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The bustard is gone from Salisbury Plain; the fenland butterflies have disappeared with the drainage of the fens. In their place the red-legged partridge invades Norfolk; the American black bass is making himself quite at home, with Yankee assurance, in our sluggish rivers; and the spoonbill is nesting of its own accord among the warmer corners of the Sussex downs.
Below the lake glistens in the sunlight and far away the giant hills Blencatha, Skiddaw, and Borrowdale rear their heads. It cost the Trust £7000, but no one would deem the money ill-spent. Almost the last remnant of the primeval fenland of East Anglia, called Wicken Fen, has been acquired by the Trust, and also Burwell Fen, the home of many rare insects and plants.
Twelve miles had been won and cleared, but this was the mere tongue of the Fenland, and to add to their difficulties that day the weather had suddenly changed, and in the evening rain set in.
It is a sandy, desolate region, broken by small ponds, with dreary tracts of fenland, its ridges covered with a low growth of pine, oak, beech, and birch, in the midst of which, in its season, the dogwood puts out its white blossoms. Wild grapes trail over the sand-dunes and festoon the dwarf trees.
The wide plain of Flanders, the northern portion of the country which we now call Belgium, was in ancient times a dreary fenland, the haunt of wild beasts and savage men; thick, impenetrable forests, tracts of barren sand, sodden marshes, covered it; and sluggish streams, some whose waters never found their way to the sea, ran through it.
Then, as being next the gate, I again called out: When might we pass? A Fenland man who was on duty there doing nothing said, I could pass when the bridge was shut again. I said: When would that be? He said: Could I not see that the man was cleaning the bridge?
"Here, in the Saxon lands, men call me Owen the Briton," he answered simply. "I thought your voice had somewhat of the Welsh tone," my father said. "And your English is of Mercia. I have heard that there are Britons in the fenland there." "I am of West Wales, Thane, but I have bided long in Mercia." Then came my old nurse, and there were words enough for the time.
It is rather that certain minute variations take place, for unknown reasons, in every species; and the bird which happened to be hatched out in a fenland with a rather sharper beak or rather longer legs than his fellows, would have his power of obtaining food slightly increased, and would thus be more likely to perpetuate in his offspring that particular advantage of form.
The wheat is good, the straw long, and the ears full. The oats are less good, perhaps because the soil is too heavy. The beans are strong and healthy; clover, which does not mind a salty soil, thrives there; and there are strong crops of mangold. But it is not like the Fenland; it cracks under the sun, "pans" upon the surface, and is not adapted for inexpensive or for intensive cultivation.
And that was the last which any man in Mercia saw of the fair princess who had been the pride of the land, for she came safely to far Crowland, in the fenland, and there pined and died. It is said that the parting between her and her terrible mother was such that men will tell little thereof.
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