ow dim-lighted pen
Scann'd of tramps and fishermen!
There a bird, high-coloured, fat,
Proud of port, though something squat--
Pursy, play'd-out Philistine--
Dazzled Nelly's youthful eyne.
But, far in, obscure, there stirr'd
On his perch a sprightlier bird,
Courteous-eyed, erect and slim;
And I whisper'd: 'Fix on _him!_'
Home we brought him, young and fair,
Songs to trill in Surrey air.
Here Matthias sang his fill,
Saw the cedars of Pain's Hill;
Here he pour'd his little soul,
Heard the murmur of the Mole."

And it was while Matthew Arnold was living at Pain's Hill that he chose
out his little collection of "selected poems." I like to think of him
reading over his work in his Surrey garden, and answering once more the
cuckoo calling "from the wet field, through the vext garden-trees"--

"Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go?
Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come on,
Soon will the musk carnations break and swell,
Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon,
Sweet William with his homely cottage smell,
And stocks in fragrant blow:
Roses that down the alleys shine afar,
And open, jasmined-muffled lattices,
And groups under the dreaming garden trees,
And the full moon, and the white evening star."

[Illustration: _Bridge over the Mole, Cobham._]

CHAPTER XXVIII

LEATHERHEAD TO DORKING

The Roman road over the hill.--The Swallows of the Mole.--An
imperial draught.--Mickleham.--Fanny Burney.--A Story of
letters.--Juniper Hall and its cedars.--Norbury Park.--How to
measure trout from the Mole.--Conversation Sharp.--Keats and
Endymion.--Mr. George Meredith's poems.--The best known hill in the
world.--A Soldier's Whim.

The best way from Leatherhead to Dorking is the longest, and hardly goes
by the high road at all. It begins at Ashtead; you can get to Ashtead
from Leatherhead or Epsom, but you must start from Ashtead out over
Ermyn Street, the old Roman road. One might begin the walk from Epsom;
but Epsom downs, with the great empty race-stand, can be depressing, and
the best of the old road lies south, nearer Mickleham.

Ashtead is growing towards the railway, but east of the main street
there is hardly a cottage. The church stands in Ashtead Park, and shows
that it once had Roman walls for neighbours by the quantity of Roman
brick and