OUT OF THE BEATEN TRACK
Descending into the body of the church, we noticed a doorway in the south wall, and caught a peep of some stone steps beyond, leading, we were informed, to a chamber over the porch formerly used as a schoolroom, “now we only keep rubbish in it, odd tiles, broken bits of carvings, and the like. You can go up if you care to, but it be rare and dusty.” We did care to go up. Indeed, in the fondness of our heart for such things we even dared to hope that perchance we might, to use an expressive term much favoured by antiquaries, come upon “a find” there. Here, we reasoned, is a fine and ancient church, well out of the beaten track of travel. The present interior suggested that it had once been richly adorned; presumably it had suffered, more or less, the fate of other ornate churches during the Commonwealth. Who can tell but that some quaint relic of its former beauty may not be stowed away up there amongst the rubbish? The very mention of “odd tiles” sounded encouraging, only supposing that there happened to be some quaint medieval ones amongst the number! So, full of pleasant anticipation, we eagerly ascended the steep stone steps, worn both very concave and slippery with the tread of generations departed. We reached a large parvise, or priest’s chamber, provided with a fireplace; the uneven floor was strewn with bits of broken tiles, worm-eaten wood, plaster, bricks, etc. The chamber was exceedingly dusty and cobwebby, but we at once enthusiastically began to search amongst the litter for anything of interest, but, alas! discovered nothing noteworthy; the tiles were modern. The sexton was right after all—it was full of rubbish! So, disappointed and almost as white as a miller, we descended the slippery steps. Then as the sexton—there was no clerk, he informed us—seemed in a chatty mood, we asked him if he knew of any curious inscription in the churchyard. “Well, I think I can show you one that will interest you,” he replied, whereupon he led the way outside and we followed. Coming to an old tombstone he remarked, “Now, I call this a funny one; it is to a man and his wife who both died in the same year, and were both exactly the same age to a day when they died.” Then he rubbed the ancient stone over with his hand, that we might better read what was written thereon, which I copied as follows:—
To
The Memory of
John Bland
Who Died March 25th, 1797,
Aged 75 Years, 6 Weeks, and 4 Days.
———
Also of
Jane, his Widow
Who Died May 11th, 1797,
Aged 75 Years, 6 Weeks, and 4 Days.
A FORTUNATE COMBINATION
Provided the inscription records facts, it certainly is a curious coincidence; still quite a possible one.
Returning to our inn, we ordered the horses to be “put to,” and whilst this was being done, we had a chat with the landlord, from whom we learnt that he both brewed his own ale and grew his own barley to brew it with. It is the pleasant fate of some of these remote old coaching hostelries in their old age to become half hotel and half farmhouse, and a more fortunate combination for the present-day traveller there could not be. By this arrangement the old buildings are preserved and cared for in a manner that diminished custom would hardly permit were they to remain purely as inns; nor does the providing suffer from the blending of uses, the produce of the farm being at command, which means, or should mean, fresh vegetables, milk, butter, and eggs. In the present case it further meant the rare luxury of home-brewed ale from home-grown grain, and a quart of such, does not Shakespeare say, “is a dish for a king”?
We drove on now through a pretty and well-wooded country, our road winding in and out thereof in the most enticing manner: every now and then we caught refreshing peeps of a far-away distance, faintly blue, out from which came to us a fragrant breeze, cool, sweet, and soothing. In driving across country it is not only the prospect that changes but the air also, and, as the eye delights in the change of scene, so the lungs rejoice in the change of climate. The landscape all around had a delightfully fresh and smiling look; it was intensely pastoral and peaceful, and over all there brooded a sense of deep contentment and repose. Old time-mellowed farmsteads and quiet cottage homes were dotted about, from which uprose circling films of blue-gray smoke, agreeably suggestive of human occupancy. “How English it all looked,” we exclaimed, and these five words fitly describe the scenery. In that sentence pages of word-painting are condensed!
As we proceeded above the woods to the left and the right of us rose two tall tapering spires, belonging respectively—at least so we made out from our map—to the hamlets of Walcot and Treckingham. These spires reminded us what splendid churches some of the small Lincolnshire villages possess; there they stand in remote country districts often hastening to decay, with no one to admire them. The ancient architects who
Built the soaring spires
That sing their soul in stone,
seem to have built these songs in vain: for what avails a poem that no one prizes? The Lincolnshire rustic is made of stern stuff, he is honest, hardy, civil, manly, independent (at least that is the opinion I have formed of him), but he is not a bit poetical, and a good deal of a Puritan: I fancy, if I have read him aright, he would as soon worship in a barn as in a church; indeed, I think he would prefer to do so if he had his own way, as being more homelike. A clergyman I met on the journey and who confided in me said, “To get on in Lincolnshire, before all things it is necessary to believe in game, and not to trouble too much about