WINTER IN WEST DOWNLAND 283 



particular about giving me proper directions, " What 

 is the name of the inn ? " I asked, and he replied 

 that it had no name. " An inn," I said, " must have 

 a name — it is not like a hill that can do without 

 one." He shook his head. "We call it the Oak," 

 he remarked finally; "but if it has a name I never 

 heard it, and I have known the place a good many 

 years now." 



I might have been among the aborigines of Vene- 

 zuela, or of some other wild remote land, where every 

 person and perhaps every place has a real name which 

 is a secret known to few, and sometimes to nobody ; 

 and an appellation besides which is not a real name, 

 but a sort of nickname, or false or common name, by 

 which he or she or it is called. 



Amusing instances of ignorance, too, and of old 

 erroneous beliefs which have died out in most places, 

 are commonly met with in this out-of-the-way corner 

 of Sussex. One spring-like evening in January, when 

 talking with some working-men at the village of 

 Lavant, I called their attention to a bat flying to and 

 fro near us as a proof of the mildness of the weather. 



" You call it a bat," said one man, '' and I grant 

 it's very like one ; but I call it a fluttermouse. You 

 see it's bigger than a bat; but they are all of one 

 specie. The bigger ones, the fluttermouses as we calls 

 them, are the ones that eats the bacon. They comes 

 down the chimney to get it when it's hanging there 

 to smoke." I tried to convince him that he was 



