ssers--and
they are many. He sleeps, he says, with one eye open, and his gun by
his side, and thinks nothing of a sally forth in the dark hours of
night and exploding a charge in the direction of a marauder. He and
his cronies of the tap-room, of an evening, before a glowing fire of
logs, above which is the significant gun-rack (quite in old
picture-book fashion), will give a deal of copy to an able writer who
seeks atmosphere and local colour.

Kelmscott, so identified with William Morris, is even less of the
world of to-day than is its neighbour, Lechlade, and was one of the
reasons for our coming here at all.

The topographical surveys and books of reference will tell on that it
is a "chapelry, in the parish of Broadwell, Union of Faringdon,
hundred of Bampton, county of Oxford;" that it is "two miles east of
Lechlade and contains 179 inhabitants;" and that "by measurement it
contains 1,020 acres, of which 876 are arable and 153 meadow and
pasture." It is unlikely that the population has increased since the
above description; the best authority claims that it has actually
decreased, like so many of the small towns and villages of the
countryside in England.

Kelmscott Manor House was advertised for sale in 1871, a fact which
Morris discovered quite by accident. Writing to his friend Faulkner
he says:

"I have been looking about for a house...
my eye is turned now to Kelmscott, a little village
two miles above Radcott Bridge--a Heaven on
earth."

The house is thirty miles or more from Oxford, by water, approached
by a lane which leads from Lechlade just over St. John's Bridge, by
the "Trout Inn." The railway now reaches Lechlade but this was not
the case when Morris first found this "_Heaven._" Most likely he
reached it by carriage from Faringdon, "by the grand approach over
the hills of Berkshire."

We regained the Bath road at Marlborough, after our excursion into
the realms of Utopia, intending to reach Bath for lunch. The best
laid plans of mice and mere motor-men ofttimes go awry, and we did
_not_ get to Bath until well on into the night. There was really no
reason for this except an obstinate _bougie_ (beg pardon,
sparking-plug in English) which sparked beautyfully in the open air,
but which refused positively to give a glimmer when put in its proper
place. We did not know this, or even suspect it at first, but this
was what delayed us four hours, just before we reached Chippenham,
where we st