But most curious of all is the stone in the churchyard to a certain “True Blue,” who died in 1725, aged fifty-seven. Time has lost all count of “True Blue,” who or what he was, and speculation is futile. If only the vicar who entered his burial in the register had noted some particulars of him, how grateful we should be for the unveiling of this mystery! Those registers have, indeed, no little interest, containing as they do the gruesome records of many criminals executed in the old gaol deliveries, as well as of a woman who was wounded at the battle of Edge Hill and died of her hurts. XXIII A long and steep descent into the valley of the Ouse conducts from Little Brickhill into Fenny Stratford, seen in the distance, its roofs glimmering redly amid foliage. The river, a canal, and the low-lying flats illustrate very eloquently the “fenny” adjective in the place-name, and it is in truth a very amphibious, bargee, wharfingery, and mudlarky little town. Agriculture and canal-life mix oddly here. Wharves, the “Navigation” inn, and hunchbacked canal-bridges admit into the town; and the lazy, willow-fringed Ouzel, with pastures and spreading cornfields on either side, bows one out of it at the other end. The arms of Fenny Stratford, to be seen carved above the church door, allude in their wavy lines to its riverain character, but, just as Ipswich and some other ancient ports bear curiously dimidiated arms showing monsters, half lions and half boats, so “Fenny” (as its inhabitants shortly and fondly call it) should bear for arms half a barge and half a plough, conjoined, with, for supporters, a bargee and a ploughman. The church just mentioned is exceedingly ugly, and of the glorified-factory type common at the period when it was built. It owes its present form to Browne Willis, the antiquary, who built it in 1726, and, as an antiquary, ought to have known better. He dedicated it to St. Martin, in memory of his father, who was born in St. Martin’s Lane, and died on St. Martin’s Day. A kindly growth of ivy now screens the greater part of Browne Willis’s egregious architecture. He lies buried beneath the altar, but his memory is kept green by celebration of St. Martin’s Day, November 11th, when the half-dozen small carronades he presented to the town and now known as the “Fenny Poppers,” fire a _feu-de-joie_, followed by morning service in the church and a dinner in the evening at the “Bull” inn.