160 THE NEW COTTAGE 



lichen. Fine old beams of oak, showing clearly 

 the shape of the tree that they were hewn from, 

 support red grey brick walls, mellowed by age, so 

 that no definite colour is noticeable, only a delight- 

 ful quiet-toned medley that artists love to repro- 

 duce. The windows are wide and recall shadows 

 of busy weavers who sat within plying the shuttle, 

 before those days when the work of a village 

 community for its own individual advancement 

 was replaced by far-reaching steam inventions 

 and the wider developments of factory life. Plenty 

 of light, therefore, streams in through the many 

 divisions fitted with lead lights and diamond-shaped 

 panes, and the porch with its whitewashed walls 

 forms an alcove in which people can sit with their 

 work when twilight comes and the rooms within 

 darken. 



Altogether, the cottage itself, a small strip of 

 ground in front running down to the little country 

 lane and the surroundings of fine elms and park- 

 land close by make it a most inviting home. The 

 view from the living-rooms, looking out east over 

 a great stretch of the Weald, broken only here 

 and there by a rounded knoll of grass-land, a 

 slender spire rising from amidst protecting trees 

 or some few scattered cottages and having further 

 south a distant outline of the great Downland 

 beacon called Firle, is restful and very beautiful. 



Not far away is the fairy-haunted wood with its 

 silent pool in which wild swans like to nest. Here 

 they can be undisturbed, for even the children go 

 there seldom, it is so dark, so full of mystery, so 

 surrounded by that feeling of past history that 



