Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1878 - Inland voyage

54 -^^^ Inland Voyage.
walk ; and we both determined to avoid towns
for the future and sleep in hamlets.
At last the path went between two houses,
and turned the party out into a wide muddy
high-road, bordered, as far as the eye could
reach on either hand, by an unsightly village.
The houses stood well back, leaving a ribbon of
waste land on either side of the road, where
there were stacks of firewood, carts, barrows,
rubbish heaps, and a little doubtful grass.
Away on the left, a gaunt tower stood in the
middle of the street. What it had been in past
ages, I know not : probably a hold in time of
war ; but now-a-days it bore an illegible dial-
plate in its upper parts, and near the bottom an
iron letter-box.
The inn to which we had been recommended
at Quartes was full, or else the landlady did not
like our looks. I ought to say, that with our
long, damp india-rubber bags, we presented