76 THE DOVER ROAD 



Quixote's adventures than of Sunday travelling in 

 this unromantic country. This was nothing less 

 than a windmill which the country-folk, taking 

 advantage of that usually coachless day, were moving 

 entire. Less fiery than the Don, the travellers out- 

 flanked the gigantic obstacle by dragging the coaches 

 into the field beside the road. And of that road, 

 M. Grosley has to say that it was excellent ; covered 

 with powdered flints, and well kept, in spite of the 

 exemption from forced labour which the countrymen 

 enjoyed ; and here he quotes what Aurelius Victor 

 has to say of the Emperor Vespasian's vast roadworks 

 in Britain. 



The roadways had not long been in this enviable 

 condition ; only, indeed, so recently as the days of 

 George the Second had they been rescued from the 

 bad state into which they had been suffered to fall 

 during the civil wars, and, generally speaking, the 

 English knew little or nothing of the art of road- 

 making. 



The repairing of the high-roads was at the expense 

 of them that used them. Neither rank nor dignity 

 was exempted from the payment ot tolls ; the king 

 himself was subject to them, and the turnpike would 

 have been shut against his equipage if none of his 

 officers paid the money before passing by. 



These high-roads had all along them a little raised 

 bank, two or three feet broad, with a row of wooden 

 posts whose tops were whitewashed so that the coach- 

 men should see them at night. This was for the 

 conveniency of foot-passengers. In places where the 

 road was too narrow to admit of this arrangement, 

 the proprietors of lands adjoining were obliged to 

 give passage through their fields, which were all 

 enclosed with tall hedges or with strong hurdles about 

 four feet high, over which passengers leapt or climbed. 

 Custom had so habituated the village girls to this 

 exercise that they 'acquitted themselves in it with a 

 peculiar grace and agility. The great attention of 



