154 WAYFARING NOTIONS 



sented Johnny Reiff, then a boy, with a handsome 

 cheque for a meritorious win, and the little 

 nipper, accepting the douceur, stuffed it into his 

 pocket without so much as looking at it. I 

 suppose you remember poor Prince Soltykoff s 

 lament at the personal sacrifice of dignity 

 necessary for an owner desirous of keeping in 

 an imported jockey's good graces. '' He," said 

 the Prince of his jockey, '*sit on my table and 

 swing his leg, he smoke my cigar, call me 



' boss,' and use my boots for spittoons, and " 



But as we have somehow got to Boxhill, let us 

 quit racing as it was and ought not to be, and 

 get up by the old road — Roman, say the local 

 folk, and likely enough, too, because Ermyn 

 Street comes right along past Epsom's paddock 

 down to Myrtle Hall at Mickleham, only half a 

 mile or so away from the foot of Boxhill's grown- 

 over track. Likely, too, it was a Pilgrim's Way 

 for those who, coming from Winchester over by 

 Merrow Downs and the back of Ranmore to 

 Burford, cut across to Betchworth on their road 

 towards Canterbury. 



Let every reader who does not know Boxhill 

 make a great point of exploring this almost 

 unique territory of down land, thickly wooded, in 

 parts a dense jungle of yew and box, mixed with 

 almost every tree that flourishes in England, 

 and, in the open, showing detached specimens to 

 which the like can scarcely be found. An eerie, 

 mysterious, ghostly sort of gulf is the great gully 

 on the left as you make from the road to the 

 fort, or, at least, it was when I climbed up there 

 with the mist lying, as one may say, in strata, 

 the light varying from minute to minute, and no 

 sign of life except birds stealing stealthily about 



