By the way, why is the "Great White Horse" an hotel sign in East Anglia?—not that I can endorse the description of it as "a stone statue of some rampacious animal, with flowing mane and tail, distantly resembling an insane cart-horse." It seems to me quite reasonably like to a Suffolk Punch, except in colour, and one finds Phidias never, although Apelles sometimes, over inn doors. But why a white horse? One expects such signs in the parts about Berks, where the classic Vale is named after the gigantic symbol on the northward side of the Downs, of which a simple explanation has become impossible, owing to the tiresome growth of knowledge. But why, despising all commonplace explanations, have we encountered a "White Horse" in Suffolk? Well, one of the many explanations of the White Horse par excellence is that it was taken from the horse delineated on Philip's stater, which was copied a good deal in Britain, and an explanation of the "White Horse"—I beg its pardon, the "Great White Horse"—of Ipswich may be that it had its origin in the horse figured on some of the Icenian coins that have been discovered in East Anglia. Or, again, it may be simply a survival of the ancient Saxon totem. Some such desultory speculation as this may serve to soothe the mind of an evening at Ipswich—not that after motoring all day the mind needs much soothing. But I would counsel all male motorists to burn their last incense of tobacco, as my friend and I did, in the warm bar-parlour on the side of the courtyard over against the main door, for thus shall they see the native of Ipswich in his natural state. The discovery of "this amazing England," as Mr. Kipling has said well, is the main joy of motoring; still in the evening one may do much worse things than pursue the proper study of mankind in easy-going mood, and a provincial bar-parlour is not a bad place in which to do it.
To Ipswich I have been more than once since that night of freezing cold in January, and to Bury St. Edmunds also, and more features of both will find a place in later narratives; but of each there are a few practical things to be said which must not be delayed. On a second visit to Bury, made in the course of the most troubled and delightful tour of my existence so far, I lay at the ancient "Angel" with mighty satisfaction and to the remarkably small minishing of my store of sovereigns. On a second visit to Ipswich I was hospitably entertained by a local gentleman at the "Crown and Anchor," because he thought it was the best hotel in Ipswich, and behold the fare was very good! By the same gentleman I was introduced to oysters, in a little shop near the Butter Market, the best I ever ate, and to hand-made gloves in a little shop hard by which have motored many a merry mile since then. There need be no hesitation in advertising them. They are made by a widow and her daughter out of soft and strong Cape leather, and with them, it is to be feared, the industry will die, since apprentices will not come to them in these degenerate days. Since then I have exhibited these gloves, during the Scottish "Reliability" trials, to a casual acquaintance, and her criticism, although strictly irrelevant, was too witty to be omitted. "Mphm! they look as if you had made them yourself." Ipswich gloves, then, are not for the dandy, but for the motorist they are hard to beat.
CHAPTER II
WINTER. IPSWICH TO NORWICH VIÂ WOODBRIDGE, BECCLES, LOWESTOFT, AND YARMOUTH
A walk in Ipswich—Sparrowe's House—With Pickwick and the Wellers—Start at noon—The glittering car—Another passenger—Infantine pilotage—A loose clutch—Mechanic's chagrin—A stitch in time—Nuts screwed home—Need to watch mechanics—Woodbridge—Edward Fitzgerald—Wickham Market and Saxmundham—Abyssinian luncheon—Détour to Aldeburgh—Aldeburgh described—The dilatory Alde—Birthplace of George Crabbe—His views of Aldeburgh—Saxmundham to Yoxford—Peasenhall adjacent—Yoxford to Blythburgh—A motorist's church—Détour to Southwold—Southwold described—Battle of Sole Bay—Did Isaac Newton hear guns at Cambridge?—Lord Ossory's ride from Euston—Blythburgh to Beccles—First view disappointing—Better next time—Unforeseen value of Connemara cloak—Beccles to Lowestoft—Norfolk and Norwich Notes and Queries—Their value—Origin of Lowestoft harbour—"Norwich a port"—Cubitt and Telford—Sir Samuel Peto—Meaning of "Lowestoft"—Lowestoft to Yarmouth—Direct route to Norwich—Darkness and frozen haze—Straining eyes—Norwich at last—The "Royal" formerly "Angel"—An ancient hostelry—Colossal window tax—Norfolk election memories—Corn Law riot—"Coke of Norfolk" sheltered—Always a Whig house—Stroll in Norwich—Multitude of churches—The walls and "murage" tax—A learned society's day—Fraction of Norwich only seen—Wat Tyler's Rebellion—Geoffrey Lister and Sir Robert Salle—St. Peter's Permountergate—Memories of Nelson—Fascination of Norwich—Its great men and women—George Borrow—"Old Crome"—The Norwich school.
Truth to tell, Ipswich on the Gipping, which becomes the Orwell and an estuary lower down, seemed to me then an ancient city showing, except in a few picturesque houses and the gateway of Wolsey's College, few signs of antiquity. If it cannot be called happy in having had no history, for it was plundered by the Danes in 991, it has had little cause for unhappiness of that kind since the Conquest; it has produced no really famous man except Wolsey, though Gainsborough lived in it for some years; and its churches, although not quite devoid of interest, are not striking enough to delay a motorist. Note, in passing, not the least advantage of an exploring tour by motor. You need neither spend time in examining that which is barely worth the process on the ground that there is nothing else to be done, nor hurry away from that which is interesting, in order to catch a train; but, staying so long as seems pleasant and no longer, you may be transported when you please, rapidly and pleasantly, to scenes you have reason to believe to be worthy of your regard.
In these circumstances, after an admiring glance at the famous Sparrowe's House in the Butter Market, close to the hotel, I frankly betook myself to an effort to follow the Wellers, father and son, Mr. Pickwick and his followers, through an eventful day. This stable-yard round the corner to the left, where the Panhard was now being furbished up, was the same on which Mr. Weller, senior, looked when, "in a small room in the vicinity," he discussed a pot of ale and the "gammoning" of Sam, and drank to the toast, "May you soon vipe off the disgrace as you've inflicted on the family name." The office in the courtyard was doubtless that at which he got his "vaybill." Walking about these very streets Sam wormed himself into the confidence of the lachrymose Job Trotter. In this inn parlour Mr. Peter Magnus, alias Jingle, splendidly attired, made a hollow pretence of breakfasting with Mr. Pickwick; here the latter gave his simple hints on courtship and proposal, and here were seen "the joyous face of Mr. Tupman, the serene countenance of Mr. Winkle, and the intellectual lineaments of Mr. Snodgrass." In this room was enacted that memorable scene when Mr. Magnus presented Miss Witherfield to Mr. Pickwick and Miss Witherfield screamed, but neither she nor Mr. Pickwick was indelicate enough to mention the cause—his unwitting invasion of her chamber overnight. Rushing out of this room the lady, after bolting herself into her bedroom, went forth in search of Mr. Nupkins and apprised him of the forthcoming duel, which there was not really much reason to anticipate. Where exactly Miss Witherfield saw Mr. Nupkins I am unhappily not able to say, nor yet, and for the same reason, whither Grummer, with his myrmidon Dubbley and his "division," each with a short truncheon and a brass crown, conducted Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman in the old sedan-chair; but for all that it is easy to picture the whole of the never-to-be-forgotten scene, all the more memorable in that it never was enacted. In fact, it is no mean regret to me that, on that cold January morning, I was not able to find "the house with the green gate," with the "house-door guarded on either side by an American aloe in a tub." It has eluded me since also. Perhaps it is gone, like a good deal of old Ipswich; possibly some miscreant has had his gate painted white instead of green; perhaps I looked in the wrong place, in the vicinity of St. Clement's Church. It is even within the bounds of possibility that the house with the green gate never had any more real and substantial existence than Mr. Pickwick himself. All I know is that I could not find it.
At noon or thereabouts—time does not worry one in a motor-car, unless one is seeking records—we boarded the Panhard, now "bright as a Birmingham button," and started off up a long and trying hill, in cold, dry, and windless weather, for a circuitous drive, its sinuosities determined by the desires of my friend. A new member was added to the party in the person of a resident at Norwich, desirous of reaching that ancient city in due course, who was supposed to know, and probably did know, every considerable turning of every