Bladys of the Stewponey | Page 4

old man lifted up his hands.
"We live in evil days, and I sore fear in an evil place, and the salt that
should have seasoned us has lost its savour. There have been no banns
called. There can have been no license obtained, seeing none knows
who will have the maiden."
"They say the chapel at Stourton is a peculiar," observed the bellman.
The old man shook his head. "This is the beginning of a bad story,"
said he, and sighed. "Whither will it lead? How and where will it end?"

Chapter 2.
IN THE CELLAR
The highways from Stafford and Wolverhampton to Kidderminster and
the South, and that from Halesowen to Bridgenorth, cross each other at
Kinver, and a bridge traverses the Stour, near Stourton Castle, once a
royal residence, and one that was a favourite with King John. The great
Irish Road from Bath and Bristol to Chester passed through Kinver, to
the great emolument of the town and neighbourhood. At that time,
Chester and its port, Park Gate, received the packets from Ireland.

An old soldier in the wars of Queen Anne, a native of the place, settled
there when her wars were over, and, as was customary with old soldiers,
set up an inn near the bridge, at the cross roads. He had been quartered
at Estepona, in the south of Spain, and thence he had brought a Spanish
wife. Partly in honour of her, chiefly in reminiscence of his old military
days, he entitled his inn, "The Estepona Tavern." The Spanish name in
English mouths became rapidly transformed into Stewponey. The spot
was happily selected, and as the landlord had a managing wife, and
provided excellent Spanish wine, which he imported himself, and with
which he could supply the cellars of the gentry round, the inn grew in
favour, and established its reputation as one of the best inns in
Staffordshire.
The present landlord, Cornelius Rea, was a direct descendant of the
founder of the house.
The Stewponey was resorted to by the gentry of the south of
Staffordshire, Worcestershire, and Shropshire, on the approach of an
election, to decide on the candidates to be proposed and elected.
It was also frequented by travellers on their way north, south, east, or
west, who arrived at Kinver at ebb of day, and were disinclined to risk
their persons and their purses by proceeding at night over the heaths of
Kinver, through the forest of Stourton, and among the broken ground
that was held to be a lurking-place for footpads and highway robbers.
Indeed, the neighbourhood for a century bore an evil name, and not
without cause. Several and special facilities were here afforded to such
as found profit and pleasure in preying on their fellow-men. As already
intimated, at this point on the map of England, the territories
appertaining to the counties that meet have gone through extraordinary
dislocations. There are no natural boundaries, and those which are
artificial are capricious. Nothing was more easy for one who desired to
throw out his pursuers, armed with a warrant signed by the magistrate
of one county, than to pass into the next, and if further pursued by legal
process there, to step into a third.
A highwayman, at the beginning of the century in which we live, who

honoured Kinver with residing in it, planted his habitation at the
extreme verge of the county, divided from the next by a hollow way,
and when the officers came to take him, he leaped the dyke, and
mocked them with impunity from the farther side.
But this was not all. The geological structure of the country favoured
them. Wherever a cliff, great or small, presented its escarpment, there
the soft sandstone was scooped out into labyrinths of chambers, in
which families dwelt, who in not a few instances were in league with
the land pirates. The plunder could anywhere be safely and easily
concealed, and the plunderers could pass through subterranean passages
out of one county into another, and so elude pursuit.
The highwaymen belonged by no means to the lowest class. The
gentlemen of the road comprised, for the most part, wastrels and
gamesters of good blood, who thought it no dishonour to recover on the
high-road what they had lost on the green table. Occasionally, but only
occasionally, one was captured and hung, but the gang was not broken
up, the gap was at once refilled. Of applicants there no lack, and the
roads remained as insecure before. The facilities for escape at the
confines of three counties, and in a country honeycombed with places
of refuge, were too many, and the business was too profitable, to enable
the sheriffs, during an entire century, to put an end to a condition of
affairs which was at once