So we bade farewell to Lincoln, only stopping to ask the hostler for directions to the next town on our way.  Generally such directions are something like this:  “Turn to the right around the next corner, pass two streets, then turn to the left, then turn to the right again and keep right along until you come to the town hall”—­clock tower, or something of the kind—­“and then straight away.”  After you inquire two or three more times and finally come to the landmark, you find three or four streets, any one of which seems quite as “straight away” as the others, and a consultation with a nearby policeman is necessary, after all, to make sure you are right.  When once well into the country, the milestones, together with the finger-boards at nearly every parting of the ways, can be depended on to keep you right.  These conveniences, however, are by no means evenly distributed and in some sections a careful study of the map and road-book is necessary to keep from going astray.

[Illustration:  Somersby rectory, birthplace of Tennyson.]

The twenty miles to Somersby went by without special incident.  This quaint little hamlet—­it can hardly be called a village—­is almost hidden among the hills, well off the main-traveled roads and railway.  We dashed through the narrow lanes, shaded in many places by great over-arching trees and the road finally led across the clear little brook made famous by Tennyson’s verse.  After crossing the bridge we were in Somersby—­if such an expression is allowable.  Nothing is there except the rectory, the church just across the way, the grange, and half a dozen thatched cottages.  A discouraging notice in front of the Tennyson house stated positively that the place would not be shown under any conditions except on a certain hour of a certain day of the week—­which was by no means the day nor the hour of our arrival.  A party of English teachers came toward us, having just met with a refusal, but one of them said that Americans might have an exception made in their favor.  Anyway, it was worth trying.

Our efforts proved successful and a neat, courteous young woman showed us over the rambling house.  It is quite large—­and had to be, in fact, to accommodate the rector’s family of no fewer than twelve children, of whom the poet was the fourth.  The oddest feature is the large dining room, which has an arched roof and narrow, stained-glass windows, and the ceiling is broken by several black-oak arches.  At the base of each of these is a queer little face carved in stone and the mantel is curiously carved in black oak—­all of this being the work of the elder Tennyson himself.  There is some dispute as to the poet’s birthroom.  Our fair guide showed us all the rooms and said we might take our choice.  We liked the one which opened on the old-fashioned garden at the rear of the house, for as is often the case in England, the garden side was more attractive than the front.  Just across the road stands the tiny church of which the Rev. Tennyson was rector for many years.  This was one of the very smallest that we visited and would hardly seat more than fifty people altogether.  It is several hundred years old, and in the churchyard is a tall, Norman cross, as old as the church itself.