144 WAYFARING NOTIONS 



Guildford line to Claygate, Oxshott, Cobham, 

 or — but this last makes it too far for most — 

 Effingham, and walk from one of those points. 

 If you only desire to see country from the train 

 and travel in comfort, free from crowding, then 

 you can change at Effingham and rail it to 

 Epsom. But for the toddler a good route offers 

 from each and every one of the depots named. 

 I think I once gave the log of a trudge between 

 Claygate and Epsom's Town Clock. To that 

 route are three or four variations. I do not take 

 it on now, because Claygate is getting townified ; 

 the pretty, rough common has been jumped for 

 golf, while an old road which led through the 

 Prince's covers is stopped, and the covers them- 

 selves are apt to mire you up to the chin, or on 

 that way, after so long a spell of wet as we have 

 had. 



My march was by way of Stoke D'Abernon, 

 on Mole-side, with its pretty little church, where 

 used to be a memorial to a brave knight. The 

 hero, to show his chivalry, made solemn vow to 

 please his fair lady, or somebody else, by slaying 

 the first man he met, and timed himself so as to 

 drop on to the next-of-kin between him and " the 

 property," or his principal creditor, the King's 

 taxes, his landlord, or somebody like that, quite 

 of no consequence. For the gallant deed, t'other 

 man being probably unarmed and out of training, 

 he received a medal with a "bloody hand" on it, 

 and gained enviable distinction. From Stoke 

 you work up to Leatherhead Common, which 

 is not a common, because it was collared by Act 

 of Parliament within the memory of man, and is 

 now being turned, some of it, into golf links and 

 building land. Really, we are lucky to have any 



