126 THE EXETER ROAD 



wliieli it i.-> eliietly current, passed this spot iu a fury. 

 He says, with a sad lack of the prophetic faculty, 

 ' AVe passed the mill where the Mother-Bank paper is 

 made ! Thank God ! this mill is likely soon to want 

 employment. Hard by is a pretty park and house, 

 belonging to "Squire" Portal, the papei'-iaaher. 

 The country people, who seldom want for sarcastic 

 shrewdness, call it " Eag Hall ! " ' And again, ' I hope 

 the time will come when a monument will be erected 

 where that mill stands, and when on that monument 

 will be inscribed ''the Curse of England .' This spot 

 ouofht to be held accursed in all time henceforth and 

 for evermore. It has been the spot from which have 

 sprung more and greater mischief than ever plagued 

 mankind before.' 



Unhappily for Cobbett's wishes and predictions, 

 the mill is still in existence and is busier than it was 

 when he wrote in 1821. There are as many as two 

 hundred and fifty people now employed here in the 

 making of the ' accursed ' paper. 



Xow comes Freefolk villaoe. with a wavside 

 drinking-fountain and a tall cross, with stone seat, 

 furnished with some pious inscription ; the whole 

 erected by a Poital in 1870, and intended to fui'ther 

 the honour and glory of that family. There is plenty 

 water everywhere around, in the river and its many 

 runlets amid the water-meadows, but the fountain is 

 dry. Passing tramps are properly sarcastic, and the 

 drv fountain and its texts, so far from leadino; in the 

 paths of temperance and godliness, are the occasion 

 of much blasphemy. But the pious Portals have 

 their advertisement. 



