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there before the Abbey of St. Edmunds. Now, concerning this Bederic, it is best to believe that he never existed. Mr. Pickwick would, of course, have accepted him in good faith, as he doubtless accepted King Arthur. But the more we learn the less we know, and the principle that an impossible tale does not become credible, however many years back it may be put, has taken nearly all the picturesque out of history. Taking up the road, then, at the beginning of history at the time of the mythical Bederic, and filling in the piece bitten out, it was very much as it is now, except, of course, that it was in no sort of repair and there were no hedges. Whether there were any dwellings round the green at the cross roads is uncertain; the age of foundations is a terrible thing to determine. But if there were, they moved off under the shelter of the abbey walls, or, rather, within the circuit of the abbey thorn hedge, when that was established. And now, having got beyond the reach of records, it is necessary to go by the nature of things; and the first thing to do is to construct a map of the country as it was in the time of the Roman overlordship and before the coming of the English. The common or grammar school map of Britannia Antiqua is not of the least use. That is a beautifullycolored affair, with Flavia Cæsariensis and so forth upon it in large capitals and Londinium in small capitals. Camulodunum is certainly in the wrong place, and Venta Icenorum doubtful by some miles. But what is worse, the coast line is just the same as in this present year of jubilee. There is no shipway inside Thanet and no island where the Goodwins are now. The mouths of rivers, which were known to be open as late as five hundred years ago, are drawn blocked as now, the lost land of the Norfolk coast is not given, and so little appreciation is shown of the Fenland that the Ouse runs into the sea (per the Eau Brink) at Lynn, instead of at Wisbech, as it used to do. The thing is really no better than what one can make off-hand by the simple process of striking out every name that bears

marks of an English or Danish origin. Out go the wicks and wiches, the hams and tons, the wells and steads, and still more the thorps and bys of the incomers from Germany and Scandinavia. What is left? The result is a curious one; what is left are, roughly speaking, the capitals of the counties. That is the effective way of putting it. The more accurate way would be to say that there are left about one or two places in each county whose names show them to be of the Roman time or older, and whose sites, more often than not, are the same as the modern county town. And the exceptions which make it necessary to say only "more often than not," usually confirm the principle. Huntingdon goes, but there is Godmanchester across the bridge. Cambridge is not really English, in spite of its appearance; and if it were, there is Grantchester two miles to the south. St. Albans goes, but only for Verulamium to be revived, and so forth.

Now, some of the counties are ancient English kingdoms, and some "the shires"-are the artificial divisions into which the kings of the West Saxons split up for administrative purposes the land conquered from the kingdom of Mercia, or redeemed over again from the Danish invaders. Less than half-adozen, with of course all the Welsh ones, are even later than the Conquest. But whatever its origin, whether the county is the ancient kingdom or the artificially-created shire, it is more or less the district which can be conveniently administered from the county town. These county towns are, in fact, the natural centres and the first places that would be settled. So that the result is reached that, before the coming of the English, Britian was a country of towns, small, of course, but with nothing in the way of villages between them of sufficient permanency to leave a name in the way that quite insignificant rivers and brooks have done. A wild, barren country, with a few shepherds or swineherds or cowboys speaking British while the townsmen spoke Latin; a country "where every place is forty miles from everywhere else❞—

Australians of the days before the railways, if so be that any are left, will know what that means. Through this desert country from the towns in the midland plain to the sea ran our road straight away in its businesslike manner; but what was the object of it? It was not a military road, built after the Roman pattern and duly marked in our map of Britannia Antiqua. It passed through no towns, and there were no villages to pass through. It could be only one thing, and that is a trade route between the towns of the midland plain and the sea. It ends somewhere among the estuaries of the coast, crossing the Roman roads from Colchester northwards. Those are the estuaries where the big square box which is called a barge is loaded with hay, and waits fine weather to slip round to London; in short, the sort of place that any unnavigable craft can sail from. But if it was a trade route, it points to a trade or which history is absolutely silent. Up the Rhine and over the mountains it would go, as it did again later on in the Middle Ages, in the times when Chaucer's merchant "wolde the sea were kept for anything Betwixte Middelburgh and Orewelle." In those and yet more recent times it had passengers enough, so that to this day the commonest "coin" to rake up in a Suffolk field is the token of a Nuremberg trader-so very old a complaint is, "Made in Germany!" Or it might go up the Meuse and down the Rhone, and so keep always on Celtic ground. But this early trade is in a way a puzzle. Not because there is no mention of it in history. History seldom mentions such things, and says very little indeed about Hans Krawinkel and his other Nuremberg friends. In fact, we should never have known of the amount of business they did in England if it were not for the tokens with their name and city upon them. The trouble is the existence of Ariovistus and Hermann and that sort of people, who were distinctly bad for trade just at the period when the ancient road should have been in full operation. Perhaps it is older than even they. Anyhow, the road went

out of use at the coming of the English into Britain. The making of England has been told by a greater than the present writer (he rather neglected East Anglia, which presented problems of special difficulty), but this much may be said: The invaders formed their new settlements anywhere, on or off the road, without regard to it, and did not even use it as a boundary mark. Hence it happens that at this day the village whose duty it is to repair the road is often two miles or more off it, and gets no good from it whatever. Consequently, the road is in places repaired no better than it need be, and the townsman cyclist coming on a bad mile or two, reviles the county council, which is really trying its best to bribe the recalcitrant parish into doing the work by means of uneconomical grants in aid. The real fault lies with the "Anglo-Saxon" leader, who would fix his settlement in the wrong place; but he and his are gone to Valhalla, and are beyond the reach of reviling. So the road, which has been more than once a main artery of traffic, but now is getting deserted again except by the brewer's dray (even the farmer when he comes to market comes by train nowadays), leads the inquirer into its origin straight up to a puzzle, just the same as do Stonehenge and all the really very ancient monuments.

Now, this road was chosen because it is such a quiet, common road, with no troublesome history written about it, except, of course, the history of Mr. Pickwick, which does not, like formal history, make any pretence of not being all made up. For a change, consider one that was never busier than to-day. It is said that in time a man gets to the end of everything in this world, even of the Edgware-road. In our day his work is shortened for him, for, once upon a time, one of the ends was at Dover and the other somewhere on the shores of the river Dee. Now, here is another clear instance of the bad shots roads make at towns, which is the main proof of their extreme antiquity. Of course, in the present day, when the city of five million souls has

spread itself over the map in a forest of houses and streets, it is impossible to avoid hitting it somewhere. In comes the road from the country as straight as a ruler down to the Marble Arch, and there stops. To get to the City it is necessary to turn sharp to the left, along one of the arms of a crossroad. But putting things back a bit, it is quite easy to see what the Edgware-road originally made for, and at the same time that it is older than London town. Take the time when London had not spread much beyond its walls, anu when on the east there was a brook running down from Marylebone to Westminster, and on the west the Serpentine was a crinkly stream running under the Knight's Bridge down to the Thames, where the Grosvenor Canal is. To this day its old course marks the curved line of the boundary of the parish of St. George's, Hanover-square, and determines the fact whether one is a denizen of Belgravia or not. Sweeping away the houses and parks and iron railings, it is seen that the long, straight road pointed not to Charing Cross, where we measure our cab-fares from, but along the high and dry ground to a ferry over the Thames, somewhere above Westminster. Where exactly the ferry was, it is not now possible to say. No one can tell exactly the shifting channel of a tidal river or reconstruct the original form of the marshes of Lambeth. But there, in the bend of the river, would be a good place for a crossing, and there the road went, and probably kept well to the south between the marshes and the wooded hills until it found its continuation in the Doverroad. Of course, when London was a town, and piles were driven into the bed of the Thames and a bridge laid across them, no one would use a dangerous ferry when an extra mile or so would take them safely over London Bridge. So the old trace of the road is lost, as is also lost the way in which Lundonbury passed from the hands of its Romanized British inhabitants into those of the Teutonic invaders.

But if one were to try to scrape the history off the Edgware Road-which is

really the Watling Street-there would be so much that it would fili volumes, for its whole history is nothing less than the tale of British traffic down to the time when the London and Birmingham Railway-which is now called the North-Western-made another straight streak in the same direction across the map. Therefore it was better to begin with a road down in Suffolk, where everything-even conjectural historyis on a modest scale.

JOHN HAWKWOOD.

From Leisure Hour.

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CUCKOO: AN ENGLISH IDYLL. For all his faults, and he stands accused of some criminal offences, cuckoo, that ne'er do weel of ornithology, is a favorite. Irresponsible parent of city arabs that involve bird communities in heavy liabilities for maintenance of infant paupers; housebreaker who inveigles respectable birds like the wryneck into aiding and abetting in his raids on the treasure of unprotected homes; villain who is stranger to all chivalrous sentiment as well as to the plain virtues of the good citizen; one whom in sound common sense we should abhor and despiseis the bird above all others who has found the way to our hearts.

It is not too much to say of this gay renegade that souls sigh for his coming when winter's iron rule wearies the northern worlds; that some, exiled, would lay down fame and fortune once more to hear him call across the May flowers in an English lane; that hearts beat high at the sound of his jubilate, and summer, sweet summer, would be shorn of half her hopes if he her herald were struck dumb.

For Cuculus Canorus of the house of Cuculidæ is the modern representative of Freya and Iduna, at whose coming frost and snow vanished, whose smiles strewed the earth with flowers, whose tears stored the sea with pearls. And right well does he fill the office.

"Cooey!" "Cooey!" we cry to the songs and the sunshine and the flowers of Spring, and if only the answer comes back from the oaks and the elms, or copses of lesser growth and greater shelter, "Cuckoo!" "Cuckoo!" we know that all is well, for they come at his beck and call.

As he sings the young green blades come up among the grasses, butter cups and daisies bestrew the meadows, and a daïs of most ancient vair is hung anew over the baby birds that are rocked in the tree tops. Travelling birds come home to sing to us, and all things fair and beautiful fall gently as the dew on the old earth and veil the scars that time and his secrets have graven on her ancient face and form.

be

There is one story about the cuckoo -it is well known and so should true-that I never can believe. It is about its winter whereabouts, and comes from some corner of still primitive Sussex. It runs thus. When winter approaches all the cuckoos are given into the care of an old woman, who keeps them through the cold weather. When April the fourteenth comes round, she carries them in Ler apron to Heathfield Fair, and there lets them fly. Now I hold two strong arguments against the truth of this tale. My first is that the gifts the cuckoo showers broadcast on his first appearance are not to be gathered in any old woman's cottage. Who ever

saw there any wealth of flowers greater than one tightly bound posy stuck in a pickle jar? Not that this is to be despised, but it is no voucher for the tons of daffodils that nod at the brookside, and the cartloads of primroses that rejoice the meadows where the cuckoo has passed by. My second, is that I myself have heard his voice in a Middlesex coppice on April the sixth, showing a discrepancy in dates of eight days.

This story is nearly as ridiculous as the Cornish legend, that he flies out of a burning log in spring, but this it is needless to refute, for every one

knows that Cornish stories are more than half legendary. No, the cuckoo must come from some El Dorado where flowers may be had for the picking of them. Perhaps he gathers them on the fertile shores of the Nile, or in some flowery wilderness of Persia, but this is merely a suggestion and not strictly speaking cuckoo lore, that interesting study for much of which I am indebted to Mr. Swainson's book of bird legends.

But the cuckoo is dear not only for his gift of spring, he answers some of the many questions that harry these inquisitive minds of ours. First he tells all the young people when they are going to be married, and then he tells the old ones how long they have to live. Many refrain from asking this latter question, for it is doubtful whether it be wise to ask it. Most of us like to feel that our billet here below is indefinitely long, and were the cuckoo to measure the small dimension which we divide into two long days, called youth and age, by months and years, it might seem SO appallingly short as to paralyze our senses. On the other hand, perhaps his verdict would so stir the nobler energies of a man, that his short span should prove an era in the world's history.

Lovers, however, never fear to question all the world over. Maidens in England say:

Cuckoo, cherry tree,
Good bird, tell me,

How many years shall I be
Before I get married.

In France the jeunes sing:

Coucou des villes,

Coucou des bois,

Combien ai-je d'années

A me marier?

German thus:

paysannes

Mädchen consult him

Kukuk, achter de hecken, Wo lang schall min Brut nock gaen de bliken?

High-spirited young people in all

lands say if he answers with more than ten calls it is because he sits on a bewitched bough; but the old folk who ask the other question, even the most philosophical, will not admit this at all. They consult him in this wise. In England:

Cuckoo, cherry tree,

Come down and tell me,
How many years afore I dee?

In France:

Coucou

Boloton,1

Regarde sur ton grand livre, Combien y a d'années à vivre? In Switzerland:

Guggu, ho, ho,

Wie lang leben i no?

It does not matter much though in what tongue you speak to a cuckoo, for he is accustomed to be addressed in almost every language under the sun. Certainly he is familiar with all the European forms of speech, patios included, but whether you talk purest English or broadest Scotch, French, German, Italian, Scandinavian, Swabian, Greek, Polish Bohemian, he always answers in his own tongue. It is not very polite, but it answers the purpose, and he answers your questions, for passes as a lingua franca in all civilized regions.

or

cuckoo

It was all through petty rivalry that the cuckoo's vocabulary came to be composed so entirely of homonyms. It took place in a German Städtchen and was just such a tempest in a teapot as gathers in country towns here, there, and everywhere.

"Ein Kukuk sprach mit einem Staar," so runs the tale, and asked her what folk thought of the nightingale.

"The whole town worships her," she

said.

"And what of the lark?"

"Half the town is talking of him." "The blackbird?"

"Some admire his voice."

1 A boy who robs birds' nests to suck the eggs.

"And how about me?"

"I never heard your name," said the starling.

"Then," said the cuckoo, "I must sing my own praises, Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" and he has said nothing else ever since. When he begins to find it monotonous, as he does about the beginning of June, he changes the tune of his song, that is all.

It is fortunate that the law of Madagascar, whereby all the syllables composing a king's name are proscribed for a year at his demise, and only used on pain of death in his domain, does not prevail among the cuckoos, else were our oracle dumb in secula seculorum, for, though it is a fact almost forgotten in these levelling days, the cuckoo comes of a race of kings, though since that rascally hoopoe stole his crown, no outward insignia marks his station.

Was ever such a dastardly trick played on poor mortal bird? It happened thus.

The cuckoo, good-natured, generous fellow that he is, was invited to a wedding where the hoopoe was to give away the bride; and to lend the already overdressed bird yet another fine feather to add to his dignity on so great an occasion, the cuckoo handed him his crown. The hoopoe, not being then so proud as he has since become, accepted the proffered loan; but it was the ruin of him, for he never could make up his mind to return the bauble, and now his crowned head is covered with dishonor. Perhaps this is why the hoopoe flattens himself out on the ground in such an abject way, and

throws his head back till the crown is buried in feathers, when he sees a hawk hovering; for some say the cuckoo hunts in the guise of a hawk in winter, and his feelings towards the hoopoe would naturally not be of the most charitable description. Even in the summer, when the cuckoo appears in his own character, the smaller birds scarcely know him from their hereditary foe, and when they see him coming they hurry away and hide them

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