CHAPTER XXIII 



IN WILTSHIRE 



I OWE a lot to the Great Western Railway, for it 

 is perhaps the one by which I travel the least 

 frequently on what I may call hard, pressing 

 business, but ever since I can recollect went 

 holiday-making by. I wonder whether others 

 have noticed what so often strikes me, viz., the 

 wonderful way in which, as you journey westward 

 you seem to get a long way "out of" London 

 and its belongings in short measure of time or 

 mileage. Fifty miles away on the Great Western 

 Railway is to me almost twice as far as on most 

 other systems. The point forced itself on me 

 particularly one week when I had experiences 

 available for comparison. On one and the same 

 day I made three journeys on radii from the 

 Metropolis, all of them jolly good, too. First from 

 the Polegate district up to Victoria. The South 

 Coast Railway did us well. Polegate is sixty 

 miles away, and, I need not explain, in Sussex, 

 on the plain between the South Downs and the 

 next high lands up Mayfield and Crowborough 

 way, where, if ventilation has anything to do with 

 health, one ought to be very healthy indeed, for 

 the winds hold it for a playground, and, my word ! 



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