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It was the same at the other inn on the road; I was therefore obliged to determine to walk on as far as Nettlebed, which was five miles farther, where I arrived rather late in the evening, when it was indeed quite dark. Everything seemed to be all alive in this little village; there was a party of militia soldiers who were dancing, singing, and making merry.
They seemed to be drawn up here at the entrance of the village merely to wait the arrival of the clergyman. I walked a little way out of the village, where, at some distance, I saw several people coming from another village, to attend divine service here at Nettlebed. At length came the parson on horseback. The boys pulled off their hats, and all made him very low bows.
He was delighted with the telegraphic prospect in his journey: from Nettlebed to Long Compton, a distance of fifty miles, he saw plainly. He was afraid that the motion of the stage would have been too violent to agree with his model telegraph "his pretty, delicate little telly," as Lovell calls it.
I thought, and not without some shame and sorrow, of our grammar-schools in Germany, and the miserable pay of the masters. When I paid my reckoning the next morning, I observed the uncommon difference here and at Windsor, Nettlebed, and Oxford. At Oxford I was obliged to pay for my supper, bed, and breakfast at least three shillings, and one to the waiter.
These are the Chilterns, all away to Ipsden and Nettlebed, and so on across Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, and into Hertfordshire; and on again to Royston and Cambridge, while below them lies the Vale of Aylesbury; you can just see the beginning of it on their left.
Returning from hence to Oxford, after dinner we proceeded on our journey, and passed through Ewhelme, a royal palace, in which some alms-people are supported by an allowance from the Crown. Nettlebed, a village. We went through the little town of Henley; from hence the Chiltern Hills bear north in a continued ridge, and divide the counties of Oxford and Buckingham. We passed Maidenhead.
But that they had refused me a bit of bread he certainly could not justify. As we went along, other topics of conversation were started, and among other things he asked me where I came from that day. I answered from Nettlebed, and added, that I had attended divine service there that morning.
I seemed indeed to be enchanted, and as if I could not leave this village. Three times did I get off, in order to go on farther, and as often returned, more than half resolved to spend a week, or more, in my favourite Nettlebed. But the recollection that I had but a few weeks to stay in England, and that I must see Derbyshire, at length drove me away.
However, I seemed resolved to make more than one stage of it to Oxford, that seat of the muses, and so, by passing the night about five miles from it, to reach it in good time next morning. The road from Nettlebed seemed to me but as one long fine gravel walk in a neat garden.
And my pace in it was varied, like that of one walking in a garden: I sometimes walked quick, then slow, and then sat down and read Milton. When I had got about eight miles from Nettlebed, and was now not far from Dorchester, I had the Thames at some distance on my left, and on the opposite side I saw an extensive hill, behind which a tall mast seemed to rise.
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