shadow over all the spreading landscape. "Well," exclaimed my wife, "and this is Lincolnshire; I don't wish for a pleasanter country to travel in!" "Nor I," was my response.
A DECAYED MARKET-TOWN The first place we came to was Wragby, some nine miles from Horncastle—nine miles of beauty, if uneventful ones. It was a restful, refreshing stage, without anything special to do or to inspect on the way. We had seen so much of late that we rejoiced for a change in a day-dreamy progress with nothing to disturb our quiet enjoyment of the greenful gladness of the smiling country-side. Wragby is a little decayed market-town, clean and wind-swept; a slumberous spot that seems simply to exist because it has existed. The only moving thing in it when we arrived, as far as we could see, were the great sails of one tall windmill that stood just where the houses ceased and the fields began, and even these sails revolved in a lazy, leisurely fashion, as though hurry were a thing unknown in the place. We did not catch a glimpse of the miller, perhaps because he was asleep whilst the wind worked for him! We did not see a soul in the streets or deserted market-square, but possibly it was the local dinner-hour. So still all things seemed; the clatter and rumbling of our dogcart sounded so loudly in the quiet street, that we felt as though we ought almost to apologise to the inhabitants for disturbing their ancient tranquillity. One can hardly realise what perfect quietude means till one has experienced it in some somnolent rural town at dinner-hour. Such places possess a stillness greater than that of the
