eter 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.

And so the days race away there in the middle of the mighty plain. No
plans are ever interrupted, no one questions one's going and coming as
one will, no one troubles his head about one's occupations or pursuits.
Any help or advice that one needs is courteously and readily given,
and no favours asked or expected in return. One little incident gave
me considerable amusement. There is a private footpath of my ow