306 WAYFARING NOTIONS 



I did him good by listening to his tale of 

 troubles : moreover, I put him in position to start 

 fresh with his stock of ''neuraly" pills, or, at any 

 rate, " take something for it " of another nature. 



Do those who "use" the Crook and Shears 

 at Clatford — between Andover and Stockbridge, 

 somewhere about half-way, too — still bump their 

 heads, I wonder, against its low ceilings ? My 

 word, what a bash I gave my poor head the first 

 time I ventured into the Wagon and Horses at 

 Beckhampton, where the roads from Calne and 

 Marlborough and Devizes meet ! The one I 

 mean is the little ale-house a stone's-throw from 

 Sam Darling's residence, which used to be a 

 coaching inn before the rail ran away with the 

 road's fast-carrying trade. Beckhampton is not 

 Stockbridge, do you say.^^ Certainly not, but 

 the low door is at the Wagon and Horses in the 

 former village to this day, and so is the bump on 

 my head to prove me right — at least, I some- 

 times feel where I "raised a dent" on my skull. 

 Besides, if it comes to being so critical, the Crook 

 and Shears isn't at Stockbridge either, but at 

 Clatford, the one right away off the road from 

 Andover towards Red Rice, and not the other 

 where the foundry is or was. My hotel, hard by 

 that foundry, where I put up in years gone by, 

 would have served at last as an illustration of 

 Alice's residence — I allude to the timorous maid 

 who was to have been Mrs Ben Bolt. As I saw 

 it last, the little cottage was being dismantled, a 

 strange thing to do with a licence obtainable. 

 But then a good many strange things of the sort 

 happened down in that part of the country, more 

 particularly "stopping" Tom Cannon's meetings. 

 I do hope that nobody has been led to disestablish 



