In Unfamiliar England

and preparations for a period of two months or more on the road. We were impatient, surely, or we should hardly have left our hotel at six o'clock in the evening, in the face of a driving rain. O

ndous, and in three successive valleys we forded floods, each one deeper than the preceding. Almost before we knew it-for in the gas lamps' glare the rain-soaked road looked little different from the yellow water-w

-stone and slate village, unchanged to all appearances from the days of the coach-and-four. Our inn was a weather-beaten structure, and its facilities for dispensing liquor appeared by odds greater than its accommodation for non-bibulous travelers. Still, it was clean and homelike, in spots at least, and our hostess, who personally looked after our needs, was all kindness and sympathetic attention. Altogether, we had little complaint to lodge against the George, though

ly surfaced with yellow gravel, it stretches before us like a long golden ribbon in the sunshine. It leads through wide

e centuries before the motor snorted through its streets. Another cause for the grief of the townsmen was the complaint of owners of high-bred horses that the motors jarred upon the nerves of the spirited animals to their great detriment, and naturally enough the citizens sympathized with their patron saint, the horse, against his petrol-driven rival. And thus it was that when we entered Newmarket we were met by the

excellent hotels. It lies in the midst of wide meadow-lands, much used for horseback sports such as polo and racing. Royal visits, so dear to the average B

tleman's comment on the town and its famous Angel Inn was altogether commendatory. It was later-in 1878-when Carlyle visited Bury, and the description he gave it then is quite applicable today. He saw "a prosperous, brisk town looking out right pleasantly from the hill-slope toward the rising sun, and on the eastern edge still runs, long, black and massive, a maze of monastic ruins." The "Angel" we found still dese

the time of the Dissolution the abbey was by far the greatest in East Anglia, and its ruins, though fragmentary, are quite sufficient to indicate its once vast extent. Near by stand the churches of St. James and St. Mary's, both rather ill-proportioned for lack of towers-a deficiency due, it is said, to the old-time abbots' fear that if these churches should be thus or

on, but bordered by charming country. Nowhere did we see a more delightful brick-and-timber house than the old manor at Brent Eleigh, though it has degenerated into a mere farm tenement rather better cared for than usual. What a world of quaint and ancient beauty there is in its many red-tiled gables surmounted by great clustered chimneys, its double mullioned windows and its black-oak and red-brick walls, splashed here and there with clinging masses of ivy. Our illustration only half tells the story, for it

HOUSE, BRE

tive. Later we followed the road by Stowmarket, a much easier though less interesting route. Stowmarket, aside from its old-world streets and its huge church with

y remarks set down against the ancient hostelry; but the very fact that Charles Dickens had stopped there and written-no matter what-of the Great White Horse-is that not enough? And we could not forget if we wished that an exact replica of the Great White Horse was exhibited at the Chicago Fair as typical of the old-time English inn, for the fact is blazoned forth by a large placard in the hall. We were offered the spacious room, with its imposing, tall-posted beds, traditionally occupied by Mr. Pickwick. The Great White Horse, like many other institutions that felt the scourge of the caustic pen of Dickens, has changed; no better order

hich has its box of brightly colored flowers. The most notable of the old houses and one of the noblest specimens of Tudor architecture in the Kingdom is "Ye Ancient House," with its odd dormer windows and richly decorated plaster front, situated near the Butter Market. The interior, now occupied by a bookshop and public library, is as unique and p

lints of sun breaking from a sky as blue as one may see in our own prairie states in June time. The road is winding and hilly for East Anglia, which is so generally level, but it passes through a fine country with many retired, old-world

" a series of very narrow alleys, mostly bordered with shops and opening into the main street, forming, as Dickens puts it, "one vast gridiron of which the bars are represented by the rows." And one will notice that Dickens is much in evidence in East Anglia. Wh

Yarmouth. We were attracted by its imposing appearance at some distance from the main road, and the byway into which we turned led into an ill-kept farmyard. Here stands the impressive ruin, with the stagnant waters of its old-time moat still surrounding the towering keep and shattered walls. It was quite d

lay dull and motionless under a leaden sky, but we could imagine them very picturesque on bright days, rippling in the sun and gleaming with white sail

hing seemed to indicate that the East Anglian farmer is contented and prosperous in the small way that prosperity comes to the common people of England. The countryside had a well-groomed appearance and the houses were better than the averag

f yellow gorse and groups of stunted trees. The villages are in keeping with the country. The houses are of gray stone and broken flints and roofed with slate or dull-red tiles; the lines are square and harsh and there are no touches of ornament. Even the numerous churches partake of these characteristics; they are huge in bulk, with little or no attempt at artistic effect, often crowning some hilltop and

-Sea, and at solitary points along the road. The fine beach in many places, the rough but picturesque country and the unusual quiet of the surroundings no doubt prove attracti

sufficient evidence that at one time Wymondham Priory was of no little importance. Most remarkable is the open roof, the oaken timbers of which were removed at the Dissolution, and after being stored away for ages, were again put in place at the recent res

the late vicar; he carried out and paid for a l

sympathetic

his landlady, who became displeased w

t the rent?"

t in the parish that could accommodate him at all; and so he had to leave; yes, he had to leave, for one day he says to me, 'Did you ever hear of a minister getting the sack?' And he told me how

s the salar

a large parish, covering

is private fortune and then had to give up his charge because there was only one available house to accommodate him and h

NER, EARLS C

many pilgrims. The old Bell Inn, the oddest of hostelries, looked cozy and restful, though we did not seek its hospitality. We hastened onward, leaving the Newmarket highway for Mildenhall, a quiet, unprogressive little village with an interesting manor house. This we did not see after all, for it chanced that it was closed d

Mildenhall for forty years and

is the church, remarkable for its Early English windows and fine open hammer-beam, carved-oak roof, supported from corbels of angel figures with extended wings. Quite as unusual is the hexagonal market cross, built of heavy oak timbers, gracefully carved, which supp

nto a modern mansion by a London gentleman and was no longer accessible to visitors. Still, we were able to come quite close and found work still in progress-a number of men laying out formal gardens about the house. The interest centers in the gate towers built four hundred years ago by Lord Marney, who planned to erect a mansion to correspond with his exalted station. But his unfinished work stands as a monument to his blighted hopes, for he died before his ta

TOWERS,

it in genuine spirit of the olden time. The roof of the nave had been repaired out of sheer necessity, but the dark, sagging beams of the chapel had never been molested. Over the door a black letter inscription, with initial and decorations in still brilliant red, is devoted to a scathing denunciation of "ye riche," so fierce as to seem almost modern. Perhaps the Marneys viewed it with the more complacency from the