st of the villages on the road from Guildford to Leatherhead is
Fetcham. A park, a road bordered by cottages and a pretty house or two,
and a battlemented church-tower deep among yews, and hollies, and
ivy-trees--Fetcham is as pleasantly small and quiet as her western
neighbours. But what a string of churches it is, along these twelve
miles of Surrey roadway; nine villages, each with its grey-walled
building and the cool whiteness of the arches, aisles, and chancels. No
pilgrim of the old centuries could tire on such a journey. To-day he
might. Only four of the church doors give him a welcome.

Above Fetcham's church, which, like Stoke D'Abernon and one or two
others, fronts on the flowers and lawns of a private garden, great
bunches of mistletoe darken the winter tree-tops. Fetcham is on the
border of the mistletoe country, which stretches from Leatherhead to
Dorking and Boxhill.

CHAPTER XI

GODALMING

A country town.--Peter the Great's breakfast.--Pykes in the
Wey.--Dogs and fish-carts.--Off to Botany Bay.--Owen Manning.--A
most malignant priest.--Eashing Bridges.--Peperharow deer.--Loseley
from a distance.--Charterhouse in the future.

The best view of Godalming is from the hill roads above Farncombe. Not
many towns group themselves so well against hills and woods; few have so
spacious and quiet a foreground. The church stands on the Wey; the
churchyard runs down to the very banks, and the noble leaded spire lifts
its chanticleer higher, I think, from the tower than any other church in
Surrey. Between the foot of the hill and the Wey spreads wide
meadowland; the Wey flows tranquilly by willow-herb and alder; beyond
the Wey are the red roofs of Godalming clustered in the trees. It is the
completest little country town; the green fields in front and the woods
beyond set it compact together, clustered as a country town should be
about its church and its High Street, with the river running clear at
its side.

[Illustration: _On the Way to Godalming from Haslemere._]

Godalming High Street has not kept the grace of Guildford, nor had it
ever the width and the air of Epsom or Farnham, but it has more than one
building of distinction, and its links with the past are in old inns,
timbered stories and forgotten courts. The White Hart still juts its
wooden beams over the pavement; the King's Arms, a later building, has a
square-set front which has watched many coaches jangle off to
Portsmouth.