Over Fen and Wold

by James John Hissey

At the “George” we were received by a motherly landlady with a welcoming smile, that made us feel more like an expected guest arriving than an utter stranger seeking food and shelter for a time; this ready greeting in the good old-fashioned style promptly recalled to memory Shenstone’s famous and often-quoted lines as to the warmness of the welcome a traveller may find at an inn.

So much to our liking were both landlady and hostelry, that we forthwith determined to stop the night beneath the sign of the “George” at Huntingdon, though it was only then mid-day. “I really must make a sketch of your pretty courtyard!” I exclaimed to the landlady, after returning her greeting with thanks, for we were always most particular to repay courtesy with courtesy. “Oh! do wait till to-morrow,” she begged, “as you are staying on, for I have ordered some flowers and plants to put round about the yard. They will be here this afternoon, and the place will look so much nicer with them.” So smilingly we consented to wait till to-morrow, when the flowers and shrubs would be in evidence. It was something to feel that so charming a relic of the past was thus prized and cared for. Picturesqueness begets picturesqueness; as a pretty house calls for tasteful things about it, so a picturesque bit of old building like this mutely begs for flowers and plants to complete its pleasantness.

As we had the whole afternoon on our hands, we determined to do a little local exploring. The only point to be considered was, in which direction we should go. To settle this our map was consulted, and from it we learnt that the ancient town of St. Ives was only, by rough scale measurement, some four to five miles off; moreover, we noted that our newly-made friend the Ouse flowed between the two towns with many a bend that suggested pleasant wanderings; and as we were informed that there was a footpath by the riverside, the wanderings were feasible. So we made up our minds to get to St. Ives somehow, by railway if needs be and a train served, and at our leisure to follow the winding stream afoot back to Huntingdon. We felt a strong desire to become better acquainted with the Ouse, as the few peeps we had already caught of its quiet beauties much impressed us; still, we had a haunting dread of being disappointed with a wider view, so often have

A SLEEPY TOWN

hopes raised in a similar manner proved illusive. Then we remembered Wordsworth’s lines:

Be Yarrow stream unseen, unknown!
It must, or we shall rue it!
We have a vision of our own;
Ah! why should we undo it!

Well, we had “a vision of our own” of what the Ouse would be like—“should we undo it?” We had asked ourselves almost a similar question before of one picturesque spot by the same river’s side near Tempsford, as may be remembered, but that was only of one special nook, not of a five miles’ stretch of country!

We found St. Ives to be a drowsy, old-fashioned town, delightfully unprogressive, and little given to so-called modern improvements—a place where the feverish rush of life seemed stayed. It struck us as being quaint rather than picturesque, though its curious old bridge, hoary with antiquity, certainly deserved both these epithets, and bits of its buildings, here and there, proved eminently sketchable. Whilst we were drawing an odd gable which took our fancy, an elderly stranger approached and began to converse with us—a frequent incident under such circumstances, so much so that we had become quite accustomed to it. The stranger in this case turned out trumps, in that he was somewhat of a character, possessing a fund of entertaining information about local subjects that interested us. He was a quiet-spoken and pleasant-mannered man, rather shabbily dressed, as though he paid little heed to the cut of his coat or external appearances, but his linen was scrupulously clean. We felt puzzled what position in the varied economy of life to assign to him, nor did any chance remarks of his help us in this respect. But, after all, who or what he might be was no business of ours. “Have you seen the old bridge yet?” was one of his first questions. Then he went on to say, “You must not miss that, it is the queerest bridge in England; it was constructed by the old monks originally; there’s a curious building right in the middle of it, on the site of an ancient chapel in which prayers used to be offered up for the safety of travellers starting on a journey, and thanks were given for their safe arrival. When the chapel and priests were done away with, a lighthouse was put up in its place to help the river traffic, so I’ve been told; then the lighthouse got burnt down; and afterwards, when the people found that they could get along without either chapel or lighthouse, the place was converted into a dwelling-house, and that’s what it is now. There’s not many folk, I fancy, in these times, who have their home in the middle of a bridge! It is a wonderful old building, you must not miss it on any account,” and we promised that we would not. “Then there’s our church,” he went on; “the spire of it has been blown down twice, though you might not think it on such a day as this; but it does blow terribly hard here at times: the wind comes up the river and sweeps down upon us in the winter, now and then, hard enough to take you off your legs. I’ve been blown down myself by it when crossing

A STRANGE STORY

the bridge. But I was going to tell you a strange bit of history connected with our church, which I believe is quite unique. Many years ago—I don’t just now remember the exact date, but it was over two hundred years back—a Dr. Wilde left a sum of money in his will, the interest on which was to go to buy Bibles to be tossed for by dice on the Communion table by six boys and six girls of the parish, and the tossing still takes place every year according to the will, only now it is done on a table in the vestry instead of on the Communion table. Now that’s a bit of curious history, is it not?” and we confessed that it was, and duly jotted it all down in our note-book just as told to us. When we had finished, our informant further added, “I have heard that an account of the dice-tossing was given in one of the London papers, only by some mistake it was said to have taken place at St. Ives in Cornwall, and some one from there wrote to the paper and said that there was not a word of truth in the story.” So the conversation went on. The only other item of special interest that I can remember now, is that he remarked that perhaps we did not know the origin of the name of Huntingdon. We confessed our ignorance on the subject, and he forthwith kindly enlightened us, though I cannot, of course, in any way vouch for the authenticity of a statement made by an utter stranger in the street of a country town! Still, I give it for what it may be worth, and because the derivation seems not only plausible but probable. According to our unknown authority, then, in Saxon times the country around Huntingdon was one vast forest given over to the chase, and the place was then called Hunting-ton—or Hunting-town, in modern English—and from this to Huntingdon is an easy transition.