Over Fen and Wold

by James John Hissey

INQUIRIES

It certainly seemed to us that the landlord’s theory and explanations rather added to the mystery than helped to clear it up in any way; his reasonings were hardly convincing. We noted one thing in the landlord’s arguments that appeared to us almost as improbable as the ghost story, namely, the way he so readily accounted for the existence of human bones under the floor by the removal of soil from the churchyard, the latter we afterwards discovered being about a mile away from the place; and even allowing such a thing to be permitted at the time of the building of the house—perhaps, by rough guess, some fifty years ago—such a proceeding was most unlikely, as soil could be had close at hand for the digging.

We felt that now we must wait till we got to Halton Holgate for further details. We had an introduction to the rector of the parish there, and we looked forward to hearing his view’s on the matter, for surely he of all people, we reasoned, would be in a position to help us to unravel the mystery. Matters were getting interesting; at last it seemed, after long years of search, that we should be able to run a real “haunted” house to earth; and we determined, if by any means we could arrange to do so, that we would spend a night therein. It would be a novel experience; indeed we felt quite mildly excited at the prospect. Failing this, it would be something if we could converse with a person who declared that she had seen an actual ghost, and who would describe to us what it was like, how it behaved itself, and so forth! We had come across plenty of people in the world, from time to time, who declared to us that they once knew somebody who said that they had seen a ghost, but we could never discover the actual party; for some cause or another he or she was never get-at-able, and I prefer my facts—or fiction—first hand. Stories, like wine, have a wonderful way of improving with age; indeed I think that most stories improve far more rapidly than wine. I once traced a curious three-year-old story back home to the place of its birth, and the original teller did not even recognise his offspring in its altered and improved garb! Tradition is like ivy; give it time and it will completely disguise the original structure.

A TALL WINDMILL

The weather being fine and having finished our interview with our landlord, we started off without further delay, anxious to have as much time as possible before us for our day’s explorations. The country still continued level, the road winding in and out thereof, as though determined to cover twice as much ground as needful in getting from place to place. Just beyond Wainfleet we passed, close to our way, the tallest windmill I think I have ever seen; it looked more like a lighthouse with sails attached than a proper windmill; it was presumably so built to obtain all the breezes possible, as in a flat country the foliage of the growing trees around is apt to deprive a mill of much of its motive power. In fact an Essex miller once told me that owing to the growth of the trees around his mill since it was first built, he could hardly ever work it in the summer time on account of the foliage robbing him of so much wind. Then as we drove on we caught a peep of low wooded hills ahead, showing an uneven outline, faintly blue, with touches of orange here and there where the sun’s rays rested on the golden autumn leafage, now lighting up one spot, now another. We were delighted to observe that our road led apparently in the direction of these hills, for they gave promise of pleasant wanderings.

Farther on we reached a pretty little village, with its church picturesquely crowning a knoll. Here we pulled up for a moment to ask the name of the place from a man at work by the roadside. “This be I-r-b-y,” he responded, spelling not pronouncing the name, somewhat to our surprise; so we asked him why he did so. “Well, sir, you see there be another village not far off called Orby, only it begins with a ‘O’ and ours begins with a ‘I,’ and the names do sound so alike when you speaks them, that we generally spells them to strangers to make sure. Often folk comes here who wants to go to Orby, and often folk who wants to come here gets directed to Orby. One of the names ought to be changed, it would save a lot of trouble and loss of temper.” Then we asked him how far it was to Halton Holgate, and he said he thought it was about three miles, but he was not quite sure, not being a good judge of distances; “it might be more or it might be less,” which was rather vague. Indeed we noticed generally in Lincolnshire how hard it was to obtain a precise reply to any query as to distance. Here is a sample of a few of the delightfully indefinite answers made to us from time to time when seeking information on this point. “Oh! not very far.” “Some goodish bit on yet.” “Just a little farther on.” “A longish way off.” “A few miles more.” To the last reply a further query as to how many miles only brought the inconclusive response, “Oh! not many.”

In due time we bade good-bye to the level country, for our road now led us up quite a respectable hill and through a rock cutting that was spanned at one point by a rustic bridge. It was a treat to see the great gray strong rocks after our long wandering in Fenland. The character of the

AN OLD-TIME FARMSTEAD.