he third day came, and he
jested with his guests at breakfast--"If I live over to-night, I shall
have jockeyed the ghost." He dined at five, went to bed at eleven,
called his servant a slovenly dog for not bringing a spoon for his
medicine, and sent for a spoon. The man returned, found him in a fit,
and roused the house. But Lord Lyttelton was dead. He was thirty-five.

[Illustration: _A Quiet Corner in Witley_ (_p. 159_).]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote A: It is generally admitted, that a horse which will run four
miles in eight minutes, carrying a weight of eight stone and a-half,
must win plates.

_Bingley._]

CHAPTER XXV

MID-SURREY DOWNS AND COMMONS

Ewell.--A Clear Stream.--Nonsuch Palace.--The Right Use for a King's
Gift.--Cheam.--Satin Haycocks.--A Chained
Anachronism.--Chessington.--Dancing Round the Mulberry Tree.--A
House of Mourning.--A Fool for a present.--Esher.--The great horse
Bendigo.--Macaulay and the Hop-pickers.--Surrey English.--Gypsy boys
selling a pony.

North and south of Epsom are scattered villages on downs and commons;
some, like Ewell and Cheam to the north and east, changing the word
village into town; others, like Walton-on-the-hill and Headley to the
south-west, or Chessington to the north-west, merely groups of cottages
with a church. Epsom is the centre of the Surrey churches which have
been destroyed or disused rather than restored, and the reason for the
destruction of the group is obscure. Some strange infection ran in the
destroyer's brains; Epsom, perhaps, began it; Ewell, Cheam, Headley fell
later; Esher built a new church, but stayed from destroying the old.
Walton, Woodmansterne, and Banstead have been altered almost out of
recognition of what was old; Chessington alone looks upon almost
untroubled centuries.

Ewell almost joins Epsom; Ewell with its old name Etwell, which its
historians tell you means At ye Well; the guess looks too easy. The well
is plain enough to see; Ewell has pools of the clearest water and
springs running fast by the side of the street; it is the most definite
beginning of a river that ever attracted a village to its banks, and it
runs out of the village as the little Hog's Mill river--a stream with a
sparkle in it that deserves a prettier name. But the village which the
stream drew to it has changed. The High Street has kept some of its
older houses, with upper stories jutting out over the road; but the
church which th