44 THE DOVER ROAD 



handy, and in the second that innocent-looking 

 triangle is apt to become □> the English of which is 

 " Likely to have you taken up," even if it does not 

 become O = " Dangerous. Sure of being quodded." 



XI 



Passing many of these undesirable waj^farers, one 

 comes, in a mile — fields and hedgerows and market- 

 gardens on either side— to Shoulder of Mutton Green, 

 a scrubby piece of common-ground shaped like South 

 America — but smaller. Hence the peculiar eloquence 

 of its name. The Kent County Council has set up 

 a large and imposing notice-board at the corner of the 

 green which bears its name and a portentous number 

 of bye-laws, and when the sun is low and shadows slant 

 (the board is so large and the green so small), the shade 

 of it falls across the green and into the next field. 



And now comes Belle Grove, spelled, as one may see 

 on the stuccoed cottages by the wayside, with a pleasing 

 diversity. Belle Grove, Bell Grove, and Belgrove ; and 

 one would pin one's faith on the correct form being the 

 second variety, because the place is not beautiful, nor 

 ever could have been. 



To Bell Grove, then, succeeds Welling, and Welling 

 is a quite uninteresting and shabby hamlet fringing 

 the road, ten-and-a-quarter miles from London Bridge. 

 The new suburban railway from London to Bexley 

 Heath crosses the road, and has a station — a waste of 

 sand, stones, and white palings — here. The place, says 

 Hasted, in his " History of Kent," was called Well End, 

 from the safe arrival of the traveller at it, after having 

 escaped the danger of robbers through the hazardous 

 road from Shooter's Hill," which derivation, though 

 regarded as a happy effort of the imagination, is 

 considerably below the dignified level of a county 

 historian. Indeed, I seem to see in this the 



