XIX
Eaton Socon, its long straggling street and beautiful church-tower, left behind, the road descends to the “river Kym,” as the guidebooks call the tiny stream which, bordered by marshes, crosses under the road at a point known as Cross Hall. The “river Kym” certainly is, or was, important enough to confer its name upon the neighbouring townlet of Kimbolton, but the country folk now only know it as Weston Brook. The descent to it has of late years acquired the name of “Chicken Hill,” given by the North Roaders, racing cyclists, who must often have run over the fowls kept by the people of a cottage at the bottom. This is succeeded by Diddington Bridge, a picturesque, white-painted timber structure spanning the little Diddington Brook, which has eaten its way deeply into the earth, and is romantically shaded by tall trees and bordered by the undergrowth that fills the pretty hollow.
The slight rise from this spot is succeeded by an easy descent into narrow-streeted Buckden, one of those old “thoroughfare” coaching villages which imagined themselves on the way to becoming towns in the fine, free-handed old days. The huge bulk of the “George” is eloquent of this, with its fifteen windows in a row, and the signs still noticeable in the brickwork, showing where the house was doubled in size at the period of its greatest prosperity. Nowadays the “George” is all too large for its trade, and a portion of it is converted into shops. As for the interminable rooms and passages above, they echo hollow to the infrequent footfall, where they were once informed with a cheerful bustle and continuous arrival and departure. There was a period, a few years ago, when the North Road Club’s road-racing events brought crowds of cyclists and busy times once more to the “George,” but they are irretrievably gone.
To and from Buckden and Welwyn in coaching times drove every day the notable Cartwright, of the York “Express”; a day’s work of about seventy miles. Cartwright was something more than a coachman, being himself landlord of the “George” at Buckden, and horsing one or two of the stages over which he drove. “Peter Pry,” one of the old Sporting Magazine’s coaching critics, waxes eloquent over him. It was a vile day when, to sample Cartwright’s quality, he set out by the York “Express” from London for Grantham; but neither the weather nor the scenery, nor anything in Heaven or Earth drew his attention from Cartwright. He starts at once with being struck at Welwyn with Cartwright’s graceful and easy way of mounting the box, and then proceeds to make a kind of admiring inventory of his person. Thus, he might have been considered to be under fifty years of age, bony, without fat; healthy looking, evidently the effect of abstemiousness; not too tall, but just the size to sit gracefully and powerfully. His right hand and whip were beautifully in unison; he kept his horses like clock-work, and to see the refinement with which he managed the whip was well worth riding many hours on a wet day. But the occasions on which he used the whip were rare, although the tits were only fair, and not by any means first-rate. No dandy, but equipped most respectably and modestly, and with good taste, he was the idol of the road, both with old and young; while his manners on the box were respectful, communicative without impertinence, and untarnished with slang. Acquainted with everybody and every occupation within his sphere, he was an entertaining companion even to an ordinary traveller; but he enchanted the amateur of coaching with his perfect professional knowledge, which embraced all niceties. His excellent qualities, we are glad to notice, in conclusion, had gained their reward; he was well-to-do, lived regularly, had a happy family, and envied neither lord nor peasant.
Welwyn, the road to Buckden, and Buckden itself seem quite lonely without this figure of all the virtues and the graces.
Spelt “Bugden” in other times, the inhabitants still pronounce its name in this way. There is a well-defined air of aristocracy about this village, due partly to the ruined towers of the old palace of the Bishops of Lincoln, and to the sturdy old red-brick walls that enclose the grounds in which they stand. They are walls with a thickness and lavish use of material calculated to make the builder of “desirable villa residences” gasp with dismay at such apparently wanton extravagance. But the Bishops of Lincoln, who built those walls in the fifteenth century, had not obtained their land on a building lease; and, moreover, they were building for their own use, which makes a deal of difference, it must be conceded.
You cannot help noticing these walls, for they run for some distance beside the road. Through a gateway is seen a pleasant view of lawns and the front of a modern mansion. The Bishops have long left Buckden, and have gone to reside at their palace at Lincoln, Buckden Palace having been wantonly demolished when the Order in Council, authorising these Right Reverend Fathers in God to alienate the property, was obtained. The church adjoins their roofless old gatehouse, and is a fine old place of worship, with a stone spire of the Northants type.
In this church will be found a singular example of modesty. It is an epitaph without the name of the person:—
“Sacred to the memory of
AN OFFICER,
who sincerely regarded this
his native village
and caused an asylum to be erected, to protect
Age, and to reward Industry.
Reader, ask not his name.
If thou approve a deed which succours
the helpless, go and emulate it.
Obiit 1834, aet 65.”
The tiny hamlet of Hardwick, dignified with mention on the Ordnance map, is passed without its existence being noticed, and the road, flat as though constructed with the aid of a spirit-level, proceeds straight ahead for the town of Huntingdon, swinging acutely to the left for York. Beyond, at the cross-roads, stands Brampton Hut, the modern vivid red-brick successor of the old inn of that name. Brampton village lies down the cross-road to the right, and is the place where Samuel Pepys, it is thought, was born in 1632. [117] The registers afford no information, for they do not begin until twenty-one years later, and the old gossip himself makes no mention of the fact. His father and mother lived here, and both lie in the church. Their home, his birthplace, stands even now, but so altered that it is practically without much interest. It was in its garden, in October, 1666, that Samuel caused his £1,300 to be buried when the Dutch descent upon London was feared. A timorous soul, poor Samuel! sending his father and his wife down from London to Brampton with the gold, and with £300 in a girdle round where his waist should have been, but was not, for Samuel was a man of “full habit,” as the elegant phrase, seeking to disguise the accusation of exceeding fatness, has it. Great was his anxiety when, the national danger over, he came down to disinter his hoard. “My father and I with a dark lantern, it being now night, into the garden with my wife, and there went about our great work to dig up my gold. But Lord! what a tosse I was for some time in, that they could not justly tell where it was; but by and by, poking with a spit, we found it, and then begun with a spudd to lift up the ground.”
But they had not been cautious in their work. “Good God!” says he, “to see how sillily they hid it, not half a foot under ground, in sight of passers-by and from the neighbours’ windows.” Then he found the gold all loose, and the notes decaying with the damp, and all the while, routing about among the dirt for the scattered pieces, he was afraid lest the neighbours should see him, and fancy the Pepys family had discovered a gold mine; so he took up dirt and all, and, carrying it to his brother’s bedroom, washed it out with the aid of several pails of water and some besoms, with the result that he was still over a hundred pieces short. This “made him mad.” He could not go out in the garden with his father, because the old man was deaf, and, in shouting to him, all the neighbours would get to know. So he went out with W. Hewer, and by diligent grubbing in the mould, made the sum nearly tally. The day after, leaving his father to search for the remainder, we find him setting out for London, with his belongings; the gold in a basket in the coach, and he coming to look after it every quarter of an hour.
Something over a mile distant from Brampton cross-roads, and passing over two little bridges, we come to a third bridge, spanning one of the lazy rivulets that trickle aimlessly through the flats. It is just an old red-brick bridge, braced with iron and edged with timber; an innocent-looking, although dull and lonely spot, with the water trickling along in its deeply worn bed, and no sound save the occasional splash made by a frightened water-rat. Yet this is “Matcham’s Bridge,” and the scene of an infamous murder.
Matcham’s Bridge, spanning the little river Wey, obtained its name from the murder of a drummer-boy here by Gervase (or Jarvis) Matcham, on the 19th of August 1780. The murder was a remarkable one, and is made additionally memorable by the after-career of the murderer, whose bloody deed and subsequent confession, six years later, form the subject of the Dead Drummer, one of Barham’s Ingoldsby Legends.
Gervase Matcham, the son of a farmer living at Frodingham, in Yorkshire, had a varied and adventurous career. When in his twelfth year, he ran away from home and became a jockey. In the course of this employment he was sent to Russia in charge of some horses presented by the Duke of Northumberland to the Empress, and returning to London well supplied with money, dissipated it all in evil courses. He then shipped as a sailor on board the Medway man-of-war, but after a short experience of fighting, managed to desert. He had no sooner landed in England than he was seized by one of the prowling pressgangs that then scoured the seaports, and was shipped aboard the Ariadne, fitting out on an expedition to destroy the pirate, Paul Jones. Succeeding in an attempt to escape when off Yarmouth, he enlisted in the 13th Regiment of Foot, and deserting again, near Chatham, set out to tramp through London to York, visiting Huntingdon on the way. The 49th Regiment was then recruiting in the district, and Matcham promptly enlisted in it.
From Huntingdon, on the 19th of August 1780, he was sent to Major Reynolds at Diddington, to draw some subsistence-money, amounting to between £6 and £7. With him was a drummer-boy, Benjamin Jones, aged about sixteen years, the son of the recruiting sergeant. The boy having drawn the money, they returned along the high road, Matcham drinking on the way. Instead of turning off to Huntingdon, Matcham induced the boy to go on with him in the direction of Alconbury, and picking a quarrel with him at the bridge, seized him and cut his throat, making off with the money. He then fled across country to the nearest seaport, and shipped again to sea. For six years he continued in the Navy and saw hard fighting under Rodney and Hood, being at last paid off H.M.S. Sampson at Plymouth, on June 15, 1786. From Plymouth he set out with a messmate—one John Shepherd—to walk along the Exeter Road to London. Near the “Woodyates Inn” they were overtaken one afternoon by a thunderstorm in which Matcham startled his shipmate by his abject terror of some unseen apparition. Eventually he confessed his crime to Shepherd, and begged his companion to hand him over to the nearest magistrate, so that Justice might be satisfied. He was accordingly committed at Salisbury, and, inquiries as to the truth of his confession having been made, he was brought to trial at Huntingdon, found guilty, and executed on the 2nd of August 1786, his body being afterwards hanged in chains on Alconbury Hill.