re say, to the allowance of any half
dozen of these poor boys for the day. I could, with all my heart,
have pulled the victuals out of my pocket and given it to them: but
I did not like to do that which would have interrupted the march,
and might have been construed into a sort of insult. To quiet my
conscience, however, I gave a poor man that I met soon afterwards
sixpence, under pretence of rewarding him for telling me the way to
Thursley, which I knew as well as he, and which I had determined, in
my own mind, not to follow."

[Illustration: _The Crown Inn, Chiddingfold._]

Chiddingfold's old inn is the Crown, which claims to have been standing
for more than five centuries. According to a copy of a deed dated March
22, 1383, which hangs in the coffee-room, Peter Pokeford, of the parish
of Chudyngfold, gave and granted to Richard Gofayre, "the said
tenement, namely, the Hall and the Chamber with a solar, and also the
kitchen with a small house with their appurtenances for the term of
fifty years for four shillings of yearly rent payable to the said
Peter." The inn is pleasant and solid, and dark with enormous wooden
beams. Above a fine old open hearth hang three engaging pictures--or
used to hang--of actresses of days gone by. Madame Vestris, in a feather
hat and a red cloak, plays Don Giovanni; Miss Paton, spangled, trousered
and red-slippered, would appeal to any Turk as Mandane; Belvidera, in a
sober grey gown, is an actress who knew Surrey well, Fanny Kemble.

[Illustration: _Rock Hill, Hambledon._]

To the Fold Country belong two other villages, Hascombe, two miles north
of Dunsfold, and Hambledon, a little more than two miles west of
Hascombe. The Hascombe yews, which make an arched gateway to the
churchyard, will some day be famous; the church lacks something of the
quiet of plainer, whiter walls. Half-a-mile south of the church,
Hascombe Hill once lit a beacon, and looks out over many miles of the
Fold Country. At the White Horse in the village I was told of a great
old beech-tree standing on the hill, and learned that if you went up the
hill it was impossible to miss it; however, I followed all the
directions and achieved the impossible. Once Hascombe was the home of a
divine whom the biographers briefly describe as "controversialist." He
was Doctor Conyers Middleton, the author of a famous _Life of Cicero_,
for which he stole the materials from a Scottish professor's work, _