A Farmer’s Life 
house, he said, the men (in twos, apparently) 
jumped into the carts, one each side with legs 
dangling over the fore-part. “* They would whip 
up these poor dogs, and off they’d go—the dogs 
barking, the men hollering.” Does not Farn- 
borough stir in its sleep, at the clamour? The 
first milk John Smith knew to be sent to London 
by rail was conveyed to the station in this way. 
A farmer of Frimley had a son in London who 
found a good opening; and the farmer took the 
milk daily across the Hatches, driving dogs in a 
cart “‘ to meet the up train.”” One of these dogs, 
by the way, was “‘ an ordinary house-dog.” ‘The 
other was a sheep-dog, very savage. “If you 
didn’t look out he would come at you right 
across the road and have you, spite of the cart 
and the other dog.”” The noise of the barking 
of these dogs could be heard afar. 
But how erroneous is fancy! While I picture 
to myself the scurry of this dog traffic, the true 
objection to it seems to have been, on the con- 
trary, that it would go too stealthily. In the 
prevailing quiet it lent itself too easily to mischief, 
keeping quiet itself. 
For according to John Smith, a couple of men 
driving dogs in a light cart could go ostensibly 
hawking cheap goods, but actually thieving. 
Their method was simplicity itself. While one 
of them was “driving his bargain at a house 
24 
