FROM THE HEART OF THE WOLDS. 207 



t 



Grimsby are set in motion. Dreary and monotonous as this 

 district would be thought by dwellers in more hilly counties, it 

 possesses a beauty of its own which is worth searching for. and 

 is generally beloved when found. Perhaps the quest is better 

 rewarded when its Egeria is discovered, in proportion as the 

 other nymphs of this wide, wind-swept expanse are coy and 

 retiring. The young corn, the far-reaching acres of grass, the 

 larks drowned in the blue overhead yet still warbling, the sense 

 of freedom and vastness which these solitudes engender, endear 

 them to their lover in Spring. Who could quarrel with Summer 

 and her wealth of flowers in these meadows, her fringe of 

 aquatic plants edging our beck, the water crowfoot, brooklimes, 

 meadow-sweet, and especially the great blue water forget-me- 

 nots, blue as the eyes of Freya or Wordsworth's Lucy, and for 

 the same reason, because they are retired as noontide dew or 

 violets by the mossy stone ? In autumn again, the transition 

 is pleasant, from the uplands tufted with yellow corn to these 

 dark green fields where the birds of winter are thus. early show- 

 ing themselves, the curlew with scimitar-like bill and wild cries 

 intensifying the district's melancholy, the white-tailed sandpiper, 

 flitting in terror up and down the beck, the grey Norway crows, 

 true successors of the Northmen, on the look-out for cruel 

 feastings on everything young and unprotected, the black- 

 backed gull beating up against the stiff breeze, and only too 

 glad to join these marauders in their forays. High overhead 

 and these vast skies are a peculiar attraction of East Lincoln- 

 shire a deep azure vault in summer spreads to a limitless 

 horizon, while the grey clouds of winter are tossed and con- 

 torted over it in graceful wreaths which would delight Mr. 

 Black or Professor Ruskin. He who is blessed with a sound 

 pair of lungs and a catholic sense of beauty in these wide flats 

 need not be pitied even in the teeth of such an east wind as 

 only here in England can be felt during March and April. 

 Traditions of their own linger round the lonely farmhouses, 



