CHAPTER III 



WELLS-NEXT-THE-SEA, WHERE WILD GEESE 

 CONGREGATE 



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 a dull grey, so like the hue of the old 



