Page:Over fen and wold; (IA overfenwold00hissiala).pdf/63

 a costless, and a lasting pleasure in life is opened out to them.

We found Stevenage to be a quiet, neat little town of the "thoroughfare" type, to employ a term much in vogue in the coaching days when describing places consisting chiefly of one long street. Wandering about, we noticed an old building that had manifestly been a hostelry of some importance in the pre-railway period, the archway giving entrance to the stable-yard still remaining. Now the building is converted into a pleasant residence, though, owing to the necessities of its former uses, it stands too close to the roadway to afford that privacy which the home-loving Briton so dearly delights in; which, on the other hand, the average American citizen so heartily dislikes, considering such comparative seclusion to make for dulness, and to savour of unsociability. Such old buildings, converted, wholly or in part, from inns to houses, are to be found frequently along the Great North Road. A stranger, not aware of the fact, might well wonder why those great houses were built with their ample arches in the little village street, and so close upon the road-*side.

At one end of the town we found a rather pretty gabled cottage with a high-pitched roof, from which rose a good group of chimneys. This cottage, with its tiny garden railed off from the footpath by a wooden paling, made quite a charming subject for the pencil, and was the first to adorn our sketch-*book. Whilst putting a few finishing touches to our drawing, a native came up. An artist at work always