206 THE BRIGHTON ROAD 



see the Recruiting Sergeant and the drummer, 

 impressing with military glory a typical smock - 

 f rocked Hodge, gaping so outrageously that he seems 

 to be opening his face rather than merely his mouth ; 

 the artist's idea seems to have been that, like a dolphin, 

 he would swallow anything, either in the way of food 

 or of stories. There are no full-blooded Sergeant Kites 

 and gaping yokels nowadays. 



Cuckfield is evidently feeling, more and more, the 

 altered condition of affairs. Motorists, who are 

 supposed to bring back prosperity to the road, do 

 nothing of the kind on the road to Brighton ; for those 

 who live at Brighton or London merely want to reach 

 the other end as quickly as possible, and, with a legal 

 limit up to twenty miles an hour, can cover the 

 distance in two hours and a half, and, with an occasional 

 illegal interval, easily in two hours. Except in case 

 of a breakdown, the wayside hostelries do not often 

 see the colour of the motorists' money, but they smell 

 the stink, and are choked with the dust of them, and 

 landlords and every one else concerned would be only 

 too glad if the project for building a road between 

 London and Brighton, exclusively for motor traffic, 

 were likelv to be realised. Then ordinarv users of the 

 highway might once more be able to discern the 

 natural scenery of the road, at- present obscured with 

 dust-elouds. 



The text for these remarks is furnished by the 

 recent closing, after a hundred and fifty years or more, 

 of the once chief inn of Cuckfield : the fine and stately 

 " Talbot," now empty and " To Let " ; the hospitable 

 quotation " You're welcome, what's your will," from 

 The Merry Wives of Windsor on its fanlight, reading 

 like a bitter mockery. 



The interior of Cuckfield Church is crowded with 

 monuments of the Sergisons and the Burrells. Pride 

 of place is given in the chancel to the monument of 

 Charles Sergison, who died in 1732, aged 78. It is a 

 very fine white marble monument, with a figure of 

 Truth gazing into her mirror, and holding with one 



