Here, crossing at Heybridge, we may say good-bye to history for a while and devote ourselves to things more mundane. At Heybridge we are about as near the sea-level as we can be. In two miles and a half we climb two hundred feet or more, and then we follow the top of a ridge for four miles to Tiptree. For me, before the Essex manœuvres, Tiptree simply spelled "jam" in seven letters, none of them appearing in that familiar word. To be plain, Tiptree jam is far better than any "home-made" comestible of the kind it has been my fortune to encounter, because it has all the purity of the domestic product, while it is made with all care and knowledge that science and experience can furnish. A cook or a careful housewife has many distractions of puddings, entrées, sauces, savouries, and what you will. Tiptree devotes all its energy and intelligence to jam, and the result is a divine confection, pure ambrosia. Tiptree will not thank me for this advertisement because the name of Tiptree is established. To many it will appear as superfluous to praise the jams of Tiptree as it would be to state that two and two make four, or that '47 port is excellently good. Still, experience has shown the existence of a benighted but considerable minority who will infallibly be grateful for the knowledge, if they use it. If they do not, so much the worse for them. Without doubt the fame of the Tiptree jams must involve prosperity also, and the district, with its trim orchards, a sea of bloom in late spring and loaded with rosy fruit in the autumn, is full of encouragement to one who believes that where land is not made to pay something is rotten in the state. It is a pretty sight too, and one recalling sundry speeches of the late Mr. Gladstone which were not taken very seriously when they were uttered. Other crops you will find hereabouts—it was at Tiptree, as told elsewhere, that the military balloon came down in the middle of a crop of bird-seed—and the whole district gives one the impression of being in the hands of persons, courageous and competent, who refuse to meet the difficulties of farming with mere lamentation but, like the farmers of Ingatestone at the time of the 1897 disaster, are resolved to make the best of things.
That spirit is traditional at Tiptree. Was it not there that the great Mr. Mechi, who flourished in the middle of the last century, produced wondrous results by plentiful use of liquid manure, and proved the profitable quality of beans in such fashion as to astonish his contemporaries? To men of his quality, who made two blades of grass grow where but one grew before, I for one insist upon giving all praise and honour, and, when one thinks upon their good work, there is a disposition to feel that, in its proper place, a trim hedge is not without its attraction, what though it be not nearly so beautiful as one that is a straggling thicket of hawthorn, honeysuckle and wild rose. But a doubting afterthought rises. Mr. Mechi farmed from 1840 to 1870, perhaps longer. His Profitable Farming, with its striking figures, was published during that period, and those were piping times for agriculture. Could he have shown accounts even half or a quarter as good for the thirty years from 1875 to 1905?
We have reached Tiptree in imagination from Maldon, and there is no difficulty in doing so by road from the same place. As a matter of fact, my first visit to Tiptree was made from Braintree, whither a morning expedition had been taken to see if General Wynne was at his accustomed post, and the ignis fatuus which lured me and a companion in that direction was the balloon, seen in the air from a long distance, which we found afterwards in the bird-seed field. (In passing, as the officer in the car of the balloon had seen nothing at all of the troops shrouded from his view, the inference that balloons are of precious little use in a wooded country would seem to be fairly obvious.) Leaving the balloon to its fate—although the officer would have liked to commandeer our car for the transport of his mass of collapsed silk—we proceeded by way of Messing to Heckford Bridge. Of these the first-named has been suggested by a learned antiquary, the Reverend H. Jenkins, as a possible site for the stark battle in which Suetonius wiped the army of Boadicea out of existence and avenged the massacre of Camulodunum: "Whoever visits the camp at Haynes Green, near the village of Messing, will be struck with the resemblance it bears to the position taken up by Suetonius. Two large woods, Pod's Wood and Layer Marney Wood, seem to form the narrow gorge in front of the camp which Tacitus mentions." Merivale, who says that the speculations of Mr. Jenkins were useful to him, although he could not go all the way with them, describes the position of Suetonius thus: "In a valley between undulating hills, with woods in the rear, and the ramparts of the British oppidum" (Lexden) "not far perhaps on his right, he had every advantage for marshalling his slender forces.... Ten thousand resolute men drew their swords for the Roman Empire in Britain. The natives, many times their number, spread far and wide over the plain; but they could assault the narrow front of the Romans with only few battalions at once, and their wagons, which conveyed their accumulated booty and bore their wives and children, thronged the rear, and cut off almost the possibility of retreat."
Now there is no doubt that places become manifold more interesting if one can fill the scene, so to speak, with action and actors of long ago. Westminster Hall would be majestic if it had no associations, but few men enter it for the first time without recalling the trial of Charles the First. A well-known tract near Brussels would attract no pilgrims if the freedom of Europe had not been won on its fields. The case is the same with Messing. If there be cause for saluting it as the place where Briton and Roman met in a conflict to the death every fold in the ground stirs the imagination. But when an antiquary talks of two large woods as seeming to form a narrow gorge, and a clerical historian writes of a "valley between undulating hills," of a wood in the rear, of a plain in front over which the natives "spread far and wide," and locates the wagons in the rear, only one course is open to me. It is to forget the six and twenty years which have passed since last I faced the "small but well-armed tribe" of the examiners, during which there has been neither occasion nor desire to read Latin prose works, to ignore the terrors of the historic present and of what I believe used to be called oratio obliqua, and to refer to Tacitus, upon whom both these clerical gentlemen relied for information. One sentence disposes of the question of position. Tacitus tells us that Suetonius had ten thousand armed men when he made up his mind to give battle, "and he picks a place with narrow jaws and closed in by a wood at the rear, well assured that there was no part of the enemy save in the front, and that the plain was open, without fear of ambushes." There is nothing to suggest that the sides of the defile were wooded, as Mr. Jenkins thought they might have been, or that there was any wood at all except in the rear. Indeed, the probability is the other way. Still less is there any word to explain why Dean Merivale invented "a valley between undulating hills." Indeed, the description of the defile by the word fauces (which has been translated literally) conveys a sharper and more rugged idea than our word "valley," which, of course, comes directly from vallis and carries the same meaning. In fact, the "gorge" of Mr. Jenkins is the better translation, and undulating hills would have given Boadicea a chance of taking Suetonius in flank. The wagons apparently were drawn up in a crescent behind the British so that their occupants might see the fight.
That is all concerning the position, and it is really mere guess-work on the part of Dean Merivale to suggest that the great battle was fought anywhere near Colchester. All we know is that Suetonius determined to leave London to its fate, and St. Albans also, and that Merivale thought "the situation of Camulodunum, enclosed in its old British lines, and backed by the sea, would offer him a secure retreat where he might defy attack and await reinforcements; and the insurgents, after their recent triumphs, had abandoned their first conquests to wreak their fury on other seats of Roman civilization. While, therefore, the Iceni sacked and burnt first Verulamium (St. Albans) and then London Suetonius made, as I conceive, a flank march toward Camulodunum, and kept ahead of their pursuit, till he could choose his own position to await their attack." All this is pure fancy. All we know for certain is that Suetonius left London, then not a colonia but already a great centre of commerce and business, and St. Albans to their fate. There is not a particle of evidence whither he went; and there was less reason to go to Camulodunum than to any place; for it had recently been sacked by the Iceni under Boadicea, and resistance had been hopeless because the colonists had taken no steps in the way of preparing defences. The "old British lines" of Camulodunum had seemed to the veteran colonists of so little use when they were attacked that they made their only stand, and that to no avail, in the Temple of Claudius. In fact there is no evidence to show which way Suetonius marched, or where the defile was, with the wood in rear, in which he induced Boadicea to attack him. Tacitus most likely did not know himself. He was not present. He was merely a Roman gentleman and an ex-official, of literary proclivities, writing a picturesque military history, partly from hearsay, partly from official records. He probably knew very little of the geography of Britain—not a very important province, be it remembered—and his desire, presumably, was to interest Roman readers and to give gratification to great men whom he liked, or from whom he might look for favour. He described the military position and showed Suetonius in the character of a capable general. To have done more, to have gone into geographical detail, would have puzzled his readers as English readers might be puzzled to-day by detailed allusions to unheard-of places in an unfamiliar part of the globe.
So there is no limit to the number of places—a gorge, with a wood behind and an open plain in front—capable of being accepted as the field of this particular battle. It may have been anywhere in southern England. Still if, like the Trojans when they were hoodwinked by the Greeks into opening the gates of Troy too soon, men would like to localize the field of battle somewhere, so that they may conjure up the scene anew, there is no reason in life why they should not amuse themselves thus at Messing. They can look at the camp at Haynes Green and conjure up in imagination the fourteenth legion in close ranks in the centre, with the cavalry massed on either flank. They can think they hear the general heartening them for the combat and telling them not to mind the yells of the savages—for that is what a high-sounding Latin paragraph comes to in effect. They can see in fancy Boadicea making the circuit of her warriors in a chariot, her outraged daughters in front of her, inciting her hearers to frenzy. They can gaze in imagination on the Neronian legionaries when, having exhausted their javelins on the attacking mobs ("battalions," which Merivale uses, is far too orderly a word), they charged the Britons en masse, and the cavalry joining them at the gallop with out-stretched lances. They can imagine the tangle of wagons, warriors, women and children into which the Roman soldiers plunged, sparing no living thing. Clara et antiquis victoriis par eâ die laus parta, says Tacitus. "The glory of that day was quite like the old victories. Men say that rather less than eighty thousand Britons fell as against four hundred soldiers killed and not many more wounded." They can believe that boast of a military historian who was away at Rome, if they like; and there is really no harm in their fancying that all this happened at Messing if they please. To do so will make Messing interesting, and nobody will ever be able to locate the battle anywhere else with any more certainty.
During the mimic warfare of a few years ago, as has been stated, I travelled from Tiptree to Messing on a Lanchester, and from Messing to Heckford Bridge. My recollection is of a pretty country, with many little ups and downs, of rich orchards, of oaks overshadowing the roads, and of green acorns which the soldiery seemed to enjoy, of abundant orchards and, last but not least, of abominable roads. But let me not be too hard on the roads. They were equal, no doubt, as byways go, to "the ordinary traffic of the district"; they were subjected to an extraordinary strain by long trains of transport wagons, which encumbered my course in such a manner as to make me full of sympathy now for the Britons who fell among their own wagons under Roman sword and spear. Even among those endless vehicles one could not fail to observe the beauty of spreading trees and innumerable variations of level, especially at Heckford Bridge. Somewhere thereabouts it was, I remember, that a privileged motor-car came upon companies of invaders and of defenders, within two hundred yards of one another, and each totally ignorant of the propinquity of the other. Bored as the manœuvring troops were—for men and officers will be bored by continuous marching during which they have not the slightest idea what is going on—this ignorance was not their fault. Most of the fields were out of bounds, and although military imagination might go so far as to imagine scouts—it imagined one hundred thousand men in support of General Wynne that day—it can hardly supply the warnings which those imaginary scouts would give if they were real. But the most cogent reason of this blind manœuvring was to be found in the rapid variations of contour, the patulous trees, and the abundant leafage. This gave to the scenery singular charm, even while it made the roads such as the merely rushing motorist would eschew. Not only were they narrow and exceeding crooked, they were also very wet and greasy, so that a moderate pace would have been compulsory in any circumstances. Still, if any rational motorists will take this little drive in a leisurely way, they will agree, as they bowl along the few miles of good high-road between Heckford Bridge and Colchester, that it is exceeding pleasant and well worthy to be taken.
CHAPTER IX—(continued)
COLCHESTER TO THE EXTRAORDINARY "DENE-HOLES" AT GRAYS, ESSEX
Early rising a mistake—Fine weather and misty mornings—Bound for Grays, near Tilbury—To Chelmsford—Great Baddow and Clare College, Cambridge—Galleywood Common—A wide prospect—Billericay—Origin of name an enigma—Arthur Young on the country and roads—Same roads to-day—Effect of heavy motors—A plea for overhanging trees—Horndon on the Hill—Langdon Hill a fine view—Arthur Young rhapsodizes—Defoe at Chadwell—Little Thurrock—Hangman's Wood or Hairyman's Wood?—If the latter, possible connection with Peter the Wild Man—His story—Defoe's interest in him—The "Dene-holes"—An antiquary who gave no help—Enigmas not solved by designatory titles—The shafts—The groups of chambers—Dimensions—Uniformity of shape—Groups all separate—Absence of Orientation—Known to Camden—Neglected till 1884 and 1887, then again—No suggestive remains found—Cannot be chalk wells—Hardly flint mines as at Brandon—Legend of "King Cunobelin's Gold Mines"—Conceivably granaries—Not very likely—Why not refuges from the Danes, small at first and enlarged later?—Harmless speculation at any rate—Suggestion for return to Colchester—To Clacton by motor-boat, thence by train—Take glance at Burnham on Crouch—Quaint and hospitable.
Now doubts arise, and I hover between two opinions. Dinner and rest are supposed to have intervened before we carry on our little tour or series of tours. That is a small thing to demand. A playwright thinks nothing of an interval of years between two acts. The difficulty is that our imaginary tour of to-day is one of fully one hundred miles, and is much more likely to stretch out into one hundred and twenty, for few motorists will take the advice, honestly given, to retrace their wheelmarks for some fifty miles. That, really, is not half so bad as it sounds, for the eye of the most practised motorist does not observe so quickly while passing in one direction that nothing remains to be noticed about the same objects when passed from another direction. Still there are at least a hundred miles to go, some of them over familiar roads about which no further observations are necessary, to see a sight of mysterious interest which has, to all appearances, not obtained a tenth of the notice it richly deserves. Shall we, then, rise early in the morning, so that we may have leisure to proceed quietly and to enjoy "the clear morning air"? The suggestion is declined without thanks by the wise woman or man. The pleasures of early-rising and of the cool morning air are a fond delusion of the ancients; just as the idea that it is virtuous to get up early belongs to a state of opinion in which actions were believed to be virtuous if they were decidedly unpleasant. Now that this state of opinion has vanished the one consolation of rising early has disappeared also. Early-rising, especially in hotels, is a hollow fraud. It means reluctant relinquishment of the comfort of bed, futile attempts to eat breakfast served by sulky and half-awakened waiters, at a time when the body is not ready for that breakfast. Men quarry their food and crush it at these ghastly hours, but they do not really feed, and they are none the better for their effort so to do. Motoring loses half its joy when it is done at the cost of sleep, for it certainly may be held truth with a nameless poet, who sung that he had tried all the pleasures of this world,
And Love it was the best of them,
But Sleep worth all the rest of them.
Besides, even when the glass is set fair, and the day proper is going to be all that the heart can desire, the cool, clear, and beautiful air of the morning by no means always comes up to expectation. The prelude to a really fine day is very often a dense mist, sure forerunner of heat, from dawn until seven or eight o'clock; and in a dense mist no man can travel at a reasonable pace or with any pleasure at all. Moreover, the days when one gets up early for pleasure, especially in August, September, and October, are precisely the days on which the tricksy spirit of the mist chooses to make herself manifest.
Our destination is Grays, a squalid little town near Tilbury, on the estuary of the Thames, to which no sane person would think of going on pleasure for its own sake. There is a ferry from Tilbury across the Thames estuary, forgotten when I wrote earlier of the isolation of East Anglia, but little used by motorists. Grays is about fifty miles off by our route, which seems the best, and it will be time enough to explain why Grays has been chosen when we foregather round the luncheon table there. Better still, for although I secured a good luncheon in a house of public entertainment at Grays once the circumstances were exceptional, will it be to take a well-stocked luncheon basket and to lunch, not at Grays, but at Hangman's Wood, a mile or two to the east of Grays. We will not start before 9.30 a.m. and it will be bad luck indeed if we cannot reach it by 1.30 p.m. It is to be feared, however, that there may be some difficulty in inducing intelligent members of the party to leave Hangman's Wood so early as 3.30. So, having roused curiosity in the manner familiar to writers of serial stories, that is to say by breaking off at a critical moment, let us proceed in a leisurely way.
And first we spin along the familiar Roman road to Chelmsford, enjoying, be it hoped, the kind of weather invoked for "poor Tom Bowline," and making the most of good and straight going. The chances are that before the day ends we shall have to "put up with" something worse in the way of surface, and it is certain that we shall not have to lament monotonous straightness later on. In the heart of Chelmsford we ask for the Great Baddow road, and a short couple of miles takes us to a big Essex village, attractive to the eye, but not calling imperatively for a halt. The fact that this village was the birthplace of Richard de Badow, Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, in the time of Edward II, may be assimilated en voyage. University Hall, Cambridge, was founded by de Badow and the University conjointly. The Hall exists no longer, had indeed a very brief existence, for it was one thing to found it, and quite another to keep it going; and some time before 1360, when Elizabeth de Clare (who was granddaughter to Edward I) died after founding Clare College, University Hall had been merged in the college founded by this wealthy heiress of that "illustrious family of Clare" which has come to the fore in an earlier drive from Colchester. Great Baddow, therefore, has a connection, and that a distinct connection, with the college which was nursing mother to Latimer, whose most celebrated sermon is still part of the literary groundwork of every cultivated Englishman's style; to Cudworth, whose words used to be read by aspirants for honours in Greats at Oxford, and may still be so read; to Tillotson, whose sermons are familiar by name in the literature of the past; and lastly, if one among the moderns may be named, to Mr. Owen Seaman, editor of Punch and genial castigator of the weaknesses of all sorts and conditions of men.
At Great Baddow we turn to the right and then climb to the upland known as Galleywood Common, and already seen; and after that we climb again, a hundred feet as nearly as may be in a mile, to a nameless point of the road two miles west of West Manningfield. The air grows fresher, more invigorating, and if there be a suspicion of easterly direction in the breeze the breath of the sea will be recognized. Prospect, to use the expressive word beloved of the ancient topographer, is wider and more comprehensive than that to which we have been accustomed of late, for most of the country between us and the estuary of the Thames is very flat indeed, and in such a country a hill of 314 feet gives a very wide survey. Nine miles or thereabouts, mostly on a downward gradient, takes us to Billericay, but this ancient town itself stands on a hill. Why Billericay? Of a truth it is not possible to say, for the etymologies suggested are purely conjectural and not at all convincing, and all we know is that it was known as Billerica in the latter part of the fourteenth century. This is rather annoying, for most place-names are either susceptible of some explanation or of such a simple character that there seems to be no particular reason why they should not exist. "Billericay," on the other hand, is an etymological puzzle, and, at the same time, much too odd a title to have come into existence casually.
Billericay was one of the places visited by Arthur Young on his Six Weeks' Tour, and his description of the country is quoted both for the sake of variety and because it contains a useful reference to our destination of the day. He had been to Chelmsford, which he considered a pretty, neat, and well-built town, and he had remarked that all the cart-horses he saw from Sudbury to Chelmsford were of a remarkably large size. "From the latter town I proceeded to Billericay; the country very rich, woody, and pleasant, with abundance of exceeding fine landscapes over extensive valleys. The husbandry, I apprehend, not equal to that in use about Chelmsford; for their principal course is fallowing for wheat, then sowing oats and laying down with clover and ray-grass, which is a very faulty custom on land which, like this, lets in general from 15s. to 20s. an acre; nor did I see many good crops. The principal manure they use about Billericay is chalk, which they fetch in waggons from Grays, and costs them generally by the time they get it home 5-1/2d. or 6d. a bushel. They seldom use it alone, but mix it with turf, fresh dug, and farmyard dung, and then lay it on for wheat, now and then for turnips, which are however seldom sown in this neighbourhood. All this manure is sometimes spread at the expense of £10 an acre."
From Billericay to Tilbury, pretty much our route, Arthur Young was principally interested by the "prodigious size of the farms," a matter of no present concern. But he has something to say later which is very much to our purpose. "Of all the roads that ever disgraced our kingdom, in the very ages of barbarism, none ever equalled that from Billericay to the King's Head at Tilbury. It is for near twelve miles so narrow that a mouse may not pass by any carriage. I saw a fellow creep under his waggon to assist me to lift, if possible, my chaise over a hedge. The ruts are of an incredible depth, and a pavement of diamonds might as well be fought for as a quarter" [sic, meaning?]. "The trees everywhere overgrow the road, so that it is totally impervious to the sun, except at a few places. And to add to all the infamous circumstances which concur to plague a traveller, I must not forget eternally meeting with chalk-waggons; themselves frequently stuck fast, till a collection of them are in the same situation, that twenty or thirty horses may be tacked to each, to draw them out one by one. After this description, will you—can you believe me when I tell you, that a turnpike was much solicited by some gentlemen to lead from Chelmsford to the ferry at Tilbury Fort, but opposed by the bruins of this country—whose horses are worried to death while bringing chalk through these vile roads? I do not imagine that the kingdom produces such an instance of vile stupidity; and yet in this district are found numbers of farmers who cultivate above £1000 a year. Besides those already mentioned we find a Skinner and a Tower, who each rent near £1500 a year, and a Read almost equal; but who are all perfectly well contented with their roads."
Essex byways—and yet the road from Chelmsford to Tilbury ferry was hardly a byway in those days—are not quite so bad as this to-day, but emphatically they are not good, and in this particular district they are clearly not likely to improve. Arthur Young's long series of chalk-laden wagons, stuck fast in the mire and clay until such time as the combined teams were strong enough to extricate them one by one, are a thing of the past. But the joint evidence of Mr. Sidney Stallard and of Mr. Seymour Williams, who were chosen to represent the Rural District Councils Association before the recent Royal Commission, contains an interesting piece of information on this point, and on one general point of great importance. These gentlemen, engineers of considerable experience and officially familiar with the road question, do not think that light motors cause any considerable damage to roads, but they hold a very different opinion as to heavy motors. "At Billericay, which is an agricultural district, steam motors are used, and they cause damage there to the extent of £700." Obviously this is a very large annual expense for a district like that of Billericay, where the great farms of Arthur Young's day do not, in modern conditions and with modern prices, produce anything approaching to the profits of days gone by. It seems to follow that, at present at any rate, it would be unreasonable to hope for any great improvement in the byways of Essex, and more prudent to expect deterioration.
One word I would fain say of Arthur Young's complaint, because it is one often made now and, receiving a great deal of attention, is a menace to one of the most precious and characteristic beauties of England. He complains of the trees that overshadow the road, "so that it is totally impervious to the sun, except at a few places." So do County Surveyors complain and, since they have certain legal rights in this matter, they insist from time to time that trees overshadowing the road and hedges by the side of the road shall be cut down. To this process, within reasonable limits, those who value the silvan greenery of England would be unreasonable to object. High hedges near cross roads or at sharp turns of the road are a source of danger; the surface of roads much overshadowed by trees is far more difficult to preserve than that of roads in the open, because the shaded surfaces are seldom thoroughly dried. The drip and the shade combined are too much for the sun and the wind. On the other hand such stretches of road are rarely dusty, and that is assuredly something gained. It would be easy, if somewhat invidious, to point out instances in which County Surveyors, without exceeding their authority, have caused roadside trees to be hewn down and roadside hedges to be levelled to the ground, without sufficient justification, from the standpoint of a regard for the public safety, and with no justification at all, if the value of beautiful landscapes is to be taken into account. Let us beware lest, in making travel over the face of our England easy, we deprive it of half its charm.
After Billericay our next point is Horndon on the Hill, concerning the view from which "over the rich land of Essex and along the Thames" "Murray" speaks. The view from Horndon is not, however, to be compared with that from Langdon Hill, climbed six miles to the south of Billericay, which is 385 ft. high against the 128 of Horndon. It was of this hill, doubtless, that Arthur Young raved in the annexed passage: "I forgot to tell you," he wrote from the "King's Head," Tilbury, on 24 June, 1767, "that near Horndon, on the summit of a vast hill, one of the most astonishing prospects to be beheld, breaks almost at once upon one of the dark lanes. Such a prodigious valley, everywhere painted with the finest verdure, and intersected with numberless hedges and woods, appears beneath you, that it is past description; the Thames winding through it, full of ships, and bounded by the hills of Kent. Nothing can exceed it, unless that which Hannibal exhibited to his disconsolate troops, when he bade them behold the glories of the Italian plains! If ever a turnpike should lead through this country, I beg you will go and view this enchanting scene, though a journey of forty miles is necessary first. I never beheld anything equal to it in the West of England, that region of landscape."