4 THE SOUTH COUNTRY 



by taking a series of turnings to the left or a series to 

 the right, to take much beauty by surprise and to return 

 at last to my starting-point. On a dull day or cloudy 

 night I have often no knowledge of the points of the 

 compass. I never go out to see anything. The sign- 

 boards thus often astonish me. I vv^ish, by the way, 

 that I had noted down more of the. names on the sign- 

 boards at the cross-roads. There is a wealth of poetry 

 in them, as in that which points — by a ford, too — first, 

 to Poulner and Ringwood ; second, to Gorley and 

 Fordingbridge; third, to Linwood and Broomy : and 

 another pointing to Fordingbridge, to Ringwood, and to 

 Cuckoo Hill and Furze Hill : and another in the parish 

 of Pentlow, pointing to Foxearth and Sudbury, to Caven- 

 dish and Clare, and to Belchamps and Yeldham. Castles, 

 churches, old houses, of extraordinary beauty or interest, 

 have never worn out any of my shoe leather except by 

 accident. I like to come upon them — usually without 

 knowing their names and legends — but do not lament 

 when chance takes me a hundred times out of their way. 

 Nor have I ever been to Marlow to think about Shelley, 

 or to Winterslow for Hazlitt's sake; and I enter Buriton 

 many times without remembering Gibbon. They would 

 move me no more than the statue of a man and a fat 

 horse (with beribboned tail), which a grateful country- 

 side erected to William III in the market square at 

 Petersfield. I prefer any country church or chapel to 

 Winchester or Chichester or Canterbury Cathedral, just 

 as I prefer " All round my hat," or " Somer is icumen 

 in" to Beethoven. Not that I dislike the cathedrals, or 

 that I do not find many pleasures amongst them. But 



