256 IDLEHURST : 



bodily and spiritual health ; he knows the sapping, 

 numbing power that sickness can have ; he has seen, 

 I have heard him say, the wreck of the body take 

 down the soul with it. The General and I were asked 

 to lunch ; and while the Rector was away we sat with 

 the ladies by the study window ; Mrs. Lydia with 

 her work, Alice on the grass at her feet, catechised 

 in her Hindustani by the old Indian. The two 

 specialists were soon engaged upon Meerut and 

 Allahabad, and Father's orderlies, and the Rains ; 

 whilst we other two talked our common English 

 matters until the Rector came back, and I took 

 a couple of turns with him along the walk by the 

 churchyard wall. The sombre mood had passed, and 

 he was ready with that eye-laughter which is so quick 

 and can be so deep. He had been in London for a 

 few days recently, and had come back with relief to 

 the levels of the Sussex mind ; that supposed superior 

 sharpness of town-intellect lies only in one particular 

 direction. The Londoner, he thinks, has all his strength 

 in the front line : one can never tell what reserves the 

 countryman may not deploy in his slow way. " I like 

 that phrase of ' Silly Sussex,' " the Rector says, "and 

 the way we take it to ourselves ; it is better, after 

 all, than ' Canny owd Cummerlan'/ or calling ourselves 



