What the De Veres of Essex did for England and for Europe we have seen in some measure, and this penultimate part of our afternoon's drive takes us through the country in which they were really at home. Castle Hedingham, passed on the left a few miles south of Great Yeldham of the famous oak, was their principal seat. It had been the seat of a Saxon magnate before the Conqueror granted it and wide lands to his follower, Alberic De Vere. It was built on "an high hill," which, like most of the knolls in East Anglia, had probably felt the tramp of martial feet long before the beginning of authentic history. It was moated, and the moat was crossed by a bridge, still visible; the Norman keep, of extraordinary solidity and strength, still looks out, to use the words of White, the topographer of Eastern England, on "rural beauty of the quiet order, a beauty produced by centuries of planting and tillage." In many a neighbouring church, at Earl's Colne and Cole Eugaine, for example, but only for example, the mullet of the De Veres may be found shaped in enduring stone. South of Castle Hedingham the wise man will turn some three or four miles out of his direct route, which runs through Halstead, to see the church of Little Maplestead, and will even make a halt when he is there, for good reason. The motorist will, perhaps almost must, be content with a passing glance at many a church rich in ancient brasses or in the carved bench heads for which the churches of East Anglia are celebrated; but he can hardly play the part of the Levite towards one of the very small number of Round Churches, similar in design and origin to the Temple Church, to be found in all the length and breadth of England. After this he will probably be best advised to wend his way to Colchester viâ Halstead, Earl's Colne, Fordham and Lexden. His road will follow the course of the Colne pretty closely all the way, and between Fordham and Lexden he will pass quite close to West Bergholt, which he saw as he went forth for his afternoon's drive. If, after travelling by road through so much of these two valleys of the Stour and the Colne he is not satisfied with this restful beauty of smiling and undulating country, if he does not feel some measure of interest when he knows that he has traversed the places which were familiar to Strongbow and Gainsborough, to Constable and to a splendid series of Earls of Oxford, then is he no true motorist, but rather the "road hog" before whom it is futile to cast pearls of any kind. Such "road hogs" are, in truth, few and far between. It is in the belief, based upon very wide experience, that the average motorist is interested in antiquities no less than in ascents, in scenery more than in sprockets, in castles at least equally with carburettors, that these attempts are made to save him from the labour of research. CHAPTER IX