Chapter LV

I am told that Hastings discourages the “tripper,” and that no longer do cheap day-tickets for weekdays or Sundays prevail. He is discouraged because he brings his nose-bag with him, because his children grow fretful and annoy the select, and because he brings no trade into the town and is off again by nightfall. Thus, paradoxically, he is required not to come because he goes so soon. But perhaps the delays and the peculiar methods of the railways serve more certainly to discourage that variety of holiday-maker. However that may be, no one can deny the “popular” character of the holiday-making in August, which is not the select season at Hastings.

Sunday cheap trips to Hastings were early and for long a feature, and eventually roused the wrath of the Working Men’s Lord’s Day Rest Association. We need not here go into the rights and wrongs of Sunday tripping; but should any one discover a little book called “The Story of our Sunday Trip to Hastings,” published on behalf of that excellent body, let him read it, and find therein a fund of unconscious humour. The whole and sole intent and purpose of the book is to show, not merely how sinful it is to take a cheap Sunday trip by railway—and especially, it would appear, to Hastings—but how inevitably uncomfortable and even disastrous it will be. It is a tale of how, one August, a decent working man and his wife and little girl, and an assortment of friends, tripped one Sunday to this seaside. They started betimes—arising at four o’clock in the morning—probably with some foreboding sense that if you want to journey anywhere by South Eastern Railway it is well to get up in advance of the early bird, if not even to start the day before. They drove to Charing Cross in a cab, and it was already very warm. The cabman, indeed, “used a strong expression” to enforce his opinion that they would find it very hot. I think we all know the poetical phrase that cabman made use of.

Of course, the object being to paint this trip in very strong colours, mischances early began; but the party need not have been quite such fools as they are described. Passing over the inevitable dispute with the cabman, we follow them on to the platform, where they saw a porter slip and nearly get killed, whereupon “a sickening horror came over them at the thought of the scene they might have witnessed.” As for that, if you are to speculate upon the grisly “might be,” the blood-boltered “if,” the catastrophic “may happen,” why then there is no peace of mind for you at all, week-day or Sunday.

Friends who were to have been met on the platform were all but missed, and when found insisted upon quarrelling with strangers and quizzing other members of the party, until at length the train “ceased to move, and we were at our journey’s end.” It did not just “stop,” as ordinarily it does.

See now our party at Hastings. The day was blazing hot, and no shelter was to be found. The glare off the sea seared their eyes, and they took refuge in the streets, with the bitter reflection that they need not have left their home in happy Islington to see pavements and closed shops. Dinner was suggested, and they resorted to a dining-room, rich in the mingled odours of sage and onions and tobacco-smoke, where they dined off what purported to be gosling, but was really an old and half-starved fowl. If the dishes were lukewarm, the room, on the other hand, was blazing hot. “Mr. Peters,” one of the party, called for “malt liquor”—could it by any chance have been “beer”?—and saw that somebody else paid for it; and, this princely and elegant meal over, the party dispersed in various directions.

Then the brilliant idea occurred to one who claimed to know Hastings that a breeze and shady trees would be found in the Castle gardens, on the cliff-top. They climbed that “terrible” road, only to find that the gardens were closed on Sundays, and that, even had they been open, no trees and no shade existed there. Finding at last some stunted, insufficient trees, they rested awhile, descending only to give the girl a chance of fainting in the heat.

And so the weary day dragged on until it was time to return home. They all assembled at the railway-station, much to the reader’s surprise. Why had not some of them taken a boat and been drowned, or been eaten by a sea-serpent? Why had they not even missed the train? We shall learn.

“Fate cannot harm me, I have dined to-day,” says the poet; but disasters seem inevitably to wait upon those who “trip, trip, trip it” to the sea on Sunday; especially if they dine upon emaciated fowl sinfully masquerading as a young goose.

No appalling disaster happened to the swift South Eastern train. It did not, strange to say, break down, and still less did it come into collision with another. Nor even were train-wreckers prowling along the line, to place obstructions upon the metals and so bring the sinful to an appropriately ghastly end. No: nothing of that kind happened; but when two-thirds of the journey had been accomplished a thunderstorm broke. “Never mind, we’ll soon be at home,” said Martha. “Alas! it seemed as if home grew more distant than nearer.”

But at last London was reached and an omnibus with difficulty found. On the way, however, a horse, overworked with Sunday labour, fell dead, and the journey had to be miserably finished in the rain. What, by the way, would have been made to happen to a motor-omnibus? _That_ could not fall dead.

The party reached home at last, but Martha fell ill, and eventually died of consumption. “Never,” declares the supposed narrator of this elegant piece of fiction, “shall I forget our Sunday Trip to Hastings.”

I should think not, indeed!

Let us therefore go to Hastings by road: and be sure it is not on a Sunday.

INDEX

Amherst, Sir Jeffrey, 71-74

Baldslow, 238

Battle, 188, 199, 228, 231, 232

—— Abbey, 188, 219-34

—— of Hastings, 188, 200-219

Bayham Abbey, 157-59

Beauport Park, 234

Bedgebury Park, 167

Bell Green, 25

Bellingham, 23

Bewl Bridge, 164

Bodiam Castle, 182-86

“Bohemia,” 237

Bromley, 4, 26-47

—— Common, 44-48

Carriers, The, 4, 10

Catford Bridge, 23

Chelsfield, 56

Chevening, 62

“Church in the Wood” (_i.e._ Hollington Church), 236

Coaches:—
Express, 7
Hastings Mail (afterwards Hastings and St. Leonards), 6-8, 54-56
Paragon, 7
Regulator, 7
Royal William, 7
United Friends, Sevenoaks, 78

Coaching, 3-10, 54-56, 63, 78

Coaching Notabilities:—
Gray, Robert, 6, 8
Horne, Benjamin Worthy, 6, 8, 78
Peacock, 78
Stockdale, 8-10

Corbett Estate, The, 24

Crowhurst Park, 234

Cyclists’ Rests, 141-43

Darenth, River, 69

Downe, 52

Dunton Green, 63, 66-69

Edward the Confessor, 189-93

Etchingham, 171-76

Farnborough, 52

Flimwell, 2, 108, 168-70

Forest Hill, 23

Frant, 140

Green Street Green, 53

Halstead, 64

Halton, 248

Hare, Augustus J. C., 239-46

Harold, King, 190-201, 209, 210, 214-19, 231

Hastings, 248-84

“High Rocks,” 137-40

Highwaymen, 48-52, 54

Hildenborough, 112

Hollington, 235

Holloway, 26

“Holmhurst,” 238-46

Hops, 144-53

Hop-pickers, 52, 111, 147-53

Hurst Green, 170-77

Inns (mentioned at length):—
Bell, Bromley, 43
Blackboy, Sevenoaks, 78
Blue Boys, Kipping’s Cross, 143
Bolt-in-Tun, Fleet Street, 6, 8, 9
Bricklayers’ Arms, Sevenoaks, 79
Cats (or Three Cats), Sevenoaks, 79-81
Chequers, Lamberhurst, 5, 157
—— Tonbridge, 118
George, Robertsbridge, 181
George and Dragon, Farnborough, 52
Harrow, Knockholt Pound, 58
Porcupine, Richmore Hill, 57
Star, Madamscourt Hill, 58
White Hart, Bromley, 43
—— near Sevenoaks, 104

John’s Cross, 188

Kipping’s Cross, 143

Knockholt, 57-62

Knole, 79, 84-102

Ladywell, 16

Lamberhurst, 4, 144, 153-57

Lewisham, 10, 11, 12-23

Lindridge Causeway, 144

Loampit Hill, 11

Lock’s Bottom, 48

London Bridge, 1

Longford, 69

Madamscourt (_i.e._ Morant’s Court) Hill, 62

Malfosse, 216

Mason’s Hill, 44

“Montreal,” 71, 74-76

Mountfield, 186

Neville Family, The, 141

New Cross, 1, 11

North, Lord, 120-22

“Old London Road,” 235, 238, 248, 250

Old Roar, 236

Old-time Travellers:—
Evelyn, John, 49-51
Islip, Archbishop, 104
Jeake, Samuel, jr., 4, 120
Walpole, Horace, 177, 180

Ore, 246

Pembury Green, 141

Pilgrims’ Way, 63

Polhill, 57, 65

—— Tunnel, 64

Pratt’s Bottom, 54, 56

Quaggy, River, 12

Ravensbourne, River, 11, 26

Riverhead, 70

River Hill, 105, 106, 108, 110-12

Robertsbridge, 177-82, 186, 188

Rother, River, 178

Rushey Green, 23, 25

Rushmore (or Richmore) Hill, 57

Sackville, Family of, 80, 87-98

Salehurst, 182

Scotney Castle, 159-64

Seacox Heath, 169

Senlac, 188, 199, 206, 231

Sepham Hill, 66

“Seven Oaks, The,” 104

Sevenoaks, 3, 76-84

Sevenoke, Sir William, 82

Shangden, 104

Silver Hill, 177, 180

Silverhill, 237

South End, 25

Star (otherwise Madamscourt) Hill, 63

Starr’s Green, 234

Stone Crouch, 140, 164

Telham Hill, 234

Toad Rock, The, 134-37

Tonbridge, 3, 4, 5, 112-20

Tonbridge Ware, 131-34

Tunbridge Wells, 3, 4, 5, 111, 120-37

Vine Hall, 188

Watch Oak, The, 199

Webster, Family of, 224-28

Whatlington, 188

Wilford, James, Benefactor to Roads, 106-108

William the Conqueror, 190-98, 203, 207-220

Woodgate, 4, 120

_Printed and bound by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld.,
London and Aylesbury._