We must find room for one of these stories from his student days. He had made merry at Abingdon, near Oxford, where he had eaten "salte meates." Returned to Oxford, he "dyd lye in an ine named the 'Tabere.'" At midnight he awoke with a most consuming thirst; he called in succession on the "tappestere" (the quaint mediæval term for a barmaid), "hys oste, hys ostesse, and osteler," but none would give him ear--possibly the poet lacked regularity in his payments. "'Alacke,' sayd Skelton, 'I shall perysh for lacke of drynke: what remedye!'" He soon found one: he bellowed "fyer, fyer, fyer," so long and so loud that presently the whole house was up and scurrying hither and thither in excitement and alarm. Finding nothing, they finally asked the poet where the fire was? The mad rogue, pointing to his open mouth and parched tongue, implored, "fetch me some drynke to quench the fyer and the heate and the driness in my mouthe." Our forefathers dearly loved a joke even at their own expense. The honest folk of the "Tabere" were amused rather than enraged. Mine host produced him of his best, and at length even Skelton's thirst was quenched. Yet this madcap was a man of genius. Erasmus spoke of him to Henry VIII. as "_Britannicarum literarum decus et lumen_"; and if you can endure the obsolete and (one must add) the coarse expressions, you will find in "The Tunnyng of Elynour Running" the most remarkable picture in existence of low life in late mediæval England. But let us return to the Eden, which now enters the parish of Wetheral. Not far from Wetheral Bridge the riverside is precipitous. Here, cut in the face of the rock, forty feet above the water level, are three curious cells known as "Wetheral Safeguards." Tradition affirms that St. Constantine, younger son of an early Scots king, having excavated them with his own hands, lived therein the pious life of a hermit. To him was dedicated Wetheral Priory, whereof a mouldering gateway alone survives the havoc of well-nigh a thousand years. The choicest of Eden scenery is in this parish. There is Cotehill, with its sweet pastoral aspect; Cotehill Island, fringed with trees, whose low-lying branches continually sway to and fro in the stream; and Brackenbank, wherefrom you best catch the prominent features of the surrounding country. We think the pencil gives the aspect of such places better than the pen, so we refer to our illustrations, and move on to Corby Castle in the same parish, which tops a precipitous cliff overhanging the river. From it you see far along the richly wooded banks. Do you wonder that it "has been a gentleman's seat since the Conquest"? And yet, not to be disdained of the most fastidious modern, for "the front of Corby House is of considerable length and consists of a suite of genteel apartments." And those delightful walks through the woods! There among the trees by the edge of the stream is the Long Walk, best of all. The