Over Fen and Wold

by James John Hissey

Rambling about the town we noted the date of 1568 on a gable of the half-timbered and creeperclad vicarage, that stood divided by a footpath from the church. A noble structure the latter, with a most effectively picturesque front owing to the fact that the aisles are lengthened so as to be in level line with the tower; the pierced parapet extending across this long front is adorned with bell-turrets, pinnacles, and minarets, forming a varied outline against the sky. Whilst we were taking a pencil

A CATASTROPHE

outline of this charming specimen of ancient architecture, a man in dark tweeds approached us, who said he was an amateur photographer, and would give us a photograph of the building if we liked. We thanked him very much for his kindness, but he did not go home to fetch the said photograph, as we expected, but stood watching us finish our sketch. Then we made some random remark to the effect that it was a very fine church,—we had nearly said “a very fine day,” from sheer custom, but checked ourselves half-way. In conversation we always endeavour to keep the weather back as a last resource; but old crusted habits are difficult to conquer. “Yes,” he agreed, “it’s a fine church, but it was finer before the tower was knocked down.” For a moment we imagined that we were talking with an escaped lunatic; we had never heard of a church tower being “knocked down” before! “What,” queried we, “did a traction engine run into it, or how did it get knocked down?” The answer was reassuring; we were not talking to a lunatic! “It was knocked down by lightning when I was fifteen years younger than I am now. It happened one Sunday morning during service. The storm came on very suddenly, and I was sheltering in a doorway over yonder. Suddenly there was a blinding flash and a great crack of thunder, and I saw the tower come crashing down with a tremendous roar, followed by a cloud of dust or steam, I’m not sure which. Then the people rushed out of church pell-mell—men without their hats, all in the soaking rain, for it did pour down, and women screaming. One woman shouted out that the end of the world had come; it was the sound ‘of the last trump,’ and it was some time before she became calm. I never saw anything like it.” Then he stopped for a moment, and in a more thoughtful tone of voice proceeded, “Do you know that catastrophe set me thinking a good deal. It struck me as very strange that we should build churches for the worship of God, and that God should so often destroy them by lightning. That morning the public-houses escaped hurt, but the church was wrecked by fire from heaven. It does seem strange to me.” And he became so engrossed in his talk that he forgot all about the promised photograph, and we did not like to remind him. “Why do you think the church was struck?” he asked us as we parted. “Probably,” we replied, “because it was not protected with a conductor, or if it were provided with one it was defective.” “But that does not explain why Providence allowed it,” he retorted; but we declined to be drawn into an argument. So we hastened back to our hotel, and, as we had planned a long day’s journey, ordered the horses to be “put to” at once.

Our road out of Sleaford led us through a level pastoral land, pleasant enough to look upon, though there was nothing on the way of particular interest to engage our attention till we reached Heckington, a large village known locally, we were told, by the proud title of “the Queen of Villages.” It certainly is a pretty place, and it possesses a truly magnificent church that seems, like so many others in Lincolnshire,

AN ANACHRONISM

strangely out of proportion to the requirements of the parish. This church has the architectural quality, so rare in English churches, of being all of one period. Like Salisbury Cathedral it has the merit of unity of design. We noticed some fine gargoyles on the tower, and a few statues still remain in the niches thereof. Within, the building hardly comes up to the expectations raised by its splendid exterior. It looks spacious and well proportioned, but cold and bare, possibly chiefly due to the want of stained glass. We noticed the mutilated effigy of an ecclesiastic in an arched recess of the north wall, and above, enclosed within a glass case, was an ancient broken silver chalice, doubtless exhumed from his tomb. But perhaps the greatest thing of archæological interest here is the superb and elaborately carved Easter Sepulchre, the finest we have seen in England. At the base of this are sculptured stone figures representing the Roman guards watching the tomb; and these are shown clad in medieval armour!—a curious instance of inconsistency, but then there were no art critics in those days, and the medieval carver and painter were a law unto themselves! Yet in spite of their oftentimes glaring anachronisms, the works of the medieval artists, be they sculptors or painters, were always effective and suggestive of life, and never failed to be decorative. Modern art, as a rule, simply reverses these conditions. It is above all things correct—more precise than poetical; magnificent in technique, but wanting in spirit.

After Heckington the country became more wooded, but still uneventful. Crossing a wide dyke that stretched away monotonously straight for miles on either hand, the roof-trees of the little town of Swineshead came into sight peeping above a wealth of foliage. In spite of its unattractive name Swineshead looked a charming place, and as we had already driven eleven miles from Sleaford, we determined that we would make our mid-day halt there, and drive on to Boston in the afternoon.

At Swineshead we found a little inn with stabling attached, the landlord whereof chanced to be standing at his door as we drove up, and after the preliminary greetings he informed us that a hot dinner of roast fowl, etc., would be ready in a few minutes. We were considerably, though pleasantly, surprised at learning this, for Swineshead is a small, primitive town, hardly indeed more than a large village, and our inn had a simple, countrified look in keeping with the place, and a cold repast, therefore, was all we had looked for, but the wanderer by road never knows what surprises are in store for him. The few minutes, however, turned out to be nearly twenty, and whilst waiting in a small parlour for our meal to be served, we amused ourselves by glancing over some odd numbers of old provincial papers that we found there. One may often glean something of interest by studying the pages of local magazines and papers, and we did so on this occasion. In a copy of the Horncastle News, dated 9th June 1894, that had somehow been preserved from destruction, our eyes fell upon this paragraph that we deemed worthy of being copied into our notebook. “A strange legend is current in Swineshead that, ‘If a corpse lies in a house on Sunday there will be three within the week.’ This saying has been verified twice this year.” Which statement, if true as it presumably is, I suppose, serves as an example to show that superstitious sayings may come true at times. When things are possible they may occur; if they never did occur it would be still more wonderful. All the same it is a remarkable coincidence, though of course nothing more, that this “strange legend” should have “been verified twice” in one year. We were amused also by another article in one of the papers that dogmatically settled the everlasting Irish question by stating all that is required is “more pigs and fewer priests.” In the same paper we came upon several proverbs, or folk-lore, said to be much employed in Lincolnshire. Apropos of striving after the impossible, we were told: “One might as well try and wash a negro white,” or “Try to fill a cask with ale by pouring it in at the bung-hole whilst it ran out at the tap”; we were further informed it was “Like searching for gold at the end of a rainbow.” Then followed a saying that house-hunters might consider with advantage, “Where the sun does not come, the doctor does.” I have quoted these items chiefly as a sample of the sort of entertainment that is to be found in country papers, a study of which may sometimes while away, profitably or otherwise, those odd five minutes one so often has to spend in country inn parlours.

COUNTRY SAYINGS

At last the dinner was served, and an excellent little dinner it proved to be. At this moment a stranger entered and joined us at our meal. A very talkative individual he proved to be, and we soon discovered that he was a commercial traveller who drove about the country. “Ah!” he remarked, “you’ve to thank me for this dinner; they knew I was coming, it’s my day, and they always have a nice little dinner ready for me. If you had come another day I fancy you would not have fared so well.” Then we took the opportunity of discovering how the world looked as seen through the eyes of a commercial traveller. “Yes, I like the life, it’s pleasant enough in the summer time driving from place to place. The work is not too hard, and one lives well. But it’s the winter time I don’t care for. It’s not too pleasant then driving in the country when a bitter east wind is blowing, and hail or sleet are dashed against you. The country is very well, and pretty enough in the summer, but I prefer towns in the winter. You get wet driving in the open too at times; now I don’t mind being wet and warm, but to be wet and cold is cruel; and mind you, you have always to come up smiling to your customers. Yes, you may well wonder at my coming to such an uncommercial-looking place as Swineshead, but it’s in these little country towns nowadays that we do our best trade in spite of appearances; you see they supply the rural folk all around, for these people do not get their goods from the London stores like most of those do who live in the towns. The parcel post makes it hard for the provincial shopkeeper to get a living, it acts as a huge country delivery for the stores and big shops in London: people write up to town one day and get their goods sent down to their houses the next.” Then our commercial suddenly remembered he had business to attend to and took his leave, and we went out for a stroll.