These singular breaks in the river bed mark the course of the Tees until the Yorkshire village of Wycliffe is reached, something over a mile from Mortham Tower. Except for the fact that the great Reformer was born here, the place is as unimportant as a newly-planted city in the American wilds; it consists, indeed, of no more than four or five scattered cottages, a parsonage, a church, and Wycliffe Hall. The parsonage is very large, and the church is very diminutive, seeming to be only an ornament of the parsonage grounds. But around this little church many of the Wycliffes lie buried, and among the monumental brasses there is one recording the death and the burial of the last of the name. Even yet, however, the Wycliffe blood is not extinct, for it flows in the veins of Sir Talbot Clifford Constable, the owner and tenant of Wycliffe Hall. If the "Morning Star of the Reformation" did not receive his first teaching at Egliston Abbey, as Dr. Vaughan has surmised, he must have ascended the hill from Wycliffe to where now stands the pretty village of Ovington, for here was formerly a priory of Gilbertine canons, though no traces of it now remain. Ovington stands higher than any other village on Tees-side, and from the level of its green the woods through which the river surges are far down below, so that even their highest tops do not reach to the crown of the ridge. Ovington is a right sweet and pleasant and prosperous village, much beloved of anglers, there being abundant fish. Nowhere is the Tees more shaded and beautiful, with its stream broken up into many currents by a series of wooded islands, on which the easy-going inadventurous fisher may lie under the leafy branches through torrid summer days. [Illustration: CROFT.] [Illustration: BLACKWELL BRIDGE.] Ovington is a village with a maypole in the middle of its green--a maypole with tattered garlands still clinging to its iron crown. The neat cottages all have their little gardens in front, and are roofed with rich brown tiles. There is a hostelry with the curious sign of "The Four Alls," where one may find such entertainment as few villages in England can provide, and sit in rooms over the decoration of which an obviously æsthetic taste has presided. The sign of "The Four Alls" is weather-stained unduly, but one may still discern pictures of a crowned king, with the motto, "I govern all;" of a soldier, with the motto, "I fight for all;" of a bishop, with the motto, "I pray for all;" and of a husbandman, with his motto of "I pay for all." This is possibly a product of the native Yorkshire wit, of the same variety as that which has designed the Yorkshire coat of arms, "A flea, a fly, a flitch of bacon, and a magpie." [Illustration: YARM.] The Tees has much loveliness but little variety between Ovington and Yarm; it has lost most of its wilder features, and--through many a winding curve, for it is an erratic river, bending and turning with a strange wilfulness--its deep woods