We saw that the two roads going north from Bourne sloped off right and left of the “Kings Street.” That on the left or western side keeps a parallel course to Sleaford, but that on the right, after reaching _Horbling_, diverges still further to the east and makes for _Heckington_. These two places are situated about six miles apart, and it is through the Horbling and Heckington fens that the only two roads which run east and west in all South Lincolnshire make their way. They both start from the Grantham and Lincoln Road at Grantham and at Honington, the former crossing the “Kings Street” at Threckingham, and thence to Horbling fen, the latter passing by Sleaford and Heckington. Both of these roads curve towards one another when they have passed the fens, and, uniting near Swineshead, make for Boston and the Wash. The whole of the land in South Lincolnshire slopes from west to east, falling between Grantham and Boston about 440 feet, but really this fall takes place almost entirely in the first third of the way on the western side of “The Roman Street” which was cleverly laid out on the Fen-side fringe of the higher ground. The road from Bourne to Heckington East of the “Street” is absolutely on the fen level and the railway goes parallel to it, between the road and the Roman ‘Carr Dyke.’ Thus we have a Roman road, a Roman canal, two modern roads and a railway, all running side by side to the north. [Sidenote: RIPPINGALE] The Heckington road, after leaving the “Street,” passes through _Dunsby_ and _Dowsby_, where there is an old Elizabethan house once inhabited by the Burrell family. _Rippingale_ lies off to the left between the two and has in its church a rood screen canopy but no screen, which is very rare, and a large number of old monuments from the thirteenth century onwards, the oldest being two thirteenth century knights in chain mail of the family of Gobaud, who lived at the Hall, now the merest ruin, where they were succeeded by the Bowet, Marmion, Haslewood and Brownlow families. An effigy of a deacon with the open book of the Gospels has this unusual inscription, “Ici git Hwe Geboed le palmer le fils Jhoan Geboed. Millᵒ 446 Prees pur le alme.” It is interesting to find here a fifteenth century monument to a Roger de Quincey. Was he, I wonder, an ancestor of the famous opium eater? There is in the pavement a Marmion slab of 1505. The register records the death in July, 1815, of “the Lincolnshire Giantess” Anne Hardy, aged 16, height 7 ft. 2 in. The Brownlow family emigrated hence to Belton near Grantham. They had another Manor House at _Great Humby_, which is just half-way between Rippingale and Belton, of which the little brick-built domestic chapel now serves as a church. As we go on we notice that the whole of the land eastwards is a desolate and dreary fen, which extends from the Welland in the south to the Witham near Lincoln. Of this Fenland, the Witham, when it turns southwards,