PLACE NAMES place." On the other hand, once when driving in Worcestershire we were sadly puzzled when a tramp asked us if he were on the right road to "Kiddy"; it eventually turned out that he wanted to get to Kidderminster. I verily believe, tramp though he was, that he looked upon us as ignoramuses in not recognising that curt appellation for the town in question! He was a civil tramp though, for there are such beings in the world, and we always make it a point to return civility with civility, whether it be a ploughboy or a lord who is addressing us. "Well now," he exclaimed in genuine surprise as we parted, "to thinks that you should not know that Kidderminster is called Kiddy. Why, I thought as how everybody knew that." In Sussex, too, once when driving near Crowborough a man in a trap shouted to us to know if he were "right for the Wells," for the moment it did not occur to us that he meant Tunbridge Wells, but that we discovered was what he did mean.
In Silk Willoughby, by the roadside, we noticed some steps with the stump of the shaft of the village cross on the top; on four sides of the base of this were the carved symbols of the Evangelists, much worn but still traceable. We found that these steps, as is frequently the case, formed a rendezvous and a playing-place for the village children, a fact that can hardly tend to the preservation of the carvings!
As we had got down to make a sketch of the ruined cross we thought we might as well walk
