THE EXETER ROAD 



XI 



It is a splendidly surfaced road that runs hence 

 to Staines, and the fact is sufficiently well known for 

 it to be crowded on Saturday afternoons and Sundays 

 with cyclists of the ' scorcher ' variety, members of 

 cycling clubs out for a holiday, and taking their 



THE ' GREEN MAX, HATTON. 



pleasure at sixteen miles an hour, Indian file, hang- 

 ing on to one another's back wheel, with shoulders 

 humped over handle-bars and eyes for nothing but 

 the road surface. 



But there are quiet, deserted bye-lanes where these 

 highway crowds never come. Just such a lane is 

 that which leads off here, by the river Crane and 

 the Bedfont Powder Mills, to the right, and makes 



