The summit of those old walls has nowadays a very charming green garnish of grass, rendered parti-coloured by wind- and bird-sown wallflowers and vigorous wildings; but more lusty than these are the young sycamores, that have struck deep roots into the walls and bid fair to grow into large trees.
It is still possible to follow the greater part of Colchester's old walls along the queer alleys that run above or below them. Eld Lane, out of whose elevated course the steep descent of the old postern, now known as Scheregate Steps, goes, is situated along the summit of the south wall looking over towards St John's Green, where, facing a wilderness of scrubby grass, broken bottles, and the sordid house-sweepings of the modern town, the gatehouse stands, all that is left of the proud mitred Abbey of St John. By that green is the frowzy little church of St Giles, patched up in so atrocious a manner from the wreck it was after the siege of 1648 that to call its "architecture" merely "debased" is to deal kindly with it. A dilapidated boarded tower is a feature of the exterior; the interior provided with a flat plaster ceiling, like that of a dwelling-room, and filled with flimsy pine-wood pews, painted and grained. Dust and stuffiness reign within; dust and broken crockery without. And yet, although so unlovely, it is not altogether with satisfaction that an elaborate design is seen for rebuilding the church from its foundations, together with the notice, "It is earnestly hoped that contributions will be given toward the restoration fund." "Restoration" is not the word, for the design is alien and quite unlike anything that formerly stood on the ground. Rather let the place be repaired and cleansed and its unbeautiful details preserved as a characteristic and shocking example of how they looked upon ecclesiastical architecture in the dark days of churchwarden- and carpenter-Gothic. It is here, under the north aisle, that those two valiant captains, Lucas and Lisle, are laid.
For the church-towers built of Roman bricks, and for other evidences of that ancient Empire, let the explorer seek, and, presently finding, think himself, if he will, an original investigator: it is a harmless attitude, if at the same time unwarranted by fact. Let us to other matters, and then, leaving the town, hie away for Ipswich.
Colchester is, of course, famous for its oysters, and has been ever since the Roman occupation. In the estuary of the Colne, and the Crouch, and in the oozy creeks of the Essex shores, the Colchester "natives" still grow up from infancy to maturity and feed upon the semi-maritime slime, as they did close upon two thousand years ago, and doubtless long before that. If we may judge from the stupendous heaps of oyster-shells discovered on the sites of Roman towns and villas, near and far, to say merely that the Romans were fond of oysters would be far too mild a term. They must have almost lived on oysters, dreamt oysters, and thought oysters. No wonder Colchester, whence the finest and the largest supply came, was so prosperous a Roman colony.
Although the fishery brings wealth to the town, it is more than a mile away and makes no sign. Those who might think that, because of it, Colchester should obtrude oysters at every turn and oyster-shells should strew every street, would be vastly disillusioned. But beside its oyster fishery, other Colchester trades are of secondary importance. Agricultural machinery is made here, and brewing and corn-milling carried on, but the once famed textile manufactures are gone. Among those old trades was the industry of baize-making, which left Colchester considerably over a century ago for other centres, after having given additional prosperity to the town for a period of a hundred and fifty years. It was shortly after 1570 that numbers of Dutch Protestants, fleeing from the Spanish persecutions in Holland, introduced the making of "bays and says," and, despite local jealousies, flourished amazingly for generations here.
But Colchester will never be dull while it continues to be what it is now—a great military depôt. Those worthy representatives of the Roman legionaries at a distance in time of nineteen centuries or so, the Tommies and troopers of the British Army, are a prominent feature in every street, and bugles blow all round the clock, from réveillé to the last post, when every good soldier goes home to his barracks down the Butt Road; while the King's bad bargains stay behind and fortify themselves against apprehensions of the morrow's "clink" with another glass, or, adventuring too rashly into the street, find themselves presently in charge of the military patrol that walks the town with measured step and slow.
XXIX
"From Colchester to Ipswitch is ten mile," says that seventeenth-century traveller, Celia Fiennes, in her diary. The milestones, however, tell quite a different tale and contradict the lady by making the distance between the two towns eighteen miles and a quarter.
Seven miles of these bring the traveller from Colchester across the Stour and so into Suffolk. It is not an exciting seven miles. Passing the eastern outskirts of Colchester, where mud in the Colne and puddles beside the slattern streets offend the sense of propriety, as, having reversed their natural positions, the Fair Field is left on the right. "Left" is an expression used advisedly, for who would linger there? But the Fair Field cannot be passed unawares. If not seen, it will be heard, for on it camp the caravans, steam roundabouts and travelling circuses that still draw rustic crowds with their fat women, giants and dwarfs; or delight them with mechanical rides on wooden horses to the bellowing of a steam organ, whose music-hall airs follow the traveller in gusts of stentorian minstrelsy when the wind unkindly wills it so. The sounds nerve the cyclist to quickly put the miles between himself and those siren strains, and happily the road is a fast one, so that he need not be long about the business. It goes, as an old turnpike should, broad and straight and well-kept, for the matter of six miles, with little to vary the monotony of trim hedgerow and equi-distant telegraph poles.
Let us therefore leave it awhile, and, journeying some three hundred yards along the Harwich Road, come across a railway level-crossing to the suburb of St Ann's, and the site of a spring and hermitage called Holy Well. The spring is now sealed up, but an inscription in the wall of a cottage still proclaims it to have been reopened in 1844. It seems strange that the Hermitage should have been placed, not on the main road where pilgrims were surely more plentiful, but on the seaward route. The explanation may probably be sought in the existence already of another establishment of the kind, long since forgotten. Here, then, the Hermitage of St Ann's was placed, and a holy well and an oratory made appeal to the piety or the superstition, as the case might be, of all who passed by. To these the hermit presented his leathern wallet, beseeching travellers, who would have gone without giving alms, to spare a trifle for the upkeep of the road, even though they valued not the Blessed Saints.