t never returned home, nor could enquiring friends
find any trace of him.

The Nelson Hotel, on the same side of the Market Place, was formerly kept
by an old man named Vesey, who was said to have been, in his earlier
years, a great smuggler on the coast, but coming to Horncastle, he
reformed, and was appointed constable. The sign of this inn is a
portrait of the great hero of Trafalgar and the Nile, originally well
painted by the artist, Northouse, but it has recently been repainted in
the worst style, and almost "improved" out of recognition.

The George stood on the sites now occupied by the Post Office, and the
adjoining shop of Messrs. Salter, Shoemakers, the original archway of the
inn yard still remaining between them. This was formerly one of the
principle inns of the town, equal in size to the Bull and the Red Lion;
and from it, before the railway line was opened to Horncastle, the
landlord, Mr. Hackford, ran a coach, to meet the train at Kirkstead. An
incident, in connection with the George may here be mentioned, which is
not likely to occur again. A wealthy lady, Miss Heald (who had also a
house in London, where the writer, as a boy, visited her), occupied in
those days the old hall (now demolished) in Edlington Park. She was of
the family of Chancellor Heald, to whose memory there is a marble tablet,
on the north wall of the chancel of St. Mary's Church. She had a nephew,
who was an officer in the fashionable regiment of the Guards. He became
enamoured of the once famous courtesan, Lola Montez, who had been
mistress to the King of Bavaria, attracted by her beauty, it was said, as
she drove, and he rode, along Rotten Row, the resort of fashion, in Hyde
Park, London. She wished to make the most of the opportunity to regain a
respectable position, and pressed her attentions of the young officer too
persistently. She was a woman of daring and reckless temperament; and
his love and admiration gradually, on closer acquaintance, gave way to
fear. At length he did all he could to avoid her, which roused her
bitter resentment, and at length he became in daily terror of her
revengeful nature. Coming down from London to Horncastle, to collect his
rents, he put up at the George, and was there found, by a friend who
called upon him, sitting at his luncheon, but with a brace of pistols
lying on the table, fully expecting that she would follow him, and force
him into matrimony. It is said that she ended her day