and fraught with misty history. It was a scene for a pilgrim, pregnant with peacefulness, and as lovely as a dream. Yet how simple was the prospect-a gray and ruined abbey, a silent world of green suffused with faint sunshine that filtered through the thin clouds above! Below us and before us stretched the river gleaming for miles between its sloping banks, winding away towards the picturesque pile of ancient devotion in curving parallels that narrowed toward the distant horizon to a mere point; and this describes all that was before us! After the abbey's pathetic ruins, beautiful with the beauty of decay, what most struck us was the sense of solitude, silence, and space in our surroundings. On every side the level Fenland stretched broad as the sea, and to the eye appearing almost as wide and as free; and from all this vast lowland tract came no sound except the hardly to be distinguished mellow murmuring of the wind amongst the nearer sedges and trees. The river flowed on below us in sluggish contentment without even an audible gurgle; no birds were singing, and, as far as we could see, there were no birds to sing; and in the midst of this profound stillness our very voices seemed preternaturally loud. There are two such things as a cheerful silence and a depressing silence; the difference between these two is more to be felt than described of course all silence is relative, for such a thing as absolute silence is not to be found in this world; but the quietude of the Fens, like that of the mountain-top, simulates the latter very successfully. The thick atmosphere about us had A DISPUTED SPELLING 165 the effect of subduing sounds doubtless, whilst it held the light, as it were, in suspense, and magnified and mystified the distance. The profound quietude prevailing suggested to us that we were travelling through an enchanted land where all things slept -a land laid under some mighty magic spell. As we proceeded along our level winding way, with the river for silent company, the outline of the ruined abbey gradually increased in size, and presently we found ourselves in the remote out-of-the-world village of Crowland-or Croyland as some writers have it; but I understand that certain antiquaries who have studied the subject declare that the latter appellation is quite wrong, and as they may be right I accept their dictum and spell it Crowland with my map, though, authorities and map aside, I much prefer Croyland as the quainter title. The inhabitants appear to spell the name of their village indifferently both ways. One intelligent native, of whom we sought enlightenment, said he did not care "a turn of the weathercock" which way it was spelt, which was not very helpful; but we were grateful for the expression "a turn of the weathercock," as it was fresh to us. He further remarked, apropos of nothing in our conversation, "You might as well try to get feathers from a fish as make a living in Crowland; and the people are so stupid, as the saying goes, 'they'd drown a fish in water. Manifestly he was not in love with the place. He did not even think much of the old abbey: "It's very ruinous," was his expression thereof. Crowland is a thoroughly old-world village; I know no other that so well deserves the epithet: its gray-toned cottages, grouped round the decayed and time-rent fane, save the ruins from utter desolation. Crowland impressed us as a spot that exists simply because it has existed: like the abbey, it looks so old that one can hardly imagine it was ever new. It is A world-forgotten village, Like a soul that steps aside Into some quiet haven From the full rush of tide. A place where poets still may dream, Of centuries ago. Crowland village, apart from its ruined abbey, is quaint rather than beautiful; it appeals to the lover of the past perhaps more than to the lover of the picturesque. We found there a primitive and clean little inn where we stabled our horses and procured for ourselves a simple, but sufficient, repast that was served in a tiny parlour. Whilst waiting for our meal to be prepared, having no guide-book, we consulted our Paterson's Roads to see if it gave any particulars of the place, and this is what we discovered: "Crowland, a place of very remote antiquity, particularly interesting to the antiquary on account of the ruins of its once extensive and splendid abbey, and its singular triangular-shaped bridge, is now reduced to the size of a large village that possesses little more than the ruins of its former THE ISLE OF CROWLAND 167 splendour. The chief existing remains of the abbey are the skeleton of the nave of the conventual church, with parts of the south and north aisles; the latter of which is covered over, pewed, and fitted up as a parish church. The triangular bridge in the middle of the town may be looked upon as one of the greatest curiosities in Britain, if not in Europe; it is of stone, and consists of three pointed arches springing from as many abutments that unite their groins in the centre. . . . Crowland being so surrounded by fens is inaccessible, except from the north and east, in which directions the road is formed by artificial banks of earth, and from this singular situation it has been, not inaptly, compared to Venice." I have again quoted from this old and famous road-book, which was as familiar to our forefathers as "Bradshaw" is to us, because it shows the sort of combination of road-book and guide that the pre-railway traveller was provided with, all England and Wales being included in one thick volume. Paterson's accounts of famous spots and places of interest are not perhaps so learned or long as those of the modern hand-book, but they are possibly sufficient, and brevity is an advantage to the tourist who desires to arrive quickly at his information. In olden days it would seem that the spot whereon Crowland now stands was one of the many Fen islands, consisting of comparatively dry and firm soil that rose above the general level of the moist lowlands, or, to be more exact, a wilderness of shallow waters-a district described by Smiles as "an inland sea in winter, and a noxious swamp in summer"; but so slight is the rise of the land that to the superficial observer it scarcely seems to rise at all. Here on this "Isle of Crowland"-as it was formerly called in company with other similar islands, such as the better-known "Isle of Ely”— the old monks built their abbey, remote and fengirt from the outer world, only to be approached at first by boats, and, in long years after also, by a solitary raised causeway frequently under water and nearly always unsafe and untravellable in winter. The problem to me is how ever all the stone required for the building was secured. Presumably most of it was brought down the Welland from Stamford; but what a long and laborious task the carrying of it must have been. Still, the problem sinks into insignificance like that of Stonehenge, for all authorities on this mysterious monument of antiquity agree that the nearest spot to Salisbury Plain from which the igneous rocks that compose the inner circle could come, would be either Cornwall or North Wales! An effective word-picture of the early monastery is given in Kingsley's Hereward the Wake which I take the liberty to quote, though he describes the building as being chiefly of timber, but the first historic record declares that it was "firmly built of stone." Thus, then, Kingsley writes: "And they rowed away for Crowland and they glided on until they came to the sacred isle, the most holy sanctuary of St. Guthlac and his monks. . . . At last they came to Crowland minster, a vast range of high-peaked buildings founded on |