The _argot_ and the sign-language of the road are not difficult to acquire by those who have observant eyes and ears to hearken, but, like all languages, they are ever changing, and the accepted signs of yesteryear are constantly superseded by newer symbols. Little do the country-folk understand the significance of the chalk-marks on their gates and walls. Does the portly yeoman suspect that the [symbol] on his gatepost means "no good"? And how mixed would be the feelings of many a worthy lady were the inner meaning of [symbol] revealed to her--"Religious, but good on the whole." Were the eloquence of that mark discovered to her, she would know at once how it was that the poor men, with their ragged beards and their toes peeping through their boots, were so unfailingly pious and thankful for the cold scran and the threepenny-piece with which she relieved their needs, asking a blessing on her and hers until they were out of sight, when they "stowed" the piety and threw the provisions into the nearest ditch, calling in at the next roadside pub to take the edge off their thirst with that threepenny-piece. It may safely be said that the tramp is not grateful. He is, indeed, altruistic, but his altruism he saves for his kind, and he exhibits it in the danger-signals he chalks up in places the brotherhood wot of. There are degrees of danger, as of luck. Some good-hearted people become soured by many calls on their generosity, and one can readily understand even the mildest-mannered of elderly ladies becoming restive when the sixth tramp appears at the close of the day. Other people, too, lose their generosity with the bedding-out plants which one of the fraternity has "sneaked" from the front garden under cover of night. In the first instance, the sign [symbol] (which means "Spoilt by too many callers") is likely to be found somewhere handy, and in the second that innocent-looking triangle is apt to become [symbol], the English of which is "Likely to have you taken up," even if it does not become [symbol] == "Dangerous. Sure of being quodded." XI Passing many of these undesirable wayfarers, one comes, in a mile--fields and hedgerows and market-gardens on either side--to Shoulder of Mutton Green, a scrubby piece of common-ground shaped like South America--but smaller. Hence the peculiar eloquence of its name. The Kent County Council has set up a large and imposing notice-board at the corner of the green which bears its name and a portentous number of bye-laws, and when the sun is low and shadows slant (the board is so large and the green so small), the shade of it falls across the green and into the next field. And now comes Belle Grove, spelled, as one may see on the stuccoed cottages by the wayside, with a pleasing diversity, Belle Grove, Bell Grove, and Belgrove; and one would pin one's faith on the correct form being the second variety, because the place is not beautiful, nor ever could have been.