A clean, homely, dreamy little town is Highworth, very ancient, even quaint in parts, and this in spite of the fact that a branch line of railway has found it out; but so far the railway does not appear to have disturbed its old-world tranquillity There I halted a while at "The Saracen's Head," a relic of the old coaching days, and the inn, like the town, seemed half asleep. Then I took a quiet walk round the place, and eventually found my way to the church; there appeared to be nothing else noteworthy there except the old houses and old shops, and these, though they grouped well and made a picturesque whole, were not individually of much interest. So it was I strolled into the church, and there I found the clerk: twice running had I done this unusual thing. I bade him good-morning. He told me he was looking after a bat that had got into the roof of the building and was making a mess there. I have heard of owls in a church tower, but here was a bat in the church itself. "How are you going to catch the bat?" queried I, for he had no ladder, and he believed the bat was somewhere hidden in the beams above. "That's just what I want to know," he replied. "I'm thinking it over; meanwhile I'll show you the church if you like." I thought he might as well do this whilst he was thinking, so I accepted his services. The first thing I noticed was a cannon-ball hanging by three chains from a bracket on the wall; there must be some story attached to that, I thought, and there was. It was another of Cromwell's countless cannon-balls--I have long ago lost count of the many I have seen. "That," said the clerk, "was fired against the church by Cromwell, and it lodged in the tower. I can show you the hole it made there where it struck." Then I learnt that the church had been fortified and held for Charles I., was besieged by the Parliamentarians, who eventually captured it, taking seventy prisoners; the earthworks a little beyond the town, where the cannon was mounted, are still to be made out. Those were stirring times for the countryside; the district between Oxford and Worcester had its full share in them, and in some parts of it the fighting raged furiously.