THOMAS KEN AND IZAAK WALTON 131 



in Clerkenwell or not. I would very much prefer 

 to know that he had retired on a modest com- 

 petency and that in Clerkenwell he was a 

 gentleman at large, free to go and come as he 

 pleased. Rather than dabbling in the petty details 

 of business I want to picture him, fully equipped 

 with rod and basket, starting off on " a fine fresh 

 May morning," stretching his legs up Tottenham 

 Hill and so on towards Ware ; and calling, in 

 company with Venator and Auceps^ to take their 

 " morning's draught at the Thatch'd House in 

 Hodsden " ; or else starting off on a far more 

 serious undertaking, the long and perilous journey 

 to Stafford. Such a journey, from London to 

 Stafford or from Stafford to London, must indeed 

 have been difficult in those marauding days when 

 the roads and villages were full of rough soldiers 

 flushed with success or reckless from defeat. 

 Robbery one might expect from Cavalier and 

 Roundhead alike under such circumstances, the 

 only difference being that in one case it was most 

 probably accompanied by an oath, and in the other 

 by a prayer for the regeneration of the victim. 



While he was staying at Shallowford, during 

 these frequent visits there his occupation was 

 doubtless mostly beside the Derwent or the Dove 



