WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 83 



still the women and girls are employed making gloves 

 of a coarse kind, doing the work at home in their 

 cottages ; but the occupation is now chiefly carried 

 on nearer to the great business centres than this. 

 Another extinct trade is that of the bell foundry. One 

 village situate in the hills hard by was formerly cele- 

 brated for the church bells cast there, many of which 

 may be found in far distant towers ringing to this day. 



Near the edge of the hill, just above the washpool, 

 stands the village church. Old and gray as it is, yet 

 the 'usage of the pool by the shepherds dates from 

 still earlier days. Like some of the farmhouses farther 

 up among the hills, the tower is built of flints set in 

 cement, which in the passage of time has become 

 almost as hard as the flint itself. The art of chipping 

 flint to a face for the purpose of making lines or patterns 

 in walls used to be carried to great perfection, and 

 even old garden walls may be seen so ornamented. 



The tower is large and tall, and the church a great 

 one ; or so it appears in comparison with the small 

 population of the place. But it may be that when it 

 was built there were more inhabitants ; for some signs 

 remain that here, as in many other such villages, 

 the people have decreased in numbers : the popula- 

 tion has shifted elsewhere. An adjacent parish lying 

 just under the downs has now not more than fifty 

 inhabitants ; yet in the olden time a church stood 

 there long since dismantled : the ancient church- 

 yard is an orchard, no one being permitted to dig or 

 plough the ground. 



