294 WAYFARING NOTIONS 



history of Datchet's wooden bridge, carried away 

 in a flood, and Datchet Ferry, with consequent 

 right-of-way across the Home Park to Windsor, 

 carried away by Act of something when the rail- 

 ways were permitted to make entrance into 

 Royal Windsor, and the public were given with 

 one hand a great deal which was promptly taken 

 back by the other. If I remember rightly we 

 nearly allowed ourselves to stray off on to the 

 towpath along to the Bells of Ousely — locally 

 corrupted into Boozely — but were kept in the 

 right way by prospect of calling at the little 

 house on the left opposite the Royal Gardens, 

 where at that time the connection was almost as 

 much French as English. A queer little colony 

 settled in Old Windsor, having to do with Queen 

 Victoria s tapestry works. Capital fellows, very 

 fond of fishing and not bad at boating, were the 

 men for whose behoof all manner of foreign 

 drinkables and eatables were introduced into the 

 tiny village. For instance, at the small pub. 

 you found staple articles of refreshment in ver- 

 mouth, cassis, claret vended as Bordeaux, coffee 

 on hand at very short notice, and the constant 

 smell of stale cigarettes that qualifies the French 

 cabaret. 



Instead of bearing up to the Union gate and 

 edging across, so as to leave the Copper Horse, 

 who looks out from the crown of the Long Walk, 

 we for a particular reason trudged straight on up 

 Priest's Hill in order to interview the herd of 

 wild boars and other undomesticated porcines 

 preserved in a compound for table purposes. I 

 don't like wild boars, except to eat, and am 

 always half-afraid of a big old domesticated pig. 

 What couldn't a weighty farmyard creature of 



