Over Fen and Wold

by James John Hissey

IN SEARCH OF QUIET

wonderful medicine that cured all diseases. The country folk gathered round them, and others listened with apparent interest to their appeals, but so far as we could observe purchased nothing. Spilsby on a market-day was undoubtedly picturesque, with a picturesqueness that pleased our artistic eye, but the ear was not gratified; for once we felt that deafness would have been a blessing! We sought for peace and rest within the church and found it; not a soul was there, and the stillness seemed to us, just then, profound. It is well to keep our churches open on week days for prayer and meditation, but the worshippers, where are they engaged till the next Sunday? To the majority of people in the world religion is an affair of Sundays. Whilst travelling in the Western States some years ago, I suggested meekly to an American, who was showing me over his flourishing few-year-old city (it is bigger and older now) with manifest pride at its rapid commercial prosperity, that it seemed to me a rather wicked place. “Waal now,” he said, “I’ll just grant you we’re pretty bad on week days, but I guess we’re mighty good on Sundays; that’s so. Now you needn’t look aghast, you Britishers are not much better than the rest of the world. I was a sea captain formerly, and on one voyage I hailed one of your passing ships China bound. ‘What’s your cargo, John?’ shouts I. ‘Missionaries and idols,’ replies he. ‘Honest John!’ I shouted back.” This reminds me of a curious incident that came under my notice in London not so very long ago. I had an old English bracket clock that I took myself to a wholesale firm of clock-makers to be repaired. Whilst in the shop I noticed a peculiar piece of mechanism, the purpose of which puzzled me, so I sought for information. “Oh!” replied one of the firm, “that’s a special order for a temple in China; it is to work an idol and make him move.” This is an absolute fact. Presumably that clock-maker was an excellent Christian in his own estimation. I do not know whether there was anything in my look that he considered called for an explanation, but he added, “Business is business, you know; you’d be astonished what funny orders we sometimes have in our trade. Only the other day a firm sounded us if we would undertake to make some imitation ‘genuine’ Elizabethan clocks; they sent us one to copy. But we replied declining, merely stating that we had so far conducted our business honestly, and intended always to do so.” So, according to the ethics of our informant, it is not dishonest to make clock-work intended to secretly make an idol move, but it is dishonest to make imitation medieval clocks! Such are the refinements of modern commerce!

Now, after this over-long digression, to return to the interior of Spilsby church, here we discovered a number of very interesting and some curious monuments to the Willoughby family, in a side chapel railed off from the nave. On one of the altar-tombs is the recumbent effigy of John, the first Baron Willoughby, and Joan, his wife. The baron is represented in full armour, with shield and sword

CROSS-LEGGED EFFIGIES

and crossed legs; his lady is shown with a tightly-fitting gown and loosely-robed mantle over. This baron fought at Crecy and died three years afterwards. On another tomb is a fine alabaster effigy of John the second Baron, who took part in the battle of Poictiers; he is also represented in full armour, with his head resting on a helmet, and diminutive figures of monks support, or adorn, this tomb. There are also other fine tombs to older warriors, but of less interest; one huge monument has a very curious carved statue of a wild man on it, the meaning of which is not very apparent. It used to be an accepted tradition that when an ancient warrior was shown in effigy with his legs crossed, he had been a Crusader, but Dr. Cox, the eminent archæologist and antiquary, declares that this does not follow. “It is a popular error,” he says, “to suppose that cross-legged effigies are certain proofs that those they represented were Crusaders. In proof of this many well-known Crusaders were not represented as cross-legged, and the habit of crossing the legs was common long after the Crusades had terminated.” I am sorry to find that such a poetical tradition has no foundation in fact, and must therefore share the fate of so many other picturesque fictions that one would fondly cling to if one could. Sometimes I wish that learned antiquaries, for the sake of old-world romance, would keep their doubts to themselves. Romance is not religion; one takes a legend with a grain of salt, but there is always the bare possibility that it may be true, unless shown otherwise. It is just this that charms. Why needlessly undo it?

Now, after Dr. Cox’s dictum, whenever I see a cross-legged effigy of a mailed warrior, I am perplexed to know why he is so shown. Will learned antiquaries kindly explain? It is rather provoking to the inquiring mind to say it does not mean one thing, and yet not define what else it means. From what I know of the medieval sculptor he ever had a purpose in his work, it was always significant. Dr. Cox likewise declares “Whitewash on stones was not an abomination of the Reformation, but was commonly used long before that period.” I am glad to know this for the reputation of the Reformation.

At Spilsby we consulted our map, and after much discussion about our next stage, whether it should be to Alford or Horncastle, we eventually decided to drive over the Wolds to the latter town and rest there for the night. It turned out a hilly drive, as we expected; indeed, in this respect, the road would have done credit to Cumberland. On the way we had ample evidence that Lincolnshire was not all “as flat as a pancake,” as many people wrongly imagine.

For a mile or so out of Spilsby our road was fairly level, then it began to climb in earnest till we reached the top of the “windy Wolds.” High up in the world as we were here, so our horizon was high also, and, looking back, we had a magnificent panorama presented to us. Away below stretched the far-reaching Fenland, spread out like a mighty

ON THE WOLDS

living map, with its countless fruitful fields, green meadows, many-tinted woods touched with autumnal gold, winding waterways, deep dykes, white roads, and frequent railways, space-diminished into tiny threads, its mansions, villages, towns, and ancient churches. Conspicuous amongst the last was the tall and stately tower of Boston’s famous “stump,” faintly showing, needle-like, in the dim, dreamy distance, and marking where the blue land met the bluer sea, for from our elevated standpoint the far-off horizon of the land, seen through the wide space of air, looked as though it had all been washed over with a gigantic brush dipped in deepest indigo. It was a wonderful prospect, a vision of vastness, stretching away from mystery to mystery. The eye could not see, nor the mind comprehend it all at once, and where it faded away into a poetic uncertainty the imagination had full play. It is ever in the far-off that the land of romance lies, the land one never reaches, and that is always dim and dreamy—the near at hand is plainly revealed and commonplace! Of course much depends on the eye of the beholder, but the vague and remote to conjure with have a certain charm and undoubted fascination for most minds. It was of such a prospect as this, it might even have been this very one, that Tennyson pictures in verse—