One topples over the edge of Staffordshire, as it were, into Salop, for here the steep descent of a range of hills leads, by a dramatic transition, from the waterless plateau around Wolverhampton to the valley of the Severn. Summerhouse Hill is the joy of the cyclist bound for Shrewsbury, and the bane of his return; with a mile run down in one direction, and a steady heartbreaking climb in the other. Near the summit is the “Summer House,” an inn where the flying “Wonder” of seventy years ago changed horses punctually at 8.16 every morning, on its journey from London to Shrewsbury; and at the foot of the hill, the “Horns” of Boningale. Boningale itself may be sought on a slip road that goes off to the left and returns in a semicircle of five hundred yards: the tiniest village, with a very small church and one very large black-and-white farmhouse, almost as ancient as the church itself. The road onwards is quiet, and unmarked by any outstanding features, save a house at Whiston Cross; Albrighton and other large villages lying a little distance to one side. Whiston Cross, situated 130¼ miles from London, can claim the distinction of being exactly half-way between London and Holyhead. The house was once an inn, but has long been the place where the Albrighton Hounds are kenneled. In the old days of hard drinking, this and the “Harp” inn at Albrighton were the resorts of a cobbler reputed to be the greatest sot in the neighbourhood. He must have been exceptional, for he scandalised even _these_ parts. He was once the victim, when in his cups, of a joke whose echoes still linger mirthfully in the countryside. Senselessly and helplessly drunk, he was driven over to a coalpit at Lilleshall and lowered into its depths. When he came dimly to his senses, he found himself surrounded by a circle of inquisitors, their faces blackened, in an uncanny place, spectrally lighted, and was very soon made to understand that he was dead and come to judgment before a jury of fiends anxious to consign him to a warm corner. “I don’t know why I was brought here,” he said miserably, addressing the supposedly satanic tribunal, “and I can assure you, gentlemen, I was once a respectable shoemaker, of Albrighton, in Shropshire.” Beyond Whiston Cross, in Cosford Brook Dingle, the Wolverhampton Waterworks raise their tall chimneys unexpectedly from the surrounding woodlands of Halton Park; the engine houses humming with the machinery that daily pumps more than three million gallons of water for the use of that enterprising community. In another two miles across the Salopian plain, Shiffnal is reached, and with it the first, and entirely lovable, specimen of a Shropshire town. XIV