CHAPTER XII

A civil tramp--Country hospitality--Sleaford--A Lincolnshire saying--A sixteenth-century vicarage--Struck by lightning--“The Queen of Villages”--A sculptured anachronism--Swineshead--A strange legend--Local proverbs--Chat with a “commercial”--A mission of destruction--The curfew--Lost our way--Out of the beaten track--A grotesque figure and mysterious legend--Puzzling inscriptions--The end of a long day 226