Page:Over fen and wold; (IA overfenwold00hissiala).pdf/191

 *

it was not only looking! Soon after this we reached a roadside inn with a swinging sign-board that proclaimed it to be "The Tennyson's Arms," where we also learnt that we could quench our thirst with "strong ales." This somehow called to mind another notice we saw at a country "public" elsewhere to this effect: "Ales and spirits sold here; also genuine English brandy." The last item was distinctly novel! "The Tennyson's Arms" reminded us that we were in the county that gave the great Victorian poet birth.

Next we came to Tallington, another clean and picturesque village: two desirable qualities that unhappily do not always go together. There we stopped to sketch and photograph a large stone-built pigeon-*house that would hold a little army of birds, which stood in an old farmyard; a fierce-looking bull bellowing a loud disapproval of our proceedings—across a strong high fence.

Beyond Tallington we somehow got off our road and found ourselves in the remote and sleepy hamlet of Barholm, an uninteresting spot. On the tower of the church here, however, about half-way up, we observed a stone slab with a rather quaint inscription thereon that we made out, with some difficulty, to be—

Was ever such a thing Since the Creation A new steeple built In time of vexation 1648.

Then by cross-country crooked ways we reached Market Deeping, a sleepy, decayed little town,