About two miles out we came to a little roadside inn having the sign of the “Three Horse-shoes” displayed in front. Why three horse-shoes? Four, one would imagine, would be the proper number. Here we observed a notice that the thirsty wayfarer could indulge in “Home-brewed Ale,” rather a rare article in these days of tied houses, when large brewing firms buy up all the “publics” they can, so as to ensure the sale of their beer thereto, and no other. Now, it may be pure fancy on my part, for fancy counts for much, but in my opinion there is a special flavour and pleasing character about good home-brewed ale never to be found in that coming from the big commercial breweries.
A little farther on our road brought us to Little Stukeley, a rather picturesque village. Here, to the left of the way, stood a primitive old inn, with its sign let into the top of a projecting chimney-stack, an uncommon and curious place for a sign. In fact there were two signs, one above the other; the top one was of square stone carved in low relief to represent a swan with a chain round its body. The carving was all painted white (except the chain, which was black), and bore the initials in one corner of C. D. E., with the date 1676. Just below this, on a separate and oblong tablet, painted a leaden colour, was the carved representation of a fish—intended, we learnt, for a salmon, as the inn was called the “Swan and Salmon.” We felt duly grateful for the lettered information, otherwise we might in our ignorance have imagined the sign to be the “Swan and Big Pike”!
Now we passed through a pretty but apparently sparsely-populated country; indeed, it is strange how little the presence of man is revealed in some portions of rural England, though the signs of his labour are everywhere in evidence. Upon one occasion, when driving a prominent American citizen, a guest of mine, across country (in order that he might behold it from another point of view than that afforded by a railway carriage, the general mode of seeing strange countries nowadays), I took the opportunity of asking him what he was most struck with in the English landscape. “Its uninhabited look,” was the prompt reply; “and that is the very last thing I expected. I see great parks here and there, and now and then I get a peep of a lordly palace standing in stately solitude therein, as though it needs must keep as far removed from the plebeian outer world as possible; but the homes of the people (I mean those who are neither very rich nor very poor), where do they hide themselves? From all I have seen to-day, had I not known the facts, I should have imagined it was Old England that was the new and thinly-populated land, and not my American State. With you, I guess, it is a civilised feudalism that still prevails: the palace surrounded by its park takes the place of the ancient castle surrounded by its moat—the outer forms have changed, the spirit still remains. The English country strikes me as a land of magnificent mansions and humble cottages.”
AS OTHERS SEE US!
I was so struck by this statement of views, that on my return home I looked up the works of some American authors who have written about England, to gather what they might say on the subject, and I found that John Burroughs, in an appreciative essay on English scenery in his Winter Sunshine, writes his impressions of it thus:—“To American eyes the country seems quite uninhabited, there are so few dwellings and so few people. Such a landscape at home would be dotted all over with thrifty farmhouses, each with its group of painted outbuildings, and along every road and highway would be seen the well-to-do turnouts of the independent freeholders. But in England the dwellings of the poor people, the farmers, are so humble and inconspicuous, and are really so far apart, and the halls and the country-seats of the aristocracy are so hidden in the midst of vast estates, that the landscape seems almost deserted, and it is not till you see the towns and great cities that you can understand where so vast a population keeps itself.” It is interesting sometimes “to see ourselves as others see us,” and never was I more entertained than by hearing the outspoken opinions upon England and the English of a notable Japanese official whom I met in California, and who confided to me his ideas and views of things British, imagining I was an American citizen all the time, and I did not undeceive him.
On our map we saw Alconbury Hill marked right on our road of to-day, also we found it noted in our Paterson, therefore we expected to have some stiff collar-work, for we reasoned to ourselves, when an Ordnance map makes prominent mention of a hill it means climbing for us; so we were surprised to find the hill only a gentle, though rather long, rise, with a descent on the other side to correspond—trotting-ground every inch of the way. From the top of the modest elevation, however, we had an extensive prospect opening out before us over the flat, far-reaching plains of Cambridgeshire—a little world of green meadows and tilled fields, varied by many-tinted woods, enlivened by the gleam of still water and the silvery thread of winding stream—a vast panorama stretching away farther than our eyes could reach, for the far-off horizon was lost in a faint blue haze that seemed to wed the sky to the land. There is a certain fascination in looking over such a breadth of earth and sky to be felt rather than described; it affords one an idea of the majesty of space!
The country, as we drove on, became very lovely but very lonely; we had the road all to ourselves for miles, not even the ubiquitous cyclist did we see, and the fields on either hand appeared strangely deserted; a profound peace brooded over all, so that even the tramping of our horses’ feet and the crunching of our wheels on the hard road seemed preternaturally loud—and we realised what a noise-producing creature man is! I knew a Londoner, who lived within sound of the perpetual roar of street traffic, after spending a night in a remote
TRANQUILLITY OR DULNESS
country house, actually complain of the painful stillness there, averring that he could not sleep for it! So silent is Nature when at rest, and so unaccustomed is the average town-dweller to its quietude. To Charles Lamb the tranquillity of the country was “intolerable dulness”; to others it is infinite rest. Lamb wrote: “Let not the lying poets be believed, who entice men from the cheerful streets.... Let no native Londoner imagine that health and rest, innocent occupation, interchange of converse sweet, and recreative study, can make the country anything better than altogether odious and detestable. A garden was the primitive prison, till man, with Promethean felicity and boldness, luckily sinned himself out of it”!
Driving on, we observed a large old house to our right close to the roadway; this we imagined from appearances had formerly been a fine old coaching hostelry, but now it is divided down the centre, one half doing duty as a farmstead, the other half still being a house of entertainment, that proclaims itself with the sign of the “Crown and Woolpack.” I find that an inn so named is marked at this very spot on a last-century travelling map I possess, so that it was presumably then of some importance. To-day it struck us that the farmhouse looked more prosperous than the inn.