232 THE BRIGHTON ROAD 



perspective above the chalky cutting in the road ; and 

 on the left hand the little rustic church of Clavton, 

 humbly crouching under the lee of the downs. 



" Clavton Hill ! " It was a word of dread among 

 cyclists until, say, the year 1900, when rim- and back- 

 pedalling brakes superseded the inefficient spoon- 

 brake, acting on the front tyre. Coming from Brighton, 

 the hill drops steeply into the Weald of Sussex, and 

 not only steeply, but the road takes a sudden and 

 perilous turn over the railway bridge, at the foot of 

 the descent, precisely where descending vehicles not 

 under control attain their greatest speed. Here many 

 a cyclist has been flung against the brick wall of the 

 bridge, and his machine broken and himself injured ; 

 and seven have met their death here. Even in these 

 days of good brakes a fatality has occurred, a cyclist 

 being killed in November, 1902, in a collision with a 

 trap. 



From the summit of the downs the Weald is seen, 

 spread out like a pictorial map, the little houses, the 

 little trees, the ribbon-like roads looking like dainty 

 models : the tiny trains moving out of Noah's Ark 

 stations and vehicles crawling the highways like 

 objects in a minature land of make-believe. Looking 

 southward, Brighton is seen — a pillar of smoke by day, 

 a glowing, twinkling light at evening ; but for all it is 

 so near, it has very little affected the old pastoral 

 country life of the downland villages. The shepherds, 

 carrying as of yore their Pyecombe crooks, still tend 

 huge flocks of sheep, and the dull and hollow music 

 of the sheep-bells remains as ever the characteristic 

 sound of the district. Next year the sheep will be 

 shorn, just as they were when the Saxon churls worked 

 for their Norman masters, and, unless a cataclysm of 

 nature happens, they will continue so to be shorn 

 centuries hence. 



But the shepherds have ceased to be vocal with the 

 sheep-shearing songs of yore ; it seems that their 

 modern accomplishment of being able to read has 

 stricken them dumb. Neither the words nor the airs 



