Daylesford, by the way, is also made lovely by the only other stripling stream that competes with Darby in our heart. This is the delicious Evenlode, an upper twig of the Thames.) It would be about twenty miles, which is a just distance for a walker who likes to study the scenery as he goes. Through the greater part of the trail the stream trots through open farming country, with old mills here and there—paper mills, flour mills and our famous shrine of sawdust and cider. The lower waters, from Darby down to Tinicum Island and the mouth at Essington, would probably be less walkable. We suspect them of being marshy, though we speak only by the map. Mr. Browning, we remember, wrote a poem about a bishop who ordered his tomb at Saint Praxed's. We, if we had a chance to lay out any blue-prints of our final rolltop, would like to be the Colyumist who ordered his tomb by Darby creek, and not too far away from that cider mill. And let no one think that it is a stream of merely sentimental interest. Hog Island, as all will grant, is a place of national importance. And what is Hog Island, after all? Only the delta of Darby creek.
