After Burford our road led us up a valley of clear streams and green pastures, bounded ahead by a long line of blue and undulating hills; we crossed one or two grey old stone bridges, so narrow that two vehicles could not pass over them at the same time. Perhaps this slight impediment to travel does not greatly trouble people in these parts, for we met little traffic on the way, only a cart for some miles, and a solitary tramp trudging along disconsolately. We had the country almost to ourselves until we came in sight of the grey old town of Ludlow, one of the most interesting and picturesque towns in England; but to see Ludlow at its best it needs to be approached, as we approached it, from the south, for to the north a collection of ugly modern brick houses has unhappily sprung up, and these are sadly out of harmony with the rest of the age-mellowed buildings. Before the railway was invented was the golden age of pleasure travel--for those who had money in their purses. Then Buggins the builder had done comparatively little harm in the matter of the uglification of the countryside; there was pleasure in posting across country in those picturesque, motorless days. Coming to it from the south, the castle-crowned town of Ludlow greets the traveller with a genuine flavour of antiquity. He enters it, as did the traveller of centuries ago, through a narrow, arched, stone gateway with round flanking towers. The gateway stands "massive and grim across the street," a graphic reminder of the feudal days when Ludlow was surrounded by fortified walls, broken and ruined now, but they can still be traced encircling the town. Then as we drove on we had a glimpse of the famous "Feathers Inn," with its nodding gables, as fine and as well-preserved a specimen of a half-timber hostelry as one may hope to look upon. The interior of this ancient house with its elaborately carved chimney-pieces and enriched plastered ceilings is even more interesting and picturesque than the exterior, and there are many other quaint and beautiful old houses in the town, notably the Reader's House. I should like to unearth the story of the "Feathers," for it looks like an inn with a storied past, else why those stately chambers? But though, on my return home, I searched for this in many books, I could discover nothing certain about it. Probably it was originally the home of some notable personage.