ASCOT AND NEWBURY 291 



break into a canter instead of walking. Find 

 me a better word than aristocratic, and I will 

 make it complimentary to the sand-topped roads 

 round about this centre of Berkshire. One day 

 in the middle of January I bested the railway 

 company in the only safe way not involving 

 original — no, not sin — outlay for carriage, and 

 toddled over from Windsor to Ascot and back, 

 and was very glad I did. I wonder whether the 

 King has got a new road-mender-in-waiting. 

 Either he has, or the old one has improved, for 

 the going through the park was excellent indeed ; 

 and so it was in the forest and right on to the 

 Royal Hotel, to reach which one passes the 

 Crispin, well beknown to the Great Western 

 Railway Company's passengers for the meeting. 

 The light was not so bad for an early January 

 afternoon. You could scarcely desire a better 

 roadway. There were the birds having a last 

 word before going to bed, and the deer marching 

 about in what always seems to me as rather the 

 manner of superior beings and in aggressive 

 **tone of voice." As the day darkened among 

 the forest trees the great old pollard oaks looked 

 more ancient, time-worn, and altogether interest- 

 ing than by full light ; the owls had begun saying 

 their say before the jackdaws had finished (these 

 blacks never do finish, and, I believe, talk in 

 their sleep too) ; you could hear the small deer 

 rustling in the dry leaves if you could not see 

 them ; the cock pheasants had something to 

 go crock, crock, crocking about (a discontented 

 vocalist is your pheasant all the world over) ; 

 partridges were carrying on companionable-like, 

 as if already thinking of setting up house- 

 keeping ; a stray rabbit or two was out and 



