took the lines, and brought us up to Marlow.

And at Marlow we left the boat by the bridge, and went and put up for the
night at the "Crown."

[Picture: The boat]

CHAPTER XIII.

Marlow.--Bisham Abbey.--The Medmenham Monks.--Montmorency thinks he will
murder an old Tom cat.--But eventually decides that he will let it
live.--Shameful conduct of a fox terrier at the Civil Service
Stores.--Our departure from Marlow.--An imposing procession.--The steam
launch, useful receipts for annoying and hindering it.--We decline to
drink the river.--A peaceful dog.--Strange disappearance of Harris and a
pie.

Marlow is one of the pleasantest river centres I know of. It is a
bustling, lively little town; not very picturesque on the whole, it is
true, but there are many quaint nooks and corners to be found in it,
nevertheless--standing arches in the shattered bridge of Time, over which
our fancy travels back to the days when Marlow Manor owned Saxon Algar
for its lord, ere conquering William seized it to give to Queen Matilda,
ere it passed to the Earls of Warwick or to worldly-wise Lord Paget, the
councillor of four successive sovereigns.

There is lovely country round about it, too, if, after boating, you are
fond of a walk, while the river itself is at its best here. Down to
Cookham, past the Quarry Woods and the meadows, is a lovely reach. Dear
old Quarry Woods! with your narrow, climbing paths, and little winding
glades, how scented to this hour you seem with memories of sunny summer
days! How haunted are your shadowy vistas with the ghosts of laughing
faces! how from your whispering leaves there softly fall the voices of
long ago!

[Picture: Bisham Abbey] From Marlow up to Sonning is even fairer yet.
Grand old Bisham Abbey, whose stone walls have rung to the shouts of the
Knights Templars, and which, at one time, was the home of Anne of Cleves
and at another of Queen Elizabeth, is passed on the right bank just half
a mile above Marlow Bridge. Bisham Abbey is rich in melodramatic
properties. It contains a tapestry bed-chamber, and a secret room hid
high up in the thick walls. The ghost of the Lady Holy, who beat her
little boy to death, still walks there at night, trying to wash its
ghostly hands clean in a ghostly basin.

Warwick, the king-maker, rests there, careless now about such trivial
things as earthly kings and earthly kingdoms; and Salisbury, who did good
service at Poiti