42 WAYFARING NOTIONS 



Plumpton, for once robbed of a day's racing — 

 coursing it was to have been this time — to 

 Lewes, and not a bad holiday scored after all. 

 We had been on ancient bridle-paths and pack- 

 horse tracks nearly all the while, and in almost 

 as old forgotten country as Mr Far-from-the- 

 Madding - Crowd Hardy might find in his 

 Wessex. 



With a view to further excursions round 

 about Chanctonbury Ring I proceeded to pro- 

 spect from Steyning. I know of no more 

 representative old-time Sussex town than this, 

 with its many quaint, ancient houses, rag 

 stone-slabbed peaked roofs, half timbers, and 

 quiet, take-it-easy air, for which I am not sure 

 whether the inhabitants or their dwellings are 

 the more responsible. There is a venerable 

 church in Steyning and a river, not gay, but 

 still a river, the River Adur, handy — two very 

 desirable things in my eyes. Walled gardens 

 are, so to speak, buijt into the town, and though 

 what is called improvement comes, and expansion 

 by way of extra rateable eligible property, the 

 expanding is mostly done outside the old part, so 

 that you get genuine large-sized instalments of 

 unadulterated antique all in a piece of some two 

 hundred yards or more at a time, instead of the 

 native being all mixed up with modern town- 

 housy samples. 



Now take some downs farther east, under an 

 equally wintry but very different aspect. Come 

 out of the London and low-lying fog which is so 

 apt to spoil Christmas into fresh country air, 

 brisk and snappy with frost, under a clear sky, 

 worth a pound a minute no matter whether you 

 could afford the luxury or not. Finding the 



