right, and I says so too; I likes spirit, and if the cove were here, and in your place, measter, I would invite him to drink a pint of beer.  Good horses are scarce now, measter, ay, and so are good men, quite a different set from what there were when I was young; that was the time for men and horses.  Lord bless you, I know all the breeders about here; they are not a bad set, and they breed a very fairish set of horses, but they are not like what their fathers were, nor are their horses like their fathers’ horses.  Now there is Mr.—­the great breeder, a very fairish man, with very fairish horses; but, Lord bless you, he’s nothing to what his father was, nor his steeds to his father’s; I ought to know, for I was at the school here with his father, and afterwards for many a year helped him to get up his horses; that was when I was young, measter—­those were the days.  You look at that monument, measter,” said he, as I stopped and looked attentively at a monument on the southern side of the church near the altar; “that was put up for a rector of this church, who lived a long time ago, in Oliver’s time, and was ill-treated and imprisoned by Oliver and his men; you will see all about it on the monument.  There was a grand battle fought nigh this place, between Oliver’s men and the Royal party, and the Royal party had the worst of it, as I’m told they generally had; and Oliver’s men came into the town, and did a great deal of damage, and ill-treated the people.  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.  Bonfires were lighted everywhere, oxen roasted, and beer drunk by pailfuls; the country folks were drunk with joy, and