ioo By Stream and Sea. 



depths, and read the true history of the Rye House Plot. 

 But I had timed my visit inopportunely if a quiet day on 

 the Lea was my object. Rye House is evidently a most 

 popular resort, and on a day other than Saint Monday, when 

 the place is in a chronic state of miscellaneous merriment, 

 any one who has not previously visited it may spend a 

 profitable and agreeable hour or two in the old hall and 

 Conspirators' Room, where there is a collection of ancient 

 paintings, tapestry, and antique carvings. The tavern and 

 the old hall have a really rare picturesqueness, and the 

 grounds are most enjoyable — only not on the festival of 

 Saint Monday, unless you can enter heart and soul into 

 Saint Monday humours. And if I have not made sufficient 

 allowances on this head, I bow in penitence. Heaven 

 knows some of the poor creatures, whose life is one long 

 mill-horse round, ought not to have harsh judgment meted 

 out to them. 



An hour or two's boating or angling in the Lea, a quiet 

 dinner in the waterside tavern, a cigar in the rose-covered 

 summer-house in the cool of the evening, have here afforded 

 peaceful content to many a citizen temporarily released from 

 the cares of business. During the summer months the 

 visitors to this place are numbered by thousands, and on 

 extraordinary occasions by tens of thousands. It is noted 

 for its bean-feasts. The City Press doubtless honestly 

 represented the estimate commonly held of Rye House, by 

 City readers, in the observation "Far away on the other 

 river which runs its silver thread through the green pastures 

 and glowing acres of Hertfordshire is the good old Rye 

 House, where we have art, science, history, romance, boating, 

 horticulture, fishing, a lovely English landscape, and jolly 

 English cheer, all in one short holiday." e 



The Rye House water is beloved by anglers, for the pro- 



