The conspirators did not meet at the inn itself, but in the castellated manor house just across the byroad. Of this only a fragment remains, but fortunately this fragment contains the "conspirators' room," as might be expected. The enterprising brewer has put this in good repair and has placed on view a number of relics of greater or less degree of merit. Among these is a pair of stupendous jack-boots, which our voluble guide assured us were the "hidentical boots what Holiver Cromwell wore" during a battle in which, as usual, he worsted the Royalists; but the placard above the relics was more modest in its claims, for it only stated that the boots were found on the battlefield. However, if the redoubtable "Holiver" wore these boots or anything like unto them when he met the enemy, one phase of his career may be accounted for--why he never ran away. Among the other curiosities with a real interest is the "Great Bed of Ware," so famous in its day that Shakespeare immortalized it in his "Twelfth Night." It is certainly a marvelous creation, some sixteen feet square, with enormous carved posts supporting an imposing canopy. Our guide asserted that in its early days no fewer than twenty-four men had slept in it at one time, and recited, in painful detail, the history of the bed. We inconsiderately interrupted him in the midst of his declamation and he had to start all over again, to his manifest annoyance. Even then he failed to finish, for the shadows were lengthening, and terminating his flow of eloquence with a shilling or two, we were soon speeding swiftly over the beautiful Chigwell road to London. II WANDERINGS IN EAST ANGLIA Despite the fascination that London always has and the fact that one could scarcely exhaust her attractions in years, it was with impatience that we endured the delay imposed by business matters and preparations for a period of two months or more on the road. We were impatient, surely, or we should hardly have left our hotel at six o'clock in the evening, in the face of a driving rain. Ordinarily, two or three hours would have brought us to Cambridge, only fifty miles away; but we could not depend on this with the caution necessary on the slippery streets in getting out of London. Once clear of the city there was little to hamper us on the fine Cambridge road and we counted on easily reaching the university town before lamplighting. The rain had nearly ceased, but the downpour had been tremendous, and in three successive valleys we forded floods, each one deeper than the preceding. Almost before we knew it--for in the gas lamps' glare the rain-soaked road looked little different from the yellow water--we were axle-deep in a fourth torrent and were deluged with a dirty spray from the engine fly-wheel. Manifestly we were not to reach Cambridge that night and we reluctantly turned about to seek shelter somewhere else.