Through East Anglia in a Motor Car Part 4

So Mr. Preston the elder slept with his fathers, if he had any, and Mr.

Isaac Preston his son reigned in his stead, Rush remaining agent and tenant of the Home Farm; and, as Mr. Isaac Preston was Recorder of Norwich, the beautiful old house within easy access of the great town suited his needs admirably. He settled down in it at once, and later, as we shall see, he began to think of adding to the estate. When exactly the Recorder discovered that the t.i.tle-deeds were missing my authority does not relate, but probabilities seem to point to an early discovery, coupled with a suspicion, which was perhaps difficult to bring home, that Rush had annexed them. That would give Rush a hold over the Recorder, and it is only on that hypothesis that the Recorder's subsequent conduct in relation to Rush can be explained. At one and the same time we find Rush practically bankrupt, and the heirs of the original Jermys egged on by Rush into an attempt to recover the family estate in the Court of Chancery. The Recorder really was in rather a tight place, for the simple reason that he could not have proved his t.i.tle without the deeds, and that he could not bring the theft of them home to Rush. Still he was Recorder of Norwich and a person of consideration, and when the claimants, weary of the delays of the Court of Chancery, organized a small army of emergency men in Norwich, took possession of the house by force and held it, barricading the windows and the bridge over the moat, the dragoons then quartered in Norwich soon restored the peace. In so acting the claimants were but following an ancient precedent of the county of Norfolk, for, early in the fifteenth century, the Duke of Norfolk besieged Caister Castle, built by "that renowned knight and valiant soldier" Sir John Falstolf, then deceased, and occupied, on what ground does not appear clearly from the _Paston Letters_, by Sir John Paston's family. There were, however, material differences between the two cases: the first of them being that the Duke had apparently at least a show of t.i.tle to Caister Castle through the Courts, while in this case the claimants were antic.i.p.ating the judgment of the Court, and the next being a trifle of four centuries, for it was so recently as April, 1839, that John Larner, Daniel Wingfield, and eighty others, the emergency army in fact, were indicted for riot at Stanfield Hall. Still it is not easy to understand how, after so lawless a proceeding at so recent a date, the presiding judge could have pa.s.sed, as he did, a series of sentences of from three months' to one week's imprisonment. True it is that the Recorder recommended them to mercy as ignorant persons "actuated by a mistaken notion of property"; but the sentences are still hard to understand. So, for that matter, are many sentences in these days.

At about the same time the Recorder brought a suit (Preston _v._ Rush) against Rush for breach of covenant, no doubt in relation to the Home Farm, and it was clearly after this that the Recorder went through the process, expensive in those days, of taking the name of Jermy because he "found that it was necessary by the old settlements of the estate that the owner should bear the name of Jermy."

A year earlier than the riot, so far as I can make out the dates, some land called the Potash Farm came into the market, and it is clear from the Recorder's conduct over this matter that he felt himself to be very much at the mercy of Rush. He must have known Rush to be practically insolvent, he knew that the t.i.tle-deeds were missing, and he probably suspected Rush; yet he sent out Rush as his agent to bid for the Potash Farm, which adjoined Stanfield Park. Rush came back from the auction, having bought the farm, not for his master, but for himself, at a price greater than that to which his master had limited him; and the Recorder actually lent him 5000, repayable in ten years and secured by mortgage, wherewith to complete the purchase. Of course the price may have been considerably more than 5000, and the bargain may have seemed on the face of it as promising as that which the original Preston made with the "poor relation"; but it all sounds as if Rush had a stronger hold of the Recorder than even the possession of the t.i.tle-deeds would give him, or as if the Recorder were a strangely nervous and foolish man.

Eight years pa.s.sed away, one knows not how so far as these persons are concerned, and the end of them found Rush a widower, with several children, occupying the Potash Farm and holding another at Felmingham, fourteen miles off, also from the Recorder, now Mr. Isaac Jermy, by due form of law. At the end of those eight years Rush advertised for a governess, engaged one Emily Sandford, who replied to the advertis.e.m.e.nt, and betrayed her; but she continued to live with him. Then came November of 1848, on the last day of which the 5000 was payable, and the Recorder, often entreated, would not give Rush time. It does not appear that the Chancery suit had failed utterly and hopelessly, but it is clear from the sequel that the original Jermys had fallen very low in the world, and the Recorder, recognizing that they were no longer dangerous, may have found courage. If so, it cost him his life. The day of fate and blood was the 28th of November. On the evening of that day Mr. Jermy, according to his usual custom, one no doubt familiar to Rush, went to the hall door at half-past eight to look at the prospects of the weather; and the night was fine for the time of year, for five persons, servant girls and their sweethearts, were, as the evidence at the trial showed, gossiping by the gate beyond the moat, only thirty-five yards from the hall door. No sooner did Mr. Jermy come out than Rush, who was disguised, shot him dead with a pistol, the muzzle of which must almost have touched his body. "The fourth, fifth, and sixth ribs were shattered, the entire body of the heart was carried away." The loiterers on the bridge ran away in terror. Mr. Jermy the younger, rus.h.i.+ng from the drawing-room to see what was the matter, was met, and shot dead on the spot, by Rush in the corridor. Mrs. Jermy the younger, hurrying into the hall, saw her husband's body, ran to call the butler, Watson, and was met by her maid Eliza Chastney. Rush encountered them both in a pa.s.sage, shot Mrs. Jermy in the arm and the maid in the thigh and groin. Mrs. Jermy's daughter and the cook ran out by the back door and took refuge in the coach-house; the coachman jumped into the moat, swam across, and rode to Wymondham for help. As for the butler, he heard the first shot, went into the pa.s.sage, "saw an armed man with a cloak and mask who motioned him to keep off," and--well, he kept off.

Rush was arrested at Potash Farm before three o'clock the next morning; his trial, at which Emily Sandford was a most valuable witness for the Crown and a most deadly one to him, attracted immense attention. Sir Llewelyn says: "The excitement throughout the nation exceeded anything of the kind ever known, and _The Times_ actually sent down a printing press to Norwich to report daily the incidents of the magisterial and coroner's inquiries."

Perhaps it need hardly be said that inquiry has shown the statement about _The Times_ and the printing press to be entirely without foundation: for, since _The Times_ as a whole has always been printed in London, and London has always been its place of publication, nothing could have been gained by sending a printing press to Norwich. It would have been just as wise to send a piano, a plough, or a pump. But it does not follow that Sir Llewelyn Turner is to be distrusted in other matters because he knew nothing of the mechanical technicalities of journalism. What happened, no doubt, was that _The Times_ secured and published a very full report, and good folks, wondering how the miracle was performed, hit upon the idea of a special dispatch of a printing press, and were satisfied because an explanation which they could not understand had been set up. Suggestions quite as impossible are made in these days. A correspondent, who very likely cannot write shorthand, is frequently asked whether he hands his shorthand notes directly to the printers or to the telegraphists, neither of whom would be able to cope with the notes if he were capable of making them. Huge crowds attended the funeral of the victims at Wymondham. Immense excitement also was caused by the trial of Rush at Norwich a.s.sizes, although the issue cannot have been in doubt for a moment after the evidence of Emily Sandford. Indeed, the report of the trial is only interesting now as showing, by comparison with discoveries made later, how little the police had found out, and as bearing, especially with reference to the violence of Rush at the trial, upon the kins.h.i.+p of homicidal crime and madness. The attraction of the case consisted then, and consists now, in its sheer brutality and prodigality of bloodshed and in the long series of cunning plots, to be outlined shortly, by which it was preceded. Within the s.p.a.ce of a very few minutes Rush had murdered two persons and had grievously wounded two others; he had shown himself to be quite an exceptional paragon of villainy, and public curiosity to see so hardened a ruffian was natural.

Nor need it be matter for surprise that the public execution of Rush at Norwich, where the remains of the Norman castle on the Mound in the heart of the city were then the gaol and the place of execution, was attended by a vast concourse of people. If ever there was a good excuse for gloating over a wretch ignominiously done to death it was present in the case of James Rush the wholesale murderer.

In all these thoughts stirred by the sight of Stanfield Hall there is, it may be, little of novelty to students of crimes and criminals, even though many of the details may have been forgotten. But my old friend's monograph has a peculiar interest and value because, although he wrote with the failing memory of one well-stricken in years, it is possible to follow in it an elaborate development of criminal cunning almost, if not quite, without parallel in the history of crime. Also it enables one to see a long string of earlier crimes, probably committed by Rush, which, while they could not have been mentioned at his trial, would have well qualified him for admission to the roll of "unmitigated miscreants," disgracefully distinguished by "pre-eminence in ill-doing," whom Mr. Thomas Seccombe and his a.s.sociates gibbeted in _Twelve Bad Men_ (Fisher Unwin, 1894). His preparations for the crime were of the most elaborate character; his plans for taking the most complete advantage of it when it had been committed, and for so perpetrating it that suspicion might fall upon others, were of an absolutely diabolical ingenuity. Let some of the details of those plans be enumerated. He had provided numerous disguises, some of which were not discovered until long after he had been hanged. He had covered with straw, as if for cattle, his most convenient path to the Hall, and his footsteps could not be traced on the straw. He had made Emily Stanford drive with him towards the Hall, so that she might be seen with him by a turnpike-keeper and the lodge-keeper, on the 10th of October, 1848, and the 21st of November, 1848. He had forged doc.u.ments of both those dates, which were afterwards found under the floor of a cupboard in Potash Farm. The first was an agreement between the Recorder and himself whereby the Recorder gave him three more years for the payment of the 5000; the next was an agreement between the same parties that, if Rush gave up the missing t.i.tle-deeds, the Recorder would burn the mortgage deed of Potash Farm and give Rush a lease of the Felmingham estate. It was further agreed that Rush should do all he could to a.s.sist the Recorder in retaining possession.

There was also a forged lease of Felmingham to Rush. To all these Emily Sandford had signed her name as witness without knowing the contents. To the efficacy of them all the death of the Recorder was indispensable, for of course he would have denounced the forgery at once, and the death of Mr.

Jermy the younger, who knew his father's affairs intimately, would be a decided help. But Rush, although he had no scruples at all about taking life, as he proved very conclusively, had a very considerable regard for the skin of his own neck. The new Jermys were to be ruthlessly exterminated; the old Jermys, or some of them (he did not care how many), were to be hanged, and Rush was to become a rich man. He inveigled some of the old Jermys into the vicinity of Stanfield Hall on the day of the murders; he left on the floor of one of the pa.s.sages in the Hall a warning in printed letters:--

"There are seven of us here, three of us outside and four inside the hall, all armed as you see us here. If any of you servants offer to leave the premises or to folloo (_sic_) you will be shot dead. Therefore all of you keep in the servants' hall, and you nor anybody else will take any arme (_sic_), for we are only come to take possession of the Stanfield Hall property.

"THOMAS JERMY, the Owner."

The very illiteracy of this doc.u.ment may have been designed, for the original Jermys, having come down in the world, had, as Rush well knew, come down with a run to the very bottom. Indeed, one of them, probably this Thomas, swore at the trial that he did not know how to write. If he had been in the dock, instead of in the witness-box, as Rush had planned, his mouth would have been closed and, with the Recorder and his son dead, with the memory of the riot of 1839 fresh in the minds of the jury, things might have been very awkward for Thomas and others of the true Jermy family. They had been seen about the Hall on the day of the murders; the murderer had disguised himself, most likely so that he might be taken for one of the true Jermys; he had not been careful to go unseen, though he had avoided observation in leaving Potash Farm; the rude warning, printed on the cover of a book, was just the kind of missive an illiterate person might be expected to produce; and Thomas Jermy would have stood in quite measurable peril of that last interview with Calcraft which Rush went through with callous effrontery. Of the penmans.h.i.+p of the other forged doc.u.ments it is not possible to speak, but their phraseology is sufficiently clear, and they might have pa.s.sed muster. The question whether they would have done so or not has, however, no bearing on the character of Rush. He had laid his plan with devilish ingenuity; he had made all things ready in such fas.h.i.+on as to satisfy his knowledge of what legal doc.u.ments ought to be. It was a plan as complete, cunning, and merciless as it was possible for man to devise.

Sir Llewelyn Turner had little doubt that, if Rush had escaped scot-free, and the forged doc.u.ments, or either of them, had been effectual, Rush would have murdered Emily Sandford also; and, in the circ.u.mstances, the view can hardly be stigmatized as uncharitable. She would have had Rush at her mercy; she would have been in his way; and Rush had no scruples in dealing with those who were in his way. It was believed locally that he got rid of his mother and forged a codicil in his own favour to her will. That forgery at any rate succeeded, for he obtained 1500 by it; and the circ.u.mstantial story of his stepfather's death, by which the money came to the mother, raises a strong suspicion that Rush murdered his stepfather also. It shall be told in Sir Llewelyn Turner's words:--

"His stepfather was shot in 1844. He had gone to sleep after dinner, which, I believe, was his custom, and from that sleep he was not allowed to wake.

His mother was ill upstairs, and Rush's account was that he (Rush) had gone upstairs, leaving his gun on a table; that, hearing a shot, he went downstairs and found the gun and his stepfather on the floor, the gun having exploded and killed the latter."

Rush himself gave the intelligence to the coroner, and he was the only witness. His story was believed and a verdict of accidental death was returned, but the subsequent career of Rush leaves little doubt that the guilt of this murder also lay upon so much of conscience as he possessed.

Stanfield Hall, then, a very beautiful building still, although full of tragic memories, may justly claim to have been the scene of crimes as brutal, planned by a brain as devilish and ruthless, as ever were committed in England or found in man.

From Wymondham we swung on to Norwich easily, and without difficulty or incident of any kind, and at half-past six or thereabouts pa.s.sed under an archway into the Court of the "Maid's Head"; and the "Maid's Head" is an absolute reason for ending one chapter and beginning another.

CHAPTER V

SPRING. [IN NORWICH] AND TO ELY AND CAMBRIDGE

The entry into Norwich--The "Maid's Head"--Preserved from modernity by Mr. Walter Rye--A car in the yard quite incongruous--Queen Elizabeth's chamber--The Duke of Norfolk--Macaulay's description of his predecessors in the seventeenth century--Their pomp and hospitality--The contrast--Norwich trade, past and present--The Pastons and the "Maid's Head"--A cavalier house--Surprised Freemasons--Meaning of "Maid's Head"--The Cathedral at night--Blocked by houses--Cathedral society--Trollope--A vision of the east end of the cathedral--The cattle market--Local breeds prevail--A wise practice--But Jerseys best for private houses--Cleanliness of the general market--In the cathedral--Start--Make sure of exits--The Earlham Road--The Gurneys of Earlham--Norfolk dialect--The breath of spring--Chaucer and Norfolk--Lynn's idle claim--Kimberley Hall--The Wodehouse crest--Hingham Church--Hingham, Ma.s.sachusetts--Scoulton Mere--Black-headed gulls--Gastronomic advice--A land of heaths--Fast running--Another car overtaken--Dust realized--Watton and Wayland Wood--not "the Babes'"

wood--Brandon--Gunflints and rabbits--Mildenhall--Fordham--Soham--First view of Ely--Glorious but delayed--Better from railway--Later view less satisfying--Beauty of Bishop's Palace--Distressing verger causes retreat from cathedral--Home via Cambridge and Royston--A thorough wetting.

We had crawled through the narrow and crooked streets of Norwich to its central Market Place under the Castle Mound; swinging to the left on entering it. Turning to the left again we were soon in Tombland, a wide and open s.p.a.ce opposite the west end of the cathedral, the meaning of the name of which is uncertain. We had seen the cathedral spire rising against the clear sky, had glanced through two great archways leading to the Cathedral Church itself, had pa.s.sed on our left the "Stranger's House" already mentioned, though the quaint fact that the faces of the figures of Hercules and Samson supporting the arch of its door are adorned with "Imperial"

beardlets was forgotten then. At the end of Tombland we were in Wensum Street, and the "Maid's Head" was the first house on the right. We entered it by an archway some way down the street, and forthwith, in the covered courtyard, there was such a contrast between the old and the new as has never been matched in my experience. The surroundings, thanks to Mr. Walter Rye, who bought the ancient house and saved it from destruction, and thereby won the grat.i.tude of every traveller of taste, were as nearly identical with those of the fifteenth century (when the Pastons used the "Mayde's Hedde" and spoke well of its accommodation) as was possible consistently with some modernisms which are indispensable. The bar parlour on the left, from which an attentive hostess issued to take our commands--one felt she ought to have a chatelaine and a wimple--seemed to be, and was, of almost immemorial age. So did the surroundings generally.

Yet in the centre was the most modern thing in this world, the very incarnation of novelty, a motor-car, and a six-cylinder motor-car at that, and staring us in the face was a notice requesting motorists, in effect, to make no unnecessary noise, but to deposit their pa.s.sengers or pick them up, as the case might be, rapidly as possible and then depart. In such surroundings, surely, no motorist possessed of even decent feeling could stand in need of this request; but, since it was there, it must be a.s.sumed that it came into existence because misconduct had shown it to be needed.

For ourselves, we almost felt inclined to push the car, instead of compelling it to propel itself, onwards through the covered court and into the carriage yard and garage beyond. It was, and it is, a beautiful car--for cars can be beautiful, and half the a.s.sertions that they are ugly are due to the fact that the generation has not been sufficiently educated in relation to cars, has not grown familiar enough with them, to know what the lines of beauty in them are. Still, in the court of the "Maid's Head,"

the car was an anachronism, a jarring note, not in the picture, and the sooner it was moved out of sight the better. So moved it was and the original picture remained. The white cap of a _chef_, having a countenance that might pa.s.s for French beneath it, did not spoil the picture in the least. It was easy, and very likely correct, to imagine that the costume of male cooks and scullions has changed little with the progress of time, and the material reflections called up by that white cap were comforting. The man or woman who will not confess to enjoying a good dinner is usually either a hypocrite or one who, exiled from a real and innocent pleasure of life by a contemptible digestion, a.s.sumes airs of superiority on the ground of an abstinence due to fear and not to asceticism.

Meanwhile the daughters had gone up a very ancient and charming staircase, of real oak, really black, with real age, not through the application of quick lime and water, and had been shown into "Queen Elizabeth's Chamber"; but a message that I must visit them there met me in the Jacobean bar parlour, and the visit was more than worth paying. It was a s.p.a.cious room, if its floor area alone was considered; but of course the ceiling was very low, and the dark beams supporting it were still lower. It would have suited Hannah More, who loved ceilings you could touch as you stood, but it lacked the bishops she required as an accompaniment. At least it lacked them then. One great bed was of carved oak, relieved with gilding; another made no impression on my memory. But the long and low windows, the s.h.i.+ning planks of the ancient floor, which boasted its own hills and valleys, slopes and hollows, and the cleanliness and brightness of everything made a very vivid and pleasant impression. Queen Elizabeth may not have slept in that chamber or in the "Maid's Head" at all when she visited Norwich in 1578 and weird pageants were displayed in her honour; I can find no evidence that she did, which is not to say that there is none; but the "Maid's Head" was an old inn even then, and it is reasonably certain that the chamber called after Queen Elizabeth was there also. It is an ideal room for those who hanker after the old world, but do not yearn for that dirt which, the more we think of it, seems to have been an all-pervading characteristic of the lives of our forefathers. The "Maid's Head" is spotlessly clean.

I prepared to saunter forth into the city for half an hour before dinner; but at the foot of the stairs was a person, almost, perhaps, quite a personage, whose presence was a happy coincidence. It has been noted earlier that on a first visit to the "Royal," the ancient "Whig House" of Norwich, Lord Kimberley was found to be a guest; and, by all that was wonderful, here, at the foot of the stairs of the "Maid's Head," was none other than the Duke of Norfolk with the d.u.c.h.ess, and both were about to become guests of the ancient hotel. Heavens! what a contrast was this to the scene which would have been presented on a similar visit some two centuries ago! In that wonderful chapter on the State of England in 1685, Macaulay has a pa.s.sage which must needs be quoted, although it has been cited very often before, and although it has the incidental disadvantage, which I feel rather acutely, of showing the grand style side by side with mine:--

"Norwich was the capital of a large and fruitful province. It was the residence of a Bishop and of a Chapter. It was the chief seat of the chief manufacture of the realm" (clothing, of course). "Some men distinguished by learning and science had recently dwelt there; and no place in the kingdom, except the capital and the Universities, had more attractions for the curious. The library, the museum, the aviary, and the botanical garden of Sir Thomas Browne, were thought by Fellows of the Royal Society well worthy of a long pilgrimage. Norwich had also a court in miniature. In the heart of the city stood an old palace of the Dukes of Norfolk, said to be the largest town house in the kingdom out of London. In this mansion, to which were annexed a tennis court, a bowling-green and a wilderness, stretching along the banks of the Wensum, the n.o.ble family of Howard frequently resided, and kept a state resembling that of petty sovereigns. Drink was served to guests in goblets of pure gold. The very tongs and shovels were of silver. Pictures by Italian masters adorned the walls. The cabinets were filled with a fine collection of gems purchased by that Earl of Arundel whose marbles are now among the ornaments of Oxford. Here, in the year 1671, Charles and his court were sumptuously entertained. Here, too, all comers were annually welcomed, from Christmas to Twelfth Night. Ale flowed in oceans for the populace. Three coaches, one of which had been built at a cost of five hundred pounds to contain fourteen persons, were sent every afternoon to bring ladies to the festivities; and the dances were always followed by a luxurious banquet. When the Duke of Norfolk came to Norwich he was greeted like a king returning to his capital. The bells of the Cathedral and of St. Peter Mancroft were rung; the guns of the Castle were fired; and the Mayor and Aldermen waited on their ill.u.s.trious fellow citizen with complimentary addresses. In the year 1693 the population of Norwich was found, by actual enumeration, to be between twenty-eight and twenty-nine thousand souls."

What a contrast! On the 9th of March, 1906, the Duke of Norfolk entered a city of between one hundred and twelve and one hundred and thirteen thousand souls; the bells of the cathedral and St. Peter's Mancroft were not rung. (The latter, by the way, is the crowning ecclesiastical glory of Norwich apart from the cathedral, and not to be confounded with St. Peter's Permountergate, often quoted because its records are curious.) No guns were fired. No mayor and aldermen waited upon the Duke in his palace, because there was no palace any more. All that happened was that a quiet, bearded English gentleman walked, limping slightly (the reward of service to his country in South Africa), with a lady into the courtyard of the Maid's Head Hotel and, after a parley with the hostess, vanished up the stairs and was no more seen. It was mere luck that I saw him, and that I happened to be able to recognize, in this unostentatious figure, the Premier Duke and Earl, the Hereditary Earl Marshal and Chief Butler of England. He was received with precisely the same courtesy of attention that had been shown to us, but without servility, received in fact as he desired, and in a manner which really did credit to him, for it was what he wished, and to the quiet dignity of the old hostelry; and the city of Norwich at large knew not who was within its gates. No more was left of the pomp and dignity of the seventeenth-century palace and reception than of the clothing trade.

The Duke of Norfolk had become, in the interval, an Englishman first and a great power in Suss.e.x next, and the clothing trade had vanished. The city of 112,000 souls odd subsisted, as I had been told, on the proceeds of boots and mustard, the latter industry founded by one of whom a correspondent of the _Norfolk and Norwich Notes and Queries_ wrote: "The original Colman [the name means "free man"] was a jolly old fellow who used to give me sixpence and direct me to the house for refreshment"; it subsisted also, as I learned for myself next morning, and I venture to say it prospered also, as one of the largest agricultural and pastoral centres it has ever been my good fortune to witness. Times were indeed changed; but he would be a rash man who should say that they were changed for the worse in all respects.

Dinner in the coffee-room at the "Maid's Head" was pleasant by virtue of its surroundings, for the room has an air of antiquity, and its deep fireplace charmed the eye, because the cookery was distinctly good, and the attendance was quiet and prompt as that in a well-ordered private house.

The final bill next morning too, to introduce a most important consideration at the earliest possible moment, was quite moderate--for England. Dinner was the time also for gentle allusion to some of the famous a.s.sociations of the inn. The Pastons had used and commended it. That their words of praise should be blazoned on the outer door seemed right and proper; but it was a pity to have placed near them the raptures of modern and not very prominent newspapers. Sitting in this same inn on the morning of his last fight with Kett and his rebels, Warwick had breakfasted, and had then led his men, who were camped on the market-place, to victory.

Here, in the time of the rebellion, the Royalists resorted, says Mr. Rye, and it is certain that Dame Paston's horses were seized here; but it is to be feared that mine host of the time had but a scantily-filled till, for Royalists were scarce in the eastern counties. Freemasons held their lodges in the "Maid's Head" so early as 1724, and it is stated that on one occasion a Mrs. Beatson hid behind the wainscot of the lodge-room and heard all the mysteries. Whether such there be, myself innocent of masonry but closely attached to friends who would certainly have advised me to take steps to enter the brotherhood if it were likely to be to my advantage, I have often doubted and still doubt.

My pleasure was decidedly enhanced by the fact that I knew these things in advance, and perhaps a little increased by being able to mention them. It was a pride to be able to say that the house was built on the site of an ancient palace of the bishops of Norwich; that it stood on Gothic arches; that the a.s.sembly room had a minstrel's gallery; that a carving in the smoking-room represented a fish, possibly a ray, and that, if so, it probably accounted for the t.i.tle of the house; for the house was once undoubtedly called either the "Myrtle Fish" or the "Molde Fish"--readings vary--and, if either of them be a ray, a difficulty vanishes, for the sea-fishermen of Norfolk call, or called, the ray "old maid." Certainly the house did not take its new t.i.tle on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth's visit, for it was the "Mayde's Hedde" in 1472, and it is mentioned in a curious pet.i.tion to Wolsey, unearthed by Mr. Rye. Bless him again for having bought and saved the inn!

After dinner, and the necessary interval for rest and burnt sacrifice, two facts became manifest. It was a glorious moonlight night, mild for the time of year, and through all the long day we had hardly walked so many yards as we had traversed miles. So we started forth, and soon came to the firm conclusion that the "pale moonlight" is every whit as conducive to a soul-satisfying view of Norwich Cathedral as of "fair Melrose." Our first view of the west end, after pa.s.sing under the great archway giving on Tombland, pleased not a little; but we had read something of the glories of the cathedral, of the apse and the apsidal chapels, of Jesus and St. Luke, ab.u.t.ting on the apse at either side of the east end, and the desire to see them was strong. It was not, however, very easily satisfied; for Norwich Cathedral, like far too many of the stateliest and best-proportioned edifices in our congested islands, is so hedged around with houses that it is difficult to look upon it as a whole from a sufficient distance. They are interesting houses in their way, venerable some of them, suggestive of peaceful lives spent in scholarly research; but they exasperate by impeding the view, and exasperations provoke memories of Trollope's studies of cathedral society, studies suggesting that its tone is not invariably peaceful nor high-minded; that petty jealousies and scandal can invade the most outwardly tranquil precincts and closes. Nay, more, we all know--there is no direct reference here to Norwich, and I cannot remember to have met or to have heard any evil of any inhabitant, male or female, of its ecclesiastical dwellings--that of some cathedral society Trollope's studies are still essentially true. On this occasion it is the plain and unvarnished truth that the houses blocked the view, and this not too kindly thought came to mind. The chances are that it would not have thrust itself forward if the houses had not done likewise; and that, in point of narrowness of view or breadth of it, nothing distinguishes dwellers in deaneries and canons' houses, huddled round the walls of a cathedral, from those in others which, having been placed at a respectful distance, allow the outline of the majestic structure to be seen in its pure beauty. At Norwich, too, there is more excuse for the huddling than in many a cathedral city, for s.p.a.ce was valuable in Norwich from very early times.

Citizens who taxed themselves, as those of Norwich did, to protect their city by walls, were not likely to encourage open s.p.a.ces, "lungs," as it is the fas.h.i.+on to call them now, within the walled s.p.a.ce, and the crowding of the precincts of the cathedral by buildings mean and insignificant compared to it--the reference is to inhabited houses only--is explained by the same cause as the narrow streets of the city itself, streets wherein the tramcars render life full of peril.

By fetching a compa.s.s, however, to the south, and without asking directions of any man, we contrived to penetrate to a narrow walk beyond the east end of the cathedral and past the cloisters, where, after finding a point of view giving the eye shelter from the glare of incandescent lamps, we looked upon a spectacle of indescribable beauty. At the bottom were the swelling curves of the apse and the chapels, above them, in orderly succession, the sloping roof and the wondrously graceful and lofty spire, outlined--for the moon was behind it--with strange clearness and yet softened in the most mysterious fas.h.i.+on, for in the borrowed light of the moon is no suspicion of glare to dazzle the eyes. How long we gazed, spellbound and silent, cannot be said; time pa.s.sed out of our thoughts; but as we looked, I remember, a gossamer wreath of detached cloud, lying all alone and at quite a low elevation, drifted slowly across the face of the heaven and behind the steeple that pointed towards it. That was all. To describe the scene is utterly beyond my power, and, probably, to convey a complete impression of it is not within the compa.s.s of human words; for they must proceed step by step, idea by idea; but the vision was seen long, yet the first upward glance revealed the whole of it, and the last lingering look showed as much, and no more. It reduced us to silence then, to that silence which is always the unconscious tribute to unspeakable beauty. Even now no more can be said than that the memory of the vision remains, clear and pure, as of the most perfect combination of man's work and Nature's background it has ever been my privilege to behold in any part of the world.

"What meaneth this bleating of the sheep in mine ears and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?" Such was the familiar question that occurred to me when, early the next morning, I woke to find the light streaming in at my window in the "Maid's Head." Then I remembered that this was Sat.u.r.day morning, and probably market-day, and I went forth quickly, and, unlike Samuel of old, gladly, for of all beasts which minister to men's needs the patient kine are to me the most interesting (except dogs); and, besides that, if one desires to know something of people, as well as of places, there are few more profitable fields for easy-going study than a large market. For there the inhabitants of the country-side are a.s.sembled from far and near, with the products of their farms, and one may study both man and beast at leisure. It was fully quarter to eight before I left the "Maid's Head," and five minutes more had pa.s.sed before I was in the heart of the market. Already droves of cattle were being driven away--to the station probably--but hundreds, yes literally hundreds and hundreds, remained behind, and among them circulated drovers, dealers, and butchers, feeling their backs and loins with intelligent hands, and less rough in their usage of the beasts, it was a pleasure to see, than is usual in some other counties. Sheep there were also, and pigs doubtless, perhaps in another market. It seemed to me, not by any means innocent of cattle markets, that by some unforeseen piece of luck I must have happened on the occasion of a customary fair. Inquiry proved that this was not so; that, as a matter of fact, this was but such a gathering of cattle as is customary at the season of the year, and that I had not reached the scene until the bulk of the business had been transacted. It was clear at once that boots and mustard--in the former I gathered that cut-throat compet.i.tion had reduced profits to a _minimum_ and almost to a _minus_ quant.i.ty--were not by any means the only industries by which Norwich stood. It was, and is, an immense cattle market; and the stock, the general average of quality in which was distinctly high, was worth a tremendous lot of money. Yet, as I saw it first, it was a market which had more than begun to dwindle away, a colossal and altogether gratifying sight notwithstanding.

It was pleasing to observe that, although here and there a black beast or a mongrel might be seen, and a considerable number of Shorthorns, the Norfolk farmers as a body cling to the old East Anglian breed of Red Polls. They could not do better. The Red Polls mature early, make a lot of beef, and are hardy; the cows of the breed are admirable milkers, and celebrated for remaining long in profit; and the absence of horns is a distinct gain when it comes to a matter of transport by train. Far be it from me to compare the merits of breeds of cattle apart from environment, for that is often rather a foolish thing to do. Environment matters a great deal and, n.o.bly as Shorthorns thrive in many parts of the country, and at Sandringham in Norfolk particularly, there remains in me a strong conviction that the local breeds, Red Polls in East Anglia, Herefords in the Marches and Borderland of Wales, Devons in the county from which they take their name, Castle Martins in South Wales, and Welsh black cattle in North Wales, thrive best in their appointed districts under the conditions to which the normal farmer is more or less bound to expose them. They fill in the picture better, too, than do cattle of a "foreign" stamp. Your white-faced Hereford seems out of place in Berks.h.i.+re, a Kerry looks like a toy in Hertfords.h.i.+re; only for the gentle Jersey cattle--Mr. Cobbold has a herd of them at Felixstowe, but that is a story to come later--would I make an exception. They, however, are not farmers' cattle, for they are worth little to kill, and their rich milk, sold at ordinary prices, as it must be, is too small in quant.i.ty to be profitable. They are for private owners and b.u.t.ter-makers only, and, as such, they cannot be surpa.s.sed.

Let this headstrong hobby be curbed; but let it be added that these burly, fair-complexioned farmers of Norfolk, whose very faces, seen in considerable numbers, convinced one more than much reading of the presence of abundant Danish blood in the county, looked and acted as if they understood their business thoroughly. If they go on breeding gentle Red Polls--the Red Polls are really quiet of disposition, perhaps because inherited instinct tells them it is poor sport to fight without horns--it is because the process pays. Let me add, in opposition to a statement seen elsewhere, that I saw nothing of that brutal treatment of the animals which is far too usual an accompaniment of the cattle trade. So to the general market near the Guildhall, a grateful sight because more flowers were for sale on the stalls than is usual in provincial markets, and the wares, particularly the b.u.t.ter and the fowls, the latter neatly trussed and wrapped in coa.r.s.e muslin of spotless cleanliness, were so nicely exposed for sale. Leland observed that "Northfolk" were said to be "ful of wyles"; a barber, from Hants, told me that morning, when I said I found the people very intelligent, that he thought they knew far too much. My own view is that of the "wyles" which consist in cleanly neatness in exposing food for sale it is not possible to find too much, and not often easy to find enough, in this England of ours.

Of the Guildhall, really a very interesting example, dating from the beginning of the fifteenth century, of ingenious work in flint, and its contents, some mention has been made before, and of the interior of the cathedral also. But we entered the cathedral once more, walking on tiptoes in the grand and empty nave, and certainly not disturbing the wors.h.i.+ppers in the chancel, for service was going on. The organ, as on a former visit, was remarkably impressive, and, as quite a minor detail, I noted part of an almost illegible inscription to one Ingloit on the south pillar of the chancel arch. "In descant most, in voluntary all, he past." What was, or is, "descant"? None of us knew. The necessary if rather humiliating process of reference to a dictionary, which it is more honest to confess than it would be to profess to have understood the legend at first sight, showed that descant was the first stage in the development of counterpoint. So, mounting once more to the Norman tower on the Castle Mound, to look at the entrance to the Museum, but not entering, for time pressed and our enterprise lay in the open air, we repaired to the "Maid's Head,"

discharged the reckoning, and were off again to the westward, on a windless and rainless day; but that wisp of cloud no bigger than a man's hand, which we had seen behind the cathedral spire against the pure blue overnight, had been the precursor of a grey veil of cloud which overspread the whole face of the sky.

Always to make sure of your exits is one of the golden rules of successful motoring. Entrances do not matter so much. If, having followed unknown roads over strange country for many miles, you eventually strike the town of your desires, that is enough for all practical purposes. You are sure to be as near your actual destination as makes no difference to a motor-car worthy of mention in almost any town or city in England except London. But a wrong exit is fatal. Our instructions from John Ostler of the "Maid's Head," who took to a motor kindly as if he had never seen curry-comb or dandy-brush, were elaborate; but the leading feature of them was that, when we reached the market-place near the Guildhall, we should ask for what, on its spelling, we called "Earlham Road." "Ask for the 'Arlam' Road," said John Ostler; and forthwith sprang into memory the fact that at Norwich we were in the heart of that part of East Anglia in which the Gurneys and their kin were never weary of well-doing and, as is the custom of Quakers, throve amazingly in their business. Of them, of their good deeds, of their family life, a full account may be found in one of the very best books of what, for lack of a better description, may be called earnest family gossip. Need it be added that the book is _The Gurneys of Earlham_, by Augustus J. C. Hare (London: George Allen)? Well, perhaps it is necessary to give the information, for the two volumes contain little or nothing which is sensational, they saw the light of day in 1895, and all but the very best of books, to say nothing of a good many of them also, pa.s.s out of the mind of a hurrying generation in less than that time, and in much less.

Of the Gurneys, of their manifold relatives and connections, of their abundant and honourable commerce, of their share in the making of Norwich, of their sober and intimate family life, it would be a sheer delight to write at length; but this is hardly the place in which to attempt again that which has been done remarkably well already. Suffice it therefore to commend the book, and to quote an unrivalled description of it by a masterly hand. That it happens to be found in the first three pages of the first volume is mere coincidence. Those who are so disposed may, if it pleases them, imagine that they are quoted simply because they come first, and refuse to believe that the volumes are among the familiar acquaintance of one who finds a wholesome and hearty appreciation of the joys of the open air to be entirely consistent with a rational pleasure in books.

"After leaving the hollow where the beautiful crochetted spire of Norwich Cathedral and the square ma.s.ses of its castle rise above the dingy red roofs and blue smoke of the town, the road to Lynn ascends what, generally called an incline, is in Norfolk a long hill. After pa.s.sing its brow, at about three miles from the city, the horizon is fringed by woods--grey in winter, radiant with many tints in summer--which belong to Earlham. This delightful old place has for centuries been the property of the Bacon family, and they have never consented to sell it; but since 1786 it has been rented by the Gurneys, a period of a hundred and nine years--perhaps one of the oldest tenancies known for a mansion of the size, though very frequent in the case of farmhouses. Thus, to the Gurney family, it has become the beloved home of five generations; to them its old chambers are filled with the very odour of holiness; its ancient gardens and green glades and sparkling river bring thoughts of domestic peace and happiness, which cannot be given in words; its very name is a refrain of family unity and love.

"The little park of Earlham is scarcely more than a paddock, with its fine groups of trees and remains of avenues, in one of which a Bacon of old time is still supposed to wander, with the hatchet in his hand which he was using on the day of his death. Where the trees thicken beyond the green slopes, above an oval drive familiarly called 'The World,' stands the house, white-washed towards the road by the colour-hating Quaker, second wife of Joseph John Gurney, but infinitely beautiful towards the garden in the pink hues of its brick with grey stone ornaments, and the ma.s.ses of vine and rose which festoon its two large projecting windows and white central porch. Hence the wide lawn, to which the place owes its chief dignity, spreads away on either side to belts of pine trees, fringed by terraces, where ma.s.ses of snowdrops and aconites gleam amongst the mossy gra.s.s in early spring. The west side of the house is perhaps the oldest part, and bears a date of James First's time on its two narrow gables.

Hence the river is seen gleaming and glancing in the hollows, where it is crossed by the single arch of a bridge. From the low hall, with its old-fas.h.i.+oned furniture and pictures, a very short staircase leads to an ante-room opening on the drawing-room, where Richmond's striking full-length portrait of Mrs. Fry, now occupies a prominent place among the likenesses of her brothers and sisters. Another sitting-room leads to what was the sitting-room of the seven Gurney sisters of the beginning of the nineteenth century, with an old Bacon portrait let into the panelling over the fireplace. The dining-room is downstairs, and was the latest addition to the house, a handsome, long and lofty room, built by Mr. Edward Bacon, long M.P. for Norwich, that he might entertain his const.i.tuents. Close by is the humble little study occupied by the father of the numerous Gurney family of three generations ago. But the pleasantest room at Earlham is 'Mrs. Catherine's Chamber,' always occupied by the eldest daughter, mother and sister in one, and in which in her old age, with her beautiful intonation and delicate sense of fitting emphasis, she would a.s.semble the young Norwich clergy to teach them how the Scriptures should be read in church."

Surely Mr. Hare, who wrote many a vivid description, was often entertaining, and sometimes a little spiteful, never penned a pa.s.sage better calculated than this to bring home the characters of a home and of the dwellers in it. The single trace of the old Adam, or the old Augustus, is the gently sarcastic ant.i.thesis of Richmond's "portrait" and the "likenesses." Earlham's peace and goodwill bewitched Augustus Hare, and those who had been entertained by his bitterness, no less than those who have writhed under it, will recognize the strength of Earlham's tranquil witchery. Somewhere I have read of late that the Gurneys are of Earlham no more. That is sad indeed.

"Ask for the Arlham Road when you are near the Guildhall," was what John Ostler said, and we, full of map and guide-book pride, translated it into Earlham; but we were reduced to Arlham at last. Even in England it is wise to adopt local p.r.o.nunciations of place-names when you know them, unless you have plenty of leisure; and it is easy to do so. (In Wales it is equally wise, indeed wiser, for collocations of apparently English characters have totally distinct values in Welsh words, but English lips have, I am given to understand, some difficulty in expressing those values.) Apart from place-names it seemed to me, talking often and freely with the natives, that the spread of education has banished not a little of the Norfolk dialect, and that the country folk of Norfolk p.r.o.nounce in a more clean-cut fas.h.i.+on, use more ordinary English words, and are easier to understand, than their contemporaries in Berks, Suss.e.x, Devon, Cornwall, or, infinitely most difficult of all, Durham. Among sundry quaint books lent to me by way of preparation for this are several containing terrific examples of Norfolk dialect, which it would be a real pleasure to transcribe, but it must be confessed frankly that, at the moment of writing, I have no more excuse in experience for copying them out than for introducing a sentence or two of Welsh, Gaelic, or Erse. Yet I am, in the matter of tours to be described, many hundreds of miles ahead of the point which my lagging pen has reached. Suffice it to say that the Norfolk dialect may survive, that I have heard it from the lips of cultivated folk of Norfolk, whose normal talk is the same as that of any educated English folk, but that it has not come my way as an every day phenomenon. Is that matter for regret? Sentimentally, perhaps, it is; but practically it is a decided convenience and, combined with the exceptional intelligence of the East Anglian people, it seems to argue that the schoolmaster has been abroad among them to good purpose. Dialects may be picturesque; the words in them may have philological interest, especially when they are good and old words like "largesse" (much used in East Anglia, but by no means peculiar to it), but persistence in sheer misp.r.o.nunciation, which is the main ingredient of most dialects, is really a sign of ignorance or of affectation, and neither is to be encouraged. For example, I can talk, and can approach fairly near to writing, English "as she is spoke" by the more ignorant Welsh, without any difficulty; and that is as much a dialect, really, as that of Devon or of Yorks.h.i.+re; but it would be a very foolish and inconvenient thing to do.

Nothing could have been more delightful, for the time of year, than the travelling, for the air was not too cold, hedges had the unmistakable air of verdure on the point of coming, tree-twigs seemed to have thickened as the buds upon them swelled, spring was in the air, and the steaming horses we pa.s.sed now and again in adjacent fields, straining at plough or harrow, added to the pleasing effect of a landscape undulating a little, but rich in tall trees. Looking on them from time to time I remembered the lines in the Freer's Tale--

The Carter smote and cried as he were wode Heit Scot! Heit Brock.

This may sound like affectation, but it is nothing of the kind. Although most travellers in spring are apt to quote, more or less correctly, the first few lines of the _Canterbury Tales_, because they are familiar and because, for simplicity, sweetness, and truth, they are not to be surpa.s.sed in the English language, one does not, at least the ordinary man does not, go about the country with all Chaucer on the tip of his tongue; and that, on the whole, is a blessing. On this occasion, however, there was an express reason for having these lines in mind--there were even two reasons--and for looking for a farm horse as an excuse for letting them fly. The first reason was that East Anglian antiquaries have long cherished the tradition that Chaucer was born in Norfolk. There is even a jingling rhyme--

Lynn had the honour to present the world With Geoffrey Chaucer and the curled Pate Ala.n.u.s de Lenna.