RAMBLES ABOUT NEWMARKET 207 



trade a Hot Cross Bun maker, and so only wanted 

 for labour once a year ; the gamekeepers who do 

 not mind my wandering a bit because they are 

 familiar with my ways, and the watchers who so 

 sedulously look after the young birds and tell me 

 their troubles, especially with the rooks ; the 

 clever housewife who brews her own beer in the 

 scullery of her cottage^ — jolly good ale It is, too — 

 and gives it to me because she dare not sell it (a 

 transaction by which both of us profit), and always 

 gets a mug ready when she sees me coming along ; 

 I visited them all. I could not help walking the 

 course, I walked the course. Why do we say 

 walked the course instead of walked along or 

 over the course? I can understand ** waltzing 

 Matilda" or "humping your swag," but walking 

 the course I cannot. Anyhow, I padded the hoof 

 from the Cambridge road, where horses used to 

 be started for that iniquitous fancy race the Whip, 

 over four miles, lo st. each, to the improved angle 

 at Choke Jade, and then on to the Rowley Mile 

 finish, past the place where the post — the red one 

 — used to be, and then up the Cambridge Hill's 

 finish, and the sole wrack left behind of the Top 

 of the Town fixings, the eye-headed semaphore 

 thing that marked the winning-spot, I believe. 

 Very tiring walking it is, all over the Heath — 

 not a patch on Southdown footing, and scarcely 

 anyone or anybody was about — only a shepherd 

 with two extremely rackety bob-tailed pups and a 

 flock of black-faces, the most graceful sheep we 

 have, built quite elegantly about the neck and 

 shoulders, not at all unlike fawns. I inspected 

 the Limekilns and Water Hall, the Racecourse 

 side, and right along from beyond the Ditch to 

 the far-away starting-point of the weary Beacon 



