[Ill.u.s.tration: _Ashwell._]

Not far from these bounteous springs rises the splendid tower of the church, springing high into the air with the same undaunted Early English ambition which raised the spire of Salisbury. And on its wall (inside) is carved, in rude and deeply incised lettering of Old English style, varied by some curiously Greek characteristics, the record already spoken of, dealing with the Black Death and the storm.

This consists of four lines, intended for Latin elegiacs, again with a Greek touch, and runs thus:

M . Ct . Xpenta . miseranda . ferox . violenta .

M.CCC.L.

Supest . plebs . pessima . testis . in . fineque . vents .

Validus . oc . anno . maurus . in . orbe . tonat.

M.CCC.LXI.

The opening words stand for the date:

Ct = Cter = CCC, and Xpenta = x.x.xXX = 50

The interpretation therefore is:

1350! Miserable, wild, distracted, 1350!

The dregs of the people alone survive to witness.

And in the end a wind Full mighty. This year St Maur thunders in the world.

1361.

The year 1349 marked the most fatal stage of the Black Death in these parts. In that year, to judge by the Diocesan records, no less than eighty-five per cent. of the beneficed clergy were swept away, which implies a corresponding mortality amongst other cla.s.ses. By 1350 the worst was over, but the full wretchedness of the situation was now developing itself. The plague lingered on, constantly growing milder, till 1361, when the great storm was supposed to have cleared the fair of the last remnants of infection. A like popular distich about this later visitation is quoted by Adam of Murimuth:

C ter erant mille decies s.e.x unus, et ille, Luce tua Maure, vehemens fuit impetus aurae.

Ecce flat hoc anno Maurus in orbe tonans.

That is, in English:

There were 300 + 1000 + 60 + 1 and that Mighty blast of wind was on thy day, Maurus.

Lo! in this year bloweth Maurus thundering in the world.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Ashwell Church from the N.W._]

St. Maur was a Gallican saint of the sixth century who was the first to introduce monasticism into France. There are several other interesting _graffiti_ on the same wall as the above, one of them representing old St. Paul's with its lofty steeple, the highest in the world (510 feet), and the famous Rose Window of the transept which Chaucer mentions in his Canterbury Tales.

Another, and perhaps prettier, way of reaching Ashwell from Cambridge is by taking the road that runs along the Backs, and following it out of the town in its course to the south-west. Its local designation is the Barton Road, but to antiquarians it has been known, since the seventeenth century, as the Akeman Street. It was at that period that the accepted identification of our Roman roads came into being, mainly through the fearless erudition of Gale. Their names (except that of the Via Devana) are as old at least as the Norman Conquest; but, save only in the case of the Watling Street, the main line of which has never been disputed, the connection between any given name and any given road has been matter for the wildest conjecture. Thus, Geoffrey of Monmouth, writing in the eleventh century, makes the Ermine Street (which we now, with strong reason, identify with the Old North Road from London to York) run from St. David's to Southampton! Our Akeman Street is supposed to connect Wells on the Wash with Aust on the Severn, pa.s.sing on its way through Bath (the Ake-man-chester of the Anglo-Saxons, _i.e._, "the stone stronghold of Aquae," Aquae being the Roman name for Bath). But a lot of this is mere conjecture. The "Barton Road," however, is undoubtedly on the line of a Roman road.

In spite of its name, it does not pa.s.s through the village of Barton.

Indeed, like the other roads leading westwards from Cambridge, it curiously avoids the villages on its line, or rather (for the road is older than they) the villages have curiously avoided being directly upon it, though they lie thick on either side. Possibly the first Anglo-Saxon settlers may have had in this district some superst.i.tious dread of a deserted Roman road, such as they certainly entertained at first for the deserted Roman towns, which they did not occupy for many a year (as at Cambridge), though they located their hamlets all round them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Ashwell Church._]

But though the Akeman Street does not actually take us through Barton village, it does lead us past the rare object of interest to be found connected with the place, the ancient Archery b.u.t.ts of the parish. These are to be seen just opposite the sign-post which points to Haslingfield, and are worth a pause to contemplate, for they give a most impressive idea of what archery meant to our forefathers. Every parish, it must be remembered, was bound by law in mediaeval times to have such a stretch of ground, and every yeoman was bound to constant practice upon it. And what practice! These "b.u.t.ts" are a stretch of greensward, some hundred yards across, and in length no less than three furlongs (660 yards). It looks an almost incredible distance for a bowman, but it was the standard, so far as we can judge by the very few b.u.t.ts of which the memory still survives. The length of the short street in South London, still called Newington b.u.t.ts, is nearly the same.

Here, then, we can picture the st.u.r.dy archers of Plantagenet days stretching themselves; their bows, not the toys of the modern toxophilite with their thirty or forty pounds of pull, but of twice the power (eighty lb. being a common pull in those times), and their "cloth-yard" arrows, over three feet long, whistling to a target not planted forty or fifty yards away, but twelve times the distance--the whole length of these b.u.t.ts. Indeed, for anything under two furlongs light arrows were not allowed, and the heavy regulation war arrow had to be used. Each man was taught, as Bishop Latimer tells us in recording his own youthful training, to draw his bow not by mere strength, but by sleight of hand, "to lay the weight of his body into the bow," and to draw the bowstring not to his breast, like other nations, but to his ear. Small wonder that with eye and sinews so trained our English archers became the wonder and the dread of Europe, or that their shafts decided so many a battlefield--Cressy, Poictiers, Agincourt, Flodden.

A mile further we cross the Bourn Brook, a tiny tributary which joins the Cam near Grantchester, hard by a small station on the Cambridge branch of the London and North Western Railway, called Lord's Bridge, from the Lord Hardwicke who, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, subst.i.tuted a bridge for the earlier ford here. To our right we see, across the fields, the church tower of Comberton; where, on the little village green, can still be seen the worn remains of a turf-built "maze," first traced out no one knows when, but certainly not later than the sixteenth century. Various mystical reasons are conjectured for the origin of these mazes, of which a fair number still exist in England (especially in the Eastern counties), while many more are known to have been destroyed by the Puritans of the seventeenth century as relics of heathen superst.i.tion. Such, indeed, they probably are. Mr. Walter Johnson, in his "Folk Memory," considers them to be exceedingly primitive, begun in connection with "ceremonial dances of painted heathen round a prehistoric camp fire." This Comberton maze is fifty feet in diameter, while the tracks are two feet in width, divided by slight banks of turf, once, it would seem, about a foot in height, but now much worn down.

The next turn (to the left) leads to Harlton, a pretty, shady village, with a fine Perpendicular church, having a stone rood screen, which is rare, and, what is yet rarer, a still surviving stone reredos of the fifteenth century, with a central recess, once closed with a door, and evidently intended as a "Tabernacle" for the Reservation of the Blessed Sacrament. The six niches on either side of this recess were as evidently meant for images of the twelve Apostles.

Harlton lies close under White Hill, that chalk spur which we have already met at Haslingfield.[179] Here, too, there is a "clunch-pit"

in the hill-side, from which the material for the church was probably dug. It is now disused, except for occasional marling purposes, and some unknown benefactor has planted its slopes with larches and laburnums, forming a most fascinating little dell, the charms of which are free to all.

[Footnote 179: See p. 236.]

Our road now climbs the hill, which it crosses through a cutting, with a fine view from the summit in either direction. In the little clump of trees just to the west of the road there stood, till the 'seventies of the nineteenth century, Orwell Maypole, the last of its cla.s.s to survive in these parts. In mediaeval times every village had its maypole, round which the la.s.ses and lads hied them to dance on May Day. But, like the mazes, they were called (and actually were) remnants of heathenism, and, as such, were destroyed wholesale in the years of Puritan ascendancy. So it befell with the great maypole which gave name to the church of St. Andrew _Under-shaft_ in the City of London. It was hewn down, and, as it lay along the street, sawn in pieces, each householder taking for firewood the length that lay opposite his own door. The Restoration set a certain number up again, but the continuity of their use had been broken, and its revival (as May Day was connected with no special Festival of the Church, like Easter and Christmas, which were also originally heathen feasts) became a merely artificial reaction, bound to dwindle away. So it befell that Orwell Maypole, after being disused for generations, finally perished by natural decay. It stood almost exactly upon the meridian of Greenwich, so that it was a valuable and far-seen landmark.

Orwell itself lies, as usual, just off the road, on the southern slope of the hill. Half a century ago it was the prettiest of villages, with its eponymous "well," shaded by magnificent trees, gushing from the hill-side, in the midst of a prehistoric earthwork, just below the n.o.ble church. But, about 1870, the earthwork, unhappily, was found to contain "coprolites" (worth probably about 100 after the expenses of getting them had been paid). For this paltry sum the whole place was destroyed. Well, trees, earthwork, all are now gone; only the church is left, perched on its slope high above the village street. It has a grand decorated chancel, the roof of which is covered with heraldic devices, and contains an interesting epitaph in Latin verse to one of the seventeenth century rectors of the parish, beginning:

Pastor eram dum pastor eram tunc fistula dulcis Tunc tuba qua torvum sprevit ovile lupum.

("I _was_ a Pastor, while a Pastor I; Sweet then my pipe; loud then my trumpet-call, Whereat my flock defied the wolf so grim.")

In the south aisle is preserved a small crucifix of stone, dating from the thirteenth century. It had been built into the wall to save it from destruction at the Reformation, and was not discovered for three hundred years.

About a mile further we find a village along the road itself, the village of Wimpole. But we notice that the houses are all modern, and that no church is to be seen amongst them. A church there is belonging to them, but it stands a mile to the west, where the village also stood till towards the close of the eighteenth century. At that time the mansion and park of Wimpole Hall were being enlarged to their present magnificence by Philip, the first Earl of Hardwicke (the builder of Lord's Bridge). Plebeian cottages were not to be tolerated "betwixt the wind and his n.o.bility," so he pulled down the entire village and planted it, where it now is, along the Akeman Street. The church, which could not well be moved, he faced with red brick to match his new-built stables, close to which it is situated.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Great Eversden._]

Wimpole Hall has pa.s.sed through various hands. The central portion was built, in 1632, by Sir Thomas Chicheley, the wings were added a century later by the Earl of Oxford, from whom it came to the Hardwicke family. It is now the seat of Viscount Clifden. The house is on a splendid scale, and the grounds on a scale yet more splendid, with a double avenue of elms, three miles long, running to the south.

Here Queen Victoria stayed when visiting Cambridgeshire shortly after her marriage, and won all hearts by her graciousness. It is still remembered how when, by some blunder, the attendant in charge of her jewels was not forthcoming, she came down to the ball-room with a simple wreath of roses in her hair, "and not all the jewels in the world could have made her look so queenly."

There is, of course, a public road leading from Wimpole village to the church, which is also accessible from the west, where the great iron gates of the park are usually unbarred at the request of respectable visitors. These gates open upon the Ermine Street, which the Akeman Street crosses a mile beyond New Wimpole, after also crossing the great avenue. Close by them is another transplanted village, Arrington, whose church stands on the hill half a mile westward. The traffic of the old North Road is responsible for this move, and also for the delightful old coaching inn here, the Hardwicke Arms, with its old-fashioned rooms and long range of stables.

At the junction our road ceases. To continue our westward course we must go along the Ermine Street for half a mile, either northward or southward, where we shall find lanes, either of which will carry us on. The northern lane here will take us along the line of the hill, to Tadlow, Wrestlingworth, Potton, and, finally, Bedford, and will enable us, if we will, to explore the three Hadleys (East Hadley, Hadley St.

George, and c.o.c.kayne Hadley), of which the two last have fine halls and parks. The southern, however, is the preferable route. It follows the course of the infant Cam, crossed by a bridge on the Ermine Street, and brings us first to the wholly obliterated Shingay, which, though once the most important parish hereabouts, and still giving its name to the Rural Deanery, has absolutely ceased to exist, church and all; its parishioners being affiliated to the neighbouring village of Wendy.

The cause of this ruin was the suppression, at the Reformation, of the inst.i.tution which was literally the life of Shingay, a House of the Crusading Order of St. John of Jerusalem, or, as they were commonly called, the Knights Hospitallers. This t.i.tle was given them because, at their original foundation, they dwelt in a Hospital (or house for the hospitable entertainment of pilgrims) at Jerusalem. We now connect this name only with places where the sick are ministered to; but it originally connoted far wider ministrations, and, indeed, rather corresponded to the other form in which the word has survived into our present speech--hotel. We read it on a leaden seal found here at Wendy, in 1876, which bears on one side a conventional representation of the Shrine of the Holy Sepulchre, surrounded by the legend IHERVSALEM, HOSPITALIS. On the other is the name of Guarin de Montaigu, who, from 1232 to 1269, was Grand Master of the Order.

The Hospitallers, as readers of "Ivanhoe" know, were, like the Templars, a military Order, who, for over six centuries, fought unceasingly for Christendom. First at Jerusalem, then at Rhodes, then at Malta, they held out with never-failing devotion against the on-sweeping torrent of Mahommedan aggression; and it is scarcely too much to say that but for their eight-pointed cross Christianity might well have been crushed throughout Europe. Not till the nineteenth century was their last stronghold, Malta, reft from them by Napoleon, to pa.s.s finally under the flag of England. The Order still survives, but the modern sodality calling itself by the same name, connected with what we now call hospital work, was set up in quite recent days.

Preceptories of the Order, as their branch Houses were called, were found in every land, and not least in England, where they were so much beloved that, when the rival Order of the Temple was suppressed, in the fourteenth century, its property was made over to them. Here, at Shingay, their establishment was a small one consisting of the preceptor, two knights, and three priests, one of whom acted as Vicar of Wendy. The gross income of the House was, in 1332 (as we know from a Report still existing in the Record Office at Malta), 187 12s. 8d., equivalent to about 3,500 at the present value of money. Of this the land (about 1,000 acres) brought in 71; the mills, houses, etc., 4 13s. 4d.; the work of the villains 38 10s. 0d.; and the Rectories of Wendy and Sawston, which formed part of their endowment, 66 13s. 4d.

The rest was derived from the fees paid by visitors; for, by the rule of the Order, the doors of the House were open to all comers. The expenses of the year amounted to less than half the income, for they lived frugally, their keep only coming to about 3 a week (in present value) for the six inmates, besides servants and guests. Men servants were paid at the rate of 12 a year (besides their keep), and each knight was allowed the equivalent of 25 a year for clothing and pocket-money. Thus a large sum was available for the war-chest of the Order, and was annually forwarded to the headquarters at Jerusalem or Rhodes.

One of their sources of income was a special privilege which is still remembered in local tradition. Their House (like those of the Templars) was exempt from every ban, even that of the Pope himself.

Thus, in the dismal days of King John, when England was placed under an Interdict, when no rites of religion could be observed, and even burial of the dead was forbidden, so that "you might see human bodies lying everywhere about the fields unsepultured," Shingay shone out as the one spot in the whole district where the consolations of religion were still attainable. Here Ma.s.s continued to be said, here the departed could still be laid in hallowed earth. And hither they were brought from all sides. And thus it is that peasants may be found who still tell how, at some far off, unknown period, those who, for some forgotten, inexplicable reason, might not be buried like Christians in their own churchyard, were spirited away by night in a "fairy-cart" to Shingay, there to be committed in peace to the ground. This "fairy-cart" is an echo of the word _feretorium_ (or bier on wheels), in which the conveyance was actually effected.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Rood Screen, Guilden Morden Church._]

Not a building of any kind now exists at Shingay, and very few at the adjoining Wendy, where, at every turn, we are greeted by a wealth of fresh-springing waters, derived from the artesian wells of the old coprolite diggings. The height in which the water in these wells rises is strangely variable. They are always made on the same system; an ordinary well being dug through the upper strata till the impervious gault is reached, which may be any distance from six to sixty feet below the surface. A four-inch bore is then made through the gault by means of a sort of Brobdingnagian cheese-taster, four or five feet long, screwed to an iron handle three times that length. Again and again the taster is brought up, full of gault, and its contents or "core" thrown aside. As the bore gets deeper more irons are added, till the water-bearing greensand or "rock" is attained, usually in the second hundred feet of the bore. The taster is then removed and a "chisel" subst.i.tuted for "striking the rock," _i.e._, punching a hole by lifting the entire length of irons a few feet and letting it fall.

By and by up comes the water, quite suddenly for the most part, gushing from the bore and filling the well till it finds its level.

This, as we have said, is curiously different in different spots; in some it does not reach the surface, and has to be pumped up; in others, as here at Wendy, it will supply a fountain eight or ten feet in height. One of these picturesquely gushes out from the top of an old wooden gate-post, up which some artistically-minded coprolite-digger has engineered its course. It is almost medicinal in the quant.i.ty of iron with which it is impregnated, but delicious to drink, and the softest possible.

This gate-post is beside the lane leading on Guilden Morden, the last village before we once more reach Ashwell, and itself standing on an outlying mound of the Ashwell chalk. Round this elevation the Cam takes a wide sweep. We may record that Wendy is the highest point along its course which navigation has ever attained. The breadth at Ashwell at once suggests to visitors that a canoe could reach the spot, and many an attempt has been made by ambitious undergraduates.

But the upper reaches are so choked up with reeds and weeds and rushes and bushes that no one has ever penetrated further than this spot, some four miles, by water-way, below the source.

Guilden Morden has a far-seen church, a conspicuous object from White Hill, over Barrington, twelve miles away. It is a fine building, with an unusually s.p.a.cious tower of Northamptonshire stone, and a Saxon font. But it is chiefly interesting for the remarkable development of the fourteenth century rood-screen, which on either side expands into a small "parclose" or pew, enclosed to the height of twelve feet by rich decorated tracery, ornately painted (the original pattern having survived sufficiently to be restored). On the west panel of the northern parclose may be discerned the figures of St. Erconwald and St. Edmund, both members of the royal line of East Anglia. The former was a brother of St. Etheldreda, the foundress of Ely, and became a much-beloved Bishop of London in the seventh century. The latter was the hero king martyred by the Danes a century later, the chosen friend of our great Alfred, of whom so lovely a picture has been left us by the old chroniclers:--