ire and Yorkshire what Castilian is
to the Andalusian, or Tuscan to Neapolitan. The poor people had a
foaming pot before them; but as soon as they heard the price, they rose
and were going to leave it untouched. They could not, they said, afford
so much. It was but fourpence halfpenny. I laid the money down, and
their delight and gratitude quite affected me. Two more of the party
soon arrived. I ordered another pot, and when the rain was over, left
them, followed by more blessings than ever, I believe, were purchased
for ninepence."

Perhaps the English of the Surrey suburbs was different in Macaulay's
days. There is little dialect left anywhere to distinguish Surrey
English from any other; even the gypsies speak the English of the
suburbs of London. There are still gypsies on Esher common; I came
across quite a settlement once, walking over the common to Cobham on a
sunny morning after late April snow. The common was patched with
sparkling white and blue; the snow lay in blue shadows unmelted under
the gorse bushes, and among the gorse and sodden bracken twenty ponies
snuffed for grass. Three gypsy boys shuffled through the fern near them.
What did they do with the ponies? I asked, and the eldest told me they
sold them; they were good ponies; he was voluble in suburban English.
What did they fetch? That depended. What was that one worth?--it was a
small chestnut creature with a child's pink pinafore for a halter. "Ah!
That one," he began, and his eyes became inscrutable. He would have sold
it well.

CHAPTER XXVI

LEATHERHEAD

The Millpond.--Magic water.--Leatherhead Bridge.--The Running
Horse.--The Tunnyng of Elinour Rumming.--Noppy Ale.--A penny a
coffin.--Deflected chancels.--Judge Jeffreys and his
daughter.--_Emma._--Mr. Woodhouse's gruel.

Leatherhead ought to be entered from the west and left by the south. To
meet the little town on the road from Fetcham is to begin with a stretch
of water, which is always a good introduction; and to leave it and
travel south is to pass through one of the most fascinating valleys of
all Surrey.

The stretch of water lying to the west is the millpond, and is unlike
any other pond I know. It is two or three hundred yards long and perhaps
eighty yards wide, slopes gradually from the sides over a chalky bottom,
and is of an intense clear green. Here and there are open spaces in the
weeds; patches of deeper blue-green, which can be seen, if you look
clo