sturgeon, who had somehow lost his way, and was trying to find a spawning-ground.  There is an ancient custom that all sturgeon, netted in English waters, belong by right to the sovereign; but no claim was advanced in this case.  The line between Ely and March crosses the level, further north, and the huge freight-trains go smoking and clanking over the fen all day.  I often walk along the grassy flood-bank for a mile or two, to the tiny decayed village of Mepal, with a little ancient church, where an old courtier lies, an Englishman, but with property near Lisbon, who was a gentleman-in-waiting to James II. in his French exile, retired invalided, and spent the rest of his days “between Portugal and Byall Fen”—­an odd pair of localities to be so conjoined!

And what of the life that it is possible to live in my sequestered grange?  I suppose there is not a quieter region in the whole of England.  There are but two or three squires and a few clergy in the Isle, but the villages are large and prosperous; the people eminently friendly, shrewd and independent, with homely names for the most part, but with a sprinkling both of Saxon appellations, like Cutlack, which is Guthlac a little changed, and Norman names, like Camps, inherited perhaps from some invalided soldier who made his home there after the great fight.  There is but little communication with the outer world; on market-days a few trains dawdle along the valley from Ely to St. Ives and back again.  They are fine, sturdy, prosperous village communities, that mind their own business, and take their pleasure in religion and in song, like their forefathers the fenmen, Girvii, who sang their three-part catches with rude harmony.

Part of the charm of the place is, I confess, its loneliness.  One may go for weeks together with hardly a caller; there are no social functions, no festivities, no gatherings.  One may once in a month have a chat with a neighbour, or take a cup of tea at a kindly parsonage.  But people tend to mind their own business, and live their own lives in their own circle; yet there is an air of tranquil neighbourliness all about.  The inhabitants of the region respect one’s taste in choosing so homely and serene a region for a dwelling-place, and they know that whatever motive one may have had for coming, it was not dictated by a feverish love of society.  I have never known a district—­and I have lived in many parts of England—­where one was so naturally and simply accepted as a part of the place.  One is greeted in all directions with a comfortable cordiality, and a natural sort of good-breeding; and thus the life comes at once to have a precise quality, a character of its own.  Every one is independent, and one is expected to be independent too.  There is no suspicion of a stranger; it is merely recognised that he is in search of a definite sort of life, and he is made frankly and unostentatiously at home.