LOCAL PAPERS escaped the indignity of the stocks, and the doubtful honour of being the last person to be legally confined therein. When all else fails in the evenings at country inns, the local papers often afford much entertainment combined with information. The local antiquaries occasionally write to them upon matters of interest in the neighbourhood; and such communications are frequently well worth reading, for by perusing them the traveller out of the beaten track may obtain intelligence of old-time relics and quaint rural customs that he would otherwise probably never hear of, and such things are well worth knowing and preserving.
Wansford, the next village we came to, pleased us by its picturesqueness and its pleasant situation on the banks of the Nene, a wide and fishful-looking stream whose name we did not even know before we undertook this tour; so that driving across country teaches one a good deal about the geography of one's own land, besides affording the road wanderer an intimate knowledge of it, never obtainable from the railway.
Wansford is built of stone and is a charming specimen of an old English village; its houses and cottages strike the eye as being substantial, comfortable, and enduring; for you cannot well build meanly with stone. One large house in the village street, large enough to deserve the often-misappropriated term of mansion, with its stone-slab, overhanging roof, and strong stacks of chimneys, especially pleased us; neither roof, wall, nor window seemed as though any one of them would need repairs for long years:
