Over Fen and Wold

by James John Hissey

Our tour was planned one chilly winter’s evening: just a chance letter originated the idea of exploring a portion of Lincolnshire during the coming summer. Our project in embryo was to drive from London to that more or less untravelled land of fen and wold by the old North Road, and to return to our starting-point by another route, to be decided upon when we had finished our Lincolnshire wanderings. It was in this wise. The day had been wild and blustery, as drear a day indeed as an English December well could make. A bullying “Nor’-Easter” had been blowing savagely ever since the morning, by the evening it had increased to a veritable storm, the hail and sleet were hurled against the windows of our room, and the wind, as it came in fierce gusts, shook the casements as though it would blow them in if it could. My wife and self were chatting about former wanderings on wheels, trying fairly successfully to forget all about the inclement weather without, each comfortably ensconced in a real easychair within the ample ingle-nook of that cosy chamber known to the household as “the snuggery”—a happy combination of studio and library—the thick curtains were closely drawn across the mullioned windows to exclude any possible draughts, the great wood fire on the hearth (not one of your black coal fires in an iron grate arrangement) blazed forth right merrily, the oak logs crackled in a companionable way, throwing at the same time a ruddy glow into the room, and the bright flames roared up the wide chimney ever and again with an additional potency in response to extra vehement blasts without.

“What a capital time,” I exclaimed, “to look over some of the sketches we made during our last summer holiday; they will help us to recall the long sunny days, those jolly days we spent in the country, and bring back to mind many a pleasant spot and picturesque old home!” No sooner was the idea expressed than I sought out sundry well-filled sketch-books from the old oak corner cupboard devoted to our artistic belongings. True magicians were those sketch-books, with a power superior even to that

REMINISCENCES

of Prince Houssain’s carpet of Arabian Nights renown, for by their aid not only were we quickly transported to the distant shires, but we also turned back the hand of Time to the genial summer days, and, in spirit, were soon far away repeating our past rambles, afoot and awheel, along the bracken-clad hillsides, over the smooth-turfed Downs, and across the rugged, boulder-strewn moors, here purple with heather and there aglow with golden gorse; anon we were strolling alongside the grassy banks of a certain quiet gliding river beloved of anglers, and spanned, just at a point where an artist would have placed it, by a hoary bridge built by craftsmen dead and gone to dust long centuries ago. Then, bringing forcibly to mind the old beloved coaching days, came a weather-stained hostelry with its great sign-board still swinging as of yore on the top of a high post, and bearing the representation—rude but effective—of a ferocious-looking red lion that one well-remembered summer evening bade us two tired and dust-stained travellers a hearty heraldic welcome. Next we found ourselves wandering down a narrow valley made musical by a little stream tumbling and gambolling over its rocky bed (for the sketches revealed to the mind infinitely more than what the eye merely saw, recalling Nature’s sweet melodies, her songs without words, as well as her visible beauties; besides raising within one countless half-forgotten memories)—a stream that turned the great green droning wheel of an ancient water-mill, down to which on either hand gently sloped the wooded hills, and amidst the foliage, half drowned in greenery, we could discern at irregular intervals the red-tiled rooftrees of lowly cottage homes peeping picturesquely forth. Then we were transported to an old, time-grayed manor-house of many gables and great stacks of clustering chimneys, its ivy-grown walls and lichen-laden roof being backed by rook-haunted ancestral elms; the ancient home, with its quaint, old-fashioned garden and reed-grown moat encircling it, seemed, when we first came unexpectedly thereon, more like the fond creation of a painter or a poet than a happy reality.

“Don’t you remember,” said my wife, as we were looking at this last drawing, “what a delightful day we spent there, and how the owner, when he discovered us sketching, at once made friends with us and showed us all over the dear old place, and how he delighted in the old armour in the hall, and how he told us that his ancestors fought both at Crecy and Agincourt—how nice it must be to have valiant ancestors like that!—and don’t you remember that low-ceilinged, oak-panelled bed-chamber with the leaden-lattice window, the haunted room, and how it looked its part; and afterwards how the landlady of the village inn where we baited our horses would have it that the ghost of a former squire who was murdered by some one—or the ghost of somebody who was murdered by that squire, she was not quite sure which—stalks about that very chamber every night. And then there were the curiously-clipped yews on the terrace, and the old carved sun-dial at the end of the long walk, and——” But the last sentence was destined never to be finished, for at that moment a knock came at the door, followed by a servant bringing in a letter all moist and dripping, a trifling incident, that, however, sufficed to transport us back again from our dreamy wanderings amongst sunny summer scenes to that drear December night—our fireside travels came to an abrupt end!

“TRY LINCOLNSHIRE”

“What a night for any one to be out,” I muttered, as I took the proffered letter, glancing first at the handwriting, which was unfamiliar, then at the postmark, which bore the name of a remote Lincolnshire town, yet we knew no one in that whole wide county. Who could the sender be? we queried. He proved to be an unknown friend, who in a good-natured mood had written to suggest, in case we should be at a loss for a fresh country to explore during the coming summer, that we should try Lincolnshire; he further went on to remark, lest we should labour under the popular and mistaken impression (which we did) that it was a land more or less given over to “flats, fens and fogs,” that he had visitors from London staying with him with their bicycles, who complained loudly of the hills in his neighbourhood; furthermore, “just to whet our appetites,” as he put it, there followed a tempting list, “by way of sample,” of some of the good things scenic, antiquarian, and archæological, that awaited us, should we only come. Amongst the number—to enumerate only a few in chance order, and leaving out Lincoln and its cathedral—there were Crowland’s ruined abbey, set away in the heart of the Fens; numerous old churches, that by virtue of their remoteness had the rare good fortune to have escaped the restorer’s hands, and not a few of these, we were given to understand, contained curious brasses and interesting tombs of knightly warriors and unremembered worthies; Tattershall Castle, a glorious old pile, one of the finest structures of the kind in the kingdom; the historic town of Boston, with its famous fane and “stump” and Dutch-like waterways; Stamford, erst the rival of Oxford and Cambridge, with its Jacobean buildings, crumbling colleges, and quaint “Callises” or hospitals; Grantham, with its wonderful church spire and genuine medieval hostelry, dating back to the fifteenth century, that still offers entertainment to the latter-day pilgrim, and, moreover, makes him “comfortable exceedingly”; besides many an old coaching inn wherein to take our ease; not to mention the picturesque villages and sleepy market-towns, all innocent of the hand of the modern builder, nor the rambling manor-houses with their unwritten histories, the many moated granges with their unrecorded traditions, and perhaps not least, two really haunted houses, possessing well-established ghosts.

Then there was Tennyson’s birthplace at pretty Somersby, and the haunts of his early life round about, the wild wolds he loved so and sang of—the Highlands of Lincolnshire!—a dreamy land full of the unconscious poetry of civilisation, primitive and picturesque, yet not wholly unprogressive; a land where the fussy railway does not intrude, and where the rush and stress of this bustling century has made no visible impression; a land also where odd characters abound, and where the wise sayings of their forefathers, old folk-lore, legends, and strange superstitions linger yet; and last on the long list, and perhaps not least in interest, there was the wide Fenland, full of its own weird, but little understood beauties. Verily here was a tempting programme!

A TEMPTING PROGRAMME!

Pondering over all these good things, we found ourselves wondering how it was that we had never thought of Lincolnshire as fresh ground to explore before. Did we not then call to mind what a most enjoyable tour we had made through the little-esteemed Eastern Counties? though before starting on that expedition we had been warned by friends—who had never been there, by the way—that we should repent our resolve, as that portion of England was flat, tame, and intensely uninteresting, having nothing to show worth seeing, fit for farming and little else. Yet we remembered that we discovered the Langton Hills on our very first day out, and still retained a vivid impression of the glorious views therefrom, and all the rest of the journey was replete with pleasant surprises and scenic revelations. Truly we found the Land of the Broads to be flat, but so full of character and special beauty as to attract artists to paint it. “Therefore,” we exclaimed, “why should not Lincolnshire prove equally interesting and beautiful?” Perhaps even, like the once tourist-neglected Broads, the charms and picturesqueness of Lincolnshire may some day be discovered, be guidebook-lauded as a delightful holiday ground. Who knows? Besides, there was the drive thither and back along the old coachroads to be remembered; that of itself was sure to be rewarding.