SUSSEX 103 



seaward-going road alongside but above the river dips 

 then under steep banks of blackthorn and parsley to a 

 village of flint where another spire rises out of the old 

 roofs of a farmhouse and its family of barns and lodges; 

 a nightingale sings at hand, a wheeling pewit cries and 

 gleams over the blue ripples of the river. Across the 

 water a shallow scoop has been carved by Nature out 

 of the side of the down; it is traversed by two diverging 

 paths which alone are green, for the rest of the surface 

 is of gorse and, full in the face of the sun, forms a mossy 

 cirrus over the mist of its own warm shade. The down 

 beside the road is now all cowslips among its scattered 

 bramble and thorn, until it is cloven by a tributary bay, 

 a quarter of a mile in length, marshy at first and half- 

 filled by elms and willows, but at its higher end occupied, 

 behind ash trees and an orchard, by a farmhouse, a circular 

 domed building and a barn, all having roofs of ochre tile, 

 except the thatched barn, and grey stained walls; a straight 

 road goes to the house along the edge of the marsh and 

 elms. Grey plover whistle singly on the wet borders of 

 the stream or make a concerted whimper of two or three. 



A little beyond is a larger bay of the same kind, 

 bordered by a long curving road entirely lined by elms 

 dividing it from the broad meadow that has an elm 

 rookery in a corner under the steep clean slope of down; 

 at the end is a church singing to itself with all its bells 

 in the solitude. And the hedges are full of strong young 

 thrushes which there is no one to frighten — is there any 

 prettier dress than the speckled feathers of their breasts 

 and the cape of brown over their shoulders and backs, as 

 they stir the dew in May? 



Then the valley opens wide and the river doubles in 



