Chapter XV

In a haunted house--A strange story--A ghost described!--An offer
declined--Market-day in a market-town--A picturesque crowd--Tombs
of ancient warriors--An old tradition--Popular errors--A chat by
the way--The modern Puritan--A forgotten battle-ground--At the sign
of the “Bull.”

Reaching the next field we saw the house before us, a small, plain, box-like structure of brick, roofed with slate, and having a tiny neglected garden in front divided from the farm lands by a low wall. An unpretentious, commonplace house it was, of the early Victorian small villa type, looking woefully out of place in the pleasant green country, like a tiny town villa that had gone astray and felt uncomfortable in its unsuitable surroundings. At least we had expected to find an old-fashioned and perhaps picturesque farmstead, weathered and gray, with casement windows and ivy-clad walls. Nothing could well have been farther from our ideal of a haunted dwelling than what we beheld; no high-spirited or proper-minded ghost, we felt, would have anything to do with such a place, and presuming that he existed, he at once fell in our estimation--we despised him! I frankly own that this was not the proper spirit in which to commence our investigations--we ought to have kept an open mind, free from prejudice. Who were we that we should judge what was a suitable house for a ghost to haunt? But it did look so prosaic, and looks count for so much in this world! The flat front of the house was pierced with five sash windows, three on the top story and two on the ground floor below, with the doorway between,--the sort of house that a child first draws.

[Sidenote: _A SUCCESSFUL SEARCH_]

We did not enter the little garden, nor approach the regulation front door, for both had the appearance of being seldom used, but, wandering around, we came upon a side entrance facing some farm outbuildings. We ventured to knock at the door here, which was opened by the farmer’s wife herself, as it proved; the door led directly into the kitchen, where we observed the farmer seated by the fireplace, apparently awaiting his mid-day dinner. We at once apologised for our intrusion, and asked if it were the haunted house that we had read accounts of in the London papers, and, if so, might we be allowed just to take a glance at the haunted room? “This is the haunted house,” replied the farmer with emphasis, “and you can see over it with pleasure if you like; the wifie will show you over.” So far fortune favoured us. The “wifie” at the time was busily occupied in peeling potatoes “for the men’s meal,” she explained, “but when I’ve done I’ll be very glad to show you over and tell you anything.” Thereupon she politely offered us a chair to rest on whilst she completed her culinary operations. “I must get the potatoes in the pot first,” she excused herself, “or they won’t be done in time.” “Pray don’t hurry,” we replied; “it’s only too kind of you to show us the house at all.”

Then we opened a conversation with the farmer; he looked an honest, hard-working man; his face was sunburnt, and his hands showed signs of toil. I should say that there was no romance about him, nor suspicion of any such thing. The day was warm, and he was sitting at ease in his shirt sleeves. “I suppose you get a number of people here to see the place?” we remarked by way of breaking the ice. “Yes, that we do; lots of folk come to see the house and hear about the ghost. We’ve had people come specially all the way from London since it’s got into the papers; two newspaper writers came down not long ago and made a lot of notes; they be coming down again to sleep in the house one night. We gets a quantity of letters too from folk asking to see the house. Have I ever seen the ghost? No, I cannot rightly say as how I have, but I’ve heard him often. There’s strange noises and bangings going on at nights, just like the moving about of heavy furniture on the floors, and knockings on the walls; the noises used to keep me awake at first, but now I’ve got used to them and they don’t trouble me. Sometimes, though, I wakes up when the noises are louder than usual, or my wife wakes me up when she gets nervous listening to them, but I only says, ‘The ghost is lively to-night,’ and go to sleep again. I’ve got used to him, you see, but he upsets the missus a lot. You see she’s seen the ghost several times, and I only hear him.” The wife meanwhile was intent on her work and made no remark. “This is all very strange and interesting,” we exclaimed; “and so the house is really haunted?” Now it was the wife’s turn. “I should rather think so,” she broke in, “and you’d think so too if you only slept a night here, or tried to, for you’d not get much sleep unless you are used to noises, I can tell you: they’re awful at times. I daren’t be in the house alone after sundown, I’m that afraid.” “And you’ve actually seen the ghost?” I broke in. “Yes, that I have, three or four times quite plainly, and several times not quite so plainly; he quite terrifies me, and one never knows when to expect him.” “Ah! that’s an unfortunate way ghosts have,” we remarked sympathetically, “but good-mannered ones are never troublesome in the daytime: that’s one blessing.”

[Sidenote: _A NOISY GHOST_]

Eventually the busy housewife finished her task, and the peeled potatoes were safely put in the pot to boil. At this juncture she turned to us and said she was free for a time and would be very pleased to show us over the house and give us any information we wished, which was very kind of her. We then slipped a certain coin of the realm into the hands of her husband as a slight return for the courtesy shown to us. He declared that there was no necessity for us to do this, as they did not wish to make any profit out of their misfortunes, and as he pocketed the coin with thanks said they were only too pleased to show the house to any respectable person. The farmer certainly had an honest, frank face. His wife, we noticed, had a dreamy, far-away look in her eyes, but she said she did not sleep well, which might account for this. She appeared nervous and did not look straight at us, but this might have been manner. First she led the way to a narrow passage, in the front of the house, that contained the staircase. On either side of this passage was a door, each leading into a separate sitting-room, both of which rooms were bare, being entirely void of furniture. Then she told her own story, which I repeat here from memory, aided by a few hasty notes I made at the time. “Ever since we came to this house we have been disturbed by strange noises at nights. They commenced on the very first night we slept here, just after we had gone to bed. It sounded for all the world as though some one were in the house moving things about, and every now and then there was a bang as though some heavy weight had fallen. We got up and looked about, but there was no one in the place, and everything was just as we left it. At first we thought the wind must have blown the doors to, for it was a stormy night, and my husband said he thought perhaps there were rats in the house. This went on for some weeks, and we could not account for it, but we never thought of the house being haunted. We were puzzled but not alarmed. Then one night, when my husband had gone to bed before me (I had sat up late for some reason), and I was just going up that staircase, I distinctly saw a little, bent old man with a wrinkled face standing on the top and looking steadily down at me. For the moment I wondered who he could be, never dreaming he was a ghost, so I rushed upstairs to him and he vanished. Then I shook and trembled all over, for I felt I had seen an apparition. When I got into the bedroom I shut the door, and on looking round saw the ghost again quite plainly for a moment, and then he vanished as before. Since then I’ve seen him about the house in several places.”

[Sidenote: _A CURIOUS HISTORY_]

Next she showed us into the empty sitting-room to the left of the staircase; the floor of this was paved with bricks. “It was from this room,” she continued, “that the noises seemed to come mostly, just as though some one were knocking a lot of things about in it. This struck us as singular, so one day we carefully examined the room and discovered in that corner that the flooring was very uneven, and then we noticed besides that the bricks there were stained as though some dark substance had been spilled over them. It at once struck me that some one might have been murdered and buried there, and it was the ghost of the murdered man I had seen. So we took up the bricks and dug down in the earth below, and found some bones, a gold ring, and some pieces of silk. You can see where the bricks were taken up and relaid. I’m positive it was a ghost I saw. The noises still continue, though I’ve not seen the ghost since we dug up the bones.” After this, there being nothing more to be seen or told, we returned to the kitchen. Here we again interviewed the farmer, and found out from him that the town of Spilsby, with a good inn, was only a mile away. Thereupon I decided to myself that we would drive on to Spilsby, secure accommodation there for wife and horses for the night, and that I would come back alone and sleep in the haunted room, if I could arrange matters. With the carriage rugs, the carriage lamp and candles, some creature comforts from the inn, and a plentiful supply of tobacco, it appeared to me that I could manage to pass the night pretty comfortably; and if the ghost looked in--well, I would approach him in a friendly spirit and, he being agreeable, we might spend quite a festive evening together! If the ghost did not favour me, at least I might hear the noises--it would be something to hear a ghost! Thereupon I mentioned my views to the farmer; he made no objection to the arrangement, simply suggesting that I should consult the “missus” as to details; but alas! she did not approve. “You know,” she said, addressing her husband, “the gentleman might take all the trouble to come and be disappointed; the ghost might be quiet that very night; he was quiet one night, you remember. Besides, we promised the two gentlemen from the London paper that they should come first, and we cannot break our word.” Appeals from this decision were in vain; the wife would not hear of our sleeping the night there on any terms, all forms of persuasion were in vain. Manifestly our presence in the haunted chamber for the night was not desired by the wife. As entreaties were useless there was nothing for it but to depart, which we did after again thanking them for the courtesies already shown; it was not for us to resent the refusal. “Every Englishman’s house is his castle” according to English law, and if a ghost breaks the rule--well, “the law does not recognise ghosts.” So, with a sense of disappointment amounting almost to disillusion, we departed. I feel quite hopeless now of ever seeing a ghost, and have become weary of merely reading about his doings in papers and magazines. I must say that ghosts, both old and new, appear to behave in a most inconsiderate manner; they go where they are not wanted and worry people who positively dislike them and strongly object to their presence, whilst those who would really take an interest in them they leave “severely alone!”

[Sidenote: _MARKET-DAY AT SPILSBY_]

Arriving at Spilsby we found it to be market-day there, and the clean and neat little town (chiefly composed of old and pleasantly grouped buildings) looked quite gay and picturesque with its motley crowds of farmers and their wives, together with a goodly scattering of country folk. The womankind favoured bright-hued dresses and red shawls, that made a moving confusion of colour suggestive of a scene abroad--indeed, the town that bright sunny day had quite a foreign appearance, and had it not been for the very English names and words on the shops and walls around, we might easily have persuaded ourselves that we were abroad. To add to the picturesqueness of the prospect, out of the thronged market-place rose the tall tapering medieval cross of stone; the shaft of this was ancient, and only the cross on the top was modern, and even the latter was becoming mellowed by time into harmony with the rest. The whole scene composed most happily, and it struck us that it would make an excellent motive for a painting with the title, “Market-day in an old English town.” Will any artist reader, in search of a fresh subject and new ground, take the hint, I wonder?

Not far from the inn we noticed a bronze statue, set as usual upon a stone pedestal of the prevailing type, reminding us of the numerous statues of a like kind that help so successfully to disfigure our London streets. I must say that this statue had a very latter-day look, little in accord with the unpretentious old-world buildings that surrounded it. Bronze under the English climate assumes a dismal, dirty, greeny-browny-gray--a most depressing colour. At the foot of the statue was an anchor. Who was this man, and what great wrong had he done, we wondered, to be memorialised thus? So we went to see, and on the pedestal we read--

SIR JOHN FRANKLIN
Discoverer of the North West Passage
Born at Spilsby
April 1786.
Died in the Arctic Regions
June 1847.

After this we visited the church, here let me honestly confess, not for the sake of worship or curiosity, but for a moment’s restful quiet. The inn was uncomfortably crowded, a farmers’ “Ordinary” was being held there. The roadways of the town were thronged; there were stalls erected in the market square from which noisy vendors gave forth torrents of eloquence upon the virtues of the goods they had to sell,--especially eloquent and strong of voice was a certain seller of spectacles, but he was hard pressed in these respects by the agent of some

[Sidenote: _IN SEARCH OF QUIET_]

wonderful medicine that cured all diseases. The country folk gathered round them, and others listened with apparent interest to their appeals, but so far as we could observe purchased nothing. Spilsby on a market-day was undoubtedly picturesque, with a picturesqueness that pleased our artistic eye, but the ear was not gratified; for once we felt that deafness would have been a blessing! We sought for peace and rest within the church and found it; not a soul was there, and the stillness seemed to us, just then, profound. It is well to keep our churches open on week days for prayer and meditation, but the worshippers, where are they engaged till the next Sunday? To the majority of people in the world religion is an affair of Sundays. Whilst travelling in the Western States some years ago, I suggested meekly to an American, who was showing me over his flourishing few-year-old city (it is bigger and older now) with manifest pride at its rapid commercial prosperity, that it seemed to me a rather wicked place. “Waal now,” he said, “I’ll just grant you we’re pretty bad on week days, but I guess we’re mighty good on Sundays; that’s so. Now you needn’t look aghast, you Britishers are not much better than the rest of the world. I was a sea captain formerly, and on one voyage I hailed one of your passing ships China bound. ‘What’s your cargo, John?’ shouts I. ‘Missionaries and idols,’ replies he. ‘Honest John!’ I shouted back.” This reminds me of a curious incident that came under my notice in London not so very long ago. I had an old English bracket clock that I took myself to a wholesale firm of clock-makers to be repaired. Whilst in the shop I noticed a peculiar piece of mechanism, the purpose of which puzzled me, so I sought for information. “Oh!” replied one of the firm, “that’s a special order for a temple in China; it is to work an idol and make him move.” This is an absolute fact. Presumably that clock-maker was an excellent Christian in his own estimation. I do not know whether there was anything in my look that he considered called for an explanation, but he added, “Business is business, you know; you’d be astonished what funny orders we sometimes have in our trade. Only the other day a firm sounded us if we would undertake to make some imitation ‘genuine’ Elizabethan clocks; they sent us one to copy. But we replied declining, merely stating that we had so far conducted our business honestly, and intended always to do so.” So, according to the ethics of our informant, it is not dishonest to make clock-work intended to secretly make an idol move, but it is dishonest to make imitation medieval clocks! Such are the refinements of modern commerce!

Now, after this over-long digression, to return to the interior of Spilsby church, here we discovered a number of very interesting and some curious monuments to the Willoughby family, in a side chapel railed off from the nave. On one of the altar-tombs is the recumbent effigy of John, the first Baron Willoughby, and Joan, his wife. The baron is represented in full armour, with shield and sword

[Sidenote: _CROSS-LEGGED EFFIGIES_]

and crossed legs; his lady is shown with a tightly-fitting gown and loosely-robed mantle over. This baron fought at Crecy and died three years afterwards. On another tomb is a fine alabaster effigy of John the second Baron, who took part in the battle of Poictiers; he is also represented in full armour, with his head resting on a helmet, and diminutive figures of monks support, or adorn, this tomb. There are also other fine tombs to older warriors, but of less interest; one huge monument has a very curious carved statue of a wild man on it, the meaning of which is not very apparent. It used to be an accepted tradition that when an ancient warrior was shown in effigy with his legs crossed, he had been a Crusader, but Dr. Cox, the eminent archæologist and antiquary, declares that this does not follow. “It is a popular error,” he says, “to suppose that cross-legged effigies are certain proofs that those they represented were Crusaders. In proof of this many well-known Crusaders were not represented as cross-legged, and the habit of crossing the legs was common long after the Crusades had terminated.” I am sorry to find that such a poetical tradition has no foundation in fact, and must therefore share the fate of so many other picturesque fictions that one would fondly cling to if one could. Sometimes I wish that learned antiquaries, for the sake of old-world romance, would keep their doubts to themselves. Romance is not religion; one takes a legend with a grain of salt, but there is always the bare possibility that it may be true, unless shown otherwise. It is just this that charms. Why needlessly undo it?

Now, after Dr. Cox’s dictum, whenever I see a cross-legged effigy of a mailed warrior, I am perplexed to know why he is so shown. Will learned antiquaries kindly explain? It is rather provoking to the inquiring mind to say it does not mean one thing, and yet not define what else it means. From what I know of the medieval sculptor he ever had a purpose in his work, it was always significant. Dr. Cox likewise declares “Whitewash on stones was not an abomination of the Reformation, but was commonly used long before that period.” I am glad to know this for the reputation of the Reformation.

At Spilsby we consulted our map, and after much discussion about our next stage, whether it should be to Alford or Horncastle, we eventually decided to drive over the Wolds to the latter town and rest there for the night. It turned out a hilly drive, as we expected; indeed, in this respect, the road would have done credit to Cumberland. On the way we had ample evidence that Lincolnshire was not all “as flat as a pancake,” as many people wrongly imagine.

For a mile or so out of Spilsby our road was fairly level, then it began to climb in earnest till we reached the top of the “windy Wolds.” High up in the world as we were here, so our horizon was high also, and, looking back, we had a magnificent panorama presented to us. Away below stretched the far-reaching Fenland, spread out like a mighty

[Sidenote: _ON THE WOLDS_]

living map, with its countless fruitful fields, green meadows, many-tinted woods touched with autumnal gold, winding waterways, deep dykes, white roads, and frequent railways, space-diminished into tiny threads, its mansions, villages, towns, and ancient churches. Conspicuous amongst the last was the tall and stately tower of Boston’s famous “stump,” faintly showing, needle-like, in the dim, dreamy distance, and marking where the blue land met the bluer sea, for from our elevated standpoint the far-off horizon of the land, seen through the wide space of air, looked as though it had all been washed over with a gigantic brush dipped in deepest indigo. It was a wonderful prospect, a vision of vastness, stretching away from mystery to mystery. The eye could not see, nor the mind comprehend it all at once, and where it faded away into a poetic uncertainty the imagination had full play. It is ever in the far-off that the land of romance lies, the land one never reaches, and that is always dim and dreamy--the near at hand is plainly revealed and commonplace! Of course much depends on the eye of the beholder, but the vague and remote to conjure with have a certain charm and undoubted fascination for most minds. It was of such a prospect as this, it might even have been this very one, that Tennyson pictures in verse--

Calm and deep peace on this high wold,

* * * * *

Calm and still light on yon great plain
That sweeps with all its autumn bowers,
And crowded farms and lessening towers,
To mingle with the bounding main.

For we were now nearing the birthplace and early home of the great Victorian poet, and he was fond of wandering all the country round, and might well have noted this wonderful view. No poet or painter could pass it by unregarded!

On this spreading upland the light sweet air, coming fresh and free over leagues of land and leagues of sea, met us with its invigorating breath. After the heavy, drowsy air of the Fens it was not only exhilarating but exciting, and we felt impelled to do something, to exert ourselves in some manner--this was no lotus-eating land--so for want of a better object we left the dogcart and started forth on a brisk walk. One would imagine that all the energy of the county would be centred in the Wold region, and that the dwellers in the Fens would be slothful and unenergetic in comparison. Yet the very reverse is the case. The Wolds--townless and rail-less--are given over to slumberous quietude and primitive agriculture, its inhabitants lead an uneventful life free from all ambition, its churches are poor and small whilst the churches of the Fens in notable contrast are mostly fine and large, its hamlets and villages remain hamlets and villages and do not grow gradually into towns: it is a bit of genuine Old England where old customs remain and simple needs suffice. A land with

Little about it stirring save a brook!
A sleepy land, where under the same wheel
The same old rut would deepen year by year.

On the other hand, the Fenland inhabitants appear to be “full of go” with their growing villages, prosperous towns, flourishing ports, railways, and waterways. It was energy that converted the wild watery waste of the Fens into a land smiling with crops; it is energy that keeps it so.

[Sidenote: _A GLORIOUS UPLAND_]

As we progressed we lost sight of the Fens, and soon found ourselves in the midst of circling hills that bounded our prospect all around--hills that dipped gently down to shady, wooded valleys, and rose above them to bare, grassy, or fir-fringed summits, bathed in soft sunshine. Along the sloping sides of this glorious upland we could trace the narrow white country roads winding far away and wandering up and down till lost in the growing grayness of the misty distance--just like the roads of Devonshire. Indeed, in parts, the country we passed through distinctly reminded us of Devonshire; it was as far removed from the popular conception of Lincolnshire scenery as a Dutch landscape is from a Derbyshire one. Indeed, a cyclist whom we met that evening at Horncastle declared indignantly to us that he considered Lincolnshire “a fraud”; he had been induced to tour therein under the impression that the roads were “all beautifully level and good going.” He had just ridden over the Wolds that day, he explained, hence his disparaging remarks--and he was very angry!

Journeying on we presently reached the lonely, picturesque, and prettily-named village of Mavis Enderby. Its ancient church, a field’s space away from the road, looked interesting with its hoary walls, gray stone churchyard cross, and little sun-dial. In the porch we noted a holy-water stoup supported on four small clustered pillars; the interior of the building we did not see, for the door was locked and we felt too lazy to go and hunt for the key. The top of the cross is adorned with a carving of the Crucifixion on one side, and of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Saviour on the other. The shaft for about half its extent upwards is manifestly ancient, the rest, including of course the sculpturings, is as manifestly modern, though not of yesterday, for the latter portion already shows slight signs of weathering, and has become time-mellowed and lichen-clad. The figures at the top are effectively but roughly carved in faithful imitation of medieval work of the same class. So faithful in fact and spirit indeed is the copy that there is no small danger of antiquaries in the years to come being deceived, and pronouncing the cross to be a rare and well-preserved specimen of fifteenth-century work. Apropos of this carefully studied copying of ancient work it may not be uninteresting to quote here from a letter of Lord Grimthorpe upon the restoration of St. Albans Abbey which he carried out. “It took no small trouble to get them (new stones inserted in the work) worked as roughly as the old ones, so as to make the work homogeneous, and to bewilder antiquaries who pretend to be able to distinguish new work from old; which indeed architects generally make very easy for them.”

As we were about leaving we observed an intelligent-looking man leisurely walking on the road, the only living person we had seen in the village by

[Sidenote: _A MODERN PURITAN_]

the way; we asked him if he knew anything about the cross,--who restored it, and when? We were not prepared for the outburst that followed this innocent query. “That popish thing,” he exclaimed savagely and contemptuously, “we want another Cromwell, that’s about what’s the matter, and the sooner he comes the better. I’m a Protestant, and my forefathers were Protestants afore me. Now it’s bad enough to have popery inside a church, as has crept in of late years,--lights, incense, vestments, banners, processions; but to boldly bring their cursed popery outside, well----” and he could find no words strong enough to express his detestation of such proceedings, but he looked unutterable things. “I just feel as how I’d like to swear,” he exclaimed, “only it’s wicked.” We sympathised with him, and tried to calm his injured feelings. We prided ourselves on our successful diplomacy; we said, “Now, if Cromwell were only here he would soon have that cross down.” This in no way compromised us, but it served somewhat to soothe the stranger’s anger. “Ay! that’s true,” responded he, and regardless of grammar went on, “mighty quick too, he’d mighty soon clear the country of all the popish nonsense. Why, in my young days, we used to have parsons, now we’ve got priests.” He then paused to light his pipe, at which he drew furiously--our question never got answered after all, but, under the circumstances, we thought perhaps it would be well not to repeat it, we did not want a religious declamation--we were pleasure-touring! The lighting of the pipe broke the thread of the discourse for the moment, and it seemed to us a good opportunity to depart on our way.

The fire of Puritanism, or whatever other name that erst powerful “ism” goes under now, is not extinguished in the land but smoulders; will it ever break out into a destroying flame again? It may; history sometimes repeats itself! The swing of the pendulum just now appears in favour of ritualism, strongly so, it seems to me; who can tell that it may not swing back again? I once asked a New England Puritan of the pure old Cromwellian stock--a refined man, a lover of art and literature--how it was that Puritanism, in days past at any rate, was such a deadly enemy to art? He replied, “It was so, simply of painful necessity. Freedom, religious freedom, is more than art. Priestly tyranny had enslaved art, bribed it into its service, and art had to pay the penalty. Nowadays art has shaken herself free, practically free from her ancient masters, and Puritanism and art are friends. And the Puritan lion may lie down with the art lamb and not hurt him.” Which is a comforting thought should the pendulum suddenly swing back again. It seems just now highly improbable, but the improbable occasionally comes to pass. How highly improbable, nay impossible, it would have seemed, say a century or so ago, that incense, vestments, lighted candles on the “altar,” would find place in the Church of England service, to say nothing of holy water being used, and “the Angelus bell being rung at the consecration of the elements, and the elevation of the Host,” as I read in the _Standard_ of 29th October 1890, was done at the dedication festival of the Church of St. Mary, in Clumber Park, Worksop! Truly might Cromwell exclaim, were he to come to life again and see these things, “The times are changed!”

[Sidenote: _AN ANCIENT FIGHT_]

Farther on we drove over Winceby Hill, one of the highest points of the Wolds, and the scene of an early encounter between the forces of the King and those of the Parliament; an encounter that is said to have brought Cromwell into prominent notice, of which conflict we shall come upon some relics at Horncastle anon, as well as a curious tradition connected therewith.

Leaving Winceby Hill our road began to descend; the country in front of us, as it were, dropped down, and, far away below, we caught sight of the red-roofed houses of Horncastle, with its gray church beyond, and busy windmills around. It was a long descent, affording us a glorious, far-extending view ahead over a well-wooded, watered, and undulating country flooded with warm sunshine. It looked like a veritable land of promise.

Down we drove till at the foot of our long descent we found ourselves in Horncastle, a quaint old town which has earned for itself more than a local reputation on account of its yearly horse fair,--the largest and most important, we were told, in the kingdom. We rejoiced that we had not arrived the day of the fair; fair-days and market-days are best avoided by the quiet-loving traveller. We had crossed a spur of the Wolds and had touched the fringe of a charming stretch of country agreeably diversified by heaths and fir forests to the west, where the soil is light and sandy, in great contrast to that of the Fens and of the chalk Wolds. Horncastle, I have said, is a quaint old town; it struck us as a pleasant one as well, picturesque in parts, especially by the side of the little river Bain that winds through it, and gives it rather a Dutch-like look. The chief portion of the town is built on a horn-shaped extent of land formed by the river. There was also a castle there of which some slight ruins remain, hence the name Horncastle, a bit of information I gleaned from a local paper. Consulting our old and well-used copy of _Paterson_ we noticed that the Bull Inn here was given as the coaching and posting house, so we drove up to that old-time hostelry confidently, for it generally holds good in country places that the hotel mentioned in _Paterson_ as the best is still the best. The Bull too was a good old-fashioned title, suggestive of the olden days and other ways; and within its hospitable walls we found comfortable quarters and a most courteous landlord, who also, we discovered, during a chat with him over our evening pipe, was like ourselves a confirmed traveller by road. “There’s nothing like it for enjoyment and health,” exclaimed he; “I never felt so well as when I was on the road.” Sentiments in which we were one! Soundly we slept that night beneath the sign of the Bull. The fresh air of the Wolds acted like a powerful narcotic. Our long and interesting day’s drive had a pleasant ending!