in half-timber, delightful to look upon; perhaps "they built better than they knew." Amongst the many in half-timber Middle House at Mayfield is a good example, and of those in stone Batemans, near Burwash, the home of Rudyard Kipling, is another.
At the end of the lakelet I discovered a picturesque water-mill—grey and old, with a weatherboard upper story, and a red-tiled, lichen-laden, uneven roof, silvery and golden—its dark green wheel revolving round in a leisurely fashion to the droning of the ancient machinery within, and the quiet splash of water without. A ready-made picture awaiting the artist to paint it, if he has not already done so. Somehow the sounds of water and wind-driven machinery seem to me to be different in quality to that of steam-driven machinery with its insistent noise: water and wind are natural powers, and both water-mills and windmills with their adjuncts are picturesque objects to the eye, but I know no steam-mill that is not ugly. In the days before steam became the almost universal power, and the modern builder and engineer had not disfigured the country with their assertive erections, how doubly beautiful England must have been! Would that photography had been invented ages ago, then we might possibly have had photographs of Elizabethan England preserved to us, so that we might better judge of its picturesqueness than by descriptions and drawings not always to be trusted.
I know of no other pleasanter stretch of highway in all England than those few miles on either hand of "The Sheffield Arms"; on both sides of it are spacious grassy margins left to nature, and they extend as far as the eye can see, and the sum of them would come to a considerable acreage. On these wide wastes grow big oaks and other trees; especially noticeable are numerous clumps of Scotch firs that, with their tall red trunks and twisted branches high above, give quite a character to the roadscape, if I may employ so odd a term; besides which brambles, heather, bracken, gorse, and other wild growing things flourish on them at their own sweet will. An ideal spot for a wayside picnic, where one might choose a secluded nook near to the road, yet hidden from it. Here at least no "hungry nobility have swallowed up all the land except the King's Highway." There was not a soul in sight; the vacant road impressed me with the same sense of loneliness as does a house deserted, for I looked for life and found none.
On a slight rise, a little away from the road and not far from the inn, I espied a tall, shapely, solitary stone pillar, weather-stained and worn, backed by a tangle of greenery. This aroused my curiosity, so off I set to solve its purport—and discovered a glorified milestone, manifestly erected in days somewhat remote; the lettering on it was, in parts, wasted away and so difficult to decipher, but I managed to make out certain of the names and figures, and this is what I noted:
| Miles. | |
| Westminster Bridge | 39 |
| East Grinstead | 10 |
| Lewes | 10 |
| Brighthelmstone | 17 |
There were further inscriptions, but these were all I copied. Brighton being given as Brighthelmstone shows how far back the stone was placed there—those were the days when people directed their letters "Brighthelmstone, near Lewes." I learnt afterwards that this milestone was erected by a former Earl Sheffield in order to settle the frequent disputes that arose with the postboys as to distances to his park and the inn. "Private travellers," as those who posted about country were called, had need of well-filled purses, for in addition to the charge for posting that ranged, according to Leigh's Road Book (sixth edition of 1837), from 1s. to 1s. 9d. per mile, the postillion expected and demanded a further 3d. a mile for himself, and more if he could extort it; besides which the traveller frequently felt under the moral compunction "to take something for the good of the house" during the delay of changing horses.
On the arrival and departure of the postchaise the old-fashioned landlord was always in polite evidence, willing to drink the traveller's health at the traveller's expense—it was the custom of the age. What constitutions the men of those days must have had, whether of high or low degree! Men then there were who could drink their two, or even three, bottles of port at night, and rise the next morning apparently none the worse for it. When I was a youth I visited a country squire, one of the last of the old race, and I well remember that after dinner he drank his two bottles of port, excepting a glass that was given to me; at the finish he was "as sober as a judge," and the next morning, early, he was out with the hounds.
Leaving the old inn we took a narrow lane opposite to it, for it had a pleasant look; the highway too was pleasant enough, but we thought the lane the more likely to lead to some out-of-the-way spot and have more picturesque possibilities: the highways serve the towns, the byways the villages and the countryside, so always take to a lane when you can if you desire to discover the secreted beauty of the land. Our lane led us through a green and old-world country with no hint of modern ugliness or aught but tranquillity about it, a tranquillity that hardly seemed of our bustling day. The lane was long, but not too long for us, and very winding; possibly our lanes follow the old primitive tracks of past days when the early inhabitants, to avoid a swamp, soft ground, or a wood, simply deviated this way and that in search of firmer footing; even, it may be, these early inhabitants followed on the earlier track of wild animals. Small wonder our lanes are often so wandering—delightfully wandering, for therein lies their special charm: who can tell what a lane may do, or what surprise each bend of it may have in store for the traveller? Then a crooked lane controls the pace, you cannot go fast on it, so time is compulsorily afforded to see and absorb all that is worth seeing; the lane is for the loiterer, though few there be who care to loiter nowadays, so the lane is almost forsaken except by country folk and rural lovers. Some one somewhere says, who or where I cannot now remember, nor am I sure if I have the quotation right, but this is the drift of it, "The lane is a work of genius, the highway that of the engineer." The lane is to the highway as old wine is to new; there is a finer flavour about it, a rarer charm; it leads to half-forgotten places and quiet scenes—
Where the wheels of Life swing slow,
And over all there broods the peace
Of centuries ago.
At last, after many windings and some climbings, our lane brought us to the remote and pleasant village of Horsted Keynes, set on a hill and surrounded by woods. If one goes in search of these out-of-the-way spots they are apt to escape one; it is the good fortune of the true wanderer to discover them—that is the reward of desultory travel. Stopping the car in the wide village street, a goodly portion of the youthful population promptly surrounded it. "A motor-car, a motor-car," I heard them call out to each other, as though the sight of one was somewhat rare; perhaps but few motorists find, or lose, their way there. To travel and escape other cars and the morning paper is a feat even in rural England. Then apropos of nothing one of the boys explained, "That's the way to the church, down that narrow road." "I did not ask the way to the church," I responded; "why did you point it out?" "Well, I thought as how you came to see it; there's nothing else to see here." There was not, except one or two rather pretty cottages.
There before us, a little down a narrow road, stood the ancient church with its tall shingle steeple, curiously slight. I strolled up to the silent fane of Sunday devotion for the sake of a walk and to get a better glimpse of the old-fashioned cottages on the way, each with its little garden gay with flowers. Then I glanced inside the church. I had not been there more than a minute or two before the clerk made his appearance, somewhat out of breath in his haste to discover me before I departed. "I saw as how you were a stranger," said he, "and thought perhaps you would like me to show you over the church." So are strangers' movements noted in quiet places. In many an out-of-the-world village the coming of a stranger arouses an astonishing amount of interest; his coming, his movements, his business, his going, are subjects of discussion and watching. How uneventful and unexciting
