An angler's haunt--Ferries and stepping-stones--Curious old stained-glass window--The ruins of Uriconium--Watling Street--The Wrekin--Richard Baxter's old home--A Cabinet minister's story--A pretty village--Buildwas Abbey--Ironbridge--The "Methodists' Mecca." Leaving Haughmond to its ancient peace, and finding the road we were on led to Shrewsbury, we took a byway to our left, chancing where it might go. We did not select our road, we took the first one we came to so as to avoid revisiting Shrewsbury, and it led us, with many pleasant windings, through a country of great charm, and unexpectedly to many interesting places. No guide-book could have done us better service. We had at the start fir-crowned hills to the left of us with a tower on the top of them, a modern one, but still a picturesque feature, and the silvery Severn to the right, and in the narrow and pleasant stretch of country between our road went in a dreamy, indirect fashion. At Uffington I noticed a river-side inn with an angler, rod in hand, standing idly in the doorway, so concluded, with the river close by, this must be a fisherman's haunt. I was almost tempted to pull up there and go a-fishing, for it looked such a pleasant hostelry, one whereat a lazy man might laze contentedly. At Uffington the monks of Haughmond had a ferry, and so in the absence of any bridge they crossed the Severn there on the way to Shrewsbury. I am told the ferry still exists, and I was glad to hear it, for ferries and stepping-stones form such picturesque features in the landscape. In Wales, where I once stopped awhile at a remote farmhouse, the only way across the little river in front of it was by stepping-stones, and I took quite a childish delight in crossing and recrossing them, and more than once I discovered an artist painting the spot; there was a very real fascination for me about this primitive way of crossing a stream, in an age when all things are made so uninterestingly smooth and easy, a method probably originally suggested by the boulders that strew the bed of a mountain river. So we followed the Severn down, now losing sight of it, now recovering it again, till we came to Atcham, where the river flowed wide and strong under a fine seven-arched bridge; there by the roadside stood a large old house that had evidently been a coaching inn, and there under the shade of some trees I pulled up the car to have a look around, for it was a pleasant spot.