where; but a lot of skeletons have been found when digging in the moor round about. However, one night the landlord caught a Tartar. There was a scuffle in the room, and some pistol shots were heard, and the landlord was found dead on the floor: the traveller turned out to be a famous highwayman, who so cowed the rest of the house that he rode off in the morning with a good share of the landlord’s plunder to which he quietly helped himself.” But then the story may not be true, or only true in part, for tradition is a sad scandal-monger; and tradition, unlike a rolling stone, gathers substance as it goes on. I should perhaps state, in fairness to the worthy ostler’s tale-telling talent, that I have only given his grim story in brief, and have purposely omitted some very gruesome and thrilling details that he positively gloated over. These my readers can supply for themselves if they be so minded, providing a trap-door in the floor of the chamber, with a deep well immediately below, and flavouring to taste.
But to return to the “Bell” at Stilton, from which I have wandered far afield. This gray and ancient hostelry, with its weather-tinted walls, produced an impression upon us difficult to analyse; it verily seemed as though there must be some old legend or mystery connected with the building and only waiting to be discovered. The glamour of romance seemed to brood over it: a romance in which the “knights of the road” figured prominently, and we began to weave a little story “all our own,” after the most approved manner of Harrison Ainsworth. Dick Turpin must have known this hostelry very well, it being on his favourite and most paying line of road; and the chances are that he stopped at it more than once, for it was in a remote position and a convenient halting-place for his calling. Outwardly the old inn may be a trifle more time-toned and not so trim or well kept as then, but otherwise I do not imagine that either it or the town has altered much since his day. On the whole it doubtless looks much the same to us now as it did to him. Stilton is a place that in an age of change has remained unchanged; since the last coach departed thence it appears to have fallen into a deep sleep with small prospect of ever awakening again. The railway has left it quite out in the cold. Of Stilton it may truly be written, “It was!”
Dick Turpin must have passed by the “Bell” on his famous ride to York—if ever that ride took place, for sundry hard-headed and hard-hearted antiquaries, who ought to know better, declare the episode to be as apocryphal as the “Battle of Dorking.” Legends should not be judged by the same standard as matter-of-fact history! I wish learned authorities would devote their time to some more profitable task than that of upsetting innocent and perfectly harmless romances: already they have demolished nearly all the fabled stories of my childhood, besides a host of my favourite traditions which I liked to feel might be true, such as the picturesque elopement of Dorothy Vernon. “In reality nine out of every ten traditions are deliberate inventions.” Possibly; nevertheless I find no special pleasure in being assured that “Cæsar never cried that cry to Brutus; Cromwell never said ‘Take away that bauble’; Wellington denied that he uttered, ‘Up, Guards, and at them!’ and the story of Cambronne declaring that ‘The Old Guard dies, but never surrenders,’ is now known to have been invented by Rougemont two days after the battle.... As for the Abbé Edgeworth’s farewell to Louis XVI. on the guillotine, the cry of the crew of the sinking Vengeur, and the pretty story of young Barra in the war of La Vendée—these are all myths”—and more’s the pity!
It was with great reluctance that we bade goodbye to the quaint and ancient “Bell” at Stilton, and in spite of the unreliability of traditions generally, we could not help wondering whether there were any truth in the oft-repeated story that Dick Turpin had half the landlords between London and York “under articles” to him, and if the then landlord of this special inn were one of them.
MILES FROM ANYWHERE
On the front of a lonely little hostel at Upware, in the wide Fenland of Cambridgeshire, is inscribed “Five Miles from Anywhere. No Hurry,” and it struck us that these words might equally well be painted on the front, or beneath the sign, of the “Bell” at Stilton. There is a sense of remoteness about the decayed, medieval hostelry that suits well the legend: for Stilton is miles from anywhere, and it seems generations removed from the present prosaic age of progress, rush, and bustle. It is a spot in which the past appears the reality, and the present a dream!
CHAPTER VII
Norman Cross—A Norman-French inscription—A re-headed statue—The friendliness of the road—The art of being delightful—The turnpike roads in their glory—Bits for the curious—A story of the stocks—“Wansford in England”—Romance and reality—The glamour of art—“The finest street between London and Edinburgh”—Ancient “Callises”—A historic inn—Windows that have tales to tell.
Leaving Stilton we had a pleasant stretch of rural country of the restful, home-like, friendly order, but none the less beautiful because of an unambitious type. It was a constant delight to us to search for, and to discover what was most beautiful in the everyday English country we passed through; the charm of such quiet scenery is that it never palls nor becomes wearisome with familiarity, as more pretentious landscapes often do. Far fresher and more enjoyable was it, to us, to wander leisurely about rural England out of the well-beaten tourist track than to traverse a district famous for its scenery, belauded by guide-books, and crowded by excursionists, where beforehand you know almost exactly what to expect and where therefore pleasant surprises, or discoveries, are rare; but, on the other hand, by anticipating too much, disappointment often awaits one.
A MATTER OF SENTIMENT