ALBERT PELL 73 



cession of huge thunderclouds and their attendant 

 shadows marched across sky and plain, when the 

 glittering levels stretched at our feet into blue and yet 

 bluer distances, we could feel how the heimweh must 

 grow in the Penman, for few countries possess such a 

 measure of character as his own. 



We ran through Wilburton and mentally took off 

 our hats to the memory of Albert Pell, perhaps the 

 finest type of country gentleman the Victorian age 

 produced ; educated, refined, and broad-minded to a 

 degree, he served the State and his countryside through- 

 out the whole of a long life. His mark endures in the 

 schools and church of Wilburton, just as his biography 

 will stand for long years, both as the story of a man 

 and a record of the immense process of mental and 

 spiritual growth which the English countryside achieved 

 in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Thence 

 we crossed the Bedford Rivers, the two cuts which 

 take the waters of the Ouse, and along Ireton's Way 

 into Chatteris, where we exchanged for a time the black 

 land for the poor grass pastures of one of the clay 

 islands. Throughout all this district almost the only 

 stock to be seen were the little groups of mares with 

 foals at foot occupying the grass land, for Chatteris 

 lies in the midst of the chief district in England for 

 breeding heavy horses. The Fens have been the 

 natural home of the Shire horse ever since the intro- 

 duction of the great Flemish war-horse, out of which 

 our present breed has arisen by crossing on the native 

 stocks. Nearly every farmer breeds a few foals, and 

 as he can work his brood mares with safety and even 

 advantage for the greater part of the year and there is 

 a good and steady market for the produce at the great 

 horse fairs at Peterborough and Chatteris, the breeding 

 forms a remunerative branch of his business. So far 



