206 HAMPSHIRE DAYS 



When calling to mind the churches known to me 

 in this part of Hampshire, I always think with peculiar 

 pleasure of the smaller ones, and perhaps with the 

 most pleasure of the smallest of all Priors Dean. 



It happened that the maps which I use in my Hamp- 

 shire rambles and which I always considered the best 

 Bartholomew's two miles to the inch did not mark 

 Priors Dean, so that I had to go and find it for myself. 

 I went with a friend 'one excessively hot day in July, 

 by Empshott and Hawkley through deep by-roads 

 so deep and narrow and roofed over with branches as 

 to seem in places like tunnels. On that hot day in 

 the silent time of the year it was strangely still, and 

 gave one the feeling of being in a country long deserted 

 by man. Its only inhabitants now appeared to be the 

 bullfinches. In these deep shaded lanes one constantly 

 hears the faint plaintive little piping sound, the almost 

 inaudible alarm note of the concealed bird; and at 

 intervals, following the sound, he suddenly dashes 

 out, showing his sharp-winged shape and clear grey 

 and black upper plumage marked with white for a 

 moment or two before vanishing once more in the 

 overhanging foliage. 



We went a long way round, but at last coming to 

 an open spot we saw two cottages and two women and 

 a boy standing talking by a gate, and of these people 

 we asked the way to Priors Dean. They could not tell 

 us. They knew it was not far away a mile perhaps; 

 but they had never been to it, nor seen it, and didn't 



