98 IDLEHURST : 



carrier Veness made his calls in the street, changing 

 presently into a steady trot as a little cloud of dust 

 travelled up the rise beyond the village, and the 

 piebald gelding was off upon his weekly journey to 

 Lewes. Next there was an outburst of treble shouts 

 and cries, faint and far away, and I knew that the 

 school was up and the boys were pitching their stumps 

 on the Green for the midday cricket. A fitful Babel 

 continues till a shrill bell a strident modern call, 

 not the mild harmonics of the church tenor quelled 

 the din, and rang the strays back to their forms and 

 slates again. 



As I looked at the roofs below me, wavering in a 

 steady shimmer of heat, I forgot the reeking bars 

 where the men drank the heavy morning beer ; 

 forgot the mingling smells of Hobden the butcher's 

 new-painted shop ; the grocer's boys tugging their 

 baskets to the side-doors in Prospect Place. It 

 looked from my standpoint too pretty and simple 

 for anything but rose-covered porches, virtuous 

 labourers in knee-breeches and buckles, and the rural 

 fair with side-ringlets and tiny pointed slippers. 

 A stranger looking down from the hill-top on such 

 a day as this might well think he had reached 

 the Happy Valley. And even I who know can 

 for a space exorcise from the lovely precinct the 



