It was with far greater pleasure that she heard Wolsey recount the worthiness of the brotherhood who then inhabited the walls of Alneshborne Priory. He spoke of their learning and devotion to deeds of charity, and represented them as an exception to any other of the religious communities, then so prevalent in the kingdom. There was a raciness, fluency and force in his descriptive powers, which charmed even Latimer, who, though comparatively a novice upon the river, was alive to the spirit of poesy in which his companion indulged. The tide had turned, but the channel was then both deeper and wider than it is now, and took a far more grand and oceanic sweep. The soil of centuries which has flowed down from the Gipping into the Orwell, and different streams which have deposited their sand and slime, have formed that immense track of ouse, which, swelling into steep, muddy banks, has now conglomerated into vast fields of slimy clay, upon which green samphire and long weeds have grown, and very much narrowed the mighty channel, which, in that day swept, as an arm of the German Ocean, up to the walls of the town of Ipswich. It was then no uncommon thing, even in summer, to see the wild swan with his straight neck and yellow beak, sailing up the stream, followed by the brood of cygnets bred upon the flats of Levington; and in winter, the wild fowl from distant climes sported in thousands of flights, until they actually blackened the silvery waters around them. Gulls of every class used to whiten the ouse at low water, and coots used to blacken the waves at full-tide; now nothing of animated nature can be seen but a long, green track of seaweed, with perhaps a solitary swan, or a lonely gull. But the barge is dashing away with the speed of good stout rowers, amidst the beauties of the wave and the shore, and Ellen's smile restores much of its wonted happiness to the heart of Wolsey, who only the more and more strove to make a favorable impression upon her mind, by bringing forth from the treasure-house of his intellect, such instances of his classical knowledge as should make her remember the last day when he went up the river with his patron and patroness. It was indeed for his sake that she visited the town of Ipswich at that moment, in company with her parent; to urge upon Robert Wolsey, his father, the imperious necessity of sending the scholar to Oxford. Both De Freston and his daughter were carried away by their enthusiastic feelings in patronising this youth, and anticipated the day when he would rise to be an ornament to his country, and an honor to themselves. The thought of doing an act of kindness to Wolsey gave a peculiar degree of interest to the journey. Ellen, in particular, quite gloried in the thought of being of service to one who had been to her so congenial a companion.