more than once by
Doctor Johnson and Boswell). This neighbourhood also has memories of
George Eliot, and of Izaak Walton, who used to go fishing in the
little river Dove; his fishing house is still there. Unfortunately,
when we were in those parts we did not have sense enough to see the
Manyfold, a curious stream (a tributary of the Dove) which by its
habit of running underground caused Johnson and Boswell to argue
about miracles.

Muirhead's book will give C.F.B. sound counsel about the inns of
that district, which are many and good. The whole region of the
Derbyshire Peak is rarely visited by the foreign tourist. Of it,
Doctor Johnson, with his sturdy prejudice, said: "He who has seen
Dove Dale has no need to visit the Highlands." The metropolis of
this moorland is Buxton: unhappily we did not make a note of the inn
we visited in that town; but we have a clear recollection of
claret, candlelight, and reading "Weir of Hermiston" in bed; also a
bathroom with hot water, not too common in the cheap hostelries we
frequented.

We can only wish for the good C.F.B. as happy an evening as we spent
(with our eccentric friend Mifflin McGill) bicycling from the
_Newhaven Inn_ in a July twilight. The _Newhaven Inn_, which is only
a vile kind of meagre roadhouse at a lonely fork in the way (where
one arm of the signpost carries the romantic legend "To Haddon
Hall"), lies between Ashbourne and Buxton. But it is marked on all
the maps, so perhaps it has an honourable history. The sun was dying
in red embers over the Derbyshire hills as we pedalled along. Life,
liquor, and literature lay all before us; certes, we had no thought
of ever writing a daily column! And finally, after our small
lanterns were lit and cast their little fans of brightness along the
flowing road, we ascended a rise and saw Buxton in the valley below,
twinkling with lights--

"_And when even dies, the million-tinted,
And the night has come, and planets glinted
Lo, the valley hollow
Lamp-bestarred!_"

Nor were all these ancient inns (to which our heart wistfully
returns) on British soil. There was the _Hotel de la Tour_, in
Montjoie, a quaint small town somewhere in that hilly region of the
Ardennes along the border between Luxemburg and Belgium. Our memory
is rather vague as to Montjoie, for we got there late one evening,
after more than seventy up-and-down miles on a bicycle, hypnotic
with weariness an