Through East Anglia in a Motor Car Part 6

To round off the picture of this ideal home by the sea, be it added that Mr. Cobbold farms, and that his dairy cattle are of the gentle Channel Islands breeds, some Jerseys, all of ascertained pedigree, to which a little Guernsey blood has been added. At Norwich, seeing the Red Polls in great numbers, I ventured an expression of opinion that, on the whole, the native breed of a district is usually "most in the picture" and most profitable in that district, and the opinion remains unshaken, so far as wayside pastures and the ordinary stock on farms are concerned. But for the home farm no cattle are so pleasing to the eye, none are so gentle in their manners, and none give such eminently satisfactory milk as the Channel Islands cattle; and Mr. Cobbold's herd is most decidedly a thing in place.

In answer to a leading question, based on personal experience, he writes: "One of the bulls (imported) was a Guernsey one; and his progeny are in some instances still to be distinguished by their whitish noses and lighter-coloured s.h.i.+ns. This, of course, would make the cows larger; but apart from this, I have noticed a decided tendency in all the pure bred Jerseys to grow larger on our pastures and subject to the conditions they find here." As a matter of fact the same tendency is visible on pastures less favoured than those of Felixstowe.

It may be said that this is not motoring; but it was a glorious episode on a motor tour, and those who pa.s.s these modest oak palings on the way to Bawdsey, as we did next day, may like to know how complete is the paradise that is close to them. Still we did go a-motoring that afternoon, on the principle, perhaps, that although true hospitality may have no limits, nature has supplied one, a fairly high one it is true, to the absorbent capacities of the sponge. Our expedition of the afternoon, by this time soft and rainless, was merely half a Sabbath day's journey, from the point of view of the motorist, for there is no revolutionary pursuit of our age to which the Greek author's saying concerning the mutability of the meaning of words is more applicable than it is to motoring. The saying, by the way, is that in revolutionary times the signification of words as applied to things is always changed. A Sabbath day's journey, for example, was to the Hebrew of old seven miles. In the course of that afternoon, merely _pour pa.s.ser le temps_, without overstraining ourselves or the car, we travelled at least eighty miles, starting well after three o'clock, taking our afternoon tea at a supremely interesting spot, and returning to the pleasing shelter of the hotel more or less in time for a rather late dinner.

Our policy, after the first few miles, which were to take us through nature's wild garden of Suffolk, was a policy of drifting, determined by circ.u.mstances. There is a Greek word [Greek: autarkeia], which exactly describes one of the chief fascinations of the motor-car for those who have the strength of mind--for it is really strength and not weakness--to allow happy chance to determine their course in some measure. It means "sufficiency in oneself," or "independence," and I am emboldened to refer to it because it is much beloved by Plato, and because Plato, I am given to understand, is quite a popular author among the ladies of our day. Here let a suggestion be offered to the learned gentleman who delivers lectures to note-taking ladies on Plato in the sympathetic atmosphere of one of our huge modern hotels. There is nothing like a concrete example for bringing home to the modern mind the truth of these expressions used by the wise men of the old world, and two ill.u.s.trations of [Greek: autarkeia] are offered freely. "Good horse between my knees" was the very embodiment of the feeling of independence before motor-cars were in the land. Subject to sundry risks, not numerous or probable enough to stop a man of courage from setting forth, the mounted man can go pretty much whither his fancy leads him and change his mind as often as he pleases, within certain obvious limits. The motorist is even more happily situated. For the horseman the risks and the limits remain practically unchanged throughout the ages; for the motorist the risks, save those of tire trouble, are always being reduced and the limits are always being extended. There is now practically no limit, save that of his personal choice and his physical endurance, to the distance he may go, and he need never be troubled, as the horseman must be from time to time, by doubts whether his pleasure may not be causing pain to the organism which carries him willingly from place to place. It is of course just conceivable that the metals may feel, but it is not in the least likely that they do. Everybody has heard of mysterious movements inside apparently solid steel--did not Mr. Ruskin speak beautifully of the "anarchy of steel"?--and it is a frequent experience that an engine will seem to grow tired and to require to be driven with consideration for a while, for no apparent reason. But at any rate, even the wildest fancy can hardly picture steel in pain in the same sense as the overdriven horse or the patient ricksha coolie whose short cough is a reminder that the race is short-lived. No, in motoring, so far as the use of the machine is concerned, there can be no inhumanity.

It was in this spirit that we set forth on that soft afternoon, with a half-formed intention of taking tea with friends near Saxmundham and of going no farther on our outward journey. As it happened we went a great deal farther, taking a predetermined course at first along roads clearly marked on every map, and then, having found a new objective, and having ascertained the direction in which it lay, we made for it by such roads as seemed, on the face of them, and without any regard to their quality or surface, most likely to lead towards it. It took a little longer perhaps, but it was interesting; it gave some exercise to the topographical intelligence, and it led us out of the beaten track. The first part of the route was simplicity itself. We simply retraced our tracks from Felixstowe to Trimley of the twin churches along the Ipswich road, and a mile or two beyond. Then we turned at an obtuse angle to the right and found ourselves in what has been called the wild garden of Suffolk, not in any cla.s.sical work perhaps, but by word of mouth. A wide stretch it was of gorse and heather, with trees here and there, singly and in groups, the greater part of it some eighty or ninety feet above the level of the adjoining North Sea and, roughly speaking, forty feet above that of the plain, ten miles in width or thereabouts, following the coast northwards for ever so many miles from the left bank of the demure and rather dull river Deben. The "garden"

was hardly at its best for, whether kissing was out of fas.h.i.+on or not, the gorse was very certainly and completely out of blossom; and of course there was no glory of bracken; but no strong effort of imagination was called for, no very intimate knowledge of wild nature, to perceive that, later in the year, this must be a divinely attractive run. As it was, the memory left is of clear air and wide prospect, of russets and sombre greens, of two villages--their names turn out to be Brightwell and Martlesham--of no particular note, and of a nameless brook, a tributary of the Deben, forded near the former. The surface of the roads, perhaps, left something to be desired by the fastidious, but that is a matter to which experience and intelligent curiosity lead one to pay less and ever less attention. Through such a country, growing a little more disciplined as our route, nearly due north, took us away from the sea and on to higher ground, we pa.s.sed to Woodbridge, whereof enough has been said before, and through Wickham Market to our old acquaintance Saxmundham, the original objective of this easy-going drive. But, as it happened, my charioteer's friends at whose house we called had also been tempted abroad that afternoon, and it appeared to be considered probable that they had gone to Dunwich. In came [Greek: autarkeia], independence, and the happy thought, Why not go to Dunwich too? A hasty glance at a map showed that if we pushed on along the high road not quite so far as Yoxford, and then began to think of turning eastward, we must in due course find a road leading us to Dunwich. This was really hardly a case of "taking chances," as our American friends have it, for on that desolate coast the dreary remains of Dunwich are the only point between Southwold and Aldeburgh at which roads converge. Towards Yoxford was some three or four miles through eminently English scenery, undulations of land, which the auctioneer's catalogue would describe not ineptly as "park-like," showing a remarkable succession of well-grown oaks. So "park-like," indeed, was it that, no doubt, much of it was the real thing.

As it turned out a general sense of direction suggested the wisdom of bearing to the right, not much more than half-way to Yoxford, and the suggestion was obeyed. It led us by roads no better than farm tracks, and probably never intended to be any better, through Middleton and Westleton, neither of them a village of any note, to a winding road adorned by a sign-post with the legend, "To Dunwich and the Sea." The latter piece of information was not necessary to anybody who had learned to note, by the evidence of the trees, the effects of salt-bearing winds. Wheresoever near any of our coasts you see single trees all sloping in one direction, or coverts almost penthouse-shaped, rising gradually from a puny height of a few feet on one side, to a wall of respectable elevation on the other, there you may be sure that you are quite near to the sea, and that the salt-bearing winds have beaten first on the low side of the covert. So the sign-post was hardly needed on this narrow road of many rectangles, at one of which my charioteer's friends were happily met. A few more turns, a sharp descent under the almost overhanging walls of a long deserted priory, and we were in Dunwich.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DUNWICH AND DESOLATION]

This same Dunwich is without exception the most depressing scene on which the eye could rest. Down the hill we swept into a bleak hamlet of some twenty houses and to an inn, where tea was ordered. What time the ladies thawed themselves over a new-lit fire it seemed good to the men to restore circulation, and perhaps stimulate the mind a little, by a tour of inspection, and to ask for guidance beforehand. It was given in grim language. "If you want only to see the ruins you can go by the road; if you want to see the bones you must follow the cliff." So desiring to see everything as quickly as might be, we took the path to the cliff, through a sandy cutting, and soon were close to the evidence of a recent fall into the sea of land, rising perhaps a hundred feet above high-water mark, of which the most reckless speculator would hardly buy the fee simple for any tangible sum. It has been falling--sometimes in large pieces, sometimes in small--since the reign of Edward III; it is falling still, and it will continue to fall. It is of the kind of substance that has no more cohesion, or very little more, than a child's castle of sand, which, having been a broad-based cone in the beginning, has been cut till it opposes a sheer and perpendicular and crumbling obstacle to the advancing tides. Waves and rains--the latter far more destructive than is commonly imagined--are destroying this part of England, even while others are being added to, with remarkable celerity, nor is it easy to see how any protecting works could, even if the enterprise were worth undertaking, be constructed with any reasonable hope of success. The last fall--of part of the churchyard of the derelict All Saint's--was clearly quite recent. The bones, mixed with crumbling debris of the rotten cliff, were being washed by muddy wavelets a hundred feet below the perilous verge of the cliff, a grisly and a saddening sight. The church itself--its west end still standing--hung on the edge of the cliff; it cannot last long. "Murray" writes in 1875: "It might have served till the present day, but was abandoned in the middle of the last century that the townsfolk might sell the bells and lead." He would be a bold man who should say now that the townsfolk were not justly prudent, for it is as plain as a pikestaff that All Saint's is liable at any moment, hurtling down into the insatiable sea, to join St. Peter's and the other five churches, once the glory of Dunwich; it has already sent down half its burial ground, and the rest, although burials continued after the church was abandoned, is sure to follow soon. Opposite my seat of a Sunday in Winchester Cathedral when I was a boy, was a sepulchral chest on top of a screen bearing the legend "In hac et altera e regione cista reliquiae sunt ossium," and then a handful of kings beginning with Canute were mentioned. It used to seem reasonably grim. But this shallow and relentless sea round the last relics of Dunwich, with its bottom strewn by the contents of six churchyards and a half, is to the chest at Winchester as the earthquakes at San Francisco and Valparaiso are to the slipping of an Irish bog. The scene is depressing, unspeakably sad; but it is necessary to visit it in order to realize that Dunwich was once great and to understand its fall, for it is falling still, and it will go on falling; and you cannot help seeing how it all happened.

Hardly anywhere else, perhaps nowhere, is it possible at once to localize and to realize so long and unvarying a story of progressive ruin. Felix, whom we have met before on these wanderings, landed at Dunwich (another legend lands him s.h.i.+pwrecked at Hunstanton) in the seventh century, on his evangelizing mission; doubtless because King Sigeberht of East Anglia prescribed a landing at the princ.i.p.al port of his kingdom. He found there a flouris.h.i.+ng community, a port which, for the seventh century, was large, and, says "Murray," remains of a considerable Roman settlement. (But, for reasons already given and of universal application in East Anglia, I am shy of accepting Roman remains unless they be supported by definite and satisfactory evidence.) At any rate the King built himself a palace, and the saint built a church, the cathedral church of the new diocese of East Anglia; and whether both or either used the Roman ruins no man may tell with certainty, for the sea has devoured palace and cathedral church alike.

Perhaps, after all, it does not much matter now of what material they were constructed, or what its origin was. Fifteen successive bishops, at any rate, ruled East Anglia ecclesiastically from Dunwich. So early as _Domesday_ there are records of falls; there is even a legend of an extensive forest, flouris.h.i.+ng east of the town that way, covering miles of land over which now the "waves wap and the waters wan." Still Dunwich found forty s.h.i.+ps for Henry III, and though "rage and surgies of the sea" ravaged it in the time of Edward III, it occurs in a quaint list of East Anglia's contribution to the fleet raised against the Armada, a list which may be given here once and for all:

Colchester, 1 s.h.i.+ppe.

Ipswich and Harwich, 2 s.h.i.+ppes, 1 pinnace.

Alborough, Orforth, and Dunwich, 1 s.h.i.+ppe.

Yearmouth and Leistocke (Lowestoft), 1 s.h.i.+ppe, 1 pinnace.

Lynne and Blackney, 2 s.h.i.+ppes, 1 pinnace.

In the time of Leland the bitter cry of the people of Dunwich was heard in the land and the legend of the submerged forest of Eastwood is found on his pages: "_George Ferras_ told me that the men of Dunewich desiring Sucour for their Town againe Rages of the Se, adfirme that a great Peace of a Foreste sumtyme therby ys devourid up and turnid to the use of the Se." Who George Ferras was, this deponent knoweth not, but by way of exemplifying the difficulty of reading Leland, it may be mentioned that other places named on the same folio are New-Windelesore (Windsor), Saresbyri (Salisbury), Dovar, to say nothing of Edward III, Egidius, Walterus de la Ville, Nicholas de S. Quintius, and "Mr. Balthazar," all in the s.p.a.ce of twenty-five lines of print. Leland's volumes, through no fault of his, as has been pointed out before, are like conglomerate or puddingstone, with here and there a gem, which takes a great deal of finding. Indeed that this particular gem was found may be attributed to fortune. It shows us Dunwich, before the untiring sea had reduced the inhabitants to absolute despair, crying out for help, and crying to deaf ears. Its destruction, in truth, was very gradual, very certain; and, while the nation would not help, it was not worth while for the people to show the indomitable spirit of those in San Francisco to-day, or to set about the task of rebuilding, for in destroying Dunwich the sea wiped out its excuse for existence, making the land that was left unapproachable by reason of its girdle of shallow water.

So there is nothing left but memories, a handful of mean houses of no interest by the sea, the ruins of the Grey Friars monastery on the hill, and the church of All Saints tottering on the crumbling verge of the disappearing cliff. How any man or woman can consent to live in this environment of desolation is a thing difficult to understand; but there they are, apparently quite cheerful, a living testimony to the elasticity of human spirits. A stranger, having seen the sights, having mused a little as his eyes wander over that dreary expanse of monotonous sea, leaves Dunwich gladly, without the slightest intention of returning, and convinced that a not very prolonged residence there would a.s.suredly produce melancholia in one not to the manner born.

The opinion has been expressed already that it is not worth while at this time of day, and it would probably be hopeless to endeavour, to cope against the untiring sea in its work of demolis.h.i.+ng the glacial cliffs south of Dunwich. As they are demolished they go, by virtue of the southerly drift given to the debris, to alter the coastline southward.

Attention has been called, for example, to the childish course pursued by the River Alde. The fault does not lie with the river but with the crumbling cliffs of the north, and they are responsible for closing up the natural mouth it once had at Slaugden, barely half a mile from Aldeburgh.

At Southwold and Lowestoft defensive works are praiseworthy, because they are feasible and the land is worth protecting, and this is even more true of the vicinity of Felixstowe. Here much land was lost early in the last century, owing to the fact that huge quant.i.ties of stones, forming a natural protection, were removed for manufacture into cement, with the result that the sh.o.r.e was denuded, and the loose pebbles were heaped up by the drift into a totally undesirable s.h.i.+ngle bank at Landguard Fort. This bank in its turn threatened Harwich Harbour, and a groyne of concrete had to be set up to arrest its progress. These facts, in detail, came to my knowledge through the _Engineer_ in 1906, together with the somewhat appalling estimate of land lost in East Anglia to the extent of 160 square miles in ten centuries. Land has been gained elsewhere, at Bawdsey, where we shall find ourselves very shortly, for example. At Bawdsey it has been gained through human agency to the advantage of humanity, but on the whole the sea, left to its own devices, works destruction at both ends of its operation. It removes the earth from places where it is needed, as at Dunwich for example, and so wipes one flouris.h.i.+ng port out of existence: it does its best to deposit that which it has taken away where it is not needed, and to block up one port with the ruins of another. At Harwich it has, we all hope, been stopped, but all the world knows the mischief which has been wrought south of the estuary of the Thames by the gradual process of accretion converting thriving ports into meaningless inland places. What all the world does not realize, and what our most practised engineers in this kind apprehend, without pretending to comprehend fully, is the unforetellable character of the results that will follow from every attempt to interfere with these mysterious processes of nature which takes the form of opposing an obstacle to the sweep of the tide. Thus to build a groyne or a sea wall, to say to the sea in effect, "Thou hast taken so much, but thou shalt take no more," is hardly likely to produce any injurious result. On the other hand, to stretch a solid pier across the drift, and to divert a current, may be to affect the coast line for hundreds of miles along the coast affected by the drift. As an engineer versed in these matters once said to me, "When you interfere with the tides you must wait for the effect; you cannot predict it."

So back to Felixstowe, varying the cross-country route to the main road a little by following the sense of direction without consulting any maps, and seeing nothing worthy of notice except a belated heron, its long legs stretched behind its slow-flapping wings, making its way from the sea to some distant heronry and croaking sadly as it went, as though to say, "The moon will give no light to-night, so I must perforce go fasting." That is a Welsh version of the heron's melancholy call--please note that the heron always wears half mourning--but the marsh men doubtless express the same thought in some way, for it is sound ornithology, and they know their birds pa.s.sing well.

CHAPTER VI--(_continued_)

FELIXSTOWE, BAWDSEY, WOODBRIDGE, IPSWICH, DUNMOW AND LONDON

A stormy morning--Past golf-links to Bawdsey Ferry--Sir Cuthbert Quilter's work of reclamation--A short climb but very stiff--Some remote byways to Woodbridge--Heavy rain--Value of cape hood--Drawbacks of transparent screens--Ipswich again--More Cobbolds, more hospitality--Ipswich oysters and gloves--The "Crown and Anchor"--An architect and antiquary--Jingling prophecy--An abbot's bones and "extra dry"--Another car arrives for us--Off for Dunmow--A frightened horse and an awkward rider--Rules of conduct in such cases--Through Braintree (remarks postponed) to Great Dunmow--Little Dunmow the true _locus cla.s.sicus_--Leland and the Flitch--Far-fetched theories and an obvious explanation--The heart of the forest country--The old forest included Epping, Hainault, and Hatfield Forests--Hainault restored--Hards.h.i.+ps of old forest law--Dunmow to Takeley--Hatfield Broad Oak and Heath--A view of hounds--High Ongar, Epping, and London, reversing original order--The drive reviewed.

Next morning, in a tearing wind, full of the promise of rain, we took a road running as nearly N.N.E. as might be, making for the steam ferry which crosses the mouth of the river Deben, a river whose banks are rich in memories of the late Mr. C. J. Cornish, one of the brightest open-air writers of our generation. Golf-links we pa.s.sed, having plenty of natural bunkers and hazards, having also that close turf, whereon the ball "carries" well, which appears to be in better harmony than any inland turf with the spirit of the royal and ancient game. Martello towers there were too, on the flat and lonely beach, towers probably more useful now as affording shelter and concealment to the wild fowler than for any purpose of defence; and beyond them the shallow sea whipped by the wind into angry little wavelets. Then the ferry hove in sight, the boat, or floating bridge, being on the far side of a fretting strath from a quarter to half a mile in width. On the far side also was the curious house of Sir Cuthbert Quilter, and around it a considerable area of cultivated land, doing infinite credit to the enterprise of that most ardent agriculturist; for has he not converted a wilderness into fairly fruitful land, and is not the man who does that a benefactor of humanity? Crossing seemed at first likely to be no easy matter. The boat was on the far side, out of hearing in such a wind as was blowing; a witless boy of the district, himself desirous of crossing apparently, thought it came at fixed times, and had no idea when those times were. It seemed that we might wait for hours; but prowling round I found a signal post, and thereon directions how to raise the signal for the ferry, and soon the boat was making for us. Entering it with the car was no trouble; Avernus has always been easy of descent; but when the craft had creaked to the far side we were faced with the stiffest task I have ever seen offered to any motor-car in the shape of a sharply sloping bank of soft gravel to be ascended without any preliminary run of any kind.

The steam car, however, ploughed slowly through the gravel and up the hill, and I look back upon those ten or twelve yards of hill-climbing as the finest exhibition of sheer strength in a motor-car it has ever been my fortune to witness. So we went by devious and very bad roads, through Alderton and Hollesley to Woodbridge, through a country not particularly interesting, I imagine, at the best of times, and rendered less interesting than ever by the angry curtain of clouds which hung over our path. Rain had been an open question when we started; it was certainly coming now with a will; and it was a case of up cape hood and down with the front screen, in which a large piece of transparent talc, or celluloid, gave something of a view to him who drove. It was better than getting wet through, that is all that can be said. The rain for a short time was simply torrential, and as it poured in waving streams down the transparent surface, one could see as much as, but not very much more than, one can see with eyes opened six or eight feet down in fairly clear river water. Outlines of objects were blurred in the same fas.h.i.+on as they are to the diver (without a diving dress of course), and one felt as doubtful of the distance of this or that as one has often felt under water when catching sight of the saucer, the white stone, or what you will, thrown in beforehand that it might be searched for afterwards. So there is nothing to be said of this run from Woodbridge to Ipswich, along the road followed in my first journey but in the opposite direction, save that it was taken in "demmed, moist, unpleasant weather," to quote Mr. Mantalini.

However, the rain abated before we reached Ipswich and halted, by previous arrangement, at Mr. Cobbold's Bank, as a preliminary to receiving open-handed hospitality from yet another member of that most hospitable of Suffolk families. It is not suggested that all motorists should do likewise, although, upon my word, judging by Mr. Cobbold's kindness to a party upon two of whom he had never set eyes until that day, it seems probable that a call at the Bank would be a promising venture for any strangers. But into the secrets of comfort in Ipswich which he revealed to us others may be admitted without his personal guidance. He showed the old-world glove shop already mentioned. The oyster shop he showed us also, almost next door to the glovers, both in a narrow street running parallel to the main street on the far side from the "Crown and Anchor," and the "Great White Horse," and better oysters were never eaten by man or woman.

Then he took us to luncheon at the "Crown and Anchor" which, sooth to say, was more to my taste than the "Great White Horse"--of its charges it is manifestly impossible for me to speak, but its fare was of the simplest and best. Last, but not least of the kindnesses shown to me by Mr. Cobbold was to invite to meet me Mr. Corder, architect and antiquarian--would that the combination were universal--profoundly versed in the old-time legends of the district. Mr. Corder it was who gave me a most fascinating print of the back of the "Crown and Anchor" when it was the "Rampant Horse," and quoted a jingled prophecy of days gone by, concerning the fate of the various inns of Ipswich, which appears to have come true--

The Rampant Horse shall kick the Bear, And make the Griffin fly, And turn the Bell upside down, And drink the Three Tuns dry.

Again, as our talk wandered over matters ancient and men of the past, the name of the famous Abbot Sampson, much noted in his day as a preacher, was mentioned, and Mr. Corder had a humorous story of his disinterment in modern times. With the bones of the clarion-voiced preacher, in the same coffin, was found the skull of a woman, a grim jest perhaps of those who were left behind him in this world. The bones, pending reinterment in decent form, were placed in the first convenient receptacle and, only some time later was it observed, the relics of the preacher had, by the irony of fate, been placed in a champagne case labelled "extra dry." Chance, very likely, supplied an epitaph more truthful than is usual.

At Ipswich too my host and friend had prepared a surprise. Not entirely satisfied with the behaviour of the car which had covered us, as well as carried us, hitherto, he had telegraphed to London for another, and it awaited us in the inn yard. It was uncovered, but the sky was now clear, so we sped in it merrily along the already familiar route to Colchester, entering Ess.e.x, "ful of good hoswyves," as Leland quotes, as we crossed the river at Stratford St. Mary. Had we turned to the right a little before this point we should have made ourselves familiar with the beautiful and very characteristic scenery of those Stourside places Stoke-by-Nayland, Sudbury, and Long Melford--all interesting places concerning which something is said later. But all these matters and places come more fittingly into the chapter describing a series of short day's drives from Colchester as head-quarters. So do Marks Tey and Braintree through which, as a matter of fact, we pa.s.sed that day to Dunmow. In fact the only fact about this little run which can be mentioned without impoveris.h.i.+ng the mine to be dug from later is an incident. We had the misfortune to meet a man who was no horseman mounted on a half-broken colt which had the strongest apparent objection to a motor-car. The man held up his hand. We stopped.

The horse, more frightened than ever, turned and bolted in the other direction; but then the rider turning on to the gra.s.s beside the road, dismounted hurriedly and we pa.s.sed on. It was almost a solitary instance in which, during much motoring of late, I have seen a horse thoroughly frightened by a car, all the more alarmed probably because, by that curious intuition which horses possess, it knew its rider to be incompetent. The incident exemplified the folly of the existing law requiring a car to be stopped completely whenever a person in charge of a horse, or with a horse in charge of him, holds up his hand. Almost every petrol-car brought suddenly to a stop makes far more noise and is far more alarming to a horse than when it moves at a reasonable pace, and the car-driver, in a voice at once audible and soothing, cries "Woa, my lad," or something of that kind, thus convincing the animal that motor-cars are connected with human beings, with whom he is familiar. In nine cases out of ten, however, the man is more frightened than the horse, so that, tugging suddenly at the reins, after being half asleep before, he compels the animal to start. In any event the complete stopping is an error from the point of view of horseman and motorist. It annoys the latter without being of the slightest use to the former. Moreover, it gives irascible squires an opportunity of exasperating the motorist, whom they detest. "My horses don't mind a car at all," said one such to me not long since, "but I always hold up my hand when I meet the beastly things; I hear they hate stopping." These are the _ipsissima verba_ of one who, in every other relation of life, is exceptionally kind and genial.

Pa.s.sing through pleasant Braintree, and going at a spanking pace along an open road, we left Little Dunmow, which is the real Dunmow of story, unnoticed on the left through sheer ignorance, and went on to Great Dunmow.

Our ignorance was in some measure to be excused, because the custom of Dunmow, although in old times it was established in connection with the Priory of Little Dunmow, was revived in connection with Great Dunmow. And, after all, in this case it would probably have been folly to be wise. We should have found little, if anything, remaining of the Priory of Little Dunmow, and we were quite happy, in our ignorance, over our tea in a picturesque inn at Great Dunmow, believing all the time that we were at the cla.s.sic spot itself. Of the various accounts of a quaint custom, mentioned in _Piers Plowman_ and by Chaucer, I prefer that given by Leland, for its brevity. Writing of "the bacon at Dunmow," and referring to "Robert Fitzwalter, Lord of Woodham and famous in the time of King Henry the Thyrd," he continues, "In which Priory arose a custome, begun or inst.i.tuted either by him or some of his successors, that he that repenteth him not of his marriage sleeping or waking in a yeere and a day may lawfully goe to Dunmow and fetch a Gammon of Bacon." The quotations from Chaucer and _Piers Plowman_ have been used too often in "seasonable articles" to be repeated here. It is easy to agree with the curiously learned Dr. Samuel Brewer that "the attempt to revive this 'premium for humbug' is a mere get up for the benefit of the town"; but his quotation from Prior is distinctly apt and unfamiliar:

Ah, madam! cease to be mistaken; Few married fowl peck Dunmow bacon.

Also we may hope that the eight successful pairs of claimants from 1445 to 1772, Ess.e.x folk all, took the matter more seriously than those of later time. One pair, Thomas Shakeshaft, Woolcomber of Weathersfield, and his wife, are said to have made their successful claim in 1751 in the presence of Hogarth. The most recent fame of Dunmow arises from its violent resistance to uninvited Socialist propagandists. It is just the sort of quiet place in which one would expect a rustic to describe the Socialist ranters as "a pa.s.sel o' fools"; and this is precisely what occurred.

Perhaps after all it is well to repeat the oath in verse as preserved by Fuller, since to do so may save the trouble of reference for the curious:

You shall swear by the custom of our confession That you never made any nuptial transgression, Since you were married man and wife, By household brawls or contentious strife; Or otherwise, in bed or at board Offended each other in deed or word; Or, since the parish clerk said Amen, Wished yourselves unmarried again; Or, in a twelvemonth and a day, Repented not in thought any way; But continued true and in desire, As when you joined hands in holy quire.

If to these conditions, without all fear, Of your own accord you will freely swear, A gammon of bacon you shall receive, And bear it hence with love and good leave; For this is our custom at Dunmow well known, Though the sport be ours the bacon's your own.

There is a like custom of Wicknor in Staffords.h.i.+re, but the ultra-learned seem to me to have overstrained their fancies in imagining a common origin for these flitches of bacon, and the "sow and pigs" which, according to "Murray," are frequently seen on the carved bosses of church roofs in Devons.h.i.+re, and in suggesting a connection between the Dunmow flitch, which after all was but a gammon, and the flitch which according to Dion Halicarna.s.sus, was kept at the Temple of Alba Longa until the time of Augustus, because aeneas found there the white sow and pigs. It may be true that it was the custom of the Prussians of old time to offer a flitch of bacon to the thunder-G.o.d whenever a thunderstorm came. As for the sow and pigs on the roofs of Devons.h.i.+re churches, they seem to me to have no more direct connection with the Dunmow flitch than "the sow and pigs" as an inn sign (which may be seen in Oxfords.h.i.+re and perhaps elsewhere), or than the Gadarene swine. Surely, when there is an obvious and historical explanation there is no sort of need for plunging into the troubled waters of comparative folk-lore. Robert Fitz-Walter desired to establish a reward for conjugal fidelity. That is plain, and there was nothing out of the way about such a desire in times when foundations similar in character, rewards for constancy in servants and the like, were by no means uncommon. It probably never occurred to him that the claimants would be other than peasants. The recorded claimants in fact were in 1445, a labourer and his wife; in 1510, a fuller; in 1701, a butcher; in 1751, a woolcomber; the three last with their wives of course; and in the other cases the callings of the claimants are not recorded.

Fitz-Walter's domain was situate in the heart of the forest country, a land of innumerable oak trees, whereon herds of swine were fed upon the acorns in autumn, under the care of the successors in t.i.tle of Gurth the Swineherd. To the peasantry the pig was, economically speaking, everything; for that matter he is a great deal to them still since, take him for all in all, he is the most profitable of domestic animals. What could be more natural than that the great landowner should establish as the reward of fidelity among peasants a part of the familiar beast whom they knew best, and whom, to this day, they like best on the table. Those who have seen the excitement of pig-killing at a cottage home, who know how it spells plenty of fresh meat for a while, and how large a part fat bacon plays in the meals which the agricultural labourer eats under the lee of a hedge, will not desire to go to Alba Longa for an explanation of the Dunmow flitch; nor, in a country where "chaw-bacon" was once synonymous with farm labourer--unhappily they now consume tinned meat instead--need we think in their connection of the sacrifices of the ancient Prussians. Robert Fitz-Walter could not have devised a benefaction more to the taste of the intended recipients.

Yes, we were some way from the spot truly sacred to the custom at Great Dunmow; but we were uncommonly near to relics of the ancient forest, in which the swine, the Dunmow flitches in process of formation, grew fat upon the abundant acorns.

We were, indeed, in the very heart of the forest land, its princ.i.p.al products timber, game, which was sacred to the king, and swine growing fat, as obesity of pigs was reckoned in early days, on the acorns of autumn.

Hard by in Hertfords.h.i.+re the country folk to this day collect acorns in great quant.i.ty, feeding thereon the swine which, cribbed, cabined, and confined, no doubt grow fatter than their predecessors roaming in the woods. A perambulation was made in the twelfth year of Henry III (1228 and Fitz-Walter's time), which showed nearly the whole of the county to be part of a Royal Forest. From the Thames on the south to Stane Street, the road between Colchester and Bishop Stortford, to the north, was a great forest running right up to the walls of London. It was known as the Forest of Waltham; it included Epping Forest, part of which has happily been preserved, to the enduring credit of the City of London, Hainault Forest, the relics of which have been reafforested of late, and Hatfield Forest, along the margin of which we were shortly to pa.s.s on our way to London.

Hainault Forest once lay, and now again lies, south of Epping Forest, being to the south of the river Roding. It once consisted of four thousand acres, but was disafforested by Act of Parliament in 1851, the Crown receiving an allotment of two thousand acres which, at an expenditure of more than 40,000, were converted into arable farms. Of the whole six thousand acres only a small tract retained its character of primitive woodland. This, through the exertions of the Commons Preservation Society and of Mr. E. N.

Buxton, has now again been dedicated to the public, being vested in the London County Council. In addition, thanks to Mr. Buxton and also to the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, five hundred acres of tilled land, formerly known as the "King's Woods" and later as Fox Burrows Farm, have been reafforested after being forty years under the plough. For three years Mr. Buxton, with the aid of the County Council, has been engaged in the effort to make the tame land wild again. Gra.s.s has been sown, acorn and beechmast have been inserted, seeds of bramble, briar, holly, blackthorn and whitethorn have been introduced, and some saplings have been planted.

Bracken, perhaps the most essential feature of wild woodland, has come of itself. So the tame is on its way to become wild and natural again. It will be a long process which few living men can hope to see fully accomplished; but that the experiment was well worth trying cannot be doubted.

Nothing, perhaps, ill.u.s.trates more forcibly the difference between the conditions of modern life and those of the thirteenth or even the seventeenth century than our present att.i.tude towards forests by comparison with that of our forefathers. When, in the time of Charles I, an attempt was made to declare the boundaries of the Forest of Waltham to be identical with those prescribed in the perambulation of Henry III, it was regarded as, and in fact it was, an outrage. It meant the effort to revive the harsh Forest Law and to expropriate private owners who had acquired rights by a prescription more than adequate from our modern standpoint. It meant a determination to extend the rights of the Crown, to deny the rights of the public. In the days of Edward VII all men rejoice over the patches of forest which have been preserved, all England congratulates itself when that which has been disafforested, as Hainault was in 1851, becomes forest again. This is because the meaning of words as applied to things is changed when the country pa.s.ses from an unsettled to a settled state, just as, according to one of the Greeks, it is changed in revolutionary times.

"Forest" in old times denoted a district and, in respect of that district, connoted a wicked restriction of public rights, or of rights which, to our mind, ought to have been public. "Forest" now means a district in which the public have abundant liberty, limited only by consideration for the rights of all, and the rights of the Crown in relation to it hardly come into account. Every remaining forest, whatsoever its governance may be, is a treasure-house for the naturalist, a sanctuary for wild birds and beasts, a place to be prized above measure since, in it, the dwellers in our congested islands may walk face to face with wild nature in pure air.

Of the relics of such a forest we were soon to have a pleasing view. From Dunmow to Bishop Stortford, as one of the guide-books has it, there is nothing of interest. We followed this high road along the railway, which did not make for beauty, for some four miles until, climbing a slight acclivity, we were at Takeley, where the church is said to possess a very fine Perpendicular font-cover. Such minutiae, however, are not for the motorist. There we turned sharply to the left and, pa.s.sing along the brow of a gentle hill for three miles, we were at Hatfield Broad Oak, amid true forest scenery of wide stretches of turf bordered by wild woodland. Whether the storied oak, carefully fenced around, still stands, this deponent is not absolutely prepared to avouch; but his eye was arrested by a tree which would certainly serve well to represent it. It was good going hence, among charming sylvan scenery, through Hatfield Heath to Harlow, for five miles, and at Harlow, as at Hatfield Heath or at Takeley for that matter, we might have run to the right a little and so have struck the most eastern of the two main roads from Cambridge to London. But we were out to see the country; so we stuck to the byways, well worthy of following for their own sakes and for ours, and we had our reward in a pretty picture. Pa.s.sing along an unfenced road, having broad stretches of turf backed by woodlands on either side, we saw in the distance the pink coats of three or four riders, and soon we were going slowly and gingerly past a staunch pack of hounds returning to kennel under the charge of huntsman and whips after their day's sport. They were good horses, workmanlike hounds, a thoroughly characteristic English sight and one which, somehow or other, one never sees from a train, partly perhaps because masters of hounds are p.r.o.ne, for obvious reasons, to avoid the vicinity of railways as much as possible.

This little spectacle was secured by making a detour from Harlow almost to Chipping Ongar, and High Ongar and thence back to Epping, from which we returned to London as nearly as might be by the route taken on our outward journey. This involved a few more miles of travelling than by the main road, but it produced a very good general impression of the character of the forest country. It is an impression well worth treasuring in remembrance. It also produced an abiding respect for Mrs. Coleman's topographical memory. Not once or twice but many times was this lady able to point out the right turning and to save us from going astray. Once only did she fail, and that was after we had entered the continuous houses of London. The failure was but the exception proving the rule; indeed it may not even have been that; for the din of the streets may have drowned her warning voice. Be that as it may the return to London was not quite so artistic in point of route as the exit had been.

How far had we travelled that day? An estimate is given in the practical observations earlier, but in truth distance really hardly counts within limits which grow wider every year, when one is motoring for pleasure. The essential things were that we took breakfast at a reasonable time and at leisure in Felixstowe, went by characteristic cross-country routes to Woodbridge and to Ipswich, strolled through Ipswich and shopped and lingered over luncheon, took tea at ease in Great Dunmow, explored many pleasant byways between it and London, and were back in London in plenty of time to dine and to go to a first night at the theatre, and not in the least too tired to do both with enjoyment. That is the new kind of pleasure which the motor-car has rendered possible, and it is a very real and genuine one.

CHAPTER VII

LATE SUMMER. COLCHESTER AND EASTWARDS

Modern motoring and lack of sensational events--Colchester and district seen during Military manoeuvres--Farcical operations and abundant leisure--Study of Colchester--Interesting back streets--The Roman walls--Caesar comes, sees, conquers, and departs--King Cun.o.belin--Claudius at Colchester--Was his victory a "put up thing"?--The Roman colony--Boadicea--The building of the walls--Abundant Roman remains--Legend of King Cole--Not necessarily all false--A playful theory--Was the Empress Helena a Colchester inn-keeper's daughter?--The Civil War--Siege of Colchester--Ireton's cruel revenge--Grief of Charles I--Concerning oysters--Colchester to Clacton-on-Sea--Sharp hillocks and shady elms--Chasing a balloon--Wivenhoe to Clacton--A wonderful society seen from a veranda--Great Holland--Walton-le-Soken, meaning of--St.

Osyth--Between estuaries of Colne and Stour--Some hills and many windings--A Lanchester as hill-climber--Ardleigh and seed grounds--A dialogue--Manningtree--"Manningtree Ox" and Thomas Tusser--Matthew Hopkins the witchfinder--East Bergholt--Constable's birthplace--His struggles and career--To Dovercourt and Harwich--Fascinations of seaports--Old-time stories of Harwich Regatta--Landguard Fort--Lord Avebury on coast erosion and accretion--Site of Yarmouth--Back to Colchester.

This little book has been absolutely candid and truthful so far, if it had not been it might have been more fertile in accidents and incidents; but the truth of the matter is that the modern motor-car in good hands goes so well that accidents and incidents are rare. One reads of accidents in the papers of course, because it is unnecessary to chronicle safe journeys; but it would be a libel on the motor-car to invent mishaps for the sake of literary variety. After motoring some tens of thousands of miles, I can lay my hand on my heart, metaphorically, and say that of the many cars in which I have driven none has ever touched a human being on the road, or a horse, or a carriage, or vehicle of any kind. My entire butcher's bill, extending over a good many years, amounts to one cat (which jumped from a wall in front of the car), three fowls, and ten sparrows. Therefore, since I am devotedly attached to Automobilism, and at the same time convinced that, for many years to come, it will be the pastime of the minority and will only exist on sufferance, fancy and imagination are ridden strictly on the curb, throttled down, if the phrase pleases better, and truth is encouraged to prevail.