Upon the way to Stroud many weird old buildings are passed which once were, and some are still, cloth mills; but some are deserted and dilapidated, and have a sad look, as if remembering more prosperous days; and when the leaves are fast falling in the famous golden valley they look indeed forlorn. One would think there can be little poetry about an old cloth mill, but ere one gives an opinion one must visit the golden valley in the autumn. Around Nailsworth, Rodborough, and Woodchester there are many ancient houses which have degenerated into poor tenements. Such a one at Nailsworth has the brief address "No. 5 Egypt," which by all appearance was an important house in its day. A gentleman who resided in a more squalid part related how he had discovered a cavalier's rapier up in the roof of a mansion, but in a weak moment had parted with it for half a crown. "Southfield" at Woodchester is perhaps the most picturesque of these stately houses, a house which near London would fetch a formidable rent, but here a ridiculously low one. Some six miles out of Stroud a really decent house, garden, and orchard may be had for next to a song. A light railway may have now sent prices up, by striking northwards, but not many years back we saw one very excellent little place "to let," the rent of which was only sixpence a week, and the tenant had given notice because the landlord had been so grasping as to raise it to sixpence halfpenny! [Illustration: BEVERSTONE CASTLE.] Between Nailsworth and Tetbury are Beverstone Castle and the secluded manor-house Chavenage within a mile of it. The castle stands near the road, an ivy-covered ruin of the time of Edward III., but with portions dating from the Conquest. Incorporated are some Tudor remains and some old farm buildings, forming together a pleasing picture. To Major-General Massey, Beverstone, like Sudeley, is indebted for its battered appearance. It held out for the king, but Massey with three hundred and eighty men came and took it by storm. The general having done as much damage as possible in Gloucestershire during the Civil War, at length made some repairs by fighting on the other side at Worcester; and perhaps it was as well, for had he been on the victorious side he might have treated "the faithful city" with as little respect as Beverstone. In the peaceful days of the Restoration, which Massey lived to see, as there were no more castles to blow up he dabbled in the pyrotechnic art, suggestive of the pathetic passage in _Patience_--Yearning for whirlwinds, and having to do the best you can with the bellows.