The Bath Road Part 5

You had better speak to your son about it, and then we will resume our conversation."

The landlord was quite innocent of his son's intended crime, but he had reason to believe him capable of it. He went out with a heavy heart, and when he came back his face showed it. "Well," he said, with a sort of calm despair, "what steps do you intend to take, sir, in the matter?"

"None to hurt an old friend, you may be sure," answered the lawyer; "only those twelve votes you boasted about must be given to our side instead of yours;" which was accordingly arranged.

In those days, as will already have been seen, Hounslow Heath was a very real place indeed. There was (as the journalistic slang of to-day has it) "actuality" about that then solitary and barren waste, which is not a little difficult to realize nowadays. The cyclist who speeds over the level roads and past the smiling orchards and market gardens, finds it difficult to believe that this was the sinister place of eighty years ago; and, since there is no Heath to-day, is apt to come to the conclusion that it must have been the very "Mrs. Harris" of heaths; a figment, that is to say, of romantic writers' imaginations. Such, however, was by no means the case. Where cultivated lands are now, and where suburban villas stand, there stretched, less than eighty years since, a veritable scene of desolation. Furze-bushes, swampy gravel-pits in which tall gra.s.ses and bulrushes grew, and gra.s.sy hillocks, the homes of snipe and frogs, and the haunts of the peewit, were the features of the scene by day; while, when night was come, the whole place swarmed with footpads and highwaymen.

[Sidenote: _LORD BERKELEY'S ADVENTURES_]

At that time Lord Berkeley used frequently to stay at his country house at Cranford, close by, from Sat.u.r.days to Mondays, and had twice been stopped and robbed on his way before a third and last encounter, in which he shot his a.s.sailant dead. On the second occasion, the door of his travelling carriage was opened, and a footpad, dressed as a sailor, pointed a fully-c.o.c.ked pistol at him. The man's hand trembled violently, and while my lord was producing what money he had about him, the trigger was pulled, more, it would seem, from accident than intention. Happily, the pistol missed fire. The man then exclaimed, "I beg your pardon, my lord," and, rec.o.c.king his pistol, retreated with his plunder.

After this escape, Lord Berkeley swore he would never be robbed again, and always travelled at night with a short carriage-gun and a brace of pistols. Thus armed, it was on a November night in 1774 that he was attacked for the last time. He was going to dine with Mr. Justice Bulstrode, who lived in an old house surrounded by a brick wall, near where Hounslow's modern church now stands, and as the carriage was nearing the town, a voice called to the postboy to halt, and a man rode up to the carriage window on the left-hand side, thrusting in a pistol, as the gla.s.s was let down. With his left hand Lord Berkeley seized the weapon and turned it away, while with his right he pushed the short double-barrelled gun he had with him against the robber's body, and fired once. The man was severely wounded, and his clothes were set on fire, but he managed to ride away some fifty yards, and then fell dead. Two accomplices then appeared, but Lord Berkeley, and a servant on horseback who rode behind the carriage, made for them, and they fled. It was then discovered that the gang were all amateur highwaymen, and youths from eighteen to twenty years of age, in good positions in London.

The Earl of Berkeley seems to have been somewhat unduly twitted about this encounter. Society was quite resigned to seeing highwaymen hanged, although it made heroes of them while they were waiting in the "stone jug"

at Newgate for that fatal morning at Tyburn; but it appears to have considered the shooting of one of them an unsportsmanlike act.

Lord Chesterfield, however, should have been quite the last man to sneer at the Earl on this score, for he himself was under a very well-deserved public censure for having prosecuted Dr. Dodd, his son's tutor, for forgery, with the result that the Doctor was hanged. Accordingly, when he sarcastically asked Lord Berkeley "how many highwaymen he had shot lately," it is pleasing to record that he was readily reduced to silence by the retort, "As many as you have hanged tutors; but with much better reason for doing so."

XIV

[Sidenote: _CRANFORD_]

It is just beyond Cranford Bridge that the pumps which are so odd a feature of the Bath Road begin. They line the highway on the left-hand side going from London, and are all situated in the same position as shown in the ill.u.s.tration. They are of uniform pattern, and are placed at regular intervals. These pumps are relics of the coaching age, but are peculiar to the Bath and some stretches of the Exeter roads. Placed here for keeping the highway well watered in the old days of road-travel, they have evidently long been out of use; in fact, their handles are all chained up. They recur so regularly that they might almost form part of a new table of measurement, as thus:--

63 paces equal 1 telegraph-post.

19 telegraph-posts " 1 mile.

2 miles " 1 pump.

1-1/2 pumps " 1 pub.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A BATH ROAD PUMP.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE "BERKELEY ARMS."]

Cranford is a more picturesquely romantic place than any one has a right to expect in the Middles.e.x of these latter days. That outlying portion of the village which borders the high-road still wears the air of a tentative settlement of civilization amid the wilds of the rolling prairie, and might form a ready object-lesson for any untravelled Englishman who desires "local colour" for the writing of an American romance in the _genre_ of Bret Harte. And, indeed, the houses grouped around Cranford Bridge were, some seventy years ago, built on the very borders of Hounslow Heath, whose dreary and dangerous wastes only found a boundary here, beside the still waters of the placid Crane. At Cranford Bridge stands that fine old coaching inn, the "Berkeley Arms," and opposite the "White Hart," which must have been in those times very havens of refuge in that wild spot; and away up the lane to the right hand lies the village and park, as pretty a spot as you shall find in a long day's march. Cranford village is rich in beautiful old mansions set in midst of walled gardens whose formal precincts are entered through ma.s.sive wrought-iron gates.

Beside this lane is the village "lock-up," or "round-house," built in 1810, and now the only one of its kind left anywhere near London. The rest have all been demolished, but "once upon a time" no village could have been considered complete without one, or without the whipping-post and stocks which were generally erected close at hand. Cranford, of course, being situated in the midst of the alarums and excursions caused by the highwaymen who infested the vicinity and kept the inhabitants in a state of terror every night, had a peculiarly urgent need for such a place, and it is, perhaps, because those gentry were such expert prison-breakers, that this example is more than usually strong, the door being plated with iron, and the small square window filled with sheet iron pierced with small holes.

[Sidenote: _CRANFORD ROUND HOUSE_]

Cranford Park, near by, was a seat of the Earls of Berkeley, and is now the residence of Lord Fitzhardinge, who is _de facto_ "Earl of Berkeley."

But the romantic scandals which arose from the fifth Earl having eventually married a servant in his household, after she had borne him several children, caused so much litigation about the succession to the t.i.tle that, although one of his sons, the Hon. Thomas Moreton Fitzhardinge-Berkeley, was declared by a decision of the House of Lords to be legitimate, he never a.s.sumed the t.i.tle, for the reason that the barring of his elder brother reflected upon his mother's good name. The whole affair is exceedingly involved and mysterious, and it is therefore quite in order that Cranford House should have the reputation of being haunted.

The house is a large rambling pile in the midst of the Park, overlooking the sullen ornamental waters formed from the river Crane. The ancient parish church stands close by. The chief or garden front of the house is curiously like one of the old-fashioned houses that give so distinctive a character to Park Lane, in London; having a double-bayed front with verandahs. The aspect of such a house standing in the open country is weird in the extreme.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CRANFORD HOUSE.]

[Sidenote: _THE CRANFORD GHOST_]

It was the Hon. Grantley Berkeley who first drew attention to the "haunted" character of the house. He tells, in his "Recollections," how one night when he and his brother had returned home late, they went down into the kitchen in search of some supper, all the rest of the household having retired to rest long before, and distinctly saw the tall figure of an elderly woman walk across the kitchen. Thinking it was one of the maids, they spoke to her, but she vanished into thin air, and a search discovered nothing at all. The obvious comment here is that people returning home late at night in those times very frequently saw things that had no existence. The narrator's father, however, used to describe how he saw a man in the stable-yard, and thinking he was some unauthorized visitor in the Servants' Hall, asked him what he was doing there. The man "vanished" without a reply; to which the rejoinder may well be made that he might do so and yet be no ghost; the motive force being a sight of the horsewhip which the Earl was carrying.

Cranford deserves notice from the literary pilgrim from the circ.u.mstance that Dr. Thomas Fuller, the Fuller of the much-quoted "Worthies of England," was chaplain to George, Lord Berkeley, who presented him to the rectory in 1658. He lies buried in the chancel of the church.

Harlington Corner is the name of the spot, half a mile down the road, where one of the many old roadside hostelries stands by a branch road leading on the right to Harlington, and on the left to East Bedfont, on the Exeter Road. The Corner, besides leading to Harlington, was also the "junction" for Uxbridge, and here the slow stages set down or took up pa.s.sengers for that town. The fast coaches did not stop here, or were supposed not to do so. Some of them, however, in defiance of time-bills, halted at the "Magpies"--by arrangement, of course, with the innkeeper--much to the profit of that house. One of these venal drivers was neatly caught by Mr. Chaplin, of the once well-known coaching firm of Chaplin and Horne. The coachman had with him on the box seat that day a particularly genial pa.s.senger, who proved also to have a very intimate knowledge of horseflesh. Pulling up at the "Magpies," where tables were spread, showing that the coach was expected as a matter of course, he winked at his pa.s.senger and invited him to refresh. Then, when all was, as the poet would say, "merry as a marriage-bell," the unknown, like another "Hawkshaw the Detective," revealed himself. He was Chaplin! The coachman drove that coach no more!

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE "OLD MAGPIES."]

[Sidenote: _"ARLINGTON OF HARLINGTON"_]

Harlington, up the road to Uxbridge, was once the seat of the Bennets, one of whom, Henry Bennet, was created Viscount Thetford and Earl of Arlington in 1663, and lives in history as the "Arlington" of the Cabal. He selected this village for one of his t.i.tles, but the 'eralds' College (as it surely should have been called) made out his patent of n.o.bility without the "H," and so "Arlington" he had to become. Arlington Street, Piccadilly, remains to this day, and the Dukes of Grafton, in whose numerous t.i.tles this is merged, are still Barons "Arlington of Harlington, in Middles.e.x."

After which we will hasten on, pa.s.sing Sipson (a corruption of "Shepiston") Green. Here we come upon the trail of messieurs the footpads again, for the road between this inn and the humbler "Old Magpies," a few hundred yards further on, is sad with the story of highway murder.

XV

The times of the highwaymen are, fortunately for the wayfarer, if unhappily for romance, long since past, and many of the once-notorious haunts of Sixteen-string Jack, Claude du Vall, d.i.c.k Turpin, and their less-famed companions have disappeared before the ravages of time and the much more destructive onslaughts of the builder. A hundred years ago it would have been difficult to name a lonely suburban inn that was not more or less favoured and frequented by the "Knights of the Road." Nowadays the remaining examples are, for those interested in the old story of the roads, all too few.

Perhaps this queer little roadside inn, the "Old Magpies," is the most romantic-looking among those that are left. For one thing, it possesses a thick and beetle-browed thatch which impends over the upper windows like bushy eyebrows, and gives those windows--the eyes of the house--just that lowering and suspicious look which heavy and bristling eyebrows confer upon a man.

But it is not only its romantic appearance that gives the "Old Magpies" an interest, for it is a well-ascertained fact that outside this house, so near to the once terrible Hounslow Heath, the brother of Mr. Mellish, M.P.

for Grimsby, was murdered by highwaymen in April, 1798, when returning from a day's hunting with the King's hounds.

He had started with two others from the "Castle" Hotel, at Salt Hill, for London, after dinner, and the carriage in which the party was seated was pa.s.sing near the "Old Magpies" at about half-past eight, when it was attacked by three footpads. One held the horses' heads while the other two guarded the windows, firing a shot through, to terrify the occupants. They then demanded money. No one offered any resistance, purses and bank-notes being handed over as a matter of course. Then the travellers were allowed to go, a parting shot in the dark being fired into the carriage. It struck Mr. Mellish in the forehead. Coming to another inn near by, called the "Magpies," the wounded man was taken upstairs and put to bed, while a surgeon was sent for.

He came from Hounslow, and was robbed on the way by the same gang.

Additional medical a.s.sistance was called in, but this late victim of highway robbery died within forty-eight hours.

[Sidenote: _SIR JOSEPH BANKS_]

The a.s.sa.s.sins were never apprehended, although Bow Street sent its cleverest officers to track them down. Bow Street caught the smaller fry readily enough, who s.n.a.t.c.hed handkerchiefs and such petty booty, and hanged them out of hand, while the more desperate villains generally escaped. This is not to say that the Bow Street Runners were not vigilant and zealous. Indeed, their zeal sometimes outran their discretion, as instanced in their bold capture of Sir Joseph Banks, who was collecting natural history specimens in the wilds. Sir Joseph, distinguished man of science though he was, and a gentleman, was singularly ill-favoured, and in this fact lies the chief sting of Peter Pindar's witty verses on the subject--

"Sir Joseph, fav'rite of great Queens and Kings, Whose wisdom weed- and insect-hunter sings; And ladies fair applaud, with smile so dimpling; Went forth one day amid the laughing fields Where Nature such exhaustless treasure yields--A-simpling!

It happened on the self-same morn so bright The nimble pupils of Sir Sampson Wright, A-simpling too, for plants called Thieves, proceeded; Of which the nation's field should oft be weeded."

They seize Sir Joseph.

"'Sirs, what d'ye take me for?' the Knight exclaimed-- 'A thief,' replied the Runners, with a curse; 'And now, sir, let us search you, and be d.a.m.n'd'-- And then they searched his pockets, fobs, and purse, But, 'stead of pistol dire, and death-like c.r.a.pe, A pocket-handkerchief they cast their eye on, Containing frogs and toads of various shape, Dock, daisy, nettletop, and dandelion, To entertain, with great propriety, The members of his sage Society; Yet would not alter they their strong belief That this their pris'ner was a thief.

"'Sirs, I'm no highwayman,' exclaimed the Knight-- 'No--there,' rejoined the Runners, 'you are right-- A footpad only. Yes, we know your trade-- Yes, you're a pretty babe of grace; We want no proofs, old codger, but your face; So come along with us, old blade.'

"Sir Joseph told them that a neighb'ring Squire Should answer for it that he was no thief; On which they plumply d.a.m.n'd him for a liar, And said such stories should not save his beef; And, if they understood their trade, His _mittimus_ should soon be made; And forty pounds be theirs, a pretty sum, For sending such a rogue to Kingdom Come."