38 WAYFARING NOTIONS 



somewhat enthusiastic in territorial prejudice, 

 favouring her '' native " — this is Sussex — declared, 

 if you planted a broken-down old cap-shape it 

 would come up a best bonnet all over flowers. 

 Had my feminine authority (deceased before 

 latter-day palatial creations perhaps too ex- 

 tensively and outwardly adorning the fair sex) 

 returned in these days, she might have hedged a 

 trifle, though, from what I knew of her, I fancy 

 she would have stuck to what she said. Anyway, 

 if erring a little on extravagance's side, she was 

 not far wrong, for you can grow anything down 

 Lancing, Sompting, Worthing, Broadwater, and 

 Tarring way. 



But let me get up from the belt between the 

 hills and the shore to the breezy plateau whither 

 I have on four memorable trips guided friends 

 into the mists seeking views and finding none. 

 *' They are skating," said good Mrs Cuddington, 

 at the little inn facing old Shoreham Bridge. I 

 always pay that roadside hostelry a visit out of 

 respect for the proprietor and better-half, also to 

 show friends the massive wood tables a former 

 village blacksmith used to raise to the ceiling — a 

 low one, mind — with his brawny arms. Said 

 arms' muscles must have been strong as iron 

 bands if he performed the feat, as tradition asserts, 

 with a palm under each. " They are skating," 

 said Mrs Cuddington, and, says I, to brother 

 visitor, '' the way we strike across to Findon we 

 shall see very lonely ponds, and I will bet the 

 boys have spoilt the ice." That I knew was as 

 sure a thing as an explorer finding an uninhabited 

 island's lakes lined on the bottom with old coal 

 scuttles, no matter how hot the climate, and our 

 running into fog as soon as ever we won to the 



