and the Star Inn had been marked at first to be our destination for the night. It presents a half-timbered front to the narrow street and asserts a claim to great antiquity. Its interior is said to be a museum worthy of a visit. But we itched for faster progress and, on inquiry, we discovered that a bus was due in half an hour for Lewes. We held a caucus on the curb. Jimmy's swift eye had sought in vain a movie up and down the street, and it was his persuasion that urged us on to the larger town on the chance of Douglas Fairbanks. At a shop near by we spent a shilling for toffee, which is England's universal sweet, left our rucksacks behind the counter with a yellow cat and went off to see the graveyard and the church. "Why the church?" asked Beezer. "We've seen so many of them.” "Listen, Rollo," I began, "your uncle will instruct you. Cease but a moment the sucking of your lollipop." These frequent quests of ours for somber and holy things need not be esteemed to rise from any taint of melancholy disposition. These villages live in the shadow of the past, clad in the mellow garment of tower and wall; and of this ancient vestment the church is chief. There is, of course, a shallow bartering on the streets, a trickle of small errands and activity. A loaf of bread, perhaps, is fetched for supper or a boot sent out for tapping. A thirst starts a song upon a holiday. But the substance of these villages is their church. Time is a housewife of a better sort, for she sweeps her refuse out of doors and sets her treasure on a shelf. These walls were raised by centuries more devout than ours. The church was then the center of all life, and men thought and acted on its nod. It was the house where the artist wrought the beauty of his soul. These steps were worn by feet which laid their purpose bare before their God. At this altar was preached the crusade of daily living. The past is a ghost that haunts a shadowed corridor. Wind strums with yellow fingers an ancient melody on these walls. And far above the muddy current of our present life these crumbling towers stand in dozing contemplation, and any jest or laughter of the street is but a bubble on the flood that drifts beyond the graveyard to eternity. "And now, Beezer," I added, "you may resume your toffee." The site of Alfriston Church is said by legend to be not the builder's first intention. Each day elsewhere the workmen laid the stones for a foundation, and each morning when they assembled to renew their task they found them removed to the church's present site. And so, presently, the miracle was received as an omen and the location altered. Alfriston is a village of rare beauty. The Star Inn is a hotel of easy invitation and it leans forward on the street with a mixture of rheumatism and hospitality. A stone cross marks the center of the town, and there are delightful streets of huddled houses whose gardens must stretch downward to the river with a punt, perhaps, moored against the bank. Nor may I omit the old lady who sold us toffee and housed our rucksacks with her yellow cat. She was of quick understanding to our fatigue, eager to run for chairs; and I think that her manners were a legacy from those more gracious days which flourished before the coming of the char-à-banc. She displayed post cards on a kind of Whirling Susan, and I bought one from each partition to see her spry old fingers count them out. Bill bought a bag of toffee for a child whose hungry nose was flat upon the window, and he selected the small assortment from four bottles to get the widest range of choice. "And a peppermint cane," said Bill. "Suck at that." Presently we climbed aboard the bus at the town cross, and with us was a clutter of men and women and market baskets. I wish that the bus might have traveled roundabout a bit and given us a view of the Long Man of Wilmington, but the driver was on a soulless schedule. This Long Man is a huge outline in white chalk that is exposed upon the hills. No one knows who laid it bare, for all the earliest records mention it and confess their ignorance. It is the outline of a monstrous giant who strides down the slope with a staff in either hand. We asked several passengers how to pronounce Lewes. One said Lewis, and another Loos. Wherever we have been we are always wrong. No matter how we say a town, someone sets us right and the next person corrects our corrected pronunciation. I do not know yet whether it is Pevensey or Pevensey, Bodiam or Bojum, Steyning or Staining. I do not care, of course. |