From Knockholt Beeches the eye ranges to the Crystal Palace, the enormity of it a little excused by distance; and the Tower Bridge and the dome of St. Paul’s are easily to be identified. But those familiar objects soon pall, and the yearnful music of the concertina and the mazy dance commonly occupy the all-too-swiftly fading afternoon. ’Arry and ’Arriet exchange hats in the spirit of fellowship that has come down to them from the remote ages when semi-savage ancestors swapped headgear at their feasts to typify equality one with the other; although I suspect that if you told ’Arry and his “donah” that they do what they do because their ancient ancestors were accustomed to do it, they would promptly tell you to “shut it, guv’nor.” And they would properly be resentful, for every one prefers to think “I am I,” self-actuated, automobilous, self-contained, and patterned on no model.
And at last, arms round waists, ’Arriet crowned with a bowler, and ’Arry’s cheeks swept by the “ostridge” feathers of her hat, they go back in the solemn twilight to the waggonettes, singing the latest songs of the Halls.
But to resume the old road, interrupted too long by this interlude.
A stark, forbidding plateau of swede and mangold-wurtzel fields follows from the hamlet of Knockholt Pound, through which the road runs, unfenced, like a footpath. Then it plunges, with little warning, down the southern face of the hills and goes hazardously corkscrewing to the levels, far below. Down there, on the right hand, through the hedges, is Chevening, and you look down, like the rooks and crows, upon the roofs of church and mansion, situated, as Mr. Thomas Hardy would say, in his sesquipedalian fashion, “as in an isometric drawing.”
This, indeed, is the well-known “Madamscourt” Hill, so styled from time immemorial, although the name derives from the estate of Morant’s Court, at the foot. There is, at any rate, no lady in this case, and the direction, cherchez la femme, is entirely out of order.
The cyclist passes in a flash a large white house on the left hand, half-way down, and is too engrossed upon the problem of whether he will succeed in reaching the bottom safely to notice it. The house, now a villa, was in the old days of the road a very fine inn, called the “Star,” and from it the hill is still known to many of the country-folk as “Star Hill.” The exceeding steepness of the hill gave the “Star” the excellent custom it enjoyed until the way was diverted, and thus abolished the jolly days of the old road.
The coaches wagged so slowly to the summit that the passengers commonly walked quicker to the hill-top, and were already enjoying the very choice fare provided when the weary team pulled up at the door. The horses had, of course, to be rested, and as no one in those hospitable days could think of not offering coachman and guard some liquid token of their esteem, it was often a considerable time before the journey was resumed.
Just below the old inn the “Pilgrim’s Way” from Winchester to Canterbury crossed the road, making for Otford, along the sunny southern slopes of the downs.
At last, gaining the level, the old coach-road joins the modern route at the “Rose and Crown,” Dunton Green.