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May 29. We travelled from Alconbury Hill to Ferry Bridge, upwards of a hundred miles, amid all the beauties of "flourish" and verdure which spring awakens at her first approach in the midland counties of England, but without any variety save those of the season's making. I do believe this great north road is the dullest in the world, as well as the most convenient for the traveller.
The 'Free and Candid Disquisitions, published in 1749 by John Jones, Vicar of Alconbury, did something towards reviving interest in the question. It was mainly a compilation of opinions advanced by eminent divines, past and living, in favour of revising the Liturgy, and making certain omissions and emendations in it. Introductory essays were prefixed.
"I hear it said that a woman is at the bottom of it all," I remarked. "Of course we can't say, sir," he replied; "but a little while ago Mr. Latour was seen several times by men working in the fields to meet, down at Alconbury Brook, a rather handsome, dark young lady, and walk with her." Was that lady Clotilde? I wondered.
It made one's heart ache for the farmers. Well, I turned back, of course, and took the London road to Huntingdon, which runs high all the way to Alconbury. I was getting jolly tired and wondering if I should find a decent bed before I reached Huntingdon, when I came to Saxon Cross.
It is said that Weare, as is the habit of such men, always carried about his person, and between his flannel waistcoat and shirt, a sum of ready money, equal to £1500 or £2000. No such money was ever recovered, and as the sum divided by Thurtell among his accomplices was only about £20, he must, in slang phrase, have bucketed his pals. We came on as far as Alconbury, where we slept comfortably.
I was rushing up Alconbury Hill on my "second," having done seventy miles without stopping, when of a sudden I felt that drag on the steering-wheel that every motorist knows and dreads. The car refused to answer to the wheel there was a puncture in the near hind tyre.
I inquired, quickly on the alert against the pair of desperate ruffians. "Answer me, Mr. Ewart," said the elder of the two, a man with a grey beard and a foreign accent. "You were driving an automobile near Alconbury on a certain evening, and a woman stopped you. She had a boy with her, and she gave you something a packet of papers, to keep in safety for her. Where are they? We want them."
Let us travel first along the old York road, or rather select our route, going by way of Ware, Tottenham, Edmonton, and Waltham Cross, Hatfield and Stevenage, or through Barnet, until we arrive at the Wheat Sheaf Inn on Alconbury Hill, past Little Stukeley, where the two roads conjoin and "the milestones are numbered agreeably to that admeasurement," viz. to that from Hicks' Hall through Barnet, as Patterson's Roads plainly informs us. Along this road you will find several of the best specimens of old coaching inns in England. The famous "George" at Huntingdon, the picturesque "Fox and Hounds" at Ware, the grand old inns at Stilton and Grantham are some of the best inns on English roads, and pleadingly invite a pleasant pilgrimage. We might follow in the wake of Dick Turpin, if his ride to York were not a myth. The real incident on which the story was founded occurred about the year 1676, long before Turpin was born. One Nicks robbed a gentleman on Gadshill at four o'clock in the morning, crossed the river with his bay mare as soon as he could get a ferry-boat at Gravesend, and then by Braintree, Huntingdon, and other places reached York that evening, went to the Bowling Green, pointedly asked the mayor the time, proved an alibi, and got off. This account was published as a broadside about the time of Turpin's execution, but it makes no allusion to him whatever. It required the romance of the nineteenth century to change Nicks to Turpin and the bay mare to Black Bess. But revenir
In England generally the ceremony was in all respects the same, except that no regular form existed for the readmission of penitents. Jones of Alconbury, in the 'Free and Candid Disquisitions' , spoke of the need of a recognised office for this purpose. That which was commonly used had no authority, and was very imperfect.
A cheap price, perhaps, after all, to pay for that power of local self-government which has kept England free unto this day. Be that as it may, down the Roman road Hereward went; past Alconbury Hill, of the old posting days; past Wimpole Park, then deep forest; past Hatfield, then deep forest likewise; and so to St. Alban's.
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