IN WILTSHIRE 303 



they do play sometimes. Polegate, you know, is 

 Sussexy, but I suppose, too near to Eastbourne 

 to show much marked provincialism. You don't 

 feel there- — at least, I do not — very far away from 

 the Great Wen. My next route was from 

 Paddington to Swindon, to call on Robinson at 

 Foxhill. I could not make time to pay a visit to 

 Eugene Leigh, who rents the stables the late 

 Mr Bruce Seton had on part of Robinson's land. 

 No one ever accused Leigh of being a lazy man. 

 If he did happen to be so traduced, and wanted 

 a character for industry, I can find him one. 

 Said a rustic to me, when I inquired for purposes 

 of drawing the countryman, not because I didn't 

 know, *'what trainer had the stud farm .^ " ** Mr 

 Leigh, and you may well call him a trainer, for 

 he's training horses all day long, and, for what 

 we know, all night." 



Swindon market was on, and it was quite 

 cheering to note the poor, long-suffering agri- 

 cultural gentlemen who had so long been losing so 

 much money in farming all so jolly well-to-do — 

 and doing themselves well, too. Now, to illus- 

 trate what I say about distance, take Swindon 

 on a market day. The town itself is not so very 

 old-fashioned — the old part, I mean — in fact, is 

 rather up-to-date than otherwise ; but, with its 

 people, is as far from London as Dublin from 

 Birmingham, in distinctions. After sampling so 

 much Wiltshire, I had to make for Leicester, and 

 again was happy in the journey per Midland. 

 But for a little bit of a local accent Leicester 

 might be part of London itself It is twenty 

 miles farther off than Swindon, yet while Swindon 

 is remote in its ways, the flourishing Midland 

 town seems not more out than a suburb. That 



