BEDFORDSHIRE: SURVEYING 107 



and quite the dandy in his dress. He was proud of his at- 

 tractions, and made friends with any of the good-looking village 

 girls who would talk to him. One day we met a pretty rosy- 

 cheeked girl about his own age — a small farmer's daughter — 

 and after a few words, seeing she was not disinclined for a 

 chat, he walked back with her, and I went home. When he 

 returned, he boasted openly of having got her to promise to 

 meet him again, but the landlord advised him to be careful not 

 to let her father see him. A day or two after, as we were 

 passing near the place, he saw the girl again, and I walked 

 slowly on. I soon heard loud voices, and, looking back, saw 

 the girl's father, a big, formidable-looking man, threatening the 

 young Lothario with his stick, and shouting out that if he 

 caught him there again with his girl, he would break every bone 

 in his body. When the young gentleman came back he was 

 not the least abashed, but told us the whole story very much 

 as it had happened, and rather glorying in his boldness in not 

 running away from so big and enraged a man, and intimating 

 that he had assuaged his anger by civil words, and had come 

 away with flying colours. 



One day he and I went for a walk over the hills towards 

 Hitchin, where on the ordnance map a small stream was 

 named Roaring Meg, and we wanted to see why it was so 

 called. We found a very steep and narrow valley something 

 like that called the Devil's Dyke near Brighton; but this was 

 thickly wooded on both sides, and the little stream at the 

 bottom, rushing over a pebbly bed, produced a roaring sound 

 which could be heard at a considerable distance. This 

 northern range of downs has the advantage over the south 

 downs of having numerous springs and streams on both sides 

 of it, and these are especially abundant around the ancient 

 village of Toddington, five miles west of Barton, where the 

 ordnance map shows about twenty springs, the sources of 

 small streams, within a radius of two miles. 



It was while living at Barton that I obtained my first 

 information that there was such a science as geology, and 

 that chalk was not everywhere found under the surface, as I 

 had hitherto supposed. My brother, like most land surveyors, 



