84 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



horses, and awa}^ they bound. NeAvark market- 

 square glides by, and we are crossing the Trent, 

 over a long hridge. " Newark Castle, gentlemen," 

 says our coachman, jerking his whip to the left 

 hand; and there Ave see, rising from the l^anks of 

 the hroad river, the cruml)ling, time-stained towers 

 of a ruined mediaeval fortress. Much he has to 

 say of it, for he is intelligent beyond the ordinary 

 run. A good and graceful Avhip, too — one of the 

 ncAV school : much persuasion and little punish- 

 ment for the horses, Avho certainly seem to put 

 forward their best paces at his merest suggestion. 

 It is a good, flat, and fairly straight road, this 

 ten-mile stage to Scarthing Moor. We cross the 

 Trent again, then a loAV-lying tract of Avater- 

 meadoAvs, AA'here the night mists still cling in 

 ghost-like Avisps to the grass, and then several 

 small villa2:es. " This " — savs our coachman, 

 pointing to a church beside the road, and doAv^n 

 the street of one of these little villages — "this is 

 where Oliver CroniAvell came from." 



"What is the name of it?" Ave ask, knoAving 

 that, Avhatever its name, the Protector came from 

 quite a different place. 



" CroniAvell," he says. 



So this Avas ju'ohably the original seat of that 

 family many centuries before Oliver came into 

 the Avorld, which has since then l)een so greatly 

 exercised about him. 



" BloAV up for the change," says the coach- 

 man to the guard, as, having passed through 

 Carlton-on-Trcnt, Sutton-on-Trent, and round the 



