CHAPTER III 



WELLS-NEXT-THE-SEA, WHERE WILD GEESE 

 CONGREGATE 



A restful spot — The marsh and the pine wood — Wild geese on 

 the marsh — Their tameness there — Alarums and excursions 

 — Their intelligence — Bird-sanctuary at Holkham. 



THERE are few places in England where 

 you can get so much wildness and desolation 

 of sea and sand-hills, wood, green marsh, 

 and grey saltings as at Wells, in Norfolk, the small 

 old red-brick town, a mile and a quarter from the 

 beach, with a green embankment lying across the 

 intervening marsh connecting town and sea. Here 

 you can have it all in the space of a half-day's prowl 

 or saunter — I cannot say "walk," seeing that I am 

 as often standing or sitting still as in motion. The 

 little village-like town in its quietude and sense of 

 remoteness from the world is itself a restful place to 

 be in; going out you have on the land side the quiet 

 green Norfolk country of winding roads and lanes, 

 old farm-houses and small red villages which appear 

 almost deserted. As I passed through one the other 

 day, the thought was in my mind that in this village 

 not one inhabitant remained, when all at once I 

 caught sight of a very old man, shrunk and lean and 

 grey, standing in a cottage garden behind its grey 

 palings. His clothes, too, like his hair and face, were 



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