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 have
