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LCBRARV OF THE UNlVEttSITV OF CALIFORNIA.

JAMES KENNEDY MOFFITT

OF THE CLASS OF '8«.

Received

. 189

Accession A'o. J*5480 . Class No. ^3.

59^2,

hf

BUNYAN'S COUNTRY

Pletnr««qae Strolls near the Thames at Bton

and Benley.

Crown 8i;o, clothy gilt top^ 5«.

THE CHILTERN HUNDREDS. By Albert

J. Foster, M.A., Vicar of Wootton, Bedfordshire,
Author of **The Ouse,'* " Round about the Crooked
Spire,'' &c. With Sketch Map and Illustrations. Cox-
tents : Introduction — On the Banks of the Thames —
The Valley of the "Wyck— Near Bumham Beeches —
The Valley of the Misboum— The Valley of the Chess
— Eton — 'Twixt Thames and Coin — Hound Stoke Foges
— Above Colnbrook Bridge.

" One of the most readable works combining topjography, history,
archeology, and poetry that we have seen for a long time, and its value
and interest are enhanced by the fine illustrations with which the
author has embellished his book." — Leeds Mebcu&y.

" The reader need not take flight from the ti:le of Mr. A. J. Foster's
book. The volume has next to nothing to do with Parliament. It
is all about walks in a pretty country within an hour's run from
London." — ^Daily News.

** A delightful book."— Pall Mall Gazette.

London: H. VIRTUE & CO., Limited,
26, Ivy Lane, Paternoster How, E.C.

il

BUNYAFS COUNTRY

of tf^t ^flgttm^s progress

BY

ALBEET J. FOSTER, M.A.

Viear of Woott&n, Bedfordshire

AUTHOR OP **T0UHI8T's GUIDE TO BEDFORDSHIRE," "T0URI8T*8 GUIDE TO HERT-
FORDSHIRE," *'THE OUSB," "round ABOUT THE CROOKED SPIRE," ** THE
CHILTERN HUNDREDS," "THE ROBBER BARON OF BEDFORD QASTLE,'*

"AMPTHILL tower," ETC.

Wixih iilusiTSitxonii bs ihz Jltttltor

LONDON
H. VIETUE AND COMPANY, Limited, 26, IVY LANE

PATERNOSTER ROW

1901

LOVDOV :
PBIMTBD BY H. VIBTUB AKD COMPAVT, UVITBD,
CITT BOAD.

BelKttatton.

Dear Dp. Brown,
As you are undoubtedly Bunyan's chief biographer,
I thank you for kindly allowing me to dedicate this
little book to yourself, and I gladly do so in the hope
that it may to some extent prove a useful companion
to your "John Bunyan, His Life, Times, and Work."

I am.

Yours truly,
A. J. Foster.

"WOOTTON VlOAKAOE,

Bedfobdshibe, 1901.

85480

'4»*^

"In every nursery *The Pilgrim's Progress* is a greater
fayourite tban * Jack the Giant Killer.' Every reader knows
the straight and narrow path as well as he knows a road in
which he has g^ne backward and forward a hundred times.
This is the highest miracle of genius — that things which are
not should be as though they were, — that the imagination of
one mind should become the personal recollections of another.
And this miracle the tinker has wrought. There is no ascent,
no declivity, no resting-place, no turnstile, with which we are
not perfectly acquainted.*' — Maeaulay*8 Essays,

PREFACE.

Much has been written of and concerning John
Bunyan, and the present little sketch is only
proposed as a sort of supplement to the many
biographies of this remarkable man which
have appeared from time to time during the
last two hundred years. It does not profess
to tell anything new about Bunyan. It is
simply ail attempt to show that he reproduced,
in the first part of " The Pilgrim's Progress,"
scenes and localities which were familiar to
him, and as such it is offered as a small con-
tribution to Bunyanistic literature.

A. J. F.

WOOTTON VlCABA-OE.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

THE BEDFOBDSHIBE OF BUNYAN.

PAGR

The Country of the *«Pagrim*8 Progress "—The Story—
Elstow — ^The Riverside Meadows — The Ampthill Hills —
The Chiltems — Castles, Heligious Houses, Mansions —
Natural Soenery, Valleys, Streams, and Roads . .17

CHAPTER n.

IN BUNYAN*S VILLAGE.

Elstow — Name of the Parish— Countess Judith and her
foundation — Power of the Abbey — ^Abbess Elizabeth
Harvey — ^Bishop Gravesend and the Abbey — Enquiry
into Charges— Bishop Longland and the Abbey — En-
quiry into Discipline — ^The Dissolution — Abbess Elizabeth
Bayfield— The Sisters of the House Beautiful— The
Water-side Meadows — The Slough of Despond— Rising-
hoe— Mount Sinai— Elstow Church — ^The Wicket-gate
and the Tower of Beelzebub^The Chapter House — ^The
House of the Interpreter — Elstow Place — ^The Stately
Palace — The Cross on the Green 30

12 CONTENTS.

CHAPTER m.

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUXy.

PAOB

The Spring at the foot of the Hill— The HiU-side— History
of Dame Ellen's Bury — ^Dame Eleanor St. Amand —
Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke — ^The Building of
Houghton House — Inigo Jones — Description of the
House — Christiana Bruce, Countess of Devonshire—
Dr. George Kawson and the Restoration — Robert Bruce,
Earl of Ailesbury — ^The Houghton House of Bunyan's
Time— The Porter's Lodge, the Library, the Museum,
the Armoury, the View of the Chiltems . .70

CHAPTER IV.

THE TWO VALLEYS, VANITY FAIR, AND THE SILVER

MINE.

The Valley of Humiliation — The Millbrook Gorge — The
Church and Village — Dr. George Lawson — Insecure
Road and Marshy Ground — The Giant's Cave in the
Sandstone — Fairs, Revels, and Feasts — The Village
Cage— The Heme Chapel at Bedford— The Gold Mine
at Pallox Hill— Wayside Crosses 100

CHAPTER V.

DOUBTING CASTLE.

The FUt— ClophiU Village— The Old Bridge— "Bye-path
Meadow" — Cainhoe Castle — Ancient Earthworks — The
Keep of Albini and St. Amand— The Castle Yards of
"Doubting Castle" — Its Dungenna audits Gates — The
Family of De Grey 117

CONTENTS. 13

CHAPTER VI.

THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS.

PAOK

The Ghiltems — ^Tottemhoe Stone — The Deep Coombes — ^The
Flowers and the Flocks— Chalk Pits — ^Ancient Fortifica-
tions— Hut-circles — Barrows — **The Hill of Error'* —
" The Hill of Caution"—" The Door in the side of the
Hill "—The View from " Mount Clear "... 133

CHAPTER Vn.

THE LAST STAGES.

Scantiness of Description — "Deadman's Lane" — "The En-
chanted Ground" — "The Land of Beulah" — The
Suburbs of Bedford in the Seventeenth Century — The
Hospital of St. John, its Garden, and its Gardener .151

CHAPTER Vm.

THE CELESTL^ CITY.

Bunyan's Description and Sunsets from the Ouse Valley —
Cloudland — ^The Gates — The Bridge and Gate-house —
Ouse Floods and Shallows — King Offa's Tomb — St.
Paul's Tower and its Bells 164

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAOX

The Ivy -clad Kuins of Hotjqhton House (The House

Beautiful) ....... Frontispiece

Map of Bunyan's Countet 19

LlDLXNGTON ClUMP 25

Elstow Geeen (The Cboss and Vanity Fair) . .33

RisiNGHOB Castle (Mount Sinai) 55

Elstow Church-towbe and N.-E. Poetal (The Wicket

Gate and the Towee of Beelzebub) . . .59

Elstow Place (The Palace in the Vision of the Inter-

pbeteb) .......... 65

The House Beautiful 71

Houghton House 81

Houghton House — The South Entrance . . . .83
The Ghiltern HttiTa from Houghton Bidgb (The Delbg-

tablb Mountains from House Beautiful) . . .97
MiLLBRooE Church 101

16 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAOR
MiLLBBOOE Gk)RGE . 105

View fboic aboyb Millb&ook -Gobob 109

"WooTTON Cage . . ...... HI

Clophill Bbidoe (Entbakce to £te-patb Meadow) . .119
Cainhoe Castle Kbbp (Dottbtdtq Oastlb) . .124

Barton OHrRCK 134

LooKiNO UP thb Lono Yallby (The Delectable Moxtittains) 135

The Speinos at Babton-le-Olby 139

The Loyo Valley (The Hbabt of the Delectable Moun-
tains) 143

Looking East fbok Shabfenhob Glxtmp . .149

Old Houses, Wootton 159

Bedford Bbidgb and Gate-housie 171

Bedford Old Bridge at the Beginning of Last Century 173
St. Paul's Tower, Bedford . ^ 177

BUNYAN^S COUNTRY.

CHAPTER I.

THE BEDFOEDSHIEE OF BUNTAK.

The Coantry of tlie "Filgrva'a Progress" — The Story — EUtow —
The Riversida Ueadows— The Ampthill Hills— The Chil terns
— CuUea, Beligiona Houses, Uamioiii — Natural Scenery,
Villagrea, Streams, and Roads.

Others have -written of John Bunyan, of his
life, of his work, and above all of the charac-
ters which he has created. We do not profess
to tell again an oft-told tale. We do not ask
our readers to search again for the homely
remarks, the pungent wit, the exquisite in-
sight into character, which is to be found in
the writings of the self-taught Bedfordshire
genius. We shall ask our readers to take the
" Pilgrim's Progress" again into their hands,
it is true, but we are going to look into that

18 buntan's country.

immortal work with a special purpose in view,
one which has, perhaps, never been in our
minds before when we turned its pages. We
propose to take the scenes described on the
wayfarer's journey, and to give to each its
local habitation and its name, so far as is pos-
sible, and to show that Bunyan's imagination
was stimulated by what he saw around him.
There will be much guess-work it is true, but
we shall attempt to prove our assertions as we
go along, starting as we shall do with a few
postulates, as we may call them.

It will, we think, be conceded by all that
earliest impressions of surroundings are the
most vivid and the most enduring. The man
remembers best of all the house in which he
lived as a child; the garden in which he
played, the street or the road along which he
walked when first he emerged from infancy.
Next we may assume that in early days John
Bunyan never wandered far from home. He
was, it is said, and with probable truth, a
soldier in the Parliamentary army, and as such
he served at the siege of Leicester in his
earliest manhood, but he had impressed upon

TZvef Oust

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Bl/WVAfir'S COUNTSIY

^^\%t<A hi y ^^

THE BEDFORDSHIRE OF BUNYAN. 21

his mind scenes of rural life and landscape such
as they were, and are to be found, in Bed-
fordshire, before he made acquaintance with
more extended Midlands. Further, the point
which we propose to prove is that all or almost
all that Bunyan describes in the *' Pilgrim's^
Progress," the frame, as we may call it, of the
picture story, is what he really saw with his
bodily eyes, though his imagination needed to
give here and there the touches necessary to
make the stage fit for the action of Christian
and his fellow-players. And this stage will,
indeed, be a circumscribed one, for it will be a
little bit of Bedfordshire, measured by a line
only some fifteen miles in length, on the
southern, or Elstow side, of the county town
itself.

For, as all the world knows, the village of
Elstow, situated only a mile or so from the out-
skirts of Bedford, was the birthplace of Bunyan,
and with Elstow we may say his story starts ;

^* His native home deep imaged in his soul.'*

The story begins, it is true, with Elstow,
but it must not be supposed that all the scenes

22 bunyan's country.

follow one another in successive order as they
would present themselves to a man tramping
along one particular road.

That the scenes do thus succeed one
another from time to time we hope to show,
but we are not going to assert that Bunyan
had one, and one only, ride or walk which he
placed before himself as he wrote. There
were many familiar objects which he was
going to press into his service, but he was
going to pick them, up here and there as he
rambled along singing — for it is almost a poem
— ^his history of the Christian pilgrim, and
locating his traveller now and again in places
which we may visit and find to be actualities
at the present day.

But before we start from Elstow Green we
have a few words to say about the county of
Bedford itself. Some people talk of flat Bed-
fordshire as if it were an extension of the fens
into the Midlands. But those who so speak
know but little of the small though interest-
ing county which they thus describe. There
is plenty of other scenery to be found besides
that of the rich far-stretching meadows which

THE BEDFORDSHIRE OF BUNYAN. 23

line the banks of the Ouse. To the north we
have the clay uplands which form the dividing
line between the valley of the Ouse and that
of the Nene ; next we have the meadowed
valley which we have already mentioned, then
we have the lovely pine-clad hills and fern-

M

decked coombes which stretch right across
the county from Woburn to Ampthill and
Sandy ; and then further to the south we have
the Chiltern Hills, with their wide expanse of
chalk downs forming the furthest border of
the county. With the Ouse Valley itself and
with the country south of Bedford we are cer-
tain Bunyan was well acquainted, and it is in
this particular locality that we shall wander
with the '' Pilgrim's Progress " for our guide-
book.

Each page of the history of our island may
be here opened on the spot. On the downs to
the south we find the hut-circles of the earliest
inhabitants of whom we have any trace. The
camps of the Britons when they had become a
set of tribes who warred one with another may
be found in the same locality or elsewhere in
our district. The clumps of firs on the sand-

24 bunyan's country.

stone ridge in the centre of the county often
crown some little fortress mound, steep and
fosse-girt, as where, for instance, a tiny earth-
work commands the little village of Lidlington
at its feet ; and further to the south on the
chalk downs which we have already mentioned,
we find similar camps, circular in form origi-
nally, but altered and changed so that the
fortress has become an enlarged and rectangular
enclosure, as at Tottemhoe. And such alteration
and enlargement tell us, say antiquaries, that
here the Eomans had seized and occupied the
fortresses of those whom they had conquered.

And when the Saxons had come across the
North Sea to settle in the island which they
were in time to call England, they buried
their eorls, their leaders in war, beneath
rounded barrows, which rise above the earlier
hut-circles on the chalk downs.

Then Christianitv came, and church and
religious house in turn arose, each with its
distinguishing mark. And side by side with
these were built Norman keep and Plantagenet
fortress, and lastly, when medieevalism had
disappeared with its castles and abbeys, man-

THE BEDFOBDSHIBE OF BTJNTAN. 25

sioD3 of raagnificonce and beauty were rearedj

Froin LidlingtoD Clump.

ofttiines in the very places which had been
occupied by these earlier buildings.

26 bunyan's country.

And what did Bunyan find of such remains
to help him in his descriptive work? The
abbeys were gone, but their buildings re-
mained in part, turned to other uses it is true,
but accompanied by old traditions. The re-
membrance of the Benedictine nuns of Elstow,
"the ladies," as the peasants termed them,
had not died out in a hundred years. The
mounds on which castle keeps had once stood
remained as witnesses to the days when Barons
struggled against one another, or even against
the king himself. Many a time must Bunyan
have passed under the lofty mound at Bedford
which was once crowned by the shell keep
of the De Beauchamps, a short-lived fortress,
which, after a brief life of less than one hun-
dred and fifty years, was destroyed when the
youthful Heniy III. ousted the .infamous
Fulke de Breaute and his robber crew from
their stronghold. Farther afield he would find
similar mounds, as at Eaton Socon, where an-
other family of the De Beauchamps commanded
from their castle another portion of the' Ouse
Valley, and as at Cainhoe, where the castle of
the St. Amands had once domineered that of

THE BEDFORDSHIRE OF BUNYAN. 27

the Flit. Did he pursue his walks for business
or for pleasure as far as the Chil terns he would
survey the huge earthworks raised by Britons
and Eomans. Truly he bad plenty of material
wherewithal to construct his " Doubting
Castle.'^

And of mansions with which he could
build his ''House Beautiful" he had ex-
amples close at hand, in his own village,
the home of the Hillersdens, built at the
end of the preceding century, on the site
of the domestic buildings of '' the ladies of
Elstow," and at Houghton Conquest, where
we see, still " beautiful " in its ruin, the
stately dwelling of the Herberts and the
Bruces.

Of the natural scenery of this part of the
county, such as Bunyan describes, we find
examples everywhere. How he loves to dwell
on the slow-moving streams, the spreading
meadows, the orchards and the gardens. He
would find these in his own Ouse Valley or in
that of the neighbouring Flit. Kor would
such architectural features as we have men-
tioned be wanting —

28 bunyan's country.

' ' Meadows trim with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks and rivers wide ;
Towers and battlements it sees
Bosomed high in tufted trees.*'

Amidst such scenes in pleasant Bedfordshire
the boy wandered, already perhaps the dreamer
and the muser. When the painful and re-
markable mental conflict through which he
tells us he passed in his early married life,
had come to an end, scenes which had once
caused him fear, now gave him peace and calm.
The tower of Elstow, the tiles of the houses in
Bedford, no longer seemed to him in his
strange day-dreams ready to fall upon him.
The mere puddles on the road no longer
affrighted him, because he had not sufficient
faith to dry them up, as Elijah had dried up
Jordan. The elm trees, the predominant tree
of Bedfordshire, no longer filled him with
dread lest he should dream of falling from
their summits into bottomless gulfs. Sur-
rounding walls no longer in his despair shut
him out from sunshine. All was peace and
calm in his breast when, in his second im-
prisonment in the borough gaol on the ancient
bridge of Bedford, he sat him down to write

THE BEDFORDSHIRE OP BUNYAN. 29

his history of Christian. Save where the pur-
poses of the tale required a massive castle, a
burning or a falling mountain, an engulfing
bog, or a dismal "valley of the shadow of
death," he loved to paint his scenes in bright
colours. Bedfordshire streams, and Bedford-
shire roads and lanes and footpaths, Bedford-
shire mansions and gardens, and Bedfordshire
hills were to him places pleasant to look upon,
and pleasant to dwell amongst, if the pilgrim
but remembered that he was only a passer-by
on his way to another and better land. "When
the morning was up they led him to the top of
the house, and bid him look south, so he did.
And, behold, at a great distance he saw a most
pleasant mountainous country, beautified with
woods, vineyards, fruits of all sorts, flowers
also, with springs and fountains, very de-
lectable to behold. Then he asked the name
of the country. They said it was Emanuel's
Land, and it is as common, said they, as this
hill is to and for all the pilgrims."

CHAPTER II.
IN bunyan's village.

Elstow — Name of the Parish — CountesH Judith and her foiindation
— Power of the Abbey— Abbess Elizabeth Hervey — Bishop
Grayesend and the Abbey — ^Enquiry into Charges — Bishop
Longland and the Abbey — Enquiry into Disoipline^The
Dissolution— Abbess Elizabeth Bayfield — The Sisters of the
** House Beautiful ''—The Water-side Meadows— The Slough
of Despond — Risinghoe— Mount final — Elstow Church — The
Wicket-gate and the Tower of Beelzebub— The Chapter
House — The House of the Interpreter— The Mansion of the
Hillersdens — The Stately Palace — The Cross on the Green.

We are going to begin with the assumption
that Bunyan starts his pilgrim in his own
village, and there brings him through many
scenes before he moves him further.

The village of Elstow is but a small one,
and though it is not above a mile from the
outskirts of Bedford, is quite a rural spot, and
possesses one of the largest greens in the
county. On the south side of this green is

IX bunyan's village. 31

the church, on the east is the village street,
and in the open space towards the east stands
a fine old timbered building known as the
Moot Hall. Not far off is the stump of what
was once a stone cross. Such village crosses
are by no means unknown in Bedfordshire.

In the minds of most people, Elstow is con-
nected only with the name of John Bunyan,
but it had a history of its own long before his
time. The name of the parish itself points us
back to Saxon times, and even refers back to
the days when the Eomans ruled in Britain,
for the word Stow, station or place, has been
joined to the name of Helena, the mother
of Constantino the Great, though in modern
spelling only the central portion of the lady's
name has been left in that of the village.

Helena was famous both in Soman Britain
and in Saxon England, since she was, accord-
ing to some, a British princess — though this
is perhaps a twelfth-century fiction of Geoffrey
of Monmouth — and also because her son was
proclaimed Emperor at York. Mediaeval hagio-
graphy venerated her as the mother of the
first Christian ruler of the Eoman empire, and

l^

32 bunyan's country.

the discoverer of the remains of the cross
beneath the ruins at Jerusalem ; and many
famous churches were dedicated in her honour.
Great St. Helen's church in the city of London,
is sometimes called the Westminster Abbey of
the city on account of the number of burials
of distinguished persons which have taken
place within its walls, and other churches of St.
Helen are to be found throughout the country.

The dedication of the church at Elstow was
changed in after years, and it is now that of
St. Mary and the Holy Trinity, but the name
of the village continues as before, the Stow or
station of Helen. Elsewhere in England the
name remains intact as at St. Helen's in Lan-
cashire, and at St. Helen's in the Isle of
Wight ; but here in Bedfordshire the name has
gone through strange transformations. The
first letter was soon lost, and we find in old
documents the name spelt as Elnestowe, Elme-
stowe, Alnestowe, and, most strange of all,
Aunestowe. This last name is evidently a play
on words, aune being the French for ell.

It was in the eleventh century that Elstow
became better known, since it was the place

Elstow Oreen. (The Cross and Vuuitj Fair.)

IN bunyan's village. 35

selected for the foundation of what proved to
be a famous Benedictine nunnery. This Abbey
was very nearly of royal origin, for its foun-
dress was Judith, niece of William the Con-
queror, and widow of Waltheof, Earl of North-
ampton, who, after his execution at Winchester
by order of the uncle of his wife, was regarded
as a Saxon martyr. Judith held lands, so the
book of ^' Domesday '' tells us, in Elstow, as
well as in neighbouring Bedfordshire parishes,
and with these lands, or a portion of them, she
endowed her Abbey. In time other possessions
were added, and they included, as was so often
the case with religious houses, the rectories
of many villages. The churches of these
parishes were for a time served by removable
chaplains or curates appointed by the monas-
teries, but in time these priests became perma-
nent vicars or representatives of the patrons,
hence the distinction between rectors and
vicars.

The Abbey of Our Lady and the Holy
Trinity at Elstow waxed prosperous and rich,
and amongst other rights which the Abbess pos-
sessed was that of holding a fair which lasted

36 bunyan's country.

four days, and doubtless brought iu a goodly
sum to the Abbey in the matter of tolls and
other payments. It is said that these fairs
were continued after the dissolution of the
nunnery ; and if this was the case we may say
that John Bunyan was able to draw his de-
scription of Vanity Fair^ in heightened colours
let us charitably hope, from what he had
witnessed yearly on the green of his native
village.

It may be easily understood that with all
these rights, duties, and possessions to attend
to, the hands of the Abbess were pretty nearly
full; and there was another officer, the
Prioress, whose work it was to superintend
the discipline and arrangements of the com-
munity itself. In fact the Abbess became a
great territorial lady, and lived in her own
dwelling or lodgings apart from the other
nuns, and, in later days, surrounded by some
amount of pomp and ceremony, with certain
sisters told off to serve as chaplains ^ in imita-
tion of an Abbot or Bishop.

Elstow was an aristocratic nunnery and
many of the sisters were of good county

IN bunyan'8 village. 37

families. Such a one was Elizabeth Hervey,
one of a well-known family at Thurleigh, a
village to the north of Bedford. There is an
excellent brass to this lady in the church. In
the centre of the slab is the Abbess herself in
her Benedictine robes, and against her right
shoulder rests her pastoral staff of office. A
legend on a brass scroll which proceeded from
her mouth has been removed, and so has a
brass above her head. Of four coats of arms
which occupied the four corners of the slab,
one only remains, and this one brass bears
on the sinister side the lady's family arms.
An inscription which runs round the edge
of the slab gives her name and office, but
the date of her death is left blank. In all
probability the brass was prepared by Eliza-
beth Hervey in her own life-time, and in
the troublous days which followed the in-
scription was not completed. This is not
by any means the only example of such an
omission. Abbess Hervey died, as we learn
from the diocesan register at Lincoln, in
1524.

All notices in any way bearing on Elstow

38 bunyan's country.

Abbey were a few years ago extracted from
various documents in th^ EoUs Office by Mr.
S. E. Wigram, and published by him in his
"Chronicles of Elstow." These Chronicles
throw a good deal of light on the internal life
of a nunnery, and also show that unfortunate
events will occur in some families, even in a
relijious one, as we may suppose a community
of Christian women to have been both in the
technical and popular meaning of the word.
Here, for instance, we have a letter written in
1270 by Eichard Gravesend, Bishop of Lincoln
— in which diocese Bedfordshire was situated
until the year 1837 — under the following cir-
cumstances. One of the nuns, Agatha Giffard,
who was sister to Walter Giffard, Archbishop
of York, and Godfrey Giffard, Bishop of
Worcester, had given some cause of offence,
we know not what, and her diocesan writes to
her brother, the Archbishop of York, and while
plainly acknowledging that something was
wrong, diplomatically hints that though he
must inflict punishment, he will at the same
time keep the matter secret.

^'We are anxious," he says, ^^ from our

IN bunyan's village. 39

inmost heart concerning a misfortune which has
occurred in the Abbey of Elvestowe, and grief
of this kind affects us the more bitterly from
our pious compassion, because that from that
house, more frequently than from any other,
false reports of disgraceful acts are brought to
us. And although in this, by the persuasions
of certain people, we were somewhat impressed
against the Abbess and your sister, who through
connivance or remissness were said to be in
fault, yet since in consideration of yourself,
and the venerable father, your brother, we are
through affection specially jealous of the honour
of your family, we will take care, so far as we
can in accordance with the laws of God, and
the usages of propriety, and without secular
scandal, to correct the fault which has been
committed, with all secrecy, and to visible sores
to apply a hidden medicine. Wherefore, if it
so please you, let not the occurrence of the
aforenamed misfortune further greatly trouble
your mind."

Certainly the worthy Bishop knew the spirit
of the proverb about washing the family linen
at home. The offence, whatever it was, did not

40 BUNYAN'S COUNTRY.

hinder Agatha GiflFard from becoming Prioress
a few years later.

Many years afterwards, in 1530, there was
another enquiry into Elstow Abbey and the
doings of its inmates, made by another Bishop
of Lincoln, Longland. It appears that the
discipline had become slack, and that the ladies
of the Abbey had dropped much into secular
ways and customs. They seem to have sought
for society other than that of their companions,
and did not shun the company of those who
might come from the world outside. And as
to their dress, they appear to have cut their
garments according to the reigning fashions,
and the stiff Benedictine robes and veils had
given place to semi-secular costume, with open
neck and red stomacher. The sisters had
apparently forgotten the strict rules of this
order. It could not be said of each one :

** Black was her garb, her rigid rule
Reform'd on Benedictine School."

Feminine vanity had penetrated into the
cloister itself, and in consequence Bishop
Longland addressed to the sisters the following

t

IN bunyan's village. 41

injunction or^ reprimand. The date of it is,
we must remember, only a few years before
the Dissolution.

'^ John Longland, by the sufferance of God
Bishop of Lincoln, to our well-beloved sisters
in charity the Abbess and Convent of XJlne-
stowe of our diocese of Lincoln, sendeth greet-
ing, grace, and our blessing, and forasmuch
as in our ordinary visitation of late exercised
within that monastery diverse things appeared
and were detected worthy of reformation, we
therefore, for the honour of God, and redress
of the same, and maintenance of good religion
there, send to you this injunction following,
which we will and command you to keep under
the pains ensuing."

'^ First, forasmuch as the very order of Saint
Benedict's rules are not thus observed in
keeping the Fratry" — that is, the common
eating-room, the name being borrowed from a
community of monks ovfreres — '' at meal times,
where the sisters should be as well fed spirit-
ually with Holy Scripture as bodily with meat,
but customably they resort to certain places
within the monastery called the Households "

42 bunta.n's country.

— that is, the parlour or apartment to which
lay visitors would come, as distinguished from
the Fratry — " where much insolence " — or
slackness — '4s used contrary to the good rules
of the said religion by reason of resort of secu-
lars, both men, women, and children, and many
other inconvenience have already ensued: in
consideration thereof, and for that we will the
said religion to prosper according unto the
foundation of the house, and the rules of the
same, we enjoin and strictly command under
the pain of disobedience that the Lady Abbess
and her successors see that no such households
be there kept from henceforth, but only one
place which shall be called the Misericorde,
where shall be one sad" — that is, sober or
staid—" Lady of the eldest sort, overseer and
mistress to all the residue that thither shall
resort, which in number shall not pass five at
the uttermost, besides the said Lady overseer
or mistress, and these five weekly to change,
and so all the convent have kept the same, and
they again to begin, and the said governor and
overseer of them continually to continue in
that room by the space of one quarter of a year,

IN buntan's village. 43

and so quarterly to change at the nomination
and pleasure of the Lady Abbess for the time
being."

" Over this it is ordered under the said pain
and injunction that the Lady Abbess have no
more sisters from henceforth in her household
but only four with her Chaplain, and likewise
weekly to change till they have gone by course
through the whole number of sisters, and so
again to begin and continue."

" And we will and charge under like pains
that all the said ladies, both of the Abbess and
of the Misericorde^ do observe and keep the
choir at Matins, Mass, and all other Divine
Service, as those that keep the cloisters, with-
out there be any lawful impediment, and that
no lady of the said two places remain longer
in any of the same than half-past seven o'clock
at night, and that no man, priest nor other,
come into the said place called the Misericords
without special license of the Lady Abbess for
the time being, and yet this, to make no long
abode, neither there to be without honest testi-
mony of his or their honest conversation, and
this the Lady Abbess to see observed and kept

44 bunyan's country.

under the pain of contempt, and all the residue
of the ladies daily to sit in the Fratry, according
unto their rules, at their meals."

" And forasmuch as the more secret religious
persons be kept from the sight and usage of
the world and strangers, the more close and
entire their mind and devotion shall be unto
God, we order and enjoin to the Lady Abbess
that before the Nativity of our Lord next en-
suing, she cause a door with two leaves to be
made and set up at the lower end of the choir,
and that door to be five feet in height at the
least, and continually to stand shut at the
times of Divine Service, except it be at coming
in and out of any of the ladies or ministers of
the said Church. And under the like pain as
is aforesaid we charge the said Lady Abbess
that she cause the door between the Convent
and the Parish Church continually to be shut
unless it be only at the times of Divine Service,
and likewise she cause the cloister door towards
the outward court to be continually shut, unless
it be at such times as any necessaries for the
Convent shall be brought in or borne out at
the same, and that she suffer no other back

IN buntan's village. 45

doors to be opened but upon necessary great
and urgent causes by her approval. Also we
enjoin to the said Lady Abbess that such re-
pairs as shall be necessary in and upon the
buildings within the said monastery and other
houses, tenements, and farms, thereunto be-
longing be sufl&ciently done and made within
the space of one year immediately after the date
of this injunction."

" Moreover, forasmuch as the Lady Abbess
and Convent of that house be all one religious
body, united by the rules and profession of
holy Saint Benedict, and it is not convenient
any religious to be dissevered or separate, we
will and enjoin that from henceforth none of
the said Abbess's servants nor no other secular
person or persons, whatsoever he or they be,
go in any procession before the said Abbess
between her and her said Convent under pain
of excommunication, and that the Lady Abbess
nor any of her successors hereafter be led by the
arm or otherwise in any procession there as in
time passed hath been used, under the same
pain."

^* Also we will, command, and enjoin to Dame

46 bunyan's country.

Katharine Wyngate, the said Lady Abbess's
Chaplain, under pain of contempt, that nightly
she rise and be at Matins within the said
morning with her other religious sisters therCj
and that from henceforth she do not sup nor
breakfast in the buttery of the said Abbess,
neither with the steward nor any other secular
person or persons under the same pain, and
likewise we enjoin to all them that hereafter
shall be in the said office or rooms of the Lady
Abbess's Chaplain, under the pain above ex-
pressed."

" Over this we ordain, and by way of in-
junction command under pain of disobedience,
from henceforth that no lady nor any religious
sister within the said monastery presume to
wear their apparels upon their heads under
such lay fashion as they have now of late
done, with cornered crests, neither under such
manner of height showing their foreheads,
more like lay people than religious, but that
they use them without such crests or secular
fashions, and of a lower sort, and that their
veil come as low as their eyelids, and so con-
tinually to use the same, unless it be at such

IN bunyan's village. 47

times as they shall be occupied in any handi-
craft-labour, at which times it shall be lawful
for them to turn up the said veil for ihe time
of such occupation."

'^ And under like pains we enjoin that none
of the said religious sisters do use or wear
hereafter any such voided shoes, neither crested,
as they have of late been used, but that they
be of such honest fashion as other religious
places both use, and that their gowns and
kirtles be close afore, and not deeply voided
at the breast, and no more to use red
stomachers, but the sadder colours in the
same."

Yes, after a history of some hundreds of
years the Abbess of Elnestowe had become a
great secular lady with her little court, her
chaplains for her maids of honour, and her
stewards and other oflBcials for her ministers,
and in procession she loved to go as one whose
movements were to be attended with all pos-
sible pomp and dignity; while the sisters,
weary of the monotony of cloister life, loved
to find their way to the Misericorde, and there
— while they displayed their voided shoes.

48 bunyan's country.

their low-cut gowns, their crested veils, and
their red stomachers, all too secular a garb-
to learn the gossip of the outside world, which
was brought to them by their visitors. Pope
failed to exercise his usual judgment when
he wrote : —

** How happy is the blameless vestal's lot !
The world forgetting, by the world forgot."

Nothing now remains of the domestic build-
ings of the convent. Fratry and Misericorde
have disappeared, together with the lodgings
where the Abbess held her court and the dor-
mitory and cells of the sisters.

The church also has disappeared with the
exception of the portion of the nave west of
the screen referred to in the Bishop's injunc-
tions. This portion was then, and is still,
used as the parish church. The foundations
of the nuns' choir, or chancel, may be traced
beneath the sward. Towards the village we
can find the Abbey fish-ponds. As to what
took the place of the nunnery buildings later
on we shall have to speak, when we consider
an early stage in Christian's journey.

The last Abbess was Elizabeth Bayfield.

IN bunyan's village. 49

She came into office in 1530, the year in which
Bishop Longland issued his injunctions of
reformation. Nine vears afterwards this Abbess
surrendered her house to the King. The deed
of surrender is curious reading. It shows
under what names the forcible seizure is
veiled. One paragraph we give. It is the
opening one, or a portion of it : —

'^Know ye that we, the aforesaid Abbess
and Convent, with an unanimous assent and
consent, with deliberate minds, of our certain
knowledge and mere motion, from certain just
and reasonable causes, specially moving us our
minds and our consciences, have freely and
willingly given and granted, and by these pre-
sents do give, grant, restore, deliver, and con-
firm, to our most illustrious and victorious
Prince and Lord, Henry YIII., by the grace
of God, King of England and France, Defender
of the Faith, Lord of Ireland, and upon earth
supreme Head, under Christ, of the Church of
England, all our said monastery or Abbey of
Elnestowe aforesaid." I

The nuns were turned out of their house, but
they received pensions. Elizabeth Bayfield, i

50 BUNTAN^S COUNTRY.

as Abbess, deceived one of £50. The Prioress,
whose name was Ellen Snow, received a pen-
sion of £4. A late Prioress, Anne Wake,
received £3 6s. 8d. Cecilie Starkey, who is
described as Sexton, probably some honorary
oflBce, had a similar pension, and the other
nuns, twenty in number, received pensions of
£2 13s. 4d., or of £2. Amongst the names
are those of Maud Sheldon, the Sub-prioress,
and Katharine Wyngate, the Chaplain to the
Abbess. The latter lady is mentioned in
Bishop Longland's injunction. She probably
belonged to the family of Wyngate of Ampt-
hill and Harlington, for Elstow, as we have
already mentioned, was an abbey much fre-
quented by ladies of county families.

Some of the sisters went to live in Bedford,
and the burials of three are recorded in the
register of the Church of St. Mary in that town.

We have dwelt at some length on the his-
tory of the Abbey for a special reason. In
a country village traditions are easily handed
down. The Abbey was dissolved in 1539.
John Bunyan was born in 1628. Tales of
'' the ladies '' must have been told in his hear-

m bunyan's village. 61

ing. The grandparents of his generation could
remember "the ladies '' themselves. Is it not
possible that something of what he had heard
of the pious lives of these women vowed to
religion — ^for we must not suppose that Bishops
were continually issuing monitions — was in
his mind when he described the virgins of the
House Beautiful, Discretion^ Prtidence, Piety ^
and Charity?

To find the first scene in the progress of
the pilgrim we must naturally go a little out-
side the village. We can hardly expect to
discover a Slough of Despond in the street or
on the green, and perhaps also it would hardly
be civil to dwellers in Elstow to say that their
peaceful houses represent the city of destruc-
tion.

But morasses, sloughs, bogs, marshes, were
and are to be found in plenty enough, and
within reasonable distance. The Ouse valley
has always been subject to sudden and destruc-
tive floods at all seasons, and the older bridges
have long causeways, supported on flood arches,
which run across the meadows. Fuller speaks
of an old saying which describes the river by

52 buntan's country.

the name of " the Bailiff of Bedford," on ac-
count of the quantity of hay and of cattle
distrained by it on the low-lying lands. When
the water has subsided, the land on each side
of the river remains for a long time soft and
spongy, for the only drainage is by the ditches
or dykes which divide meadow from meadow,
and remain full to the brim until the main
stream into which they run has been lowered
in height ; and John Bunyan probably found
himself overshoe in a bog many a time when
Jie wandered waterwards, as boys are wont to
do, from his father's home. Anywhere, then,
in the meadows between Elstow and the Ouse,
or even on the borders of the brook which
ran hard by his birthplace, we may locate the
Slough of Despond.

Bunyan is not the only dweller in the Ouse
valley who has remarked on the character of
the low-lying land. Cowper, the poet, during
his sojourn at Olney, found himself at times
cut off from the society of Mrs. Jones and her
sister, Lady Austen, by the floods and mire
which separated his little town from the
Eectory House at Clifton Eeynes, and when

m buntan's village. 63

his own particular pilgrim's progress was thus
interrupted, he wrote : —

** Oh I that I were a Datohman,
That I need not repine at the mud,

. But in a bog live well content,
And find it just mj element."

Whether it be Olney or Elstow, there is but
little diflterence in the surroundings if we pro-
ceed riverwards.

A little further afield must we go to find
the next diflBculty in the Pilgrim's way.
Worldly Wiseman directs him to a high hill
whose " side of it that was next the wayside
did hang so much over that Christian was
afraid to venture further lest the hill should
fall on his head," and out of the side of which
came ^'flashes of fire." Now the description
of the hill does not seem to tally with what
we shall find as we climb the slopes which
lead to the hills of Ampthill ; it rather seems
to point to a mound rising abrupt and solitary
from a plain. Such a hill is to be found at
Castle Mills, on the Ouse, about four miles
below Bedford, where there is a cartway
across the river, and where an evidently arti-

54 BUNTAN's COUNTRr.

ficial mound rises steeply in the midst of the
flat meadow-land. Risinghoe is the ancient
name of this elevation, and that name well
describes its situation. Leland says that it
was once the castle keep of the family of
Espec, but a mediseval castle could hardly
have been built in such a place, nor is the
mound sufficiently strong to support such a
theory, or such a weight of masonry as would
be necessary in a stronghold. It is most likely
nothing more than a signal station from which
fire flashes — there is tradition again for Bunyan
to work on — were sent to other not far distant
stations, such as that to the west on which the
De Beauchamps of Bedford afterwards reared
their castle, or that which commands the valley
a couple of miles further to the east, and is
called Howbury Camp.

These river-side earthworks abound in the
valley of the Ouse, and probably date from the
days when the river formed a tribal boundary,
and the tribe which held it had a system by
which they collected their fighting men to-
gether when their neighbours were inclined
to be nasty.

IN BUNTAN'B TILLAGE. 85

The dreamer, in his allegory, has likened

Risiughoe Castle, (mount Sinai.)

the British signal mound to " Mount Sinai in
Arabia," but in Ms usual way he has selected

66 bunyan's country.

some feature in his well-known Bedfordshire,
and has then allowed his imagination to adapt
it or magnify it until it is fitted to take its
place in his story.

Taking things in order, we must next seek
for the wicket-gate. To do so we must return
to Elstow Church. We have already mentioned
that the portion which we now see is the nave,
or a portion of the nave, of the monastic
church of Judith's convent. Nothing is now
to be found but the four bays of this nave,
which are of Transition-Norman and Early
English work, with the adjacent side aisles
of later date. Chancel and central tower, if
ever there was one, have disappeared. But
Elstow Church, though it be but a fragment, is
an imposing building, towering far above the
houses of the village, and when in its complete
form it must have been one of the most magni-
ficent examples of ecclesiastical architecture in
the country, worthy of comparison with the
Priory Church at Dunstable.

A plain but lofty wall cuts off the eastern
end. It was against this wall that there stood
those particular persons and things which

IS buntan's village. 67

Bunyaa tells us he " adored with great devo-
tion — ^high-place, priest, clerk, vestment service,
and what else, belonging to the church." He
writes as though the church had, in his day at
least, an altar beneath a baldachino. But this
was hardly the case. That eastern wall had
probably just then been adorned , as we see it
now, with the effigy of Sir Humphrey Eatcliffe,
which looks down on us in so incongruous and
strange a fashion.

The west end of the church is, however,
as interesting as the present east side is offen^
sive. It has a double portal, and in the
northernmost leaf of this portal is a small
gate which is contained within, and forms part
of, the larger door. Here we have, as many
suppose, the idea of the wicket gate through
which Christian fled for refuge when Evan-
gelist had brought him back from beneath the
burning mountain.

And there is another reason for supposing
that this may be the case, for a tower stands close
by which may be said to represent the Castle
of Beelzebub from which arrows were wont
to be shot, as Bunyan tells us, at the pilgrims

58 BUNYAN^S COUNTRY.

who were entering the gate. This tower
stands detached, and at a distance of about
twelve feet from the north aisle. The building
was not always a tower, and the upper portion
is of comparatively recent erection. The
lower portion formed, it is supposed, some
part of the domestic buildings of the convent,
and the upper portion was built soon after the
dissolution for the purpose of containing the
parish bells. It is a building interesting, of
course, to all students of Bunyan's life as the
scene of his bell-ringing in his earlier days.
He has a good deal to say about this tower.
For some reason he appears at a later period to
have regarded bell ringing as an unholy pro-
ceeding, and looked longingly at the ropes
without venturing to enter in beneath the
handsome decorated doorway. And yet he
did not learn to hate bells, for they ring out
to his pilgrims as joy bells from the Celestial
City in the closing scene of all.

But to return to surrounding scenes, as illus-
trating Bunyan's imagery. It may easily be
seen that a bowman standing on the summit
of the tower could command the approach to

OV TKB

UNrVERSITT

IN bunyan's village. 61

the wicket-gate. Gate and castle are thus
supplied side by side, and the imagery is
complete.

And if we go round to the other side of the
church, we find another building which, per-
haps, supplied an illustration for Bunyan. In
a very unusual place, at the south-west end of
the south aisle, stands the chapter-house of the
nuns. It forms, with the lower part of the
tower which we have just described, the only
existing remains of the <5onvent other than
those of the church itself.

Learned men have disputed as to whether
the building was indeed the gathering place of
the nuns, commonly called the chapter-house.
But such a building we may safely conjecture
it to have been from its size, its shape, and its
appearance. Its roof is supported, as are the
majority of those which covered chapter-houses,
by a central pillar.

Probably the tradition of this having been
the meeting-place of the nuns had been handed
down to Bunyan's time, and if Discretion,
Piety, Patience, and Charity may in any way
represent the Ladies of the Order of St. Bene-

62 bunyan's country.

diet, the ^^ closet " or dining-room, or other
apartment in which these damsels entertained
the pilgrims, may have been suggested by the
chapter-house.

The next stage in Christian's journey is the
house of the Interpreter. There is nothing
about this house which makes us think that
Bunyan had any particular dwelling in his
mind when he described it. Any building
which contained enough rooms in which to
exhibit the various acted parables, of the figure
of the *' very grave person with his eyes lifted
up to Heaven, and the best of books in his
hand," — considered a portrait of Bunyan him-
self, though painted all unconsciously : — of the
dusty floor ; of the children named " Passion "
and ^^ Patience;" of the oil-fed fire; of the
man in the iron cage ; and of the man waking
up from his awful dream of the Day of Judg-
ment, would suffice his purpose. His own
modest dwelling by the road-side at Elstow,
would be too small for his stage ; but in any
one of the large old-fashioned roomy farm-
houses, of which there are many in this neigh-
bourhood, he might present the scenes which

IN BUNYAN^S VILLAGE. 63

formed the subjects of the Interpreter's homi-
lies.

But there is one of the scenes which may, we
think, be distinctly localised. It is that where
Interpreter, taking Christian by the hand,
leads him '4nto a pleasant place, where was
built a stately palace^ beautiful to behold, at the
sight of which Christian was greatly delighted.
He saw also upon the top thereof certain per-
sons walking who were clothed with gold."
In at the door of this palace Christian saw an
armed man cut his way through the midst of
the guards who kept it.

There is just such a palace, or rather a frag-
ment of it, in Elstow at the present day. To
describe its history we must go back to that of
the Abbey. After the dissolution the posses-
sions of the nunnery, or some of them, passed
to Sir Humphrey Eatcliffe, whose eflSgy we
have seen occupying a very conspicuous posi-
tion in the centre of the present east wall of
the church. The estates, however, very soon
passed from the family of Eatcliffe to that of
Hillersden, and the latter family built them-
selves a handsome Jacobean mansion close up

64 bunyan's country.

against the church on the south side, adjoining
the chapter house, and occupying a portion
of the site of the monastic buildings of the
Abbey.

Nothing but the front remains now, but
even in its ruin it is stately. The porch, which
is somewhat later in date than the rest of the
building, is particularly handsome, flanked as
it is by pilasters, and surmounted by a pedi-
ment and armorial coats. There is every pro-
bability indeed that it was the design of Inigo
Jones, of whose connection with Bedfordshire
we shall say more when we arrive at Houghton
House. Here we may suppose Bunyan saw,
in his imagination, the opposing guards and
the well-armed Christian soldier marching on
with drawn sword.

The next stage in the journey of the Pilgrim
is his arrival at the cross. No one can hesi-
tate for a moment as to where the cross at
which Christian lost his burden stood, or, as
we may be thankful to say after so many years
of destruction and peglect, still stands in part.
Village and churchyard crosses are common
enough. The actual reason for which they

Elatow Plaoe. (The P&lace in the vision of the Interpreter.)

or TKjt

UNIVERSITY

Pa

pALIFOn

\\\^

IN buntan's village. 67

were at first erected is perhaps not altogether
obvious, but their use as marking a central
gathering place is sufficiently well known.

Sermons were preached, and ecclesiastical
decrees were published, at the church crosses.
St. Paul's Cross was the scene of many such a
promulgation, important enough in its day.
The market cross still stands in many an an-
cient town and city. All remember how —

** Dim-Edin Cross a pillar' d stone,
Rose in a turret octagon ;
But now is razed that monument,
Whence royal edict rang."

But from a cross raised on a village green in
Bedfordshire there was no such dread sum-
mons to be issued as that to which '' the spectre
crowd " listened on the eve of Flodden Field.
The villagers gathered round, it may be, to
listen to some comparatively unimportant offi-
cial information, but more often to gossip, and
to discuss such news as might reach Elstow.
It was the gathering place, too, for those who,
like Bunyan himself, came here on a Sunday
afternoon to play tip-cat. Take his own words
referring to his own feelings when he was so

68 bunyan's country.

engaged on the green : *' A voice did suddenly
dart from heaven into my soul, which said,
' Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to heaven, or
have thy sins and go to hell ? ' At this I was
put to an exceeding maze. Whereupon, leav-
ing my cat upon the ground. I looked up to
heaven, and was as if I had, with the eyes of
my understanding, seen the Lord Jesus looking
down upon me, as being very hotly displeased
with me."

Had he not that Sunday afternoon on the
green in his thoughts when he wrote of his
Pilgrim — '^ He ran thus till he came to a
place somewhat ascending, and upon that place
stood a cross, and a little below, in a bottom, a
sepulchre. So I saw in my dream, that just
as Christian came up with the cross, his burden
loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his
back, and began to tumble, and so continued
to do till it came to the mouth of the sepul-
chre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more."

There is no "ascending" place on Elstow
Green, which lies flat enough, nor is there
anything which could in any way be described
as a sepulchre anywhere about ; but Bunyan

IN bunyan's village. 69

had naturally to expand what he saw, and as
for the cross itself, probably it stood much
more conspicuously in his day than it does
now. We see merely a stump. Bunyan may
have seen a cross complete with arms.

As for the way fenced with the wall called
'* Salvation," there are plenty of little alleys
bounded by houses which run from the road
on to the green, for Elstow Green does not
exactly border the road, as do such spaces
elsewhere. It is shut in to itself.

And thus have we seen the Pilgrim fairly
started on his way ere his creator has left his
native village.

CHAPTER III.

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL.

The Spring at the foot of the Hill— The Hill-side— History of
Dame Ellen's Bury — Dame Eleanor St. Amand — Mary Sidney,
Countess of Pembroke — The building of Houghton House —
Inigo Jones — Description of the House — Christiana Bruce,
Countess of Devonshire — Dr. George Lawson and the Restora-
tion — Robert Bruce, Earl of Ailesbury — The Houghton House
of Bunyan's Time — The Porter's Lodge — The Library — The
Museum — The Armoury — The View of the Chiltcms.

The next stage of Christian's journey brings
us to a portion of the county a few miles south
of Elstow, and a part probably well-known to
Bunyan, the neighbourhood of the little town
of Ampthill.

It is a pretty walk, as pretty as any that
may be found in Bedfordshire, from Elstow to
Ampthill so soon as the first three or four
miles are past. For although the first part is
dull and flat, yet the latter part winds up the
Ampthill hill between two grand old parks,

!!

!!
11

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or TMK

TJNIVERSITT
«sf:CALIFOiyii>

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL. 73

which extend far over the sides of the hill,
and contain magnificent trees.

But before we begin to ascend the hill, we
must note the first natural feature which
Bunyan brings before us after Christian has
passed the cross. " I beheld then," he says,
^' that they all went on till they came to the
foot of the hill Difficulty, at the bottom of
which was a spring."

There is a spring plain enough, not a great
fountain, it is true, pouring out volumes of
water — we must go farther on into the chalk
country to find such strong streams — but a
nice little trickling thread of water, which runs
down the wooded bank on the left-hand side
of the road, just before we begin to mount the
hill. We should, perhaps, not notice it were it
not that the flat clay-land through which we
have been journeying affords no such sight,
and the tiny rill is a sign to us that we are
approaching a country where we shall find
water in another form than in that of muddy
brooks.

Bunyan tells us that he saw in his dream
two other roads which ran up the hill, but that

74 bunyan's countky.

Christian chose the narrow path, which seemed
to lead up with a very steep ascent. There are
certainly not two roads now. There is but
one, the high road, which runs up between the
two parks, and we are not concerned with this
one as we follow the steps of the Pilgrim. We
rather try to imagine what he would have met
with if he turned, as he did, out of the high-
road into a steep and winding path on the
left-hand or eastern side of the road. That
such a path existed in the days of Bunyan is
probable enough, but it led to something which
has now ceased to exist. What was this ?

The main road, as we have said, passes be-
tween two parks. That to the right, or
western side, is Ampthill Park, in which stood
most likely in Bunyan's time the scanty
remains of Ampthill Castle which had been
built by Lord Fanhope in the early part of the
fifteenth century. The whole of this building,
rendered historical since Queen Katharine of
Aragon here received the Commissioners who
came to announce to her the sentence of divorce
pronounced by Archbishop Cranmer, has long
since disappeared. The flat terrace on which.

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL. 75

it stood, and from which doubtless Bunyan
often gazed on the fair park below, is now
adorned by a Gothic cross, on which is the
following inscription by Horace Walpole of
the '^Letters:''

" In days of old, here Ampthiirs towers were seen,
The mournful refuge of an injured Queen.
Here flowed her pore and unavailing tears,
Here blinded zeal sustained her sinking years.
Yet freedom hence her radiant banner wav'd,
And love avenged a realm by priests enslaved.
Erom Katharine's wrongs a nation's bliss was spread,
And Luther's light from Henry's lawless bed."

But these Protestant sentiments of Walpole's
are of a good many years' later date than the
time of Bunyan, and we do not suggest that
the latter chose any of his imagery from Ampt-
hill Castle or its ruins. Let us pass into the
park on the other side of the road. This park,
which like that of Ampthill runs down the
northern slope of the hills, was once called
Dame Ellen's Bury. It is in the parish of
Houghton Conquest, so called from the family
of Conquest, who were here from the thirteenth
to the eighteenth century ; but the manor to
which this park was attached did not belong
to that family. It belonged to the family of

bunyan's country.

St. Amand, who were a conspicuous family
hereabouts, and whose castle at Cainhoe we
shall visit later on ; and in 1415 Dame Eleanor
St. Amand, who seems to have been a lady
who stoutly stood up for the rights of her
family, gave her name to the park or bury.

The manor appears to have become a royal
one, and in 1605 or thereabout James I. made
Sir Edmund Conquest keeper of the park, and
paid him a visit of some days at his house at
Houghton Conquest. Thomas Archer, the then
Eector of Houghton, has left us some account
of this visit in a volume of notes which he has
left for the benefit of his successors in the
Kectory. But up to this date, so far as we
know, there was no other mansion in the parish
to rival that of the Conquests.

In the year 1615, however, there was a
change in the history of Dame Ellen's Bury.
Just sixty years before there had been bom at
Penshurst, in Kent, to Sir Henry Sidney and
his wife Mary, the daughter of John Dudley,
Earl of Northumberland, a daughter, who was
christened by her mother's name. This child
grew up to become one of the most famous

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL. 77

women of the day, and with her name we
always couple most closely that of her brother,
Sir Philip Sidney. Everyone knows those
memorial lines by '^ Eare Ben Jonson "

** Underneath this sable hearse
lies the subject of all verse —
Sidoey's sister, Pembroke's mother.
Death, ere thon hast slain another,
Fam'd and fair and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.'*

Sir Henry Sidney was Lord President of
Wales, and occupied the official residence for
such high officers in that magnificent border
fortress, the castle at Ludlow. There on the
banks of the Teme did Mary Sidney spend
her childhood. At the age of twenty she
was introduced to the Court of Elizabeth, and
two years after she married, as his third
wife, Henry Herbert, second Earl of Pem-
broke.

Then there followed a time of earnest study
and literary work, when the youthful Countess
and her well-loved brother Philip read and
worked together at her new home, Wilton
House, the seat of the Pembrokes. An account
of what the brother and sister did together

78 bitnyan's country.

belongs rather to the literary history of our
country. The work was cut short by the
tragic fate of Sir Philip Sidney at the siege of
Zutphen in 1587. A gloom passed over the
life of Countess Mary on the death of this
companion of her youth, but she still continued
to take the keenest interest in literature, and
was the patroness of Spenser and many other
writers of the day.

In the year 1615 Lady Pembroke, now a
widow, was presented by James I. with the
royal manor of Dame Ellen's Bury ; and, notwith-
standing the fact that she was well past middle
age, the energetic lady at once began to build
in the lovely park ; and the result was the
Houghton House of which the magnificent
remains are to the present day a conspicuous
example of what our ancestors could do in the
way of architectural creation.

So quickly was the work completed, that in
1621 Lady Pembroke was able to entertain her
Sovereign in her new house. Gardens were
also laid out on the slope of the hill by the
Countess ; and tradition will have it that under
a tree in the park Sir Philip Sidney composed

IHE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL. 79

his "Arcadia." But tradition is wrong, for,
as we have seen, Sir Philip was dead some
years before his sister acquired Houghton.
Another tradition with more probability places
the historic tree in the park at Wilton.

Lady Pembroke died soon after the royal
visit, but her work remains, as we have said,
in part, and is worthy of some description.
Quite sufficient is standing to allow the care-
ful student of architecture to complete the
building in imagination.

Inigo Jones is commonly supposed to have
been the architect employed in its erection.
This seems probable enough, for the young
Earl of Pembroke, Countess Mary's son, was
certainly a patron of this well-known architect,
and employed him in the erection of a portion
of Wilton House. Experts, moreover, tell us
that the mansion bears many distinguishing
marks of the style of Jones. The style is, of
course, classical, but yet the building is classical
more in its details than in its general features
and arrangements. Some compare a portion of
Houghton House to the work of Palladio in
the convent delta Carita at Venice. Inigo

80 bunyan's country.

Jones, it will be remembered, was numbered
among the pupils of Palladio.

Houghton must be an early example of a
house built square and solid without an open
space in the centre. It was a long time before
this plan of building became prevalent. It is,
moreover, remarkable as having three fronts,
all of them different and all equally attractive
in design. They are to the north, west, and
south respectively. The east side was evi-
dently taken up by offices.

The north and south sides are the longest,
being one hundred and twenty-two feet in
length. The east and west sides are but seventy-
six. At the comers are towers, and these
towers had, we know from descriptions, spire
roofs. They were about sixty-five feet high.

The south front, the one which looks towards
Ampthill, has a tower in the centre, through
which is the principal entrance. The upper
portion had Ionic pilasters, and at the top was
a balustrade with crowns. A considerable
portion of the tower is still standing. Between
it and the comer towers are two large bay-
windows.

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL.

The Trest front, though the shortest, is the
most interesting. In the centre, raised on a

flight of four steps, is a Doric portico. Above
this is a frieze which is well worth attention,
for it is adorned with monograms and cyphers,

82 bunyan's country.

between which are the bearings of the families
with which Countess Mary was connected.
We can see, still happily in good preservation,
the lion rampant of the Herberts, the bear and
ragged staff of the Dudleys ; the pheon (in this
case with a crown over it) of the De L'Isles,
and the porcupine of the Sidneys. Certainly
the old lady was proud of her family tree.
Above this frieze was an Ionic loggia with
balustrade, and above this a smaller gallery
with four columns only, which were of the
Corinthian order. The upper portion of this
very handsome centre is, unfortunately, much
destroyed. The whole was crowned by a
pediment.

The north front has also an imposing centre,
but the upper part of it is, however, in ruins.
The ground has sloped away slightly along
the west side, so that there are six steps in-
stead of four. Between four Doric columns
are three arches, and the frieze above these is
ornamented with heraldic bearings similar to
those on the west side. Above was another
loggia with Ionic pillars. The upper portion
lacked the beauty of the centre of the west front.

Houghton House. The South Entr&noe.

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL, 85

It consisted of a large window between two
Ionic pilasters, and on each side of it is a blank
window. The upper part of each window was
worked with a well-carved scallop shell. Above
this was a large space with a coat of arms, and the
whole was finished with a pediment and spire-
shaped pinnacles. Such is the length of this side
of the house that it has three rows of windows
of four lights each, and two pairs of these
are bay windows of a large size. The tracery
of some of the windows is curious, the mul-
lions being of an oval shape in the upper
portion. There is a basement to this part of
the house.

The building is now roofless, and it is rather
difficult to make out the many rooms. There
is no woodwork whatever remaining, the whole
having been removed when the house was dis-
mantled in 1794.

A few years after the death of Countess
Mary the mansion at Houghton came into the
possession of the Bruce family. At this time
there was another lady living here, who,
though not perhaps quite so well known as
Lady Pembroke, was of considerable note

86 bttnyan's country.

during the civil wars. This lady was Chris-
tiana, daughter of Lord Edward Bruce of
Kinloss, and the heroic wife of William Earl
of Devonshire. Lady Devonshire was one of
the^foremost of the royalist ladies to rally her
party when discomfited, but after the crown-
ing defeat of Worcester she retired, perhaps
almost disheartened, to Houghton House, then
the property of her brother the Earl of
Elgin, and there spent three years of patient
waiting.

But she was not altogether unoccupied, for
she had at hand certain friends of the King.
One of them was Dr. George Lawson, the
ejected Rector of Mears Ashby in Northampton-
shire, who when driven from his benefice
became a schoolmaster at Houghton Conquest.
A tablet in the church at Millbrook, about two
miles to the west, gives some account of Dr.
Lawson and the share which he had in bringing
about the Restoration ; and doubtless he and
the Countess of Devonshire had many an inter-
view on the subject which then stood first and
foremost with the Cavaliers of the day.

It is just possible that Lady Devonshire may

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL. 87

have known Houghton in earlier days, for an
intimate friendship existed between herself and
the Earl of Pembroke, and the latter addressed
to her many verses in the fashion of the
romantic gallantry of the times.

Lady Devonshire lived for some years after
the Eestoration, and died in 1674. But^jhough
her residence in Bedfordshire had come to an
end a long time before, her family still con-
tinued to live at Houghton.

Of this family a distinguished member was
her nephew Kobert Bruce, son of the Earl of
Elgin. He was intimately connected with the
political movements of the county, for in 1660
he was sent as one of the members for Bedford-
shire to the Convention Parliament, and in the
sajne year he was appointed Lord-Lieutenant.
He had at first a partner in this work, for the
Earl of Cleveland shared the office with him,
but in 1667 the latter died, and Robert Bruce
reigned alone. He had already risen to higher
honours, for in 1668 he had been created Vis-
count Bruce of Ampthill and first Earl of
Ailesbury.

Nor was this Robert Bruce of the seventeenth

. ^>^ OF Tfllt JV

^KIVBBSITT

88 bunyan's country.

century a politician and man of action only.
Ho has left behind him the reputation of one
who was fond of literature and antiquities. He
died at Houghton in 1685, and lies buried in
Ampthill Church.

At the time when John Bunyan was writing
*'The Pilgrim's Progress," Lord Ailesbury was
in full power and an important personage in the
neighbourhood. lie had much to do with the
borough of Bedford, and ii few years later, in
1684, he was concerned in the granting of a
new charter to the Corporation.

But now let us return to the bottom of the
hill where we left the Pilgrim, refreshed as he
was with his draught from the flowing spring.
He turns to the left hand, or eastern, side of
the road, and begins to climb the Hill Diffi-
culty. Ao is to be expected, Bunyan has
somewhat exaggerated the steepness of the
hill, and forces Christian to climb it in places
on his bands and knees. This northern slope
of Houghton Park was, we may suppose, in
Bunyan's time a series of terraces rising one
above another, and laid out in the stiff garden-
fashion of the time. A flight of steps, or maybe

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL. 89

a steep path, would lead from one terrace to
the next, and gradually the view over the plain
of Bedford would reveal itself to the traveller
as he mounted higher and higher.

And there would be another feature in this
terraced garden. There would be little sum-
mer-houses or arbours^ as Bunyan has it, placed
here and there, each with its settle. It was in
such an arhour and beneath such a settle that
Christian lost his roll, which fell from his hand
as he slept. Just slight indications of these
terraces and garden walks can we make out,
though the park is now grazed up to the ruins
themselves.

But it is with the mansion itself that we are
the rather occupied. It stands in one of the
most beautiful spots in Bedfordshire, and is in
itself one of the most beautiful domestic build-
ings in the county, for unfortunately this
little shire does not abound in Elizabethan or
Jacobean mansions. It is ivy-clothed, and
trees have been allowed to grow up within the
ruins themselves ; but still we can make out
some of the distinguishing features of the three
fronts which we have already described.

90 btjnyan's countht.

*^ Oh, a dainty plant is the iyy green,

That creepeth o*er ruins old !
Of right choice food are his meals, I ween,

In his coll so lone and cold.
Creeping where no life is seen,
A rare old plant is the ivy green."

But friend ivy is rather a troublesome and
pushing friend when he covers up all or the
greater part of what the architectural student
would love to decipher.

Some, it is true, would make the Hillersden
mansion, hard by the church at Elstow, the
"Beautiful House"; but though we have
allowed for that mansion the honour of being
the stately palace of the Interpreter's visions,
we must claim the higher honour for Houghton
House, standing as it does on the summit of
the Hill Difl&culty and commanding views over
a wide expanse of country. Moreover, when
Bunyan walked along the garden terraces, or
perchance entered the mansion itself, it was in
all its grandeur^ and the Lord-Lieutenant of
the county was here keeping high state and
court.

It will be remembered that Christian, when
he had reached the top of the hill and had

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL. 91

made his way towards the house, was at first
somewhat disturbed by the sight of lions, who
guarded each side of a narrow way. This
narrow passage was as much a creation of
Bunyan's as the animals themselves ; but the
Pilgrim, if he had gone round the house and
were approaching it from the north, would pass
along an avenue, at the end of which he would
see the central tower with the main entrance
straight before him ; and the porter at the
same time would be able to see the man ap-
proaching, and could shout to him not to fear
the chained beasts.

All that follows is in exact accordance prob-
ably with what went on at a great man's
house when a stranger arrived. The porter,
having parleyed for a time with him, goes into
his lodge and rings a great clanging bell ; and
then the traveller is ushered into the house
by the ^' grave and beautiful damsel named
Discretion."

All arrangements within testify to what was
probably the custom at Houghton House when
Lord Ailesbury was its master. The Pilgrim
was offered a drink while he waited for supper.

92 bunyan's country.

That was in accordance presumably with the
somewhat exuberant hospitality of the period.
We can make out whereabouts was once the
** large upper chamber, whose window opened
towards the sun-rising: the name of the
chamber was peace." The wall has been broken
away on this, the eastern side of the house,
but there is a delightful view from its site, across
a dip in the hill and on to the wood beyond.

And then on the morning after his arrival
Christian was taken into the study, where he
was shown *' records of the greatest antiquity."
The Earl of Ailesbury was, we know, a man
fond both of books and antiquarian pursuits,
and doubtless he had a well-filled library, into
which Bunyan may at some time have been
allowed to enter, or of which he may have
heard. And may we not say also that the
arms of the Dudleys and Sidneys and De
L' Isles and Herberts, which Lady Pembroke
had caused to be carved on the western and
northern fronts, reminded him that noble fami-
lies had their pedigrees, which he took as his
figure for "the pedigree of the Lord of the
hill, the Son of the Ancient of days " ?

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL. 93

Doubtless also there was hanging in the
hall at Houghton House a collection of armour,
much of which had done service during the
civil wars. Here, then, would Bunyan find his
imagery for the sword and the shield and the
breastplate with which Christian was armed by
the fair damsels Charity, Prudence, and Piety.

Most likely, moreover, Lord Ailesbury had,
as an antiquarian, made a collection of some
sort for what we should now call a museum.
When the sisters showed the Pilgrim anti-
quities of the Old Testament, from the rod of
Moses to the sling and stones of David, was
there not some remembrance in Bunyan's mind
of what he had seen or had heard of at
Houghton ?

One lovely summer evening, when the moon
was at the full, we started for a late stroll
round the ruins. As we approached we heard
the sound of voices and peals of light girlish
laughter proceeding from the interior of the
building. What said we to ourselves, can it
be that the ghosts of Sidneys or Herberts re-
turn at times to visit their former abode ? But
they must be in all certainty a merry throng.

94 bunyan's country.

Surely the stately Countess of Pembroke can-
not be amongst them, and Lady Devonshire
must have remembrances of the j/lace which
are too sad to allow her to return here with
laughter and with song? It must be the
Eestoration revels which went on when the
Bruces reigned, which are being repeated for
our benefit. But stay ; what is this mass of
gleaming steel on which the moon-beams
shine ? Has a phantom array of weapons been
turned out from the ancient armoury to sparkle
in the moonshine ?

But as we approached, the piled-up heap of
flashing steel resolved itself into a harmless
stack of bicycles ; so, having satisfied ourselves
that we had to deal with the nineteenth cen-
tury and not with the seventeenth, we ventured
to pass within the ruins, and penetrated to a
large inner room, which appeared to be illu-
minated by glow-worms of gigantic size
clinging to the crevice in the walls. These
lights were those of the bicycle lamps which
had been fixed up all round the apartment, and
threw a light on the scene beneath. Bound a
large white table-cloth which had taken the

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL. 95

place of a floor on which once gallants and
dames of the time of the second Charles trod
coranto or minuet, was a large and merry
party engaged on what proved to be nearly a
midnight supper. We found that host and
hostess were of our acquaintance, and we were
pressed to sit down to this banquet which was
being served in the ancient hall of Houghton
House.

The meal finished, the young people, such is
the overwhelming energy of youth, declared
that they must start some games amongst the
ruins, notwithstanding the fact that many of
them had many a mile of road to ride ere they
could reach their homes. Hide-and-seek was
the game proposed and carried, and in a minute
the flock had dispersed to ail parts of the
building, and every apartment, passage, and
corridor was quickly occupied. Then began
the search, and the white dresses of the girls
flashed across the dark passages, and, from
time to time, some damsel, hard pressed, fled out
into the moonlight with a little pretended
scream of fear of capture. We elders sat and
stood apart, as young men and maidens hurried

96 BUNYAN^S COUNTRY.

around us, losing themselves in the labyrin-
thine mesh of passages, or secreting themselves
beneath the dense masses of overhanging ivy.

It was an amusing and a pretty scene which
was being played before us, and one, moreover,
which fitted in not incongruously with the
building itself, which had known its times of
merriment as well as those of sorrow. Nor
was it, one may say, inconsistent with the
spirit of Bunyan's drama that such innocent
pleasure should lighten up the old walls within

which he had caused his pilgrims to find rest
and refreshment on their way towards the
Heavenly city.

And then on the second day Christian was
taken up to the top of the house that he might
— '^ if the day were clear " — view the Delectable
Mountains far away to the *' south." There
can be no doubt, we think, as to the view
which Bunyan had in mind as he wrote, a view
which may be had any day, though we can no
longer climb to the summit of Houghton House,
if we gaze from the ridge on which it stands.

For just where the parks of Houghton and
Ampthill adjoin, at the northern outskirts of the

THE HOUSE BBADTIFOl. 97

town of Ampthill, the ridge of the hill is narrow,

The Cbntan Hilli from Honghtoii Kdge.

tTlkelMectablsH

uid you have no sooner ascended from the vale
of Bedford than you begin to descend again at

98 buntan's country.

once. And from this ridge, more especially
directly in a line with Houghton House, on the
eastern side of the town, there is a glorious
view as we look due south. In the foreground
we have the gardens and orchards of Ampthill,
and beyond these the woods of Flitton and
Silsoe, and still farther, and blocking off all
view beyond, the line of the far- stretching
Chiltern Hills. When the sun is due south,
if we take our stand above Ampthill at mid-
day, we see these great lazy chalk giants
sleeping, as it were, in the haze of the sunshine,
all their whiteness turned to purple.

** 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the yiew,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue."

One of the main roads to London from Bed-
ford, and the one, moreover, which passes
through Elstow, crosses the hills only a little
more than a mile east of Houghton House, and
Bunyan, in his frequent journeys to London,
no doubt often passed along this road. All
in this direction was, therefore, to him familiar
ground. Many a pleasant walk or ride came
back to him through memory, as he took pen

THE HOUSB BEAUTIFUL. 99

in hand to describe Hill Difficulty with its
steep path and its arbour, and the House
Beautiful with its guest-chamber, its large
upper room looking eastward, its study, and
its armoury.

Many a time did Bunyan, as he journeyed,
look southwards to the blue Chilterns, and
when the time came he placed together all that
he had seen, as the frame in which he should
set his wayfaring pilgrim.

CHAPTEK IV.

THE TWO VALLEYS, VANITY FAIR, AND THE

SILVER MINE.

The Valley of Humiliation— The MiUbrook Charge— The Church
and Village — Dr. George Lawson — Insecure Road and Marshy
Ground — ^The Giants' Caves in the Sandstone — Fairs, Revels,
and Feasts— The Village ** Cage "—The Heme Chapel at
Bedford — The Gold Mine at Pulloxhill — Wayside Crosses.

We do not presume to say that John Bunyan
describes the journey of his Pilgrim as if he
passed through the various scenes in one single
walk or ride a few miles south of Elstow. All
that we maintain is that most of the scenes are
to be found in this district, and within a com-
paratively small space.

Christian goes down the hill from the House
Beautiful accompanied by Discretion, Piety,
Charity, and Prudence, and these damsels
having counselled him to proceed with pru-
dence, left him in the valley of Humiliation.

Minbrook Church.

THE TWO VALLEYS. 103

We may place this valley anywhere in the
hill country which we have now reached.
There are dozens of valleys running down from
the hills either to the north or to the south
which would form the scene for the conflict of
Christian with ApoUyon. Bunyan gives no
description of the spot where the two met. He
is simply occupied with his marvellous account
of the fight itself. We may pass on to the
second valley, that of '^ the Shadow of Death,"
which is more particularly described.

Now, where are we going to find it ? Is
there any such valley in the neighbourhood of
Ampthill, and one which Bunyan might fre-
quently have passed through? We think
. there is. Let us hope that it will not shock
anyone if we locate the Valley of the Shadow
of Death in the pretty gorge in which stands
the village of Millbrook. It is certainly now
a pretty place. In the centre stands the
pleasantly-situated Kectory house, with its
terraced lawns. High up above the village,
on a spur of the hills, stands the beautiful
church where, as we have already mentioned,
is to be found a monument to Dr. George

104 bunyan's couktry.

Lawson ; and where are to be seen, moreover,
the busts of Lord and Lady Holland of Ampt-
hill House, the mansion which now stands
beneath the site of Fanhope's Castle. Border-
ing the road are the few cottages which compose
the little village, and the school peeps pleasantly
out from amongst the trees. What, then, can
there be in this place which recalls in any way
the description of the terrible valley through
which the Pilgrim had to pass ?

Let us look at the picture as drawn by
Bunyan, and then let us examine the natural
characteristics of Millbrook a little more
closely.

The valley as described by Bunyan had, on
one side, a '' very deep ditch," and on the
other a " dangerous quag into which, if even
a good man should fall, he finds no bottom to
stand on." The valley is also said to be as
" dark as pitch." Well, certainly the gorge of
Millbrook is at times gloomy. It runs steeply
down to the north, consequently the winter
sun is soon hidden from it behind the hills,
and the western side rises steeply, and is clad
with

THE TWO VALLEYS.

" Fir trees dark and Ugh,
I used to think their slender tops
Were oloae against the sky."

Tlia UUlbrook I

rurge.

The road is not, in literal truth, bordered by
I ditch and a quagmire on each side respec-

106 bunyan's country.

tively, but it does occupy a somewhat perilous
position above the deep morass which forms
the bottom of the valley. At the present day
a timely notice by the County Council gives
warning that they, the Council, will not be
answerable for any damage which may arise
should a heavy vehicle approach too near the
outward boundary of the road. If such is the
case in these days of scientific road-making,
and there is a danger of the road slipping away
and carrying with it heavily-laden wagon or
traction-engine, what must have been the
condition of the rough track which wound
through the village in the days when John
Bunyan may have journeyed up and down the
valley ?

The ground at the bottom is damp and
marshy enough to have given Bunyan the idea
of a "quag." It is dammed up in places into
ponds, and the powerful spring which supplies
the ''brook" which once turned ''a. mill," at
times causes the former to run at its own sweet
will over the mossy grass and amongst the sap-
lings which grow along its banks. One needs
to pick one's way carefully along the bottom.

THE TWO VALLEYS. 107

We hope that we have given no offence to
Millbrook people by suggesting that Bunyan,
walking through this valley some damp winter
evening, carried away a bad impression of the
place; nor would we for a moment suggest
that there is anything in it which could in any
way answer to his description of the ^' mouth
of hell," whence " ever and anon the flame and
smoke would come out in such abundance with
sparks and hideous noises," unless it should be
the village smithy, if there were one, where

** The children comiDg home from school

Look in at the open door :
They love to see the flaming forge,

And hear the bellows roar,
And watch the burning sparks that fly
Like chaff from the threshing-floor."

Nor need we suppose that any part of the
Millbrook Gorge is set with ^' snares, traps,
gins, and nets," nor full of "pits, pit-falls,
deep holes, and shelvings." We have selected
Millbrook as being possibly the place which
Bunyan had in his mind when he described his
valley, because it differs from the others near
it in such a way as to fall in more readily with
his description.

108 bunyan's country.

It will be remembered that at the end of the
valley the Pilgrim found the cave wl^ere dwelt
the " two giants, Pope and Pagan." There
are, we believe, no caves actually in the valley,
but they abound in the sandstone all around,
and Bunyan could easily locate one where he
wished to find it.

The next place at which the Pilgrim arrives
is the town of Vanitv. It seems almost as
unkind to locate this town as to locate the
valley of the Shadow of Death, but still we
think we may do so in Elstow itself, as we
hinted when we were describing Bunyan's
native place.

The name of the town of Vanity is con-
nected with its fair only, and when we
speak of Elstow as being its scene, we only
mean that, though there m ere fairs many all
around, the particular fair which Bunyan had
perhaps seen as a child would be the one
to make the strongest and most lasting im-
pression.

Fairs in the old days were something more
than pleasure gatherings. The name is said
to be derived, it is true, from the word Peria,

THE TWO VALLEYS.

a Festival, but it appears that the name was
80 given simply because some feast-day of the

View from sbare the MiUbroak Gorge.

Church gave the date for the event, according
to a very common custom. In time Fairs were

110 bunyan's COONTKY.

certainly considered only as Bevels or Feasts^
as they are still called in some parishes, but,
though the festive character was not absent in
earlier times, it was a matter of "business
first and pleasure afterwards."

Bunyan appears to have described the cus-
toms and practices of such fairs. There was " a
great one " appointed by those who had the
right to hold the fair, and to whom in
boroughs even the mayor was subject. The
fair brought in a considerable revenue to the
holders of the right in the shape of tolls, and
an Abbey, such as that of Elstow, when thus
endowed, clung to its privileges which could
only be granted by the Crown. How long
after the dissolution of the Abbey the fair
continued to exist we cannot say.

Bunyan speaks of the fair being divided into
certain rows according to the nationalities
represented. This is a clever device of his by
which he describes Vanity Fair as existing all
over the world ; but he is quite right in saying
that the fair consisted of various divisions.
They were formed however, according to the
commodities sold, each trade occupying a sepa-

THE TWO VALLEYS.

rate position. The same system is carried out in
the bazaars of Eastern cities at the present day.

The Cage, Wootton,

The pilgrims when first arrested are placed
in the "cage." There may have been such a

112 bunyan's country.

cage on Elstow Green in Banyan's time, but
there is not one now. A very good specimen
of a village cage is to be seen, however, at
Wootton, a village about three miles distant.
The cage was under the control of the village
constable, but such an official is now seldom
appointed. The resident member of the county
constabulary, if there is one, performs the
duties of the former, and carries away his
prisoners, if he has any, to the police station
of his district.

Bunyan does not describe to us the court-
house in which the trial of the pilgrims took
place. He gives us in full the names of the
judge, of the jury, and of the witnesses, but
never a word to make known to us in what
place he lays his scene. His own experience
some fourteen years before had made him
acquainted with the Heme chapel at Bedford,
where, in January, 1661, he was brought before
the county magistrates at quarter sessions.
It is true that Bunyan pictures Christian and
Faithful as tried at the assizes, for they were
brought before a judge of assize, not before
a chairman of quarter sessions, and they were

THE TWO VALLEYS. 113

arraigned, not merely indicted. But in his
time both sessions and assizes were held in the
chapel of Heme.

Unfortunately we can find nothing of this
building now. It was situated at the south-
west corner of the churchyard of St. Paul,
and was perhaps what was called in mediaeval
times a church-house. Afterwards, when the
grammar-school was built, it was known some-
times as the School-house chapel. But as we
cannot say anything precise about this build-
ing, and as we cannot affirm that Bunyan had
it in his mind when he described the trial
scene, we must pass it by.

The next place at which the pilgrims arrive
— but Christian has now Hopeful as his com-
panion in place of the martyred Faithful — is
the Silver Mine of Demas, situated on Lucre
Hill, '' in the plain called Ease."

Are we going to find a silver mine in
Bedfordshire ? Well, we are going one
better, as a school-boy would say, and we are
going to find a gold mine. The village of
PuUoxhill is the place where the discovery
is to be made, and it is situated, as its name

H

114 bunyan's country.

implies, on a hill, about six miles south of
Ampthill.

The name Gold Mine is still marked on the
Ordnance map, and workings have been carried
on almost within the memory of man, but it
was discovered that the very small yield of the
precious metal did not repay the expense of
working. When the mine was first worked
we cannot say, but Lysons, in his ''Magna
Britannia," speaks of the matter thus : — " It
has been said indeed that gold ore was formerly
discovered at PuUoxhill, and that an attempt
was made to work a mine there." But then
he goes on to suggest that all that was found
was a '' mass of shining yellow talc with a
yellow earthy matter mixed with it." But
something more than yellow talc was, it seems,
really discovered. Now it is very possible that
the existence of gold had been known and the
mine worked before the time of Bunyan;
perhaps even in his days the working was
carried on. No doubt the fact of gold being
discoverable in Bedfordshire made a good deal
of sensation in this neighbourhood ; and Bun-
yan seizing this bit of local excitement worked

THE TWO VALLEYS. 115

it into his story. He describes tlie mine as
situated on a hill rising from a level plain,
and this is an exact description of the situation
of PuUoxhill. He has, however, for some
reason altered the gold mine into a silver mine.

The description of the mine itself as a pit
with treacherous ground, likely to give way,
round its edge, has evidently been borrowed
from the chalk pits on the Chilterns, which we
shall come to when we describe the Delectable
Mountains.

The strange-looking monument which the
travellers came to as they left the plain cannot
be identified with any particular object in the
same direction. Bunyan says : ''It seemed to
them as if it had been a woman transformed
into the shape of a pillar," and the writing
upon the head thereof was 'remember Lot's
wife.'" It is possible that Bunyan may have
had in his mind some dilapidated wayside
cross which, denuded of its arms, might give
the impression of a roughly- hewn female
figure. There is the stump of such an erec-
tion at Cardington Cross, a very short dis-
tance from Elstow, and in Bunyan' s time it

116 bunyan's country.

is very probable that there was something
more.

We have in these stages of the " Pilgrim's
Progress " moved about from one spot]f to
another without any due order of sequence
such as would be the case if we were following
one road. In the next part of the journey
we hope to find the scenes more closely con-
nected physically.

CHAPTEE V.

DOUBTING CASTLE.

The nit— ClophiU Village— The Old Bridge—** Bye-path Mea-
dow " — Cainhoe Castle — Ancient Earthworks.— The Keep of
Albini and St. Amand — The Castle Yards of ** Doubting
Castle,'' its Dnng^n and its Gates — The Family of De Grey.

If we pass through the woods, and descend
the hills about two miles to the south-east of
Houghton House, we find ourselves in a very
pretty valley, that of the little Eiver Flit,
which rises at Flitwick and flows through
Flitton, and therefore gives their names to
both these places. A very pretty stream it is
just here, and Bunyan, if he had it in his mind
when he wrote, as we think he had, speaks of
it as a " pleasant river, which David the King
called the river of God."

By the side of this river Christian and
Hopeful walked "with great delight." "On

118 buntan's country.

the banks of this river, on either side, were
green trees for all manner of fruit ; " and " on
either side of the river was a meadow curiously
beautified with lilies, and it was green all the
year long."

The village of Clophill straggles along by
the side of the stream. Its ancient church,
now no longer used for services, save as a burial
chapel, stands at a distance on a high hill, and
from the churchvard there is a beautiful view
over the valley which we are describing. The
village street lies at right angles to the
main London road, and runs alongside the
river.

An ancient stone bridge of three arches, on
which a modem brick parapet has been un-
fortunately placed, crosses the stream in the
middle of the village, and if we pass over this
bridge, we may either continue along the
highway towards Silsoe, or we may turn west-
ward down the valley. It is all exactly "^as
Bunyan describes it. The pilgrims were ''not
a little sorry," since ''the river and the way
for a time parted," and so they " were much
discouraged because of the way." . . . "Now,

DOUBTINa CA.STLB. 121

a little before them, there was on the left hand
of the road a meadow, and a stile to go over
into it, and that meadow is called Bye-path
Meadow."

Did John Bunyan ever allow himself to
stroll along this pleasant waterside, instead of
pursuing his way whither his work or his duty
called him ? At any rate, we mean to cross
the stile, and follow his pilgrims into Bye-
path Meadow, and see * what we can find at
the end of it. We know what happened to the
pilgrims. The false guid^,'* Vain Confidence,
led them astray, and fell into a pit himself.
His two followers, overtaken by the night,
wandered about for a time, till, in danger of
falling into the flooded river, they laid them-
selves down in a little shelter, and there slept
until they were found in the early morning by
Giant Despair. The giant arrests them for
" trespassing " and " trampling" in his
meadows, and then drags them off to his
castle. Could it be that Bunyan, wandering
here as a boy through the standing grass, was
once pounced upon by a surly farmer ? If only
we could know what memories passed through

122 buntan's country.

his mind as he wrote, what delightful little
touches should wo find.

We pass further on down the stream, leaving
behind the trim little gardens which run down
from the backs of the Clophill houses to the river,
and in rather less than a mile see, rising high
above the river, a huge earthwork. "We have
already noted that earthworks abound in, the
Ouse valley, and therefore we are not surprised
to find one here in that of the Flit.

Whether this earthwork is prehistoric or not
we cannot say. In all probability i1> is. Earlier
dwellers in this island raised on the river's banks
strongholds, which were occupied by those men
who came after them. Something of the later
history of this earthwork, which is called Cain-
hoe^ is known. The name seems to point to an
early history, but we know that it was some
time after the Conquest the property of a
younger branch of the famous family of Albini,
who on this mound built themselves a castle
keep. Later on the heiress of this family mar-
ried into that of St. Amand, and the latter were
here in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Not a stone now remains above ground of

DOUBTING CASTLE. 12 5

this home of Albini and St. Amand, and it
is with difficulty we can make out where
the buildings stood, though we can locate
with sufficient accuracy the mound once
crowned by the keep, and the position of the
baileys or castle yards. The whole mass is
picturesque in its verdure-clad ruggedness, and
its situation is delightful, standing as it does in
the midst of the pretty valley, and we may
well say of it, as did King Duncan when gazing
on Cawdor —

'^ This castle bath a pleasant seat ; the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses."

There was possibly something of the masonry
still standing in Bunyan's days, perhaps a
portion of the keep itself, or of some vault or
cellar which his imagination would convert into
the '' very dark dungeon, nasty and stinking,"
into which Giant Despair cast the two pilgrims ;
for it is here at Caiiihoe that we propose to
locate Doubting Castle.

Cainhoe Castle was, as we have seen, a
building of the later Norman period, and as it
was erected on an ancient mound, it must have

bukyan'm couxtht.

been built with what is commonly called a shell
keep. Mr. George Clark, who is one of the

Caiuhoe Cwtile Kerp.
(Doubting UaiUe.}

greatest — probably the greatest — of all autho-
rities on the castles of our land, indeed

DOUBTING CASTLE. 125

expressly mentions that Clophill Castle, as he
names it, was so built.

The keep, as everyone knows, was the central
and strongest part of a castle, the last refuge of
the besieged ; the place which was always pro-
visioned and furnished, where matters were
carried on in right fashion, and in which — and
this was an absolute necessity — there was a
well of water. With food and water, and with
a good supply of cross-bow bolts, and a suf-
ficiency of lead ready to be poured down in a
molten state, through openings in the battle-
ments, on to the heads of the besiegers,
those within might fairly laugh at those
without.

The huge solid keeps, rectangular in form,
which we see in places at the present day,
could only be built on solid ground, and on
mounds such as that at Cainhoe the keeps
were built circular in form, and much lighter
in character. They took the place of the timber
erections which had crowned these mounds in
earlier days before the Conquest, and, indeed,
immediately after it.

The walls of these keeps — they were some-

126 bunyan's country.

times polygonal without and circular within —
were from eight to ten feet in thickness, and
they were always built well within the outer
edge of the mound or earthwork on which they
stood. They were not very lofty, some twenty
or five-and-twenty feet in height, and there
was a rampart walk on the summit. A wooden
staircase led to this walk from the inside, and
the interior was also fitted with the necessary
rooms for the use of the governor and his
garrison. These rooms were also of wood.
In fact all the arrangements were very different
from those of the solid, square keeps, with
their various floors, their staircases, their
galleries, and their many apartments, all con-
structed in masonry. It is not to be wondered
at, therefore, that the square keeps have
survived to such an extent, while the shell
keeps, although probably rather later in date,
have perished.

The keep was not used continually as the
residence of the Lord of the castle. In peace-
ful times he had his dwelling in one of the
yards or baileys, in which also would be the
lodgings for his men; but in troublous times, and

DOUBTING CASTLE. 127

when there was danger of an attack, all huddled
together within the security of the walls. The
entrance door of a shell-keep was usually small
and plain, and there seem to have been none
of those architectural embellishments which
marked the buildings of the other character.

A ditch, which could be crossed by a
wooden drawbridge, would run round the
mound, and below the mound would be two
yards or enclosures, called the outer bailey
and the inner bailey respectively. These
enclosures would not surround the mound, but
would be behind one another on one side of
it. At Clophill they were on the western
side, and the mound itself with the circular
shell-keep on the top of it was therefore at the
eastern end, and was protected by a ditch and
the marshes. It seems as though there were
some remains of the baileys still existing in
Bunyan's time, for Giant Despair's wife. Diffi-
dence, counselled her husband to take the
prisoners into the castle yard and show them
the bones and skulls of those who had been
already slain by him. Again, when at length
Christian snatches from his bosom the key

128 bunyan's country.

promise^ he finds that it unlocks the dungeon
door^ the outer door into the castle yard^ and
the iron door^ the last one of all, through
which he passed into freedom. It is true
that Bunyan has here evidently before him
the escape of the Apostle Peter through "the
first and the second ward," and then out
^' through the iron gate that leadeth into the
city," but it is very possible that he may also
have had some recollection of what he had seen
at Cainhoe.

"With regard to the dungeon, it does not
follow that there is, or was, actually such a
place as Bunyan describes. There is a popular
delusion that all castles had a horrible hole
down amongst the foundations in which lan-
guished unfortunate prisoners. There was in
rectangular keeps a dark chamber, not below
the level, but on the ground floor, though
unlighted by windows for safety's sake. This
was probably used as a store-room, though it
may have been in part, though this is not
proved, used as a prison. Anyhow, stores
would hardly have been kept in a damp place
from which there was no drainage. As for the

DOUBTING CASTLE. 129

shell keeps, we have seen that they did not pos-
sess any stone-built apartments at all, whether
cells, prisons, or otherwise, but that they were
simply hollow cylinders of masonry, within
which wooden erections were built as required.
Bunyan had probably accepted the common
tradition of an underground cell. The word
dungeon, or, as it should be written, dongeon^
means, we may observe, the whole tower, and
it was only in late use that it came to mean a
prison or oubliette.

After the time of the St. Amand family,
Cainhoe passed through several hands until it
came into the family of De Croy, better known
to ns as that of De Grey, though their original
name, of which the later form is a corruption,
proclaims their origin from the town of Croy in
Picardy. The Greys were at Wrest, which is
about a mile from Cainhoe, from the thirteenth
century, and in the time of Bunyan there lived
in the old house in Wrest Park, which was
pulled down in 1 830, Amabel, widow of Henry
De Grey, ninth Earl of Kent, who had fought
on the Parliamentary side in the Civil Wars.
This lady was usually known as the '' good

I

130 bunyan's country.

countess," and she kept the house at Wrest
during a long widowhood of forty-five years.
An inscription on her monument in one of
the burial chambers of the family attached
to Elitton church, tells her virtues, and records
" her exemplary piety and regular devotion in
her chappell, whereto she obliged all her
domesticks every morning and evening to
attend her." She died in her ninety-second
year, and as she had been born in 1606, she
lived nearly through the whole of the stirring
seventeenth century.

The old lady's virtues were not unconnected
with matters of this world, as the inscription
also informs us, for she was a most careful
steward of the Wrest property, " continually
adding to the profit or ornament of the place."
The monument on which the inscription is to
be found was erected by the countess soon
after the death of her husband, but the words
of the inscription were added by her grandson,
Henry, who became the first and only Duke
of Kent of the De Grey family.

Bunyan had doubtless heard of the charitable
disposition of this great lady, and it is very

DOUBTING CASTLE. 131

possible he may have seen her, and perhaps he
had some such person in his mind when he was
drawing the pictures of some of his Christian
matrons. But as we are occupied with places
rather than with persons, we must not en-
large farther on members of the De Grey
family.

Christian and Hopeful, after they had
escaped from Doubting Castle, made their way
back across the meadow, and over the stile, till
they reached the king^s highway. That is,
they were again on the main road from Bedford
to Luton and London. But before they con-
tinued their journey they placed near the stile
a notice warning travellers of the neighbour-
hood of the castle of Giant Despair. Had
Bunyan seen some notice warning trespassers
set up here by the occupier of the meadows,
who had, according to our little invention,
caught him when a youngster in the mowing
grass ?

There is no doubt but that, in addition to
his talent for reading character, Bunyan had
an observant eye from which nothing escaped.
Whatever he noticed in the way of local topo-

132 bunyan's country.

graphy, that is, as regards hills and valleys,
streams and rivers, houses, or towns, or walls,
he has reproduced for us in the pages of the
" Pilgrim's Progress," and the pretty valley of
the Flit, with its quiet, peaceful, pastoral
scenery, and its relics of former days, has
found its place therein.

CHAPTEE VI.

THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS.

The Chiltems — Tottemhoe Stone— The Deep Goombes — The
Flowers and the Flocks — Chalk Pits — Ancient Fortifications
—Hut-circles— Barrows— ** The Hill of Error "— ** The Hill
of Caution"— «* The Door in the Side of the Hill"— The
View from ** Mount Clear."

When we were at Houghton House we ob-
served that the view of the Chiltern Hills
which is to be obtained, if not from the house
itself, at any rate from the ridge at the upper
end of the park, makes us suppose that Bunyan
had this view in his mind when he described
Christian as looking from the roof of the House
Beautiful southwards towards the Delectable
Mountains.

The pai-t of the Chiltems which we see from
this ridge is about six or seven miles away from
Houghton, and about five from Cainhoe Castle,

BUNTAN'S COUNTET.

and Bunyan conducts the Pilgrim straight to
the Delectable Mountaios without a pause. At
their foot, if we are right in Bupposing that

Churoh, Borton-le-Cley.

these mountains and the Chiltem Hills at this
particular point are one and the same, lies the
little village of Barton-le-Cley, with its hand-

THE DELECTABLB MOUNTAINS. 135

some church and its long-windowed seven-

teenth-century rectory-house. From behind
the house we ascend at once by a steep path

136 bunyan's country.

from the level plain in which the village stands,
to the lofty hills which in the winter seem to
shut in Barton from the sun.

Our author has somewhat embellished the
Chiltems by clothing them with "gardens,
orchards, and vineyards," for they are like all
other hills of this geological formation, almost
entirely naked and bare, and we leave gardens
and orchards behind us in the plain at their
feet, when we begin to climb their flanks. The
"fountains of water" which he also mentions
we may, however, easily discover, for the
streams burst out from the sides of the hills
with marvellous strength and abundance. Prob-
ably Bunyan had in his mind the pretty
Eectory-garden, which we may conclude existed
in his time, with its mossy turf, its pools, and
its running streams.

William Camden, Clarenceux King-at-Arms
to Elizabeth, and the first man in our country
to start the science of antiquarianism, derives
the name of Chiltern from the British word
cylt^ which we now term chalk, and chalk is
certainly the principal feature of these hills.
The lowest formation in their structure, speak-

THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS. 137

ing geologically, is chalk marl, which is in
places eighty feet in thickness. Above this is
Totternhoe stone, a brownish sandy stone with
dark grains. We shall have occasion to suppose
that Bunyan visited the Totternhoe quarries,
which are not very far distant to the westward.
Above this useful material, which has supplied
the building material for many churches in the
neighbourhood, is the lower chalk, a bed four
hundred feet in thickness. The upper portion
of this is called chalk rock, and a very hard
substance it is. On the top of this is the upper
chalk, which is some three hundred feet deep.

The Chiltems rise, as we have already men-
tioned, very steeply on their north-western
flanks from the oolite plain which stretches
away in that direction, and it is here, therefore,
that we find the deep coombes which form so
distinguishing a feature of chalk districts.
Many of these coombes or valleys are of great
natural beauty, being well clothed with curious
old gnarled box-trees, and here we find the
streams which gush out so copiously. But,
above, the rounded hills are covered with short
turf, and their wide expanse is broken only by

f ''ERSITT

ltJ8 buntan's country.

an occasional clump of small firs artificially
planted, or by a few straggling thorn-trees.

But if the Chiltern Hills do not furnish
vegetation of a larger growth, they are rich in
fiowers. Had Bunyan been anything of a
fiower-lover we think we should have found
some allusion to this. The anemone pulaatilla,
or Pasque fiower, is to be found everywhere on
these chalk hills, together with many orchids.

Sheep are pastured on every part of these
downs, and this is a fact of which Bunyan
certainly took notice, for the whole scene on
the Delectable Mountains is concerned with
the shepherds Knowledge^ Experience^ Watchful^
and Sincere. They are said to dwell in tents.
Here Bunyan is evidently referring to what he
had read in the Old Testament, f6r, as is
but natural, all through his writings his own
observations are mingled with Biblical remi-
niscences. The sheep roam at will over the
unfenced downs, and consequently we hear in
this neighbourhood the tinkle of the sheep-bell,
which is not common elsewhere. It is a very
different country from that Ouse valley in which
Bunyan had been born and bred. No wonder

The Springs at Barton-lB-Clef.

36^

LIBRA^

oy TBK

DIVERSITY
^ CAUFOS

THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS. 141

that when he wished to bring before his readers
some diflferent world to that which surrounded
the City of Destruction, he chose as his Delect-
able Mountains the rolling uplands of the
Chilterns and their breezy summits, and the
life-giving air, and the views into the far dis-
tance which the climber may have beneath him
when he has toiled up their steep white sides.

But there is another industry besides that of
sheep-keeping on the Chilterns. The chalk is
burnt here into lime, and the pits from which
it has been cut oflfer here and there dangerous
precipices with white gleaming faces.

And there are traces too, not a few, of the
earlier inhabitants of the country. High up,
in strong, easily defended positions, we find
camps of large extent, circular or rectangular,
such as those at Eavensburgh and Tottemhoe.
The former stands in a commanding position
on that portion of the dawns which we have
now reached. It is a large camp in the shape
of a parallelogram, and contains about twelve
acres. Some would have us see in its name an
allusion to the Raven, the ensign of the Danish
invaders. Others see in that name a corruption

142 bunyan's country.

of the word Roman. Both these derivations are
fanciful enough, and it is safer simply to affirm
that it is an ancient earthwork which com-
manded the British way called Icknield Street,
which here runs along the edge of the hills,
and that it may have been occupied by the
Eomans, without being actually what we
usually call a Boman camp, as Boman remains
have been found in it and near to it.

The careful observer may also trace out, in
what the children call fairy rings, the sites of
huts, or hut-circles, the dwellings of much
earlier people than Bomans or Danes. More-
over, there are memorials of the dead as well,
for tumuli, the burial mounds of ancient days,
are to be found nearly everywhere, and there
are many good specimens of those round ones
with encircling ditch, which look as if children
of large growth and considerable spade power
had been playing at castle-building. And
these tumuli did Bunyan observe and note,
though he knew not and cared not whether
there slept beneath the body of Saxon earl or
Danish chieftain. He sought only an allegory
for his tale.

The Long Valley. The Barton HjUb.
(The heart of the Delectable MauntsinB.)

THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS. 145

For we propose to show that everything
which he describes as visible on the Delectable
Mountains is to be found here at the present
day, the byeway to hell not excepted. When
we have compared our description with that of
Bunyan, we think it will be plain whence he
borrowed his imagery for this particular part
of the journey of Christian and Hopeful. The
only exceptions which we propose to make are
those which we have already mentioned, the
existence of vineyards on the hill-side, and the
tent dwellings of the shepherds where the
travellers passed the night.

In the morning, when the shepherds pro-
posed to show the pilgrims some of the sights
of the mountains, they led them first to the
Hill of Error. The principal feature about
this deadly hill was that at one side it was
*' very steep." Now the Chilterns are climb-
able anywhere. There are no natural preci-
pices such as we may meet with amongst other
geological formations. The hand of man, how-
ever, has constructed artificial precipices where
it has cut away the chalk for burning in the
lime-kilns. Bunyan had doubtless come sud-

K

146 bunyan's country.

denly in his wanderings over the downs to
some such chalk-pit, and had looked down
from the brink into the white hole beneath
him, and as he gazed he thought how but a
step lay between him and death, and he has
accordingly described for us the fate of those
who were ^' made to err by hearkening to
Hymeneeus and Philetus.''

The next height to which Christian and
Hopeful were conducted was the hill Caution.
Here Bunyan tells us that we are among the
tombs, those rounded knolls which mark the
resting-places of former warriors. The unfor-
tunate wanderers who had been deprived of
their eyesight by the bloody giant Despair,
had been brought there by a path which led
direct from Doubting Castle to the hills, and
'' they walked up and down among the tombs
that were there," in their blindness '^ stum-
bling sometimes upon the tombs " themselves,
and unable to " get out from among them."

When their conductors led the pilgrims to
the next sight, they would have a somewhat
longer journey to take. We have already
mentioned the Tottemhoe quarries whence the

THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS. 147

stone has been hewn to build so many of the
churches in the plain below. Even the Abbey
Church of St. Alban was in part built with
this stone, for when transport was a difficult
matter men built with what they found to
their hands.

This building stone with which we are now
concerned — we have already described its geo-
logical formation — does not seem to have been
always quarried from an open face as in a
chalk-pit, but it was sometimes won from the
interior of the hills and brought to the surface
through horizontal shafts. It is no longer
quarried in this neighbourhood, but near the
camp on the hill above Tottemhoe we can
still find an ancient working with its tunnel.
This is now walled up, and we cannot penetrate
within its recesses, but it may be that in the
days of Bunyan it was in working order, and
as he passed by he may have looked into the
gloomy passage, and heard the noise of the
workers, and perhaps have seen the flash and
heard the rumble of 'an explosion, for so hard
is this rock that at times it has to be blasted
What he saw and heard enabled him to write.

148 buntan's country.

of " the door in the side of a hill,'* where
" within it was very dark and smoky/' and
where was heard " a rumbling noise as of fire,
and a cry of some tormented, and that they
smelt the scent of brimstone."

But the scenes on the Delectable Mountains
close with one more pleasurable than this
which shows Christian and Hopeful gazing
into the mouth of hell. Just before the two
pilgrims left their kind friends the shepherds
they were taken to the summit of another hill,
called Clear^ and were bidden to look through
the perspective glass and discover the gate of
the Celestial City. But so upset were they
with the terrible sight which they had just
seen, that their hands were unable to hold the
glass steadily. Perchance Bunyan once him-
self stood breathless on one of the chalk ridges,
and some friend bade him take a peep through
a "perspective glass" which he found it
difficult to hold without shaking.

And which was Mount Clear, and in which
direction did the pilgrims look to see the
Celestial City? Well, there are plenty of
summits which command a vast expanse of

THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS. 149

country, for in places the Chiltems rise to a
considerable height. In the neighbourhood of

Dunstable they are eight hundred feet high,
and Dunstable is not &r distant. It is on the

160 bunyan's country.

north-west side that the finest views are to be
obtained; for, as we have already noticed,
it is here that the hills rise abruptly from
the plain, while in the other directions they
are composed of long ridges and uplands which
gradually descend to the valley of the Lea.

We may therefore select any hill-top here-
abouts as the prototype of Mount Clear, and
we may suppose that Bunyan had simply in
his mind's eye a view of the plain of Middle
Bedfordshire as he had often seen it, when he
gave us the description of the shepherds and
their Delectable Mountains. And as to the
gate of the Celestial City^ we may locate it
where we please in our view. We hope to
show later on that when Bunyan was describ-
ing the actual passage of the pilgrims through
the river, he took some of his details from
what he had seen on the banks of the Ouse.
But it is different when he represents the
pilgrims as gazing at it in the far distance,
and finding it hazy and indistinct.

'< The oloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeons palaces.
The solemn temples — "

We leave these for the present unidentified.

CHAPTEE VII.

THE LAST STAGES.

Scantmess of Description — " Deadman's Lane/' — ** The Enchanted
around "— " The Land of Beulah "—The Suburbs of Bedford
in the Seventeenth Century — ^The Hospital of St. John, its
Garden and its Gardener.

As Bunyan brings us to the end of the journey,
he certainly becomes less definite as to the
road, and surely his subject so requires it. He
is nearing the climax of his tale ; he is ap-
proaching the goal. He has brought his
pilgrims to their old age. He proposes to give
them peace and quiet. Dangers and difficulties
are to be almost, if not entirely, things of the
past.

In consequence, we shall not be able to
trace his steps along Bedfordshire roads and
up Bedfordshire hills to such an extent as we
have been able to do hitherto. We must

152 buntan's country.

content ourselves with a fragment here and
there, which tells us of what he saw and knew,
and we shall find that realism will give way for
the most part to imagination. But where we
are to find little traces of actual description,
we shall meet with them as we return from
the Chiltern Hills towards Bedford.

It has often been observed that just here the
author makes a break in his story, and for no
apparent reason. ''So I awoke from my
dream," and then he continues at once, without
any pause, " And I slept and dreamed again."
What was the reason for this break, so un-
necessary as it seems to us ? Dr. John Brown,
Bunyan's fullest biographer, suggests in
explanation that the ** Pilgrim's Progress " was
written up to this point within the walls of
the borough gaol on Bedford Bridge, and that
the awaking from sleep refers to his release
from his second imprisonment, which lasted for
about six months, and had been occupied by
Bunyan in the production of his allegory up
to this point. The latter part, he concludes,
was finished when Bunyan was at liberty again,
but without any long interval ensuing, for we

THE LAST STAGES. 153

are called upon to note that he *' slept and
dreamed again."

Now it is evident that in these last pages
there is less incident, and the pilgrims are
hurried on in their journey without pause of
any account. This, perhaps, was the result of
Bunyan having other pressing matters to
occupy him now that he was out in the world
again. He missed his leisure for literary com-
position.

But we are not now concerned with the plot
of the story, but with what descriptions of
scenes and places we may find in it, and these
descriptions are decidedly not so plentiful as
they were before.

As Hopeful and Christian descend the Delect-
able Mountains with the " Note of the Way "
in their hands, and the warning voice of the
shepherds to '* beware of the flatterer " still
ringing in their ears, they come to " a little
crooked lane," down which comes the '^ brisk
lad, Ignorance." There are crooked lanes in
plenty to be found in Bedfordshire, and the
name seems only to be introduced to show that
Ignorance had not come in at "the straight

154 bunyan's country.

gate." This crooked lane, then, need not detain
us, though Ignorance calls it ^^a fine pleasant
green lane.'^ It is possibly one of those treeless,
broad chalk roads with a bank on each side,
which run up the Chilterns between the strips
of arable land.

But when Hopeful and Christian, leaving
Ignorance for a time behind them, pro-
ceed along their way, they enter another
lane, " a very dark " one, where they meet the
seven devils carrying a wretched man bound
with seven cords to the door in the side of the
hill. The place answering the nearest to this
description would be where the road might be
bounded by the chalk hills rising precipitously
above it on either hand, as they do in many
places. At any rate, we shall locate these
lanes somewhere on the lower slopes of the hills.

And presently Christian remarks to his
companion that he is reminded of the story of
Little-Faith, and then goes on to tell him how
that luckless individual was set upon, robbed,
and nearly murdered, by the rascals Faintheart,
Mistrust, and Guilt in "Deadman's Lane,"
which ^' comes down from Broadway Gate."

THE LAST STAGES. 155

And moreover he states that this lane is "so
called because of the murders that are com-
monly done there." Not altogether a pleasant
description is this of the particular part of the
county with which we have to do, but we are
only about to assume that Bunyan borrowed
a name which was a convenient one for certain
localities.

The name is indeed common enough in many
places. We have all read how in the Border-
land —

' ' The fierce Thirlwalls, and Kidleys all,
Stout Willimondswick,
And hard-riding Diok,

And Hughie of Hawdon, and Will o' the Wall,
Have set on Sir Albany Featherstonhaugh,
And taken his life in the BeadniafCi shaw."

And Bunyan had the same familiar name close
at hand.

For not far from Elstow, on the hills which
divide the valley of the Ouse from that of the
Ivel, he would find at the comer of Shirehatch
Wood, the Deadman^s Odk^ and on the great
high road which led from Bedford to London
he would find, at the top of Hanger Hill,
DeadmarCs corner, and close to this DeadmarC^

156 buntan's country.

cross. What the name may have been intended
to commemorate we cannot quite say. Bunyan
tells, as we noticed just now, that it was given
to mark the scene of a murder. In more
probability it was the figure of the murderer
himself hanging in chains from a wayside gibbet
which caused the villagers to give to certain
spots this gruesome appellation.

The tale, however, as told by Bunyan, speaks
of highway robbery, and such acts of violence
were by no means uncommon in his day ; for
even so late as 1751 we learn that one " Gabriel
Tomkins, who was executed for robbing the
Chester mail, was hanged in chains near
Bedford."

From Deadman's Lane the pilgrims go on to
the Enchanted Ground^ a sort of sleepy hollow.
Whether Bunyan had any particular place in
his mind when he described poor Hopeful as
saying to his comrade, " I do begin to grow so
drowsy that I can scarcely hold open my eyes,"
is a question. Perhaps he was merely describing
his own sensations when, after a tiring walk
over the chalk downs, he returned to the lower
ground, and in the more relaxing atmosphere

THE LAST STAGES. 157

felt inclined to take a nap by the wayside before
he made his way back to Elstow.

From tbe Enchanted Ground the pilgrims
passed into the Land of Beulah, ^' whose air
was very sweet and pleasant, the way lying
directly through it, they solaced them for a
season. Yea, they heard continually the sing-
ing of birds, and saw everyday the flowers
appear on the earth, and heard the voice of the
turtle in the land. In this country the sun
shineth nigbt and day ; wherefore it was beyond
the valley of tbe Shadow of Death, and also out
of the reach, of Giant Despair ; neither could
they from this place so much as see Doubting
Castle."

Certainly the description is that of a very
pleasant part of the country, and we fancy
that, to the present day, it may apply to many
of the pretty villages which lie around the
county town in Bedfordshire. In these villages
thatched cottages cluster round the parish
church, and high-ridged thatched barns sur-
round the farmer's comfortable brick-built and
tile-covered house, with its large central
chimney-stack. The home-closes run right

158 buntan's country.

up to the farmyards, and in these closes are
large elms, the prevailing tree of Mid-Bedford-
shire, in which have been established for
generations colonies of rooks. Moreover, each
cottage has its little garden, and in these grow
many a fruit tree ; and in some villages — un-
fortunately not in all — the roadside wastes form
playing places for the cottagers' children.

As Christian and his companion approached
the Celestial City, when they came, in fact,
near enough to it to see that "it was built of
pearls and precious stones, also the streets
thereof were paved with gold," they found
themselves, as " they walked on their way, and
came yet nearer and nearer, where were
orchards, vineyards, and gardens, and their
gates opened into the highway." They have
passed into a place of small, well-tilled en-
closures, protected by fences and gates.

Such spots are usually to be found in the
outskirts of a town, or at least were so to be
found in the days when towns had not yet
begun to spread themselves out, and sweep
away well-cultivated garden and fruit-bearing
orchard. And just such suburbs did Bedford

Old HouBBS, 'Woottoii, from the Chntcli Tower.

XJNIVEBSITT
.2^ CALIFO^

THE LAST STAGES. I6l

once possess. There is an old map, dated 1610,
which shows ns the town, with its streets and
all the old buildings, in relief. But the special
point with regard to our present purpose is
that, in this map, gardens well planted with
trees occupy not only the suburbs, but all the
spaces at the back of the houses behind the
streets. A few years later, in the time of
Bunyan, the town had a population of only
about two thousand ; that is, there was not
more than double the number of people in the
county town itself than there is in many ?
village near it at the present day. We may
conclude, therefore, that in the middle of the
seventeenth century there were still, in the
town itself, the gardens and orchards as they
appear in Speed's map of 1610 ; and that any-
one approaching the town from Elstuw would,
as he passed up John's Street and St. Mary's
Street, make his way along just such a road as
that described by Bunyan.

The way is described as commanding a
'' more perfect view " of the Heavenly City than
the pilgrims had ever had before during their
wanderings. To such an extent did they gaze

L

162 bunyak's country.

upon it in its glory and beauty that " Christian
with desire fell sick ; " and " Hopeful, also, had
a fit or two of the same disease." And now
they turned out of the road at the invitation of
the gardener, and rested themselves in one of
the various gardens and orchards. There were
^' the King's walks and arbours," the old, stiff-
fashioned artificial work which our ancestors
of two hundred and fifty years ago loved to
create.

And there is still one such garden remain-
ing on this road, and it is one which Bunyan
must have known well, for it is the garden
which was behind the old hospital of St. John
and its ancient church. This garden was
approached in former days by a gateway such
as Bunyan describes, for such an entrance is
shown in Speed's map. Doubtless Bunyan
himself often passed through it, for here was
the house of John Gifford, to whom he owed so
much in the matter of spiritual life. Gifford
had settled in Bedford in lt)48, and became
pastor of the Puritan body which gathered
round him in 1650. He succeeded to the
Masters of the Hospital of St. John, which had

THE LAST STAGES. 163

been founded in 1280 by Eobert de Parys, and
his home was the Master's house, as it is to the
present day the rectory house of the little
parish which surrounds it.

John Gifford meets us more than once at the
beginning of Christian's journey as Evangelist,
and now he appears again at its close, as the
royal gardener who holds open the gate, and
invites the Pilgrim to enter and rest awhile.
Gifford had been dead many many years
when Bunyan wrote, but the interviews which
had taken place, we may be sure, in that
garden between the latter and his guide and
pastor had never been forgotten. St. John's
Hospital was, as it were, sacred ground to
Bunyan.

The garden is no longer stiff and formal.
The winding paths and shrubberies are the
work of a different taste and of a later time, but
here we have undoubtedly still in existence the
original of that place of refreshment, into which
the Pilgrim entered for a while in the last stage
but one of his journey.

CnAPTER VIII.

THE CELESTIAL CITY.

Bimjan*8 Description and Sunsets from the Ouse YuUey — Cloud-
land — The Ghites — The Bridge and Ghite-house — Ouse Floods
and Shallows— King Offa's Tomb— St. Paul's Tower and its
Bells.

It may possibly be supposed, from the descrip-
tion which, we have given of the suburbs of
Bedford in the last chapter, that we propose to
make that town itself the prototype of the
Celestial City. We have no intention of so
doing. Let us turn to some of the descrip-
tions of the place which Bunyan gives in
his later pages, and we shall see that he is
describing no city of earth, but that notwith-
standing he had, when he wrote, the remem-
brance of a scene which he witnessed often
enough as he walked through the flat wide-
spreading meadows of the Ouse valley, or

THE CELESTIAL CITY. 165

stood where he had an uninterrupted view
from the tableland of the Chiltems,

As the pilgrims walk through the land of
Beulah, they note that the city is " built of
pearls and precious stones, also the streets
thereof were paved with gold." And again,
when they have approached nearer and are in
the company of the gardener, Bunyan particu-
larly describes the reflection of the sun on the
city, so that it " was so exceeding glorious
that they could not as yet with open face be-
hold it, but through an instrument made for
that purpose."

Then let us look, also, at the description of
the flight of the souls of the pilgrims when the
river had been safely passed. " Now you
must note that the city stood upon a mighty
hill, but the pilgrims went up that hill with
ease because they had these two to lead them
up by the arms. They had likewise left|their
mortal garments behind them in the river, for
though they went in with them, they came
out without them. They therefore went][up
here with much agility and speed, though the
foundation upon which the city was framed

166 bunyan's country,

was higher than the clouds. They therefore
went up through the region of the air."

And almost at the close writes Bunyan :
" Now just as the gates were opened to let in
the men, I looked in after them, and behold
the city shone like the sun, the streets also
were paved with gold, and in them walked
many men with crowns upon their heads,
palms in their hands, and golden harps to sing
praises withal. There were also of them that
had wings, and they addressed one another
without intermission, saying, ^ Holy, holy, holy
is the Lord.' And after that they shut up the
gates, which, when I had seen, I wished
myself among them."

Now, of course, we admit fully that much
of this description is taken from the Apoca-
lypse, especially such passages as refer to the
inhabitants of the city themselves, their
crowns, their palms, their harps, and their
songs of praise. Yes, and the pearls, and
the precious stones, and the streets paved with
gold; of all these had Bunyan read in his
Bible.

But there is something more. The city is

THE CELESTIAL CITY. 167

lifted up above the earth, the pilgrims rise
through the air to enter it, the sun's rays are
cast upon it with dazzling brightness. What
is this but the sky itself which Bunyan was
describing, the western sky adorned by such
a sunset as he had often seen as he passed
along some eastern road back to Elstow or to
Bedford on a summer evening, and had before
him the beauty of sun-painted clouds. In
such a scene Bunyan would find his city all
aglow, his streets of gold, his precious stones,
the sapphire towards the zenith, and the
emerald down towards the horizon, where the
blue has changed to green. Or, perchance,
his face might be turned the other way, and
he might have gazed on some heaped up mass
of cumuli all tinged with the warm rich glow
from the west. On such a cloud-land. Alp-
like in its apparent solidity, he would place
the ^^ mighty hill" on which the city was
built. And then, when the sun had sunk
below the horizon, and the golden linings of
the clouds, roll within roll and fold within
fold, had turned in colour from rosy pink to
deep red, and the bars of purple stood dark

168 bunyan's country,

and clear-cut across the scene, he would have
before him the closing of the gates. And then
at length the dusky curtain would fall, and
the young Bedfordshire workman would trudge
home in the gloaming to the cottage-home at
Elstow and the evening meal.

When we described the gorge of Millbrook
we only suggested that certain features in it
would answer to some given us in the descrip-
tion of the Valley of the Shadow of Death,
and in what we have to say about Bedford as
it was in the seventeenth century, we are only
about to state that certain things in its appear-
ance, from the outside more especially, might
have given Bunyan some hints for his descrip-
tion of the approach to that city which formed
the goal of his wayfarers.

The gate of the Celestial City is an im-
portant feature in the history of the pilgrims.
They hear of it from time to time, and actually
see it, though in distant haze, as they gaze from
Mount Clear on the Delectable Mountains. A
gate, then, was something which came distinctly
to Bunyan's mind as he wrote, but Bedford
was not, nor ever has been, a walled city.

THE CELESTIAL CITY. 169

But had it gates? Yes, both, within and
without. The old map to which we have re-
ferred shows us gateways through which the
precincts of the hospitals and other religious
houses were entered, and there were many of
the latter in ancient Bedford — that of the
Blackfriars, St. Loyes, St. John's, Cauldwell,
and St. Leonard's. It was the latter which
Bunyan would pass as he walked in and out
of the town, and much of it must have been
standing in his time, for the ruins were only
destroyed when the London and North
Western Eailway Company made use of its
site for their station. And domestic gateways
there were as well, within the town, for to the
present day there stands, a little back from
the High Street, a stone gateway, which formed
one of the entrances to the yard of the Old
George Inn. Nor must we forget the two
gate-houses with which John Bunyan was only
too well acquainted — those which stood upon
the venerable bridge which here spanned the
Ouse. It was in the upper chamber over the
northern of these gateways, ^' the den," as he
calls it, that Bunyan in all probability wrote.

170 bunyan's country.

or at least planned out, " Pilgrim's Progress."
Thus Bedford, though it was without walls,
was not without gates.

And for choice, we think that of all the
gates we should select this old gate-house as
the one which Bunyan had before him when
he described the approach to the Celestial City.
It is true that the gate-house stood on a bridge,
and the special point of Bunyan' s river is that
there was no bridge across the river ; but it is
with the gateway itself that we are concerned,
and not with that whereon it stands.

The gate-house, as well as the bridge itself,
have disappeared. Both were of considerable
antiquity, especially the bridge, which dated
certainly from 1224, and perhaps from an
earlier time. Though repaired again and again,
at one time with material from the dismantled
castle of the De Beauchamps, and at another
with a portion of the destroyed church of St.
Peter, Dunstable — so called because it be-
longed to Dunstable Priory — which stood till
1545 in St. Mary's Square, it lasted well into
this century, the present bridge not having
been opened until 1813. The gate-houses had,

Bedford Briil^ and Oate-lions".

"f^ or Tire '^_
•U-NTVFB8TTT

«2f CALIFO^'

THE CELKSTIAL CITY.

however, disappeared before that date, but we
know them by engravings. They weie, as we

Bedforf Old Bridge at the begimung of last centurj.
I From a drawing by T. Hearne.)

have mentioned, two in number, and on the
down-stream side of the northern one there

174 BUN yak's country.

was a little island suflScientiy large to be culti-
vated as a garden. But this island has also
disappeared, though a shoal may be detected
at the spot when the river is low.

Though Bedford was perfectly open on all
other sides, more than half of it was fully pro-
tected on the southern or river side, and the
bridge, moreover, was duly guarded, and the
warder at one time was commanded to close
the thoroughfare nightly at ten o'clock, and to
allow none to pass unless he knew them, and
then also to charge a penny toll. It seems
strange that so much difficulty should have
been placed in the way of those who wished
to pass from one part of the town to another,
since both parts of Bedford were equally free
and open everywhere else. But we have said
enough to show that the gate-house on Bedford
bridge would give Bunyan the idea of a care-
fully guarded approach such as that which
formed the entrance to the Celestial City ; and
it is to be noted that he tells how, in answer
to the call of the pilgrims, " some from above
looked over the gate, to wit, Enoch, Moses,
and Elijah." He himself doubtless often

THE CELESTIAL CITY. 175

looked down from his prison window on the
wayfarers who summoned the warder to un-
lock the great chain, and produced their
penny toll, and who were then recognised
and identified according to the rules and
regulations framed by the corporation.

But before the pilgrims reached the gate
they had to cross the river. There was but
one river which Bunyan would have before
him as he drew near to the end of his tale, the
one large river of his native county. The
Ouse in its characteristics much resembles
that river which forms the last stage in the
journey which Bunyan describes. At times,
as we have already mentioned, the waters
from the central Midlands sweep down its
valley in a far-reaching flood, extending over
the meadows which line its banks. At other
times the shrinking of its waters reveals
shallows and hidden islands. A tradition,
quoted by so early a writer as Matthew Paris,
tells us that the chapel on the river's bank
in which had been buried the body of Offa,
the great King of Saxon Mercia, was swept
away by a flood. And he adds that the tomb

i

176 bunyan's country,

of the king could be seen at times in the
summer by bathing lads, if they sought it not,
but that those who looked for it sought in
vain. And even just before the time of
Bunyan's imprisonment in the gate-house,
that building had been wrecked by the water
to such an extent that ^^ ve ston house called
ye bridge-house in this towne is totallie fallen
down, and ye rest much shaken and like to
fall, and the foundacon or pile whereon it
stood, a great part washed away." The build-
ing, it appears, was repaired only just in time
to receive the prisoner.

And then at other times the river was ford-
able hereabouts, as the name of the town
implies. It is, in fact, just such a river as
Bunyan describes when he says, '^You shall
find it deeper or shallower, as ye believe in
the King of the place."

But Bunyan tells us not only of what he
saw, but of what he heard. '' Then I heard in
my dream that all the bells in the city rang
again for joy."

The tower and tall spire of St. PauPs Church
rise conspicuously on the further side of the

3t. Paul's Tover, Bedford, from the «onth dde of Hie ri

(^

Califoi^

t^l^

THE CELESTIAL CITY, 179

river. It is not exactly the same tower which
Bunyan saw, for it has been rebuilt, but ou the
old lines. Doubtless Bunyan, as he walked
along the road from Elstow, often heard the
sweet chimes of the St. Paul's bells wafted to
him across the Ouse. They reminded him of
his own bellringing in early youth, which he
had discontinued, for some unknown reason, so
suddenly.

" Sqaare tower,
Tall spire, from wliioh the sound of cheerful bells
Just undulates upon the listening' ear."

But none of the bells are of Bunyan's time.
They have all been renewed or recast, and their
number has been added to until they have
become a peal of ten.

Thus far we have gone, and now we stand.
We do not propose to follow the pilgrims
across the river, nor to mix scenes mundane
with celestial. Bunyan has, as we have sug-
gested, entered cloud-land for the last and
abiding scene, and he has left familiar Bedford-
shire behind. But we have walked awhile
with him along lane and high road, past park
and village green, up steep hills, and through

1 80 BUNT A.x!p . COUNTRY.

wooded dells. There is an intense realism, all
acknowledge, in the characters which play their
part in the " Pilgrim's Progress " ; and perhaps
we shall acknowledge that there is much
realism also in the scenes in which these
characters move, now that, with his book in
our hands, we have made our way through
Bunyan's country.

THE END.

INDEX

A.

AiLESBtJBY, Earl of, 87
Albini, 122
AmptMll Castle, 74
Archer, Rector Thomas, 76

B.

Babbows, 142
Barton-le-cley, 134
Bayfield, Abbess, 48
Beautiful, the House, 70
Bedford Bridge, 170
Beelzebub, Castle of, 57
Beulah, Land of, 157
Bruce, Christiana, 86
Bruce, Robert, 87
Bye-path Meadow, 121

Bye-way to Hell, 14§

Oaob, the Village, 111
Oainhoe Castle, 123 •
Cardington Cross, 115
Celestial City, The, 164
ChUtem Hills, The, 136
ClophiU, 118

Conquest, Sir Edmund, 76
Cowper, William, 52
Cross, The Village, 64

D.

Dasce Ellen's Bury, 75

Deadman's Lane, 154

De Grey, 129

Delectable Mountains, The, 133

Devonshire, Countess of, 86

Doubting Castlo, 117

E.

Elstow, 30

Enchanted Ground, The, 156

Evangelist, 163

F.

Flit, The, 117
ilitton, 130

G.

Giant's Caves, The, 108
GifPord, John, 163
Gbavesend, Bishop, 38

182

INDEX.

H.

Hbbmb Chapel, 112
Hervey, Abbeas, 37
Hill of Caation, The, 146
Hill of Diffioulty, The, 88
Hill of Error, The, 145
Hillersden, 63
Houghton Honse, 78
Humiliation, Vallej of, 100

I.

Ihtbbprjetbb, House of, 62

J.

Jones, Inigo, 64, 79
Judith, Countess, 35

L.

Lawson, Dr. Gkorge, 86
Lidling^n, 24
Longland, Bishop, 40

MnxBBOOK, 104
Mount Clear, 148

O.

Offa, King, 176
Ouse, The, 61, 175

P.

Palaob, The Stately, 63
Pembroke, Countess of, 77
PuUozhill, 114

R.

Ratcuffb, 63
Rayensborough Castle, 141
Risinghoe Castle, 64

S.

St. Amand, 122
St. John's, Bedford, 16S
St. Paul's, Bedford, 176
Shadow of Death, Valley of,

103
Sidney, Mary, 76
Sidney, PhiHp, 77
Sayer Mine, The, 113
Sinai, Mount, 56
Slough of Despond, 51
Speed's Map, 161

T.
ToTTSBNHOB Quarries, 146

V.

Vanity Fair, 108

W.

WiOKBT (Jate, The, 66
Wingate, Chaplain, 60
Wootton, 112

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