Flat lands, under cultivation, bring us from this point to the river Lark, at Barton Mills, whose church tower, with that of Mildenhall, a mile away, now begins to puzzle the stranger. The village of Barton Mills, lying directly on the road, is a kind of preface to, or outpost of, Mildenhall, a town placed on an out-of-the-way loop road, and never seen by those who make straight for Thetford. But we, at any rate, will see it, coming to this backwater of life along a flat road that doubles on itself and winds artfully amid a maze of lazy rills and brimming ditches, covered with an unbroken surface of duckweed. The name of Mildenhall suggests mildew, and although there be nothing in its origin to indicate anything of the kind, it is indeed set down in a fine damp situation, on the very edge of the sodden Fens. Mildenhall’s characteristic trees are the black poplar and the willow, both water-loving species. Mildenhall suffices to itself, and it is well it can so compass a full-orbed life, for if this solitary little town were dependent in any way upon outside existence for protection against _ennui_, that would be a maimed existence its burgesses would lead. It stands at the end of a branch line from Cambridge, and on the Lark Navigation, and has an air of enduring the railway as an interloping enterprise, while regarding the canal with a benevolent interest. The busy flour-mills, the gas-works, and the oil-cake stores that cluster round the canal wharf support this self-sufficing aspect, and the grave majesty of the old houses in and near the market place, overlooked by the noble tower of the cathedral-like parish church, supply the last touch of satisfied independence. But the town takes a kindly interest in the chance stranger whom good roads and a bicycle do occasionally bring, in summer-time; and the artist who sits down on the pavement to sketch the picturesque grouping of the curious old wooden market cross with the church tower is sure of the courteous offer of a chair from some polite shopkeeper. Hard by is the old manor-house. The church, whose great size has already been remarked, has the tombs of Norths and Bunburys, who have lived and died there, with that of a fifteenth-century Lord Mayor of London, a native of Barton Mills, and named from his birthplace, Henry de Barton, who was the first to see that London was lighted by night. Mildenhall church is kindred in spirit with the town. One of the finest Perpendicular buildings in the county, it has a metropolitan aspect, an air of over-lordship above the villages far and near that is not a little striking. [Illustration: MILDENHALL.]