more credit both to myself and your service, I was bold to set down
_Dominus de Gatton_, _Roughey_ etc., naming certain my Lordships.
To the first I beseech your Majesty to consider, that there is no
other Latin word proper to signify a gentleman born, but _nobilis_.
As for _generosus_, as I have read in good writers _Vinum
generosum_, for a good cup of wine and _equus generosus_ for a
courageous horse, so I never heard _generosus_ alone so used, to
signify a gentleman born, but only on the gross Latin current in
Westminster Hall, and, if I had set down _generosus Anglus_, it
would have then construed rather a gentle Englishman than an English
gentleman. And as for _armiger_, it had yet been more barbarous, for
surely the world here abroad would rather have understood by that
strange term a page or a sword-bearer than a gentleman of the better
sort, as custom has made it to be construed in England; that this is
simply true, I doubt not, but that your Majesty, excelling in your
knowledge of good letters, will easily judge a gracious sentence on
my suit.... So that in setting down the term _nobilis_ used through
the world for a gentleman, I had no intention to make myself more
noble than I am, but to take only that which was due unto me."

[Illustration: _Buckland._]

I have taken Leigh on the way to Reigate. But the best way to see Leigh
on a short walk is to reach it from Reigate travelling west. The
introduction is by way of Reigate Heath, a wide and breezy common on
which an old black windmill stands high above heather and bracken, a
gaunt and wild neighbour to the orderly villas of the town.

Last of the little villages under the downs between Dorking and Reigate
is Buckland--a handful of cottages, a pond, and a noble barn with
upper-works like a tower. Buckland keeps tranquilly apart from Reigate,
and Reigate, considerately enough, builds her new houses towards the
railway and Redhill.

[Illustration: _The Roman Road at Ockley._]

CHAPTER XXXII

UNDER LEITH HILL

The Battle of Ockley.--The Stone Street.--The prettiest green in
Surrey.--Sweethearts and Roses.--When the Gentlemen went by.--An
engaging family history.--Oakwood: a forest chapel.--Capel
quiet.--Newdigate bells.--Martins in September.

Battlefields are not very numerous in Surrey. The Parliamentary wars
shed a little military glory on the North and th