This custom of good knights casually finding infants when out walking with their wives seems anciently to have been extremely common. A somewhat similar incident is told of the infancy of Sir William Sevenoke.[7] [Illustration: THE “EAGLE AND CHILD,” NETHER ALDERLEY.] The old “Eagle and Child” at Nether Alderley, in Cheshire, is the property of Lord Stanley of Alderley, but the licence was surrendered some thirty years since, and it is now a farmhouse. A leaden spout-head bears the date “1688,” but the house is obviously much older. A relic of old, unsettled times is seen in the great oaken bar that serves to strengthen the front door against possible attack and forcible entry. CHAPTER X RURAL INNS Of first importance to the tourist who flits day by day to fresh woods and pastures new are the rural inns that afford so hospitable and unconventionally comfortable a welcome at the close of the day’s journey. Unwise is he who concludes the day at populous town or busy city, where modern hotels, pervaded by waiters and chambermaids, remind the Londoner of the metropolis he has just left. Your old and seasoned tourist, afoot or on a cycle, by himself or with one trusty, quarrel-proof companion, avoids altogether the Big Town. He has been there, more often than he could wish, and will be there again. His pleasure is in the village inn, or the tavern of some sequestered hamlet; and he knows, so only his needs be not sybarite, that he will be well served there. Queer old places some of them are: bowered ofttimes in honeysuckle and jessamine; sometimes built by the side of some clear-running stream; at others fronting picturesquely upon the village green. How quaint their architecture, how tortuous their staircases and sloping their floors, and what memories they have gathered round them in their long career! Who, not being the slave of mere luxuries intended to make a man eat when he has no appetite, and to drink when he has no thirst upon him, does not delight in the rural inn? [Illustration: THE “WHITE HORSE,” WOOLSTONE.] Many, like Canning’s “Needy Knife Grinder,” have--God bless you!--no story to tell, and leave you, it may be, pleasantly vacant-minded, after long spells elsewhere of close-packed mental effort. A welcome vacation indeed!