Page:Over fen and wold; (IA overfenwold00hissiala).pdf/277

 strange legend is current in Swineshead that, 'If a corpse lies in a house on Sunday there will be three within the week.' This saying has been verified twice this year." Which statement, if true as it presumably is, I suppose, serves as an example to show that superstitious sayings may come true at times. When things are possible they may occur; if they never did occur it would be still more wonderful. All the same it is a remarkable coincidence, though of course nothing more, that this "strange legend" should have "been verified twice" in one year. We were amused also by another article in one of the papers that dogmatically settled the everlasting Irish question by stating all that is required is "more pigs and fewer priests." In the same paper we came upon several proverbs, or folk-lore, said to be much employed in Lincolnshire. Apropos of striving after the impossible, we were told: "One might as well try and wash a negro white," or "Try to fill a cask with ale by pouring it in at the bung-hole whilst it ran out at the tap"; we were further informed it was "Like searching for gold at the end of a rainbow." Then followed a saying that house-hunters might consider with advantage, "Where the sun does not come, the doctor does." I have quoted these items chiefly as a sample of the sort of entertainment that is to be found in country papers, a study of which may sometimes while away, profitably or otherwise, those odd five minutes one so often has to spend in country inn parlours.

At last the dinner was served, and an excellent