Chapter XXXVI

. of this book, would be more fitting of Lullington.

[Sidenote: HILL WALKS]

We have come to Alfriston from Lewes, proposing to return there; but it might well be made a centre, so much fine hill country does it command. Alfriston to Seaford direct, over the hills and back of the cliffs and the Cuckmere valley; Alfriston to Eastbourne, crossing the Cuckmere at Litlington, and beginning the ascent of the hills at West Dean; Alfriston to Lewes over Firle Beacon; Alfriston to Newhaven direct; Alfriston to Jevington and Willingdon;--all these routes cover good Down country, making the best of primitive rambles by day and bringing one at evening back to the "Star," this mediæval inn in the best of primitive villages. Few persons, however, are left who will climb hills--even grass hills--if they can help it; hence this counsel is likely to lead to no overcrowding of Fore Down, The Camp, Five Lords Burgh, South Hill, or Firle Beacon.

I might here, perhaps, be allowed to insert some verses upon the new locomotion, since they bear upon this question of walking in remote places, and were composed to some extent in Sussex byways in the spring of 1903:--

[Sidenote: A SONG AGAINST SPEED]

A SONG AGAINST SPEED.

Of speed the savour and the sting, None but the weak deride; But ah, the joy of lingering About the country side! The swiftest wheel, the conquering run, We count no privilege Beside acquiring, in the sun, The secret of the hedge.

Where is the poet fired to sing The snail's discreet degrees, A rhapsody of sauntering, A gloria of ease; Proclaiming their's the baser part Who consciously forswear The delicate and gentle art Of never getting there?

_To get there first!_--'tis time to ring The knell of such an aim; _To be the swiftest!_--riches bring So easily that fame. _To shine, a highway meteor, Devourer of the map!_-- A vulgar bliss to choose before Repose in Nature's lap!

Consider too how small a thing The highest speed you gain: A bee can frolic on the wing Around the fastest train. Think of the swallow in the air, The salmon in the stream, And cease to boast the records rare Of paraffin and steam.

Most, most of all when comes the Spring, Again to lay (as now) Her hand benign and quickening On meadow, hill and bough, Should speed's enchantment lose its power, For "None who would exceed [The Mother speaks] a mile an hour, My heart aright can read."

The turnpike from the car to fling, As from a yacht the sea, Is doubtless as inspiriting As aught on land can be; I grant the glory, the romance, But look behind the veil-- Suppose that while the motor pants You miss the nightingale!

[Sidenote: ALCISTON]

To return to Alfriston, there are two brief excursions (possible in the vehicles that are glanced at in the foregoing verses) which ought to be described here: to Alciston and to Wilmington. Alciston is a little hamlet under the east slope of Firle Beacon, practically no more than a farm house, a church, and dependant cottages. It is on a road that leads only to itself and "to the Hill" (as the sign-boards say hereabout); it is perhaps as nearly forgotten as any village in the county; and yet I know of no village with more unobtrusive charm. The church, which has no vicar of its own, being served from Selmeston, a mile away, stands high amid its graves, the whole churchyard having been heaped up and ramparted much as a castle is. In the hollow to the west of the church is part of the farmyard: a pond, a vast barn with one of the noblest red roofs in these parts, and the ruins of a stone pigeon house of great age and solidity, buttressed and built as if for a siege, in curious contrast to the gentle, pretty purpose for which it was intended. Between the church and the hill, and almost adjoining it, is the farmhouse, where the church keys are kept--a relic of Alciston Grange (once the property of Battle Abbey)--with odds and ends of its past life still visible, and a flourishing fig-tree at the back, heavy with fruit when I saw it under a September sun. The front of the house looks due east, across a valley of corn, to Berwick church, on a corresponding mound, and beyond Berwick to the Downs above Wilmington. And at the foot of the garden, on the top of the grey wall above the moat, is a long, narrow terrace of turf, commanding this eastern view--a terrace meet for Benedick and Beatrice to pace, exchanging raillery.

In Berwick church, by the way, is a memorial to George Hall, a former rector, of whom it is said that his name "speaks all learning humane and divine," and that his memory is "precious both to the Muses and the Graces." The Reverend George Hall's works seem, however, to have vanished.

[Sidenote: THE LONG MAN]

Wilmington, north-east of Alfriston, occupies a corresponding position to that of Alciston in the north-west; but having a "lion" in the shape of the Long Man it has lost its virginal bloom. Wilmington is providing tea and ginger beer while Alciston nurses its unsullied inaccessibility. The Long Man is a rude figure cut in the turf by the monks of the Benedictine priory that once flourished here, the ruins of which are now incorporated (like Alciston Grange) in a farm house on the east of the village. At least, it is thought by some antiquaries that the effigy is the work of the monks; others pronounce it druidical. The most alluring of several theories, indeed, would have the figure to represent Pol or Balder, the Sun God, pushing aside the doors of darkness--Polegate (or Bolsgate) near by being brought in as evidence.

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