I can't remember
anything about the matter myself, for it happened just one hundred
years before I was born, but my father was acquainted with an old
countryman, who lived not many miles from here, who said he
remembered perfectly well the day of the battle; that he was a boy
at the time, and was working in a field near the place where the
battle was fought; and heard shouting, and noise of firearms, and
also the sound of several balls, which fell in the field near him.
Come this way, measter, and I will show you some remains of that
day's field." Leaving the monument, on which was inscribed an
account of the life and sufferings of the Royalist Rector of
Horncastle, I followed the sexton to the western end of the church,
where, hanging against the wall, were a number of scythes stuck in
the ends of poles. "Those are the weapons, measter," said the
sexton, "which the great people put into the hands of the country
folks, in order that they might use them against Oliver's men; ugly
weapons enough; however, Oliver's men won, and Sir Jacob Ashley and
his party were beat. And a rare time Oliver and his men had of it,
till Oliver died, when the other party got the better, not by
fighting, 'tis said, but through a General Monk, who turned sides.
Ah, the old fellow that my father knew, said he well remembered the
time when General Monk went over and proclaimed Charles the Second.
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