CHAPTER XXI.
"Here, take this purse, thou whom the Heaven's plagues Have humbled to all strokes." -- King Lear.
In the afternoon of the last day I spent in Wigan, as I wandered with my friend from one cottage to another, in the long suburban lane called "Hardy Butts," I bethought me how oft I had met with this name of "Butts "connected with places in or close to the towns of Lancashire.

To me the original application of the name seems plain, and not uninteresting.

In the old days, when archery was common in England, the bowmen of Lancashire were famous; and it is more than likely that these yet so-called "Butts" are the places where archery was then publicly practised.

When Sir Edward Stanley led the war-smiths of Lancashire and Cheshire to Flodden Field, the men of Wigan are mentioned as going with the rest.

And among those "fellows fearce and freshe for feight," of whom the quaint old alliterative ballad describes the array:- "A stock of striplings strong of heart, Brought up from babes with beef and bread, From Warton unto Warrington From Wigan unto Wiresdale--" and, from a long list of the hills, and cloughs, and old towns of the county--the bowmen of Lancashire did their share of work upon that field.