THE 'GOLDEN FARMER' 99 



' Golden Farmer.' A ferocious Government, which 

 had no sympathy with highway robbery, caused the 

 ' Golden Farmer ' to be hano-ed and afterwards oib- 

 beted at his own threshold. 



The present inn, an ugly building facing down the 

 road, does not occupy the site of the old house, which 

 stood on the rio^ht hand, o-oino- westwards. A table, 

 much hacked and mutilated, standing in the parlour 

 of the ' Jolly Farmer,' came from the highwayman's 

 vanished home. A tall obelisk that stood on the 

 triangular green at the fork of the roads here — where 

 the signpost is standing nowadays — has long since dis- 

 appeared. It was a prominent landmark in the old 

 coaching days, and was inscribed with the distances 

 of many towns from this spot. A still existing link 

 with the times of the highwaymen is the so-called 

 ' Claude du Vall's Cottao;e,' which stands in the 

 heathy solitudes at some distance along Lightwater 

 Lane, to the rioiit-hand of the road. The cottaoe, of 

 which there is no doubt that it often formed a hidino- 



o 



place for that worthy, has lost its ancient thatch, and 

 is now covered with commonplace slates. 



Almost immediately after leaving the ' Jolly 

 Farmer ' behind, the road grows hateful, passing in 

 succession the modern townships of Cambridge Town 

 Camberley, and York Town. The exact point where 

 one of these modern squatting-places of those who 

 hang on to the skirts of Tommy Atkins joins another 

 may be left to local experts ; to the traveller they 

 present the appearance of one long and profoundly 

 depressing street. 



Cobbett knew the road well, and liked this shabl)v 



