RYE AND EASTBOURNE 115 



or Kentish gentleman, *'they walk about the 

 shingle on boards like mud pattens, which are 

 not a bit like them, and before the shingle has 

 properly left off being rolled along coastwise by 

 the tide, an army of foxgloves jump all the space 

 and stick themselves up on every square foot of 

 their free selection. Miles of 'em you can see." 

 Perhaps I could if I was there to see, but must 

 content myself with the good old Honourable 

 Artillery Company Captain's ballad's wish that 

 that I may be there to see some day. Marked 

 for examination are Lydd and Appledore, and 

 the moated Castle up the Rother, and a lot more 

 (which I had to miss) of Rye and Winchelsea, 

 before the painters make off with their remains. 

 Not much can be left shortly, for artists by the 

 score were busy, every man of them, and women, 

 too, taking bits for all he or she was worth. 

 Rye suited me, and its George Hotel, pretty 

 much a fellow hostelry to another *' George " at 

 Knutsford — Mrs Gaskell's ''Cranford." An 

 excellent house this first, with capital lamb (I 

 never could believe in Kent lamb being so good 

 till I tried it, but the lamb du pays is highly 

 commended), and an old-fashioned assembly 

 room, adorned with a musician's perch, twin to 

 the one at the Cheshire Knutsford George. 

 This hotel would give proper surroundings in 

 which to read Mrs Stepney Rawson's charming 

 tale of old Rye, "The Apprentice." 



Did I do the Ypres Tower, and the Land 

 Gate, and the Mermaid Inn, now a private hotel, 

 a reservoir of old furniture in its own home, and 

 the queer corners and high-walled gardens and 

 the ''kidney" paved lanes called streets, and the 

 patriarchal coasters and the Strand ? I did as 



