Leaving Boscobel by a winding lane I presently got on to the ancient Roman Watling Street at a forsaken-looking portion of it, though I fancy the whole of the street for most of the way is, more or less, deserted. I had never been on Watling Street before; it looks so uncompromisingly straight and so uninviting on the map that I never felt any desire to explore it, but now I had come to it by accident I thought it a very pleasant road, this portion at least, with its wide grassy margins, and there before us it stretched far away through a well-wooded and lonely country--a genuine bit of Old England, mellow and grateful to the eye. I forgave the road for its straightness on account of the long and goodly green vista it afforded me, reaching even to the far-away blue--and it was delightfully free from traffic. Now I am a selfish traveller, I do not care for much company on the way. Here I had the advantages of a good road with the loneliness of a lane. So along the old Roman street we went, passing but few human habitations, here a solitary inn, there a grey old farmstead, and every now and then a cottage, but that was all; it was pleasant driving, for there were no children, nor dogs, nor fowls for miles to trouble us, and all being safe we indulged in a burst of speed purely as a stimulant. Once on it I intended to follow the ancient street all the way to Daventry, but somehow I got wrong at a point where it takes one of its few bends, and unexpectedly found myself at Lichfield. Through Lichfield I drove without a stop, for I was not travelling to revisit familiar places, and Lichfield and its cathedral I knew long ago. The route I took through the city I took at a venture, but when I got into the country again I discovered by a signpost that I was journeying to King's Bromley--well, I would go to King's Bromley, it mattered little where I went, life is too short to trouble over trifles; I was out to see the country, one way was as good as another, provided it took me through pleasant scenery, and on this score I could make no complaint. About three miles from Lichfield, at a point where London was a good hundred and twenty miles away, I was amused by a solitary and leaning signpost with simply "To London" on it, and its arm pointed down a mere lane that one would imagine led to nowhere in particular. I remember some years back coming to another such solitary signpost in Hertfordshire with just "York" inscribed on its extended arm, but that was on the Great North Road and there was some excuse for it, though York was very far off. There is such a thing as character in even signposts, and I rather sympathise with signposts that deal with big distances, they impress me with their pride of importance.