A Venerable Orchard 



sluggish rivers creeping to the sea, the 

 Humber with old Hull at its mouth, the *th?Tidor 

 broad bay of the Wash, overlooked by cltard ' 

 English Boston, the level pastures by the 

 swift-flowing Lindis, where the great tide 

 came in. The bells from the great towers 

 are ringing, is that the " Brides of En- 

 derby " we hear ? and so we wander in 

 a dream of the far past, till the boom of 

 the bells resolves itself suddenly into the 

 humming of bees, the venerable towers 

 vanish in the shaggy trunks around us, 

 and we are awake once more, under the 

 bending boughs of the old orchard, with 

 only a robin for a chorister. 



95 



