did. Now our self-appointed guide led us to one of the side aisles, and

began to lift the matting up from the pavement, in search of a tombstone he wished to show us, but for some inexplicable reason he could not readily find it. “It can’t surely have run away?” we exclaimed, amused at the perplexity of the searcher; “tombstones don’t often do that.” But the light was rapidly fading; already it was too dim to read inscriptions on the dusky flooring, darkened further by the shadows of the pews, so we left the tomb unseen. If I remember aright it was to the memory of Tennyson’s parents-in-law.

Mr. Baker then invited us to his house, an invitation we accepted; we were taken there by what appeared to be a very roundabout way, in order, we imagined, that our guide might point out to us one or two things of interest. First we were shown the square red-brick house near the church which was formerly the home of Mr. Sellwood, whose eldest daughter Tennyson married. Except for this second-hand kind of fame the house is not notable in any way; it is of a comfortable old-fashioned type, without any architectural pretensions whatever--a type that possesses the negative virtue of neither attracting nor offending the eye. As Mr. Baker was a very old man (he told us he was born on 1st November 1814), we ventured to ask him if by any chance he remembered seeing Tennyson as a youth when living at Somersby. He told us that when he was a boy he distinctly remembered Tennyson as a young man. “We did not think much of him then; he used to go rambling miles away from home without his hat; we used to think him a little strange. I have been told as how when he was a boy he was a bit wild like, and would get on a mule and make him go by rattling a tin box, with marbles in it, right over the animal’s ears. He used to be very fond of going into the fields all alone, and lying on his back on the grass smoking a pipe. He was very reserved, and did not talk to people much; and that’s about all I know or have heard about him. You see, sir, ‘a prophet hath no honour in his own country,’ that’s Scripture, so it must be true.” We nodded assent.

[Sidenote: _IN STRANGE QUARTERS_]

Then Mr. Baker showed us Sir Ingram Hopton’s old home in the main street, and going down a narrow lane pointed out some bits of rough and ruined masonry, now built into walls and cottages; these crumbling bits of masonry, we were told, formed portions of the old castle. I must, however, confess that when castles come to this state of decay, they fail to arouse my sympathies, for their history in stone is over, and all their picturesqueness gone. After this we came to Mr. Baker’s little sweetmeat-shop, situated in a by-street; we were ushered through the shop into a tiny and somewhat stuffy sitting-room. Here we were bidden to take a chair, and imagine ourselves at home; we did the former, the latter was beyond our power, the surroundings were so unfamiliar! Then Mr. Baker produced a parcel of letters written direct to him from sundry more or less notable people; three of these, we observed, to our surprise, were stamped at the top with the well-known name of an English royal palace. They were all addressed to “Dear Mr. Baker,” and bore the signature below of a royal personage! As we looked round the tiny humble parlour at the back of the sweetmeat-shop immediately after glancing at the letters, a certain sense of the incongruity of things struck us forcibly. Then we were handed another letter from the famous cricketer, Mr. W. G. Grace, complimenting Mr. Baker on his old round-arm bowling! “Maybe you would hardly think it,” remarked our host, “to look at me now, a gray old man, but I was a great cricketer once. Why, I bowled out at the very first ball the late Roger Iddison, when he was captain of the All-England Eleven.” We felt inclined just then to say that we could believe anything! So we accepted the statement as a matter of course that the French (which one we were not told) Ambassador had been to see Mr. Baker. After this we were allowed to gaze upon and even handle his treasure of treasures, namely, the snuff-box of “Bobbie Burns, the great Scotch poet,” in the shape of a small horn with a silver lid. This, we were assured, had once belonged to Burns. It may have done; anyway, on the lid is inscribed “R. B., 1768,” and it looks that age.

Mr. Baker informed us that though he kept only a very small and unpretending sweet-shop, his mother’s ancestors were titled, “but really the deed makes the nobleman and I make excellent sweets. I send them everywhere,” he said; “you must try them,” whereupon he presented us with a tin box full of his “Noted Bull’s-Eyes.” Let me here state that the bull’s-eyes proved to be most excellent. I make this statement on the best authority, having given them to my children, and children should be the best judges of such luxuries, and they pronounced

[Sidenote: _PARDONABLE IGNORANCE_]

them “most delicious.” Then Mr. Baker insisted upon singing to us an old English song; he would have added some ventriloquism, but we said that we really could not trespass upon his valuable time and hospitality any longer, so we took our departure, and sought the ease of our inn. We have come upon a goodly number of characters during our many driving tours, but I do not think that we have ever come upon a greater one than Mr. Baker; long may he live yet! That I had never heard of him before I arrived in Horncastle seemed genuinely to surprise him! Well, I had not, “there are so many famous people in the world,” as I explained in excuse, “nowadays you cannot really know of them all!” “That’s quite true, sir,” replied he, and we parted the best of friends. I am sure I was forgiven for my ignorance, for a little later that evening a parcel came for me to my hotel, and I found it to contain a quantity of gingerbread, “With Mr. Baker’s compliments!”