Through East Anglia in a Motor Car Part 10

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 ma.s.sed 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 ma.s.se_, 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 n.o.body 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 enc.u.mbered 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 leaf.a.ge. This gave to the scenery singular charm, even while it made the roads such as the merely rus.h.i.+ng 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 circ.u.mstances. 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, ESs.e.x

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 t.i.tles--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 Cun.o.belin'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 pa.s.sing in one direction that nothing remains to be noticed about the same objects when pa.s.sed 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 gla.s.s 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 circ.u.mstances 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 Ess.e.x 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 a.s.similated _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 "ill.u.s.trious 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 t.i.tle 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 princ.i.p.al course is fallowing for wheat, then sowing oats and laying down with clover and ray-gra.s.s, 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 princ.i.p.al 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 10 an acre."

From Billericay to Tilbury, pretty much our route, Arthur Young was princ.i.p.ally 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 pa.s.s by any carriage. I saw a fellow creep under his waggon to a.s.sist 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 circ.u.mstances 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 1000 a year. Besides those already mentioned we find a _Skinner_ and a _Tower_, who each rent near 1500 a year, and a _Read_ almost equal; but who are all perfectly well contented with their roads."

Ess.e.x 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 a.s.sociation 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 700." 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 Ess.e.x, 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 a.s.suredly 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 Ess.e.x 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 pa.s.sage: "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 astonis.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+ps, 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 pa.s.s 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 Cun.o.belin'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 n.o.body 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 princ.i.p.al 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 p.r.i.c.k 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 windla.s.s 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 pa.s.senger 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 pa.s.ses through the Thanet sand for some twenty feet more and for a very short s.p.a.ce, after the Thanet sand ends, through the chalk.

Then at last the cage feels the bottom of the shaft. The pa.s.senger 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 pa.s.senger 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 compa.s.s, 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 Ess.e.x 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 Oxfords.h.i.+re, 1705_) talks of "King Cun.o.beline's Gold Mines in Ess.e.x," 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 pa.s.sage is said to have led from these caverns to others resembling them at Chadwell near Little Thurrock." (Note in pa.s.sing that no pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sages, which widen below and communicate with numerous apartments, all of regular forms." (Our pa.s.sages, 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 ut.i.tur_" (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 ma.s.s of gravel and Thanet sand. No unprejudiced man, and I was a.s.suredly 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 part.i.tions, 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 Cun.o.belin'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 Cun.o.belin'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 Cun.o.belin 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 ent.i.tled 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.suredly 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 Ess.e.x 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 impa.s.sable by land, and of a most dreary flatness into the bargain. It is this part of the county which gives Ess.e.x 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 pa.s.sengers, 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 d.y.k.e 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--s.p.a.cious 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 Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 s.e.x, "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 pa.s.s a carriage and pair with a yard to spare.

If these principles be borne in mind it is astonis.h.i.+ng, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 superst.i.tious 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 Ess.e.x 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 Berks.h.i.+re 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 subst.i.tuting 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 superst.i.tion, or, perhaps, being not entirely free from superst.i.tion, 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."