A MATTER OF SENTIMENT
At Norman Cross, a tiny hamlet with a suggestive
name, situated about a mile on our way out of
Stilton, there are the slight remains of the colony
of barracks that were erected in the last century,
wherein some thousands of French prisoners were
confined during the Napoleonic wars. From
Norman Cross we drove merrily along until we
came to the pretty village of Water Newton,
pleasantly situated by the side of the river Nen, or
Nene,—for I find it spelt both ways on my map.
Here the time-mellowed church, placed rather in
a hollow a meadow's length away from the road,
attracted our attention, though why it especially did
so I hardly know, for there was apparently nothing
particularly noteworthy about it, at least not more
so than any one of the other country fanes we had
passed unregarded by that day. Moreover, our
tastes for the moment did not incline to things
ecclesiastical. But it is a fact, that now and then,
without any definable cause, a certain spot, or place,
will excite one's interest and arouse within one a
strong desire to stop and explore it: such sentimental,
but very real, feelings defy all reasoning;
they exist but cannot be explained or reduced to an
argument.
So half-involuntarily we pulled up here. "We must see that old church," we exclaimed, though wherefore the compulsion we did not inquire of ourselves; but we went, in spite of the fact that it was getting late and that we had some miles more to accomplish before we reached Stamford, our night's destination. In the churchyard we noticed
