THE BATH ROAD 



25 



most. No ! they " lay low " for him in the cruellest 

 manner, and asked him at the end of his life, whether, 

 if he was not a turncoat, he was not an inconstant 

 changeling ? But Simon, though he must have been 

 about a hundred, was ready for them. " Not so," said 

 he, *' for I have always kept my principle." Upon this 

 the wicked desired him to " go to," when he " went to" 



" My principle," he said, " is 

 Vicar of Bray." Then his 



in the following fashion. 



this : to live and 

 questioners " went 



die the 

 too," 



and the good Simon died 

 according to his prin- 

 ciples in 1588. 



His genial presence 

 must have passed up and 

 down the London Road 

 many times during his 

 life, for the purpose of 

 taking fresh oaths under 

 varying conditions, sign- 

 incr recantations and 

 executing more import- 

 ant commissions, and his 

 jolly ghost should haunt 

 it still if ghosts were not 

 like stage coaches — so 

 hideously out of fashion ; 

 and Simon would be in 



good company too if he would walk, for the Bath Road 

 is haunted, and by two of his contemporaries. 



I shall have occasion later on to remark on the curious 

 way in which Henry the Eighth's name has attached 

 itself to certain counties, with which, if we are to credit 

 historians, for want of other pastime, he had no earthly 

 connection in life. It is not surprising however that 

 between Windsor and Reading, the much married and 

 much whitewashed king should be the hero of every 

 tale. And it is of a ghost story of which he is particu- 



Sign of the Angel, Woolhampton. 



