254 My Last Day in the Fen. 



lo-la-la-leup !" of the falconer cheered his well-trained falcon on to 

 the quarry. Many a gay cavalcade of knights and ladies gay, 

 whose bones have long since crumbled into dust, then rode forth 

 with falcon on wrist from the portals of many an ancient hall in the 

 neighbourhood for a day's heron-hawking in the fens. It was 

 merry days in old England then. Vast must have been the extent 

 of fen land when Ethelwold was king, and the monastery of Crow- 

 land (whose ruins still form a bold memento of the days that are 

 past), was founded. Many are the traditions of genii and kelpies 

 inhabiting the fens at that time j and the benighted traveller has 

 trembled in his lonely journey over the dark, dank fen, as the sullen 

 boom of the bittern shook the night air, or the deep, solemn note of 

 the curfew bell from the distant abbey of Crowland, borne upon 

 the night breeze across the dreary flat, fell upon his startled ear. 

 Benumbed with cold, his senses bewildered with fear, how many a 

 one has sunk in hopeless despair upon that damp, cold bed, from 

 which few have ever risen again alive ; or misled by the treacherous 

 flickering light of the "Will-o' -the- Wisp," dancing "in murky 

 night o'er fen and lake," has wandered out of his track, and, floun- 

 dering on through bog and mire, has found a grave in the dark pool, 

 and the last despairing shriek of the dying man sinking below the 

 surface was carried on the night breeze over the dreary marshes, 

 where there was no one to hear it. 



The fen must have, indeed, been a favoured region in the days 

 of old William of Malmesbury, if his quaint account of the Isle of 

 Ely in his time is at all correct ; for he describes it as " the very pic- 

 ture of paradise, a wonderful solitary and retired place, fit for 

 monks, as making them mindful of heavenly things, and more 

 mortified to things below. It is a prodigy to see a woman here, 

 but when a man comes he is welcomed like an angel ; so that we 

 may truly call this isle a lodge of chastity, a harbour of honesty, 

 and a school of divine philosophy." As for chastity and honesty, I 

 guess the fen-men now are about on a par with their upland neigh- 

 bours ; but I must say I think if I condemned myself to do penance, 



