226 ANCIENT SUSSEX GAME OF STOOLBALL 



exactly ten o'clock by the chime of the village 

 clock, I and a friend crept stealthily from the house 

 on our mission of vigilant watchfulness. It was 

 one of those brilliant moonlight nights when every 

 object far and near can be easily discerned, and at 

 such time one wonders why some foolish conven- 

 tion of wearing a light, evening dress, or the custom 

 of sitting talking in the drawing-room, deters one 

 from enjoying an outdoor garden world each 

 summer evening. 



As I stand alone for a few seconds on the house 

 terrace, listening intently for any scrunching that 

 a man's step may make on the path below, trying 

 to detect a stumble as his foot perhaps knocks 

 against a chalk stone on the cart track, I notice 

 several strong, gleaming lights that at intervals 

 flash out vividly from amidst the grass. These 

 are starlike, flashing lights of glow-worms, and 

 bring to mind the beauty of those firefly nights 

 in Florence, when one watched with eagerness, try- 

 ing to make a lasting mind-picture of the beauty of 

 the scene. But, as I search high hedges and bushes 

 to detect some human form, a different light, re- 

 sembling a great arm of flame, suddenly rises from 

 low ground at the bottom of the garden. My 

 heated imagination seems to picture near it two 

 figures vigorously stirring up a great mound of 

 refuse, stacks of boughs and pieces of wood thrown 

 together to make potash for the garden, and it 

 dawns upon me that the flames that rise would 

 give light in addition to that of the moon, so that 

 the row of earliest peas, which stand close by, 

 could easily be stripped of the fattest pods. It 



