The occasion was, I venture to think, really interesting, even pathetic,

and for that reason, as well as because it gave me an opportunity of seeing

more than the traveller can see in the ordinary way, the experience gained

in a day shall be narrated. After all, to arouse healthy interest should be

the first aim of every sensible writer, since only thus can he hope to

secure attention, and people are, or may be, quite as interesting as

places. It may be remembered generally, it is certainly not likely to be

forgotten at Ingatestone for many a long year, that a day or two after the

Diamond Jubilee celebrations of 1897 a veritable tornado swept across

Essex, working havoc to which this happy country is usually a complete

stranger. In my capacity of correspondent to a great newspaper I was sent

to describe the path of the storm, in the centre of which Ingatestone lay,

with such fidelity as I might be able to compass. Sheer good fortune caused

me to travel in the same carriage with Lord Petre on the Great Eastern

Railway, and the kindly nature of this landowner, who was himself

travelling to Ingatestone, with the object of surveying the details of a

disaster affecting him personally in a serious manner, enabled me to see

Ingatestone and its surroundings in a very intimate way without any

preliminary trouble. First we went to the agent's house. It was a dream of

ancient architecture and of splendid trees. One could almost have guessed

from the high walls, the fish-ponds, and a cool green walk shaded by dense

green trees, limes unless memory plays a trick, that this had been once the

home of an ecclesiastical community. To learn that the walk under the close

limes, if limes they indeed were, was known as the Nun's Walk, was no

surprise. The sequestered character of the whole quite prepared the mind

for the intelligence that Ingatestone Hall occupied the site of a

subsidiary establishment attached to the greater nunnery of Barking, and it

was clear that much of its original environment remained. This manor, with

many others, was acquired at the Dissolution by Sir William Petre, the

father of the first Lord Petre, and the old grange of the nuns, with very

slight changes to all appearance, remained the seat of the great Roman

Catholic family until they migrated to Thorndon Hall, near Brentwood,

which, apart from its view and its contents, does not sound nearly so

attractive as Ingatestone. "Murray," by the way, has a passage in this

connection which, by dint of its tone, raises more than a suspicion of the

Roman hand of the late Mr. Augustus Hare. In reference to the church we

read: "Between the chancel and the south chapel is the monument of the

well-known Sir William Petre (the father of the first Lord Petre) who,

'made of the willow and not of the oak,' managed to accommodate his loyalty

and his religion to the various changes under Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary

and Elizabeth." This, it is suggested, was a needlessly spiteful reference

to the direct ancestor of the Roman Catholic peer who at that time (1875)

was Domestic Prelate at the Vatican; and it may well be that uncalled-for

malice of this kind has had the effect of making owners of historic houses

less willing than they might have been to receive and to aid those upon

whom the duty of writing about places is cast in these later days.

There was work to be done on the day of my visit more melancholy than that

of inspecting beautiful houses, more serious than that of speculating upon

the identity and lamenting the ill-nature of a bygone writer of

guide-books. Forth we fared--drawn by a cob whose nose had been scarred to

a depth of half an inch by a hailstone during the tornado--to inspect the

desolation. Here I am going for the first time in my life to quote some of

my own words, words which I am proud to believe were not without influence

in bringing some substantial measure of aid to a stricken country-side.

"All down the street at Ingatestone the windows on one side were smashed to

atoms, and the only cheerful men were the glaziers. The backs of the houses

on the other side were in like condition. An odour, familiar enough later

in the year, when the hedges are clipped, pervaded the air. It was the

scent of green leaves of elm and hawthorn shrivelling in the sun. Soon we

reached a great elm uprooted, and another broken off sharp in the middle.

The elms, with their surface roots, had suffered most. But they were not

alone, for oaks and ash trees had fallen also. From the trees that were not

overthrown hung here, there, and everywhere, great boughs with their tough

fibres twisted like straw ropes at the point of fracture, and repeatedly

one came across cases in which immemorial elms had been hurled across the

road and had blocked it until it was cleared. Others that had survived were

often stripped of leaves by the hail as if it had been mid-winter and the

scorching sun of June had not been beating on our heads. It was a sickening

sight to those who love woodland beauties. But soon the wreck of trees

became of no account, for we were nearing the centre of the storm area.

Hitherto broken windows and chipped tiles had saluted the eye, though it

was noticeable that slates had, for the most part, escaped damage. Now we

reached the house of Mr. Milbank, or what was once his house ... the tiled

roof looked as if it were that of a house which had been subjected to a

heavy fire of musketry for several hours; and this was the story all along

our long drive." So, I remember, we went on noting shattered roofs, and

chimneys collapsed, seeing bare earth where the oats had waved in green

promise, fields which had contained crops of mangels, turnips, and

potatoes, converted into an expanse of sun-baked mud. We fared from farm to

farm, meeting farmer after farmer who had lost his all, after years of

patient struggling against depression, and was settling down with true

English pluck to make the best of the situation and to begin life again.

All that country smiles again now, although that terrible storm has left an

indelible scar on its fair face, or rather a scar which will not be quite

healed over for a hundred years to come. But, without claiming to be more

full of sympathy than any other man, I protest that the memory of that sad

day makes me eager now to pass through Ingatestone as often as may be,

that because of it the beautifully timbered country seems to me perhaps

more attractive than it really is, and that I never see it without an eager

hope that the farmers encountered in June, 1897, saddened by disaster but

dauntless in the resolve to go on fighting against fate, have had, so many

of them as survive, the reward of renewed prosperity.

We ought to have stopped at Margaretting on our way to Ingatestone, with

the special object of inspecting the church, with its tower and spire

composed entirely of timber, the kind of structure which can be seen in

East Anglia only; but after all our next objective after Ingatestone is

Maldon, and the best way of reaching it is to go back on our own wheelmarks

so far as Margaretting, halt there for a few minutes, and then turn to the

right for Galleywood Common and Maldon. On this piece of road the motorist

will find a variation of levels and a frequent stiffness of gradients which

will disabuse his mind for ever of the notion that Essex is a flat county.

Entering Galleywood Common he is just over the 200 feet contour; towering

above him to the right will be West Manningfield, which actually over-tops

the 300 feet contour. Between Sandon and Danbury he will be down as low as

75 feet, and at Danbury he will be up again almost as high as 350 feet. The

hill itself is 380 feet, and has a camp at the top, commonly called Danish.

Danish in one sense it probably was. That is to say the Danes, who had a

sagacious eye for military positions and a particular predilection for

heights from which the sea was visible, in all probability made use of it.

They came by sea, they might have to flee by their boats, and in some other

parts of our islands, in Carnarvonshire for example, one can identify cases

where they had and used one inland camp on an eminence commanding a wide

prospect and much coastline, and another close to the coast. Danbury

commands such a prospect eastward, westward and northward, and it is no

less pleasing to the peaceful pilgrim than it may have been valuable to the

fierce freebooter.

Who made these camps on eminences all over the country, or made the

eminences themselves when nature had not provided them, is a question men

grow more and more shy in answering. Time was when, drawing inferences from

outline only, they said confidently this or that camp was British, Roman,

Saxon, or Danish. Now the tendency is to go farther back still into

prehistoric times, and even to doubt whether the origin of these camps is

military at all. Learned men, who somehow or other contrive to excite

respect and admiration without compelling conviction, argue that many,

perhaps most, of the huge earthworks with which the face of England and

Wales is studded, were piled up by primeval man as a defence against the

wild beasts, and most of all against the ravening wolves which overran the

land and threatened his flocks and herds. To the unlearned it appears that

a mound without a crowning palisade would have been quite ineffectual

against the nimble wolves, and that a palisade without the mound would have

been quite as effectual as mound and palisade. These are amusing

speculations, but they cannot reach a certain conclusion. What is beyond

doubt is that, if an invading foe, Roman, Saxon, or Dane, found these works

ready to his hand, he would use them for military purposes. If the

compilers of _Domesday Book_ called Danbury Hill Danengeberia it was

because the natives, as they doubtless called them, used this title, having

in mind the last warriors who had availed themselves of the commanding

position. Native memory, indeed, had not to tax itself severely in this

case, nor to go back very far. The average man, not the historian steeped

in the study of a period, is apt to allow his memories of histories read to

settle down on broad and accurate lines. For him, as for me, until this

book suggested refreshment of memory, Alfred was the man who conquered the

Danes and secured the freedom of Saxon England. The fact that they made

head again in the time of his son Edward the Elder, that they were indeed

never expelled from East Anglia by Alfred, had passed out of memory. Edward

succeeded to the throne, such as it was, in 901 only--dates are repellent

to eye and mind, but it is worth while to remember how shortly before the

Conquest this was--and Edward spent a good deal of his time in "bridling"

the Danes of East Anglia, who had made common cause with his rival

Ethelwald. Edward, indeed, "conducted his forces into East Anglia and

retaliated the injuries which the inhabitants had committed by spreading

the like devastation among them. Satiated with revenge and loaded with

booty, he gave the order to retire." In fact his orders were disobeyed by

his Kentish followers, who settled themselves at Bury and were attacked and

defeated by the Danes. But in this battle Ethelwald, Edward's Saxon cousin

and rival, was killed, so the Danish victory was Pyrrhic, for Ethelwald's

cause was theirs. For all the rest of his reign of twenty-four years Edward

continued to fight the Danes. It was not a long period, then, over which

the "natives" had to look back, when in 1080 or thereabouts, they gave

evidence before the Royal Commissioners, so to speak, who compiled

_Domesday Book_, and probably most of those "natives" were Danes

themselves.

Our next point is Maldon, situate at the inmost end of the estuary of the

Blackwater, and itself standing on a hill. It is a sleepy little place now,

but it has played no small part in the story of England. It has been stated

that Edward the Elder merely made it his head-quarters while he

superintended the fortification of Witham, but it is much more likely, as

stated by Hume, that it was one of the towns which he fortified with a view

to making the country secure. Seven of the others--Hume takes the list from

the Saxon Chronicle--were outside our purview; Maldon and Colchester were

selected for putting a bridle on East Anglia. And Maldon was well chosen.

It was the place where Edward himself fought and won a signal battle. It

was also the place where the Northmen landed again, in the days of Ethelred

the Unready, "and having defeated and slain at Maldon Brithnot, Duke of

that county, (Essex), who ventured with a small force to attack them, they

spread their devastations over all the neighbouring province." In fact it

was precisely the place open to raiders from over sea, and therefore the

right place to fortify against them also.

Here, crossing at Heybridge, we may say good-bye to history for a while and

devote ourselves to things more mundane. At Heybridge we are about as near

the sea-level as we can be. In two miles and a half we climb two hundred

feet or more, and then we follow the top of a ridge for four miles to

Tiptree. For me, before the Essex manoeuvres, Tiptree simply spelled

"jam" in seven letters, none of them appearing in that familiar word. To be

plain, Tiptree jam is far better than any "home-made" comestible of the

kind it has been my fortune to encounter, because it has all the purity of

the domestic product, while it is made with all care and knowledge that

science and experience can furnish. A cook or a careful housewife has many

distractions of puddings, entrees, sauces, savouries, and what you will.

Tiptree devotes all its energy and intelligence to jam, and the result is a

divine confection, pure ambrosia. Tiptree will not thank me for this

advertisement because the name of Tiptree is established. To many it will

appear as superfluous to praise the jams of Tiptree as it would be to state

that two and two make four, or that '47 port is excellently good. Still,

experience has shown the existence of a benighted but considerable minority

who will infallibly be grateful for the knowledge, if they use it. If they

do not, so much the worse for them. Without doubt the fame of the Tiptree

jams must involve prosperity also, and the district, with its trim

orchards, a sea of bloom in late spring and loaded with rosy fruit in the

autumn, is full of encouragement to one who believes that where land is not

made to pay something is rotten in the state. It is a pretty sight too, and

one recalling sundry speeches of the late Mr. Gladstone which were not

taken very seriously when they were uttered. Other crops you will find

hereabouts--it was at Tiptree, as told elsewhere, that the military balloon

came down in the middle of a crop of bird-seed--and the whole district

gives one the impression of being in the hands of persons, courageous and

competent, who refuse to meet the difficulties of farming with mere

lamentation but, like the farmers of Ingatestone at the time of the 1897

disaster, are resolved to make the best of things.

That spirit is traditional at Tiptree. Was it not there that the great Mr.

Mechi, who flourished in the middle of the last century, produced wondrous

results by plentiful use of liquid manure, and proved the profitable

quality of beans in such fashion as to astonish his contemporaries? To men

of his quality, who made two blades of grass grow where but one grew

before, I for one insist upon giving all praise and honour, and, when one

thinks upon their good work, there is a disposition to feel that, in its

proper place, a trim hedge is not without its attraction, what though it be

not nearly so beautiful as one that is a straggling thicket of hawthorn,

honeysuckle and wild rose. But a doubting afterthought rises. Mr. Mechi

farmed from 1840 to 1870, perhaps longer. His _Profitable Farming_, with

its striking figures, was published during that period, and those were

piping times for agriculture. Could he have shown accounts even half or a

quarter as good for the thirty years from 1875 to 1905?

We have reached Tiptree in imagination from Maldon, and there is no

difficulty in doing so by road from the same place. As a matter of fact, my

first visit to Tiptree was made from Braintree, whither a morning

expedition had been taken to see if General Wynne was at his accustomed

post, and the _ignis fatuus_ which lured me and a companion in that

direction was the balloon, seen in the air from a long distance, which we

found afterwards in the bird-seed field. (In passing, as the officer in the

car of the balloon had seen nothing at all of the troops shrouded from his

view, the inference that balloons are of precious little use in a wooded

country would seem to be fairly obvious.) Leaving the balloon to its

fate--although the officer would have liked to commandeer our car for the

transport of his mass of collapsed silk--we proceeded by way of Messing to

Heckford Bridge. Of these the first-named has been suggested by a learned

antiquary, the Reverend H. Jenkins, as a possible site for the stark battle

in which Suetonius wiped the army of Boadicea out of existence and avenged

the massacre of Camulodunum: "Whoever visits the camp at Haynes Green, near

the village of Messing, will be struck with the resemblance it bears to

the position taken up by Suetonius. Two large woods, Pod's Wood and Layer

Marney Wood, seem to form the narrow gorge in front of the camp which

Tacitus mentions." Merivale, who says that the speculations of Mr. Jenkins

were useful to him, although he could not go all the way with them,

describes the position of Suetonius thus: "In a valley between undulating

hills, with woods in the rear, and the ramparts of the British oppidum"

(Lexden) "not far perhaps on his right, he had every advantage for

marshalling his slender forces.... Ten thousand resolute men drew their

swords for the Roman Empire in Britain. The natives, many times their

number, spread far and wide over the plain; but they could assault the

narrow front of the Romans with only few battalions at once, and their

wagons, which conveyed their accumulated booty and bore their wives and

children, thronged the rear, and cut off almost the possibility of

retreat."

Now there is no doubt that places become manifold more interesting if one

can fill the scene, so to speak, with action and actors of long ago.

Westminster Hall would be majestic if it had no associations, but few men

enter it for the first time without recalling the trial of Charles the

First. A well-known tract near Brussels would attract no pilgrims if the

freedom of Europe had not been won on its fields. The case is the same with

Messing. If there be cause for saluting it as the place where Briton and

Roman met in a conflict to the death every fold in the ground stirs the

imagination. But when an antiquary talks of two large woods as seeming to

form a narrow gorge, and a clerical historian writes of a "valley between

undulating hills," of a wood in the rear, of a plain in front over which

the natives "spread far and wide," and locates the wagons in the rear, only

one course is open to me. It is to forget the six and twenty years which

have passed since last I faced the "small but well-armed tribe" of the

examiners, during which there has been neither occasion nor desire to read

Latin prose works, to ignore the terrors of the historic present and of

what I believe used to be called _oratio obliqua_, and to refer to Tacitus,

upon whom both these clerical gentlemen relied for information. One

sentence disposes of the question of position. Tacitus tells us that

Suetonius had ten thousand armed men when he made up his mind to give

battle, "and he picks a place with narrow jaws and closed in by a wood at

the rear, well assured that there was no part of the enemy save in the

front, and that the plain was open, without fear of ambushes." There is

nothing to suggest that the sides of the defile were wooded, as Mr. Jenkins

thought they might have been, or that there was any wood at all except in

the rear. Indeed, the probability is the other way. Still less is there any

word to explain why Dean Merivale invented "a valley between undulating

hills." Indeed, the description of the defile by the word _fauces_ (which

has been translated literally) conveys a sharper and more rugged idea than

our word "valley," which, of course, comes directly from _vallis_ and

carries the same meaning. In fact, the "gorge" of Mr. Jenkins is the better

translation, and undulating hills would have given Boadicea a chance of

taking Suetonius in flank. The wagons apparently were drawn up in a

crescent behind the British so that their occupants might see the fight.

That is all concerning the position, and it is really mere guess-work on

the part of Dean Merivale to suggest that the great battle was fought

anywhere near Colchester. All we know is that Suetonius determined to leave

London to its fate, and St. Albans also, and that Merivale thought "the

situation of Camulodunum, enclosed in its old British lines, and backed by

the sea, would offer him a secure retreat where he might defy attack and

await reinforcements; and the insurgents, after their recent triumphs, had

abandoned their first conquests to wreak their fury on other seats of Roman

civilization. While, therefore, the Iceni sacked and burnt first Verulamium

(St. Albans) and then London Suetonius made, as I conceive, a flank march

toward Camulodunum, and kept ahead of their pursuit, till he could choose

his own position to await their attack." All this is pure fancy. All we

know for certain is that Suetonius left London, then not a _colonia_ but

already a great centre of commerce and business, and St. Albans to their

fate. There is not a particle of evidence whither he went; and there was

less reason to go to Camulodunum than to any place; for it had recently

been sacked by the Iceni under Boadicea, and resistance had been hopeless

because the colonists had taken no steps in the way of preparing defences.

The "old British lines" of Camulodunum had seemed to the veteran colonists

of so little use when they were attacked that they made their only stand,

and that to no avail, in the Temple of Claudius. In fact there is no

evidence to show which way Suetonius marched, or where the defile was, with

the wood in rear, in which he induced Boadicea to attack him. Tacitus most

likely did not know himself. He was not present. He was merely a Roman

gentleman and an ex-official, of literary proclivities, writing a

picturesque military history, partly from hearsay, partly from official

records. He probably knew very little of the geography of Britain--not a

very important province, be it remembered--and his desire, presumably, was

to interest Roman readers and to give gratification to great men whom he

liked, or from whom he might look for favour. He described the military

position and showed Suetonius in the character of a capable general. To

have done more, to have gone into geographical detail, would have puzzled

his readers as English readers might be puzzled to-day by detailed

allusions to unheard-of places in an unfamiliar part of the globe.

So there is no limit to the number of places--a gorge, with a wood behind

and an open plain in front--capable of being accepted as the field of this

particular battle. It may have been anywhere in southern England. Still if,

like the Trojans when they were hoodwinked by the Greeks into opening the

gates of Troy too soon, men would like to localize the field of battle

somewhere, so that they may conjure up the scene anew, there is no reason

in life why they should not amuse themselves thus at Messing. They can look

at the camp at Haynes Green and conjure up in imagination the fourteenth

legion in close ranks in the centre, with the cavalry massed on either

flank. They can think they hear the general heartening them for the combat

and telling them not to mind the yells of the savages--for that is what a

high-sounding Latin paragraph comes to in effect. They can see in fancy

Boadicea making the circuit of her warriors in a chariot, her outraged

daughters in front of her, inciting her hearers to frenzy. They can gaze in

imagination on the Neronian legionaries when, having exhausted their

javelins on the attacking mobs ("battalions," which Merivale uses, is far

too orderly a word), they charged the Britons _en masse_, and the cavalry

joining them at the gallop with out-stretched lances. They can imagine the

tangle of wagons, warriors, women and children into which the Roman

soldiers plunged, sparing no living thing. _Clara et antiquis victoriis par

ea die laus parta_, says Tacitus. "The glory of that day was quite like

the old victories. Men say that rather less than eighty thousand Britons

fell as against four hundred soldiers killed and not many more wounded."

They can believe that boast of a military historian who was away at Rome,

if they like; and there is really no harm in their fancying that all this

happened at Messing if they please. To do so will make Messing interesting,

and nobody will ever be able to locate the battle anywhere else with any

more certainty.

During the mimic warfare of a few years ago, as has been stated, I

travelled from Tiptree to Messing on a Lanchester, and from Messing to

Heckford Bridge. My recollection is of a pretty country, with many little

ups and downs, of rich orchards, of oaks overshadowing the roads, and of

green acorns which the soldiery seemed to enjoy, of abundant orchards and,

last but not least, of abominable roads. But let me not be too hard on the

roads. They were equal, no doubt, as byways go, to "the ordinary traffic of

the district"; they were subjected to an extraordinary strain by long

trains of transport wagons, which encumbered my course in such a manner as

to make me full of sympathy now for the Britons who fell among their own

wagons under Roman sword and spear. Even among those endless vehicles one

could not fail to observe the beauty of spreading trees and innumerable

variations of level, especially at Heckford Bridge. Somewhere thereabouts

it was, I remember, that a privileged motor-car came upon companies of

invaders and of defenders, within two hundred yards of one another, and

each totally ignorant of the propinquity of the other. Bored as the

manoeuvring troops were--for men and officers will be bored by continuous

marching during which they have not the slightest idea what is going

on--this ignorance was not their fault. Most of the fields were out of

bounds, and although military imagination might go so far as to imagine

scouts--it imagined one hundred thousand men in support of General Wynne

that day--it can hardly supply the warnings which those imaginary scouts

would give if they were real. But the most cogent reason of this blind

manoeuvring was to be found in the rapid variations of contour, the

patulous trees, and the abundant leafage. This gave to the scenery singular

charm, even while it made the roads such as the merely rushing motorist

would eschew. Not only were they narrow and exceeding crooked, they were

also very wet and greasy, so that a moderate pace would have been

compulsory in any circumstances. Still, if any rational motorists will take

this little drive in a leisurely way, they will agree, as they bowl along

the few miles of good high-road between Heckford Bridge and Colchester,

that it is exceeding pleasant and well worthy to be taken.

CHAPTER IX--(_continued_)

COLCHESTER TO THE EXTRAORDINARY "DENE-HOLES" AT GRAYS, ESSEX

Early rising a mistake--Fine weather and misty

mornings--Bound for Grays, near Tilbury--To

Chelmsford--Great Baddow and Clare College,

Cambridge--Galleywood Common--A wide

prospect--Billericay--Origin of name an enigma--Arthur

Young on the country and roads--Same roads

to-day--Effect of heavy motors--A plea for overhanging

trees--Horndon on the Hill--Langdon Hill a fine

view--Arthur Young rhapsodizes--Defoe at

Chadwell--Little Thurrock--Hangman's Wood or Hairyman's

Wood?--If the latter, possible connection with Peter

the Wild Man--His story--Defoe's interest in him--The

"Dene-holes"--An antiquary who gave no help--Enigmas

not solved by designatory titles--The shafts--The

groups of chambers--Dimensions--Uniformity of

shape--Groups all separate--Absence of

Orientation--Known to Camden--Neglected till 1884 and

1887, then again--No suggestive remains found--Cannot

be chalk wells--Hardly flint mines as at

Brandon--Legend of "King Cunobelin's Gold

Mines"--Conceivably granaries--Not very likely--Why not

refuges from the Danes, small at first and enlarged

later?--Harmless speculation at any rate--Suggestion

for return to Colchester--To Clacton by motor-boat,

thence by train--Take glance at Burnham on

Crouch--Quaint and hospitable.

Now doubts arise, and I hover between two opinions. Dinner and rest are

supposed to have intervened before we carry on our little tour or series of

tours. That is a small thing to demand. A playwright thinks nothing of an

interval of years between two acts. The difficulty is that our imaginary

tour of to-day is one of fully one hundred miles, and is much more likely

to stretch out into one hundred and twenty, for few motorists will take the

advice, honestly given, to retrace their wheelmarks for some fifty miles.

That, really, is not half so bad as it sounds, for the eye of the most

practised motorist does not observe so quickly while passing in one

direction that nothing remains to be noticed about the same objects when

passed from another direction. Still there are at least a hundred miles to

go, some of them over familiar roads about which no further observations

are necessary, to see a sight of mysterious interest which has, to all

appearances, not obtained a tenth of the notice it richly deserves. Shall

we, then, rise early in the morning, so that we may have leisure to proceed

quietly and to enjoy "the clear morning air"? The suggestion is declined

without thanks by the wise woman or man. The pleasures of early-rising and

of the cool morning air are a fond delusion of the ancients; just as the

idea that it is virtuous to get up early belongs to a state of opinion in

which actions were believed to be virtuous if they were decidedly

unpleasant. Now that this state of opinion has vanished the one consolation

of rising early has disappeared also. Early-rising, especially in hotels,

is a hollow fraud. It means reluctant relinquishment of the comfort of bed,

futile attempts to eat breakfast served by sulky and half-awakened waiters,

at a time when the body is not ready for that breakfast. Men quarry their

food and crush it at these ghastly hours, but they do not really feed, and

they are none the better for their effort so to do. Motoring loses half its

joy when it is done at the cost of sleep, for it certainly may be held

truth with a nameless poet, who sung that he had tried all the pleasures of

this world,

And Love it was the best of them,

But Sleep worth all the rest of them.

Besides, even when the glass is set fair, and the day proper is going to be

all that the heart can desire, the cool, clear, and beautiful air of the

morning by no means always comes up to expectation. The prelude to a really

fine day is very often a dense mist, sure forerunner of heat, from dawn

until seven or eight o'clock; and in a dense mist no man can travel at a

reasonable pace or with any pleasure at all. Moreover, the days when one

gets up early for pleasure, especially in August, September, and October,

are precisely the days on which the tricksy spirit of the mist chooses to

make herself manifest.

Our destination is Grays, a squalid little town near Tilbury, on the

estuary of the Thames, to which no sane person would think of going on

pleasure for its own sake. There is a ferry from Tilbury across the Thames

estuary, forgotten when I wrote earlier of the isolation of East Anglia,

but little used by motorists. Grays is about fifty miles off by our route,

which seems the best, and it will be time enough to explain why Grays has

been chosen when we foregather round the luncheon table there. Better

still, for although I secured a good luncheon in a house of public

entertainment at Grays once the circumstances were exceptional, will it be

to take a well-stocked luncheon basket and to lunch, not at Grays, but at

Hangman's Wood, a mile or two to the east of Grays. We will not start

before 9.30 a.m. and it will be bad luck indeed if we cannot reach it by

1.30 p.m. It is to be feared, however, that there may be some difficulty in

inducing intelligent members of the party to leave Hangman's Wood so early

as 3.30. So, having roused curiosity in the manner familiar to writers of

serial stories, that is to say by breaking off at a critical moment, let us

proceed in a leisurely way.

And first we spin along the familiar Roman road to Chelmsford, enjoying, be

it hoped, the kind of weather invoked for "poor Tom Bowline," and making

the most of good and straight going. The chances are that before the day

ends we shall have to "put up with" something worse in the way of surface,

and it is certain that we shall not have to lament monotonous straightness

later on. In the heart of Chelmsford we ask for the Great Baddow road, and

a short couple of miles takes us to a big Essex village, attractive to the

eye, but not calling imperatively for a halt. The fact that this village

was the birthplace of Richard de Badow, Chancellor of the University of

Cambridge, in the time of Edward II, may be assimilated _en voyage_.

University Hall, Cambridge, was founded by de Badow and the University

conjointly. The Hall exists no longer, had indeed a very brief existence,

for it was one thing to found it, and quite another to keep it going; and

some time before 1360, when Elizabeth de Clare (who was granddaughter to

Edward I) died after founding Clare College, University Hall had been

merged in the college founded by this wealthy heiress of that "illustrious

family of Clare" which has come to the fore in an earlier drive from

Colchester. Great Baddow, therefore, has a connection, and that a distinct

connection, with the college which was nursing mother to Latimer, whose

most celebrated sermon is still part of the literary groundwork of every

cultivated Englishman's style; to Cudworth, whose words used to be read by

aspirants for honours in Greats at Oxford, and may still be so read; to

Tillotson, whose sermons are familiar by name in the literature of the

past; and lastly, if one among the moderns may be named, to Mr. Owen

Seaman, editor of _Punch_ and genial castigator of the weaknesses of all

sorts and conditions of men.

At Great Baddow we turn to the right and then climb to the upland known as

Galleywood Common, and already seen; and after that we climb again, a

hundred feet as nearly as may be in a mile, to a nameless point of the road

two miles west of West Manningfield. The air grows fresher, more

invigorating, and if there be a suspicion of easterly direction in the

breeze the breath of the sea will be recognized. Prospect, to use the

expressive word beloved of the ancient topographer, is wider and more

comprehensive than that to which we have been accustomed of late, for most

of the country between us and the estuary of the Thames is very flat

indeed, and in such a country a hill of 314 feet gives a very wide survey.

Nine miles or thereabouts, mostly on a downward gradient, takes us to

Billericay, but this ancient town itself stands on a hill. Why Billericay?

Of a truth it is not possible to say, for the etymologies suggested are

purely conjectural and not at all convincing, and all we know is that it

was known as Billerica in the latter part of the fourteenth century. This

is rather annoying, for most place-names are either susceptible of some

explanation or of such a simple character that there seems to be no

particular reason why they should not exist. "Billericay," on the other

hand, is an etymological puzzle, and, at the same time, much too odd a

title to have come into existence casually.

Billericay was one of the places visited by Arthur Young on his Six Weeks'

Tour, and his description of the country is quoted both for the sake of

variety and because it contains a useful reference to our destination of

the day. He had been to Chelmsford, which he considered a pretty, neat, and

well-built town, and he had remarked that all the cart-horses he saw from

Sudbury to Chelmsford were of a remarkably large size. "From the latter

town I proceeded to _Billericay_; the country very rich, woody, and

pleasant, with abundance of exceeding fine landscapes over extensive

valleys. The husbandry, I apprehend, not equal to that in use about

Chelmsford; for their principal course is fallowing for wheat, then sowing

oats and laying down with clover and ray-grass, which is a very faulty

custom on land which, like this, lets in general from 15s. to 20s. an acre;

nor did I see many good crops. The principal manure they use about

_Billericay_ is chalk, which they fetch in waggons from _Grays_, and costs

them generally by the time they get it home 5-1/2d. or 6d. a bushel. They

seldom use it alone, but mix it with turf, fresh dug, and farmyard dung,

and then lay it on for wheat, now and then for turnips, which are however

seldom sown in this neighbourhood. All this manure is sometimes spread at

the expense of L10 an acre."

From Billericay to Tilbury, pretty much our route, Arthur Young was

principally interested by the "prodigious size of the farms," a matter of

no present concern. But he has something to say later which is very much to

our purpose. "Of all the roads that ever disgraced our kingdom, in the very

ages of barbarism, none ever equalled that from _Billericay_ to the _King's

Head_ at _Tilbury_. It is for near twelve miles so narrow that a mouse may

not pass by any carriage. I saw a fellow creep under his waggon to assist

me to lift, if possible, my chaise over a hedge. The ruts are of an

incredible depth, and a pavement of diamonds might as well be fought for as

a quarter" [_sic_, meaning?]. "The trees everywhere overgrow the road, so

that it is totally impervious to the sun, except at a few places. And to

add to all the infamous circumstances which concur to plague a traveller, I

must not forget eternally meeting with chalk-waggons; themselves frequently

stuck fast, till a collection of them are in the same situation, that

twenty or thirty horses may be tacked to each, to draw them out one by

one. After this description, will you--can you believe me when I tell you,

that a turnpike was much solicited by some gentlemen to lead from

_Chelmsford_ to the ferry at Tilbury Fort, but opposed by the bruins of

this country--whose horses are worried to death while bringing chalk

through these vile roads? I do not imagine that the kingdom produces such

an instance of vile stupidity; and yet in this district are found numbers

of farmers who cultivate above L1000 a year. Besides those already

mentioned we find a _Skinner_ and a _Tower_, who each rent near L1500 a

year, and a _Read_ almost equal; but who are all perfectly well contented

with their roads."

Essex byways--and yet the road from Chelmsford to Tilbury ferry was hardly

a byway in those days--are not quite so bad as this to-day, but

emphatically they are not good, and in this particular district they are

clearly not likely to improve. Arthur Young's long series of chalk-laden

wagons, stuck fast in the mire and clay until such time as the combined

teams were strong enough to extricate them one by one, are a thing of the

past. But the joint evidence of Mr. Sidney Stallard and of Mr. Seymour

Williams, who were chosen to represent the Rural District Councils

Association before the recent Royal Commission, contains an interesting

piece of information on this point, and on one general point of great

importance. These gentlemen, engineers of considerable experience and

officially familiar with the road question, do not think that light motors

cause any considerable damage to roads, but they hold a very different

opinion as to heavy motors. "At Billericay, which is an agricultural

district, steam motors are used, and they cause damage there to the extent

of L700." Obviously this is a very large annual expense for a district

like that of Billericay, where the great farms of Arthur Young's day do

not, in modern conditions and with modern prices, produce anything

approaching to the profits of days gone by. It seems to follow that, at

present at any rate, it would be unreasonable to hope for any great

improvement in the byways of Essex, and more prudent to expect

deterioration.

One word I would fain say of Arthur Young's complaint, because it is one

often made now and, receiving a great deal of attention, is a menace to one

of the most precious and characteristic beauties of England. He complains

of the trees that overshadow the road, "so that it is totally impervious to

the sun, except at a few places." So do County Surveyors complain and,

since they have certain legal rights in this matter, they insist from time

to time that trees overshadowing the road and hedges by the side of the

road shall be cut down. To this process, within reasonable limits, those

who value the silvan greenery of England would be unreasonable to object.

High hedges near cross roads or at sharp turns of the road are a source of

danger; the surface of roads much overshadowed by trees is far more

difficult to preserve than that of roads in the open, because the shaded

surfaces are seldom thoroughly dried. The drip and the shade combined are

too much for the sun and the wind. On the other hand such stretches of road

are rarely dusty, and that is assuredly something gained. It would be easy,

if somewhat invidious, to point out instances in which County Surveyors,

without exceeding their authority, have caused roadside trees to be hewn

down and roadside hedges to be levelled to the ground, without sufficient

justification, from the standpoint of a regard for the public safety, and

with no justification at all, if the value of beautiful landscapes is to be

taken into account. Let us beware lest, in making travel over the face of

our England easy, we deprive it of half its charm.

After Billericay our next point is Horndon on the Hill, concerning the view

from which "over the rich land of Essex and along the Thames" "Murray"

speaks. The view from Horndon is not, however, to be compared with that

from Langdon Hill, climbed six miles to the south of Billericay, which is

385 ft. high against the 128 of Horndon. It was of this hill, doubtless,

that Arthur Young raved in the annexed passage: "I forgot to tell you," he

wrote from the "King's Head," Tilbury, on 24 June, 1767, "that near

_Horndon_, on the summit of a vast hill, one of the most astonishing

prospects to be beheld, breaks almost at once upon one of the dark lanes.

Such a prodigious valley, everywhere painted with the finest verdure, and

intersected with numberless hedges and woods, appears beneath you, that it

is past description; the _Thames_ winding through it, full of ships, and

bounded by the hills of _Kent_. Nothing can exceed it, unless that which

_Hannibal_ exhibited to his disconsolate troops, when he bade them behold

the glories of the _Italian_ plains! If ever a turnpike should lead through

this country, I beg you will go and view this enchanting scene, though a

journey of forty miles is necessary first. I never beheld anything equal to

it in the West of _England_, that region of landscape."

Some hyperbole there is here, perhaps, but not much of it, for the view of

land and sea is very fine and, best of all, it is hardly necessary to have

the car in order to secure it. The difference between the aspect of the

river, as it presents itself to us, and that which it presented to Arthur

Young is all to our disadvantage. For him an out-going ship was always a

sailing vessel; for us the sailing vessels are few and far between, and

those of large size which still use the Thames must needs rely on a fussy,

black-smoked tug to tow them down the tortuous channel. Our many steamers

are not so picturesque in themselves as the tall ships making for the open

sea of his day were, when the wind was favourable. Our steamers, too, belch

forth clouds of smoke, befouling the air and obscuring the landscape.

Still, as J. M. W. Turner and others, but Turner most of all, have proved

to us, there is a weird beauty of smoke if we will but open our eyes to see

it, and the Rochester barges, floating low on the water and carrying their

delicious brown sails, were of Young's days no less than they are of ours.

Father Thames from a height is still a sight for appreciative eyes.

Two ways to Grays are open from Horndon. By the first, turning to the right

at Horndon, Orsett is reached, and then a left turn brings one to Chadwell.

For the second, one keeps on straight through Horndon and, turning to the

right just before reaching Stanford-le-Hope, and then turning to left a

couple of miles on, one also reaches Chadwell. There is nothing to choose

between the routes. One is dreary as the other. We go to Chadwell simply in

order to attain Little Thurrock, a mile or so from Grays to the eastward,

and just behind Tilbury Docks. In either case we pass through Chadwell,

which has a certain interest in connection with the past, if none in the

present, for here Daniel Defoe lived for some years, as secretary of brick

and pantile works, became prosperous a second time, kept his coach, and

even launched out into a pleasure boat. During this period, too, he lived

at Tilbury, in "a house near the water's edge," but house and brickworks

are alike gone.

We are now close to the object of our quest, "Hangman's Wood" or "Hairy

Man's" Wood. "Murray" says the latter; the local gentlemen who called my

attention to its strange contents certainly said the former. If the former

be the correct name the explanation is obvious. Our ancestors used the

noose freely, for all kinds of offenders, and displayed a partiality for

hanging offenders, especially highwaymen, in a conspicuous place, which was

often called in accordance with its gruesome use. Many examples might be

found; the first that comes to mind is Gallows Point on the Menai Straits,

about a mile on the Menai Bridge side of Beaumari. This wood, clothing a

gentle eminence between Grays and Tilbury, having a road on either side of

it, would have suited admirably the accomplishment of the highwayman's

designs on the public in the first place, and the public's punishment of

the highwayman later. He would be hanged, like a rook over sprouting wheat,

conspicuously at the place of his misdeeds, to serve as an example to

evildoers.

Still, information obtained by word of mouth may always be misheard, and it

seemed worth while to think who could the Hairy Man be? Surely none other

than "Peter the Wild Boy," who afterwards became "Peter the Wild Man," for

he was, to all appearances, twelve or thirteen when he was found in 1724,

and he lived until 1785. Peter was found in a field near Hamelin, the Pied

Piper's Hamelin, naked, brownish, and very hairy, in the act of sucking a

cow; and quite unable to speak. He was brought to England--as the time was

that of our first Hanoverian King this was quite in the natural course of

things--and the Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen Caroline, took an

interest in him. He was placed in a hospital, very possibly in the

neighbourhood of Tilbury, for safety; the name Peter was given to him, and

after the efforts of many teachers had proved futile, he was handed over to

the care of a farmer living near Berkhampsted, where, wearing a collar

with an inscription to the effect that any person bringing him back would

be rewarded, he lived to the end of his life. That he was of a roaming

disposition the inscription on his collar proves, but I have no evidence to

suggest that he ever wandered into this particular wood. On the other hand

there is a faint suspicion that he may have done so, for Defoe, who

doubtless knew the wood intimately, was interested in Peter, visited him,

and made him the peg upon which to hang a pamphlet on education, including

much satire on the men and manners of his time, and a savage attack on his

old enemy Swift.

Hangman's Wood, or Hairy Man's Wood, call it which you will, contains

something very much more interesting than Peter the Wild Man is to us now,

in the shape of what are called locally the "Dene Holes," or sometimes

"King Cunobelin's Gold Mines"; for Peter is dead long since, his enigma

perished with him, and when all is said and done the chances are that he

was neither more nor less than an idiot boy, who grew into an idiot man. On

the other hand, these Dene Holes are with us still, and nobody has

succeeded in reading their enigma. I obtained an entry to them two or three

years ago, having journeyed to Grays for the purpose, simply because the

proprietor of the principal hotel in Grays was anxious that some writing

person should see and describe these very peculiar excavations, which

certainly have not secured anything approaching to adequate notice in

recent years from the learned. The hotel-keeper's motives may not have been

purely altruistic; altruism, indeed, is not the most conspicuous quality of

the average hotel-keeper. He may have suspected that, if the existence of

this curiosity were more generally known, visitors would come to Grays, and

to his hotel, requiring refreshment and conveyance to Hangman's Wood, both

of which he might provide to his profit. To the philosophical mind that

makes no difference. The things are either worth seeing, at the expense of

some trouble, or they are not. My firm conviction is that they are very

well worth seeing indeed, and an attempt shall be made to justify it by

describing that which I saw and that which, no doubt, anybody else may see

upon applying at this hotel, the name of which has escaped memory. That

again does not matter, for once at Grays, there will be no difficulty in

finding the hotel that is interested in the Dene Holes.

Let a word of preliminary warning be given. Not long after this expedition

to Grays, and before its results had appeared in print, it was my fortune

to meet as a fellow-guest an eminent member of the Society of Antiquaries,

an official, I fancy, of that august body, to whom it seemed right that I

should mention these holes in the ground of Hangman's Wood (of which,

indeed, my mind was very full) and describe them to the best of my ability.

He listened patiently, with an appearance of interest, and then observed

that the holes were "dene-holes," and that there were similar cavities in

many other parts of England. The answer was really rather disappointing,

not because it seemed to prick my little bubble of interest, but because it

was what I had found in a good many books, written by persons who were in

no way to blame, because the chance of seeing these particular holes had

not been open to them, and because, judging by descriptions, the other

dene-holes were not in the least identical with those of Hangman's Wood. I

felt very much in the position of the questioner who, on asking what the

duties of an archdeacon might be, received the sterile and stereotyped

reply that an archdeacon performs archidiaconal functions. An enigma is

not explained by giving a name to it. It is worth while to read an account

at first hand of the dene-holes of Hangman's Wood, even though you are

under the impression that you know all about dene-holes, unless indeed you

have seen these particular holes. If so you cannot have failed to be deeply

interested in them.

On the occasion under notice we drove about a mile or a mile and a half

from Grays to the nearest corner of this wood, where the road forks to

Orsett and to Chadwell. From an article written when the scene was fresh in

memory it appears that this wood left the impression on me that it was not

a recent and artificial plantation, that it might even be primeval. In this

wood are some fifty shafts, some of which had been opened at the time of my

visit, while others remained overgrown with brushwood but easily traceable.

Attention had, indeed, been directed towards these shafts not long before

by the horrid discovery of the decaying body of a man at the bottom of one

of them. It was, indeed, a singular thing that traces of more such

catastrophes were not discovered when examination was made of the holes. It

was a consequence, perhaps, of the very unpleasant way upon which the holes

had forced themselves upon public attention that a windlass and cage had

been rigged up over the mouth of one of them--the apparatus was clearly

meant to be permanent--for the purposes of descent and ascent. The cage was

but small--big enough to accommodate one passenger only--for though the

mouths of the shafts are funnel-shaped, because if they were not the gravel

sides would fall in, the shafts become cylindrical so soon as they enter

the coherent Thanet sand, and are of such a width that a man of middle

height may place his back against one side and ascend, or descend, without

much difficulty by the aid of footholes cut on the other side. After the

gravel the shaft passes through the Thanet sand for some twenty feet more

and for a very short space, after the Thanet sand ends, through the chalk.

Then at last the cage feels the bottom of the shaft. The passenger emerges,

and can see dimly that he is in a vaulted chamber of chalk.

The ascending cage, entering the cylinder of the shaft, leaves him in total

darkness, but soon, as one passenger comes down after another, a sufficient

exploring party is formed, lanterns are lit, and examination begins. It

reveals the fact that each shaft communicates with a group of chambers, all

similar in design, all originally distinct from one another. Imagine an ash

leaf pressed between the pages of a book, but having its middle rib cut off

short at the base of the lowest leaflets, and that middle rib seven or

eight times broader, in proportion to the leaflets, than in nature. In that

you have the ground plan of the chambers, in principle at least, but no

object in nature, so far as I am aware, corresponds exactly with the

design. So far we have ground plan only. Let us proceed to dimensions. The

extreme length of each group of chambers is about 80 ft. Each chamber is

vaulted, about 20 ft. high, from 10 to 15 ft. wide, and somewhat wider a

few feet above the floor than at the floor level. The whole is beautifully

and symmetrically hewn out, the marks of the implements used for the

purpose are plainly visible. Of such groups of chambers, all originally

distinct, all hewn with the same exact precision, but directed to all sorts

of points of the compass, so that there is no suspicion of orientation,

there are a large number. If it be asked why learned writers have been so

sparing of allusion to subterranean works of such manifest interest, the

answer is that until the years 1884 and 1887, when the Essex Field Club

made a fairly thorough examination, the materials for learned discussion

were not available. Camden knew the "Dane holes," or knew of their

existence, and figured one of them with tolerable accuracy in his

_Britannia_. Dr. Plot (_History of Oxfordshire, 1705_) talks of "King

Cunobeline's Gold Mines in Essex," and a Cambrian Register of "Gold Mines

at Orsett." For a long time before 1884 the matter does not seem to have

attracted the serious attention of the learned, and it has been neglected

since.

Of the writers who dealt with it at all before 1884 the writer of Murray's

Guide, using for basis Mr. Roach Smith's _Collectanea Antiqua_, Vol. VI,

gives perhaps as clear an account as any other; and it is quoted for

purposes of criticism. "Excavations called _Dane-pits_ are numerous in the

chalk near East Tilbury. A passage is said to have led from these caverns

to others resembling them at Chadwell near Little Thurrock." (Note in

passing that no passage could possibly have led to these pits as a whole,

because each group is entirely separate and distinct, except where the

ancient divisions have been broken through by explorers.) "The entrances

are from above, by narrow circular passages, which widen below and

communicate with numerous apartments, all of regular forms." (Our passages,

or shafts, are wide at the top, narrow as soon as they reach the Thanet

sand, an important factor which "Murray" does not seem to have observed,

and never grow any wider while they remain shafts.) "The size and depth

vary. It is uncertain for what purpose these pits (which occur in various

localities throughout the chalk districts on either side of the Thames)

were originally excavated, although it is now generally believed that they

were made for the sake of the chalk itself which was largely exported at an

early period."

Let us dispose of this hypothesis at once. It is impossible. Chalk wells,

of course, have been known since the time of Pliny, who explains in his

_Natural History_ (XVII 8) that the fine white chalk used by silversmiths

is won out of "pits sunk like wells, with narrow mouths, to a depth of 100

ft. where they branch out like the veins of mines." He adds "_Hoc maxime

Britannia utitur_" (Murray). That may have been, and it still is, the

custom, because the deep-lying chalk is found to be closer and finer in

texture. But the value of the depth of a chalk well is that it reaches the

deep-lying chalk, whereas in Hangman's Wood the shaft ceases and the

excavated chambers begin practically so soon as the chalk has been

penetrated far enough to leave room for the chambers under an adequate

roof. What our unknown ancestors dug out here was surface chalk, not

deep-lying chalk at all, and if surface chalk was good enough to export

there was plenty of it available without being at the pains to dig through

a mass of gravel and Thanet sand. No unprejudiced man, and I was assuredly

such a one when I descended into these holes, can possibly explore the

excavations in Hangman's Wood and go away capable of believing that they

were originally chalk wells. Apart from the question of quality of chalk,

the neatness of the chambers, their precise symmetry, and above all the

fact that they were a distinct and separate group belonging to each shaft,

although the partitions, when broken through by explorers were often only a

foot or two thick, disposes of the theory absolutely.

The explorers of 1884 and 1887 did their work in a most praiseworthy

manner. At the bottoms of shafts that had remained open there was naturally

a good deal of debris, by sifting which they secured sundry bones and

pieces of pottery. But the potsherds, examined by experts, told no story,

and the bones, submitted to naturalists of high authority, were shown to be

such that they might have belonged to animals of the last century. There

are no marks of fire. There are no niches to point to a use for storing

sepulchral urns; the chalk is singularly sterile of flints, so there is no

likelihood that here, as at Brandon, the shafts were sunk for flints. In

any case the symmetrical shape and the unity of design would negative that

theory. The case is one for pure, but not therefore of necessity

unprofitable, speculation. King Cunobelin's Gold Mines, as gold mines, may

be discarded. Neither he or anybody else has yet found, in chalk and placed

there by the process of nature, gold, or anything more like gold than

pyrites, although a Press-man, greatly daring, "interviewed" Sir William

Ramsay not long since on the presence of gold in sea-water. The putative

ancestor of "Old King Cole" may have stored some of his gold there, for our

rude forefathers had considerable store of gold; and the tradition may have

crystallized into the phrase "King Cunobelin's Gold Mines." It is not

likely that any men in the twentieth century will spend money in searching

for gold in chalk. Still, in the days of the South Sea Bubble they were

foolish enough for that, and the legend of King Cunobelin induced them to

try these very excavations. The suggestion has also been made that these

were granaries, similar to some used on the Continent in days gone by; but

again the elaborate shape is a difficulty although the separation of the

groups is not.

We are therefore, as before stated, reduced to pure conjecture, and the

expression "dene-holes" helps us not at all; for _denn_ is simply

Anglo-Saxon for a cave, and a dene-hole is a "cave-hole," bilingual

tautology and nothing more. Ruminating over the known facts on many

occasions during recent years, for it is impossible to see these strange

burrowings and to banish them from the mind, it has occurred to me, often

enough to have become almost a firm theory, that the traditional name of

"Dane holes" may supply the complete explanation. In the absence of

evidence to the contrary tradition is entitled to more respect than it

commonly gains from the antiquary; and here there is no evidence at all

against tradition. "Murray" speaks of British coins found in dene-holes;

certainly none such have been found in the holes in Hangman's Wood. The

terror of the Danes was frequent and very real; and the men who lived on

the banks of the estuary of the Thames were more exposed to Danish raids,

more familiar with their ruthless mood, than most of the inhabitants of our

island. It is not difficult to imagine that the heads of families in these

parts selected Hangman's Wood as a suitable spot in which to dig out hiding

places, separate ones for each family. From its eminence, like rabbits

sitting over their burrow, they could strain their eyes down the estuary of

the Thames to watch for the incoming fleet of warrior-bearing keels; and,

when they saw it, they could scuttle into their holes at once. Fires, of

course, they dare not kindle within, while the invaders were at hand, for

the smoke would have betrayed them; and when the invaders were gone away

they could come above ground again and live their ordinary lives. They did

not, according to this theory, begin by making these groups of chambers in

their full and careful detail. They began by digging a shaft, the mouth of

which they masked with brushwood, and a hole at the bottom in which they

could cower with their families until the tyranny was overpast. But the

danger came again and again for years and hundreds of years. The refuge of

the pits was used many times; quarters were crowded; it was not easy to

pass the weary hours of captivity. The refugees wiled away the time, and

added to their own comfort by gradually quarrying away more and more rooms

round the original hole, some for storage of food, some for sleeping, and

so on; and they showed their true national spirit by keeping all the groups

of chambers absolutely separate. The fancy is at least harmless.

These speculations, it is to be feared, will be apt to weary some of those

who do not see the Dane-pits of Grays, but if they induce any persons to

visit them, those persons will assuredly be rewarded, for the burrowings

are of mysterious and compelling interest. But we are at Grays, where none

except a native would dream of spending the night, so we must go.

Colchester is our imaginary home, and the best way of returning to it by

car is by the roads which brought us here. An alternative is to send the

car back with the man and, if we have prudently made arrangements

beforehand, and the sea be smooth, to run from Tilbury to Clacton by

motor-launch, and at Clacton to take the train for Colchester. Except

Rayleigh there is nothing left of Essex to the eastward worth visiting by

land, and the whole of the peninsula between the estuaries of the

Blackwater and the Thames, permeated as it is by the estuaries of the

Crouch and the Roach, is almost impassable by land, and of a most dreary

flatness into the bargain. It is this part of the county which gives Essex

so undeservedly bad a name. Still it looks well enough from the water, and

the distance by sea to Clacton, for a motor-boat of light draught, cannot

be much more than forty-five or fifty miles. In the estuary of the Crouch,

too, if the tide be full, may be seen a very charming congregation of

white-winged yachts. Moreover, motor-boats congregate there on

occasion--they had a regatta there in 1906. The yacht clubs are very

hospitable, and there is one capital inn. In fact, if the little journey be

made in a motor-boat, it will be quite a wise thing to put in at Burnham,

which is a place not wanting in picturesque quality and as completely _sui

generis_ as may be imagined. But by no means choose the sea unless it be

fairly smooth. A staunch motor-yacht will stand a lot of weather without

suffering much herself, but for her passengers, no matter how hardy seamen

or seawomen they may be, rough water in a motor-yacht spells sheer misery.

She is worse than a torpedo-boat destroyer, and that is very bad indeed.

CHAPTER X

IN SPRING. TROUBLES MADE EASY

Paucity of incidents so far--They often mean bad

driving--Good driving and bad--The Grey Ghost in

Berks--A burst tire--A warning--A puncture at

Thame--Treasure trove--Meet mechanic at

Aylesbury--Unready Hitchin--Royston--Advancing

vegetation--Partridges paired--Tire blown off rim--An

ancient dyke discovered--Plans changed by delays, but

the motorist needs no plans--To Newmarket--Exit

mechanic--To Bury St. Edmunds--A race with a

train--Bury St. Edmunds and the "Angel"--Moderate

charges--Spacious rooms--Memories of Pickwick--Mr.

Weller's pump gone--Two hotel bills compared--Morning

in Bury--The Abbey Garden--Norman tower--St. Mary's

Church--The Square--Defoe at Bury--Start at noon--To

Wortham--Fourth tire trouble--Pleasant children and a

bye-election--Scole--Harleston--Fifth tire trouble--End

of tire troubles and chapter.

Hitherto it may have been some cause for dissatisfaction to others, it has

certainly been none to me, that with regard to the portion of this book

which may be considered strictly narrative, there has been a monotonous

immunity from accident of any kind. Yet so it was, and although, unlike

George Washington, I do not profess that I cannot tell a lie, there would

have been no point in telling one, and it would have been unfair. To touch

a human being, another vehicle, or even a dog, with a motor-car, even in

circumstances involving no culpability or legal responsibility in the

driver of the motor-car, is in the vast majority of cases still not to his

credit. The best drivers know it to be their duty never to expect that any

other user of the road except a motorist has himself or his vehicle under

absolute control. The good driver looks out for the signs of alarm in

horses, realizes that cyclists, especially those of the female sex,

"wobble" in their course when they hear the horn, knows that dogs will try

to commit hari-kari, is aware that some men are blind, some deaf, some

obstinate, and some drunk, feels that it is always best and safest to take

stupidity for granted, and to give as wide a berth as possible to every

living object on the high road. It is wiser to miss a horseless cart by

half an inch than to try to pass a carriage and pair with a yard to spare.

If these principles be borne in mind it is astonishing, at least it would

be to the anti-motorist, to see how many thousands of miles may be

travelled without harm done. How many thousands of miles I have travelled

in motors of many kinds in England alone, to say nothing of Scotland and

Ireland, I do not know; certainly a good many. In England, although I have

sat beside some inconsiderate drivers, have I ever been at all near to

hurting a human being; but I have sat beside considerate drivers in

circumstances which, if one of the inconsiderate though skilful ones had

been at the wheel, would have made it worse than a near thing for careless

or frightened wayfarers.

Up to this time in the narrative, although at no period was any

superstitious regard paid to the speed limit, I had not been caught in a

police ambuscade (not that "ambuscade," except for its length, is a word in

the least degree more dignified than "trap") during my travels in East

Anglia; nor need I hesitate to write thus, for, in the first place, I am

touching wood in the shape of a cork penholder, and, in the next, the

narrative being but part accomplished, the travelling days which were its

preliminary are, as the hymn says, o'er. In the journeys by motor-car from

Colchester, which have been pressed into service during the preceding

chapter, I was exempt from the speed limit. Again, so far as the narrative

has gone, I can lay my hand on my heart and say that never, save once

during the Essex manoeuvres, through a burst tire, and then not in the

Lanchester car, did I meet with tire trouble or suffer an involuntary stop

through any failing of machinery.

On the expedition now to be recorded, in itself one of the most interesting

and delightful ever taken by me, we had a whole series of troubles of

different kinds--misfortunes of this kind never occur singly. But I hope to

be able to show that these troubles were, some of them, providential, in

other ways than that of supplying me with topics, which were abundant in

any case, and that skill of hand and knowledge, combined with perfect

imperturbability of temper in a gentleman who drives, and has all the

trouble on his own hands, may convert trouble into sheer pleasure for the

other persons delayed on the road.

Early in the morning of 6 April, a sunny morning worthy of the spring, Mr.

Claude Johnson arrived at my Berkshire cottage with the Rolls-Royce owning

the _sobriquet_ of the Grey Ghost. I had ridden in the car first in Paris,

outside the _salon_ during the exhibition of 1904, and had been fascinated

by its silence and controllability as Mr. Rolls at the wheel threaded the

traffic in the Champs Elysees. Mr. Johnson had been expected overnight; the

chamber in the wall had been prepared; but "he came not, for the ships were

broken in Ezion-Geber." In other words, the back near tire came to grief on

the Oxford Road. Taking it off with his own hands and substituting another,

he had elected to sleep at a favourite inn and to come on to my house in

the morning. This particular burst was simply the act of giving up the

ghost accomplished by canvas which had reached the end of its natural life;

and this, since the term of the natural life of canvas varies, is the kind

of mishap which may occur at any time. Knowing that the tendency of

troubles to come in groups is not mere matter of proverbial superstition,

or, perhaps, being not entirely free from superstition, Mr. Johnson said,

"You must be prepared for plenty more of these pleasant little

interruptions. But, however, I have wired for a mechanic to meet us at

Aylesbury, with more inner tubes and covers, and with luck we may last till

then."

So at 9.35 we started in one of the first Rolls-Royces ever made, four

cylinder and, I think, a 20-h.p. (but horse-power is a mere figure of

speech, and the folks who prattle of it as a basis of taxation talk more

nonsense than they realize). It had a cape hood, glass screens in front of

the driving-seat and between it and the tonneau, and it carried my wife and

younger daughter, with two suit-cases of fair size, in the tonneau, Mr.

Johnson being at the wheel, and I by his side. We did not last so far as

Aylesbury without trouble. On the contrary, just as we were leaving Thame a

sharp whistle of escaping air gave notice that something was amiss, and the

back off-side tire was found to be flabby. So we crawled back to a garage

in that ancient town and wandered in the sun through its empty streets what

time the defect was being made good. The process took the best part of an

hour, and the delay proved to be providential in a small way for, in an old

curiosity shop, we discovered an ancient "Bible box," of oak, curiously

carved, and reputed to have belonged to the great Duke of Marlborough. It

was acquired at no great price, and, whether it belonged to the great Duke

of Marlborough or no, it was in the nature of a treasure, for these Bible

boxes, made to contain family Bibles of large size, are rare, and little

known because they are rare, and likely to become expensive when they are

known because, besides rarity, they can boast substantial beauty.

From Thame we bowled on to Aylesbury without incident, and the scenery must

not be touched upon now. At Aylesbury we had to wait again some time for

the mechanic, whose train had not arrived; however, it came at last, and,

with him on the step, and tire covers strapped on to all sorts of places,

we fared onwards. But our arrangements for luncheon were marred. Mindful of

the pie that vanished at Royston (_ubi supra_ as the pedants would say), we

had planned to take our luncheon there. At Hitchin Nature vowed that she

would no longer be denied. Still Nature was very nearly compelled to take

denial, for the hotel--it looked the best--professed itself destitute of

cold meat; time did not permit of waiting for hot meat; and only after

pressure did the waitress consent to produce some hacked fragments of

discarded joints from which, with bread and butter and cheese, hungry

motorists made a sufficient meal. True the process of finding the fragments

that went to make it called to memory the supper in _Tom Brown's

School-days_, and the wonderful deeds wrought by East with his

pocket-knife. That was no matter. _Fames est optimum condimentum_, as the

old Latin Grammar used to say, and no doubt it was good of the unready

hotel-keeper to give us anything. But why, O why, are hotel-keepers so

often found unready?

Reaching Royston without further mishap we entered our manor, for the

purposes of this book, and glided on at a fine speed along the road,

already traversed, towards Newmarket. Vegetation was more alive, hedges

were growing green, partridges, a heavy stock of them, were paired; that

was all the difference, or seemed to be all. But two miles short of Six

Mile Bottom, or thereabouts, there was not merely a whistle from below but

a loud report. The front off-side Dunlop tire had been blown out of the

rim, the cause being that it was a "retreaded" tire which had stretched

until it was no longer held in its place. This burst also turned out to be

providential. While the mechanic, who was a blessing, was engaged in

attending to the off front wheel, I wandered up and down the road, thinking

at first that this was a dull piece of country. Then my eye was caught by a

bank running from the road on the more southerly side up a gentle slope

until it was lost on the horizon. The bank was several feet above the level

of the ground to the eastward; on the western side was a deep ditch. Both

were clearly visible, were indeed large and unmistakable on the southern

side of the road, which seemed to be old pasture. On the north side they

were traceable, and no more, having been obscured on the east side by trees

and brushwood, and having yielded on the western side to the plough. If

trouble we were to have it was surely lucky to meet it here for, beyond

question, we were at one of those ancient ramparts piled up in the days of

long ago to enable the warriors of Eastern Britain to keep out their foes

of the West. In all probability it was Haydon Ditch, which runs from

Melbourn to Haydon. It really does not matter what its particular name was,

or is. To give it a name teaches one no more than my friend the antiquary

taught me by calling the excavations at Grays "dene-holes." Some race, at

some time long ago, piled up this vast mound with immense labour. It was an

Eastern race, that is certain from the relation of mound and ditch, making

provision against enemies from the West, whom they might harry with stones

and javelins as they strove to climb from the ditch, whose shock heads they

might hammer, with stone axes or clubs perhaps, from above, as they

swarmed up from below. So much is certain inference; the rest is absolute

mystery, and to delay at the rampart for a day would not solve the

outermost wrapper of it. Indeed, so much as a halt is not advised, unless

an involuntary one should occur conveniently, or an excuse for prudent

adjustment to avoid future trouble be desired. Slow down to five miles an

hour, or even to ten, and look towards the off-side when you are

approaching Six Mile Bottom. Then shall you see as much as is necessary, or

indeed possible, of this ancient rampart and its fosse, and understand all

that can be understood about it, to wit that is there, and has been there

since prehistoric times.

Those who worked over the substitution of a new tire and cover were skilful

and expeditious; but it is a task which even in the most competent hands is

tiresome and must not be hurried over unduly. At the best it means dirt and

perspiration; before it reaches the worst it is very likely to involve

broken nails and barked knuckles; and the least excess of haste is likely

to bring in its train a subsequent nip as Nemesis, when all the dusty

labour becomes vain. So, by this time, our plans as to a resting-place for

the night were receding into the distance, or rather our place of abode was

coming nearer to us, if we were not getting appreciably nearer to it. That

is to say the plans of other people in the like circumstances would have

been suffering thus, but ours were not quite definite. We had debated in an

easy-going way the question whether we should dine and sleep at Lowestoft

or at Yarmouth; whether perhaps we might not even push on to Norwich

whither the memories of the "Maid's Head" beckoned us. This was out of the

question now, but the beauty of motoring is that, unless one has made a

definite arrangement to meet friends, nothing of this kind matters. As a

matter of fact we took our tea at Newmarket--we have travelled the

intervening piece of road in print before--and, then deciding where to

sleep, went no farther than Bury St. Edmunds that night and, greatly

daring, having regard to our run of ill-luck up to that time, we shed the

mechanic, as a snake sheds his skin, instructing him to telegraph for yet

another tire and cover to be sent to Bury that night if possible, but at

any rate by the earliest train in the morning.

So on to Bury by the same road as we had followed on the Panhard in

January; but Phoebus! how marked was the difference between the late

afternoon of a mild day in April and the fading light of a frosty evening

in January! Few of the trees were yet showing much green, but the buds were

swelling and we could enjoy the stateliness of the trunks. "Joy runs high,

between English earth and sky" on such afternoons as this. The road was

clear and good, it invited speed, and for a space we raced a train which,

it must be admitted, beat us in the long run pretty handsomely. So a second

time we entered Bury, and this time made no mistake in the selection of our

inn. Let there be no misunderstanding here. Lord Montagu's Road Book, which

is good as any other, and strongly bound to stand the hardships of

travelling (with a flap to fold over the front edges of the pages, which

reminds one of Archbold's _Criminal Pleadings_ armed against the rough

usage of circuit), specifies the "Suffolk"; and the "Suffolk" may be a very

good hotel, but to the pilgrim who has a spark of sentiment in his

composition, the "Angel" addresses a more compelling invitation. One line

of German poetry do I know--no more--and the luxury of quoting it (candidly

confessing that it was got by heart by way of punishment for inattention,

with some others now passed out of mind), shall not be denied to me--

Es laechelt der see, er ladet zuem Bade.

As the sea laughed and said, "Bathe in my sun-warmed waters," so the

"Angel" smiles, broadly and hospitably, saying, "If you are spending the

night in Bury, spend it in the house full of the cheerful memories of

Pickwick and the faithful Weller." That invitation was assumed, for the

"Angel" is most decorously modest, but it was also accepted and never

regretted for a moment, least of all when the time came for discharging the

reckoning. We reached the "Angel" sufficiently early to be able to order

dinner and to stroll about in the darkening town while it was in

preparation. They set our feet in large rooms. Bedrooms, coffee-room, and

sitting-room were spacious and comfortable. Dinner was plain but excellent

in the old-fashioned coffee-room, and I will almost, but not quite, pledge

my word that the wall-paper was of that mellow and ruby red beloved of our

forefathers, probably because it suggested port wine. A pilgrimage through

the hotel, and the yard too, showed that it had altered little, if at all,

since it was described by Dickens, except that the pump was gone. Assuredly

there ought to be a pump, for the sake of appearances, if for no other

reason, although a tap, fed from the Corporation Waterworks, may serve

equally well to cool heads throbbing of a morning from overnight unwisdom

in the still-existing tap-room. The "Angel," in fact, is a thoroughly good

hotel of the old-fashioned type, which it is a rare pleasure to enter and

to praise. More than that, and to complete the well-earned panegyric, one

leaves the "Angel" in a satisfied mood. It is plain truth that we dined

there, slept, had tea in our bedrooms, breakfasted well, and paid for the

car's lodging in a coach-house, and that the bill for three of us was

precisely one shilling less than was paid one day later for the same

accommodation less dinner, and less the storage of the car for the night.

That is why praise is gladly given and those who have suffered from heavy

charges elsewhere will be the first to protest that it ought to be given

out of a grateful heart.

[Illustration: ABBEY GATEWAY, BURY ST. EDMUNDS]

In the morning there was more delay. The same wheel which had given trouble

by the mysterious dyke on the preceding afternoon was found to be standing

on a flat tire again. Messages to the station brought back no substantial

answer in the form of a cover. A local garage had none that fitted in

stock, and had to send a special messenger to fetch one from a distance of

ten or twelve miles on a motor-cycle. As a matter of fact, we found later,

the tire-cover had been at the station all the time, but it had been

addressed to the mechanic, and our messenger had made inquiries for one

addressed to his master. The delay was really welcome. Who could desire a

better fate than to spend a perfect spring morning in sauntering through a

town which was historic not only in fact but also in appearance? My own

case was the more happy in that, during the interval, I had not only

refreshed my memory of Bury and of its associations, but had also learned a

good many things in connection with it which were new to me. Of course, we

entered the Abbey Gateway, to find the Botanical Garden, noted by Carlyle,

less conspicuous than we had feared it might be. In fact, there was no

demonstration of labels, helpful to the student but distressing to the idle

eye, and it may be that the garden is no longer botanical, except in the

sense in which every garden is such. It is a garden in any case, a garden

with such broad stretches of close green turf as England alone can show;

and on this turf little boys were playing games in the morning. A notice

at the gate implied that the ground was not absolutely open to the public

for games; if it were the turf would soon perish; but the price of play

seemed to be very moderate; and perhaps the ground within those ancient

walls serves as useful a purpose by encouraging the young men and maidens

of Bury to take healthy exercise in the open air as it did when it

permitted the student to realize that _cheiranthus_ is another way of

saying "wallflower," or that the weed best beloved of canaries may be

called _Jacobea_. Of the Shakesperian associations of the Abbey we spoke

last time we were at Bury; they came to mind none the less pleasantly for

the fact that sturdy little boys were kicking a football about on the

ground often trodden by kings and abbots. Of course, too, we went to see

the Norman Tower, to the southward of the Abbey Gate and close to it, and

St. Mary's Church. Most pleasant of all, however, was it to linger in the

sun about the spacious square, having the "Angel" on one side and the Abbey

Gate on the other, to rejoice in the abundance of old-world houses, to

reflect that the square, and most of the houses, if not all, looked much

the same as they did when "in order to avoid the public gaze, and also to

recuperate, Defoe repaired in August, 1704, to Bury St. Edmunds, where he

took up his abode in a handsome residence called Cupola House." Defoe was

then fresh from eighteen months in "that horrid place," as Moll Flanders

called it, Newgate Prison. He had stood in the pillory more than once, but,

as his biographer of 1894, Mr. Thomas Wright, observes, we must not pity

him too much. He suffered, after all, as others did in a brutal age.

Moreover, Newgate was not all misery. He was allowed to exercise his pen

freely while in prison, and he published one of the products of his

incarceration, "An Elegy on the Author of the True-born Englishman," while

he was living at Bury. That he did not come out penniless will be very

plain to every pilgrim who is at the pains to look at Cupola House, which

is still standing and, from the outside at any rate, very inviting.

Such are some of the memories of Bury, "the Montpelier of Suffolk, and

perhaps of England," as Defoe called it, and we were not in any hurry to

leave it or them. Still the sun shone, the roads were in good order, and

when the car was ready about midday, we also were ready for the pleasures

of the road. Our road, good and fairly flat, through what may best be

described as comfortable and rich country, lay by Farnham St. Mary,

Ixworth, where Euston Park was five miles to the north along the Ipswich

and Thetford Road, Stanton, Wattisfield, and Richinghall to Wortham. That

is only seven miles in all, and we bowled along merrily, in no mood to stop

if we could avoid it, observing the spacious area of many village greens,

thwarting to the best of our ability the efforts of the geese (which

accounted for the close shorn turf of those greens) to immolate themselves

under our wheels. A fussy turkey-hen, too, courted the same fate, but so

far as our chariot was concerned, the geese and their offspring may have

been eaten with apple-sauce at Michaelmas, and the turkey-hen's poults may

have been hatched and reared, and fattened in the fashion best understood

in East Anglia for the London market.

At Wortham came more trouble. Once more there was the ominous shriek. The

rear off-side inner tube had been blown into a rent in the inner canvas of

the outer cover; it was clean gone, and so, unfortunately, was the

mechanic. Cheerfully philosophical as ever, Mr. Johnson, with such help as

the bystanders and I could give him, addressed himself to the task of

fitting the wheel for the road again and, apart from the trouble and

inconvenience to him, of which he made light for our sake, the experience

was even positively pleasant in its incidents. Bystanders were many. Our

little disaster had come to us half-way on the road passing through a

village green, very spacious, fringed on the left with stray cottages, of

which one turned out to be the post office. Village children thronged round

the disabled car in great numbers, light-haired and rosy-faced children,

all of them wearing the yellow favours of the Liberal candidate. Were we

not in the middle of the Eye constituency, the bye-election in which,

coming shortly after the General Election, was regarded with exceptional

interest by the public? Was not this the election of elections in which, to

judge from the public press, the issue lay not between two mere men, but

between Lady Mary Hamilton and another lady. And the result was due that

day. The district was at least warmly interested as the general public--it

is not always so--and the children were in a fever of childish excitement.

They were "yellow" down to the very babies in arms; they hooted in shrill

and childish derision whenever a carriage passed with blue favours, as some

did, the occupants themselves looking blue in another sense. The most

hardened Tory found it as impossible to be annoyed at their enthusiasm as

to regard their opinions seriously. They were too eager, too delightful,

too healthy. Nobody could have been angry with them. Further than that,

they struck us all as being exceptionally bright and intelligent, and the

keen interest with which they listened to a boy in his shirt-sleeves, not

much older than some of them, but emancipated from school and now a

wage-earning creature, who had attended some village meeting, was entirely

charming. A man or two came up and proffered help, which was accepted. A

Suffolk constable arrived on a bicycle and, seeming to have plenty of time

to spare, remained to talk and to help me in expelling the air from the

discarded tube, and in packing it into its bag for future treatment; and

the children were round us all the time. Suddenly there was a shout, "The

talleygram's come!" and a stampede across the green to the post office. In

a minute or two they were all back, yelling in glee, "Pearson's in!" and at

least one stubborn Tory was not half so sorry as he ought to have been. The

Tory cause in the then Parliament was past praying for in any event; a

Liberal vote more or less really seemed hardly to matter; the

disappointment of those children at the failure of the Liberal candidate,

if it had been announced, would have been far more distressing to me then

than was the defeat of him for whom I should have voted if a vote in the

Eye division had been mine.

On at last we went, merrily enough at first, and in 3-1/4 miles crossed the

Waveney and the boundary of Norfolk and Suffolk simultaneously at Scole;

Scole of the true Roman road, Scole of the ancient hostelry, of both of

which full notice has been taken in an earlier chapter. Four miles more we

carried on gaily, 4-1/4 miles perhaps, for we were almost free from the

long townlet of Harleston when more trouble came. It was precisely the same

trouble in the same tire and cover that had been met with at Wortham. This

time there was a garage, where the rent in the canvas was effectually

repaired, while we took a hearty luncheon at the "Magpie"; and that was the

end of tire-trouble for this expedition. We had certainly had at least

enough of it. And here, since the road immediately in front of us

positively teems with wayside subjects, let a pause be made and a short

chapter ended.

CHAPTER XI

GREAT AMBITIONS CHEERFULLY RELINQUISHED. HARLESTON TO CROMER VIA BUNGAY,

BECCLES, LOWESTOFT, GREAT YARMOUTH, CAISTER-BY-YARMOUTH, AND NORWICH

Harleston--The "Magpie"--Typical East Anglian

village--Flixton Park--Bungay--Mr. Rider Haggard as

_vates sacer_--Antiquities of Bungay--Spa projected in

eighteenth century--The vineyard--Derivations of

Bungay--Chateaubriand at Bungay--A thatched

church?--Beccles from the west--A vision--Towards

Lowestoft--Glance at Oulton Broad--Lowestoft fails to

please--Towards Yarmouth--Ambitious plans--Moonlight

drive projected--Yarmouth pleases--Honest sea-faring

industry--An acrostic and some ancient

verse--Caister-by-Yarmouth--Sir John Falstolf--A

precocious fifteenth-century Etonian--To Norwich and

onwards--A moonlight drive--A sudden check--Grit in the

petrol tank--An insoluble problem at night--Cheerful

philosophy--To Cromer for refuge--The Links

Hotel--Poppyland--Cromer no place for strangers--The

haunt of a famous circle--Quotation from the Gurneys of

Earlham--Seaside places are one-sided motoring

centres--Scenery to westward strange rather than

charming--A start in the morning--The grit still

present--Labour of locating and removing--A stroll and

survey of the country--Commonplace Runton--A taste of

petrol--I break into jingle--Moral.

The "Magpie" at Harleston--you can hardly miss it, for the sign hangs well

out--entertained us quite abundantly, if humbly, and it was agreed on all

hands that this inconsiderable village of Norfolk responded better to a

surprise visit than had the town of Hitchin. Harleston is not in itself an

attractive village. Indeed candour compels the admission that few East

Anglian villages can fairly be described as attractive by comparison with

those of the southern Midlands. Berks, Bucks, Gloucestershire, and

Oxfordshire certainly can each show half a dozen delightful villages where

East Anglia can show but one. In them the pretty village is normal, the

plain hamlet exceptional; in East Anglia the contrary rule prevails. The

typical East Anglian village, or collection of houses somewhere between a

town and a village in point of size, is a long and double line of

unpretentious dwellings running along either side of a main road for a mile

or more. Harleston is just such a gathering of houses and little shops, and

there are dozens of Harlestons under other names scattered about East

Anglia. This may be the reason why some of the best of gossiping writers

about this part of the country, Dr. Jessopp and Mr. Rider Haggard for

example (and, may I add, the little-known Miss Wilson, author of the

_Friends of Yesterday_, who is now working with her brother in the Orange

River Colony?), tell us more of the ways of the people, and of the

conditions of their lives, than they do of the aspects of the hamlets. When

they talk to us of places it is, as a rule, either of great houses, or of

towns, such as Bungay, possessed of a curious history.

From Harleston, then, we started nothing loth, having accomplished so far

only some thirty miles in 3-1/2 hours, of which, however, only 1-1/2 had

been spent in travelling. Plans we gave up for a bad job; we determined

simply to go on as long as we could and, if trouble came, to grin and bear

it. The first scene noted after Harleston was Flixton Park, a very noble

deer park over which the eye can range from the car, for it is divided from

the road only by thin but very high iron railings. The Hall was built by

Sir Nicholas de Tasburgh in the time of bluff King Hal, and the church

tower is said to be Saxon. But we were all for travel. Such was the mood in

which we passed through Bungay, leaving Ditchingham a mile or two to the

left. The reader, it is hoped, will not travel through Bungay quite so

quickly, will not, be it hoped also, have suffered quite so many punctures

and bursts, and will be in the mood to hear something of it and of

Ditchingham. This district has its _vates sacer_ in Mr. Rider Haggard,

whose book, _A Farmer's Year_ (Longmans, 1899), is, in its rare passages of

topography and of old-time talk, exquisitely attractive to man or woman of

taste. It appeals also, in its agricultural record, with infinite sadness

and with much force to all who have been brought face to face with the

realities of life in rural England. Let there be no shiver of apprehension

here. There is no intention of raising here that question of the unnatural

war between the cities and the country as part of the propaganda relating

to which this book was written. Mr. Haggard, indeed, avows openly his

desire to convert as many persons as possible to his way of thinking, and

this, to put it shortly, is that to permit the cities to starve out rural

England is a hideously mistaken policy. The subject is fertile; but it is

not for me. What is of enthralling interest to all is that in Mr. Rider

Haggard we have a gentleman of estate who, after much travel, after serving

his country in diplomacy and in other ways in South Africa, and after being

called to the Bar (which after all happens to a good many men without

making much difference to them), retired to farm his own acres of heavy

land, and some others in Norfolk, during the very worst period of

agricultural depression. He had done, and he did, much more than this. When

he settled down at Ditchingham to farm, and to do his duty as a country

gentleman, he had written a round score of books of which the graphic power

was, and is, universally admitted. Men have laughed at the impossibilities

of _She_ and of _King Solomon's Mines_, but very few have laid them down

unfinished; they have spoiled many a hundred beauty sleeps; their

absorbing interest and their skill of words is beyond question. All that

power of words Mr. Haggard devoted to his propaganda and, perhaps, by way

of make-weight for passages on "blown" cattle, bush drains, and the

preparation of land for barley--things which interest me deeply, but are

not alluring to those not to the manner born--he goes off from time to time

into talk about places. It is talk which cannot be improved upon, certainly

not by me.

First Mr. Haggard quotes a curious tract of 1738 by one John King, an

apothecary of Bungay, and a letter by way of appendix, saying: "Those

lovely hills which include the flowery Plain are variegated with all that

can ravish the astonish'd Sight; they arise from the winding Mazes of the

River Waveney, enrich'd with the utmost variety the watr'y Element is

capable of producing. Upon the Neck of this Peninsula the Castle and Town

of Bungay (now startled at its approaching Grandeur) is situated on a

pleasing Ascent to view the Pride of Nature on the other Side, which the

Goddesses have chose for their earthly Paradise, where the Sun at its first

Appearance makes a kindly Visit to a steep and fertile Vineyard, richly

stored with the choicest Plants from _Burgundy_, _Champaigne_, _Provence_

and whatever the East can furnish us with. Near the Bottom of this is

placed the Grotto or Bath itself, beautified on one side with Oziers,

Groves and Meadows, on the other with Gardens, Fruits, shady Walks and all

the Decorations of a rural Innocence.

"The Building is designedly plain and neat, because the least attempt of

artful Magnificence would by alluring the Eyes of Strangers, deprive them

of those profuse Pleasures which Nature has already provided.

"As to the Bathing there is a Mixture of all that _England_, _Paris_ or

_Rome_ could ever boast of; no one's refused a kind Reception, Honour and

Generosity reign throughout the whole, the Trophies of the Poor invite the

Rich, and their more dazzling Assemblies compel the Former."

Since the spring was found by Mr. King, the apothecary, on his own land,

the tract, although Mr. Haggard also suggests a more romantic alternative,

was probably merely an advertisement. Mr. Haggard, who states that the

spring still exists and is peculiarly delicious to drink (in which quality

it is unlike any other medicinal water known to me), says also, "Was this

vineyard, furnished with the fruits of the 'East,' an effort of the

imagination suggested by the original name of the place (now oddly enough

superseded by a new name taken from the tradition of Mr. King's bath), or

did it, as the picture suggests, really exist in the year 1738? _Quien

sabe?_ as they say in Mexico. There have, in my time, been several old men

in Ditchingham whose grandfathers may have been living in 1738, yet I never

heard from them any tale of a vineyard on the Bath Hills. But this proves

nothing."

Of course it proves nothing. Rural tradition commemorates the oddest things

and omits the oddest things. It is past all calculation. The picture, a

very quaint print, may suggest the vines. I should be sorry to say for

certain to which part of it Mr. Haggard refers; it suggests swans and a

wherry on the Waveney, a sportsman shooting at four-footed game, presumably

stags (or perhaps it is a shepherd with a crook), a coach-and-four, and, I

think, a quintain in the foreground; but Mr. Haggard says, "Pray observe

the double gallows," as to which I say that there are riders close by, one

of whom looks as if he had just run a course, and that the artist, if he

desired to suggest double gallows, would probably have supplied them with

their appropriate pendants. A little earlier Mr. Haggard cites clear

evidence that a vineyard existed in Bungay in the time of the Bigods, who

dominated Bungay, and continues: "Often have I wondered what kind of wine

they made at this vineyard and who was bold enough to drink it; but since I

have heard that some enterprising person has taken to the cultivation of

the grape in Wales with such success that--so says the wondrous tale--he

sells his home-made champagne at 84s. the dozen, it has occurred to me that

the Bigods knew more than we imagine about the possibilities of viticulture

in England. Or it may chance that the climate was more genial in those

days, although this is very doubtful."

Is Mr. Haggard poking fun, or is it possible that he does not know the

facts? The "enterprising person in Wales" was the late Marquess of Bute.

The vineyard was, and is, at Castell Coch in South Wales, and, although the

price was hardly a market price, and the position of the grower was not

without its influence upon it, the wine was, and I expect still is, sound

wine. Grapes good enough to make fair wine can be grown in the open in

England, were grown, certainly until quite recently, in Swan Walk, Chelsea,

and doubtless would grow, quite well, on a slope in Southern Norfolk,

having such an aspect as the good Mr. King described. There is no reason to

assume a deteriorated climate, no reason to doubt (in the absence of

evidence to the contrary in individual cases) that all the "vineyards" to

be found in Southern England, for the most part, as at Abingdon, in the

vicinity of bygone abbeys, once grew grapes good enough to be trodden in

the wine-press. This, however, is not to say that vine-growing, albeit

possible, would be profitable in England to-day. It is a great deal cheaper

and easier to grow rhubarb, and the wits who are sarcastic at the expense

of "gooseberry champagne" would be a great deal nearer to the mark if they

followed to their ultimate destination some of the huge crops of rhubarb

grown a little further north than East Anglia.

"Bungay has bygone glories of its own. Its name has been supposed to be

derived from Bon Gue or Good Ford, but as the town was called Bungay before

ever a Norman set foot in England, this interpretation will not hold. More

probable is that suggested to me by the Rev. J. Denny Gedge, that the

origin of the name may be Bourne-gay or Boundary Ford. Or the prefix 'Bun'

may, as he hazards, have been translated from 'placenta,' 'a sacred cake,'

indicating, perhaps--but this is my suggestion--that in old times Bungay

was the town that pre-eminently 'took the cake.' Mayhap, for in philology

anything might chance; but if so, alas! it takes it no longer." For my

part, if the reason against Bon Gue be conclusive, it seems to me equally

conclusive against Bun (_placenta_) Gue; and Bun Gue is not merely an

anachronism, but very far-fetched at that. If we are to come to funning,

the derivation "Bung-ay" may be timidly submitted. "Ay" is just a

termination, Danish if you will, as in Billericay, perhaps, and it seems

from Mr. Haggard's own showing that "Mr. Bung the Brewer" rules in Bungay.

He records (p. 110) that on a certain day in February, 1898, the last two

"free houses" in the town were put up to auction, and he records elsewhere

that there is a liquor-shop for every hundred of the population.

Bungay Castle, the castle of the Bigods, is quite gone; so is the

Benedictine nunnery; so is the industry of giving copper sheathing to the

bottoms of ships. But the Bath Hills are still there, and behind them,

protected by barbed wire and the natural kindness of Mr. Haggard's heart,

is a sanctuary for all wild things. He records also that Chateaubriand, a

refugee from the Terror, drifted down to Bungay, where he taught French,

was known as M. Shatterbrain, and made love to a sentimental young lady, to

whose mother, when she took pity on him and offered to look over his

poverty, he was compelled to reply, "Helas! Madame, je suis desole; mais je

suis marie." In fact, Bungay is really a very interesting place to linger

at in the spirit; but here we must go on to Barsham and Beccles, as, in the

flesh, we did immediately and agreeably.

Spirits rose as we drew near to Beccles, noting on the way a curiously

attractive church and parsonage on the left, and that, seen by the light of

a strong sun sinking low in the west, the church seemed to have a thatched

roof. That light, however, is exceeding deceptive. So, since thatched

churches are unusual, to say the least of it, and I can find no allusion to

thatched churches in Norfolk, I am content to believe this was a case of

optical illusion. The two structures were of a rare charm in that golden

glow, notwithstanding, and the probability is that they were at Barsham. Is

this word "probability" too audacious? At least, it is candid and prudent.

Motorists know full well that too many halts--and goodness knows we had

stopped often enough that day--are a weariness of the flesh; that it is not

practicable to consult a large scale map _en voyage_; that one must often

be contented to think and to say, "That is a sweetly pretty place" (or a

fine hall, or a striking church, as the case may be); "I wonder what it

is," and to try to locate it afterwards. One must often be in the position

of a visitor to a garden of roses, yet uncertain, rosarian although he may

be, as to the exact name of this or that rose. It does not really matter.

The rose is beautiful. The fatal error is to give it a name when one is in

doubt. In the same way it would be suicidal to say that this pretty place

was Barsham, because it may not have been, though Barsham is quite close in

any case; and it has a round tower to its church, which seems to be

imprinted on my memory in this instance. If Barsham it was, then the

parsonage is a rectory, and it was the birthplace of Nelson's mother,

Caroline Suckling, a daughter of a very famous Norfolk House.

Now the wide valley of the Waveney came again into full view on the left, a

glorious prospect, and Beccles faced us. Approached from the westward on a

glorious April afternoon, Beccles produced an impression absolutely and

completely opposite to that which it left in January when we came to it

from the southward in dull and chilly air. Shall an apology be tendered for

the first mention of Beccles in these pages? Shall it be made needless by

ruthless excision? Of a surety neither is the right course to take. The

first impression was faithful, and it has been found impossible to convince

those who shared it that a good word can be said truthfully for Beccles.

The second is faithful also, and both are true. Fortunately it is possible

to quote the opinion and the words of one who is a master of descriptive

English. First of the view from the Bungay vineyard Mr. Rider Haggard says:

"I have travelled a great way about the world in my time and studied much

scenery, but I do not remember anything more quietly and consistently

beautiful than this view over Bungay Common seen from the Earl's vineyard,

or, indeed, from any point of vantage on its encircling hills. For the most

part of the year the plain below is golden with gorse, but it is not on

this alone that the sight depends for beauty, or on the green of the

meadows and the winding river edged with lush marshes that in spring are

spotted with yellow marigolds and purple with myriads of cuckoo flowers.

They all contribute to it, as do the grazing cattle, the gabled distant

roofs, and the church spires, but I think that the prospect owes its

peculiar charm to the constant changes of light which sweep across its

depths. At every season of the year, at every hour of the day, it is

beautiful, but always with a different beauty. Of that view I do not think

that any lover of Nature could tire, because it is never quite the same."

[Illustration: BECCLES FROM THE WAVENEY]

Mr. Haggard, therefore, is clearly not afraid to match Norfolk scenery

against any of the restful kind on the face of the globe; but we see soon

that even this view of Bungay Common and Waveney is not to his mind the

best. "Had the builders of this house where I write (Ditchingham House),

for instance, chosen to place it four hundred yards further back, as they

might very easily have done, it would have commanded what I believe to be

the finest view in Norfolk, since from that spot the eye travels not only

over the expanse of Bungay Common and its opposing slopes, but down the

valley of the Waveney to Beccles town and tower. But it would seem that in

the time of the Georges the people who troubled their heads about beautiful

prospects were not many. The country was lonely then, and the neighbourhood

of the Norwich road had more attractions than any view. Along that road

passed the coaches, bringing a breath of the outer world into the quiet

village, and the last news of the wars; also, did any member of the

household propose to travel by them, it was easy for the men-servants to

wheel his luggage in a barrow to the gate."

For my own part I deprecate comparisons of scenery, for which there appears

to be no true basis, believing that the real secret of its enjoyment is to

possess a catholic taste and a receptive mind in these matters. It is

enough to say, and to feel, that the scenery of these parts is exceeding

lovely, that the distant view of Beccles and its church, on that proud brow

dominating the placid plain of marsh and meadow and river is, in a single

word, divine, and that Mr. Haggard has analysed the charms of all this

landscape with Pre-Raphaelite accuracy. To admire, to be compelled to

understand why one admires, are pleasant and profitable. To institute

comparisons is unsatisfying and unnecessary.