“Better than the moon?”
“Yes, better than the moon; and there is nothing better in it than your well water, missus. Good afternoon.”
Framed clearly against her solitary pink-washed cottage, she stared after me, shading her eyes.
Two or three times along these four miles of road I saw a square of trees protecting a farm or “grange,” most of the villages having a grange out in the open country named after them, as Duxford Grange, Ickleton Grange, Chrishall Grange, Heydon Grange. But on the road itself there were no houses except Noon’s Folly and one called Shapens, not even at the crossings of more important roads. For the most part it kept level: where it had to dip slightly after the turn to Great Chishall it was worn several feet deep, but this was exceptional. Beyond that it was worn unevenly into two parallel tracks between hedges with beech trees and elders. To the right the pleasant tree-crowned rise of Goffer’s Knoll stood up on the other side of the main Newmarket and Royston road, now fast nearing my road. Past Noon’s Folly Farm the road had a narrow and embanked course, but parallel with it a depression seamed by paths and cart tracks. Here and for some way past—from half-way between Noon’s Folly and the Barley road—the way is a boundary between Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire. I had not been out of Cambridgeshire since I left Suffolk at the Kennett bridge.
Icknield Way, crossing Ermine Street.
Half a mile west of Noon’s Folly the main road reached my road, and, turning west instead of south-west, made use of its course for the two miles into Royston. For most of the two miles this piece of road, exactly continuing my old way, had broad green edges, and on the left hand, beeches. Coming to a rise it was cut through the ridge and embanked again below. It went straight through the big village or little town of Royston, where it crossed Ermine Street, and took the name of Baldock Street from the town ahead. As it was market day everyone was driving out of Royston with his trap full of chickens and parcels of all kinds, not to speak of wife and children. This was my first real chance of a lift. For between Ickleton and the Royston road only farm waggons went, and they were all in the hayfields; and only motor-cars travelled the road from Newmarket, all passing me as if I needed nothing but more dust to fill eyes, mouth, nose, ears, shoes, and spirit. I have never been offered a lift by a stranger in a motor-car, but friends of mine have told me they have heard of others who have. With the increase of dust and heat the likelihood of a merciful motorist becomes less, because dust and heat do not produce the appearance desirable in a motorist’s companion; in fact, by the end of the day, or of the week, especially if he has forgotten to shave, or has always arrived in a town after shop-shutting, the wayfarer runs the risk of being called “mate” by the baker’s man who refuses to let him ride. “Mate” sounds like liberty, equality, and fraternity, but it can really be contemptuous pity. It is no better than “my man” from a gentleman, or “unfortunate sister” from a lady, or “my friend” from a Nonconformist minister. In London it may be different, and I should say that a navvy would use it in a friendly manner. But from the Wallingford baker’s man on a country round it means “Poor ——,” perhaps even “Dirty ——.” By this time essays on walking and walking tours begin to wear very thin. You pitch Stevenson at any rate over the hedge, and cannot find a place suitable for —— and ——. Borrow is safe, but then, he got really tired, and did not regard walking as an amusement. I have no doubt that he had learned to stick out his under-lip at the end of some of his marches.
Nevertheless, stumping along on a shoeful of blisters is not bad when you are out of Royston and have Pen Hills upon your left; low, insignificant, restful stretches upon your right; and Odsey before you in the cool of evening. For some distance there was no hedge on the left side of the road beyond the town, and the turf, marked for many yards with tracks made before metalling, rose up to considerable swells of chalk cloven sometimes gently and sometimes abruptly into coombes, some smooth as lawns, some beautiful with trees. Tumuli were scattered over this smoothest sward, and down from the ridge of the high land came deep, curving trackways. At Odsey beyond they have found with Samian pottery the shin bones of men who ran instead of walking. People were walking for pleasure on the grass up above, and children were laughing somewhere near but out of sight.