S.

Saddler’s shop, famous at Horncastle179

Savile family141,144

Scenery at Woodhall27,28

Scrivelsby208,, Champion Cups209,, Church213,214,, Court209,, Lion Gateway209,, Parish Stocks209

“Scrubs,” i.e., woodland227

Scytha, St.236and note

Scythes in Horncastle Church190and note

Selling a wife181and note

Sewer, a stream46and note

Sharpe, John, lines by, on Well8and notes

Sherard family131–134

Shooting, sport at Woodhall63and note

Silene quinque vulneralis, rare29

Skipworth, old county family133,134

Snake’s only defence71and note

Snowden family, of Halstead, etc.147,148

Somersby Church255,, Lines on186

Sparrow hawk, an enemy43,44

Spa, syndicate of15and note,, water, analysis98,99and note,, ,, discovered5–9

Spurs, tenure by217and note,221

Statue, Equestrian, at Gautby173,174

“Statutes,” servant hiring184

Steep hills27,258,259and note

Stixwold Abbey152–155,, Church151,152,, Meaning of name150

Stocks, parish156,181,209

Stone coffins155

Sunsets, fine28

Swans on Witham48

“Tab shag,” old man33,112,113

Taillebois, Ivo152,, Lord214,, Robert, Knight220

Tattershall, Baron de230,, Castle231,232,, „ accidents in233,, Church234–238,, Market Cross228

Tench, flower bait for74

Terrot, Rev. C. P.175,176,189and note

Thief at Red Cap Farm24,25

Thimbleby176,177,, Church177„ Family139,140,141

Thistle, “the Holy”32,128,161

Thornton Church201,202,, „ sacrilege at203,, Owners of land202,203,, Alured, of Lincoln202„ Dispenser, Robert202,, Dymoke family203,, Gozelin202

“Tiger Tom,” burglar23,24and note

Tithe stone163,164

Toll-bar, leaping238and note

Toot-Hill227

Travelling difficult11and notes

Troy Wood227

Tumby Chase218

Tupholme Abbey165–167,, Abbot, illegal acts of166

Tyrwhitt, John, of Pentre, tablet to213,, J. Bradshaw, Rev., tablet to214,, Robert, tablet to176

Victoria Hotel, Woodhall, built9,, ,, enlarged15„ ,, Queen14

Vyner family172,173

Waterloo Monument150

Weasels, and prey68,69

Weavers, village175

Welby family147

Well at Woodhall9

Wells, saline, elsewhere8,10,87,99,201,256, note

Welles, Lord, beheaded214

Wharf, meaning of11and note

White-Hall Wood murder18

Wife-selling181and note

William de Karilepho196,, de Romara152

Willoughby, Lord, of Knaith132

Winceby, fight at190

Winchester, Bishop of221,235

Wispington175,176

Witham, ran to Wainfleet104and note,, a sacred stream of Druids102and note

Wolds27,258and notes

Wong, Horncastle187

Woodcock35,36

Wood Hall, the126

Woodhall (Old) Church200,201,, water discovered9,, Lines on8,, Properties of98,99

Woodpecker, three kinds41

Wry-neck47

[5]Mr. Parkinson resided at the Hall, Old Bolingbroke, or Bolingbroke, as it was called at that date, the prefix not being then needed to distinguish the old historic market town from its modern offshoot, New Bolingbroke. Old Bolingbroke is noted for the ruins of its ancient castle, where Henry IV. was born, and long ago gave a title to the earls “of that ilk.”

[8a]Tradition avers that, shortly before this accident occurred, an old woman passing near the mine heard a raven—(doubtless a carrion crow)—croaking ominously as it sat on the bough of a tree hard by, and that it distinctly uttered these words, “carpse, carpse, carpse” (i.e., corpse), and this she regarded as a certain presage of some fatal occurence. Truly the age of witches and warlocks was not yet passed.

[8b]Mr. John Sharpe was father of the late Mrs. Michel Fynes and a relative of Mr. James Sharpe, of Claremont House, Woodhall Spa.

[8c]In Lincolnshire dialect “heard” is commonly pronounced so as to rhyme with “appeared,” and this is said to be nearest the Saxon pronunciation.

[8d]This was at the time of the Peninsular War, with its prolonged sieges and fearful carnage.

[9a]Mr. John Marshall, grocer and draper.

[9b]Mr. and Mrs. Michael Fynes—the latter the daughter of Mr. Sharpe, who wrote the foregoing verses—have told the writer of several other instances of the use of the water at this early period.

[9c]This tank was unearthed about the year 1875 by some persons who were ratting, and the writer saw it. It was situated at the back of the Bathhouse, and would be, to the best of his recollection, some 12ft. long by 8ft. wide, with a depth of 5ft. It was covered up again, and has (so far as he knows) remained so ever since.

[11a]There was a Roman brickyard, about two fields from the Bathhouse, along the pathway which now runs northwards through Coal Pit Wood and skirts Bracken Wood. The pits are still visible where the clay was dug; also the broad “ride,” running east and west through Bracken Wood, near these pits, is said to have been a Roman road.

[11b]In the name Kirkstead Wharf, the etymologist will recognise, in the latter portion, the old Norse “wath” or ford. This was probably, at one time, when the river was wider and shallower, a ford for passengers and cattle. There are many places in Yorkshire named Wath, as Wath-on-Dearne, situated on a ford on that river. This is further confirmed by the local pronunciation of the name, which is still Kirkstead Wath, or “the Wath”par excellence. Wath is connected with our word “wade,” and the Latin vadum, a shallow.

[11c]The reader may gather some idea of the slowness of travel from the following particulars given to the writer by an old gentleman:—“The carrier’s cart left Horncastle at 8 a.m., arriving at Kirkstead Wath between 12 and 1 p.m.; or between four and five hours for the seven miles. The packet for Boston passed Kirkstead at 2 p.m. and arrived at Boston at 5 p.m. This is now done in about 50 minutes. It would have been easy for a pedestrian to have walked direct from Horncastle to Boston in five hours, whereas by this route it took nine hours.”

[12]As a further evidence of the difficulty, or rather the perils, of vehicular traffic in those days, the writer may here mention that he had once the unpleasant experience of being among the passengers of the aforesaid carrier’s cart, when the conveyance was overturned in the ditch, the driver being incapable of performing his duty.

[13]I may here mention that the anomaly of “donative” benefices was abolished by Act of Parliament in 1898.

[14a]Sir H. Dymoke, Bart., was the last champion who performed the ceremony of throwing down the glove in Westminster Hall at the coronation of the Sovereign.

[14b]The land extending from the present schoolhouse nearly to Mill-lane was at that time crown property, with much more in the neighbourhood, since sold.

[14c]Mr. Lewin himself presented the handsome pulpit of Caen stone, the carved poppyheads of the seats, and figures of angels in the roof. The corbels, from which the wooden arches spring, were carved by a barber of Boston, named White, one of three brothers of humble origin, all of whom developed talent in different directions: One (Andrew) as an artist in oil-painting of no small merit,—I have seen an oil-painting by him—another in rustic garden work, and the brother in question (Robert), continuing his calling as a barber, employed his spare time in carving in stone. The corbels in the chancel represent the Queen and Archbishop: those in the north wall of the nave bear the arms of the Rev. E. Walter and his wife; those in the south wall the arms of the Dymokes and the Hotchkin family. The reading desk was presented by the writer in memory of his father, the Rev. E. Walter. As a support to the Credence-table in the chancel is a stone with an effigy of a lady abbess of Stixwould Priory. This, with the stone for the church, was given by the late Mr. Christopher Turnor, owner of the Stixwould Estate, from the Priory ruins, and, as from the rude character of the carving it is evidently of very early date, it has been supposed to represent the Lady Lucia, the foundress: unfortunately, the masonry being dug from confused heaps, covered by the soil and turf of ages, was not, in many cases, laid by the builders in its proper “layer” as it was quarried. Consequently damp has penetrated, and frost and thaw have broken it up in many parts of the church walls. The small coloured window by the pulpit was the gift of the writer’s eldest daughter when a child, as a thank-offering on recovering from an accident, in which she providentially escaped death, when thrown, dragged, and kicked by her run-away pony. An engraving of the church, with description and other particulars, is to be found in the “Illustrated London News,” of September 25th, 1817.

[15]This syndicate consisted of the Right Honourable Edward Stanhope, M.P. (since deceased), Right Honourable H. Chaplin, M.P., Sir Richard Webster, M.P., T. Cheney Garfit, Esq., Kenwick Hall, Louth, and the Rev. J. O. Stephens, Rector of Blankney.

[21a]The date was February 2nd, 1850. £200 reward was offered. The writer has seen the printed proclamation of it. Tasker was buried in the churchyard at Scrivelsby, of which benefice his master was rector.

[21b]That he was, most probably, the guilty man is further confirmed by the following incident, vouched for by my informant, who knew him. The keeper at Tattershall, at that time, was a man named Penny. He, for his own reasons, had strong suspicions of the guilt of Kent, but said nothing, as he could not prove it. Several years after, Penny retired from his post as keeper, and took a farm, a few miles distant, in Timberland Fen. The man Kent, on one occasion called upon him to buy some chickens. In the course of conversation, Penny suddenly turned upon Kent, and said, “What a thing it was that you shot Tasker, as you did!” Kent was so taken by surprise, and confused by the remark, that he at once went away without completing his bargain. It is not, however, little remarkable, that, although no one was convicted of this murder, one of the suspected men, a few years later, committed suicide, another left the country, going out to Australia, and a third died of consumption. This looks, presumably, in all three cases, as though conscience was at work, condemning them, although the law was powerless. A tombstone was erected to the memory of Richard Tasker, by his master, in Scrivelsby Churchyard, stating that he “was cruelly murdered” in his service.

[24]A cast was taken of “Tiger Tom’s” head, after the execution; and a mould from it now forms an ornament over the door of No. 31, Boston-road, Horncastle: at present occupied by Mr. Arthur Buttery, but formerly the residence of Mr. William Boulton (grandfather of Mr. W. Boulton, landlord of the Great Northern Hotel), who was present at the execution, and obtained the cast at that time. The features are certainly not prepossessing. Another cast is in the possession of Mr. Robert Longstaff, Mareham Road, Horncastle, lately residing at Halstead Hall.

[27a]“Over Fen and Wold,” by J. J. Hissey, 1898, p. 290. Mr. Hissey, with his wife, made a driving tour from London to Lincolnshire, and round the county, staying for some days at Woodhall. Anyone who wishes to read a delightfully entertaining account of the chief objects of interest in the county, and in the approach to it, cannot do better than get this book.

[27b]So far from Lincolnshire being all on a dead level, there is a stiff gradient on the Great Northern line, as it passes through the county, about 2 miles from Essendine, where an elevation is attained about 10ft. higher than the cross of St. Paul’s Cathedral; and only some 10ft. lower than the highest point, at Grant’s House, near Berwick. On the old Coach-road from London to Edinburgh, the worst hill in the whole distance is that of Gonerby, near Grantham, Lincolnshire. “Over Fen and Wold,” p. 417.

[27c]Quoted by Sir Charles Anderson, in his “Pocket Guide to Lincoln.” “Harr” is an old Lincolnshire terra for “fog.” A “sea-harr” is a mist drifting inland from the sea.

[28a]Song, 25; date, 1612.

[28b]“Over Fen and Wold,” pp. 195–6.

[31]The above lists are, of course, only selections. Indeed, on the occasion to which the last list refers, one of the party produced a series of water-colour paintings of wild flowers which are found in the neighbourhood, beautifully executed by Dr. Burgess, of Spilsby, and numbering about 500.

[32]In speaking of the silene quinque vulneralis, on a previous page, I said that there was no absolute reason why it should not re-appear in the garden of the Victoria Hotel. The holy thistle is a case in point. Several years ago seeing that it was being steadily exterminated, and that the end was inevitably near, the writer transplanted a root to his own garden. It flourished there through two seasons, but was eventually, by mistake, “improved” away, when the garden beds were being dug over. To his surprise, some years after, a vigorous plant of it was found growing in his kitchen garden among the potatoes. Alas! That also has now gone the way of all thistle flesh.

[33]“Bage” is an old Lincolnshire word meaning a sod. In the overseer’s accounts of the neighbouring parish of Roughton occurs this entry twice in the year 1707: “2s. 6d. paid for one day’s work of church moor bages”;i.e., peat cut for fuel.

[34a]The birch trees of the neighbourhood, with their silvery bark and light and elegant foliage have been very much reduced in numbers, as the wood is used for “clogs” in the manufacturing districts of Yorkshire and elsewhere.

[34b]There is a “Pyewipe” Inn at Lincoln, and Pyewipe Hall, near Kirton-in-Lindsey.

[34c]This may seem to the ordinary uninitiated mind to be a stretch of the imagination; but if we are to believe Mr. Cornish, the old practised gunners on our coasts, who make the cries of our wild fowl a life-long study can almost understand them as well as human speech. See “Animals, their Life and Conversation,” by C. J. Cornish.

[34d]They also frequented other moorlands in the north of the county, in the neighbourhood of Market Rasen and Caistor.

[35]The writer has enjoyed the privilege (often a welcome relief from hard literary, and other labours) of shooting over this ground for more than a quarter of a century, having known it for double that period. His father-in-law had it before him; a genuine sportsman of the old type, being one of a trio, who clung to the last, even far into the seventies, to the old flint gun—the late General Hall, of Sixmile Bottom, near Newmarket, being the second, and I believe the famous sportsman, Sir Richard Sutton, the third, two of whose guns became the property of my father-in-law. Only one man was left in the kingdom who made the flints. A grand weapon was a genuine “flint” of old “Joe” Manton; with plenty of metal, a hard hitter, and often equally serviceable when converted into a breech-loader. Its only drawbacks were, that the exposure of the powder rendered it uncertain in damp weather; and the slowness of ignition; but this latter, to a sportsman who had known no other “arm of precision,” was little hindrance, and naturally, entered into his calculations whenever he pulled trigger.

[36a]The writer, from one cause or another, has probably had a unique experience of shooting in the neighbourhood of Woodhall and elsewhere. To say nothing of shooting in nine other counties, he at one time shot over the whole of the Kirkstead estate. During the absence from home of the late owner of the Woodhall estate, T. J. Stafford Hotchkin, Esq., when residing abroad, he, with a friend, shot over all Woodhall. Within the nineties, he, with two others, rented the greater part of the Woodhall shooting for three years. He has shot, at one time or another, in more than 50 parishes in the county.Tempora Mutantur. Probably hard times have had an astringent effect on the hospitality of the shooting fraternity.

[36b]I quote from a poem, long ago out of print, written by Richard Ellison, Esq. (of Boultham), entitled “Kirkstead, or the Pleasures of Shooting,” and published in 1837; the proceeds of its sale to be given to the funds of a fancy fair held in aid of Lincoln County Hospital.

[38]Another anecdote of the said keeper may here be given, which is amusing. Soon after the above incident he gave notice to quit his place, in order (as he said) to better himself. He had often heard me descant on the charms of grouse shooting and deer-stalking, and he came to me to ask me to help him to a situation in Scotland. I got him the post of keeper on a large moor on the shores of Loch Ness. He was a man with a big head, a bulky body, and with rather weak bandy legs (not unlike many a sketch in “Punch”), and though a good English keeper, and able to stride along through the turnips, in a level country like our own, he was not adapted for mountaineering. One season in the Highlands cooled his ardour, and the very next year he called on me again, being out of place. “Well,” I asked my friend, “how is it you’re here again”? “To tell you the truth, sir,” he replied, “I could not stand those barelegged Highland gillies. [N.B.—He had, himself, no fine calves to show.] They were always a-laughing at me. And their gaelic was worse than Latin and Greek. You’ll never catch me in Scotland again.” We can picture to ourselves the bandy legs bearing the unwieldly body up a steep brae side; stumbling over loose stones, struggling through the tall heather, till breathless he would pause, while the agile gillies would, chuckling, leave him behind; pause and ponder with the conclusion not slowly arrived at, “What a fool I was to leave Woodhall for work like this.” The Sassenach was indeed out of his element on the Scotch hills. He took my advice; picked up a wife half his own age, and now keeps a country public-house, where he can recount his Scotch and other adventures at the bar.

[39]This is also confirmed by a writer in the “Naturalist,” of 1895, p. 67. He says the bird “is very erratic in its nesting habits.” He has found its egg in a pheasant’s nest, and in two cases the egg laid on the bare ground. Only last season I myself found an egg lying without any nest.

[40]This peculiar protective property is not confined to the partridge, but seems to apply to game birds generally. The keeper on the Woodhall shooting reported to me, on one occasion, that a pheasant had nested close to a footpath, where she was certain to be disturbed, and asked permission to take the eggs to hatch under one of his hens. Mr. E. M. Cole reports in the “Naturalist” of 1892, p. 182,Phasianus Colchicusnest of seven or eight eggs “found May 6th, on the road margin.” Mr. J. Watson, in his book “Sylvan Folk,” says: “A party of ornithologists were trying to get a specimen of the ptarmigan in breeding plumage, but failed up to luncheon time. Sitting down, the lunch was unstrapped from a pony, and a strap fell on a ptarmigan, sitting, actually, under the pony. On another occasion a dog sat down upon the hen ptarmigan, which it had not discovered in the middle of the party.”—“Sylvan Folk,” p. 147, Fisher Unwin, 1889.

[42]The writer once witnessed a fight in the air between a kite and a heron. Hearing a confused sound of harsh cries overhead, he looked up, and soon caught sight of two large birds wheeling round and round, each apparently doing its utmost to get above the other. The two, however, were very evenly matched, for, whereas the kite had its strong beak and talons, deadly weapons for seizing and rending when at close quarters, and could make a powerful swoop at his prey—the heron, though an awkward bird in the air, and ungainly in its movements, had yet its long, sharp, bill, with which it could receive its enemy as it were “at point of bayonet,” and even transfix him, should he make a reckless onset. Again and again, when the kite succeeded in getting uppermost, he would make a rapid downward swoop upon the heron; but as he neared the latter, he was forced swiftly to turn aside, to avoid being pierced through by the long bill. This went on for a considerable time, the two birds by turns surmounting each other, until they were lost to view in a cloud; and as to which ultimately gained the day, “witness deponeth not.”

As Mary Howitt prettily says;—

Up, up into the skies,Thy strenuous pinions go;While shouts, and cries, and wondering eyesStill reach thee from below.But higher and higher, like a spirit of fire,Still o’er thee hangs thy foe;Thy cruel foe, still seekingWith one down-plunging aimTo strike thy precious lifeFor ever from thy frame;But doomed, perhaps, as down he darts,Swift as the rustling wind,Impaled upon thy upturned beak,To leave his own behind.To the Heron

To the Heron

[44a]The writer, when the sport of hawking was revived some 40 years ago by the late Mr. Barr, witnessed several trials of his hawks, and himself tried hawking with the sparrow-hawk on a small scale. A great friend of his took up the sport at one time, and spent a good deal of money on it in securing good birds and well trained; but it almost invariably resulted in their getting away. Failing to kill his quarry, the bird would fly wildly about in search of it, thus getting beyond recall, and so would eventually go off and resume its wild habits. After losing a hawk for some days, the writer has caught sight of it again, called it, and swung his “lure” in the air to attract it. The hawk has come and fluttered about him, almost within arm’s length, but carefully eluded being taken; and so, after a little playful dalliance, has flown away again.

[44b]Lord Lilford, the great naturalist, states that a pair of owls, with their adult progeny, will, in three months, rid the land of no less than 10,000 vermin; and Frank Buckland states that he found the remains of 20 dead rats in one owl’s nest.

[45]Among his various pets the writer has tried to keep owls, but not with success. On one occasion he brought home two young birds, taken from a nest on the moor. They were put into an empty pigeon-cote. The next morning they were found dead, with their claws, in fatal embrace, buried deep in each other’s eyes. At another time he reared a couple, and got them fairly tame. They were allowed to go out at night to forage for themselves. But on one occasion, for the delectation of some visitors, he turned them out in the afternoon before dusk, and (presumably), taking offence at the affront put upon them, they never returned to their quarters. For a time he heard them in the dusk, and when he called they would even hover about him, uttering a low kind of purr but keeping carefully out of his reach.

[46a]The writer on Jan. 7, 1899, walking along a footpath, saw a pedlar who was meeting him, suddenly stop, and poke out a sort of bundle from the hedge-bottom with is stick. On coming up to him he asked what he had got. The reply was “One of the varmints that kill the ducks”;i.e., hedgehog. On his saying that he did not believe that the creature did anything of the kind, the pedlar replied, rather indignantly, that he knew an instance where a hedgehog had killed 20 ducks in a night. While, however, claiming for the hedgehog, mainly an insect, or vegetable diet, we are aware that it is open to the soft impeachment, that it does not object, like some of its betters, to an occasional “poached egg,” whether of duck, chicken, or partridge; and cases are on record of its being caught in flagrante delicto, as mentioned by Mr. E. L. Arnold, in hisBird Life in England.

[46b]The term “sewer” does not at all imply that this stream was ever used for sewerage purposes. It is a survival from old times, once meaning a drain or water course. Commissioners of sewers were appointed by Henry VIII. under the “Statute of Sewers.” But the same bucolic mind which can see in the most graceful church tower in the kingdom “BostonStump,” gives the name of “Sewer” to a stream pellucid enough to be a fount of Castaly.

[47]There are several other birds occasionally about Woodhall, but they can hardly be counted among the regular denizens of the district. The curlew has recently been seen during a whole season, doubtless nesting somewhere in the neighbourhood, though the nest has not been found. The Green Sand-piper (Totanus Octaopus) frequents some of our ponds, but only as a bird of passage; the writer has occasionally shot them. The Razorbill (Alca Torda) is sometimes blown inland to us. A specimen was caught a few years ago, in an exhausted state, by some boys in Woodhall, and brought to the writer. A Little Auk (Alca Arctica) was caught under similar circumstances some years ago. A specimen of the Scoter, or Surf-Duck (Oidemia perspicillata), was brought to him, exhausted, but alive. He took care of it, and fed it. It recovered, and eventually regained its freedom, and was seen no more. Two stuffed specimens of that rare bird, the Ruff and Reeve, may be seen at the house of Mr. Charles Fixter, farmer, within three fields of the Bathhouse, Woodhall. They were shot by a Woodhall keeper, at Huttoft, near the sea coast.

[49]In connection with this decoy, it may be added that, in order to prevent the wild ducks being disturbed, no shooting was allowed anywhere near it. There was a large rabbit warren close by, where a peculiar kind of wild rabbit, black with silver hairs, bred in great numbers. These, as they could not be shot, were caught in large deep pits with trap doors. The skins were exported to Prussia, to make busbies for the soldiers, while the bodies were sent to Hull market. For the entertainment of sporting readers, it may be further mentioned that the relative and his son were “crack” shots. The old gentleman rode a shooting-pony, and fired from his thigh, instead of from the shoulder. A wager was, on one occasion, laid between father and son as to which would miss his game first. They each fired 18 shots before a miss occurred. Which of the two was the defaulter, the writer “deponeth not”; but in either case it was not a bad score. Sir John Astley, in his autobiography, mentions that when he was invalided home from the Crimea, having been wounded in the neck, he, for some time, could not get his arm up, and shot from the thigh, and managed to kill his rabbits. In the case of my relative long practice had made perfect.

[53a]Mr. A. E. Pease, M.P., in his volume “Hunting Reminiscences, 1898,” in a chapter on badger hunting, says: “In countries where mange in foxes has become a scourge, the preservation of badgers would do much to remove this plague, for they are wonderful cleansers of earths.”

[53b]It is to be hoped that the cruel sport of badger baiting is no longer indulged in, although not many years ago (1888), there appeared in the columns of the “Exchange and Mart,” the following advertisement: “Very fine large badger and baiting cage, in good condition; price 20s.”

[54a]Badger hunting, a more legitimate sport, is still carried on in a few rare instances. A friend of the writer, for several years, kept badger hounds in Gloucestershire, where these animals, are still fairly numerous, and the writer still possesses the skin of a badger killed by his hounds. A variety of hounds are used for this sport. There is the “smell dog” to track the quarry by his trail left in the previous night; the pack of more ordinary dogs to hunt him, and the plucky, smaller dog, who “draws” him from his retreat. It takes a good dog to beard the badger.

[54b]“Nature Notes, vol. v., 1894, p. 98.”

[55a]The late Mr. E. R. Alston, F.Z.S., Selbourne Magazine Vol. ii., p. 169.

[55b]Mr. W. Cartmell. Ibidem.

[55c]The Rev. E. Adrian Woodruffe-Peacock, F.L.S., F.G.S., secretary of the Lincolnshire Naturalists’ Union, has assured me, that, seeing a pike lying dead on the river bank, with the shoulder eaten away in the above manner, he has watched it for two days, but the otter never returned. And Mr. H. C. Hey, Derwent House, West Ayrton, York, mentions a similar case. (“The Naturalist,” 1895, p. 106). While a writer inThe Globe(April 30, 1896) says that he has seen half-a-dozen bream dead on a river bank, from not one of which has the otter taken more than this one bite.

[55d]See again Nature Notes, quoted above.

[56]To shew that the writer is not “speaking without book” in calling this neighbourhood a stronghold of Reynard in former years, it is sufficient to quote two or three of the entries in the accounts of the Parish Overseer of Woodhall, still preserved in the chest at Woodhall Church.

“1806, March 30.—Needham’s boy for a fox

“1806, April 6.—Paid for foxes

3½

“1814, April 11.—Paid for foxes

2½”

The slaughter of foxes, even in the 19th century, was thus remunerated at the rate of 1s. each; yet, in Woodhall, they would seem to have been so plentiful, that for such services, with other incidental expenses (such, probably, as traps, &c.), as much as £1 12s. 2½d. was paid in one year. Since those days, there has been a reaction in public sentiment.Nous avons changé tout cela, and instead of putting a price on Reynard’shead, we value hisbrush, and give him general protection.

[57]This is confirmed by the late Sir John Astley, who states that, as a boy, he often gave wood-pigeons, rabbits, and rats to a litter of fox cubs, kept by their keeper within a wire fence, and they almost invariably preferred the rat.—“Fifty Years of My Life,” by Sir J. Astley. Vol. i., p. 245.

[61]“Hinerarium,” vol. vi., p. 58, 1710.

[62a]Part of the Glebe of Kirkby-on-Bain.

[62b]I take haphazard two or three entries from my shooting diary, recording the produce of a morning’s walk, alone, on the moor, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. “Oct. 4, 1874.—9 hares, 8 pheasants, 3 brace of partridges, 2 couple of rabbits, 3 woodpigeons, 2 waterhens.” “Oct. 1877.—10 hares, 7 pheasants, 4½ brace of partridges, 2 woodcock, 2 couple of rabbits.” “Jan. 29, 1878.—5 pheasants, 4 hares, 2 brace of partridges, 2½ couple of rabbits, 3 woodcock, 2 woodpigeon, 1 waterhen, 2 snipe.”

[63]The bag that day (Nov. 1877) was 352 hares, 14 pheasants, 8 partridges, 4 rabbits. I also find the following brief entry: “Nov. 7, 1878—Shot with a party in Kirkstead, killing to my own gun nearly 60 hares.” And again, “Oct. 19, 1876. Shot with a friend in Kirkstead, 15 brace of partridges, 6 brace of pheasants, and 10 hares.” To show that the Kirkstead and Tattershall shootings still maintain their excellence, I give here the bag on a more recent occasion. “Oct. 12, 1894.—In Kirkstead a party shot, in the open, 70 brace of partridges, 1 pheasant, and 110 hares.” At Tattershall in the same year a party killed 531 hares in three days. I have mentioned above, the Tattershall shooting as being “nearly as good as that of Kirkstead.” I give here a note or two of sport on that estate: “Sep. 21, 1876.—Shot with Mr. S. (the lessee of the shooting) the Witham side of Tattershall. Bag: 25 hares, 9 brace of partridges.” “Sep. 25.—Shot on the same ground, 7 hares, 26 brace of partridges.” On the Woodhall ground, hares were always few in number, the soil not seeming to suit them; but among partridges I have shared in good sport. I give two entries as samples: “Sep. 16, 1873.—Shot with Captain H. (lessee of the shooting) 30½ brace of partridges and 2 hares.” And again, “Nov. 16, 1872.—Shot for the third day, Bracken Wood. Total bag, rather more than 400 pheasants in the three days; rabbits, over 150, and 20 woodcock.”

[65]Other instances of albinos are not uncommon, but more among birds than quadrupeds. I find among my notes the following: “Albino shrew mouse caught at Ackworth, near Pontefract, June, 1895; white robin at Whitby, Jan., 1896; ditto at Boston, Sept., 1898; white woodcock nested in Manby Woods, near Louth, with four young of the usual colour, July, 1892; buff woodcock shot at Bestwood, Nottingham, Feb. 1892; white landrail shot at Kedleston, near Derby, Sept., 1892; white thrush caught at Nidderdale, November 1892; cream-coloured skylark shot near Harrogate, Sept., 1891; white jay—two young specimens shot near York, 1893; white sand martin caught at Killinghall, near Harrogate, July, 1898; at Brackenborough, near Louth, there were two coveys of partridges, in the season of 1896–7, with white specimens among them: and at Stonehouse, in Gloucestershire, a covey of mixed white and brown partridges were reported in 1897. A buff hare was shot near Bourne in 1897.” A white black-buck was killed by a friend in Kattiawar, India, in 1897, and I have a stuffed specimen of buff blackbird, caught some years ago in the vicarage garden at Woodhall: the parent birds having buff young two seasons in succession.

[67]In the Southdowns, the hills are called “Downs,” and the valleys “Deans,” or sometimes by the Devonshire term “Coomb.”

[69]Essays on Natural History, Third Series, p. 169. Ed. 1857.

[71a]Gilbert White mentions this habit of “snakes stinking,se defendendo. A friend (he says) kept a tame snake, in its own person as sweet as any animal; but as soon as a stranger, a cat, or a dog entered the room, it fell to hissing, and filled the room with such nauseous effluvia as rendered it hardly supportable.” Natural History, Selbourne, p. 90. Ed. 1829.

[71b]Brusher, a well-known character in the New Forest, Hampshire, says he has seen hundreds of snakes swallow their young in time of danger. “The New Forest,” by R. C. de Crespigny and Horace Hutchinson.

[74]Several kinds of fish which we now think coarse or insipid, would doubtless become, through the culinary skill of the monasticchef“savoury dishes” such as even a lordly abbot’s soul might relish. For the benefit of readers who may like to try the fish of our district under most favourable conditions, I here give two or three recipes for cooking them. Francatelli, no mean authority, says, “a pike cooked properly can hold its own against many fish from the sea.” Boiled with horseradish sauce and mustard it makes an excellent dish. Perch, with sorrel sauce and mayonnaise, is equally good. Carp, fried with butter, is excellent. Chub, taken in frosty weather, are firm, at other times rather flabby, but treated in either of the above ways they are more than palatable. Roach, cooked on a gridiron, with butter, make a nice breakfast. Tench, with port wine sauce, are a luxury. Eels, though despised in Scotland, are very good stewed.

[76a]Lincoln Records, quoted in Sir Charles Anderson’s “Pocket Guide of Lincoln,” p. 107. The spelling “wesh” agrees with the local pronunciation of the present day.

[76b]Mr. S. Cheer, of Horncastle.

[76c]Mr. W. Bryant, of Horncastle.

[78]Rev. C. D. Ash, Skipwith Vicarage. Naturalist, 1896, pp. 302 and 303.

[79a]Mr. J. Watson, in his very interesting book, “Sylvan Folk,” states (p. 232) that a single swan will destroy a gallon of trout ova in a day.

[79b]Mr. W. Bryant.

[79c]Aaron Rushton.

[80a]This fine specimen of thesalmo fariowas bought by the late Rev. J. W. King, of sporting celebrity, to put into the lake at Ashby-de-la-Launde, to improve the breed of trout there.

[80b]In one part of “The Brook,” the Laureate has taken a “poetic licence,” when he says:

“I wind about, and in and out,With here a blossom sailing.And here and there a lusty trout,And here and there a grayling.”

There are no grayling in the Somersby beck.

[81]For brothers “of the cloth” with piscatorial proclivities, who visit Woodhall, the writer would point to this means of healthful relaxation, which he can recommend from experience. Any qualms of the clerical conscience as to the legitimacy of such an avocation—a wholesome calling away from graver duties—may be set at rest on episcopal, and even archi-episcopal, authority. The late Archbishop Magee was an ardent fisherman, and would go on flogging on Irish lough or river, even though he did not get a single rise. (See “Life of W. Connor Magee,” by J. C. McDonnell.) And the writer once read, with much enjoyment, an article on salmon fishing in the “Quarterly Review,” which was attributed to the versatile pen of the Bishop of Winchester, better known as “Samuel of Oxford,” who sought occasional relief from his almost superhuman labours on the banks of a Highland river.

[84a]The exception to which allusion is here made is the village of South Scarle, about six miles from Lincoln, where a deep boring was made in 1876, in search of coal. The depth attained was 2,029 feet, or nearly twice that of the Woodhall well; but as only the upper layer of the coal measures was thus reached, and it was calculated that actual coal would be some 1,600 feet lower still, or a total depth of 3,600 feet, the boring was abandoned. The strata passed through were found to be as follows: Alluvial or drift, 10ft.; lower lias clay and limestone, 65ft. rhœtic beds, 66ft.; the three triassic formations, new red marl (Keuper), lower keuper sandstone, new red sandstone, 1,359ft.; upper permian marls, upper magnesian limestone, middle permian marls, lower magnesian limestone, permian marl slates, with basement of breccia, 619ft.; and upper coal measures, 10ft.; total, 2,029ft.

[84b]See end of Chapter I. on The History of the Well.

[85a]We have the testimony of two of the labourers employed in the shaft (Cheeseman and Belton) who agree in giving this depth. They also state that the particular stratum was 54ft. thick; that the set of the current was from south-east to north-west, running from a crack in one side of the shaft into a corresponding crack in the opposite side, and that they both assisted in making a brick and cement lining to the shaft, leaving a channel behind for the water to run round half the circumference, from crack to crack.

[85b]We may further add that it is at the junction of the Northampton sand with the underlying lias, that we find numerous springs in other parts of the county; as at Navanby, Waddington, Lincoln, Blyborough, Kirton, and several other places. The Government “Geological Survey Memoir” for the country around Lincoln (p. 208) agrees in saying that the Woodhall water comes from the “inferior oolite” which comprises the Northampton sands.

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