CHICHESTER 271 



grey colour ; but I had no scientific person at my 

 elbow to tell me about that soU and explain the cause 

 of its pallid hue. Left to my own imaginings, I con- 

 sidered that Chichester was very old, that it was no 

 doubt a walled town, perhaps very ancient, before 

 Christ came, and that countless " generations of de- 

 ciduous men " had fallen, to mix their ashes with 

 the soU until it had in time taken that greyish colour. 

 It was a comfort to reflect that if we cannot have 

 anything in human shape better than " these common 

 men," now in the place of the vanished and forgotten, 

 that these too will in a little while fade and fail and 

 mix with and still further enrich the earth ; and that 

 out of a soil so fertilised, other brighter, higher forms 

 and intelligences will eventually spring to life to make 

 glad the world. 



Before departing, never to return, I stepped aside 

 from the road, and very carefully wiped the ash- 

 coloured mud from my boots on the wet grass, for 

 I wished not to take any of it away. 



That was to me a sad day when I left, for I had 

 but just come to the finish of a fight which I had been 

 waging for some days, in which I had been finally 

 worsted ; and my only consolation in defeat was that 

 it was in Chichester and not in any other town known 

 to me in which the incident had occurred. 



I have a great regard for the owl ; the white owl, 

 sometimes called the domestic owl, being a special 

 favourite ; and it greatly excites my indignation to 



