Farm"--for so the place is called, after
the name of its splendid pensioners--and go forward again in the quiet
woods. It began to grow both damp and dusk under the beeches: and as the
day declined the colour faded out of the foliage: and shadow, without
form and void, took the place of all the fine tracery of leaves and
delicate gradations of living green that had before accompanied my walk.
I had been sorry to leave "Peacock Farm," but I was not sorry to find
myself once more in the open road, under a pale and somewhat
troubled-looking evening sky, and put my best foot foremost for the inn
at Wendover.

Wendover, in itself, is a straggling, purposeless sort of place.
Everybody seems to have had his own opinion as to how the street should
go; or rather, every now and then a man seems to have arisen with a new
idea on the subject, and led away a little sect of neighbours to join in
his heresy. It would have somewhat the look of an abortive
watering-place, such as we may now see them here and there along the
coast, but for the age of the houses, the comely quiet design of some of
them, and the look of long habitation, of a life that is settled and
rooted, and makes it worth while to train flowers about the windows, and
otherwise shape the dwelling to the humour of the inhabitant. The
church, which might perhaps have served as rallying-point for these
loose houses, and pulled the township into something like intelligible
unity, stands some distance off among great trees; but the inn (to take
the public buildings in order of importance) is in what I understand to
be the principal street: a pleasant old house, with bay windows, and
three peaked gables, and many swallows' nests plastered about the eaves.

The interior of the inn was answerable to the outside: indeed, I never
saw any room much more to be admired than the low wainscoted parlour in
which I spent the remainder of the evening. It was a short oblong in
shape, save that the fireplace was built across one of the angles so as
to cut it partially off, and the opposite angle was similarly truncated
by a corner cupboard. The wainscot was white, and there was a Turkey
carpet on the floor, so old that it might have been imported by Walter
Shandy before he retired, worn almost through in some places, but in
others making a good show of blues and oranges, none the less harmonious
for being somewhat faded. The corner cupboard was agreeable in design;
and there were just the