county, of which it has formed the northern boundary for more than
one hundred miles. The sweet river--for in spite of all pollution it
is still sweet at Windsor--has run all along the top of the boot
and down the instep, and along the toes, taking Oxford, Abingdon,
Wallingford, Henley, Reading and Maidenhead in its way, with other
places historically interesting in a small way over here, but which
would scarcely be known by name even in the best-drilled classes of
your public schools. Along the sole of the boot, from the heel at
Hungerford, but sloping gently upward till it joins the Thames at
Reading, runs another stream (a river we call it in little England)--

The Kennet swift, for silver eels renowned.

Now, before the Great Western Railway had opened up the county the
only main line of road which passed through it was the great Bath
road, which entered near the toe at Windsor and ran along the sole for
the greater part of the way by the side of the Kennet to the extreme
heel at Hungerford. All the northern part of the county--the Thames
valley and Vale of White Horse, and the hill-district which separates
these from the Vale of Kennet--was at that time pierced only by
cross-country roads, and remained during the pre-railroad era one of
the most primitive districts of the West of England. Its inhabitants
retained their broad drawling speech, very slightly modified from
Tudor times, and looked with a mixture of distrust and envy even on
their fellow county brethren in the Kennet Valley, who were being
demoralized by their daily intercourse with London through the
constantly growing traffic of the Bath road. Along that thoroughfare,
besides strings of post-chaises, vans and wagons, ran daily more than
one hundred coaches most of which started from Bristol, and made the
journey to London in the day. The best of them did their ten miles an
hour, and so punctually that many of the inhabitants preferred setting
their watches by the "York House." the "Tantivy" or the "Bristol Mail"
rather than by the village clock. It were much to be desired that
their gigantic successor would follow their excellent example more
faithfully in this matter.

Notwithstanding the distrust with which we of the back country were
bred to regard the metropolitan varnish which was thus undermining the
ancient Berkshire habits and speech along our one great artery, it was
always, I am bound to admit, a high day for the dweller in uncorrupted