CHAPTER XIII

God save the King, I prayGod bless the King, I say;God save the King.Send him victorious,Happy and glorious,Soon to reign over us;God save the King.

A few more miles of level winding road through a wooded country brought us in sight of the old historic town of Boston,—a name familiar in two hemispheres. A jumble of red buildings, uneven-roofed, and grouped together in artistic irregularity,

A POETIC PROSPECT

was presented to us; buildings quaint and commonplace, but all glorified in colour by the golden rays of the setting sun, their warm tints being enhanced by broad mysterious shadows of softest blue, mingled with which was a haze of pearly-gray smoke—the very poetry of smoke, so film-like and romantic it seemed. And over all there rose the tall tower of St. Botolph’s stately fane, so etherealised by the moist light-laden atmosphere that it looked as unsubstantial as the building of a dream, whilst near at hand tapering masts, tipped with gold, and ruddy sails told of the proximity of the sea. The ancient town had a strangely medieval look, as though we had somehow driven backwards into another century, the glamour of the scene took possession of us, and we began to dream delicious dreams, but just then came wafted on the stilly air the sound of a far-away railway whistle, soft and subdued by distance truly, but for all that unmistakable. The charm of illusion was over; it was a sudden descent from the poetic to the prosaic. Still, perhaps in the picturesque past the belated traveller would not have fared so well, so comfortably, or so cleanly in his hostelry as did we in our nineteenth-century one, where we found welcome letters awaiting us from home that reached us by the grace of the modern iron horse! Speed is a blessing after all, though it is the parent of much ugliness!

The Fenland capital—Mother and daughter towns—“Boston stump”—One church built over another—The company at our inn—A desultory ramble—An ancient prison—The Pilgrim Fathers—The banks of the Witham—Hussey Tower—An English Arcadia—Kyme Castle—Benington—A country of many churches—Wrangle—In search of a ghost—A remote village—Gargoyles—The grotesque in art.

Boston, that proudly calls itself “the capital of Fenland,” struck us as a quaint old town, prosperous and busy, but not restless, with somewhat of a Dutch look about it, yet, notwithstanding, intensely English. A dreamy place in spite of its prosperity, dreamy but not dull; quaint perhaps rather than picturesque—a delightful, unspoilt old-world town, with an indescribable flavour of the long-ago about it, a spot where the poetry of a past civilisation lingers yet; a commercial town that is not ugly!

St. Botolph’s town, as our American cousins love to call it, is one of the shrines of the “Old Country,” competing for first place with Stratford-on-Avon in the heart of the New England pilgrim, for is not storied Boston the mother of its modern namesake across the wide Atlantic? However, we know that “a prophet hath no honour in his own country,” so whilst numberless American travellers haveexpressed their delight at this old Lincolnshire town, and Longfellow and other American poets have sung its praises in verse, the average Englishman appears to regard it hardly at all, and scarcely ever to visit it except under compulsion, and has even sung its dispraises in doggerel thus:—

Boston! Boston!Thou hast naught to boast onBut a grand sluice and a high steeple,A proud, conceited, ignorant people,And a coast where souls are lost on.

FROM TWO POINTS OF VIEW

But the charm of Boston, as indeed that of most places, depends upon sentiment and seeing, whether you look upon it with poetic or prosaic eyes. A famous English engineer once told me that he considered a modern express locomotive a most beautiful thing, and it was so in his eyes! “Unless a thing be strong it cannot be beautiful,” was his axiom. Weakness, or even the idea of weakness, was an abomination to him, so that the tumble-down cottage, with its uneven roof bent into graceful curves that an artist so delights in, was simple ugliness to him.

It was meet that here we should “take our ease” in an ancient hostelry, and that we should have our breakfast served in a pleasant low-ceilinged parlour, whose panelled walls had an aroma of other days and other ways about them, and suggested to our imaginative minds many a bit of unrecorded romance. With a romancer’s license we pictured that old-fashioned chamber peopled by past-time travellers who had come by coach or had posted by private chaise, and mingled with these was a bluff shipcaptain of the wild North Sea, all making merry over their glasses and jokes. The modern traveller in the modern hotel is alas! less sociable, and takes himself over seriously, and seldom even smiles. But happily there seems to be something about the old English inn that thaws the formality and taciturnity out of strangers. I think this must be due to the sense of homeliness and comfort that pervades it, with the delightful absence of all pretence and show.

From our inn we looked across the wide market square right on to the splendid and spacious church with its tall and graceful tower, a veritable triumph of the builder’s craft. It chanced to be market-day, and so the large square was filled with stalls, and was chiefly in the possession of picturesquely-clad country folk displaying their goods,—fruits, flowers, vegetables, eggs, poultry, and the like, whilst the townsfolk gathered round to make their purchases, the transactions being carried on with much mutual bargaining and leisurely chattering; and the hum of many blended voices came upwafted to us, not as a disturbing noise, but with a slumberous sound as restful as the summer droning of innumerable bees. The ear may be trained to listen with pleasure, as well as the eye to discern with delight, and it is the peace-suggesting country sounds, the clean, fresh air laden with sweet odours from flower, field, and tree, as well as the vision, that cause a rural ramble to be so rewarding and so enjoyable. There must surely be something in the moist air of the Fenland that makes musical melody of noises; for we noticedthat even the clanging of bells, the shrill whistling of locomotives, and the metallic rush of trains seemed strangely and pleasantly mellowed there; moreover, the traffic on the stony streets of Boston appeared subdued, and had none of that nerve-irritating din that rises so often from the London thoroughfares.

FROM AN INN WINDOW

It was a morning of sunshine and shower, an April day that had lost itself in September, and not readily shall I forget the shifting scene below with its moving mosaic of colour, nor the effect of the constantly changing light and shade on the stately church tower. Now it would be a deep purple-gray, dark almost to blackness as seen against a mass of white vapour, then suddenly it would be all lightened up to a pale orange tint against a sombre rain-cloud, its tracery and sculpturings outlined by the delicate shadows they cast, giving them a soft effect as of stone embroidery. A wonderfully effective and beautiful structure is this tower, and, in my opinion, after Salisbury’s soaring spire, the most beautiful and graceful in England, which is saying much in a land where so many fine examples of ecclesiastical architecture abound. This splendid church of St. Botolph arose out of the piety and prosperity of a past generation. History has it that it was built over a small Norman church that formerly stood on the site, and that worship went on in the earlier structure during the time of building, and not until the new edifice was completed was the ancient one removed—a curious, and I should imagine a unique fact, that may account for the great height and size of the nave.

It being market-day, we sought the bar of our hotel for a while, in order to study any odd characters we might perchance find gathered there, and we discovered a curious mixture of agricultural and town folk, with a sprinkling of seafaring men. The talk was as varied as the company. During the general hum of conversation we could not help noticing how many expressions were used manifestly of nautical origin, though they were employed apparently wholly by landsmen in concerns having no connection with the sea or shipping. We jotted down some of these as follows, just as they came to us:—“He’s been on the rocks so lately”; “he’s in smooth water now”; “it’s all plain sailing”; “it’s not all above board”; “he had to take in sail”; “now stow that away”; “it took the wind out of his sails”; “any port in a storm, you know”—and others of a like nature. A civil engineer with whom we got into conversation here, and who we gleaned was employed on the Fen drainage, expressed his unstinted admiration for the old Roman embankment that still follows the contour of a goodly portion of the Lincolnshire coast, and was designed and constructed as a bulwark against the encroachments of the sea, a purpose it has admirably served. This embankment, he told us, was in the main as strong and serviceable, in spite of ages of neglect, as when first raised all those long and eventful centuries ago; and furthermore, he stated as his honest opinion that, in spite of all our boasted advantages and progress, we could not to-day construct such enduring work.

Wandering in a desultory fashion about the

THE MAKING OF HISTORY

rambling old town, we came across a quaint old half-timber building known as Shodfriars Hall, that, with its gable-ends facing the street and projecting upper stories, showed how picturesquely our ancestors built. How pleasantly such an arrangement of gables breaks the skyline and gives it an interest that is so sadly wanting in our modern towns! Then we chanced upon the old town hall with its ancient and historic prisons; these consist of iron cages ranged along one side of the gloomy interior, cages somewhat resembling those that the lions and tigers are accommodated with at the zoological gardens, but minus the light, sunshine, and fresh air that the latter possess. Here in these small cages, within the dark and dreary hall, some of the Pilgrim Fathers were confined, and most uncomfortable they must have been; but they were men with stout hearts and dauntless spirits—men who made history in spite of circumstance! The sailing of the little shipMayflowerfrom Boston, in 1620, with the Pilgrim Fathers on board was at the time a seemingly trivial event, yet it has left its mark in the annals of the world; and in new America of to-day to trace your descent to one of that little and humble band is to be more than lord, or duke, or king! Some there are who have made light of the episode of the sailing of those few brave men for an unknown world across the wide and stormy ocean solely because they would be free:—

Thou who makest the tale thy mirth,Consider that strip of Christian earthOn the desolate shore of a sailless seaFull of terror and mystery,Half-redeemed from the evil holdOf the wood so dreary, and dark, and old,Which drank with its lips of leaves the dewWhen Time was young and the world was new,And wove its shadows with sun and moon,Ere the stones of Cheops were square and hewn—Think of the sea’s dread monotone,Of the mournful wail from the pinewood blown,Of the strange, vast splendours that lit the North,Of the troubled throes of the quaking earth,And the dismal tales the Indians told.

Seated safely and comfortably in a cosy arm-chair, how easy it is to sneer!

Then wandering on we espied a charming specimen of old-world building in the shape of an ancient grammar school, beautified with the bloom of centuries, which was, we learnt by a Latin inscription thereon, built in the year 1567. This interesting and picturesque structure is approached from the road by a courtyard, the entrance to which is through a fine old wrought-iron gateway. Verily Boston is a town of memories; its buildings are histories, and oftentimes pictures!

Not far away, on the opposite side of the road, stands a comfortable-looking red-brick building of two stories in the so-called Queen Anne style. It is an unpretentious but home-like structure, noteworthy as being the birthplace of Jean Ingelow, the popular Lincolnshire poetess and novelist. Then to our right the houses ceased, and the slow-gliding and, let it be honestly confessed, muddy river Witham took their place. Here and there the stream was crossed by ferry-boats, to which you descend by

A BIT OF BOSTON.

RIVERSIDE BOSTON

wooden steps, and in which you are paddled over in that primitive but picturesque old-fashioned manner at the cost of a penny. Here also, by some timber landing-stages, were anchored sundry sea-beaten fishing smacks that, with their red-tanned sails and sun-browned sailors on board mending their nets, made a very effective picture, so effective that we needs must spend a good hour sketching and photographing them (an engraving of one of our sketches will be found herewith). Along the banks of this river the artist may find ample material—“good stuff,” in painter’s slang—for brush or pencil, and the amateur photographer a most profitable hunting-ground. Even the old warehouses on the opposite side of the river are paintable, being pleasing in outline and good in colour—a fact proving that commercial structures need not of necessity be ugly, though alas! they mostly are. Then rambling on in a delightfully aimless fashion, at the same time keeping our eyes well open for the picturesque, we chanced, in a field a little beyond the outskirts of the town, upon an old ruined red-brick tower, standing there alone in crumbling and pathetic solitude. We learnt that this was called Hussey Tower, and that it was erected by Lord Hussey about 1500, who was beheaded in the reign of Henry VIII. for being concerned in the Lincolnshire rebellion. So one drives about country and learns or re-learns history as the case may be.

We bade a reluctant good-bye to old-world and storied Boston one bright, breezy morning, and soon found ourselves once again in the open country, withall Nature around us sunny and smiling. Boston was interesting, but the country was beautiful. The landscape had a delightfully fresh look after the frequent showers of the previous day; the moisture had brought out the colour and scent of everything. The air, wind-swept and rain-washed, was clear, and cool, and sweet, and simply to breathe it was a pleasure. As we journeyed on we rejoiced in the genial sunshine and the balmy breezes that tempered its warmth and gently rustled the leaves of the trees by the way, making a soft, subdued musical melody for us, not unlike the sound of a lazy summer sea toying with some sandy shore—breezes that, as they passed by, caused rhythmic waves to follow one another over the long grasses in the fields, and set the sails of the windmills near at hand and far away a-whirling round and round at a merry pace.

Everywhere we glanced was movement, in things inanimate as well as living; the birds, too, were in a lively mood, and much in welcome evidence (what would the country be without birds? those cheery companions of the lonely wanderer!). Even the fat rooks gave vent to their feelings of satisfaction by contented if clamorous cawing as they sailed by us in merry company overhead, for, be it noted, rooks can caw contentedly and discontentedly, and the two caws are very different. Rooks are knowing birds too, and they appear to possess a considerable amount of what we term instinct. We all know the old saying that rats desert an unseaworthy ship. Whether this be true or not I cannot tell, but I believe that rooks desert an unsafe tree. I lived

THE WAYS OF ROOKS

near a rookery once, and studied their ways and character. There were several nests in one big elm tree, a sturdy-looking tree, and apparently a favourite with the rooks. One year, for a purpose I could not divine, all the nests in this tree were deserted, and fresh ones built in another elm near by. Within a few months after its desertion by the rooks the former tree was blown down in an exceptionally heavy gale, though, till the gale came, it had shown no signs of weakness. Other big trees in the same wood were laid low at the same time, but not one of those that the rooks inhabited was damaged even in branch.

The weather was simply perfect, the sky overhead was as blue as a June sea; it was a joy to be in the country on such a day, when earth seemed a veritable Paradise, and pain and death a bad dream. There is a virtue at times in the art of forgetting! for, when the world looks so fair, one desires to be immortal! “Around God’s throne,” writes Olive Schreiner, “there may be choirs and companies of angels, cherubim and seraphim rising tier above tier, but not for one of them all does the soul cry aloud. Only, perhaps, for a little human woman full of sin that it once loved.” So there may be golden cities in Paradise paved with priceless gems, yet not for these does my soul hunger, but for the restful green fields and the pastoral peacefulness of our English Arcadia, with its musical melody of wandering streams and sense of untold repose. Did not Mr. Andrew Carnegie, the American millionaire, who once drove through the heart of England fromBrighton to Inverness, on arriving at the latter town, send a telegram to a friend, saying, “We arrived at the end ofParadisethis evening”? There is something very lovable about the English landscape; where grander scenes excite your admiration, it wins your affections, and will not let them go again, it nestles so near your heart. I have beheld the finest scenery the earth has to show, oftentimes with almost awe-struck admiration, but only the peace-bestowing English scenery have I ever felt to love!

About two miles on our way, and a little to the right of our road, we observed Kyme’s ancient tower uprising amidst surrounding foliage; this picturesque relic of past days gave a special interest and character to the prospect with its flavour of old-world romance. The solitary tower is all that remains of the once stately abode of the Kymes; it is now incorporated with a homely farmstead, and tells its own story of fallen fortunes.

Driving on we soon reached a wide dyke, which we crossed on an ancient bridge; here a lonely wayside inn proclaimed itself on its sign with the comprehensive title of “The Angler’s, Cyclist’s, and Traveller’s Rest.” The dyke struck us, even on that bright sunshiny day, as being a dark and dreary stretch of water of a cheerless leaden hue, embanked and treeless. But the sullen waters of the dyke only acted as a foil to enhance the bright beauty of the sun-suffused landscape all around, as the shadow gives value to the light, and too much beauty is apt to cloy. A picture may be too pretty. Said an art

THE USE OF UGLINESS!

critic once to Turner, “That’s a fine painting of yours, but why have you got that ugly bit of building in the corner?” “Oh!” replied Turner, “that’s to give value to the rest of the composition by way of contrast; I made it ugly on purpose!” and Turner was right. Who enjoys the country so much as the dweller in the unbeautiful smoke-stained streets of our huge modern towns?

Shortly after this we reached the little village of Benington, which boasted a large church having a fine old tower, a tower, however, that ended abruptly without any architectural finish; presumably the ambition of the early builders was greater than their means. Nowadays we have improved upon the old ways—we build and complete without the means, then we set to work to beg for the money, though the begging is not always successful, as the following characteristic letter of Mr. Ruskin shows, which he wrote in reply to a circular asking him to subscribe to help to pay off some of the debt on a certain iron church:—

Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire,19th May 1886.Sir—I am scornfully amused at your appeal to me, of all people in the world the precisely least likely to give you a farthing! My first word to all men and boys who care to hear me is—Don’t get into debt. Starve and go to heaven, but don’t borrow.... Don’t buy things you can’t pay for! And of all manner of debtors, pious people building churches they can’t pay for are the most detestable nonsense to me. Can’t you preach and pray behind the hedges, or in a sandpit, or in a coalhole first? And of all manner of churches thus idiotically built, iron churches are the damnablest to me.... Ever, nevertheless, and in all this saying, your faithful servant,John Ruskin.

Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire,19th May 1886.

Sir—I am scornfully amused at your appeal to me, of all people in the world the precisely least likely to give you a farthing! My first word to all men and boys who care to hear me is—Don’t get into debt. Starve and go to heaven, but don’t borrow.... Don’t buy things you can’t pay for! And of all manner of debtors, pious people building churches they can’t pay for are the most detestable nonsense to me. Can’t you preach and pray behind the hedges, or in a sandpit, or in a coalhole first? And of all manner of churches thus idiotically built, iron churches are the damnablest to me.... Ever, nevertheless, and in all this saying, your faithful servant,

John Ruskin.

Dear me, and when I think of it, how often am I not asked to subscribe to help to pay off debts on churches, mostly, if not all, built by contract, and adorned with bright brass fittings from Birmingham!

The ancient church at Benington, time-worn and gray, looked interesting, and the interior would probably have repaid inspection, but the day was so gloriously fine that our love of the open air and cheerful sunshine quite overpowered our antiquarian tastes that sunny morning. Moreover, we did not set out to see everything on our way unless inclined so to do; ours was purely a pleasure tour, the mood of the moment was alone our guide. By the side of the churchyard we noticed a square space enclosed by a wall; we imagined that this must have been an old cattle-pound, but when we passed by it was full of all kinds of rubbish, as though it were the village dustbin.

Our road now wound through a very pleasant country, past busy windmills, sleepy farmsteads, and pretty cottages, till we came to the hamlet of Leake, where we observed another very fine church, of a size apparently out of all proportion to the needs of the parish. It may often be noted in Lincolnshire and the eastern counties generally how fine many of the remote country churches are, and how often, alas! such fine architectural monuments are in bad repair for want of sufficient funds to properly maintain them, the surrounding population being purely agricultural and poor; it is difficult to imagine that the population could ever have been much greater, though it may have been wealthier. The questionarises, How came these grand and large churches to be built, without any probability of their having a congregation at all commensurate with their size?

A MATTER OF SENTIMENT

The country became now more open, and our road wound in and out of the level meadows like the letter S, or rather like a succession of such letters, thereby almost doubling the distance from point to point taken in a straight line. We could only presume that the modern road followed the uncertain route of the original bridle-path, which doubtless wound in and out in this provokingly tortuous manner to avoid bad ground and marshy spots. Were Lincolnshire a county in one of the United States, I “guess” that this road would long ago have been made unpicturesquely straight and convenient,—the practical American considers it a wicked waste of energy to go two miles in place of one. His idea of road-making resembles that of the ancient Romans in so far as the idea of both is to take the nearest line between two places. “That’s the best road,” exclaimed a prominent Yankee engineer, “that goes the most direct between two places; beauty is a matter of seeing and sentiment, and to me a straight line is a beautiful thing, because it best fulfils its purpose.” So speaks the engineer. Both Nature and the artist, as a rule, abhor straight lines.

The next village on our road was Wrangle; since we had left Boston we had hardly been out of sight of a village or a church, but though the villages were numerous they were small. Here at Wrangle again we found a tiny collection of houses,out of which rose another fine and beautiful church, the stones of which had taken upon themselves a lovely soft gray with age. I think there is no country in the world where Time tones and tints the stones of buildings so pleasantly as it does in England. The people in this part of Lincolnshire should be good, if an ample supply of fine churches makes for goodness. Still one can never be certain of anything in this uncertain world, for does not the poet declare that—

Wherever God erects a house of prayer,The Devil always builds a chapel there:And ’twill be found upon examination,The latter has the largest congregation.

We had been informed by a Lincolnshire antiquary, whom by chance we had become acquainted with during the journey, that the rectory at Wrangle was haunted by a ghost in the shape of a green lady, and that this ghost had upon one occasion left behind her a memento of one of her nocturnal visitations, in the shape of a peculiar ring—surely a singular, if not a very irregular thing, for a spirit to do. Moreover, the enthusiastic and good-natured antiquary most kindly gave us his card to be used as an introduction to the rector, who he said would gladly give us all particulars. The story interested us, and the opportunity that fortune had placed in our way of paying a visit to a haunted house was too attractive to be missed. So, bearing this story in mind, and finding ourselves in Wrangle, we forthwith drove straight up to the rectory, an old-fashioned

A DISAPPOINTMENT

building that had an ancient look, though perhaps not exactly one’s ideal of a haunted house—still it would do. Having introduced ourselves to the rector, and having explained the purport of our visit, just when our expectations were raised to the utmost pitch, we received a dire disappointment, for the rector, with a smile, informed us that he had only recently come there and, so far, he had never seen the ghost, or been troubled by it in any way. He had a dim sort of a recollection that he had heard something about it from some one, and he would be glad to learn further particulars. He did not even know which the haunted room was, or whether it was the whole house that was supposed to be haunted and not a particular chamber. “I am afraid,” he said, “your introduction must have been intended for my predecessor, who possibly was well posted up in the matter.” Certainly our introduction was of a very informal nature, our antiquarian friend had simply written on the back of his card, “Call on the rector of Wrangle, make use of my card, and he will tell you all about the ghost.” Truly we felt just a trifle disappointed. We had been on the trail of a ghost so often, yet had never been able to run one to earth, and again it had eluded us! Possibly the rector divined our feelings, for he cheerily exclaimed, “Well, I am sorry I cannot show you what you want, but I can show you a very interesting church.” Now we had not come to Wrangle to see a church, but a haunted house, and a material ring left by an immaterial spirit, and we felt somehow, if unreasonably, aggrieved at not finding these.

The church was truly interesting, though I fear we were hardly in the mood to properly appreciate it. The rector pointed out to us in the east window some old stained glass that had been reset in fragments there, which he declared to be the finest old stained glass in Lincolnshire; then he led us to the south porch, where he pointed out to us the quaint and beautiful external carvings round the Early English south doorway, which we observed was curiously trefoiled and decorated with dog-tooth mouldings. It is a specimen of carving that any church might be proud to possess; here, little seen and possibly never admired except by chance comers like ourselves, it is wasting its beauty in the wilderness, for the doorway is simply the entrance to the graveyard and appears not to be much, if at all used, the congregation entering the church by the north porch. On the north wall we observed a fine, not to say ostentatious, altar-tomb to Sir John Read and his lady dated 1626. This takes up, profitably or unprofitably, a good deal of room. Below on a verse we read the following tribute to the underlying dead:—

Whom love did linke and nought but death did dessever,Well may they be conioind and ly together,Like turtle doves they livd Chaste pure in mind,Fewe, O, too few such couples we shall find.

You have to get used to the archaic spelling of some of these old tombstone inscriptions, but this one is comparatively clear. Our ancestors evidently did not set much score on spelling, for on a statelyseventeenth-century monument I have actually noticed the same word spelt in three different ways. Above Sir John Read’s fine altar-tomb is suspended a helmet with a crest coloured proper, only the helmet is not a genuine one, being of plaster! and the plaster has got cracked, and therefore the sham is revealed to the least observant; so the whole thing looks ridiculous! Possibly, however, this was merely intended for a temporary funeral helmet, and would have been removed in due course but had been forgotten.

CURIOUS GARGOYLES

In the pavement we noticed a slab containing an interesting brass dated 1503, to “Iohn Reed marchant of ye stapell of Calys, and Margaret his wyfe.” Their eight sons and five daughters are also shown upon it. Round this slab run portions of an inscription in old English. It is unfortunate that this is incomplete, for it appears to be quaint.

On leaving the church we observed with pleasure that the ancient and curious gargoyles that project from its roof still serve the purpose for which they were originally constructed, and have not been improved away, or suffered the common indignity of being converted into rain-water heads. Who invented the gargoyle, I wonder? A monk, I’ll wager, if I have read past ecclesiastical architecture aright. And all lovers of the quaintly decorative are under great obligations to the unknown monk, for gargoyles offered an irresistible opportunity for the medieval craftsman to outwardly express his inmost fancies and the artistic spirit that consumed his soul, and must somehow be visibly revealed. He wasjocular at times, even to the verge of profanity. Possibly because gargoyles were outside the sacred edifice, he felt more at liberty to do as he would, so he created wonderful monsters, grinning good-natured-looking demons in place of saints; demons that seemed verily to exist and breathe and struggle in stone; his subtle art contrived to make even the hideous delightful and to be desired. So great was his genius, so cunning his chisel that when I look upon his handiwork, oftentimes I gaze with astonished admiration at his rare skill and inventive faculties, and I sadly wonder whether we shall ever look upon his like again. His art was the outcome of love. Our modern art seems of unhappy necessity imbued with the commercial spirit of the age. Men now paint and sculpture to live, the medieval art craftsman lived to work; the one labours to live, the other loved to labour. The highest art, the worthiest work, cannot be produced for gold, it comes alone from love, love that is unembarrassed with the thought of having to provide the necessaries of life. Where anxiety steps in, art suffers, then withers—and dies! Some years ago I was showing a now popular artist an old picture by Francesco Francia on panel that I possess, and asked him how it was, apart from the almost painful truthfulness of the drawing, that the colours had remained so fresh and pure in tint, after all the years it had existed, whilst so many modern pictures lose so much of their first brilliancy in comparatively so short a time. He replied, after examining the picture, that it had been painted, then smoothed down, and re-painted manytimes, each after an interval to allow the pigments to dry hard, and that it had taken years in place of months to complete. “Now were I to paint like that I should simply starve, and possibly be called a fool for my pains—and man must live, you know, to say nothing of rent, rates, and taxes. When I began life I was young and enthusiastic, and, as you know, painted in a garret for love and possible fame which came too tardily” (I have a painting the artist did in those happy early days, pronounced by competent critics to be worthy of a great master); “but love did not butter my bread nor provide me with a decent home, so at last I was compelled to paint for popularity and profit. Now I possess a fine studio and fashionable patrons, whose portraits I paint without pleasure but I live at ease—yet sometimes I sigh for those old times when things were otherwise.”

AN ARTIST’S TALE

Wind-blown trees—Marshlands—September weather—Wainfleet—An ancient school—The scent of the sea—The rehabilitation of the old-fashioned ghost—A Lincolnshire mystery—A vain search—Too much alike—Delightfully indefinite—Halton Holgate—In quest of a haunted house.

LeavingWrangle, the country to our right became still more open; for the rest of our way we followed the changeful line of the sea-coast at a distance of about a mile or more inland. The wind, coming unrestrained from the seaward over the flat marsh-like meadow lands, bore to us the unmistakable flavour of the “briny,” its bracing and refreshing salt breath, cool and tonic-laden, was very grateful to our lungs after the soft, soothing country airs that we had been so long accustomed to. The trees here, what few trees there existed that is, were stunted, tortured, and wind-blown to one side; but strangely enough, not as is usually the case, bent inward from the sea but towards it, plainly proving that the strong gales and prevailing winds in this quarter are from the land side, thus reversing the general order of things on our coasts.

Another notable feature of our road—in marked contrast with the early portion of our stage out from Boston—was the fact that for the next nine miles or

A LONELY COUNTRY

so on to our night’s destination at Wainfleet we passed no villages and saw no churches. It was a lonely stretch of road; for company we had, besides the stunted trees, only the wide earth and open sky; but such loneliness has its charms to the vigorous mind, it was all so suggestive of space and freedom, begetful of broad thinking and expanded views. To look upon Nature thus is to make one realise the littleness of the minor worries of life. The mind is too apt to get cramped at times by cramped surroundings, the vision impresses the brain more than most people are aware. The wild, far-reaching marshlands to our right had a peculiarly plaintive look. Across them the mighty gleams of golden sunlight swept in utter silence, succeeded by vast purple-gray shadows blown out into the eternity of blue beyond: movement of mighty masses but no sound, yet one is so accustomed in this world to associate movement with sound that the ear waits for the latter as something that should follow though it comes not. The prospect was to a certain extent desolate, yet not dreary; the golden green of the long autumn grasses tossing in the wind, the many bright-hued marsh-flowers made the wild waste look almost gay, so splashed with colour was it over all! The vast level landscape stretching away and away to the vague far-off horizon that seemed to fade there into a mystic nothingness—neither earth, nor sea, nor sky—excited within us a sentiment of vastness that words are inadequate to convey, a sentiment very real yet impossible wholly to analyse. One cannot describe the indescribable, and of such moods of the mind onefeels the truth of the poet’s dictum that “What’s worth the saying can’t be said.”

Nature here wore an unfamiliar aspect to us; the wide marshland was beautiful, but beautiful with a strange and novel beauty. Now and then were infrequent sign-posts, old and leaning, each with one solitary arm pointing eastward, laconically inscribed “To the Sea,” not to any house or hamlet be it noticed. They might as well have been inscribed, it seemed to us in our philosophy, “To the World’s end!” Here the black sleek rooks and restless white-winged gulls appeared to possess a common meeting ground; the rooks for a wonder were quiet, being silently busy, presumably intent after worms; not so the gulls, for ever and again some of them would rise and whirl round and round, restlessly uttering peevish cries the while. Neither the cry of gull nor caw of rook are musical; in truth, they are grating and harsh, yet they are suggestive of the open air, and are, therefore, pleasing to the ear of the town-dweller, and lull him to rest in spite of their discordance with a sense of deep refreshment.

Shakespeare sings of “the uncertain glory of an April day.” He might, even with greater truth, have written September in place of April; for in the former month the weather is just as changeful, and the skies are finer with more vigorous cloud-scapes; then, too, the fields and foliage “have put their glory on,” and at times under a sudden sun-burst, especially in the clear air that comes after rain, the many-tinted woods become a miracle of colour such that the painter with the richest palette cannot realise. Wewere reminded of “the uncertain glory of aSeptemberday” by a sudden, wholly unexpected, and unwelcome change that had taken place in the weather. In front of us were gradually gathering great banks of sombre clouds that might mean rain; the wind as suddenly had lost its gentleness and blew wild and fitfully, but still the sun was shining brightly all around, converting the winding water-ways and reed-encircled pools of the marshlands into glowing gold. The strong effect of the sunlight on the landscape contrasting with the low-toned gray sky ahead was most striking. But the outlook suggested to us that it would be wiser to hasten on than to loiter about admiring the prospect, for it was a shelterless region. So we sped along to the merry music of the jingling harness, and the measured clatter of our horses’ hoofs on the hard roadway, rounding the many corners with a warning note from the horn, and a pleasant swing of the dog-cart that showed the pace we were going.

WILD WEATHER

A low, gray sky, a freshing wind,A cold scent of the misty seaBefore, the barren dunes; behind,The level meadows far and free.

The approach to Wainfleet was very pretty; just before the town a welcome wood came into sight, then a stream of clear running water crossed by a foot-bridge, next a tall windmill which we passed close by, so close that we could hear the swish, swish, swish of its great sails as they went hurtling round and round in mighty sweeps; at that moment the rain came down, and, though we reached our inn directly afterwards we managed to get pretty wet outwardly during the few minutes’ interval. However, the good-hearted landlady greeted her dripping guests with a ready smile, and ushered us into a tiny, cosy sitting-room, wherein she soon had a wood fire blazing a cheery and ruddy welcome, “just to warm us up a bit.” Thoughtful and kindly landlady, may you prosper and live long to welcome hosts of other travellers! Then “to keep out the cold” (we had no fear of cold, but no matter), a hot cup of tea withcream, rich country cream and buttered toast, made its unexpected but not unwelcome appearance, so though our hostel was small and primitive in keeping with the town, we felt that we might have fared much worse in far more pretentious quarters. Looking round our chamber we observed that the door opened with a latch instead of a handle, a trifle that somehow pleased us, one so seldom comes upon that kind of fastening nowadays, even in remote country places.

Soon the storm cleared away, and the sun shone forth quite cheerily again, and though now low in the yellowing western sky, still it shone brilliantly enough to entice us out of doors. We discovered Wainfleet to be a sleepy little market-town, and a decayed seaport—a town with some quaint buildings of past days, not exactly a picturesque place but certainly an interesting one. Wainfleet is a spot where the hand of Time seems not only to be stayed but put back long years; it should be dear to the heart of an antiquary, for it looks so genuinely ancient, so far removed from the modern world andall its rush, bustle, and advantages! It is a spot that might be called intolerably dull, or intensely restful, according to the mind and mood of man. We deemed it the latter, but then we only stopped there a few waking hours (one cannot count the time one sleeps); had we remained longer perhaps we might have thought differently!

AN ANCIENT COLLEGE

First we made our way to the market square, which, by the way, we had all to ourselves, except for a sleeping dog. In the centre of the square stands the tall and weather-stained shaft of an ancient cross, elevated on a basement of four steps. The top of the shaft is now surmounted by a stone ball in place of the cross of old. This is capped by a well-designed weather-vane; so this ancient structure, raised by religious enthusiasm, and partially destroyed by religious reforming—deforming, some people will have it—zeal, now serves a useful and picturesque purpose, and could hardly be objected to by the sternest Puritan.

Then, wandering about, we espied a fine old brick building of two stories, the front being flanked by octagonal towers, a building not unlike Eton College Chapel on a smaller scale. This proved to be Magdalen School, founded in the fifteenth century by the famous William de Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester, 1459, who was born in the town and who also founded Magdalen College, Oxford, which little history we picked up accidentally that evening in an odd copy of a Lincolnshire Directory we discovered at our hotel. We did not hunt it up of set purpose. I mention this, not wishing to be considered didactic.The building, after all the years bygone, still serves its ancient purpose, more fortunate than many other foundations in this respect whose funds have been diverted to different aims from those originally intended, sometimes perhaps of necessity, but other times, and not seldom, I fear, without such compulsory or sufficient cause. We were told that the top story of this very interesting bit of old-time architecture was the school, and the ground floor the master’s house, a curious arrangement. “Just you ring the bell at the door,” exclaimed our informant, “and I’m sure the master will show you over; it’s a funny old place within.” But we did not like to intrude; moreover, it was getting late and the gloaming was gathering around.

Resuming our wanderings we found ourselves eventually by the side of the narrow river Steeping, up which the small ships of yore used to make their way to the then flourishing port of Wainfleet, or Waynflete as the ancient geographers quaintly had it. There we rested that warm September evening watching, in a dreamy mood, the tranquil gliding and gleaming of the peaceful river, listening to the soothing, liquid gurgling of its quiet flowing water. There was something very poetic about the spot that caused us to weave romances for ourselves, a change from reading them ready-made in novels! So we rested and romanced

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