a whole, within or without, when viewed at close quarters. The
octagon, regarded from a distance of not many hundred feet, looked to be
wanting in substance rather than possessed of airy grace. Somehow or other,
in the perverse fashion which is at once irresistible and fatal to cordial
admiration, it suggested to my mind a ludicrous comparison. Resist as I
might, I continued to think of wedding cakes. The western tower, so far as
it was built by Bishop Riddell in the twelfth century, that is to say up to
the level of the clerestory of the nave, seemed, and was, and is, proud,
substantial, massive, impressive; but the Decorated superstructure, an
octagon with turrets alongside, did not satisfy at all; nor do I believe
that it would have been more satisfying even if the slender spire of wood,
long vanished from its top, had survived. On me it produced, and I found
that it has produced on other and more highly cultivated men, an
impression of flimsy and jarring incongruity. Far other was the effect of
looking at the honest red brick of the Bishop's Palace near the west door,
for the gently warm tone of the bricks builded as our forefathers loved in
the reign of the first Tudor king, was a joy and a rest to the eye.
Before entering the cathedral itself we took luncheon at the "Lamb," for a
hungry man is an impatient sight-seer. But even after that, to one
returning in contented mood, the outside of the western tower satisfied
only up to the level of the clerestory. In fact, the original impression,
whether it argued crass ineptitude or no, remained; and it is better to
write oneself down a boor than to invent raptures which would be untrue.
Inside our experiences were unfortunate. The ladies had gone before, had
seen and enjoyed a good deal. My friend and I entered with due reverence.
The vastness of the nave took seisin of us at once; but the charm was
rudely broken. To us approached a verger of immemorial age--he had informed
the ladies that he had been attached to the cathedral for half a
century--wearing a velvet skull-cap and saying in strident tones, "It is a
fine cathedral, gentlemen; have you seen it before?" "Yes," said I,
shortly, and hoping to be rid of him, for to have a babbling guide at one's
elbow on occasions of this kind is fatal to intelligent enjoyment. But the
hope was vain. He joined himself to us and went on talking. In despair we
divided forces, and walked briskly away in opposite directions. Nothing
daunted he stood in the middle and talked louder than ever. So, after
admiring the inside of the octagon, which is very fine, and failing to
admire the roof of the nave, we left in despair without having studied the
architecture in detail, without seeing the hammer beams of the transept
roofs, without lingering over the original Norman work in the transepts.
To us it was a loss and a bitter disappointment; but there are some
inflictions that are beyond bearing, and this doubtless worthy old
gentleman was one of them. Still, there are compensations in things, and
nothing is made quite in vain. One of the objects for which this verger was
created was that of saving the reader from the infliction of an essay on
the architecture of Ely Cathedral by one who has, by his unashamed candour,
demonstrated himself unworthy to indite such an essay.
The rest of this expedition may be condensed into a paragraph, and that not
unduly long. Leaving Ely we reached Cambridge easily by a flat, straight,
excellent, and perfectly uninteresting road, marked in the maps as Roman;
but the wise man, for reasons already given, calls no road Roman until he
knows for certain that it is such. There is, however, some evidence for
this "Roman" road. Passing quickly through Cambridge and over the Gog Magog
Hills without noticing them, we were soon at Royston, and from that
point--to Oxford as it happened--we were beyond my manor. Two things
happened, though, which may occur any day or night. It began to rain hard
just after Royston, and went on raining, and we had trouble in lighting the
acetylene lamps after Aylesbury. Neither mattered. It was something to have
an opportunity of testing the cape hood, and the acetylene lamps were,
after all, only a reminder that everything does not always go absolutely
smoothly even in the best-regulated motor-cars. We got wet, of course, on
the driving seat; but that was of no moment, for we were homeward bound;
and as for the appetite that was carried home, the face glowing with clean
rain, the feeling of overflowing health, and the dreamless sleep of that
night, they were well worth a king's ransom.