266 THE EXETER ROAD 



tion by ' maligiiants ' and began a kind of John the 

 Baptist life amid the hills and valleys of Dorsetshire, 

 an exemplar for the imitation of his grandsons in later 

 days. Itineracy and a sturdy independence thus be- 

 came a tradition and a duty with the Wesleys. Thus 

 are sects increased and multiplied, and no more 

 sure way exists of producing prophets than by the 

 persecution and oppression of those who, left judi- 

 ciously alone, would live and die unknown to and 

 unhonoured by the world, 



Milborne St. Andrew, close upon three miles 

 onward, is placed in another of these many deep 

 hollows which, with streams running through them, 

 are so recurrent a feature of the Exeter Road ; only 

 the hollow here is a broader one and better dignified 

 w^ith the title of valley. The stream of the ' mill- 

 bourne,' from which the original mill has long since 

 vanished (if, indeed, the name of the place is not, 

 more correctly, ' Melbourne,' ' mell ' in Dorsetshire 

 meaning, like the prefix of ' lew ' in Devon, a warm 

 and sheltered spot), is a tributary of the river Piddle, 

 which, a few miles down the road gives name to 

 Piddletown, and along its course to Aff-Piddle, Piddle- 

 trenthide, Piddlehinton, Tolpiddle, and Turner's 

 Piddle. 



Milborne St. Andrew is a pretty place, and those 

 who know Normandy may well think it, with its 

 surrounding meads and feathery poplars, like a village 

 in that old-world French province. Almost midway 

 along the sixteen and a quarter miles between Bland- 

 ford and Dorchester, it still keeps the look of an old 

 coaching and posting village, although the last coach 



