A town with two names—An amusing mistake—Abbot's Bromley and its quaint horn dance—Dr. Johnson doing penance at Uttoxeter—Burton-on-Trent—The "Hundreds All" milestone—Indoor wind-dials—Stone-milled flour—The old Globe Room at Banbury—Dick Turpin's pistol—A strange find.

Leaving Boscobel by a winding lane I presently got on to the ancient Roman Watling Street at a forsaken-looking portion of it, though I fancy the whole of the street for most of the way is, more or less, deserted. I had never been on Watling Street before; it looks so uncompromisingly straight and so uninviting on the map that I never felt any desire to explore it, but now I had come to it by accident I thought it a very pleasant road, this portion at least, with its wide grassy margins, and there before us it stretched far away through a well-wooded and lonely country—a genuine bit of Old England, mellow and grateful to the eye. I forgave the road for its straightness on account of the long and goodly green vista it afforded me, reaching even to the far-away blue—and it was delightfully free from traffic. Now I am a selfish traveller, I do not care for much company on the way. Here I had the advantages of a good road with the loneliness of a lane.

So along the old Roman street we went, passing but few human habitations, here a solitary inn, there a grey old farmstead, and every now and then a cottage, but that was all; it was pleasant driving, for there were no children, nor dogs, nor fowls for miles to trouble us, and all being safe we indulged in a burst of speed purely as a stimulant. Once on it I intended to follow the ancient street all the way to Daventry, but somehow I got wrong at a point where it takes one of its few bends, and unexpectedly found myself at Lichfield. Through Lichfield I drove without a stop, for I was not travelling to revisit familiar places, and Lichfield and its cathedral I knew long ago. The route I took through the city I took at a venture, but when I got into the country again I discovered by a signpost that I was journeying to King's Bromley—well, I would go to King's Bromley, it mattered little where I went, life is too short to trouble over trifles; I was out to see the country, one way was as good as another, provided it took me through pleasant scenery, and on this score I could make no complaint.

About three miles from Lichfield, at a point where London was a good hundred and twenty miles away, I was amused by a solitary and leaning signpost with simply "To London" on it, and its arm pointed down a mere lane that one would imagine led to nowhere in particular. I remember some years back coming to another such solitary signpost in Hertfordshire with just "York" inscribed on its extended arm, but that was on the Great North Road and there was some excuse for it, though York was very far off. There is such a thing as character in even signposts, and I rather sympathise with signposts that deal with big distances, they impress me with their pride of importance.

The next signpost we came to had "To Abbot's Bromley" on it; I felt uncertain whether this were a different place, but a man who was passing assured me that King's Bromley and Abbot's Bromley were one and the same. "It's a small town," said he, "with two names. You can call it which you please." I thanked him for the information. I wondered who he was walking leisurely on the country road clad in a shooting suit. He might have been a squire—or a gamekeeper. I thought I would find out, so I made further innocent inquiries about Abbot's Bromley. "It's a small town," said he; "you won't do much business there." I discovered he thought me a travelling commercial—of a glorified type, I hope. I did not mind for myself, but I felt the slight on my car; fortunately a car has no feelings, but my dog growled—manifestly he had. "In what line do you travel?" queried he quite politely, possibly with the idea of being helpful. Here was a poser. Could I tell a lie? Manifestly not, so I said I was out sampling scenery. "Well, I never heard of such a thing," exclaimed he, and before he had time to think the matter over I went my way. I hope when he realised his mistake, as I presume he did, he would not think I was offended, I was simply amused. I only wish I could have kept up the character, but I was hard put to do it on the sudden emergency. I wonder who he could have been? I am sorry now I drove on so hastily, but the situation was getting strained. It is the people you meet by the way as well as places that are interesting; at least I was glad to find that every motorist is not considered a millionaire. When I come to think of it, it was an idiotic thing to say that I was sampling scenery; still, was I not? The strange fact is that when occasionally I have, at country town inns, been thrown in the company of commercials, and have tried my best to play the part of one of them, I have ignominiously failed. I might invent a new proverb, "If you want to do a thing don't try to do it"; in your anxiety you are almost sure to overact your part. To make amends for being considered a commercial, the landlord of a certain country inn once took me for a real live lord travelling under an assumed name, and the more I tried to convince him of his error the more sure was he that he had made no mistake, he had seen my photograph as Lord Somebody in some paper; he was honoured to receive me, lords would have their whims; why should they not travel under assumed names if it pleased them? He would "my lord" me—and charged for it heavily in the bill.

Abbot's Bromley, or King's Bromley, gave us quite a cheerful greeting. I saw one or two flags flying in the town; the village maids (it seemed but a village to me) were dressed in their best; some were carrying flowers and looked quite charming in a rustic way, and there were young men in attendance too, dressed in their black Sunday best that did not suit them a bit. So I would know what was happening. I ventured a joke on one of the prettiest maids. "I see you were expecting me," I said. It fell flat. "No, we weren't," she replied, "it's a bazaar," and without a further word she walked away. But another maid, who had overheard the conversation, graciously came up to me and explained: "We're having an open-air bazaar; will you come to it? We're going to have the horn dance." Then I became interested. What was the horn dance? I wondered; I did not remember having heard of such a thing before. I begged for information, saying I was a stranger that chance had brought that way. I hardly need have done this, for in country places everybody seems to know everybody and their business, so the good people doubtless knew I was a stranger, and most of them appeared to think I had been attracted from afar by the news of the bazaar with its special attraction of the horn dance. It was an eventful day for Abbot's Bromley, where eventful days I should imagine are a rarity. Then I learnt that Abbot's Bromley is one of the few places where the old hobby-dances are still kept up and take place yearly, but this was a special performance in aid of the bazaar. The horn dance, I understood, is carried out by ten or a dozen performers all gaily attired, and the characters are a Maid Marian, a fool, a man with a hobby-horse, and a man with a bow and arrow; then there are six dancers each of whom carries a pair of reindeer horns of large size. These reindeer horns are kept in the church tower, and are mounted on wooden skulls provided with handles. According to tradition these horns are those of reindeers that in times long past once roamed over the forests surrounding Abbot's Bromley.

In my copy of Paterson's Roads (that gives a short account of the various towns on the way), under Abbot's Bromley I find the following reference to this dance, from which it appears that it was then in abeyance: "The curious custom called the hobby-horse dance formerly prevailed here; it was generally celebrated at Christmas, on New Year's Day, and Twelfth Day, when a person carrying beneath his legs the semblance of a horse, made of thin boards, danced through the principal street, having a bow and arrow in his hands ... five or six other persons also dancing carrying six reindeers' heads on their shoulders."

Abbot's Bromley struck me as a very pleasant and picturesque little place; it has no railway, and that is perhaps why it has such an old-fashioned look. I have always a liking for these little towns beyond railways. Most of its houses, built long years ago, are of black and white half-timber; and the ancient inn there is of half-timber too, that with its grey gables, its casement windows, its swinging sign, is suggestive of the coaching and Pickwickian days and all the lost romance of them. It took my fancy. It ought to have some story to tell of those "good old times," but I failed to find or to conjure one; for though the house remains much as it was, the actors are dead and gone—host, coach-farer, and highwayman. It is the sort of inn you read of in Harrison Ainsworth's novels, though I doubt if any one reads them to-day. How rich in incident and picturesque description they are! I know I took my fill of them when I was a boy; now, alas! they have lost much of their flavour; yet they have changed not, the change must be in me. To complete the old-world picture of the place, Abbot's Bromley boasts of an ancient roofed-in Market Cross, with thick oak supporting-posts around. Only compare the sought-for picturesqueness of a model garden city with the natural unsought-for picturesqueness of such old towns as Abbot's Bromley, and oh, the difference! I left the little, forgotten town basking, but not sleeping, in the sunshine, for it was much alive and making merry that day.

We had not gone far before a change came over the weather—I hope the open-air bazaar did not suffer from it. Overhead the sky grew dark and threatening, then came a sudden flash of lightning, loud thunder followed, then the rain in torrents. I wondered whether a motor-car with all its metal work was the safest place to be in, for the storm was severe; but there was nothing for it but to drive on, with such uncertain assurance as the saying of the farmer at Wem afforded that "lightning never strikes a moving object." In spite of that comforting dictum lightning is not to be trusted. Since then I have heard that a motor-car travelling on the road has been struck by lightning, and, though fortunately no one was hurt, the car was damaged. How the rain hissed down, and how the wind howled through and shook the trees, even blowing bits of their branches and leaves across the road! Still above the sound of the storm I could hear the steady beat of our pistons, as one hears the reassuring throb of the engines of a steamer in a gale at sea.

The country appeared to be richly wooded, as far as I could judge; but what with the thunder and the lightning, the wind and the rain, I obtained but a vague impression of it. Then after the storm had done its worst, a town loomed up on a hill before us, and this proved to be Uttoxeter, a neat town neither attractive nor ugly, and that is the best I can say for it. Here, it may be remembered, Dr. Johnson, when in the height of his fame, stood in its market-place bare-headed in the rain, "exposed to the sneers of the standers-by," as an act of penance for his unfilial disobedience as a boy in refusing to watch his weary and infirm father's bookstall set up there for a while. It is a well-known story, but the actual sight of the spot where that touching incident took place made me realise it the more.

Having viewed the market-place, made historic by this event, we took the first road handy out of the town, mildly wondering where we were going next. There was a sense of pleasurable excitement in not knowing our destination. I have a friend who does this sort of thing when he goes a-cycling, and who, like myself, travels to see the country, little caring where he goes. If a windy day he simply lets the wind settle his direction, for he always makes a point of cycling with the wind behind him; he finds it much easier so, and when it blows hard he finds himself blown along with the minimum of exertion. So he never troubles about any plan, but when he starts out in the morning he just glances at the way of the wind and goes contentedly with it. Capricious though this mode of travelling be, yet it rendered fortunate results. When he traced me out on the map one or two tours he had made in this haphazard fashion, I felt bound to confess that no planned tour could have turned out better, and it took him to many odd out-of-the-way and pleasant places he would probably never have seen otherwise. Truly I did not consult the wind, but on the other hand I did not consult my map unless I wished to make for any special spot, and I also toured fortunately so, to the discovery of interesting places, for the most of my journey.

This time it was a milestone that revealed the fact we were bound for Burton-on-Trent. Now to Burton I had no desire to go; Burton is a big town, but the road was a very pleasant one, so I kept to it. The country was fine and open, with glorious views to the south, where undulating hills bounded the distant blue. We passed one or two stately old and dignified homes standing "amid their tall ancestral trees"; then the rain came on again, and in the pouring rain we passed through Tutbury, where afterwards I learnt there are the slight remains of a castle; but I saw nothing of them, for I was thinking more of the rain and the road than anything else: the rain was blinding, so little wonder I missed them. It was not a moment for seeing castles or anything else.

I was not pleased at having to drive through Burton, for I expected to find it a busy town with much traffic in its streets, and this was the first large and busy town I had to pass through during the whole of my outing; I had merely skirted Shrewsbury, so that did not count. Yet never have I passed through a large and busy town so easily as I passed through Burton; its streets are wide, and for a wonder I found the traffic on them, much of it brewers' drays, kept well to its side of the road, so I was soon into the country again.

Just beyond Burton I had a choice of two roads, and was doubtful which to take, when I saw a signpost with "To Watling Street" upon it—merely to that old highway and not to any inhabited place. This decided me; I would rejoin the famous Watling Street, of which I had a pleasant memory. I knew it avoided big, bustling towns, and that was no small recommendation. A long rise brought me into a very pleasant country, and into welcome blue skies and warm sunshine. Such varied samples of weather had I that day—the blackest of clouds and the bluest of skies, cold pelting rain and the brightest of sunshine. The scenery was delightfully rural all the long and lonely way to Atherstone, where we should be on the Watling Street again, excepting that at one spot there were some collieries on a near hill that spoilt the prospect for a while; but I looked the other way. These passed, we traversed a fine undulating country, made up of meadows, fields, and woods, and ever and again wide views of much charm opened out before us; and there the air blew sweet and bracing, with the rare freshness that follows rain. I pulled up at one quiet spot under the shelter of some overhanging trees for refreshment and for a rest, and there I stopped for an hour or more, and not a soul either driving, riding, cycling, or afoot went by. It was a cross-country road, apparently little used, and one to be enjoyed for its quietude and rural pleasantness. It surprised me how often I came upon such long stretches of almost deserted roads; we travelled far on that stage before we met a human being. Perhaps when I pulled up it was the hour of the day when the good old-fashioned country folk are mostly indoors dining, and the labourers resting from their work, so no one was about; but that does not account for the rest of the road later on being so forsaken.

Atherstone is one of the order of far-extending thoroughfare towns that flourished in the old coaching days, and that seem to have fallen half asleep since, for the chief concern of such towns was with the road and its traffic, though Atherstone is not so sleepy as most of them are. All that I could discover of any interest in the place was an old milestone set up against the ancient "Red Lion Inn" there; this, curiously enough, stands just one hundred miles respectively from London, Liverpool, and Lincoln, as the following inscriptions on it show:—

A man who was quietly watching me copying these inscriptions, when I had done my copying, exclaimed, "That be a famous old milestone. The drivers of the old coaches as stopped at the inn used always to call their passengers' attention to it." On returning home I looked up in my Paterson for the name of the chief inn at Atherstone, and found it was "The Red Lion."

It seems strange that to-day, when so much loving regard is shown to the preservation of old houses, and to the careful restoration of them backwards to the intention of their ancient architects, that our many quaint and friendly-looking old coaching inns should have found such few patrons to preserve their fascinating features. Standing by the roadside, how delightfully picturesque they often are, when unaltered and—save the mark!—unimproved. Many, in truth, are poems in buildings (and the term is not strained in regard to them) with their many-gabled, time-toned fronts; their signs often gaily painted, swinging on an upright post without, to proclaim their useful business; their great arched doorways under which the loaded coaches drove and landed their passengers at ease sheltered from the rain and undisturbed, or their ample porches that spoke a welcome as plain as any uttered word. Some are of half-timber and some are of stone. Perhaps those of half-timber are the more picturesque, but nearly all are pleasing to the eye; some, alas! are going to sad decay, such as that fine specimen of an old English roadside hostelry, "The Bell" at Stilton, which used to be both afamous and aflourishing house in its day, and which gave its name to the well-known cheese that the landlord of the time used to sell to his guests—indeed I believe it was considered the thing to buy a cheese at "The Bell" to take home with you. One of these old inns Ashby-Sterry has pictured to us in verse, and well the picture suits many an inn I know:

'Tis a finely-toned, picturesque, sunshiny place,
Recalling a dozen old stories,

With a rare, British, good-natured, ruddy-hued face,
Suggesting old wines and old Tories.

Ah! many's the magnum of rare crusted port,
Of vintage no one could cry fie on,

Has been drunk by good men of the old-fashioned sort
At the Lion.

"The Lion," white or red, was in the past—I am not sure that it is not even to-day—by far and away the favourite sign; "The White Hart," I think, came second. These old inns, both outwardly and inwardly, have suffered sadly from neglect, and from the mania for show that does not spell comfort. Yet when simply, decently cared for, and unaltered, how charming and restful their old-time interiors are with their snug, low, brown-beamed, ceilinged parlours, sometimes panelled and with big ingle-nooks, their mullioned windows with their lattice panes, often deeply recessed with a seat in them, their cool and cosy bars and odd nooks and curious corners. That delightful Jacobean hostelry, "The Whyte Harte," to wit, at Broadway in Worcestershire, with its genuine old-world atmosphere and quiet comfort, may be given as a good example of one. Some of these old hostelries were provided with a quaint device in the shape of an indoor wind-dial worked by a vane without, so that travellers overnight could judge by it of the next day's possibilities, and learn from the direction of the wind whether it were likely to be hot or cold, wet or fair. One of these interesting and useful indoor wind-dials may still, I believe, be seen in London at the Buckingham Palace Hotel; at least one was there and working but a year or two ago, and I understand that they are being introduced into modern homes. There are still some things we may learn from our ancestors.

At Atherstone I was again on the ancient Watling Street, and I followed it to Daventry as far as it is at present opened out to the south. Again it led me through a lonely country of field and forest, unexciting but very pleasant, a country fragrant with the scent of wild flowers and the refreshing odours of the woods. I did not dally at Daventry, for the little town appeared to me featureless, and finding from my map that Banbury was but sixteen miles away, I thought to spend the night in that place as being of greater interest; moreover, I had recently read in my morning paper an account of the old historic Globe Room there at the "Reindeer Inn," with the further unwelcome information that its fine oak panelling, with its richly carved fireplace and its elaborately enriched plaster ceiling, had all been sold and were to be removed, and I wished to see it—if not too late. In this room Cromwell, it is said, held a council of war in October 1642 just before the battle of Edge Hill, so it had (oh, that pathetic word "had"!), besides the charm of its ancient picturesqueness, the additional interest of being with little doubt the place of that historic gathering. Now the fine old room has been gutted. So the "vast museum" of England is being despoiled! Whatever were the citizens of Banbury about to permit of such a thing; could they not have subscribed the price demanded for the panelling and decorative work (comparatively a paltry sum when divided amongst so many), and have retained that beautiful, historic, and ancient room intact? You cannot replace or purchase history. Even taking the meanest, most commercial view of the transaction, surely it would have well repaid the town to have bought and to have preserved that fine old chamber so intimately associated with Banbury, for I know it brought many tourists from afar to see it, some from even across the wide Atlantic; now perhaps they will not desire to go to Banbury and spend their money there, for it has little else but some ancient houses to show. Years ago the iconoclastic Banbury folk pulled down their exceptionally fine and interesting old church, "one of the most magnificent in the shire," even destroying its fine monuments, to save the little needed to keep it and them in repair, to say nothing of having done away with their "goodly crosse" of nursery renown, though a later generation has replaced it with a poor and meaningless substitute. What child would now "ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross"? It is not worth riding to or talking about.

But I am a little previous, not having arrived at Banbury yet; our road to that town was either up or down hill all the way, but there was nothing to grumble at in this, for the scenery was rewarding and the motor had to do the climbing. At the top of one hill we came upon a lonely old windmill going to decay, its gaunt arms standing darkly profiled against the sky and shaking with every gust of wind. It had a weird and haunted look, though I never heard of a mill being haunted; precisely what is it, I wonder, that gives certain buildings such an uncanny look? There must really have been some magic about that mill, for I photographed it and only got a ghostly result on my film. I have never seen a ghost, but to my astonishment three intelligent people have declared, and positively declared, to me that they have done so. A little later will be found a reference to this matter. Now a ghost is a visible object and ought to be capable of being photographed: what would I not give to see a genuine photograph of a ghost! When next I sleep in a haunted room I must take my camera with me on the off chance of a ghost appearing, so that I may snap him! Though I fear my chances are but slight, for I have slept in haunted rooms where other people are reported to have seen "things," but saw nothing—not even in my dreams, which were undisturbed. Why will "things" appear to others and not to me?

Years gone by, and not so many years either, you might from one spot have seen half a dozen or more windmills busily at work where now by chance you may see one; and in those past years you might have seen farmers' waggons slowly wending their way to the mill loaded with sacks of corn to be ground, or wending their way back white with fat sacks of flour. Now, except possibly in some parts of Sussex, to see a windmill with its hurtling sails is a rare sight. Grieved indeed am I that it should be so, for as a child I dearly loved the merry bickering windmill—what child does not? Now I have grown to man's estate I have not lost the old love of the sight of one. There is something very cheery and fascinating in watching the mill sails whirling round and round in their never-completed journey, now grey in shade, now white in the glance of the sun. But I sadly fear the dear old picturesque windmill is doomed, unless the manufactured article flour, not the raw material wheat, is taxed. I am no politician—I think I have said so already—for in an age when it seems to me, to misquote Macaulay, "all are for the party and none are for the State," the business of politics, as one of the Georges, I forget now which, remarked, "is not to my fancy." I preach neither free trade nor tariff reform; I have not studied the question, and I do not profess to know the facts of the case without study, as some people do—even members of Parliament who vote for their party right or wrong; it would probably cost them their seat and four hundred golden sovereigns a year if they did otherwise. But this I know, for I have tested it, that stone-ground flour produced by the old-fashioned windmill is infinitely sweeter, more nutritious, and more wholesome than the foreign roller-mill flour that is so starchy, "hence the present-day indigestion and the decay of teeth." Then, again, there is the fact, of which some clever people lose sight, that by importing flour and not wheat to grind at home we lose the valuable asset of "waste" as a fattening food for fowls, pigs, and cattle.

The village of Charwelton was the only one on the way of which I retain a memory, and this I remember on account of a fine and very old two-arched Gothic bridge of stone there by the side of, and parallel to, the road, manifestly intended only for foot passengers, so narrow is it, a carriage bridge in miniature, so solidly built and buttressed as though it spanned a rushing river and had to resist its strivings. Now the road was dry and no water flowed under the bridge; I could only presume that water had once flowed there. So I asked a man, who was idly standing by, about it. "The road be flooded in the winter time," said he, "and then us use the bridge. The water be quite deep at times and the horses on the road have to ford it. That bridge be seven hundred years old, they do say." It looked it. He appeared inclined to talk, so I let him, not knowing what might be coming. "It's a slow place Charwelton be," he went on, "there's no getting away from that. The church be a mile away from the village, and that don't encourage you to go to it. You see, the place were badly knocked about during the war, so I suppose they built a new village here, and let the church bide there." He spoke of "the war" as though it were of recent date; I was mystified, till I discovered he meant the Civil Wars when Charles I. was fighting for his crown!

I noticed nothing further on the way to Banbury but a big mounting-block of stone standing by a grassy margin of the road, an interesting survival, and a somewhat unusual thing to see, so I stopped to inspect it, and on it I discovered inscribed—

Thomas High of Warden
Set up this. Ivly, 1659.

It is still there to keep green the memory of this Thomas High, though I should imagine that few ever read the inscription or make use of the stone. I wonder why he put it up in that lonely spot, where, even in the old days, few people would be likely to need it. Now you rarely see a horseman on the road unless it be a huntsman; I doubt if the mounting-block has been used for these fifty years back.

At Banbury I went to the "White Lion"; there was also, I afterwards found, a "Red Lion" in the same street, a cosy-looking hostelry with an ancient front of the fifteenth century that appealed to me. In Paterson's Roads I note both these inns mentioned as existing in the coaching days. The "Red Lion" is the more picturesque of the two, but I was very comfortable at the "White." During the evening I hunted up mine host and inquired of him about the Globe Room. Alas! I had come too late to see it, for he told me that it had already been stripped of its panelling, its finely carved oak fireplace removed, its enriched plaster ceiling had been taken down, and all these had been carted away. I felt provoked with the Banbury people; I told the landlord so. I do not think I shall ever stay in Banbury again. I learnt of one curious and interesting find that had been made in the room. On pulling down the panelling there had been discovered hidden behind it a double-barrelled pistol with flint locks; the pistol was inlaid with gold and had the maker's name, "Baker, London," engraved upon it, and above the name the Prince of Wales's feathers. The pistol bears the following inscription: "Presented to Dick Turpin at the White Bear Inn, Drury-lane, February 7th, 1735." How came it there, I wonder, and who presented it to that famous highwayman? Of the genuineness of the pistol I think there can be but little doubt. Dick Turpin, it may be remembered, was hanged at York on 7th April 1739, four years after the pistol was presented to him. Writing of Dick Turpin reminds me of the myth of his renowned ride to York that Harrison Ainsworth in his Rookwood romanced about; now the credit of this surprising exploit really belongs to another of the fraternity, one Nick Nevison, of earlier time; this knight of the road robbed a traveller at Gad's Hill in Kent one morning at 4 A.M., and furiously riding on to York reached that city at 8 P.M. on the evening of the same day, and so established an alibi and saved his neck, at least on that occasion. The skeleton of a poor unfortunate cat was also found behind the panelling; I wonder if it was that of the historic cat that was hanged as recorded by Drunken Barnaby?

To Banbury came I, O prophane-One!
Where I saw a Puritane-One
Hanging of his cat on Monday,
For killing of a mouse on Sunday.

The landlord of "The White Lion," a pattern of civility, called my attention to "the famous wistaria" that is trained along the walls of the outbuildings of his ancient inn. This wistaria, he informed me, was the largest and finest in the kingdom, its branches extending for over two hundred feet. He was manifestly proud of it, and I duly admired it, but I had seen many fine wistarias before; I would rather have seen the Globe Room. There is little or nothing now left in Banbury to tempt the pilgrim to linger there. So I took my departure the next morning, and that early.