142 WAYFARING NOTIONS 



feeling, nor the bilious tap frequently turned on 

 at Newmarket ; but just a good, honest, robust, 

 healthy, hearty sample calculated to make you 

 eat well and sleep well ; and if you deserve such 

 luck as getting it, be thankful that your lot is 

 not cast in a depressing place like — well, we 

 won't mention names, one can praise Queen 

 Ebba's town without running down others. 



I only wish I might pitch my tent up near 

 the top of the hillside, where you get the 

 southerly breeze straight from the sea, and 

 often tasting of it, too. Cold ? Oh ! yes, cold 

 it is, of course, in such weather. It can be cold 

 in this part of the world, which ''has quite a 

 name " for that sort of thing. But, locally, pride 

 is not taken in the superiority of cold on the 

 hilltop. The spot specially celebrated for it is 

 away down on the flat by the half-mile Bush 

 between Epsom and Ewell. According to tradi- 

 tion, which preserves opinions expressed by 

 stage coachmen (who ought to know, ought they 

 not ?) about weather, that was the bleakest, 

 freshest bit between London and the coast, 

 take which road you would to Portsmouth, or 

 Worthing, or Brighton. As a rule, my chief 

 trouble with regard to Epsom is to get out of 

 the place when once I am landed there. I think 

 it is at its best about the last week in April, 

 say during the Spring Meeting. I like it then 

 better than in Derby week. Of course the 

 ''country," as people say in speaking of vegeta- 

 tion's progress, may be at the time of the earlier 

 fixture a month late if the weather has been 

 unkindly. But sufficient advance will have been 

 made to make the Surrey country (where is 

 better ?) very beautiful indeed. Nowhere do you 



