s doubtless increased by
the nature of his native shire, which offered every inducement to the
lad of spirit to leave it.

Lincolnshire is the most uninteresting part of all England. It is
frequently water-logged till late in the summer: invisible a part of
the year, when it emerges it is mostly a dreary flat. Willoughby is a
considerable village in this shire, situated about three miles and a
half southeastward from Alford. It stands just on the edge of the
chalk hills whose drives gently slope down to the German Ocean, and the
scenery around offers an unvarying expanse of flats. All the villages in
this part of Lincolnshire exhibit the same character. The name ends in
by, the Danish word for hamlet or small village, and we can measure the
progress of the Danish invasion of England by the number of towns
which have the terminal by, distinguished from the Saxon thorpe, which
generally ends the name of villages in Yorkshire. The population may be
said to be Danish light-haired and blue-eyed. Such was John Smith. The
sea was the natural element of his neighbors, and John when a boy must
have heard many stories of the sea and enticing adventures told by the
sturdy mariners who were recruited from the neighborhood of Willoughby,
and whose oars had often cloven the Baltic Sea.

Willoughby boasts some antiquity. Its church is a spacious structure,
with a nave, north and south aisles, and a chancel, and a tower at the
west end. In the floor is a stone with a Latin inscription, in black
letter, round the verge, to the memory of one Gilbert West, who died in
1404. The church is dedicated to St. Helen. In the village the Wesleyan
Methodists also have a place of worship. According to the parliamentary
returns of 1825, the parish including the hamlet of Sloothby contained
108 houses and 514 inhabitants. All the churches in Lincolnshire
indicate the existence of a much larger population who were in the habit
of attending service than exists at present. Many of these now empty
are of size sufficient to accommodate the entire population of several
villages. Such a one is Willoughby, which unites in its church the
adjacent village of Sloothby.

The stories of the sailors and the contiguity of the salt water had more
influence on the boy's mind than the free, schools of Alford and Louth
which he attended, and when he was about thirteen he sold his books and
satchel and intended to run away to sea: but the death of his father
stayed h