stately pile than pages of printed description possibly could. It is a truly splendid specimen of medieval brick-work, and until I saw it I considered Layer Marney tower in Essex the finest example of brick building of the kind in England, Hurstmonceaux Castle in Sussex coming next; but now I have no hesitation whatever in giving the first place to Tattershall tower.
IN FENLAND AGAIN After finishing our sketch we once more resumed our pleasant pilgrimage, and soon found ourselves traversing a wide and wild Fenland district, over which the west wind blew fresh and strong. In a mile or so we crossed the river Witham, here running painfully straight between its embanked sides, more like a mighty dyke or canal than anything else, as though it were not to be trusted to flow as it would; but this is, more or less, the nature of nearly all the Fenland streams. Then we had a long stretch of level road, good for cycling, which faithfully followed for miles the side of a great "drain" (unhappy term), the road not being more than four feet above the water. So we came to Billinghay, a sleepy, remote, medieval-looking town, or large village, set well away from the busy world in the heart of the Fens; it gave us a feeling that it might be a hundred miles withdrawn from modern civilisation. A more dreamy—dreary, if you will—spot it would be hard to find in crowded England, and for this reason, though hardly to be termed picturesque, it fascinated us. It had such a quaint, old-world air, suggestive of untold rest—a peacefulness that is hardly of to-day.
