Page:Over fen and wold; (IA overfenwold00hissiala).pdf/276

 wooded, but still uneventful. Crossing a wide dyke that stretched away monotonously straight for miles on either hand, the roof-trees of the little town of Swineshead came into sight peeping above a wealth of foliage. In spite of its unattractive name Swineshead looked a charming place, and as we had already driven eleven miles from Sleaford, we determined that we would make our mid-day halt there, and drive on to Boston in the afternoon.

At Swineshead we found a little inn with stabling attached, the landlord whereof chanced to be standing at his door as we drove up, and after the preliminary greetings he informed us that a hot dinner of roast fowl, etc., would be ready in a few minutes. We were considerably, though pleasantly, surprised at learning this, for Swineshead is a small, primitive town, hardly indeed more than a large village, and our inn had a simple, countrified look in keeping with the place, and a cold repast, therefore, was all we had looked for, but the wanderer by road never knows what surprises are in store for him. The few minutes, however, turned out to be nearly twenty, and whilst waiting in a small parlour for our meal to be served, we amused ourselves by glancing over some odd numbers of old provincial papers that we found there. One may often glean something of interest by studying the pages of local magazines and papers, and we did so on this occasion. In a copy of the Horncastle News, dated 9th June 1894, that had somehow been preserved from destruction, our eyes fell upon this paragraph that we deemed worthy of being copied into our notebook. "A