The whole poem, of which this is a verse, was written on a window of the inn, and though the window was broken the relic is preserved. Charles I stayed at the Red Lion in 1632, on his way from London to Oxford, and a large fresco painting of the Royal Arms, done in commemoration of this visit, was discovered over a fireplace during alterations. Doubtless it had been purposely hidden in the days when Henley was hotly Parliamentarian and striving vainly to subdue poor little Greenlands. Owing to its position as a sort of halfway house between London and Oxford, Henley enjoys a good deal of society. The great Duke of Marlborough actually furnished a room at the inn that he might frequently occupy it. It is at Henley that the daily steamer stops when running between Kingston and Oxford in the summer months. Between Henley and Sonning lies the most intricate part of the river bed, and here are the most bewitching reaches. The numerous islets, the backwaters and sheltered nooks, make it a favourite part with boating men. Wargrave backwater, indeed, is the most famous on the river, and is in summer simply a fairyland of greenery. The entrance, behind a willow-covered island, conveys something of mystery, and as one floats gently along a waterway so narrow that one could almost touch the banks on either side, with the sun showering down between the meshes of the delicate veil of leaves, one might be sailing into the palace where lies the sleeping princess. Fiddler's Bridge is so low that it is necessary to lie down full length in the boat in passing under it, and two boats meeting must certainly make some arrangement for mutual safety, even if it be not exactly that of the goats in the fable. [Illustration: HENLEY]