Page:Over fen and wold; (IA overfenwold00hissiala).pdf/478

 thus the possibly commonplace assumed, in our eyes, the romantic. So, driving on through a land half real, half the creation of our fancy, we reached Great Ponton, a tiny hamlet with an ancient church, solemn with the duskiness of centuries. Close to the hoary fane stood, pathetic in neglect, a quaint, old-time, stone-built home with "stepped gables," whose weather-worn aged-toned walls were broken by mullioned window's rounded at the top, and without transoms. A home of the past, full of character. Without, the stone gateway pillars still stand, gray and desolate, that used to give access to the mansion; the space between them now being barred merely by broken hurdles, and in the fore-court grasses and nettles flourished exceedingly. The building somehow involuntarily called to our mind Hood's famous poem of "The Haunted House."

Then passing through a pleasant country of woods, we suddenly found ourselves in the old-fashioned village of Colsterworth, where at the "White Lion" we baited our horses and refreshed ourselves; after which we set out on foot across the fields to find Woolsthorpe Manor-house where Sir Isaac Newton was born, which we made out from our map to be about a mile and a half distant, though it took us a good two miles to get there all through asking our way; for we got directed to the "Sir Isaac Newton" public-house instead of to his birthplace! At last, however, we found the modest old manor-house, a small but pleasant enough looking home, whose stone walls are ivy-draped, but, though substantially built, the place has no particular archi