Here I am put in mind by a critic (the kindest in the world) that Axholme is greatly changed from what it was at the time of which I write, and that I ought, for the better understanding of my readers, to give a more particular account than I have hitherto done of the nature of the country in my youth. The fault is plain, but not the remedy, since I am unskilled in description. The best I can do is to prefix a map, one glance at which will show more than pages of my writing could. As to the journey to Staniforth, I may say that the space between Belshaw and Messic Mere was sometimes land, sometimes water, and more often a mixture of both. In dry seasons, swine could pick up some feed there, and, now and then, a venturesome cottager turned out a cow, keeping watch lest it should be bogged. In winter, eels were to be caught and ducks shot there. Clumps of birch, small oak, poplar, and alder grew here and there on "holmes" of gravel or sand. Long rows of reeds marked channels always filled with water; ling and gorse, in spots, flourished on the drier mounds and ridges. On this day, as I have said, there was abundant water (though the month was June, and the summer had been almost rainless), which we supposed to be due to heavy showers further south, swelling the rivers Trent and Idle. Luke took the pole, and pushed quickly across to the mere, where we changed into a sailing boat, and went gaily to Sandtoft, then an oblong island about four furlongs by two, or, roughly, some eighty acres in extent, surrounded by the Idle. Leaving Luke in the boat, I scrambled up the bank, which sloped steeply, and was palisaded at top to the height of six feet. I pulled myself up and looked over, and had scarcely done so when a bullet whizzed over my head, and I saw the man who had fired it reloading as he came nearer to the fence, and others swarming out of a shed like angry bees out of a hive. Thinking it might be as dangerous to retreat as to advance, I drew myself up and tumbled, rather than jumped, down inside the palisade, and walked toward the sentinel, calling out, "A friend," which did not hinder his shooting a second time. Happily, he was no marksman. Being quite ignorant of Dutch, I continued to announce myself as a friend in English, German, and French. When we came within arm's length, two of the men collared me, and one asked in a sort of French what my business was. My answer so far satisfied them that they let go their hold, and conducted me to Doctor Goel's abode.