A town with two names—An amusing mistake—Abbot's Bromley and its quaint horn dance—Dr. Johnson doing penance at Uttoxeter—Burton-on-Trent—The "Hundreds All" milestone—Indoor wind-dials—Stone-milled flour—The old Globe Room at Banbury—Dick Turpin's pistol—A strange find.
Leaving Boscobel by a winding lane I presently got on to the ancient Roman Watling Street at a forsaken-looking portion of it, though I fancy the whole of the street for most of the way is, more or less, deserted. I had never been on Watling Street before; it looks so uncompromisingly straight and so uninviting on the map that I never felt any desire to explore it, but now I had come to it by accident I thought it a very pleasant road, this portion at least, with its wide grassy margins, and there before us it stretched far away through a well-wooded and lonely country—a genuine bit of Old England, mellow and grateful to the eye. I forgave the road for its straightness on account of the long and goodly green vista it afforded me, reaching even to the far-away blue—and it was delightfully free from traffic. Now I am a selfish traveller, I do not care for much company on the way. Here I had the advantages of a good road with the loneliness of a lane.
So along the old Roman street we went, passing but few human habitations, here a solitary inn, there a grey old farmstead, and every now and then a cottage, but that was all; it was pleasant driving, for there were no children, nor dogs, nor fowls for miles to trouble us, and all being safe we indulged in a burst of speed purely as a stimulant. Once on it I intended to follow the ancient street all the way to Daventry, but somehow I got wrong at a point where it takes one of its few bends, and unexpectedly found myself at Lichfield. Through Lichfield I drove without a stop, for I was not travelling to revisit familiar places, and Lichfield and its cathedral I knew long ago. The route I took through the city I took at a venture, but when I got into the country again I discovered by a signpost that I was journeying to King's Bromley—well, I would go to King's Bromley, it mattered little where I went, life is too short to trouble over trifles; I was out to see the country, one way was as good as another, provided it took me through pleasant scenery, and on this score I could make no complaint.
About three miles from Lichfield, at a point where London was a good hundred and twenty miles away, I was amused by a solitary and leaning signpost with simply "To London" on it, and its arm pointed down a mere lane that one would imagine led to nowhere in particular. I remember some years back coming to another such solitary signpost in Hertfordshire with just "York" inscribed on its extended arm, but that was on the Great North Road and there was some excuse for it, though York was very far off. There is such a thing as character in even signposts, and I rather sympathise with signposts that deal with big distances, they impress me with their pride of importance.
The next signpost we came to had "To Abbot's Bromley" on it; I felt uncertain whether this were a different place, but a man who was passing assured me that King's Bromley and Abbot's Bromley were one and the same. "It's a small town," said he, "with two names. You can call it which you please." I thanked him for the information. I wondered who he was walking leisurely on the country road clad in a shooting suit. He might have been a squire—or a gamekeeper. I thought I would find out, so I made further innocent inquiries about Abbot's Bromley. "It's a small town," said he; "you won't do much business there." I discovered he thought me a travelling commercial—of a glorified type, I hope. I did not mind for myself, but I felt the slight on my car; fortunately a car has no feelings, but my dog growled—manifestly he had. "In what line do you travel?" queried he quite politely, possibly with the idea of being helpful. Here was a poser. Could I tell a lie? Manifestly not, so I said I was out sampling scenery. "Well, I never heard of such a thing," exclaimed he, and before he had time to think the matter over I went my way. I hope when he realised his mistake, as I presume he did, he would not think I was offended, I was simply amused. I only wish I could have kept up the character, but I was hard put to do it on the sudden emergency. I wonder who he could have been? I am sorry now I drove on so hastily, but the situation was getting strained. It is the people you meet by the way as well as places that are interesting; at least I was glad to find that every motorist is not considered a millionaire. When I come to think of it, it was an idiotic thing to say that I was sampling scenery; still, was I not? The strange fact is that when occasionally I have, at country town inns, been thrown in the company of commercials, and have tried my best to play the part of one of them, I have ignominiously failed. I might invent a new proverb, "If you want to do a thing don't try to do it"; in your anxiety you are almost sure to overact your part. To make amends for being considered a commercial, the landlord of a certain country inn once took me for a real live lord travelling under an assumed name, and the more I tried to convince him of his error the more sure was he that he had made no mistake, he had seen my photograph as Lord Somebody in some paper; he was honoured to receive me, lords would have their whims; why should they not travel under assumed names if it pleased them? He would "my lord" me—and charged for it heavily in the bill.
Abbot's Bromley, or King's Bromley, gave us quite a cheerful greeting. I saw one or two flags flying in the town; the village maids (it seemed but a village to me) were dressed in their best; some were carrying flowers and looked quite charming in a rustic way, and there were young men in attendance too, dressed in their black Sunday best that did not suit them a bit. So I would know what was happening. I ventured a joke on one of the prettiest maids. "I see you were expecting me," I said. It fell flat. "No, we weren't," she replied, "it's a bazaar," and without a further word she walked away. But another maid, who had overheard the conversation, graciously came up to me and explained: "We're having an open-air bazaar; will you come to it? We're going to have the horn dance." Then I became interested. What was the horn dance? I wondered; I did not remember having heard of such a thing before. I begged for information, saying I was a stranger that chance had brought that way. I hardly need have done this, for in country places everybody seems to know everybody and their business, so the good people doubtless knew I was a stranger, and most of them appeared to think I had been attracted from afar by the news of the bazaar with its special attraction of the horn dance. It was an eventful day for Abbot's Bromley, where eventful days I should imagine are a rarity. Then I learnt that Abbot's Bromley is one of the few places where the old hobby-dances are still kept up and take place yearly, but this was a special performance in aid of the bazaar. The horn dance, I understood, is carried out by ten or a dozen performers all gaily attired, and the characters are a Maid Marian, a fool, a man with a hobby-horse, and a man with a bow and arrow; then there are six dancers each of whom carries a pair of reindeer horns of large size. These reindeer horns are kept in the church tower, and are mounted on wooden skulls provided with handles. According to tradition these horns are those of reindeers that in times long past once roamed over the forests surrounding Abbot's Bromley.
In my copy of Paterson's Roads (that gives a short account of the various towns on the way), under Abbot's Bromley I find the following reference to this dance, from which it appears that it was then in abeyance: "The curious custom called the hobby-horse dance formerly prevailed here; it was generally celebrated at Christmas, on New Year's Day, and Twelfth Day, when a person carrying beneath his legs the semblance of a horse, made of thin boards, danced through the principal street, having a bow and arrow in his hands ... five or six other persons also dancing carrying six reindeers' heads on their shoulders."
Abbot's Bromley struck me as a very pleasant and picturesque little place; it has no railway, and that is perhaps why it has such an old-fashioned look. I have always a liking for these little towns beyond railways. Most of its houses, built long years ago, are of black and white half-timber; and the ancient inn there is of half-timber too, that with its grey gables, its casement windows, its swinging sign, is suggestive of the coaching and Pickwickian days and all the lost romance of them. It took my fancy. It ought to have some story to tell of those "good old times," but I failed to find or to conjure one; for though the house remains much as it was, the actors are dead and gone—host, coach-farer, and highwayman. It is the sort of inn you read of in Harrison Ainsworth's novels, though I doubt if any one reads them to-day. How rich in incident and picturesque description they are! I know I took my fill of them when I was a boy; now, alas! they have lost much of their flavour; yet they have changed not, the change must be in me. To complete the old-world picture of the place, Abbot's Bromley boasts of an ancient roofed-in Market Cross, with thick oak supporting-posts around. Only compare the sought-for picturesqueness of a model garden city with the natural unsought-for picturesqueness of such old towns as Abbot's Bromley, and oh, the difference! I left the little, forgotten town basking, but not sleeping, in the sunshine, for it was much alive and making merry that day.
We had not gone far before a change came over the weather—I hope the open-air bazaar did not suffer from it. Overhead the sky grew dark and threatening, then came a sudden flash of lightning, loud thunder followed, then the rain in torrents. I wondered whether a motor-car with all its metal work was the safest place to be in, for the storm was severe; but there was nothing for it but to drive on, with such uncertain assurance as the saying of the farmer at Wem afforded that "lightning never strikes a moving object." In spite of that comforting dictum lightning is not to be trusted. Since then I have heard that a motor-car travelling on the road has been struck by lightning, and, though fortunately no one was hurt, the car was damaged. How the rain hissed down, and how the wind howled through and shook the trees, even blowing bits of their branches and leaves across the road! Still above the sound of the storm I could hear the steady beat of our pistons, as one hears the reassuring throb of the engines of a steamer in a gale at sea.