Now it
sits aside from the stirring world, and nods and dreams.
Round Clifton Hampden, itself a wonderfully pretty village, old-
fashioned, peaceful, and dainty with flowers, the river scenery is rich
and beautiful. If you stay the night on land at Clifton, you cannot do
better than put up at the "Barley Mow." It is, without exception, I
should say, the quaintest, most old-world inn up the river. It stands on
the right of the bridge, quite away from the village. Its low-pitched
gables and thatched roof and latticed windows give it quite a story-book
appearance, while inside it is even still more once-upon-a-timeyfied.
It would not be a good place for the heroine of a modern novel to stay
at. The heroine of a modern novel is always "divinely tall," and she is
ever "drawing herself up to her full height." At the "Barley Mow" she
would bump her head against the ceiling each time she did this.
It would also be a bad house for a drunken man to put up at. There are
too many surprises in the way of unexpected steps down into this room and
up into that; and as for getting upstairs to his bedroom, or ever finding
his bed when he got up, either operation would be an utter impossibility
to him.
We were up early the next morning, as we wanted to be in Oxford by the
afternoon.
