THE EXETER ROAD 83 



little more than a century ago those who, on nearing 

 Knightsbridge, sported prayer books, felt for pistols, and 

 generally put themselves into a posture of defence, did 

 the right thing in the right place. The Arcadian tract 

 indeed, which we now associate with guardsmen and 

 nurserymaids, was known to travellers in the Exeter Fly 

 as a place of bogs and highwaymen. For here the 

 Great Western road crossed the stream — Where is the 

 stream now ? — and the stream's bed was composed, 

 " especially during the winter months," as the advertise- 

 ment has it, of impassable mud. 



In the rebellion of 1554 Wyatt's men discovered this 

 fact to their cost. After having marched all the way 

 round by Kingston to cross the Thames, the stream at 

 Knightsbridge proved a harder nut to crack, and utterly 

 annihilated their reputation on entering town. Instead of 

 being welcomed as Defenders of the Protestant Faith the 

 crowd saluted them as "Draggletails," and how, after such 

 a reception, could they look for anything but defeat? 



And, though this sort of thing may appear in keeping 

 in the sixteenth century, Knightsbridge was no better 

 place for travellers in 1736. "The road between this place 

 and London," writes Lord Hervey, dating his letter from 

 Kensington, " is grown so infamously bad that we live in 

 the same solicitude as we should do if cast on a rock in 

 the middle of the ocean ; and all the Londoners tell us 

 there is between them and us a great impassable gulf of 

 mud." 



Into this great impassable gulf of mud the Exeter Fly 

 presently descended, and after desperate flounderings 

 which only made matters worse, stuck fast. To it, when 

 thus safely anchored, entered a gentleman in a vizor and 

 riding a dark chestnut mare, who good-naturedly recom- 

 mended the coachman to alight, and offered to relieve the 

 passengers of their purses. The first to take advantage of 

 this amiability and give up his purse was the warrior 

 from Dettingen, who had been loud in his contempt for 

 highwaymen ever since the Fly left the city, and had 



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