Biggleswade—"Instituted" or "intruded"!—A poetical will—The river Ivel—A day to be remembered—The art of seeing—Misquotations—The striving after beauty—Stories in stone—An ancient muniment chest—An angler's haunt—The town bridge—The pronunciation of names—St. Neots.
Some three miles or so beyond Astwick we reached high ground, from which we had extensive views to the right over miles of fields and undulating greenery. Shortly after this we dropped down into the drowsy old town of Biggleswade; at least it struck us as being a very drowsy sort of place when we were there, but doubtless it wakes up to a little life and movement once a week, on market-days. Even the Biggleswade dogs looked sleepily inclined, curled up under the shelter of various doorways, hardly indeed condescending to give us a glance as we passed by; whilst the nature of dogs generally is to make the arrival of a stranger in their parts an excuse to rush out and bark at him, good-naturedly or the reverse as the mood moves them. A dog seems to reason with himself, "Barking is the chief pleasure of life; here comes a stranger, let's have a bark!"
Here we drove into the ancient and rambling stable-yard of an old inn near the market-place, and
