Part 8

To coachmen, who were adepts in the art of what the slangy call “spoofing,” and were always ready—in earlier slang phrase—to “take a rise out of” strangers, the Six Hills afforded an excellent opportunity of practising a diluted form of wit, and often brought them a glass of brandy or rum-and-milk at the next pull-up, in payment of the bets they would make with the most innocent-looking passenger, that he could not tell which two of the hills were furthest apart. They are, as nearly as possible, equi-distant; but strangers would select one couple or another, according to their fancy; whereupon the coachman would triumphantly point out that the first and the last were, as a matter of fact, the most widely divided. This perhaps does not exhibit coaching wit in a strikingly robust light; but a very weak kind of jocularity served to pass the weary hours of travel in our grandfathers’ days.

[Picture: The “Six Hills,” Stevenage]

XVI

STEVENAGE is the first of the many wide-streeted towns and villages whose emptiness proclaims the something missing that was provided for by all this vast roominess. Its one street, lining the old road, was originally laid out so spaciously for the purpose of affording room for the traffic for which, once upon a time, it was not too spacious. It is all too wide now that the intercourse of two nations proceeds by rail, and many of the old inns that once did so famous a trade are converted into private residences. Prominent among them was the “Swan,” which may now be sought in the large red-brick house on the right-hand side of the forking roads, as the town is left for Baldock. It may readily be identified by its archway, which formerly led to the spacious stables.

The “Swan” at Stevenage, kept in pre-railway days by a postmaster named Cass, was one of those exclusive houses which, like the “Red Lion” and the “Green Man” at Barnet, did not condescend to the ordinary coach-traveller. Cass kept post-horses only, and his customers ranged from princes and dukes down to baronets and wealthy knights.

“Posting in all its branches,” as the postmasters used to say in the announcements outside their establishments, was at the beginning of the nineteenth century essentially aristocratic; but it had many changes, from its beginning, about the dawn of the seventeenth century, to its end, before the middle of the nineteenth. Originally “posting” meant the hire of horses only, and the traveller rode horseback himself, accompanied perhaps by a mounted guide. Thus Fynes Morison, in his _Itinerary_, published in 1617, speaks of the early days of posting:—“In England, towards the south, and in the west parts, and from London to Barwick upon the confines of Scotland, post-horses are established at every ten miles or thereabouts, which they ride a false gallop after some ten miles an hour sometimes, and that makes their hire the greater; for with a commission from the chief postmaster or chiefe lords of the councell (given either upon publike businesse, or at least pretence thereof), a passenger shall pay twopence halfpenny each mile for his horse, and as much for his guide’s horse; but one guide will serve the whole company, though many ride together, who may easily bring back the horses, driving them before him, who ‘know the waye as well as a beggar knowes his dishe.’ This extraordinary charge of horses’ hire may well be recompensed with the speede of the journey, whereby greater expences in the innes are avoided; all the difficultie is, to have a body able to endure the toyle. For these horses the passenger is at no charge to give them meat onely at the ten miles, and the boy that carries them backe will expect some few pence in gift.”

When carriages were introduced, the very great personages of the realm “progressed” in them, and had their love of display gratified thereby. But what they gained in pomp they lost in speed, for at the best of it they rarely travelled at a greater pace than seven miles an hour.

An odd institution with the noble and the wealthy families of that bygone age was the “running footman.” It has sometimes been supposed that these deer-footed servitors were for town service, perhaps because “old Q,” the profligate Marquis of Queensberry, who was the last to keep one, lived in town during his last years and necessarily kept his lackey running London streets. The unique sign of the “running footman,” with the portrait of such an one in costume, is also in London, and may be seen any day on a little public-house, still chiefly frequented by men-servants, in Charles Street, Berkeley Square. He wears a uniform consisting of blue coat and breeches, trimmed with gold lace. Round his waist is a red sash, on his head a cap with a nodding plume, and in his hand the long staff carried by all his tribe. This is an outfit somewhat different from that usually worn, for we are told that they wore no breeches, but a short silk petticoat kept down by a deep gold fringe.

The function of a running footman was to run ahead of his employer’s carriage, to point out the proper turnings to take, or to arrange for his reception at the inns; but as time went on and accommodation increased, he was not of any practical use, and became simply a kind of unnecessary fore-runner, who by his appearance advertised the coming of my lord and upheld my lord’s dignity. It is said that these ministers to senseless pomp and vanity usually ran at the rate of seven miles an hour, and frequently did sixty miles a day. The long and highly ornamented staff they carried had a hollow silver ball at the end containing white wine. Unscrewing it, the footman could refresh himself. More white wine, mixed with eggs, was given him at the end of his journey, and he must have needed it! Over the bad and hilly roads of a hundred and fifty years ago, the running footman could readily keep ahead of a carriage; on the flat the horses, of course, had the advantage.

Post-chaises were unknown in England until after the middle of the eighteenth century had come and gone. Thus we find Horace Walpole and Gray, taking the “grand tour” together in 1739, astonished to laughter at the post-chaises which conveyed them from Boulogne towards Paris. This French vehicle, the father of all post-chaises, was two-wheeled, and not very unlike our present hansom-cab, the door being in front and the body hung in much the same way, only a little more forward from the wheels. The French _chaise de-poste_ was invented in 1664, and the first used in England were of this type; but they proved unsuitable for use in this country, and English carriage-builders at length evolved the well-known post-chaise, which went out only with the coaching age. But it was long before it began to supplant the post-horses and the feminine pillion.

Every one is familiar with the appearance of the old post-chaise, which, according to the painters and the print-sellers, appears to have been used principally for the purpose of spiriting love-lorn couples with the speed of the wind away from all restrictions of home and the Court of Chancery. A post-chaise was (so it seems nowadays) a rather cumbrous affair, four-wheeled, high, and insecurely hung, with a glass front and a seat to hold three, facing the horses. The original designers evidently had no prophetic visions as to this especial popularity of post-chaises with errant lovers, nor did they ponder the proverb, “Two’s company, three’s none,” else they would have restricted their accommodation to two, or have enlarged it to four.

It was an expensive as well as a pleasant method of travelling, costing as it did at least a shilling a mile, and, in times when forage was dear, one shilling and threepence. The usual rates were chaise, nine-pence a mile, pair of post-horses, sixpence; four horses and chaise, supposing you desired to travel speedily—say at twelve miles an hour—one-and-ninepence. But these costs and charges did not frank the traveller through. The post-boy’s tip was as inevitable as night and morning. Likewise there were the “gates” to pay every now and again. One shudders to contemplate the total cost of posting from London to Edinburgh, even with only the ordinary equipment of two horses. There were thirty post-stages between the two capitals, according to the books published for the use of travellers a hundred years ago. Those books were very necessary to any one who did not desire to be charged for perhaps a mile more on each stage than it really measured, which was one of those artful postmasters’ little ways. Here is a list of these stages with the measurements, to which travellers drew the attention of those postmasters who commonly endeavoured to overcharge:—

Miles Furlongs Miles Furlongs Barnet 11 0 York 9 3 Hatfield 8 4 Easingwold 13 3 Stevenage 11 7 Thirsk 10 3 Biggleswade 13 5 Northallerton 9 0 Buckden 15 7 Darlington 16 0 Stilton 13 7 Durham 18 2 Stamford 14 2 Newcastle 14 4 Witham Common 11 2 Morpeth 14 6 Grantham 9 5 Alnwick 18 6 Newark 14 3 Belford 14 5 Tuxford 13 2 Berwick 15 3 Barnby Moor 10 4 Press Inn 11 5 Doncaster 12 0 Dunbar 14 3 Ferrybridge 15 2 Haddington 11 0 Tadcaster 12 7 Edinburgh 16 0

Nearly four hundred miles by these measurements. This, at a shilling a mile for the posting, gives £20; but, including the postboys’ tips, “gates,” and expenses at the inns on the road, the journey could not have been done in this way under £30, at the most modest calculation. This list of post-stages was one drawn up for distances chiefly between the towns, but nothing is more remarkable along the Great North Road than the number of old posting-houses which still exist (although of course their business is gone) in wild and lonely spots, far removed from either town or village.

Another “branch” of posting was the horsing alone, by which a private carriage could be taken to or from town by hiring posters at every stage. This was a favourite practice with the gentry of the shires, who thus had all the _éclat_ of travelling in private state, without the expense and trouble of providing their own horses. It is probably of this method that De Quincey speaks in the following passage:—

“In my childhood,” says he, “standing with one or two of my brothers and sisters at the front window of my mother’s carriage, I remember one unvarying set of images before us. The postillion (for so were all carriages then driven) was employed, not by fits and starts, but always and eternally, in quartering, _i.e._ in crossing from side to side, according to the casualties of the ground. Before you stretched a wintry length of lane, with ruts deep enough to fracture the leg of a horse, filled to the brim with standing pools of rain-water; and the collateral chambers of these ruts kept from becoming confluent by thin ridges, such as the Romans called _lirae_, to maintain the footing upon which _lirae_, so as not to swerve (or as the Romans would say, _delirare_), was a trial of some skill, both for the horses and their postillion. It was, indeed, next to impossible for any horse, on such a narrow crust of separation, not to grow _delirious_ in the Roman metaphor; and the nervous anxiety which haunted me when a child was much fed by this image so often before my eyes, and the sympathy with which I followed the motion of the docile creatures’ legs. Go to sleep at the beginning of a stage, and the last thing you saw—wake up, and the first thing you saw—was the line of wintry pools, the poor off-horse planting his steps with care, and the cautious postillion gently applying his spur whilst manoeuvring across the system of grooves with some sort of science that looked like a gipsy’s palmistry—so equally unintelligible to me were his motions in what he sought and in what he avoided.”

XVII

BEFORE we leave Stevenage, we must pay a visit to the “Old Castle” inn, in whose stable the body of the eccentric Henry Trigg is deposited, in a coffin amid the rafters, plain for all to see; somewhat dilapidated and battered in the lapse of two centuries, and with a patch of tin over the hole cut in it by some riotous blades long ago, but doubtless still containing his bones. His Will sufficiently explains the circumstances.

IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN.

I, HENRY TRIGG, of Stevenage, in the County of Hertford, Grocer, being very infirm and weak in body, but of perfect sound mind and memory, God be praised for it, calling into mind the mortality of my body, do now make and ordain this my last Will and Testament, in writing, hereafter following: that is to say:—Principally I recommend my soul into the merciful hands of Almighty God that first gave me it, assuredly believing and only expecting free pardon and forgiveness of all my sins, and eternal life in and through the only merits, death, and passion of Jesus Christ my Saviour; and as to my body I commit it to the West end of my Hovel, to be decently laid there upon a floor erected by my Executor, upon the purlin, for the same purpose; nothing doubting but at the general Resurrection I shall receive the same again by the mighty power of God; and as for and concerning such worldly substance as it hath pleased God to bless me with in this world, I do devise and dispose of the same in manner and form here following.

[Picture: Trigg’s Coffin]

_Imprimis_. I give and devise unto my loving brother Thomas Trigg, of Letchworth, in the County of Hertford, Clerk, and to his Heirs and Assigns for ever, all those my Freehold Lands lying dispersedly in the several common fields in the parish of Stevenage aforesaid, and also all my Copyhold Lands, upon condition that he shall lay my body upon the place before mentioned; and also all that Messuage, Cottage, or Tenement at Redcoats Green in the Parish of Much Wymondly, together with those Nine Acres of Land (more or less) purchased of William Hale and Thomas Hale, Jun.; and also my Cottage, Orchard, and barn, with four acres of Land (more or less) belonging, lying, and being in the Parish of Little Wymondly, and now in the possession of Samuel Kitchener, labourer; and all my Cottages, Messuages, or Tenements situate and being in Stevenage, aforesaid: or, upon condition that he shall pay my brother, George Trigg, the sum of Ten Pounds per annum for life: but if my brother shall neglect or refuse to lay my body where I desire it should be laid, then, upon that condition, I will and bequeath all that which I have already bequeathed to my brother Thomas Trigg, unto my brother George Trigg, and to his heirs for ever; and if my brother George Trigg should refuse to lay my body under my Hovel, then what I have bequeathed unto him, as all my Lands and Tenements, I lastly bequeath them unto my nephew William Trigg and his heirs for ever, upon his seeing that my body is decently laid up there as aforesaid.

_Item_. I give and bequeath unto my nephew William Trigg, the sum of _Five Pounds_, at the age of Thirty years; to his sister Sarah the sum of _Twenty Pounds_; to his sister Rose the sum of _Twenty Pounds_; and lastly to his sister Ann the sum of _Twenty Pounds_; all at the age of Thirty Years: to John Spencer, of London, Butcher, the sum of _One Guinea_; and to Solomon Spencer, of Stevenage, the sum of _One Guinea_, Three Years next after my decease; to my cousin Henry Kimpton, _One Guinea_, One Year next after my decease, and another _Guinea_ Two Years after my decease; to William Waby, _Five Shillings_; and to Joseph Priest, _Two Shillings and Sixpence_, Two Years after my decease; to my tenant Robert Wright the sum of _Five Shillings_, Two years next after my decease; and to Ralph Lowd and John Reeves, _One Shilling_ each, Two Years next after my decease.

_Item_. All the rest of my Goods and Chattels, and personal Estate, and Ready Money, I do hereby give and devise unto my brother Thomas Trigg, paying my debts and laying my body where I would have it laid; whom I likewise make and ordain my full and sole Executor of this my last Will and Testament, or else to them before mentioned; ratifying and confirming this and no other to be my last Will and Testament, in witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal this Twenty-eighth day of September, in the year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Twenty-four

HENRY TRIGG.

Read, signed, sealed, and declared by the said Henry Trigg, the Testator, to be his last Will and Testament, in the presence of us who have subscribed our names as witnesses hereto, in the presence of the said Testator.

JOHN HAWKINS, Sen. JOHN HAWKINS, Jun. × The mark of WILLIAM SEXTON.

Proved in the Archdeaconry of Huntingdon, the 15th day of October, 1724, by the Executor Thomas Trigg.

The inn-signs of Stevenage afford some exercise for the contemplative mind. As the town is approached from London, the sign of “Our Mutual Friend” appears, nearly opposite a domestic Gothic building of red and white brick, originally a home for decayed authors, founded by Charles Dickens and the first Lord Lytton. The decayed authors did not take kindly to the scheme. Perhaps they did not like being patronised by authors of better fortunes than their own. The institution was a failure, and the building is now put to other uses. No doubt the sign of “Our Mutual Friend” derives from those times when Dickens and Lytton foregathered here and at Knebworth. At quite the other end of the town appears the obviously new sign of the “Lord Kitchener,” almost opposite that of another military hero, the “Marquis of Granby.”

Passing through the little old-world village of Graveley, succeeded by the beautifully graded rise and fall of Lannock Hill, we come into the town of Baldock, with its great church prominent in front, and its empty streets running in puzzling directions. It was at Baldock that Charles the First, being conducted as a prisoner to London, was offered wine in one of the sacramental vessels by the vicar, Josias Byrd, and it was on the road outside the town, near where the old turnpike gate stood, that the Newcastle wagon, on its way to London, was plundered of £500 in coin by three mounted highwaymen, on a February morning in 1737.

Our old friend Mr. Samuel Pepys, journeying on August 6th, 1661, from Brampton, came into Baldock, and stayed the night, at some inn not specified. He says, “Took horse for London, and with much ado got to Baldwick. There lay, and had a good supper by myself. The landlady being a pretty woman, but I durst not take notice of her, her husband being there.”

Always some spoil-sport in the way!

Baldock, from its stunted extinguisher spire to its fine old brick houses and nodding plaster cottages, is characteristically Hertfordshire. Among other things of general interest, it has a row of almshouses, duly inscribed:—

“Theis Almes Howses are the gieft of Mr. John Wynne cittezen of London, Latelye Deceased, who hath left a Yeareley stipend to everey poore of either howses to the Worldes End. September Anno Domini 1621.”

The worthy citizen reckoned without the Charity Commissioners, who may confidently be expected to propound a “scheme” some day long anterior to the final crash, by which his wishes will be entirely disregarded.

Away to the left of Baldock will be noticed a new town, and the factory chimneys of it. This is Letchworth, the “Garden City,” developed out of Letchworth, the little village of old. This “First Garden City,” founded in 1902, on a nominal capital of £300,000 actual £125,000, by the Garden City Association, itself founded in June, 1899, with a capital of about thirty shillings, represents a passionate quest of the ideal life on a 5 per cent. basis of profit. The problem of how to create an earthly paradise (plus industrial factories) was here to be tackled. The beginnings of such things are always the most charming; and Letchworth began ideally. But the factories and the five per cent. always have a way of overcoming ideals; and we shall see.

[Picture: At the 39th mile]

The stone outside Baldock, marking the thirty-ninth mile is milestone and upping-block as well.

Midway between Baldock and Biggleswade, at Topler’s Hill, the Bedfordshire border is crossed. We may perhaps be excused if we pass Topler’s Hill unwittingly, for the rises called “hills” on the Great North Road would generally pass unnoticed elsewhere. Biggleswade town and neighbourhood are interested wholly in cabbages and potatoes and other highly necessary, but essentially unromantic, vegetables. The surrounding country is in spring and summer one vast market-garden; at other times it is generally a lake of equal vastness, for the Ivel and the Ouse, that run so sluggishly through the flat lands, arise then in their might and submerge fields and roads for miles around.