MAIDENHEAD THICKET.
After these tales of derring-do and robustious encounters, the story of the road becomes comparatively tame as it goes on and passes through Twyford and Reading.
THE “BELL AND BOTTLE” SIGN.
“BELL AND BOTTLE”
At the western end of Maidenhead Thicket, where, lying modestly back from the road, stands one of the innumerable “Coach and Horses” of the highway, the gossips of the adjacent Littlewick Green foregather and play bowls on the grass. Then comes Knowl Hill, where an old sign, swinging romantically from a wayside fir tree, proclaims the proximity of a curiously named inn, the “Bell and Bottle.” What affinity have bells for bottles, or bottles for bells? “What,” as the poet asks (in quite a different connection), “is Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?” But perhaps the original innkeeper was something of a cynic, and thus paraphrased the well-worn conjunction, “Beer and Bible.” Unfortunately for the inquiring stranger, the origin is “wrop in mistry.”
Down below Knowl Hill, past a chalk quarry on the right, is yet another inn—the neat and pretty “Seven Stars,” to be succeeded at the hamlet of Kiln Green by the “Horse and Groom,” gabled and embowered with vines, and facing up, not fronting, the road, in quite the ideal fashion. What the country here lacks in bold scenery it evidently gains in fertility, for the gardens of Kiln Green are a delightful mass of luxuriant flowers.