YARMOUTH FROM BREYDON
The early-printed volumes, stately and calf-bound, are a luxury to read, and in spite of Sir John Fenn's omissions they contain all manner of curiosities, the best of them perhaps being a letter written by one of the young Pastons in 1467, from Eton, where he was at school. In it he shows anxiety about a consignment of figs and raisins, promised but not arrived, discusses the fortune of a young lady recently met whom he thinks of marrying, and says to his brother: "And as for hyr bewte juge you that when ye see hyr yf so be that ye take ye laubore and specialy beolde hyr handys for and if it be as is tolde me sche is dysposyd to be thyke." (Here, by the way, is an example of Sir John Fenn's weakness as an editor, since, the original sentence being innocent of stops save at the end, he places a comma after "hands," and after "be" and another after "me," thus making his own unnecessary translation far more obscure than the original.) It is worth while to remember that Eton College had at this time been open for twenty-five years only, was in fact quite a new school, and that the headmaster was William Barber.
It was during this run by a circuitous route from Caister-by-Yarmouth to Acle and Norwich, and when the wide sheet of Filby Broad smiled on either hand, that the feeling of opposition to Mr. Rye's view of the Broads grew strong. That magnificent stretch of water appealed with a strength almost irresistible to one for whom sailing was, before motoring came into existence, the most perfect of pleasures; and although circumstances, and circumstances only, tendered resistance possible, it seems but right to glance at the Broads, to say what they and the country around them are like, and how, in the opinion of one fairly well versed in watermanship, they might best be enjoyed. There is a stock delimitation of the Broad District. Draw a line from Happisburgh to Norwich, another line from Lowestoft to Norwich, and the rough triangle formed by those lines and the sea shall be the Broads District. Really the southern side of the triangle is drawn much too low on the map. Except Oulton Broad and Lake Lothing, which are close to Lowestoft, and also a long way from the other Broads, all the Broads, including Breydon Water, would be included in a triangle having a line from Norwich to Gorleston for its southern boundary. They are Filby, Ormsby, Burgh, and Rollesby, all connected and covering no less than six hundred acres between them; Hickling, Heigham, Horsey, and Marlham Broads, Hickling the finest of them all; and Irstead and Barton; and each group is approached by its own river. Now, travel by motor-car is not recommended in this district, for it is much too flat to be enjoyable. Since that is not recommended, nothing is said about the churches, although they are of some interest; for so long as men and women remain what they are, they will not stop to study relics of antiquity, unless they are very exceptional indeed, when travelling by boat. Nor are they in the least more likely to linger in this way when voyaging by motor-boat than when using a sailing-boat. But shall we, voyaging in the spirit, use either sailing-boat or motor-boat, in the ordinary acceptation of the latter term. In truth, neither is suggested, but rather a compromise. Candour compels the admission that, knowing by sight, and in some cases from personal experience, most of the types of motor-boat built in Great Britain, I cannot recall one of them which, being roomy enough for comfort, would not draw too much water to be serviceable. In fact, if one could rely on the wind, a sailing vessel of one of the types which have been evolved in the district to meet its needs would really be preferable. Elsewhere than in these pages I should certainly take it, and enjoy it vastly. But what I might take in these pages, and what would be much better than either, would be one of those big flat-bottomed sailing craft with auxiliary motor-engines, of which one may see some at English exhibitions, but many more at the annual exhibition in Paris. With them you can really sail, when there is a wind; and, without a breeze, you are independent. As for the joy of it, so long as there is wind to fill the sails, the mere act of dashing through the water and gliding over it, the very sound of the water, the sense of absolute control that comes to him who holds the tiller and trims the sails to meet every need, are enough, without worrying over scenery. Moreover, the wide flatness of the Broads District, the rare buildings rising as from a lake, have a special charm of their own. As for the sport, from all that I can learn it is largely a thing of the past so far as duck and wildfowl are concerned. All the same, it is a bad mistake to omit the Broads, and one which, experto crede, the tourist in East Anglia regrets deeply when it is irretrievable. However, there is no doubt I made it, but happily hardly less doubt that, if I had not made it, the results could hardly have been relevant.
On, then, we went to Norwich by way of Caister, not as before through Acle, and dined at the "Maid's Head," as on our last visit, and admired the ancient hotel and the red waistcoat of the head waiter as much as ever; but afterwards, instead of seeing something of the famous city by night, we pushed on towards Cromer on the high road by moonlight. That is not the best way to see the country of course, and it would be sheer hypocrisy (which happens to be unnecessary) to say anything in detail of the normal aspect of the places passed, or of their associations if they had any. Still, of all kinds of travelling yet tried by me, it was emphatically the most delightful. The air was very transparent and not too cool, the moon bathed the landscape, which was fairly free from hills, there was little traffic on the roads save here and there a farmer jogging home in his dog-cart from Norwich market, the acetylene lamps were doing their duty nobly (which is by no means always their custom), we felt as if we should like to go on all night. At Cromer certainly we would not stop. We would make the coast there and skirt the sea by moonlight, certainly so far as Wells-next-Sea, possibly so far as Hunstanton. All things went merrily as marriage bells, the car sped smoothly as a soaring albatross, silently as death itself. But stay, what was that? A sharp little report, like the crack of a miniature rifle, was heard from below. It was not a tire again; that was sure; we knew by heart every noise that a failing tire could make. A little farther the car went quite well—Cromer was now some five miles distant—and then the noises began again in quick and staccato succession. In another environment they might have reminded us of a feu de joie; to our present predicament no words could have been more completely inappropriate. What was the trouble? Was it something wrong with the ignition? "No," said our philosophic friend at the wheel, "it is not ignition. There is one of the blessings of experience. A little time ago I should have wasted time in fiddling with the ignition; now I know it is not that; and I know there is nothing to be done to-night. There is no strainer fixed to the tank in this car; the good man who refilled for us at Norwich used no strainer; and some grit has got into the petrol. To find it I must first put out all lights and then go right back, piece by piece, from the carburettor backwards, until I can discover the obstacle. That is impossible in the dark. We must bear the noise and push on, if we can, to the hotel at Cromer. Possibly the foreign matter, whatever it is, may have dissolved by the morning." So, seeing from excellent example, that misfortune faced with a smile loses three-quarters of its annoyance, we went on, at quite a good pace too, sometimes silently for a hundred yards, sometimes with loud reports as of a gun at the covert side, sometimes with spluttering as of boys' crackers on the 5th of November. But we laughed at them all and won our way to Cromer, won our way too up the steep and sinuous hill that leads to the Links Hotel. There we had good fortune indeed. The hotel had been opened that day only after the winter of sleep and desolation; a huge fire roared in the ample hall; belated guests were none the less welcome in that, so far as we could see, there were but two other guests, golfers both, in that vast hotel. Had we come a night earlier our fate had been bad indeed. The hotel, judged by bed and breakfast, seemed to me of the first order of merit. The charges, compared with those of the "Angel" at Bury, seemed high. Still, it was more "replete with every modern luxury" than the "Angel"; it possessed bathrooms, for example, which are indispensable to the motorist, and it was a very present help in trouble. Such was our view the next morning, when the inevitable bill, not a very big one after all, having regard to the class of the hotel, was presented.
Other things also came to mind that following morning, a morning of gauzy mist not obscuring the view, even lending enchantment to some of it, and promising a fine day. Some of them were obvious. The position of the hotel, looking down from a commanding height on town and sea, was perfect for prospect and for bracing air; the golf-links, close by, were an undeniable attraction to the large army of men and women who have yielded to the seductions of that most fascinating game. It would have been unreasonable to expect low charges; but all the same, the contrast between this bill and that paid at Bury was a little stronger than it ought to be in a well-regulated country. Other things were not so immediately obvious, since for some it was the wrong season, and others were hidden in pleasant and well-remembered books. We were in the heart of Poppyland, concerning which Mr. Clement Scott and others raved, but it was too soon for the poppies—poor Dan Leno's "Red, Red, Poppies," now to be heard only on the gramophone—to be on view. It was, however, not difficult to conjure them up in imagination, having seen them before all over those sandy uplands in the Runton direction. They are very pretty beyond doubt; they add glorious lakes of colour to a rather monotonous landscape, but they mean poor and sandy land, and that (although it does not matter to the motorist, unless he happens to own some of it, and to be unable to let it for building) spells dust in dry weather, and lots of it too.
CHURCH STREET, CROMER