Over Fen and Wold

by James John Hissey

Then he asked us where we were going, and we told him. “Ah!” said he, “you’ll pass through Branston, one of the prettiest villages in England, and I say this without prejudice, being a Lincolnshire man.” Now, as Branston is a Lincolnshire village, we did not exactly see the sequence, but said nothing.

Presently, when we had reached the top of the hill and were about to remount the dog-cart, the stranger exclaimed, “If you see my wife on the way, she’s coming to meet me. Would you mind telling her I’m hurrying on as fast as I can with the good things for dinner?” We replied that we should be most happy to oblige him, but as we had not the pleasure of knowing his wife, it would be rather difficult for us to do as he wished. “Oh!” he exclaimed, “there will be no difficulty in the matter. You can’t mistake her, she’s over fifteen stone!” So, as we proceeded, we kept an outlook for any one answering that description, and in a mile

AN INNOCENT BLUNDER

or so surely enough we met a very stout party walking along. We at once pulled up and gave her the message. Not readily shall I forget the angry flush that came over that good woman’s face. “I daresay,” shouted she back, “you think it a grand thing to drive about and insult unprotected ladies. A pretty way of amusing yourselves, and I suppose you think yourself a gentleman—a gentleman, indeed? Well, you’re not one, so there! I haven’t got a husband, thank God!...” and so forth in superabundance. We hurriedly drove on to escape the torrent of abuse. Manifestly we had made a mistake, and had addressed the wrong party! We did not think it worth while to attempt an explanation, even could we have got a word in, as she probably would not have believed us, and we might have made matters worse. For the moment we wished we had not been so obliging to a stranger. Shortly after this incident we met another stout party on the way; she might have been fifteen stone, more or less, but with our recent experience we did not venture to address her. We might have made another mistake—with the consequences!

Branston we found to be all that it had been represented to us. A very pretty village indeed it was, composed chiefly of stone-built cottages, pleasantly weather-tinted, many having picturesque porches, and nearly all possessing little flower gardens in front, gay with colour and sweet of odour. The church, too, was aged and gray, and we noticed in the walls some “long-and-short” work showing rude but lasting Saxon masonry and proving that a church was there before the Conquest. A bit of history told in stone. The hoary fane suggested an interesting interior, but we found the doors to be carefully locked, and we felt in no humour to go a-clerk-hunting; the day was too temptingly fine to waste any of it in that tiresome sport. Just beyond the village we observed a walled-in park, the gateway piers of which were surmounted by two very grotesque figures.

Branston would have done credit to Devonshire, that county of picturesque villages; it was of the kind that ladies love to term “sweetly pretty.” Were Branston only in Devonshire, near some tourist centres that there abound, I venture to say it would be much painted, photographed, and written about in a laudatory manner, and possibly also have its praises sung of by poets; but being only in Lincolnshire, out of the traveller’s beat, its charms are reserved for the favoured few whom chance may bring that way.

Then driving on through a lovely, lonely country, with fine views to our left, over a well-wooded land that faded away into a mystery of low blue hills, we came in time to four cross-roads, where we found a lady all alone standing beside her tricycle looking hot, tired, and dusty. We saw no guide-post here, just where one would have been most acceptably useful, for we felt doubtful as to our way, our map not being so clear as we could wish—a provoking feature about maps in general, and the one we had in particular; so, doffing our cap most politely, we asked the lady if she would kindly direct us. “Now how can I possibly direct you,” replied she, “when I don’t know the way myself?” We apologised for troubling her, explaining that we had no idea that she was in the same predicament as ourselves, and to propitiate her we offered her the loan of our useless map! We thought the act looked polite, and that perhaps she could understand it better than we could. The offer was a strategic blunder. We realised this as soon as it was made. “If you’ve got a map,” exclaimed she, “why don’t you consult it?” Under the circumstances our retort was not very clear. So we wisely said nothing, but quietly consulted between ourselves which road we should take at a venture. “I think straight ahead looks the most travelled and direct,” I said. “The one to the left looks much the prettiest,” remarked my wife; “let us take it, we are in no hurry to get anywhere, and we shall eventually arrive somewhere—we always do. Put the stupid map away, and let us drive along the pretty road and chance where it leads.” So the picturesque prevailed. Perhaps I may here incidentally state that when we set out from Lincoln, Woodhall Spa was our proposed destination for the night.

A LOST HUSBAND!

As we were leaving the spot the cyclist manifestly relented towards us, and exclaimed, perhaps as a sort of explanation of her brusqueness, and perhaps in hope that we might be of service to her after all, “I’m out on a tour with my husband and have lost him! He rode ahead of me to find the way, and that was a good hour ago, and I’ve been waiting here for him ever since. I’m tired and hungry—and he’s got the lunch with him! If you meet a man on a tricycle with a gray tweed suit on, that’s my husband; would you mind telling him I’m here, and ask him to hurry up?” We felt a good deal amused at this request; first we had been asked only that morning by a husband to give a message to his wife, who was unknown to us, and got into rare trouble over the matter; now we were asked by a wife to give a message to her husband, who was equally unknown to us,—should we get into further trouble if we did, we wondered? However, strangely enough, often on our tours have we performed the service of messenger; sometimes we have taken letters and delivered them on the way; once we conveyed the official correspondence from a lonely lighthouse; and once we were sent after a clergyman to take the duties of another clergyman at service. So we have been of use on the road!

Presently our road dipped down and led us to a picturesque village in a hollow, whose name I now forget, but whose pleasantness lingers in my memory. Driving on we noticed on the summit of the spreading uplands to our right, a tall pillar standing alone, a very prominent object in the view, though a long way off. We inquired of a man passing by what it was. “That? oh, that’s Dunston Pillar,” he replied; “you can see it for miles around in almost every direction. It used to be a lighthouse.” “What, a lighthouse so far inland?” we exclaimed. “Yes, that’s just what it was. It used to have a huge lantern on the top in the old days, which was always kept lighted at night to guide belated travellers over Lincoln Heath, a rare wild spot