Three Men in A Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

And when they reached St. Albans, there would be that wretched couple, kissing under the Abbey walls.  Then these folks would go and be pirates until the marriage was over.

From Picnic Point to Old Windsor Lock is a delightful bit of the river.  A shady road, dotted here and there with dainty little cottages, runs by the bank up to the “Bells of Ouseley,” a picturesque inn, as most up-river inns are, and a place where a very good glass of ale may be drunk—so Harris says; and on a matter of this kind you can take Harris’s word.  Old Windsor is a famous spot in its way.  Edward the Confessor had a palace here, and here the great Earl Godwin was proved guilty by the justice of that age of having encompassed the death of the King’s brother.  Earl Godwin broke a piece of bread and held it in his hand.

“If I am guilty,” said the Earl, “may this bread choke me when I eat it!”

Then he put the bread into his mouth and swallowed it, and it choked him, and he died.

After you pass Old Windsor, the river is somewhat uninteresting, and does not become itself again until you are nearing Boveney.  George and I towed up past the Home Park, which stretches along the right bank from Albert to Victoria Bridge; and as we were passing Datchet, George asked me if I remembered our first trip up the river, and when we landed at Datchet at ten o’clock at night, and wanted to go to bed.

I answered that I did remember it.  It will be some time before I forget it.

It was the Saturday before the August Bank Holiday.  We were tired and hungry, we same three, and when we got to Datchet we took out the hamper, the two bags, and the rugs and coats, and such like things, and started off to look for diggings.  We passed a very pretty little hotel, with clematis and creeper over the porch; but there was no honeysuckle about it, and, for some reason or other, I had got my mind fixed on honeysuckle, and I said:

“Oh, don’t let’s go in there!  Let’s go on a bit further, and see if there isn’t one with honeysuckle over it.”

So we went on till we came to another hotel.  That was a very nice hotel, too, and it had honey-suckle on it, round at the side; but Harris did not like the look of a man who was leaning against the front door.  He said he didn’t look a nice man at all, and he wore ugly boots: so we went on further.  We went a goodish way without coming across any more hotels, and then we met a man, and asked him to direct us to a few.